The Riddle of Epicurus

UU

Hi all!

I was watching a documentary on disbelief by Jonathan Miller called 'A Rough History of Disbelief'. In it, he was talking about Epicurus, a famous Greek philosopher. Epicurus, although never calling himself atheist per se, posed a riddle to theists out there. Here it is:


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?



It's also available in video too! Link

If you analyse it carefully, it really does refute the notion of a god(s) to the rational mind. Of course, theists will make up roundabout and irrational excuses.

Cheers!

rockbeer

I like it...

It kind of reminds me of the Karen Owens rhyme that Dawkins quotes in the God Delusion pointing out the paradox of god being both omnipotent and omniscient:

Can omniscient God, who
Knows the future, find
The omnipotence to
Change his future mind?

robindch

Last time I produced Epicurus' riddle, I seem to remember being told that I wasn't being open enough or something. Am still waiting for a non-playground reply

Tim Robbins

UU wrote:

Hi all!

I was watching a documentary on disbelief by Jonathan Miller called 'A Rough History of Disbelief'. In it, he was talking about Epicurus, a famous Greek philosopher. Epicurus, although never calling himself atheist per se, posed a riddle to theists out there. Here it is:


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?



It's also available in video too! Link

If you analyse it carefully, it really does refute the notion of a god(s) to the rational mind. Of course, theists will make up roundabout and irrational excuses.

Cheers!

Another way of putting it is:

Premise: Kids get Cancer
Conclusion: There is no all caring, all loving, all knowing deity.

One way of refuting it is that God knows better than us, and he knows it is better in the long run if the kid gets cancer know, in which case he is still all loving all knowing and all caring, and that we as humans are incapable of understanding how it can be better in the long run.

But if one is to argue God knows better in the long wrong, the corollary is:
that person's faith knows better than logic.

All explained very well by Julian Baggini in this book: The Pig that wants to be eaten.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pig-That-Wants-Eaten-Ninety-nine/dp/1862078556/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/203-8369844-1859954?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183996151&sr=8-1

Zombrex

Tim Robbins wrote:

But if one is to argue God knows better in the long wrong, the corollary is:
that person's faith knows better than logic.

Yeah when you say that you often get that reply, that God is super intelligent and has to look after everything so he knows what he is doing.

Of course most theists who say this cannot see the paradox (genuinely I think, rather than recognising it and ignoring it)

If God has to do something a certain way to ultimately produce the best outcome down the road, then he is neither omniscient or omnipotent, since he is basically forced to find the best solution to a messy problem. It ignores the fact that God can have anything exactly as he wants it.

Another excuse is "free will", God has to allow these things to happen so we can have free will. But I don't think free will has much to do with Earthquakes or cancer. Nor does God give us the free will to walk through walls or the free will to fly (or the free will to cure our own cancer)

And then there is the Fall argument, that disease is a product of the choice Adam made. But that is easy to deal with, because God either decided that because of Adam he will unleash disease and misery on the entire future human raise (bit of a nasty thing to do) or he was forced to alter nature to allow disease because of Adam's actions, which means Adam had power over the outcome of God, which isn't possible.

As with Robin this is often met with the "deer in the head lights" look followed by simply repeating "God is a super intelligent and has to look after everything, so he knows what he is doing, don't question"

Theists are funny

Tim Robbins

Wicknight wrote:

Another excuse is "free will", God has to allow these things to happen so we can have free will. But I don't think free will has much to do with Earthquakes or cancer. Nor does God give us the free will to walk through walls or the free will to fly (or the free will to cure our own cancer)

Free will is a really annoying rebutal. As if a kid has a choice to get cancer or a genetic disease.
I was you tubing the king of evangelical propaganda Lee Strobel there at the weekend and his rebuttal was:
"Ok so we have one difficult question to answer, Atheists you have..." then his face got really pumped up..." 20 TOUGH QUESTIONS to answer". Followed by: if you want to know what they are, go out and buy my new book. Then he went on to answering the one tough question for Christians and he just said but we have been given free will and sure Jesus suffered on the cross. Go figure...

18AD

UU wrote:

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?

Does this not assume God only commits acts of goodness?

If so, I think it solidly refutes the notion of a benevolent omniscient God.

God's an a$$hole when he wants to be.