God vs Evil Forces

There is a major problem in the question of the existence of God as well as the presence of the evil forces. If God is almighty, loving and omnipresent how could there be suffering and evil forces in this world? With all the power God has, He could eliminate each and every evil making the world a peaceful and a beautiful place to live for the people. This argument raises the question that whether God exists in reality or not? The God and the evil can, however, be reconciled; God with all his goodness has the potential to bring out the good in evil as well, but when He does not use his power to bring out the good from evil He definitely has a better plan in store for his people (Hofer, 2011). With the suffering in the world, God has inculcated in us the fear…...

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References

Atheism. (2007). Rational wiki. Retrieved from  http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Atheism 

Cosmology. (n.d.). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmology#Physical_cosmology 

Existence of God. (2004). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God 

Gracyk, T. (2004). Argument analysis of the five ways. Retrieved from  http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/aquinasfiveways_argumentanalysis.htm

In most religious texts, "God is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and all-good (righteous, loving, benevolent)" (Wolf 2011). According to this view, apart from being the source of all that is good, God has the ability to know and do everything -- including stamping out all evil. However, there still exists so much suffering and evil in the world. Calamities of every nature do occur occasionally leading to death, displacement and suffering of thousands of human beings. Further, human beings continue to suffer as a result of diseases, death and wars. If God is truly loving, why does he allow those he has created to experience pain, despair and other forms of suffering? Further, if God is all powerful, why does he not stop the occurrence of pain, despair or any kind of suffering from taking place? In general terms, how does evil and an all loving and powerful God…...

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References

Wolf, R.P. (2011). About Philosophy. Pearson Education Limited

Existence of God
The philosophical questions I will try to answer and why they are of particular interest to me. Opinions that ordinary people tend to have on the issue

The great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam profoundly influenced Western philosophy. In all of these religions, the existence of God is a central claim. For nearly a millennium from 500 S.D to about 1500 A.D., Western philosophy was the handmaiden of Christian theology. (Jordan, 567) During this period, the issue of existence of God seemed to be of paramount importance. Proofs were needed to convince infidels and beretics and to retain the faithful. In the more secular world since the enaissance, these arguments for the existence of God have been severely challenged.

The current essay will discuss the arguments for and against the existence of God. The author has in particular discussed the views of Bertrand ussell on this issue. The…...

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References

Aquinas, Thomas. Aquinas's Shorter Summa. Trans. Cyril Vollert. Manchester, New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 2001

Edwards, Paul and Artbur Pap. A Modern Introduction to Philosophy: Readings from Classical and Contemporary Sources. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1959.

Jordan, Mark D. Religion, History of the Philosophy. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. 1995. ed

Hick, John. Arguments for the Existence of God. New York: Herder and Herder, 1971.

If something happens, then it is a belief that somebody caused that thing to happen the way it did, and it is an effect of some kind of action. If then several actions take place one after the other, then the earlier/older happening caused the later event thus, "the first cause is the cause of all things and itself had no cause since it always existed." (Trigilio, and Brighenti 5). This is true as through the Holy Scriptures, an ordinary person cannot create life, but a Supreme Being is able, and through belief, I know this is God and He exists.
Thirdly, necessity is another factor that according to Aquinas as illustrated in Trigilio, and Brighenti, that reality is the divine fact and anything else's failure to exist has nothing to do with the existing of reality (5). Thus, the source of the causes is the purpose cause that makes…...

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Works cited

Brentano, Franz, C., and Krantz, Susan, F. On the existence of God: Lectures given at the Universities of Wurzuburg and Vienna, 1868-1891. Frankfurt, Germany: Springer, 1987

Print.

Cline, Austin. "Myth: Myth: Atheists Rely Too Much on Science; God Can't Be Proven

Scientifically,"about.com, n.d. Web. 13 March 2010.

Indeed, Russell does not say there is no God, he merely says he is not convinced the Christian God is the correct version of an absolute beginning and end. s a philosopher, Russell finds much to be convinced about the moral validity of Christ. but, if in Christ we have the epitome of morality and goodness, then are there not universals of quality that are imbedded in other great people: Buddha, Lao-Tse, etc. If Christ is the Church, why are Christ's principles not universally practiced?
For Copleston, though, the world cannot exist without a first cause, and although that first cause is unpredictable, only the existence of God makes sense of human's moral and religious experiences and drive for understanding. The idea of God is based not just on empirical proof -- but on results. Thus, one must have faith in order to believe; faith is individual and is not…...

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As in the debate, neither side clearly "won." Humans will likely continue to ask "why are we here," and "how did we get here," because we have the capacity to ask such things. It seems we are psychologically wired to need a belief system that allows us to understand where we have been and where we are going. Thus, the debate about God will likely continue to be contentious and unsolved.

Source:

The Existence of God Debate. (1948). British Broadcasting Company. Retrieved from:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXPdpEJk78E

There is in this premise an implied idea that God's goodness and perfection constitute an obligation that he create and maintain a good and perfect world, or, to quote Mackie, that "good is opposed to evil in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can."
Mackie refers to this implied argument as a "quasi-logical rule."

The truth of this assumption, however, is not self-evident.

The other premise open to debate is also the weakest point of the overall argument: the premise that the suffering of animals is evil. It is tempting to categorize suffering as evil because it is unpleasant. This is essentially the argument that William owe makes in his essay "The Problem of Evil." owe claims that intense suffering is inherently evil regardless of the moral justifiability of its outcome.

But if an evil can exist as "evil" and still be morally justifiable (i.e.…...

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References

Rowe, W. 1979 'The Problem of Evil' in Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction, Wadsworth Publishers, Belmont, CA, pp.

Mackie, J.L. 1955 'Evil and Omnipotence' in Reading Philosophy of Religion, eds. Graham Oppy and Michael Scott, John Wiley and Sons, New York, pp. 139-146.

Mackie, J.L., 1955, p. 139

Ibid.

6 Is there any comfort in these? None. There is no comfort in believing that one's existence -- joys and sufferings included -- is meaningless. If it were so, then there's no point in doing good rather than evil. If there is no immortality with God, then there is no Judgment and Hitler won't be any less of a saint than Mother Theresa. In a world without God, morality loses its value and we cannot condemn crime and war as evil or say that love and peace are good.6 Everything becomes subjective and we can do as we please. This leads to chaos, and there is no comfort in chaos. Further, if the Universe is doomed, then it doesn't matter whether the Big Bang and Evolution theories are true or not. It doesn't matter if we can make the earth more sustainable or to seek ways to cure cancer or…...

Therefore, it becomes evident that Commander of these laws is definitely more powerful and more authoritative than the command itself. Moreover, moral commands are such that they have a link with the ultimate authority and these laws have to be obeyed anywhere and everywhere irrespective of what the circumstances are. The authority of these moral rules is superior to all the rules, regulations and authority of the human beings. Therefore, the authority of the one who has given these commands is superior to the combined authority of the human beings.
The argument of existence of moral laws gives the conclusion that a being exists whose authority is superior to the authority of any of the human beings and whose rules are superior to the rules that have been created by the authorities of this world.

As a whole these arguments have been very successful in proving that God exists, who is…...

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Bibliography

Adamson, Marilyn. Is there a God? EveryStudent.com, 2013.

Bamborough, Renford. Reason and Faith -- I .Religion and Philosophy, 1993.

Clark, R.E.D.Creation (London: Tyndale Press, 1946).

Collins, Francis S.Director of the Human Genome Project, and author of the Language of God, (Free Press, New York, NY), 2006.

According to French mathematician, Blaise Pascal, there is not much difference between an atheist and one that believes in God. The difference only becomes evident as the atheist would not be saved, if a God does presumably exist, while the believer would be saved, in spite of his sinful life.
Both Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel had tried to bring arguments to support the existence of God, but their theories had not provided solid facts to prove that God does exist, but only that the two had different concepts of God.

Karl Marx had been certain that the concept of God had only been an invention of demoralized people so that all hope would not be lost. Marx had insisted that people would be saved if they abandoned their hope in God.

Friedrich Nietzsche had wanted to show people that God had been man's invention, and that the end of…...

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Jones, Roger. Philosophy and proof of God's existence. Philosophy since the Enlightenment. Online. Available from Internet,

  Accessed 27 November, 2008.http://www.philosopher.org.uk/god.htm ,

Idem

existence or non-existence of God forms a very central basis to the philosophies of some thinkers. This paper examines the philosophies of Descartes, Kant and Sartre in order to determine the significance and connection of belief in existence and non-existence of God with their respective philosophies.
DESCATES, KANT AND SATE

The existence of God, the necessity of assuming that God exists, or the non-existence of God play a crucial role in the philosophies of either of the thinkers, namely, Descartes, Kant and Sartre. The existence of God is central to the philosophies presented by Descartes in the sense that he can explain away the questions that do not have simple answers with the existence of God. As a result, he does not have to provide absolute logic for questions whose answers might be out of human grasp anyway; instead he focuses on the intangible proof to state that God does exist.…...

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References

Lavine, T.Z. From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest. Hackett Publishing Company, 1998.

Stevenson, Leslie. Seven Theories of Human Nature. New York: Oxford UP, 1987

Existence of God Speech
Oh my God - Speech

Entry: be sure to have a quiet, sober audience before you begin.

Oh. My. God." By popular vote, the favorite exclamation of a dozens of different languages. One web site lists exactly one hundred and twelve translations, ranging from Old Irish ("Eala, min Hlaforde!") to Star Trek Klingon ("toH, HIvqa' Qun'a'wIj!")

(www.yamara.com).Ironically, religious proponents often view the phrase as sacrilegious -- "taking the Lord's name in vain," a Christian would say -- and as many atheists use the expression as theists.

The reason for this ubiquity is that religion is very much a part of culture. Man's experience is that the world, for all its diversity, often offers variations on a common theme, or permutations of common properties. As Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, "There is nothing new under the sun" (Holy Bible). There is a natural impulse, therefore, to look for some greater meaning beyond mere biological…...

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Works Cited

Practical Man's Proof of God." Doesgodexist.Org. 6 Apr. 2007  http://www.doesgodexist.org/Phamplets/Mansproof.html .

The Holy Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002.

Oh My God! There's an Axe in My Head!" Yamara.Com. 6 Apr. 2007  http://www.yamara.com/axe/index.html .

Open Vs Closed Universe." Polymath. 7 Mar. 2006. 6 Apr. 2007  http://mindstalk.net/polymath/polyarc/0372.html .

According to these arguments, God does not have a beginning in time, nor is he contingent. Therefore he is in a position to have created the universe.
The moral argument (Hick 28), in contrast to those above, focuses on the existence of human beings within contemporary society, and how morals are manifest in this society. According to this argument, the moral facts could only be as they are and in fact exist on the basis of God's presence. There are several moral arguments, two of which include the formal moral argument and Kant's moral argument.

The formal moral argument holds that morality is implicit in divinity. According to this argument, morality exists only because God exists. In other words, God created morality in the human heart. The basis for this lies in the fact that morality is prescriptive, giving guidance on how to live. Proponents of this argument then uses this…...

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Sources

Hick, John H. Philosophy of Religion. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990.

Platinga, a. "Pluralism: A Defense of Religious Exclusivism," in the Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity, K. Meeker and P.Quinn (eds.), New York: Oxford University Press, 2000: 172-192.

Quinn, P. "Toward Thinner Theologies: Hick and Alston on Religious Diversity," in the Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity, K. Meeker and P.Quinn (eds.), New York: Oxford University Press, 2000: 226-243.

Existence of God
This report has the difficult task of trying to prove the existence of God. But there is a silver lining in this challenge -- we have ancient philosophy to help. By using the beliefs, works and philosophies of Saint Anselm and Descartes, this report will have the benefit of using ontological argument to assist in the task. The main idea of the paper is to prove that God exists by trying to use the opinions of the philosophers Saint Anselm and Descartes. Descartes has been credited with one of the most interesting but also one of the least understood arguments in regard to the existence of god. Fascination with his argument comes from the fact that his effort to prove God's existence was a very simple premise. Saint Anselm's goals was to prove the existence of God with logical and philosphical understanding which in modern times has…...

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Works Cited

Dicker, Georges P. Descartes: An Analytical and Historical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993.

Langmead, J.V. The Christian in Philosophy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951.

convince my audience that God exists
Although God cannot be seen, heard or touched in a real sense, he exists as a real entity.

There is something that we use every single second of our lives which we cannot see, hear or touch.

This is something that drives our life force, and allows us to live.

ithout it, we would die a painful death within a matter of minutes!

Every living creature on this planet requires it to continue its existence

This thing that I am talking about is oxygen!

Until the 18th century, no one knew what oxygen was, nor could they define it. Yet we still use it in every single breathe that we take.

ithout the use of scientific instrumentation we cannot see, hear or touch oxygen yet we all assume that it exists nonetheless.

The average person cannot hear, see, or touch God and yet fully one third of the world believes that he…...

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Works Cited

ADHD -- Treatment through Behavioral Therapy." American Institute of Pediatrics.

Mederm: Medical Library: ADHD. 2007. [3 Mar 2007]  http://www.medem.com/MedLB/article_detaillb.cfm?article_ID=ZZZWWPFTXSC&sub_cat=21#Table3 

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder." National Institute of Mental Health. 2006.

Mar 2007]  http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/adhd.cfm#intro

Is it possible that four or five billion people could be mistaken when it comes to believing in the existence of God?
For the most part, organized religion was created by human beings who found it necessary to construct a belief system in order to control human society and the actions of men upon the Earth. ut if the atheist is correct, then all organized religion and their related principles and tenets are nothing more than devices for the control of man and his mind. Some may say, "If God does not exist, then what is the point of existence?" The answer to this question is very difficult to answer, yet it appears that man, due to the influence of organized religion, has been conditioned since ancient times to fear death and the consequences of his actions if they go against the laws and codes of God. To sum up,…...

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Bibliography

Dods, Michael, Trans. The Writings of Justin Martyr and Athenagoras. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1867.

McGrath, Alister. The Twilight of Atheism. New York: Doubleday, 2004.

Miceli, Vincent P. The Gods of Atheism. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1971.

Screech, M.A., trans. & ed. An Apology for Raymond Sebond. London: Penguin Books, 1993.

Thomas Aquinas was an Italian philosopher who was eventually canonized and made into a saint.  Because of his sainthood, there are myths surrounding Thomas Aquinas that may be difficult to distinguish from the factual information surrounding his life.  As a result, you may want to be wary when looking at religious sources of information about his life, if you are supposed to be focusing on fact-based biographical-type information.  However, investing the mythology of his life would also be a worthwhile topic of pursuit, such as his proof of the existence of God.....

1. Analyze Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways to prove the existence of God and evaluate their effectiveness in addressing modern scientific and philosophical challenges.
2. Compare and contrast Thomas Aquinas' views on natural law and ethics with those of other prominent philosophers, such as Aristotle or Immanuel Kant.
3. Investigate how Thomas Aquinas' theology influenced the development of Western Christian thought and the relationship between faith and reason in his writings.
4. Examine Thomas Aquinas' concept of the soul and its relationship to the body, and explore how it differs from other philosophical and theological perspectives on the nature of the human person.
5. Discuss....

No, I do not find the existence of evil to be incompatible with the existence of God. Many religious beliefs include the concept of free will, which means that humans have the ability to choose between good and evil. Therefore, the existence of evil is a result of human choices, rather than a flaw in God's design. Additionally, many faiths teach that suffering and evil can lead to personal growth, empathy, and a deeper connection with the divine. Ultimately, the presence of evil in the world does not automatically negate the existence of a benevolent deity.
It can also be argued....

The Problem of Evil and the Existence of God

The problem of evil is a philosophical and theological quandary that questions the compatibility of the existence of evil with the existence of a benevolent and omnipotent God. It has been a subject of debate and contemplation for millennia, with various perspectives emerging throughout history.

Arguments Against the Compatibility of Evil and God

1. The Epicurean Trilemma:

The Epicurean trilemma posits three possibilities regarding the nature of God and its relation to evil:

God is both willing and able to prevent evil but chooses not to.
God is able but unwilling to prevent evil.
God....