Who was Epicurus talking about?
The Epicurean paradox, ~300 BCE

If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to
Then He is not omnipotent.
If He is able, but not willing
Then He is malevolent.
If He is both able and willing
Then whence cometh evil.
If He is neither able nor willing
Then why call Him God?

According to biblical time line, the new testiment was not written until the A.D. time zone. Where as, old testiment written before Epicurus.

Genesis 3:22 And the יְהוָ֣ה
Yah-weh Yahweh N-proper-ms אֱלֹהִ֗ים
’ĕ-lō-hîm,] translated into English as "Lord God"

LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.

... like one of US. "Lord God" is plural, many.

Omnigod all powerful paradox.

One omnigod tries to punch another omnigod in nose. If both are all powerful then it is a paradox because omnigod punching is all powerful and should hit omnigod in nose but omnigod is all powerful to block punch.

2 all powerful would not seem to co-exist AS being both all powerful.

So to make synopsis, Biblical "Gods" are many and have knowledge of good and evil. They are not "all-powerful " each at same time.

Then comes this question, the fact of knowledge of evil is a place where with evil exist? The thing of thought is a thing unto itself, exist as a thought that the thought itsrlf does infact exist. So to say, Evil may not exist in world external to the thought but in the thought with knowledge of the evil does exist.

Why does people apply Epicurus to biblical style god?

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

... and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

Biblical style god is not in a type of definition that meets Epicurus evaluation.

My journey to becoming an Agnostic.

I grew up with a Catholic mother and an Atheist father. They agreed to send us to church and Sunday school until we were old enough to decide for ourselves. My time in Sunday school wasn't very pleasant. I was a ver inquisitive little boy. I was one of those kids who would rather sit someplace and read a book than go out and play. If I wanted to know something I would ask my parents. If they didn't know I would read up on it at the library. So it rubbed me the wrong way when the nuns would chastise me for asking questions they clearly didn't have an answer for or questions about inconsistencies I was seeing. So when I was old enough I chose Atheism. As I got older I became more introspective. Then I started examining my views on spirituality and religion. I realized my Atheism was just a childish rebellion against the nuns who treated me so poorly for simply questioning. So I started a long journey looking into Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism. I started to realize even though I didn't buy into any religion, I couldn't disprove the root beliefs they had. That being the existence of a Supreme being that resides outside of the physical universe and that we are spiritual beings occupying physical bodies. Science had no real answers for this either way. So I accepted that I didn't know for sure either way and became an Agnostic. Dogma is easy to disprove. That's low hanging fruit. Disproving the spiritual is something entirely different and impossible. At least for now.

I love this quote.

I have seen this meme so many times. It is poorly thought out. IF there is a god who created all of this then there is obviously a reason for it. Just because we are ignorant of the reason does not mean there is none. For arguments sake let's say the world was created by some supreme being. Take a long look at what life is like in the wild. It is pretty harsh. Every day is a fight for survival. The weak and infirm die quickly. There is no mercy. Knowing this people still turn around and pretend our lives are supposed to be a easier. Ignoring all the dogma and focusing on the central belief that there is a God or god-like being responsible for the creation of everything, you cannot prove or disprove it. There are only 3 real possibilities for us. You believe it exists purely on faith, believe there is no such thing purely on faith, or admit you cannot know and go on about your life.

without evil there would be no need for god to protect you.

I do remember a hilarious uncle that once said to me "Sometimes God breaks your legs just to let you know he can break your legs."

He meant it as a dark joke, dunno why, but as a kid that sobered me up right quick, lol.

Wait....what happened in 33AD?

Evil is purely subjective—evil is just behavior that we don’t like. The concept of evil has nothing to do with the nature of ultimate reality.

But if Epicurus or whoever prefers that we not use the God label, then maybe we should humor them.

Hi Jim, even if this were accurately attributed, which it it not, it would not prove or even be evidence that there is no god. It would possibly be an argument that there is no good god. Moot point, that. Is there no Tooth Fairy or is there a Tooth Fairy but she's a bitch?

g

Here we go again!

This is NOT Epicurus!

This is wrongly attributed to Epicurus. The statement is actually anti-Epicurean as Epicurus’ position was that the gods were indifferent to humans and would not bother themselves with punishment.

It is considered most likely that the formulation was by Carneades a high ranking member of The Academy.

It is suspected to be attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius, a Christian in late C3rd due to his desire to discredit Epicureanism.

The earliest paraphrasing is by Sextus Empiricus, late C2nd, in Outlines of Pyrrhonism, 175: "those who firmly maintain that god exists will be forced into impiety; for if they say that he [god] takes care of everything, they will be saying that god is the cause of evils, while if they say that he takes care of some things only or even nothing, they will be forced to say that he is either malevolent or weak"

My favorite philosopher!

The idea of the text is correct, but to tell 33 AD or say that Epicurus said that is completely wrong.

First, he died before 200AC so he was not saying much stuff on 33AC

Second The idea of a monotheistic all powerful god was restricted to some tribes in the middle east, although Alexanders empire made some contact between those cultures, the Judaism was very small and I doubt a guy from mighty Athens was worried about a regional tribe religion from the Seleucid empire.

So stop spreading misinformation using names that people don't know about =)