If the religious believe their God is a loving and all -powerful being who has a personal and direct involvement in their lives and saves when prayed to, then they also have to accept he has to direct the preceding horrible circumstances that required his loving intervention.
As the ancient Greek philosopher Epicures said: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able to. Then he is not omnipotent. 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?"

Epicures has a very strong argument there for non belief. Theists, please take note.

Oh, look who's making a guest appearance... Epicurus! If a 2000 y.o. gay Greek sez so, it MUST be true!

When will atheists understand that according to Christians, the ultimate purpose of life on Earth is NOT happiness. It is to form a relation with God, accept Him and spend the eternity with Him. God - according to Christianity - does not stop evil because evil IS part of His plan. And only in a universe with evil can people make significant moral decisions.

Evil HAS a purpose.

ispoketoanangel wrote:If a 2000 y.o. gay Greek sez so, it MUST be true!

Funny how we don't see you posting this in Jesus resurrection thread as well...

ispoketoanangel wrote:Oh, look who's making a guest appearance... Epicurus! If a 2000 y.o. gay Greek sez so, it MUST be true!

When will atheists understand that according to Christians, the ultimate purpose of life on Earth is NOT happiness. It is to form a relation with God, accept Him and spend the eternity with Him. God - according to Christianity - does not stop evil because evil IS part of His plan. And only in a universe with evil can people make significant moral decisions.

Evil HAS a purpose.

But wasn't that the purpose of christ dying on the cross all about? The forgiveness of the original sin, to forgive future transgressors and show the love of this monster you seem to believe in? And do pray tell. How does one open a relationship with a phantom? It seems that it's all one way, mankind, at least the believers, do all the crawling while "He"picks and chooses whom he wants to help. The mother with 5 children dying with cancer while a whole congregation praying for her to get better are completely ignored while some muslim in an earthquake survived while hundreds did not.

Ihavenofingerprints wrote:

ispoketoanangel wrote:If a 2000 y.o. gay Greek sez so, it MUST be true!

Funny how we don't see you posting this in Jesus resurrection thread as well...

And the "gay" thing on top of his claims that a previous post which got him suspended wasn't homophobic...

angelo wrote:If the religious believe their God is a loving and all -powerful being who has a personal and direct involvement in their lives and saves when prayed to, then they also have to accept he has to direct the preceding horrible circumstances that required his loving intervention.
As the ancient Greek philosopher Epicures said: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able to. Then he is not omnipotent. 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?"

Epicures has a very strong argument there for non belief. Theists, please take note.

But there are other options. For instance, perhaps He doesn't know that evil abounds down here on Earth, or maybe Epicurus is misinformed about what "evil" really is, or perhaps evil is what it says on the tin, but is necessary for some greater good that is beyond our knowledge or even comprehension.

So why call him God? As a Christian, I believe that only He knows the answers (and indeed, the questions,) which is why He is God; ex vi termini.

Clearly, it does not behoove us to waste our lives vainly speculating on the machinations of the upper echelons of the Holy Celestial Empire.

That does explain why he had to ask in the garden of eden, " Adam, Where are you? " A very human trait wouldn't you say? Perhaps, or more than likely he was a human invention?

One of my favourite statements on prayer comes from a fictional atheist artificial humanoid construct pretending to be a human priest;

"Do you know how useless prayer is? Chanting, and singing, and mucking about with old half-remembered lines of bad poetry? And you know what it gets you? Exactly nothing." - Brother Cavil, BSG

ispoketoanangel wrote:Oh, look who's making a guest appearance... Epicurus! If a 2000 y.o. gay Greek sez so, it MUST be true!

When will atheists understand that according to Christians, the ultimate purpose of life on Earth is NOT happiness. It is to form a relation with God, accept Him and spend the eternity with Him. God - according to Christianity - does not stop evil because evil IS part of His plan. And only in a universe with evil can people make significant moral decisions.

Evil HAS a purpose.

And requiring evil means that God is not omni-benevolent...one of the claims often made about him.

The point of Epicurus is that the existence of evil presents a dilemma for any god that supposedly has the three characteristics of omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence.

Also, if that were God's purpose, then why did he make this soul-filtering system in which the outcome of your eternal existence is predicated on what you do during the short period of time that you are alive? God's fundamental system is immoral and unjust.

angelo wrote:That does explain why he had to ask in the garden of eden, " Adam, Where are you? " A very human trait wouldn't you say? Perhaps, or more than likely he was a human invention?

Huh? A more chilling scene I can't imagine wherein the angry god who of course knows where Adam is, toys with him in a rather sarcastic and sinister way to put the mockers on him.

But God been all-powerful would see the moment he created Adam that disobedience would be the outcome. Yet he still went ahead and made Adam and Steve.

z8000783 wrote:

ispoketoanangel wrote:Oh, look who's making a guest appearance... Epicurus! If a 2000 y.o. gay Greek sez so, it MUST be true!

When will atheists understand that according to Christians, the ultimate purpose of life on Earth is NOT happiness. It is to form a relation with God, accept Him and spend the eternity with Him. God - according to Christianity - does not stop evil because evil IS part of His plan. And only in a universe with evil can people make significant moral decisions.

Evil HAS a purpose.

What if I have no desire to spend an eternity with God, why does evil need to affect me in that case?

John

Can't wait for a response. Also, is it really neccecery to let a newborn malformed baby even be born, or the 1 year old baby who dies of leukaemia yet let a serial killer operate sometimes for decades before he's caught. What purpose does that serve?

My favourite comedian and god.

Yahweh has a plan for all of us. It just happens to be an evil plan.