"If God is real, then why do people suffer?"

But why one text rather than another?

>Faith is a choice.

It's also something that the modern person wants but doesn't believe in. The modern theist will never feel true faith. They've been too exposed to knowledge.

you're projecting too hard for me, my man. just because your mind is a lifeless mass of mathematical equations and top 10 factoids doesn't mean everyone else's is.

Thats part of the choice. It is your decision to place it as your end of the absolute. As the cause of all causes.

Knowledge that disrupts faith is not a genuine faith. Knowledge can only fulfill faith.

The only text I could accept for that would be one I wrote myself as a result of direct revelation. And even then I would still be uncertain, because revelation still requires interpretation, and I'm not sure I could count on mine. "All prophets [...] are thieves" after all.

Why not just submit to what you know is the truth? I know it's scary. But most of us have had to grow up. We're not relying on fables to help us sleep anymore. The horrifying truth is that we're alone and that when we die we rot.

it sounds like the opposite of what you're saying is true to you. it sounds to me like you're basically subconsciously asking for help, you know that you are a lifeless vessel with no happiness and no joy, and you are asking me for help.

>Christfags still butthurt about Epicurus blow them the fuck out
>Let's pretend anyone who questions God or the Church is a brainlet

>Why not just submit to what you know is the truth?

But what do we really know is true?

That is your choice. I choose to believe in Christ

We are living in the best of all possible worlds

Do idealists not understand the implications of this statement? if this is the best of all worlds, even with war, disease, poverty, cruelty and death, then there is no possible world that is better. there is no way to fix these problems, they will always be there, haunting mankind

>Their arguments are so circular in logic
>muh you can't prove He exists

Living in the best of all current worlds doesn't mean any particular moment in time is the best, just that its the best that this particular moment of time could be

I like Christ, but as a man. As God, in any traditionally Christian sense, he's meaningless to me. I believe in the Christ who said "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow.", not the Christ of pure intercession. I also don't view it as especially possible for any human being to achieve union with God or to be unified with God, on phenomenological grounds.

It's the same logic that causes me to reject the notion of heaven as a place where one is with God, if God is conceived as a person. What person could possibly be so great to make a place heaven just because they're there? God must mean something besides a person if heaven is to be conceived of in that way. But what does it mean to achieve "union with God" in the traditional mystic conception? Something phenomenonologically impossible. So heaven must be a place of access to God, not a place of union with God. In which case heaven is not a place at all, but an orientation.

>Is he able, but not willing?
>Then he is malevolent.

fatal mistake. being 'not willing' is not the same as being malevolent

Good people don't suffer, prove me wrong.

We have not discovered all the possible worlds. Really the only world we know is our own; its a redundant argument.

Jesus

it is. If you had the power to end all wars and chose not to, you are indirectly responsible for the deaths caused by those wars you refused to stop

Seems like a no true scotsman waiting to happen on both ends. Define your terms first.

Not if you have a better reason not to do so

And then you are also indirectly responsible for the many years of peace to come through the resolution of that war, and the innovations to come through that war, and so you are no longer malevolent. Sometimes you have to sacrifice something for the greater good.

what possible reason could you have to let this suffering continue?

Not if you're omnipotent.

Builds character

>oh dude, you're drowning? That sucks! Well, I'm not willing to toss you this life preserver so good luck with that.
Yup, not malevolent at all.

What if it allows you to learn to swim?

What? You're literally restating the same argument you did before.

>what doesn't kill you makes you stronger
what doesn't kill you leaves you crippled for life

>what doesn't kill you leaves you crippled for life

t. Millenial

Yes, because you ignored it.

You wouldn't need to learn to swim if the psycho didn't throw you overboard to begin with.

>And then you are also indirectly responsible for the many years of peace to come through the resolution of that war, and the innovations to come through that war, and so you are no longer malevolent.
>This is a sacrifice for the greater good
What? you're not sacrificing anything, there are literally no downsides to this

Who says you didn't let yourself fall off?

>I can't refute his argument
>let's call him a millennial that'll show him

Maybe you didn't understand me properly. I'm saying that as a result of the war happening, those things happened, which are all good things coming from bad things, which lasted more than the bad thing.

You had no argument, just a weird proposterous truism

>It's another episode of christfags pretend the problem of evil isn't a problem

And what percentage of drowners does the God you're referring teach to swim and how many of them drown? Now all you've done is make his malevolence a matter of degree.

you do get that more good could be accomplished if war wasn't a thing right? More resources could be devoted to help mankind
and you had a stupid saying that you brainlessly parroted

What if I did? Why not save me regardless? What's the merit in me learning to swim -not even that, a 'chance' at learning to swim?

Suffering, or more narrowly pain, is an evolutionary mechanism that drives organisms away from injury and death.

Therefore suffering is good.