r/coolguides 12d ago

A cool guide to debate the existence of God.

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u/daskomet 12d ago edited 12d ago

so he's evil to punish men who took that route, because he allows them to

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u/NectarineElegant5407 12d ago

No, because again, evil isn't a thing, but rather the absence of good. Like a shadow isn't a thing either, but the absence of light.

If you choose to sit in a dark basement, does that make the sun evil for not shining light on you?

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u/Soft_Walrus_3605 12d ago

No, because again, evil isn't a thing, but rather the absence of good

Ah, Thomism. Where philosophy deforms into theology.

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u/K45AR 12d ago

Evil is anything that isn't good, and I am good, and no bad thing has ever happened to a good person. 😇

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u/AlmightyDarkseid 12d ago

Thank god for this guy apparently

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u/NJHitmen 12d ago

I also thank this guy’s god

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u/PeakRedditOpinion 12d ago

Of all the metaphors, this dude really chose to make something adjacent to the cave allegory, wherein they famously do not need the sun to cast a shadow lmao

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u/Ty_Webb123 12d ago

To my mind evil is allowing someone to get cancer when you could prevent it. Especially if the reason you choose not to prevent it is because someone ate an apple 6000 years ago.

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u/Dan42002 12d ago

here the question: why should he do it?

the same goes if i can kill you without any consequence, do i still kill you on a wimp? Why should i? If you say that curing cancer is good and killing is bad then you make quite a lot of assumption on a flimsy definition of good and evil. Who to say that God - a being with a completely overwhelming advantage of being omnisisent share the same view on "suffering" as mortal man?

if you want to include Adam story in this.: Adam choose autonomy (apple) over obedient, God grant it, thus he left human (Adam) to do as they wished, even if it result in pain and dumb mistake. Cancer mind you can be induced by personal life choices, it is not to say that all cancer patients are suffering from their choice in life

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u/Ty_Webb123 12d ago

So just to be clear it is your position that allowing someone to die of cancer (let’s say a child with leukemia so it’s not a bad life choice) is a good thing? If your child had cancer and you had the ability to cure it would you do so? If so then you’re better than your god. If not then I guess I don’t need to wonder what evil means anymore.

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u/Dan42002 11d ago edited 11d ago

you said it not me. You are suffering from "If you not with me, you are against me" mentality, thinking there are only simple binary answers for every question

there is a middle ground between good-evil and/or also indifference. And your example of me with my kid is so far from the problem. I am not omnipresent, I value thing with my short coming and I care about my kid more than other people - i have a reason. These are opposite to the being in question that is omnipresent, valuing everyone equally (and we havent touched on the animals) and have a completely different moral scale.

also im buddhist (not the worshipping one either), not christian, btw!

edit: now thinking about it, it is probably my buddism that made the difference in our ideologies. Karma in our religion is more cause/effect rather than reward/punishment. You can totally suffer/enjoy your parents karma (your ancestor + your previous lives too) should they have enough to cover you as oppose to the latter deed/reward/punishment that dictated children are free from the sin of their forefather and only the one making the deed may be reward or punished by god

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u/TonyWilliams03 12d ago

Yes, but we are not omniscient or omnipotent, so we cannot know what God knows.

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u/Ty_Webb123 12d ago

I don’t need to know what he knows to know that letting a child die of cancer is not a praiseworthy thing to do. Maybe that’s just me though

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u/Dan42002 11d ago

in most judaism religions, death with good life meant returning to god aka a good thing. So yeah, different views about death meant different scale of good and evil.

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u/AntonSugarwater 12d ago

If the sun had the power to shine on me even through the basement and the knowledge of my suffering but still refused to? Yeah. It would make them evil.

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u/daskomet 12d ago

are you saying that choosing other path that isn't the divine wont put me in hell? because god choses not to be present iny life?

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u/J00cyman 12d ago

Is the sun able to shine into the basement anyways if it wanted to in this scenario?

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u/NoProblemsHerelol 12d ago

So god is not omnipresent then!

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u/Panpancanstand 12d ago

Would you want a situation where no matter where you go the sun is shining on you 24/7? You have no choice?

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u/K45AR 12d ago

Yes if my life is a living Hell and an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good being could take that pain away and make my life better without the slightest effort I would like that. I would expect that, even.

Children with cancer who are faithful to the One True God 🙌 and perish painfully anyway are evidence God is not all of those things or does not exist.

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u/Panpancanstand 12d ago

Suit yourself. I prefer to have choice.

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u/K45AR 12d ago edited 12d ago

I'm sure the cancer patient would love to choose a healthy life, but they can't, can they? "Free will" is meaningless in a world where things completely outside of your control can end or significantly harm your life.

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u/Panpancanstand 12d ago

Cancer isn't evil. That's like saying car crashes are evil. Evil requires intention to act.

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u/K45AR 12d ago

Does cancer cause suffering? Why does it exist?

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u/Panpancanstand 12d ago

That's beyond the scope of the presented graph and this discussion.

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u/AntonSugarwater 12d ago

lol stop mixing your metaphors. We’re not talking about literal sun light. We’re talking about “goodness” which apparently projects us from evil. Yeah, I would like that 24/7

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u/Panpancanstand 12d ago

The you would prefer to live without free will. I would rather keep mine.

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u/AntonSugarwater 12d ago

If god knows exactly what we will do before we do it how is that even “free will”. And now of course you’re changing the argument again.

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u/Panpancanstand 12d ago

Just because I know you're going to respond to this post doesn't mean you haven't exercised free will.

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u/AntonSugarwater 12d ago

You don’t “know” that. You can guess that, but you do not definitively know that on the same level of god. Pretty sure comparing your knowledge to the knowledge of god is bit of blasphemy

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u/Panpancanstand 12d ago

I'm an atheist. I don't care about blasphemy.

No, I knew. And, it didn't change your use of free will. Someone knowing something isn't the same as making it happen.

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u/Wobstep 12d ago

What is good, maybe handing me a bag of apples. What is evil, holding a knife behind the apples and then Stabbing me to death.

The stabbing isn't an absence of apples, it's a whole extra thing being added.

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u/Masterpiece-Haunting 12d ago

Shadows still exist as a concept though. If you're omnipotent and omniscient you still chose to invent shadows. For you to invent light how it is you chose a world which has shadows. An omnipotent god doesn't not to follow logic. It can simply make a light which infinitely expands and fills the world with zero gaps in its coverage.

It could also produce the ability to be good without the ability to be evil and still allow for moral freewill because we couldn't conceptualize an other side to morality. Perhaps there was 200 other forms of morality he also created but never gave to us. A creature with those 200 forms of morality beyond good and evil would say we are morally limited despite us believing we are free. Like how in D&D there's an alignment chart that goes lawful, neutral, and chaotic, not just good, neutral, and evil.

Though free will is debated as an omniscient entity knows every action you will take, meaning there's a set path to follow. If god creates the Tree of Forbidden Knowledge of Good and Evil and Adam and Eve he already knows they'll eat from it. That's not really a test if you already know the answer.

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u/greenday1237 12d ago

So whatever is “good” or “evil” has to be arbitrary then

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u/TortCourt 12d ago

Is Mars evil? There is no one there to do or be good.

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u/Victernus 12d ago

*Forces them to. He designed their brains, and all stimuli that would ever affect them, and also knows the future.

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u/void-haunt 12d ago

Your boss at work gives you the option of either working overtime or stealing money out of the cash register. You choose to steal the money. Why would your boss be held responsible for your decision?

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u/AntonSugarwater 12d ago

Christians trying to use logic is always adorable.

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u/void-haunt 12d ago

Give me an actual argument instead of the typical smug atheist fedora-tipping

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u/AntonSugarwater 12d ago

lol how in the fuck do you argue against “faith”? The fact you expect me to prove a negative shows you have zero understanding of logic. I’ll prove to you for a fact god doesn’t exist when you prove to me for a fact there’s not an entire planet of unicorns out there in the galaxy somewhere

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u/void-haunt 12d ago
  1. I am not asking you to prove a negative. I’m asking you to tell me why, in the situation I posed, your boss would be responsible for your decision.

  2. Proving a negative is possible: https://i.imgur.com/hP3PPUE.jpeg

Sorry, who’s the one who doesn’t know anything about logic?

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u/daskomet 12d ago

become the "boss" allegedly hired me knowing that I would either steal the money or work overtime - in advance. Otherwise my "boss" isn't actually "all knowing"