Is God evil, just because he fails to prevent suffering?

defender of truth

A poster on another thread made the following comment, that really made me think.. It is about God:
"IMO I would say [God is] not evil but just indifferent. For me evilness is more classified with intentional acts to harm deliberately out of vengence, anger, malice and even pleasure. To me that is what evil stands for. Indifference is something comepletely different in my view."
It has been said that a God with the power to prevent unnecessary suffering and death, such as the deaths caused by natural disasters or cancer, and yet refuses to do so is evil. What do you think?
.....
Here are some quotes I found on apathy:

"Apathy and evil. The two work hand in hand. They are the same, really. Evil wills it. Apathy allows it. Evil hates the innocent and
the defenseless most of all. Apathy doesn't care as long as it's not personally inconvenienced."
Jake Thoene
...
"I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love
is not hate - it's apathy. It's not giving a damn."
Leo Buscaglia

SecondRateMind

My own feeling is that the original remark makes an important distinction.

For me, evil needs to be a deliberate force in a negative direction. It is an extreme of selfishness, like rape, for example, where the needs and interests of some other person are completely ignored.

Indifference, apathy, whatever, lacks this deliberate force. It is not a matter of acting, just failing to be bothered enough to act, in order to right some wrong. Indifference allows evil to exist; but it does not cause it to exist.

As for the question of how God can be both omnipotent and omnibenevolent simultaneously, given the evidence in His world of evil, well, I would tend to suggest that the ordinary conception of omnipotent - powerful enough to do anything - is the notion that needs careful handling. Is God not omnipotent because He cannot do something logically impossible? Is God not omnipotent because He cannot act contrary to His nature? To be at all useful to us, it seems that this idea of omnipotence needs to be substantially constrained. It may well be that God cannot act in any way that would prove His existence, given the premium He seems to place on our freedom to accept Him, or not, and love Him, or not. If this is the case, there are many bad things and events in the world He would be prevented from correcting.

Best wishes, 2RM.

OnTheWayOut

Our problems might be that we limit our thoughts on this to our limited human circumstances.

Am I evil if I don't give a dollar to a street beggar? Of course not. I don't know if he is really homeless and without aid, I don't know that he will use that dollar to do as his sign says- feed his children. But I could easily spare a dollar.

Am I evil if I don't recycle or if I buy a large gas-guzzling auto? Am I evil if I use my wages for myself? Am I evil if I don't bend over to pick up every single piece of trash I see as I walk the beach? Most would agree that those factors alone are not what makes evil.

But when we assign omnibenevolence, omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence to God, THEN HE SHOULD KNOW WHEN TO HELP, HE SHOULD KNOW HOW TO HELP, HE SHOULD HELP.

I don't consider it evil when a parent escapes a burning building but doesn't make a real effort to get the baby first. But I really have trouble with that. I have to consider that the parent panicked and wasn't thinking straight. But those that call God all those "omni" things shouldn't give Him a pass when tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of children were swept away by a tsunami in 2004. If that "God" were all those things, He could have simply caused that tsunami to not exist.

Of course people are free to disagree with my opinion, but it has already been stated in philosophy that if God CAN intervene but doesn't, why worship Him? If God CANNOT intervene, why call Him God? If God is just a first cause to our state of being to you, I have no argument with you and your belief. But beyond that, I have no need for Him.

So YES!!!!! The God that men push upon men is evil if He is what they say He is and lets such tragedies happen.

tootired2care

Which God? If it is the personal god of love as defined by Christianity than I would say the answer to your question is definitely yes. Because there hasn't been a shred of hard evidence that this is god is personally involved, or has shown love in tangible ways. True love, would not allow babies to die of hunger and become bird food. True love, is not indifferent to suffering.

Legacy

Hi,

I think about this all the time...suppose there is no God...then I feel lost, the hope that he does exist I think gives us all some type of comfort, yet, why so much suffering. He has the power to prevent, yet when his son was on the stake/cross, he didn't save his own son. When I think God exist then I get sad, because why doesn't he step in, but maybe he does & we don't recognize it. To think we are praying & there is no one to answer....

The best question to ask is...why did he make humans in the first place...just to watch a show or something. I think of my parents, they try to prevent, protect & provide for me & that reminds me of God, but when you read the OT, he killed alot of folks..if I didn't obey my folks, would they kill me, if I turned to others as my parents would my parents kill me...ummm

Legacy

This is my tigersuit

if you have the ability to stop suffering and mayhem and dont do it, youre evil. when youve had the ability to stop suffering and mayhem for thousands of years and dont do it, youre God.

MadGiant

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - Epicurus

The justified of evil

1. God is aware of the evil in the world, but the evil has the purpose of making humanity better. Suffering evil betters the spirits of individuals and moves them closer to god.
2. A perfect world is one in which evil things occur, since a perfect world is one which allows people to develop spiritually.
3. Evil exists because it separates those who deserve to go to Heaven from those who don't, or that evil doesn't matter because good people get rewarded in Heaven anyway.
4. We cannot possibly know the reason that evil exists in the world, due to our puny humanness.
5. God has a plan but we're too stupid to know what it is, so quit complaining about all that genocide artificial selection and get on with it.
6. Evil doesn't exist, it's just the absence of good, just like darkness is just the absence of light.
7. Iif something is evil that means there's a God because evil implies a universal standard of morality".
8. The blame Satan strategy.

What can I say.

Ismael

MadGiant

What is a god?
Can we agree on a single definition?

Ismael

edit: what This is my tigersuit said.

Oubliette

If he exists and does nothing. Yes.

A more likely explanation is that there is not God, at least not in the Bible sense of a big sky-Daddy that is all-seeing, all-knowing, all-loving, all-just and all-powerful but still does nothing to prevent suffering.

But he does help JWs find parking spaces, at least at the Landover, MD convention!

More JW bragging about the Landover, MD. convention.

This is my tigersuit

ha! great one oubliette! he also appoints elders, and helps people give talks, etc.....he just turns a blind eye to untold suffering throughout history......

Is God evil, just because he fails to prevent suffering?

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