Comments concerning the arguement concerning evil, Epicurus, St. Augustine. Hume and Skeptical theism

Comments concerning the arguement concerning evil, Epicurus, St. Augustine. Hume and Skeptical theism
by valpetridis @ 2008-08-19 - 17:33:06
For those who do not read comments.
A wise women sent me this comment:Author: Rosethhttp Comment: Epicurus believed (contra Aristotle) that death was not to be feared. When a man dies, he does not feel the pain of death because he no longer is and he therefore feels nothing. Therefore, as Epicurus famously said, "death is nothing to us." When we exist death is not, and when death exists we are not. All sensation and consciousness ends with death and therefore in death there is neither pleasure nor pain. The fear of death arises from the false belief that in death there is awareness. In connection with this argument, Epicurus formulated a version of the problem of evil. Though often referred to as the "Epicurean paradox," the argument is more accurately described as a reductio ad absurdum of the notion that an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent god could exist in a world that manifestly contains evil.[7] This doctrine, however, is not aimed at promoting atheism. Instead, it is part of an overarching philosophy meant to convince us that what gods there may be do not concern themselves with us, and thus would not seek to punish us either in this or any other life.[8]In the philosophy of religion and theology, the problem of evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of evil or suffering in the world with the existence of God.[1] The problem is most often discussed in the context of the personal god of the Abrahamic religions, but is also relevant to polytheistic traditions involving many gods. The problem of evil is one of the most powerful objections to traditional theism.[2] Most theists respond that a perfect being may still allow some evil, asserting that it will enable certain greater goods, such as free will, which can not be achieved without allowing some evils.[2] A defense against the problem of evil attempts to establish that the divine attributes are logically consistent with the existence of evil, but does not commit to any positive explanations as to why these evils occur. A theodicy, on the other hand, is an attempt to provide such justifications for the existence of evil.[3] Skeptical theism, which is based on the theological position that humans can never expect to understand the divine, is perhaps the most popular response to the problem of evil among contemporary philosophers of religion.[4] Taken from Wikipedia.
My reply:Epicurus can also be understood as saying that though one might feel the pain leading to death that death is the point when the body no longer feels things of this world. Thus death is the nothing because it is the point one moves from feeling this world to what ever one feels in the next world. Dieing ends with death, yet death is nothing that one feels as one feels only the dieing and whatever comes after. The fear of death arises both in the belief of an awareness and sensation to death and what lies beyond death, Epicurus was brilliant in pointing out that death is not the after life, as life is not death prior to death nor is death life after death. Though Epicurus intelligently pointed out that the fear death is non sense if one fears an awareness that is based on what one understands life to be at the moment life prior to death ceases. Why fear feeling death as if alive, if death means you are no longer feeling anything as if alive prior to that moment of death. Life after death might be felt as something but that is life not death.Epicurus suggests as I do that the gods or God(s) does not create evil to punish us in this life or the next; that good divinity can exist while evil does, as it is not the source of evil. As St Augustine said God does not create evil rather distance from him does. It is us not God that creates evil. Saint Augustine, unlike me, believed it was because we fall, or go astray, from the grace of the perfect goodness God creates us as. St Augustine believed evil was a product of free will. Our free will and desire to preserve ourselves in the material world and the ways we learn to satiate our bodily and mental desires causes the fall from perfection.Hume is considered the father of skeptical theism, but to say ‘who knows what God(s)’ intention is’, is as much a positive idea of atheism( what can be known about a God that does not exist and is beyond existence) and agnostics as it is theological: The idea that God(s)’ intentions are a mystery to people predate Hume.. However, if we are made in his image and the universe reflects itself in patterns[programs]( as Buddhist and others claim) then the intention must be derivable from the manifestation of the divine program we experience and learn about.One can believe in theological skepticism and paradoxes while still answering both.Epicurus’ paradox is: how does one feel that which cannot be felt as it is defined as that which is beyond the point of being able to feel anything as one did prior to its manifestation: Simple, as the realisation that life and the after life are felt and thus the nothing of the death is felt as something not felt as one transits from life to that after life.I feel nothing... but that nothing is something in comparison to feeling something else.
Great stuff thank you RosethPeace
tiull next week blogger guys