Sorry for the delay, Meme Team! Editing took longer than I thought and I'm traveling at the moment. Sorry also for the audio issues as well. I would have fixed them if I weren’t traveling. Hope you all enjoy!
Alex, the bad argument is that the ONLY reason for God to allow suffering, is ONLY so GREATER suffering can be stopped. The bad argument is NOT that suffering is necessary for the greater good. Hope that helps!
I am old. I've never taken a philosophy class, but it strikes me that Adam and Eve did not fully know what they were losing until it was lost. How do we appreciate the sweetness of honey if we maybe have never tasted vinegar? What is goodness if we do not know what evil is? This world is broken and we see it, God promises a perfect world in the next life, we know how precious that is when we look around us here and so strive to be ready to join Him.
Thats kind of confusing. In heaven there is no evil no suffering no pain no sadness. So how come we need to experience suffering now but we dont need to experience it later in heaven? God created angels in heaven, do they know what its like to suffer? No. So why do angels get the hall pass but we dont? Do angels enjoy the taste of honey ? Hmm..
@@josh2676 Humans are created with free will, and thus we are able to choose-either to obey Christ and His commandments, or to walk in pure and utter darkness by feeding sinful passions. When humans strive to enter into eternal union with the living God, they experience multiple forms of suffering. Humans must suffer for Christ just as Christ had suffered for them, as it teaches humility and the need to have a contrition of heart in front of God. And thus, when suffering is experienced in the process to salvation, an individual may be granted salvation when they depart from this life. That is, everlasting union with Christ. They do not need to experience it in Heaven, for they had already experienced it on earth. If you read your question more carefully, you could see that the answer already lies therein. Angels don't need to experience suffering. They are not assigned the same task that we are. Angels are creatures designed by God with one sole purpose-to glorify Him. That's it. They don't need to endlessly strive as we humans are in order to become co-inheritors of eternal life. We don't get the "hall pass" because we're of a different nature and of a different task that we are to accomplish. Also, I'm sure that the honey thing was nothing more than an analogy. I don't think angels literally sit around eating honey. It's just a way to emphasize good.
@@ストリアン Nowhere in the bible does it say we have free will it says the opposite. For example some of the verses say that god establishes are very steps, no one can challenge his will or plan, are fates are predetermined. If these are true wheres the free will? Even if we supposedly do have free will why does god manipulate people that have it (the pharoah for example)?
@@NA-oc7eq you weren't following free will, you were following desire. Free will is a neutral thing. It is the ability to choose right and wrong.Murderers have free will, yet judges don't let them go for "following" it.
I really appreciate how Jon is so careful not to accuse others of being intentionally misleading or lying. I think that it’s a terrific display of his fine character and is something that I would like to emulate in my own life. Thanks Jon👍🙏
BoxBoy86 !?! I would feel disingenuous if I said either deliberately left parts out and ignored certain premises but both did wile Jon did it and made a point about it Honestly they should debate and they would cut through that in minutes the video responses on both parties is not the best form of discourse and is honestly the cause for that and the confusion and misconceptions it brings
R.C Sproul says that the evil argument fails because a perfectly good God must also be just. And if he stopped being just, he would no longer be good. Alex has a clear misconception of what good is as if being good meant giving everybody good things all the time regardless of their actions. Free will gives us the potential to be evil, and what can a perfectly good God do with evil people like us? The fact that God is good is one of the most terrifying and at the same time amazing things for humankind.
@@alexthompson8977 God created Adam and eve, which god allowed the be able to create sin. Which brought sin into the world. And no, this does not make them not have 'free will'. Free will is simply the ability to be able to choose between options, god created the option off evil. Therefore God created evil.
@@luxeayt6694 nope. It was free will that allowed Adam and Eve to pick sin. If God didn't allow them to choose obedience or not then they would be nothing more than mindless slaves. So sorry but the ability to choose between bad and good gives freewill. So again God didn't create evil because Adam and Eve did. That's foolish. Using that logic even if Adam and Eve didn't sin if someone did 1 million years later it would be God's faut because he created Adam and Eve which eventually created that person. Also it was the devil that tempted Adam and Eve meaning HE created the option of evil not God. And if God denied that option he would be denying free will. See the point don't you?
As Ravi put it: God could make 4 things: Nothing A world with only good A world with only evil A world with good and evil Love is only possible in the fourth.
How so? I mean, he could put all evil people on one planet and good on the other. Or even better, simply put out of existence whoever doesn't want to exist yet without both evil and good who still keep existing, fighting by keeping them separate. This is however not about necessarily evil but about "evils" that are NOT necessary such as cancer, flies, tsunamis etc. God could've avoided all of it. He says he made humans in his image but tell me can God be tempted? If not, then he clearly did not give us a part of his nature, hence why humans can be tempted (imperfect) unlike God (who's perfect) according to the Bible. So that is setup for failure. Also imagine throwing down rebellious angels to planet Earth for what, to achieve what? Literally out of all the planets he brings that rats home? You gotta be kidding me. As long as there's a hell eternally then there's no freewill.
Also another thing, even the law puts limits on evil. The Bible says in the book of Romes that God allows laws to keep the concious (in other words to make people think about what they did and hence not get out of control). So clearly, there's still limit and not absolute freedom. So why not might as well prevent a criminal from hurting innocent people? O but somehow God considers you guilty if you are a bystander and do nothing in defense (if you're capable of defending depending the circumstances then he considers you an accomplice). If you're guilty then he's even more for being a bystander and doing absolutely nothing because afterall, you're just not intervening for the sake of respecting the criminal"s freewill correct? So why'd you be guilty if you were to be a bystander and do nothing? Double standards.
@@craftycrayon9283 "He could put all the evil people on one planet and all the good on another." He did it's called Earth. And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. Matthew 19:17 KJV As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Romans 3:10-12 KJV All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6 KJV The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Psalms 14:1-3 KJV For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Romans 3:23 KJV As surely as your father is a man you are guilty of sin because you were born with a fallen sinful nature and as such you are evil. Unless you are born again of the Holy Spirit then you belong on the planet with the evil people. If God takes all of His people (the "good" people you illuded to[they are not good they are Just]) and puts them on another planet, who then will preach to those who are evil about God and turn them towards God so that they can be saved(born again[made "good"]).
@@questionasker8791 you don't understand either the nature of evil or the doctrine of Hell. Go to InspiringPhilosophy and watch his videos on hell and the problem of evil, probably the one on heaven as well if you have time to kill.
There are no good people because God didnt want to make good people. Good people dont need saving. And God wanted to be a hero. Why did he want to be a hero? So he could be a role model and inspire others to be moral and kind to each other? Nope. Being a nice person doesnt get you to heaven. Only by constant worship do you gain access. That doesnt sound like a God to me. Sounds like someone that just wants attention.
We exult ourselves when humanity accomplishes greatness, completely forgetting the one who gave us the ability to do so. But whenever something that we deem ‘evil’ happens, it suddenly becomes Gods fault for allowing our free will.
Question Asker, who said that God is responsible for all of the catastrophes that take place in our world? Who’s to say that man isn’t responsible for earthquakes or tornados. I don’t believe God intentionally throws meteors down on the earth. It’s rather a matter of reality taking its course. If you change the way you look at death and suffering as a natural part of life, it becomes less tragic. In closing, we all die, we all suffer, whether or not its self inflicted.
Question Asker 1. I don’t believe sin directly and literally affect the environment. However, I do know that humans are responsible for a lot of the environmental events that take place, i.e, global warming. 2. There’s no way of of knowing since the Bible doesn’t literally spell it out for us. Although, if under the beliefs of Christianity, it’s ultimately irrelevant. 3. I’m in no way saying that human life isn’t intrinsically valuable, or we shouldn’t care about suffering or death. I’m simply saying death and suffering in itself is not evil. I do care about my life and it’s rather an ad hominium attack to generalize what you think I believe to assist yourself in this argument.
@@questionasker8791 Ive got a few errands to run so ill have to get back to you later. last question, Im assuming that you are an agnostic, but id like to ask what you consider yourself. And if you are agnostic, where do you believe you are, where on the scale of, 'believing there is a God on a scale on 1-10, (1 being sure there is no God, 10 being knowing without certainty there is a God) would you place your self on?
You got a new follower in me. I'm a fan of cosmic skeptic and came.across you two responding to each other. And it's rare that both sides are logical, humble to an extent, and not talking trash about personal stuff. Keep doing your thing man, even if I disagree with your view on religion.
I thought for once that Cosmic Skeptic was the only reasonable sophisticated atheist on youtube (in academia there are of course people who surpass him). Unfortunately, he has shown me otherwise. This is what new atheism does although for him he didn't have an emotional appeal.
I was atheist Now I’m starting to know and understand why And this’s a temporary world 🌎 It’s not the perfect world that atheist asking for! That’s is coming in the future for who endure this world, and with Jesus living with us we can, for believers and who have the Holy Spirit and fellowship with Him, He carry is, without Him I was almost killed my self that how I had experience with God and become a believer, it’s long but the essential part of it . God bless you I’m blessed by this and many other videos too To get me closer to God, and to remind me and God use you to answer me 💜
Cosmic is lost, his followers like his personality. I've tried to talk to him, he deletes and ignores comments that make sense. Pray for him. I'm afraid he's been corrupted by the devil. 🙏🙏🙏
@@shadsalah3346 If you don't believe in God, and I presume you think everything has happened by chance, so basically nothing really matters, no right or wrong. Why do you care if someone has cancer? People die because we sinned against God. The wages of Sin is death. Man is appointed one life and then the judgement. Yes he cares for us, but life isn't about being pain free and everything positive. God can turn anything bad situation is Good. Jesus is the way , the truth and life. Amen.
@@shadsalah3346 Is cancer evil? We consider it bad or evil because of what it does to us but is cancer inherently evil? I don't think so. It is simply doing what it does.
I'm an atheist and happened to stumble upon this exchange. I think you are right in that CosmicSceptic was wrong for not including your clarifying points. That being said, I'd love to see you and him hash out the problem of evil. Seems like you both have a lot more to say.
I beleive Alex o Connor sees evil as something we shouldn’t indulge in. But the atheist doesn’t beleive anything is ultimately evil, to him it is but he has nothing to stand on to say others shouldn’t do it.
I find CS to be pretty smart. I find it hard to believe that he completely missed the follow up to Jon's dentist analogy. Either he stopped Jon's video right at that moment or purposely omitted it because He couldn't construct a good argument against it. Love the videos.
He's been brainwashed by demons, who use his intelligence as a platform to spread and influence false knowledge on people, leading them away from God. Everyone who's a Christian knows Satan is an intellectual.
Love John's videos that is. Perhaps I should of used a better choice of words, to the world's standards CS is intelligent and his arguments may sound good. Yet, when they are broken down they fall short. Like all of the atheistic arguments against God.
I think he's super smart and typically respectful. I also think misrepresenting people is an easy shortcut to get credibility. If you misrepresent someone's point, it's easy to make yourself look powerful which is a trick Alex uses too much.
School starts tommorrow for me😓 Can I get a quick prayer? EDIT: To be honest I wasn't really sure if people would actually care enough to take time out of their day JUST to pray for a little 16 year old. Everyone that prayed for me I really do appreciate it❤
The fact that I was able to fully pay attention to this 30 minute video on God's existence from John, really says how well he breaks things down and makes it easier to understand the concepts. Thank you @whaddooyoumeme. I'm really learning a lot from your videos!
From the get-go CS confuses suffering with evil. The suffering of the little boy in the dentist's chair is self-inflicted. If he had faith in his father he would trust that nothing terrible was going to happen to him while his father is watching over him.
That was really shady of Cosmicsceptic, in my opinion. The same kind of thing that Dawkins and Hitchens did. Congrats on pretending you don't understand what the other debater is saying. All three of them make Atheists look really bad.
Oh man, Hitchens ALWAYS did this to avoid the moral argument. He would always twist "No morality without God" to "Atheists can't be moral." They sound so similar but the second is both false and personally offensive which makes it evocative. I never once heard Hitchens address the real question at hand.
@@sivad1025 i couldn't stand ONE debate with CH, like... the unpoliteness, the interrupting, the virtue signaling, the hatred in his endeavour to show God doesn't exist motivated by a clear hatred. I cast him out as a "good debater" when Frank Turek in a debate back in 2010 (or 9, i don't remember) asks CH to define evil for him and he replies "religion". ANY honest person will agree this was a non answer and that he just wanted to virtue signal. His debates could be summarized by "religions poison everithing, this God i don't believe in sucks, i hate him and i'm glad there's absolutely no evidence he's real". I also got super angry when in another debate he interrupts the christian (don't remember exactly who, but i think it was john lennox), and says "Doesn't it says 'i didn't come to bring peace but a sword!' Oh yes it does! Doesn't it say for women to stay silent! Yes it does! Doesn't it say 'whoever doesn't hate his father mother and family is not worthy of me!' Yes it does"... does that language, + the interrupting sound self righteous annoying and childish!? CUZ IT IS! And he had already been corrected in many of these things and kept on them taking them out of context when he knew he was doing so, in other words they were LIES. He didn't have to believe in God, but to twist the doctrine in things he was already corrected by christians... And this guy, is the great atheist debater, this interrupting self righteous childish guy who often gives non answers and twists bible verses that he already know the meaning.... is one of the top atheist debaters. SMH! Making me even more sure christianity is true. Even his brother who's a christian calls him out on that, saying he was motivated not by reason as he claimed, but rage. A demonic level of hatred against God, openly prefering Hell over heaven, in the end God gave him what he wanted.
@@vitormenezesdemattos967 That sounds about right. Hitchens opts for the pithy response over the intellectual one. Frank Turek said it best: "Hitchens work can be described in two statements: God doesn't exist and I hate him."
@@sivad1025 he was a child in a grown man's body. No in his debates there's never any respect, politeness, but there's rage, taking passages out of context, hating God, interrupting and self righteousness. He was everything he accused christians of. Just curious about 2 things,1- did you see any of the debates i refered to? The one where he says "religion" cuz he couldn't define evil and the one where he as a spoiled child, takes a bunch of verses out of context and goes "doesn't it say that? Oh yes it does" over and over. The guy was simply unbearable to watch. I don't wanna hit the hammer and declare an "end trial", but he was often leading people to HELL and making them hate God based on things he knew were not true, and even says he prefers Hell over Heaven... i really believe his cancer could have been very well God saying "OK man, shut up! You're not gonna lie about me anymore and i'm gonna give you what you want so much! And i'll make you stop dragging more people there!" 2- do you think this could have been the case as well? Again, his rage against God was not merely intelectual or emotional, but satanic. CH was an agent of satan on earth.
@@vitormenezesdemattos967 I saw the William Lane Craig debate and I've seen clips from the Frank Turek debate. I've definitely seen that clip of him saying that religion is evil. It's a pithy way to straw man the argument for a laugh in the audience. And it's an easy way to get those who are easily manipulated by emotions to react positively.
At 1:32, Alex wants to argue as if evil exists self-evidently, but if he's an atheist, then he ought to argue as if evil doesn't exist at all. Under atheism, there's no such things as good and evil, only preferences. A dichotomy of good and evil can exist beyond an arbitrary fashion only after the existence of the supreme moral lawgiver has been acknowledged, so the argument from evil presupposes the existence of God and therefore cannot actually serve as an argument against God's existence.
He's arguing from the religious premise or better said he's only pointing out the self contradicting claims Christians make such as suffering is good as if it's necessary when it's not. A baby does not need to suffer but hey I guess the christian God is indifferent.
@@craftycrayon9283 calling sufferings good and not elaborating is wrong . Obviously suffering is terrible and nobody should have to overtly suffer , but by the right about of hardship one can grow
This seems pretty easy to debunk. Their claim: "A good god would not allow evil" Rebuttal: "A good god would allow free will" Free will requires the existence of evil.
Purposefully omitting the argument from the party you're debating against is very, very disingenuous. It just means that you can't counter it, so you argue what you can and literally ignore everything else. Cosmic skeptic's argument is incomplete and almost feels empty.
In my experience CS is an atheist and needs to lie about the Bible and make his arguments based on the lies, not on what the Bible says. Take his attack on slavery for example and his implying that the virgins captured in the war were to be used for the men's pleasure. Those are not arguments based on the overall demonstration of God's love, but on CS's interpretation of the acts that serve his purpose and goal of trying to paint God as the evil monster. It's all about selling coffee mugs and T-Shirts and board games to help his cause of spreading hatred towards Christians. Some Christian Apologists claim that Alex is the most likeable but that would be like comparing suffering from a spreading cancer or suffering from heart disease. *Neither of them are pleasant and the suffering of their insidious destruction of the human body or the Body of Christ is their goal.*
@@maddog0975 the point is that God never said the Israelites could take the Midianite women as "sex slaves". CS read "sex slave" into the text when that's not what the context suggested at all. Please see Jon's part 3 video on this matter.
I don't think it's so much he couldn't respond. I think it's moreso that these atheists want to look dominant. They know their viewers don't follow Jon's channel so they change the argument to make Jon look stupid so they seem completely dominant
i say exactly that. my life has been wild and painful often, but i wouldn't change a thing. i am who i am because of all my experiences, "good" and "evil".
@@questionasker8791 Do you think that this life is all there is? If so, then it's unthinkably odious that innocent children would be subjected to such suffering. However, if they are immediately received in a blissful afterlife, then it really doesn't make their suffering as unbearable, when looking at it in sub specie aeternitatis.
@@questionasker8791 Then you are bereft of any rational answer to the suffering. Of course, that pales in comparison to the emptiness that you seem doomed to suffer in a meaningless existence, since death, as far as you're concerned, is final. And that's too bad, because the afterlife is real, and so is Heaven; just ask anyone who has experienced an NDE. But, I don't have the time to try to explain it all to you, and to try to make you understand. So, I'll just say that it is perfectly logical and rational to believe it is so. And it makes all the difference for me, that I actually look forward to the transition. Peace
@@richardgamrat1944 I never said it did. But when considered in the view of the spectrum of eternity, it is but a mere brief flash of pain as compared to eternal peace and joy. It's hardly really even comparable when viewed in those terms. No one wants to see anyone suffer, especially children, but I think it would be far more pitiful if the end of this life spelled final doom.
@@questionasker8791 Science can't answer everything, first of all. It seems so many people are entrusting so much to the purview of science. After all, science is a human endeavor. And as such, is limited to human capabilities, impressive as our capacities may be. I don't mean to sound condescending, or to denigrate the meanings in your life. I'm sure that you do have things that are quite meaningful in your life, such as children. But, without a belief in an afterlife, we are confined to a very limited amount of influence on things. If, in fact, you are interested in NDE's, there are literally thousands of those stories to see. They are fascinating, regardless whether or not they prove an afterlife. Many non-believers are of the opinion that those who have experienced them were merely unconscious, more or less in a dream state, or a coma, at worst. But, the truth is that some of the experiences were pronounced legally dead, some for as long as an hour, or more. No heartbeat, no pulse, no pulmonary activity, totally flat lined. And that's not even the interesting part. The experiences that they relate are commonly of a nature that go well beyond any "dream state", or anything anyone would ordinarily encounter in an unconscious state. Many report seeing friends and relatives who have passed on, and invariably those persons are described as being young and vibrantly 'healthy' in their appearance. Also, there is a commonality about the experiences that transcends any Religious, or even non-religious, backgrounds. People always report encountering what they claim is JESUS. but never Mohammed, or Budda, or any mystics or religious persons outside of Christianity. I hope this helps, and I wish you good luck in your quest for finding truth; for therein lies the meaning of things. Peace
@@tuffwith2effs899 At the risk of being TL;DR Not sure I understand the relevance of your question. Does a fawn have free will, does the fawn think, therefore it is or is it all instinct? Most animals die in fires because man does back burning. This not only traps the fire, but all the animals attempting to flee the original fire. But that wasn't you question. Why not ask me about childhood cancers or the seemingly unexplainable birth defects (and cot deaths) when vaccines first were used to "eradicate" some childhood diseases like polio and chickenpox? Do you know in some parts of the world there is virtually no cancers, at all. Yet when they found people who left these areas and moved to Western societies and cutures they all had the representative levels of cancers like the rest of us. Isn't that interesting? So who made the cancers? God, or Man, and What part did free will play in it and what have we learnt from these facts? My guess is, not a damn thing.
Every time you upload a video I am confident that it’ll be great. You clearly walk in the Spirit and that is what matters. Keep up the amazing work Jon.
When someone ask me why bad things happen to good people, I respond by asking why good things happen to bad people. Most people typically consider themselves to be good but the Biblical definition is that only God is good and that all people are not just bad, but evil. And I've spoken to so many people who consider themselves to be good and they blame God for the bad things they've gone through or that others go through, but at the same time they never thank God for the good things they enjoy.
Great to see the final part!! :-D Your point about Christianity's central gospel message of God's suffering/death is exactly what I had in mind when thinking about this "Problem of evil". Skeptics seem to ignore this very important point in the Christian worldview. Quite frankly, the problem-of-evil argument fails to do what its aimed to do: giving an internal critique
In considering suffering, the fact that God suffered Himself shows us that suffering is an inherent part of life. It is theologically impossible for God to allow a child to suffer from cancer without any good coming from it. Since God is outside of time, He sees a greater good. However, what baffles the human mind is the suffering in the present for such occurrences. This concept is beyond our comprehension, much like if an alien civilization were billions of years ahead of us. We simply wouldn't comprehend their intentions. The same applies to God. It's not necessarily to say that God works in mysterious ways, but rather to acknowledge that God is far beyond our comprehension. It's a theological truth that reminds us we can't simply dismiss this argument as a cop-out; it's merely injecting a theological attribute of God.
Sometimes there really isn't any "greater good" for suffering. Suffering exists because of Adam's sin. One of the problems with human reaction to suffering is that we see it as the suffering of "innocent" people, but if you accept the premise that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" and that "there are none righteous, no not one" then no one is actually "innocent."
The only counter argument I could interject with is why would God create this level of evil be necessary for that ultimate good? Especially if the same lessons we learn could be learnt if the level of evil was reduced. And the outcome can be the same. I understand that if the level of evil was reduced people would ask the same thing because we really are crybabies in the end, but at the very least we wouldn't be in as much distress and more people would be convinced that God ultimately is moral.
Thanks Jon and Alex for an interesting response chain. All this really shows is that these response videos present a poor replacement for a face to face debate on this topic where the debaters can respond in real time to each others points. I hope the two of you can arrange a live debate so that this topic can be argued to the best of your abilities. I think both sets of supporters can agree that these are two eloquent, intelligent debaters that would present an excellent debate.
It’s really incredible to hear actually logical and reasonable arguments for the existence of God, even as an Atheist it truly is a breath of fresh air, especially one with your sense of humor.
Why would he create us with a limited understanding ? Wouldn't he want us to understand him clearly? How is it our fault for having a limited understanding?
My argument goes like this: Since God is outside of time and sees all of time at once, if He were to change anything in the timeline, it would affect everything, including the end result. This would ultimately impact salvation. So, in this view, the presence of evil is necessary to keep the timeline correct, and any changes would disrupt the timeline, suggesting that if any event were changed, it would have caused a ripple effect, altering subsequent events and ultimately affecting salvation. So, in essence, any alteration in the sequence of events could lead to an entirely different outcome. God saw it was good so he kept it that way. It was perfect. Not sure if this is a good argument but it is difficult that it is not that a greater good occurs and to balance good with evil but rather to keep the timeline otherwise if God had changed it you and I would not exist. .... On the suffering part, since God suffered himself, it shows us that suffering is part of life. It's a theological impossibility for God to allow a child to suffer with cancer and no good to come from this. Since God is outside of time, he does see a greater good. But what I don't understand is the suffering in the present for such a thing that occurs which of course baffles this human mind and must be outside of our comprehension much like if an alien civilization that was billions of years ahead of us. We simply wouldn't comprehend their intention. Likewise the same is for God. But this isn't necessarily to say that God works in mysterious ways, it's simply saying that we have to remember God is far beyond our comprehension, that's just a theological truth that we can't simply say that this argument is a cop out, cause it's not, it's merely injecting a theological attribute of God.
That point about having to listen to Alex's videos being painful & suffering... I can relate at times. I find this a recurring pattern in Alex's videos sometimes.
No he’s introducing his kid to an opinion that you don’t like. Stop repeating the atheist mantra of “religion is brainwashing”. Introducing your kid to a variety of different arguments is basic to critical thinking.. until you introduce any ideas of religion, now it’s brainwashing. Do you see a double standard?
@@Kirdo-6241 Look bro until you walk a day in someone's shoes I would advise you to keep your mouth shut and let us adults have conversation. Thanks .....BRUH
This is a good response, Jon, but I still feel we're talking past each other. I can tell you argue honestly, so instead of keeping up this game of virtual tennis I think it would be a good idea to perhaps do a livestream/hangout and talk through the problem of evil. How does that sound? I still think you're misunderstanding induction and deduction (e.g. at 13:07 -- inductive probability does not apply to the premises themselves but to the link between premise and conclusion), so I would like to make a video responding to your first response, but with regards to the actual argument itself, I think a conversation would be more productive. Let me know if you're interested.
Hey Alex, good to read from ya! You were correct about induction in the first video (I clarified that in my pinned post after I posted the video). I edited the part out that day as well. So, I agree with you about that point; sorry for my error. I’d love to have a convo sometime! I’m traveling right now and incredibly busy these days, but let’s get in touch and see what we can work out. I’ll shoot you a message. Thanks for reaching out 👍🏽
Cosmic I love listening to you and genetically modified and love Jon as well David Wood from Acts 17 Apologetics Maybe sometime in the next few years maybe have a debate at a neutral location Atheism vs Christianity I as fans of both of y’all would love to see it as each of y’alls respective platforms
I’m noticing a theme with Alex. Alex’s arguments are based off his understanding of a concept he wants to fight or point out by finding historical facts to build his case to prove why God is either not real or is evil hence the statements like “lets discover the true meaning”. In fact if you look at the situation you presented Jon in it of itself, it’s not evil to hold your kid for a doctor to not just do his job but to take away the pain that he is hurting over. If someone hurt himself and accidentally chopped his finger off and would not stop crying how bad it hurt, it wouldn’t be evil to knock him out and take him to the hospital just as it isn’t evil to hold your own child down knowing how kids tend to be more reactive and resistant towards doctors regardless of personal feelings so that they won’t keep resisting. That’s not evil let alone a necessary evil. On the other side of this debate, Alex is leaving out 1 important factors in all of his arguments which is ignoring Satan and his characteristics and looking at his role, unless your own personal Godplex is getting in the way. You can easily talk about God and the Evil of the world but by not including who Satan is, how he works, you’ll only be eliminating / ignoring that God chose to create us and the world we live in to worship him and be in relationship with him. Using another concept to counter this topic, will only result in running In a endless circle with Alex while he is wrestling with God. Anger only produces evil which defiles a man and clouds ones judgement to see where He may be wrong. That in itself from all of his videos shows there is an agenda to fight God through Gods people just as Satan wanted Gods children to think for themself as Alex is doing. Based off how much he has mentioned God and his Omnipotent / Cosmic being and his approach to theses debates I’m fully convinced Alex wants to believe God is real but wants to also argue / publicize his frustrations with worldly religions, philosophy, and a personal vendetta to counter what He doesn’t understand and fuse it with the little that He does understand. No there is no hidden meaning behind that sentence. As Christians I’m sure we can all testify that we to have been ignorant to who God is before we all knew him with the little we knew. Anyone can say they want to have a friendly debate with a calm tone with how they speak and seem to hold discourse but their direction in a conversation helps uncover the agenda (or the true meaning) and intent of what they are wanting to say. This is often where one will speak what they mean to say through the form of a question and will find true or partial facts to lead to their conclusion (or their way of thinking for others to think just as Satan did in the garden). That being said, the points Alex touches, are real questions we do face in the world and your responses Jon are well put. This specific topic I think is something that has been stretched a bit further than it needs to be. Also if you look at the title, God doesn’t produce cancer. Christians with discernment from the Holy Spirit and the Word of God know this. The first sin didn’t take place on earth with Adam and Eve, it took place in Heaven when Satan fell because he wanted every creation to think for themselves which lead to disobedience and chaos.That in itself should show to those who believe in Jesus that God wouldn’t produce cancer but Satan produces evil and death. To answer the question “Would God allow Kids to get Cancer?”, Yes but it’s not God who is inducing them let alone to kids alone. The Role Satan has in the world is to steal your mind away from the truth, witness destruction and lead you into temptations that will only temporarily suppress and grow your fears, anger, and lust. If someone wants to use cancer as their case to prove against God, share with them the book of Job and all of the prophets and disciples that struggled with physical health and then look at how God healed them and brought them out of sickness bondage and captivity. There’s a simple theme in the world that has been recorded not just in the Bible but also in our Testimony; God allows destruction from the enemy to show to all of humanity that with God, all things are possible like healing the sick, making blind men see, letting lame men walk and much more. I was born into the world with a clinical depression and borderline low functioning autism and was raised as a Hindu, and God set me free from all of that. A few years back, I was even retested for my mental health and the doctors were shocked and still are till this day. I was told for 10 + years that there would be a 1% chance that I could work with the disability and with hard work maybe be able to live on my own with an aid in my life and God did something better and completely pulled me out of the spectrum. I think the better question to counter the title alone to Alex is “Does God allow Healing to take place in His People?”. You can literally use the majority of the Bible at any and every angle to defend the gospel. Crazy fact: Your own testimony is enough to not only prove that God doesn’t just allow cancer in the world but all the evil God pulled you out of. Crazier fact: This title is literally is an invitation to share the simple Yet Powerful Gospel to Alex. God is good in all circumstances. There’s really nothing to prove against how much God loves us. I believe the history and data from the Word of God is a Love letter and invitation to all humanity that we can be set apart from the world to be citizens of Heaven from God himself. People with the mindset similar to Alex are people who God wants us to pour into. We were born again into God being our First Love so we to shall pass through this world with Love, grace and humility because Our strength alone isn’t enough but Gods strength is enough through our weakness. Hear me when I say this isn’t me speaking optimism, this is the standard we are to hold ourselves to as believers. If we want to better ourselves in loving those around us including your enemies or dying to the desires of your flesh so that you can be focused on what is Good in the eyes of our Father, then start eliminating the distractions you have in your life and make it a priority to seek Jesus in His Word. Through that alone you will become slow to speak and quick to listen and slow to anger and willing to seek the heart of the broken. Our western culture and church does not teach this because it’s foreign to us. I was shook to find out how much deeper I could get with the Lord simply by getting rid of all my social media, all my video games, and distractions so that I can be closer to the Lord. You have to replace your struggle with something else otherwise you will be exchanging one struggle for another. I chose to really examine my heart and made it a priority to read more and spend more time with Him and that took me to a whole new level of His Goodness. As those in Christ, we should strive to grow deeper in contentment by continuity dying to our own ways so we aren’t putting God in a box in what He can and will do in and through your life.
You need a big daddy overlord to tell what is right and wrong? Your daddy overlord is fine with slavery, genocide, whacking babies out of women's wombs, etc. Even if he existed, he sounds like a terrible role model.
@@huuppone //Your daddy overlord is fine with slavery, genocide, whacking babies out of women's wombs, etc.// Dude, you just proved my point. Slavery is still being practiced today. To those individuals it's a way of life. Genocides can't be carried out unless you have the backing of a majority group. Whacking babies out of the womb is hotly debated in support from pro-choice groups. Your list of example are proof "evil" is subjective without God. Thanks lol
Through suffering, you learn to appreciate and understand why certain things are. You get taught something out of that experience, and through that you understand why it had to happen. And you choose how to respond to it. With your free will you have the decision to choose. I'm not making any sense probably but I promise it made sense in my head.😁 All I'm trying to say is like how a parent allows their kids to go through experiences for themselves to understand deeper for themselves is like how God is with us.
One of the reasons I like your responses is because you speak with confidence, which shows that you actually know what you're talking about. I really like seeing such confidence. God bless you bro.
4 points that come to mind: - what do they mean by evil: moral evil, or suffering and inconvenience and calamitous events? - In Eden, we had no suffering, while now we do, so our world experience shows that trials and opposition build the knowledge we need - Shaddai is the Hebrew for almighty, which is the equivalent of pantakrator in Greek. This is the word omnipotent is from. It speaks to victory not ability. - Cancer is a the body not functioning the way God designed it, causing bad cell copy to run amok, which is due to the Fall
@@blakeavila4409 I disagree. Cancer cells are "bad copies" of cells during cell replication. A healthy functioning body produces sufficient cancer killing cells, but an unhealthy one, including due to age or unhealthy lifestyles, will be unable to keep up with it. There have been significant effects on humankind since the Fall, including the Flood (terraforming event which also changes the atmosphere)
WOW!!! Thank you for such an incredibly well presented argument. This is the first time I could actually follow a philosophical argument. Incredible. Thank you again for chunking this down so well.
Q: why does child have to suffer at the dentist? A: to avoid suffering a toothache Q: why do we have to suffer toothaches A: because we have nerves in our bodies to alert us when something is wrong... and bacteria needs to eat too
It saddens me that your channel is not reaching more people as it should, but I pray with you that by the grace of our God. it will... sooner than we think.
Cancer is terrible. Cancer is also (in most cases) an unregulated replication of cells that do damage to their respective area. Cell replication is one of the many biological processes keeping us alive. It’s the misregulation that results in tragedy; regulation that can be impacted by numerous things (diet, environment, lifestyle, habits, etc.). But the alternative would be to do away with cell replication, an evident good. This would lead to early death. So what is the atheist’s solution?
Great 2 part videos as always. However, surely God tells us the reason why evil exists. It seems to me that Cosmic Skeptic bases his attempts at either attacking or denying God on false premises. Beside that a lesser suffering would prevent a bigger suffering, God also tells us how to avoid the bigger suffering. That's it, I said it in just a few sentences!
You exist or you don't and thus to experience any thing at all, one must have the ability to suffer, has well have an ability not to suffer, for both are experience. Suffering comes from the mind, you create it with your thoughts. If all things were made perfect, you would still suffer from being bored or alone. For having others around is chaos and thus would create some form of conflict or suffering, so you would have to be alone in darkness and still suffer from loneliness. Even before you have children, couldn't you foresee that there was the very real possibility they may suffer disappointment or pain or heartache in life, or that they might even hurt you and walk away from you? Of course but you keep having children. Why? Because you knew there was also the potential for tremendous joy, deep love, great meaning, and a life of experience. Ecclesiastes 3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. 9 What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? 10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. 11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life. 13 And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.
@Ruach Hako'desh. Hi, yes good points. But Cosmic Skeptic's rhetorical question was why kids get cancer, and die I guess. Why didn't he title his video: "why kids get aids, and die, for example. You see, he is assuming a great deal. Cancer is a reaction to something we are not sure yet what that is. It could be a warning signal to a deeper cause. Fix the cause first, it might disappear. They bombard cells to destroy it but many believe that it's a very big infection that antibiotic can't stop. Are you a Jew Ruach? I ask because if Cosmic Skeptic had lived in the Middle Ages, during the bubonic plague that killed millions, seeing all those deaths, he would have cursed God. But God 2 thousands years earlier had given a prevention method which still works today. Jews knew about it by reading their Bible, in great number they were spared. No one could have known but God that bacteria were the cause of mass scale deaths. Until the 1800, people still died because doctors would not wash their hands! Would that have stopped all the deaths? No, but I was arguing for the greater suffering versus the lesser suffering. Again, if Cosmic Skeptic had titled the video in regards to aids, you would know that God has given us a prevention guide to avoid getting aids, right?! What if He has given us the cure for cancer as well in the Bible? Cosmic Skeptic is like a guy that refuse to take the medicine, tells his doctor to leave him alone and then he complains that he is not getting better because of the doctor. Let's say that 20% of all evil causes 80% of the big sufferings (Pareto principles btw); I believe that God has given us the tool to eliminate that 20%. Will diseases and suffering still exists? Sure, but on a smaller scale. If Cosmic Skeptic raises the question, why couldn't God have made us perfect? Well, he did, but that would be another question for another video. Off course, it goes deeper than that. The Bible tells more but I won't easily share that with atheists. The Bible says not to share pearls with swine. Atheists have an entitlement syndrome. They would like you to do the research for them. Notice how Cosmic Skeptic states that John did not convince him. You see the world spins around them. I'm commenting to warn people about his logic rather than persuade him. Stay with God, believe in Jesus and one day you'll live that perfect life, no pain, no death. What's 80 years out of eternity, after all? But skeptics/atheists think that you must spend your time and money to convince them! But the more they reject God the more their heart is hardened. We must warn kids watching his videos that he is not seeing the big picture. But if as a consequence of our videos/comments, he suddenly wakes up well, glory to God!
I have cancer, and I'm very happy that the all-loving, all-powerful God will be with me to the end (which is actually a new beginning!) And evil is not necessary, it is an insult for the perfect creation of God.
First Man brought suffering and Jesus Christ paid the price on the cross, what we go through is temporarily when our lord Jesus Christ comes back Will make all things New 😄😄 and that is Christianity, thanks brother for this video
Jon Vester There is no contradiction. No Christian is saying it’s never ok to call someone dishonest, they are just pointing out that atheists often times just assume dishonesty for no good reason and just throw around the word.
Jon Vester I think we should remove that word from our vocab. I’m sure cosmic skeptic is expressing his views as he sees them. We ought to call each other ignorant, or misinformed or something like that as ‘dishonest’ implies intent.
@@johnny.V03 dishonest just means being not honest. The word is definitely overused by atheists, stretching far beyond it's definition in order to paint the other party as though with malicious intent. I think that is definitely wrong. However, I do agree with you on this one part, Christians should avoid this. Let's just give the benefit of the doubt that the other party just "didn't know".
@@johnny.V03 Can't be on the high ground when caught lying. Skeptic could face academic probation if this was a college assignment. In a job setting, he could be fired. Christianity is not a tribe, I'm an individual. You address what is wrong with my comment and don't apply someone else faults with me. Give Skeptic the benefit of doubt? Um no, Meme can do whatever he wants and should when debating people. I'm a simple commentor and am going with the obvious. Either he's stupid, lazy, or a liar. Maybe all three.
Those who learn God's forgiveness, mercy, compassion and love through suffering, takes the position as a woman who decides to have a 2nd baby after suffering 12 hours of severe labor having her 1st, the reward supercedes the pain. And those who don't get to know God will miss the purpose. And do not learn to see evil through his eyes. The bible says God is long suffering. When my suffering end God's suffering will continue. I had those questions until I got to know God, than I learned what job learned, it's worth it.
Coming from Cosmic Skeptic's channel, I really appreciated the insight that this is an argument about internal consistency of the Christian god, so Alex ought to have included your arguments about the incomprehensibility of God, even if that looks to Alex like a semantic stopsign. I also appreciated the reminder that Christians may not consider "suffering" and "good" to be in opposition in all cases, so agreeing to a common notion of "all-good" would be necessary to avoid definitionally talking past each other.
Duh.... evil exist because of our choice. God gave us free will and us humans, should be responsible to our free will. Wrong choice can affect everyone. Not just ourselves but everyone surrounds us like families and friend.
@@telekevontoloko8247 No, but one person's bad decisions can affect someone else as Vanessa said. Some people get cancer because of other people's bad decisions like second hand smoke, you never know. That's why we need to do our best to create safe environments for ourselves and other people while making improvements every day.
@@EagleZtoTheGrave Why does cancer even exists? Yes, we can greatly increase the risk of cancer (for example by smoking) but smoking didn't create cancer.
In the rebuttal explanation he gives about you either having to shrug your shoulder or point to greater suffering your helping your child avoid, God (you) would simply tell his creature (your son) that he is doing this so that His glory (your proof of being a good dad by taking care of his medical needs) may be made manifest. It will be when your child gets older and has children of his own that he will remember the loving acts of his father even when he didn’t understand it at the time.
So he put us through suffering, that he can make disepear without tears, so he can take the pain away later, or give us a smaler pain, so we can love him for it? All he want is love, so he manipulete us to get it? Am i missing something??
So you deserve to be in communion with a perfectly Holy and perfectly righteous God??? Is that what I’m hearing you communicate? It’s seems you assume that you don’t deserve suffering... Is that your conclusion?
@@SammyIvories86 never said that, but he claims he is perfectely good, and then he let children suffer. A good being dont think, that one deservs to burn Forever for not beliving, (you cant help what you belive in) and that one deservs to have cancer. Oh its a child! Well, even better!
@@Matilda-u5n This comment may be late but I want to clarify some things: God never "puts" us through suffering. Human defects and man-made problems are the things that put us through suffering (e.g cancer, disease, etc.) So to assume that God gives pain is just contradictory with what we christians believe about Him. You're right, God can eliminate suffering and its causes; since that's not what He intended to exist in the first place until selfish humans wanted to decide for themselves what's good and evil which only caused damage to themselves. And He promises to solve it worldwide at His own reasonable timing (which you wouldn't believe or comprehend anyway) For thousands of years until now, God is allowing humans to attempt and solve pain and suffering on their own by exercising their free will; independent of Him for our realization. And by that realization, we are moved with our own will to love Him for INVITING us (not 'manipulating' us) to depend on him for our good all along. So to conclude: He never manipulates us to love him by giving us pain; that's OUR personal choice and He's not the cause of it.
@@kyllecanete2494 well, if you think about it is just like this. You are trapped in a burning house. Someone has the key and he is outside. But of you want the key you have to follow his laws Forever. But he wont be clear what laws you have to follow. No. He Will give you a Book about that. How nice, right? Well, in that book things like these are written. “… I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” - Genesis 32:30 “No man hath seen God at any time…”- John 1:18 “… with God all things are possible.” - Matthew 19:26 “…The LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.” - Judges 1:19 Yeah. Have fun working out how to get the key Sweetie. I think i will just break a window. A Good person outside would give you the key anyway. But god is not god. How many did he kill in the bible? A couple of hundred thousand? Well the Devil that you are so afriad of killd 4 if i remember correct.
That was SO refreshing! Kudos to Alex (yes, Alex) and Jon, because ... wait for it ... just earlier today I got into one of those "discussions" with an old school friend that you can't win because the other person only says they "will come up with that answer" and don't, or go into attack mode by name calling, labeling, accusing, etc. Ever been there? I bet you have! So I'm giving major kudos to both Alex and Jon because they are actually having a real conversation and real debate regardless of human error. Kudos big time. And of course, being a Christian and a fan of Jon's, I'm already working out in my head the stuff about how "but God has PROVEN His great love for us in the extent He went to put on human flesh, live like a servant of rebellious man, teach, heal, be patient then suffer and die an excruciating death far beyond what we can imagine (paying for eternal punishments for cosmic treason against God for myriads of people through thousands of years) on that cross, so that He can reward those who will humble themselves, repent and accept Christ then be given the beautiful gift of salvation which changes us immeasurably from salvation on into a glorious eternity with Him beyond anything mere humans can even comprehend!" Or something like that. Wow, that run on sentence was actually longer than most of Paul's and I complain about his run on sentences! Humans! SMH. lol
There's a great debate on this topic on Capturing Christianity's channel. I haven't finished listening to it yet, but it seems like both parties are trying to be honest and consistent. Personally I don't know how anyone can listen to the 'Problem of Evil' argument. It's so patently absurd, a theory for children. Grown-ups can abide suffering and believe in good.
@BananaJunior11 It is logically consistent for an all loving and all powerful God to "co-exist" with evil when one takes two points into account:1. The all loving and all powerful God is allowing evil to exist for a certain period of time. 2. The all loving and all powerful God will eradicate all evil for ever when that certain period of time is over.
@BananaJunior11 He is not desiring for evil to exist but allowing it to as the time is not due for it to be eradicated. And by certain period of time, I mean the time that most people like to call the "end times" when all prophecies are to be fulfilled.
I’m not even five minutes into the video yet, and this so-called “skeptic” is a horrible debater. His argument fell flat on his face when he claimed that evil exists “self-evidently.” That’s not how a rational debate works. You can’t just say that something is self-evident; you have to *prove* that it exists. Evil exists self-evidently? Prove it. If evil exists, then it follows that objective morality exists, otherwise “evil” is nothing more than “actions that you personally dislike.” Therefore, if objective morality exists, God must exist. He also says that “a good thing eliminates evil as far as it can.” Oh really? Prove it. Again, he states this as it’s somehow self-evident, which it is not. He just read that, but he never explains why this is true. Good does not always have to eliminate evil as far as it can.
not to mention he says evil exists, yet he says he's a moral relativist, he says we can't know right from wrong, that morality (in other words, good and evil) is completely subjective... now in this video he says evil exists. Is the atheistic double standard. One moment when it favors them, they point out why God's evil (wich christians always have a response for), but in a flip of convenience, they say morality is not objective so that they can deny God and any transcendent moral standard. As atheists like to say to theists... that's just dishonest
Evil can simply be defined as "anything that is detrimental to human welfare". It goes without saying that that is indeed self-evident. This does not require any objective standard to compare against because it is a reality ALL humans are privy to. So, no - the existence of evil does not require the existence of a God. Also, the logical jump from objective morality to God is a "canyon". Evolution inculcated a set of values within humans that helped us survive better. You will find that murder is deemed bad in all societies precisely because individuals who felt that murdering another was bad survived better than those who relished in killing their fellow apes. There it is. Objective morality without God.
@@kiralawliet5612 Assumptions is all there is In atheism... if this worldview is true, it literally makes no sense, I refuse to believe people don’t see how utter disastrous it is
@@kofibonsu8466 Atheism is not a worldview in itself. It's a rejection of theism. Atheism does not make any claims about the world, it accepts the world as it seems to be, and rejects the unfounded claim that any gods exist. The problem with things "making sense" is that quite often, what makes sense to our limited understanding isn't true. It made sense to the ancient Egyptians that the sun is driven through the sky in a chariot, piloted by an immortal supernatural humanoid. It made sense to everyone at some point that the earth is flat, that the sun is smaller than the earth, and that diseases are caused by evil spirits, not germs and bacteria. We now know the truth about these things, but there's still much we do not know. Human beings are very creative. We are tempted to satisfy our curiosity by filling the gaps in knowledge with stories, rather than waiting for the facts to be revealed. Evolution is an exceedingly slow process. Despite all our scientific advancement, human nature has been stagnant for thousands of years. So we do the same thing with our blindspots, the ancients did with theirs. We fill them with unsubstantiated propositions that seem to make sense to us or bring us comfort. But that does not make them true.
I think you did a great job of dissecting this claim by Cosmic Skeptic (CS) and there should be no reason why they cannot accept the "I don't know" for God when we already accept the "I don't know" for scientists and atheists. That presents part of the double standard they try to pass off as acceptable practices and philosophies. Here is my take on this...not that anyone asked...:) There are two distinct topics that seem to be blurred into one here, but maybe I'm missing something. These are: 1) pain and suffering and 2) evil. They are not necessarily the same things although they may be related in many cases. Evil people can inflict pain and suffering on the innocent or their intended victims (who may or may not be innocent) and evil people may endure pain and suffering that might be caused by their own evil. There are also probably a few dozen or even a few thousand variations of this combination of the two main topics. If the question is "why would God allow children to get cancer'? and we answer "we don't know" it should cover the problem sufficiently for those who claim that "we don't know" is an acceptable answer for science. If the question is "why would God allow children to suffer (from cancer or anything)" and try to associate it with God being evil then they would need to provide evidence that God does cause children to get cancer and suffer (and possibly die) for an evil purpose. That entire argument is tossed with two simple words followed by another simple word...God is...Love.
Sorry for the delay, Meme Team! Editing took longer than I thought and I'm traveling at the moment. Sorry also for the audio issues as well. I would have fixed them if I weren’t traveling. Hope you all enjoy!
What do you meme? I’m just glad you continue to post. Have a safe trip!
Perhaps I misunderstood you, but why would it be a ‘bad argument’ to say that God would allow evil to accomplish some greater good?
Whaddo You Meme?!?....It's all good, Well worth the wait!..Cheers & God Bless!
Alex, the bad argument is that the ONLY reason for God to allow suffering, is ONLY so GREATER suffering can be stopped. The bad argument is NOT that suffering is necessary for the greater good. Hope that helps!
Whaddo You Meme?? Thanks, that clarifies things for me!
I am old. I've never taken a philosophy class, but it strikes me that Adam and Eve did not fully know what they were losing until it was lost. How do we appreciate the sweetness of honey if we maybe have never tasted vinegar? What is goodness if we do not know what evil is? This world is broken and we see it, God promises a perfect world in the next life, we know how precious that is when we look around us here and so strive to be ready to join Him.
Thats kind of confusing. In heaven there is no evil no suffering no pain no sadness. So how come we need to experience suffering now but we dont need to experience it later in heaven? God created angels in heaven, do they know what its like to suffer? No. So why do angels get the hall pass but we dont? Do angels enjoy the taste of honey ? Hmm..
@@josh2676 Humans are created with free will, and thus we are able to choose-either to obey Christ and His commandments, or to walk in pure and utter darkness by feeding sinful passions. When humans strive to enter into eternal union with the living God, they experience multiple forms of suffering. Humans must suffer for Christ just as Christ had suffered for them, as it teaches humility and the need to have a contrition of heart in front of God. And thus, when suffering is experienced in the process to salvation, an individual may be granted salvation when they depart from this life. That is, everlasting union with Christ. They do not need to experience it in Heaven, for they had already experienced it on earth. If you read your question more carefully, you could see that the answer already lies therein.
Angels don't need to experience suffering. They are not assigned the same task that we are. Angels are creatures designed by God with one sole purpose-to glorify Him. That's it. They don't need to endlessly strive as we humans are in order to become co-inheritors of eternal life. We don't get the "hall pass" because we're of a different nature and of a different task that we are to accomplish. Also, I'm sure that the honey thing was nothing more than an analogy. I don't think angels literally sit around eating honey. It's just a way to emphasize good.
@@ストリアン thanks Bob, yes just a poor analogy.
The angels watch with astonishment and great interest, 1peter1:12 tells us.
Interesting rabbit hole musing, there is no plan of salvation for angels...
Because they had seen the face of God and rebelled against Him?
@@ストリアン Nowhere in the bible does it say we have free will it says the opposite. For example some of the verses say that god establishes are very steps, no one can challenge his will or plan, are fates are predetermined. If these are true wheres the free will? Even if we supposedly do have free will why does god manipulate people that have it (the pharoah for example)?
Atheist: God is an insecure tyrant that won't let me do what I want!
God: *gives free will*
Atheist: Why does God allow evil! Bleargeharghe!
🤣😭
That's the most hilarious sound effect ever typed out.
hahaha
He gave free will yet will throw you in hell for following that free will, nice ultimatum.
@@NA-oc7eq you weren't following free will, you were following desire. Free will is a neutral thing. It is the ability to choose right and wrong.Murderers have free will, yet judges don't let them go for "following" it.
I really appreciate how Jon is so careful not to accuse others of being intentionally misleading or lying.
I think that it’s a terrific display of his fine character and is something that I would like to emulate in my own life.
Thanks Jon👍🙏
Because he can't. Questions (i.e. Why does your proposed god allow evil/suffering?) cannot be lies!
Hes good at strongly implying it though
Nathanael Culver wow lmao why are you so immune to irony 🤣👌
Shane Hull, do you think Alex was completely fair handed, in his refutation of Jon?
BoxBoy86 !?! I would feel disingenuous if I said either deliberately left parts out and ignored certain premises but both did wile Jon did it and made a point about it
Honestly they should debate and they would cut through that in minutes the video responses on both parties is not the best form of discourse and is honestly the cause for that and the confusion and misconceptions it brings
R.C Sproul says that the evil argument fails because a perfectly good God must also be just. And if he stopped being just, he would no longer be good. Alex has a clear misconception of what good is as if being good meant giving everybody good things all the time regardless of their actions. Free will gives us the potential to be evil, and what can a perfectly good God do with evil people like us? The fact that God is good is one of the most terrifying and at the same time amazing things for humankind.
@Pisstake why do people think God "gives" cancer to kids? It a thing that happens due to malfunctions in our body for not being perfect
@@alexthompson8977 If one created the state of affairs, then one is RESPONSIBLE for the state of affairs.
@@MyContext but he didn't. It literally said Adam and eve brought sin into the world and with it corruption how is it God's fault?
@@alexthompson8977 God created Adam and eve, which god allowed the be able to create sin. Which brought sin into the world. And no, this does not make them not have 'free will'.
Free will is simply the ability to be able to choose between options, god created the option off evil. Therefore God created evil.
@@luxeayt6694 nope. It was free will that allowed Adam and Eve to pick sin. If God didn't allow them to choose obedience or not then they would be nothing more than mindless slaves. So sorry but the ability to choose between bad and good gives freewill. So again God didn't create evil because Adam and Eve did. That's foolish. Using that logic even if Adam and Eve didn't sin if someone did 1 million years later it would be God's faut because he created Adam and Eve which eventually created that person. Also it was the devil that tempted Adam and Eve meaning HE created the option of evil not God. And if God denied that option he would be denying free will. See the point don't you?
As Ravi put it:
God could make 4 things:
Nothing
A world with only good
A world with only evil
A world with good and evil
Love is only possible in the fourth.
How so? I mean, he could put all evil people on one planet and good on the other. Or even better, simply put out of existence whoever doesn't want to exist yet without both evil and good who still keep existing, fighting by keeping them separate. This is however not about necessarily evil but about "evils" that are NOT necessary such as cancer, flies, tsunamis etc. God could've avoided all of it. He says he made humans in his image but tell me can God be tempted? If not, then he clearly did not give us a part of his nature, hence why humans can be tempted (imperfect) unlike God (who's perfect) according to the Bible. So that is setup for failure. Also imagine throwing down rebellious angels to planet Earth for what, to achieve what? Literally out of all the planets he brings that rats home? You gotta be kidding me. As long as there's a hell eternally then there's no freewill.
Also another thing, even the law puts limits on evil. The Bible says in the book of Romes that God allows laws to keep the concious (in other words to make people think about what they did and hence not get out of control). So clearly, there's still limit and not absolute freedom. So why not might as well prevent a criminal from hurting innocent people? O but somehow God considers you guilty if you are a bystander and do nothing in defense (if you're capable of defending depending the circumstances then he considers you an accomplice). If you're guilty then he's even more for being a bystander and doing absolutely nothing because afterall, you're just not intervening for the sake of respecting the criminal"s freewill correct? So why'd you be guilty if you were to be a bystander and do nothing? Double standards.
@@craftycrayon9283
"He could put all the evil people on one planet and all the good on another."
He did it's called Earth.
And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
Matthew 19:17 KJV
As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Romans 3:10-12 KJV
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:6 KJV
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Psalms 14:1-3 KJV
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Romans 3:23 KJV
As surely as your father is a man you are guilty of sin because you were born with a fallen sinful nature and as such you are evil.
Unless you are born again of the Holy Spirit then you belong on the planet with the evil people.
If God takes all of His people (the "good" people you illuded to[they are not good they are Just]) and puts them on another planet, who then will preach to those who are evil about God and turn them towards God so that they can be saved(born again[made "good"]).
God could create any number of worlds with varying degrees of evil. Love would still be possible in a much better world.
👍
Atheists: "why would a perfect God allow bad things to happen to good people"
Christians: "Well, that only happened once, and He volunteered"
Seth Apex Beautiful
@@questionasker8791 you don't understand either the nature of evil or the doctrine of Hell. Go to InspiringPhilosophy and watch his videos on hell and the problem of evil, probably the one on heaven as well if you have time to kill.
There are no good people because God didnt want to make good people. Good people dont need saving. And God wanted to be a hero. Why did he want to be a hero? So he could be a role model and inspire others to be moral and kind to each other? Nope. Being a nice person doesnt get you to heaven. Only by constant worship do you gain access. That doesnt sound like a God to me. Sounds like someone that just wants attention.
@@josh2676 That doesn't sound like God to me, either.
@@questionasker8791 preach brother
We exult ourselves when humanity accomplishes greatness, completely forgetting the one who gave us the ability to do so. But whenever something that we deem ‘evil’ happens, it suddenly becomes Gods fault for allowing our free will.
Good point. I think it should be humankind's goal to make good choices.
James Gossweiler , and for mankind to take responsibility for their actions.
Question Asker, who said that God is responsible for all of the catastrophes that take place in our world? Who’s to say that man isn’t responsible for earthquakes or tornados. I don’t believe God intentionally throws meteors down on the earth. It’s rather a matter of reality taking its course. If you change the way you look at death and suffering as a natural part of life, it becomes less tragic. In closing, we all die, we all suffer, whether or not its self inflicted.
Question Asker 1. I don’t believe sin directly and literally affect the environment. However, I do know that humans are responsible for a lot of the environmental events that take place, i.e, global warming.
2. There’s no way of of knowing since the Bible doesn’t literally spell it out for us. Although, if under the beliefs of Christianity, it’s ultimately irrelevant.
3. I’m in no way saying that human life isn’t intrinsically valuable, or we shouldn’t care about suffering or death. I’m simply saying death and suffering in itself is not evil. I do care about my life and it’s rather an ad hominium attack to generalize what you think I believe to assist yourself in this argument.
@@questionasker8791 Ive got a few errands to run so ill have to get back to you later. last question, Im assuming that you are an agnostic, but id like to ask what you consider yourself. And if you are agnostic, where do you believe you are, where on the scale of, 'believing there is a God on a scale on 1-10, (1 being sure there is no God, 10 being knowing without certainty there is a God) would you place your self on?
You got a new follower in me. I'm a fan of cosmic skeptic and came.across you two responding to each other. And it's rare that both sides are logical, humble to an extent, and not talking trash about personal stuff. Keep doing your thing man, even if I disagree with your view on religion.
I thought for once that Cosmic Skeptic was the only reasonable sophisticated atheist on youtube (in academia there are of course people who surpass him). Unfortunately, he has shown me otherwise. This is what new atheism does although for him he didn't have an emotional appeal.
Also love that you preach the Gospel in your responses.😉
I was atheist
Now I’m starting to know and understand why
And this’s a temporary world 🌎
It’s not the perfect world that atheist asking for!
That’s is coming in the future for who endure this world, and with Jesus living with us we can, for believers and who have the Holy Spirit and fellowship with Him, He carry is, without Him I was almost killed my self that how I had experience with God and become a believer, it’s long but the essential part of it .
God bless you I’m blessed by this and many other videos too
To get me closer to God, and to remind me and God use you to answer me 💜
U are getting much more stupid brother 😅😅
I don't know Cosmic, leaving out arguments to make yourself look right. Kinda deceptive. Almost... evil.
@William Wallis or a god that gives people cancer.
@@shadsalah3346 yeh lets blame God for the kids bullying me when i was younger even tho he did not give them the command to do so🥴🤦🏾♂️
Cosmic is lost, his followers like his personality. I've tried to talk to him, he deletes and ignores comments that make sense. Pray for him. I'm afraid he's been corrupted by the devil. 🙏🙏🙏
@@shadsalah3346 If you don't believe in God, and I presume you think everything has happened by chance, so basically nothing really matters, no right or wrong.
Why do you care if someone has cancer?
People die because we sinned against God. The wages of Sin is death. Man is appointed one life and then the judgement.
Yes he cares for us, but life isn't about being pain free and everything positive. God can turn anything bad situation is Good. Jesus is the way , the truth and life. Amen.
@@shadsalah3346 Is cancer evil? We consider it bad or evil because of what it does to us but is cancer inherently evil? I don't think so. It is simply doing what it does.
I'm an atheist and happened to stumble upon this exchange. I think you are right in that CosmicSceptic was wrong for not including your clarifying points. That being said, I'd love to see you and him hash out the problem of evil. Seems like you both have a lot more to say.
Glad to see you enjoy an alternative perspective. Love from a Christian.
I beleive Alex o Connor sees evil as something we shouldn’t indulge in. But the atheist doesn’t beleive anything is ultimately evil, to him it is but he has nothing to stand on to say others shouldn’t do it.
@@demanitorres5925 His arguments from morality are often arguments of consistency I think.
@@justhaveago but then, how does science measure on how to be completely a good person?
@@danyaelpecson557 It doesn't.
"Dishonest" - atheist youtube commenter who hasn't watched the video yet.
LOL
Seriously. I've seen so many Atheists call dishonesty when refuting an argument, and it just makes the Atheist getting refuted all the more awkward.
@@petery6432 Lol ikr, it's so cringe
I find CS to be pretty smart. I find it hard to believe that he completely missed the follow up to Jon's dentist analogy. Either he stopped Jon's video right at that moment or purposely omitted it because He couldn't construct a good argument against it. Love the videos.
I found him very deceptive from the start. He covers up his folly with great words. It's the same in almost all of his video
He's been brainwashed by demons, who use his intelligence as a platform to spread and influence false knowledge on people, leading them away from God. Everyone who's a Christian knows Satan is an intellectual.
Love John's videos that is. Perhaps I should of used a better choice of words, to the world's standards CS is intelligent and his arguments may sound good. Yet, when they are broken down they fall short. Like all of the atheistic arguments against God.
@@ClubbHouseAirsoft well said
I think he's super smart and typically respectful. I also think misrepresenting people is an easy shortcut to get credibility. If you misrepresent someone's point, it's easy to make yourself look powerful which is a trick Alex uses too much.
School starts tommorrow for me😓 Can I get a quick prayer? EDIT: To be honest I wasn't really sure if people would actually care enough to take time out of their day JUST to pray for a little 16 year old. Everyone that prayed for me I really do appreciate it❤
No
I hope you have a fantastic school year, in Jesus name amen
@@pJ005-k9i Appreciate it brotha
@@thehomiedan6378
have a blessed year
Have a blessed one and stay close to Jesus Christ brother.
The fact that I was able to fully pay attention to this 30 minute video on God's existence from John, really says how well he breaks things down and makes it easier to understand the concepts. Thank you @whaddooyoumeme. I'm really learning a lot from your videos!
It’s a good day when I get home from work and there’s another WHADDO YOU MEME vid up!
From the get-go CS confuses suffering with evil. The suffering of the little boy in the dentist's chair is self-inflicted. If he had faith in his father he would trust that nothing terrible was going to happen to him while his father is watching over him.
Well said.
That was really shady of Cosmicsceptic, in my opinion. The same kind of thing that Dawkins and Hitchens did. Congrats on pretending you don't understand what the other debater is saying. All three of them make Atheists look really bad.
Oh man, Hitchens ALWAYS did this to avoid the moral argument. He would always twist "No morality without God" to "Atheists can't be moral." They sound so similar but the second is both false and personally offensive which makes it evocative. I never once heard Hitchens address the real question at hand.
@@sivad1025 i couldn't stand ONE debate with CH, like... the unpoliteness, the interrupting, the virtue signaling, the hatred in his endeavour to show God doesn't exist motivated by a clear hatred. I cast him out as a "good debater" when Frank Turek in a debate back in 2010 (or 9, i don't remember) asks CH to define evil for him and he replies "religion". ANY honest person will agree this was a non answer and that he just wanted to virtue signal. His debates could be summarized by "religions poison everithing, this God i don't believe in sucks, i hate him and i'm glad there's absolutely no evidence he's real". I also got super angry when in another debate he interrupts the christian (don't remember exactly who, but i think it was john lennox), and says "Doesn't it says 'i didn't come to bring peace but a sword!' Oh yes it does! Doesn't it say for women to stay silent! Yes it does! Doesn't it say 'whoever doesn't hate his father mother and family is not worthy of me!' Yes it does"... does that language, + the interrupting sound self righteous annoying and childish!? CUZ IT IS! And he had already been corrected in many of these things and kept on them taking them out of context when he knew he was doing so, in other words they were LIES. He didn't have to believe in God, but to twist the doctrine in things he was already corrected by christians... And this guy, is the great atheist debater, this interrupting self righteous childish guy who often gives non answers and twists bible verses that he already know the meaning.... is one of the top atheist debaters. SMH! Making me even more sure christianity is true. Even his brother who's a christian calls him out on that, saying he was motivated not by reason as he claimed, but rage. A demonic level of hatred against God, openly prefering Hell over heaven, in the end God gave him what he wanted.
@@vitormenezesdemattos967 That sounds about right. Hitchens opts for the pithy response over the intellectual one.
Frank Turek said it best:
"Hitchens work can be described in two statements: God doesn't exist and I hate him."
@@sivad1025 he was a child in a grown man's body. No in his debates there's never any respect, politeness, but there's rage, taking passages out of context, hating God, interrupting and self righteousness. He was everything he accused christians of. Just curious about 2 things,1- did you see any of the debates i refered to? The one where he says "religion" cuz he couldn't define evil and the one where he as a spoiled child, takes a bunch of verses out of context and goes "doesn't it say that? Oh yes it does" over and over. The guy was simply unbearable to watch. I don't wanna hit the hammer and declare an "end trial", but he was often leading people to HELL and making them hate God based on things he knew were not true, and even says he prefers Hell over Heaven... i really believe his cancer could have been very well God saying "OK man, shut up! You're not gonna lie about me anymore and i'm gonna give you what you want so much! And i'll make you stop dragging more people there!" 2- do you think this could have been the case as well? Again, his rage against God was not merely intelectual or emotional, but satanic. CH was an agent of satan on earth.
@@vitormenezesdemattos967 I saw the William Lane Craig debate and I've seen clips from the Frank Turek debate. I've definitely seen that clip of him saying that religion is evil. It's a pithy way to straw man the argument for a laugh in the audience. And it's an easy way to get those who are easily manipulated by emotions to react positively.
Its called cherry picking!
At 1:32, Alex wants to argue as if evil exists self-evidently, but if he's an atheist, then he ought to argue as if evil doesn't exist at all. Under atheism, there's no such things as good and evil, only preferences. A dichotomy of good and evil can exist beyond an arbitrary fashion only after the existence of the supreme moral lawgiver has been acknowledged, so the argument from evil presupposes the existence of God and therefore cannot actually serve as an argument against God's existence.
He's arguing from the religious premise or better said he's only pointing out the self contradicting claims Christians make such as suffering is good as if it's necessary when it's not. A baby does not need to suffer but hey I guess the christian God is indifferent.
@@craftycrayon9283 "A baby does not need to suffer"
TEETHING
@@craftycrayon9283 calling sufferings good and not elaborating is wrong . Obviously suffering is terrible and nobody should have to overtly suffer , but by the right about of hardship one can grow
This seems pretty easy to debunk.
Their claim: "A good god would not allow evil"
Rebuttal: "A good god would allow free will"
Free will requires the existence of evil.
Purposefully omitting the argument from the party you're debating against is very, very disingenuous. It just means that you can't counter it, so you argue what you can and literally ignore everything else. Cosmic skeptic's argument is incomplete and almost feels empty.
In my experience CS is an atheist and needs to lie about the Bible and make his arguments based on the lies, not on what the Bible says.
Take his attack on slavery for example and his implying that the virgins captured in the war were to be used for the men's pleasure. Those are not arguments based on the overall demonstration of God's love, but on CS's interpretation of the acts that serve his purpose and goal of trying to paint God as the evil monster.
It's all about selling coffee mugs and T-Shirts and board games to help his cause of spreading hatred towards Christians.
Some Christian Apologists claim that Alex is the most likeable but that would be like comparing suffering from a spreading cancer or suffering from heart disease. *Neither of them are pleasant and the suffering of their insidious destruction of the human body or the Body of Christ is their goal.*
@@peli_candude554 WOW if instructions from God don't count a demonstration of Gods will I don't know can.
@@maddog0975 the point is that God never said the Israelites could take the Midianite women as "sex slaves". CS read "sex slave" into the text when that's not what the context suggested at all. Please see Jon's part 3 video on this matter.
I don't think it's so much he couldn't respond. I think it's moreso that these atheists want to look dominant. They know their viewers don't follow Jon's channel so they change the argument to make Jon look stupid so they seem completely dominant
Kid thinks he is intelligent. using big big words. lol
Excellent work bro. God bless!
But he's human just like the rest of us. Knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Never let your knowledge of Jesus' love puff you up.
Sorry, using my phone and accidentally tapped you rather than someone else
@@adriaenthibeault4021 😁 At least still fits and makes sense in this context
Comments like this are really unnecessary. They are debating, not arguing, and from what I can tell, Alex is being very well mannered and respectful.
He's more intelligent than the guy doing this response.
Sophisticated ignorance at its finest. Cosmic Skeptic rightfully earned that L.
But he believes he got the W like literally everyone ever whose clearly lost a debate...and that's what matters! haha....
i say exactly that. my life has been wild and painful often, but i wouldn't change a thing. i am who i am because of all my experiences, "good" and "evil".
@@questionasker8791 Do you think that this life is all there is? If so, then it's unthinkably odious that innocent children would be subjected to such suffering. However, if they are immediately received in a blissful afterlife, then it really doesn't make their suffering as unbearable, when looking at it in sub specie aeternitatis.
@@questionasker8791 Then you are bereft of any rational answer to the suffering. Of course, that pales in comparison to the emptiness that you seem doomed to suffer in a meaningless existence, since death, as far as you're concerned, is final. And that's too bad, because the afterlife is real, and so is Heaven; just ask anyone who has experienced an NDE. But, I don't have the time to try to explain it all to you, and to try to make you understand. So, I'll just say that it is perfectly logical and rational to believe it is so. And it makes all the difference for me, that I actually look forward to the transition. Peace
@@dougoverhoff7568 "blisfull afterlife" doesn't erase their previous suffering.
@@richardgamrat1944 I never said it did. But when considered in the view of the spectrum of eternity, it is but a mere brief flash of pain as compared to eternal peace and joy. It's hardly really even comparable when viewed in those terms. No one wants to see anyone suffer, especially children, but I think it would be far more pitiful if the end of this life spelled final doom.
@@questionasker8791 Science can't answer everything, first of all. It seems so many people are entrusting so much to the purview of science. After all, science is a human endeavor. And as such, is limited to human capabilities, impressive as our capacities may be.
I don't mean to sound condescending, or to denigrate the meanings in your life. I'm sure that you do have things that are quite meaningful in your life, such as children. But, without a belief in an afterlife, we are confined to a very limited amount of influence on things.
If, in fact, you are interested in NDE's, there are literally thousands of those stories to see. They are fascinating, regardless whether or not they prove an afterlife. Many non-believers are of the opinion that those who have experienced them were merely unconscious, more or less in a dream state, or a coma, at worst. But, the truth is that some of the experiences were pronounced legally dead, some for as long as an hour, or more. No heartbeat, no pulse, no pulmonary activity, totally flat lined. And that's not even the interesting part. The experiences that they relate are commonly of a nature that go well beyond any "dream state", or anything anyone would ordinarily encounter in an unconscious state. Many report seeing friends and relatives who have passed on, and invariably those persons are described as being young and vibrantly 'healthy' in their appearance. Also, there is a commonality about the experiences that transcends any Religious, or even non-religious, backgrounds. People always report encountering what they claim is JESUS. but never Mohammed, or Budda, or any mystics or religious persons outside of Christianity.
I hope this helps, and I wish you good luck in your quest for finding truth; for therein lies the meaning of things.
Peace
The only way to remove the need for lessons, pain, is to remove free will, freedom of choice, and freedom of thought.
Lightning strikes a forest causing it to light on fire and a fawn burns to death. What purpose does this serve?
@@tuffwith2effs899 At the risk of being TL;DR
Not sure I understand the relevance of your question.
Does a fawn have free will, does the fawn think, therefore it is or is it all instinct?
Most animals die in fires because man does back burning. This not only traps the fire, but all the animals attempting to flee the original fire. But that wasn't you question.
Why not ask me about childhood cancers or the seemingly unexplainable birth defects (and cot deaths) when vaccines first were used to "eradicate" some childhood diseases like polio and chickenpox?
Do you know in some parts of the world there is virtually no cancers, at all. Yet when they found people who left these areas and moved to Western societies and cutures they all had the representative levels of cancers like the rest of us. Isn't that interesting?
So who made the cancers?
God, or
Man, and
What part did free will play in it and what have we learnt from these facts?
My guess is, not a damn thing.
Without videos like these, I'm always in fear of confirmation bias. You're the man. Thank you.
As someone who loves religion, philosophy and logic; this is one amazing video.
Every time you upload a video I am confident that it’ll be great. You clearly walk in the Spirit and that is what matters. Keep up the amazing work Jon.
When someone ask me why bad things happen to good people, I respond by asking why good things happen to bad people.
Most people typically consider themselves to be good but the Biblical definition is that only God is good and that all people are not just bad, but evil. And I've spoken to so many people who consider themselves to be good and they blame God for the bad things they've gone through or that others go through, but at the same time they never thank God for the good things they enjoy.
Alex managed to miss the key point of the comparison. Even when explicitly stated. Must. Do. Better.
He actually does address it after a long detour. But he still omits a large part of the argument.
Dude the “told my wife she had to take him” but was hilarious!
She ain't having none of that
I really enjoy watching your videos Jon. The last clip where you play the cosmic skeptic saying whaddo you meme if found quite funny. Keep it up.
Great to see the final part!! :-D Your point about Christianity's central gospel message of God's suffering/death is exactly what I had in mind when thinking about this "Problem of evil". Skeptics seem to ignore this very important point in the Christian worldview. Quite frankly, the problem-of-evil argument fails to do what its aimed to do: giving an internal critique
Cosmic Sceptic Cathy Newmaned you!!
“So what Jon’s saying is...”
Lol 😂
Yes!
In considering suffering, the fact that God suffered Himself shows us that suffering is an inherent part of life. It is theologically impossible for God to allow a child to suffer from cancer without any good coming from it. Since God is outside of time, He sees a greater good.
However, what baffles the human mind is the suffering in the present for such occurrences.
This concept is beyond our comprehension, much like if an alien civilization were billions of years ahead of us. We simply wouldn't comprehend their intentions. The same applies to God. It's not necessarily to say that God works in mysterious ways, but rather to acknowledge that God is far beyond our comprehension. It's a theological truth that reminds us we can't simply dismiss this argument as a cop-out; it's merely injecting a theological attribute of God.
Man I pray for that Alex Guy. I pray God softens his heart.
I'm kina agnostic but it was good to see you notice the previous video's flaw
I like to see you debating Alex
Sometimes there really isn't any "greater good" for suffering. Suffering exists because of Adam's sin. One of the problems with human reaction to suffering is that we see it as the suffering of "innocent" people, but if you accept the premise that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" and that "there are none righteous, no not one" then no one is actually "innocent."
Egg _ lol
The only counter argument I could interject with is why would God create this level of evil be necessary for that ultimate good? Especially if the same lessons we learn could be learnt if the level of evil was reduced. And the outcome can be the same. I understand that if the level of evil was reduced people would ask the same thing because we really are crybabies in the end, but at the very least we wouldn't be in as much distress and more people would be convinced that God ultimately is moral.
Thanks Jon and Alex for an interesting response chain. All this really shows is that these response videos present a poor replacement for a face to face debate on this topic where the debaters can respond in real time to each others points. I hope the two of you can arrange a live debate so that this topic can be argued to the best of your abilities. I think both sets of supporters can agree that these are two eloquent, intelligent debaters that would present an excellent debate.
Completely agree, would love to see them both (more-so Jon) in a live setting.
Intelligence alone isn't enough it seems, you also need the power of The Holy Spirit.
Jon displays this extremely well.
No, he's just using his brain
I respect your admission that faith in The Holy Spirit is something other than intelligence
The greater evil we avoid by suffering temporal suffering, something like eternal suffering maybe? Wait, I've heard of somewhere like that...
It’s really incredible to hear actually logical and reasonable arguments for the existence of God, even as an Atheist it truly is a breath of fresh air, especially one with your sense of humor.
We rejoice in our suffering because we know suffering produces perseverance which produces character, character produces hope
Why would he create us with a limited understanding ? Wouldn't he want us to understand him clearly? How is it our fault for having a limited understanding?
My argument goes like this: Since God is outside of time and sees all of time at once, if He were to change anything in the timeline, it would affect everything, including the end result.
This would ultimately impact salvation. So, in this view, the presence of evil is necessary to keep the timeline correct, and any changes would disrupt the timeline, suggesting that if any event were changed, it would have caused a ripple effect, altering subsequent events and ultimately affecting salvation.
So, in essence, any alteration in the sequence of events could lead to an entirely different outcome. God saw it was good so he kept it that way. It was perfect.
Not sure if this is a good argument but it is difficult that it is not that a greater good occurs and to balance good with evil but rather to keep the timeline otherwise if God had changed it you and I would not exist.
....
On the suffering part, since God suffered himself, it shows us that suffering is part of life. It's a theological impossibility for God to allow a child to suffer with cancer and no good to come from this. Since God is outside of time, he does see a greater good. But what I don't understand is the suffering in the present for such a thing that occurs which of course baffles this human mind and must be outside of our comprehension much like if an alien civilization that was billions of years ahead of us. We simply wouldn't comprehend their intention. Likewise the same is for God. But this isn't necessarily to say that God works in mysterious ways, it's simply saying that we have to remember God is far beyond our comprehension, that's just a theological truth that we can't simply say that this argument is a cop out, cause it's not, it's merely injecting a theological attribute of God.
That point about having to listen to Alex's videos being painful & suffering... I can relate at times. I find this a recurring pattern in Alex's videos sometimes.
Man I just absolutely LOVE what you do!! I also LOVE the fact that my 8 year old son watches these videos with me!!
Gabriel Hindes You brainwash your kid with dogmatic bullshit? Congratulations, you failed at parenting.
No he’s introducing his kid to an opinion that you don’t like. Stop repeating the atheist mantra of “religion is brainwashing”.
Introducing your kid to a variety of different arguments is basic to critical thinking.. until you introduce any ideas of religion, now it’s brainwashing.
Do you see a double standard?
Gabriel God bless you and your kid.
Plz Enjoy Game osu No I don’t, because there is none.
@@Kirdo-6241 Look bro until you walk a day in someone's shoes I would advise you to keep your mouth shut and let us adults have conversation. Thanks .....BRUH
Straw man atheist not surprised
Love your style and the depth of your answers.
I am a fan of Alex but he failed miserably this time 😂😂
Not a very good fan then
Reasonable because he is able to step outside of the tribalism, to the point of giving credit where it is due, even if it’s the other side.
@@britishsocialist7927 What does a good fan mean? Blindly agree with them even if you disagree.
@@blazerspitter2068 I wonder if that's the definition of good fan according to him.
@@blazerspitter2068 The dogma of some atheist is held to as fervently as some of the most devout religous persons
This is a good response, Jon, but I still feel we're talking past each other. I can tell you argue honestly, so instead of keeping up this game of virtual tennis I think it would be a good idea to perhaps do a livestream/hangout and talk through the problem of evil. How does that sound?
I still think you're misunderstanding induction and deduction (e.g. at 13:07 -- inductive probability does not apply to the premises themselves but to the link between premise and conclusion), so I would like to make a video responding to your first response, but with regards to the actual argument itself, I think a conversation would be more productive. Let me know if you're interested.
Hey Alex, good to read from ya! You were correct about induction in the first video (I clarified that in my pinned post after I posted the video). I edited the part out that day as well. So, I agree with you about that point; sorry for my error.
I’d love to have a convo sometime! I’m traveling right now and incredibly busy these days, but let’s get in touch and see what we can work out. I’ll shoot you a message. Thanks for reaching out 👍🏽
Cosmic I love listening to you and genetically modified and love Jon as well David Wood from Acts 17 Apologetics
Maybe sometime in the next few years maybe have a debate at a neutral location
Atheism vs Christianity
I as fans of both of y’all would love to see it as each of y’alls respective platforms
Did you guys ever do that livestream??
How is this not pinned?
I'd love for you two to debate in person :)
Would be very interesting imo
Love how you mentioned Plantinga's free will defense which effectively refuted Mackie's argument.
That was brilliant at the end of
your video.
Always a pleasure hearing from the Christian side good work
That ending was classic. Awesome video
I’m noticing a theme with Alex. Alex’s arguments are based off his understanding of a concept he wants to fight or point out by finding historical facts to build his case to prove why God is either not real or is evil hence the statements like “lets discover the true meaning”. In fact if you look at the situation you presented Jon in it of itself, it’s not evil to hold your kid for a doctor to not just do his job but to take away the pain that he is hurting over. If someone hurt himself and accidentally chopped his finger off and would not stop crying how bad it hurt, it wouldn’t be evil to knock him out and take him to the hospital just as it isn’t evil to hold your own child down knowing how kids tend to be more reactive and resistant towards doctors regardless of personal feelings so that they won’t keep resisting. That’s not evil let alone a necessary evil. On the other side of this debate, Alex is leaving out 1 important factors in all of his arguments which is ignoring Satan and his characteristics and looking at his role, unless your own personal Godplex is getting in the way. You can easily talk about God and the Evil of the world but by not including who Satan is, how he works, you’ll only be eliminating / ignoring that God chose to create us and the world we live in to worship him and be in relationship with him. Using another concept to counter this topic, will only result in running In a endless circle with Alex while he is wrestling with God. Anger only produces evil which defiles a man and clouds ones judgement to see where He may be wrong. That in itself from all of his videos shows there is an agenda to fight God through Gods people just as Satan wanted Gods children to think for themself as Alex is doing. Based off how much he has mentioned God and his Omnipotent / Cosmic being and his approach to theses debates I’m fully convinced Alex wants to believe God is real but wants to also argue / publicize his frustrations with worldly religions, philosophy, and a personal vendetta to counter what He doesn’t understand and fuse it with the little that He does understand. No there is no hidden meaning behind that sentence. As Christians I’m sure we can all testify that we to have been ignorant to who God is before we all knew him with the little we knew. Anyone can say they want to have a friendly debate with a calm tone with how they speak and seem to hold discourse but their direction in a conversation helps uncover the agenda (or the true meaning) and intent of what they are wanting to say. This is often where one will speak what they mean to say through the form of a question and will find true or partial facts to lead to their conclusion (or their way of thinking for others to think just as Satan did in the garden). That being said, the points Alex touches, are real questions we do face in the world and your responses Jon are well put. This specific topic I think is something that has been stretched a bit further than it needs to be. Also if you look at the title, God doesn’t produce cancer. Christians with discernment from the Holy Spirit and the Word of God know this. The first sin didn’t take place on earth with Adam and Eve, it took place in Heaven when Satan fell because he wanted every creation to think for themselves which lead to disobedience and chaos.That in itself should show to those who believe in Jesus that God wouldn’t produce cancer but Satan produces evil and death. To answer the question “Would God allow Kids to get Cancer?”, Yes but it’s not God who is inducing them let alone to kids alone. The Role Satan has in the world is to steal your mind away from the truth, witness destruction and lead you into temptations that will only temporarily suppress and grow your fears, anger, and lust. If someone wants to use cancer as their case to prove against God, share with them the book of Job and all of the prophets and disciples that struggled with physical health and then look at how God healed them and brought them out of sickness bondage and captivity. There’s a simple theme in the world that has been recorded not just in the Bible but also in our Testimony; God allows destruction from the enemy to show to all of humanity that with God, all things are possible like healing the sick, making blind men see, letting lame men walk and much more. I was born into the world with a clinical depression and borderline low functioning autism and was raised as a Hindu, and God set me free from all of that. A few years back, I was even retested for my mental health and the doctors were shocked and still are till this day. I was told for 10 + years that there would be a 1% chance that I could work with the disability and with hard work maybe be able to live on my own with an aid in my life and God did something better and completely pulled me out of the spectrum. I think the better question to counter the title alone to Alex is “Does God allow Healing to take place in His People?”. You can literally use the majority of the Bible at any and every angle to defend the gospel. Crazy fact: Your own testimony is enough to not only prove that God doesn’t just allow cancer in the world but all the evil God pulled you out of. Crazier fact: This title is literally is an invitation to share the simple Yet Powerful Gospel to Alex. God is good in all circumstances. There’s really nothing to prove against how much God loves us. I believe the history and data from the Word of God is a Love letter and invitation to all humanity that we can be set apart from the world to be citizens of Heaven from God himself. People with the mindset similar to Alex are people who God wants us to pour into. We were born again into God being our First Love so we to shall pass through this world with Love, grace and humility because Our strength alone isn’t enough but Gods strength is enough through our weakness. Hear me when I say this isn’t me speaking optimism, this is the standard we are to hold ourselves to as believers. If we want to better ourselves in loving those around us including your enemies or dying to the desires of your flesh so that you can be focused on what is Good in the eyes of our Father, then start eliminating the distractions you have in your life and make it a priority to seek Jesus in His Word. Through that alone you will become slow to speak and quick to listen and slow to anger and willing to seek the heart of the broken. Our western culture and church does not teach this because it’s foreign to us. I was shook to find out how much deeper I could get with the Lord simply by getting rid of all my social media, all my video games, and distractions so that I can be closer to the Lord. You have to replace your struggle with something else otherwise you will be exchanging one struggle for another. I chose to really examine my heart and made it a priority to read more and spend more time with Him and that took me to a whole new level of His Goodness. As those in Christ, we should strive to grow deeper in contentment by continuity dying to our own ways so we aren’t putting God in a box in what He can and will do in and through your life.
Without God "evil" is just someones opinion.
You need a big daddy overlord to tell what is right and wrong? Your daddy overlord is fine with slavery, genocide, whacking babies out of women's wombs, etc. Even if he existed, he sounds like a terrible role model.
It's the COLLECTIVE opinions of several million people.
That is true. What is wrong with that?
Antti H I really hope you're pro-life after reading that list...
@@huuppone //Your daddy overlord is fine with slavery, genocide, whacking babies out of women's wombs, etc.//
Dude, you just proved my point. Slavery is still being practiced today. To those individuals it's a way of life. Genocides can't be carried out unless you have the backing of a majority group. Whacking babies out of the womb is hotly debated in support from pro-choice groups.
Your list of example are proof "evil" is subjective without God. Thanks lol
I've learned so much! Serious philosophical differences. Comparisons between how our minds are... good stuff!
Just a heads up...your audio is recorded in mono and pushed left. For the sake of my ears, consider mixing mono-center or stereo.
Through suffering, you learn to appreciate and understand why certain things are. You get taught something out of that experience, and through that you understand why it had to happen. And you choose how to respond to it. With your free will you have the decision to choose. I'm not making any sense probably but I promise it made sense in my head.😁 All I'm trying to say is like how a parent allows their kids to go through experiences for themselves to understand deeper for themselves is like how God is with us.
One of the reasons I like your responses is because you speak with confidence, which shows that you actually know what you're talking about. I really like seeing such confidence. God bless you bro.
Beautiful name!
@@babisbabinos8075 amen
4 points that come to mind:
- what do they mean by evil: moral evil, or suffering and inconvenience and calamitous events?
- In Eden, we had no suffering, while now we do, so our world experience shows that trials and opposition build the knowledge we need
- Shaddai is the Hebrew for almighty, which is the equivalent of pantakrator in Greek. This is the word omnipotent is from. It speaks to victory not ability.
- Cancer is a the body not functioning the way God designed it, causing bad cell copy to run amok, which is due to the Fall
@@blakeavila4409 I disagree. Cancer cells are "bad copies" of cells during cell replication. A healthy functioning body produces sufficient cancer killing cells, but an unhealthy one, including due to age or unhealthy lifestyles, will be unable to keep up with it. There have been significant effects on humankind since the Fall, including the Flood (terraforming event which also changes the atmosphere)
WOW!!! Thank you for such an incredibly well presented argument. This is the first time I could actually follow a philosophical argument. Incredible. Thank you again for chunking this down so well.
Q: why does child have to suffer at the dentist?
A: to avoid suffering a toothache
Q: why do we have to suffer toothaches
A: because we have nerves in our bodies to alert us when something is wrong... and bacteria needs to eat too
noice
I have noticed alot of athiests I have listened to seem to struggle with deep philosphical questions.
@@questionasker8791 The kind of questions discussed in the video.
I think a good book on this is “the theodicy of love.”
It saddens me that your channel is not reaching more people as it should, but I pray with you that by the grace of our God. it will... sooner than we think.
This is just a fantastic explanation of this outdated not-so-logical God vs Suffering problem, I love this channel!
Cancer is terrible.
Cancer is also (in most cases) an unregulated replication of cells that do damage to their respective area.
Cell replication is one of the many biological processes keeping us alive. It’s the misregulation that results in tragedy; regulation that can be impacted by numerous things (diet, environment, lifestyle, habits, etc.).
But the alternative would be to do away with cell replication, an evident good. This would lead to early death. So what is the atheist’s solution?
Great 2 part videos as always. However, surely God tells us the reason why evil exists. It seems to me that Cosmic Skeptic bases his attempts at either attacking or denying God on false premises. Beside that a lesser suffering would prevent a bigger suffering, God also tells us how to avoid the bigger suffering. That's it, I said it in just a few sentences!
You exist or you don't and thus to experience any thing at all, one must have the ability to suffer, has well have an ability not to suffer, for both are experience. Suffering comes from the mind, you create it with your thoughts. If all things were made perfect, you would still suffer from being bored or alone. For having others around is chaos and thus would create some form of conflict or suffering, so you would have to be alone in darkness and still suffer from loneliness. Even before you have children, couldn't you foresee that there was the very real possibility they may suffer disappointment or pain or heartache in life, or that they might even hurt you and walk away from you? Of course but you keep having children. Why? Because you knew there was also the potential for tremendous joy, deep love, great meaning, and a life of experience.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. 9 What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? 10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. 11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life. 13 And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.
@Ruach Hako'desh. Hi, yes good points. But Cosmic Skeptic's rhetorical question was why kids get cancer, and die I guess. Why didn't he title his video: "why kids get aids, and die, for example. You see, he is assuming a great deal. Cancer is a reaction to something we are not sure yet what that is. It could be a warning signal to a deeper cause. Fix the cause first, it might disappear. They bombard cells to destroy it but many believe that it's a very big infection that antibiotic can't stop. Are you a Jew Ruach? I ask because if Cosmic Skeptic had lived in the Middle Ages, during the bubonic plague that killed millions, seeing all those deaths, he would have cursed God. But God 2 thousands years earlier had given a prevention method which still works today. Jews knew about it by reading their Bible, in great number they were spared. No one could have known but God that bacteria were the cause of mass scale deaths. Until the 1800, people still died because doctors would not wash their hands! Would that have stopped all the deaths? No, but I was arguing for the greater suffering versus the lesser suffering. Again, if Cosmic Skeptic had titled the video in regards to aids, you would know that God has given us a prevention guide to avoid getting aids, right?! What if He has given us the cure for cancer as well in the Bible? Cosmic Skeptic is like a guy that refuse to take the medicine, tells his doctor to leave him alone and then he complains that he is not getting better because of the doctor. Let's say that 20% of all evil causes 80% of the big sufferings (Pareto principles btw); I believe that God has given us the tool to eliminate that 20%. Will diseases and suffering still exists? Sure, but on a smaller scale. If Cosmic Skeptic raises the question, why couldn't God have made us perfect? Well, he did, but that would be another question for another video. Off course, it goes deeper than that. The Bible tells more but I won't easily share that with atheists. The Bible says not to share pearls with swine. Atheists have an entitlement syndrome. They would like you to do the research for them. Notice how Cosmic Skeptic states that John did not convince him. You see the world spins around them. I'm commenting to warn people about his logic rather than persuade him. Stay with God, believe in Jesus and one day you'll live that perfect life, no pain, no death. What's 80 years out of eternity, after all? But skeptics/atheists think that you must spend your time and money to convince them! But the more they reject God the more their heart is hardened. We must warn kids watching his videos that he is not seeing the big picture. But if as a consequence of our videos/comments, he suddenly wakes up well, glory to God!
Good job Jon! Keep it going I’m learning so much and appreciate the lessons! God bless everyone
Check! Your move, Cosmic Skeptic.
He'll be back ;)
I have cancer, and I'm very happy that the all-loving, all-powerful God will be with me to the end (which is actually a new beginning!)
And evil is not necessary, it is an insult for the perfect creation of God.
It’s with great decorum that you wreck Alex, I really appreciate your loving temperament in your videos.
First Man brought suffering and Jesus Christ paid the price on the cross, what we go through is temporarily when our lord Jesus Christ comes back Will make all things New 😄😄 and that is Christianity, thanks brother for this video
Dude, you just crushed his reputation 😂
I find it interesting that he would rather argue dishonestly on video instead of reaching out and having an actual debate or conversation.
@Wowz I like how you Christians always complain about atheists calling you dishonest then you call us dishonest huge double standard
Jon Vester There is no contradiction. No Christian is saying it’s never ok to call someone dishonest, they are just pointing out that atheists often times just assume dishonesty for no good reason and just throw around the word.
Jon Vester I think we should remove that word from our vocab. I’m sure cosmic skeptic is expressing his views as he sees them. We ought to call each other ignorant, or misinformed or something like that as ‘dishonest’ implies intent.
@@johnny.V03 dishonest just means being not honest. The word is definitely overused by atheists, stretching far beyond it's definition in order to paint the other party as though with malicious intent. I think that is definitely wrong.
However, I do agree with you on this one part, Christians should avoid this.
Let's just give the benefit of the doubt that the other party just "didn't know".
@@johnny.V03 Can't be on the high ground when caught lying. Skeptic could face academic probation if this was a college assignment. In a job setting, he could be fired. Christianity is not a tribe, I'm an individual. You address what is wrong with my comment and don't apply someone else faults with me. Give Skeptic the benefit of doubt? Um no, Meme can do whatever he wants and should when debating people. I'm a simple commentor and am going with the obvious. Either he's stupid, lazy, or a liar. Maybe all three.
Those who learn God's forgiveness, mercy, compassion and love through suffering, takes the position as a woman who decides to have a 2nd baby after suffering 12 hours of severe labor having her 1st, the reward supercedes the pain. And those who don't get to know God will miss the purpose. And do not learn to see evil through his eyes. The bible says God is long suffering. When my suffering end God's suffering will continue. I had those questions until I got to know God, than I learned what job learned, it's worth it.
Coming from Cosmic Skeptic's channel, I really appreciated the insight that this is an argument about internal consistency of the Christian god, so Alex ought to have included your arguments about the incomprehensibility of God, even if that looks to Alex like a semantic stopsign. I also appreciated the reminder that Christians may not consider "suffering" and "good" to be in opposition in all cases, so agreeing to a common notion of "all-good" would be necessary to avoid definitionally talking past each other.
Duh.... evil exist because of our choice. God gave us free will and us humans, should be responsible to our free will. Wrong choice can affect everyone. Not just ourselves but everyone surrounds us like families and friend.
I don´t think many kids would choose to get cancer.
@@telekevontoloko8247 No, but one person's bad decisions can affect someone else as Vanessa said. Some people get cancer because of other people's bad decisions like second hand smoke, you never know. That's why we need to do our best to create safe environments for ourselves and other people while making improvements every day.
@@EagleZtoTheGrave Why does cancer even exists? Yes, we can greatly increase the risk of cancer (for example by smoking) but smoking didn't create cancer.
@@telekevontoloko8247 Strawman - who said cancer was evil? That's a very different conversation.
@@jessefletcher2365 Sorry you're right.
In the rebuttal explanation he gives about you either having to shrug your shoulder or point to greater suffering your helping your child avoid, God (you) would simply tell his creature (your son) that he is doing this so that His glory (your proof of being a good dad by taking care of his medical needs) may be made manifest. It will be when your child gets older and has children of his own that he will remember the loving acts of his father even when he didn’t understand it at the time.
So he put us through suffering, that he can make disepear without tears, so he can take the pain away later, or give us a smaler pain, so we can love him for it? All he want is love, so he manipulete us to get it? Am i missing something??
So you deserve to be in communion with a perfectly Holy and perfectly righteous God??? Is that what I’m hearing you communicate? It’s seems you assume that you don’t deserve suffering... Is that your conclusion?
@@SammyIvories86 never said that, but he claims he is perfectely good, and then he let children suffer. A good being dont think, that one deservs to burn Forever for not beliving, (you cant help what you belive in) and that one deservs to have cancer. Oh its a child! Well, even better!
@@Matilda-u5n This comment may be late but I want to clarify some things:
God never "puts" us through suffering. Human defects and man-made problems are the things that put us through suffering (e.g cancer, disease, etc.) So to assume that God gives pain is just contradictory with what we christians believe about Him.
You're right, God can eliminate suffering and its causes; since that's not what He intended to exist in the first place until selfish humans wanted to decide for themselves what's good and evil which only caused damage to themselves. And He promises to solve it worldwide at His own reasonable timing (which you wouldn't believe or comprehend anyway)
For thousands of years until now, God is allowing humans to attempt and solve pain and suffering on their own by exercising their free will; independent of Him for our realization. And by that realization, we are moved with our own will to love Him for INVITING us (not 'manipulating' us) to depend on him for our good all along.
So to conclude: He never manipulates us to love him by giving us pain; that's OUR personal choice and He's not the cause of it.
@@kyllecanete2494 well, if you think about it is just like this.
You are trapped in a burning house. Someone has the key and he is outside. But of you want the key you have to follow his laws Forever. But he wont be clear what laws you have to follow. No. He Will give you a Book about that. How nice, right? Well, in that book things like these are written.
“… I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” - Genesis 32:30
“No man hath seen God at any time…”- John 1:18
“… with God all things are possible.” - Matthew 19:26
“…The LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.” - Judges 1:19
Yeah. Have fun working out how to get the key Sweetie. I think i will just break a window. A Good person outside would give you the key anyway. But god is not god. How many did he kill in the bible? A couple of hundred thousand? Well the Devil that you are so afriad of killd 4 if i remember correct.
The civility in these debates is just..... like a breath of fresh air amongst all the pollution of hate speech that takes place on the internet.
This is the video that made me convert from a listener to a subscriber. Great ending!
That was SO refreshing! Kudos to Alex (yes, Alex) and Jon, because ... wait for it ... just earlier today I got into one of those "discussions" with an old school friend that you can't win because the other person only says they "will come up with that answer" and don't, or go into attack mode by name calling, labeling, accusing, etc. Ever been there? I bet you have! So I'm giving major kudos to both Alex and Jon because they are actually having a real conversation and real debate regardless of human error. Kudos big time.
And of course, being a Christian and a fan of Jon's, I'm already working out in my head the stuff about how "but God has PROVEN His great love for us in the extent He went to put on human flesh, live like a servant of rebellious man, teach, heal, be patient then suffer and die an excruciating death far beyond what we can imagine (paying for eternal punishments for cosmic treason against God for myriads of people through thousands of years) on that cross, so that He can reward those who will humble themselves, repent and accept Christ then be given the beautiful gift of salvation which changes us immeasurably from salvation on into a glorious eternity with Him beyond anything mere humans can even comprehend!"
Or something like that.
Wow, that run on sentence was actually longer than most of Paul's and I complain about his run on sentences! Humans! SMH. lol
“All powerful” and “all controlling” are not the same, though Atheists make that assumption.
But, “all controlling” is contrary to “God is Love”
So.. we're slaves to God's love ?
There's a great debate on this topic on Capturing Christianity's channel. I haven't finished listening to it yet, but it seems like both parties are trying to be honest and consistent.
Personally I don't know how anyone can listen to the 'Problem of Evil' argument. It's so patently absurd, a theory for children. Grown-ups can abide suffering and believe in good.
amen...'good' and 'bad' shit happens because it can and not everyone interprets 'good' and 'bad' the same way.
@BananaJunior11 It is logically consistent for an all loving and all powerful God to "co-exist" with evil when one takes two points into account:1. The all loving and all powerful God is allowing evil to exist for a certain period of time. 2. The all loving and all powerful God will eradicate all evil for ever when that certain period of time is over.
@BananaJunior11 He is not desiring for evil to exist but allowing it to as the time is not due for it to be eradicated. And by certain period of time, I mean the time that most people like to call the "end times" when all prophecies are to be fulfilled.
@BananaJunior11 Because the time is not due for it to be eradicated.
@BananaJunior11 Evil is the creation of men and Satan resulting from their rebellion against God.
I’m not even five minutes into the video yet, and this so-called “skeptic” is a horrible debater. His argument fell flat on his face when he claimed that evil exists “self-evidently.” That’s not how a rational debate works. You can’t just say that something is self-evident; you have to *prove* that it exists. Evil exists self-evidently? Prove it. If evil exists, then it follows that objective morality exists, otherwise “evil” is nothing more than “actions that you personally dislike.” Therefore, if objective morality exists, God must exist.
He also says that “a good thing eliminates evil as far as it can.” Oh really? Prove it. Again, he states this as it’s somehow self-evident, which it is not. He just read that, but he never explains why this is true. Good does not always have to eliminate evil as far as it can.
not to mention he says evil exists, yet he says he's a moral relativist, he says we can't know right from wrong, that morality (in other words, good and evil) is completely subjective... now in this video he says evil exists. Is the atheistic double standard. One moment when it favors them, they point out why God's evil (wich christians always have a response for), but in a flip of convenience, they say morality is not objective so that they can deny God and any transcendent moral standard. As atheists like to say to theists... that's just dishonest
Evil can simply be defined as "anything that is detrimental to human welfare". It goes without saying that that is indeed self-evident. This does not require any objective standard to compare against because it is a reality ALL humans are privy to. So, no - the existence of evil does not require the existence of a God.
Also, the logical jump from objective morality to God is a "canyon". Evolution inculcated a set of values within humans that helped us survive better. You will find that murder is deemed bad in all societies precisely because individuals who felt that murdering another was bad survived better than those who relished in killing their fellow apes. There it is. Objective morality without God.
@@thapelomaraisane8705 Aging is evil? Hunger is evil? Lacking a mode of transportation is evil? Not having money is evil? Evil = immoral.
You are a true blessing to the internet from God himself
Ur the most underrated guy on the internet, been following u for more than a year now.
It's gonna be 1 am. And tommorw I am gonna be late for office.
As I muslim I had a great time watching this video.
Atheism is based on assumptions.
Theism requires far more assumptions than atheism.
You heard the gospel
@@kiralawliet5612 Assumptions is all there is In atheism... if this worldview is true, it literally makes no sense, I refuse to believe people don’t see how utter disastrous it is
@@kofibonsu8466 Atheism is not a worldview in itself. It's a rejection of theism. Atheism does not make any claims about the world, it accepts the world as it seems to be, and rejects the unfounded claim that any gods exist.
The problem with things "making sense" is that quite often, what makes sense to our limited understanding isn't true. It made sense to the ancient Egyptians that the sun is driven through the sky in a chariot, piloted by an immortal supernatural humanoid. It made sense to everyone at some point that the earth is flat, that the sun is smaller than the earth, and that diseases are caused by evil spirits, not germs and bacteria. We now know the truth about these things, but there's still much we do not know. Human beings are very creative. We are tempted to satisfy our curiosity by filling the gaps in knowledge with stories, rather than waiting for the facts to be revealed. Evolution is an exceedingly slow process. Despite all our scientific advancement, human nature has been stagnant for thousands of years. So we do the same thing with our blindspots, the ancients did with theirs. We fill them with unsubstantiated propositions that seem to make sense to us or bring us comfort. But that does not make them true.
“Good eliminates evil as far as it can.” This proposition is false.
I think you did a great job of dissecting this claim by Cosmic Skeptic (CS) and there should be no reason why they cannot accept the "I don't know" for God when we already accept the "I don't know" for scientists and atheists. That presents part of the double standard they try to pass off as acceptable practices and philosophies.
Here is my take on this...not that anyone asked...:)
There are two distinct topics that seem to be blurred into one here, but maybe I'm missing something. These are: 1) pain and suffering and 2) evil.
They are not necessarily the same things although they may be related in many cases. Evil people can inflict pain and suffering on the innocent or their intended victims (who may or may not be innocent) and evil people may endure pain and suffering that might be caused by their own evil. There are also probably a few dozen or even a few thousand variations of this combination of the two main topics.
If the question is "why would God allow children to get cancer'? and we answer "we don't know" it should cover the problem sufficiently for those who claim that "we don't know" is an acceptable answer for science.
If the question is "why would God allow children to suffer (from cancer or anything)" and try to associate it with God being evil then they would need to provide evidence that God does cause children to get cancer and suffer (and possibly die) for an evil purpose.
That entire argument is tossed with two simple words followed by another simple word...God is...Love.
I would like to think that CosmicSkeptic was more honest then that... Maybe the Accent got me...
May he find the Truth, our Lord.