the problem of evil as I understand it argues that if god is indeed all good and has the power to stop evil, evil shouldn’t happen. I understand your response (I think?) - what we consider as evil may not be evil in the eyes of god, as our understanding is limited.
My question: why wouldn’t slavery just then be a thing that we perceive as evil, but is actually good beyond our limited understanding. If we’re throwing out the problem of evil, then why wouldn’t the problem of slavery go with it?
And as an aside - if the problem of evil is just us not comprehending the good in what god allows, why would an all good god instill in us a desire to prevent the good things that we are confusing as evil? ~ "The Other Mike"
The problem is that if somebody is omnipotent and omnibenevolent they should prevent evil, and not even be able to create it or allow it to continue.
Seems more like an argument for why Christians don't have morals at all, than an issue with God or the Problem of Evil... Like, yes, we can plainly condemn Evils and somebody with more power could de-condemn them -- the "objectivity" when it comes to morals is "collective subjectivity" but there's no grand overarching Moral Law-Giver to make that evil universal or good or whatever... These conversations often jump in scale from the individual to cultures/societies to the species/planet to the universe ... Like, there's no Natural Law that says if something is more or less moral, but you can have a very human sense of danger - if you're going to get tarred & feathered or worse or not... Like, as an individual brain in a jar just thinking from one perspective nothing really matters because it's just "thought experiments" or whatever -- something is only real when it physically manifests & engages with other physical manifestations -- there's nothing to discuss until there's at least a 2nd brain in a jar.
Like, I think the point of the Moral Systems entrenched with Physical power in the real world is to decide who lives and who dies and how much we should care about them -- The US has a consumerist throw-away society, and so we throw away people, but that's unsightly, so we lock them in Prison and extract labor from them until they can get their freedom (legally or naturally, including death) (the US inherited and "improved" upon a system given to us by European colonists)
Good & Evil are Individual judgements, and we learn them from our Cultures/Societies who have some collective system of Judgement & passing on these values (education/punishment) ... "tried in the court of public opinion" vs "tried in a court of law" - like Casey Anthony, whose kid went missing and was found duct taped in the trunk of her car - "Everyone Knows she killed her own kid!" But the court of law said she didn't. If God is all the things they say, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, and created all this - then how could such a being allow or produce evil? ... This presupposes the existence of such a being, then makes excuses for them not being who they said he is -- without the presupposition of this deity there is no problem, evil is just subjective/collective judgement "Natural Evils" are natural disasters, but there's no morality behind it, it's just nature doing what it does and going with the flow of other natural occurrence - like water eroding the cliffs under a town and causing homes to fall into the cavern isn't "Ontologically Evil" it's evil according to our own subjective judgements because people were living there
If we take the Adam & Eve story on face value, God didn't intend for us to have moral knowledge to divide things into good & evil, we stole it and were eternally and collectively punished for the theft of our ancestors -- but the same Bible says that God simultaneously does and doesn't punish people for their ancestors sins... If you pile up enough contradictions you can make an eternal circular argument that's enough to keep people occupied for their entire lives.