dclements wrote:

Because it is a book about stories,and not facts, and these stories do not make one understand why God allows there to be evil, the problem of evil remains.

Ok. So your definition of this substance is the same as noumenon.

There is only one definition of noumenon that I can find and it is:

'In the philosophy of Kant, an object as it is in itself independent of the mind, as opposed to a phenomenon. Also called thing-in-itself.'

Is this an accurate definition of the substance you are talking about?

Mariner wrote:

I don't see this stark dichotomy between stories and facts. And I certainly don't see why stories would not be important or useful.

Mariner wrote:

Approximately . We can work from here; with the caveat that Kant was wrong about a lot of things that he said about the world, including noumena.

Mariner wrote:

Only a minority of people actually worry about the problem of evil.

Mariner wrote:

From among the books of the bible, Job is the one that comes closest to actually explaining it. And the answer of Job is quite clear -- man simply does not have the authority for questioning God about it.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not minimizing the importance of the problem of evil, I'm not saying that it is a resolved issue, like optics . It is a mystery. The problem may be defined as such -- it is the disappointment that a soul feels after noting that his hard-won order is not transposable to the world. The finding of order within the soul is a great event in the history of mankind. The notion that the world ought to be ordered accordingly is what led to religion and philosophy. And the failure of the soul to accomplish that is the source of the problem of evil.

To translate the biblical solution of Job to non-symbolical terms -- the world is what it is. The discomfort that comes when one realizes it is artificial -- it results from the power of the soul, which is "in a sense all things" as Aristotle said, to extend the principles of order, in theory but not in practice, to the world.

Mariner wrote:

Evil is for something to fall short of its potential. And here the comments above come into play. For who defines the potential? It is when man is defining the potential that the problem of evil becomes visible and real. But is man really endowed with that? I'd say he is. I don't treat evil as an illusion. Indeed, that is precisely what the Bible means when it says that man was made in the image of God. Man partakes of divine order, and therefore, this order (dimly intuited by man) has the pedigree necessary to become accepted as a "potential order", as "how the world should be". What the Augustinian solution to this problem means is that this order does not originate in man. This order is not a private order imposed on nature even though it is at variance with it. It is divine. And therefore, it is real.

To question this explanation, one would have to explore the nature of ethics and of the moral sense. One would have to explain why exactly the assumption that our morality is divine is wrong. And one has to do that while keeping the authority of the said morality, or one will become less than human.

Postmodern Beatnik wrote:
Mariner, most of the contexts in which I've seen Epicurus' problem of evil come up do in fact invoke it as an inconsistency within a certain type of theistic framework. If all of your arguments rest on this not being the case, all one has to do is invoke such a usage and your arguments fall apart.

Also, solutions to the problem of evil are not solely of Christian origin. Other religions involving an omnipotent, all-loving god have put forth explanations for evil. Some even did it before Christianity existed. There are 11 major religions in the world and at least 60 others that I can think of off the top of my head. Stop acting like Christianity is the only game in town.

And remember, no matter who you are and no matter what you believe, a majority of people disagree with you.

...I think agnosticism, not atheism, is the only logical position given the abilities and limits of philsophy.