A Monotheistic God Probably Does Not Exist

Unfortunately I think pro misunderstands my points. I will try to be brief and clear up some of the misconceptions. First, to the probelm of evil. I did not say that evil is necessary. I only said that God can bring good out of evil and thus might have moral grounds to allow it to exist. In other words:IF there is some good G such that G can be brought out of some evil E then it follows that a good God might allow E for the sake of G.I think the above statement is true. You think that it is false necessarily. Explain why. Also, it is important to note that YOU have to explain why that statement must be false. By making a positive argument (the claim that an all good God would necessarily want to stop all evil) then you assume the BOP. I am simply offering a logical alternative, I do not have to prove that this alternative is true, only that it is at least somewhat plausible. Not all suffering need be caused by God. Simply because God is ultimately the explanation of all things, this does not mean that all evil is directly willed by Him. God can "set things up" so to speak and allow them to play out. Free will is built into the equation and through some indirect way it is possible that free will causes a distance between man and God and thus indirectly causes bad things in general to happen and thus God allows evil as a response to man's free choice. This does not entail that every suffering is a direct punishment for sin, ABSOLUTELY NOT, only that in a world with sin, it is possible that this has led indirectly to suffering which God allows rather than causes. Sin is the ultimate cause. This is a plausible scenario and thus you cannot say that God necessarily causes evil. As for "how could God not ahve created evil?" you make an assumption that is dubious. According to many classical theists, evil is not a thing, it is not created. Evil is the lack of some desired good or in some sense a privation. Much more could be said and argued about the nature of evil but the point is that the theist need not admit that evil is created at all. With regards to the scriptures you provide, its all in the interpretation. For instance, the Catholic Church rejects as heretical the idea that God is the cause of evil as such. I do not just dismiss the paradoxes. I give a reason why they are absurdities. I do not just state they are strings of words, I say WHY they are. THe reason I gave is that a logical contradiction is not a meaningful concept. So can God create a married bachelor? No because married bachelor is no such thing. Can God create a limit to His power (whether that be in the form of a rock or a task or whatever...)? No because a limit to limitless power is a self contradiction. Self contradictions are not coherent concepts and therefore are just strings of words that negate each other. Therefore, there is no difference between saying can God create a rock he cannot lift and can God fdkasljfdskljfds. In either case, the concept is meaningless and the objection fails. Now in defense of my argument. First, I do not claim that it proves Christianity, Islam, or Judaism...only the NOTION of GOD that each of these religions BASICALLy adheres too. MOre specifically, the God of classical theism. An argument for the existence of God is a different argument for the truth of a specific religion. The God I am arguing for does have the traits of the God of these religions (at least in general) but at the same time does not entail any of these 3 specifically. Now, no real philosophers ask "who caused God?" That objection is unreasonable. Secondly, WHERE IN MY DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENT DO YOU DISAGREE WITH A PREMISE? WHERE DID I ASSUME GOD WAS OR WAS NOT CAUSED? You simply jumped to the objection you wanted to give without understanding my argument. If you read my argument, yyou would see that the SUM OF CONTINGENT THINGS (NOTE I DID NOT SAY THE UNIVERSE!!!!!) Requires an external cause. Something outside of the sum of contingent things BY DEFINITION is necesary. I did not postulate that it is, I demonstrated that the sum of contingent things which exits requires an external cause and hence this external cause exists and it follows that it exists necessarily and therefore in principal cannot have a cause. After that, I briefly went through some of this being's traits that it must have, reminding readers that books could be written on this subject and I am only giving a sketch. Further, WHERE DID I MENTION THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE? DID I? THAT HAS NO BEARING ON MY ARGUMENT SO YOU BRINGING IT UP IS JUST A SMOKESCREEN. My argument has everything to do with the nature of things as contingent and necessary but absolutely nothing to do with the beginning of the universe or anything else. Finally, to review, it seems as though you misundertsand my argument and offer no solid argument of your own.