#problem of evil

[werothegreat]

this one might get me on an FBI watchlist, but whatevs

[kryptonbabe]

A personal argument in favor of transgression in fandom spaces

Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), would he write Wincest, Reylo and Zadr fanfiction with obsessive yandere mafia boss tropes if he was alive today?

It's so weird for me to come to fandom at my current age (30) and with my background, I was not a very online teenager, I had an art tumblr growing up, but that was very far from the whole Superwholock bubble and discourse. My first interests reading were classic literature and stuff from school and Harry Potter for little bit, then Tolkien for a long time, then science-fiction and transgressive literature, starting with A Clockwork Orange, then Piano Teacher, Bret Easton Ellis, Yukio Mishima, Dennis Cooper etc. I'm a sensitive traumatized person (for reasons I won't explain) and I've been depressed and anxious most of my life, experiencing disturbing intrusive thoughts, so the themes in fiction that interested me were always the things I was most afraid and uncomfortable with in real life, traumatic events close to me that I had no other way to explore and no one else to talk to about. In a way transgressive art was always there for me, showing me how evil thoughts and experiences are not an exclusive thing, not a burden I must carry alone, those artists and writers also cared and thought about those things in meaningful ways, that was a relief. Slowly and with therapy I learned to organize my intrusive thought as creative thoughts, ideas I could use to paint or write, and this really really helped me.

The thing is I started to get interested in comic books too, this by the age of 20, reading them by myself and sharing my ideas with some close friends who didn't care about comics, but would listen to me. I started being active in fandom spaces recently, almost ten years after I started reading comics and, oh boy, is this a different environment. Where the morally ambiguous, weird and transgressive are very close to forbidden, people are divided among anti and proshippers, and exploring heavy themes and disturbing scenarios is frowned upon. I recently read about an Invader Zim artist who was bullied and had to abandon their blog due to attacks to their weird art. As if Comte de Lautréamont, Marquis de Sade, Georges Bataille and I don't know, the fucked up passages of the Bible never existed, to free us from the closed-mindness. It's all so backwards, restrictive and conservative. Not the fact that some people do not want to engage with these themes, you have the right to do so, but we accomplish nothing by judging and hating on people who want to talk about these subjects, who understand the human nature as a complex experience not imune to evil, malice, bizarre impulses and desires.

Talking about these things is different from supporting and agreeing with them, but they are a part of our existence and sometimes expressing awful experiences through art is the only escape someone have. To ignore the worst in us is a conservative attitude that idealizes a perfect conduct and ideal way of being, an hygienist perception of what it means to be human, with a lack of nuance and complexity that is just boring on top of being a form of censorship.

[straynoahide]

easter reflections with Tolkien's opus: on suffering and theodicy

(continuing from this, from my Ainulindalë meta here)

What seems little can change the course of history down the ages. the melody is 'slow', because History and God's Will are One. it takes the entirety of Arda's time to fully unfold - the only thing he demanded of the Ainur to be incarnate, to live all of it. [...] it is slow for fearful Men who die before seeing Fate unfold in their favor and it is slow for tired Elves who grow world-weary and count mounting losses remembering old glory. but it is God's tempo. True Hope in this sense can only come from not overlooking the lack of goodness in the world and the pain that comes from it - it is truly a moral choice not to fall to despair, because despair is possible, likely or even seemingly impossible to avoid. Being cruel can be easy, and being kind can be hard. in fact, kindness is the most costly choice in a world with cruelty, not just harder - Arda like our own. but without kindness, there is no goodness. God's semblance isn't happy. Perhaps, God suffered first. Perhaps, God suffered most. Does God have choices? Indeed, in Christianity, the suffering and compassion of God is centric. Arda, life, is not Paradise - not even Valinor, that Melkor darkened when becoming Morgoth. and do we not have this very notion in Nienna, in-world? she suffers even for the Black Foe, for whom she has canonical compassion. "Love me when I least deserve it - for that is when I need it most" What the world does have of good, was worth creating, for Him - and thus, it is worth living, for us the Children; it outweights everything else, no matter how desolate it may feel. Nienna's pity is not pointless and sterile; it is constructive and fruitful. God wants the Children to choose kindness, not cruelty. That's the role. That's the assignment. [...] we are warned of this, explicitly: beauty comes chiefly from sorrow, not from 'unspoiled' goodness. good in the world, in Arda Marred, has to be built on top of the ruins where evil wrecked, erased former goodness, and "salted the earth". Houses are rebuilt in a war-torn nation. Orphans are raised by families bereft of their infants, or push their way into apathetic society with little help, because life finds a way. Dignity is restituted to survivors of the most stigmatized and darkest depravity and atrocity; sexual violence, slavery, trafficking. Some communities are re-built under extreme climatic conditions in defiance of nature, where disasters resulted in massive loss of life before. The sorrow is immeasurable, the 'tears are unnumbered'. even if we are overwhelmed by some of the sorrow - it cannot even be fathomed by us. but it can be fathomed by He who is the One who created the world: and he declares evil's victories "vain", pointless, doomed. Morgoth is not only to be defeated on principle, but even by force, he will not succeed. This is the ultimate moral narrative of Christianity and western civ: the Crucifixion, in which God defeats Death, by resurrecting after a series of events representative of ultimate suffering and selfless sacrifice. Tolkien called the Crucifixion the "Eucatastrophe of Human History", Eucatastrophe itself a word he coined that means a sudden event that changes an outcome (eu- added to mean 'for good'). Death(Crucifixion narrative) is not just the end of life, but symbolic of the inexorable limitations of humanity and our desire to escape pain, fate and our desire to rid our loved ones from tragedy and cruelty.

[fierysword]

The psalmist [in Psalm 139] has obviously given up on God as one who will control history for him, but he hasn't stopped relating to God. Rather he's enlarged the sphere in which God operates, has opened up his imagination, and has experienced God as the God of all creation... This is a God who is concerned with the entire world. This God is at once incredibly distant and incredibly intimate… This God knows us personally. This God was with us when we were formed in our mother's womb. This God knows our every thought and, at the same time, is present everywhere in the world…so that no matter where we go, no matter what happens to us, we will not be cut off from God… there is a presence at the very heart of the universe that empowers us all. The One who knows each one of us better than we know ourselves and who at the same time fills the entire universe continues to make connections, continues to bring new life into being.

Wisdom's feast : Sophia in study and celebration by Cady, Susan

[theidealistphilosophy]

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.

Erich Fromm, Source Unlisted.

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

basically, Christianity's writing teams wrote themselves into a corner by establishing that God is simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, because then you get major plot holes like the Problem of Evil and the Problem of Hell. this is what happens when you put the fandom in charge of writing official works

[simpson17866]

The problem with trying to answer The Problem Of Evil

I made this account about 10 years ago and never really did anything with it, so I thought for my first time actually doing something here, I might as well post a theologically controversial Wall Of Text.

(Wait, how'd you know I'm autistic?)

Question: "Why would an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God allow suffering that He had the knowledge, the power, and the desire to protect us from?"

Answer: Too bad, I don't have one.

And I don't trust anybody who says they do have one — my impression is that anybody who's comfortable with an explanation for the evil around them is going to be comfortable justifying their own.

But I think we can at least approach something halfway resembling an answer, at least:

God could've created the universe such that

1) He doesn't suffer and His creations don't either

2) He doesn't suffer, but His creations do

3) He suffers and His creations do too

4) He suffers, but His creations don't

I'm not sure how the logistics would have to work for it to be necessary for Him to design a universe according to System 4 (if He can protect His creations from harm, then shouldn't it be even easier for Him to protect Himself?), but since that's obviously not what He actually did, we don't have to spend too much time wondering about "if He had done it this way, why would He have needed to?"

Looking at Systems 1-3, it FEELS from my own human perspective that if I myself had been God — if I myself had been the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent Creator of all existence — then I would obviously have chosen to design my world according to system 1, right? If I claim to love people, then why would I allow them to suffer horrendous cruelties that I claimed to have the knowledge, the power, and the desire to protect them from?

But we obviously don't live in a universe that runs on System 1. Still, since we can also eliminate System 4, this means we've narrowed the world down to either System 2 or System 3 (we know that people in this world suffer, even if we haven't concluded yet whether God suffers with us or not), so we can at least look at what would be different about 2 versus 3 to see if that tells us anything.

If it was objectively, obviously true to everybody in the world that we lived under System 2 (if God objectively revealed Himself to everybody and showed that He constructed existence such that we suffer and He doesn't), and if He tried to insist to us how important it was that he construct existence in this way, it would be hard for a lot of people to respect or trust Him, right?

But Christianity teaches that God not only sent a part of Himself into the world to live as a human on human terms (well, mostly — He may have used a couple of cheat codes here and there), but that He allowed other humans to inflict against Him some of the most horrifically evil cruelty that humanity has ever invented (there are so very few clean and easy ways for people to die in this world, and murder by crucifixion is not one of them).

Of the three options that make logistical sense for how our existence could've been constructed, I don't have the answer for why System 1 wouldn't have been the best (from my human perspective, it seems like it obviously would've been), but I can say with confidence that System 2 would've been the worst, and Christianity teaches that we at least avoided that one by living in System 3 instead — whatever the reason was why God allows suffering in the world, it was such an important part of the process of creation that He was willing to hold Himself to it in order to made sure that it actually worked.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

The Creator Trolley Problem You are an omnicient, omnipotent creator of the universe. You create some people, place them on a track and make a trolley hurtle towards them. You promise to save them if they accept that you're the creator of this situation. Are you evil?

Not just "accept that you're the creator of this situation," but actually praise you for creating it.

Yes, you're evil. Not just inadvertently or incidentally evil, but purposefully and malevolently evil.

[omegaphilosophia]

The Philosophy of the Problem of Evil

The philosophy of the problem of evil grapples with the existence of evil and suffering in a world that is often characterized as being created or overseen by a benevolent and omnipotent deity. It raises fundamental questions about the nature of God, the origin and nature of evil, and the compatibility of divine attributes with the reality of suffering.

Key aspects of the philosophy of the problem of evil include:

Existence of Evil: Philosophers examine the existence of evil and suffering in the world, including natural disasters, human cruelty, and personal suffering. They analyze the various forms of evil and the impact they have on individuals and societies.

Theological Implications: The problem of evil raises theological challenges to traditional conceptions of God as omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omnibenevolent (all-good). Philosophers explore the tension between the existence of evil and the attributes commonly ascribed to God in religious traditions.

Logical Problem: Some formulations of the problem of evil present a logical challenge to the existence of God. Philosophers argue that the coexistence of evil and an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God is logically incompatible. They seek to demonstrate that the existence of evil renders the existence of such a God logically impossible.

Evidential Problem: The evidential problem of evil acknowledges that while the logical problem may not conclusively disprove the existence of God, the prevalence and intensity of evil raise serious doubts about the likelihood of God's existence. Philosophers examine the evidential force of evil in undermining belief in a benevolent deity.

Responses and Theodicies: Philosophers and theologians have proposed various responses and theodicies (justifications for the existence of evil) to reconcile the problem of evil with the existence of God. These include free will defenses, soul-making theodicies, and appeals to divine mystery or higher purposes.

Empirical and Experiential Dimensions: The problem of evil is not merely an abstract philosophical puzzle but also an existential and emotional challenge for individuals grappling with personal suffering and tragedy. Philosophers consider the empirical realities and subjective experiences of evil and suffering in human life.

Implications for Religious Belief: The problem of evil has profound implications for religious belief and existential questions about the nature of reality, morality, and the human condition. Philosophers explore how different responses to the problem of evil shape religious faith, moral outlooks, and existential attitudes.

Overall, the philosophy of the problem of evil engages with deep theological, moral, and existential questions about the nature of the universe and humanity's place within it, challenging us to confront the reality of evil while seeking meaningful responses to its existence.

[kryptonbabe]

to a degree, if taste in art did not reflect a personality it would render the art meaningless. it's supposed to evoke a feeling. if there is nothing inside you that speaks to the art, it truly is just pure consumption and nothing beyond that.

Here are the posts about this for context. Yeah, of course one's taste in art might reflect aspects of their personality. That being said what we consider a personality is vast and multifaceted, your taste in art can reflect your fears, your desires, your past experiences (positive and negative), your views of the world - these can be intimate, or surface level. However I should say it at once: our actions and how we affect each other in real life are the only mesures by which we should be judged. To ponder over a disturbing theme is not the same as commiting a disturbing act. As Susan Sontag says in Regarding the Pain of Others: “Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time.”

Art can speak to facets of our psyches that are surface level, based on a recent experience in school you might look for a book on fishing, you never fished, you don't even intend, but your teacher talked about it in such a vivid way it spoke to you, so you borrowed a book, read it and never thought about it again. What motivated you then? Empathy for the dear teacher, a fleeting desire to experience that, a sudden curiosity?

On the other hand, art can speak deeply to us, as I felt when I first read Light in August by William Faulkner, a book dealing with parental abuse and race prejudice to a mixed race person, who was not a "good" person by the way. Still, my own past, as a mixed race person with some traumatic experiences made me really connect to the character, the book is also beautifully written despite its violence. Books like the Xenogenesis series by Octavia Butler also explore disturbing themes of violence and abuse in a graphic manner, and still, they can speak of a message that does not endorse these subjects. And I am fond of that kind of fiction, they open paths for me to understand my own traumas, intrusive thoughts and other undesirable feelings that have been part of my life for a long time. I developed coping mechanisms that take advantage of the fact that we are imperfect beings and there's acceptance in that. This is my experience however, there are no wrong ways to enjoy or appreciate art, even if those reasons are aspects of yourself that you're not proud of, a bad memory, a bad thought. According to E. H. Gombrich in his book The Story of Art:

“I do not think that there are any wrong reasons for liking a statue or a picture. Someone may like a landscape painting because it reminds him of home, or a portrait because it reminds him of a friend. There is nothing wrong with that. As long as these memories help us to enjoy what we see, we need not worry. It is only when some irrelevant memory makes us prejudiced, when we instinctively turn away from a magnificent picture of an alpine scene because we dislike climbing, that we should search our mind for the reason for the aversion which spoils a pleasure we might otherwise have had. There are wrong reasons for disliking a work of art.” The art objects he's talking about of course are not relevant, the focus is on our approach to a piece of art and how our prejudices can alter our perceptions of a given work.

I have't even touched on the matter of curiosity, the unconscious and the historical context of transgression in art - which is so interesting. We could talk about for instance if the philosophers and writers (Epicurus, Hume, Dostoievsky) who pondered about the problem of evil and wrote about it were all deranged human beings, if the researchers / teachers of literary studies who dedicated their lives to understand works of Marquis de Sade are all perverts. Why were they thinking about these things? Why would they dedicate so much time to make sense of those awful works of art. But then, why shouldn't we think about these things? They might be frightening, painful, uncomfortable aspects of life, but they are not going away any time soon. We do live in a society after all... and in that way we feel like part of its mess. We are not evil by nature like that silly Thomas Hobbes used to think, but we do have the potential for it and we often act on it, why? That is the place of science, philosophy and yes... art to answer. Until we find out, we keep trying.

So yeah, art can and will reflect characteristics of our existence, collectively and individually (as in what we can call personality), on the surface level as momentary interest or deep and emotionally, or yet as curiosity, intellectual concern, it might be instead an unconscious parts of our being (the Jungian shadow-self), who am I to pick and choose what moves others, people I don't even know and never met, towards any given art work? I don't even fully know my own self.

Sorry for the long ass answer, now let me just finish with another Susan Sontag thought, also from her book Regarding the Pain of Others: “Someone who is permanently surprised that depravity exists, who continues to feel disillusioned (even incredulous) when confronted with evidence of what humans are capable of inflicting in the way of gruesome, hands-on cruelties upon other humans, has not reached moral or psychological adulthood.”

[whereserpentswalk]

do you believe in god? i want to but can't help to think that if god was real he would never allow so much suffering, hate, misogyny, this world is straight up rotten and seeks blood and horror. if god exist he would never allow this to happen.

I'm a polytheist so those issues kind of resolve themselves for me. The problem of evil doesn't exist for polytheists because:

1: gods are not all powerful by nature.

2: there are some gods who aren't morally good.

[straynoahide]

what fighting evil in society means

okay so gonna try to be succint about what i think here. i can't define evil in a short essay but for the purposes of this consider people who are habitually doing harm from their position, status, habits, lifestyle in a recalcitrant way and may even benefit socially from it.

the reason i'm writing this is mainly to put my own thoughts in order bc i often see christian posts, mostly from the christian right, that don't align with my moral compass bc there's something in them i can't bring myself to relate to, and it has to do with personalizing evil and otherizing it as a psychological cope.

it's inherently dehumanizing when you speak of "god's enemies" and have this whole specific and biased discourse around sin that's basically just a smug way of pointing fingers at other people when you may be just as flawed.

i always wonder who these god's enemies are, like how do you think they can hurt god. is enemies of humanity not a more precious goal to tackle first, given that's what He set to do anyway? the fight for human rights and those who erode and vulnerate them?

when i see a right-wing christian esp a traditionalist speak of the enemies of god i know what they mean. when i see a leftist speak about the enemies of the revolution i know who they mean. and, these are just categories and ideologies that change with the era and sociohistorical contingency. they aren't eternal truth, and they aren't based in christian doctrine.

the role of enemy of [supreme value] in the nazi worldview became the anti-volkish jews and degenerates (bolshevik or capitalist), and in soviet marxist-leninism the capitalist class 'and ideological deviants' came to include lots of absurd things like jews too, nationalists, and peoples were ethnically cleansed because of it. poles, ukrainians.

"enemies of god" becomes a stand-in concept for the enemies of whoever's very worldly, very flawed, very biased political class has in their hypothetical way to power, and replacing one tyranny for the other. it becomes dehumanizing, anti-universalizing, unkind. unchristlike. ungodly. this isn't different with revolutionary marxists, who just see people and the proletariat in a utilitarian fashion. the laws of history demand the "class enemies" be tossed aside on the path to the Good Society (the "Leap Forward"), to just Utopia.

no, i don't buy proto-authoritarian rationalizations any more than i would buy authoritarian ones. by being permissive about that kind of power without consequence, you're all advocating for tyranny and letting go of humanist and democratic values.

here's my reflexion on what actually is fighting evil and why that kind of worldview is flawed from the get-go and self-serving instead of centered on goodness and His word:

the struggle against evil is fundamentally intrapersonal. it's NOT interpersonal. and that's the great pitfall. interpersonal struggles have a different dynamic, inherently. EVIL cannot be destroyed physically or materially by killing people or cutting people out of the definition of humanity, by ending their lives.

in this manner, evil can only be restrained, at best, its capacity destroyed momentarily, but it has a cost, and evil at the end remains exactly as it was; undefeated. it is a lesser evil, that is only a means to the step that would actually defeat evil, and comes necessarily after.

the spiritual battle between good and evil occurs in each soul eternally recurrent, and can only be fought within each soul; only in that victory can evil be truly 'defeated'.

it is evident when you reverse this: how petty and disconnected would someone sound if they insist they can destroy joy, love or goodness in the world? what would you think about their worldview?

tyranny is not only political; there is tyranny over the spirit, without which, political tyranny cannot even happen. tyranny over the spirit is when you subjugate someone so badly they forget they still have power even in dispossession, the power to embrace truth and reject lie. "they can't kill us in a way that matters", bc the love in heritage cannot be ended EVEN through atrocity. this is what i believe.

"darkness is not defeated by strength, but by light" - we're also told this in the Gospel: "and the light shines in the darkness - and the darkness has not overcome it"

what does this mean? it means that when you restrain evil and don't destroy it, you can still put a light where there was darkness- if you are able to do such a thing in yourself, you can do it in another, you can lead by example. at least, life gives the chance for someone else to do it. death is the end of possibility, for bad and also good.

when darkness becomes light, that's when evil is defeated. and that has to be done in each soul. the soul that did evil turned to goodness, like a flower that turns towards the sunlight, like embers that spark a new fire, that is the real defeat of evil. not its sterile destruction in the result of bloodlust over the flesh, the giving in to anger and hatred, the rejection of empathy and pity and compassion, which have nothing to do with whether they are "deserved" or not.

aggrandizing your role to judge that, to place yourself as the one who says who lives and dies, only belittles you to begin with. it means you're not imaginative or confident enough in the capacity you or your social reality has to rehabilitate, to change, to turn the negative into positive. but that capacity exists. humanity has proven its perseverance in progress, as it has proven its more flawed nature. and science gives us the tools- criminology, forensics, etc. we're not fumbling, these are professional issues that take expertise.

brutal societies still exist on earth, and they're not more just, but less so. just look at crime statistics, at metrics of democracy and freedom for minorities and vulnerable collectives.

so when you see the struggle against evil in interpersonal terms, you're dazzled by your own self-importance, and see everything else in the shadows. you see everyone else as this fundamental different being who cannot grow and come to be as moral as you are, when your very existance represents the reality of that chance being given.

when you see yourself as not being able to stoop down to whatever type of immorality you are essentializing, projecting on the Other as unchangeable - that's when you can make yourself believe that if you destroy that person, you will destroy evil, and so it must be good.

it won't work, and it's not. it just takes from the greater good that would come from having two lights where one was darkened.

healing the world is not your responsability. but at the very least, it is your responsibility to not make it worse where you can act. if the first way to do that is focusing on you, do that. if you don't see yourself capable of defeating evil in the world without destroying people -by conciliation, rehabilitation, deradicalization, peacemaking, reform, etc-, you have to focus on your own soul first, and mind its light.

[oktothorpe]

I am sick of hearing arguments about the Problem of Evil. The defense of an all loving, all knowing, all powerful god who allows suffering is basically well, he has a plan and a purpose for it but we can't know what that plan and purpose is do you're gonna have to just trust me bro.

As Alex O'Connor said "if I punched you in the face but gave you $20k afterwards, you might be happy for the money but I could've given you the money without the punch and that would've been better".

[architas]

IN WHICH I EXPLAIN WHY EVERYTHING IS SO UNBELIEVABLY F*CKED UP

[saltandironseasonedwriting]

Escaping the Nightmare: "Catch-22" vs "The Man Who Was Thursday"

An ordinary man discovers a terrible secret: he is living in a nightmare. Yossarian, the war pilot protagonist from Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22, finds himself in this predicament when he wanders through Rome late one night. From petty thefts to brutal violence, he witnesses a procession of crimes and suffering. The sight of people’s unabated misery plunges him into gloom. “What a lousy earth!…

[wanderingmindthoughts]

I have a fundamental problem with any belief that proposes that the universe was created by an all-powerful god that is both perfectly prescient and perfectly good. I just think a being that creates this world exactly like it is, fully aware that it would end up like this and fully able to have chosen anything else it could have wanted, is a being that cannot be perfectly moral and unable to do bad. the choice to create this world exactly like it is is, in the best case, a flawed good choice -and that's if we decide to be charitable.

a being that has perfect knowledge of the past and the future, that knows everything that's happened and will happen, cannot make the choice of making a world full of flawed creatures that will do bad things and then say "well it's all your fault that the world is like this, because you're flawed".

a person who is perfectly ignorant, and is entirely unaware of the consequences of their acts, is absolutely free, for they have no responsabilities to anything or anyone. by contrast, a person who is perfectly wise, who is fully aware of all the consequences of their every action, has no freedom, because they have absolute responsability. a person who has perfect knowledge is a prisoner of said knowledge, and cannot act as they want, but only as they must. I don't see any reason why this wouldn't apply to a god, and in fact it may be the only being to whom this principle can be applied in its full extent. or at least I would, if I believed that this kind of god exists.