It’s not totally subjective, because they define a way to measure an athletes performance objectively. It’s also a bit ironic because gymnastics could also be quite subjective too. Ultimately the judges and the athletes are aware of how everything is being scored, and the athletes plan their routines around how highly they can score on this rubric.
The smartphone is a different beast. Hardware and software companies spent millions of dollars of R&D to create the most psychologically addicting and attention demanding device as possible.
I appreciate you sharing the model of god suggested by Orthodox Christians, but I fail to see how this information alleviates the Paradox.Could you present your information in a way that relates to the Paradox? I am discussing with good faith, so I am actually curious how a person who believes the Christian model of god would find a way to solve this Paradox.
This being said, I do have some questions and comments regarding your statements.
If god has already defeated evil through Christ, then why is evil so prevalent today, even among those who worship him? God would rather damn people to burn in hell for eternity for doing evil than remove evil from the universe all together? To me, this is, in and of itself, an evil course of action which puts to question god’s goodness.
I am not sure if I am understanding you here. If evil is the absence of good, then does this mean that evil and good cannot coexist? In other words, can an action be both evil and good, or does every action fit in a bucket of either good or evil?
As for your final statement regarding how god is good and without god, neither good or evil can exists: I can’t help but relate this to the concept in Eastern Philosophy of ying and yang. Not sure if you are familiar with it, but the basic premise is that when you have two opposite concepts (for example, good and evil), one cannot exist without the other. For instance, if we lived in a universe that was only “good” then “good” would not exist, because without “evil” then there doesn’t exist a concept of “good”. In other words, if everything is “good” then the concept of “good” is irrelevant.
Reading your closing statement and relating it to ying/yang made me think that it kind of goes both ways. If god is good, then evil must exist for god to exist, since evil must be present for good to be present.
I agree, this is not a good argument against the existence of god, but it seems to be a fine argument against certain models of god. To get out of the paradox, one must be willing to give up certain notions about god. Either:
I think there are a lot of theists who would have trouble accepting one of these notions, which would keep them stuck within this paradox.
Stephen Hawkings had an interesting perspective regarding the creation of our universe. When people ponder our universe’s creation, they ask questions like “what caused the big bang?” or “what caused the universe to exist?”. Hawkings would have responded with the sentiment that these kind of questions were pointless. When one asks such a question regarding cause/effect, this presupposes the existence of a timeline. Cause and effect explanations have no merit without time; therefore to ask what caused the creation of the universe is silly, because time did not exist which means the notion of cause/effect would not have existed either.
Nevertheless, I think a lot of the folks commenting here have a problematic understanding of science, which is resulting in them agreeing with the toxic meme. Science and Religion don’t compete because they are fundamentally different in the way they approach understanding the universe. Religions relies on “truths” whereas science relies on “models”. There are no scientific facts or truths, there are only models that can accurately predict things we observe.
For example, the atomic model (atoms, +ions, - ions) can accurately predict a lot of different phenomena in our universe (electrical phenomena, chemical reactions, thermal phenomena, etc). Nevertheless, no good scientist should confidently tell you that atoms actually exist in reality. The atom is a model that functions well in explaining our universe, but that doesn’t mean it is “The Correct Model”.
Have you tried earnestly starting the discussion, or are you expecting others to start the conversation on your behalf? 🙃
Project Zomboid. Feels like a Sims game with zombie and great survival elements. Arguably, the best zombie survival game to hit the market. Supports split screen couch co-op.