If God made everything

[Draconis]

Or if God is the originator/planner/designer of everything...
how come Christians think he's not responsible for evil/"bad stuff"?

Surely "everything" includes "evil"?

[Oikoman]

But evil is only to test our faith!!!

... or how would we know good if we didn't know evil!!! (best said while kicking someone in the groin, to let him know what love is).

The Devil made him do it!!!

Its all the fault of free will!!! (So give it up as soon as you can to JESUS!!!)

;)

(Living in the midwest was very educational.)

[Izmir Stinger]

Oikoman's response is written to seem flippant, but it is actually very thorough. The three main theistic defenses to the problem of evil are:

"evil makes our good properties (faith) stronger and is necessary to make high quality souls"

and

"good without evil is a logical impossibility"

and

"a world with free will and the resulting evil is better than one without free will...amoral evil is the result of the free will of Satan and his minions"

[Oikoman]

You occasionally encounter a defence of evil that says that Gods ways are unknowable, but that isn't very popular among Christians.

[ziffel]

I think Christians honestly have a hard time seperating "God made everything" from ... "no really, God made EVERY thing". If all things emanate from God, then ALL things emanate from God, including Satan, evil, hell, and the fact that his "plan" is a dismal failure, as about 80% (or more) of humans will end up in the hell that he created, because of the devil that he created, and sin that he allowed.

If something, and I mean anything, exists, it exists because of God. Be it a direct creation, or an indirect result of that creation. It's all very silly, and absurd to have such a result from an omnimax benevolent god.

[angela2]

Traditionally Christian theology admits that it cannot answer the theodicy question, that is, how can we affirm God's goodness and justice in the face of the observable facts of evil and suffering in the world.

How would an atheist explain the existence of evil and suffering?

[Keturah]

I've always found this to be an interesting verse...

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

But yeah, Christians usually say stuff like "God uses the bad things for good" or to make them stronger. I've heard others say that evil exists as a result of humans being sinners. But even if you do accept that much of the suffering in the world is caused by sinful humans, that doesn't explain the suffering caused by natural disasters and so then it comes down to the problem of evil question again.

[Citrusponge]

One explanation I've read is that evil is not a proper 'thing'. Rather, evil is said to be the absence of God (or the absence of good). Seems to me that would mean that there existed some natural moral order to reality that preceded God's creation of anything.

[uberhobo]

How would an atheist explain the existence of evil and suffering?

It doesn't really need explaining from the standpoint of an atheist; they simply exist. That evil and suffering exist is not inconsistent with the idea that there are no gods.

[Nice Squirrel]

Or if God is the originator/planner/designer of everything...
how come Christians think he's not responsible for evil/"bad stuff"?

Surely "everything" includes "evil"?

God made stuff. You decide if it is good or evil.

[angela2]

It doesn't really need explaining from the standpoint of an atheist; they simply exist. That evil and suffering exist is not inconsistent with the idea that there are no gods.
That's true. But I got the impression that atheists thought humans are mostly good. So why do good people do evil and unjust things?

[uberhobo]

That's true. But I got the impression that atheists thought humans are mostly good. So why do good people do evil and unjust things?

Evolution has given us a penchant for altruism, because it keeps society going. It also gives us a penchant for looking out for number one, because it keeps us from getting ourselves decapitated. The two drives don't always jive, and they're not always proportioned evenly in all people.

I don't subscribe to the notion of good and evil as being "things," so I can't really give any kind of metaphysical answer to your question.

[TNorthover]

That's true. But I got the impression that atheists thought humans are mostly good. So why do good people do evil and unjust things?

I'm not sure whether you're making the distinction between every human being mostly good, and most humans being good. I think I adopt the latter for the most part.

And if you then drop good as an absolute, and keep it as a tendency then there's no real difficulty. Most people are on the whole good, so you'd expect some bad things to happen.

As to why people who are good do some evil and unjust things, well ignorance can account for quite a bit; allowances can be made for stress in some cases; perhaps their views on what are good and evil are different. Or perhaps they simply do both good and evil, but we feel the good outweighs the evil.

[Oikoman]

That's true. But I got the impression that atheists thought humans are mostly good. So why do good people do evil and unjust things?

I don't think humans are mostly good, and I'm an atheist... or does that mean I'm not an atheist... and I have been known to put sugar in my porridge.... :D

[angela2]

I'm not sure whether you're making the distinction between every human being mostly good, and most humans being good. I think I adopt the latter for the most part.

And if you then drop good as an absolute, and keep it as a tendency then there's no real difficulty. Most people are on the whole good, so you'd expect some bad things to happen.

As to why people who are good do some evil and unjust things, well ignorance can account for quite a bit; allowances can be made for stress in some cases; perhaps their views on what are good and evil are different. Or perhaps they simply do both good and evil, but we feel the good outweighs the evil.
Interesting response. Let me mull it over.