God created evil

[John Dibble]

'Good' and 'Evil' are inherent in humans as highly sentient primates. No deity has 'endowed' us with them; they are innate.

Why has no other species come within any range of where we are at in terms of culture, civilization, language and on and on?

Because no other species aside from some of our evolutionary precursors evolved brains with capacity for such things. The answer would pretty much be the same if you asked that question about another species that had some trait that was either entirely unique or significantly greater than that of any other species. Just because only one species has a trait or a trait at a particular level it doesn't mean that evolution does not explain it.

Also, I'll note that none of the traits you list are unique to humans. Culture can be found in many animals, such as Killer Whales. Civilization is pretty similar to how superorganisms work. Just look at ants - they can develop massive colonies which can have millions of individuals which work in far greater harmony than members of our own civilization do. Let's also not forget that they live pretty much everywhere on the planet. As far as language, it does exist in animal societies for quite a few species, though admittedly their vocabularies aren't as great as ours.

[John Dibble]

When an ant builds the Sistine Chapel let me know.

I find it rather sad that you have no appreciation for the fact that these creatures were building the size equivalent of cities with full climate control millions of years before our ancestors were even huddling around a fire in a cave in a desperate struggle not to freeze to death.

[John Dibble]

By definition, it is clear because by definition all is from God. This includes evil.

You're assuming that this God thing exists, and you're assuming that there could only be one source for things to come from, so until you can prove both of those things you can't say that with certainty.

[John Dibble]

Ok and if there are more sources, eventually those sources had to come from something and so forth.

No, not necessarily. Many believe in a deity who has no source - it's an existence that just has always existed and is the source of things. If you admit that one such being exists, then it's perfectly reasonable to say that other such beings could exist. There is no reason it has to be limited to one.

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Horse s**t. Just because I don't believe in a god does not mean I have no reason to post here. I can very well give my perspective on the origins of this idea of evil even if I don't believe in a god, the point being to get people to consider my views on it. Maybe they'll agree, maybe they won't, or maybe they might partially agree and change their views. Given that most people think their views are more likely to be valid than others, then obviously there is a point in trying to get others to consider them.

[John Dibble]

Ok and if there are more sources, eventually those sources had to come from something and so forth.

No, not necessarily. Many believe in a deity who has no source - it's an existence that just has always existed and is the source of things. If you admit that one such being exists, then it's perfectly reasonable to say that other such beings could exist. There is no reason it has to be limited to one.

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Horse s**t. Just because I don't believe in a god does not mean I have no reason to post here. I can very well give my perspective on the origins of this idea of evil even if I don't believe in a god, the point being to get people to consider my views on it. Maybe they'll agree, maybe they won't, or maybe they might partially agree and change their views. Given that most people think their views are more likely to be valid than others, then obviously there is a point in trying to get others to consider them.

You can give your perspective but how does matter always exist? Where did it come from?

Do you know how to read? I never said anything about matter, I'm talking about possibilities for original sources here, which seems to be what you define as God. It doesn't have to be matter, or it could be. Doesn't really matter in terms of my argument. As to the "how" of it that is also irrelevant. Just because I don't know the answer doesn't negate the possibility.

You keep making these arguments based on this God thing, but you can't even be sure if God as you're defining it actually exists. It's the classic logical fallacy known as an argument from ignorance - because you can't think of a different possibility that suits you more, you accept it as true even though you have no evidence.

[John Dibble]

How do you know how I define God?

You have talked about it before.

[John Dibble]

We get it, you're an agnostic and that's cool but we get it. You're talking all day about nothing and coming to no conclusions.

I've come to the conclusion that you're incapable of debating your way out of a paper bag. Does that count? Seriously, you can't refute the things I say so you just start accusing me of being unable to come to a conclusion, so you use straw men arguments as a cover. Pathetic.

[John Dibble]

Well he doesn't answer much all that he does is question everyone to the point of doubting whether or not something actually happened.

I'm not seeing how that connects to him allegedly not having any thoughts of his own.

He doesn't have much of his own either but let's give him a chance I find it unprofessional to chat about other bloggers like that on here.

I don't question everyone like I question you, just people who don't have their act together because they can't even make a coherent, logical argument. You're completely unable to back up your arguments with pretty much anything that comes close to being reasonable, so you falsely claim I have no ideas when I call you on it. The fact that I present other possibilities clearly shows I have ideas, but apparently you're too dense to realize that obvious fact. Your denseness is further demonstrated in your inability to immediately understand a simple question of "what?" - even a child would understand what was being asked there!

Also this isn't a blog. People here are not bloggers.

[John Dibble]

Anyone can play devil's advocate if they have heard a few theories.

This has nothing to do with playing devil's advocate. It has to do with holding claims to a reasonable standard of evidence. I've lost track of the number of times you've advanced your claims as better than others with no basis in reality whatsoever - it's all about you and what you prefer, not real evidence.

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What? That doesn't even remotely make sense - I don't even have a blog. How then can I be a blogger? I mean seriously, do you even think before you post this nonsense?

[John Dibble]

Anyone can play devil's advocate if they have heard a few theories.

This has nothing to do with playing devil's advocate. It has to do with holding claims to a reasonable standard of evidence. I've lost track of the number of times you've advanced your claims as better than others with no basis in reality whatsoever - it's all about you and what you prefer, not real evidence.

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What? That doesn't even remotely make sense - I don't even have a blog. How then can I be a blogger? I mean seriously, do you even think before you post this nonsense?

Again the evidence I put for God is the fact that anything exists.

Insufficient. Existence only proves existence at best, not anything else.

And answer the damn question about the blogger nonsense. Seriously, if you want to keep dodging questions then you're not going to earn any credibility here on this forum.

[John Dibble]

I'm not answering a question that splits hairs between bloggers and us forum community members.

You won't answer it because you know you were wrong.

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Well you seem to think that this "infinite God" thing can just exist without any cause, so I don't see how the notion is any more or less absurd. Of course that isn't what I said at all, but it doesn't surprise me that as usual you can't comprehend that.

The burden of proof is on the nonbelievers;

No, the burden of proof is always on the ones making a claim. To say otherwise is to say that you would have to disprove everything you don't believe in in order to say that your beliefs are rational.

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This is a strawman argument - not all unbelievers believe the universe "appeared out of nothing". If someone actually makes that claim then the burden of proof is on them for that claim. That hasn't been proven, so I don't believe it.

Another problem with what you're saying is that it isn't necessarily hypocritical - the two claims aren't necessarily bound to one another. You could believe that the universe came from nothing, but that it is finite and will eventually end.

[John Dibble]

Infinite God thing? Yes being infinite does not require a beginning or end. How that is is beyond our finite comprehension.

Once again you don't understand what I said. I didn't state anything about "our" comprehension, I stated something about your comprehension. Your response to what I said earlier about existence only proving existence at best, which is to say that our existence proves nothing about where our existence came from, was to irrelevantly act as if I was saying we come from nothing which is not at all what I said.

[John Dibble]

The burden of proof is on the nonbelievers;

No, the burden of proof is always on the ones making a claim. To say otherwise is to say that you would have to disprove everything you don't believe in in order to say that your beliefs are rational.

Occum's Razor, Dibble.  It's a lot easier to explain a watch when you have a watchmaker.

1. This is an incorrect application of Occam's Razor, which states "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity". The proper use of Occam's Razor is to take the evidence, develop your ideas around the evidence, and cut off anything from the ideas that are not necessitated by the evidence. I can say a watch needs a maker because I can compare it against every other watch in existence - watches don't occur in nature, we know that humans are needed to make them. The universe on the other hand is different. We don't know where the universe came from, nor do we currently know of any universes to compare it against. We cannot therefore state that the universe was made in the sense a watch would be made - it may have been, but we lack the evidence to make it a necessary conclusion, and therefore Occam's Razor would actually make any theory of the universe's origins not include a maker until evidence for one was found.

2. Occam's Razor is a principle for developing theories and whatnot, but that does not mean a theory or idea developed using Occam's Razor is necessarily correct. New evidence might show that the previous conclusions were totally incorrect.

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This is a strawman argument - not all unbelievers believe the universe "appeared out of nothing". If someone actually makes that claim then the burden of proof is on them for that claim. That hasn't been proven, so I don't believe it.

Another problem with what you're saying is that it isn't necessarily hypocritical - the two claims aren't necessarily bound to one another. You could believe that the universe came from nothing, but that it is finite and will eventually end.
[/quote]
I don't care if you claim it explicitly; you claim it tacitly via your acceptance of Western science and a mainstream conception of reality.[/quote]

No, I don't. I've outright stated I don't. Stop with this ridiculous attempt at straw-manning.

[John Dibble]

I don't know how to copy just one quote

I told you how to do that - just use the bracket tags and cut out anything you don't want to quote.

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Yes, I stated pretty much this with my second point. Also, the notion of the "simplest solution" isn't really what Occam's Razor is about, rather it's about not adding unnecessary assumptions to your conclusions.

why all the chatter?  why not just conclude God created creatures that were initially good but who had the free will to do evil and corrupt themselves?  end of story

Because some people don't feel that simply coming to that conclusion is what they should do. You may feel that because of what you believe to have been some kind of divine revelation that you experienced that you've got enough to go on to make that conclusion, but the rest of us might not feel that way if for nothing else lacking such an experience. If a person didn't feel that he or she has enough of a reason to draw that conclusion, then wouldn't just concluding it be intellectually lazy?