Cobalt

This analogy is about evil being putatively necessitated by free will. If god knows that some evil will occur, what is the purpose in letting that evil occur? Does your god have some higher purpose in allowing said evil to occur unchecked? If so, be prepared to explain what that purpose is. Alternatively, does the god of your imagining lack foreknowledge?
So, to your mind, mixing bad fruit with good fruit does make the good fruit taste better.
Though presumably your god does know who will 'fail' in the end, no?

EnterTheBowser

I've got a couple of things to say, but for the moment I want to stick with the idea that bling is advocating a consequentialist sort of moral theory.

Consequentialist moral theories select some kind, or several kinds, of "good." It's just something that has inherent value. Utilitarianism, a sort of consequentialism, says that "happiness" is the primary good. Consequentialism says that given two possible actions, the one which produces more of the good is the one that is morally preferable.

Given that picture of morality, when we get offered the moral reasoning "God allows suffering because it produces more Godly love" we're clearly being offered a consequentialist sort of moral reasoning. The good is "authentic godly love" (ie not forced). Whatever sort of action maximizes the free acceptance of Godly love is the more moral course of action.

The moral theory I'm primarily trying to contrast this with is deontology. Deontology, more or less, says that an act is made moral by its nature, not its consequences. For example: lying is wrong because of the nature of lying, not because of the consequences of lying. Now, given that pretty much any sort of deontology says that consequences don't matter, it seems pretty clear that if we accept consequentialism, we reject deontology.

Given those analyses, I think that the offhand remark that God's allowal of Satan to generate suffering is morally equivalent to God creating that suffering himself. But we also extend this reasoning to humans: there's nothing inherently wrong with causing suffering. If it produces the most Godly love, then causing suffering is in fact morally obligatory, regardless of the nature of that act.

John A. Broussard

Ah, but the question here is, "Could an all-powerful god produce similar or greater oodles of godly love without predicating it on human suffering?"

EnterTheBowser

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnterTheBowser The basic point I'm making is to take your assertion that any instance of suffering has a net positive moral outcome, and that for this reason God allows suffering, and draw from that absurd moral conclusions. To begin with, if we want to say that an action is moral if the net consequences of that action produce the most good, then we're committed to some form of consequentialism. That is to say: whether an act is moral or not is not determined by the nature of the act itself, but by the consequences of the act.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bling Bad is not good and evil is not holy. I am not preaching Taoism, your ideas are excellent for showing issues with Taoism. I may not be explaining it right. Godly love comes from doing good stuff, not from the bad stuff. Suffering only provides an opportunity to do good stuff. The following can happen from suffering happening; pain, sorrow, hurting, hardship, and nothing good, a little good, or a lot of good, it is totally dependent on the reaction of people.

I have nothing to say about Taoism; I really am not familiar with it. Given the reasoning you've given us - that suffering is okay because it promotes better consequences (more authentic Godly love) than the alternative (more on this later) - and given a consequentialist moral theory - then we are in fact forced to say that causing suffering is morally obligatory.

I think you set up a false dichotomy in your post, between our current world and a perfect world. There's an enormous number of possible worlds in between those two - all worlds with just less suffering than ours, not no sufferiing. If any of those worlds could produce consequences as good as our current world (if we could get as much Godly love out of them as we do out of this world) then God should have caused that world to obtain.

The real point here is that we atheists need to show one single, solitary instance of suffering which did not have net good consequences. A single child, dying in pain and alone, is enough to discredit the idea of a loving God. If we can find one - only one instance of needless suffering, then we can draw the conclusion that there is no loving God watching over us.

I'm also going to throw out yet another puzzling feature of your world. Let's bracket concerns about consequentialism, and for that matter most of the other things I've said. Given that each person should try to act with Godly love - essentially help out others - what happens when enough people with enough power act this way and help enough people that we more or less eliminate suffering? We've ended poverty, hunger, war, sickness, crime; we know whenever a natural disaster is about to occur and we get everyone out of the way, and so forth. What happens then? When everyone acts in a moral manner, it seems that there will no longer be the chance to develop Godly love. What a moral quandary the people of that world would be in! Would they choose to allow some suffering, so that the next generation would have the chance to develop Godly love? Would God step in and gift us with some incurable plague, sparing the leaders of that day the horrible decision of causing suffering themselves? Does this make any sense? Essentially, if everyone acted morally, nobody would have the ability to be moral anymore!

And perhaps that's the essential problem with a system of morality predicated on suffering. A real system of morality shouldn't require that there be suffering. A real system of morality shouldn't have good people actively promoting suffering.

John A. Broussard

I believe bling is saying that godly love is the only good, therefore anything that promotes godly love is itself good. Human suffering, since it increases bling's godly love is therefore good.

The more suffering, the more godly love, therefore it's better to have more suffering than less suffering.

Logically, it would follow that human beings, in order to promote godly love should also inflict as much human suffering as possible on others. That's more commonly known as sadism.

The point of all this is godly love.

Got it?

GODLY LOVE.

Alf

So what you are saying is that God causes the guy to suffer and feel pain so that someone else can stroke his ego and show how "good" he is by "helping" the poor guy. How nice and loving and caring this god is!

You are also in effect downgrading every person who help others with charity here. You are saying that they are really just stroking their egos and showing the world how they "care" and god caused these other people to suffer just so that these people could play this game of "good samaritans".

I think I don't want any more of this God's "love" and "care" thank you. This god is an abominable unfeeling monster! He is evil through and through.

If he hadn't let the poor guy suffer in the first place, then perhaps the samaritan couldn't show others how good he was, but there wouldn't be a need for it either. Overall, people would come better off.

Also, I believe if God really wanted us to come closer to him, he could choose a more positive carrot a more positive manner. Are you saying that his omnipotence have serious limitations in this respect? He cannot come up with a way so that the good samaritan can show how good he is without having people to suffer? For example he could let a bunch of people - none suffering - but then the good samaritan helped them to not only not suffer but to even get better, this would have the same effect but noone was suffering. Your god is either evil or lack some serious creativity.

Alf

bling

I said this before, “death is not bad in and of itself, death is the way good people get to be with God in heaven and the way bad people stop doing bad stuff.

John this is a good question and I will try to answer briefly, but it is quite involved. I consider all the opportunities presented me a blessing. All have worked out to be a blessing to me, I also feel they have for the most part either have or will work out to be a blessing for those around me, but some times the tragedy does not seem at least at the time to be a blessing for those directly impacted by the tragedy. The love being extended is not excepted and can not be forced on them, the healing does not take place (psychological, emotional, and even sometimes physical). My hope and pray in this situation is that the seed was set for some later time.

The real heart break I have is not in the suffering itself, but in the lack of response to the suffering. If you read my contrast of a “heaven on earth�? scenario to what we have today I much prefer what we have today and think it is best for anyone want to develop Godly love.

bling

You have started late, I have been saying the higher purpose is the development and growth of Godly love.

The foreknowledge question is a good one and I will give you three of the possibilities I will except at this time:
1. Open view (O.V.) this is to say God is moving through time with us, God can still promises thing to happen, because He can make those things happen (foreordain) and God has exceptional knowledge so He can predict accurately, but He does not have foreknowledge.
2. God can have all the foreknowledge He wants, but like other thinks God can chose not to know things out of the controlling factor of His Love.
3. God does have foreknowledge, but that does not change the way He acts at the moment. He is perfectly consistent in His actions. His actions are controlled by what has happened and what you have done and not what you will do. This makes all of man’s decisions mans and not God’s allows for total free will. You can not blame God for your wrong decisions.

The analogy really breaks down, but It helps the good fruit get better tasting.

I leave that possibility open look above at the options.

bling

I’ve read this and of course do not agree. I am not saying evil always produces good, it only an opportunity to generate Godly love, the opportunity is only a blessing when it is excepted and acted upon. Opportunities are not good for individuals that are not going to be positively affected by them.

bling

For God it might be, but humans are on the other end and our moral responsibility is to take the suffering and use it as an opportunity to develop Godly love. God has His part to play and we have ours.

You are right, there are an enormous number of possibilities, but as soon as you go from no problems to at least some problems you open up door to all the same issues. Where do you stop? It would definitely give support to there not being a God.

That would cause me some grieve.

Helping others does not always eliminate their need. A child needing help may need less help in the future, but should become part of the group that gives and also gets help. Since we can continue to grow in Godly love, God will see to it there are always needy people on earth. The problem of developing Godly love is never solved, if we develop all we can then Heaven is the next stop. God will not allow a short fall of needy people, we do not need to step in and help Him.

Good people do not promote suffering; they do all they can to resolve suffering, and at the same time grow in Godly love.