I saw this photo at Jerry Coyne’s place a couple of days ago and laughed out loud. It’s flippant, but the question actually deserves genuine, serious consideration.
To the theists reading this: When you’re stranded on the throne, why doesn’t God poof a roll into existence for you? He’s surely powerful enough to do it, with less effort than it takes you to lift a finger, so what holds him back?
If your spouse, child, or even a roommate that you didn’t particularly like were in a similar predicament, you would surely be kind enough to rescue them by fetching a roll and placing it outside the bathroom door. Why doesn’t God do the divine equivalent?
Is it for the same reason that he never restores the limbs of amputees?
I suspect it’s the same reason that God created a universe that is larger then can be properly understood easily, yet chose to only populate the tiniest fraction of it with creatures made (so I hear) in it’s image.
And by the time we get to exploring any fraction of the universe much of it will have already moved past the horizon we can reach.
However I suspect that if we were having this conversation a couple of hundred years ago then the TP would have appeared magically. God seemed much more prolific with the miracles before the advent of video cameras.
I argued with KF some time ago about limb regrowth, noting that the only time it’s ever been mentioned as a miracle was a couple of hundred years ago. His response was that I’d proven his case, that it can happen and has happened. Why it stopped happening he did not comment upon.
God just wants you to experience more of life, such as how cardboard tubes feel to your butt.
It’s all for the best.
Glen Davidson
Well, there’s all those high school football games that require intervention, you know.
Why doesn’t God babysit me? Why doesn’t he do everything for me that I want him to? I hate God’s way. I am an atheist.
Compelling intellectual stuff.
Hi Phoodoo. What do you think he does? All stuff? Good stuff? Bad stuff?
Why doesn’t Invisible Pink Unicorn do what *you* want?
Oh, good! Phoodoo has stepped up to defend his God. Let’s see how he does.
He is deploying what I think of as the “waah, waah” defense:
As usual, phoodoo hasn’t thought this through.
phoodoo,
Suppose you’re married. If you’re stranded on the toilet and your wife is in the house with you, are you a “baby” if you ask her to bring you a roll of toilet paper? Most people would say “not at all”. This is exactly the kind of thing that loving spouses will gladly do for each other.
Should you tough it out and handle the situation yourself? Again, most people would say “of course not”. You’d be stupid to do that if you have a wife (or another person) in the house that is willing to stop what she is doing for a minute in order to help you out.
Now suppose there is no one in the house. You’re stranded on the toilet with no one but God for company. If you ask him to poof a roll of toilet paper onto the dispenser, are you being a baby? Not at all. You’re merely asking him for the same favor that you would have asked your wife to do if she had been there. If you aren’t a baby for asking her, you’re not a baby for asking God.
It’s infinitely easier for God to poof a roll into existence than it is for your wife to fetch one for you. He’s omnipotent, after all. It doesn’t shift God’s attention away from something more important, because he has an infinite amount of attention to lavish on the world. He can continue to influence all of those Texas high school football games at the very same time that he is poofing your toilet paper into existence. And he loves you with a perfect love, far surpassing the love that your wife has for you, so why would he be unwilling to do you a kindness that a loving wife would not deny you?
Why won’t God do the decent thing and divinely hand you a frikkin’ roll of TP?
The ball’s in your court.
What, the “do nothing” way? Sure hard to hate that…
It’s questions like these that have led me at times to try to uproot my belief. I’ve been unsuccessful. But not because I have answers to these questions.
My basic attitude is this. If a believer who, having lost a limb or a child, said to me “God is good. Therefore it’s all for the best.” I wouldn’t contradict them. On the other hand I wouldn’t say “God is good. Therefore it’s all for the best.” to an atheist in the same situation.
I think, at the risk of being terribly wrong, that anger with God is legitimate. Sometimes I think He has a lot to answer for. “My God you must be sleeping. Wake up it’s much too late.” Mr Sting
I know there are arguments against what I’ve said here. But there it is. I won’t get anywhere being dishonest about what I think.
One of the stranger aspects of this to me is when you see a “miracle” survivor of a terrible storm interviewed.
Sometimes they claim “god was watching out for them” but never seem to explain why god was not also watching out for the next door neighbour who’s house did fall on them. For a believer, anger would appear to be the correct response, not “well, at least I did not get picked on and for that I’m thankful”.
I think it’s just something akin to the idea that throwing good money after bad is justified by the amount you’ve already thrown away. You are so invested by that point that logic is no longer part of your thought processes.
It leads to absurdities like this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/21/wolf-blitzer-atheist-tornado-survivor_n_3316312.html
Despite the best efforts of thinkers like Leibniz who believe an existing God would be rational in a way people might be able to understand, I think it comes down to whether or not you can accept the answer that Job got.
BruceS,
You might like Jung’s *Answer to Job*. The idea is that God has a problem. He comes to consciousness about himself only through us.
The best attempts to address the problem of suffering vis a vis various conceptions of God can be found in such approaches as process theism, classical free will theism and open theism. They can address the logical aspects of the issue in a consistent manner but there is an evaluative aspect leaving each person to ponder whether such a putative creation was, at bottom, worthwhile, good enough or, even, morally in/defensible?
Johnboy,
Free will and open theism don’t solve the toilet paper problem, because a) perfect foreknowledge isn’t required for God to poof a roll onto the dispenser, and b) poofing the roll doesn’t deprive the recipient (or anyone else) of his or her free will.
Process theism can solve it, but only at a high cost: It means that God either
a) doesn’t know that you’re stranded, which means he isn’t even omniscient with respect to the present, much less the future; or
b) isn’t capable of poofing a roll into existence, or even of transporting a roll and placing it at your disposal, in which case he is extremely weak; or
c) refuses to help you out, in which case he is a bit of an ass, and far less loving than a typical spouse.
Jesus is your best friend–who will never help you out with anything.
Glen Davidson
keiths,
In maintaining THAT a putative creation would be optimally ordered toward such ends as truth, beauty, goodness, love and freedom, one neither presume to know HOW, in general, nor WHY, in particular, regarding this intervention here but not there, then but not now. This leaves the situation partly intelligible, not fully comprehensible, inviting a certain agnosticism or some epistemic humility regarding what’s best, what’s necessary.
Presumably, there would be a delicate balancing act involving non/coercive interactivity, such as between an empathetic influence (high frequency, low amplitude) and any sympathetic intervention (low frequency, high amplitude), while avoiding both an apathetic indifference (low frequency, low amplitude coercion) and a pathetic interference (high frequency, high amplitude). How much soft versus hard power, when or where, and the cumulative effect of same over long epochs, all vis a vis the optimization of worthy ends, suggests a reality that is wholly incomprehensible, only partly apprehensible.
Regarding trivialities like empty toilet paper rolls, one needn’t claim to know where on the in/efficacious coercion continuum such life exigencies would fall. Regarding an assessment that the deity would be extremely weak, in what sense, regarding whose goals, considering lesser goods or higher? The deity’s power would be that power greater than which could be conceived as not otherwise inconsistent with optimal divine ends.
Regarding one’s evaluative posits, one might presume that, when all is finally said and done, God feels (omnipathically, even) that Ivan Karamazov’s NYET will have changed to the disposition that, all things considered, it was worth it. I’m sympathetic to the view that would hope against all hope that this will be the case.
That’s nothing I’d necessarily expect anyone to feel or say, now, although, most seem to be saying it existentially (survival instinct)? That is, despite the enormity of human suffering, the immensity of human pain, the incomprehensible evil, personal and natural, so many seem to come out on the other side of it all, fragile but resilient, ready to live again, love again, even laugh again. And to understand it all, later.
These are mere philosophic tautologies that attempt to answer conceptual inconsistencies.
When the reality before us is an evaluative concern, they are cold comfort, at best, highly insensitive, at their worst. The proper response to a hurting person is a listening presence, a hug and other creature comforts, not philosophical discourse or facile religious mumblings.
Glen:
Even the Archbishop of Canterbury gets pissed about that:
Of course, he doesn’t leave it there. He adds:
…as if we were doing God an injustice by doubting his existence, when the evidence is so lacking that even the Archbishop of Canterbury admits his doubts.
Johnboy,
Epistemic humility is always warranted, which is why I believe we should never claim absolute certainty. However, epistemic humility does not require us to refrain from provisionally favoring certain conclusions over others, based on the available evidence.
The sheer quantity of evil and suffering in the world is explained far better by the absence of a loving, powerful God than it is by a loving God who operates in mysterious ways that just happen to make it look like he’s absent.
Why wouldn’t an omnibenevolent God act in a maximally loving way, all the time? And what’s “coercive” about poofing a roll of toilet paper into someone’s hands? He or she could choose not to wipe, after all.
In the straightforward, goal-independent sense in which I expressed it:
It’s about ability, not goals.
Hoping it will be the case is very different from presuming that it will be the case.
That’s a testament to human resilience, not to God’s goodness.
I agree. This OP was a criticism of common religious beliefs, not a response to “a hurting person”. And the proper response to a person stranded on the toilet is to bring them a roll of toilet paper! Why won’t God do even that small thing?
Do God’s “higher purposes” prevent him from doing that, even once? That isn’t very plausible.
That’s right. Faced with equiprobable situations, especially those where a performative response is involved, we must act “as if”
Regarding our ultimate concerns, we aren’t dealing with evidential matters or robustly probabilistic inference. Questions beg. Evaluative posits abound. Some choose to live as if existence, on the whole, is a gift. Others choose to live as if it’s a glorious contingency. All recognize the tragic aspects. A few decide, even if they suspect it is a gift, to give it back. Most seem to carry on, whatever the case, at least, somewhat grateful. Many, by choosing to “live as if” this or that is the case, aren’t robustly “presuming” anything very specific re: primal reality, cognitively, but are doing so, vaguely, responding existentially, in the way they live, as gifted and in search of a Benefactor, whose attributes aren’t wholly comprehensible, just partly intelligible. Like Pip, in Great Expectations, we wonder, we infer, but don’t know for sure. We carry on.
If only explanatory adequacy would obtain, huh? beyond a reasonable doubt … We are in the realm here of the evaluative, deciding things on balance, whether the whole shebang was worth it or even morally defensible. For some, the evaluative verdict is in. For others, the jury’s still out. For many, Job 38 echoes: “Where were you when the foundations were laid?”
She’s not codependent?
Human resilience is a fact, of course.
God’s goodness is an interpretation of same in some tautologies, not others.
I brought it up, though, to map the range of human evaluative dispositions toward existence, God or no God.
A satisfactory response to theodicy issues can’t be resolved by appeals to otherwise equiplausible a/theological conceptions but has an indispensable evaluative aspect.
The realm of the plausible doesn’t traffic in clearly evidential matters or resolve disputes via robustly probabilistic inferences.
I sounds terribly right-hearted to me. I’ve heard that the Psalms are roughly one-third each of Glad, Sad and MAD psalms.
Faith has a strong relational aspect to its epistemic justifications, i.e. love, trust, hope, fidelity. It includes a type of authority derived from another’s manifest goodness, love and so on, which inspires a following, existentially, step by step, not syllogistically, premise by premise.
Natural theology, at best, frames up our questions, our concerns, our orientations but does not provide conclusive answers. It demonstrates that our faith, our living as if, need not be unreasonable (some versions are manifestly unreasonable, not just going beyond reason but without it) but ends in the Scottish verdict, unproven.
keiths:
Johnboy:
The situations aren’t equiprobable. Even believing theologians acknowledge that the problem of evil is a genuine problem, because the abundance of suffering in the world makes the existence of a loving and powerful God much less plausible. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury acknowledges this in the comment of his that I quoted above.
If the situations were equiprobable, then the problem of evil wouldn’t be a problem at all, and there would be no need to address it — as you have attempted to do — by positing some “higher purpose” that justifies all of the suffering that God allows and/or inflicts upon his creatures.
Also, the “higher purpose” argument can easily be flipped on its head. You may argue that God is a good God who allows a certain amount of suffering in the service of a higher good, but you could also (with an equal lack of justification) assert that God is an evil God who only allows a bit of goodness and joy in service of a greater ultimate evil.
Both of those ideas fit poorly with the evidence. Other alternatives, such as the idea that God is indifferent to our suffering, or that he doesn’t exist at all, are a far better fit.
Sure we are. If God interacts with the world the way most theists claim he does, even if only to create it, then evidence is available to us. It would be silly to ignore it.
Yes, and where were you when Zeus first strode upon Olympus, or when Meberuk shat the heavens and the earth into existence, or when the Easter Bunny first collected colored eggs from the Magic Hens?
Everyone is absolutely right.
If I was god I would be kind and not let death or sickness or evil happen if I had the power.
everyone says Thank you god for good things so what about the bad?
It is a issue for all who believe in such a great being and that he is a nice guy.
actually the bible said this too.
It said gods hands were tied greatly.
In fact so bad he had to get executed to put things straight at a deeper level.
gods love preserves us today. Otherwise we all would be dead.
its about eternity that matters.
its a line of reasoning that if eternity exists for people then it would be the priority. not a wee bit of decades here.
It makles no logical sense to question gods help/niceness when not only did he fet executed but it was his plan that he had too.
A line of reasoning.
indeed only evangelical christianity makes sense. We are careful readers of the bible. tHats why only genesis makes sense.
It’s the divine will that’s under indictment, so, that God wouldn’t do anything inconsistent with God’s own designs, wouldn’t engage in self-defeating behavior, is the explanation why, in those instances, He doesn’t do what He could do and ergo the attribute of goodness still obtains along with power.
I wasn’t raising equiprobability in that context about God. It had to do with what epistemic humility requires or permits, was an acknowledge that one of course can provisionally favor one conclusion over another.
The issue arises in the context of apparent logical contradictions, where putative divine attributes are inconsistent, ergo, with how one constructs a tautology and predicates terms. It’s a logical problem in that sense. So, theologians thus redefine and disambiguate the terms to achieve logical consistency. They still face the challenge of predicating concepts between God and creatures so equivocally that some meaning gets lost, but some of that is unavoidable with a vaguely defined, incomprehensible God, Whom we cannot wrap our heads around, in principle, Whose ways are inscrutable.
As I already mentioned, equiprobability doesn’t apply because, at bottom, this is not an evidential matter for probabilistic science to falsify. It’s unfalsifiable metaphysics. God concepts are tautologies. No strong inferences are available. It’s neither deductive nor even inductive. Logical soundness is not at stake, only logical validity is. Logical validity can be obtained by attending to mere predication.
If one is making a decision for or against belief based on natural theology and metaphysics, that, alone, suffices to reject God’s existence. It cannot be thus demonstrated in a logically sound fashion.
What natural or philosophical theology has also established, though, is that belief in God needn’t be unreasonable. It’s the Scottish verdict, unproven, which is different from proved or disproved.
Theodicy, the problem of suffering and evil where God is concerned is an existential and evaluative problem. I am not denying the problem only analyzing its nature. And I agree that plausibility is involved, which is very weakly probabilistic and involves abductive inference, but not the type of hypothesizing that lends itself to empirical measurements, experimental falsification, a preponderance of evidence or syllogistic proofs.
In this sense, it becomes a matter of encountering an existential disjunction, exercising an option, choosing to live as if thus and such is the case and in a manner not inconsistent with but even augmenting the realization of such intrinsically rewarding values as beauty, goodness, unity, love and freedom in the hope that the truth, however ineluctable, would not be far away, integrally related as it is to these other higher goods.
What’s equiplausible are the live options available for realizing life’s values, which do involve competing tautologies. It’s too early on humankind’s journey to adjudicate between all the existentially actionable choices vis a vis which have most augmented life’s value-realizations.
Such choices are often profoundly relational resting on an authoritativeness grounded in personal trust, fidelity, solidarity, compassion, beauty, goodness, following a person, step by step, not a syllogism, premise by premise. Some paths entail more epistemic risk and existential adventure than others but should be justified by a belief that more value will thereby obtain and held accountable for demonstrating such.
Because life’s higher values are intrinsically rewarding, their pursuit, itself, a reward, they need no justification. Nonbelievers, in my view, have all that is necessary to realize life’s values in abundance. Believers might properly aspire and acquire after superabundance and if so, let them be accountable for such existential wagers.
Many commit category errors, conflating the descriptions of our sciences, the evaluations of our cultures, the norms of our philosophies and the interpretations of our hermeneutical stances. Properly considered, the factual and evidential are delivered by descriptive sciences. Some ignore facts, even make them up. Interpretive religion does take us beyond the available facts with its existential disjunctions and actionability, but that’s not the same as taking us without the facts.
There are myths that, while not literally true, nevertheless, have evoked appropriate responses to ultimate reality, from which humankind has harvested a great deal of beauty, goodness, love, unity, solidarity, compassion. Humankind has grown, unevenly. God-conceptions have been revised, often in response to the hygienic therapy administered by nonbelievers. Hopefully, when the half-gods depart, God will appear.
That’s exactly right. That’s the nature of tautology. It adds no new information to our systems. They traffic in logical validity not soundness. This is not to say they may not be true or that all are equally taut.
The theodicy issue remains an existential problem, indeed. But not necessarily insurmountable, for most. That it may be for some is understandable. Neither view seems wholly unreasonable to me.
I’m going to give this board a rest. I’ve flung far more than my share of electrons at it, at some risk of being impolite.
I came here, attracted by some intelligent considerations of epistemology by some rather congenial personalities. Kudos to KN et al!
Thanks for that. I did not attempt the book, but found several reviews and Spiegelman’s summary.
My simplistic understanding is that Jung addresses the problem of evil by understanding God as an incomplete Being undergoing a process of self-discovery and therapy via His or Her interactions with humanity. What humanity calls evil in this Being’s creation and action reflects that incompleteness.
It seems similar to process theology.
As I also understand JohnBoy to be saying in some of his posts, to me these approaches work as logical explanations but they still leave the question of justifying so much suffering by sentient beings so that one Being could continue Its process of development.
Which brings us back to the answer that Job got.
I suppose one could say that perhaps the Being had no choice in creating/participating in such a process. But I don’t think that changes the answer Job got much.
BruceS,
I find Jung difficult too. I got a great deal from some of his students. Erich Neumann, Edward Edinger, Mary Esther Harding. Marie Lousise VonFranz. Edinger and Harding get special mention for clarity.
Johnboy
Have a good break.
God is confidence in external entity – whether imagined or real doesn’t matter. If a person feels believing in something gives him or her the strength to continue his/her work and life, he is entitled to his belief. I think the picture is crass.
the bystander:
“Whether imagined or real” is enormously important to theists generally, and it should be important to anyone who cares about the truth. If you want to find out how important it can be to theists, then tell a crowd of evangelicals that their God doesn’t exist and watch their reaction.
I think that people are entitled to their beliefs, period. The point of my OP isn’t to demand that people renounce their theism. It’s to expose a genuine and serious flaw in the common theistic conception of God as an omnipotent and perfectly loving being. Many theists don’t realize how shaky and questionable that conception is.
It’s flippant, but the point is serious and the question is legitimate. Why does God never provide TP to those who are stranded on the toilet, with no one (other than God) available to help them out?
It’s “the problem of evil” writ small, and the problem of evil is a very serious problem indeed for those who believe in an omni-God, as many Christians do.
The problem is not what god fails to do, but what people claim he does. If there were no claims of miracles and interventions, there would be no problem with them not occurring.
What I find to be crass is petitioning god for some local favor — healing a friend or relative — and ignoring millions of children suffering from malaria and other parasites that Behe says were expressly created for the purpose.
petrushka,
Even a non-interventionist omniGod runs up against the problem of evil. Suppose an intervention is needed in order to reduce suffering or evil. If God can’t intervene, then he isn’t omnipotent. If he won’t intervene, despite having the ability, then he isn’t perfectly loving.
Yes, and apart from the selfishness, the whole idea of intercessory prayer is illogical.
Byers: “In fact so bad he had to get executed to put things straight at a deeper level.”
That’s Pauline bullshit. Jesus got it right in Mathew 27:46 and in the title to this thread: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
He didn’t forsake anybody. He just didn’t exist.
Someone also mentioned the free will defense against the argument from evil: We wouldn’t be truly free if God prevented us from murdering.
Well, the State of Wisconsin and the Federal Government both prohibit me from murdering someone, even someone who really deserves it. I don’t feel one bit less free because of that prohibition. It doesn’t encroach on any legitimate freedom of mine. I don’t want that kind of freedom and I don’t want anybody else to have it either.
If God existed, he wouldn’t have to make due with threats of punishment, he could make humanity completely murder free with just a snap his immaterial fingers and nobody would be the worse for that “lack of freedom”. If.
davemullenix,
davemullenix:
Yes, and there’s a way to avoid even that tiny infringement of freedom.
Here’s how it works:
Before God creates a person, he uses his omniscience to look ahead and ask whether that person will commit murder. If the answer is no, he proceeds. If the answer is yes, he refrains from creating that person and creates someone else instead — someone he knows will not become a murderer.
He hasn’t changed anyone’s nature. Each person is completely free, and yet no one commits murder, because they all freely choose not to.
If theists try to argue that by refraining from creating someone, God would be denying that person’s free will, then they put themselves in a bind — because that means that God is already denying free will to the gazillions of possible persons he never creates.
Earlier in the thread, I quoted from an interview in which the Archbishop of Canterbury revealed his doubts about the existence of God.
His comments have kicked up some controversy, prompting Julia Baird to write an op-ed for the New York Times: Doubt as a Sign of Faith.
The entire piece is poorly argued, but for now I’d like to focus on this bit:
How is that juvenile?
If the guy selling you land in Florida suddenly says “I have doubts that this land is worth anything”, is it “predictably juvenile” to have second thoughts about the deal?
If a president tells you, “Those weapons of mass destruction we’re going to war over? I doubt that they’re real,” is it juvenile to be alarmed?
The A of C has a moral obligation to make sure his entire flock knows about his doubts. He should say something like: “Look, I have genuine doubts about God’s existence. Out of respect for you and your right to be told the truth, I want you to know about my doubts, and I encourage you to consider the possibility that we in the Church are wrong, and that God may not exist after all.”
In fact, I wonder if his revelation during the interview was a move in that direction?
keiths,
Before God creates a person, he uses his omniscience to look ahead and ask whether that person will commit murder. If the answer is no, he proceeds. If the answer is yes, he refrains from creating that person and creates someone else instead — someone he knows will not become a murderer.
[anti-abortion mode] That would make God as evil as an abortionist. It would be like inspecting a newly fertilized egg, discovering that it has a serious genetic defect, and killing it before it grows enough to develop a mind.
As any of the Great Minds(TM) in the anti-abortion movement can tell you, the only proper and Godly thing to do in this situation is to allow the egg to develop into a baby who has a horrendous genetic defect. Anything else is murder. Not only that, it’s murder of a HELPLESS DISABLED PERSON, which is at least twice as evil as plain murder.[/anti-abortion mode]
Back in reality mode, about a year ago I read a letter from a Nun in “First Things” magazine who was lamenting the fact that only about 1/4 as many babies were being born with Down syndrome as before. As far as I could tell, she was sincere and though this was a very bad thing because a fetus was a baby and it meant that 3/4 of the Down syndrome babies were being murdered in the womb.
davemullenix:
God is a mass murderer. A huge number of fertilized eggs never make it to a viable pregnancy. Heaven (or hell, or limbo, depending on your theology) must be crammed full of zygote and embryo souls.
From later in Baird’s op-ed:
All true. And one of those “mistakes or misjudgments” might be believing in a God who doesn’t exist.
*Even* the Archbishop of Canterbury? As Sir Humphrey explains in The Bishops Gambit (an episode of Yes Prime Minister, available on YouTube), on theological matters the Church of England seeks to maintain a balance. A balance between those Bishops who believe in God and those who do not.
Don’t forget the need for Muslim bishops. Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh bishops. And Mormon bishops. Mormon and Scientologist bishops. And…
keiths:
In your OP you failed to explain why the question “deserves genuine, serious consideration.” Were you just assuming that all your readers would agree with you?
Is there some reason Christians are not welcome here at “the skeptical zone”?
You’re obviously mocking the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and for what? Cheap thrills? You may as well ask why God did not come down and take Jesus off the cross.
Mock less. Understand more.
Don’t expect any further response from me in this thread. I was somewhat surprised to find that TSZ had become a breeding ground for intolerance. The very idea seems inimicable to the stated purpose of this site.
Mung, you’ve been hanging out with KF too much. Why are you offended? Should we tolerate everything? Where does skepticism stop and intolerance begin?
Hey, Mung! Long time no see. I thought maybe you had deconverted.
I wrote that because I knew that Christians and (other believers in an omniGod) would be unable to give a plausible answer. The toilet paper problem is just a miniature version of the problem of evil, and omnitheists can’t come up with a believable answer to either one.
Christians are absolutely welcome here! You’re commenting here and you haven’t been banned. Your comments are not being deleted, or edited, or ‘loudspeaker in the ceiling’ed. You’re freely criticizing us, and we’re allowing you to do it. You’re even allowed to post your own OP’s here, fercrissakes. You call that “intolerance”?
It’s a very good question. Theories of the atonement are as absurd as the Christian attempts to explain away the problem of evil.
I understand Christianity quite well. I was raised as a Christian, and I retained an active interest in religion after I became a nonbeliever. But if you think I’m misunderstanding something that, if properly understood, would make the problem of evil disappear, then by all means enlighten me! I want Christians and other omnitheists to come here and defend their God.
That’s a shame, but not a surprise. It would be embarrassing for you to fail at defending your faith. Best to bail out without defending it at all.
Having your ideas criticized is not intolerance, Mung. Everybody’s views — man or woman, Republican or Democrat, Brit or Yank, analytic or continental — are fair game for criticism here. Don’t expect special treatment for your religious views.
If you want to complain about intolerance, then complain about UD, where the intolerance is real and very well documented.
Noted. TBH I was not expecting any anyway, once challenged you seem to vanish.
I think it’s a terrible mistake to think that any belief should be tolerated simply by virtue of being constitutive of someone’s identity — a “sincerely held” belief. That way lies utter confusion and madness.
The correct view is that it is people who should be respected, as rational beings who are our equals in the game of giving and asking for reasons. And we should certainly tolerate those with whom we cannot agree, if the pursuit of their goals and of goals do not conflict. But respecting others as rational beings means that any belief is open to criticism. There are no privileged beliefs.
That said, we should not confuse criticism and mockery. I haven’t been contributing to this thread because I find mockery to be juvenile — and I’ve put away childish things. 🙂