Plato was insane, just read about his Republic. Nobody knows if he was being serious or making a parody, but I'm inclined to think he was serious and one serious nutcase.
Maybe if you had bothered reading some of his writings you would have a different opinion. Plato's writings are full of joking bits, especially the Republic. And Plato never gives any hints that he is joking. Most of his jokes (at least, those that aren't puns) involve pretending to be dead serious about something that is ridiculous.
(Some of the more memorable examples of Plato's humor include the bit about the Lacedaemonians in Protagoras, the bit about dogs in the Republic, and just about all of Parmenides and Euthydemus.)
Unless you find an actual reason for evil to exist (instead of saying there MIGHT be one), the reasoning still stands.
I don't need to prove the opposite of what you have shown in order to show that you have not proven what you claim. Showing your proof to be wrong is a different (and much easier) task from showing your claim to be wrong. I did not show that a good God exists, I merely pointed out that you did not show that a good God does not exist. A proof that might be wrong is wrong. This is inherent in the definition of a proof.
You are saying that god is the ultimate wildcard.
Precisely! Here is my attempt at a guess at God's reason for allowing evil.
You claim that a good god (I won't keep repeating omnipotent, just understand that I mean an omnipotent god) could not have made this world because it is bad. I believe free will is good. I cannot concieve of free will without evil. If we don't have a choice between good and evil, then we aren't given any significant choices, so that doesn't count as free will. So free will is good, but we can't have free will without evil (I don't think I can prove this, by the way), so perhaps God allows evil in order to provide a greater good.
You could claim that this god is not omnipotent, because he can't give free will without evil. I concede that it may be possible to have free will without evil, even though I cannot conceive of it. However, if this is not possible, that doesn't make God unomnipotent any more than the fact that he can't make two odd does.
The above poster was right that there is a false premise. Or at least an unproven premise, which is enough to disqualify this as a logical proof. And he said what it was, although he didn't explain it as well as he might have. It is that...
If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked.
Here is a simple counterexample (somewhat hypothetical). I don't like people who yell really loud in Sproul plaza. I can kill people who yell really loud in Sproul plaza (in principle). And yet there are people who yell really loud in Sproul plaza. Those three facts are completely compatible. It may be true that God is omnipotent and hates evil, and yet has some other reason for allowing it to exist. I could speculate as to God's reason for allowing evil to exist, but my point is that this is not a logical argument for the nonexistence of an omnipotent evil-hating God.
The other problem with your proof is that you never bother to define evil. I'm sure Epicurus did, but I'm not sure his definition is the same as that of most people today, or the same as that of Christians. In fact, sadly a lot of Christians I know have not thought very deeply about what evil is, and as a result are very shocked when they read the Old Testament and find out that God did a lot of things they would consider evil. But that is an entirely different discussion...
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe if you had bothered reading some of his writings you would have a different opinion. Plato's writings are full of joking bits, especially the Republic. And Plato never gives any hints that he is joking. Most of his jokes (at least, those that aren't puns) involve pretending to be dead serious about something that is ridiculous.
(Some of the more memorable examples of Plato's humor include the bit about the Lacedaemonians in Protagoras, the bit about dogs in the Republic, and just about all of Parmenides and Euthydemus.)
I don't need to prove the opposite of what you have shown in order to show that you have not proven what you claim. Showing your proof to be wrong is a different (and much easier) task from showing your claim to be wrong. I did not show that a good God exists, I merely pointed out that you did not show that a good God does not exist. A proof that might be wrong is wrong. This is inherent in the definition of a proof.
You are saying that god is the ultimate wildcard.
Precisely! Here is my attempt at a guess at God's reason for allowing evil.
You claim that a good god (I won't keep repeating omnipotent, just understand that I mean an omnipotent god) could not have made this world because it is bad. I believe free will is good. I cannot concieve of free will without evil. If we don't have a choice between good and evil, then we aren't given any significant choices, so that doesn't count as free will. So free will is good, but we can't have free will without evil (I don't think I can prove this, by the way), so perhaps God allows evil in order to provide a greater good.
You could claim that this god is not omnipotent, because he can't give free will without evil. I concede that it may be possible to have free will without evil, even though I cannot conceive of it. However, if this is not possible, that doesn't make God unomnipotent any more than the fact that he can't make two odd does.
The above poster was right that there is a false premise. Or at least an unproven premise, which is enough to disqualify this as a logical proof. And he said what it was, although he didn't explain it as well as he might have. It is that...
If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked.
Here is a simple counterexample (somewhat hypothetical). I don't like people who yell really loud in Sproul plaza. I can kill people who yell really loud in Sproul plaza (in principle). And yet there are people who yell really loud in Sproul plaza. Those three facts are completely compatible. It may be true that God is omnipotent and hates evil, and yet has some other reason for allowing it to exist. I could speculate as to God's reason for allowing evil to exist, but my point is that this is not a logical argument for the nonexistence of an omnipotent evil-hating God.
The other problem with your proof is that you never bother to define evil. I'm sure Epicurus did, but I'm not sure his definition is the same as that of most people today, or the same as that of Christians. In fact, sadly a lot of Christians I know have not thought very deeply about what evil is, and as a result are very shocked when they read the Old Testament and find out that God did a lot of things they would consider evil. But that is an entirely different discussion...