The Problem of Evil.

LittleByLittle

ChrisdolmethSachs

LittleByLittle

oktopus
reply to post by windword

 

Are you saying what is good and bad differed throughout the ages?

There is a standard for good and bad. When ones own judgement differs from this standard one is wrong.

You have the golden rule that brings "service to all" vs "service to self" (karma and what you seed you will get). Then you have the eating of the apple from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" where people deviate from the golden rule by changing what is right (good) and wrong (evil) to get the ego benefits and fall into "service to self".

"service to all" vs "service to self" have always been the same. How far humanity falls into "service to self" and parasite on their soul brothers and soul sisters fluctuates thru the ages.

Can I just say that the concept of STS vs STO is illogical and part of the new age illusion. People treat me like crap because I am honest and yet I am expected to serve them?
For what, they are not making my life any better, I do this myself. By bringing this concept into any discussion I feel it ruins the point.
Good and evil has nothing to do with service to anything, it has to do with how people treat people. If I treat people the way I want to be treated and get rejected that says something about the whole concept, at least to me anyway

edit on 8-3-2014 by ChrisdolmethSachs because: (no reason given)

You are allowed to be neutral and do things for yourself. Helping yourself (when the behavior is neutral to all) is service to the all since the self is included in the all. It is the service to self by limiting others or taking from others that is the downward spiral.

All behavior can defined as ego based (parasitic to all benefiting self), neutral or symbiosis based (good for self and all). This is the core in the golden rule. What you seed you will reap. Karma.

Give me any behavior that you call evil and see if it is classified as ego based or symbiosis based when you really look on the reason for the behavior.

I want to explain something. I have been in customer service roles since I was 15 years old. I know very well about other people. Just because I get treated like crap doesn't mean I treat people like crap. I have sat back and observed for 17 years how people work and I can tell you that it makes no difference weather someone is selfish towards me or not to how I conduct myself.

This is why I think the STO Vs STS is crap, otherwise just about everyone I ever met is STS. To be honest they are not evil or bad they are just trying to get theirs.
There is not much evil to me except killing and lying. Everything else is fine if the individual takes responsibility at the time.

reply to post by ServantOfTheLamb

The video above is about 7 minutes long, and gives a pretty quick pitch on why the existence of Evil is an evidence for their being a God.

He just blatantly makes that as a declaration of fact
but never really argues his case.

Instead, he launches into a series of anecdotes and truisms that are not really to the point.
Then he talks about how Christ can change you.

Ask yourself if God had created the universe in any other way, would you still be you?

What makes you think that God could have made the universe any different than it is?

And why would you think that God would have on purpose made the universe bad?
I think that you are saying that.

ChrisdolmethSachs

LittleByLittle

ChrisdolmethSachs

LittleByLittle

oktopus
reply to post by windword

 

Are you saying what is good and bad differed throughout the ages?

There is a standard for good and bad. When ones own judgement differs from this standard one is wrong.

You have the golden rule that brings "service to all" vs "service to self" (karma and what you seed you will get). Then you have the eating of the apple from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" where people deviate from the golden rule by changing what is right (good) and wrong (evil) to get the ego benefits and fall into "service to self".

"service to all" vs "service to self" have always been the same. How far humanity falls into "service to self" and parasite on their soul brothers and soul sisters fluctuates thru the ages.

Can I just say that the concept of STS vs STO is illogical and part of the new age illusion. People treat me like crap because I am honest and yet I am expected to serve them?
For what, they are not making my life any better, I do this myself. By bringing this concept into any discussion I feel it ruins the point.
Good and evil has nothing to do with service to anything, it has to do with how people treat people. If I treat people the way I want to be treated and get rejected that says something about the whole concept, at least to me anyway

edit on 8-3-2014 by ChrisdolmethSachs because: (no reason given)

You are allowed to be neutral and do things for yourself. Helping yourself (when the behavior is neutral to all) is service to the all since the self is included in the all. It is the service to self by limiting others or taking from others that is the downward spiral.

All behavior can defined as ego based (parasitic to all benefiting self), neutral or symbiosis based (good for self and all). This is the core in the golden rule. What you seed you will reap. Karma.

Give me any behavior that you call evil and see if it is classified as ego based or symbiosis based when you really look on the reason for the behavior.

I want to explain something. I have been in customer service roles since I was 15 years old. I know very well about other people. Just because I get treated like crap doesn't mean I treat people like crap. I have sat back and observed for 17 years how people work and I can tell you that it makes no difference weather someone is selfish towards me or not to how I conduct myself.

This is why I think the STO Vs STS is crap, otherwise just about everyone I ever met is STS. To be honest they are not evil or bad they are just trying to get theirs.
There is not much evil to me except killing and lying. Everything else is fine if the individual takes responsibility at the time.

Then you are taking the high road are you not avoiding the STS. . It is the small ego based actions that accumulate after a while. This level is supposed to be people under pressure to test yourself on all levels.

reply to post by Astyanax

The problem of evil is, simply, that it makes it impossible for God to be both good and omnipotent. There have been many attempts by the religious to resolve this contradiction, but they all amount to an eyewash. . . .

I think that the problem with "the religious" is this term, omnipotent.
There is this word in the Greek, Pantocrator, found twice in the Old Testament that, that gets interpreted as meaning omnipotent, but really means the highest authority.
It is a carry-over in the NT from its use in the Septuagint as the Greek substitute for the Hebrew word, El Shaddai, which means sovereign.

Also, the Bible doesn't say that God created the universe, but that there was a natural existence that had an evil quality to it, that had to be overcome just to make a habitable environment to have living beings in it to survive.

jmdewey60
What makes you think that God could have made the universe any different than it is?

And why would you think that God would have on purpose made the universe bad?
I think that you are saying that.

Change takes time and "what is" needs to be to become "what will be". This place is very useful for evolution.

LittleByLittle

ChrisdolmethSachs

LittleByLittle

ChrisdolmethSachs

LittleByLittle

oktopus
reply to post by windword

 

Are you saying what is good and bad differed throughout the ages?

There is a standard for good and bad. When ones own judgement differs from this standard one is wrong.

You have the golden rule that brings "service to all" vs "service to self" (karma and what you seed you will get). Then you have the eating of the apple from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" where people deviate from the golden rule by changing what is right (good) and wrong (evil) to get the ego benefits and fall into "service to self".

"service to all" vs "service to self" have always been the same. How far humanity falls into "service to self" and parasite on their soul brothers and soul sisters fluctuates thru the ages.

Can I just say that the concept of STS vs STO is illogical and part of the new age illusion. People treat me like crap because I am honest and yet I am expected to serve them?
For what, they are not making my life any better, I do this myself. By bringing this concept into any discussion I feel it ruins the point.
Good and evil has nothing to do with service to anything, it has to do with how people treat people. If I treat people the way I want to be treated and get rejected that says something about the whole concept, at least to me anyway

edit on 8-3-2014 by ChrisdolmethSachs because: (no reason given)

You are allowed to be neutral and do things for yourself. Helping yourself (when the behavior is neutral to all) is service to the all since the self is included in the all. It is the service to self by limiting others or taking from others that is the downward spiral.

All behavior can defined as ego based (parasitic to all benefiting self), neutral or symbiosis based (good for self and all). This is the core in the golden rule. What you seed you will reap. Karma.

Give me any behavior that you call evil and see if it is classified as ego based or symbiosis based when you really look on the reason for the behavior.

I want to explain something. I have been in customer service roles since I was 15 years old. I know very well about other people. Just because I get treated like crap doesn't mean I treat people like crap. I have sat back and observed for 17 years how people work and I can tell you that it makes no difference weather someone is selfish towards me or not to how I conduct myself.

This is why I think the STO Vs STS is crap, otherwise just about everyone I ever met is STS. To be honest they are not evil or bad they are just trying to get theirs.
There is not much evil to me except killing and lying. Everything else is fine if the individual takes responsibility at the time.

Then you are taking the high road are you not avoiding the STS.

. It is the small ego based actions that accumulate after a while. This level is supposed to be people under pressure to test yourself on all levels.

No I lashed out and did some stupid things, like cheating on my wife and lying to preserve my ego image. It took its tole but I never had negative intent towards others. With that said I did not escape cause and effect for my own actions.

ChrisdolmethSachs

No I lashed out and did some stupid things, like cheating on my wife and lying to preserve my ego image. It took its tole but I never had negative intent towards others. With that said I did not escape cause and effect for my own actions.

Lack of self control and being caught in ego behavior can do that even if your intentions are pure. I have my own issues also where I screw up based on ego projection. . Having control over the ego part of yourself can be very hard (at least for me).

I just try not to make the same mistake twice. One little step at a time in the right direction and sooner of later you will reach a destination you might like.

Namaste

LittleByLittle

ChrisdolmethSachs

No I lashed out and did some stupid things, like cheating on my wife and lying to preserve my ego image. It took its tole but I never had negative intent towards others. With that said I did not escape cause and effect for my own actions.

Lack of self control and being caught in ego behavior can do that even if your intentions are pure. I have my own issues also where I screw up based on ego projection.

. Having control over the ego part of yourself can be very hard (at least for me).

I just try not to make the same mistake twice. One little step at a time in the right direction and sooner of later you will reach a destination you might like.

Namaste

edit on 8-3-2014 by LittleByLittle because: (no reason given)

hehe yeah for me I made enough mistakes to learn from them. But you are right though, step by step.
Can I ask you something. Please take this serious. Why does it feel like dead when the singularity mind has been achieved?

reply to post by oktopus

Are you saying what is good and bad differed throughout the ages?

No. But I do think that our perception of what is good and bad has differed throughout the ages.

There is a standard for good and bad. When ones own judgement differs from this standard one is wrong.

Who sets that standard? Where is the evidence of its existence?

When it comes to human evil, if you want God to stop it, you have to consider whether or not you want to believe you have freewill.

If our purpose here is to learn and grow and make our decisions about who and what we will be in life, then if God stepped in to stop us every time we were about to wrong another, no matter how heinous, could we be said to be freely living our lives? Not only that, but if God stepped in to stop those things, what motivation would any of us have to stand up to evil ourselves?

Clearly, even those of you who claim their is no objective good or evil recognize some level of it when you reference events like the Holocaust which is often thrown out as one of the darker and most widely known episodes of human evil out there. And, people stepped in to fight it and stop it as they could. How many brave people risked everything to smuggle people out of harm's way? If God stepped in to put a stop to the Holocaust, how many of those people would never have discovered the depths of goodness they were capable of in the face of risking their lives?

No, this is our age, man's age. God is giving us this time to prove to ourselves that we really can't build a perfect world here on earth no matter how hard we try. And we will keep trying right up until the end because deep down inside, we all know what that perfect world should be, but there are too many who will not choose to be as they should to make it happen.

You can reference the Golden Rule until you're blue in the face, but that's a two-way street. Just because you treat someone as you want to be treated doesn't mean that they will reciprocate. We're all very, very good at knowing (selfish) how we want to be treated, but we're so much less good at thinking about how others might like to be treated (selfless). A lot of people who reference the Golden Rule have only mastered the selfish side without thinking about the selfless side. When was the last time you did something, not because you wanted someone to treat you that way, but because you genuinely saw that the other had a need to be helped?

And you also have to be careful when you start claiming their is no objective right and wrong, good and evil, to not stray into moral relative thinking which can lead you to justify just about everything, even things you would swear are morally wrong.

ketsuko
If our purpose here is to learn and grow and make our decisions about who and what we will be in life, then if God stepped in to stop us every time we were about to wrong another, no matter how heinous, could we be said to be freely living our lives? Not only that, but if God stepped in to stop those things, what motivation would any of us have to stand up to evil ourselves?

What do you think Elisabeth Fritzl would say to that?

Clearly, even those of you who claim their is no objective good or evil recognize some level of it when you reference events like the Holocaust which is often thrown out as one of the darker and most widely known episodes of human evil out there. And, people stepped in to fight it and stop it as they could. How many brave people risked everything to smuggle people out of harm's way? If God stepped in to put a stop to the Holocaust, how many of those people would never have discovered the depths of goodness they were capable of in the face of risking their lives?

So you're saying you think the 'depths of goodness' you claim those that fought to end the holocaust felt, was better and more important than the suffering of the 6 million+ Jews during the holocaust?

You've obviously not thought this through...

And you also have to be careful when you start claiming their is no objective right and wrong, good and evil, to not stray into moral relative thinking which can lead you to justify just about everything, even things you would swear are morally wrong.

Whereas if you claim there is an objective right and wrong based entirely on the 2000 yr old writings of some murdering and pillaging Jewish goat herders.....you can discriminate against women, homosexuals and anyone not in your club ad nauseam.

reply to post by ServantOfTheLamb

What if God created this universe the way it is, because he values you specifically and loves you and wanted to know you just the way you are. If he had done it any differently would he have still gotten a chance to meet you.

I was under the impression that he lived all lives simultaneously. Theoretically, every minute in every inch of every universe all happens in the span of a second for someone who is omniscient. I mean, no one's ever explained how that works...but that's the idea I usually get when someone talks about it. All-knowing means all-knowing. There isn't a thing you don't know.

reply to post by ketsuko

If our purpose here is to learn and grow and make our decisions about who and what we will be in life, then if God stepped in to stop us every time we were about to wrong another, no matter how heinous, could we be said to be freely living our lives? Not only that, but if God stepped in to stop those things, what motivation would any of us have to stand up to evil ourselves?

You're assuming that we have a purpose, and, that you know what it is, in order to present your logic/justification as to why a God doesn't interfere with our human aggression.

Clearly, even those of you who claim their is no objective good or evil recognize some level of it when you reference events like the Holocaust which is often thrown out as one of the darker and most widely known episodes of human evil out there. And, people stepped in to fight it and stop it as they could. How many brave people risked everything to smuggle people out of harm's way? If God stepped in to put a stop to the Holocaust, how many of those people would never have discovered the depths of goodness they were capable of in the face of risking their lives?

That's nonsense, claiming that a god could step in to save us from ourselves, but doesn't for our own sake! There are plenty of natural adversarial aspects to life that force us to forge our metal, to be kind to one another and to work together and to support one another, without a god meddling in our relationships. All of nature shows deadly aggression. We human are no different.

reply to post by Astyanax

This is not the case at all. A moral law can exist without a lawgiver; traditional usages and customs do, so what is so special about laws? Perhaps you need a lawgiver to define and write them down. That is not the same as inventing them, though: laws can exist and be obeyed without being defined or written down. The British Constitution is an example of this: it has never been written down, but the laws of the United Kingdom, which are written down, are derived from it. Whence, you may ask, come custom and usage? They are consensual or at least represent majority views and practices in the society that follows them. On a more basic level, they are derived from our biological instincts — instincts such as parental care, kin altruism, sexual bonding, social exchange and so on, all of which are exhibited by higher primates. The problem of evil is, simply, that it makes it impossible for God to be both good and omnipotent. There have been many attempts by the religious to resolve this contradiction, but they all amount to an eyewash. This video, if you have reported its arguments correctly, is no different.

I really wish you would have watched the second link, and that goes for many others on the thread who say there can be a moral law without a moral law giver. Many of you started talking about asteroids, and what not. When a question of Evil is raised, it is either about a person or by a person, which assume persons have intrinsic worth. Many of you are also saying that there doesn't have to be a law giver for a moral law. Let me ask you this, how do you give intrinsic worth to a product of time+matter+chance?

Why are you referencing the British constitution? A "universal moral law" is not something that can be compared to laws made by the gov't. The German gov't attempted to eradicate Jews, does that mean that those people who believed killing the Jews would save Germany were not morally deviant ? If there is no law giver then the Jews are just animals who in the end have no intrinsic value because they are just a heap of flesh controlled by a bunch of unguided mindless processes. God is the embodiment of "Good" the total opposite of Evil, but if Evil doesn't exist how can one know Good? So, part of your argument was that God was malevolent for allowing Evil. People who struggle with this question, do not understand the inherently evil nature of man. We are by nature morally deviant. Example, A child never has to be taught to lie they just know they can choose to tell truth or not.

Many of you tell me that good and bad is relative. Then basically your world view has no answer to the question of Evil other than we refuse to believe it exist. However, I could then ask were Hitlers actions Evil? What about Ted Bundy ? How are you to say what they did was wrong, if it was within there own moral code.

AfterInfinity
reply to post by ServantOfTheLamb

 

What if God created this universe the way it is, because he values you specifically and loves you and wanted to know you just the way you are. If he had done it any differently would he have still gotten a chance to meet you.

I was under the impression that he lived all lives simultaneously. Theoretically, every minute in every inch of every universe all happens in the span of a second for someone who is omniscient. I mean, no one's ever explained how that works...but that's the idea I usually get when someone talks about it. All-knowing means all-knowing. There isn't a thing you don't know.

My point was if he hadn't created this universe, the thing he came to know wouldn't have been you. He cannot know something that is not in existence. Does he know how that existence once made will play out? Absolutely. That is why the world around is how it is. God wanted to know you. If it wasn't this world, you wouldn't be you at all now would you.

ChrisdolmethSachs

LittleByLittle

ChrisdolmethSachs

No I lashed out and did some stupid things, like cheating on my wife and lying to preserve my ego image. It took its tole but I never had negative intent towards others. With that said I did not escape cause and effect for my own actions.

Lack of self control and being caught in ego behavior can do that even if your intentions are pure. I have my own issues also where I screw up based on ego projection.

. Having control over the ego part of yourself can be very hard (at least for me).

I just try not to make the same mistake twice. One little step at a time in the right direction and sooner of later you will reach a destination you might like.

Namaste

edit on 8-3-2014 by LittleByLittle because: (no reason given)

hehe yeah for me I made enough mistakes to learn from them. But you are right though, step by step.
Can I ask you something. Please take this serious. Why does it feel like dead when the singularity mind has been achieved?

Need your definition on of dead and singularity mind to be sure you are really asking what you are asking since I do not seem to share your experiance. To me death is just a transitory state between one state to the next.

ketsuko

You can reference the Golden Rule until you're blue in the face, but that's a two-way street. Just because you treat someone as you want to be treated doesn't mean that they will reciprocate. We're all very, very good at knowing (selfish) how we want to be treated, but we're so much less good at thinking about how others might like to be treated (selfless). A lot of people who reference the Golden Rule have only mastered the selfish side without thinking about the selfless side. When was the last time you did something, not because you wanted someone to treat you that way, but because you genuinely saw that the other had a need to be helped?

And you also have to be careful when you start claiming their is no objective right and wrong, good and evil, to not stray into moral relative thinking which can lead you to justify just about everything, even things you would swear are morally wrong.

Extremely logical and wise. I do agree that moral relative thinking is a downward spiral used to justify in the end the most incredible immoral behavior.

What do you think Elisabeth Fritzl would say to that?

So you're saying you think the 'depths of goodness' you claim those that fought to end the holocaust felt, was better and more important than the suffering of the 6 million+ Jews during the holocaust?

You've obviously not thought this through...

No, I have. If God stepped in and prevented bad things from happening, our wills would not be our own. What's the point of freewill if, as soon as someone decided to do something heinous to someone else, God stopped them?

Do you want to have freewill or a completely safe world?

As horrible as it is, the consequence of freewill is that some will always do monstrous, even unspeakable things. Things like the holocaust and the captivity of Elisabeth Frietzl are possible, even likely, particularly if good men and women do nothing. All the world saw Hitler on the rise and heard his rhetoric and they chose to appease him rather than try to stop him. You can't tell me that everyone was completely ignorant of the treatment of the undesirables in Germany and elsewhere prior to the liberation of the first camps. The fact is that there has always been widespread hatred directed at Jews, Roma and others that persists to this day, and you can still see it on this site. Enough people chose to turn a blind eye, and the holocaust was the result.

In the midst of all the tragedy, people resist and do what's right even at the risk of their own lives. This, too, is a choice and part of having freewill for ourselves. You can do what's right, you can choose not to do anything, you can do what's popular, you can do what's wrong or a host of other variations in between. But if God steps in ... none of that is possible. It's done for you.

So again, I ask, do you want a safe, riskless existence with a guiding hand, or one you have to truly live that involves making your own decisions and taking the responsibility for them and also involves taking the risk that the decisions of others might mean horrible things for you and yours?

Btw, where did I say those people who risked things "felt goodness?" I didn't. I said they showed the depths of possible human goodness. There is a difference. You make it sound like they were acting entirely for their own self-gratification which is pure selfishness. Many of them did what they did because they simply couldn't ignore what was happening and had to help others. They were acting on the selfless side of the Golden Rule equation. They were doing what they did not out of any hope of gain for themselves, especially as many were putting their own lives at extreme risk to do what they did.

Whereas if you claim there is an objective right and wrong based entirely on the 2000 yr old writings of some murdering and pillaging Jewish goat herders.....you can discriminate against women, homosexuals and anyone not in your club ad nauseam.

Now, you're the one making assumptions here. I mentioned nothing about the Bible or which God. You're the one bringing your anti-religious baggage to the table this time. Oh, an see the comments above about hatred of people of a certain religious persuasion ...

Some things are pretty universally wrong - murder, rape, theft.

But, I suppose if you want to get moral relativistic, you can look at things this way: I think murder is always morally wrong ... or at least, it's always morally wrong for me. However, that culture over there thinks murder is perfectly valid if an individual has stained their honor or the honor of their family, and who am I to judge their culture. At that point, you have just rationalized where murder is acceptable for you and no longer morally wrong. Congratulations! Murder is no longer always morally wrong for you.

Thus, moral relativism is really just a means to not ever have to say that anything is ever right or wrong, and a means of making everything acceptable in your worldview.

reply to post by ketsuko


So why did god step in at Sodom and Gomorrah or the Flood? Wasn't he interfering with our free will then?

3NL1GHT3N3D1
reply to post by ketsuko

 

So why did god step in at Sodom and Gomorrah or the Flood? Wasn't he interfering with our free will then?

In a way you are correct. Free will is allowed up to a point and then there can come a karma discharge. The next one will probably be quite interesting in size.