The Inconsistent Triad?

[thisgirllizo]

Wonder why this wasn't mentioned..
All of the following comes from what I have learnt in my Philosophy class. This is coming from an AS-level first year student so I don't mind being proven wrong or having other points brought up.

The inconsistent triad clearly points out that it is impossible for the religous believer to be correct whilst evil exists.

If God is Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent then how can evil possibly exist?

Wait, define evil?
Evil is defined in this case as any kind of suffering.
(Look up Moral Evil and Natural Evil if you want)

If God were omnipotent then he would have the power to stop evil from happening but not desire it so.
If God were omnibenevolent then he would not want for evil to occur, but wouldn't have the power to stop it.

However some people argue that God can exist alongside evil through the Free Will Defense, this puts the blame on humans because God gave us free will, so we are to blame for our own downfall -> we are morally responsible for the emergence of Evil.

Any thoughts?

[Camoon]

Although this is kinda irrelevant to the Triads section (except that it shares the name), awesome theory! I wish I could debate with you but my philosophy skills are terrible. Maybe you should ask an admin to move this to the Debate Club section!

Welcome to the Tribe.

[Yokailo]

This is something really interesting.. But not so much for the triads. Well, it's interesting for the people in the triads, but not for the triad-idea itself.

And I agree with Cameron, welcome.

[kadie]

Great Theory

One question, when you say 'We' do you mean we as a species, as in everybody in the human race is responsible, or we as in just those who commit evil???

This next part is somehwat irrelevant but can I just ask, what is AS level Philosophy like, I am hopefully taking next year but I don't know as much about the course as I would like. Any infomation would be greatly welcomed.

I f you don't want to anwser on this thread feel free to email me - [e-mail]

Kadie

[Gesh]

Well while I agree with that last paragraph in your post, thisgirllizo, (God gave men free will to make their own decisions, therefore some make bad ones), another argument I have is this:

Darkness is the name we have to define the absence of light. It does not exist in and of itself, it is the absence of light. Same with cold. There is no "cold," per say, that is simply the name we use to define the absence of heat. Similarly, evil can be defined as the absence of Christ's love. When someone does not have the love of God in their hearts, they do evil.

Anyway, welcome to the moon! Glad to have you here. I'm sure you'll love it.

[Nakor]

This is going to surprise a few, considering I'm a rather outspoken atheist, but I think I disagree. (I am equally willing to argue against theories in favour of atheism if I feel the theory is wrong; the goal, after all, is the truth, not to make your 'side' win.) While it's a very good theory, I wonder if it works in practice.

First of all, good and evil are basically on a scale, like light and dark. If there were no evil at all, then there would be no concept of 'good'. One must sometimes see light or they wouldn't realize that they were in the dark; one must see dark to realize that they are in the light. Similarly, one must experience evil to understand what good is and how it relates to evil; one must experience sadness to truly appreciate happiness. Therefore, there may be cause for even an omnibenevolent god to allow humanity to experience some evil.

In unrelated news, the word omnibenevolent is hilawesomelarious and I feel a great need to work it into one of my novels now....

[korojo01]

So i saw this thread and i got really interested. Just to give a little bit of a background of where i am coming from on my thinking about religion I used to be a strong follower of the christian faith. I was born and raised in a christian family. I ended up being basically a zombie for that religion because that was what i was raised to believe. I never questioned my belief untill i got into high school where i had to make a decision of becoming a leader of a youth group and leading other students to believe this religion i was believing or question why i believe and tempt falling away from faith. I ended up making the decision to do some soul searching and try to understand this religion that i have followed for over 16 years. Basically for me everything in the religion makes sense for the most part after a certain point. I kept coming back to one point where no where does it explain why it happened or what the purpose of it was. But ignoring that one point in time everything after it kind of makes sense.
Know before i go anyfuther i have to say i am sorry if i make anyone mad by what i am saying i am just searching for a better understanding of religion and am open to being proven wrong.
The one point i am talking about is what was the purpose of God to create the angles. If God is an all knowing all powerful, and this perfect being. Wouldnt he not need anything or one to make him happy. wouldnt just the existence of himself be enough. Some people say to me that well since god is all loving he would want to share his love with others. But this skips the question i just asked. why would god need anything or anyone to make himself happy. would the feeling of want or need deam you to be not perfect (keep in mind we are talking about God and not a human). Like i said before after the angles were created things make sense in the fact that God would rather have them love him on their own free will then by him forcing them to love him. So there we have free will and from that Lucifer fell from the heavens and so on and so forth into the creating of earth and where we are today. So for me to understand why the religion of Christianity exists that one point would have to be defined.
Now after explaining where my beliefs are on christianity i should explain where i am today on religion. I do believe that there is something out there bigger then our explanation that created everything in existence (a god of some sort). As for Jesus and the tails that are described in the bible i do not believe that because for example you learn about moses and him leading the Israelites to freedom. But where in the bible does it talk about the thousands of people that moses and the Israelites had to kill to get to where they would be free. It never talkes about how moses was a commander and that the Israelites were his army. Things like that are just to inconsistent for me to fully understand and believe what it has to say.
So again this is just my view on religion and i am 100% open to being proven wrong or just to have a discussion on your own view points on religion. The only way to better understand something is to discuss with others and see as many viewpoints as possible to fully understand the question at hand.