I have been thinking the logic over here, and can't find a hole in it. It seems impossible for an all powerful and all good god to exist. At the very least an all powerful god has to be at least as evil as the sum of all evil on earth since they intentionally made all evil happen. If they are not all powerful, then they are unnecessary since the base conditions of the universe can exist without intelligence, no intelligence is needed for anything else. While an evil god is not impossible, it doesn't make any sense either. Is there any flaw in this logic?
It is an old argument, found in philosophy 101. While it is given as a tautology, it goes something like this... If God is all good and all powerful, evil cannot exist. So God is either not all good or all powerful, for evil does exist. I don't think it holds water personally. But it sounds logical. I guess god could create a universe without polar opposites, but cannot imagine one without them.
I get that it isn't a new argument, but I also don't think it has ever been answered satisfactorily. Which sort of seems to mean that its an impassible paradox. I get that it's hard to imagine a universe without polar opposites, but neither you nor anyone else ever can really imagine the universe the way it actually is. So, that's just a limitation on the way our brains evolved. If an all powerful god did exist, then it wouldn't matter how hard it would be to imagine. A bipolar universe only exists because that is exactly the way a god designed it. And had to do it for no reason as well.
Honestly, any definition you can think of. There should be no reason for anything other than 100% perfection. But as I said above anything at all evil must necessarily come directly from an all powerful god if one exists. Cancer or genocide for example.
If such things didn't exist or happen how would we die? Or don't you think we should die? Would you like to co-exist with primitive cannibalistic humans?
Stars and galaxies die. Why should you endure while they die? Everything is temporary, even if it lasts for billions of years.
This may sound harsh, but this is why I like science better than religion. Science doesn't quit asking why. With religion you have to. As it turns out, I think nobody really believes in an all powerful god. So, I have to ask, why is everything temporary? Why should Galaxies die? So, for every answer you then have to ask "why?". Inevitably you end up at either there is not all powerful god, or that god made it happen, and didn't have to. By definition, an all powerful god doesn't "have" to do anything. So horrible things exist only because that god willingly made it that way. Again, I am interested to see if there is a hole in my logic, but I can't see it.
I'm not quite sure how that's relevant, but I'll play along. Lets go with the flood, if it happened, it would have been about as pure a genocide as we've had. And not just humans, but animal life as well wiped out, and probably not too painlessly either. And in answer to your second question, God, and actually not even indirectly. I'm sure if I dug deeper, I could find a better example, but that's the first thing that came to mind. I actually don't like the example though, because it is directly perpetrated by God (which should already be a head scratcher). But I'm talking about even the most indirect inane acts of 'evil' (say squashing a mosquito). Has to also have been needlessly perpetrated by god.
So Yahweh is far more evil than the most evil person who has ever lived. I wonder why people want to spend eternity with such an evil entity?
That can't be proved. But, certainly someone has an explanation. Otherwise, why isn't this just the end of all conversations about religion?
Well there are counter arguments against it as one would expect with philosophical questions or statements. Respectable arguments, although it has been far too long for me to recall them. But I remember one class was about this. In regards to the opposites, logically they seem to infer the other. In the act of discerning up, down is created, if not as a reality, then certainly as a concept. It just seems once the mind separates itself from the universe, which self awareness seems to have created, the opposites are also created. Some think that at one time human beings didn't experience consciousness as a separation from other things. There was no perception of this separation. Once something happened in the human brain, this perception of separation arose. The myth of eden could be telling of this separation, the birth of self, as separate from the universe, which was the Fall of man. The Fall was the event where consciousness changed, separating man from god, for the original state of consciousness there was not separation between man and god. But once this event happened, there was born an experiencer, apart from the experience. So god did not create the duality, man created it. And we blame it on god. But an event in human consciousness created duality, polar opposites, the concept of good and evil. Other animals don't seem to have this sense of the opposites, the duality, they seem to be one with their environment in a sense.
Ok, just off the bat, there is no need for opposites. And as a quick sum-up, why make it possible for man to create such evil? There also is the problem that much suffering is not man-made. None of this is necessary, there is no reason to have anything other than pure bliss all the time.
Dunno. And neither do you. Try replacing the word "should" with "does" in your question, as it may make things simpler for you. Flexing intellect is a worthy goal, except when it isn't.