• wharton@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Though, that argument implies that the only plan god has is death for deformed children. If everything is or could be part of god’s plan, then you could be as useful as Hitler or everyone else by simply being you and doing nothing.

    The more fundamental question to answer is “how would you completely stop suffering?”, which I find impossible without taking away everyone’s free will.

    What if eradicating suffering means that everyone has to go through equal amount of pain and hardship? Would that stop everyone from complaining or would it make everyone complain? What if preventing a greater suffering requires a lesser, necessary suffering? Would that stop people from complaining about it? What if everyone has to take the consequence of one man’s fault in order not to make him suffer?

    I think the only way suffering would truly stop is if everyone shared the same goal and had no ability for independent thought.

    • yata@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      The more fundamental question to answer is “how would you completely stop suffering?”, which I find impossible without taking away everyone’s free will.

      Free will can’t exist in a world of an omnipotent and omniscient god, so that is not a good excuse because Christians by default can’t have a free will.

    • AlteredStateBlob@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s not a philosophical argument around or about suffering in general. The problem of Theodicy is directly in relation to having an omnipotent and entirely good god while also having incredibly amounts of suffering in the world, which are pretty much mutually exclusive. If god is all good and all powerful, how can suffering be a thing, basically.

      That’s the theological question around suffering.

      The free will argument enters into it somewhat, but doesn’t resolve or answer suffering caused by things entirely unrelated to actions freely chosen by people, hence the “deformed child dying” example.

      • wharton@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Could you elaborate on how an entirely good god is mutually exclusive?

        Omnipotence still have its limitations. For example, can a god create an immovable object? Which doesn’t make sense because the question itself is contradictory. So that begs the question, is it even possible to be entirely good while still being totally authoritarian and eugenics?

        On a side note, I’m not even sure what you’re implying as the good option here. The child dying, the child growing up and having to suffer their entire life with deformity, or being eugenics? All of them sounds awful if I had to choose

        • yata@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Omnipotence still have its limitations. For example, can a god create an immovable object? Which doesn’t make sense because the question itself is contradictory. So that begs the question, is it even possible to be entirely good while still being totally authoritarian and eugenics?

          I think you are getting the wrong result out of that argument here. Because if omnipotence can’t exist, and any limitations would mean that it can’t, then the Christian (or any monotheist) god can’t exist, and that effectively ends any reason for further discussion on that particular subject because the foundation of that religion has been removed.

          Anything else would merely be thought games on fictional premises.