The Problem of Evil; What Can God Do?
It's time to discuss what is known as the bedrock of atheism, the problem of evil. As my spring board let's start with David Hume:
“A Deity who knows the secret springs of the universe might easily, by particular volitions, turn all accidents to the good of mankind and render the whole world happy, without discovering himself in any operation. A fleet whose purposes were salutary to society might always meet with a fair wind. Good princes enjoy sound health and long life. Persons born to power and authority be framed with good tempers and virtuous dispositions. A few such events as these, regularly and wisely conducted, would change the face of the world, and yet would no more seem to disturb the course of nature or confound human conduct than the present economy of things where the causes are secret and variable and compounded. One wave, a little higher than the rest, by burying Caesar and his fortune in the bottom of the ocean, might have restored liberty to a considerable part of mankind.” [Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part XI].
“A Deity who knows the secret springs of the universe might easily, by particular volitions, turn all accidents to the good of mankind and render the whole world happy, without discovering himself in any operation. A fleet whose purposes were salutary to society might always meet with a fair wind. Good princes enjoy sound health and long life. Persons born to power and authority be framed with good tempers and virtuous dispositions. A few such events as these, regularly and wisely conducted, would change the face of the world, and yet would no more seem to disturb the course of nature or confound human conduct than the present economy of things where the causes are secret and variable and compounded. One wave, a little higher than the rest, by burying Caesar and his fortune in the bottom of the ocean, might have restored liberty to a considerable part of mankind.” [Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part XI].
Here are some more things God could’ve done: One childhood fatal disease like the Spanish Flu of 1918 could have killed Hitler and prevented WWII. One actual attempt on Hitler’s life by some people, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, could have ended his reign after the war started. A different police officer could have discovered a naked boy who had briefly escaped Jeffrey Dahlmer’s clutches, and upon investigating further could’ve saved that boy’s life. Timothy McVeigh could have had a fatal vehicle crash while driving to Oklahoma, or a crash that would reveal what was inside his truck. McVeigh could also have been killed while in combat before coming back to the states.
A fatal heart attack could’ve been sent to Saddam Hussein before our war with Iraq, stopping it dead in its tracks. The poison that Saddam threw on the Kurds a decade ago could have simply “malfunctioned” by being miraculously neutralized. Sure it would puzzle Saddam, and it would not be explainable by science, but there are a great many things that take place in our world that are not explainable, so this wouldn’t necessarily lead him to believe that the laws of nature were suspended, revealing God behind it all. The same thing could have been done to the Zykon-B gas pellets dropped down into the Auschwitz gas chambers. Even if Nazi's did conclude that God performed a miracle here, what’s the harm done?
Why did God allow the earthquake that sent the tsunami that killed a quarter of a million people in Asia? Did he not have the power to restrain that earthquake? No one would know that he kept it from happening. The same goes for the predicted San Andreas Fault and the earthquake that will send Los Angeles into the Pacific Ocean. No seismic scientist would ever discover God as the reason why it doesn’t do this.
Why couldn’t something have happened to all nine hijackers of those planes on that fatal 9/11 day? One could trip and fall to his death, or a broken limb. Three others could’ve gotten in a car accident on the way. One other could’ve had a heart attack. Still another could have been robbed by a New York pair of thugs and killed (there’s utilitarianism at its best!). Another could have been reminded of something by God that would weaken his will, maybe intense doubts like those who walk down the wedding aisle. Another could have been spotted at security by a different officer, while another’s take-on-bag might have spilled open revealing his knife. And so on. These things would all occur on that morning stopping the terrorist attacks dead on. But none of these things happened, did they? God allowed the destruction of nearly 3500 lives that day even though there were means at his disposal to stop it.
And even if by changing these things in the world God would “eradicate the laws of nature,” which I seriously doubt, the Christian would still have to argue that these things are impossible for God to do. Who says that the laws of nature must be fixed and unalterable, anyway? David Hume first questioned this. The ordering of the world by general laws “seems nowise necessary” to God. If by changing something requires some adjustment that does not accord with any known laws of nature, so what? The Christian claims God can do miracles, then why not a perpetual one that doesn’t affect anything else in his creation?
61 comments:
I may not be a Christian, but I play one on TV (I have to use the word "may" because there is a school of thought out there that maintains: "once saved always saved"). I see two issues for God here: one, His interfering with His rules of nature; two, His interfering with free will. I'll get esoteric and connect them shortly. God created people with free will, man chose mayhem and destruction (i.e. knowledge of good and evil). God won't interfere because then we'd all be automatons instead of freedom loving peeps. (I hope you all appreciate this, it's hard for me to write this and not shoot holes in it simultaneously). The higher law is free will, which when exercised to choose knowledge of good and evil, effected the laws of nature...there were no earthquakes before sin. but, but,but, "with God all things are possible" so couldn't God figure out a way to violate His laws without violating them? Sorry, I couldn't hold out. Oh, one other thought, "all things (only) work together for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose."
This whole question reminds me of the scene in the movie Back To The Future. Chris Lloyd makes a big deal about how he can't know the future (and thus change his present, even to save his own life)because if he interfers to help himself he could throw off the whole space time continuum. Well, turns out he does interfer to save his life, and when Michael Fox questions why, he states he considered the question and concluded "what the hell." funniest line in the whole movie.
paul
It is interesting because I was just thinking about this issue a bit the last few weeks.
For me the problem of evil (in terms of the suppossed difficulty for the Christian faith) is pretty much taken care of in the cross. When one begins to launch into the "Why doesn't God do this..." scenarios there is always the fact that according to the Christian faith God himself suferred the full extent of sin and evil on the cross. So, any woe-is-me talk from humanity is rendered somewhat less significant in light of the passion of Christ. Especially in light of the fact that Christ suferred as an innocent.
I know that the above probably won't be very meaningful for the contributors on this blog. But for me it takes the edge off of the "problem" when I realize that God suffered for the evils in the world.
A further thought is that Christianity is actually trying to do something about the problem. Atheism has no final reckoning for the Adolf Hitlers in the world. On the Christian account there is still ultimate justice and everyone is called on the carpet for anything they do to mess up humanity and to violate the rights of others.
Another thought here has to do w/ a previous post on this blog. For the life of me I can't find it! But the sum and substance was that we should not evaluate worldviews based upon the question of God. But in this post John is calling the problem of evil the "bedrock of atheism." The problem of evil is a reaction to the question of God and morality in the world. So, it is interesting that most philosophical worldviews really boil down to a response to the religious and moral questions. Just an interesting observation.
oops, left out the word "good" in my Bible quote. It's "all things work together for the good to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose." sorry, paul
opening post:
We can't consider the problem of evil to be the "bedrock of atheism." At most, we've shown the conditional that if gods exist, they have evil characteristics.
Paul:
It is possible for humans to have free will and for gods to intervene in the universe to alieviate suffering. Gods may not be able to stop free agents from acting, but certainly they have control over the physical environment. Where's Poseidon when you need him?
Jon:
Modern Christianity suffers from the schizophrenic, illogical belief that Christ is God and Christ is not God. Jesus was a communist bastard until the crowd of hippies that worshipped him deified him afterward. (Not all Christians historically did this, e.g. the Arians living outside of the Empire.)
The problem with Christianity is that there is "ultimate justice" in a magical spirit world, but no "justice" in this one. People like Saddam Hussein deserve justice in this one -- having gods torture him in spirit isn't as uplifting to me. In contrast, justice has been done to Mussolini, another man unwise to turn the other cheek to.
Jonathan,
"A further thought is that Christianity is trying to do something about the problem..."
I'm not sure I follow your line of reasoning here. How is this "doing" anything? Or do you mean Christianity is going to do something about the problem someday? Are you saying that the threat of having to answer for your actions after death is a deterrent? As opposed to, say, a legel justice system with laws that require people to answer for their 'sins' in this life? Or just ultimately, no one gets away with stuff? Do you believe that, in some way, Hitler being called on the carpet for his capers will in some way change the suffering he caused (i.e. he still did all those things ergo he got away with it)? The whole idea of "paying for ones actions" seems very insufficient to me because it doesn't really change the wrong, unless again, one thinks of it as a deterent.
paul
The problem of evil is not a new one- nor is the blame of God in response to evil. However, there are some thoughts I would like to share, if you wouldn't mind: God gives people free will- the choice to help or hurt, to have sex, to get an education, to read, to do drugs, or to believe in Him. Without free will there is no true love because love is an act of the heart that has nothing to do with external volition. If we accept these presuppostions then we must also realize something else: that mankind pays for the evil mankind chooses.
It isn't judgment, it is cause and effect. If you chose to have sex by that it means you chose to risk veneral disease or pregnancy that is a fact. It is not a vindictive, apathetic, or non-existent God.
Not to mention that anytime god "answers a prayer," that is also a.) interferring with "his natural laws" and b.) may be making a judgment on good and evil that people never realize...
I'm sorry, but if god did exist, but didn't do anything about the horribleness in the world, he is not god.
By the same token, though, would we be able to enjoy goodness in the world without the evil? Would we even realize what good was without the Saddam's and Dahmer's?
The Christian god needs evil to exist for good to be a known thing, or value. As evil also needs good. And though both can be fluid with the passing of cultures, time, and human philosophy, that, in a nutshell, is why there could never be a rapture, or even a heaven without sorrow.
Just my two cents. :D
D.M.,
a true atheist doesn't blame God for evil, a true atheist doesn't believe in God. Rather the argument is: if there were such a thing as a good God, could evil exist...or at least, why would evil exist?
In the Christian scenario the free will act of being born carries dire consequences. Since we are all born into sin, and, since "the wages of sin is death", there are going to be a lot of babies in hell if they don't exercise their free will and choose Jesus.
paul
D.M.
"God gives people free will."
Sure, there is evil that is the result of human action. But you're not looking at natural disasters and other impersonal events that Poseidon and Allah and so forth have the ability to stop, but do not. As John Stuart Mill put it,
"A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury."
*Think* about what this entails for all agents, natural and supernatural.
Jon & others, Does the cross explain why God did nothing in the examples I provided, including the Spanish Influenza pandemic, which killed off 20-80 million people in 1918, and why he'll do nothing about the coming bird flu pandemic which is estimated by some to potentially kill anywhere from 180-360 million people very soon?
How exactly does the cross of Jesus help us in our present pain? Why did Jesus die?, why? And how does the cross help people who end up in hell and also suffer intense pain here and now?
And does free will really help us when we're being beaten to death by someone with a baseball bat? Some "gifts" are better not given when the recipient of that gift will certainly abuse it. Would YOU give a razor blade to a 2-year old child?
A further question is what is free will to begin with? The Calvinst God doesn't really give us options, but decrees both our desires to do wrong, and also our actions, all the while stating that he doesn't want us to do those actions, which means the Bible is filled with lies from God about how he wants us to act, and hence totally untrustworthy even when it comes to what this God wants us to believe about him.
And if we have libertarian free will, then tell me what is different in heaven such that we have it there and we don't rebel? But if God could create a heaven where we have this freedom and we always do right, then why didn't he create that world in the first place?
I know, you'll punt to divine mystery. But what gives you the confidence to believe in this mysterious acting God in the first place, such that when you face these tough unanswerable questions you'll continue to believe rather than admitting such a belief in a good God makes no sense?
What if I was your father and beat you everyday, but also told you I was a good father? At what point would you say I was not a good father no matter what I told you?
Wow John,
You are such a thoughtful man of substance. You sure have alot of soul for an atheist. Thanks for sharing yourself.
paul
Jonathan Erdman,
Do two wrongs make a right? Does Jesus' suffering undo the suffering that God could have prevented, considering that God could have prevented both?
d.m.,
We obviously do not "freely choose" to suffer. Instead, God freely chooses to allow it, without preventing it, even though to do so would require infinitely less than a snap of God's fingers.
Why?
The point of Christianity, as I see it, is not to explain evil but to overcome it. Personally, I think it matters little if a worldview can explain the origins of evil and suffering. To explain evil does little more than to provide a person, perhaps an academic type, with little intellectual equity. But I can't really see how that is of much use to most people outside of the ivory towers!
Scripture never really tries to explain the origins of evil. The focus is on how we will respond to the reality of evil. Few will despute that there is evil in the world, and that is what turns our attention to the problem of how to deal with it. If I can explain the origins of evil but do nothing about it how have I really accomplished anything?
Paul: You sure have alot of soul for an atheist.
Thanks! I think.
I know that Mr. Loftus does not want to hear my presuppositional argument (probably because he can't respond to it), so I will simply reply with a relativist claim instead.
There is no such thing as objective evil. Evil is defined by individuals who decide for themselves that action X is "evil" and action Y is "good." Evil, therefore, is subjective and thus relative to the individuals involved.
Therefore, if God determines that disease is good then for God it is good that disease occurs on Earth. If people determine that it is evil, then for people is is evil that disease occurs.
What is evil for the person is not evil for God; thus the "problem" of evil is only a problem of subjectivity. Just because we don't like what God has chosen to be good or evil does not mean that our subjectivist view results in some kind of inherent contradiction within God Himself. If God thinks it good, then God thinks it's good; if we disagree, we disagree--but we don't have any reason to say that our view must be right and His view must be wrong, because both are simply subjective ideas relative to our own individual frameworks of morality.
Frankly, to say that something is evil for both man and God, one must be able to demonstrate the transcendent nature of morality. In other words, you must make the claim that evil is something more than just a subjective idea defined by various cultures however they see fit.
So tell me why God's morality has to match yours. If you can't, then the "problem" of evil is pointless rhetoric.
Calvindude, yes I wondered whether you'd comment here. But what we're talking about is human suffering, not some nebulous concept of evil that must be defined before we can experience suffering. Suffering. There's a lot of it. And most all of it, especially the darkest human events, could have been averted by God's hidden hand. It's very very painful to those who experience it, and it does not take any concept to know it when you experience it.
You're job at this point, is to show how this pointless human suffering is "good." Can you explain why your God does nothing? Can you?
Jonathan and Calvindude,
Perhaps reading Isa 45:7 would help?
The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these. (NASB)
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things. (NIV)
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (KJV)
So, we are all in agreement that God sets in motion a course of events that even God describes as evil? Are we?
If yes, then answer the post's questions about how a good God (as juxtaposed against this standard of admitted evil) could allow evil and suffering.
If no, then please explain how if even God admits the course of events that God sets in motion are "evil" that atheists are responsible for "explaining evil", or defining it, or giving a basis for its foundation.
As a Christian, I always heard, (in contradiction with those verses so appropriately listed above by Brother Danny) 'God doesn't cause evil, he simply allows it.'
Even as a Christian, I knew that God's passivity that 'allowed' the evil was an ‘active’ choice by on all powerful God.
This may be too simple for the logic of the learned theologian... or too horrid of an idea to accept. This idea of God being the source of evil goes against the 'all loving and merciful' imagination that is so often presented, therefore a theist has no choice but to compromise the other static truth of an inerrant 'word of God.' Or, we could just hit the 'God is a mystery' button and stop the entire dialog in the wonder of it all. :-)
If God always works through the natural processes of the world, then the need for any outside deity is eliminated.
If this God is eternally and infinitely omnipresent, then the personality of God is an impossibility, just as if everything were blue, there would be nothing that is 'blue' for color is only known by it's distinction from other colors. If there be a place, space, or realm where 'God' doesn't reside, than 'He' ceases to be the infinite everything that 'He' is claimed to be.
But then again... 'nothing is impossible with God' except (among a myriad of other boxes the ‘almighty’ has painted himself into) going against the horror that he has actively chosen to be passive about. This is understandable since if everything was created by this all loving God, including sin and evil, then wouldn't he obviously want people murdered, teenagers raped, drunk drivers killing pregnant mothers, and children being stolen away from their parents never to return. OR maybe the temporary horror of today and the 98% of all humanity that has ever lived that will be eternally tormented are worth the value of the lucky 2% of all mankind that get to be in eternal bliss by god’s deliberate design and active choice. Does God really want us to have his character? Hmmmm…
Christian... if God didn't create the sin and evil and no one but God can create something out of nothing, then what is its origin?
...hey... now would be a great time to hit the 'god is a mystery'(giam) button! :-)
BTW, an atheist (by definition) is an identity that claims the lack of belief and at it's most simple root doesn't make a claim of 'what is', but only 'what is not.' This classification of non-belief only could come into being if an idea is first presented to be denied. A theist can exist without an atheist, but an atheist cannot exist without the theist. So if you ask why an atheist has anything to say, realize that it is a claim of unbelief pertaining to a claim made by another and is not (in its most rudimentary definition) offering anything.
By way of example...When a salesman comes to the door to sell a set of potato peelers, it is not the prospects burden to sell the salesman on why he doesn't believe the man. It is naturally the salesman's job to convince the 'a-peeler' why he should be a 'peeler'
One cannot dis-prove what is not. One can only attempt to prove what is and if the arguments presented can be continuously refuted, then the salesman still has some work to do. ;-)
Sorry to join the discussion late.
D.M. said: It isn't judgment, it is cause and effect. If you chose to have sex by that it means you chose to risk veneral disease or pregnancy that is a fact. It is not a vindictive, apathetic, or non-existent God.
But why even have venereal disease in the first place? Is God not responsible for the existence of venereal disease? If so, there must be a reason he created it and made it behave the way it does. I'm trying to think of a positive for venereal disease but I'm drawing a blank.
CalvinDude said: If God thinks it good, then God thinks it's good; if we disagree, we disagree--but we don't have any reason to say that our view must be right and His view must be wrong, because both are simply subjective ideas relative to our own individual frameworks of morality.
I'm not a religious scholar, so forgive me if I don't understand your argument completely. If I follow your reasoning, then we can make no value judgements on what God thinks is good or evil because our notions of good and evil are completely subjective and thus we have know way of knowing what God thinks is good or evil. If this is the case, then even if God says something is good or evil, we cannot determine if it is actually good or evil because we have no way of knowing if what he said is good or evil in the first place (for example, he could really be evil and lying to us but we have no way of knowing it because our subjectivity keeps us from knowing whether we are right or he is wrong).
So am I reading you correctly? Can we really not make a value judgement about whether God is good or evil?
John..the complement was legit, i just can't resist irony.
Calvindude:
"Therefore if God determines that disease is good then for God it is good that disease is on the earth"
does this mean that when you or a family member gets a disease that you don't go to a doctor to seek remedy because that would be thwarting/resisting what God has determined is good?
paul
John wrote:
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You're job at this point, is to show how this pointless human suffering is "good." Can you explain why your God does nothing? Can you?
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A) How do you know any suffering is "pointless"? (Although, yes, I would say from an atheistic standpoint it would be pointless because everything is ultimately pointless in atheism.)
B) Again, as I stated in my above argument (taking the relativist position), "good" is a subjective term and thus what is "good" for one person may not be "good" for another. In such a case, it is (to use your term) pointless to assign the subjective value of "good" or "evil" to something as if it were objectively the case.
C) Who says that God does "nothing"? That God doesn't do what you want Him to do is a very different thing from saying that God does nothing at all.
D) None of what you stated provides a response to the relativist claim (moral relativism being the most common philosophy in America today, perhaps you would like to address this point). If "good" and "evil" are subjective labels that do not reference objective content, then you must first demonstrate why God has to hold to the same definition of "good" and "evil" that you hold to or else, as I stated, this is all pointless rhetoric.
Bruce wrote:
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I'm not a religious scholar, so forgive me if I don't understand your argument completely.
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I was not using a religious argument. I was using a relativistic argument.
Bruce wrote:
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If I follow your reasoning, then we can make no value judgements on what God thinks is good or evil because our notions of good and evil are completely subjective and thus we have know way of knowing what God thinks is good or evil.
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According to the relativist argument, we can make no "value judgements" on what God thinks is good or evil, yes. However, that does not mean we have no way of knowing what God thinks is good or evil. God could tell us what He considers to be good and evil (just as I could tell you what I consider to be good and evil). We can agree or disagree with His ideas, but we can only subjectively call His ideas of morality "good" or "evil."
Bruce wrote:
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If this is the case, then even if God says something is good or evil, we cannot determine if it is actually good or evil because we have no way of knowing if what he said is good or evil in the first place
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Yes, and that's the point of the relativist argument. There is no objective morality, so there is no way to say that God actually is or is not good or evil.
Paul wrote:
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does this mean that when you or a family member gets a disease that you don't go to a doctor to seek remedy because that would be thwarting/resisting what God has determined is good?
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That is to ignore the whole point of the relativist argument, which is that it doesn't matter what I (or God) determines is good or evil. There is nothing actually good or evil. Thus, it is neither good nor evil to follow what God says; it is neither good nor evil that God wants whatever He wants; it is neither good nor evil to go to a doctor or to not go to a doctor.
So again, unless it can be demonstrated that there is a morality that even God must hold to (and then it needs to be shown that God does not hold to that morality), it is pointless to even begin to talk about the problem of evil.
CalvinDude,
I see that you still haven't learned how to use the concepts "objective" and "subjective." If I say an object is moving without reference to a spatio-temporal framework, am I being "subjective"? How do you know that moral judgments are not the same?
Anyway, ignore those questions. Your pathetic attempts at answering them in the past are sufficient.
The noticeable omission above is a response to BrotherDanny and his reference to Isaiah 45:7 (or a companion passage, Lamentations 3:38--"Is it not from the mouth of the Most High That both good and ill go forth?". If your god says that he is sending "evil" or "ill" or however else he wants to phrase it, who are we to disagree.
So, are we to believe you that everything that god sends is good or are we to believe the words your Bible attributes to your own god that he also sends calamity and evil?
Calvindude: A) How do you know any suffering is "pointless"?
What is the point to Hitler's or Saddam Husein's atrocities to those involved? What was the point of the Spanish Influenza of 1918, and what will the point be to the millions upon millions of deaths as the result of the upcoming bird flu? So many people will end up fatherless, motherless, and childless as the result of it. Can you please offer me some realistic clues here? And sure, we can always see some good out of every evil. We might have learned a few things from the Holocaust, for instance, or the Spanish Flu. And sure, a minority of those involved became stronger as a result of these evils. But if we were to compare any of the lives involved with what their lives could have been, and asked them to choose, you know what they would choose....life and health. And those who died early, you know what they would say too.
The reason I know there is pointless evil is because that's how I judge the above events, and as Babinski quoted Voltaire in his comments on Calvinism, you're asking me to walk without using my feet and speak without using my mouth, if you expect me to judge otherwise.
C) Who says that God does "nothing"? That God doesn't do what you want Him to do is a very different thing from saying that God does nothing at all.
Then YOU tell me...what did God to avert the evils I have mentioned in this post? And let's say he did do something, although about that there is absolutely no evidence, so what? He did nothing to stop the human suffering. It came...and it came...and it came.
You believe what you do based upon a book claimed to be written by inspired men containing reports of miracles, redemption, and of eternal life...a book that was written and re-written by superstitious people living in a superstitious age by the victors in the prophetic and the apostolic doctrinal wars.
And yet, you prefer to believe this book when the evidence of evil stares you in the face every single day.
Your arguments are ineffective, dull, and non-responsive to human suffering. They are so wrong that it amazes me you keep kicking against the goads...(i.e., the evidence). I even wonder if deep down inside you wonder about this but are afraid of actually considering the possibility that you are wrong, because of fear
Your God is an absolutely horrible God. You might as well be a serf in a kingdom where the king regularly rapes your women, takes people away in the night without explanation (never to be seen again), beats you regularly, kills off your father, steals from your farm, and demands that you call him "good" and worship him for letting you stay alive in hopes that someday you will join him inside his castle, while most everyone you know will be slowly tortured to death over the next few years, and who will ask that you enjoy seeing their suffering.
Think about it.
exbeliever,
On the contrary, it is you who does not understand the difference between the subjective and the objective. Thus: "If I say an object is moving without reference to a spatio-temporal framework, am I being 'subjective'?" -- Yes. In point of fact, you might want to look at my response to your whole idea of "objective motion" here-> http://calvindude.com/dude/blog/2006/04/objective-movement/
Let me put it simply for you. Objective truth is truth that is dependent upon the object. Subjective truth is truth that is dependent upon the subject. When you say something is moving without providing a spatio-temporal framework, your truth statement is based on the subjective experience and not on objective reality. Only if you include the spatio-temporal framework can you begin to make objective claims, because objective truth includes the spatio-temporal framework that is in use.
"How do you know that moral judgments are not the same?" <-- Why should I have to prove a negative? How about you prove that they are the same?
"If your god says that he is sending "evil" or "ill" or however else he wants to phrase it, who are we to disagree."
Once again you ignore the argument I put forward and are instead arguing against something else completely. Can you answer the relativist argument or not?
When I provide my presuppositional argument, then you can ask these questions. But my argument thus far doesn't even need the Bible to be true, let alone God to even actually exist. Are you going to deal with that argument or not?
John wrote:
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Your God is an absolutely horrible God.
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I have two ways I can take this statement. John is either saying this subjectively or objectively. If it is subjective, then John is simply saying that in his opinion God is an absolutely horrible God. To which I would respond, in my opinion God is not an absolutley horrible God. My claim has just as much weight as his claim does because they are both subjective notions.
If, on the other hand, John is trying to say that it is true for both him and me that God is an absolutely horrible God, then John is claiming there must be some kind of morality that is true for both him and for me. What is this morality, John? Why must I determine that God is an absolutley horrible God just because you do?
Again, are you going to address the relativistic argument or not? If morality is relativistic, would it not be the case that it's pointless to say God is evil?
CalvinDude wrote:
that's the point of the relativist argument. There is no objective morality, so there is no way to say that God actually is or is not good or evil.
Thanks for clarifying that. Now I have a good response whenever someone says that "God loves me".
I can't figure you out though. Are you in support of this argument or do you think that you can indeed know that God is good?
Listen up Calvindude, for the sake of a hypothetical experiment alone, and not indicative of any anger I have toward you, let me beat you to a bloody pulp. Let me kill your father and rape your mother. [I would not even hurt a puppy dog.] But tell me you liked it. Tell me that what I did was good. Tell me you're better off because I did it.
Oh, that's right, you will won't you, or at least you'll try. Hmmmm. Such a warped notion of morality you have. Evil is good. Good is evil. And you base this notion on the superstitious writings of ancient people, when I take what I see at face value?
Now you fault me for having a normal common sense humane type of morality. Hmmm. I fault you for believing fairy tales. But I believe your are too blinded (and dense) to see what I mean.
By the way, I teach ethics and I believe ethical relativism cannot be refuted, even though I am not an ethical relativist. There is so much I could say about relativism. From your comments I don't think you have really tried to understand it.
This is a confusing argument for sure!
All of the suffereing you mention is human caused. If you decide to beat calvindude to a bloody pulp, that is you making an evil choice and inflicting upon
someone else. So is God suposse to stop this behavior completly? I'm not sure I really follow what the stance is here on evil and God. It seems that because evil exsists our free will becomes null and void. Are we turning the statement of the devil made me do it to God made me do it? Sure would be humane to not have any suffereing at all but we a human and we do it to ourselves. NONE of the suffering you mentioned is GOd inflicted period. We do have free will and can exercise free will and this life just ain't fair. If God is to remove all suffering then he must remove free will and we are then unable to do what we want but only what he wants.
John wrote:
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Listen up Calvindude, for the sake of a hypothetical experiment alone, and not indicative of any anger I have toward you, let me beat you to a bloody pulp.
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For the sake of a hypothetical experiment, and not indicative of any ability on your part, I will suppose you actually were able to do so.
John wrote:
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But tell me you liked it.
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I don't like broccoli. Does that make it evil?
John wrote:
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Tell me that what I did was good.
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A) You have not defined "good."
B) Ignoring that, from a moral relative perspective, I would not think it is good that you did that; but you might think it was good that you did (after all, it was an attempt to prove your point, which is "good" in your book, isn't it?).
Regardless, our likes cannot make objective morality. Our likes can only result in subjective claims.
John wrote:
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Tell me you're better off because I did it.
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A) So morality is totally self-focused. Good and evil are defined by whether or not I am better off. This, again, is subjectivism.
B) Even if I am not better off because you did it, you might be better off because you did it (hey, you've released some pent up anger and blown off some steam, right?). If it is "evil" for me but "good" for you, is the action itself actually one or the other?
John wrote:
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Such a warped notion of morality you have.
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The only way that this position can be considered "warped" is if you have an objective standard by which you can judge my position and determine that it is "warped." You are claiming to know such a standard, John. Do you even realize that?
John wrote:
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Evil is good. Good is evil. And you base this notion on the superstitious writings of ancient people, when I take what I see at face value?
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A) I do not base it off "superstitious writings of ancient people." I base it off the prevailing philosophy of moral relativism. Again, my argument has nothing to do with religion at all. I am arguing from a purely relativistic standpoint.
B) "Face value" is a relativistic term. What you take at "face value" might not be what I take at "face value."
John wrote:
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Now you fault me for having a normal common sense humane type of morality.
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I do not fault you for having any morality at all. I fault you for trying to force your morality on me when I do not accept it.
John wrote:
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By the way, I teach ethics and I believe ethical relativism cannot be refuted, even though I am not an ethical relativist. There is so much I could say about relativism. From your comments I don't think you have really tried to understand it.
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"I teach this for a living, but I'm not going to bother explaining it to you. Just take my word for it because I'm John Loftus."
Rich,
You are surely not saying that natural disasters are my fault? That cancer is? AIDS?
How far does human freedom of choice extend, Rich? Obviously, we can't overcome physical laws. I can't fly just because I want to. Those same laws of the universe could have been restricted further to prevent 99.9999% of human suffering.
The burden of the theist is to refute the following:
1) the universe in its totality exists with some sum amount of pain, suffering, and evil (E)
2) God is omnipotent
3) God thus could have created the entire universe as it is (A), not created it at all (N), or influenced the random/chance events of the universe (those outside of human choice, eg natural disasters, pathogens) such that A did not exist, and instead, a universe existed with a smaller E-value, call this universe B
4) Because A exists and not N or B, no all-good God exists
Think about it.
Theists have to assert that the present universe is the best possible universe for God to allow, or that God does create and allow evil (but is allowed to, since God is God) and thus is not "all good".
I want to start a thread on free will next.
Calvindude, you argue as if you are a young person, perhaps under 25 years, who has had some reading experience in only one way of looking at things. I was once there. You lack understanding, and you're not worth my time.
John,
Yeah, that's exactly why I'm able to refute you from a philosophical standpoint (relativism) that I don't even hold to. Because I only know "one way of looking at things."
But instead of that, how about let's look at what we've learned through our discussion thus far. I have demonstrated that if morality is subjective, the problem of evil isn't a problem at all. You even admitted that it is impossible for you to refute the relativistic argument.
Therefore, if you are insisting that the problem of evil is really a problem then you are insisting that there must be an objective morality. This objective morality must be true for not only humans, but God as well. That means you are arguing not only for a basic human morality, but for a perfect ideal of morality. This perfect ideal transcends even deity, such that you can judge deity by this moral ideal.
That's a pretty strong moral stand, John. Care to provide evidence backing up your moral claims?
CalvinDude,
So when the Bible says that God will bring about evil (see earlier quotes), and Christians say that God is good, those terms are meaningless? The Bible's words have no meaning? The assertion that God is good is nonsensical?
I have heard Christians try to argue that the argument from evil as presented by a nonbeliever is incoherent before. But is it not the case that Christians themselves say there are objective moral standards (the Euthyphro Dilemma notwithstanding)? And if one measures God by those standards, then clearly one cannot call Him 'good'.
Surely it is the Christian worldview which is therefore incoherent.
yours,
highlander65
CalvinDude wrote: Frankly, to say that something is evil for both man and God, one must be able to demonstrate the transcendent nature of morality. In other words, you must make the claim that evil is something more than just a subjective idea defined by various cultures however they see fit.
Anonymous above beat me to the punch, but I'm going to add my two cents anyway. The "problem of evil" is based on the assumption that there is a God, and I think it is fair in this case to assume that John meant the Christian God. I'm no religious scholar, but from what I've heard, the Christian God has sovereignty over all of existence. Therefore, he is the ultimate authority on what is evil. So, assuming a Christian God exists, then there is no subjectivity about good and evil down here on earth because good and evil are defined by God and what he says goes (at least this is what my Christian friends tell me).
So, we ARE making the claim that evil is something more than just a subjective idea defined by various cultures however they see fit. It is implicit in the assumption that God exists. We have fullfilled your requirement for demonstrating the "transcendent nature of morality" because we are assuming that it exists in God. We are granting you your God's existence. We are playing by your God's rules.
If you want to change the definition of God, feel free, but please let us in on what it is.
a few thoughts (with typos now corrected):
Can an 'eternal' God fit into a spation 'temporal' framework?
Isn't the 'morality' proposed in the bible relativistic? e.g. the unchanging God of leviticus says lobsters an abomination, the new testatment God says it's good stuff (i agree with the second God based on my experience). Jesus (i.e. God incarnate) said: 'I used to say, an eye for an eye, but now I say turn the other cheek.' Adultery (read multiple wives and concubines) used to be okay. The chosen race of God was started that way. Incest used to be okay, didn't Cain marry his sister (where else did she come from?) the examples are plethora. I guess it's all relative.
paul
okay, you can all laugh...i'm not fixing it again!!
paul
Listen, Idiotdude, I'll waste my time one last time with you. You are probably too dense (or blinded) to understand what I'm saying.
Even relativists can have nearly universal agreement on ethics. Western relativists could potentially all agree that the amount of human suffering in the world, and in some particular cases is bad.
Say someone comes up from behind an innocent person and hits him on the back of the head with a hammer. Not hard enough to make them unconscious, but hard enough to crack their skull. This person falls on the concrete below and hits his head a second time. And as he's lying there bleeding to death, people gather around. Almost every one of them, especially his mother and wife are shocked and say this was uncalled for, and bad. But you come around and say, "no, this is good." And you praise God and ask people to give you high five's for God's goodness.
Who's the weirdo here? Who's out of touch with reality? Who lives in a fantasy world?
I have demonstrated that if morality is subjective, the problem of evil isn't a problem at all.
If you think you have demonstrated this, then you lack a great deal of sense. We’re talking about intense pain and suffering—something we don’t need any concepts to understand.
You even admitted that it is impossible for you to refute the relativistic argument.
So? How does this apply to anything you have written? The relativist argument presupposes God doesn't exist, stupid.
Therefore, if you are insisting that the problem of evil is really a problem then you are insisting that there must be an objective morality.
The problem of human suffering does not entail that anyone has a concept of what evil is. I'm talking about pain, and as humans with bodies we feel it and sense it. Even mental anguish is physical.
This objective morality must be true for not only humans, but God as well.
Whatever my particular morality is, I can still claim that God is not a moral Being because I'm comparing what I see him do with my morality, that's all I can do, and I do it. I can also compare what he supposedly commands us to do in the Bible with his own actions. And I can compare what I do with what he himself claims he does, and he claims he does evil (Isaiah 45:7)
That means you are arguing not only for a basic human morality, but for a perfect ideal of morality.
Nope. I'm saying that when the idea of your God is judged by my morality he fails the test of my morality, and that’s all I can do. I can only walk with me feet and talk with my mouth. What you need to show is that either my morality is wrong or that your God exists (neither of which you have done).
This perfect ideal transcends even deity, such that you can judge deity by this moral ideal.
But your Deity doesn't exist.
There is no way God can justify what he does to his creatures every single day of the week, except by saying that everything that happens is good. But from our perspective everything that happens is not good. Therefore we doubt the existence of this God.
You start by believing what ancient superstitious people believed about God, and even though there is an internal dispute between Christians themselves on the Calvinistic God you believe in, you still believe you are correct about this God. Then you say that this God's behavior is good, because you believe he does it all and because he says it's all good. You base your belief upon historical findings, which are always subject to doubt, and you compare that belief to the things we see and experience everyday, along with the questions we can ask of what we see and experience.
I, on the other hand, look at this world and claim that with the amount and kinds of suffering in this world that God's hidden hand could have easily prevented but didn't, that such a good God that you believe in does not exist.
You say I cannot say that if relativism is true. But a relativist can argue against what other people do to them....they do all of the time. They can certainly say to people (or God) “don't hurt me, I don't like it!” There is no inconsistency here.
Well bro Danny if the shoe fits?
Kidding aside now sorry about that its my smart ass nature that I can't sometimes overcome. i didn't actually say Danny was the cause of aids, cancer, natural disasters now did I? No
Lets study this a bit. Natural disasters as in mud slides? Could they be caused because we continually carve into mountainsides to build our mansions higher and higher? Fires? Started by humans alot, alot lighning, then burns away the vegetation causing what? mudslides. Are hurricanes more frequent and stronger because of global warming caused by us? good possibility.
Earth quakes are part of the natural unhuman caused disasters but sometimes we build in places that have frequent ones, maybe by choice maybe not? How about cancer? our genetic makeup is a big factor in cancer but not the only one, smoking-human caused, second hand smoke-human caused, cell phones-human made, big high power lines-human caused, diet- human caused. Seems to me like there is plenty of human caused suffering at the hands of cancer. It is believed by some that diet plays the turning point roll in cancer prevention. There are studies to indicate that diets rich in vitamin B-17 have a zero cancer rate. so maybe while it is a creation of God it is propagated by us. Aids was the same, started in a man and spread through homosexual activity, thats how it began according to the CDC.
My point being Danny is that creation can have both evil and good properties and we choose how to use them. The internet is a great tool for good and evil. Cars are a great invention and tool for us as well as an evil tool-car bombs for example. Science gave us chemicals and some have use them for genacide, was that God or human caused suffering? I could go on but I think you get the idea.
So are you trying to say then that God is solely responsible for human suffering just because it exists and he could stop it?
While I don't blame Danny personally for any of the human suffering I do blame mankind for most of it. We have choices(free will) to exercise and we do, but we don't like bad cosequences.
Blame The christian God for all if you must but I think there is alot of evidence to support mankind being our own worst enemy.
I would like to know from you what 0.0001% of human sufferingyou refer to?
I thought we as humans have total freedom of choice. You say you can't fly? hop aboard an airplane or helicopter. Depends on how you look at things. So if I gather your meaning correctly universal laws are why humans suffer and for no other reason?
"Those same laws of the universe could have been restricted further to prevent 99.9999% of human suffering."
This means we have freedom of choice about 0.0001% of what happens to us right?
I'm glad to see that some of you here almost get it.
Bruce wrote:
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The "problem of evil" is based on the assumption that there is a God, and I think it is fair in this case to assume that John meant the Christian God.
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And this is where you almost get it. If John is arguing about the Christian God, then John must allow the entirety of the Christian position to be looked at. But that's not what you atheists do in the Problem of Evil. What you do is you allow part of the Christian worldview (a claim of objective morality) but not the entirety of the Christian worldview (how the objective morality is defined) and then claim there is a contradiction in Christianity.
John as much as admits it when he says:
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I'm saying that when the idea of your God is judged by my morality he fails the test of my morality, and that’s all I can do.
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Well guess what--the Christian worldview isn't interested in John's relativistic morality. John's morality is NOT Christian morality (and neither Christians nor John would disagree with that). Thus, it demonstrates no contradiction at all to say that the Christian God violates John's morality.
By the way, John, you said: "What you need to show is that either my morality is wrong ... ". NO. What YOU need to do is show your morality is RIGHT. I am under no obligation to disprove your morality. You are the one asserting it, not me.
And no, I'm not "shirking" the demonstrating God exists part. But God's existence has nothing to do with the Problem of Evil, because the Problem of Evil is based off of a problem in atheism not in a problem with God's existence.
Gee Paul,
that was an astute observation that much of the morality in the bible is relativistic. Here's one to add to that, Acts 17:30 says:
"In times past God overlooked such ignorance [idolatry], but now he commands all people everywhere to repent." maybe i didn't spell it out before. "God" is changing what is moral based on the time, situation. i.e. before, God winked at the 'immorality' of idolatry because back then they were "ignorant." But things have changed and so has God, now He expects people to turn away from idolatry.
paul
I haven't read all of this converation but one observation about the existence of evil is that certain human characteristics which we value couldn't exist without it. Such qualities as courage, compassion, faith couldn't exist in a perfect world.
CalvinDude: What you do is you allow part of the Christian worldview (a claim of objective morality) but not the entirety of the Christian worldview (how the objective morality is defined) and then claim there is a contradiction in Christianity.
I thought the Bible was God's definition of morality? Most Christians I know insist that morality is defined by God and that God demands we conform to his morality or suffer the consequences. Granted, God contradicts himself a lot, speaks in ways which are not always clear and doesn't address a lot of the moral concerns of today, but as Brother Danny pointed out earlier, God seems to consider himself the ultimate authority on good and evil.
If we can't take God at his word, then I guess that Bible you cling to for guidance is worthless. If God doesn't define morality, then Christians have no objective definition of morality and they are just as relativistic as the rest of us. That is good to know, because I'm tired of them always telling me what to do.
God's existence has nothing to do with the Problem of Evil, because the Problem of Evil is based off of a problem in atheism not in a problem with God's existence.
Dude, we are just going by what we hear from Christians and read in the Bible.
1. God is all powerfull
2. God defines morality
3. God is good
To be able to say that "God is good" means that we have to know what "good" is. If we can't truly know what God considers to be good (i.e. he doesn't define morality), then Christians have no basis to claim that God is good. The best they could do is to say that "our best guess is that God is good, but we could be wrong".
If this is really the case, then I'll let you keep number one above, but you have to give back two and three. So now the only thing we know about God is
1. God is all powerfull
If this is your definition of God, then I agree, we have no problem of evil concerning God because we don't know anything about God other than he can do whatever he wants. But I have yet to stumble upon a Christian who holds that view. In fact, it is generally Christians who are criticizing us atheists for not having an objective morality.
You seem to want to have your Christian God but deny the very properties that make him God.
Calvindude,
If morality is relative, then relatively speaking, I believe raping women is evil.
God is omnipotent though, so he knows that by commanding his followers to rape women, I will view him as evil.
But he does command his followers to rape women (multiple times) and because of that I can fairly say that he is evil (relatively speaking.)
Supposedly, he gave me the free will to think that emotionally and physically traumatizing a fellow human is an "evil" thing. I use the free will that he gave me to come to the conclusion that raping is "evil".
But once again, he is omnipotent and knows that by ordering his followers to rape women he is going to push me away from him.
My question, I guess, would be: what kind of god purposely pushes his "children" away?
Or once again, maybe it's all a "test".
Bruce wrote:
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I thought the Bible was God's definition of morality?
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A) The Bible is God's revelation to man. It is not a dictionary.
B) The moral commands in the Bible are God's commands to people. In other words, "You shall not murder" is specifically addressed to the "you." "You" are the people created by God, not God Himself. Thus, the moral commands in Scripture are commands that people must obey and says nothing about the morality of God Himself.
C) God has the right to assign rules for us to obey, even if said rules are arbitrary (although I do not believe they are). Romans 9:21 says: "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?" God created people; God can set the rules by which people ought to act.
As a result, even if God wills and decrees that people disobey His commands--indeed, even if God forced them to disobey His commands (something I am not arguing actually happens, mind you)--God would still not violate any commandment and He would still not be unjust in doing what He said He would do to people who violated said laws.
So the Bible is God's rules for us; it is not God's rules for God.
Bruce wrote:
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If God doesn't define morality, then Christians have no objective definition of morality and they are just as relativistic as the rest of us.
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I would go farther than that. If God does not define morality, then there is no such thing as objective morality period. Objective morality must be able to transcend the subject involved. If it does not do so, it is not objective. The only way for any objective morality to come about is if there is something outside the individuals that dictates the moral code.
This is true for us even if God does not follow His own laws for us. God exists transcendently to us. God has the ability to make commandments for every single person to follow. Thus, what God commands is objectively true simply because God commands it of everyone. Whether God "obeys" His own commands or not is irrelevant in determining whether or not His commands are objective. God could be theoretically purely evil and still command us to be good and then punish us for not being good, and that would mean our morality is objective and objectively enforced.
Bruce wrote:
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To be able to say that "God is good" means that we have to know what "good" is.
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And just what is good, Bruce?
The fact of the matter is that "good" is used in several different ways. When God created the universe, He declared it good. Then he declared it was not good for man to be alone--and this before there was any sin, so there was no breaking of any commandment. How is it possible that God can call all creation good but then say that a part of it was not good? Because the "good" referred to in all creation is a different "good" than what is "good" for man. Creation was declared "good" because it was exactly as God wanted it to be at that point in time; it came into existence as He declared it and even though He was not finished yet, it was exactly as He had intended thus far. Man being alone was declared "not good" because God intended for man to have a companion; God was not yet finished, and He wanted man to know that man needed woman. Thus, while creation was good since it was exactly as God intended at that point, man was not good until God gave him Eve.
But let us look beyond even that. Let us ask what the greatest possible good might be. We know that "greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." We also know that "God demonstrates His love for us in this, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." People will often die for others whom they consider good people; but who would die for sinners? How great is the love necessary for you to willingly die for those who hate you?
Now, if that kind of love could not happen apart from the existence of sin in the world, is it not feasible that perhaps God considered it a greater good to ordain evil such that He might display how great His capacity for love is? Even if we say that we would not choose this, is it not possible to say that God does consider it a greater good to send His Son to die for the sins of mankind than to restrain people from sinning altogether? And if God does consider it a greater good, then that means God's actions in allowing (or even "forcing") evil are for a good purpose.
The fact is that we don't have to "know" what is "good" or not in order to say that God is good. All we have to do is trust that God is right when He says He is good.
God is good because He is exactly as He intends to be. God doesn't change, so He is eternally good. We can't view Him as "good" in the same way that we view the world, though. He is good based on Himself, not based on us.
The fact is that we don't have to "know" what is "good" or not in order to say that God is good. All we have to do is trust that God is right when He says He is good.
God is good because He is exactly as He intends to be. God doesn't change, so He is eternally good. We can't view Him as "good" in the same way that we view the world, though. He is good based on Himself, not based on us.
And here we cut to the heart of the nonsense. God is no more "good" than "awoeiwqwwdkwmd". Good itself becomes nonsense -- we can't use any apprehensible standards by which to judge God.
Let's make this a few simple questions:
1) is it wrong for God to do anything, Calvindude?
2) If God is good, regardless of our ability to judge it, then how can God ever be "wrong"? Are we not a priori claiming that God cannot do wrong [be evil]?
3) Is it wrong for people to kill small children, Calvindude? Yes or no?
4) Is it wrong for God to order people to kill small children, Calvindude? Yes or no?
5) If 3 = yes, 4 = no, then have we not shown that using the standard of morality you call "objective" [when you say it transcends the subject] God is in fact "evil" or "bad" or "wrong"?
6) Is your morality not clearly relative? Eg, killing a child is only bad if God doesn't tell you to. And, if this is true, you need to fly down to Texas to defend the woman who cut off her infant child's arms with a kitchen knife because God told her to. It isn't wrong, correct?
CalvinDude wrote:
The Bible is God's revelation to man. It is not a dictionary.
I think you need to define your terms here. I consider a dictionary to be an authority on the meaning of words. Likewise, most Christians I know consider the bible to be THE authority on morality. If Christians can't use the bible as their authority for morality, if they have to go elsewhere to determine right from wrong, then they can't claim that they have a monopoly on morality, because they are just as dependent on sources outside of bible as we atheists are. If the bible is merely one of many useful suggestions for morality but does not have to be taken literally and does not provide all the answers, then I don't think you will get any disagreement here, as even atheists can find some good moral teachings in the bible.
The fact is that we don't have to "know" what is "good" or not in order to say that God is good. All we have to do is trust that God is right when He says He is good.
Agreed, faith is all about not knowing, but rather just blind trust.
God is good because He is exactly as He intends to be. God doesn't change, so He is eternally good. We can't view Him as "good" in the same way that we view the world, though. He is good based on Himself, not based on us.
Your logic reminds me of when I was a child and didn't want to obey my parents. I would ask "Why do I have to do it?" and my dad would answer "Because I said so". If I understand you correctly, this seems to be our relationship with God (and that's fine if that's the way that God wants it).
But you cannot make any value judgements about my dad based on "because I said so". I can't go around saying "Dad is good" based merely on the fact that I have to do everything he commands. He has the perfect right to consider everything he commands as being "good" if he wants to, but I certainly cannot say that. Unless he lets me in on how good and evil work, I have no basis for knowing if his commands are good or evil, only that they are. Again, that's fine if that's the way he wants it. But if my dad wants me to be able to determine whether he is good or evil or whether his commands are good or evil, then he is going to have to let me in on the secret.
So we can't look to the bible for moral truth and God continues to keep it a secret from us for some reason. I guess we all (Christian and atheist) are waiting for God to give us a sign? You seem to have tired of waiting and instead have decided to accept your version of God on faith. That's fine, but don't expect to be able to make a rational argument for your beliefs. Me on the other hand, I think I'll keep waiting.
Since you guys are still missing my point, let me use a different example.
Define a "meter." Oh, and you're not allowed to simply hold up a meter-stick and say, "This is a meter" because that would be the same thing as holding up a meter-stick and saying "awoeiwqwwdkwmd." I mean, how could we possibly know what "meter" means just because a meter-stick is there? How could we possibly use that to actually define the term "meter"? Such is absurd! Why, you might as well try to say, "God is good!" and think it has meaning.
CalvinDude: Define a "meter."
Dude, a meter is an entirely different thing than evil. A meter is a well-defined physical measurement. Evil is a philosophical concept. Nobody argues over what a meter is. There is no subjectivity to being a meter. The question "what is a meter?" can be answered exactly the same by everyone for there is only one answer: The meter is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second. It took me about 5 seconds to find the definition of google.
Try again.
Calvindude may be trying to point out that the length of a meter must be established using some other measure to which we can all relate -- something objective. In this case, the speed of light is considered absolute and constant [within a specific medium].
I suppose that Calvindude wants God to be for morality what the speed of light is for the meter.
Since all men at all times in all frames of reference can establish the speed of light using a few different techniques, c ~ 3 * 10^8 m/s is as close as human beings can get to "knowledge" of some standard.
Now, how does God measure up to c? What Calvindude is preparing himself for here is a huge fall. Unlike the objective frame of reference of external reality, which through simple observation yields the value of c, God has to be inferred and/or revealed. First major difference.
Instead of going down the list and picking at the differences in a tangiable part of our cosmos and an intangiable abstract concept that cannot be shown to exist outside of human minds, let's just hear what Calvindude has to say about God's absolute, constant morality. Calvindude certainly cannot say [unlike with c] that the morality [that Calvindude asserts only applies to us] revealed in the Bible hasn't changed -- diet is but one example of many. The stark contrasts between Numbers 31 and a Jesus who says, "neither do I condemn you" to a woman caught in adultery [rather than stoning to death a man for picking up sticks on the sabbath] go on ad nauseum.
Calvindude, do you deny that the morality that God has revealed in the Bible changed through time?
Do you have the equivalent of equations of relativity to establish the constancy of said morality?
Calvindude, can you give us a way to use God as a "measuring stick" for morality? Go for it.
Do you have the equivalent of Michelson's apparatus to measure said morality? Some method that all of us can objectively agree on?
Idiotdude, we hear this same backwoods argument of yours anytime you comment. It's old, and we reject it. Did you hear me? We reject it. We've given reasons for rejecting it too--plenty of ones. Yet you keep on offering it up. Here's what I think:
1)That's practically all you know about apologetics.
2) You're beating your head against the wall here.
3) We are beating to death a dead horse when we respond to you.
4) You fail to understand our point of view, and since that is true, your criticisms of our view are laughable (and since you need several years of education to catch up to us, I will not offer that education to you for free here).
5) Why is there so much suffering in this world? Why? Answer this question, the question I had asked. I'm not asking about morality here. I'm asking why there is so much pain. And unless you propose to answer this question, do not respond anymore. Answer that question if you respond, or you are banned if you post and do not attempt to answer that question (otherwise do not post here). And I ban you not because you stumped us, but because you refused to answer the question I asked. Why is there so much pain. If you actually try to answer that question, I may make a separate post out of your answer for us to deal with. Why is there so much suffering in this world?
It seems to me that any attempt to say that an atheist's presentation of the 'problem of evil' doesn't work because the person presenting the argument doesn't think that an objective morality exists fails. Because it is, as we all know, Christians who continually tell us that there is such a morality, and as we all know Christians are oh so fond of quoting chapter and verse from the Bible in order to tell us what said morality consists of.
I think the 'you don't believe in an objective morality therefore your argument fails' defence to the problem of evil doesn't work because it employs what one of my old philosophy lecturers called a 'universal acid'. If the Christian argues that there is no objective morality, and therefore no way to say that something is good or bad, then they undermine their own position, for they have no basis on which to call their God 'good'. If they say that the word means something entirely different from whatever we humans might think it means, and instead means 'good' in some divine, ultimately unknowable way, then again they might as well not bother using the word. For to our limited human minds, the word is without meaning.
Aye, I think that Christians who try to use this 'universal acid' do their own position in. If they want to do that, well go ahead I say - stand up in church on Sunday and tell your preacher to quit calling God good. See how that goes .. ;-)
yours,
highlander65
highlander65,
Indeed.
Think of it this way, let's start with the theist and set them up for a fall by asking them questions about morality:
is it always wrong, no matter who does it, and no matter for what reasons, to:
1) rape a woman
2) kill a young infant
3) execute human beings who are raped, making them culpable for their own rape?
If yes, why is it not "wrong" for the Israelites to do all 3 of the above?
If it was because "God commanded them to", then we go back to the top question and point out that those things are now, according to the theist, [i]only immoral if God doesn't command us to do it[/i], making the idea of their "objective morality" the farce that it is.
If they answer "no" to the above three questions, then assert they are defining "right/wrong, good/bad, goodness/evil", we can simply part logical paths. They are defining a set of activities as "right/good/goodness" that I define as "wrong/bad/evil".
There is no way to dialogue if our principle definitions of good and bad are so obviously skewed. Further, I feel a sense of relief that I don't have to try to justify why those things are "wrong/bad/evil", because only those who worship a god that promotes those activities and commands them would ever call them anything other than "wrong/bad/evil", and those theists are, accordingly, morally corrupt.
I am glad that the theist thinks me the one who is morally corrupt, since the theist's values are inverted from my own:
while I think it is never justifiable or morally "good" to rape a woman, the theist disagrees [Jud 21:10-24, Num 31:7-18, Deut 20:10-14, 2 Sam 12:11-12, Deut 21:10-14, Jud 5:30, Zech 14:1-2]
while I think it is never justifiable or morally "good" to kill an infant, the theist disagrees [1 Sam 15:3, Ezk 9:5-7, Ex 12:29-30, Lev 26:21-22, Isa 13:15-18, Hos 9:11-12]
while I think it is never justifiable or morally "good" to execute a woman who is raped because she didn't yell out loud enough to be heard, the theist disagrees [Deut 22:23-24]
Since their values are in clear opposition to my own, I am glad that they thus define me as "wrong/bad/evil". It lets me know I'm on the right path. And, we can agree that by the standard they use [their God's Book] I'm evil, and by the standard I use [objective morality], they are evil. Wonderful!
John
I don’t want to be funny, but please don’t threaten any more, please get rid of this idiot dude. I am tired of listening to his incoherent argument to make sense of his cruel and reprehensible god. You have given him plenty opportunity to address the issue, which obviously he is incapable of doing. One can only take SO much of the same crap …
;-)
Eddie, thanks. I keep on holding out hope he will say something new, but he continues the same drival over and over again.
Calvindude, go somewhere else. It appears you only want to stress one argument, even though I have repeatedly given you many chances.
Hey Aaron maybe its you who don't know shit? If you don't like being treated that way what makes you think we do? What makes you think that only an athiest could possibly have gone though such torment in their life? Don't just assume that because I don't agree with you I haven't had my own torment. Their wre plenty of hot heads on both sides so don't put yourself above christioans just because you dispise christianity. You can't just lump a group of people together and assume all are alike. Or is that what I am to do here also? Are all athiests like you? I hope not. I don't discount your turmoil or stuggle within so don't discount mine just because it didn't lead me to your same conclusions.
RAD,
Thanks for your honest assesment and your response that is totally understood and perhaps warranted. Gosh! I’m a sucker and I guess I still want to be understood. I really shouldn’t care what you think, but something just pushes me to explain myself. I can’t seem to stop caring. So… I’ll just highlight some things that I already said and expand a bit…
First let’s get it out of the way WHO I was addressing, because the comment could only be applied to that audience…
You say, ‘You can't just lump a group of people together and assume all are alike.’
I said... ‘How about the Christians who are getting high on their own intellect…’ This is certainly not ‘lump[ing] a group of people together and assum[ing they] all are alike.’ Maybe this doesn’t apply to you. Maybe I was wrong about every comment made. I don’t have a problem admiting that high probability. If they didn’t apply to anyone, then I guess no one could get hurt unless they applied it to themselves. I’ll go a step further to point out that your perception (perhaps accurate, who knows? I don’t know.) of my getting high on my own intellect can stink things up to. I’m sure you wouldn’t disagree. This whole post was to the Christian getting high on their own intellect. If there wasn’t any, then call me a distorted atheist, if you must. Maybe nobody knows shit? But is this even possible? If it’s possible, what would that mean?
You say… ‘Hey Aaron maybe its you who don't know shit?’
I already said…“[we] are not claiming to know, but we are claiming that we don’t know. You Christians, however, claim that you do as we once arrogantly did.”
You say… “What makes you think that only an athiest could possibly have gone though such torment in their life?’ Don't just assume that because I don't agree with you I haven't had my own torment.”
I said… “I can’t ignore that ALL of us have experienced pain and disappointment; even the Christians can’t escape this by depending on their god. This is not what I just addressed. I’m talking about EVERYTHING you EVER believed to be true crumbling in your hands.” Who said ‘only an atheist’? A Christian could not claim, however, to having the whole of their faith destroyed. This isn’t possible for someone who has faith, unless of course they lost it and then came back to believing Christianity. This may be an unsustainable assumption, but I would venture to guess that someone having gone through that kind of experience wouldn’t make the kinds of arguments that are being made for the ‘evil that God does being right and good and for us to follow his exemplary moral character (except for all the murderous and vengeful acts of hate and following the eye for an eye rule of mercy)’ BUT… I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if I were proven wrong. Every story is out there.
You say… ‘If you don't like being treated that way what makes you think we do?’ I don’t think I was ever treated like shit and I don’t feel any bitterness toward any person or group. I certainly don’t ‘dispise Christianity.’ Christianity gave me a rope to pull me out of a life of slavery and pain. Believing the story of Jesus as real saved my life and in a sense, I owe Christianity my very life. This just doesn’t change what I know to be my reality now. I was not hurt by any of the comments made by anyone and I’m not even a tinge bothered by your response either. It makes a ton of sence to me. It expresses love an compassion for all sides. This is admirable. I respect your perspective and not because I’m supposed to. Look, maybe I’m the only one, but when it comes down to it, I only act and react according to my own perceptions. I’m responsible for that. I responded to thoughts and ideas within a Christian belief system and not the esence of a person.
You say… “… or is that what I am to do here also?”
I say… I don’t have a clue what you’re doing. You might, but I don’t.
You say… “Are all athiests like you? I hope not.”
I say… No, and you can count on it… just like you are totally unique too. You ever met an unreasonable and reactive Christian who thinks that someone’s belief system fails the smell test? I have. I was one once. Maybe we’re all the same. Maybe one (or any) belief system isn’t ‘the magic potion.’ Maybe we really are one family in a struggle together. Maybe it’s not ‘us against them.’ Maybe it’s not ‘I’m right. You’re wrong.’ Maybe it has more to do with the heart than the head. I’m not so certain and somehow that’s still ok with me.
You use the word ‘atheist.’ I understand that we must classify and label to communicate, but if I may be transparent with you, friend… I’m not limited to being an atheist either, just like the essence of the life that lives you isn’t limited to being ‘Christian.’ Mayby you can look way, way down inside and see something of actual substance there. I looked for myself and was never able to find it, so I gave up trying (and the surrender lead to bliss.) Maybe I haven’t grown up yet and someday I’ll wish I could find you appologize for not believing. I’ve worn so many costumes and played so many roles in my life, but none of them seemed to stick. They all fell apart. I am quite a mystery to myself, actually. I don’t know who I am and I’ve realized that I don’t believe in anything. I don’t even think that this world is reality. In my experience, if it has a beginning, it will have an ending… eventually. Sure, they may fit me for a white jacket someday, but I looked at the life within myself and could find no beginning and no ending. Aaron will certainly die and never be raised again, but the life that lives me can never end because it never began.
Look, I’m sorry if I offended you, sir. I don’t have a problem admiting my own crazyness. Ideas and concepts ALL fail in time and I guess that mine just died sooner than some other people’s. Even the Christians know that the salvation message is temporary because when their all in heaven, it won’t be needed anymore. What will be left? What is all the practice of living this life for?
Don’t take this interaction with this crazy man as a sign of what ‘atheists’ think. This would be quite a brush stroke. No, you can limit your perceptions of this Aaron, guy, to me. I spoke the words, not some cardboard cutout named Atheist.
Maybe someday I’ll have more answers than questions, but for know I love my freedom. Who knows, maybe I’m a basket case, but I’m FREE! Just like you.
Sorry for ticking you all off, friend.
PS. As far as the deleted and then reposting. I just wanted to add that the reason I think that the arguements infuriate me is because it seems so inhumane and sick to think that it's ok for anyone, including God, to inflict, cause, or create the suffering in the world. It would kinda be like a servant of hitler trying to explain to you that hitler was right to do what he did by a bunch of intellectual rhetoric. Imagine that conversation and how you'd feel in talking with this servant of death. If God is doing the same thing and is the source of the evil or has an appathy to it, we're just responding the same way. Maybe you can understand.
I believe there was certainly some misunderstandings on my part and no offense taken as I hope is the same for you. Sorry if I offended you.
To start off, you need to have a better concept of what god is...I am not defended the christians but a stronger conception of who and what free will is might give you greater ideas of the universal power of one
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