FRDB Archives

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.


Go Back   FRDB Archives > Archives > IIDB ARCHIVE: 200X-2003, PD 2007 > IIDB Philosophical Forums (PRIOR TO JUN-2003)
Welcome, Peter Kirby.
You last visited: Today at 05:55 AM

 
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 05-21-2003, 02:33 AM   #1
Regular Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 134
Default PoE, another approach?

I'm going to state an argument that I think could increase PoE's strength.
1.If God exists, then there doesn't exist a great deal of unjustified evils.
1.For any instance(s) of evil that occur, that evil can be outweighed if, and only if (a)There is a possible good that outweighs the evil (b)That good can be acheived only by way of that evil.

1.a If there exists an evil that has n units of evilness, and there are an f number of goods that can justify n units of evilness, and there is an incriment increase from n units of evil (to say n+1 units of evil), then there is a corresponding decrease to how many goods that can justify an instance of evil (say, to f-1.)

(This premise seems to be justified. For example, if someone decides to start getting in shape by going to the gym, that evil would be justified by virtue of health alone. However, if someone decides to beat up innocent children, then that would not be justified because one might get in shape by beating up a large amount of childeren. The act of working out at the gym can be justified by a greater variety of goods then the act of beating up little childeren; however, since one can only be justified for permitting an evil if one has good reason to believe that the greater good acheived by the act of beating up childeren only if that good couldn't have obtained by a significantly lesser evil. Therefore, the goods that justify a higher evil could not be obtained by a significantly lesser evil, because a great evil is only justified precisely because the greater good couldn't obtain through a lesser evil.

1c. Hence, the greater an evil that obtains, the lower the probability that that evil will be justified.

2. There are horrendous evils that exist in great quantity.

3. It is improbable that those evils are justified.

4.Therefore, it is improbable that God exists.
3.
Just_An_Atheist is offline  
Old 05-21-2003, 07:22 AM   #2
Regular Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 134
Default

I would like to rephrase my argument so it's not so convoluted. Firstly, let IHE stand for "incredibly horrible evils".

1.If there is only a small percentage of goods that can justify the existence of IHE, then it's occurrance is rarely justified.

2.If God exists, then there would be no unjustified IHE.

3.probably, if God exists, the occurrence of IHEs would rarely occur probably . (from 1 and 2.)

4.But the occurence of IHEs is not rare.

5.Therefore, probably God does not exist.
Just_An_Atheist is offline  
 

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 03:53 PM.

Top

This custom BB emulates vBulletin® Version 3.8.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2015, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.