If there's a god, why is there evil?

Some good points there. I think the way I tackle things is on a higher level at the moment than helping a person out on the street. Yes, I could and would call that selfish while I sit here and spout on my computer. Selflessness is a very virtuous thing. You see this battle confines within me, what to do, when and where, for the general better. And I will never get a perfect solution...but I can aim to excel. Now when I say me, you see, I'm talking about my natural gifts added to all that education I have recieved...all that information I have gotten. If I was raised badly and treated badly, thought that bad was good and vice versa I would probably suggest that I would turn out in our eyes evil. And this is where I think the term evil derives.

However to get out of this 'all relative' idea I do have a way out. I heard somewhere if a baby does not receive enough attention emotionally at birth there is a stronger chance that baby will die. Check it, I havn't been able to find this. Now I suggest you could call this love-like a mother's love for her baby. If this is true then I really do believe that good is that which makes happy thoughts and these, surely, make us more able to help others...so thats where I have my trust.

But then if you have less intelligent and/or less wise people they need advice in this world and religions help, this could be argued, to maximise pleasure of the greater good. Unfortunately they get misinturpreted. But my advice for anyone who really doesnt know an answer is to consult a human (i.e. for feedback) who is: wise, intelligent, virtuous and truly happy (a magical ingredient?) and hence good. Then they should get good advice.

Shining happy people holding hands LOL

I talk here without any spiritual guidance. I cant fit it in because I cant way up any probabilities of its existence so I am not going to. What I will say is this: The whole is more than the sum of its parts....But that is becuase we only see some of its parts !

""No words""

god made man man created evil .god is all good but gave the people total freedom of choice wether to believe in him or to find another good and due to this choice of man and with ignorance of the real meaning of freedom evil arised. and by the way evil exists before man and even wen made was created evil tempted adam and eve so the concept of evil itself exists before man

"" I CAME, I SAW, I CONQUERED""

that is the problem, if god was the only thing that existed before creation, and he created everything, then he must have created the evil that tempted adam and eve.
someone earlier mentioned balance, but if god made everything, he could have made balance unneccesary. people say if there was no evil we would not recognise good. but i'm all for not recognising good despuite being surrounded by it, if it means that there is no evil in the world. why is it neccessary to recognise good? its not like love would not exist, we would like everybody, but others we feel differently about, love them. i see no reason for hate to exist for that to occur.

there are far to many holes in any religious answer, and all of their arguements are circular.

"I tried coding in cocoa but it ran between the keys and shorted my pc"

God did not "create" evil. He created people with the capacity to do good and to do evil. This is fundamental to the concept of free will. So, when God created us he gave us a choice to love him and follow him or to disobey him. God could have made us with no choice but to love Him. But then we wouldn't really be free, would we.

As soon as we are given a choice, there is always the possiblity that we will make the "wrong" choice. I think concepts like love and goodness are meaningless unless you can reference or compare them against their opposites, e.g hate and evil. How can you really appreciate how good first class travel is if you have only ever travelled first class?

Before God made us, He made a way to repair the consequences of our wrong choices.

""What we do in life echoes in eternity" Maximus"

the concepts of love and goodness are useless unless you can compare them with their opposites. pray tell me why it is neccessary for them to be useful?
why is it better to have the concepts of love and goodness, than not to have evil?
we would still have free will to do what we wanted, its just that we would not have the capacity to choose evil. does anyone see that as a problem? would you not prefer to have no "concept" of love, yet still have the reality, but no-one be able to come up with the concepts of theft or murder, and put them into reality?

if god is truly omnipotent, then it would not be impossible for him. i lay no claim to understanding the mysterious ways of god, but i still think balance was the biggest cock-up ever made.

"I tried coding in cocoa but it ran between the keys and shorted my pc"

How can you have free will if you only have one choice? Then there is no free will or choice, we just exist to do the right thing. Lovely - but that's not they way it is.

The person who created this thread long, long ago had a question. If there is a God, why is there evil? I know there's a God, and I believe God is good, but I also know that there is evil.

If you told me that you didn't know the answer, I'd pin a medal on your chest for being so brave and honest. This is a difficult question where simple are so easily disproved.

"A fool says I know and a wise man says I wonder."

Its old but the best. Look into the sky. There are stars but more darkness. The stars make pretty patterns and they stand out because they are less numerous. The darkness is everywhere and dull. But in that darkness things are still happening. Invisible forces...what about gravity for instance?

You can look for whatever you want. People are different there are different things. As long as there is difference there will always be a north and a south; dark and bright; you could see more evil or less good; more good or less evil. Whatever. That is what. Now answer the question why and you are more than human...or less than human!

""No words""

i admitted to not knowing the answer, like i said, i dont understand the way god works.

but why is free will so important? why is the existence of pain and free will better than no free will? i dont know, all i know is that like a lot of other people, i dont think it is.

anyway, even if we did have only the option to do good, we could still do all of the things that we enjoy, they would still be fun, and we would still have boredom to make us know when we were enjoy ourselves. and we would still have indifference of feeling so that we could recognise like and love. i challenge anyone to tell me that that would make me a drone. i would have choice of who to love, what subjects to study, i would lead what could easily be described as a full and varied life, without pain or suffering, without ever having to shed a tear or a single drop of blood. how is that not better!?!?!

"I tried coding in cocoa but it ran between the keys and shorted my pc"

When someone takes free will away from you, you then realize how righteous it is. Having been in the military and having had that done, I appreciate freedom. Maybe you have loose to realize it's importance.

But no, I don't really have the answer. Throughout this thread I've made many attempts. There are some things that only God knows, not that it is kept secret, but there are just some things are little brains can't fathom.

Like, when does forever begin?

there was a scripture I found in (other then the bible) I looked for it yesterday - but no luck. I know I have it here somewhere. When I'm done fighting politics, I'm going to hit this religious thing hard.

"A fool says I know and a wise man says I wonder."

being in the military, and what i was saying about how i think the world would be without free will, are two very different things. in the military, you are told what to do every minute of the day. lack of the choice of evil would be very different, you would still be able to do the majority of things, its just that the ones that are hurtful you wouldnt be able to do. and if the universe had been built that way, no-one would think any differently, as you can't miss what you've never had. not that i think anyone would miss evil. anyway

"I tried coding in cocoa but it ran between the keys and shorted my pc"

There is no such thing as evil, there are no right and wrongs. The purpose of life is to experiance everything. If you go down to the lowest depths of misery, than when you rise it will touch the peaks of bliss. We are here to learn, we are God, God is not only inside all of us, He is our deepest nature, and all the time He experiances life in a different form.

"I'll heal ur woundz I'll set u free, I m jesus christ on xtacy"

quote:

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There is no such thing as evil, there are no right and wrongs. The purpose of life is to experiance everything.

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""What we do in life echoes in eternity" Maximus"

Thats what I thought. You dont. Knowbody can live that way.

""What we do in life echoes in eternity" Maximus"

oh sorry I didn't come here for a while

Actually yes I do. I don't think that anyone is a bad person, and eventually it works out. There have been people whom I have had tension with, but I keep on telling myself that eveyone is essentially good and so eventually I get along with them.
A freind of mine was murdered a couple of weeks ago by two motorcyclists. It shouldn't have happened, but that doesn't make those motorcyclists bad people-disturbed maybe-evil no.

"I'll heal ur woundz I'll set u free, I m jesus christ on xtacy"

Isnt saying that they "maybe disturbed" individuals making a distinction between right and wrong? According to your earlier post "There is no such thing as evil, there are no right and wrongs. The purpose of life is to experiance everything." Surely according to that, they were just experiencing what it is like to murder someone. How can you call them disturbed?

You had better find out why you think they are disturbed. You see built into each one of us is a sense of right and wrong. It is undeniable!

""What we do in life echoes in eternity" Maximus"