Ensign Steve

Excuse me, I hate to interrupt this excellent argument with something a little bit trivial in comparison (but only slightly off-topic). I couldn't resist pointing something out from argument (5) of the original post:

If you're talking about the God of the Old Testament, I think he tried this one time with a big flood. Not only did it not work, but it also demonstrates that God made a mistake the first time and felt like he had to fix it.

Loved the original post. Very well thought out and presented.

Jen

tw1tch

Rimstalker,
<blink> <blink>

You have just decimated your own position.

Since we cannot kill each other by mere thought (we are bound by a physical reality...ie your 'robots') certain evils have been avoided, namely mental genocide.

Thus God has limited the amount of evil we experience.





You walked into that one by yourself.



Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Ensign Steve

Yet, we still have free will? The question is, why didn't he limit it more? To use the original example, why didn't he take away our ability to torture babies? Did God arbitrarily choose where to draw the line between what we can and cannot do, or did he place it where he felt it belonged? And if he felt like it belongs where it is, does that mean his divine plan includes humans having the ability to torture babies? That's pretty sick!

Jen

Edited to add apology:
I'm sorry if it was poor nettiquite to jump in the middle of this argument (again!), but I'm new and I'm still learning the ropes.

Philosoft

Wait. Wasn't it part of your position that any divine limitation on our ability to do evil is tantamount to robotics?

Ganymede

If we didn't have any freedom, how could we be willing?

Willing assumes freedom of choice. No freedom = no choice, no choice = unwilling

G

GunnerJ

Whatever he's smoking, I want some.

SOMMS, for your further education, I invite you look over both the original post by Tom and my reply to you very carefully and then report back to me with answers to the following questions:

1) How have you misunderstood/purposefully misrepresented my argument?

2) How have you failed to understand/purposefully ignored the original argument and how it relates to my reply to you?

3) How has your recent knee-jerk attempt to get comeupance totally contradicted your earlier arguments?

4) When will you reply to ALL of my posts?

I know that many of the other participants in this thread have the answers to these questions (well, except four, which I think can only be properly answered never), but for SOMMS' benefit, please hold off and see if he can come up with the answers himself.

At that point, I believe a substantial discussion will be possible.

GunnerJ

No need to apologize, so long as you know what you're doing. Really, the IIDB has a very loose "culture," no one will bite your head off for less than intentional assholery. However, I am dissapointed that you gave away all the answers to SOMMS. I was hoping to see how he handles my homework assignment on his own.

Ensign Steve

This is what I was afraid of. Actually I was worried I wasn't going to give justice to the position I was defending, which was someone else's position who maybe could have done it better. I really appreciate the warm welcome I've gotten here. I just didn't want to be the kid who walks into the middle of a game and says "CAN I PLAY?!" without knowing the rules. I've read the FAQ and I've been playing around the humor/pop-culture forums a bit to get my feet wet, but I'm shy to jump right in to the "deep" topics.

So if I sound overly apologetic in my posts, I'm sorry.

Jen

Zadok001

Twitch first, then rainbow walking.

"Since we cannot kill each other by mere thought (we are bound by a physical reality...ie your 'robots') certain evils have been avoided, namely mental genocide.

Thus God has limited the amount of evil we experience."

Der. Hence, Thomas's argument earlier (against YOU, nonetheless!) that since we can't shock people or cause them to trip at will, God has already limited our ability to do harm. This argument states he would have necessarily limited it FURTHER than he did.

----------------------------------------------------

My previous words are in bold and quotes, Rainbow's are bolded but not inside quotes. For those of you not involved in the debate, the second marked in astericks is the part integral to rainbow's argument.

Rainbow:

If the PoE is sufficiently argued it needn’t resort to this tactic. It’s not even remotely reasonable or logical to attempt to stretch the FWD over this particular example of suffering. It is also a bit disingenuous to call a natural catastrophe evil. Nature is indifferent, so the suffering incurred cannot accurately be classified as evil therefore the PoE has no jurisprudence over this aspect of human suffering. Remember the title of your argument is Problem of Evil, not Problem of Suffering. However, in all fairness, I have no problem with isolating this aspect of suffering and presenting arguments to defend an omni-benevolent god along these lines as well.

That would be exactly the point. The title 'Problem of Evil' is likely a misnomer. A better phrase might be 'The Argument From Evil And Suffering.' Basically, it works like this. God is omnimax. That means he loves us perfectly. He lets five-year olds get hit by lightning bolts. This is not the act of a loving parent. Something is wrong here. The FWD does not cover this area. That is not, by necessitation, to say that the FWD is lacking (at least not for this example). The FWD does not attempt to, and therefore cannot, defend against this proposition. I would ask that this portion of the debate, i.e., the problem of suffering from natural harm, be set aside for another thread. It muddies the water, and I don't think I'm alone in believing these replies are getting absurdly long. Are we in agreement to drop this objection? (That would be the first problem brought up by Thomas. Note: I do NOT concede this point. I merely don't feel it requires further debate in this thread.)

"So why make the law like that? Create a natural law that disallows a man from feeling desire towards anyone who isn't his wife."

And she came to be his wife…how?

Semantics. I apologize, I mis-stated the law in question - Any MARRIED man is disallowed from feeling desire towards anyone who is not his wife. Or, in a more interesting form, 'Any attached individual is disallowed from feeling desire towards anyone who is not his or her consort.'

"Remember, this law doesn't have to be oriented by cause and consequence. Which is to say: It doesn't have to prevent the cause, and it doesn't have to cause a consequence. It merely has to prevent the evil."

Uh, excuse me but have you ever heard of cause and effect? You think the absence of something has no consequences? Try expelling all the air from your lungs for two minutes and I wager you’ll change that tune.

God. We're talking about a law engaged by an omnipotent entity. Are you telling me God is limited in his power? God could, reasonably, BREAK the law of cause and effect, seeing as he created it. If it is your contention that he cannot, this discussion is at an impasse, as you are stating your God is not omnipotent. My argument no longer applies to such a deity, hence, if that is your claim, this discussion ends.

" Hence, the 'drop a rock on someone's toes' issue - Rocks are prevented from being dropped on people's toes."

Uh..o’kay, and what becomes of entropy when all this extra energy is displaced to perform these mighty feets, (if you’ll pardon the pun)?

Still God. Still omnipotent, unless you wish to change that statement. God created the universe, hence he created energy, hence, entropy can be violated by God, hence, no argument here.

Your further comments on this subject (except one, which I will get to) seem to revolve around the idea that changing these laws would create too many 'consequences.' In general, I will answer these objections in EXACTLY the same manner: God is not bound by the laws of consequence. God is God. God is omnipotent. Again, if you wish to object to that statement, this argument cannot reasonably continue, and would reach an impasse. (That's not saying it's not a valid claim to make, but you should know that I'm not going to continue trying to attacking the FWD if that is your position.)

Your final statement bears mentioning on this subject:

...so why not skip all the bullshit and just poof another universe into play?

That's exactly what I recommend, except the term 'another' is misplaced. My assertion is that an omnimax deity would have, by defintion, upon creating a universe of ANY KIND, imbued with the qualities and laws I've been mentioning. Our universe would never have existed, indeed, COULD not have existed if such a deity created it.

Actually, a couple other random interjections I'd like to point out in your later statements, before I hit the next topic at hand.

I must be missing something here. Which one of this god’s omnimax attributes created evil? I always thought evil was the result of “commission”. When did it become an actual creation?

I'm afraid I'm not a good biblical scholar, but I'm sure one of the nice Infidels around here will cite this one for me. At some point (Corenthians?) God says "I create Good, I create Evil, I the LORD do these things." That seems pretty straightforward, and the passage is often cited as an adjunct to the PoE. I don't view the PoE as a direct attack on the Christian God, however, merely on any omnimax deity, and I feel this adjunct weakens the argument as a whole.

However, in general, since God created the universe and everything therein, it is reasonable to say that God created evil. In fact, it's rather counter-intuitive to claim otherwise! (Whence cometh evil, if not from the guy who made everything?) Even if evil is acheived through the act of a secondary being or element, it's still evil created by God. (If I build a bomb, and it goes off and maims someone, it's my fault. If God builds an asteroid, and it hits a guy standing on Mt. St. Helen's, it's God's fault. That seems like a workable assertion, neh?)

"Misinterpretation. It doesn't matter that God has limited our range of good free choices (he has: I can't feed everyone on Earth through willpower alone) "

Well, have you tried?

Are you asserting that I _CAN_ accomplish any act of good? /me ends violence. Guess that didn't work...

"If the existance of free will merely requires a range of choices, as you claim, then eliminating our free will to do evil doesn't curtail free will as a whole."

Yeah right. It just creates a great big gaping “whole” in our realm of choices. According to you this will have no effect on our freewill. Tamper with our range of choices and you can box up the free aspect of your will and ship it to Saddam Hussein. The only way to eliminate this range of choices is to remove them from our knowledge. Now you’ve restricted our ability to learn and progress as a species and here we are right back in that same conundrum of cause and effect. Science is no longer free to explore the universe because some of the discoveries might lead to knowledge that could lead to an evil choice and, yet again, we’re left with a brand new universe out of holey cloth. Like I said, why not skip all the bullshit.


Nein! Nein!

I didn't say it would have no effect. I said it would be a limited effect. Since our freewill is already limited, limiting it slightly MORE seems not to eliminate freewill as a whole. (There is the question of where to draw the line. However, it's possible to counter this concept by giving God the capacity to give us a new range of choices instead of the choice to torture babies. For example, the choice to regulate our body temperatures at will.)

Also, note this comment: "The only way to eliminate this range of choices is to remove them from our knowledge." Now that's simply not accurate! Again, you're proposing limitations on what rules and constraints God can place on the world. God is still God, God is still omnipotent, and God can have his cake and eat it too, BY DEFINITION.

God doesn't have to limit our ability to learn about the world. Heck, we could still invent and build atom bombs. We just couldn't use them for evil.

"You said "Freewill necessitates only that humans enjoy a range of choices." That's a concession of the argument, as it means God can eliminate our evil acts while leaving our free will intact."

I suppose that depends on your definition of free. The further you restrict man from that range the closer you drive him to slaughter.


I addressed this in part above in my parenthetical about 'drawing the line.' This is true, but it's also a tautology: The more we restrict free will, the less free will we have. However, I proposed a solution earlier which I'll restate here. Remove the free will to do evil, add the free will to regulate our body temperature. There's an infinite number of things we CANNOT do, God could easily have allowed us access to some of these things while restricting our ability to do evil. That would leave us, logically, with the same amount of 'free will utility,' if you will.

(The body temperature example is merely that: An example. It's not meant to be a recommendation. Therefore, I ask that you don't attack that specific selection, as the specifics of that choice are irrelevant to the conversation at hand.)

"We would enjoy a range of choices; specifically, we would enjoy a range of GOOD choices."

We already do…and what’s cool about it is we enjoy the apprehension of an ever greater range of choices because we’re free to learn the range of all choices. Take away our capacity to learn and we will destroy ourselves. How good is that?


I see an assertion, but I see no reasoning. Note my previous 'replacement free will' scenario. In no way does a limit on free will restrict our ability to learn. (In fact, and this is particularly neat, a restriction on free will doesn't restrict our ability to THINK in any way! Just as I can imagine a person capable of flight, a person in our bizzaro world could imagine a person capable of doing evil. They just couldn't do it themselves!)

Two parts of your assertion here require backup. First, that removing our free will to do evil will result in an inability to learn. And remember, we're dealing with omnipotence here. It's kinda hard to bind God by saying he's limited by trade-offs. Second, that losing the ability to learn necessarily leads to us destroying ourselves, again, dodging the issue of the omnipotent force not wanting this to occur. The second half need not be attempted if the first half can't be supported, obviously.

"Non sequitor. What does dependancy have to do with the proportion of moral people on Earth?"

Seeing how I’ve already devastated this line of reasoning I hope that any future replies will not appeal to these bankrupt claims again. They utterly fail to take into account the effects, both short and long range, this would have on man’s ability to progress, to grow, eventually leading to full dependency and total depravity. This, in any possible world, is not a good thing. Man absolutely must have access to all choices or he ceases to be man. Having access doesn’t necessitate actuation and that is what makes him a moral being. Forcing him to do good, if that were even possible, does not make him good…just a simpleton.

Several problems here. First, I've presented a reasonable account of how short-term and long-term effects are irrelevant to this discussion. (God is omnipotent, and not bound by the rules you're applying.)

Second. "Man absolutely must have access to all choices or he ceases to be man." I don't have the choice to fly without outside assistance. I therefore lack access to all choices. I therefore am not a man? I sense that this line of reasoning may not work.

Third. "Forcing him to do good, if that were even possible, does not make him good…just a simpleton." I don't speak of forcing someone to do good. I speak of disallowing him to do evil. I don't force someone to eat cereal, but I disallow him from eating air. Makes sense?

"Sure, manipulating thoughts works. It doesn't even require direct manipulation, merely the placement of a mental barrier that prevents us from willing evil."

Yeah…like Pavlov’s dogs. We can be trained to do anything, even live like zombies.

Yups! But we don't have to. I'm trained to think rationally, strangely, this doesn't make me a zombie. You're assigning traits to the proposed situation without support.

"But that's not actually needed. A set of physical laws that prevent evil from occuring works just fine - i.e., a dropped rock never hits feet, it floats away and drops in the ocean. Again, these laws are VERY easy to envision."

Yeah, I bet they are. Fortunately for all of us we’re not dependent on such a short-sighted vision.


Fortunately, God isn't limited by the drawbacks of such a vision, him being omnipotent and all. Still.

*************************************************

"Omnipotent: Can do ANYTHING. If you care to say that God CAN'T do anything, then God has ceased to be omnipotent."

So, who gives a shit. We’re not arguing for attributes here anyway. O’kay this god can’t do EVERYTHING. Now how you propose he enacts all these nutty natural laws and mind altering parlor tricks? Seems to me yous the one standing on the slippery slope with that defense.

"The PoE no longer has an argument with you, as you no longer declare an omnimax God."

hahahaha…The PoE never has graduated to an argument in the first place but if you want to take away all gods toys I don’t care. You just slitting the throat of your own arguments recourse to what this god could have and should have done. Without an omnimax god to taunt, you stuck with the world you stuck with.

First of all: Yes, we are arguing attributes. The PoE bases itself on the idea that God is omnimax. If God is not omnimax, it's irrelevant anyways. Someone claiming God is not omnimax finds themselves in the tenuous position of saying what God ISN'T, or what God CAN'T do. Just how limited IS God? Is he limited by cause and effect? Yes? Good to know. Is he limited by physical laws? No? HOW DO YOU KNOW?

Since you make the concession that God is not omnimax, this argument is no longer relevant to you. You never should have started this debate if you intended to move the goalposts away from the PoE.

************************************************

A few more comments before I end this post. I presume you won't be posting anymore on this subject, Rainbow, since you have effectively conceded the issue that an omnimax God does not exist. (You could retract that statement, of course.)

The ENTIRE free will defense hinges on the idea that to have free will, one must allow evil. Hence, evil is a detector for free will.

No more so than good is. But I digress…


Good is NOT a detector for free will. Evil is. Remember the claim made by the FWD: Free will requires evil. That's the whole thing, in four easy words. Free will does NOT, by the FWD, require good. Good may exist in the presence of free will, but that's not part of the FWD.

"f evil doesn't exist, then free will does not exist. "

Whoops…that’s not a valid disclaimer. The operative word here is ACCESS. Got it? People must have access to all choices for their will to be free. It isn’t NECESSARY that they make choices that incur evil. They can make choices that incur good all their lives and their freewill never wavers. The two are not interchangeable nor is evil NECESSARY to the existence of freewill. Only ACCESS to evil is NECESSARY. Because evil exists it serves as proof that people have ACCESS to all choices and explains itself in that ACCESS. If no evil were ever instantiated that would not be the end of freewill as long as people still had ACCESS to it. Tamper with ACCESS and freewill is history.


Sure, works for me. Also implies that God (being omnipotent) should have created a world in which no one CHOSE to commit evil. After all, according to your statements, it's possible: It's Heaven! An omnimax deity is required to have done so.

"Argue that point, and the argument is conceded, since an omnimax deity would be required to have no evil in a created universe.) Hence, since evil is absent in Heaven, so is free will. "

And both conclusions are false because the foundational premises are not true. Sorry, regroup and try again. But I like your style of argumentation. You are very knowledgable, intelligent and a worthy opponent. I look forward to hearing from you soon.


I appreciate the sentiment, but I cannot in good faith continue this argument, as much as I'm enjoying it. Your statements in this post have implictly stated that an omnimax deity does not exist. That is ALL the PoE ever wanted to prove. Any vision of a deity that is NOT omnimax in works fine, even under the PoE. Other arguments can be used against them, and altered versions of the PoE can at least make an impact, but the classic PoE and the FWD no longer apply to the situation.

So if you don't mind too terribly, I'm gonna go ahead and say "Case closed." We actually seem to agree on the central issue: There's no such thing as an omnimax deity. Beyond that, the question is an open one. I'm an atheist, and I'll happily argue my perspective on the subject, but not here. This thread isn't here to debate the existance of a sub-omnimax entity.

I do want to thank you for a lively debate that's managed to hold my interest. I look forward to hearing from you on other threads.

Zadok001

Wow, that was a monstrous post. No less than four posts while I was writing that. I'll blame you guys if I get carpal tunnel syndrome.