Today Mung claimed of TSZ that
I see mocking of Christianity, what I don’t see are arguments that Christianity is false.
As the regulars here (including Mung) know, this is bollocks. There have been many such arguments, and Mung has fled from a number of them.
I replied:
You see plenty of them [arguments against Christianity], but you’re in denial.
Want to test that hypothesis? Start a thread asking for arguments against Christianity. You’ll get an earful.
He got cold feet, so I am starting the thread for him. I’ll provide some arguments in the comments. Feel free to add your own or to cross-post or link to old OPs and comments, if you can’t be arsed to reinvent the wheel for Mung’s trollish sake.
Mung’s fellow Christians are welcome to come to his aid. He’ll need all the help he can get.
Mung,
If you’re not bright enough to see how the absence of an intervening God explains the absence of an intervention by that God, then you’re not bright enough to lead the discussion. Leave it to the smarter folks.
LoL!
The arguments by keiths appear by and large to fall into the former. He doesn’t want to admit this, because it’s well known that the logical argument is not successful, and even atheists admit this.
So now keiths claims that his “arguments” have been misunderstood. They are not logical arguments, they are “evidential” arguments. But why on earth would anyone believe him? I mean, what are the odds?
If I were to start an OP on the problem of evil it would take little effort to surpass any OP on the subject that you’ve posted to date. Perhaps there’s an OP that you authored that you failed to mention?
Focus, keiths. The evidential problem of evil.
Mung,
You were the only one dim enough to claim that rationality couldn’t be applied to evidential problems.
A non-sequitur. Focus keiths.
I’m waiting. And from what I can see, you’re avoiding. Focus, keiths.
Mung,
Since your own defenses against the problem of evil have failed, perhaps you should borrow from van Inwagen instead. It might take the discussion in a more intelligent direction.
However, since I offered earlier, I’ll address the odd argument you keep linking to. For the record, do you actually think it’s an effective argument?
Here’s the argument Mung wants me to address. God only knows (so to speak) why he thinks this will turn out well for him:
I’ve no idea. Effectiveness as judged by what criteria? Let’s say that how effective it is is uncertain. That is at least in keeping with an inductive argument.
But what does effectiveness have to do with anything? Are your arguments effective? If your arguments are not effective how do we know? If they are not effective does that mean they are false?
I think that my argument shows that your argument assumes that absence of evidence indicates evidence of absence. There’s no evidence that anyone ever attached a door to that rabbit cage, therefore, the existence of rabbit cage doors is shown to be false.
keiths:
Mung:
I think I see your problem.
I don’t understand why you’d have any doubt, given your awesome mind reading skills.
keiths is adopting an avoidance strategy. If he doesn’t see it, then it’s not really there.
Mung:
We can’t, according to you. This is the evidential problem of evil, not the logical one, and you told us that words like “rationally” have no place in the discussion.
D’oh!
You’re free to make any argument you wish. That one is particularly poor, however.
No, because you’re not merely trying to defend the thesis that God’s actions are, on balance, good. You’re trying to defend the thesis that he is omnibenevolent. He’s supposed to be the Christian God, remember?
So God is beholden to our definitions and understanding? Really?
Focus, keiths. Focus.
It must be so bad that you can’t properly dismantle it. Am I right?
I just did, doofus. Flail away.
Both right and wrong. Congratulations.
Your argument is supposed to be an argument against theism in general. The logic goes something like this. If God does not exist, then theism is false. If theism is false, it logically follows that Christianity is false. But your argument isn’t a deductive argument. If you have a deductive argument that Christianity is false please present it.
If you don’t have a deductive argument that Christianity is false, why not admit it? If you do have a deductive argument that Christianity is false, why not post it?
If your argument is inductive, why don’t you admit it? If your argument is inductive, then all the evidence needs to be take into account. If not, why not?
Poor keiths. At sea in a boat, Woodbine pulled the plug. keiths drowned. Therefore God does not exist.
No you didn’t, doofus. Flail away.
We’ll take your word for it!
I thought that the evidential argument would invoke actual evidence. Silly me.
Mung:
No, it isn’t, and I just explained that to you:
Mung:
keiths:
Christ, Mung. What is wrong with you?
There are some interesting parallels between typical Christian responses to the problem of evil and typical ID responses to the evidence against intelligent design.
1) The evidence is overwhelming in both cases (see this thread for an explanation of how the objective nested hierarchy blows ID, and not just creationism, out of the water).
2) The Christian/IDer looks for an excuse to avoid the obvious implications instead of following the evidence where it leads, as a truth-seeker would.
3) The excuse is arbitrary and unjustified. In the case of the problem of evil, the typical excuse is that somehow, all the evil and suffering in the world are necessary for the greater good. Yet the Christian has absolutely no evidence for this assumption; it’s offered in desperation for the sole purpose of propping up Christianity. Likewise, in the case of the objective nested hierarchy, some arbitrary excuse is offered for why the designer operates in a way that produces an objective nested hierarchy, rather than one of the trillions of alternatives open to him.
4) In both cases, it boils down to this: If you as a Christian or IDer don’t like what the evidence is telling you, simply ignore it.
To be a Christian, or an IDer, is to reject evidence and embrace the irrational.
Keep trying to change the subject keiths. It may work for you.
Says Mung, in an attempt to change the subject.
Do you want the full list?
We don’t have all week.
How about just explaining why your reading comprehension is so pitiful?
So keiths is banking on the evidential argument from evil, a probabilistic argument. When I ask him whether or not it’s Bayesian, he’s silent. Is it because he doesn’t know or doesn’t care to say.
keiths obviously believes that individual acts of evil count as evidence against the existence of God. He should say why, I suppose. I also think he should say what would count as evidence for the existence of God.
We have to have some way to measure the amount of evidence, for and against, right?
keiths, what counts as evidence for the existence of God? We have to count up both sides, don’t we?
keiths claims to be relying on the evidential argument, yet when you examine his actual OPs on the problem of evil you’ll not come away with any evidence of that.
For example, he addresses Plantinga’s Free Will Defense, which is a defense against the logical problem of evil, and rather conveniently (imo) forgets to mention Plantinga’s response to the evidential argument, for which he is also well known.
So I think theists here can be forgiven for thinking that keiths has been addressing the logical problem of evil. Right keiths?
Isn’t that one of those questions that answers itself in the asking of it?
Mung:
It’s because I know you’re trying to change the subject. Unless you can answer the evidential argument from evil, you lose. Let’s hear your answer. Crib from van Inwagen if you need to.
Against the existence of a traditional omniGod, of which the Christian God is an example.
I have, and the fact that you continue to deny this is a direct indication of your desperation.
Since the evidence is against the omnibenevolence of the Christian God, a successful defense — which you are utterly unlikely to come up with on your own — would involve blunting or invalidating that evidence somehow.
For example, you could try Augustine’s approach, which was to argue that while there is an abundance of evil and suffering in the world, God is not responsible for it. I’d advise against it, though. It’s easily rebutted.
I am answering it. That you keep ignoring the answers does not bode well for your argument.
I’ve chosen a different approach. And yes, I came up with it on my own. Which isn’t to say that no one else has thought of it too. Instead of pretending I haven’t, why not address what I’ve written?
I’m willing to grant you all the acts of evil you feel you need in order to make your case. Count them up, give us a number. I won’t even try to invalidate your cases of individual acts of evil. I don’t have to answer them, or try to explain them, or try to explain them away, or even defend against your claim that the act is evil.
I think it’s a brilliant response which is probably why you’re ignoring it. I’m blunting your evidence, not invalidating it. Do you understand that?
First, I’m claiming that God prevents far more evil then He allows. All the acts of evil that God does prevent are evidence that God does exist.
My conclusion is that it’s more reasonable to believe that God exists because the massive amount of evidence for the existence of God outweighs your puny amount of evidence the God does not exist.
Is your argument Bayesian or not? If not, why not?
You’re being spanked keiths, and by a complete novice at that. Remember our safe word! And I haven’t even begun to read van Inwagen’s response yet. I’ll probably consult Weinberg’s The Many Faces of Evil first.
Section II is dedicated to The Evidential Problem of Evil and consists of five chapters, one of which is dedicated just to Plantinga’s answers to the evidential argument. So it’s not like Christians don’t have responses. But it is like you’ve not even studied what Christians have to say.
Mung,
Oh, please. As I noted earlier in the thread, fantasy is the last refuge of the Christian.
Exactly. All of this time your Christianity has been utterly unfounded. You had no response to the problem of evil, and didn’t even understand it properly (and still don’t, from what I can see). Only now that you’re being challenged do you run off to see if someone else can rescue your faith for you and provide the justification that you lack for your belief in the Christian God.
You’re a believer, not a thinker, Mung.
Of course I have. I’m not a Mung. I wouldn’t be making my claim — that Christianity is false — without having done my homework.
You are still confounding the logical problem with the Evidential problem.
As has been pointed out repeatedly even if you are wildly successful all you will ever be able to claim is that Christianity is improbable.
Before you can get that far you will need to give an account of all the evidence.
peace
Mung,
Prepare to be disappointed.
Haven’t you noticed the pattern by now, Mung? Whenever you think you have a brilliant argument, it turns out to be lame and easily rebutted.
This one is no different.
But that just doesn’t follow, keiths. It’s a non-sequitur. You’re being illogical. Funny isn’t it, me asking you to be rational? Who woulda thunk it.
If you insist on being irrational just say so and we can end the discussion now and you can declare victory.
Well get to work then. We’ve had two days of promises and zero days of delivery.
keiths,
Let’s say the Christian God doesn’t exist. What evidence is there to counteract some problems with materialistic belief?
If I were a sane materialist, I would like to know where I came from..Is it too to ask from science that only relies on empirical evidence?
fifth,
Overwhelmingly improbable. Just like the claim that the earth is flat, which also cannot be proven with absolute certainty, but which none but the doofiest of people believe. Shall we follow your logic and become Flat Earthers, since the flat earth hypothesis hasn’t been disproven? It’s merely improbable. Extremely improbable, like the existence of the Christian God, but not disproven. Are you a Flat Earther on that basis, fifth?
It has evidently never occurred to you to ask these questions.
You’re a believer, not a thinker. Just like Mung.
J-Mac,
That’s easy to agree to, since the evidence we’ve been discussing in this thread makes it pretty obvious.
What problems are you thinking of? And does positing a God actually improve the situation, or does it just create new problems? Hint: It’s the latter.
Sure, and materialists actually do ask that question. Haven’t you noticed?
I don’t think so. We already have answers, like “we evolved from the common ancestor we share with chimpanzees”, or “from the Big Bang”, and so on. If you’re asking about an ultimate answer, then we don’t yet know whether science can provide one, but religion certainly hasn’t either — except by declaring that God exists and declaring him to be an ultimate cause, which is just a cheat.
So far, all we have is your word for it. And I, for one, am not willing to take your word for it.
Your assumption that I have no good reason for being a Christian is mistaken, so l at least have to consider that your claim that of all the vast numbers of theists none of them has any good reason to be a theist also might be mistaken. In fact, I think it highly probable that you are mistaken.
keiths,
1-Have you calculated the odds of a christian god? Odds of christian story being fact
2-What about the odds of a chance universe? Odds of all we see the result of chance
3-What about the odds of a created universe? Odds of a created universe
I guess if you can calculate 2 or 3 just 1-2 or 1-3 can go
My call is the chance of 2 is about 0 so 3 is close to 100%. From this I have no reason to doubt all the documented history for 1.
What do you believe the odds of 2 are?
colewd,
I think you are very confused, and that there’s little hope that you can understand the evidential problem of evil well enough to contribute to the discussion.
Mung,
Mung is so cute when he tries to be a grown-up skeptic.
keiths should start an OP on the evidential problem of evil. That way he might catch the eye of people who might know what the hell he’s talking about. Right now all we can do is guess at what he’s talking about because he insists on being perennially vague.
From all appearances keiths wants to have his cake and eat it too. There can be evidence that God does not exist (dog eats baby’s head), but there can be no evidence that God does exist (dog does not eat baby’s head).
keiths still declines to say what he’s willing to allow in as evidence for the existence of God and what he isn’t, nor why he won’t say. So far all we can say is that keiths has adopted a stance that he cannot be driven from, even in principle. Classic heads I win tails you lose dogmatism.
🙂
Mung:
Um, no. I answered it already, though you were too dim to notice. I suppose I’ll have to dumb it down further.
You write:
Your suggestion might make sense if the claim were merely that God is good, on balance. That isn’t the claim, doofus.
The Christian claim is that God is omnibenevolent — as benevolent as it is logically possible to be. Finding that the items on the “good” side of the ledger outweigh those on the “bad” side — if that were the case — would not establish God’s omnibenevolence at all.
Isn’t that obvious? If you’re unable to understand this rebuttal, Mung, then I think that you, like colewd, may simply not be bright enough for this discussion.
keiths,
I think you’re making assertions that you fail to back up in any way. I look forward to your op on the problem of evil so I can come up to speed.
So, keiths, if it’s not a matter of the preponderance of the evidence then what is it a matter of? Do you think that if God permits even one single act of evil then that is sufficient for you to have made your case?
Because if that’s what you’re arguing I see no difference between that and the logical problem of evil. From where I sit you are still confused.
Further, as I have already explained, Christians believe that God permitted His only Son to be crucified. So if you appeal to “one evil act is one act too many for the Christian God to permit” you’re simply not going to convince a Christian. Back to the logical problem of evil with you!
wow, keiths, you are sooo… confused. I think I finally see why.
I don’t have to defeat the argument that God is not omnibenevolent (as benevolent as is logically possible) because that’s not the argument before us. Seriously. Do you just make this shit up as you go along?