Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> Brent meeker writes:
>
>> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>> Tom,
>>>
>>> The question I am interested in is not whether it would be a *good thing* for a
>>> personal God to exist, but whether it is *the case* that a personal God exists.
>>> There are all sorts of things that people would like to be true, but that does not
>>> make them true.
>>>
>>> Stathis Papaioannou
>> In fact "the problem of evil" is that things people don't like, such as cancer, AIDS, tsunamis,..., exist in spite of the supposed existence of a loving, personal God.
>>
>> If the world is impersonal, then there is no reason to suppose that it is all good or all evil, but a mixture - which is the way it seems to be.
>>
>> Brent Meeker
>
>
> It could be argued that not even God could create a world in which there are no accidents,
> conflicts of interest, disappointments, and so on, at least not without severely limiting
> his creatures' freedom. However, it would have been possible for God to limit the capacity
> for suffering, favouring pleasure rather than avoidance of pain as a motivating factor.
> Philosopher David Pearce in "The Hedonistic Imperative" gives an account of how this might
> be done, arguing that it is our duty to abolish all suffering at its final common pathway in the
> brain. Evolution doesn't care how much we suffer, but a God who did care about us could
> have designed us differently.
>
> Stathis Papaioannou
And He could have created a world without smallpox - something even we poor humans managed eventually.
Brent Meeker
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Received on Sun Dec 10 2006 - 00:14:26 PST