Sorry, but just because someone has an ancient Greek name doesn’t mean they actually framed a correct argument.
How should God prevent evil? By taking away our freedom? Then He would be a tyrant.
By killing us all? Then He would be an indiscriminate murderer.
By flying around and erasing all the consequences of our evil actions as soon as we do them? Then He would be preventing us from ever learning why we shouldn’t commit evil, and preventing us from ever maturing.
But I’m sure Epicurus has a greater imagination than God and could figure out some way that God could do the impossible, just to please Epicurus.
Not a compelling argument because its premise sets rigid cause and effect without leeway for other criteria not taken into account.
Atheists don’t realize just how much God would intervene in our normal lives if He did act the way they say they want him to act. Fact is no one could live very long and remain happy that they were alive, with that amount of interdiction.
they think only the people doing what they comsider wrong would be stopped doing things. not themselves. now consider their bad thoughts they think all the time. no one alive could handle that level of direct scrutiny and correction.
"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless--I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 38-39.
Wow! You thought you really had
something with the old Epicurus
quote. Its old and worn out to
a frazzle.
Alvin Planting put Epicurus
in his modern day “grave”
years ago. Try something else.
Besides that post has zero to do with Atheists
being nowhere near as smart as they claim to be.
By the way, I’ve noticed that forum atheists are very
fond of big pictures to make their “arguments” for them.
`
The author is engaging in a false dilemma, a false either/or dichotomy, ignoring any alternative to his assertions, for they presuppose a definition of good and evil - and in which which an omnipotent omniscient being must be the supreme judge - and being both willing and able to prevent evil does not mean that what is objectively evil cannot be allowed in order to work for good.
The presumption that a omniscient and omnipotent, just and merciful Being was unjust in allowing evil or in sending judgments presumes omniscience and omnipotence on the part of the one who is judging God (not that I am not guilty of that, at least as a emotional yet irrational reaction). For to be evil presumes that such was not justly warranted in the light of what it would accomplish, not simply in this life but for eternity. And only the God of the Bible knows what all the effects of even our next breath will be - not only for this life life but for eternity - and can and will make it all work for the good of those who love God, and thus the Good. (Rm. 8:28)
And an omniscient and omnipotent Being is able to accomplish His plan without forcing man to go against his will, as intolerable as that can be to some whose knowledge is less in this realm than a cave man trying to code a software program in dim light that would run the Pentagon which he never heard about.
Finally, God gives all that is good, and His command for creation to worship Him as the infinite omniscient and omnipotent being who cannot fail, is unselfish, for God does not need anything, (Acts 17:25) and to worship perfection is only right and to the benefit of man, who actually causes God grief. But rather than wipe man out again and again, God spared not His own Son to save us, and who himself loved us and gave Himself for us, that we may live thru Him, thanks and glory be to God!
Seems more correct to say 'IF'.