theghostinthemachine

You misunderstood the point. The logical problem of evil, which atheists (not theists) argue, is a deductive argument. Are you with me so far?

Being that it is a deductive argument, the conclusion must follow necessarily from the premsies, so that it is impossible that the premises be true, and the conclusion false. Are you still here?

The logical problem of evil (which atheists argue, not theists, and which is deductive) argues from the fact of evil. Evil must exist (and here is the big clue) because if evil does not exist, then there is no problem of evil. Still hanging in there Carr?

Therefore, the premise that 'evil exists' is assumed to be a necessary truth to draw a contradiction from another assumed necessary thruth - that God, if he exists, exists as a omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect being.

Plantinga's point is that these necessary truth's are not enough to elicit a contradiction - more are needed.

Or because I don't waste too much time on people like yourself who try to make my argument say what I never said it said.

OK, if you insist.

William Rowe with regards to thelogical problem of evil, claimed that,

"No one, I think, has succeeded in establishing such an extravagant claim."

Paul Draper is another one, he said he agrees with,

"...philosophers of religion that theists face no serious logical problem of evil."

This list goes on, in fact is quite a bit easier to name those who do think the logical problem of evil can prove that God does not exist. However, most philosophers agree, it is Plantinga's defense in The Nature of Necessity that changed this view.


No, and that is not what did.

No, atheists already assumes them to be necessary truths to draw a contradiction - that is what a reductio ad absurdum does. If evil does not exist, there is no logical problem of evil. If God is not omnipotent, omnscient, adn morally perfect, there is no logical problem of evil. The atheist uses these premises and holds them to be necessarily true in order to draw a contradiction. If God exists, He is...evil exists...therefore...I pointed out that in order for theri to be a contradiction, more necessary truths must be added - and so far, the atheist has given none.
But I am quite sure you will snip my argument some more and make it say what you want it too.

I don't parse with what you are saying, it does not make sense.

Maybe because we are still waiting for you to show those holes.

streamline

Steven Carr

'Evil exists' is not a 'necessary truth'. It is an observed fact. Big difference.


How can there be any problem of evil at all if it is a 'necessary truth' that evil exists? Not even God can change necessary truths. Sheesh.

There is a big difference between observed facts and necessary truths. Not everything we observe must necessarily have been the case.

BTW, I agree that strictly speaking there is no logical problem of evil, which is why I came up with the parody of the logical problem of legs to show that refuting the logical problem of evil is hardly an achievemnt by Plantinga , even if we assume that he can make Transworld Depravity work, a very dubious assumption given that Christians maintain that there are beings who do not suffer from transworld depravity.

But as Plantinga's transworld depravity is very dubious, there is a logical problem of evil, in the sense that the only defense is very dubious, speculative, and counterintuitive.

But the same can be said about the logical problem of legs. The only way to reconcile the statements
1) I can see that people almost always have two legs.
2) People only have one leg

is be creating a dubious, counter-intuitive world. The creation of a 'defense' to the logical problem of legs is not really good enough, even if it technically does work.

DeLurking

I have a question.

If I understood Plantiga´s argument, a world where there´s only morally good actions (morally perfect) is a world without free will because the outcome of moral choices are always predictable; everyone has always to do the good thing, almost the same way things fall if you drop them.

However, How many evil actions are needed to make a world morally imperfect? Wouldn´t a world were only a single chewing gum were ever stolen allowed for the possibility of evil actions and thus free will for everyone?

Hedshaker

I despair at why some people can't seem to comprehend the difference between "belief" and "disbelief"

Most theists seem to go with the, best form of defence is attack, approach. ie. you questiom by belief so I question your belief that you disbelive

It's absurd!

Steven Carr

It is a very good question that you raise, and one theists struggle to answer.

As it happens, Plantinga does not argue that way, that the predictability of moral choices removes free will.

http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ap...ers/SCLEM.html explains

'Alvin Plantinga has argued that there are true counterfactuals of libertarian free will of the form “Were Curley to have been offered the bribe, he would have taken it.”'

So Plantinga argues that God could predict what Curley would do in that situation, as God knows the truth of this proposition before Curley was ever created.

Stephen T-B

“It should be apparent why I am upset.”

2 questions for Ghost:
Do you require other people to share your beliefs?

Could you ever be sure, if I stopped being an atheist, that I did share your belief?

ComestibleVenom

I don't think think so at all. I think that naturalists have the responsibility to construct a positive alternate account of the world. I think it's very important to make theists understand where we are coming from, what kind of philosophical underpinnings have lead us away from God.

Of course, amongst those philosophical underpinnings is the ol' burden of proof. I agree that we can't give our theist brothers and sisters any slack there.

Normal

Verified by what process? Considered "considerable" by who?

In the end, the point is that the only measure of truth an assertion must answer to is the individual, and everyone is guilty of presuppositionalist thinking and circular reasoning.

PS: I love the trippy random bold words of your posts. Very post modern

Rusting Car Bumper

The souce of the debate? Well me. I witnessed it first hand.

Your second point adds to my thesis.

If "most believers are not trained in philosophy" then it can be said that they aren't believing because of abstract philosophical reasoning. Further, if they aren't believing because of the abstract reasons given at a particular debate then this too adds to my thesis. These debates are generally useless because they have little to do with why people believe in the first place.

In fact for the sake of argument if I accept your claim that these debates are full of ad hominems all sorts of poor rhetoric then this too adds to my thesis as well.

In short, the facts you present (if we were to agree that they were facts) seem to bolster my claim.

DC