Benevolence and Conflict

Yes, I agree. (Although I would word it "original" purpose rather than "higher"... but that's off-topic).The existence of bad does not show that it is impossible for a God to exist. It doesn't show that it's even impossible for a benevolent God to exist. The only thing it shows is that it's impossible for an omnipotent God to exist who holds "absolute benevolence" as His highest priority.Perhaps God gave us free will, and that restricts Him from being omnipotently benevolent to everyone. Of course, if God was omnipotent, He should be able to find a way to have free will exist and not let intelligent beings harm other intelligent beings.Which gets us into your next point: I agree with this, but I don't think it extends as far you're implying.We can have free will, and individuality, and be restricted from "causing harm to others." This still leaves quite a spectrum between "very good", "kinda good" and "neutral" in which an infinite number of benevolent decisions can be made.This may or may not also restrict non-intelligent things from causing bad things to happen (natural disastors, low-level living beings like viruses or insects perhaps...)The arguement against this is that "restricting people from causing harm to others removes free will."But this is not true. Restricting people from causing harm to others only places limitations on free will, it does not remove it.And limitations to free will already exist. We simply accept them because we're used to them. Limitations like wanting to breathe under water, or having 6 arms, or being able to "sense" our surroundings without using our eyes. I can't do any of those things. I can will myself all I want.. but I am restricted because it is impossible in this reality. We still have an infinite number of decisions that don't harm people to make, and an infinite number of decisions that do harm other people to make. Because we have all these possibly different decisions... we still have free will.So, if we simply add another restriction it does not remove free will. Especially if we are still left with an infinite number of decisions that do not harm other people. There would be more that is "impossible to do in reality", but we would still have a lot of possibly different decisions to make. Therefore, we would still have free will.I must admit that what I'm suggesting places further-restrictions on our free will from our current state. But the arguement that free will as we currently experience it (with morally good and bad decisions allowed) is necessary "for free will to exist" is simply false.This then leads into the question: what does our current experience of free will say about God? And the answer is that it is impossible for God to be omnipotent and to hold absolute benevolence as His highest priority. That is, an omnipotent God would have found a way to keep free will (infinite number of morally good decisions) while adding the restriction of morally evil decisions onto the other restrictions that already exist upon our free will... if He wanted to keep benevolence to everyone as a priority.So, this means that:1. God cannot find a way to allow free will and be absolutely benevolent to everyone.
Conclusions:
-God is not "omnipotent". God may very well be super-powerful, and even "the most powerful being in existence," but He has limitations.
-God could very well still be absolutely benevolent, He just can't help us as much as He wants to2. God may be omnipotent, but not hold "absolute benevolence" as a high priority.
Conclusions:
-God could have made our universe differently, but didn't, because He values our current experience of free will above absolute benevolence for whatever reason
-God could very well still be as benevolent as possible while allowing us to have our current experience of free will, but that is not His highest priority3. God is a dick (being benevolent is not high on His priority list at all... perhaps not even on it)
Conclusions:
-God may be omnipotent or not
-None of us should want to honour God in any way, He doesn't deserve it4. God does not exist

Very true. My arguement depends on the "ramifications far beyond what we (human beings) intend" not actually being beyond the abilities of an omnipotent being.However, even if all these ramifications and natural disasters can be restricted by an omnipotent being... there would still be an infinite number of good decisions we could make. And there would still be a spectrum of "goodness" in which to judge things as "really good" or "just kinda good" or even neutral.This kind of free will may very well seem "very constrained" from the free will we're accostumed to that includes evil. But that always makes me wonder just exactly how much our free will is restricted in ways that are impossible for our own reality.Once it's impossible, for the entire reality, can it really be "missed" in any meaningful sense of the word? I mean, we wouldn't even know that we were missing it, right? And how many things are there that we can't do, that we don't "miss" simply because we've always "known" that they are impossible in our reality?And what sort of amazing, good things are we missing right now because so much time and effort in this world is taken up by evil? Perhaps the presence of evil actually puts more restrictions on our free will then the restriction of evil itself because the presense of evil causes so many restrictions on others on it's own?Example:
A lady is raped and becomes scared of men for the rest of her life.--Sure, her free will isn't restricted in the sense that she still has the physical option of talking to other men. But, what if that option causes so much pain to her that she is incapable of ever doing it again? Then wouldn't it be fair to say that her free will is restricted to the point that she is unable to talk to men?The waters become very muddy. I cannot fathom a guess at which sense of restrictions are actually more... um... restrictive

Actually, I've never tried to do this, and your thoughts that I have tell me that I failed completely in trying to explain myself. I was attempting to explicitly state that free will was to be defined as being "initiated without a prior stimulus." That's why I kept defining free will as making decisions with absolutely no intereference from any external being. But, really, this has nothing to do with what I'm talking about in this thread, so it is rather off-topic. That's only a part of what I'm talking about.Yes, I agree that "in our current reality" not being able to breath underwater and all those other things are not violations of our current system of free will. However, the reason why they are not violoations are because they are physically impossible.Consider, for a moment, an imaginary universe where we do have the ability to breathe underwater at any time we choose. If we had such an ability, wouldn't it then be included as part of our free will? If we were in such a universe, and then told about a universe such as our current one where such a thing is impossible... doesn't that sound like a restriction upon the free will of those from the universe where it is possible? It certainly sounds like a restriction to me. And, if such a thing is a restriction... then there are an infinite number of restrictions on our current free will system because there are an infinite number of things we cannot freely choose to do.To believe that our current system of free will is "the best/most possible amount of choices that any being can ever have available to them" is extremely naive. There are creatures on this planet that can make decisions we are incapable of. Free will is not "the ability to make all the decisions a human being can presently make." Free will is "the ability to initiate our own decisions."We currently have a system of free will where we can "initiate our own decisions" about a spectrum of morally good actions as well as a specturm of morally bad actions. Since we can "initiate our own decisions" over a spectrum of choices, we have free will.Another system of free will would be where we can "initiate our own decisions" about only a spectrum of morally good actions. Since we can still "initiate our own decisions" over a spectrum of choices, we would still have free will.Removing the ability of beings from that other universe to make decisions about breathing underwater whenever they want is similar to removing the ability of beings from this universe to make evil decisions whenever we want.In the other universe, we would be removing a chunk of the brain so that those beings would no longer have control over being able to make decisions about breathing under water, it would become impossible for them.In this universe, we would be removing a chunk of the brain so that we would no longer have control over being able to make evil decisions, it would become impossible for us.What is the difference?Or, we can think about it from the other perspective: I don't see how it's different at all.I agree, right now "the ability to aim a gun and pull the trigger" in order to harm someone is included in free will and the ability "to have six arms" is impossible. I am simply saying that it is within God's power to make a universe in which "the ability to aim a gun and pull the trigger" in order to harm someone is equally as impossible as "having six arms" is to us now. Why would such a thing be beyond the powers of an omnipotent God?If such a thing is within God's power... He obviously didn't choose to do so.We're left with two possible conclusions:1. Such a thing is not within God's power. Therefore, God is not omnipotent.2. Such a thing is within God's power, but He doesn't hold it as a priority. He obviously holds our current system of free will as a higher priority. Therefore, God is not absolutely benevolent... He holds some things (like our system of free will) as a higher priority then being absolutely benevolent to everyone all the time.

You are correct. They are not exactly the same thing, and they cannot be treated in exactly the same way.However, with the amount of evil that is present in this world... apart from the "grey" areas. Let's say, for the sake of arguement, that "the most heinous evil" in our universe is "the killing of innocent children." Do you agree that such a thing is evil? Do you agree that an absolutely benevolent God would want to reduce such a thing to a minimum?If not, I'm not sure I'm going to respect your answer very much.. but I'm still interested in hearing it.If so, we are reduced to 3 conclusions:1. God is not powerful enough (smart enough?) to remove "the killing of innocent children" from our universe. He wants to remove it all, but He just can't.2. God holds our current reality, where people are allowed to choose to kill innocent children, above being absolutely benevolent to those children who are innocent and are killed. Therefore, God is not "absolutely benevolent", he is only "benevolent as much as He can be before interfering with those who would kill innocent children."3. God does not exist.

Nothing. No. He is only allowed to prevent those actions that lead to an innocent child's death.There are an infinite number of actions that do not lead to an innocent child's death. I would wager (can't say for sure...) that all the actions I've taken in my life have not lead to an innocent child's death.Are you saying I don't have free will? Because God isn't restricting ALL actions. Only a select few. We still certainly have free will as we always have (at least, my life wouldn't be any different). I agree that without free will there is nobody to benefit from God's actions.I am not saying that free will is removed. Only a few select, specific, very minute number of actions. Free will, for the most part, is still very much present. Plenty of other "bad" things, like, say... raping a girl, are still very much allowed under free will.

Sure, but it doesn't have anything to do with my point. As seen below: Yes, it can.
But God wouldn't be preventing ALL actions that invlove drinking alcohol.
God would only be preventing those actions that invlove drinking alcohol that lead to a child's death.
There are an infinite number of actions that involve drinking alcohol that do not lead to a child's death. God would not prevent any of those. Yes, it can.
But God wouldn't be preventing ALL actions that invlove playground swings.
God would only be preventing those actions that invlove playground swings that lead to a child's death.
There are an infinite number of actions that involve playground swings that do not lead to a child's death. God would not prevent any of those.... Yes, it can.
But God wouldn't be preventing ALL actions that invlove spreading a blanket.
God would only be preventing those actions that invlove spreading a blanket that lead to a child's death.
There are an infinite number of actions that involve spreading a blanket that do not lead to a child's death. God would not prevent any of those. No, they're not. God would only have to prevent them if they lead to the death of an innocent child.But... forget all that. I can use an even simpler example to show my point.Do you agree that there is some virus out there (I don't care to look one up) that harms (possibly kills) innocent children and has no other purpose then to spread itself by the harming of innocent children?So... an omnipotent, absolutely benevolent God would be able to create a universe in which such a virus does not exist. But we do have such viruses existing in our universe. Therefore:1. God is not omnipotent.2. God is not absolutely benevolent in the sense that He wants this virus to exist over allowing innocent children to be harmed.3. God does not exist.We don't even have to get into free will.

True. It is quite possible that God is causing many "evil-seeming" things in order for some "greater-good" that we (I?) do not know about.However, my inability to find the perfect analogy not withstanding... it gets a bit beyond coincidence with all the "very bad", "bad" and "kinda bad" things that happen in this world to keep telling oneself that "it's all some master plan for some really good unknown stuff."Besides, there must be some "only slightly bad" thing that is pretty close to neutral anyway that could certainly be removed by an "omnipotent, absolutely benevolent" God, without affecting the rest of existence. Identifying such a thing would then leave the 3 conclusions I'm proposing.For example:One day I found some extremely gross belly button lint in my belly button.Surely an omnipotent, absolutely benevolent God could have prevented such a thing? An omnipotent God wouldn't be "too busy," would He? An absolutely benevolent God "just wouldn't care," would He?I am merely attempting to point out how immature and naive the idea of "omnipotence" and "absolutely benevolent" actually are.If there is a God, I'm sure He's:1. Very powerful, being able to do most of the things attributed to an "omnipotent God" anyway.
2. Extremely benevolent... wanting things to be the best for everyone as much as possible.But that's a far cry from being 100% "omnipotent" and also 100% "absolutely benevolent."I just think it's pretty immature to think that there are "no restrictions" on God. There are restrictions on everything that exists. It's one thing to use our imaginations and think of a fairytale-land where He-Man can lift anything he wants. It's quite another to play that game in reality.

I don't understand this.Do you not agree that there are people alive right now, with varying levels of intelligence, that have varying levels of autonomy?We have (for a superficial scale, sorry if this offends anyone):1 - Hospitalized "vegetables"
2 - Those with "special needs" or disabilities
3 - Those with "learning disorders"
4 - "Normal" people
5 - Advanced learners
6 - GeniusesEach different group of people has very obviously different levels of:-autonomy
-abilities
-intelligenceThey are absolutely able to choose between more or less possible actions depending on which group they belong.So... if varying levels of autonomy exist right now:1 - What makes you think that even our "Geniuses" are at the "top" of the autonomy (or free will) scale?
2 - Why can't God make restrictions on certain areas of people's autonomy and still keep free will around in some capacity?It may be difficult, because of current levels of technology, to exactly specify what is the driving mechanism for these varying levels of autonomy... but they are certainly present, and certainly based in physical reality (most likely the brain).

Try not to assume I'm making some arguement you think I'm making.Of course I haven't shown that "the ability to override free will for the sake of a child's life is any different from the ability to override free will for the sake of any other cause." I would argue that it's exactly the same.My arguement most certainly is not "an attempt to remove something "bad" on the assumption that there is no tradeoff."My arguement is an attempt to remove something "bad" on the assumption that we lose a bit of our free will, but not all of it. And, given the obvious fact that there are varying levels of free will (given varying levels of autonomy) already... what's a little more of a restriction?Plus... add in the possibility of adding some levels of free will because certain other areas are restricted... and it may not be a "loss of free will" at all. And this is what I'm saying is wrong.If God imposed any standard of "good" or "bad" upon us, it doesn not result in us becoming Lego pirates. It certainly could... if God placed many large and all-encompassing restrictions on us. But if God only places certain, small, beneficial restrictions... we end up with even more free will than before.Example:1. A girl has full levels of free will.
2. A man rapes this girl.
3. As a result, this girl can no longer talk to other men, she is too scared of the memories of the raping.
Conclusion: The girl has lost a large chunk of her free will (50% of the interaction she used to have with mankind). The man who raped her has full levels of his free will.And now we add a restriction from God:1. A girl has full levels of free will.
2. A man is restricted from raping this girl.
Conclusions: The girl continues with full levels of her free will. The man's free will, however, was restricted. But the restriction on this man is certainly not equal to the resulting restriction he would have placed on the girl. Say he is restricted down to... 90% of his previous level of free will.So, we have "current system of free will" resulting in 100% and 50% capacity.And, we have "God's restriction added" resulting in 90% and 100%.Obviously, more free will is retained when God intervenes... in this situation, anyway.Therefore, even if God ONLY ever intervenes in these types of situations... the God's restrictions would actually be INCREASING our free will. You are correct. There was a "loss of free will" in the scenario where God's restriction was enforced. Of course, that loss of free will was LESS THAN the loss of free will when God does not intervene. So your conclusion has problems. That is, if you find free will important and want to keep it available to everyone as much as possible.In order to judge "loss" and "gain" of free will... you need to define "free will" a bit better. Right now, I'm assuming you're going with something along the lines of "choosing from options available." In which case, the girl's "options available" to her after being raped are greatly reduced as my scenario explains.So, what's more important? The girl's free will? Or the man's? What's worse? The man's interference on the girl's? Or God's interference on the man?I argue that God's interference on the man is equivalent to the man's interference on the girl. In which case... it would be better to restrict the man by whatever means possible... God is a means.

I think something's gone terribly wrong. Maybe I'm not clear on what I'm explaining, maybe you're not clear on your definitions... most likely we're not using the same definitions for terms and it's really getting confusing. But something's very, very wrong. Because I'm not trying to say anything like this at all.It would probably be best if you completely forgot about all of my previous posts. Trying to tie them in would likely be more confusing than helpful. I concede all previous analogies to be "too confusing to help" with whatever it is we're talking about now.First, this part: I would never say that the existence of "bad" disproves that god is benevolent. I am only saying that the existence of "bad" disproves that god is both omnipotent (nothing is "beyond His control") and absolutely benevolent. Which is different.I totally agree that God can be "benevolent" and bad things can exist. In the same way that you and I can be benevolent and bad things still exist. Some things are beyond our control.And now for the "issue of conflicts": Basically, are you saying that God cannot act in a way to disrupt someone or He will remove free will?What, exactly, is the difference between God acting and you or I acting?That is, I'm trying to get to a definition of your "free will" that I understand.Please answer this question:If I act in a way to disrupt someone, do I remove their "free will"?
A few examples:1. A man rapes a girl and she gets scared to talk to other men. Did the man remove her free will?2. I stop a man from raping a girl. (Whoo! Go me!) Did I remove his free will?There is no God involved in these two whatsoever.
I answer "a bit" to both of these questions, in the sense that some free will has been restricted in one way or the other. However, their "free will" as a whole is still entirely intact, in both cases.
But, if we take your definition of free will: Then I have to assume that you would answer that free will is removed above, and they are left as "Lego pirates?" That doesn't make sense to me. If that were true, every single person that has ever been forced to do anything by their parents at any stage in their life would be a "Lego pirate." In which case... we're all Lego-machines right now?What I'm saying is that free will is not removed. Only restricted. And, I'm also saying that if God is "powerful" and also "benevolent", then He could act in such a way to restrict certain portions of people's free will (in the same way that police do here now) in order to protect the free will of innocent people. Such a thing would be benevolent.God doesn't even have to be perfect. He may even make a few mistakes along the way (like our existing police forces). But... if He truly tried, He'd still definitely make more progress then our current police forces in the sense of the term "beneficial." Don't you think? I think God would certainly be a more-beneficial police force then regular-people police. Or is that beyond God's abilities?However, this doesn't happen in our world (obviously). So, we have the following conclusions (given God exists):1. God wants to do this, but he's not powerful enough (too busy, perhaps?).2. God could do this, but doesn't... because he holds some other philosophy as higher then being benevolent enough to protect as many people who get hurt in this way as possible. If you're going to just say "I don't think an omnipotent God could handle the unnecessary complications anyway...", then what's the point in imagining an omnipotent God?You seem to be admitting that God isn't omnipotent anyway. And, if so, then I agree completely that it's rather impossible for someone to judge all this stuff. But isn't this the whole idea? To think about "what if" God was smart enough, powerful enough and just enough? Like an omni-judicial system? I'm not sure what your point is, or if I even disagree with it.Because this would also prove my point. That if we're already restricted somewhat.. God could restrict us further to make things "less bad".. in which case God is either not powerful enough, or doesn't care to for whatever reason. Reluctantly agreed, me too

Ah, I see. My fault. I sometimes (a lot of times?) take things very personally just because the post is "replied to me." Even when I should be taking what's said in more of a general sense. It often gets in my way of figuring out the real issue and just causes confusion. It's something I'm trying to work on, but I'm still not very good at it yet I understand what you're saying. And I agree that the "moment of initiation" is a vital part of free will. However, I think the extension of your idea gets into confusing situations.Example:
1. According to your above idea, a prisoner in a cell still has free will? He can initiate all the impulses he likes... but he can't leave the cell or really do anything. I'd say that whoever put him in the cell has restricted his free will. You would not say so?2. In the same vein as above... a slave still has free will? That is, someone who is treated as a slave, and forced to do whatever the "owner" wants... still has free will? I mean, technically, they can still initiate any impulse they want... but they're restricted from doing anything "they want" by the owner... and forced to do whatever the owner wants instead.I think that if you still call those scenarios as "having free will", then there is some mis-alignment with what you call "free will" and what the general population calls "free will." Perhaps you have made a distinction between "free will" and "freedom"? I certainly think that what you're talking about is a distinction... I just think the words chosen to represent that distinction are kind of already used for not-so-distinct things (as seen by the general population). Which is what breeds confusion.However... this doesn't really have anything to do with the actual issue.In fact, I'm starting to think that we agree on the general idea of "the issue", but we're describing it in different ways that have been easily confused with something else. I think the problem is with the phrase "God really is benevolent."That is, if we take "really benevolent" as a totally seperate issue, and not include something like "totally omnipotent as well," then I certainly agree with you. The system we have in reality right now may very well be "the best possible balance" between benevolence and free-will and God's abilities.Another problem is with the phrase "existence of disagreements". You see, the idea I was proposing (with no bad, but still a varying degree of very good, kinda good and even neutral) still very much has disagreements. Conflict on the whole isn't entirely wiped out, and I certainly agree that disagreement/conflict (or, at least, the possibility of disagreement/conflict) is required in some capacity for free will to exist. I was merely talking about restricting such disagreement/conflict to things which do not harm other people. Things like disagreement over God being benevolent, or disagreement over what car is better to drive. Those kinds of disagreements would certainly still exist. So free will would still exist. But if they escalated to the point of causing actual harm to another person... the "omni-police" God I'm thinking of would be able to prevent such. Quite true. I agree. All I'm saying is that it's also quite possible for the world to be "better" than it is right now. And that such a thing should be within a God's power. Therefore, if God isn't doing such a thing, He either cannot or will not. Perhaps quite reasonably so, but "reasonably" doesn't include being omnipotent and absolutely benevolent at the same time.So, I think we've ended up talking about the same thing, and perhaps we even started out doing so? Such ideas just tend to be confusing because everyone has their own idea of what "free will", "conflict", "disagreement" or "good/bad" and such entail.

I suppose my point is that the actual distinction between "having free will" and "being able to exercise that free will (having freedom)" is irrelevent when discussing anything in practical terms.That is, you may say this prisioner "has free will", but what good is that if he doesn't have any freedom to exercise that free will?Example 1: Man A wants to hurt a woman, but another man B doesn't like that idea so he locks man A in a cell. Thus, man A is prevented from hurting the woman.You're telling me that Man A's free will is not being removed or restricted?Example 2: Man A wants to hurt a woman, but God doesn't like that idea so He locks man A in a cell. Thus, man A is prevented from hurting the woman.And now, all of a sudden, man A has lost his free will? What's the difference? This is the confusion I'm talking about. Why can a person prevent another person from doing bad... and free will remains intact. But if God prevents a person from doing bad... free will is removed? This doesn't seem consistent to me.ABE: Wait... we may have already gotten past this "God removes free will" part... I'm not sure. If we are, just forget this bit above.I would also suggest that when most people talk about free will, they include an unmentioned assumption that the person also has the freedom to exercise that free will.If that is the case, placing a distinction between the two and expecting others to understand the distinction you're making is going to cause nothing but confusion. If you don't care about adding confusion into the discussion you join... what are you here for? I'm under the impression that the goal of these discussions is to learn and/or uncover "the truth" as much as we can. Confusion is not helpful in achieving such a goal. It's quite possible that you have a different goal, but I hope not, because I don't... and if you do, then I'm wasting my time. I agree that people would likely shift and call it "bad," and "kinda good," and "neutral", as you suggest. But, renaming things that don't harm people doesn't create more things that actually harm people. If God did make it impossible to hurt other people, then it is impossible to hurt other people. Sure we can rename the other things.. but what difference does that make? I never said God was removing "anything anyone called bad", I said God was removing those bad things "that harmed other people." To answer your question, those people certainly could use the same form of argument that I used, but they most certainly could not use the same arguement. If God has already removed "the bad things that harm other people" then no one can argue that "bad things that harm other people" still exist. They certainly are free to call other things "bad" if they want... but if "harming other people" doesn't exist... it can't be removed again... that doesn't make sense. Yes. Because it's no longer about bad things that harm other people. It would be about bad things that don't harm other people. Maybe about things people simply don't approve of in their personal opinion. Such things are less valid on the "good/bad" scale then things that actually harm others. Yes. That point would be exactly after my actual arguement was used. I was never talking about God removing all things that anyone calls bad. I agree that such a thing could quickly and easily spiral out of control. That's why I never said such a thing.Harming another person is objective. Or, in the very least, we could even (for the sake of this arguement) restrict "harming another person" to be those things which are easily, obviously objective... like breaking an arm or leg when the victim didn't want such a thing. Preventing such objective harm to others would produce a "better" universe than the one we currently live in. A God should be able to do such a thing. Since (currently) God is not doing so, God is (currently) either not powerful enough, or holds higher priorities.Edited by Stile, : Did we already clear that up?

Yes. Never. I don't see a problem with this. Sometimes it's restricted more than other times. Sometimes it's restricted so much (like being in a cell) that we don't think it's "right."If we just say that everyone has free will all the time, no matter what restrictions are placed on them... the term loses it's meaning. I'm glad we now agree. I did, in the message you just replied to: If your arguement is going to turn into "harm is undefinable because no one will ever agree on what is good and what is bad" then your original arguement is nulled as well.If you're going to claim that "harm" is undefinable, then to stay consistent you must also accept that "benevolent" is undefinable. In which case... you're whole issue disappears because "benevolence" no longer exists anyway. Really, you're the one who said we're able to identify things along the good/bad scale when you started off talking about God's benevolence. Harm is simply the other end of the scale. If you don't like the actual word "harm", I'll use any other you'd prefer to mean "the opposite of benevolence."But if you're going to claim that such a term doesn't exist... then benevolence itself no longer exists either.

Always fun talking with you too.But yeah, it does seem to end up this way. I like to think that in some way, this means we have somehow come to an agreement on the large-scale issues (of whatever we're talking about), and we're now just down to the nitty-gritty. Which is sometimes important... and sometimes not. Hopefully, regardless of how we've left each other, we have provided some decent reading material and thought-provoking text for "the lurkers."Or, in other words: meh I agree. Again, agreed. That sentence in and of itself... I agree. I'm just not comfortable with terms like "absolute" or "omnipotence" being assumed as well.Perhaps the subjective, undefine-able nature of good/bad or harm/benevolence in and of itself disproves any "absolute" or "omnipotent" being. Because then the questions begin again: Absolute according to who's virtures? Omnipotent as approved by whom?One person's absolute paragon is another's omnipotent fool? Good hunting... see you at the next discussion.