A VERY INTERESTING CONVERSATION (between an atheist professor and a christian student)

[lighthearted26]

Yea it doesn't account for the amount of evil and devastation in the world. But there's also the free will defense saying for us to have free will evil must exist. If god did away with evil, then a person wouldn't be able to kill or rape because they wouldn't have the free will to do so. You can't have conditional free will "you can do what you want unless its evil"

There's also natural evil like tsunamis and hurricanes which I think can be explained by my previous statement about the nature of the world itself. We have certain laws like gravity, not being able to walk on water, etc. Without this, the world would be a scary place. I might walk outside and fall through the concrete or something So god chose to create a world with these natural laws and because of the specific nature of our world, things just happen like tornados and floods.

 

[Bodhi]

God gave the angels free will and no evil exists, allegedly, in heaven. For God, free will and natural law without the possibility of evil would be possible.

 

[lighthearted26]

Yea in heaven but how can you have free will on earth without evil? That would mean everyone would be naturally good right? So god creates a world where everyone is good and kind?

 

[whar]

1. God created the universe. He could have created any possible universe but chose this one.

2. God loves us

3. The universe God created kills us by the 10s of thousands

Your argument simply states he did it. It ignores the central paradox. If God loves us why did he create a universe that is so dangerous to us? Free will works for the evil we do each other but that pales in comparison to the random evil the world inflicts.

Once one realizes God can not be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving, in fact he can be none of these things, it is easy to see how rational the world is without him. Your own posts lighthearted26 acknowledge this impossibility of these traits belonging to God.

"Yea in heaven but how can you have free will on earth without evil?" - God is all-powerful he can trivially achieve this.

The basic rules and laws of the physical world lead to the straightforward conclusion that a all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God is an impossibility. If a God does he mus be a god of the deists, a sort of removed prime-mover.

 

[lighthearted26]

God does things beyond our understanding lol. That's the last argument I got. But you should check out the "argument from evil". Its a good read. Just Google it.