"Ahem", there's always that little effect of superiority you feel the need to inject into your comments.
Ahem, now, let me try to get through to you once more. I understand the riddle of Epicurus. I understand that it reflects his version of an idealised God, no less anthropomorphic than the god invented by the fundamentalist.
Let us assume that God exists, humour me, please. And let's be clear that this God is utterly beyond human comprehension, as it would have to be if it existed. And let us further assume that the process of, let's call it creation, if it took place, other than everything being a bit of good fortune, had to be via natural order, this accords with science.
The end result is an animal that is being refined by degrees, by evolution, via natural order, to be human. This of course presupposes that being human is another order of existence altogether over and above the animal kingdom. It would seem that we are. Nonetheless, we are an animal that is being lifted out of the animal kingdom, not literally, please don't get sidetracked now, and as we come to humanhood we retain all the cunning, selfishness, greed of the essential animal we were. We call this sin when it is seen to excess in a human now. One upon a time is was survival skills.
Now natural order offers no kindness to any creature. We are as vulnerable as the wildebeest crossing the Masai Mara. We are as susceptible to any animal to illness, deformity, or short brutal life.
This is the order of existence. If God is to act then it can only act through us, which is not to say that can't act upon our sensibilities. We have the gift of intelligence and the vast understandings of science to better the circumstances of humans on this planet, but we still have rampant greed, indifference, bigotry, prejudice, hatred, etc. When these illnesses are reduced, our animal nature suppressed, so too will be human suffering, to a greater degree.
The good and decent parent line reflects your orthodox upbringing. Another instance of anthropomorphism applied by an atheist this time. It's very contagious, be careful. It has nothing to do with reality, which is my point regarding old Epicurus. You don't get an idealised God. You get the God you get and judgement of said God is pointless. There is no such thing as an interventionist God in any physical sense. Nature is what it is. Evil is a state of ignorance.
I'm not saying evil does not exist, it does because ignorance exist, but it is not a force that has substance. And natural order takes no prisoners and God, whatever God is operates through humans. So if there are ills and miseries in this world that can be remediated by science, love, empathy, then God in action comes through human hands.
And how did humans gain the skills, technologies, wisdom, insightfulness to rectify their own ills? Well some will say via God and others will say, who gives a sh.t, and still others will say via the mechanisms of natural order alone. Regardless, we have been equipped in this age to reduce human suffering.
Any suffering that could have been remedied is on us, because it could be said, that of all animals, God gave us the tools alone to greatly reduce human suffering and if He didn't, it's still on us.
That's why Epicurus is a wanker.
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