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Who What Now posted:No, just no omnibenevolent God. Really it just sounds like you think any pain must be evil.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:40
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Crowsbeak posted:Really it just sounds like you think any pain must be evil. Pain is a negative by default, yes. It can be justified by trade-offs, a little pain in exchange for some good, but an omnipotent being never needs to make trade-offs.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:49
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Cenobites were more about the pain since you can't really know pleasure without it. You could argue at some point both become the same thing. If you've watched the movie Jacob's Ladder, there's a similar concept except with leaving things as they are when you die and accepting it. Life and Death. Pleasure and Pain. All are the same.
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Jun 30, 2016 02:30
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Pain is a negative by default, yes. It can be justified by trade-offs, a little pain in exchange for some good, but an omnipotent being never needs to make trade-offs. Actually that pain is our own collective fault.
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Jun 30, 2016 03:01
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Crowsbeak posted:Actually that pain is our own collective fault. Except when it isn't, but let's just ignore those parts and refuse to address them.
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Jun 30, 2016 03:07
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Crowsbeak posted:Actually that pain is our own collective fault. How is mankind at fault for natural disasters?
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Jun 30, 2016 03:08
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Crowsbeak posted:Actually that pain is our own collective fault. Tell it to the harlequin babies.
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Jun 30, 2016 03:09
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Cancer is a gift from god.
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Jun 30, 2016 09:09
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We as a whole did choose to accept evil did we not? For we expected free will and we were given that and we accepted evil. I sincerely believe if we all came to God we would be restored, But I doubt that will ever happen until the end of time.
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Jun 30, 2016 09:13
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Crowsbeak posted:We as a whole did choose to accept evil did we not? For we expected free will and we were given that and we accepted evil. I sincerely believe if we all came to God we would be restored, But I doubt that will ever happen until the end of time. I didn't accept evil, no. Why would you? I also don't believe free will exists, or that it would justify or be the source of evil if it did.
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Jun 30, 2016 13:21
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Crowsbeak posted:We as a whole did choose to accept evil did we not? I know I did when my ancestors decided to crucify God's kid. Sorry about that one, God!
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Jun 30, 2016 14:14
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Crowsbeak posted:We as a whole did choose to accept evil did we not? For we expected free will and we were given that and we accepted evil. I sincerely believe if we all came to God we would be restored, But I doubt that will ever happen until the end of time. i never asked for freewill how do i get a refund?
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Jun 30, 2016 15:11
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Who What Now posted:Needless suffering is suffering that serves to lead to no goal aside from its cessation. A degenerative neural disorder that causes unceasing pain is needless suffering, it serves no purpose. Vaccination is not needless, it serves to protect against disease. If the suffering in this world is truly necessary and a God is real then they'll be able to explain the purpose of it to me and I'll understand it, otherwise they are immoral for not alleviating that suffering. But all a theist needs to say to this is "all of this suffering serves a purpose that we don't understand, and God won't explain it to us yet because our ignorance also serves a greater purpose." I know you've said you don't like the "God is mysterious" answer to the problem of evil, but unless you can show how it fails as an argument from a logical standpoint, it doesn't stop being a valid counterargument.
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Jun 30, 2016 15:35
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Keeshhound posted:I know you've said you don't like the "God is mysterious" answer to the problem of evil, but unless you can show how it fails as an argument from a logical standpoint, it doesn't stop being a valid counterargument. It's not an argument to begin with, much less a valid one. You can't just say "oh, there's a perfect argument to answer this. I don't know what it is, but trust me it's hella good" and expect to be taken seriously. You wouldn't accept that for anything else, so why do you accept it here?
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Jun 30, 2016 15:41
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Keeshhound posted:But all a theist needs to say to this is "all of this suffering serves a purpose that we don't understand, and God won't explain it to us yet because our ignorance also serves a greater purpose." An all powerful God is by definition capable of creating a world where the same purpose could be fulfilled without suffering.
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Jun 30, 2016 15:41
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Keeshhound posted:But all a theist needs to say to this is "all of this suffering serves a purpose that we don't understand, and God won't explain it to us yet because our ignorance also serves a greater purpose."
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Jun 30, 2016 15:45
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Who What Now posted:It's not an argument to begin with, much less a valid one. You can't just say "oh, there's a perfect argument to answer this. I don't know what it is, but trust me it's hella good" and expect to be taken seriously. You wouldn't accept that for anything else, so why do you accept it here? Do you not understand how logical arguments work? When you pose the problem of evil as an argument that God doesn't exist, the onus is on you to make sure that your argument is ironclad. "Mysterious ways" is your opponent pointing out a hole in your logic. If you present to me a wall and say "on the other side of this wall are all the gods that could ever exist, but they can't get through my wall!" And I say, "but there's a hole there, they could come onto our side through it," the onus is on you to plug the hole, not on me to prove that a god has already come through. Mo_Steel posted:An all powerful God is by definition capable of creating a world where the same purpose could be fulfilled without suffering. And an omniscient one, by definition can have reasons not to that we don't understand, and beyond that reasons to not tell us those reasons. This is why I said that the problem of evil is a bad argument; if you accept it's remises, you are required to accept a scenario whereby objections can be raised which require it to be discarded. Keeshhound fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 16:16
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The stronger and far more interesting form of the Problem of Evil is the evidential one. e: Not in the sense that it proves the non-existence of God, because that's ridiculous and explicitly not the point of this thread anyways, but in the sense that leaving it at "mysterious ways" is shockingly incurious about the divine. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 16:26
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Keeshhound posted:Do you not understand how logical arguments work? When you pose the problem of evil as an argument that God doesn't exist, the onus is on you to make sure that your argument is ironclad. "Mysterious ways" is your opponent pointing out a hole in your logic. One of us obviously doesn't understand how logical arguments work, I'll agree to that. To follow your metaphor, you have to show me where the hole actually is, you can't just assert that it's there. So I need to know what the argument that suffering is necessary is before I can begin to rebut it. Again, you can't just say that God will have one, that's not good enough.
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Jun 30, 2016 16:54
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Who What Now posted:One of us obviously doesn't understand how logical arguments work, I'll agree to that. To follow your metaphor, you have to show me where the hole actually is, you can't just assert that it's there. So I need to know what the argument that suffering is necessary is before I can begin to rebut it. Again, you can't just say that God will have one, that's not good enough. What part of "your argument doesn't work if God has these qualities." Are you having trouble with? (That's the "hole," by theway, since you're having difficulty with the metaphor.) Let me spell it out for you: IF God is omniscient, then it follows that God can have reasons we do not understand to allow suffering, and to not tell us those reasons. The reasons themselves are immaterial. What matters is that you want to prove that [God as an omni* (thanks for that, twodot) entity who is also benevolent] is incompatible with [God has created a world where suffering exists] Subject to those premises are [In order to judge God's moral character, I must know and understand God's motivations] and [My own understanding of morality must equal or exceed God's] "Mysterious Ways" challenges both of those subject premises by pointing out that if God is omniscient, then by definition his motives and understanding of morality must exceed our own, unless you wish to claim that we have reached the pinnacle of moral and intellectual development as a species. So long as you allow "Mysterious Ways" to remain unchallenged on a logical level, and make no mistake, that is what you are doing when you ask people to provide reasons which the have explicitly stated are likely beyond theirs and your ability to fathom, you are denied the right to judge God, and your argument collapses. If you want to logically dismantle this counterargument, you will need to prove, logically, that God's Omniscience does not allow for motives or moral understanding which significantly exceeds ours.
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Jun 30, 2016 17:22
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Crowsbeak posted:Really it just sounds like you think any pain must be evil. Pain can be either evil, or amoral. If a human causes it, it's evil. If it just happens, it's amoral. However if we acknowledge that there is a Creator of everything, a sentient, self aware being with as much, or possibly more, capacity for reason and understanding as a human, then all things I personally would consider amoral-but-undesirable then immediately become simply part of a greater evil, set in motion by a greater being. So, either all suffering is evil, or there isn't a Creator.
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Jun 30, 2016 17:30
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Keeshhound posted:What part of "your argument doesn't work if God has these qualities." Are you having trouble with? (That's the "hole," by theway, since you're having difficulty with the metaphor.) No, it doesn't follow that this is the case. Those are false premises that I don't accept. I will under no situation accept "I have good reasons but I'm not going to tell you/you're not smart enough to understand" as a valid argument, and I don't know why you would when I'm sure you wouldn't accept them for any other situation. quote:If you want to logically dismantle this counterargument, you will need to prove, logically, that God's Omniscience does not allow for motives or moral understanding which significantly exceeds ours. No, actually, I don't. If the assertion is that god's motives and moral understanding are so far beyond mine that it's impossible for me to grasp then that's positive claim and it's the claimant's responsibility to demonstrate that and not mine to disprove it. Just saying that's the case isn't good enough. So prove that it's possible to have a moral understanding that is beyond my ability to grasp, because I don't believe such a thing is possible. And yes, I will say I'm the pinnacle of humanity in that regard if that's what you desire. Who What Now fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 17:37
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Crowsbeak posted:We as a whole did choose to accept evil did we not? For we expected free will and we were given that and we accepted evil. I sincerely believe if we all came to God we would be restored, But I doubt that will ever happen until the end of time. This is why nobody cares about refined theological arguments, because what underpins them is nakedly cruel and retarded.
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Jun 30, 2016 17:40
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Keeshhound posted:Do you not understand how logical arguments work? When you pose the problem of evil as an argument that God doesn't exist, the onus is on you to make sure that your argument is ironclad. No. What's happening is more of a rebuttal to an argument that God does exist. Let's keep in mind where the burden of proof falls and all that. I can propose a thousand entities that, with enough caveats and hedges, can't be disproven, but that's not enough reason to say that they exist. The onus is on the one proposing a God, and saying "I see the problem, cannot solve it, but assume there is an answer nonetheless" is not valid.
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Jun 30, 2016 17:47
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I mean strictly even if we assume that God's understanding is amazingly beyond our own it would still be really silly to accept that. As a human, I must use the best of my human reasoning to decide what's best for me and the rest of my species, if something seems utterly opposed to my welfare I shouldn't take the considered response that it's actually a benevolent superintelligence and accept everything it does as being actually moral even though all evidence suggests it's not. Human morality necessarily requires human intelligence, an intelligence that ignores human morality is not benevolent, it's alien.
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Jun 30, 2016 17:48
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There's also the problem that if we can't know if some instance of suffering is serving some greater purpose then whether we should do anything to prevent it gets tricky. Like if someone is engaging in say, genocide, should we do something about it or is it God's will to let it happen to teach us a lesson somehow. e: which may just be restating the above post, but anyway. 
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Jun 30, 2016 18:01
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Who What Now posted:No, it doesn't follow that this is the case. Those are false premises that I don't accept. I will under no situation accept "I have good reasons but I'm not going to tell you/you're not smart enough to understand" as a valid argument, and I don't know why you would when I'm sure you wouldn't accept them for any other situation. You're not understanding Keeshound's argument here. The point is that it is technically possible for God to have reasons we can't understand for doing things. Not that this is actually the case. As a result, the problem of evil doesn't disprove the possibility of an omnibenevolent God; it just renders it "kind of negligible." That being said, I think that you can disprove the idea of an omnibenevolent/omniscient/omnipotent God + free will existing. The problem with that combination of assumptions is that, if God were omniscient, he would be aware of the whole future of his creations before even creating them. Free will just doesn't make sense in such a situation; the outcome was decided before God even created humans, because - if God is omniscient - he would have known the outcome. To an omniscient God, creating humans and having a bunch do evil things is no different than a person placing a ball on a steep incline and it rolling down. This also makes the idea of a punishment in the afterlife absurd. I don't think there's any real way to reconcile these assumptions.
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Jun 30, 2016 18:15
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Keeshhound posted:And an omniscient one, by definition can have reasons not to that we don't understand, and beyond that reasons to not tell us those reasons. There can be no reason for suffering, whether or not we are even capable of comprehending said reason, because any reason at all could be overcome or circumvented or produced in a fashion without suffering by an all-powerful god. The existence of suffering is not validly answered by "mysterious ways" as a result, unless your definition of "mysterious ways" is "God is not good".
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Jun 30, 2016 18:18
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Ytlaya posted:You're not understanding Keeshound's argument here. The point is that it is technically possible for God to have reasons we can't understand for doing things. Not that this is actually the case. As a result, the problem of evil doesn't disprove the possibility of an omnibenevolent God; it just renders it "kind of negligible." No, I get that, I'm rejecting the claim that it's technically possible for God to have reasons we can't understand. That's not an assertion I'm going to just accept without support.
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Jun 30, 2016 18:30
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Keeshhound posted:Look, do you want the universe bubble-wrapped or not? You've argued both ways on this page.
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Jun 30, 2016 18:32
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Keeshhound posted:As the argument goes, an infant doesn't understand that the adults are sticking a needle in it's arm to inoculate it against far worse, it just knows that it's got a needle in it's arm. If the adult was omnipotent, s/he could easily come up with another method for delivering the inoculation, that didn't involve a needle, and if s/he were omnibenevolent, s/he would choose the less harmful method. God is all of these things, and yet God chose the needle/parasite/cancer? Free will has nothing that requires a needle in these circumstances.
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Jun 30, 2016 19:02
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:No. What's happening is more of a rebuttal to an argument that God does exist. Let's keep in mind where the burden of proof falls and all that. I can propose a thousand entities that, with enough caveats and hedges, can't be disproven, but that's not enough reason to say that they exist. The onus is on the one proposing a God, and saying "I see the problem, cannot solve it, but assume there is an answer nonetheless" is not valid. Even then, mysterious ways works. It's a critique of the LOGIC of the problem of evil, not of it's evidence. The burden of evidence doesn't fall on anyone, because the argument is "I see X in the world and thereby conclude that God does not exist," and the counter is, "your interpretation is wrong because it does not adequately address all possible explanations for X." Who What Now posted:No, I get that, I'm rejecting the claim that it's technically possible for God to have reasons we can't understand. That's not an assertion I'm going to just accept without support. In that case what we're actually disagreeing over is the definition of omniscience. For the sake of argument, I define it as having knowledge of everything that can be known. In that paradigm, I am forced to admit that because I do not know everything that can be known, there exists the possibility of rationales for suffering that I do not understand, and indeed may be impossible for me to ever understand so long as I interpret the world through human senses. Keeshhound fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 19:18
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Keeshhound posted:In that case what we're actually disagreeing over is the definition of omniscience. Why are you forced to admit that? Don't admit to anything that hasn't met its burden of proof. I do not currently understand everything there is to know about cellular biology, but that's not a good reason to say that it's literally impossible for me to understand cellular biology. You're granting additional premises that you don't have to for no other reason than strengthening the theistic side of the argument.
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Jun 30, 2016 19:33
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Crowsbeak posted:For we expected free will and we were given that Except for the people with a severe mental illness, God didn't think it was that important to give them free will.
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Jun 30, 2016 19:41
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Who What Now posted:Why are you forced to admit that? Don't admit to anything that hasn't met its burden of proof. I do not currently understand everything there is to know about cellular biology, but that's not a good reason to say that it's literally impossible for me to understand cellular biology. You're granting additional premises that you don't have to for no other reason than strengthening the theistic side of the argument. It is literally impossible for me to know what you are thinking at this point in time. The converse is also true. Can we agree on that?
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Jun 30, 2016 19:45
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Keeshhound posted:It is literally impossible for me to know what you are thinking at this point in time. The converse is also true. You could explain it to me, so... no?
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Jun 30, 2016 19:51
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Keeshhound posted:It is literally impossible for me to know what you are thinking at this point in time. The converse is also true. You could, I dunno, ask him what he's thinking? And then he'd tell you?
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Jun 30, 2016 19:53
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Captain_Maclaine posted:You could, I dunno, ask him what he's thinking? And then he'd tell you? And he could lie. I can offer him the benefit of the doubt, I can choose to trust but I can never KNOW what another human being is thinking the way I know my own thoughts. Keeshhound fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 20:02
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Keeshhound posted:And he could lie. I can offer him the benefit of the doubt, I can choose to trust but I can never KNOW what another human being is thinking the way I know my own thoughts. Ok, so what's your point, that God could lie? Ok, now we have a god that's a liar as well as evil.
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Jun 30, 2016 20:04
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Keeshhound posted:And he could lie. I can offer him the benefit of the doubt, I can choose to trust but I can never KNOW what another human being is thinking the way I know my own thoughts. But what if, *massive bong rip* you're, like, not really in control of your own thoughts because you're being fed artificial mental stimuli by the star children or something, maaaaaaan?
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Jun 30, 2016 20:07
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