The traditional Christian response I've heard to the problem of evil is that people have free will and have fallen into sin, and the traditional atheist response I've heard is that natural disasters like hurricanes have nothing to do with free will and still cause human suffering. This is where the conversation usually ends, and I'm wondering if anyone has a good rebuttal to the natural disaster problem
As a Christian, I don't think people are punished on Earth for their sins except by the natural consequences, i.e. extramarital sex leading to STDs and pregnancy. I don't think evil makes one more likely to be a victim of a natural disaster. Stuff happens. I believe we will be punished for our sins in the afterlife.
God sends droughts and tsunami to darker people to test faith of overweight white middle-class Christians in USA and to let them be better Christians by donating $20 to charity.
I'm not making it up, this is a paraphrase of an explanation I've heard.
is there a goatse version of that picture?
>>456832
Sorry maybe my post wasn't very clear. The problem is how can there be a God if there is evil in the world? To which the Christian usually replies "free will", and the atheist counters with "but natural disasters". I'm just curious if Christians have a counter to natural disasters because I haven't really heard one yet
>>456818
Have you even read The Problem of Evil, CS Lewis?
For real fuck you if you haven't.
You want to understand why suffering exists? Look at the figure of the crucified Christ, and then contemplate the fact that he is God. What do you think that says about the significance of suffering? This is the Christian mindset.
>>456840
>God is not as powerful as we think he is
>He don't care
>He don't even know we exist and he created the world for another reason
There is a lot of explanations, but before even considering choosing one, we must define what is a god and what natural phenomena lead us to think that something like that exist at all.
>>456843
Instead of typing more questions, please type some answers.
“Cursed is the ground because of you! In toil you shall eat its yield all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you, and you shall eat the grass of the field.”
tl;dr natural evil is because of the Fall.
For the next question, skip asking here and google Felix Culpa.
The main thing to bear in mind is that 'good' here is defined as 'accordance with the will of God' and not as 'everybody being happy all the time' or such.
>>456913
>'good' here is defined as 'accordance with the will of God' and not as 'everybody being happy all the time' or such.
So, God is a jerk?
>>456939
>So, God is a jerk?
No, we're jerks, at least to the extent that our will doesn't accord with his.
Once you boil it down, the AfE becomes an appeal to plausibility (don't these very finely-tuned circumstances seem inelegant) rather than an argument to logical impossibility. The mark of one skilled at being an atheist is to let go of the latter.
If an atheist believes in free will he is a fucking idiot. You might have some calls on some issues, but fuck no, you ain't free.
>>456961
>You might have some calls on some issues
What does this mean?
>>456956
Wait... God is the one that choose to cause our pain, but WE are the jerks?
When a kid play torturing animals, you don't blame the animals, don't you?
Either you should consult, either I miss your point.
>>456969
>Wait... God is the one that choose to cause our pain
No. The Fall arose from human free will, the suffering arose from the Fall.
Now you'll probably wonder: Couldn't god have made it so that the Fall wouldn't cause suffering etc. Evidently not (that is: suffering exists).
>>456966
You might choose the colour red or blue for your car. But you certainly can't choose why you are inclined towards one particular colour.
>>456979
This seems kind of incoherent, honestly. I mean, is 'choosing the colour' there "the state of preferring one colour over another"? And is 'why you are inclined' "the factors determining your preference"?
If so, then cool, we agree.
>>456974
First:
>Suffering exist
>meaning that God can't prevent suffering
So, not omnipotent.
Second:
>free will
We don't have that. We are a giant chain of chemical reactions and our behaviour is predictable with a mathematical precision.
Third:
You say that God created suffering because the will of humans does not match his. This is what I call a jerk.
>>456987
>So, not omnipotent.
Omnipotence indicates the ability to do all that it is possible to do. As a parallel, God doesn't know the last digit of pi, but that doesn't mean he isn't omniscient - it only means that there IS no last digit of pi.
>We don't have that.
Yeah, great. But Christians believe we do. So when you're asking for the Christian response, the answer is going to stop by there on the way.
>This is what I call a jerk.
Again, great. But you are not the moral arbiter of the universe while, on Christianity, God is. There is all the difference.
>>456836
>american protestants
>>457000
>protestants
>works being salvific
>>456966
You are limited by your physical self, such as height, brain capacity, looks, etc.
>>457025
I don't understand what that has to do with "having calls". "Having calls" suggests, to me, "making choices" in some kind of noteworthy way. It seems like a strange phrase to use in conjunction with rejection of free will.
>>457028
You can make some choices that are within your free will, but everyone is limited somehow. Not everyone can become a doctor because the majority does not have the intellectual capacity.
Your physical self determines more or less how far you can reach in life.
One thing you can choose is how hard you wish to work, but one challenge is harder for some than others.
>>457042
Right, but this is just saying that we do have free will. Everything else you're saying is about outcomes, that's a separate issue.
>>456996
God play with the cheatcodes. If he wanted suffering to stop, he could do it.
By the way, if he wanted me to worship him, it would be the case.
If Christians believe we have free will, then it is proven that Christians are wrong. That's okay, if they can ignore the creation thing or adapt their faith to it, they will eventually adapt their faith to the lack of free will. Religions are not immuables.
So God decide who is a jerk, and who is not. That's great, but, again, I have another opinion.
>>457059
>God play with the cheatcodes. If he wanted suffering to stop, he could do it.
>By the way, if he wanted me to worship him, it would be the case.
I think you should start a ministry, bro.
>If Christians believe we have free will, then it is proven that Christians are wrong.
Nah m8, not really. The whole "God existing" bit puts quite the spanner in the works, right? For what it's worth, I'm sure a lot of Christians would agree that if there is no God, there's no free will.
>That's great, but, again, I have another opinion.
Bully for you. But again, the OP asked about the Christian response. The purpose of the AfE, in its strong form, is to assert that theism is inconsistent; self-contradictory. In order to do so, it must apply itself to all facets of the specific branch of theism. You can't just insist that parts of it be left out of the theist's response - if they are, then you are not establishing that the theist's beliefs are self-contradictory. All you end up doing is what you're doing now, which is saying: I'm an atheist, though.
Why should they care?
you only suffer if you don't have christ
>>456840
There is no God, nor is there good or evil.
>>456818
Well natural evil is because of moral evil too. There wouldn't be natural disasters if it weren't for the Fall.
Disease and natural disasters happen because of God. Overall, anything that happens that's not because of direct human input is God's stuff.
God punished Sodom exactly like that - a natural disaster happened, but the good people were spared (although that meant only Lot and his daughters).
At the same time, the Bible also says that if a good person dies too soon, it's God taking them away and close to Him before they could be corrupted by their surroundings.
The New Testament takes it one step further by saying physical death is only in appearances, as the real death is a spiritual one. If anything, people who are suffering because of circumstances they can't control are better off, because if they remain honorable and sinless even in poverty and suffering, then they are the closest thing to Christ they can be and will recieve a ridiculous reward in Heaven.
Free will is not "do this and you'll be fine, don't do this and you'll suffer here and now". Free will is "do this regardless of circumstances and you'll recieve rewards, be they here or in the afterlife".
>>456939
Yes for as it says in issah God is the orgin of all things including evil. And that point is proven in job
On another note more related to the general thread y'all assume Christianity is the only answer and it's not natural disasters happen because of simple scientific reasons because exestance is banal and no one is as important as they belive them selves to be, learn humility, it is a christan virtue after all. Instead of trusting a fallible man preaching his interperation of the word of God seek to understand him and his works through examination of the world around you keep looking you may one day find him and when you do I'll eat crow and come back to the church.
>>456900
Dude, this is specifically about the christian god, not some kind of pantheism.
The christian god is omnipotent. He cares and he knows full well we exist.
>>456974
But The Fall is so bullshit tho, because why are billions of people allowed to suffer because of some choice one of their ancestors made. That is NOT free will, that is just saying "No matter what you choose, it doesn't matter, shit might happen to you anyway."
Furthermore, according to christianity we do not have free will. Since god is omnipotent and omniscient, he knows everything. He also knows what choices we will make, regardless of circumstaces (circumstances which he control and create by the way), so any free will is just an illusion.
>>461701
>But The Fall is so bullshit tho, because why are billions of people allowed to suffer because of some choice one of their ancestors made.
This is only a problem for literalists. Everyone else will just tell you it's a story, it was designed to explain the essentials to nomadic desert-dwellers who were mostly illiterate.
>Furthermore, according to christianity we do not have free will.
There are Christian responses to epistemic determinism, but they're pretty involved. If you google "middle knowledge" and/or I think Molinism, you'll find some ways to preserve libertarianism on Christianity. How satisfying you'll find those answers is another matter.
Also, they can really just say it's a divine mystery and there's not a lot you can do about it except raise an eyebrow.
>>456843
> Fuck you for not reading what I read
Calm down senpai. This is not how you win arguments.
Hurricanes are caused by complex weather systems, if you believe otherwise you are dumb.
>>462006
So what are these essentials? I'd like to know what the Fall actually is then. What is original sin and why is it a thing? That's why I can't be Christian, I don't think every babby is born being guilty just cuz.
>>462557
>So what are these essentials? I'd like to know what the Fall actually is then.
The Fall is a metaphorical account of our present separation from God. Genesis in toto is a creation myth, of course, and thus seeks to describe the nature of the world and to explain certain facts. Eg: Why do women experience pain during childbirth, while for mammals it seems relatively straightforward? People in 500 BCE weren't able to research and discover the evolutionary history of the human neocortex, so they had to invent some other explanation. So they threw it in with the rest.
Basically, the Fall was an attempt to answer questions like: What is the world; Why did God make the world; Why is the world the way it is etc.
I wish an actual Christian would just hop in at some point and take over explaining the Christian position, it's getting wearisome.
