No matter what faith you subscribe to, if you believe in one all mighty power that be, answer me this:

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?

- Epicurus.

I'm sure some of you have seen this quote before, and I'm not posting it to be a smart alec or rub you up the wrong way or anything of such nature.

I am having a lapse in what was once a strong personal belief in god, for personal reasons I would rather not go into. However, this quote really struck something in me, and has made me question faith in general (not just my own), as I really cannot find an answer to the questions posed in this verse.

Anyone willing to clarify how it can be disproven using logic are welcome to reply. I would welcome anyone to try and help out, because I'm pretty much lost for an answer...

A Christian or any of its denominations will tell you to read the bible for the answers

A Buddhist will say lets meditate

A Wicca says, "I will invite you to the next full moon party" to celeberate a goddess to find answers.

A "Law of Attraction" believer will give you philosophy of how to stay positive and hone its energy to focus only on being productive and happy. All others who don't do this will experience negativity all the time.

A Hindu will keep you so busy with studying all of its gods and goddesses that you won't have time to wonder why things happen in the world. There are literally thousands of them.

A atheist says there is no god and stop wasting your time on that bullcrap

A agnostic will say " We don't know why many things happen?" and believe it or not that is at least being truthful, but it doesn't help when a mind is always curious to know more.

A native american will show you how to talk to spirits, make rain, and worship the great wanka tanka

Jediism will make you feel like a hero waving a lightsaber and give you cause in believing in the positive and negative force of life.

World of Warcraft will have you lost in a computer game and eventually make you worship it like 100 million people around the world does. Yes it will become a religion also one day.


For everything else there is mastercard and that seems to resolve most of the issues in today's society.

Oh I forgot - a muslim will teach you to kiss the ground more then any other religion in the world. They also will make sure you know where west and east is at all times without using a compass when practicing their faith.

A jew will give you the opportunity to enjoy beads that they count with their hands and make love to a wall that they find holy and sacred in Israel. They will also show you how to save money by wearing the same black and white outfit each day with a hat that looks like the hats pilgrims wore in the 1700s. Also showers and shaving is not a recommended to do each and everyday, yet their feet are often washed each day.

A scientologist will make you believe in nasty aliens that enjoy eating humans for breakfast and are ruling our world already.Their philosophy starts out friendly and then later hits you wish harshness.

God is god. He does what the hell he wants
Where he wants
When he wants
With who he wants

Or is it a she......

Well i guess ill throw my opinion in too.. I had a crisis in faith myself a few years ago. The way i look at it is this.. God gave all his creations free will.. So its up to the individual to decide if they want to love him or not? Its sounds kind of simplistic i know but if you have kids i can put it this way. Would you rather your children love you because you tell them too? Or would you rather have them love you because they feel your love for them? I hope thats not circular argument but thats the only way it makes sense to me? God isnt unwilling to do away with evil but as long as people are willing to wallow in it why would he?

I'm in complete agreement with Epicurus.

If any form of spirituality exists, it's not going to be based on an egotistical godhead. However, there are other concepts of spirituality out there. So it's not necessary to believe in a single egotistical judgemental godhead.

There are many answers. The only thing that's important is that you find the one you can live with.

I've found mine quite simply in agnostism.

I accept that I don't know. And I accept that whatever is, is.

If atheism is true I just shrug my shoulders and think, "What a waste of a beautiful universe"

If spiritualty is true I have FAITH that whatever powers that be are far more compassionate and wiser then me.

Do I need to grovel on my knees worshiping religious dogmas?

No, absolutely not. Even I can see the stupity in that, and like I've already said, if there exist spirituality I have FAITH that the powers that be are far wiser than me, and certainly not far stupider.

I think as an agnostic I have far more FAITH that God is nice (if God exist) than the religious fantatics do who demand that God must exist. Their hatred for non-conformers is truly pathetic and ungodly as far as I'm concerned.

So I just have FAITH that things will work out. And if it all turns out to be for naught, then what would have been the point in fretting over it in the first place?

Adam and eve were put here for several reasons.

The 1st and formost Adam was made because the Angels even though created were given a mind with free will.

Using this Satan/Helel decided he could be Yahweh and rise above the Heavens.

We even see this after humans were 1st created with the Tower of Babel.

They believed they did not need Yahweh and knowledge was being learned by them without interference that they also believed they could do as Satan thought he can and still does.

Yet Humans were put here in the Physical waiting for the Spiritual to come. Another Plane of existance. The unseen world to come.

Yahweh bestowed on people a great Blessing as the Angels had fallen from Grace.

Adam and Eve being the beginning Created in the Creators image to become the sons and daughters of Elohim.

A learning path we are on since that beginning.

As with the Spirit world and Yahweh a Day is as a 1000 years. So our time in this Plane of existance is not but a speck in time.

We as people/parents also become as Elohims to our children from birth untill they grow and become individuals.

We tell them what is good and bad but we can not keep thier curiosity from getting the best of them and they venture out and have to learn for themselves.

But we told them before hand what would happened yet Satan the Rebeller of all time is able to get them to try and do what thier parents have forbidden or warned them not to.

No different than we see at the beginning in the garden.


So we are given the ability to understand what happens when we let freewill happen.

The evil that is in the riddle is no more than curisity gone bad.

Yet we also know this is going to happen with our children and the best we can do for them to help them grow into adults is instruct them an how to live life.

They usually will have to learn from experience.

Just like when you can see what the long haul of Humans growing up and learning from Experience that Father Knows Best and Just Believe.

That what we are instructed for is for our own good. This will not come to fullfillment though untill after we leave the Physical Body.

Then we are born into the Spirual world as Babes in a New kingdom who have been at this time become Eternal Beings.


We have now put off childish ways and can see as a man looking into a glass and seeing who we really are.

The spiritual being we are meant to become.

Looking back and seeing that the short time we as Humans are on earth but not anything more than a training ground for us to understand that FATHER KNOWS BEST. Is more than a few words but wisdom being bestowed on us from upon HIGH.

All the terrible things we do not understand while being alive are nothing more than a speck of dust in the wind for us to learn from.

That now as we have grown up will not repeat again and rebell against right from wrong and become proud that we are better than our brothers and sisters. That we are not made superior but have the same thoughts and feeling as humans have throughout time.

We are Blessed. Evil is not from Yahweh but a direct cause and effect from rebelling and believing you are better somehow.

Just as this is our biggest problem in society. What a world we would have if we looked at everyone around us as a person we should serve and not someone who should serve us as Yahshua said so eloquently as he was preparing to die.


We are here for training a short Training before turning to be born again as Actual spirit. Becoming Actual Children of the Most High.

Just as we are looking for our children to take over as we die.

We try to give them all the tools of life to live by but we can not lead them to the Promice land of contentment and Love of thier fellow human beings. We pray and hope we have done the job. Giving them freewill and hoping they make the right choices.

Saying Yahweh does not have the power or refuses to do anything about it

Is the same as saying your son or daughter has killed someone or any other herindious crime is your fault when you did the best job you could with them when you gave them the free will to live thier lives the same as your parents gave you free will.

You can not blame the parent for everything.

Blessings....Miles

This totally misses the point as far as I'm concerned.

Becoming obscessed with pointing at human free will as the culprit for supposed 'evil' in this world is absurd.

It doesn't even begin to touch on the real problem that the nature world itself is not free from horrible things.

Even if every single human being on this planet was an absolute saint that woudln't change the fact that we live in a dog-eat-dog world where animals eat each others, disease will always be a biological fact, natural disasters occur all the time, and even weather patterns can't be counted on to be consistent and have been the cause of droughts and wild fires.

Pointing at human free will as the culprit just doesn't fly because even if all humans were prefect we'd still live in a world of imperfection and suffering.

Nope, trying to pin it on humans is absurd because it doesn't address the crux of the problem. The natural world itself is less than saintly. So any attempt to pin the tail on the humans just doesn't fly.

Sorry. No sale.

That necessarily has to be a false doctrine right there.

In answer to the OP.....EXACTLY.

There is no free will in religion. It is thrown in there with no validity from anywhere to explain that which cannot be explained in religion.

Garbage basically.



I had a test of faith in my younger years. I went through all fazes of doubt and guilt over the doubts but once I got all the logic I could together and concluded that Christanity was not a valid choice for me, due to my logical mind, I was set free.

I'm not saying it did.

I'm simply saying that the idea that mankind introduced evil into this universe is absurd.

If we need to condemn humanity in order to invent a God then I say let's do away with all the Zeuses and Yahoos, or whatever their names are.

Why bother inventing a God just to condemn ourselves. That's crazy.

I'd rather atheism be true than have to restort to that.

I guess I'm just not that desperate.

I'd rather atheism be true than to believe in jealous egotistical God that designed a universe and put the entire blame on their kids.

That's absurd.

That would be like taking your kid as a new born infant, dropping it off on the bad side of town and abandoning it, and then demanding that it come crawling back to apologize to you.

You may feel that such an act could be condoned as good parenting skills.

I'm afriad that I just don't see it.

If God wanted his children to be good the least he could have done was create a universe that has a nature that sets a GOOD example.

In fact, when speaking of the Biblical God, he could at the very LEAST set a God example via his own actions.

The Biblical God solved all his problems using VIOLENCE. He commanded people to stone sinners to death, he commanded them to murder heathens, including their wives and CHILDREN with NO MERCY.

He gave them a promised land and then told them to MURDER everyone who was living on it. Sounds like something a pimp would do! Give someone else's land away and say, "It's OK, just murder everyone that living on it and you can have it. No skin off my nose!"

He deal with sin by drowning out all of humanit and anmimals save for a few people on a floating zoo?

These are good examples?

He tells his children that if they disobey him he'll fogive them if they kill an innocent lamb?

That's a good example?

Even the crucifixion was horrific. He can't even find it in his heart to forgive people without having someone nailed to a pole.

You might think those are good examples to set for your children.

Personally I don't.

If God wanted to set a good example the very LEAST he could have done was make all animals be herbivors without exception.

The fact that the universe isn't built like that says to me that at the very best God dumped us off at the wong side of town and simlpy abandon any responsiblity to mentor us at all. Because the Bible most certainly isn't what I would personally consider to be good mentoring. Most poeple would be tossed in jail today for doing the things that the Biblical God told people to do.

Hey, I'm not trying to ask you to change your mind. I know you aren't about to anyway. I'm just telling you that your explanation appears every bit as absurd to me as might might appear to you.

You keep wanting to equate God to a FATHERLY image. Personally I just don't see it. It's not what I would consider to be a good example of parenting.

Besides where did all this male chauvinism come from in the first place? First we have Zeus, then we have the God of Abraham.

Where are all the female Goddesses?

Females give birth to life, not males. Whatever caused anyone to think that God would be a Guy to begin with? It's ridiculous.

If there is a supreme being it probably has no gender anyway. And therefore it wouldn't have been bent of making Eve as a helpmate to Adam. If anything it makes much more sense the other way around.

It's just silly from the word go.

One of my favorite quotes by Epicurus, Thanks OP!

Smiless, loved the way you responded to that. Had me laughing.

Abra, well said as always.

We define evil. And then we write books or make up stories about it, as the time period suits.

It used to be underage marriage was common, and when a female had her first period, she was old enough to marry off. "You bleed, you can breed". We won't even discuss the age difference then! Now, people are in an uproar over a 16 year old having sex with an 18 year old, and the 18yr old gets to be listed as a pedophile the rest of their life. And that's a reasonable age difference. The 16 and 30 year old... well, that's a bigger no-no.

The whole gay thing - The Greeks were big on it, and look at how well their culture did for so long. Gays in the military, they partnered them together on purpose, because the thought was you fought harder and better to protect your loved one.

Murder vs. killing - no one can figure that out!

And well, heck, even the Christians hardly do the "eye for an eye" thing, and that was a perfectly valid thing (and I still think it needs to be put in effect).

What else can be tossed out there?!

My parents never used blackmail for me to love them. They didn't say that I HAD to love them or else I'd be eternally punished. There were times we'd drive each other batty, but they taught us to use our brains, and work it out, not abdicate using our brains.

Well thankyou Equusdancer. I was hoping someone would enjoy my dry humor eventually

It is amazing how things are back then with belief systems and how some still are practiced today.

Just recently I was reading about how some Afghanistan families marry their children as early as of the age of 8 years.

With over 291 nations and over thousands of religions in practice anything is expected concerning a faith system.


I am just glad I don't have to wear a nose ring as big as a toilette seat because the belief is if you don't wear one you might not make it to the great hills where the seers offer sanctuary to another world. Yes very true! Check out African Mythology

You all do humour me.

It is amazing what is held up as a way of life that goes against nature.

It never has held up for long and never will .


Our great grandchildren will be doing the same thing as on here.

Just they will be looking at how people were so naive to believe such things as these.

A few people using mass media to control or change peoples views. Making what is right and wrong a dielest confusion of words.


Worrying about nonsence and in the same breath making human kind of no effect unless it promotes a agenda that is aligned with the philosiphy of the day.

Having shown no backbone or skeletal remains in them.

Only going with the flow because doing elsewise may make them the but of jokes.

Where thier forfathers would never of imagined that thier offsprings would end up such pansies making panties we wear thier battle cry.

Oh so sad

Your parents love you and try to teach you right from wrong. What you decide to do with this knowledge is up to you.
God has promised to do away with all evil and he will.

The issue comes in the fallacy of attempting to quantify evil. The question centers on defining evil. Evil - like darkness, is unquantifyable - for it is often viewed as the antithesis of good - when in reality, it is the falling short of it. Not the opposite - but the lack of. As with Darkness - which is not the opposite of light, but the absense of it. Therefore - Epicurous falls short in his analysis of God's dealing with evil - as he indicates a lack of understanding of what evil is - or rather, he premises that it is a mesurable entity which stands on it's own. We ony understand evil in the light of knowing what the good is that it has fallen short of.

That is the logical analysis of your question. It centers around accepting a false premise introduced by Epicurous. Though his argument may seem to make sense - it only makes sense if one presumes that evil is something that can be defined independent of the good it falls short of.

This is EXACTLY what I was looking for :) thankyou.

Is he asking or telling?

Eljay...




Does this deny the existence of evil?

I have to say that this is indeed a Rembrant of deception.

Especially in view of the fact that it totally ignores the fact that this would demand that nature herself falls short of goodness.

Creation itself falls short of goodness.

But this flies in the face of the fact that the Biblical God said of his creation: "God saw that it was good".



This is just an empty loophole, and as far as I'm concerned it doesn't address the concerns of Epicuras at all. Like CreativeSoul suggests, it just attempts to deny evil whilst simultaneously pretending to perserve it in a very poetic but totally false way.