Easier to Prove an Evil God?

[Yazata]

what do you get with NRA membership ?

https://benefits.nra.org/

I'm a firearm owner and am likely going to join the NRA. Not because of the many members' discounts (though I do like the free magazine subscriptions, they are good magazines), but because I largely agree with the NRA and their work. They offer firearms training, certify firing ranges, and no end of things.

https://explore.nra.org/

http://www.nramuseum.org/museums/nationa...useum.aspx

I've never met a police officer that doesn't approve of the NRA. (Many are members.)

[Syne]

Hey Yaz, do you carry, or just home defense?

[Yazata]

Hey Yaz, do you carry, or just home defense?

I live in California, so any kind of legal carry would seem to be almost impossible.

My interests at this point run more towards home defense and improving my marksmanship at the range.

[Syne]

I agree fully that the 'problem of evil' creates severe consistency difficulties for some varieties of theology that imagine God as both absolutely good and simultaneously entirely omnipotent.
...

I think that the omni- predicates create other logical difficulties as well, such as the problem of whether God could create a task too difficult for God to accomplish. Both the 'yes' and a 'no' answer seem to imply that God can't be omnipotent. (It seems to me that it's the omnipotence predicate that's creating most of the difficulties.)

I've never really found consistency along those lines difficult. Free will alone solves the problem of evil for me.

Logically, an essentially omnipotent agent cannot negate its own omnipotence. Most religions assert god is essentially omnipotent.

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Hey Yaz, do you carry, or just home defense?

I live in California, so any kind of legal carry would seem to be almost impossible.

My interests at this point run more towards home defense and improving my marksmanship at the range.

Yeah, Cali is a "may issue" state, which in practice means it's a "won't issue" state. Fingers crossed for nationwide reciprocity to bring you some freedom.

[C C]

Is a malevolent god going to listen to the prayers of millions of people who don't want evil or to the one who does?

"Bad things" could as much result from an indifferent or negligent deity -- misconstrued as being deliberate or evil enjoyment. Stepping on an anthill just falls out of relationally giant human beings being what they are rather than always being intentional.

A man said to the Universe, "Sir, I exist!". "However," replied the Universe, "The fact has not aroused in me a sense of obligation". --Steven Crane

A deistic god arguably has a principle of non-intervention about his petri dish of critters. Similar to the Federation in Star Trek having a rule to not interfere in the affairs of planets with sub-FTL level societies.

"After my setting up the initial conditions, you microbes are free to develop and inventively diversify however you want. Just don't blame me if your plans and standards have monstrous or tragic outcomes and you never ascend to higher status."

But the Abrahamic deity seems to play both.

"Daddy's going to let you do your own thing because you rebelliously wanted that freedom. But still occasionally stick his nose in because he loves you, offers a scheme for redemption or return to paradise, blah-blah."

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