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Originally Posted by filtherton
As long as we can agree that Epicurus is irrelevant.
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Epicurus is only irrelevant if all logic is irrelevant.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
No, but that's not the point. I have the power to do more than I am doing, and I am not doing it. This doesn't make me apathetic, apathy implies that I don't care at all, and I do care.
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It absolutely is the point as to why your analogy doesn't fit. God being considered omnipotent is a key part of the riddle. If you can do anything, ANYTHING, then what keeps one from preventing suffering and destruction? Apathy or ill will.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
But apathy doesn't equal malevolence. If you take malevolence to mean the willful infliction of pain and/or suffering then apathy, being the state of not caring, has nothing to do with it.
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Yes, Epicurus skipped apathy, but it's clearly implied. The point of mentioning malevolence is about proving that god isn't the ultimate force for good people think him to be. "Why would one worship a malevolent god?" can be translated also to " why would one worship an apathetic god?" The effect is the same.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
You listed a handful of bible verses. That's not that difficult. Listing definitions of god is a little bit more dicey since I'm fairly certain a lot more goes into the process of defining god than choice bible quotations (though there's probably some of that, too). If you're really curious you should ask people who actually believe in god how they feel about Epicurus, preferably someone with some sort of theological education. They could tell you better than I. Maybe that's not fair. Life isn't; perhaps that is some sign of a malevolent god...
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How about the top 5 definitions of god?
I asked my dad about Epicurus yesterday and he gave me the "We aren't meant to understand" kind of response. I suspect that's the only way to explain it away, and it's a cop-out.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
All I'm saying is that there is more than one way to define a god, and that relying on definitions which aren't necessarily universal to support arguments about the inconsistency of those definitions isn't necessary that interesting or meaningful.
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There's more than one way, but there are limits.
Supernatural. Creator. Good. These fit basically all modern incarnations of the one god or head of many gods. Aside from pantheists (which really aren't talking about religion, but rather philosophy), that covers pretty much everyone. It covers all Hindus, Jews, Christians, Baha'is, and Muslims right off the bat. That's almost everyone.