So, is there any legitimate way Christians can solve the problem of evil?

So, is there any legitimate way Christians can solve the problem of evil?

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Christian?

Entry tier Christian apologist here

Two types of evil

Necessary evil
And the evil that is harder to explain
Conditional evil

Necessary evil
Is a wolf evil for killing a creature? Maybe so, but the evil is necessary for the creature to fulfill its instinct to survive.

Conditional evil
This is more like sin. Where nothing good is intended by an act or thought that only brings more bad into the world. There is no necessity for this evil. It is simply conditional on the evil within the person.
This evil is relegated to humans. Well, at least most of the time.
For example, a serial murderer torturing and killing a child just to watch them in pain and fear. Although it may pleasure the sadist, the method used and the intentions are still evil. They bring no good to the world.

Why would God allow this? Well there's a lot of possible answers, but Catholics hold that god has given free will to humans and with that comes the possibility for evil. Although God could intervene and stop evil but chooses not to, that does not inherently mean God is evil.
It simply means that in God's view, meaningless evil is necessary to separate the sinful from the forgiven.

Right, or you could just accept that the problem of evil is inevitable when you get rid of polytheism, which always recognized evil as a permanent feature of the world.

Monotheism created this mess, now don't try to wordgame your way out of it when people point it out

>Necessary evil
Is a wolf evil for killing a creature? Maybe so, but the evil is necessary for the creature to fulfill its instinct to survive.
>implying the wolf has a sense of morality
>implying the wolf is responsible of evil, even though it never ate the fruit

Pls.

>Conditional evil
This is more like sin. Where nothing good is intended by an act or thought that only brings more bad into the world. There is no necessity for this evil. It is simply conditional on the evil within the person.
This evil is relegated to humans. Well, at least most of the time.

>this evil is relegated to humans
>even though God just admitted to be the source of all evil in the world

>that does not mean God is evil

So, by your reasoning, not pulling the lever in the trolley problem is not inherently malevolent, even though you caused (granted, indirectly) the death of MORE people?

Entry tier child murderer apologist here

You said the act brings nothing good to the world, but isn't the child murderer being entertained at least some kind of personal good?

So if we move a bit away from that very extreme scenario, there are tons of thing out there that make some people happy but upset others, like 2 fags having butt sex.

It's also just an arbitrary system of defending what makes you happy while attacking things that don't make you happy.

Also, if God just didn't allow evil to happen, wouldn't that also mean he wouldn't have to separate anyone? What is the necessity of free will, especially given how tenuous the concept of free will really is? I also think that's just another completely human attempt at rationalizing the existence of evil.

The reality is there is absolutely no good reason God should ever allow a child to be brutalized. Simply no good reason whatsoever, and whatever anyone has to say to contradict that is simply wrong.

>quotes some shit from the Jewish bible
>trololol christfags rekt lmao

Every. Single. Time.

Marcion pls

>This book establishes the divinity of Jesus and verifies the truth of the prophets
>This book is unimportant in every other respect

What did they mean by this?

>this book literally puts the foundation of the basis of your religion
>lol, just throw it out, it's Jewish

Whew, famlad.

I've yet to find an argument that refutes the simple theory by Epicurus:

>If an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god exists, then evil does not.
>There is evil in the world.
>Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God does not exist.

If God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent (as I believe the Christian God is supposed to be, correct me if I am wrong) then there would be no necessary evil since the universe would have been designed in such a way that evil would not be possible. For example no creature would ever have need to eat another for subsistence. Another example: there would be no such thing as pain or boredom but we would still enjoy all the fruits of labor just the same as we had labored for them.

carm.org/does-god-create-evil

Based on what I am reading here, the disaster that God creates is not evil because God is incapable of evil. Disaster in this context is suffering, but the suffering God creates is just.

>hasn't even opened a bible

>I form the light and create darkness
>darkness
>not evil

Pick one.

Marcion took the Old Testament literally, when it's just Jewish mythology.

How is that relevant to anyone but Jews? Why would a book be any less true because you don't have another book telling you it's true? Judge them by their content you stupid shits, and the Old Testament is obviously full of nonsense.

So, because it was an agreement between Jews and God, it has no legitimate insight into God's nature?

Jewish mythology has no relevance to anyone but Jews, no.

In fact not even most Jews take that shit literally, it's pretty much just American protestants that do.

>Jewish mythology has no relevance to anyone but Jews, no.

And, we know this because...? Seriously, Christianity was built ON Jewish theology. You're gonna say that all this insight into the nature of God given to the Jews through the prophets for hundreds of years is just suddenly irrelevant because... why again?

Because why would Jewish mythology be relevant to non-Jews you dumb fuck? Do you also worship Odin and Jupiter? I can't tell if you're a Jew or just an extreme kind of shill.

Jesus just happened to be talking to Jews because he was born in Judea, so he uses the language of Judaism to make himself understood. Had he been talking to non-Jews he would have used a different language, but his philosophy would have remained the same and nothing in the essence of Christianity would have been different. Learn to distinguish form from essence.

The reason why we use the Old Testament is because Jesus was a Jew who spoke in reference to the Old Testament a) to show the prophecies were being fulfilled and b) to explain his message to a Jewish audience who knew their scripture. Paul also does the same thing to prove his points.

Read an annotated bible.

So how about in the Gospel of John where Jesus is alone with a Samaritan woman and tells her that Samaritans are wrong and the Jews were right regarding their theological differences?

Also I forgot to mention that Mosaic law, that which is contained in the books of law in the Old Testament, is broken by Jesus when he says that the only law is to love others as yourself. All laws are superseded in this statement and the commandments are enveloped within it.

He doesn't say that at all. In fact when she says that God should be worshiped on the mountain while Jews say he should be worshiped in Jerusalem, Jesus says neither is right.

John 4:21-22
Jesus told her, "Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews."
He did not state that neither was correct, he said that sacrifice would stop because of his sacrifice. In the next verse he clearly says that the Jews were correct in practice.

Meant for

Ah, so you're the syncretist kind of Christian, I see.

The next verse? You mean

>You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews.

I'm no expert in Jewish sects, but I'm pretty sure this is a reference to the fact Samaritans didn't have a scholarly tradition like the Jews, and followed the priesthood, i.e. worshiping without understanding. In any case this at no point states that Jewish mythology or Judaism are entirely correct, only that salvation comes from the Jews, in the form of Jesus Christ. From the Jews, not from Judaism.

They absolutely do have a priesthood and a scholarly tradition. The only theological difference between 1st century Jews and Samaritans was where they thought YHVH should be worshipped. So please enlighten me on what other thing the Jews could possibly have gotten right if not this specific matter? You are really splitting hairs on this: something that Jews got right on a religious matter but nothing to do with Judaism being correct

So your point is that God should be worshiped in Jerusalem rather than on the mountain? Even though Jesus says right before that it doesn't matter, as is completely in line with the entire rest of his preaching?

He says that it will not matter in the future, after his death and resurrection. In the present the sacrifices still matter in his eyes. There is no other way to read this passage: Jesus said the Jews were right about where to sacrifice and the Samaritans were not. The Gospels clearly portray Jesus's death as the fulfillment of these sacrifices, thus legitimizing them even though they are being replaced. Let me amend my previous statement because there is one more theological difference between Jews and Samaritans: the Samaritans did not accept the Oral Torah as being a tradition traced back to Moses. So here are your choices: either Jesus said sacrifices should be in Jerusalem or he said that the Oral Torah should be followed. If you are so desperate to reject that Jesus approved of sacrifices in Jerusalem you better buy yourself a copy of the Talmud

this is why the jewish/islamic perception of god makes more sense because he's considered merciful and not necessarily good iirc

>Jesus literally was a jew
>he never left the Jewish lands to teach his thoughts to non-jews
>suddenly his followers believe the Jewish rules, stories etc are completely irrelevant to their belief

???

>religions can't evolve

Or neither, since he clearly doesn't fucking say any of those things.

>Jesus approved of sacrifices
Fucking hell man, the entire fucking point of everything Jesus does is to put an end to sacrificial religion. That's what the Revelation is, he reveals the truth that sacrifice is not ordained by God in any way but is just humans deluding themselves and blaming God for their own violence. It's insane how many people are so entrenched in sacrificial thinking that they still insist on understanding everything Jesus says completely ass backwards.

What about illnesses and natural disasters that also cause death and human suffering? They are not the results of human choices, but from God creating viruses, bacteria and instable natural systems. A god that knowingly creates Harlequin Ichthyosis and lets it affect innocent humans is pretty evil in my book (would be if he existed).

>ridding your main prophet of his life story is now "evolving the religion"

>LARPagans, atheists, muslims, jews, and every special snowflake attack Christianity: The Thread
wew

>Halp, I need a safe space

>christians should literally be jews
>christianity should not even exist

Exactly, Christianity is about believing Jesus did absolutely nothing of value and we should just all be Jews, herpa derpa dee durr.

>christians come to what is regarded by normalfags as the gaped asshole of the internet and shitpost with the best of them
>a safe space
Heathens sure do like them some mental gymnastics.

>Fucking hell man, the entire fucking point of everything Jesus does is to put an end to sacrificial religion
I absolutely agree. As I said, Jesus's death is framed as a perfect sacrifice to replace the need for animal sacrifice. This is firmly entrenched in Christian theology and the Gospels. I have no idea what you are referring to in revelations but I see no reason why some negative remark in revelations could replace all the references to Jesus as a replacement sacrifice which are throughout the new testament, the epistle of Hebrews in particular. No, I do not cling to sacrificial religion, I cling to historical accuracy and will not twist the meaning of words in historical documents to fit my agenda like you. Now fuck off, Marcion. Instead of following your bizzarre corruption of Christian just become a Platonist

*Christianity

That's not at all what this is about, you idiot.
Jesus has his own value, but taking his teachings out of the context he taught them in, is just completely retarded.

Why an omnipotent, omniscient, infailable god needs to rewrite his religion? Why, for example, there is no longer a need to sacrifces, food laws, or why was it suddenly important to spread the religion to non-Jews, when for millenia, God was content on having just the Jews worship him. It sounds like God's personality and ideas on what is good is developing over time, which contradicts the idea of him being perfect.

>Jesus's death is framed as a perfect sacrifice to replace the need for animal sacrifice.
That's not what it is.

Jesus' death reveals the true nature of sacrifice as human evil. It reveals the innocence of the sacrificial victim, and tells the story from that victim's point of view. The ones who sacrifice are revealed as murderers, and the violence is revealed as theirs, not that of some god.

>Marcion
Marcion believed in the literal truth of the Old Testament shithead, kind of like you apparently. Stop pretending you give a shit about Christianity or are anything but a Jew.

Right, so if Jesus had appeared in modern day America we should all be morbidly obese and masturbate to interracial cuckold porn for the rest of eternity, got it.

>he still doesn't get that the message of Jesus is universal
Kill yourself.

Why indeed, unless, you know, CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM ARE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT RELIGIONS YOU STUPID FUCK

WE

What a false equivalent that is.

We're talking about the ideological basis of that Jesus himself believed.

Social Democracy as a ideological branche in Germany was created by Communist sympathsizers and included quite a bit of content from the Communist ideology.
Now, saying Social Democracy = Communism is nonsense. However, saying that Social Democracy has nothing to do whatsoever with Communist ideals is also utterly ridiculous.

Can you comprehend that?
Christians =/= Jews
However, disregarding the common history and the implications of that history espcially directly focused around the single most important prophet of Christianity is ridiculous.

If you can't comprehend that, there's no argument to be had here.

Ultimately the best answer, albeit unsatisfactory to some, is that God cannot be understood fully by us.
Christianity is the religion with the most proof supporting it.

Albeit unsatisfactory to everybody that's not a moron

>i'm going to worship nothingness
>i'm going to worship the color of my skin
>i'm going to worship old religions that have been dead for thousands of years
Who's the moron?

Well user don't you agree that there are some incomprehensible things in life? What do you believe in?

>i know everything about God

Are you guys mentally incapable of accepting that it's not necessary to substitute knowledge with belief?

I don't have to say "This is what god is" or "God is not real". I don't know the answer and I can accept that and hope that I some day will get definite knowledge on this subject.

I don't just go out into the world and act as if the stuff I "think might be true" is actually true without having evidence.
Why would I do it differently for such an important subject as the very nature of existence?

We completely understand your carefree spirit and want for nihilism. That's why we don't like you. Sweden is the easiest example of what happens when you're in charge.

Pay less attention to what Jesus was born as and more to what he said. Judaism contains a few very vague and unconscious intuitions of what Christianity would be, but 99% of it is garbage that Jesus spent his entire life demolishing.

A better analogy for what you think is that Communists should all follow Jewish law and believe in Jewish stories because Karl Marx was a Jew.

This is not nihilism. You should read the fuck up on nihilism if you actually think it is.
This is the very definition of agnosticism.

So, thank you. You just proved that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Have you explored different religions? Just for knowledge if not for finding meaning. I used to be agnostic too but now Christianity makes the most sense to me.

>the rejection of all religious and moral principles
That's you to a T. You supplant it with "knowledge" or "reason". Agnostic, fedora, makes no difference. Still the same arrogance and disbelief, although not quite as spergy.

That's not a better allegory.
Communism is a political ideology that openly condemns all forms of religious ideologies.
Jewish law stems from religious ideologies and is logically nullified.
Jesus never rejected the entirety of Jewish law.

Yes, I have. Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Christianity.
Just because something "Makes more sense" to you as a person does not mean that it actually has any evidence or truth in it.

Yeah, no. You just don't know what you're talking about.
I have a very clear moral framework and it has been discussed over and over again that the assumption of god is not a necessity for having a moral framework.
However, I'm certain that you don't know that now that I've seen you sperg out your "All people different form me are indiscriminately evil" ideology.

>the assumption of god is not a necessity for having a moral framework
You've tipped your hat, user. You've never followed your philosophy to its logical conclusions. Exactly the same as a fedora.

I have a question: what drives people like you to evangelize your belief in nothingness? If you simply don't care, why doesn't it show?

Again, this is not atheism. You can spout atheism memes all you want, but with no fibre of my being do I deny the existence of god. I just don't accept the thesis of the existence of god as proven.

If you can't comprehend the difference between these concepts, no discussion will solve the issues we're having.

>no fibre of my being do I deny the existence of god
The quote I pulled suggests otherwise.

Regardless, answer my previous question. If you have no expectations, why must you promote your beliefs? To what end does it serve you or others?

And Christianity openly condemns every form of sacrificial religion.

OT is totally irrelevant.
Only Protestants give much importance to it.

>The quote I pulled suggests otherwise.
It doesn't, actually.
While the assumption of god is one way to create a moral framework, it's not the only way.
That is what I stated.

Stop misinterpreting and being a retard in general.

>If you have no expectations, why must you promote your beliefs? To what end does it serve you or others?

How am I promoting my beliefs?
As I understand it, we were discussing something entirely different until you started sperging and I had to defend my world view.
I, personally, value the charta of Human Rights. Including freedom of religion.

Yes, which brings us to the point of my allegory of Communism and Social Democracy.
Social Democracy condemns seizing the means of production, suppressing the former ruling class and so on.
However, saying that Social Democracy has nothing to do with the ideology of communism is utterly wrong.
Saying that Christianity and in particular Jesus have nothing to do with Judaism is also utterly wrong.
Historically wrong, even, as the churches have always referred back to the old testament as source for rules and their interpretation of the religious truth.

Do Social Democrats have to abide by the rules of the Communist Manifesto? Do Christians have to abide by the rules of the Old Testament?

Marcion did nothing wrong and christianity would be ten times better if it would have kept demonisizing the old testament as the spawn of satan.

wait if protestants take every line of OT and NT as equally valid how do they reconcile jesus' overriding of ceremonial laws and sacrifices?
doesn't it subordinate christ as being just some jew?

I wasn't really discussing that.
What I was discussing though is that you can't rip Jesus out of his historical context as a Jew.

This is one of the posts that sparked the discussion.
He was entirely denying that Judaism had any relevance whatsoever for Christianity, while I was arguing that it has a strong historical relevance and should not be ignored when understanding the NT.

>it's not the only way
No, it isn't. But again, you haven't considered what that alternative leads to. I'm not going to explain it to you either. If you're as intellectual as you assume yourself to be, you should be able to understand it.

>How am I promoting my beliefs
Suggesting that Christianity isn't acceptable and that everyone else is a moron would be seen as such. If you didn't care, you would simply not take part and mind your own business. You are promoting your belief as an alternative by merely being here.

To what end?

>Suggesting that Christianity isn't acceptable and that everyone else is a moron would be seen as such. If you didn't care, you would simply not take part and mind your own business. You are promoting your belief as an alternative by merely being here.

>joining into a discussion with other people is now a negative thing
Ok?

>No, it isn't. But again, you haven't considered what that alternative leads to. I'm not going to explain it to you either. If you're as intellectual as you assume yourself to be, you should be able to understand it.
Soddom and Ghomorra, yeah, yeah.
Sure.

I retract my statement that you were less spergy.

But that's true. The only reason we even have the Old Testament is because Jesus happened to be talking to Jews and was therefore using the language of Judaism, so we need that reference point to understand the context he was speaking in. But there's abso-fucking-lutely nothing about Christianity itself that in any way requires Judaism. You can translate Christianity into any other language and toss the Old Testament away, it contributes nothing to the essence of Christianity.

marcion give it a rest

Fuck off Shlomo, nobody cares what you have to say about Christianity.

You don't even know who Marcion was, shlomo.

By "Protestants" I mean many Protestant sects. Like Evangelicals.
That is not to say Catholics or Orthodox erase OT, but it's not relevant when it comes to theology.
It's clear OT is incompatible in many way to what Jesus taught. Though they say it's still "relevant", that doesn't really mean much. Especially in Eastern Orthodoxy.
It's mostly relevant in the sense that it foretold the coming of Christ.

Foreskin cutting, women stoning, Bullthroatslitting, pork-evader calm down please.

>getting BTFO by a Jew and then getting mad

Kek.

Hey, it's OP here, faggots. So, Marcion is left hopeless, ain't he? How does it feel to be BTFO by a Jew, Marcion?

Which is throwing God's omniscience, omnipotence and/or omnigoodness under the bus.
It's the classical theist claiming God possesses the above qualities, the atheist is simply showing how they're mutually exclusive given how the world is.
>Well user don't you agree that there are some incomprehensible things in life?
Sure, like the fact that there are theists in 2016.

>Jesus' death reveals the true nature of sacrifice as human evil
Then why does the entire new testement say otherwise?
>Marcion believed the literal truth of the Old Testement
You just gave away how retarded you are. Marcion believed that the god of the Old Testement wasn't the same God as the God of Christianity. He advocated that people disregard the Old Testement because it wasn't about the true God, but the evil God of the material world. I suppose you could say that he took it literally perhaps in the sense that it was true stories about this evil God but that is besides the point

Isn't denying the old testament a serious heresy? I recall that was the standard tactic for resolving disputations since Jews had to be very careful how they approached them due to the chance of being subject to a pogram, so they'd try to get their opponents into a position where they'd have to deny the OT to win, thus bringing it to a draw.

Should have just kept trucking with YHVH Storm God angle instead of going all greek philosophy and messianic cultist mode.

Really this. If YHVH had stayed an asshole and not some omnipotent, omniscient abstraction that loves everyone he would've been a lot easier to accept

>state creates laws that distinguish certain acts as criminal and punishable
>tells its population that those acts are criminal and punishable
>some of the population commits these acts anyway
>it's the state's fault, from my perspective the State is evil
Evil is a spook, God did not create evil, God defined what is evil, people have free will to commit evil

Depending on the laws being enforced, a state absolutely can be considered evil for enforcing them.

Also if you're going to use the spook argument, you have to realize that god is basically the arch-spook.

False comparison. God is both omnipotent and omniscient which means he had foreknowledge of the evil you would do and had the power to make you perfect. This means that God is ultimately responsible for humans breaking his laws, since he made them so that they would break them. Just abandon the language of omniscience and omnipotence and you won't have this problem