Results 1 to 9 of 9

Thread: The Epicurean paradox

  1. #1
    Veteran Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Last Online
    11-06-2016 @ 10:36 PM
    Ethnicity
    Brazilian
    Country
    Brazil
    Region
    Minas Gerais
    Gender
    Posts
    5,615
    Thumbs Up
    Received: 4,467
    Given: 3,569

    1 Not allowed!

    Default The Epicurean paradox

    Epicurus:

    "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus

    I wonder how theists try to circumvent this powerful reasoning.

  2. #2
    Veteran Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Last Online
    11-06-2016 @ 10:36 PM
    Ethnicity
    Brazilian
    Country
    Brazil
    Region
    Minas Gerais
    Gender
    Posts
    5,615
    Thumbs Up
    Received: 4,467
    Given: 3,569

    0 Not allowed!

    Default

    bump.

  3. #3
    Banned
    Join Date
    Jul 2013
    Last Online
    04-11-2014 @ 07:04 PM
    Ethnicity
    Albo-Slovene
    Country
    Albania
    Gender
    Posts
    167
    Thumbs Up
    Received: 108
    Given: 72

    1 Not allowed!

    Default

    wow
    such bump
    so determined
    never give up
    resurrection
    wow

  4. #4
    Banned
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Last Online
    08-13-2018 @ 01:53 PM
    Ethnicity
    Gheg Albanian
    Country
    Albania
    Y-DNA
    E-V13
    mtDNA
    H7
    Politics
    Truth
    Religion
    Orthodox Christian
    Age
    24
    Gender
    Posts
    6,609
    Thumbs Up
    Received: 7,997
    Given: 6,001

    2 Not allowed!

    Default

    The standard (Christian) responses are: "God works in mysterious ways", and that God by sacrificing his son showed the greatest love for humanity and in this way joined in their suffering. Somewhat evasive, I think.

    St. Augustine argues that God did not create evil, rather evil is the absence of good. "There can be no evil without good." Still not satisfactory - God still allows evil, the absence of good, to exist, and it implies that not everything he made was good; therefore evil. God may have created good, but even if evil depends on good to exist, that doesn't mean God has to allow it to exist. And isn't it contradictory to argue that

    An argument I think is more satisfactory is the way Dostoyevsky deals with the Problem of Evil. In addition to the Jesus sacrifice thing, he invokes free will. If it was only possible to do good but not evil, then free will would not exist as one would not be able to choose to do good or bad, one would only be able to do good. Note that humans, being imperfect, would have had to have their choices made for them since an imperfect being could not do good all of the time.

    I say this as someone who isn't religious, whose thoughts on this have mainly come through an intuitive process the few times it has appeared and whose philosophical knowledge is minute.
    Last edited by Herr Abubu; 10-04-2013 at 02:59 PM.

  5. #5
    Veteran Member Scandalf's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Last Online
    02-04-2018 @ 06:50 PM
    Meta-Ethnicity
    Germanic-Romance (Italian side); Celtic
    Ethnicity
    1/2 North Italian, 1/4 Irish, 1/4 Scott
    Country
    Italy
    Gender
    Posts
    1,623
    Thumbs Up
    Received: 1,085
    Given: 1,407

    1 Not allowed!

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Herr Abubu View Post
    An argument I think is more satisfactory is the way Dostoyevsky deals with the Problem of Evil. In addition to the Jesus sacrifice thing, he invokes free will. If it was only possible to do good but not evil, then free will would not exist as one would not be able to choose to do good or bad, one would only be able to do good. Note that humans, being imperfect, would have had to have their choices made for them since an imperfect being could not do good all of the time.
    Free will.... Problem: An omnipotent, omnibenevolent God implies a deterministic Universe. Free will is impossible under such conditions.
    Maybe the Christians got it wrong and God is the OT God (Jesus didn't explain himself well).
    Or, we simply didn't get it.
    Evil afterall is pretty relative and might exist only in the sphere of human definition.

  6. #6
    Banned
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Last Online
    08-13-2018 @ 01:53 PM
    Ethnicity
    Gheg Albanian
    Country
    Albania
    Y-DNA
    E-V13
    mtDNA
    H7
    Politics
    Truth
    Religion
    Orthodox Christian
    Age
    24
    Gender
    Posts
    6,609
    Thumbs Up
    Received: 7,997
    Given: 6,001

    0 Not allowed!

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Scandalf View Post
    Free will.... Problem: An omnipotent, omnibenevolent God implies a deterministic Universe. Free will is impossible under such conditions.
    Maybe the Christians got it wrong and God is the OT God (Jesus didn't explain himself well).
    Or, we simply didn't get it.
    Evil afterall is pretty relative and might exist only in the sphere of human definition.
    But isn't that something that's not completely clear? I know of two different arguments against that:

    First, since the future has never happened the future doesn't exist. If the future doesn't exist, then God's not knowing of it doesn't contradict omniscience. It would be impossible for God to create triangles with four angles, but that doesn't mean God isn't omniscient/omnipotent. God can know what has happened and what is happening, but never what will happen. God knows that A took choice X only at the moment of the fact and after the fact.

    Second, omniscience doesn't have to impinge on free will. God knowing what A will do doesn't mean he's coercing A in any way. Nonetheless, God made the Universe, its laws of functioning, etc., so he does affect the will. Still, being God, he can give you alternatives, free will, reason and so on, knowing what you will do, but you do it out of your own will, he knows, but you do it. In the same way that if you give a mouse three alternatives: cheese, sand or wood, it will choose the cheese--you know this--but you didn't compell it to. (Much more objectionable than the first, imo.)

  7. #7
    Slayer of Moors Odin's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2017
    Last Online
    01-01-2020 @ 03:30 PM
    Location
    West Coast
    Meta-Ethnicity
    Germanic
    Ethnicity
    American
    Ancestry
    Norwegian/Danish/Frisian
    Country
    United States
    Region
    California
    Taxonomy
    Nordo-Cromagnid
    Politics
    Paleoconservatism
    Hero
    Canute the Great
    Religion
    Christian
    Relationship Status
    In a relationship
    Age
    30
    Gender
    Posts
    24,256
    Thumbs Up
    Received: 41,634
    Given: 16,016

    2 Not allowed!

    Default


  8. #8
    Banned
    Join Date
    Sep 2019
    Last Online
    07-29-2023 @ 05:42 PM
    Location
    --
    Meta-Ethnicity
    --
    Ethnicity
    ---
    Ancestry
    --
    Country
    United States
    Region
    Quebec City
    Y-DNA
    --
    mtDNA
    --
    Taxonomy
    --
    Politics
    --
    Religion
    -+
    Relationship Status
    Single
    Gender
    Posts
    10,090
    Thumbs Up
    Received: 6,244
    Given: 1,444

    0 Not allowed!

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by curupira View Post
    Epicurus:


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus

    I wonder how theists try to circumvent this powerful reasoning.
    This paradox obviously came before Christianity because it is nonsensical to anyone who has studied the bible. God created paradise for humans , without evil, but gave humans a choice and humans chose evil over good (Adam was swindled by Eve who was swindled by Satan) so now humans have to suffer on earth and if they are good they go to heaven where this is no 'evil'. That does not make God malevolent per se nor impotent. Evil comes from Satan and humans chose satan over God and were cast out of the garden of Eden. Then God sent down Jesus to redeem humans for their sins and their original sin in the Garden of Eden.

  9. #9
    Resident Gadfly
    Apricity Funding Member
    "Friend of Apricity"

    sean's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2019
    Last Online
    @
    Ethnicity
    Anglo-Canadian
    Country
    Canada
    Gender
    Posts
    3,674
    Thumbs Up
    Received: 7,096
    Given: 24,273

    0 Not allowed!

    Default



    The paradox is from the POV of the nature of God. It relies on one crucial thing given as fact which is not actually a fact: that evil exists.

    Good and evil do not exist. What is good for myself may be evil for another person. His argument is that objective evil and God cannot co-exist, but the only way we'd know of an objective evil would be THROUGH God.

    Somebody who lived in a world devoid of evil wouldn't understand that what they were doing was good, and somebody living in a world devoid of good wouldn't understand that what they were doing was evil.

    An empathetic person abhors the notion of a child dying of cancer, yet perhaps to God death IS saving the child from the suffering, something they never have to experience again.

    He's postulating the existence of a God but he's giving us a fucking condition under which this God can exist, and it can only exist under the presumptions that another non-existent human conception, morality, exists and is met as well.

    In simpler terms he's defining God, giving a specific definition of which it is frequently conceived, and this definition is in conjunction with the concept of objective morality.

    Human beings can be viewed as free agents. We are not bound to do anything, but at the same time we cannot be forced to do something either. This is a fundamental fact about our nature that makes us what we are: self-determined beings who have the option of choosing between different courses of action.

    We can, of course, consider the possibility that there is no free will. In this case we are not self-determined at all and our actions are predetermined by some external force.

    This would also mean that we cannot be held responsible for our actions. This is because if there is no free will, then it makes no sense to hold us accountable.

    So the notion of moral culpability is also at stake here, which means that whether or not there is free will has important ethical consequences. If there is no free will then we cannot be held morally responsible for our deeds, and if this is the case then it makes little sense to reward people for doing what's right.

    There is a recurring theme that if God is testing us he doesn't know something or his powers are limited. But step back and look at other religions. Existence itself is suffering.

    We're all pretty sure the world is a rough place. Christians are under the belief that humans have done great wrongs and are cast out to suffer. Buddhists don't have a cause for suffering aside from desire that occurs from existing.

    Will your personal life be better by practicing a religion? This is the socratic dialogue you need to have with regards to Epicureanism.

    We can not know the true nature and character of God. All of the human prophets have sought him out but what they learned supposedly has merit whether it was revealed or imagined. All of the evil of religion is firmly on the shoulders of human institutions.

    One might argue that's the whole point of God sending prophets or a messiah in the first place, instruction to fix our flawed thinking.

    In the Old Testament, the Hebrews carried out total war at God's behest. Entire cities wiped out, not just the soldiers. Theologians and the layman alike have struggled to reconcile the violence in their religion with their own thoughts of what is good and evil.

    In the Ramayana, a soldier is questioning whether it's okay to kill an enemy when all of a sudden a Hindu God appears and says "of course it is okay to kill, after all, the soul is immortal and indestructible. You aren't really killing anyone because people are essentially souls and killing a soul - well that would be impossible."

    Masses of humans are blindly devoted to this idea that there must be some cosmic mastermind running our lives and controlling everything we do or think, so there is no argument against the paradox. It still exists to this day because it covers all of the bases so very well.
    Quote Originally Posted by Dorian View Post
    We GrecoRomansIberians once did the mistake of civilizing these cave-dwellers ,I suggest we make an alliance with muslims to accelerate their takeover
    Quote Originally Posted by renaissance12 View Post
    Scandinavia is not Europe
    Quote Originally Posted by Mortimer View Post
    It's OK to date girls 16+ they are not children remember the old song 'sweet sixteen'
    Quote Originally Posted by Tooting Carmen View Post
    Whites are often jealous of Blacks for their athleticism, creative talent and sexual prowess.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. Katholieke homo's - een paradox
    By The Lawspeaker in forum Nederland
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: 03-10-2010, 05:45 PM
  2. Replies: 0
    Last Post: 10-05-2009, 09:14 PM
  3. The Pinocchio Paradox
    By Beorn in forum Philosophy
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 04-08-2009, 05:03 PM

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •