The Problem of Evil

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
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Can you tell me that the tsunami was evil? 300,000 people die every day on average. On that day, maybe 400,000 people died. Probably happens by chance once a month.

From a christian point of view, maybe a great proportion of those people had a chance to face their own death and repent rather than say die in their sleep.

The sum of human free will “events” has placed us in a particular quantum time (world) line that doesn’t happen to be the exact one that God intended. It can’t be fixed in a day. Chaos theory suggests that we can’t humanly choose all the right actions for the world to be perfect. It can only be accomplished by aligning our wills to God’s.

Kind of like the 12 step program where you have admit powerlessness. I don’t by into all of that, but there has to be a reason why it’s 300% more effective than any other form of therapy.

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Flesh (matter) has a world line bound inextricably to time. Being matter, we must experience time in sequence and at a limited pace. Light/pure energy has a world line that is not bound to time. This is general relativity. Light has no mathematical frame of reference. The world line of a beam of light is present at all times. It does not experience the passage of time. Your atoms WILL eventually become something eternal/timeless. The only question is, can consciousness reside in unbound energy, or not.

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“What idle prattle spoken by mindless fools who purport to know the will of the Almighty. You no more comprehend the will of God than an insect comprehends it’s own existance. You who are mere dust on the scales of the universe.”

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[quote]ConanSpeaks wrote:
“What idle prattle spoken by mindless fools who purport to know the will of the Almighty. You no more comprehend the will of God than an insect comprehends it’s own existance. You who are mere dust on the scales of the universe.”[/quote]

That’s about what I said.

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[quote]mertdawg wrote:
Sorry, I made a mistake. Witness is the poor english translation of Martyra which means to die for. Confess in the poor english substitute to homologeo which means to act in accordance with. In the early church the word martyr was use to describe someone who died for Christ, while a confessor was use do described someone who suffered greatly for Christ. For example, John the evangalist was sometimes referred to as a confessor because he suffered greatly but did not die for his belief, although sometimes called martyr because he did receive in fact capital punishment but lived.[/quote]

I hate to nitpick, mertdawg, but the Greek verb ‘marturein’ means ‘to witness.’

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/morphindex?lookup=marturew&searchText=&searchText=&lang=greek&formentry=1

The verb homolegein means ‘to agree,’ or, still more literally, ‘to say the same thing.’

I’m afraid that I don’t see what quantum mechanics and chaos theory have to do with the conversation. Neither is it clear to me that ANY religious thinker has ever claimed that all actions that happen to a person happen to him in accordance with his free will.

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[quote]Ross Hunt wrote:
I hate to nitpick, mertdawg, but the Greek verb ‘marturein’ means ‘to witness.’

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/morphindex?lookup=marturew&searchText=&searchText=&lang=greek&formentry=1

The verb homolegein means ‘to agree,’ or, still more literally, ‘to say the same thing.’

I’m afraid that I don’t see what quantum mechanics and chaos theory have to do with the conversation. Neither is it clear to me that ANY religious thinker has ever claimed that all actions that happen to a person happen to him in accordance with his free will.[/quote]

I meant simply to posit that the words witness to and confess something had much richer meanings in the original Greek and the context of the early church. The Greek work homolegien meant something much closer to “to stand up for” or “put yourself on the line to corroborate” than just speaking the words. Again, the early church’s use of the word “confessor” to describe someone who suffered greatly for a belief is well founded.

Quantum mechanics explains how evil can be a mathematical possibility but not a necessary state in the universe. Human free will, not God’s action has made that mathematical possibility reality.

Chaos theory simply suggests that we can not know the long term pragmatic outcomes of our actions. Human “sin” in fact could have made the difference between a Tsunami or no Tsunami. Hard to believe but physically true based on the concept of sensitive dependance on initial conditions (Butterfly Effect) from Chaos theory. “Sin” can cause bad things to happen and trying to choose actions by reason alone is not good enough. We CAN’T measure aspects of the universe accurately enough to know the medium range pragmatic outcomes of our actions. We have to have a guide outside of ourselves and be open to that guide moment by moment.

I don’t think I said that everything that happens to someone is in accordance with their free will did I?

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Also, Paul was writing to the church in Rome where to confess belief in Jesus meant a likely horrible death. He was giving THEM a pep talk.

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“Chaos theory simply suggests that we can not know the long term pragmatic outcomes of our actions. Human “sin” in fact could have made the difference between a Tsunami or no Tsunami. Hard to believe but physically true based on the concept of sensitive dependance on initial conditions (Butterfly Effect) from Chaos theory.”

I hate to disagree with you… wait no I don’t. The tsunami would have happened weather man existed or not. Natural occurances such as this have occured long before and will occur long after man is here. Pick up a geology book sometime. People died because #1 they weren’t prepared. #2 shit happens.

Prof X I never said that anyone could do anything and have it be right, I just don’t call it sin. It would be culturally unnacceptable for you to do such things as steal and “bang” my wife though the second one might not be for too long. Actually if I did have a wife and she wanted to sleep with you… then obviously she is a free person “free will” and can do whatever the hell she want’s. Will I like it? probably not, i’d sure as hell find a new wife. Would I think you were wrong… not really. And if you did steal my stuff, wel lthen I guess you really needed it more than I did so I’ll just work harder to get more “stuff”. Personally I don’t place much value on materialistic things. The one thing you can never steal from me is my pride, honor, decency and love of all. So really when it boils down to it, no one can take anything of value from me because I don’t value things that don’t matter.

off topic, I wonder how many individual posts we have had in the past year about religion, we could compile them and write a fucking 800 page book.

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[quote]Professor X wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Prof X I have to disagree… I have never sinned. I don’t believe in it so therefore how can I do something I don’t believe in.

You don’t believe in sin? This thread is over. Once people throw out words just so they can have something to type, there is no point in going further. Not believing in doing wrong is a new one on me. That means everyone in jail needs to be released immediately and you won’t mind if I drop by later on and steal everything in your house. Don’t worry about threats of carrying a weapon for defense because I am sure my gun is bigger. See you soon and see if your wife won’t mind me sleeping with her. Since there is no sin, you logically shouldn’t mind. Hell, forget it, with no sin, who needs to ask?![/quote]

I think he meant “sin” as something that can be an affront to God, as y’all like to put it sometimes. Veg strikes me as the kind of guy who thinks that God is neutral about what you do, and that it’s your choice to live your life the way you want.

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[quote]Vegita wrote:
off topic, I wonder how many individual posts we have had in the past year about religion, we could compile them and write a fucking 800 page book. [/quote]

Why do you think I keep starting shit in threads like this, buddy? I’m gonna make a mint! BTW thanks for all your responses, keep 'em coming everybody! :slight_smile:

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Okay guys, I’m trying to keep score here. So far I’m seeing that most of y’all agree with this concept:

sin = evil

However a few folks attribute things that aren’t based on sin “evil”, e.g. tsunami deaths, etc.

We have most guys saying that good and evil (morality for short) are defined by God or exist due to God, while very few are like me and say that they are self-defined. And this is what puzzles me, so I will ask:

If good and evil are absolute values independent of our choice, then why are standards of good and evil possessed of “gray areas” where opinions will differ from person to person? Is this just a consequence of our innate imperfection, or is there something more to it?

One more: Is there any act of evil (sin) which is free of the “gray area” problem? What I mean is that is there something which no matter what kind of outlandish circumstances you might find yourself in, there is no justification for doing, i.e., is absolutely “evil”?

For example, cold-blooded murder is a pretty awful thing to perform, right? What if that act of cold-blooded murder was assassination of Hitler? In theory, by doing this, the killer would be slowing or stopping the holocaust and deaths due to war, etc. In other words, it’s a kind of justification for doing that sin, right? You’d think that when the assassin pulled that trigger that God would kinda look away for a second, ya know? Is there any act which can’t be justified in some even remote way?

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[quote]lothario1132 wrote:

If good and evil are absolute values independent of our choice, then why are standards of good and evil possessed of “gray areas” where opinions will differ from person to person? Is this just a consequence of our innate imperfection, or is there something more to it?

One more: Is there any act of evil (sin) which is free of the “gray area” problem? What I mean is that is there something which no matter what kind of outlandish circumstances you might find yourself in, there is no justification for doing, i.e., is absolutely “evil”?

For example, cold-blooded murder is a pretty awful thing to perform, right? What if that act of cold-blooded murder was assassination of Hitler? In theory, by doing this, the killer would be slowing or stopping the holocaust and deaths due to war, etc. In other words, it’s a kind of justification for doing that sin, right? You’d think that when the assassin pulled that trigger that God would kinda look away for a second, ya know? Is there any act which can’t be justified in some even remote way?[/quote]

Just want to make it clear I don’t consider Tsunami deaths to be evil, (I think I was clear about that) but they are the result of human sins.

Also, Tsunami’s have been happening for a long time. The one last week might not have physically happened if humans had acted differently over the last 5000 (or even 1) year. This is a physical scientific fact. Tsunamis occurances can be modeled by sets of chaotic equations. The striking factor of these is that if you change the values of the starting variables by an immeasurably small amount, you get a different outcome. I can’t tell you how much the initial conditions would have to have been different and how long ago to not have a Tsunami on that date, but it is certainly within the effects of human action. This is not science fiction and I’m not exagerating.

OK Lothario. The reason that almost all moral choices fall into the Gray area. There is a single perfect quantum state for the universe. We can call this the universe before the fall. Because of the sum total of sin, (actions, choices, quantum forks in the road) the universe we live in is many steps off of that ideal. We can’t tell by intellect (exactly) which actions will move the universe back to the right path. Again, killing Hitler would have prevented the birth of everyone on earth born perhaps more than 9-10 months afterword. Its the butterfly effect and Sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Your biological conception was the
result of 1 of millions of sperm by (at least one) man swimming upstream, and one of those sperm beating another one by a millisecond to the party. Change the temperature by a couple of degrees, the “position,” the time by a fraction of a second… …shake things up a little bit… and a different sperm wins the race and your only a quantum mathematical possibility. Yes, we are incapable of distinguishing the finer details of right and wrong. We can only know some general rules. Thats why, for someone to take the next moral step, they have to be open to the will of something that has a perfect will.

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Re: homolegein, etcetera; perhaps you’re right about the connotations those words acquired in the Church; I’m only familiar with their literal, classical definitions.

As to quantum mechanics and chaos theory:

My understanding of the indeterminacy principles that lead to quantum mechanics is that the physical action of the particles human beings use prevents us from observing the particles without interfering with them.

It is not that we cause a certain quantum phenomenon to come into existence by observing it; rather, we can only observe quantum phenomena by interfering with them.

Quantum mechanics, in other words, does not necessarily propose that human will lends determinacy to the world; it just proposes that human beings’ means of measuring things are too clumsy to observe some things without messing them up.

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[quote]mertdawg wrote:
Sorry, I made a mistake. Witness is the poor english translation of Martyra which means to die for. Confess in the poor english substitute to homologeo which means to act in accordance with. In the early church the word martyr was use to describe someone who died for Christ, while a confessor was use do described someone who suffered greatly for Christ. For example, John the evangalist was sometimes referred to as a confessor because he suffered greatly but did not die for his belief, although sometimes called martyr because he did receive in fact capital punishment but lived.[/quote]

I guess you are trying to say that the criteria is more than just saying a few words?

I would object on the numerous versus that make it clear that it is faith, and not works

Ephesians 2:8-9 would be an example.

I would also say that the major theme for salvation has always been faith. In accord with that every version of the translated Bible conveys the same message. Luther also did not use a translated version to come up with his doctrine. SO it is a very sound concept in the Church.

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[quote]mertdawg wrote:
Ross Hunt wrote:
I hate to nitpick, mertdawg, but the Greek verb ‘marturein’ means ‘to witness.’

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/morphindex?lookup=marturew&searchText=&searchText=&lang=greek&formentry=1

The verb homolegein means ‘to agree,’ or, still more literally, ‘to say the same thing.’

I’m afraid that I don’t see what quantum mechanics and chaos theory have to do with the conversation. Neither is it clear to me that ANY religious thinker has ever claimed that all actions that happen to a person happen to him in accordance with his free will.

I meant simply to posit that the words witness to and confess something had much richer meanings in the original Greek and the context of the early church. The Greek work homolegien meant something much closer to “to stand up for” or “put yourself on the line to corroborate” than just speaking the words. Again, the early church’s use of the word “confessor” to describe someone who suffered greatly for a belief is well founded.

Quantum mechanics explains how evil can be a mathematical possibility but not a necessary state in the universe. Human free will, not God’s action has made that mathematical possibility reality.

Chaos theory simply suggests that we can not know the long term pragmatic outcomes of our actions. Human “sin” in fact could have made the difference between a Tsunami or no Tsunami. Hard to believe but physically true based on the concept of sensitive dependance on initial conditions (Butterfly Effect) from Chaos theory. “Sin” can cause bad things to happen and trying to choose actions by reason alone is not good enough. We CAN’T measure aspects of the universe accurately enough to know the medium range pragmatic outcomes of our actions. We have to have a guide outside of ourselves and be open to that guide moment by moment.

I don’t think I said that everything that happens to someone is in accordance with their free will did I?
[/quote]

So what happened when the early church became a state religion and suffering for God was not as common?

The most english translations are not word for word, but idea for idea translations. The only one I know that is word for word is American Standard.

So if the meaning is to agree than Rom 8:9-10 would be in accorandce with that.

Once again though not all people would have been able to suffer for God at all times. It still would not negate the fact that there are plenty of other versus which state that faith is it, and not works. Works would be nothing more than a result of ones confession of faith.

216

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
Also, Paul was writing to the church in Rome where to confess belief in Jesus meant a likely horrible death. He was giving THEM a pep talk.[/quote]

At the time He wrote it there would not have been a great persecution of the Church in Rome. The persecution did not start until the about the time of Paul’s death. Remember Paul was under house arrest, not put in prison when he wrote Romans.
Acts 28:17-30

He did not write Romans under distress like when he wrote 2 Tim.

He also wrote it most likely before he had even gone to Jerusalem, which would later send Him to Rome, and later to a persecution.

Romans 15:25
But now I am going to Jerusalem to minister to the saints

So Confessing Jesus did not at that time equal Death.

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Haney,

I shouldn’t have gone down this road. Really what I believe is that if you say something with your mouth and do not act in accordance with it you are a liar. If you truly believe in your heart, you have given up your own willfullness and you become the instrument of God. Do you know many people who have believed these things in their heart to the point where they have no will of their own anymore.

The early church also had a working theological model that all Christians bore a kind of martyrdom-either of death when put “to the test” of monasticism and of married christian life. These were not products of the imperial church, but started to develop in the Macabean era in Judaism.

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[quote]mertdawg wrote:
Haney,

I shouldn’t have gone down this road. Really what I believe is that if you say something with your mouth and do not act in accordance with it you are a liar. If you truly believe in your heart, you have given up your own willfullness and you become the instrument of God. Do you know many people who have believed these things in their heart to the point where they have no will of their own anymore.
[/quote]

I agree with you. I just think it is kind of out of place to talk about the true theology in this thread. I thought we might agree on this, but as I stated to someone else. I would mostly disagree on the wording. I just don’t see the need to explain deep theology yet. You teach a baby to crawl before you teach it to walk. It is also well noted that the early church had problems giving certain things up (that would be noted in many of Paul’s epistles).

[quote]
The early church also had a working theological model that all Christians bore a kind of martyrdom-either of death when put “to the test” of monasticism and of married christian life. These were not products of the imperial church, but started to develop in the Macabean era in Judaism.[/quote]

I would say that the theolgy may have been in place, but there are many instances where it was not fully followed. So while I agree that it should no be such a simplistic look at things, it is many times required. Look at Hebrews 5:12-14.

As stated though I don’t think we have any contention between our current theology, just in the wording.

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My understanding of the indeterminacy principles that lead to quantum mechanics is that the physical action of the particles human beings use prevents us from observing the particles without interfering with them.

It is not that we cause a certain quantum phenomenon to come into existence by observing it; rather, we can only observe quantum phenomena by interfering with them.
[/quote]

There are actually two basic schools of quantum physics each holding to one of the two scenarios you described.

Newton thought that if you could know the “state” of every particle in the world with 100% accuracy, you would be able to predict the future, AND that a universe infinite in time would necessarily repeat itself exactly because at some point in the infinite future all particles would again be in the same state as today.

Quantum actually shows that their are myriad mathematically valid states for the universe to be in in the next second from now. They are equal in the laws of physics. This is why HUMAN free will is real. An object perfectly balanced on the point of a tetrahedral pyramid can not stay balanced, it will fall to a lower energy state, but no law can tell which side it will fall on. Either you accept chaos’ explanation that there are Imperceptable variable which determine the side it falls on, or you accept the Quantum explanation that it falls on all 3 sides in three different mathematical descriptions of the universe. I think that quantum is correct, but chaos is practically correct (the universe is not infinite in detail, but has enough detail to make prediction impossible, or another way "The only computer capable of predicting the future is the Universe itself).

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mertdawg: out of interest, do you have any knowledge of physics at all? You appear to have taken a couple of topics about which you know very little and completely misrepresented them. Quantum Mechanics says nothing about choice. It merely replaces mechanical determinism with probabilistic determinism. Chaos theory is about senstitive dependence on initial conditions. I’m not sure what you’re on about.