The Problem of Evil (split from is atheism unappealing)

[bilby]

The point is that the PoE isn't actually a problem because gods are not required to be good

The PoE is actually a problem, because it relates ONLY to gods that are good.

"Solving" the problem by removing that requirement isn't a solution at all; It's just deciding to play a completely different game.

Christians are perfectly welcome to "solve" their problem in exactly this way, or indeed by eliminating either of the other requirements of the PoE; It's their refusal to do so that makes their beliefs untenable.

There are lots of good arguments against the existence of an omnipotent, omnicognisant, but uncaring god. PoE has, however, never been one of those arguments.

 

[IIDB Staff]

This thread is quickly devolving into an ad hom contest. Please address the argument and not the person.

If someone is annoying you with what you believe is bad reasoning, you can ignore them or take a break from the thread if you can't stop yourself throwing out insults and accusations of faulty reasoning capabilities. It's a fine line between pointing out legitimate fallacies and telling your fellow community members that they are not capable of better reasoning. Please be mindful of crossing that line.

Thanks.
IIDB Staff

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The point is that the PoE isn't actually a problem because gods are not required to be good

The PoE is actually a problem, because it relates ONLY to gods that are good.

"Solving" the problem by removing that requirement isn't a solution at all; It's just deciding to play a completely different game.

Christians are perfectly welcome to "solve" their problem in exactly this way, or indeed by eliminating either of the other requirements of the PoE; It's their refusal to do so that makes their beliefs untenable.

There are lots of good arguments against the existence of an omnipotent, omnicognisant, but uncaring god. PoE has, however, never been one of those arguments.

The point is, Christianity (and Islam and Judaism) are based on claims of revelation. Thus claims God is good, merciful, compassionate et are basic claims for Christianity and Islam. Once the apologist abandons that, atheism has won the debate by forcing the apologist to do that desperate move.

If the apologist then decides to abandon the God of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism et al, the burden of evidence shifts to the theist who can no longer make any claims based onthe revelation that they have abandoned. Now it is a matter of evidence. There is a wide array of maybes. Maybe many gods, Process Theology's God, Spinozian pantheism, Hegelian idealism, and more. Each approach has its own set of problems. And all lack evidence. Or break down to vague and doubtful claims.

If all the theist can offer is doubtful maybes, these are not evidence. But revealed religions, including Christianity at this point are dead.

 

[Jarhyn]

.

There are lots of good arguments against the existence of an omnipotent, omnicognisant, but uncaring god. PoE has, however, never been one of those arguments.

Sorry, but there's exactly one argument against the existence of such, and it doesn't serve against it as just against positive belief in it: a lack of evidence of any kind.

Let me ask you a question: do you think I ultimately don't care about the things I intend to create?

One of the reasons I haven't created them yet, the only reason, really, is because I have neither the time or resources to care properly for it to not fuck it up.

But an existence without suffering is not how I could possibly "not fuck it up".

How could any thing meaningfully develop into something that could solve problems, let alone really hard ones, without having any problems to suffer over in the first place?

The PoE is a farce for children who are stuck on throwing tantrums because life is "hard".

It's the wrong question.

The only question is "where is your evidence?"

 

[SIB]

Just to mention a different view to the theoretical Judeo-Christian concept of God. You have a different one to mine CC (no surprise). "The problem of the existence of evil" so described, is resolved when you read 'further' so to speak. Meaning when there is 'no more' existence of evil, that part is then ... the new Kingdom and Heaven bit.

I am sure that that makes you feel better about believing something nonsensical, but as it is itself nonsensical, it doesn’t actually get you out of the logic trap.

Your god cannot be good, and omnipotent, and omnicognisant. You can only escape from the PoE by abandoning at least one of these putative traits (although doing so just runs your god smack bang into further demonstrable evidence for its incompatibility with our knowledge of reality).

To address your specific “solution”, we need only note that requiring suffering in a pre-“Kingdom and Heaven” subset of reality is needlessly cruel for an all knowing god with the ability to do something about it. It’s not sufficient that some, or even most, of existence be without suffering; To break the PoE, all of every single person’s existence must be pleasant. Evidence that this is not the case abounds, and requires only that you open your eyes.

thats kind of how I see it.

it may be omni-whatever ... but then it made evil. Then so be it, it can be as loving as possible and still had to make evil for the system to work.

it may not be omni-whatever. Then so be it. It is what it is.

Just make the god claim match what people can relate to based on the human experience. I think if they do that it may be able to self correct over time as we learn more. why do they have to stick with 2000 year old versions.

 

[TomC]

What I mean for example is: I have no doubt God loves us and the concept as I understand it, says, He wants us to get back to Him...

Have you ever heard of Universalism? The denomination merged with Unitarian to become UU back in the 50s.

Universalism was a pretty standard Trinitarian denomination except for one thing. They squared "Almighty God" with "God Loves all His Children". Life is rough, but it's a purification process. Or perhaps, a sorting process. When you die, God fixes what's wrong with you and then you go to Heaven. "Universal Salvation", everyone goes to Heaven eventually. There's consequences for bad behavior, it's not a "get into heaven free " card. But there's no eternal damnation either.

The bottom line is "God wants everyone to be Saved. Almighty God gets what He wants.
"Universal Salvation"

That made more sense to me than standard Christian dogma, where puny humans can thwart God because we're stupid.
Tom

 

[TomC]

The question really for me is: Who would want to live with Jesus as their King? I have come across people who detest the idea.

Have you? I honestly doubt it.

I'm certain that you've come across people who detest the idea of living with Jesus, as described by Christians, as King. I can tell you flat out, there are Christians out there who believe that I should be beaten to death with rocks. Bible based Christians are rather evil. Or "ethically primitive" if you prefer.

Me, personally, I should be stoned to death. Because Jesus said so in Leviticus. Lev: 20-13. It's right there in the Bible as canonized by Christians.

I don't take them too seriously, now that Christians have dumped Scriptural morality wholesale and adopted the far better Secular Humanistic ethics mostly. It's become a better world since they did. But it's still there in the primitive ethics of the Bible. So I can't really trust a Christian too much.
Tom

 

[steve_bank]

The question really for me is: Who would want to live with Jesus as their King? I have come across people who detest the idea.

Have you? I honestly doubt it.

I'm certain that you've come across people who detest the idea of living with Jesus, as described by Christians, as King. I can tell you flat out, there are Christians out there who believe that I should be beaten to death with rocks. Bible based Christians are rather evil. Or "ethically primitive" if you prefer.

Me, personally, I should be stoned to death. Because Jesus said so in Leviticus. Lev: 20-13. It's right there in the Bible as canonized by Christians.

I don't take them too seriously, now that Christians have dumped Scriptural morality wholesale and adopted the far better Secular Humanistic ethics mostly. It's become a better world since they did. But it's still there in the primitive ethics of the Bible. So I can't really trust a Christian too much.
Tom

Thee extreme Christians is why I post here. There has to be a push back.

 

[TomC]

Thee extreme Christians is why I post here. There has to be a push back.

What extreme Christians?
Are you talking about IIDB?

Even vaguely Christian theists get run off this forum.
I wish that weren't true, but it is. Express the belief in Christianity and you'll get piled on, insulted, and lied about for no end.

Even if members think your world view resembles Christianity, it happens.
Tom

 

[James Brown]

what's the resolve? I'm reminded of the ideas we hear of... when its suggested that, if you took away free will you'd get robots etc..& etc..
What do you get then, when you desensitize the nerve endings of human beings? I suppose I could say... there'd be NO evil i.e. self gratification or lustful desires, one could yearn for - especially being harmful encounters, on the detriment of the innocent.
Without having any physical feelings at all, you'd be as useful as a crash-test-dummy!

Does that mean there will be evil in Heaven? With all those free-willed beings with actively-working nerve endings--necessary for basking in the glory of Almighty God--surely sooner or later everyone will commit an act of harm. And "sooner or later" means "within all of eternity."

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Religion is the definition of word salad, in most cases anyway. Convictions of the existence of mystical, magical, juvenile, woo-woo bullshit is just an indicator that the brain hasn't yet matured.

The point is that the PoE isn't actually a problem because gods are not required to be good any more than they are required to exist.

That was always a juvenile assumption in the first place.

Again, the God of Christianity and Islam are defined as good with a list explcit sub- goodnesses. Merciful, just, loving compassionate. Once we throw these out to save appearances, you gut Christianity and religion. Which won't fly with atheists or Moslems. Then we are back to the old problem of what evidence is there for the much lesser variety of God hypothesized.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Religion is the definition of word salad, in most cases anyway. Convictions of the existence of mystical, magical, juvenile, woo-woo bullshit is just an indicator that the brain hasn't yet matured.

The point is that the PoE isn't actually a problem because gods are not required to be good any more than they are required to exist.

That was always a juvenile assumption in the first place.

The issue is more fundamental. Religion invents "evil." Then it claims that we need religion to fix the evil. "Evil" is just more religious word salad. There really is a man behind the curtain, Oz is fake.

People who can think and observe without the influence of religious stupidity easily recognize this aspect of the religious charade.

 

[steve_bank]

Thee extreme Christians is why I post here. There has to be a push back.

What extreme Christians?
Are you talking about IIDB?

Even vaguely Christian theists get run off this forum.
I wish that weren't true, but it is. Express the belief in Christianity and you'll get piled on, insulted, and lied about for no end.

Even if members think your world view resembles Christianity, it happens.
Tom

The ones who would stone you to death for blasphemy....

You can har hate speech on TV and radio Chrtian shows direed at atheists, and I have heard it in person.

 

[James Brown]

"If God didn't let people suffer, then people would suffer from the lack of suffering.

God doesn't want people to suffer, so he lets us suffer."

--The anti-PoE apologist's credo.

 

[steve_bank]

This logic gives me a headache

What evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!

 

[TomC]

Born with a sinful nature? Yes of course!

To me this is the real Problem of Evil. The important one.

While there's a great deal of overlap, we can divide bad things into two categories. Things that happen, but nobody chooses. "Acts of God" as it were, things like tornadoes and tsunami and virus. Then there's things we choose, like murder, theft and even over eating. The second category is the result of human nature. We're born stupid, to put it bluntly. Clever apes with opposable thumbs, but apes nevertheless. And we act like them.

We're all born ignorant, fragile, needy, and self-centered. We start learning things almost immediately. What we learn is dependent on our environment. And we generally have a batch of instinctive behavior. No two people are identical, but we inherit tendencies that helped spread our genes in the natural world. Instincts like theft and impulsive sex and murderous tribalism are natural to us. To a degree, and in a spotty way, we can learn ways to behave that are more conducive to a happy and secure life. But we don't always do that.

That's because we really just aren't that smart. Our perceptions are weak. Our mental processes are weak. We tend to operate out of habit and instincts and emotions more than rational consideration. We like to think we're choosing freely, but we're really not. Free Will is an illusion created by our inability to perceive the causes of our choices, by and large. So we commonly make choices that degrade the human situation, both for ourselves and everyone else.

If we were really that smart we'd all be saints. Because moral behavior is in our own best interests. I cannot believe that a God, as described by Abrahamic religionists, would fail to do better with regard to human nature. Mindless evolution in an uncaring Universe answers the question perfectly well.

Frankly, recognition of this is the foundation of my moral code. Humans are weak and need care and consideration. We need help. Since there is no God who cares, we must do it for each other or it just won't happen.
Tom

 

[steve_bank]

I
ll ask the tiresome question, what is evil and who decides what it is?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I cannot believe that a God, as described by Abrahamic religionists, would fail to do better with regard to human nature. Mindless evolution in an uncaring Universe answers the question perfectly well.

Evil isn't a problem, it's just a fictional story told by religionists and discussed by philosophers. The fact is that one person's evil is another person's goodness. This is evidence that at the behavioral level good and evil are the same thing. Talking about evil is the same thing as talking about angels on pinheads.

Even in religious stories we have evil existing right alongside goodness. Satan is an angel in heaven, the serpent is placed in the garden. We humans literally owe our freedom (and free will if one believes in such a thing) to Satan and the serpent, and if one wishes to be accurate wrt those religious stories, we owe our freedom to evil.

If heaven is this perfectly good place, how do you know when you're there? What do you compare it to? You would have to know what evil is to know something is good. Heaven would at least have to contain lots and lots of memories of evil. Maybe heaven is the ultimate hedonism because everyone has undergone a lobodomy. Nice place, lots of freedom and goodness.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Imagine you are an Ukranian. You go home to find Russian soldiers have raped you wife and daughters, tortured your family, murdered them all, and stolen all you owned.

One man's evil is another man's good? Really! Imagine a five your old African child, crying in pain and horror as a guinea worm burrows its way out of his foot. Who's good is that?

 

[steve_bank]

To one woman her abortion is good. Another woman calls it murder.

To the ancient Stoics and Samurai suicide was considered an honorable way out. The Japanese in WWII committed suicide rather than face capture and defeat.

To Christians the bible is absolute morality.

The Russian rape and plunder in Uktaoe is ecactly what the Russian army did on the march to Germany in WWII. Rape and plunder a Russian cultural norm? Seems that way in Ukraine.

So, what is evil and who decides? For Catholics it is the words of the pope. In liberal western democracy it is the people through elected representatives.

You can look at rape as enlighted self interest. Rape should be illegal because I don;t want anyone in my family raped.