>lasers are light >God starts day 1 by saying "let there be light" Based on this information I can only conclude that The Count of Monte Cristo is God.
Quite possible. Terry Gilliam is a very odd film-maker, but you have to give him this much: even when he's off (and he's never really been quite on), he's off in a fascinating way.
I must have been 6/7 upon first seeing this when we first got cable & it was on HBO constantly in 1983/84. Def a trip as a kid understanding that ending. Loved how it began & ended w the view from the sky & the map being rolled up. Also the song during the credits “Dream Away” is a brilliant tune to end with.
Which is actually a fallacy known as Circular Reasoning. Polytheistic Religions do an equally idiotic response by handwaving the problem, by using the "there are evil and good gods" excuse. This isn't a smart or acceptable answer either and is an example of shitty writing.
Great movie. I grew up religious and even served a mission to convert people to my religion. I also grew up watching a lot of British media including this movie which pokes fun at religion and I think it helped me see the silliness of it all. I now consider myself agnostic, but I never really thought about the problem of evil until I had already left religion. Here's a quote I try to live by now: “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” ― Marcus Aurelius
Ah, Marcus Aurelius, whose son, Commodus didn't even attempt to live a noble life. Marcus was a terrible parent and one mustn't follow the advice of a terrible parent.
My uncle would let me watch this film when I was around 5 years old maybe. I had much fear watching it but also was so fascinated that I couldn't stop watching. Such a creative and great movie it is. Just fantastic.
Great analysis of a great film! Hard to believe that back when this was first released, so many critics dismissed it as just kid's stuff and didn't take it very seriously. But if you look at any other kid's film made in the last twenty years or so, I don't think any of them had the guts to include themes about the nature of God and the problem of Evil (unless they were flat out religious propaganda).
Time Bandits is one of my favorite films from my youth. In hindsight, that film feels like a fusion of Monty Python, Chrono Trigger, Dr. Who, and Roald Dahl's children's books. I could've sworn there was a trailer for Time Bandits which sold it like a serious sci-fi thriller, but I never could find it. The character of Evil is brilliant: he's like an absurdly comical dystopian version of the Devil. The closest approximation of Evil I've seen is Charnel, the God of Strife from Shiny Entertainment's video game Sacrifice. Charnel's like a fusion of Evil, Aries, Hades, and Sauron. The only thing I disliked about Time Bandits was its ending. I kind of wish the Agamemnon turned fireman took Kevin with him after his parents exploded instead of leaving him there. I like that God is absent minded British bureaucrat who takes on the form of a frightening animated head. I particularly love that God's ominous head is a pale Gilliam cartoon chasing the Bandits down an infinite hallway. It's interesting that Gilliam's God makes the Bandits believe that they stole the map as part of a complicated plan to destroy Evil. What "fight" he claimed Kevin had to continue is a mysterious one. Was leaving Evil in the parents' microwave was meant as Kevin's reward, or was it part of another complicated plan which involves Kevin's mysterious future fate? What would have been Kevin's future fate? Would he meet with the Bandits to fight against some greater evil than Evil,, or does his "fight" involve something stranger?
Reminds me of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. His version is that he created the earth while hung over from a beer binge. That's why there are so many strange things in our world. Removing the claim of perfection solves a lot of problems inherent with most religions.
Perfection is human desire overlaid over spirituality. Spirituality is the mode of communication, a concept of perfection merely sets the boundaries. Just because you disagree with the boundaries doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
The end scene is interesting. There is the obvious. His parents immediately do what he told them not to do and suffer consequences he couldn't have imagined. His hero rides off, leaving him completely alone. And then the camera starts to pan away...the audience is also abandoning Kevin. Then there is the less obvious. The camera pan is clearly in reverse if you are looking for it. The smoke from the piles of ash that used to be Kevin's parents is being pulled back into them. Is time reversing? (was it just easier to film the camera dropping when it was made? Occam's razor) Were we watching from the perspective of a divine being? Or, more interestingly, is it Kevin the metaphor for the Higher Power at that moment. His family ignoring his warning(Eden style) and there he is..left all alone in the wreck of what other people made of his world.
I wrote a very bad paper in college that was supposed to be about how Milton addresses the problem of evil. Instead, I got constantly hung up on the free will problem, and couldn't move past it. The free will answer is unsatisfying because if God has omniscience, then he has complete foreknowledge. If God has omnipotence as well, then he created everything as it is with the knowledge that everyone would act as they do prior to their action. So essentially, he made each person to make the decisions they 'choose' to make on purpose. That's not free will. I think I tried to make up some bullshit excuse for how this made sense, but it still doesn't to me. Seems to me that removing omnipotence from the equation is the only way for free will to be possible.
What if all that God accomplished was simply creating the universe and nothing else? What if creating everything exhausted his powers? I guess you could call that "the big bang defense".
Very thought provoking and fairly neutral. I really appreciated your presentation and how you related to a number of sides (considering there could be more than just binary modes). Nice work!!!
I've always found "Free Will" to be a nonsensical answer for the very reason this video states: no one would argue things like diseases and volcanoes have free will, yet they cause a lot more suffering in total than evil people ever could.
The video's examination of a film which has God and Evil as main characters was fascinating. My contribution will be less learned but still relevant. It comes from Woody Allen's "Love and Death". * Boris: "You know, if it turns out that there IS a God, I don't think that He's evil. I think that the worst you can say about Him is that, basically, He's an underachiever."
Another theory is, although God is all powerful, all knowing and all good, this does not escape the reality of a logical universe. I.e., having no evil or tragedy is not feasible. For instance, say you're driving your car to work and you pull the steering wheel to plunge off a bridge. In a world where nothing bad happens, you won't be hurt. In fact, you won't even be late for work. Your hair won't even be messed up. How does a physical universe even function in such a reality? I realize I've conflated evil to tragedy but I think the point is reasonable. Having a physical universe with a coherent structure precludes the absence of evil and tragedy, like it precludes square circles or object falling up.
I was just looking for "We can turn beans into peas!" Which is one of those lines that stuck with me decades since first seeing the film. I wonder if you could make some kind of point about how the highest aspiration of evil is an inversion of creation. "We will turn mountains into seas and glaciers into fire and..."- "We can turn beans into peas!"
There is also the question of to what extent would life have value without free will. If God is all knowing, then He knows that free will adds more intrinsic value to life. Otherwise we would be slaves. Furthermore, if you could create a mini world would you want slaves who do what you want or free beings that develop? If God's purpose is creation but does not allow for free will, He may as well put on a puppet show.
We don't have free will, we have *human* will. Even if we seem free to make choices, we tend to make human choices, which is why we mostly make similar choices. We're driven by the same basal insticts and motivations. Why do children want to play? Not because of free will, but because we have evolved to play, as children. We think we freely choose to play, but we don't, we're driven to it. A completely free will, which was not driven by insticts and biologically determined motivation, would not choose to do anything at all. Such a person would simply do nothing until they died of thirst.
Of course we have free will. If a big powerful force, lets say a dictator, came along and enslaved you, you wouldn't say, "Why thank you for taking away my illusion of free will.". Without free will we would be Robots and slaves
I mean, from the delivery it really does seem like the Supreme Being doesn't even know himself. I always got the impression he had to step behind that pillar in order to spend a thousand years thinking about his answer, only to come back with "I think it's something to do with free will". I'd also like to point out that it's always the "Supreme Being". Kevin asks Randall if it's "like God" and Randall gives him a dismissive "yeah, sure like that" kind of answer. Like he doesn't want to have to explain it so that'll do.
The argument against evil is an argument against another rights to exist and the right to experience. Many people believe we live multiple lives, some people believe thats one after another while some believe multiple lives in multiple times periods all at the same time. The experience of hardship or evil is simply an experience, if one was to experience as much as possible this would be needed. The challenge of finding light within great darkness would also make you a master of reality, that is if reality is the illusion and consciousness transcends physical reality meaning physical reality is in-fact the dream and the after life is the moment of being awake. We all have nightmares, don't we, one can argue they are sometimes needed.
Interesting points of view. My conclusions just couldn't be absolut because no human really could know. I try not to judge ever any more and just to be a good being. Sounds simple, right...? Well, maybe it is! (I am nearly 47 years as far as I know "on this plantet" and some aspects in this (very interesting) video are true for me: I suffered a lot in my life to become who I am at the moment. I also experienced many great shared moments with other beings and even some events I couldn't explain. (By the way I have watched Time Bandits for the first time in my life when I was 3 to 5 years old and I was frightened and fascinated by this movie from the first moment watching it. It is very special and a masterpiece in my opinion.) Here are what I wrote down but didn't post. Maybe it could be interesting for some, or one: (Please excuse my English as it isn't my "mother tongue".) he answer is simple and nor atheistic neither dependent on religion. The answer is that all creations are created by "god" or whatever you might call "him". And god gave humans a free will and the ability to chose and be part of him like all beings are. This is what I believe. Evil only exists in humans and as god gave humans a free will they are the only ones responsible what they chose. God also created evil in my believe independent from religion, as a test for humankind. Animals kill and although it might look like killing out of "pleasure" in some animal species and individuals it is mainly an instinct for survival. And humans are animals, too. But other animals never went so far to think they are "more" than god or split apart and crown themselves as a creation. Only evil humans do that. And that's what I believe. In fact it is easy as that. Repsect life in any form. Respect nature, be it stones or seemingly lifeless things. Respect yourself and other humans. Respect other beings. Simple as that. Love yourself and gods creation and you will be part of it. "Civilization" is just a word. We are born as more or less hairless and weak apes. So maybe beause of this humans at some point invented what is called civilization. To protect themselves and make life easier in the first place. Then they invented money not to carry too heavy goods with them and still being able to get stuff they wanted from other people in a comfortable way. But from the beginning some abused those inventions and got greedy. More and more to the point when humans started to not only being the only known higher developed species which big style kills other species and other humans to exctinction and destroys their own livehood. And in my opinion this is very sad and THIS IS EVIL! And not all humans are this way. So maybe some religions are right that there in fact is some kind of "higher evil entity". I definitely believe that evil exists and is seemingly "winning" atm in human societies overall. And I hope humans stop behaving evil.
What people often forget is that everyone suffers. Evil suffers as well and most of all God suffers and does not spare himself from the ugly aspects of the game.
My out for the Problem of Evil conundrum is that if there is something akin to a God floating out there in space, it most definitely _not_ the ones most human religions believe it to be, mostly due to the overwhelming contradictions their claims of what God is and what it is like _are._ I guess I'm like an agnostic; I have not ruled the existence of _a_ god, I simply came to the conclusion that Yahweh and his many different denominational-incarnations are a fiction we humans created.
I'd say the biggest glaring issue is God. God is concept and concept always points to that which is prior to it. Who or what gave God free will to create freewill. It's just turtles all the way down
Gods are not only fictional characters, they're poorly-written fictional characters. And yes, not even other fictional works made in more modern times make any of these characters intelligent in many cases.
Thank you for making this video. The problem of evil is ridiculous. There's obviously no supreme being and Gilliam makes brilliant comedy of it. "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" Epicurus
Question: what makes a natural disaster such as a volcano "evil"? Are these not neutral events? A Volcano eruption creates new land and ecosystems. An ice age is just part of larger trends in earth's climate cycle. That life dies in such events is tragic but not necessarily malicious. Also, does the premise of the film- that G-d made mistakes when constructing the universe-not suggest that the G-d in Time Bandits is indeed a fallible one?
Evil = suffering in this case. Volcanoes aren't evil, but they cause suffering. God could have made the world in such a way that volcanoes did not exist, or made them not cause harm. He created the natural laws that govern how volcanoes function. If he is omnipotent, then it stands to reason that he designed volcanoes to cause suffering on purpose, and so is not 'all-good'. Going even further, if we say that suffering is necessary for humans to understand goodness, the problem is still the same: God made humans, and so could have made them understand goodness without having to suffer first.
I was always fascinated by the concept, if put into game development terms, that the Supreme Being was like a game developer and had this ambitious, open world/universe project but he only had 6 days to complete it and roll it out. Naturally, there would be bugs, glitches, unfinished areas and scrapped ideas tucked away and hidden from the rest of the universe. The development team who worked on it, Randal, Fidget, Ogg and the rest, overworked and underpaid, knew about the bugs and glitches and mapped them out, tasked to fix or close them off permanently, decided to exploit them to their advantage and profit. As for where Evil fits in, maybe he was a former partner/friend who had ideas but had a falling out and was cut out of the creation process. Bitter and angry, decided to screw around with the Supreme Being's creation. If the Supreme Being created Evil, then, like C.L.U. from TRON: Legacy, had his own ideas and was not content to just be a challenge generator for intelligent life/humans.
It was a good thing we had Ralph Richardson as the embodiment of God to deal with the problem of Evil here. Of course, David Warner was the best as the embodiment of Evil.
My dog lead me to belief in God. How? My wife and I loved our dog. Unexpectedly she became very very sick. To summarize my wife and I had much bigger issues. I was in big trouble at work. I was about to be fired. Her car transmission blew. Our furnace quit working. My wife and I decided to forgo our mortgage payment so we had cash to pay for our beloved dogs medical bills. Her stomach was pumped and IV antibiotics were given. I survived at work. Took the money and got transmission fixed. Work crap ton of OT and ate 500 calories diet for three weeks. We picked up our dog three weeks later. She was really weak. Found money in the couch. I bought her a can of dog food. I opened it and ever warmed it in the microwave. She wagged her tail and ate. She fell asleep looking at me. Happy as a clam. I almost began to cry. As I sat and held her looking at her. I was happy. I began to think. This dog thinks I am god. I magically create food from uneatable objects. (I opened the can.) I deft nature. ( I turn on the light. I turn up the furnace.) Magic. I create and destroy at a whim. (Throw away and bring in stuff.) My dog has no concept I have a boss, a job. Limited in power. But for all practical purposes I am 100,ooo thousand times smarter than the dog. Yet I am pleased I stop suffering for my dog. So I concluded. If God is 100000 thousand times smarter than I. How great is god? So just like the DOG. Am I going to understand everything reason and move God makes? So, I believe in God. I think to show God as a whimsical man is utterly proper. Evil is simple the flip side of the coin.
I think that the meaning of life given both by Gaston and the TV lady was good enough. For me, it is good enough, anyway. I used to struggle to find something bigger, but now I see that there's no need. It's all good enough as it is.
The problem with the free will defence is that it is incompatible with omniscience. By its very nature being all-knowing as attributed to the Abrahamic god precludes free will due to making actions pre-ordained, thus making free will an illusion.
By the way, I've read in an interview that Terry Gilliam believes that God experiences the world through our eyes. Maybe suffering is there to make a complete experience, or to help him right wrongs.
Could evil be a physical manifestation of the evil things humans do to each other and is ultimately a scapegoat for our "sins" much like the chaos gods manifested through what was happening in the galaxy
The idea planted by this movie is that evil is in the individual. Which is why the fortress of ultimate darkness and evil is in Kevin's head, hence it's made of lego bricks and characters turn up, like knights, he's interested in.
Absolutely one of the best movies ever made. As to your questions, evil is a product of sentience, of choice and intent. There is no such thing as "natural evil." A volcano may kill innocent people but it is nature, not evil, because a volcano does not have morality, which in itself is also a man made concept based on choice and intent. That is why God's remarks about freewill are a perfect answer, because it's true. Evil can only exist if there is free will, because to do evil, you have to be able to choose not to do evil, and understand the difference. I think therefore I am.
An innanimate object harming or destroying living beings isn't Evil, rather natural. Living beings such as animals act naturally, that is to say, harm and destroy each other. Hence humans as animals don't commit Evil, rather they act naturally. Evil doesn't exist, harm does. By the way, you are missing the religious point made here and throughout history, if God is omnipotent and omniscient and all good, then why does he permit harm and destruction to exist at all? He porpusefully made a world for beings created in his image, in which they suffer the harm and destruction of the world, *why?* Just change 'evil' for 'suffering', 'harm', 'destruction' or any other similar concept and you just _might understand it._
The real sens moral of this question should be: don't attach *any* all-/omni- to any characterizations of a natural or supernatural being! Logic is just some dirt from our minds: the universe doesn't care one second about our word-juggling, it just is.
Evil is quite simply understood from the persepective of Genesis 3. It posits the notion that we are fallen beings, living in a fallen world, at once cut off from the source of all goodness, yet by His goodness, still experiencing some of His goodness in the creation and some of His goodness towards us personally. In fact, Christianity teaches that it is the good that we experience that is the anomyly to our condition, not the evil.
I don't think the problem of evil is that simple in the Genesis story at all. Where did evil originate? Was it actually created by Adam and Eve? By the God character? By the snake character? Or did it always exist? Did it predate the god character? Interesting questions that the story doesn't reveal.
Taiki Waititi makes me sad because I loved What We do in the Shadows and Thor Ragnarok is one of my favorite Marvel movies but since he's gone full Waititi, I find his brand of humor tiresome.
I'd say that the larger main problem with the "free will" solution to the problem of evil, is that it still doesn't address the contradiction at all. Omniscience of god and free will of man cannot co-exist.
Interesting thought about the free will defense. You asked about natural disasters. Well, if all the science on climate change is correct, some natural disasters are the result of human action effecting the natural world. Also, if you live in a flood plain or next to an active volcano or on a fault line, and are unprepared for the possible disasters, are you not somewhat responsible for the tragedy that befalls you?
I think everything is of God, and existence is here because it's something to do. God experiences itself through us as our souls evolve, until we evolve to the point we rejoin God's consciousness. Maybe to be made in to a new soul again. Evil exists because it's a good storytelling tool, and God wants to tell itself stories to stave off the boredom of being everything.
If God can't set limits to His own omnipotence, then is it God or just a god? True Omnipotence is not just the ability to be all powerful, but also the ability to do the opposite; to be completely anti-powerful (and everything inbetween). Same could be said about Omniscence; one could just open up the end of a book, but we limit ourselves by reading the book from beginning to end; getting to experience to the conflict that occurs in the story. Perhaps what we know as "evil" is a byproduct of God willingness to limit Himself? Else, we'd have no story.
I followed you up to the point that you mentioned that an earthquake could be considered evil or natural evil, i disagree . If you want to bring up natural disaters or diseaes ....free will could be used for those too. The world is a dangerous and beautiful place so can be humans .
The "Problem of Evil" is just the name of the question, but the term "evil" is being used to mean any bad thing / suffering. "God is all powerful, all knowing, and wants the best for us, but we still find suffering in the world (man made or natural). Why?" is another way of phrasing the question. The main response that theists and this movie has is that freewill is more important than preventing suffering.
I believe God has put limits upon himself (God is One) and reality, creating beings that arise through limitation of virtue rather than ascending through force of will. If god did not put limitations on himself and things there would be infinite universes with infinite gods, all with infinite power and all would have no personality and nothing to do for all eternity.
The devil exists because God (ie the people who invented him) needed a scapegoat for all the evil in the world. In many relegion the gods can be petty and cruel. This explains every day evil. But when you set up one supreme being who is all good and all powerful you lose the excuse of petty cruelty. So they needed to invent the devil which takes the blame despite having no power at all when compared to god. But that doesn't let God off the hook. He created the devil and has complete power over him thus he is responsible for what the devil does. You can't lead a hungry tiger into a room full of toddlers and then pretend you have no blame in what happens next. But they want to pretend that he has no responsibility in the events he sets into motion when those events turn out bad. They can't even argue free will fouled up his machinations because he's omnipotent and knew that would happen.
Sin is disobedience and disobedience is evil. And if you sin in your free natural state of time you commit evil which is disobeying of the commandments of god like thou shalt not kill or thou shalt not steal or in the beginning when god told adam and eve if thou lovest me then thou wilt not hearken onto the voice of the serpent that was of the tree of the knowledge of the good and the evil so evil consist of the disodeying of gods commandments.
Because: we have the prefix "all-" attached to the attributes that we assign god: all-knowing, all-powerful, all-wise, all-good. It is a logical error in our statements. UPDATE: this in no way proves that god doesn't exist, only that our statements about this hypothetical being are inconsistent. For the rest, the question of god's existence is unresolved, and I'm not going to provide an answer.
He gave Free Will to Mother Nature and as we are Part of Nature and so thus is the Volcano, then Free Will evolves among us. That is one way. Another way is to say that Nature will do what Nature Does. God and all his experience and knowledge Created this power (Nature) to help him solve problems that he just have not the time to do so. This theory only works out, if the Universe is never ending, thus God has to look after other races other than our own. There is another theory why Evil may exist and that is simply because God is not all Knowing and that God is not what we would call a God as detailed in the Bibles of the world, but what if God is just another highly advanced alien in stead. We would be seen as a God if we went back to say 10,000 BCE and we may be Worshipped as such by those below us. There are many ways and theories out there that may say why Evil and Good exists, but these three are my thoughts on the subject.
Nice video. Another way of speak about evil and if god exist in this movie, it is god created evil to make freewill with the intention humans can understand and admire his job (as he say in the movie, if it was nice way to test his best masterpiece,show some vanity). Plants and animals dont care about creation, they simple eat,mate,live and dead in a world created with god rules.Another thing about evil in this movie if represent human ambition to imitate God(specially evil interest on tecnology). In conclusion, for this movie evil is a proof God existence, but that not means we like his manners or he sucks.
2:50 if god had to make humans this way then hes not all powerful... or he could have made them without this. suffering and evil being nesicary for free will implaies god cant make free will any other way, again making him not all powerfull, and besides your free to want anything, free to fail... so make doing evil result in failure, if god cant do that he's again not all powerful.
I don't think one can classify natural disasters as evil. They may be bad or even deadly to some, but without consciousness or even intent can something truly be evil?
(I copied and pasted this from another comment because a lot of people are asking this) Evil = suffering in this case. Volcanoes aren't evil, but they cause suffering. God could have made the world in such a way that volcanoes did not exist, or made them not cause harm. He created the natural laws that govern how volcanoes function. If he is omnipotent, then it stands to reason that he designed volcanoes to cause suffering on purpose, and so is not 'all-good'. Going even further, if we say that suffering is necessary for humans to understand goodness, the problem is still the same: God made humans, and so could have made them understand goodness without having to suffer first.
I love Terry Gilliam but for some reason I've never been able to watch more than five minutes of this movie whenever it was on TV. Do you recommend actually watching it?
Yes, it’s ideas are good and solid . The visual beauty and ugliness are mind blowing. As an adult you can see the holes in the story but also look beyond them.7. / 10.
The people who write films and music often do not realise what they are saying. Time bandits says that the universe is full of time holes which is very near the truth. In fact the universe is full of time fields that can be travelled. The good and evil part is really easy to understand. There are good beings who are intelligent with an expanded consciousness and their are evil beings with intelligent who have a narrow focused consciousness. Think human versus crocodile. A human is far more consciously aware then a crocodile. The ancients like Vishnu had an expanded consciousness equal to the size of the known universe and so knew everything that was going on. A crocodile knows nothing except his immediate environment for food.
Isaiah 45. The bible suggests that god created choice, and that mankind chooses. I know people who read this will want to crucify me just for posting it... Examine the story of Jesus, in that light, for something more comprehensive than what priests and priestesses, rabbis, imams, etc seem to suggest regarding omnibenevolence.
But why did he create the choice in the first place? That's the problem... If he really is all-powerful and all-loving, would he not create mankind so that our only "choice" would be to live a happy life? As a parent, would you give your child the option of playing with sharp knives? Of course not, because you know what could happen and you don't want that. But God, it seems, not only handed us a bunch of knives, he also filled our world with all kinds of traps and temptations. And if you mess up, you'll suffer eternal torment.
If I were creating the world I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, Day One!
"We can make beans into peas!"
>lasers are light
>God starts day 1 by saying "let there be light"
Based on this information I can only conclude that The Count of Monte Cristo is God.
Ow.
Slugs, he created slugs!
Look how he spends his time, forty-three species of parrots!
"Kevin's parents touch a piece of evil and they explode."
This is not the strangest thing that happens in this movie.
Quite possible. Terry Gilliam is a very odd film-maker, but you have to give him this much: even when he's off (and he's never really been quite on), he's off in a fascinating way.
Even sean connery winking at kevin and driving away after seeing this, ending the movie, is not the strangest thing to happen in this movie.
2:50 if god had to make humans this way then hes not all powerful... or he could have made them without this.
Time Bandits is possibly my favourite movie. A gem from my childhood. Perfect ending.
Just watched it with my 11 year old son today..he loved it
I must have been 6/7 upon first seeing this when we first got cable & it was on HBO constantly in 1983/84. Def a trip as a kid understanding that ending. Loved how it began & ended w the view from the sky & the map being rolled up. Also the song during the credits “Dream Away” is a brilliant tune to end with.
"Is there a God?"
"We don't know, but God does."
I honestly kinda love that answer in a Lewis Carroll sense.
Which is actually a fallacy known as Circular Reasoning. Polytheistic Religions do an equally idiotic response by handwaving the problem, by using the "there are evil and good gods" excuse. This isn't a smart or acceptable answer either and is an example of shitty writing.
"Well, now that we have seen each other,' said the Unicorn. If you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you."
Great movie. I grew up religious and even served a mission to convert people to my religion. I also grew up watching a lot of British media including this movie which pokes fun at religion and I think it helped me see the silliness of it all. I now consider myself agnostic, but I never really thought about the problem of evil until I had already left religion. Here's a quote I try to live by now:
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
― Marcus Aurelius
Ah, Marcus Aurelius, whose son, Commodus didn't even attempt to live a noble life. Marcus was a terrible parent and one mustn't follow the advice of a terrible parent.
@clickityclak6111, you said that you grew up religious and served in the mission field. Well your religion must not have been Christianity
One of my favoritest movies of all time...thanks for this
I remember when my mother and aunt took us to go see this in theaters. Always loved this movie.
RIP David Warner. He played the best Evil and other villainous characters.
My uncle would let me watch this film when I was around 5 years old maybe. I had much fear watching it but also was so fascinated that I couldn't stop watching. Such a creative and great movie it is. Just fantastic.
Great analysis of a great film! Hard to believe that back when this was first released, so many critics dismissed it as just kid's stuff and didn't take it very seriously. But if you look at any other kid's film made in the last twenty years or so, I don't think any of them had the guts to include themes about the nature of God and the problem of Evil (unless they were flat out religious propaganda).
I always felt sorry Kevin when he was taken from where he was happy.
Time Bandits is one of my favorite films from my youth. In hindsight, that film feels like a fusion of Monty Python, Chrono Trigger, Dr. Who, and Roald Dahl's children's books. I could've sworn there was a trailer for Time Bandits which sold it like a serious sci-fi thriller, but I never could find it. The character of Evil is brilliant: he's like an absurdly comical dystopian version of the Devil. The closest approximation of Evil I've seen is Charnel, the God of Strife from Shiny Entertainment's video game Sacrifice. Charnel's like a fusion of Evil, Aries, Hades, and Sauron. The only thing I disliked about Time Bandits was its ending. I kind of wish the Agamemnon turned fireman took Kevin with him after his parents exploded instead of leaving him there. I like that God is absent minded British bureaucrat who takes on the form of a frightening animated head. I particularly love that God's ominous head is a pale Gilliam cartoon chasing the Bandits down an infinite hallway. It's interesting that Gilliam's God makes the Bandits believe that they stole the map as part of a complicated plan to destroy Evil. What "fight" he claimed Kevin had to continue is a mysterious one. Was leaving Evil in the parents' microwave was meant as Kevin's reward, or was it part of another complicated plan which involves Kevin's mysterious future fate? What would have been Kevin's future fate? Would he meet with the Bandits to fight against some greater evil than Evil,, or does his "fight" involve something stranger?
heck I need to rewatch this
Reminds me of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. His version is that he created the earth while hung over from a beer binge. That's why there are so many strange things in our world. Removing the claim of perfection solves a lot of problems inherent with most religions.
I've been touched by his noodley appendage!
Perfection is human desire overlaid over spirituality. Spirituality is the mode of communication, a concept of perfection merely sets the boundaries. Just because you disagree with the boundaries doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Only David Warner has the brass to play Evil personified, successfully
The end scene is interesting. There is the obvious. His parents immediately do what he told them not to do and suffer consequences he couldn't have imagined. His hero rides off, leaving him completely alone. And then the camera starts to pan away...the audience is also abandoning Kevin. Then there is the less obvious. The camera pan is clearly in reverse if you are looking for it. The smoke from the piles of ash that used to be Kevin's parents is being pulled back into them. Is time reversing? (was it just easier to film the camera dropping when it was made? Occam's razor) Were we watching from the perspective of a divine being? Or, more interestingly, is it Kevin the metaphor for the Higher Power at that moment. His family ignoring his warning(Eden style) and there he is..left all alone in the wreck of what other people made of his world.
I wrote a very bad paper in college that was supposed to be about how Milton addresses the problem of evil. Instead, I got constantly hung up on the free will problem, and couldn't move past it.
The free will answer is unsatisfying because if God has omniscience, then he has complete foreknowledge. If God has omnipotence as well, then he created everything as it is with the knowledge that everyone would act as they do prior to their action. So essentially, he made each person to make the decisions they 'choose' to make on purpose. That's not free will.
I think I tried to make up some bullshit excuse for how this made sense, but it still doesn't to me. Seems to me that removing omnipotence from the equation is the only way for free will to be possible.
What if all that God accomplished was simply creating the universe and nothing else? What if creating everything exhausted his powers?
I guess you could call that "the big bang defense".
That would be more of a God left the universe on Auto Pilot theory. 😂 Some people claim Jesus as their co-pilot.
I love these videos. Great job, Leon!
Very thought provoking and fairly neutral. I really appreciated your presentation and how you related to a number of sides (considering there could be more than just binary modes). Nice work!!!
I've always found "Free Will" to be a nonsensical answer for the very reason this video states: no one would argue things like diseases and volcanoes have free will, yet they cause a lot more suffering in total than evil people ever could.
Great analysis.
I think you misunderstand the problem of evil. Evil's problem is that he is unable to escape from the fortr--*POOF*
Evil is played by David Warner. There is no problem with evil. There can be no problem with evil.
cheezemonkeyeater He's always fun in movies. The Man With Two Brains and Time Bandits, are the first movies I saw as a kid, where I remember him.
The video's examination of a film which has God and Evil as main characters was fascinating.
My contribution will be less learned but still relevant. It comes from Woody Allen's "Love and Death".
* Boris: "You know, if it turns out that there IS a God, I don't think that He's evil. I think that the worst you can say about Him is that, basically, He's an underachiever."
This contradicts the Bible, where God actively CHEATS and LIES to get his way. Especially in the Old Testament.
Your videos are fantastic. Just subbed.
Perhaps the suffering is at the extreme to balance the reward in the end.
A very fascinating and thought-provoking video! I´m impressed!
Another theory is, although God is all powerful, all knowing and all good, this does not escape the reality of a logical universe. I.e., having no evil or tragedy is not feasible. For instance, say you're driving your car to work and you pull the steering wheel to plunge off a bridge. In a world where nothing bad happens, you won't be hurt. In fact, you won't even be late for work. Your hair won't even be messed up. How does a physical universe even function in such a reality? I realize I've conflated evil to tragedy but I think the point is reasonable. Having a physical universe with a coherent structure precludes the absence of evil and tragedy, like it precludes square circles or object falling up.
Oh. Ill be late for work, alright. Not present, if its done to make some wealthy arsehole widened or wealthier.
I was just looking for "We can turn beans into peas!" Which is one of those lines that stuck with me decades since first seeing the film.
I wonder if you could make some kind of point about how the highest aspiration of evil is an inversion of creation.
"We will turn mountains into seas and glaciers into fire and..."- "We can turn beans into peas!"
There is also the question of to what extent would life have value without free will. If God is all knowing, then He knows that free will adds more intrinsic value to life. Otherwise we would be slaves. Furthermore, if you could create a mini world would you want slaves who do what you want or free beings that develop? If God's purpose is creation but does not allow for free will, He may as well put on a puppet show.
We don't have free will, we have *human* will. Even if we seem free to make choices, we tend to make human choices, which is why we mostly make similar choices. We're driven by the same basal insticts and motivations.
Why do children want to play? Not because of free will, but because we have evolved to play, as children. We think we freely choose to play, but we don't, we're driven to it.
A completely free will, which was not driven by insticts and biologically determined motivation, would not choose to do anything at all. Such a person would simply do nothing until they died of thirst.
That conclusion is painfully arbitrary.
Of course we have free will. If a big powerful force, lets say a dictator, came along and enslaved you, you wouldn't say, "Why thank you for taking away my illusion of free will.". Without free will we would be Robots and slaves
Maybe it should read as "the problem of moral evil."
Great analysis. Very interesting. And nice one for adding the arm wrestle ha
That is exactly what I thought 2 months ago.
Wow, I wasnt expecting to see a video about this movie. Awesome
I mean, from the delivery it really does seem like the Supreme Being doesn't even know himself. I always got the impression he had to step behind that pillar in order to spend a thousand years thinking about his answer, only to come back with "I think it's something to do with free will".
I'd also like to point out that it's always the "Supreme Being". Kevin asks Randall if it's "like God" and Randall gives him a dismissive "yeah, sure like that" kind of answer. Like he doesn't want to have to explain it so that'll do.
The argument against evil is an argument against another rights to exist and the right to experience. Many people believe we live multiple lives, some people believe thats one after another while some believe multiple lives in multiple times periods all at the same time. The experience of hardship or evil is simply an experience, if one was to experience as much as possible this would be needed. The challenge of finding light within great darkness would also make you a master of reality, that is if reality is the illusion and consciousness transcends physical reality meaning physical reality is in-fact the dream and the after life is the moment of being awake. We all have nightmares, don't we, one can argue they are sometimes needed.
Interesting points of view.
My conclusions just couldn't be absolut because no human really could know.
I try not to judge ever any more and just to be a good being. Sounds simple, right...? Well, maybe it is! (I am nearly 47 years as far as I know "on this plantet" and some aspects in this (very interesting) video are true for me: I suffered a lot in my life to become who I am at the moment. I also experienced many great shared moments with other beings and even some events I couldn't explain.
(By the way I have watched Time Bandits for the first time in my life when I was 3 to 5 years old and I was frightened and fascinated by this movie from the first moment watching it. It is very special and a masterpiece in my opinion.)
Here are what I wrote down but didn't post. Maybe it could be interesting for some, or one:
(Please excuse my English as it isn't my "mother tongue".)
he answer is simple and nor atheistic neither dependent on religion. The answer is that all creations are created by "god" or whatever you might call "him". And god gave humans a free will and the ability to chose and be part of him like all beings are. This is what I believe.
Evil only exists in humans and as god gave humans a free will they are the only ones responsible what they chose. God also created evil in my believe independent from religion, as a test for humankind. Animals kill and although it might look like killing out of "pleasure" in some animal species and individuals it is mainly an instinct for survival. And humans are animals, too. But other animals never went so far to think they are "more" than god or split apart and crown themselves as a creation. Only evil humans do that. And that's what I believe. In fact it is easy as that. Repsect life in any form. Respect nature, be it stones or seemingly lifeless things. Respect yourself and other humans. Respect other beings. Simple as that. Love yourself and gods creation and you will be part of it.
"Civilization" is just a word. We are born as more or less hairless and weak apes. So maybe beause of this humans at some point invented what is called civilization. To protect themselves and make life easier in the first place. Then they invented money not to carry too heavy goods with them and still being able to get stuff they wanted from other people in a comfortable way. But from the beginning some abused those inventions and got greedy. More and more to the point when humans started to not only being the only known higher developed species which big style kills other species and other humans to exctinction and destroys their own livehood. And in my opinion this is very sad and THIS IS EVIL! And not all humans are this way. So maybe some religions are right that there in fact is some kind of "higher evil entity". I definitely believe that evil exists and is seemingly "winning" atm in human societies overall. And I hope humans stop behaving evil.
What people often forget is that everyone suffers. Evil suffers as well
and most of all God suffers and does not spare himself from the ugly aspects of the game.
My out for the Problem of Evil conundrum is that if there is something akin to a God floating out there in space, it most definitely _not_ the ones most human religions believe it to be, mostly due to the overwhelming contradictions their claims of what God is and what it is like _are._ I guess I'm like an agnostic; I have not ruled the existence of _a_ god, I simply came to the conclusion that Yahweh and his many different denominational-incarnations are a fiction we humans created.
I'd say the biggest glaring issue is God. God is concept and concept always points to that which is prior to it. Who or what gave God free will to create freewill. It's just turtles all the way down
LOVE the "Turtles all the way down" reference! 🐢
Gods are not only fictional characters, they're poorly-written fictional characters. And yes, not even other fictional works made in more modern times make any of these characters intelligent in many cases.
Thank you for making this video. The problem of evil is ridiculous. There's obviously no supreme being and Gilliam makes brilliant comedy of it.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Epicurus
I just watched this movie, and found it incredibly upsetting...
Question: what makes a natural disaster such as a volcano "evil"? Are these not neutral events? A Volcano eruption creates new land and ecosystems. An ice age is just part of larger trends in earth's climate cycle. That life dies in such events is tragic but not necessarily malicious.
Also, does the premise of the film- that G-d made mistakes when constructing the universe-not suggest that the G-d in Time Bandits is indeed a fallible one?
Evil = suffering in this case. Volcanoes aren't evil, but they cause suffering. God could have made the world in such a way that volcanoes did not exist, or made them not cause harm. He created the natural laws that govern how volcanoes function. If he is omnipotent, then it stands to reason that he designed volcanoes to cause suffering on purpose, and so is not 'all-good'.
Going even further, if we say that suffering is necessary for humans to understand goodness, the problem is still the same: God made humans, and so could have made them understand goodness without having to suffer first.
Don't forget that it's a very funny movie too.
I was always fascinated by the concept, if put into game development terms, that the Supreme Being was like a game developer and had this ambitious, open world/universe project but he only had 6 days to complete it and roll it out. Naturally, there would be bugs, glitches, unfinished areas and scrapped ideas tucked away and hidden from the rest of the universe. The development team who worked on it, Randal, Fidget, Ogg and the rest, overworked and underpaid, knew about the bugs and glitches and mapped them out, tasked to fix or close them off permanently, decided to exploit them to their advantage and profit.
As for where Evil fits in, maybe he was a former partner/friend who had ideas but had a falling out and was cut out of the creation process. Bitter and angry, decided to screw around with the Supreme Being's creation. If the Supreme Being created Evil, then, like C.L.U. from TRON: Legacy, had his own ideas and was not content to just be a challenge generator for intelligent life/humans.
It was a good thing we had Ralph Richardson as the embodiment of God to deal with the problem of Evil here. Of course, David Warner was the best as the embodiment of Evil.
My dog lead me to belief in God. How? My wife and I loved our dog. Unexpectedly she became very very sick. To summarize my wife and I had much bigger issues. I was in big trouble at work. I was about to be fired. Her car transmission blew. Our furnace quit working. My wife and I decided to forgo our mortgage payment so we had cash to pay for our beloved dogs medical bills. Her stomach was pumped and IV antibiotics were given. I survived at work. Took the money and got transmission fixed. Work crap ton of OT and ate 500 calories diet for three weeks. We picked up our dog three weeks later. She was really weak. Found money in the couch. I bought her a can of dog food. I opened it and ever warmed it in the microwave. She wagged her tail and ate. She fell asleep looking at me. Happy as a clam. I almost began to cry. As I sat and held her looking at her. I was happy. I began to think. This dog thinks I am god. I magically create food from uneatable objects. (I opened the can.) I deft nature. ( I turn on the light. I turn up the furnace.) Magic. I create and destroy at a whim. (Throw away and bring in stuff.) My dog has no concept I have a boss, a job. Limited in power. But for all practical purposes I am 100,ooo thousand times smarter than the dog. Yet I am pleased I stop suffering for my dog. So I concluded. If God is 100000 thousand times smarter than I. How great is god? So just like the DOG. Am I going to understand everything reason and move God makes? So, I believe in God. I think to show God as a whimsical man is utterly proper. Evil is simple the flip side of the coin.
I think that the meaning of life given both by Gaston and the TV lady was good enough. For me, it is good enough, anyway. I used to struggle to find something bigger, but now I see that there's no need. It's all good enough as it is.
I thought my relationship with my ex was good enough, but it wasn't.
the supreme being is Yaldabaoth which is a side effect of creation
I really need to watch this. I only really knew the theme song by George Harrison because of Diamandahagan.
The problem with the free will defence is that it is incompatible with omniscience. By its very nature being all-knowing as attributed to the Abrahamic god precludes free will due to making actions pre-ordained, thus making free will an illusion.
By the way, I've read in an interview that Terry Gilliam believes that God experiences the world through our eyes. Maybe suffering is there to make a complete experience, or to help him right wrongs.
Could evil be a physical manifestation of the evil things humans do to each other and is ultimately a scapegoat for our "sins" much like the chaos gods manifested through what was happening in the galaxy
The idea planted by this movie is that evil is in the individual. Which is why the fortress of ultimate darkness and evil is in Kevin's head, hence it's made of lego bricks and characters turn up, like knights, he's interested in.
NO!!! I love Time Bandits....!!!!
Absolutely one of the best movies ever made.
As to your questions, evil is a product of sentience, of choice and intent. There is no such thing as "natural evil." A volcano may kill innocent people but it is nature, not evil, because a volcano does not have morality, which in itself is also a man made concept based on choice and intent. That is why God's remarks about freewill are a perfect answer, because it's true. Evil can only exist if there is free will, because to do evil, you have to be able to choose not to do evil, and understand the difference. I think therefore I am.
An innanimate object harming or destroying living beings isn't Evil, rather natural.
Living beings such as animals act naturally, that is to say, harm and destroy each other.
Hence humans as animals don't commit Evil, rather they act naturally.
Evil doesn't exist, harm does.
By the way, you are missing the religious point made here and throughout history, if God is omnipotent and omniscient and all good, then why does he permit harm and destruction to exist at all? He porpusefully made a world for beings created in his image, in which they suffer the harm and destruction of the world, *why?*
Just change 'evil' for 'suffering', 'harm', 'destruction' or any other similar concept and you just _might understand it._
The real sens moral of this question should be: don't attach *any* all-/omni- to any characterizations of a natural or supernatural being! Logic is just some dirt from our minds: the universe doesn't care one second about our word-juggling, it just is.
Evil does not exist. Only existence does. Good and evil are just different states of matter/energy.
Evil is quite simply understood from the persepective of Genesis 3. It posits the notion that we are fallen beings, living in a fallen world, at once cut off from the source of all goodness, yet by His goodness, still experiencing some of His goodness in the creation and some of His goodness towards us personally. In fact, Christianity teaches that it is the good that we experience that is the anomyly to our condition, not the evil.
I don't think the problem of evil is that simple in the Genesis story at all. Where did evil originate? Was it actually created by Adam and Eve? By the God character? By the snake character? Or did it always exist? Did it predate the god character? Interesting questions that the story doesn't reveal.
I came to see OG evil, reboot evil makes me sad.
Taiki Waititi makes me sad because I loved What We do in the Shadows and Thor Ragnarok is one of my favorite Marvel movies but since he's gone full Waititi, I find his brand of humor tiresome.
Bad weather, volcanoes, earthquakes, etc are a hazard. Not Evil
I'd say that the larger main problem with the "free will" solution to the problem of evil, is that it still doesn't address the contradiction at all. Omniscience of god and free will of man cannot co-exist.
Interesting thought about the free will defense. You asked about natural disasters. Well, if all the science on climate change is correct, some natural disasters are the result of human action effecting the natural world.
Also, if you live in a flood plain or next to an active volcano or on a fault line, and are unprepared for the possible disasters, are you not somewhat responsible for the tragedy that befalls you?
And furthermore, it's gotten to the point where no one can salvage it. We have to live with it.
I think everything is of God, and existence is here because it's something to do. God experiences itself through us as our souls evolve, until we evolve to the point we rejoin God's consciousness. Maybe to be made in to a new soul again. Evil exists because it's a good storytelling tool, and God wants to tell itself stories to stave off the boredom of being everything.
man shape god in their own image, i get that, but once you eliminate the concept of god as "being" as in the essence of a person than you'll be fine.
The reason evil exist is so that people will have a chance to be/do good
God gave us all free will we all have a choice whether or not to be good or evil
Orthodox Christianity has the best answer: Evil has no substance but is a movement away from God. It can best be defined as that which is not Godlike.
With actors frm star wars; james bond; Tron and Alien
He needs our help
As long there is good, there will always be evil.
If God can't set limits to His own omnipotence, then is it God or just a god? True Omnipotence is not just the ability to be all powerful, but also the ability to do the opposite; to be completely anti-powerful (and everything inbetween). Same could be said about Omniscence; one could just open up the end of a book, but we limit ourselves by reading the book from beginning to end; getting to experience to the conflict that occurs in the story. Perhaps what we know as "evil" is a byproduct of God willingness to limit Himself? Else, we'd have no story.
Didn't He do just that in the form of Jesus? Man in God.
One aspect of God missing. God is all being. All means everything. God contains all including what humans call evil
I followed you up to the point that you mentioned that an earthquake could be considered evil or natural evil, i disagree .
If you want to bring up natural disaters or diseaes ....free will could be used for those too.
The world is a dangerous and beautiful place so can be humans .
Hmm. Interesting.
god as the wizard of oz
I don't know if I would consider natural disasters, such as volcanos or earthquakes, as "evil."
The "Problem of Evil" is just the name of the question, but the term "evil" is being used to mean any bad thing / suffering. "God is all powerful, all knowing, and wants the best for us, but we still find suffering in the world (man made or natural). Why?" is another way of phrasing the question. The main response that theists and this movie has is that freewill is more important than preventing suffering.
you freak me out man
I think its something to do with free will.
I believe God has put limits upon himself (God is One) and reality, creating beings that arise through limitation of virtue rather than ascending through force of will. If god did not put limitations on himself and things there would be infinite universes with infinite gods, all with infinite power and all would have no personality and nothing to do for all eternity.
The devil exists because God (ie the people who invented him) needed a scapegoat for all the evil in the world. In many relegion the gods can be petty and cruel. This explains every day evil. But when you set up one supreme being who is all good and all powerful you lose the excuse of petty cruelty. So they needed to invent the devil which takes the blame despite having no power at all when compared to god. But that doesn't let God off the hook. He created the devil and has complete power over him thus he is responsible for what the devil does. You can't lead a hungry tiger into a room full of toddlers and then pretend you have no blame in what happens next. But they want to pretend that he has no responsibility in the events he sets into motion when those events turn out bad. They can't even argue free will fouled up his machinations because he's omnipotent and knew that would happen.
Sin is disobedience and disobedience is evil. And if you sin in your free natural state of time you commit evil which is disobeying of the commandments of god like thou shalt not kill or thou shalt not steal or in the beginning when god told adam and eve if thou lovest me then thou wilt not hearken onto the voice of the serpent that was of the tree of the knowledge of the good and the evil so evil consist of the disodeying of gods commandments.
Because: we have the prefix "all-" attached to the attributes that we assign god: all-knowing, all-powerful, all-wise, all-good. It is a logical error in our statements. UPDATE: this in no way proves that god doesn't exist, only that our statements about this hypothetical being are inconsistent. For the rest, the question of god's existence is unresolved, and I'm not going to provide an answer.
He gave Free Will to Mother Nature and as we are Part of Nature and so thus is the Volcano, then Free Will evolves among us. That is one way.
Another way is to say that Nature will do what Nature Does. God and all his experience and knowledge Created this power (Nature) to help him solve problems that he just have not the time to do so. This theory only works out, if the Universe is never ending, thus God has to look after other races other than our own.
There is another theory why Evil may exist and that is simply because God is not all Knowing and that God is not what we would call a God as detailed in the Bibles of the world, but what if God is just another highly advanced alien in stead. We would be seen as a God if we went back to say 10,000 BCE and we may be Worshipped as such by those below us.
There are many ways and theories out there that may say why Evil and Good exists, but these three are my thoughts on the subject.
Evil exists because you can't sell an imaginary cure without an imaginary disease?
Nice video.
Another way of speak about evil and if god exist in this movie, it is god created evil to make freewill with the intention humans can understand and admire his job (as he say in the movie, if it was nice way to test his best masterpiece,show some vanity). Plants and animals dont care about creation, they simple eat,mate,live and dead in a world created with god rules.Another thing about evil in this movie if represent human ambition to imitate God(specially evil interest on tecnology). In conclusion, for this movie evil is a proof God existence, but that not means we like his manners or he sucks.
2:50 if god had to make humans this way then hes not all powerful... or he could have made them without this. suffering and evil being nesicary for free will implaies god cant make free will any other way, again making him not all powerfull, and besides your free to want anything, free to fail... so make doing evil result in failure, if god cant do that he's again not all powerful.
God is NOT benevolent
🥰🥰
I don't think one can classify natural disasters as evil. They may be bad or even deadly to some, but without consciousness or even intent can something truly be evil?
(I copied and pasted this from another comment because a lot of people are asking this)
Evil = suffering in this case. Volcanoes aren't evil, but they cause suffering. God could have made the world in such a way that volcanoes did not exist, or made them not cause harm. He created the natural laws that govern how volcanoes function. If he is omnipotent, then it stands to reason that he designed volcanoes to cause suffering on purpose, and so is not 'all-good'.
Going even further, if we say that suffering is necessary for humans to understand goodness, the problem is still the same: God made humans, and so could have made them understand goodness without having to suffer first.
Solve the logical problem
Okay, I was just about to upvote this until I saw the Likes are at 777. Talking about God, is THAT just a coincidence? Hmmmm?
Checkmate atheists (this is a meme for those who haven't seen it before)
3:29 CLEAN YOUR ROOM
I love Terry Gilliam but for some reason I've never been able to watch more than five minutes of this movie whenever it was on TV. Do you recommend actually watching it?
Yes, it’s ideas are good and solid . The visual beauty and ugliness are mind blowing. As an adult you can see the holes in the story but also look beyond them.7. / 10.
The people who write films and music often do not realise what they are saying. Time bandits says that the universe is full of time holes which is very near the truth. In fact the universe is full of time fields that can be travelled. The good and evil part is really easy to understand. There are good beings who are intelligent with an expanded consciousness and their are evil beings with intelligent who have a narrow focused consciousness. Think human versus crocodile. A human is far more consciously aware then a crocodile. The ancients like Vishnu had an expanded consciousness equal to the size of the known universe and so knew everything that was going on. A crocodile knows nothing except his immediate environment for food.
How can natural disasters be "evil"? Doesn't the word imply intent?
Isaiah 45. The bible suggests that god created choice, and that mankind chooses.
I know people who read this will want to crucify me just for posting it...
Examine the story of Jesus, in that light, for something more comprehensive than what priests and priestesses, rabbis, imams, etc seem to suggest regarding omnibenevolence.
But why did he create the choice in the first place? That's the problem...
If he really is all-powerful and all-loving, would he not create mankind so that our only "choice" would be to live a happy life?
As a parent, would you give your child the option of playing with sharp knives? Of course not, because you know what could happen and you don't want that. But God, it seems, not only handed us a bunch of knives, he also filled our world with all kinds of traps and temptations. And if you mess up, you'll suffer eternal torment.