I was raised to believe that "evil" was going against what god wanted.   So obviously god will always do good since it will do what it wants, therefore it would be impossible for god to do evil things.

god does whatever the fuck it feels like.  That's the christian defintion of 'good'.  I suspect many other religions also define "good" and "evil" on the so called personal views of their diety.

   alot of questions, 

yeah debating god is cool, it's called science and includes philosophy etc.

Debating the "god of abe" is embarrassing, yet unfortunatlely still necessary .... we gotta fix the tv for our kids

Yeah, that definition of Good opens up a whole new can of worms. Anyway, my argument didn't have much to do with the definition of Good and Evil. I think it's largely independent of it.

Yes...I guess I wasn't too clear on what was new to me. 2) is really the main idea of my argument.

BTW, about your sig, you're not an electrical engineer are you?

Yeah, it is embarrassing. The difficulties the argument I gave would largely go away if one was a had a negative theology though.

BTW, I agree with you about TV. You should read Al Gore's book The Assault on Reason. He feels the same way about TV that you do.

When one defines 'good' as Watcher has here, though, then that third option of 'god' only being able to do that which is logically possible becomes a legitimate (from the theists persxpective, mind you) objection. It would be logically impossible for god to do evil if any act done by god is necessarilly good by the fact that god did it.

Of course the 'only able to do that which is logically possible' avenue has a host of problems of its own in that it places a nature, the nature of logic, in a place that is superior to god and for the most part renders god obsolete, but it is probably just as valid an objection as any.

Option 2) above would fit with what you are saying. There is no evil could be taken to mean evil is completely relative. But, the argument is assuming a basic Christian/Jewish/Muslim world view, that is, there is some absolute standard of good and evil. (Perhaps I should have made that explicit.) If a believer chooses to define God as what good means, then that plays right into the first part of the argument.

Omni=All, so in calling the Abrahamic God "omni" by vertue of calling it "all powerfull" it must have the atribute of doing evil. Which shows the absurdity of the concept of a omni=benevolent god "all loving".

I would not call such a being who crosses his arms and watches Polly Klass get plucked out of her bedroom in the middle of the night, rapped and butchered, "all loving".

Out of all the sick barbaric things humans do to others you'd think that an all powerfull being would 100% of the time never allow child rape and murder.

So why do such sick things happen? Theists defend this claim of god with arguments like, "It is a test", or "it is human sin". WTF?

Ok, God  has a beef with a "sinner" fine, WTF would a 4 or 5 year old do to deserve God saying, "Sorry, I could stop you from being butchered, but it is all part of my plan"? What did the child do in their short time for God to say, "Sorry, I am going to sit this one out".

This shows the absurdity of Superman vs Kriptonite claims when it comes to serious crimes such as pediophilia. These sickos dont commit these crimes because they didnt suck up to Jesus. They didnt commit these crimes because a man with a pitchfork magically re arranged the neurons in their brain. They did it because of normal mundain human phycology. These sickos do it because of being abused themselves, feelings of low self esteem and inadquacy. The crime is commited to give the purp a sense of control. No magic needed to explain human behaivor.

In addition these sickos are not caught by consulting Ouiji boards or tarrot cards, and bibles and Qurans are just as useless in protecting children from these sickos. These crimes are studied by criminologists who study case after case and interview perp after perp to understand mentality and tactic.

There are lots of natural things in life that cause distruction that we dont want affecting us. We dont want cancer affecting us,and we dont want robbery affecting us. But these things are not caused by superstious devils or lack of faith. They are caused by natural environmental curcumstances.

My point is when you stick a so called "good puppiteer" into the mix, it explains nothing and the lack of consistancy shows the fallacy in the claim "all good" or "all loving" or "all powerfull".

When you accept reality, "shit happens" it frees you up to study it so that you can minimize the affects of distructive events without crossing your fingers or praying to snarfwidgets.

Just like ecoli is natural, unfortunatly crime is too. If you accept there is no magical source to ecoli you should be able to accept that their is no magical source to crime either. 

"Natural" to the theist is an absurd "DisneyWorld" view that good is from a magical source.

"Natural" to the objectivist is merely that wich repeats and can be studied. Lots of distructive things, such as environmental disasters to crime REPEAT ALL THE TIME. It doesnt mean we want it affecting us, it merely means it repeats. If we want it to repeat less, we study it as a natural event to figure our HOW to reduce it's affects on us. NO MAGIC NEEDED.

But IF one were to buy(which I would not) the claim that an "omni" god existed, based on the track record of human history and the obvious spotty selective self serving involvment with human affiars, if such a being existed, I certainly wouldnt kiss it's ass based on its piss poor preformance of being "all loving". I wouldnt call standing by and watching a child get butcherd "all loving" based on the claim that this same deity could, if it wanted to, in every case, stop it before hand 100% of the time.

In conclusion, it is not out of anger I bring up such a blunt example. It is pointing out the glaring fallacy of the "omni" atribute. The natural world without magical beings is a much better way to study distructive things such as desease, disaster and crime. 

Ah. It actually would lead you to your number 2 (so to speak) anyway.  If everything god does is necessarilly good and god created every poarameter of existence then there could not be any such thing as evil. So, no matter, the theist who makes this claim ends up saying evil doesn't actually exist.

Just because I'm interested, where was this line of thought (the no such thing as evil answer) leading you? 

ah, yeah I see. well that demonstrates my greenness in electrical engineering doesn't it I didn't think of it that way at all, in pure math they are basically interchangeable wherever they appear alone.

I swiped that particular pic because the size and script was neat and it was in the identity convention rather than e^(i(pi))=-1 which doesn't quite illustrate the beauty of it.

I dunno, Cpt, but I'm sure there have been a few who began to believe, or at least wonder, after seeing it derived.

No. Since I'm a non-believer, the argument doesn't apply to my world view.

I think it's a good argument for negative theology. But, I was wondering if a (positive) theist could wriggle out of the conclusion that there is no evil, i.e. I was testing out the argument to see if someone could find a weakness.

Recently, my attack angle, so to speak, when talking to a Christian has not been to flat out deny God, but to show the inconsistencies of giving positive attributes — or human attributes — to God.

I noticed you just signed up today, Wes. Good to cyber-meet you.

Although this is an interesting question, I'll pass. The argument I gave in the OP doesn't directly have anything to do with with what God does or does not allow.

This thread is directly related to freedom of choice. Specifically does God have freedom of choice?

If God cannot do evil, God doesn't not have freedom of choice, or the choice doesn't exist. If God doesn't have freedom, then why complain about God not giving us freedom? If the choice doesn't exist (i.e. no deed can be called evil) then what does it matter if God stops murders, rapes, etc.?

Let's say God does have free will. He could do evil, but always chooses to do good. Then, what's stopping humans from having freedom while living in an all good world? It's obviously possible.

I assume you're a theist who thinks God can do evil, but chooses not too. (If I'm wrong, correct me, please.) I'll repeat my question above. In this case what's preventing God from enabling all humans to choose as He does, i.e. to alway choose what is good?

   YEAH geezz Brian37 that was hot , so right on.

.... thanks for using the "god of abe" term, that's much more international, .... It is important.

.... Polly looked like my kid, I sobbed hard .....

I don't see it that way. As soon as you put in the words "God" "make" and "always" that's an infringement on freedom. God isn't subject to the same rule because God (by theistic definition) isn't a created being. As created beings, we are created one of two ways: with limitations or without limitations. What you describe, to me, is a limitation.

I make no claims of orthodoxy. I'm just a confused theist trying to sort out what I believe and I figure with a bunch of atheists challenging most everything I might say would be a good place to start.

I don't mean to say that we would become God, just more like God. And I agree, this definitely can't be the only thing that makes God God. From the Christian point of view, at one time, humans didn't choose evil, and in that time, we were "like God" and "with God" living in that weird garden thingy. (I'm not sold on the idea that most the OT, especially Genesis, is a literal history of things but that's another topic...)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, by definition, one of the things that separates humans from God is the idea of perfection. When you say the word "always" that implies a perfect record of some sort. If humans "always" choose good over evil, we would, in essence, be as perfect as God, becoming "like" God, but not the same as... (We would still lack the omni-traits among other things.)

I guess God could have created us to be perfect and to choose perfectly, but God didn't. I'm still working on the "why" of that idea, and I've got some guesses, but nothing worth putting here yet. I guess I probably agree with you that when you boil it down to that exact idea, it's God's fault that evil exists. Even if God didn't directly create evil, God created humans with the capacity for evil therefore indirectly creating the evil...

Wes.

   amen .....

This is simply ad hoc rationalization. I could use this same argument no matter what the circumstances. Let's say that that human existence consisted of writhing in agony as you boiled in oil and that was all there was to life. We would have to reasonably assume that any god who created beings into such a situation was evil and sadistic. But one could easily say well, imagine that there is a god and it is perfect. Since this is our created existence then, obviously, writhing in agony as you are boiled in oil is the greater good.

Aside from which this line of reasoning still doesn't really add up. Being as that god, as the sole creator of existence, is responsible for every parameter of existence then logically he should be able to arrive at any good by a means devoid of evil. If we have two divergent paths that meet at a desired outcome then for god to choose the one where evil is the means to arrive at the destination over the one that avoids the evil leaves him directly responsible for allowing evil. Being as that this god is supposedly omni and the creator the non-evil path should always be an option in every possible situation. There is no reason that we shouldn't be able to reach any desired point along the line of existence without having to employ evil as a means to get there.

except that our existence does not solely comprise boiling in oil, Vessel, far from it. substantial increase in the chances of a greater good there, wouldn't you say?

Hmmm, I've had this discussion before with Tilberian. I think Wes is referring to the greater good inherent in allowing both paths to exist. Would a perfect god choose one path of the two or allow both paths for the choosing? 

perhaps there is?

Wow, Vessel, I think that's what Jesus was supposed to have said, Seriously.  

I'm not sure I follow the logical progression, Eloise. If we are discussing evil being a means to a greater good, assuming that an existence of not boiling in oil creates a substantial increase in the chances for a greater good seems like a non-sequitur at best.

Even if we were to take it for granted that not boiling in oil does involve a greater chance for greater good, that does not change the ad hoc nature of the argument. Without some knowledge of this greater good that requires evil to be arrived at the argument is pointless. As pointed out it can be used in literally any situation with equal validity and therefor leads us nowhere. 

First, if we can reach any 'good point' without the evil path, then allowing the evil path to exist translates to nothing more than evil for the sake of evil.

But I am not even being that restrictive. I am saying fine, allow that a god is doing us a service by allowing us an evil path which we could choose if we had the will to do evil. What part of that excuses this god  for creating people who willingly choose the evil path? That it exists, I am granting as acceptable. That people are created who will actually freely make the choice to use it as opposed to the good path is what seems to be completely unecessary.

Then no greater good requires the evil path. That would include the greater good of having people who freely choose the evil path. 

Actually I think I am alot like the biblical Jesus. Well, except, uh, you know, I'm real. 

It's not ad hoc to say that our existence involves the rational discourse to challenge, question and even overcome what evil pains our being and thus rationalise a greater good is served simply in our individual oportunity to do so.

And the rest of it comes to this :

So the "evil" path is not required, it just is. And in simply being, without necessity, it is not evil, it's just another dud in the reams of existential probability to reject and dump from the system.

But it is ad hoc. To suggest, as the post I was responding to did, that if there is a god, and that god is perfect, then a world with the existence of evil would have to be better than one without is completely ad hoc. It doesn't address the problem of the existence of evil, it just waves it away.

What you describe above is gaining something from the existence of evil by overcoming evil, resisting evil, what have you. Without evil, how would this be a greater good. It could only be a greater good in a world where evil existed. So the evil's existence would need to be prior to the good derived from it. Do you see the problem here?  

If the only reason for evil is to overcome evil, or not choose evil then that is basically evil for the sake of evil. 

Aside from this it still doesn't justify the fact that there are people in existence who choose evil. A world where everyone resists their free ability to choose evil is obviously better than one where people sometimes freely choose evil. And, in this scenario, everyone has then had the great fulfilling experience of resisting or overcoming the temptation of doing evil, so the greater good is exponentially greater, yet no evil is ever done. 

Then the fact that humans suffer seems strangely at odds with the existence of an omni loving creator god. 

Have I strayed beyond sight of the "can god do evil" topic? If so, sorry about that, Mr. Rage. Sometimes I end up looking around and going, "How the hell did I get here?"