The Spanish Inquisition was a heinous crime. It was murder, plain and simple. What rubbish to expect to torture somebody until they recant their heretical ways, and then burn them at the stake. Once done with that, the property of the dead defaults to the church. Theft, plain and simple. It was a get rich scam of the corrupt and degenerate Spanish Catholic Church.
Originally posted by kingdanwaThe example given was to help KellyJay understand what evil is, and also to overcome theists' claim that God allows evil to exist because of some better consequences from the seemingly evil action which we humans are too limited to understand.
Quite evil, good observation. But what is your point? Do you wish to show that a good and powerful God is incompatible with such evil? Or maybe you want a good and powerful God to extinguish such evil. If the latter, maybe He could start with your life. If the former, you've done a poor job of demonstrating your position.
In particular, HuntingBear used this argument to rebuff Bbarr's GAFE (General Argument From Evil).
The Spanish Inquisition's torture of non-believers seems a very suitable case to illustrate God's non-existence.
This is because it is impossible to see how ANY good could arise from such gratuitous and immense suffering. Especially given that such torture would not even have taken place if God (or rather ideas of his existence) did not exist.
Indeed so far, no theist on this site has reconciled the Spanish Inquisition's torture with God's existence....
...Except for by claiming that Human's have free will.
But if this is true, then God can no longer be omnipotent.
Imagine, if you will, that tomorrow morning, everyone in the whole world wakes up and decides to go out and kill as many people as they can, before killing themselves.
At the end of the day, no human being is left alive. Humans are extinct.
On the way to judgement, one such killer's soul is being interviewed by St Peter:
St Peter: What you did was wrong, you will therefore go to hell for all eternity.
Killer: But It was not my fault, God should have prevented me!
St Peter: God gave you free will to do what you wanted.
Killer: So, he could not have stopped me from murdering?
St Peter: Yes, well, he could have, but he chose not to.
Killer: Then it is as much his fault as it is mine!
St Peter (annoyed): Oh, OK, well actually I was wrong. God could not have prevented you from killing because he gave you free will.
Killer: Well he should not have given us free will then. After all, he invented us and should have known what we would be like and what we would all do.
So you see how Free will does not overcome the GAFE's proof of God's non-existence.
Originally posted by howardgeeChoosing not to do something does not mean one cannot do that thing. By granting humans free will, God did not give up the power to control us, he merely promised not to use that power.
But if this is true, then God can no longer be omnipotent.
And as for your suggestion that if God does not stop someone from mass murder that it is His fault as much as the murderers, following that logic, any wrongdoing is His as much as ours.
However, consider this: the whole basis of the Bible is that man may do what he pleases, but certain instructions have been left for him. He who follows the instructions and believes in and loves his creator will be rewarded for that. He who acts counter to those instructions will be cast off. To then say that if God allows us to do evil, then He must not be omnipotent, etc., makes no sense. If He did not allow us to do evil, there would never be a need for punishment...no need to tell us what we should not do.
Originally posted by NemesioThis discussion is still going on in the same thread: a general argument from evil
Bbarr made a very lengthy and compelling argument that involved
this sort of question some months ago.
In it, he observed that, if we accept that God's over all plan is to
optimize the greatest good, then we have to concede that every
single death in the Inquisition was necessary and that [i]even just
one death less would result in a lesser good[ ...[text shortened]...
I'd be interested in hearing reasonable thoughts to his (and howard's)
thoughts.
Nemesio
Originally posted by DoctorScribblesIt wasn't exactly free will that destroyed the shuttle, it was physics,
Do you really believe this? Are your notions of physical laws and free will really such that this is true?
mis-applied, so the laws of physics certainly negated free will there.
Its most amazing to me people think they know anything about some
proported god or other, personal or otherwise.
Kind of like ants making up theories about the giant foot squashing them by the hundreds:
We have labored long and hard on this subject as to the form of
God.
We have concluded it has this shape (outlines the sole of a hiking
boot)
We have noticed when we displease this god, it comes down on us
with a mighty shaking of earth.
We have therefore written up these 13 commandments we heard
our dying comrades say as the god mashed into them.
Thou shalt not kill, we have observed god does not wish us to
visit the heavens of food in the mountains and not attack our
other bretheren the lesser ants.
Thou shalt not covet thy bretherens food mountain but let them
have it in peace.
We will formulate the rest of the commandments at the next
interant quarum. Bow to god.
Another tribe notices god is not in the shape of the hiking boot,
protests: God is in this smaller shape, only 50 antbodies wide.
Your god is said to be 100 antbodies wide. Let us show you the
image of our god (draws sole of high heel with spike)
and further our god is not one god but two.
We have thought long on this. Our god has allowed some killing
and has not conjoined us from entering the food mountains.
Our god is a just god. Amen.