this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2025
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One of my favourite discussions of the problem of evil is the chapter below. It's a discussion between two brothers regarding God and suffering in the world if the end result is eternal paradise. TW: child abuse, suffering and death. Children are used in the argument specifically because they don't deserve suffering, they are innocent according to Dostoyevsky (I easily agree).
https://philosophyintrocourse.com/the-course/part-2-does-god-exist-philosophy-of-religion/dostoyevskys-rebellion-chapter-from-the-brothers-karamazov/
It's heavy but worth the read imo, and not unnecessarily graphic.
Dostoyevsky lived before the baby hitler question. If you knew without a shadow of a doubt a child would become the a very evil person, is it more ethical to kill the child now and spare the suffering of those later, or not kill the currently innocent child but condemn the others. A child does not deserve to suffer for the same reasons an adult does not deserve to suffer. No one inherently deserves to suffer and have evil happen. However, free will can lead to suffering and oppression.
Dostoyevski would argue that having the child suffer so that everyone could go to heaven is wrong. Even if the child, the child's mother and the "free will" person that caused the suffering all hug and apologize and forgive in heaven, it's still not worth it.
Being an absolutist is all fine and dandy (for example it makes philosophical debate much quicker) right up until you actually apply it to real life, at which point it becomes untenable.
It's like the problem with the first law of robotics (I know they were intentionally designed not to work, but they are a useful framework by which to think about things).
A robot must not harm a human, or through inaction, allow a human to come to harm - so robot could not use violence to stop a terrorist attack because doing so would require it to harm a human, yet at the same time not stopping the terrorist attack would cause other humans to come to harm. There is no solution to the problem given the input limitations.
Any intellectually honest approach to philosophy has to recognize that every situation is unique. What you need is a moral framework that allows you to adapt to a situation without having to resort to absolutism (like the laws of robotics). You might as well have the philosophy of just not doing anything ever, and you would have exactly the same result.
Given that we may very soon actually have robots and AI this is a more important question than ever before and I really don't think it's been given any attention.
Absolutism is a fine theoretical stance, but breaks down immediately when faced with real situations. Furthermore, someone with such an absolute stance will not make the effort to have a real debate and possibly change their stance, ergo it is not worth engaging with.
What god and satan was Epicurus talking about here? Just curious what idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, loving god existed about 300 BC. My little Roman mythology knowledge has their gods closer to Greek gods: limited in power, easily fooled, and extremely flawed.
AFAIK there is no proof that this paradox was actually coined by Epicurus, despite later being attributed to him. Epicurean philosophy holds that the gods exist, but don't interfere with anything, so it's pointless to fear or appease them.
Hence, it would be a later invention attributed to him.
I have a few points to this.
The first being) he already has, it’s called heaven, a world without harship, strife, and evil.
The second being) the prevention of evil and the complete elimination of evil are different goals. If we are truly made in the image of god as the bible says, then god geels similar emotions to us as well. So the ultimate answer to the question of why hasn’t he is: he doesn’t want to.
The third being) who is to say he has not already, and the goal post of what is evil has moved? How could we possible know god did not create a world before this, with “true evil” only to restart it into this world.
The fourth being) in a world with free will and no evil, the definition if free will completely changes, so therefore he could, but it would not be the same to him or to us.
What does heaven look like for babies and embryos that die before reaching maturity? Are they just out there floating around by the hundreds of billions?
Ignoring the insurmountable pile of contradictions in the bible, hell is actually the default afterlife destination due to humans being born with "original sin" (don't know if that applies to embryos, but apparently god wasn't aware of embryos when the bible was written).
Each sect has their own beliefs on the matter, with the majority believing all babies and children go to heaven, even though the bible does not explicitly say that this is the case.
Heaven / hell / whatever alternatives I've heard of have one thing in common: infinite time, which sounds like an absolutely miserable existence. It's like that scene in the movie Beetlejuice where they draw a ticket for the queue, and you're sitting there bored as shit forever. Apparently theres a word for fear of infinity: apeirophobia.
Actually, what “original sin” truly is has been debated, many believe death itself is original sin, which is why heaven is eternal.
Assuming your stance is embryos are alive: the default stance of most christians is the physical act of baptism and church rites are less important than the belief, a child incapable of understanding God would go to Heaven or Purgatory. In some sects it is not the physical birth that matters but the spiritual, your spirit is what goes to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory when the body dies, and it can be argued embryos and newborns do not have a soul per se, just the capability to harbor one.
My stance is irrelevant, but I believe there's no "afterlife", so all this stuff about god and whatnot is pure nonsense. It can bring up interesting philosophical questions sometimes though, about what is life and what does it mean to be good and to have a fulfilling life.
Zoroastrianism Vs Christianity
Please expand.
Zoroastrianism...............Vs................Christianity