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| Problem of evil? |
| Unresolvable, god does not exist. |
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8% |
[ 3 ] |
| There is a greater good, not free will though |
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11% |
[ 4 ] |
| Free men means evil men |
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14% |
[ 5 ] |
| I believe God cannot stop evil |
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5% |
[ 2 ] |
| I believe the question is stupid |
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20% |
[ 7 ] |
| Other/I wanna see the results |
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40% |
[ 14 ] |
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| Total Votes : 35 |
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ThatRedHairedGrrl
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: May 11, 2008
Posts: 185
Location: Totally confusing all the passing piranhas
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 Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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Re the 'Fall', can anyone here who is a Christian explain something? Humans sinning is nicely explained by the temptation of Satan, but how did Satan get evil in the first place? He's supposed to have been an angel who fell, but that way we're presented with a perfect being who suddenly out of nowhere developed the sin of pride, and a being in perfect happiness who suddenly, again, became discontented. Unless it was 'all part of God's plan' from the beginning, it makes absolutely no sense.
In my mind, evil is only a 'problem' if you have a God who has to be all-good. If God is simply the all-encompassing source of everything, you can see the sense in the idea that a universe that could bring forth beings like ourselves would have to be set up a certain way. So death, pain and other 'natural' evils are inevitable. The same mechanism that enables a single cell to divide and eventually grow into a fully functioning infant is also, alas, the mechanism by which many of us get cancer in later life. Almost every single thing in human life has a positive and a negative side. And believe it or not, we don't always choose the negatives. Is it too far-fetched, if you believe in God at all, to say that maybe our urge to solve the problems, to bring good into the world, is God working through us?
I don't think the belief that humans are inevitably evil beings is a helpful one. Sure, human hubris isn't a good thing either, but we accept (if we're at all sane) that constantly belittling a child is as bad as spoiling it, and yet we've been treating ourselves like the bad kid on the block for centuries. Maybe we need to accept that we're not meant to be 'perfect' (well, not in the 'flawless' sense - the word Jesus uses translates from Greek more accurately as 'complete'), and start simply trying to be human.
| Quote: | | Worshipping such a being would be morally indistinguishable from devil-worship. |
That's exactly what Thomas Paine said, in so many words, about the God of the Old Testament. He's supposed to have personally ordered more than one genocide, and this is not excused by assertions that the people killed (among them children and babies) were 'morally corrupt' - there's no good evidence that the Canaanites, for instance, did anything more morally dubious than not worship YHWH.
Killing innocent kids because they live under a regime you don't happen to agree with is something we'd absolutely condemn today. Either people who do or did this were deluded in thinking 'God told me to', or that version of God is a monster. There are no two ways about it.
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Ancalagon
Sea Gull
Joined: Dec 26, 2007
Posts: 243
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| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Awesomelyglorious wrote: | | Well, the issue is how the fall, a rebellion against God's will would be better than no rebellion. That, in and of itself, leads to question as it would suggest an imperfection in God's will. Free will and predestination are in a sense impossible to combine, because the notion of free will is of an acausal will, but to have a predestining agent sets an effective cause of that agent. |
Free will is not necessarily acausal will. That would be randomness. Also, things can have more than one cause.
I am much more on the side of free will than predestination, but it is possible (albeit tricky) to combine them.
| Quote: | | No, odd means that it is unlike anything else in existence. As J.L. Mackie, the author of the argument from queerness wrote: "If there were objective values, then they would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe". Now, the issue is not the accuracy of the worldview so much as the fact that morality is not like a physical substance or anything of that nature, it is separate from all that is. |
Like mathematics? Or thought? Or the abstract interrelationship of the words in that last sentence you wrote? Or are you talking about something else? I'm not trying to be obnoxious with these questions, I just don't get what you're trying to get at, at all.
| Quote: | | Relativity is empirically verifiable. It isn't just odd. Oddness is not just an emotional reaction, it is the fact that something is out of place. Relativity is STILL odd, it is just verified. Morality is odd too, but there is no way to prove or verify it at all, therefore the supposition of it is brought unto question. |
From the logical (as opposed to emotional) perspective, relativity isn't odd. It's the normal, everyday, expected theory in modern physics. It's weird, but expected.
If you demand that everything be proved beyond all doubt, you will never believe anything at all. Solipsism, despite being rational in a strictly logical sense, is really a pretty irrational philosophy.
_________________
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"Don't think outside the box - find the box" -Andy Hunt & Dave Thomas |
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Awesomelyglorious
Destroyer of worlds, reaver of souls
Joined: Dec 18, 2005
Posts: 5529
Location: United States
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| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 11:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Ancalagon wrote: | | Free will is not necessarily acausal will. That would be randomness. Also, things can have more than one cause. |
Well, free will is an acausal will. If it isn't then it is determined by past events. If it is determined by past events then it is determinism. Now, we can be compatibilists, but compatibilist free will is not a very powerful argument for the free will defense. Actually, one of the arguments against free will is randomness.
| Quote: | | I am much more on the side of free will than predestination, but it is possible (albeit tricky) to combine them. |
I would possibly say that it is impossible to combine libertarian free will with predetermination.
| Quote: | | Like mathematics? Or thought? Or the abstract interrelationship of the words in that last sentence you wrote? Or are you talking about something else? I'm not trying to be obnoxious with these questions, I just don't get what you're trying to get at, at all. |
Umm.... math and thought are related, as are words, as all of those are related to the phenomenon of consciousness, which can be argued is a result of mental mechanisms. The issue is that morality is more of a metaphysical issue, and refers by its nature to an outside world. Math and thought refer to a world that is directly verifiable, and directly knowable by anyone who cares to.
| Quote: | | From the logical (as opposed to emotional) perspective, relativity isn't odd. It's the normal, everyday, expected theory in modern physics. It's weird, but expected. |
Well, no, from the logical perspective relativity is VERY odd, as it is unlike anything experienced and goes against the natural conclusions we have already drawn about the world. Now, if you look into the math it makes sense, but it is odd. Of course it is expected, but any system accepted is expected.
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If you demand that everything be proved beyond all doubt, you will never believe anything at all. Solipsism, despite being rational in a strictly logical sense, is really a pretty irrational philosophy. |
I like solipsism, and the philosophies I often promote will seem pretty darn close at times. |
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Ancalagon
Sea Gull
Joined: Dec 26, 2007
Posts: 243
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| Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 7:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Umm.... math and thought are related, as are words, as all of those are related to the phenomenon of consciousness, which can be argued is a result of mental mechanisms. The issue is that morality is more of a metaphysical issue, and refers by its nature to an outside world. Math and thought refer to a world that is directly verifiable, and directly knowable by anyone who cares to. |
Directly verifiable? What about the computer-generated proof of the 4-color theorem? That was what, a couple hundred pages? Directly knowable by anyone? That certainly doesn't apply to thought, and the subject of math is notoriously difficult, as well as very large.
I still don't see any special oddness about morality. We seem to be talking past each other. I've been wondering recently if you've been assuming materialism as part of your argument. If so, that argument is fine -- for other materialists. It won't be convincing for anyone else.
| Quote: | | Well, no, from the logical perspective relativity is VERY odd, as it is unlike anything experienced and goes against the natural conclusions we have already drawn about the world. Now, if you look into the math it makes sense, but it is odd. Of course it is expected, but any system accepted is expected. |
You seem to be playing with the definition of 'odd' here, or else assuming an odd definition for it. What do you mean by 'odd'? I still can't make sense of the original queerness argument.
_________________
"If you can't explain something to a six-year-old, you really don't understand it yourself." -Einstein
"Don't think outside the box - find the box" -Andy Hunt & Dave Thomas |
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Awesomelyglorious
Destroyer of worlds, reaver of souls
Joined: Dec 18, 2005
Posts: 5529
Location: United States
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| Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 8:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Ancalagon wrote: | | Directly verifiable? What about the computer-generated proof of the 4-color theorem? That was what, a couple hundred pages? Directly knowable by anyone? That certainly doesn't apply to thought, and the subject of math is notoriously difficult, as well as very large. |
Umm.... the subject of math is derived from it's assumptions. If we accept logic as an epistemology, then anything and everything mathematic is verified already. This includes things done by computers.
| Quote: | | I still don't see any special oddness about morality. We seem to be talking past each other. I've been wondering recently if you've been assuming materialism as part of your argument. If so, that argument is fine -- for other materialists. It won't be convincing for anyone else. |
Well, um.... haven't I already asked you how you can derive an ought from an is? Asked you to solve the is-ought problem in philosophy? I think we are talking past each other because you are not addressing the meta-ethical issues involved with ethics, which until these issues and assumptions come on clean, we cannot get to the point. You are a moral realist, I am a moral anti-realist, you assume that morality comes into the equation somewhere but have not really said where, and I have discounted all of the options for it to do so as logically flawed. The issue is not materialism, just a failure to clarify assumptions.
| Quote: | | You seem to be playing with the definition of 'odd' here, or else assuming an odd definition for it. What do you mean by 'odd'? I still can't make sense of the original queerness argument. |
I might not even be keeping track of it. The sense of the general queerness argument is the following:
1) People assert the existence of morals
2) There is no evidence for the existence of morals
3) Morality is unlike any other entity as it is not something that exists but rather something that impels, it describes oughtness as opposed to what is.
4 Based upon 2 and 3, we can assume that the assumption of morality is aparsimonious because it is unprovable but is unlike other proposed things in existence.
The issue is that you do not see 3, but you have not really outlined the issue you have with 3 in what I would consider a clear manner as the issue is an odd thing that exists, not odd logical/empirical relationships that we have recognized already in physics and other things. |
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BokeKaeru
Deinonychus
Joined: Jun 23, 2008
Age: 20
Posts: 369
Location: Alternately Los Angeles, CA and Northampton, MA
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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I don't believe that evil is non-existent or made up, or even that certain types of it (specifically, doing harm to the weak or the innocent are justifiable. The free will excuse doesn't sit well with me, though, because surely there could be a world in which people acted freely but it didn't harm anyone if god was really all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good. Besides, it doesn't explain natural evil, which, aside from theories about global warming and its human component, doesn't stem from free will.
I go back and forth from adhering to the greater purpose theory to buying into the limited god theory. On the one hand, I want to believe that everything is leading somewhere... I don't know exactly where, but it's a lot more appealing than the world just going endlessly in no direction, with no real progress or purpose, whatsoever. If what doesn't kill us really does make us stronger, or give us motivation to fix or improve or create something, then perhaps there is a reason for all the bad crap that goes on in the world, and in some ways, that's comforting. The problem with this theory, though, is that not every story gets a resolution, that things aren't tied up neatly... people die, suffer, get lost, lose hope, miss their chances, and they don't necessarily recover from them, nor are people necessarily able to help them, nor do their tragedies necessarily go on to help others. Sure, people spend their whole lives researching diseases and find their purposes in that way, or write/paint/compose masterpieces inspired by pain, their own and possibly other's, or take leadership roles in order to solve major conflicts or issues, but that's only the big picture. Generally the small people along the way get forgotten in and of themselves, if not for what they went through, and it's hard for me to think that everything works itself out for the best when some people's lives have to be pointless and miserable in the grand scheme of things for others' to be memorable and fulfilling.
Now, if God couldn't stop bad things from happening, or could but simply couldn't keep track of it all, that might be understandable - still not a solution, but at least a reason. And if God's limited, it has to be in power or knowledge, as far as I'm concerned, because why would a creator make something and will it into physical reality if they didn't love and care for it? (Well, if we want to go into the "god as father" analogy, we could probably undermine that, given some family situations... but let's not.) And when I really think about it, it makes sense that god wouldn't be able to keep track of it all or do everything at once - the guy has to deal with at very least about 6-7 billion sentient life forms (excluding the existence of aliens or other conscious beings we aren't aware of), not to mention at least sort of looking out for less-advanced species as well. How can any one mind or consciousness attempt to deal with all of those at once?
I think resolving the problem of evil would be a lot easier if we knew why God created the world to begin with... we can't analyze someone and their creative process, and therefore what they create and why, if we don't know much about them. |
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Ancalagon
Sea Gull
Joined: Dec 26, 2007
Posts: 243
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 11:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Awesomelyglorious wrote: | | Umm.... the subject of math is derived from it's assumptions. If we accept logic as an epistemology, then anything and everything mathematic is verified already. This includes things done by computers. |
By verified already, do you mean there's a mind with an infinite computational power that has precalculated everything? Or that math exists as some sort of platonic ideal?
| Quote: | | Well, um.... haven't I already asked you how you can derive an ought from an is? Asked you to solve the is-ought problem in philosophy? |
I'm not sure if an ought can be derived from an is or not. I've only just heard of the problem after all.
If it can't be done, how is that fatal to a moral realist view?
| Quote: | | you assume that morality comes into the equation somewhere but have not really said where, and I have discounted all of the options for it to do so as logically flawed. |
Your argument, if valid, would only discount a morality that is sheer oughtness, nothing else, and is not based, in whole or in part, on anything else.
My current opinion is that morality is a part of God, in the same way that logic/mathematics is, and since God is the bedrock of existence, morality simply is. Feel free to poke holes in it, but as I haven't yet gone through it in any sort of complete or systematic way, don't be surprised if I change my mind.
| Quote: | 1) People assert the existence of morals
2) There is no evidence for the existence of morals
3) Morality is unlike any other entity as it is not something that exists but rather something that impels, it describes oughtness as opposed to what is.
4 Based upon 2 and 3, we can assume that the assumption of morality is aparsimonious because it is unprovable but is unlike other proposed things in existence.
The issue is that you do not see 3, but you have not really outlined the issue you have with 3 in what I would consider a clear manner as the issue is an odd thing that exists, not odd logical/empirical relationships that we have recognized already in physics and other things. |
Actually, I'd dispute everything but 1.
2: What do you call human moral behavior? What about all of those moral codes that people make? What about the fact that those moral codes tend to agree about most basic things?
3: Black holes are unlike the story of little red riding hood which is unlike a photon which is unlike the abstract concept of love. All of them are utterly unlike each other. What is unusual about morality's unusualness?
4: unparsimonious =/= false
no evidence =/= unprovable
unprovable & odd =/= unparsimonious
Any sufficiently complex mathematical system contains true statements that are unprovable from within the system.
_________________
"If you can't explain something to a six-year-old, you really don't understand it yourself." -Einstein
"Don't think outside the box - find the box" -Andy Hunt & Dave Thomas |
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techstepgenr8tion
cleveland audio assassin
Joined: Feb 07, 2005
Age: 28
Posts: 5239
Location: That's for me to know and for you to find out.
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 11:52 pm Post subject: Re: God and the problem of evil |
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| Awesomelyglorious wrote: | 1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
3. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
4. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
5. Evil exists.
6. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn't have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn't know when evil exists, or doesn't have the desire to eliminate all evil.
7. Therefore, God doesn't exist.
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Its easy, if God is omnipotent he doesn't make mistakes. It means he created evil, created the conflict, created us on this earth and yes, created the basis of this question. Its all encompassing. God could be morally perfect at the same time, I'm not sure it means he wouldn't still test us to have 'us' see what we're made of. |
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Awesomelyglorious
Destroyer of worlds, reaver of souls
Joined: Dec 18, 2005
Posts: 5529
Location: United States
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Ancalagon wrote: | | By verified already, do you mean there's a mind with an infinite computational power that has precalculated everything? Or that math exists as some sort of platonic ideal? |
That math exists as tautologically true based upon it's premises. So, if it is math, then it is true, if it is not math or bad math, then it is false.
| Quote: | I'm not sure if an ought can be derived from an is or not. I've only just heard of the problem after all.
If it can't be done, how is that fatal to a moral realist view? |
Well, we can only know of "is". So, if we cannot use "is" to find "ought" then we cannot find morality, and if we cannot find morality, then we have no moral knowledge, like the form necessary to assert morality. This logically can lead to the idea that morality can be reduced away as unnecessary.
| Quote: | Your argument, if valid, would only discount a morality that is sheer oughtness, nothing else, and is not based, in whole or in part, on anything else.
My current opinion is that morality is a part of God, in the same way that logic/mathematics is, and since God is the bedrock of existence, morality simply is. Feel free to poke holes in it, but as I haven't yet gone through it in any sort of complete or systematic way, don't be surprised if I change my mind. |
Well, morality and "oughtness" can easily be considered interchangeable concepts. Morality is only a description of what a being ought to do. The issue with your idea is that even though you can make it work, it is hard to make it an intellectually satisfying answer.
| Quote: |
Actually, I'd dispute everything but 1.
2: What do you call human moral behavior? What about all of those moral codes that people make? What about the fact that those moral codes tend to agree about most basic things? |
Moral behavior != morality. Moral codes do not necessarily mean anything either, as functional cohabitation demands easily enforced behavioral structures. Finally, the agreements are often also partially based upon what long run self-interest would dictate. The entire issue of morality can be reduced down to the maintenance of successful group behavior and the common structure of the brain.
| Quote: | | 3: Black holes are unlike the story of little red riding hood which is unlike a photon which is unlike the abstract concept of love. All of them are utterly unlike each other. What is unusual about morality's unusualness? |
The issue is that black holes are like other physical objects. Photons are related to atoms and thus other physical objects. Red riding hood relates to cultural ideas. The abstract concept of love is a cultural idea with some biological basis. The issue of morality is NOT that it is unlike a specific other thing, but rather that it is unlike *all* other things. Ought is fundamentally alien to is, and all you have dealt with are the things that are.
| Quote: | 4: unparsimonious =/= false
no evidence =/= unprovable
unprovable & odd =/= unparsimonious |
1st one is true, however, we know from Ockham's razor that unparsimonious is strongly disfavored compared to parsimonious. I disagree, if there is no evidence then something is unprovable. Anything that would count to prove something would be a form of evidence from it. Aparsimonious and unprovable and odd almost equal each other, the issue also rests on comparative ideas, and well, other ideas are a ton simpler.
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Any sufficiently complex mathematical system contains true statements that are unprovable from within the system. |
You stole that from Godel(if I remember people correctly). An issue comes down to what we can assume as "common sense" or if we can assume anything as "common sense". |
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Orwell
Outer Party Member
Joined: Aug 09, 2007
Age: 18
Posts: 3208
Location: Room 101
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 12:43 am Post subject: |
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| Ancalagon wrote: | | Free will is not necessarily acausal will. That would be randomness. Also, things can have more than one cause. |
Multiple causes is still determinism, and if it is not acausal it has a cause, which implies determinism.
| Quote: | | I am much more on the side of free will than predestination, but it is possible (albeit tricky) to combine them. |
It is? Then please resolve Newcomb's Paradox for me. I am more on the predestination side. Actually, entirely on the predestination side.
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WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH |
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Awesomelyglorious
Destroyer of worlds, reaver of souls
Joined: Dec 18, 2005
Posts: 5529
Location: United States
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 12:46 am Post subject: Re: God and the problem of evil |
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| techstepgenr8tion wrote: |
Its easy, if God is omnipotent he doesn't make mistakes. It means he created evil, created the conflict, created us on this earth and yes, created the basis of this question. Its all encompassing. God could be morally perfect at the same time, I'm not sure it means he wouldn't still test us to have 'us' see what we're made of. |
Well, basically, the issue is that there is a greater goods argument. Evil is necessary for a greater good. The issue is that evil seems a lengthy and rather painful way to seek good, and to argue that it is necessary just brings about much question. |
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Orwell
Outer Party Member
Joined: Aug 09, 2007
Age: 18
Posts: 3208
Location: Room 101
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 12:53 am Post subject: Re: God and the problem of evil |
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| Awesomelyglorious wrote: | | Well, basically, the issue is that there is a greater goods argument. Evil is necessary for a greater good. The issue is that evil seems a lengthy and rather painful way to seek good, and to argue that it is necessary just brings about much question. |
Have we yet defined evil? That is something that is at least somewhat subject to perception.
^Yeah, I know, that argument is kind of a cop-out.
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Awesomelyglorious
Destroyer of worlds, reaver of souls
Joined: Dec 18, 2005
Posts: 5529
Location: United States
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:14 am Post subject: |
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| Orwell wrote: |
Have we yet defined evil? That is something that is at least somewhat subject to perception.
^Yeah, I know, that argument is kind of a cop-out. |
Kind of? It is very much of a cop out. Really though, there are some things that if considered good, we would then have to label goodness to be evil because of their odiousness. The existence of evil can thus either be considered an empirical fact, or a non-question if we deny morality, and thus undermine the logic of the existence of a deity. |
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Orwell
Outer Party Member
Joined: Aug 09, 2007
Age: 18
Posts: 3208
Location: Room 101
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 12:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Awesomelyglorious wrote: | | Orwell wrote: |
Have we yet defined evil? That is something that is at least somewhat subject to perception.
^Yeah, I know, that argument is kind of a cop-out. |
Kind of? It is very much of a cop out. Really though, there are some things that if considered good, we would then have to label goodness to be evil because of their odiousness. The existence of evil can thus either be considered an empirical fact, or a non-question if we deny morality, and thus undermine the logic of the existence of a deity. |
I suppose, akin to denying morality would be to deny any morality above God, because that means that God would be constrained by something. So whatever God does is good by definition, because God, having created everything in existence, gets to define what is good. If you then take God to be omnipotent, then whatever is, is good. "All is for the best in this best of all possible words." Human perception may certainly differ, but to make any significant progress there you have to claim human ideas of morality to be above God, which undermines claims of omnipotence.
Woot, another cop-out. I'm getting good at this.
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Griff
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 17, 2006
Posts: 1615
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:19 pm Post subject: |
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The Assyrians enslaved and destroyed entire cultures because they followed the logic, "the gods demand it, therefore it is good."
Try again, Orwell. This time, try not to use reasoning that could be used to justify atrocities. |
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