09 Dec '07 16:06>
Originally posted by rwingettIt would be perfectly rational within those parameters yes.
Now that you are acquainted with the concepts of 'hard' and 'weak' atheism, and since you are obviously familiar with the 'problem of evil', I have a question for you:
If god is defined as being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent (all powerful, all knowing, and all loving), and if such a god is wholly incompatible with the presence of evil in th ...[text shortened]... in taking a hard atheist stance by asserting that such a god does not, and cannot, exist?
I personally think the argument is totally flawed because evil does not exist in any form.
For instance Hitler or Stalin weren't evil in any religious sense of the word. Psychotic genocidal maniacs yes, evil - afraid not.
Lets face it the moral yardstick by which some judge evil people or acts changes with time to such an extent that the phrase itself becomes worthless!
500 years ago the Church used to routinely burn people at the stake. Now such acts would almost universally be described as "evil".