The old adage of Epicurus:

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?

So does the existence of Evil negate the existence of a God? Does it make him a malevolent God?
When God was finished creating the world he remarked that "It was good" but can evil be classified in this? The yang to good's ying? Balancing the equation out? Yet why does their appear to be more evil than good in the world? Why does so much evil go unpunished and so much good unappreciated?

Is this "problem" existent in a non-religious view? Also, what is the definition of an evil act here? Are there exceptions to it? (Ending someone's life to end their pain, etc.)

Well as a law student, in legal sense killing someone to end their pain is still "evil".

The problem is not existent if a God doesn't exist. However, the presence of an all powerful, all loving God does cause problems with it.

An evil act to one culture is something that may be considered good tradition to another culture.

An example would be human sacrifices. In the Aztec culture, human sacrifices were made as part of their religious beliefs. However, in Christian culture, the idea of human sacrifices spurs thoughts of Satan his evil advocates, for only -they- would commit such vile acts.

Because of things like this, and others, it's apparent that there is no "one evil". Many cultures consider many things wrong, and those are the "evils" of that culture.

Damn you, I was just about to bring up the point that evil is very rare, it more comes down to what our beliefs lead us to interperate as being evil.

Uhh, there's not a way to tell that statement.

Meaning that evil is very rarely commited as, the person thinks what he/she is doing is right, it's just thought as evil by people with different beliefs.

We're discussing the Judeo-Christian god here - and he defines evil under the golden rule - do not do onto others what you don't want to be done on to yourself.

So stop talking about the subjectivity of morality when we're going under the assumption that a said god exists which presumably gave objective morals. This topic is not about the subjectivity or objectivity of morality - we're going under the assumption that they're objective as set out by god. Thantos implied these assumptions and then with a couple of logical steps came to the conclusion that the existence of god is contradictory.

I'm eagerly awaiting the theists' responses.

Typical answer christian apologists give revolves around free will and how it is more important than preventing all evil. But we can all see the numerous problems with that, i hope.

Since I am probably the only vocal theist willing to debate this topic (on these forums), I will just respond to just the OP's post for now. Usually these discussions, in later stages, tend to get 3 vs me, then 4 vs. me, then debate community vs. me, and eventually a typical rebuttal turns into an hour long ordeal. So I hope you understand-


That is a lot of questions.. I will answer the first one because, well it's first.

I want to preface this by saying that I think this issue is probably my own greatest obstacle in believing in God, and has personally caused me a lot of doubt. When I think of all the suffering in the world... aye, maybe we should all become atheists. But that's a pretty big step. Now to your question:

I think if you examine this rhetorical statement, you come across two premises-

1. God and evil cannot exist together
2. Evil exists
thus:
3. God does not exist

I very much agree with the second premise, but the first one I do not. There is no reason that God and evil should be logically incompatible. There is no explicit contradiction. If you want to think there is any implicit contradiction, you have to assume another premise from what I stated above (which no philosopher has ever been able to do).

Furthermore, I can actually PROVE that God and evil are logically consistent. For, the atheist presupposes that God cannot have a morally sufficient reason for permitting evil... but this isn't true. Because, so long as it is even remotely possible that God might have morally sufficient reasons to permit evil, it follows that God and evil are logically consistent. And of course, it does seem at least possible. Therefore, the co-existence of God and evil is logically possible.

Now notice how I've only stated that it is possible, but nevertheless highly improbable. The atheist argues that it is highly improbable that God exists because it is highly doubtful that God has a morally sufficient reason to permit evil. This is a much more powerful argument then the one above of course, and I won't address it in this post.

And to reiterate, I will only try to reply to Thanatos for now, and maybe comment on some other little things made by other users. I wish this could be somewhat formal and have all the atheists collaborate and respond to me in one post rather than ten people at separate times with all separate points , but this will work for now.