Postmodern Beatnik wrote:
My point was that any arguments that rely on the problem of evil not being invoked as an inconsistency fail if the problem of evil is invoked as an inconsistency.

Either way, my point was that meditations on the problem of evil have not solely been the work of Christians.

Augustine's own version relies heavily on that famous pagan Plato and his conceptions regarding evil.

Also, do you think Epicurus was theorizing in a vacuum? There were people arguing that there was, in fact, an omnipotent, omnibenevolent power of some sort. Epicurus was arguing against them. Do you realy think the conversation stopped there?

Also, Jewish philosophy has held versions of the free will theodicy (though not explicitly stated as such) from the beginning of its written history, and likely for a great part--if not all--of its oral history (obviously, it is hard to say what was and was not part of a no longer extant oral history). I hope that is enlightening enough.

Of course not, and I argued no such thing.

That's becasue I'm not treating it like the only game in town. Despite having drawn conclusions for myself (which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do), I still consider opposing arguments when offered. You, however, seem to be discounting all non-Christian arguments on the basis of their non-Christianity, rather than seriously considering them first. You act like no one else coul,d even possibly be right. That's the problem.

The philosophy of religion threads are not havens for Christian posters to talk about how great their religious philosophy is--no matter how much you want to act like it. Other people are going to come and criticize your arguments. Better learn to deal with it.

BubbaSwitzler wrote:
Let me see if I can get this discussion back on track.

The problem of evil is the supposed inconsistency of the nature of God and our observations about how the world works (e.g. human suffering). This supposed paradox may be raised for one of two purposes: 1) to gain a better understanding of God, what he is, what he is not, what his justice is and is not, etc., or 2) as an excuse for athiesm/agnosticism.

If your purpose is the second then you will insist on definitions of God that lead to contradiction. If your purpose is the first then you will search for definitions of God that do not lead to contradiction. And therein lies much of the conflict in this thread.

Atheists and agnostics ought to understand by now that there are are as many understandings of God as their are believers in God and that they argue among themselves constantly as to who is correct. The idea that athiests and agnostics are going to provide the definitive understanding of God, one who is impossible, is simply preposterous.

BubbaSwitzler wrote:

The question arises whether or not there is a concept of God which is consistent with this evidence in general and of particular claims about God in particular.

dclements wrote:

When I first started this thread I thought that the problem of evil just states that it is a contradiction to believe in a omnipotent, benevolent god and that it is does not state that there is a God. However, after reading a bit more I realize that it is an a 'reductio ad absurdum' or an arguement that tries to show thorugh proof by contradiction that an assumption is false.

dclements wrote:

Perhaps that best way to resovle this is to find a middle ground that some people on both sides can argee.