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answer the following “class question”. I call it a “class question” since it’s addressed to everyone in the class, whereas the “custom question” was addressed only to you.
“Suppose you find out tomorrow that two “people” claim to be God. When I say “people” I’m using this loosely. I don’t mean “human”. One of these people says they are “all-powerful”, created all things, including morality, the Earth, all the rest of us, etc. They also say they created three other important things: predation (the biological system where trillions of animals have to eat other animals, and be eaten), scarcity (the fact that there’s not enough on the earth, animals have to compete to survive, and “violence” (the fact that in this competition there will be blood and pain, long before man walked the earth). The second person also claims to be God…except they say they did NOT create the Earth, predation, scarcity or violence. They frankly admit they are not all-powerful, and can’t physically change things on the Earth. Rather, they say they created only Heaven, souls, and morality, and are calling us to join them in Heaven, after death, or before, in spirit. Suppose that you don’t know which person is telling the truth. Now, the question you should answer in your second post is….”Should good and reasonable people prefer the scenario where the first, “traditional” person is God, or the other, alternative religion, where God is not all-powerful, but also isn’t responsible for creating predation, scarcity, and violence? This is my way of asking you about the famous “Problem of Evil” which begins most Introduction to Philosophy courses and textbooks. My version of the question is a bit different since I’m emphasizing a situation where you sort of have an “alternative”….you could decide to have faith in a god who did not create our world and can’t fix it, but can, hopefully, save us from it