Thought of the day
In keeping with current events, and as a foil to much of the faux religious fervor sweeping with world right now...
The Riddle of Epicurus
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
posted by Wayne Smallman at Tuesday, April 05, 2005
6 Comments:
"Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent."
I don't think Epicurus was entirely correct - If you're able, but not willing you could be (and many of us are):
- apathetic
- indecisive (maybe because we don't know all the facts, which proves us not omnipotent)
- of the opinion "I don't want to get involved" in which case we're either cowards, or self-protectionists
- holding the view "whatever will be will be" in which case we could be described as fatalists
- or, (and this is the one Christians use) God holds Free Will (sic) above preventing evil, which most people wouldn't, except maybe some extreme libertarians.
Anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it again - Religion and Faith are completely different and separate things. Faith (in anything, including science) can be a force for good in that faith can inspire to goodness and greatness. Religion is simply the exercise of power for personal or corporate gain. The Pope - the chief executive of a large Religious corporation may or may not have had faith, but it didn't seem to interfere with his exercise of power. As a wise man once said "From the looks on the loads of vacant-looking teary-eyed sheep I saw on TV today, I dont think the papacy is going away soon"
There are many, many different theological devices for a god.
A god of miracles, a god of mercy, a god of creation et cetera, ad infinitum.
There's a multitude of them, largely because no one -- or more precisely, no one body of people -- can make their mind up what faculties or state of mind a god might possess.
This to me seems like a truly fruitless endeavor if you choose to accept the point of view that any god would be infinite in intellect and capacity for reason, then surely all our efforts would be like that of new born attempting to pre-empt their mothers wishes.
I'm pretty sure that while theologians work on Plan A, Plan B is the one we get fed; god created the world and all of the other stuff, put everything in motion and now sits there watching the whole thing whizz along.
I like the line from the new film constantine: "God is a kid with an ant farm."
Quite appropriate, really.
I don't subscribe to the idea of deities. Such thinking is much too simplistic and only really encourages lethargy of thought.
I'm not sure what created the universe, but I'm pretty sure of one thing .. we're just not ready to know the truth either way...
Perhaps it is a schizophrenic god :-D.
Hmmmm.....yup, you've got me to thinkin'.
Also wanted to stop by and just say hi. ;o)
"Also wanted to stop by and just say hi."
You can do that!
I don't mind.
Got you thinking the other day about the lost finger .. odd one that...
Hi Uka!
Yes, all very fair points.
There's no denying the importance of religion in our past, as I've probably discussed before.
But now we have a more complete understanding of right & wrong, religion is not really needed anymore.
We have secular law which forms the governance of our everyday lives.
Not only is faith separate to religion, but spirituality, also...
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