Dr Rick

...and that's one of the worst; an assertion about the nature of free will completely devoid of substantiaton or reason.

Llyricist

Just so long as it is clear that your train of reason is a closed loop with NO connection to reality, we're fine .

The rest is just sophistry based on the arrogant notion that your interpretation of the bible is correct, and all others are in error.

You think you are real cute don't you? The argument is actually that a God with self contradictory qualities CANNOT exist. I am making NO assumption that your HYPOTHESIS of the Christian God is in any way valid. I am merely presenting evidence that is contradictory to your HYPOTHESIS. In science, when evidence is presented that tends to contradict the hypothesis, you either revise the hypothesis or demonstrate exactly WHY or HOW the evidence doesn't contradict it. It is considered BLATANT dishonesty to either change the evidence or assert that it must not be as it appears because it would refute your hypothesis!

But I guess they don't teach that apologetic school do they?

Llyricist

The problem with this idea is that if the omnimax God is so inscrutible, and above and apart from us, The "good or goal" may have absolutely NOTHING to with humans' well being as we understand it.

Hitler had a "higher good" in mind (okay maybe just a rationalization, but we can't KNOW this) when he brought all the suffering he did. In fact I do believe that most of the evil despots in human history did.

No in order for omnibenevolence to have meaning to US, it would have to be understandable to US.

Llyricist

No because you have no way of KNOWING whether you are right, The only reliable thing you CAN do is turn away from god. You can try and try all you want to choose god and perhaps never get it "right", and you won't know until you are DEAD (or not). Hence the RELIABLE part. where did YOU get this "we ought to assume" crap? Sure we COULD be right, but how in hell will we know it?


Ahh yes as long as you accept Christ as the savior, excuse that I forgot about that get out of jail free card But the point stands that we can't really LEARN anything about good or evil till you Die under your paradigm. All you can do is guess, and meanwhile alot of extra suffering is going on because of wrong guesses. NOT the work of an omnibenevolent god.... contradiction....... don't exist

Dr Rick

It may have absolutely nothing to do with humans, but it possibly could. As long as that possibility exists, it's possible that there might be a good reason for evil beyond our comprehension.

The deductive PoE seeks to prove that the omnimax god is a logical impossibility, but since we aren't omniscient, we can't reasonably argue that we must be able to know or undserstand every possible reason an omniscient god may have for doing what he does.

It's a "god works in mysterious ways" argument; unsatisfying, but still possible (though in my mind very highly improbable).

But Hitler and those evil despots weren't omniscient; no one could reasonably claim that they had a higher purpose beyond human comprehension. An omnisicent god could have a higher purpose beyond our ability to understand, however.

Why?

Llyricist

I thought what I said was tautological? Like the meaning of words is what makes us understand them.

If the meaning of omnibenevolent is inaccessible to us, then we can have no understanding of it. hmmm how else can I put this?

Or if we don't understand what it means to be omnibenevolent, then what business do we have using the word? (in fact Radorth takes this very stand)


It really doesn't matter if we can comprehend the higher purpose, most people understand that the higher purpose of those evil despots didn't give them a pass on their "lower" crimes (even IF the higher purpose was laudible). Why give God such a pass, and call him omnibenevolent? I'm not reducing God to the level of humans here,, just that if God can be termed OMNI benevolent when he causes suffering for the greater good, why not call Hitler or Stalin (or whoever) simply benevolent?

Dr Rick

oops

Dr Rick

I'm not suggesting that we can't comprehend omnibenevolence. I'm saying it's possible that there could be something that is beyond our comprehension that may compel god to allow evil; a logical contradiction that we don't or can't know. It's not the omnibenovolence that we don't understand, but it's possible that there's a good that the omni-god wants us to have that can't be obtained without evil. A good whose existence and attainment is contigent upon human suffering.

But those guys weren't gods, so I don't think the analogy follows. If there is a state of goodness that a god wanted humanity to obtain that could not be obtained without evil, but if we didn't obtain it, the final outcome would not be as good, then it's possible that in his omni-ways, he decided to allow the suffering rather than pass on the greater goodness.

It's not a question of giving someone the benefit of the doubt. The deductive PoE is supposed to be a logical proof that shows that the omnigod is a logical contradiction, but if there is a potential set of circumstances, no matter how far-fetched or unlikely, that could allow god to be omni and still allow evil, then the proof is no longer a proof.

That potential set of circumstances is that there could be some essential good unknowable to us but knowable to an omni-max god that cannot logically exist without evil.

If some greater good only fathomable to god can not logically exist without allowing evil, gods allowance of that evil would not mitigate his omnibenevolence.

It's possible that even an omni-max god could face a choice; a circumstance or greater good that was logically impossible without evil whose failure to obtain would be undesirable. Is any of this likely? Hardly, and that leads us to the inductive or existential PoE, which says that even though an omni-max god isn't absolutely logically impossible, it's highly unlikely.

There's a great read on this in the Sec Web library titled The Evidential Argument from Evil by Nicholas Tattersall. Here's an excerpt:

"The logical argument from evil is thousands of years old. It has come down the centuries from Epicurus, and has more recently been defended by the late John Mackie[2]. Essentially, the problem is why an omniscient, omnipotent and wholly good God would allow the extreme suffering we see in the world. By simply analysing the definition of God given above and stating a few uncontroversial premises, it was thought to have been shown that such a being would have the knowledge, ability and desire to prevent the intense suffering and premature death of sentient creatures. Consequently it was thought that the theistic God was logically incompatible with universally accepted facts about the world.

Such an argument is now widely accepted as being inadequate. This is because it not true that, by definition, God is incompatible with evil. God would not exclude all evil if He had morally sufficient reason for allowing some. For example, some evil may be necessary for the realisation of a greater good, known or unknown to us. Philosophers nowadays concern themselves with evidential arguments from evil.

There are a number of evidential arguments from evil..."

I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the PoE.

long winded fool

Yes... this is the point. We come to different conclusions, (assuming that your conclusion is actually that the God of the Bible has self contradictory qualities, since I agree with the conclusion you state above.) You cannot refute a conclusion that is different than the one I stated in my last post and claim to have refuted my argument. I have addressed your stated conclusion every time. You dance around my conclusion with references to other common atheistic arguments unrelated to the issue at hand whenever I elaborate on my conclusion until you stumble onto a true statement, then you assume this somehow validates your original argument. Any argument that can't logically refute my above conclusion can't be permitted as a premise in yours. I have refuted your conclusion by showing logically that the Problem of Evil does not necessarily contradict any of the omnimax qualities of God. I freely admit: Intuition tells us it does. Hard logic tells us that this is not actually the case. Evil can coexist with omnibenevolence given the variable of true free will. If you need this explained in detail, reread the thread. If you notice a fault in my logic, show me the actual fault and prepare for me to attempt a logical explanation. Don't just tell me it's faulty and expect me or anyone else to go from there. With free will and omnimax as premises, evil presents no contradiction. These premises are both biblical, therefore the conclusion is also.

It is logical to attack your opponent's best argument on a subject. To do otherwise is to attack a strawman. If my interpretation presents no contradictions and you insist on ignoring it so that you can refute an interpretation that has inherent contradictions as you seem to be stating, then you are attempting to construct a situation where you cannot possibly be proven wrong. If you want to play this game, you'll have to find someone who's willing to forget their own argument and adopt one you have already created for them on order to prove them wrong and give you the payoff of winning the argument. I'm not here to play games. I discuss these things because I see why they work and why many people misunderstand them. I don't need to convert anyone to anything. I merely point out the errors in their reasoning so that they can either improve their critical thinking skills, or at least be aware that they aren't being as honest with themselves as they may have thought.

All right, if it'll help. There is no God. Now, if there was, then... etc.

Llyricist

Originally posted by Llyricist
Just so long as it is clear that your train of reason is a closed loop with NO connection to reality, we're fine.
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LWF: All right, if it'll help.

Enough said.

In all those other words you used, you failed to address how the evidence could be reconciled with your hypothesis without resorting to your hypothesis. Anywhere but the rosy world of apologetics This is called circular reasoning and is invalid.
And your best argument is NOT from the scripture, I haven't addressed it because it's actually your worst argument. It's the very self-contradictory nature of the Bible that creates the contradiction of choosing "good" and being wrong in your paradigm.

My point was that YOU interpret the bible in a way to smooth out the contradictions, somebody else smooths out the contradictions and comes to different conclusions and so on until we have over 1000 denominations of Christians.

Now, do you REALLY wanna try to go in that direction?