Ancient wisdom

Monotheistic religions did exist and were well known to them though

There are older texts that explore the same questions, even before Greek polytheism. The "dialogue between a man and his god" and the "poem of the righteous sufferer" are Mesopotamian texts from the second millennium BCE that basically say the same thing (why does my god permits my suffering when I pray so hard?), and yes, it was already a polytheistic world view, but the question still remained why a god could allow their devout followers to suffer. Even when only accounting for a God's specific domain, like sickness or nightmares, rather than total omnipotence.

There's no problem with Humes reframing the question for absolute omnipotence when that's the zealotry the people in his time or in our time are confronted with. You can't shift the blame of the Christian bias when this question is a response to those who claim that their god is superior and infallible.

Which is funny because as far as I know none of the pagan gods are presented as omnipotent or omnibenevolent. Works good applied on the Christian god though

Your atheist meme is still pushing Christian biases.

Oh no better stop using this meme then!

God as in the omniscient prime mover was a philosopical god in contrast to the Olympians and chthonic deities (Not to be confused with the Cthonian deities) who were sustained by the temples for commoners.

I can't speak to Epicurus, but Socrates' charges of impeity and corrupting the youth with perverse ideas were at least partly to do with showing the philosophical theist positions that were antithetical to devotion to the common ministries.

It's much the way only scientists and deep academics in the 20th century were openly atheist. The rest of us skeptics were members of liberal ministries, and may not have gone to church much.

Jonah was in the fish. But you're right about Job being a plaything.

Or maybe the creator just wouldn’t take us all that seriously, like a 14 year old putting a sim in a room with no exit, a fireplace, and a pile of furniture in front of said fireplace. It is only a game.

We could be just one little work of art in a room full of old works.

I mean, we tend to think of the universe as an endless canvas. It could just be some finished piece that the gods don’t even look at.

Maybe they watch our suffering so they can write their plays from it. They have no stakes, so they watch us to learn.

I mean, we’re the ones suffering. We’re the ones looking for some good luck and praying we don’t die before we get our children raised. Of course that is important to us because we’re the ones crying when it doesn’t all work out.

Maybe god/the gods don’t care because it is of no consequence to them.

Of course I’m just playing with thought. I am not a religious man. I happen to think that all of this was just a big, happy, sad, ugly, beautiful, wonderful accident.

If there was a God and it was an actual conscious entity, how could any human ever comprehend the motivations or intentions of such an entity. It can start again from scratch in 6 days - it's not an ecologically constrained being.

It might be like a fighting dog trainer - the trainer might like it, feed it , take it for walks, abuse and traumatise it and so on, or it might not - just like God might. But after it loses it's last fight, they can just get a new one.

God might care, but has no reason to. He could just as well be fucking around for a laugh. Or doing some scientific experiment, or fish tank, or it's just an art project to show off to break the ice at parties. No human could ever know.

So it's just not worth wasting time thinking about - unless you're charismatic enough to disempower the charlatans and demagogues who do claim to know the will of god. If that is the case, good luck to you.

Benevolent? Dude killed his own son. That isn’t benevolent by any definition of the word.

Well, this quote is not attested in any of the known works of Epicurus. This particular version was first printed in The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations: Cutting Comments on Burning Issues compiled by Charles Bufe in 1992. So Mastodon might be back on the table.

Something about natural disasters, Lisbon 1755, etc

Not really. The quality of an argument is in its ability to change the mind/behavior of the person you're debating with, and the Epicurian paradox is one of the best tools we have to spur some critical thought from the religious crowd. It takes Christian lore at face value, and pitches it against itself. Using their own material as an argument against that same material will function as a better argument than things like scientific facts cuz they just ignore facts.

...then again, they ignore their own lore too, but shining the spotlight on that has its own value.

Anywho, it's worded awkwardly in the OP to sound old (I'm assuming it isn't a direct translation, judging by the other comments here), but it goes down a bit easier when you start with how Christians present their god: he is 1) Absolute good / complete absence of evil, 2) All powerful / reality is as he wills, and 3) All knowing / aware of everything happening in his universe.

The snag is that evil also plays a large role in their lore; and in current current events (turn the news on for 10 minutes and you'll see no shortage of evil) - but how can evil exist under a god described above?

• If he has the capability to stop it, he's chosen not to and is therefore himself some degree of evil.

• If he wants to stop it but can't, he isn't all powerful.

• If he can and wants to stop it, but isn't aware it's happening, then he's a fucking idiot not all knowing.

Therefore, Christianity is not honest about the nature of their own god. And that revelation is a powerful argument.

because?