The Problem Of Evil Is Sound

First, if gratuitous suffering were to exist (which I believe does not exist), "all suffering" would include gratuitous suffering because the word all refers to the entire group. This is undebatable unless our debate were to surround the semantics of the word all. According to Oxford Pocket Dictionary, the definition of all is "used to refer to the whole quantity or extent of a particular group or thing. " If anything in this debate is red-herring, it is arguing about the semantics of a commonly used pronoun which was used correctly. Second, I brought up the Shirtwaist fire to show that you did not tear down that argument, but I have town down your counter argument to it before so I will copy and paste the same thing a wrote before to counter it. "If God were to intervene in everything he saw as a heinous crime, how would we ever develop a field such as morality, which requires us to think about the consequences of good and evil actions? What if God were to say abortion or gay marriage we wrong? Would we who think otherwise not be inclined to rebel aginst Him? Instead, God lets us realize good and evil on our own, through morality. A good analogy of this is a kid who, despite is parents' warnings, tries to climb a tree each day and the kid does not stop until he falls and breaks his leg. As a Deist, I believed God knew that best way for people to develop ideas on what is good or bad would be to have us see the results of immoral actions. " Third, you may see God preventing crimes in the first place as a better action, while I see learning from crimes and preventing them ourselves as the better action for reasons already stated. This is completely a subjective argument and in every case, you have brought it up as it were an objective fact. Fourth, as a Deist, I believed God ignited the Big bang and stood back to watch the universe develop. This makes your point on disease invalid because, when accompanied with my point on evolution from round two, God would have known in order for life to evolve to be intelligent it would have to go through the competitive process of natural selection, viruses aid that process by killing off animals with genes which could not allow them to survive and allowing the animals with the adaptation to survive and pass on their adaptations so the species can evolve. In addition to that viruses are not evil, they have no malicious intent because they don't have the ability to think in such complex ways. They simply exist with the only wishes to survive and reproduce. Unfortunately, that means killing us sometimes in the process. Therefore as humans, we label that as bad but, the virus does not know it is killing us. Fifth, my five points from round three are not self-evidently failures or failures at all. Here is why: (1) As mentioned a few paragraphs above this is debatable and subjective. (2) Alchemy was a pseudo-science whose purpose was to figure out how to manufacture gold. It was not used for medicine. I apologize for not making that clear. (3) Again, as mentioned a few paragraphs above this is debatable and subjective. (4) I feel my entire debate refutes this. My analogy about the kid climbing trees fits it best though. (5) Don't problems require suffering or discomfort. If not would we really do anything about them? Okay, let's be clear, I am not suggesting rape is good, that is why I believed God wanted us to figure out how to prevent it. What am saying is good things can come out of all bad events, including rape. This point is made my previous rounds. It is red-herring to twist my words and say I am alluding to the rape of women and children and girls is good, as a teenaged girl, I would never believe that. Also, I believe the world is getting better. For example, the Cold War melted, due to the Star Wars bluff. The UN, an organization created during and because of a World War, has successfully prevented war between major powers. Doctors Without Borders, Engineers Without Borders, and the Peace Corps are working to create a better world. Before, I took history I used to have a negative view of the world, but if you look back just fifty years you will see we have come a long way and are moving up. Also, last round I used the dictionary definition of Morality. If you say I am wrong you are saying the Oxford Pocket Dictionary is wrong. Morality is a noun. Morally is an adjective. They have two different definitions. Yes, they are related to each other but, they are definitely not the same word. What did I not address? We are debating whether the problem of evil is a sound argument against God's existence, not why does God not reveal himself. Also, the allowance of evil gives us a reason to better ourselves and problems to find solutions to. Using my tree climbing analogy to display your second concluding point would look like this: If the kid learns not to climb the tree by injuring himself, why does he not injure himself again by climbing the tree again? By repeating the evil we would defeat the purpose of God actually allowing them in the first place. Your fourth concluding point was addressed multiple times, even in this round, but to sum up my refute: God allows suffering because it is the most efficient way to teach humanity morality and to better society. You claim the free-will defense is the only defense which could combat you claim, but I was clearly able to contend using different arguments. Whether they were good arguments the votes will decide but, I was able to back them, therefore, that statement was just false. Lastly, has the resolution been affirmed? That is up to the voters.