I'm feeling pretty... Blackpilled, at the moment. Maybe even worse than that. Things are bad. Things keep getting worse. Not just politically, but... As a human being. All the failed relationships, all the lost friendships, all the... Shit, that has happened in my life, is sort of getting to me pretty bad.
But more than that, it feels like we're losing. Like things... Are spiralling out of control (in Aus, but also outside it). I literally can't look at ANY popular media, or any sort of news, without being utterly bombarded by it.
So... If you've got a good "whitepill", or just... Something that counteracts all this... Existential angst, and feelings of sheer... Doom, I would appreciate hearing it, I guess. Thanks. While it lasts, and while I last.
The "problem of evil" requires so many false assumptions to be a problem. It's incredibly simple: God created man with free will. God loves man with free will more than man without it. There, problem solved.
He wants us to choose to worship because it's the correct thing to do. Could He eliminate evil with a snap of His fingers? Sure. But it would defeat the purpose of creation.
Now, if you want to move into the advanced class, we can start discussing how much of the world's problems are due to man's poor decisions and how much is due to the poor decisions of other created beings.
So which are you conceding, omniscience or omnipotence?
Edit: I breezed past this on my first read - what other "created beings" besides humans are you ascribing the ability to "make decisions" to? Is this a veiled reference to The Devil?
There is no conflict between free will and omniscience. There's even a story in the Bible where David asks if he should stay in camp and God tells him he will surely be slain by his enemies. So David leaves and what God told him didn't come to pass.
There's also no conflict between evil and omnipotence. Simply because God can do something doesn't mean He is obligated to. He's choosing to play the game with us, seeing how we'll handle things. He'd rather guide us to a win than simply flip the board, even though He could.
The devil isn't omniscient nor omnipresent. Do you think all supernatural evil is carried out by old scratch all on his own?
So did God know at the beginning of the world what choice David would eventually make? If He did, where exactly is the "choice" or "free will" afforded to David? If He didn't, He's not omniscient.
1 Kings 22:19-22 seems to indicate that God is aware of all possible outcomes and holds His tongue about them.
This is a serious question, I'm not trying to derail our conversation: if God is a "perfect observer" (in a scientific sense) how does His omniscience deny free will? If you stand over the maze and can see every outcome from the beginning, how are you robbing the mouse of its will?