80
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_responses_to_the_problem_of_evil
This link is probably more helpful to OP.
There is no god. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can move on with your life.
I don't really see the point of barging into a conversation intended for people of a certain group just to say that they're all wrong. Sure, an outsider's perspective may be useful but you're even replying to the topic question
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You won't be able to debunk it. Logic does not apply to faith. It's like dividing by zero. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. Trying to apply logic to matters of faith is a fools errand.
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I'm doing my best to believe without thinking too much about that.
The fact that so many people unironically feel this way is bone-chilling. Wild that you'd just say it out loud.
In Judaism, ha-satan does work as a kind of public prosecutor. You get a public defender too.
you're trying to apply logic to something intrinsically illogical. if you value logic and enough that this is a major hangup, now's a good time to start distancing yourself from the church. I was the same way many years ago, but I cannot even put into words how much better my life is without a religious affiliation. going to church does not make you inherently godly. use the time you would have spent at church to help enact actual change in your community.
I was raised in the south, got curious about religion, and being the south... Yeah, so attended a Lutheran church, and was formally asked to leave for asking too many questions that required logic.
I was about 6. So, yeah.
There are a lot of contradictions in Christianity.
They aren't worth dwelling on if you want to remain a Christian.
God killed millions of people. Satan killed like? 12?
It presumes that the devil is an actual person rather than a story telling device and an amalgamation of some unrelated ideas throughout scripture and other faiths.
Rev. Mark Woods discusses this a bit.
I like his conclusion, even though it doesn't solve anything:
"arguably, when we're face to face with such things, our instinct shouldn't be to discuss them, but to get angry and do something about them. Part of our discipleship is to work for human flourishing in body, mind and spirit: we should make the world better, as far as we possibly can."
A model is only a crude sketch of the reality.
There's no devil causing evil. There's only us, flawed as we are.
And what God can do and what God will do are not the same.
What about all those non-human evils like earthquakes, tornadoes, droughts, tsunamis, wildfires, parasites and disease? They cause immense suffering and death, even of innocents such as the newly-born.
If god can stop these, why won't he?
(Edit: misspelling)
If he can and doesn't he's evil; if he can't he's not all powerful. Lucky for you he doesn't exist.
Sad things, tragedy, and death are not the same as evil.
Without answering the question here, just wanted to point out that it's a different question, so don't try to apply the answers to one question to the other question.
You're talking about 'the problem of suffering' not 'the problem of evil'
yeah it's not even a Christianity point to make. Who are we to condemn the happenings of Earth and it's inhabitants just because it can harm humans? We are not above our planet.
Sad things, tragedy, and death are not the same as evil
Agreed.
Evil is a moral judgement describing a motive or agent (in the sense of something with agency, something that causes something to happen). Sad things, tragedy and death are not in and of themselves evil, they are the result of evil.
When a person does things that directly cause immense suffering on purpose, we can say the evil came from a human.
Now on to god. God is normally ascribed the properties of omniscience, omnipotence and all omnibenevolence. In addition God caused the universe to come into being.
As he is omniscient he knew the world he created would cause untold suffering and so either he is not omnipotent (i e. Could not create a world without suffering) or omnibenevolent (i.e. is fine with a world where the innocent suffers. (The comments have several versions of this argument done better than I could).
If we argue that it's impossible to create a world without suffering, then what is heaven?
You're talking about 'the problem of suffering' not 'the problem of evil'
No, I'm highlighting the real problem of evil - that it seems inherent to the world that an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent created.
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Isn't that the core principle of monotheism, that one God does everything, both good and evil?
Sure, but monotheism still has to be internally consistent, and labeling it ("monotheism") doesn't address the inconsistency.
If anything it just means that benevolent and omnipotent monotheism is intrinsically inconsistent.
Yeah, the point is that God is not "allowing" the devil to do evil. If Christianity is truly monotheistic, then the devil is a creation of God, just like anything else. There is no independent being. So yes, like the title says, he is an accomplice.
Who's doing the evil: humans or the devil? If God allows human free will, then evil is always a possibility. The devil is limited to influence humans or be allowed to possess someone to act directly.
There are plenty of evils that are partly our wholly beyond human free will. Floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, drought, blight, pandemics, plague, infestations, fires, genetic diseases, etc. Those aren't man's doing. Whether God, the Devil, or something else entirely, the problem still stands.
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So, what you're saying is that the Book of Job disproves the divinity of a god?
This idea rests on the notion that the human ideas of good and evil are universal, and apply to a god. Why should that be the case? What if god has decided that murder is good, and will reward everyone that commits murder with a spot in heaven?
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I struggle with the fact that god created Lucifer who was his right hand man, he then rebelled and God just banished him from heaven, didn't strip his powers, didn't kill him. Then he created earth and just let the devil do whatever he wanted? God is all knowing and I get the idea of letting humans have free will but just letting the devil roam around and do whatever seems odd. I dont think we brought ain into the qorld God did aonce he created everything in heaven and earth. I also struggle with us humans (we all) suffer the consequences of one action from two people thousands of years ago.
"there's no evil on alpha centauri"
evil isn't an objective reality, it's a construct based on human observations.
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this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2025
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