That’s all we have, since good and evil and subjective ideas. The hypothetical is designed to examine moral choices, and illustrate that these are relative and subjective. For example the notion that action or inaction that directly causes a loss of life is wrong or bad or evil is challenged with this particular example, since no choice or even inaction can avoid or prevent it.
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Well indeed it exposes the subjective nature of morality and moral choices, but imo it also raises free will/determinism questions as well.
Yeah, cool! And they forced it through a double slit?
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To start, no, I am not implying that the choices are suddenly evil. My apologies. They are just that, decisions, nothing more. I should have made that more clear.
Yes, that is what I am trying to imply by asking if there are “degrees” of evil. Obviously there are no degrees of evil. It is a subjective application of the definition by the individual. There is no conceivable way to quantify “evil”. Sorry I should have directed that response at Adam.
So yes I am in full agree with your assessment.
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The trolley would have to be in a box, though. Oh, wait… 
… Or would the people have to be in a box?
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They would both have to be thought of as in the box and not in the box
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This seems like a lot of thinking inside the box. I don’t find any of this creative at all, I expect better from this crack squad of minstrels.
Ok, Sorry to disappoint or derail.
I agree with the notion that evil is just a word to describe behavior, thoughts, actions, etc…
Therefore, no choice I make, of those presented to me, is more or less evil than any other, despite the possibility of varying ramifications of the choice. Given my innocence in the construction of the scenario, I reject any responsibility for the outcome, regardless of my choice.
The predetermined nature of the experiment speaks to the idea of free will for me. If the “choices” I make are predetermined ones and the outcomes are also predetermined, then how much free will is being employed? Obviously whomever sets up such a scenario has automatically assumed the responsibility for the outcome(s), consciously or not, so it doesn’t matter which I choose. I am innocent. As @Cognostic stated
I accept the notion of reality being at least
partially deterministic. The delusion of complete free will is not one I harbor.
Here is a collection of fun/absurd/macabre/evil trolley problems. Enjoy.
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Yes there could but God created and God alone is good.
So how can god be good, but he also created evil? It would stand to reason he is both evil and good. You can’t create something or allow something and take no ownership of creating or allowing this to occur. If I allow a rabid dog to run loose am I not at fault?
God cannot in my opinion be good then. He contains both good and evil therefore he cannot be one without the other. So god from that standpoint can also be deemed evil. At which point I can no longer consider god to be anything more than man made.
Blind unsupported assertion and unwanted sanctimonious panhandling.
You’ve never provided any genuine evidence for your cartoon magic man, and instead, have had to resort to bare faced lies in order to hand-wave away valid scientific discoveries that destroy the assertions of your sad, diseased goat herder mythology.
Begone with you.
Never ceases to amaze me how so many Christians can actually (somehow) manage to “justify” that in their heads. What’s worse is they expect others to agree with it.
Was recently having a discussion with a Christian guy on TikTok, during which time he started proclaiming how “perfectly good” the bible god is. Naturally, I was obliged to mention the flood, ripping unborn children from mothers’ wombs, striking a child ill and letting it die, killing children with bears, creating Satan, etc. Now, this next part might surprise you, but would you believe it did not phase him at all? 
Sure didn’t. Matter of fact, he even doubled down. He made it very clear to me that his god is PURE love, and that EVERYTHING his god does is perfect and good, no matter how bad it may seem to us mere mortals. Ugh… 
…
So, in a nutshell, anybody who is so far mentally vested in that belief to that degree is pretty much beyond reasoning with. Just my personal opinion. Granted, there MIGHT BE a couple of rare ones here and there who can gradually be brought around to rational thinking. I’m not holding my breath, though.
Can you demonstrate that:
- There is/are god/s
- The god you believe in is the only god
- This god is good.
By demonstrate, I actually mean demonstrate.
If you say you can, please do so. You haven’t so far. If you say you can’t, then you will be demonstrating a bit of honesty.
Up to you….
Ezekiel gives an account of how God created a cherub who was beautiful, wise, blameless but then wickedness was found in this creature.
Isaiah tell us that we have all gone astray but his root grew was rejected and bore our punishment.
““Son of man, lament for the king of Tyre and say to him: This is what the Lord God says: You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every kind of precious stone covered you: carnelian, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and emerald. Your mountings and settings were crafted in gold; they were prepared on the day you were created. You were an anointed guardian cherub, for I had appointed you. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked among the fiery stones. From the day you were created you were blameless in your ways until wickedness was found in you. Through the abundance of your trade, you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I expelled you in disgrace from the mountain of God, and banished you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud because of your beauty; For the sake of your splendor you corrupted your wisdom. So I threw you down to the earth; I made you a spectacle before kings. You profaned your sanctuaries by the magnitude of your iniquities in your dishonest trade. So I made fire come from within you, and it consumed you. I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the sight of everyone watching you. All those who know you among the nations are appalled at you. You have become an object of horror and will never exist again.””
Ezekiel 28:12-19
“Who has believed what we have heard? And who has the arm of the Lord been revealed to? He grew up before Him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at Him, no appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from; He was despised, and we didn’t value Him. Yet He Himself bore our sicknesses, and He carried our pains; but we in turn regarded Him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on Him, and we are healed by His wounds. We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished Him for the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep silent before her shearers, He did not open His mouth. He was taken away because of oppression and judgment; and who considered His fate? For He was cut off from the land of the living; He was struck because of my people’s rebellion. They made His grave with the wicked and with a rich man at His death, although He had done no violence and had not spoken deceitfully. Yet the Lord was pleased to crush Him severely. When You make Him a restitution offering, He will see His seed, He will prolong His days, and by His hand, the Lord’s pleasure will be accomplished. He will see it out of His anguish, and He will be satisfied with His knowledge. My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will carry their iniquities. Therefore I will give Him the many as a portion, and He will receive the mighty as spoil, because He submitted Himself to death, and was counted among the rebels; yet He bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebels.”
Isaiah 53:1-12
Good and evil are subjective perceptions and are relative, and one would be pretty meaningless without the other. There is no objective evidence for any deity, or that anything we see was created, beyond manmade things. Religious apologists and theists seem to love reeling off unevidenced claims, I think this might be part of the appeal of religion, that it allays fear and ignorance by adopting hubris and confidence in the face of uncertainty. However in the modern scientific era superstitious hubris is a problem, as it now has to deal with objective evidence and facts, and it is dubious that it was ever “designed” for that.
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TLDR, thanks for just posting scripture though. Please give me evidence outside of the Bible that verifies this god is inherently “good” or even exists.
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Also, the Bible is the claim that god is good. You can’t support an argument by using the claim as evidence for the argument. So your argument isn’t valid even in that sense.
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Soooooo… What you are saying, then, is that your god is not perfect. After all, you just said one of his creations was faulty. Thanks for confirming.
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Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone gives an account of magic spells, and is equally as well evidenced as the bible, which is why I disbelieve them both.
Centuries before humans created the Christian religion, Epicurus summed theodicy up very well and very succinctly:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
This simple and well reasoned argument, demonstrates the dichotomy at the heart of the Abrahamic deity, and yet theologians have grappled with theodicy for millennia, a perfect example of their inability to accept any fact or argument that doesn’t support their beliefs.
I no more care what the bible claims, than I do what the Harry Potter novels claim, I only care what they can evidence objectively.
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