The Problem of Evil and the existence of God

Thank you Hitch for posting something from a website as your entire response. I was actually hoping to hear your own thoughts on this topic, but let's roll with it anyway. Your first point makes no sense and it falls at the first hurdle. Simply stating back to me the argument's premise that 'God is all-powerful. God could eliminate evil from the world.' and tagging on the phrase 'This is true and accurate' without any definition or evidence as to why you think this is so, is not an argument that it is so. It is just dodging the question. You use this tactic again when talking about an all-loving god. You have yet to present any substantive argument as to why you believe these things to be so. When you later respond by saying that there is an 'implicit third premise' that 'infinitely compassionate means that He would wish to prevent "evil" acts and is prepared to take the necessary steps to do so.' This is not implicit. This is part of the actual premise itself and is made EXPLICITLY clear in the original argument. So much for copy and paste. This is why it would have been good for you to take it seriously. I was under the impression that you would actually debate with me. But I, at least, will happily share my own thoughts with you. Before I start, let me clear my throat on one thing. That is, your straw-manning of my definition of 'evil'. It was defined using a deliberately broad brush so as to elicit a healthy debate. To upbraid my use of it as a 'vague definition' and to then go on to state that the only clear definition of 'evil' is 'that which is against god' is somewhat stretching the definition of the word clear. Especially when all you've done is to structure the same meaning within your own religious framework. But that's the boring bit done with. With regards to god being both willing and able to to prevent evil, we see no evidence of this at all. One need only look at how the world in which we live effects us. And, yes, why not use the Holocaust, child rape, murder, war and starvation as examples? What about the person that has been subjected to rape? Are we to give relief to them by saying 'You should know that this is part of god's blessing for your life. God could have stopped it, but he let you suffer so that your reward in heaven will be great'? And what of the Holocaust survivors? Do we tell them that god was able to stop the genocide of their family tree and that he could have intervened at anytime he wished? How can we say 'Take heart! because a loving god has allowed the decimation of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in order to show us his love.'? It should be crystal clear to anyone that these are not the action of an all-loving and all-powerful deity, these are the actions of a demented and capricious psychopath. When we look to our world to find any footprint of a loving and all powerful god, all we can see are those that have been trampled beneath it. Hitch, you later go on to say that 'if God interfered prevented everything that was genuinely evil (i.e. what He saw as evil) then no-one would be able to deny His existence'. If you want to talk about divine command theory here, then please elucidate further. What is is that god sees as evil? Are morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are willed by God? If we look to scripture, then we see that whatever god commands to be good is good. This includes, rape, pillaging, torture, patricide, matricide, infanticide, bride-price, slavery, genocide and human sacrifice to name but a few. We are told that without god, society can do what it likes and get away with it. It seems that the reverse is actually true; With god on your side, everything is permissible. This shows a god that has neither the will nor the ability to stem evil. This is a morally reprehensible god that is not able to do anything about the problem of evil simply because the problem of evil is the problem of his own nature. In the matter of free will, I bow to Christopher Hitches when he says 'Of course I have free-will. I have no other choice but to have it.' The Secret Antitheist.