winstonjen

Aside from original sin, this is perhaps the most tackled apologetics.

Here's one thread from the Naruto Forums (big surprise).

http://forums.narutofan.com/showthre...=106150&page=2

It starts further down the page.

It's strong ammunition for those who want to argue with theists and get some fence-sitters on our side.

Fortunately, I was not alone, and another secularist helped me put Wander in his place.

EthnAlln

I loved that one apologist pointing out that Job got a still bigger farm and crops and a new family in the end. Kinda hard on his first family, wasn't it? Or are we supposed to forget about them?

I've said it before, but I think it bears repeating, the answer God gave Job out of the whirlwind was elegantly phrased by Ring Lardner:

' "Shut up!" he explained.'

And when Jesus was asked why a man was born blind, he didn't answer the question. He changed the subject, by healing the man, the Bible says. Clearly the viewpoint of the theist is that God doesn't owe us an answer to these questions. So, we're left on our own to figure them out. For me the short simple answer is: That's just the way the world is, and there's no evidence that it was created by a mind that has any concern for human beings. I don't say it's inconsistent with such a being, just that there is no positive evidence for it/him/her. One could take the Leibnizian view that this is (logically, must be) the best of all possible worlds because it was created by a divine mind, and hence that all the horrible things in it are necessary evils. That's logically consistent; it's also a death knell for real religious faith, since anyone who takes the point of view that whatever happens proves that the world was designed by a loving deity has completely destroyed all possibility of moral reasoning.

Famously, the great apologist for Christianity CS Lewis was reduced to this position after his wife died of cancer. In his desperate attempt to preserve his faith (why he wanted to do so I have trouble imagining, but he had invested over 30 years of his life in it at that point, so I suppose he didn't want to admit he had wasted all that time), he concluded that he had been too smug, that his faith hadn't been really profound and God needed to knock over his house-of-cards faith to show him how much he needed the Deity. Such an argument is fatal to most of what Lewis wrote, since there is no conceivable event that couldn't be interpreted as the Deity's attempt to make our faith stronger. But Lewis had always argued that God's goodness was something human beings could recognize as good. He had to add a codicil, I think: will recognize as having been good when they get to heaven. In the meantime, the Cosmic Sadist (Lewis' own phrase) will remain indistinguishable to human eyes from the Loving Father. That's why I like Mark Twain better than CS Lewis.

In other places, Lewis took the Augustinian position that we all really deserve to go to Hell, even newborn infants, so obviously nothing God does to us can be regarded as unjust. "Hath not the potter power over the clay?" My answer: not if he expects this small lump of clay to worship him. I'm with John Stuart Mill on that. He may well send me to hell, but he will not get me to perjure myself by regarding abominations as manifestations of divine love. Again, the Augustinian theodicy is another logically consistent, but idiotic position.

winstonjen

Don't stop there. Wander has just replied to me on the last page with a two-post reply.

Solo

I beg your pardon ? Tou call that changing the subject ? Instead of blaming, he was fixing the problem, no ?

Actually God wanted to create the world that way: all answers immediately answered, all food immediately supplied, no pain, undifferentianted sea of pleasure. The problem was - he couldn't get the baby out of mom's belly.

You are right - there is no evidence, because if there was evidence life would be meaningless. You would know who or what God is, ergo you would know everything. What would you be doing here ? What would you be searching for ? For a way out of mom's belly, right ?

As for God's concern for us: that's an interesting one. I don't know how you but whenever I forget about my precious little self and get busy with something, things seems kind of easy, I am kind of not bothered by the shadow in the valley....I am sure it's the same with you, no ?.

Somebody said to me not long ago, how can a bright guy like you fall for that "god and jesus crap" ? I told him this: "I guess, it's mostly politeness. When I get something nice, I say thank you. I got a nice life. I'm thankful for it"

I think you misunderstand Leibniz' Theodicy. His "optimism" (Voltaire's lampooning notwithstanding) is just way for him to chase away pessimistic bugs. I think Russell was right though that his official philosophy was all for show.

The problem with C.S. Lewis was that he could not separate mentally God from his mother (,later subbed by the domineering Joy). I think he had a inkling of sorts of his mother-dependency. Or maybe it was just Anthony Hopkins' genius in "Shadowlands".

You are exaggerating. Like all of us, C.S.Lewis was a vulnerable human being. He lost in Joy a dearest friend and he was overcome with grief in which doubtless "rebelled" against God.

Like all sensitive boys who over-react to their mother Lewis was not a stranger to catastrophy. I grant you that Twain was a hardier and healthier sort.

This does not sound like an atheist manifesto but a cry for the impeachment of an unjust God ! Oh well.....

EthnAlln

Anybody would agree that fixing the problem is better than blaming. Why in the world would you imagine I feel differently? But I do positively assert that Jesus was changing the subject. He was asked a question; he didn't answer it. What else can that be called?

OK, you found a new way to say, "This is the best of all possible worlds, and much of what is in it is a necessary evil." I don't think we needed a new way to say that, but I grant you have done it.

Like all those kids dying of painful cancers without anaesthetics, all those people slowly starving to death, or crushed in earthquakes, or....my, what wonderful opportunities they have to search for meaning in their lives!

Yup, nothing like distraction to help a person forget an important question or reject the obvious answer to it if that answer is unpalatable.

My, wasn't that lucky for you! No need to wonder about all those people who got the beta version of life.


As far as psychoanalysis of Leibniz goes, I don't indulge. I confine myself to what he wrote; for me, what he privately believed isn't on the table for discussion, since I haven't seen whatever relevant books on the subject there may be. Mind you, I don't doubt that Russell got it right. When writing his thesis he read essentially everything there was by and about Leibniz.


Or Anton Rodgers (the Scottish actor known as "Mr. Callendar" in May to December), who did an excellent job in the more recent bio of Lewis.

Having analyzed Leibniz, you now analyze Lewis. My argument wasn't about his psychology, which is unknown to me. It was about the words he actually put down on paper. And what I said still stands: Any event whatsoever in one's life can be interpreted as God's attempt to strengthen one's faith. For a person like Lewis, who devoted his life to arguing that God is reasonable and good, this is a fatal admission.

OK, you've now psychoanalyzed Leibniz, Lewis, and me, all in the space of a single post. That's appropriate, since Lewis invented a name for that style of argument: Bulverism. Now if you'd care to reply to what I actually wrote, perhaps we could continue the discussion.