[moderator’s note: Nonlin.org produced this at about the same time as his “Miracles” post. I delayed this, so that they could be discussed one at a time. I’m now publishing this one.]
[a note to nonlin – if all of your post is one block, it is hard to add a “more” break. Maybe a short introductory sentence as a first block would make that easier]
- “Problem of evil” is supposed to disprove God because,
• a) A God that is all powerful would be able to prevent evil.
• b) A God that is all knowing would know that evil happens.
• c) A God that is all loving wouldn’t want evil to happen and would take needed action to stop it.
• d) Evil happens.
• e) Since evil happens, these statements are contradictory.
• f) An all powerful, all knowing and all loving god cannot exist while evil continues.
Although short, this argument fails repeatedly:
• c) A God that is all loving wouldn’t want evil to happen, but would not necessarily take needed action to stop it due to other, higher reasons.
• d) Evil happens only in a theist universe. The true materialist would not believe in evil, hence this whole argument proposed by him/her would be meaningless and self defeating.
• e) There is no contradiction given the c. and d. counterarguments.
• f) Because there is no contradiction per e. counterargument, f. does not follow.
• g) And f. would not follow even if a. to e. were true, because the conclusion may miss some unspecified additional evidence, such as the fact that the human brain is not good enough to judge God, rendering this and many other such arguments false throughout. - How would we know ‘the good’ without ‘the evil’? We wouldn’t! Therefore Evil is inescapable as experiences are continuously normalized to include good and bad. There’s always a ‘too cold/too hot’, ‘too loud/too quiet’, ‘too much/too little death (who wished historical tyrants lived longer?)’, and so on. Whatever the range, there’s always an extreme good/bad. Cut the range in half and, what was moderate before, becomes extreme. Therefore, God tolerates the [necessary] evil to a certain extent and for a good reason, also as part of the free will deal He offered mankind. For those that say “there’s no need for this much evil”, the question is: “ok, then how much evil should there be?” In addition, the Book of Job clearly explains that it is not up to the lowly humans to second guess God. Those that did not understand this (Nazis, Communists, Eugenists, and many more) have tried to do better than God. But their dreams of evil-free societies invariably turn into nightmares full of evil.
- Evil should mean nothing to the materialist because of the determinism belief (despite the clearest experimental evidence that determinism is dead). And this is the REAL Problem of Evil. A problem only materialists should face since, according to any coherent materialist, not only were Stalin, Mao, Hitler not evil, but they also had no choice due to determinism. Yet mankind insists on calling those individuals evil and with good reasons. Seeing this dilemma, some argue for word substitution – suffering to evil – not noticing that the argument would thus go from bad to ridiculous. After all, God let Adam and Eve know ‘suffering’ will happen after the Original Sin transgression, and most people accept “no pain no gain”, hence suffering for a good reward. Others claim evil makes sense in “humanist morality”, clearly forgetting that, as determinists, they shouldn’t have the free will to do anything morally or immorally, just as stones and animals do not abide by any moral standards. Hume got this one thing right: you can’t derive ‘ought’ from ‘is’, therefore good and evil are incompatible with materialism.
- Is the concept of Evil just a human “evolutionary” adaptation? That doesn’t work because ‘ought’ was derived from ‘is’. The “original ought-is sin” is when materialists imagine the first RNA randomly happening and then, hocus-pocus, “evolution” with its ‘oughts’ takes over. The second is when we see no evil in the lion eating the gazelle alive, or the wasp turning the cockroach into a zombie food supply, the weasel killing all the chickens, peer violence, or even cannibalism, and infanticide. Yet we see evil in the human behaving like these (although infanticide against the unborn is OK – go figure). We do not need the concept of evil to avoid harm. But, aside from the mentally impaired, psychopaths, and a few hypothetical primitive cultures that supposedly do not know evil, all modern humans including the materialists know and oppose evil. Even communists are for “social justice” and fascists for the improvement of society, eugenists for the betterment of mankind and abortionists for “choice”. Not one of these stands for evil despite killing and persecution of the innocent. All these go to great length to hide, and minimize their evil deeds and often argue that – in fact – their opponents are the evil ones. “Sure, you have to break a few eggs to make omelet, right”? “But that’s not evil” is their argument.
Rocks can live forever. Is that the way the world should be?
If rocks could watch porn, would that be the ideal world to you?
And what is that meaning? I sense an OP coming on…
You claim the FBI use PSI but can’t begin to demonstrate it.
You claim that life has meaning, but can’t say what it is.
So, given that you can’t say what the meaning of life is you can’t make sense of animal pain.
Unless of course, you can say what that meaning is….
Then your claim that animal suffering makes sense in that light can be examined.
I did not miss your reply; You missed keiths’reply: Adam and Eve received the knowledge of good and evil by disobeying Him and eating the forbidden fruit.
The free will argument is different from “How would we know ‘the good’ without ‘the evil’? We wouldn’t!” to which you dedicated most of paragraph 2*. The latter is the one I took issue with.
It’s really not that hard. Atheism is merely absence of belief in God (or gods). That doesn´t mean I have to believe the universe is just tiny billiard balls bouncing of each other. Since you insist on making it about my personal views; I am open to the possibility that consciousness involves some hitherto unknown physical (but non-material) phenomenon. I just don’t believe God is the source of that.
Regarding determinism: if processes exist that are truly random (meaning they don’t follow any fixed pattern, but can take any of a number of possible outcomes), then the future state of the universe is non-determined. In practice, I don’t really fret about whether this is true: since we can’t predict the future anyway, it doesn’t even matter whether the universe is truly deterministic. We can just live our lives assuming it is not.
ETA: * Note that in the Free Will argument we could have lived in a world free of evil.
Yes really. All ethical codes can be attributed to human social activity and none to deities. I challenge you to provide a counterexample.
phoodoo,
Did I ever mention I am a big fan of your rants?
Let’s try this on for size: do you have any kids? Imagine the world in which you’d like your (or some loved one’s) kids to grow up: If it is like mine, it has no cruelty, or fear or hatred. They can trust others and they spend their time discussing literature and science or listening to music. It also appears to be completely devoid of 24-hour dirt porn channels.
1) Is that a better world than the current one?
2) Why didn’t God ensure we live in that world?
Also a clarification: I feel uncomfortable with the thought that you might get the impression I am attacking your belief: This is not the case and I respect your faith.
Corneel,
Well, first, don’t worry about attacking on faith. I don’t mind at all. Almost nothing offends me, other than politicians like the orange tumor. But thanks.
if there is no dirt porn, if I know humans, there will be at least some that will still complain. But anyway, part of life is struggle. Imagining avoiding struggle, is pointless, because without it there would be no greatness. And pretty much everyone, given a choice would rather exist in this world than not exist. Otherwise, why would not existing be considered sad?
This world was just rocks for long time, I guess God thought that was OK.
Maybe that is why volcanos erupt, all the rocks watching rock porn.
Didn’t they have to know it was evil to disobey God before eating the apple ? If they had no sense of good and evil how would they know it was evil to disobey?
Would it be better if all life was a struggle then , if struggle makes life meaningful ?
Does God struggle or is He not great?
Sure, the question is this world the only option open to God.
If it is are we not thwarting God’s pain/ plan when we seek to make this world less painful and punish evil?
Without that feeling ,religion would be in big trouble.
Good, thanks.
*applauds*
Not sure I am following this. So you are saying that without struggle (which is evil?), we could never attain greatness? You keep sounding like dr Pangloss, maintaining this is the best of all possible worlds. I disagree: It might be hard to imagine a perfect world, but it’s trivial to imagine a world that’s better than the one we live in.
I don’t understand the part about “not existing”. We could all exist in better world, right?
Against putting rats on trial in ecclesiatical court for stealing grain? Because it’s deranged, that’s why. And it would be unsafe for the rats to appear in their own defence*.
I think evil exists in the sense that luck exists: I see manifestations, but I doubt the existence of some abstract force. Our eagerness to ascribe agency may be misleading us.
Different degrees of mens rea, perhaps? We make allowances for children, after all…
Nah. Empathy.
Happy to see that your theodicy has developed from whipped cream to gummy bears. It’s a start, I guess.
*The argument that their lawyer used. Successfully.
Ahh, greatness. Sounds great.
The more struggle, the greater the greatness in comparison. So it’d actually be even better if everyone persisted in unimaginable agony for eons, then so much the greater will the relief be when it finally arrives.
One second’s joy for every geological period of physical and emotional torture. Why? Because Allahu akbar!
You don’t understand. What do I argue for?
Instinct is itself the urge to follow. Are you familiar with human sexuality at all?
They also know good and evil, so no. It’s their internal fight. Your 3rd party opinion counts for little.
“People are different”?!? Wow! They’re all do-gooders and all think people dying is bad. Has nothing to do with evil. They’re also duped by a false dilemma.
You struggle too much. “Ought” is in your instincts. God put it there. You follow unless mentally impaired / psychopath. No convincing necessary. “Ought” is incoherent with atheism.
Don’t let any stupid human tell you what God can and can’t do. As explained, the Book of Job clearly explains that it is not up to the lowly humans to second guess God.
They were pagans, and huge fans of eugenics. Would say closet evolutionists.
This is just human stupidity on par with “natural selection”. Can the cat judge the human?
So “God” put it in my instincts that the biblical god is a nauseating ass-hole? So I “ought” to detest that cosmic bully?
No idiot, idiots like yourself fail to see that it’s you who decide that the “is” of your imaginary friend are “oughts” out of mere preference, and that there’s no reasonable path to oughts anyway. The is/ought problem applies to any attempts at morality, which is why morality/ethics is such a hard problem.
Wasn’t the magical being in the sky all-powerful? Yet “He” cannot put that into the psychopaths instincts? Ha!
Not even possible with those guys. So much for “ought.” Ha!
You just showed that it’s incoherent with God-did-it as soon as you confronted it, all by yourself, to the reality of psychopaths.
It’s your values that make it look like oughts to you, yet you display, to a high degree, modern days morality, rather than biblical morality. The inquisition didn’t “second-guess God,” they followed “His” instructions verbatim. You don’t know, or don’t want to see, this because you grew up under a domesticated Christianity, rather than its original, savage version.
I did not. Look again: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/the-real-problem-of-evil/comment-page-4/#comment-263958
Question was for Corneel and all other (you to).
How would you know that “physical (but non-material) phenomenon” is not God. Does “physical” even have a meaning now that “materialism” is obsolete?
Not about the future, remember? If it’s just stuff that happens, how do you get to “ought” and “evil”? Read again 3. and 4.
I challenge you to provide an example. I already explained – read 4. again.
Moved a comment to guano.
You’re making the error of which you (all too regularly) accuse others – not reading for comprehension. I claim all “miracles” can be accounted for as human invention. I submit any example of a claim for a so-called “miracle”.
Alan Fox,
But you’re OK with this one: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/the-real-problem-of-evil/comment-page-5/#comment-264006?
I can talk the retard’s language. No problem. Just make up your mind.
Huh? You’re in the wrong thread.
This comment?
If you think there is a “miracle” where the laws of this universe were violated, then point it out.
Nonlin.org,
If you want to discuss moderation decisions, you need to post them here.
You reject the concept of original sin?
I assume lots of things aren’t God. It’s my default state.
Even excluding all things made of matter, there are still lots of things that aren’t God.
“Ought” and “evil” is what you, me, and the community we belong to, collectively decide is the right thing and the wrong thing to do, respectively. It usually works because we tend to agree on what is right and what is wrong.
If you disagree, that is because you are evil, and people ought not to listen to you.
Nonlin.org,
You shouldn’t be so angry that you defeated your own “point.” After all, your imaginary friend should have put it in your instincts that you harvest what you sow. What? Did “He” fail at putting that in your instincts too? Wow, your imaginary friend is a failure coming up with unquestionable “oughts.” You fail to abide by them yourself!
ETA: And you don’t feel the slightest remorse.
You are making the same fallacious burden of proof you made in the miracles thread Alan. It is you who has no definition of what a miracle is. I think you claimed that a limb regrowing “might” be a miracle, but what does that even mean? How would you know when this so called miracle was real, and when it was a trick, or was an hallucination, or if it was just witnessed by people but you weren’t there….You think someone couldn’t always find an excuse to say its just an unknown event?
But here Alan, someone grew back a finger. Will you now concede, and change your life, because miracles are real?:
Rumraket,
How many please center orbs should a great God make? Is one enough?
phoodoo,
Is this the event that you are claiming is a miracle?
My immediate question is what law of the universe would be violated by a regrowth of a finger-tip? I admit, if accurate, regrowing the fingernail is quite extraordinary but tissue can regenerate. There’s a lot of work being done currently with stem cells.
I’d also wonder how we could connect this event to divine intervention?
Just in case there’s anyone here interested in whether or not animals can count as moral subjects and moral agents in any sense, here are some relevant books:
Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals
Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues
Can Animals Be Moral?
There’s also a huge literature on the role of ultrasociality in hominid evolution, but esp see
A Different Kind of Animal: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution
The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
Right, do we see the problem yet ? You kept claiming it was nonlin’s burden to come up with a definition of a miracle, that was acceptable to you. But that’s ridiculous, because how could he know what you would accept as a miracle. And here we see the proof of that.
So its not his burden, its yours. You just said that you in fact could hand wave away THIS example. So why should anyone believe that you wouldn’t also hand wave away other examples? The fact is, if you start with the belief that miracles don’t happen, then you can ALWAYS say that any example is just unexplained, or not sufficiently verifiable for you. Any good skeptic can deny anything. So the game is a con from the start. Ask for evidence, say that evidence doesn’t count, then ask for more evidence.
Straight out of your skeptic bible.
Just like James Randis fake challenge.
Kantian Naturalist,
So what are you trying to say then KN. Can animals be evil? Can they be immoral? Should they be punished in some way for acts which are immoral?
Funny , thought lots of Germans were Protestant and Catholics. Definitely fans of Eugenics but then again in the US North Carolina , hardly a hotbed of atheism led the pack when came to Eugenics in the US . Not until 1967 did interracial marriage become universally legal.
You think the Nazis would accept they are descended from a common ancestor with the lesser races? Come on ,man.
I said I reckon all claims that “miracles” (that violate the laws of this universe) can be rejected for lack of evidence other than testimony.
Well that is a conundrum. But the example you present seems to have two problems. First, it is not at all clear that any law of the universe was being violated according to the press reports. Second, it is not at all clear where any deity is involved.
I take that as another attempt by you to distract from the fact that you don’t have any sensible response to the point. That there is no amount, or duration of physical and mental agony, that your ad-hoc excuse could not be invoked to explain away.
No matter how much suffering, how intensely, or for how long it persisted, you could always just come back and say that “struggle is necessary for greatness”, so there.
God could literally be a misanthrope and sadist who takes pleasure in making sentient beings suffer, and your excuse could be raised in defense of that God. Oh but struggle is necessary for Greatness, and God is so great.
Nothing, you have nothing to say to this. Game over.
Right. The conundrum is you are asking for evidence, that you say you wouldn’t accept even if you had.
Its the skeptics catch-22. Just like Randi.
Rumraket,
You don’t seem to have much of an alternative.
How many orb pleasure centers would it take to make a great God?
Setting aside for the moment the problem of finding any example of a “miracle”, what does it matter? Either that you think miracles are proof of the supernatural or that I think human imagination is the sole source of such ideas. My scepticism should concern you no more than your belief affects me. Live and let live, I say.
Oh right, right, right, that is the whole premise of the skeptical movement, isn’t it? Live and let live! No censoring of opinions, no guerrilla skepticism, no Wikipedia collusion, just let all opinions flourish. Right!
Who the hell do you think you are kidding Alan?
It is true, I don’t understand what you argue for. I mean, you are so horrendously bad at arguing, I don’t see what benefit you could possibly derive from it. Although, even using the word “argue” might be overly generous: more often than not, its just a string of unconnected assertions.
As I noted, you are mis-stating the Trolley Problem. It is a subtle error, but given your desire to distinguish the original problem from the Fat Man variant, it is important to be crystal clear that, in the original problem, the choice is between action and inaction. You fail.
There’s a sceptical movement?
I tend to be influenced by opinions that have a basis in fact. But I don’t see how contrary opinions can be censored in a free society except* where there is incitement to hatred and violence. On the other hand it seems reasonable to me that there should be recompense when false claims cause serious loss, health-wise or financial.
ETA*
Yes there is. And I am skeptical of that movement.
Neil Rickert,
Me too.
Splitters!
An alternative? That’s easy: No unnecessary suffering. It’s in the key word, unnecessary.
I must note again that you fail to deal with the fundamental problem undermining your excuse. Which is that an excuse that can be invoked in any imaginable situation, fails to succeed as an excuse at all.
Not only can you not actually show that any kind of struggle is a necessary prerequisite for “greatness”(whatever the fuck that even is), even if you could show that some forms of “greatness”(still undefined) required struggle and suffering, it wouldn’t follow that the “greatness” that required suffering through struggle would make obtaining that “greatness” worth it.
It gets worse still since, even if we assumed for the sake of argument that whatever that “greatness” is, is actually worth going through some suffering and struggle for, we have no good reasons to think that the kinds of struggles and suffering people and other sentient beings actually go through in their lives, leads to such “greatness”, much less that the suffering and struggles are always in their optimal proportions.
In point of fact, we can be pretty sure that they are not. There are sentient beings that suffer and die, and never achieve any kind of “greatness” from it. Some helpless humans and animals will be killed in agony from disease, or eaten alive from another, and they will be feeling unimaginable pain and terror while it happens. A pain and suffering that teaches them nothing, and from which they don’t emerge any better or improved. Instead they just slowly suffer until they die under horrible circumstances.
A situation God is supposed to have set up, but is doing nothing to alter or prevent. Just leave them to suffer. A good person with means and opportunity would do something about it, but God manifestly doesn’t. So either God isn’t good, or doesn’t exist.
And your response to this is to wave your hands in the direction of “struggle is necessary for greatness”. That’s it, that’s all you have. A waving of your hands. And “pleasure orbs”, whatever the fuck that even is.
Define what you mean by greatness. What is greatness, what is it that makes something be great, and why should I care about it?
At some point in the past I noted to phoodoo that ‘suffering’ is decreasing ever faster. And, say, in 1000 years if we have survived what’s coming and our technology increases at a similar rate it’s likely that any cause of suffering we could name today likely would not exist then, or be entirely voluntary.
phoodoo deigned to reply with a cryptic “now you are getting the idea” or something similar but never despite repeated prompts, expanded on this “idea”. I pointed out that if suffering has a purpose, then what will serve that purpose then? Is it just people of the past that suffer and the future ones don’t have to because reasons? Or? But nada.
So he’s got some card he’s holding close. It’s probably something shit like Mother Teresa is his idol or something. And she did like to inflict a bit of suffering. More then a bit.
But I don’t think you’ll get any more out of him Rumraket, this is where he seems to stop.
This doesn’t make any sense. You want counterexample to nonsense?
Is that what you think I said? Read again.
I smell a confused closet creationist. Come out buddy!
Maybe. Maybe not.
A very superficial reply. Follow the trail from the Big Bang and you see no rational jump from “is” to “ought”. As explained:
The “original ought-is sin” is when materialists imagine the first RNA randomly happening and then, hocus-pocus, “evolution” with its ‘oughts’ takes over.
Good and evil is another step too far. Now you have lion eating the gazelle alive, or the wasp turning the cockroach into a zombie food supply, the weasel killing all the chickens, peer violence, or even cannibalism, and infanticide because that’s what animals do, and next step – out of the blue – you have 3 month old humans knowing good and evil.
Quit dancing around and answer these regardless of whether you are determinist or with a dash of randomness, materialist, physicalist, or paranormalist.
Not angry. Just don’t want to embarrass retards by not speaking their language.
Guess I could block, but sometimes even retards can have decent questions. This is your diploma – feel free to frame and hang it in your office.
You’re on a tangent to nowhere.
Then why not ask? Regardless of whose fault it is.
You’re wrong. Go to the default source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
“Original dilemma
Foot’s original structure of the problem ran as follows:…”
And who cares? It’s a false dilemma that has nothing to do with this essay.
I repeat: All ethical codes can be attributed to human social activity and none to deities.
You should be able to refute this with a single example.
Voilà!
The 3-months old that seems to know good and evil… not that I should encourage more nonsensical demand like yours.
Really? A three-month-old baby knows “right” from “wrong”!
No big deal if you are unable to respond coherently.