camerontigris

It seems to me that the part of the problem of the POE is that it's starting point is an assumed belief in god...not only that, but that certain infinite qualities are attributed to this notion of god. Sometimes the "for the sake of argument" stance can run an atheist into trouble.
My view: forget the POE, you're fighting on their territory when you don't have to, against a god with some pretty remarkable qualities. Occam's razor and the burden of proof should be enough defeat most claims for the existence of god.
Just my thoughts.

Amos

As I read it not God, but Lord God identified the three illusory identities that would be banned from Eden and to prevent their return the Lord God placed man and woman, who were created in the image of God, to guard the way to the tree of life. Man and woman remain the male and female identities of our soul who are to be reborn later in life as Christ and Mary theotokos (in our mythology).

There was no curse, per se, but just a consequence that was good for Man (capital M denotes the image of God). The serpent always prompts the negative stand opposite to the positive and both are needed in the rout of creation (thinking). So the serpent is a good motivator for humans to succeed in whatever they may wish to undertake.

Outside of Eden the [lesser] serpent is needed to give substance to the TOK just as the the [greater] serpent is needed to give substance to the TOL. To make Eden (heaven) more Romantic a romance must exist outside the TOL and so the TOK is needed to color our own heaven, if you wish, and have fun while doing this. Adam and Eve are just the two images of reality that we identify with in our conscius mind (Christ and Mary reside deep within over our subconscious mind).

Our knowledge of pain is good and is needed to make pleasure know just as the subordination of woman is needed to make our humanity to known (human is opposite to woman). Ie. womanity must charm the 'cobra' into existence because Y is the fleeting chromosome.

Also, just because we "know" that will die in our TOK does not suggest that we would not die in our TOL. It just means that we would become consciously aware that we will die. I personally think that this is good.

beastmaster

I agree. It's like arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. How can you apply "logic" to pure madness? Occam's Razor is the high ground.

In any event, I have an empirical question: Does it say anywhere in the Buy-Bull that god is omnibenevolent? I'm sure it says he is all-loving, but that seems quite different from all-good.

Mikal

I understand the traditional POE. not problems there. My question is why plantinga thinks there is a contradiction that a christian god and evil cant exist.

I understand i dont need the POE to be agnostic. The POE explains to me why I am not christian.

"hasnt been proven false" The professor said that there wasnt a proof/argument etc that overturns the POE.

"seemed to be acknowledged" was my take. That was not a statement of the class.




bd from kg- can you explain so more. I think we are talking about the same thing, but it is still confusing.



Thanks for the warm welcome....:

This is one link i found. looking for others.


http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~kkraay...ek3-Browne.PDF

-Mike

Dr. Retard

So J.L. Mackie defended the logical argument from evil. It tries to show the impossibility of a world containing both God and evil. Alvin Plantinga criticized this argument, by attempting to establish the possibility of such a world; this attempt was his "Free Will Defense", and most commentators consider it more or less successful. ("Defenses" merely attempt to show the compatibility of God and evil; "theodicies" attempt to give plausible God-justifying reasons for the evils in our world). William Rowe defended (and still defends) the evidential argument from evil. It doesn't address the compatibility of God and evil. It merely tries to show that the evil in our world makes theism much less reasonable. Rowe especially appeals to the fact that we cannot see any good reasons for this evil. Paul Draper defends another evidential argument from evil, echoing Hume's Philo, trying to show that the evil in our world is better explained by atheism or 'indifferent creationism' than by theism. Other similar evidential arguments are defended by Theodore Drange, Bruce Russell, and Michael Tooley. These arguments have a number of critics: Plantinga, Peter van Inwagen, Daniel Howard-Snyder, William Alston, and Stephen Wykstra. The most popular criticism is due to Wykstra: he argues that, in order to infer atheism from our inability to 'see' good reasons for evil, we must first be assured that these good reasons are 'see-able'. And, Wykstra argues, any such reasons would likely be too complicated for humans to grasp. This sort of reply, that appeals to the cognitive limitations of humans, is often called "skeptical theism". Does this reply work? Is the evidential argument any good? These questions are still controversial.

Silent Dave

The problems with skeptical theism:

1) Wykstra's "condition of reasonable epistemic accessibility" does not necessarily prevent atheists from inferring the existence of actually pointless evils from apparently pointless evils; we can make such inferences based on, for instance, what we know about whether moral or immoral agents that we are aware of would permit such evils.

2) Skeptical theism may lead to a kind of moral skepticism. If a theist can claim that God has unseeable reasons for, say, preventing the rape and murder of a five year old girl, then a man who stood by and watched it happen but did not intervene could say that he was justified for the same reasons. In order to prove the man wrong, you would have to know what God's reasons are and show that they do not apply to the man.

3) Skeptical theists are inconsistent. They treat God's desires and motives as seeable when it helps their theology (God wants to create a world like this one, God wants humans to accept Jesus), and as conveniently unseeable whenever it would help the atheist's arguments.

4) Skeptical theism entails a kind of universal skepticism. If we are not justified in claiming that there are no unknown reasons for God to prevent apparently pointless evils, then we are not justified in making an epistemically similar claim: that there are no unknown reasons for God to have created the universe five minutes ago.

5) Skeptical theism precludes natural theology. If an empirical hypothesis must appeal to evidence to which nobody could possibly have access in order to avoid disconfirmation, then it is unfalsifiable, and not an empirical hypothesis at all. All evidential arguments for theism -- cosmological, design, etc. -- are therefore worthless, because they argue an unfalsifiable conclusion.


Dave

anonymousj

I have understood the argument from evil, and the defence against the argument, along the following lines.

1. IF there is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being (i. e. God), then there is no evil/no suffering in the world.

2. There is evil/suffering in the world.
----
3. There is no being who is omnipotent and omniscient and omnibenevolent.

The conclusion of this argument, if it is sound, forces one to give up at least one of the 'properties' of a popular notion of God.

In response, a theist will say that premise 1, to be plausible, must be qualified in the following way:

1'. IF there is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being (i. e. God), then there is no evil/no suffering in the world, unless there is a (good enough) reason for the evil.

The intuition behind the qualification is the thought that allowing bads things to happen is not always inconsistent with goodness, knowledge, and the ability to prevent the evil-- parents allowing children to learn by what they (the parents) know will be painful experiences, for example.


The argument, if altered in this way, leads to the (sub)conclusion

3'. Either there is no omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being OR there is a (good enough) reason for the evil.

Another premise is required to get to 'there is no o, o, o being'.

4. There is no (good enough) reason for the evil.

The faithful theist will then contend that premise 4 is not true, and will produce a reason that is good enough to allow the o, o, o being to exist. The reason that is often produced here is 'character-building'. And in defence of the claim that it is a good enough reason, the theist will offer her own view-- she accepts this as the reason and that she retains her belief in the o, o, o God.

This defence against the argument is not an easy target.

anonymousj

SRB

John Hick's soul-building theodicy falls well short of refuting evidential forms of the argument from evil. Many instances of suffering do not build character, but instead destroy character (and even wipe out the people concerned). Furthermore, there are different levels of suffering in different parts of the world. Are we to suppose people in countries prone to natural disasters need their character building more than the rest of us? Finally, the theodicy entails that a reduction in the amount of suffering would make the world a worse place (since fewer people would receive the overriding benefit of having their character built up). But that is absurd, and entails that we are bringing about the greatest net benefit when we let people suffer (and thereby promote character-building) when we could instead easily help them. Whatever might be put forth as an overriding benefit for allowing so much suffering has the same consequence.

SRB

Amos

That's a silly postition and much like saying that only rich people can be happy (as it was in Old English Law).

The whole PoE fails because evil has nothing to do with God because it only exists as a human concept. As animal man there is no suffering and God is not part of our rational condition. Period.

diana

Really.

In your OP, you ended with:
We get the occasional Xn who pops by and pretends to be questioning in an attempt to draw us in, and they often slip up and put some of their real attitude in the "questioning" post. You seem to have inadvertently done this, which is why you were automatically suspected of being a troll.

The rest of the posts are honest attempts to discuss your question. This is just the way we converse around here.

d