Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Buried Lede of Theodicy

 Note that Epicurus was very firmly pre-Christian.

  1. If God is unable to prevent evil, then he is not all-powerful.
  2. If God is not willing to prevent evil, then he is not all-good.
  3. If God is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist?

 But wait, we can apply this to Man.

  1. If man is unable to prevent evil, he is a pathetic loser.
  2. If man is unwilling to prevent evil, he is not-good.

P.S. Don't give a man a fish, teach him to fish.

 Why is the problem of evil the gods' problem in the first place? It isn't. If your world is evil, that would be your problem. 

 There is nothing just about a "God" who prevents evil done unto you which you are unwilling to prevent being done unto yourself.

 

 Prayer is sufficiently scientific. Try this: pray for the cessation of your local evil. If you are praying seriously, you will get an answer. The answer will not be, "Oh man oh gee I forgot whoops let me just cancel that for you." The answer is extremely likely to be instructions. How to prevent the evil yourself. You will be told what to do next.

 Of course, the whole point of prayer is that I don't know what the answer will be. The idea is to talk to someone wiser or more informed than I am. P.P.S. Not my prayer, not my business. 


 To repeat myself: having evil is indeed better than having no evil. Imperfection is superior to perfection. The best of all possible worlds, even assuming comfort is the only possible value, has a significant amount of evil in it.

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