a meaning in our earthly suffering?

so we get to ressurect too? awesome!

 The problem with "evil" and "God" is that you can get dragged into an unproductive dialogue about definitions. "Evil" is the kind of unwavering moral construct that is characteristic of a fundamentalist (or perfectionistic) mind. If you take out the supernatural, and view the world as humans exhibiting human behaviour, it becomes much clearer and easier to understand. With the "God" concept (which is always changed around since nobody knows what it really means), it's difficult to figure out the world.

Save yourself the trouble of trying to understand the supernatural - it's a massive relief when you can view people as a very intelligent and talented primates. All the pressure and bullshit tends to float away, and you're left with a more realistic picture of life.

Your philosophy professor is quoting some very old and tired metaphysics (Aquinas). Metaphysics is basically a huge let-down as far as accomplishing anything is concerned, and usually takes the form:

If God exists ... therefore, God exists.

Thanks, metaphysics, that was a real help.

Some of the Norse gods too - one was hung from a hook by the eye. Not to mention all the

Pre-Christian gods that the Jesus myth was stolen from.

That would be also more in line with the original post. But starting from God never makes sense. It's a terrible explanation for pain that God somehow "allows" it despite all the good things that God is supposed to be. It's nonsensical.

If, instead, you see pain, sadness, fear and suffering as variations on the theme of survival, then the picture becomes clearer. Suffering isn't practical, by any means, but we don't necessarily have to believe that every evolved trait is practical. Starting the conversation from the natural world results in less effort than trying to fit a square peg of God into the round hole of life.

Epicurus phrased the problem of Evil this way:

One cannot escape this philosophical quandary by asserting that one's god has experienced human suffering in a meaningful way.

The first problem is that he waves his magical theist wand and transforms the word "evil" into the words "human suffering" (and if you watched the RRS debate with Way of the Master, you can probably remember how Ray Comfort magically transformed the word "cancer" into the words "human suffering" ). It's possible that these terms overlap, but I don't think anyone would agree that they were synonyms. (Unless of course you were using them that way to escape a sticky philosophical quandary.)

The second problem I see with this strategy is that it plays off our fuzzy definitions of what good and evil actually are. For example, suppose I decided I wanted to kill some guy that picked on me once in high school, so I poisoned his sandwich. However, being a very wasteful person, he saw that one of the slices of bread had some mold along the edge, so he thew out the entire sandwich. A few days later, a homeless man fishes the sandwich out of a dumpster, eats it, and dies. Coincidentally, the homeless man had also been plotting to kill the old bully from high school. Therefore, I saved the bully's life. From evil came good.

But of course he wouldn't agree with this because I'm using a different definition of "evil", not his prepackaged "human suffering" version. He is probably thinking more along the lines of perceived injustices that don't involve premeditated acts of malice, such as cancer, tsunamis, AIDS, etc.

His "human suffering" response is still unsatisfactory, though, because it essentially boils down to the same apologetics we've heard millions of times before: "God has a plan" or "He works in mysterious ways". As always, the crux of the theist position hinges on mankind's being a bumbling ignoramus and God's knowing profound things that we never could.

Yet another problem with suggesting that God has experienced human suffering, though, is that it creates new questions. For example, does this indicate the suffering exists regardless of God and was therefore not created by God? If this other force is so eternal and powerful that it has a certain power over even a god, then how can we say that such a god is supreme? (This is starting to smell more like Zoroastrianism than Christianity.)

But if God did in fact create evil, it would make him some kind of a masochist, would it not?

Actually, I think that would explain quite a lot.

Maybe we should follow his masochistic example and accept an eternity in Hell. Who knows what good the incredible suffering might bring us!

In short, he's not answering the question. He's fudging the terms so that the problem is easier, and then he's answering the easier version with a modified version of the "he works in mysterious ways" bit.

Except for that part where he was two places at once.

Or that idea where he is three beings at once.

Or that idea where three entities not only exist somehow as a single entity, but this 3-in-1 creature exists in all possible places at all possible times, simultaneously, forever.

Oh, and let's not forget that part where a woman was both pregnant and a virgin at the same time.

Oh, and that part where the whole fucking concept is pointless because it is unverifiable and only discussable in the sense that it is impossible to discuss---like the matrix. Or the assertion that this sentence doesn't exist when you're looking in the opposite direction.

And again, god is restrained by something more powerful than he?

But a pregnant virgin is okay.

In other words, he cannot create a situation in which he is powerless.

(Ignore the reasons cited for the crucifiction.)

Of course. It goes like this:

Do I want God to be able to do that? Then it's logical and he can.

Do I want God not to be able to do that (i.e. to be/create evil?)? Then it's not logical, and he can't.

Of course. Just ignore that Heaven place and it all makes sense.