The Riddle of Epicurus

Is God Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent?

Either God wants to abolish evil (natural disasters, diseases, suffering, famine etc), and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. ... If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. ... If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?

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Tags:

• Riddle
• Epicurus
• epicurean
• paradox
• problem
• evil
• god
• allah
• philosophy
• greek
• religion
• christianity
• islam
• judaism
• atheism

[whydid666]

And thus the crowd shouted onto Epicurus, "win, you have."

and thus he turned to clreks of the gods and demaneded "now make me a sandvitch bitches."

And then he eath his epic sandvich.

[Mathenaut]

Lack of good =/= Evil.

Just as lack of love =/= hate, and not liking something doesn't mean you find it repugnant.

That is called a false dichotomy.

[lightsparks]

God is Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent, meaning that He can do aaanything and is Ultimately Good. Yet the questions are asked in a way that the answer is bound to create a contradiction.

Omnipotent BUT malevolent? Omnibenevolent BUT impotent? Then it is not God we're talking about anymore. How about defining that concept first?

[lightsparks]

Logic deals in words. It consists of defining terms, putting these together to form premises, and combining premises to extract inferences from them. So a logical argument will go wherever motives take us. If we wish to reach a conclusion then we need only define our terms appropriately and select the appropriate premises.

That is why arguments between different people who have different motives will be endless and futile ;)

[leonthalion]

@Mathenaut

That is indeed why Epicurus used the term Ataraxia; When we do not suffer pain, we are no longer in need of pleasure, and we enter a state of 'perfect mental peace'.

[darkfiresl2]

@Mathenaut

Fair enough, ciao!

[Mathenaut]

@darkfiresl2

I think that was a response to the usual 'hate god' nonsense or something. Won't lie to you, I don't really feel like going back to look it up.

[darkfiresl2]

@Mathenaut

Based on his actions and his commands, no, it would not be considered evil. However, when judged by any rational human being, it cannot be seen as anything but.

Returning to my original question, where did you intend to go with your observation that lack of good is not equivalent to evil?

[Mathenaut]

@darkfiresl2

The better question is:

Given the standard of morality the christian god demonstrates in the bible, was the holocaust really 'evil' by his book?

[darkfiresl2]

@Mathenaut

This is true, but I fail to see where you are going with it.

Just because there are shades of grey in between the two points, does not mean that the points of white and black do not exist. Epicurus is questioning god's ability to prevent or willingness to allow evil. So, why did he not prevent the holocaust, which was unquestionable evil?

[orangepeelification]

theodin!