The Problem Of Evil Is Sound

---Correction--- At the end of the Holocaust section in my last round I said: "...that would have been prevented had he stopped said genocide." I meant to say: "...that would have occurred had he allowed said genocide." My apologies for the error. ---Introduction--- I thank my opponent for his response. In this round I will expand on why Con's motivations for rejecting the PoE are misconceived, and why the PoE still stands firmly unscathed. ---All Evil Effects Society In A Positive Way--- All suffering is not the same as gratuitous suffering so even if I was to admit that God would have no good reason to prevent all suffering, it wouldn't follow that he has no good reason to prevent gratuitous suffering. Therefore, the fact that all suffering includes gratuitous suffering is a fallacious red-herring and does indeed miss the mark. Now, this positive societal benefit rebuttal is not very good for one powerful reason: (i) It's not enough that evil leads to good, the evil in question must lead to an outweighing good in order for the evil in question to be theologically justified As philosopher Keith Augustine notes: "God would only allow as much evil or suffering as is absolutely necessary in order to achieve greater goods. But when we look at the world around us, we find instances of apparently gratuitous evil - pointless evils from which no greater good seems to result." - Keith Augustine [1] Con mentions how certain fires occurred which lead to laws that prevented future fires. I have already tore down theodicies like this in my previous round so I'm confused why my opponent still mentions them as if they are valid. The allowance of fires is not necessary for the prevention of future fires, God could prevent all fires himself, or tell us the best way to do it without allowing the fires. If God is all-good then he is all-loving and you help the people you love as much as you can not just have them suffer and fend for themselves. This makes the fires gratuitous as it's not necessary for the preventative good in question. This applies to pretty much all of Con's theodicies, and I'm quite shocked that he is still using these theodicies after I already explained the failure of them. ---Disease--- Deadly viruses existed long before intelligent creatures did, so the fact that God would create a world knowing that the deadly diseases he created would cause so much suffering and mayhem but did it anyway is morally suspect. So this apparent evil on behalf of God would be the result of God himself not the result of intelligent life. Therefore, my opponent's argument that evil only existed after intelligent life in the universe is questionable at best at it ignores natural evils. ---Dependence On God Would Prevent Citizens From Developing--- Citizens wouldn't have to help if there was nothing horrific that needed to be stopped in the first place. This is the point. Imagine, if your father got cancer and someone said "this is amazing, now we have more motivation to stop this disease, isn't cancer wonderful because of the greater good is causes?", you would find it morally absurd and utterly insane. Anybody would agree that it would be better if cancer simply never existed at all. So my opponent's arguments aren't just failures, they are self-evidently failures. My opponent mentions 5 points, here are my refutations: (1) It would be greater if people never got sick at all. (2) No poverty would be greater, and there are other chemistry purposes besides healing so it's not clear chemistry would be retarded. (3) No wars are greater. And engineering lead to nuclear weapons which may destroy society let alone make it better. Engineering would prevail anyway even without wars as there are other purposes for engineering. (4) I already showed in my last round how people could still be morally good even without the mass amounts of suffering in the world. (5) Problem solving only requires problems, not the suffering on the mass scale we see in the world so that suffering it is still gratuitous. All 5 points of my opponent's points fail to sufficiently address the PoE in any valid fashion. ---Rape Intervention--- It's a good thing in the long run that women children and raped because then we can help prevent it in that future, is what Con is alluding too. This is just another terrible theodicy I've already taken down with ease. God can prevent all rape, and it would be greater if no rape happened. If God wants us to prevent rape ourselves even when we cannot, then this disconfirms an all-good being. I love my daughter, and I would never let her get raped just so other people can help and not be dependent on me. If God was all-good (and thus all-loving) he would feel the same as it simply cashes out from the concept of love. You don't leave the people you love to their own devices to just destroy themselves, and that seems to be where society is heading if you've seen the news lately. World War 3 is dangerously close and due to the nuclear weapons we have engineered society may end. The way society is going with the greed on Wall Street and the wars between countries; it is self-evident that some evils are leading to even greater evils not greater goods. ---Are Goodness And Morality The Same Thing?--- Morality is a type of good, so if a being is all-good then this being is all-moral. Being morally perfect is even part of the definition of omnibenevolence [2]. This means morality doesn't require suffering if God exists because moral perfection is just part of God's definition. Also, even if morality did require suffering, it doesn't require the mass amounts of suffering we see on such a horrendous scale; making much of the suffering gratuitous, and thus, disconfirming God's existence via the PoE. ---In Conclusion--- In my first round I presented the PoE. The first premise is uncontested, and the second premise regarding the existence of gratuitous suffering is justified for the four reasons I mentioned in my opening round: (1) It is true prima facie and inductively. (2) If evil is a necessary condition for a greater good, then why prevent evil if the greater good comes out of it necessarily anyway even if we did nothing prevent it? It seems we have no good reason. (3) If God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing evil, he would let us know so more people could come into a relationship with him. This is not what happens, many people lose faith in God due to arguments like the PoE, and less people come into a relationship with him. This is inconsistent if God exists. (4) God would create any amount of good he wants without certain suffering or evil since he is all-good, and could because he is all-powerful. Since there is a tremendous amount of certain evil and suffering that isn't necessary; God doesn't exist. Only the free-will defense could combat this, which even my opponent admits is flawed. Many of my points when unaddressed, and instead, my opponent presented theodicies that fail for the same reason all theodicies fail: (i) The good that comes out of the evil is not an outweighing good. (ii) God could bring about the same amount of good without the mass amounts of intense suffering we see in the world as he is omnipotent and can do anything logically possible. The PoE is as strong as ever, and the resolution has been, without a shadow of a doubt, affirmed. I thank my opponent for this debate. ---Sources--- [1] https://infidels.org... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org...