# God and the Problem Of Evil. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 31, 2012, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411 "2012-10-31T08:57:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2012, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/201 "2012-11-26T19:33:54Z")
People always think too hard about these things. Imagine you are creating a sim game. Do you include the possibility of evil? Why or why not? The same reasons easily apply to your own theoretical creator. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2012, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/202 "2012-11-26T19:39:16Z")
Isn’t the standard answer “Because you can’t have ‘good’ without evil.” ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2012, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/203 "2012-11-26T22:09:24Z")
That’s one standard answer. Another is that you can’t have “free will” without evil, because some of us will inevitably choose foolishly (or, worse, malevolently.) That said, it still seems to many of us to impugn God’s moral worth when extremely evil things happen to very young children, the least capable of all moral actors. The idea that my free will causes a baby to be born with hideous spinal deformation isn’t convincing, nor is the idea that the baby’s deformity somehow advances the world’s overall goodness. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2012, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/204 "2012-11-26T22:14:52Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > People always think too hard about these things. Imagine you are creating a sim game. Do you include the possibility of evil? Why or why not? The same reasons easily apply to your own theoretical creator. That’s ridiculous. You can’t compare the way someone treats mindless bits of computer code with how you should treat feeling, thinking beings; the fact is if the beings in simulations and games were sentient beings, we would be monsters. Just like God as typically portrayed is a monster. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2012, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/205 "2012-11-26T22:20:19Z")
I’ve knowingly and intentionally killed trillions through civ 4 alone. I shudder to think of the death toll if you count Civ 2 where I played much looser and faster with the nukes. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2012, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/206 "2012-11-26T23:22:02Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That’s ridiculous. You can’t compare the way someone treats mindless bits of computer code with how you should treat feeling, thinking beings; the fact is if the beings in simulations and games were sentient beings, we would be monsters. Just like God as typically portrayed is a monster. That’s exactly my point. You’ve just given one possible scenario for why there is evil: God considers us just to be a plaything or perhaps a model. But you missed a crucial part of the scenario: _you_ are the one choosing the parameters of your simulation. To be truly Godlike, you would have to program your simulated populace with sentience, self awareness, and the potential for suffering. OK, now that there _is_ something at stake, do you still allow evil to exist? Why or why not? If the Sim analogy is screwing things up for you how about this: You are suddenly promoted to God. Do you allow evil to continue to exist? Why or why not? I find that this generates plenty of plausible understandable answers for the hypothetical situation. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/207 "2012-11-27T00:07:26Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > . . . You are suddenly promoted to God. Do you allow evil to continue to exist? Why or why not? . . . I’d absolutely certainly reduce the amount of evil and pain in the world. I’d toss in a lot more restraints to keep it from being so hellishly widespread. (Personally, I’d tighten the linkage between actions and consequences. The idea of waiting a lifetime and only punishing the wicked in the afterlife seems absurd. In my world, the wicked would suffer, pretty much immediately, and unmistakeably because of their wickedness. Stolen fruit would simply taste bad! Bank robbers always slip and fall and break their shins.) ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/208 "2012-11-27T00:27:17Z")
So you would personally intervene to punish wrong doers. But look at the consequences: 1. over dependence on you leads to stagnation, the population suffers less, but also fails to grow or evolve 2. consequences based solely on your dictates leads to a divorcing of morality from true consequences and leads to a society that never develops an internal sense of morality 3. lack of serious consequences leads to fantasy mentality and a sense that the world has no gravitas or sense of real ness 4. the populace knows you exist and will constantly badger you to use your magic powers for every little thing 5. there’s still some free will, but it is lessened There’s really no scenario for eliminating the potential for evil that doesn’t have other serious consequences. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/209 "2012-11-27T01:27:59Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > That’s exactly my point. You’ve just given one possible scenario for why there is evil: God considers us just to be a plaything or perhaps a model. And? That, again, does not make the Problem of Evil go away, because a god that looks at us as playthings isn’t benevolent. > [@jackdavinci](#): > > But you missed a crucial part of the scenario: _you_ are the one choosing the parameters of your simulation. To be truly Godlike, you would have to program your simulated populace with sentience, self awareness, and the potential for suffering. OK, now that there _is_ something at stake, do you still allow evil to exist? Why or why not? No, because it would be wrong. If you can make a paradise or even something approaching one, you should. And if you are making intelligent beings you shouldn’t make them evil and them blame them for it, nor their victims either. > [@jackdavinci](#): > > f the Sim analogy is screwing things up for you how about this: You are suddenly promoted to God. Do you allow evil to continue to exist? Why or why not? I would eliminate virtually all evil that doesn’t require altering people minds to do so; something that would be trivial for an omnipotent. And I’d do it because it would be the right thing to do, and I’m far more moral than most versions of God; not that that is hard to achieve; you have to reach Hitler’s or Stalin’s level before you begin to approach the evil of most versions of God (and that may be slandering Hitler and Stalin). ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/210 "2012-11-27T03:58:21Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > So you would personally intervene to punish wrong doers. . . . Oops, if you were responding to me, personally, no, I wouldn’t. I’d create the world in such a way that wrongdoing is always automatically self-punishing. I wouldn’t intervene to make the stolen apple taste bad; stolen fruit would taste bad as a new law of nature. If I were God, I wouldn’t intervene at all. I’d simply set up the rules well enough that intervention would not be necessary (or even desirable.) Thus… > [@](#): > > 1. over dependence on you leads to stagnation, the population suffers less, but also fails to grow or evolve There would be no over-dependence on God. As for whether there would be no growth, I think that is a claim you would need to provide additional support for. In a world such as I described, mankind might decay, the higher functions of intelligence fading away until the human race operates on instinct alone, like insects. But I don’t see this as a necessary consequence. The human race might, alternatively, grow in expression, in art, in music, in invention, seeking to learn, and working in peace. For my part, I do not claim this is necessarily the case, but it might work out that way. > [@](#): > > 1. consequences based solely on your dictates leads to a divorcing of morality from true consequences and leads to a society that never develops an internal sense of morality Again, no dictates. However, yes, again, the “insect-like” human future might arise, since no moral conundrums would remain. Everyone would know that crime is self-punishing, and so, over time, the very temptation to do wrong would fade away. Is this, in itself, a bad thing? > [@](#): > > 1. lack of serious consequences leads to fantasy mentality and a sense that the world has no gravitas or sense of real ness Hm… Undefined terms, I’m afraid. I don’t quite get what you’re trying to say. > [@](#): > > 1. the populace knows you exist and will constantly badger you to use your magic powers for every little thing Another matter taken care of by my clarification of my premise. No, they wouldn’t, because no, I won’t. > [@](#): > > 1. there’s still some free will, but it is lessened Agreed. I would suggest this is a good thing. I do not claim that I have proven it to be a good thing; I readily concede the possibility that the schema would backfire. But I now depend on you to tell me why. > [@](#): > > There’s really no scenario for eliminating the potential for evil that doesn’t have other serious consequences. This is a claim you must take additional efforts to defend. I don’t necessarily disagree, but you need to show us why it is so. ---
**Author:** ![James52637](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@James52637](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/James52637)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/211 "2012-11-27T16:36:30Z")
The biggest issue with what you guys seem to be thinking but not realizing, is that this wouldn’t be a problem if “God” didn’t portray himself as perfect. If “He” admitted in the bible he’s a douchebag and isn’t perfect, I don’t think we’d have an issue with this. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/212 "2012-11-27T22:56:51Z")
True… The whole “perfect” thing came out of the marriage of Jewish mysticism with Greek philosophical mysticism. (Did Pythagoras himself think that the square root of two was “mystical” and led to spiritual revelation? Or was that jammed in later by his goofball followers?) The guys who wrote Genesis and Exodus (probably) never thought of God as Platonically Perfect, or “infinite” in a mathematical sense. They didn’t have that kind of math! So, instead of our Great-Grandfathers’ God, we’re stuck with the God of, say, Billy Graham. Could be worse… ---
**Author:** ![James52637](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@James52637](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/James52637)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/213 "2012-11-28T16:31:34Z")
I suppose so, but… Billy Graham is quite the cracker. (GRAHAM CRACKER!) [sarcastic laugh] ---
**Author:** ![missyzilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a9a28c/32.png) [@missyzilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missyzilly)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/214 "2012-12-03T02:22:40Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The usual explanation I hear is what I think of as “The Argument From Cthulhu”; that God is so utterly beyond us, so alien that to him what looks like evil may be good, so we can’t judge him. > > Of course, they gloss over the fact that such a claim negates pretty much every other claim they make about God, including him being benevolent; if he’s unknowable and incomprehensible to the extent you can’t judge him as evil, then you can’t call him good either. They also ignore the practical problem that if his actions are indistinguishable from evil to us, why should we care if they are “good” in some supposed higher sense? _And_ they ignore the question of why anyone should follow such a supposedly incomprehensible entity. Please do not listen to all the fighting and silly crap … Ask him. Sweetheart just by the question you asked I can tell you are very smart. You will lose nothing if you just ask . ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/215 "2012-12-03T02:27:29Z")
> [@missyzilly](#): > > Please do not listen to all the fighting and silly crap … Ask him. Sweetheart just by the question you asked I can tell you are very smart. You will lose nothing if you just ask . :rolleyes: There are no gods, and no way to contact them if they _did_ exist. Talking to myself is just talking to myself. And the “fighting and silly crap” is how religious people actually act, it is the real effect of religion on the world. I’d oppose religion even if the gods were real, given how it makes people act. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/216 "2012-12-03T02:30:19Z")
> [@missyzilly](#): > > Please do not listen to all the fighting and silly crap … Ask him. Sweetheart just by the question you asked I can tell you are very smart. You will lose nothing if you just ask . You will lose time. Time that could be spent not pretending the childish Christian God exists. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/217 "2012-12-03T02:31:29Z")
> [@missyzilly](#): > > Please do not listen to all the fighting and silly crap … Ask him. Sweetheart just by the question you asked I can tell you are very smart. You will lose nothing if you just ask . Are you somehow under the impression that we haven’t tried that tack before? A lot of atheists are former religionists that never got answered back no matter how sincere they were. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/218 "2012-12-03T03:24:05Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That’s ridiculous. You can’t compare the way someone treats mindless bits of computer code with how you should treat feeling, thinking beings; the fact is if the beings in simulations and games were sentient beings, we would be monsters. Just like God as typically portrayed is a monster. Whether humans can feel pain has been a controversial issue for many years. Humans and celestials share similar mechanisms of pain detection, have similar areas of the brain involved in processing pain and show similar pain behaviours, but it is notoriously difficult to assess how humans actually experience pain. Pain can be considered to have two components: (1) physical hurt or discomfort caused by injury or disease; and (2) emotional suffering. Most celestials would agree that humans are capable of feeling pain according to the first definition. But it is less clear whether they also feel emotional pain, at least like celestials do. As we cannot get into the minds of humans, or meaningfully measure emotional pain in humans, perhaps we should accept that human pain is different from celestial pain, and is something we will never be able to describe fully. Nevertheless, even if human pain may be distinct from celestial pain, is that a reason to consider it less important either biologically or ethically? One thing is irrefutable though: simulations create jobs. With apologies to [Home | Wellcome](http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/pain/microsite/culture2.html) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/219 "2012-12-03T03:31:44Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Whether humans can feel pain has been a controversial issue for many years. Humans and celestials share similar mechanisms of pain detection, have similar areas of the brain involved in processing pain and show similar pain behaviours, but it is notoriously difficult to assess how humans actually experience pain. And again, that isn’t applicable to the Problem of Evil; an omniscient would know. > [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > One thing is irrefutable though: simulations create jobs. An omnipotent wouldn’t need a job. Nor would a morally perfect being put a job above suffering. So again; not applicable. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411/220 "2012-12-03T05:56:33Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And again, that isn’t applicable to the Problem of Evil; an omniscient would know. > > An omnipotent wouldn’t need a job. Nor would a morally perfect being put a job above suffering. So again; not applicable. But it’s straightforward to concede that while an omnimax God is inconsistent with the existence of evil, that evil could logically coexist with a God that is slightly short of omnimax. The Biblical basis for omnimax after all is less than overwhelming. The answer to _that_ is that God is HGM (History’s Greatest Monster), so it’s not sufficient to make Him a _little_ short of moral or power perfection. My post was mostly humorous, but to the extent that it had a point I’d say that it’s fair to conjecture that any overarching force, be it sentient or non-sentient, will have its own agenda. (If non-sentient, the force would be its agenda: it’s a trivial tautology. If sentient, then it might have a rather different perspective than our own.) Also: “Having His own agenda” is wholly consistent with the Book of Job. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-the-problem-of-evil/639411.md?page=12)