God is evil if He has miracles and does not use them.

Doesn't matter. If he can but won't then it's all on him regardless of his reasons or what anyone thinks he should do. If he can't then he's not only innocent he is not really a god as most would conceive. Buy beer, man. That should be obvious.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

So, it's not that he can but won't, but that he can't. So, your're saying the "best" thing for the rapist is to rape? Really? How bout he find something "better" for the rapist to do like take up knitting? He can't? He can but he won't? That's simple, too. Make the bacteria not make the person sick. Is it "best" for the bacteria to make the person sick? Why? Because that's the way he made it and he can't or won't stop it? He didn't make it that way but still can't or won't?Ditto the zebra/lion.If he made things this way it doesn't matter if he can affect all the outcomes at once or not. It's on him. He's guilty. If he did not make things this way, then who are we talking about? Certainly a lesser conception than a god.

I agree. No god. I'm with you.

The topic is not about me or you or any other person making such decisions. It is about some god, if he exists, either unable or unwilling to stop the evil in this world. Is god evil or immoral for allowing such to happen if he has the power to stop it?Stile said he would not fault god if he were so limited he does not know everything, does not see everything and is not all-powerful so he could not intervene to stop evil. You came up with a scenario where you tried to make god all powerful but argued that though he could intervene that doesn't necessarily mean that He should.My point was that this doesn't matter. Should/shouldn't are irrelevant along with anyone's opinion on should/shouldn't. If he is able to stop evil and, regardless of reason, he does not then the evil is on him. If he is restricted and can not stop the evil then Styles would cut the guy some slack.Quite simple, actually.Then you got into this "what is best" stuff and I cannot be the judge. I don't care to judge "best" or chose among your rather strange alternatives.One question is defining "evil". Whether we have any agreement on what is/isn't or not is also irrelevant.In any scenario I may see as evil then for me the topic arises: Is god able but unwilling or is he limited and unable? In any scenario someone else may see as evil then for them the topic arises: Is god able but unwilling or is he limited and unable?We, of course, will never know the answer in this life but if god was able to stop said evil and did not do so then, IMHO, we would be justified in considering the creep an evil immoral SOB. End of topic.But...To continue the game: Something else, just like their cousins that don't eat, debilitate and kill humans. Well god would need to remake the lion with the appropriate set of teeth, but, sure. And, yes, the grass won't mind at all.Edited by AZPaul3, : tense

By the same justification with which we judge all those who knowingly perpetrate or callously allow pain and suffering.

In that case the answer is he can't. Styles gets to cut the wholie spook some slack. Addressed in my post. I've never heard They say that. If he did then he's an idiot. I had nothing to do with making the various types of grass so delicious. Talk to the groundskeeper.

You and I certainly can't, but are you so sure about an omnipotent being?Who are we to say such a being cannot accomplish two contradictory, mutually-exclusive, simultaneous tasks? Do you know of any hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings, other than Benjy and Frankie, who cannot do such things? When one can surf on multiple inter-dimensional rifts through the various multiverses and beyond in an instant of time does such a concept as "simultaneous" even exist?Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

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All confess that God is omnipotent; but it seems difficult to explain in what His omnipotence precisely consists: for there may be doubt as to the precise meaning of the word 'all' when we say that God can do all things. If, however, we consider the matter aright, since power is said in reference to possible things, this phrase, 'God can do all things,' is rightly understood to mean that God can do all things that are possible; and for this reason He is said to be omnipotent.

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It is sometimes objected that this aspect of omnipotence involves the contradiction that God cannot do all that He can do; but the argument is sophistical; it is no contradiction to assert that God can realize whatever is possible, but that no number of actualized possibilities exhausts His power. Omnipotence is perfect power, free from all mere potentiality. Hence, although God does not bring into external being all that He is able to accomplish, His power must not be understood as passing through successive stages before its effect is accomplished. The activity of God is simple and eternal, without evolution or change. The transition from possibility to actuality or from act to potentiality, occurs only in creatures. When it is said that God can or could do a thing, the terms are not to be understood in the sense in which they are applied to created causes, but as conveying the idea of a Being possessed of infinite unchangeable power, the range of Whose activity is limited only by His sovereign Will.

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- St. Thomas Aquinas, OP, The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, Second and Revised Edition, 1920, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province Not at all.

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The transition from possibility to actuality or from act to potentiality, occurs only in creatures. When it is said that God can or could do a thing, the terms are not to be understood in the sense in which they are applied to created causes, but as conveying the idea of a Being possessed of infinite unchangeable power, the range of Whose activity is limited only by His sovereign Will.

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Unless he wants to.

There is no human viewpoint vis-a-vis the (supposed) powers of truly omnipotent gods. Just ask the believers.Aquinas probably truly believed his own views even though we both know he was blowing it out his ass as all priests must but he is one of the foremost theologians in humanity and, not being an expert on this crap, I will defer to Aquinas' opinion on what omnipotence means for his god rather than your more limited view. Since omnipotence is a myth and free will an illusion I will agree with you the two do not play well together.

No desperation. His book shows his evil easily enough without our hypotheticals.But, hey, thank you. Now maybe we can agree on something from reality.

Of course I am. That's what we humans do, we judge by the evolved standards of our culture in our time.Throwing rocks at the women (but not the men) who screw around is evil. Throwing rocks at men because they are queer is evil. Throwing rocks at kids for being disobedient is evil. Slaughtering entire peoples, the men, the kids, the babies, the cows, the goats, the old women (but keeping the nice young girls for sex slaves) just for these people's lands, is evil. The list of evils in the book goes on.You may want to see all the blood, murder, pain and anguish at the hands of, or by the order of, this Holy Psychopath as "good", but that's on your head, not mine.Fortunately, the Sacred Sociopath is myth. Unfortunately, too many seek to follow in his mythical bloody, evil shoes. Edited by AZPaul3, : posessive's

No, ringo. The topic (truncated) is "Is God Evil".Everyone has an opinion based on their upbringing and acculturation tempered with the morality of their society in time. You do the same thing with your posts in this thread.As for the ice cream, if the kind of ice cream this god of yours likes is Haagen-Dazs Chocolate then maybe he's not totally evil. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if he was the one responsible for Turkey Hill and Edy's. That's evil.

Inca, 13th to 16th century.Uganda, 21st century.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

The only "society" that matters in such a discussion is Ugandan society. Other societies do not control Ugandan society. And as I recall you were not talking about the Ugandan genocides but child sacrifice. In Uganda ritual child sacrifice is quite acceptable. Yes, I know that officially the Ugandan government opposes the child killings but, as I understand, a lot of the upper politicos engage in the practice themselves. They sacrificed their kids to the mountain gods. IIRC, it was considered an honor to have the priests select your child as the sacrifice. From Wiki:

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The Inca culture sacrificed children in a ritual called capacocha. Their frozen corpses have been discovered in the South American mountaintops. The first of these corpses, a female child who had died from a blow to the skull, was discovered in 1995 by Johan Reinhard.[2] Other methods of sacrifice included strangulation and simply leaving the children, who had been given an intoxicating drink, to lose consciousness in the extreme cold and low-oxygen conditions of the mountaintop, and to die of exposure.

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Something like that. 'Cept they left the kid on the cliff and went home to supper.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.