About
A community for the most based memes from atheists, agnostics, antitheists, and skeptics.
Rules
No Pro-Religious or Anti-Atheist Content.
No Unrelated Content. All posts must be memes related to the topic of atheism and/or religion.
No bigotry.
Attack ideas not people.
Spammers and trolls will be instantly banned no exceptions.
No False Reporting
NSFW posts must be marked as such.
Resources
International Suicide Hotlines
Non Religious Organizations
Freedom From Religion Foundation
Ex-theist Communities
Other Similar Communities
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/23770280
It's a fake quote. Epicurus lived in a polytheistic society. He didn't say these things about one god, he said it about all the gods. This quote here is a localisation by Hume which erases Epicurus' paganism for a Christian audience.
Your atheist meme is still pushing Christian biases.
Which is funny because as far as I know none of the pagan gods are presented as omnipotent or omnibenevolent. Works good applied on the Christian god though
Yeah, Epicurus wasn't making any kind of huge atheistic point. He was just exploring the Greeks' relationship to their religion. Hume is the one who co-opted and misquoted him to serve an anti-christianity agenda that didn't even exist when Epicurus lived.
Your atheist meme is still pushing Christian biases.
Oh no better stop using this meme then!
There are older texts that explore the same questions, even before Greek polytheism. The "dialogue between a man and his god" and the "poem of the righteous sufferer" are Mesopotamian texts from the second millennium BCE that basically say the same thing (why does my god permits my suffering when I pray so hard?), and yes, it was already a polytheistic world view, but the question still remained why a god could allow their devout followers to suffer. Even when only accounting for a God's specific domain, like sickness or nightmares, rather than total omnipotence.
There's no problem with Humes reframing the question for absolute omnipotence when that's the zealotry the people in his time or in our time are confronted with. You can't shift the blame of the Christian bias when this question is a response to those who claim that their god is superior and infallible.
Hume could have quoted Epicurus as saying "the gods" instead of "God". It would have been more honest. Hume misquoted Epicurus as though he was a Christian.
Monotheistic religions did exist and were well known to them though
God as in the omniscient prime mover was a philosopical god in contrast to the Olympians and chthonic deities (Not to be confused with the Cthonian deities) who were sustained by the temples for commoners.
I can't speak to Epicurus, but Socrates' charges of impeity and corrupting the youth with perverse ideas were at least partly to do with showing the philosophical theist positions that were antithetical to devotion to the common ministries.
It's much the way only scientists and deep academics in the 20th century were openly atheist. The rest of us skeptics were members of liberal ministries, and may not have gone to church much.
The more I think about it, the more I think that if there is a god that they must have created the world and then left us alone because no benevolent God, like the Christian God, would ever let the world suffer as much as it has, letting their creations destroy everything in site without massive repercussions long before now.
Or maybe the creator just wouldn’t take us all that seriously, like a 14 year old putting a sim in a room with no exit, a fireplace, and a pile of furniture in front of said fireplace. It is only a game.
We could be just one little work of art in a room full of old works.
I mean, we tend to think of the universe as an endless canvas. It could just be some finished piece that the gods don’t even look at.
Maybe they watch our suffering so they can write their plays from it. They have no stakes, so they watch us to learn.
I mean, we’re the ones suffering. We’re the ones looking for some good luck and praying we don’t die before we get our children raised. Of course that is important to us because we’re the ones crying when it doesn’t all work out.
Maybe god/the gods don’t care because it is of no consequence to them.
Of course I’m just playing with thought. I am not a religious man. I happen to think that all of this was just a big, happy, sad, ugly, beautiful, wonderful accident.
If there was a God and it was an actual conscious entity, how could any human ever comprehend the motivations or intentions of such an entity. It can start again from scratch in 6 days - it's not an ecologically constrained being.
It might be like a fighting dog trainer - the trainer might like it, feed it , take it for walks, abuse and traumatise it and so on, or it might not - just like God might. But after it loses it's last fight, they can just get a new one.
God might care, but has no reason to. He could just as well be fucking around for a laugh. Or doing some scientific experiment, or fish tank, or it's just an art project to show off to break the ice at parties. No human could ever know.
So it's just not worth wasting time thinking about - unless you're charismatic enough to disempower the charlatans and demagogues who do claim to know the will of god. If that is the case, good luck to you.
Benevolent? Dude killed his own son. That isn’t benevolent by any definition of the word.
If you see death as a good thing, it could be benevolent
Damn! I wonder if this Epicurus guy has a mastodon account!
checks date
WELP!
Well, this quote is not attested in any of the known works of Epicurus. This particular version was first printed in The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations: Cutting Comments on Burning Issues compiled by Charles Bufe in 1992. So Mastodon might be back on the table.
I assume a material, godless world, but most theistic possibilities fall into the malevolence category.
It's a big category. It includes:
In fact, the problem of evil is only a problem to a specific set of theistic models. We just happen to like those models because we get to be special.
The horror of nihilism is that we humans aren't special. That nothing is special is incidental. We're just that self-centered.
In regards to, "whence cometh evil?":
This question has nagged at human consciousness for as long as we have known evil and suffering. David Hume, the Scottish Enlightenment thinker attributes this phrasing of the question to the Greek philosopher Epicurus. If God is both able and willing to prevent evil, then why does evil exist?
Something something free will, something something...
Something about natural disasters, Lisbon 1755, etc
This is an awful argument lmao
Not really. The quality of an argument is in its ability to change the mind/behavior of the person you're debating with, and the Epicurian paradox is one of the best tools we have to spur some critical thought from the religious crowd. It takes Christian lore at face value, and pitches it against itself. Using their own material as an argument against that same material will function as a better argument than things like scientific facts cuz they just ignore facts.
...then again, they ignore their own lore too, but shining the spotlight on that has its own value.
Anywho, it's worded awkwardly in the OP to sound old (I'm assuming it isn't a direct translation, judging by the other comments here), but it goes down a bit easier when you start with how Christians present their god: he is 1) Absolute good / complete absence of evil, 2) All powerful / reality is as he wills, and 3) All knowing / aware of everything happening in his universe.
The snag is that evil also plays a large role in their lore; and in current current events (turn the news on for 10 minutes and you'll see no shortage of evil) - but how can evil exist under a god described above?
If he has the capability to stop it, he's chosen not to and is therefore himself some degree of evil.
If he wants to stop it but can't, he isn't all powerful.
If he can and wants to stop it, but isn't aware it's happening, then he's ~~a fucking idiot~~ not all knowing.
Therefore, Christianity is not honest about the nature of their own god. And that revelation is a powerful argument.
because?
Because how do you know our definition of evil is actually correct or valid in any external context not involving humans? Why would a god consider death or pain or suffering evil?
A child could call you evil for not giving it all the candy that's in the box. For restricting its playtime. Why couldn't we be the same with death and pain and so on compared to a god?
Of course that doesn't apply to the Christian god that tells what is good or evil and shit.
It's always possible that young children losing their eyesight due to parasitic infections is actually a good thing, but I still feel it's a reasonable assumption that only an evil god could invent that.
God created humans. Why didn't he create us without any evil?
Why? God created the concepts of evil and free thought. He could have made free thought possible without evil. Why did he choose not to? Or is there some higher truth of good and evil, which god is bound to?
What?
Those points make unfounded assumptions about the nature of good and evil. That's literally the point of the argument. You say "things have to be this way, it can't work otherwise", but god made all those rules, right?
Free thought is possible without evil. Lots of people just choose to be evil and greedy and violent. Lots of people also choose to support one another and build societies, or advance scientifically, or study ecology, or advocate for human rights
Evil will be punished by hell and goodness and patience will be rewarded, the balance will be settled by a divine observer
Either god exists and we should play by his rules and act in an objective morality (feed the poor don't be greedy golden rule etc) or he doesn't exist and the world is this way because it is
Pain makes us sad, beauty makes us happy. It's an objective undeniable truth that increasing happiness and minimizing pain for others is a good and moral act, why imagine anything different?
Sorry, I think I'm not understanding your point correctly. I agree that we should try to act morally, but that isn't related to the argument of the post.
Very concretely: Your god created everything, including the very concept of evil. Since he is all-powerful, he must be able to create the exact same world, but without evil. We agree so far, right?
So why isn't the logical conclusion that he chose to create evil?
Was the invention of electricity evil because it created the electric chair or was it good because it created home heating? God created free will, we chose to do evil with it. Being prescient he would have known what we would choose to do with it and still created us anyway, allowing both good and evil to happen. Can we agree on that part?
Tell me how evil was his creation and not ours. Give me an example of such a thing
Being prescient he would have known what we would choose to do with it and still created us anyway, allowing both good and evil to happen. Can we agree on that part?
Yes, we can agree on that! Since your god is all-mighty, he specifically chose to create us so we'd create the electric chair. He could have created us slightly differently so we'd still create home heating without creating the electric chair, but he chose to make us do both.
So god created all evil. After all, he could have created us without the capacity for evil. Had he not created the concept of evil, we wouldn't even have the option.
Tell me how evil was his creation and not ours. Give me an example of such a thing
God created us and gave us the capacity to do evil. He could have created us without the capacity to do evil (since he's all-mighty). Literally everything is his creation, is it not?
Do you believe humanity is all evil with no redeeming qualities? If yes then I get why you would think that. If no, then he created us for BOTH the good and the bad
Anyone can choose to stop doing evil. If they have free will then it's a choice they made, not god. Can we agree on that?
No, I don't think that humanity is all evil. But I feel like you're dodging the central question I'm asking, because you keep bringing up that we can also do good.
God created good and evil, and he created us with the capacity to do good and evil, while he had the explicit knowledge that we'd do evil. He could have also chosen to only create good, and to create us with the capacity to only do good. Why did he create both good and evil, instead of only good?
Initially you stated that good and evil are necessary for free will, but you immediately backtracked on that. Since then you keep repeating that humans do evil, but that's not relevant to what I'm asking. Please try not to use any allegories or to reframe my question. Just try to answer: "God gave us the capacity to do evil, because..."
God gave us the capacity to do evil because he gave us free will. Giving free will meant doing evil is inevitable and anything different wouldn't be free will
He created humans with the capacity to do evil, therefore he created evil. I understand the central point, I'm disputing your belief that it's possible to have free will and never do evil
Can't really represent this point without an allegory but are social insects (ants, bees, wasps, termites etc) represent always doing good? A river? Stellar fusion?
Oh, I thought you backtracked that immediately. So that means your god isn't actually all-powerful, right? There exists some higher concept of good and evil to which he is bound, which he cannot violate?
Who made that concept? Why is god able to do anything except create free will without evil? He created the concept of free will, why can't he create it differently?
I think I'm starting to understand where we differ
Option 1: humans cannot do evil, only good (not free will)
Option 2: humans can do good and/or evil
Why imagine an illogical reality where both of these things can be true, we don't live in it. Being all powerful means such a reality can be made, but god chose not to make it. He bound us by this logic, not the other way around
This also gives the opportunity for a human being to turn away from evil at great sacrifice to themselves and choose to do good, and such a morally good act wouldn't be a good act if they had no choice. Why can't the argument then be reversed, if good exists in the world then god is either good or powerless to stop it
Why imagine an illogical reality where both of these things can be true, we don't live in it.
Because that's the topic of discussion: why is the world the way it is? This approach to discussion is one I see time and time again with religious people. You claim your god is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-knowing, while simultaneously binding him to your own rules of logic. Questions beyond that don't fit into that framework and are blocked off with "that's just not how things are".
Being all powerful means such a reality can be made, but god chose not to make it. He bound us by this logic, not the other way around
Exactly, that's my point! The only logical conclusion is: your god chose to create evil. You can of course say that it's necessary for some reason, but IMO unless I can learn this reason there's no way for your god to actually be all-loving. That's exactly what abusers do - they say they're abusing you for your own good, it just has to be this way!
This also gives the opportunity for a human being to turn away from evil at great sacrifice to themselves and choose to do good, and such a morally good act wouldn't be a good act if they had no choice.
Why not? Who made that rule? Once again, it was made by your god. Why did he choose the rules so evil must happen for good to happen?
Why can't the argument then be reversed, if good exists in the world then god is either good or powerless to stop it
You're trying to twist the logic towards absolutes. Just because good exists doesn't mean god is all good, just like evil existing doesn't mean god is all evil. But evil existing does mean that god is not all good.
Questions beyond that don't fit into that framework and are blocked off with "that's just not how things are".
Fair enough, I can accept that. We live in a reality where you cannot have free will and only good at the same time. I can't imagine anything different so I can't follow you in that line of thinking, and since no such reality does exist it's a moot point
Exactly, that's my point! The only logical conclusion is: your god chose to create evil. You can of course say that it's necessary for some reason, but IMO unless I can learn this reason there's no way for your god to actually be all-loving. That's exactly what abusers do - they say they're abusing you for your own good, it just has to be this way!
So following your analogy of abusers, if someone recommends an objectively good course of action, gives you the free will to follow it or not, and you don't, did they abuse you?
Why not? Who made that rule? Once again, it was made by your god. Why did he choose the rules so evil must happen for good to happen?
I get what you're saying but going back to the first point, this is the only reality we live in. Do you have any response that doesn't involve rejecting our reality? Can we say based on our current reality the freedom to do evil was necessary for goodness?
None of the positive things we've made as humans would have been possible without free thought, not electricity not the internet not architecture. If you want to imagine such a reality where this is possible without the capacity for evil then you're welcome to but it doesn't exist, so it serves nothing but avoiding the question
You're trying to twist the logic towards absolutes. Just because good exists doesn't mean god is all good, just like evil existing doesn't mean god is all evil. But evil existing does mean that god is not all good.
So follow that train of thought then, what is the inverse? What are the good things that show god can be good, stack them up against the evil things that show god can be evil (real madadam hours here)
How does heaven and hell factor into the equation? Would you accept that on the day of judgement and a neutral observer rewards the good and punishes the evil and subsequently allows only good onwards then god will be all good in your eyes?
Fair enough, I can accept that. We live in a reality where you cannot have free will and only good at the same time. I can't imagine anything different so I can't follow you in that line of thinking, and since no such reality does exist it's a moot point
Okay, but then why are you claiming your god to be all-powerful? Why do you bind him (and the discussion) by the rules we live by, which he created?
So following your analogy of abusers, if someone recommends an objectively good course of action, gives you the free will to follow it or not, and you don't, did they abuse you?
No? But if someone recommends an objectively good course of action, and makes someone rape me if I don't follow it, they did abuse me. That's the situation here - rapists wouldn't exist if your god didn't create the concept of rape. God knew when creating everything that this specific person would specifically rape me because I will choose not to follow gods recommendation. He could have chosen to create the universe so this doesn't happen, but he didn't even though he knew.
I get what you're saying but going back to the first point, this is the only reality we live in. Do you have any response that doesn't involve rejecting our reality? Can we say based on our current reality the freedom to do evil was necessary for goodness?
Again, why are you binding your all-powerful god by the same rules we live by, when he created the rules?
I'm also not convinced that evil must be possible for free will to exist. God didn't give us all of his powers - does that mean we don't have free will? If you can still have free will while being bound to a smaller subsection of choices, we can still have free will while only good is possible, it's just a matter of degrees.
None of the positive things we've made as humans would have been possible without free thought, not electricity not the internet not architecture. If you want to imagine such a reality where this is possible without the capacity for evil then you're welcome to but it doesn't exist, so it serves nothing but avoiding the question
If this is indeed true, your god is the reason this reality doesn't exist, so why can't I make this logical connection?
So follow that train of thought then, what is the inverse? What are the good things that show god can be good, stack them up against the evil things that show god can be evil (real madadam hours here)
There is no inverse. You can't show that your god is all good if he created evil. That's the very center of our disagreement: you claim your god to be all-loving, I claim that he can't be since he created evil. Your position only works if you follow the abuser logic, or if you break the logic at some point. And breaking the logic is totally fine! That's what faith is in the end - the belief that something exists beyond our purview and logic. If your god truly exists (and I sincerely hope for you he does, that would be amazing!), he doesn't have to be bound by our logic. But personally I think it does mean you shouldn't claim the argument to be debunked :)
How does heaven and hell factor into the equation? Would you accept that on the day of judgement and a neutral observer rewards the good and punishes the evil and subsequently allows only good onwards then god will be all good in your eyes?
No, because he still created evil. I don't care if child rapists are punished, it doesn't un-rape the children they raped. God still created the universe knowing these children would be raped. This is an offense that IMO can't be corrected.
I haven't forgotten about this, I do intend on responding. I did a lot of thinking about this and I have some verses that will actually prove your point and will respond soon, I am wrong in completely dismissing god's participation in the evil that happens (objectively evil acts, not just blessings hidden as calamity)
Thanks for getting back to me, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Quran 2:49 ˹Remember˺ how We delivered you from the people of Pharaoh, who afflicted you with dreadful torment, slaughtering your sons and keeping your women. That was a severe test from your Lord.
This verse has no mention of the fact that it's the Pharoah committing the crimes, god calls it a test from himself directly, confirming your point that god allows evil to exist while being capable of stopping it, which he does through the splitting of the red sea
The following verse: And ˹remember˺ when We parted the sea, rescued you, and drowned Pharaoh’s people before your very eyes.
Divine intervention ending the evil acts being committed, not only by giving the Israelites access through the parting of the red sea but also by collapsing the sea on the Pharoah and his soldiers right in front of them
Intervention to end the enslavement and slaughter could have happened long before but it was allowed to continue as a severe test, so it confirms your point about being all powerful and capable of ending the evil (and he does) yet allowing genocides and sexual assaults to happen
Regarding being all loving, this may be a principle in Christianity but not Islam. God is all merciful but not all loving, outlining what he does love and what he doesn't, some examples in the spoiler below
I've thankfully never experienced sexual assault but I can say with full conviction that the evils that I've experienced ultimately ended up being serendipitous, either practically or emotionally. It would be monumentally foolish, ignorant and cruel for me to imply that the hardships you've faced were also blessings in some way and I can only speak for myself, but this is the claim being made by the Quran, that our hardships are in fact blessings in disguise. These verses are very famously used to teach this point as the statement is repeated for emphasis
94:5-6 So, surely with hardship comes ease. Surely with ˹that˺ hardship comes ˹more˺ ease.
TL;DR you're right, an all powerful god can choose to end evil whenever he wants yet he chooses to let it happen. Whether or not that evil needed to happen is indeed a separate conversation but I agree, this point is definitely not debunked. There's a lot of verses in the Quran about why evil is allowed to happen (the angels themselves protested against the creation of humanity foreseeing bloodshed and corruption of the earth) but again, that's a separate conversation
::: spoiler spoiler 2:276 Allah has made interest fruitless and charity fruitful. And Allah does not like any ungrateful evildoer.
3:32 Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “Obey Allah and His Messenger.” If they still turn away, then truly Allah does not like the disbelievers.
8:58 And if you ˹O Prophet˺ see signs of betrayal by a people, respond by openly terminating your treaty with them. Surely Allah does not like those who betray.
3:146 ˹Imagine˺ how many devotees fought along with their prophets and never faltered despite whatever ˹losses˺ they suffered in the cause of Allah, nor did they weaken or give in! Allah loves those who persevere.
3:76 Absolutely! Those who honour their trusts and shun evil—surely Allah loves those who are mindful ˹of Him˺.
3:31 Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “If you ˹sincerely˺ love Allah, then follow me; Allah will love you and forgive your sins. For Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”
Just as an aside these are some of the verses that established my thinking that evil does not come from god but from humanity
4:79 Whatever good befalls you is from Allah and whatever evil befalls you is from yourself. We have sent you ˹O Prophet˺ as a messenger to ˹all˺ people. And Allah is sufficient as a Witness.
42:30 Whatever affliction befalls you is because of what your own hands have committed. And He pardons much.
Is he able but not willing? Then he’s malevolent.
This is too simplistic. When animal shelters take in injured dogs and give them health care, the animal has zero concept of human “malevolence”. For all the animal is thinking, it’s thinking that an evil is coming and taking them away to hurt them. But we are only trying to help.
Basically, we might have zero concept of what “true” universal evil is. Maybe eliminating all evil from human society does more harm than good, and creates an even greater evil in the process.
Edit: someone else gave a better example