Elijah John wrote: The average person in any society is not completely bad, or completely good. That is observable and just a fact. I used to believe this too, even just a few months ago. Now I’m not convinced of this. My argument is not whether people can do good or bad things. Of course …
Elijah John wrote: This says more perhaps about the Chinese justice system or the ethic of that individual (and individuals who have done similar horrific things) than it does about human nature. Generalizations regarding the depravity of humankind should not be drawn from such extreme examples. The Chinese are not the only ones who are …
What if you had to choose between losing a lot of money and hurting someone or losing a little money and killing someone? In China, people intentionally have killed people after they accidentally hit them in their car because it is cheaper to kill. Exhibit #3 In China the compensation for killing a victim in …
Studies of atrocities show that evil is not committed by the fringe groups of evil people. Rather, evil is perpetrated by ordinary, “good” people. Concerning people who worked in the Nazi concentration camps, Professor Jim Waller (the Cohen Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College), remarked, “Who are these people and how …
We would like to think we are good people, but others, like those who worked in the Nazi concentration camps, could be evil people. But, experiments show that normal, ordinary people can commit such atrocities. Exhibit #2 – Milgram experiment Milgram devised his psychological study to answer the popular contemporary question: “Could it be that …
let me first argue the case that mankind is not inherently good. We all would like to think that we are good. But, just because we think we’re good doesn’t mean we really are good. It’s like going into a calculus class and thinking we know everything. What reveals if you’re good in calculus is …
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I was thinking some more about the PoE. And in a sense, God has provided a way to remove all pain/evil if you look at the big picture. Let me explain. Let P be the amount of time that a person experiences pain/evil on earth. The maximum it could be is 43800 days (120 years …
THH wrote: otseng wrote: THH wrote: If happiness is good, then your omnibenevolent God must answer as to why he does not provide it on a continual basis. I throw the question back at you, why must God provide happiness on a continual basis? What “good” is he otherwise? I do not equate “good” with …
The Happy Humanist wrote: Perhaps what is needed is a new term to replace “omni” with one that implies ultimate power, without the self-contradictory baggage. Perhaps “ultipotent”? I agree that the term carries baggage. How about “superpotent”? If happiness is good, then your omnibenevolent God must answer as to why he does not provide it …
juliod wrote: BTW, has anybody yet offered a working definition of “evil” for the purposes of this debate? I don’t think it is relevant. Like Lotan, I don’t believe in evil. We can leave it to the theists. It is quite relevant on several counts. First off, in all debates, it provides a common starting …