Thomas Metcalf

rainbow walking :

Your claim is that some suffering is necessary for a greater good. Okay, great. Show me one example. Just one. And I'll believe you. Ready... go!

Well. You've tried to present two of them, according to my count. Let me know if I missed any. I'll recap now. Remember, these are attempts of yours to identify some suffering that's necessary for a greater good. Some suffering such that there's no way to get a greater good except by using this suffering or something equally bad.

1) Maybe a greater good is that humanity learns things for itself by suffering. If you want to support the principle that an earned good is always better than an unearned good, you have to say that it's better to let a toddler tip a pot of boiling water on its head than to tell it not to do that. And that's obviously wrong.

If you've already responded to this, please show me where. Here's your last attempt:

But that obviously won't work. You say an accident that results in a learning process has value. Sure. But does it have more value than preventing a child from scalding herself with boiling water? No. I really hope you're not a parent, if you think it does. Sometimes, it's just better to tell someone something, so they don't suffer horribly. Right? Hold your kids' hands while they're crossing the street instead of letting them learn for themselves what happens when they get hit by cars, right? You agree, don't you?

2) Maybe a greater good is that humans learn to help themselves. But sometimes that's not good enough. It's better to save the child being attacked by a swarm of bees than just to think "Well, her death will serve as a lesson to the rest of you kids," or a lesson to her not to go playing where there are bees nearby. Here's your attempt to respond to this:

But look. Just look at this. You're already supposing that the action is necessary for some greater good. You can't use that to prove that it's necessary for a greater good. Do you know what begging the question is?



For the rest of the post, I'll just go through and pick out some weird stuff:

Huh? How is something more logically possible than something else? That is, what does it mean to say something is "very" logically possible?

Do you know what "incur" means? I wish I could incur necessity! And are you claiming that because I've used those terms, the cogency of my position is suspect? I ask you one more time: Do you know what the difference between a sufficient condition and a necessary condition is?

How is an argument more sound than another argument?

Speaking as a philosopher, I must say that no one would take your presentation seriously. Speaking as a widely-experienced philosopher and student of the argument from evil, I must say that no experienced student of the argument from evil would consider your presentation to offer a compelling response. Speaking as a philosophy tutor and teaching aid, I must say that no philosophy professor would give you a good grade on what you've written. And speaking as a philosopher who publishes in professional journals, I must say that no professional journal would take a second look at what you've attempted to offer.

rainbow walking

Thomas: Your claim is that some suffering is necessary for a greater good. Okay, great. Show me one example. Just one. And I'll believe you. Ready... go!

rw: (sigh) Okay Thomas, one more boring time. Let’s take both of your previous examples since the greater good in both cases is the same. In both the case of the little girl being stung by bees and the toddler reaching for the handle of a pot containing scalding hot water where are their parents? Is it a greater good for humanity to learn to be responsible for their progeny? Or would humanity be better off with irresponsible parenting? God is not obligated to intervene to protect children when those children have responsible adults to do this for him. If God begins intervening in such matters responsible parenting is threatened as a viable means to achieving man’s greater good. Without healthy children to pass on the torch to, man has no future. This is not rocket science Thomas and I’ve already extrapolated this out for you but you seem intent on ignoring my responses.

But I’ll bet my bottom dollar you still won’t believe me.

Thomas: Well. You've tried to present two of them, according to my count. Let me know if I missed any. I'll recap now. Remember, these are attempts of yours to identify some suffering that's necessary for a greater good. Some suffering such that there's no way to get a greater good except by using this suffering or something equally bad.

1) Maybe a greater good is that humanity learns things for itself by suffering. If you want to support the principle that an earned good is always better than an unearned good, you have to say that it's better to let a toddler tip a pot of boiling water on its head than to tell it not to do that. And that's obviously wrong.

rw: Do you deny that humans learn things by trial and error? That they discover the right way to do things by a process of eliminating the wrong? That this often incurs a degree or element of suffering? That many humans make the same mistakes over and over? If not then you’ve just lost the argument.

Thomas: If you've already responded to this, please show me where. Here's your last attempt:

rw earlier: As to PE the same argument applies from P1. An accident that results in a learning process has value.



But that obviously won't work. You say an accident that results in a learning process has value. Sure. But does it have more value than preventing a child from scalding herself with boiling water? No. I really hope you're not a parent, if you think it does. Sometimes, it's just better to tell someone something, so they don't suffer horribly. Right? Hold your kids' hands while they're crossing the street instead of letting them learn for themselves what happens when they get hit by cars, right? You agree, don't you?

rw: Why yes Thomas, I do agree. And if God interferes in this parenting responsibility what message does that send to parents? That they needn’t worry about the welfare of their children because God is standing ready to rescue them from every possible consequence of the parents neglect? You think this message has more value than man’s greater good secured by protecting his own children?

Now this is when you’ll incorporate omnipotence…just watch and see. I can hear it now, “God is omnipotent. He can protect all children without sending that message”. And in thus doing, totally ignore my argument completely: That God’s omniscience has determined that the greatest good for man will be for man to achieve his own greatest good. That this will provide the highest value. And you’ll introduce a contradiction in his attributes to do so…just watch and see.

Thomas: 2) Maybe a greater good is that humans learn to help themselves. But sometimes that's not good enough. It's better to save the child being attacked by a swarm of bees than just to think "Well, her death will serve as a lesson to the rest of you kids," or a lesson to her not to go playing where there are bees nearby. Here's your attempt to respond to this:

rw earlier: As to P1 I've already responded to many of such similar examples so that you should know my response by now. An omniscient being would know more than you about the eventual consequences of interference so that immediate action is considered unwarranted.

rw: Funny how you omitted my first response to this. Where is the girls parents Thomas? This is basically the same example as above. So my argument about responsible parenting being the “greater good” applies here as well.



Thomas: But look. Just look at this. You're already supposing that the action is necessary for some greater good. You can't use that to prove that it's necessary for a greater good. Do you know what begging the question is?

rw: I’ve already defined the greater good in this scenario Thomas. It isn’t my fault if you continue to intentionally ignore the majority of my arguments and pretend I’m begging the question. We went over this example several pages back and you now pretend I am supposing something I’ve already defended and then accusing me of begging the question based on your pretense. Responsible parenting Thomas…that’s the greater good. I spelled it out for you here:

Thomas : What purpose does it serve for this child to suffer like this?

rw aerlier: Most children have parents [...] The moral burden here rests upon her parents. God is not morally obligated to baby sit for neglectful parents. The message here is that parents are responsible for the safety of their children, which is only right. To do so promotes man’s greater good. How many children have to suffer and die before adults get this into their thick skulls?

rw: Now as anyone can see, my reply was consistent to man’s greater good. Obviously being a responsible parent is a matter of choice, (well, one would think this is obvious but not Thomas) and being a responsible parent does serve man’s greater good. Now here was Thomas’s response.



Thomas: Zero, because God is omnipotent.
rw: First logical contradiction. Thomas just made the statement that God is obligated to babysit thus negating responsible parenting. Now remember, Thomas isn’t claiming God should have done this in this one instance but in every such instance where a child is endangered. Else Thomas isn’t being consistent to his moral position in the argument.

Thomas: You've still got a very strange ethical principle lurking around here, that even in the case of the child being stung to death by bees, it would be worse for God to plant the information in the heads of the kid's parents than to let the kid die in excruciating pain.

rw: And what is the fundamental difference between interfering directly to save the child and planting information in the parent’s heads? Both are acts of interference that negate the parent’s responsibilities. But Thomas absolutely requires me to think this through for him. He seems to be completely incapable of making a logical connection beyond the magic voodoo word “omnipotence”.

Thomas: I'm sorry, but that goes against all of my moral intuitions, and I trust it goes against pretty much anyone else's.

rw: And thus obligates himself to the position that all such instances must be God’s responsibility. But Thomas apparently doesn’t believe responsible parenting serves the greater good of man, so I’m not surprised at anything he says anymore. Now this is about the time he usually drags in sufficiency and necessity to try and weasel out off the slippery slope of his position.





Thomas: For the rest of the post, I'll just go through and pick out some weird stuff:

rw: Which doesn’t surprise me either.

rw: In every case I have extrapolated out some very logically possible...



Thomas: Huh? How is something more logically possible than something else? That is, what does it mean to say something is "very" logically possible?

rw: Oops, well you got me there Thomas. Okay so I misappropriated a couple of terms. Are you being pedantic or just getting desperate?

rw: In every case Thomas, and all others resorting to this tactic, have been forced to incur "sufficiency" and "necessity" to defend their position...



Thomas : Do you know what "incur" means? I wish I could incur necessity! And are you claiming that because I've used those terms, the cogency of my position is suspect? I ask you one more time: Do you know what the difference between a sufficient condition and a necessary condition is?

rw: Hahahahahaha…are you sure you don’t want to do a spell check too, while you’re at it Thomas? Or maybe you did…8^O

rw: My very sound argument…



Thomas: How is an argument more sound than another argument?

rw: Oh, I don’t know, when it’s being compared to one of yours perhaps? No. that wouldn’t work cause you haven’t developed a sound argument yet.

rw: Regardless of how it's presented PoE is a flop.



Thomas: Speaking as a philosopher, I must say that no one would take your presentation seriously. Speaking as a widely-experienced philosopher and student of the argument from evil, I must say that no experienced student of the argument from evil would consider your presentation to offer a compelling response. Speaking as a philosophy tutor and teaching aid, I must say that no philosophy professor would give you a good grade on what you've written. And speaking as a philosopher who publishes in professional journals, I must say that no professional journal would take a second look at what you've attempted to offer.

rw: Well Thomas, you got your ass whupped this time around. I was going to direct the insult to some relevant part of your brain but since the majority of your arguments in this discussion appeared to have been pulled from your ass I figured I go ahead and address the colloquialism to the relevant anatomy. I don’t know about any of your other intellectual pursuits but as a student of PoE, not only did you flunk the course, but you got the entire curriculum kicked off the agenda for next year so I suggest you find another hobby. I’ll be going out of town tomorrow for awhile so you can have the last word…


Until I return…

Koyaanisqatsi

I'm sorry, rw, but your last response was too confusing for me to go through, so I'm going to address what I think is the root fallacy of your argument.

You're missing the point. Had god not set up the world in the way he did, then there would have been no need for or question of god's interference or non-interference.

You're saying, in essence, that god created bees to sting a child to death in order to instill better parental responsibility. What if the child were an oprhan? Or just taking a walk in the park within eyesight of the parents (let's say ten feet away) and got too close to the tree with the bees; bees the parents would have no way of knowing existed? Was it irresponsible for parents to allow their child to take a little walk?

Wouldn't the lesson therefore be to never let their children go anywhere or do anything, thereby stifling the child's growth and making the parents more irresponsible, because they let fear irrational fear rule their parenting choices?

And what lesson of responsibility is learned by allowing the child to die from bee stings? Wouldn't that be seen as undue punishment for actions that they could not have prevented (absent locking their children in a home and watching them 24 hours a day)?

Your argument takes the position that there is a willfull allowance; a decision on god's part (due to the greater good argument) to never intervene in a scenario that he instigated and set up with bees that will sting a child to death.

He knows what the outcome is going to be if that particular child on that particular day walks ten feet away from her parents in the park and he knows that the outcome will be fatal. This is due to his omniscience.

Now, you're saying, that his omni-benevolence gets shut down in regard to the child in order for the parents to suffer the pain and loss of their child in order to do what? Become better parents by being so terrified of ever letting their other children go out into the world? By destroying that family's paradise, so that the father and mother eventually divorce, or one commits suicide, or one becomes a drunk, or they both die inside and therefore can't help out their other children, or even that they are able to all become closer as a family and love each other "more" because they survived this tragedy?

Let's say that's the case; the best case scenario obtains and the family manages to grow stronger as a unit because they all were able to overcome their grief enough to wheather that storm. There have been literally billions if not trillions of such experiences throughout humanity's history prior to this one event. So how did all of those past events result in a "greater good" obtaining to prevent or deal with this particular event and how would, say, a similar event happening two or three generations later in that family lineage be effected in a "greater good" standard?

Let's jump ahead fifty years and the great, great granchild of these parents has a son who dies of say, SIDS in his crib while the parents sleep.

How did the experience fifty years prior result in a "greater good" standard effecting parental responsibility in the SIDS case?

For there to be a "greater good" standard for the "parental responsibility" subset to achieve, then each generation would have to be more and more and more "responsible" parents in general, yes? In other words, parenting in general would have to become more and more responsible with each passing generation for your conditions to obtain.

But it wasn't parental irresponsibility that killed either of the children.

That would only be a legitimate argument if there was a way the parents could have prevented the bees from stinging the child; it implies that the parents were at fault in some way; that they neglected their child on purpose and the resulting punishment (from god) was to allow their child to be stung to death in order to teach the parents a lesson.

But what lesson would that be that would result in them being "better" parents? Never letting their children out of their sight 24 hours a day?

What of the scenario I brought up here, of the child that dies in his crib? Is it the parent's fault? Were they being irresponsible parents for not somehow knowing that their child was dying in its sleep?

Well, won't you incorporate omniscience to the argument I made above? The omniscience of knowing that the SIDS case had some higher meaning not readily known by the parents?

Why do you get to throw this trump selectively to our arguments, but we're not allowed to throw an equal trump against yours?

You're doing this as well, repeatedly.

You're saying that god's omniscience has "determined" that the greatest good for man will be for man to achieve his own greatest good. How did god "determine" this? Because he's omniscient.

You are the one asserting that the way man achieves his greatest good is by suffering, yet don't take into account that suffering is a constant and parenting a dynamic. Each generation goes through the exact same things every other generation goes through. People are born, they live, they suffer, they laugh, they cry, etc., etc., etc., and then they die. Over and over and over and over, for literally thousands of years now. So where is the evidence of a greater good obtaining in all of this repetition?

My father was a great father up until a certain period of his life, when his business concerns crumbled all around him. My three brothers all have families and each one of them displays certain attributes of my father's parenting skills, while rejecting others. The point is, all of them are individual fathers in their own rights and according to their own personalities and experiences.

Likewise, their children will grow up to be similar, yet different and the permutations will (as they have in the past) continue in a dynamic manner, but not in a linear manner, which is what would obtain in a "greater good" scenario, yes?

My older brother's children might grow up to be great fathers or terrible fathers, but your argument mandates that they become progressively better fathers than their fathers before them. As history proves, this is rarely if ever the case. What happens is they become different kinds of fathers than their fathers before them.

None of which, however, will necessarily mean that any of them could prevent and/or protect their children at all times from harm. So does that necessarily make them irresponsible parents?

You mentioned before about good and evil being necessary components in order to learn/earn a "greater good," yet good and evil are constants in every generation. They never go away and are never vanquished (primarily because these are terms we created and not some omnimax god).

Forget the generation to generation linear, meta-path, because that does not obtain. Every generation has their Hitlers and every generation has their Ghandhis. So there is no generational "meta" path obtaining in any "greater good" status. We still have needs and wants and desires, etc., that cause every generation to repeat the sins of the fathers, so to speak.

In medieval Europe, there was the black plague. Today, we have AIDS. Are less people dying? Is that the baramoter of a "greater good?" Medieval Europe didn't have the threat of global thermonuclear war to contend with. So is that a tradeoff? An example of a generational transference of "greater good" lessons? No, so there is no "greater good" progression from generation to generation. Certainly you've heard the term, "History repeats itself?"

That means that your "greater good" condition must obtain with each generation; that by the time of our deaths, we must achieve a "greater good" for ourselves prior to death (i.e., most theology).

But this then removes your claim (or renders it invalid) that god has set up our arena for a meta path; it isn't to make humanity as a whole--as a group or tribe--achieve a "greater good" generations to come; it is. at best, set up to make individual men and women achieve their greatest possible good within their lifetimes.

So, the "good and evil" we're talking about is not for anything beyond our own lifetimes; to make us better people before we die.

But here's the problem. What end does that serve and how is it measured?

We've already established that it has nothing to do (and can have nothing to do) with a "meta" path; with humanity in general as a whole or a tribe (every generation has their Hitlers and every generation has their Gandhis) and this constant has been true for thousands and thousands of years, long before recorded human history.

Every child must learn not to touch the stove, but you're argument would imply that only a certain number of children would have to learn not to touch the stove and that one day, a "greatest good" will obtain in which children will simply know not to touch the stove or parents will simply know to never create anything that will inflict possible harm on children.

But those are things that are within the control of the parent; bee stings and SIDS are not in the parent's control. These are, if you'll forgive me, "acts of god" in your scenario; acts that would only apply to the individuals who suffered through the tragedy in order to make them achieve their own personal "greatest good," hopefully before they die and its too late.

But what does that serve? Let's say I'm a father and my child died of drowning when I was watching him. I bent down to pick up the paper and when I looked back up, he had tripped, smashed his head on the concrete and fell into the pool. By the time I got him out, he was dead and couldn't be revived.

In your scenario, this would be an act of god. God created the possibility for this scenario and then did not intervene to save my child. Now, best case scenario is that I overcome my grief and create a child safe pool of some kind so that no other humans on the planet need ever worry about their children dying in a pool again. That would be an example of a "greater good" obtaining as a result of the lesson I learned regarding how fragile children are and how dangerous pools are and how even an innocent move to pick up my paper--the tiniest example of "neglect"--can result in the direst of consequences.

So I devote my life to create this child-safe pool and work dilligently to replace all pools throughout the world, thereby expanding my lesson and my greater good to all of the human family, thereby contributing to the human "greater good" (the one of your argument).

But, wouldn't I, therefore, then be depriving all of those other parents out there who would benefit in the same way I did by the death of my son? I must be, according to your conditions, since the reason god orchestrated and did not intervene on my child's behalf was to teach me a lesson of neglect through grief and loss, in order to, presumably, make me a better non-neglectful parent to my other children and by extension, all children of humanity (for there to be a meta greatest good for all humanity).

So, even though my lesson has made me a better person and contributed to the greater good of humanity in general, my subsequent "gift to humanity," would arguably result in the same kind of negatives you are claiming would result if god simply mandated no evil. All of those millions of parents out there, whose children did not die as a result of drowning in a pool, but would have were it not for my intervention, will not learn the lesson I learned, yes?

If god shouldn't intervene then why should we? Shouldn't we learn from god's lesson and not intervene (the basis, unfortunately, of at least one christian cult that I know of)?

So, the humanity in general fallacy has to go from your argument and we're right back at the "greatest good" for the individual within the individual's lifetime (with the possible problem of this lesson of "shouldn't intervene").

So, again, what "greatest good" obtains in any of this? I suffer through the pain of losing my son and keep my family together and we all grow up and become better people in some way (let's leave the problem of human intevention as an arguable lesson to learn from god's lack of intevention aside), I am now on my deathbed looking back over my life. I conclude what? That the death of my son, though tragic, was worth it because it brought my family together in a way we might not have been prior?

How would I know this? Since I didn't live a life with my son, how am I to correctly assess that it was better for my son to die than to have lived?

Does god now come to me and say, "I will now show you how your life would have been if your son had lived" and it's a much worse tragic outcome?

Do I now say, "thanks?" Do I go to heaven? Do those who did not get their lives together after such a tragedy go to hell? Do they get to see what their life could have been like if they hadn't let the personal grief from their loss ruin their families?

And, again, to what end? Remember, it's no longer for humanity's sake in general; that's effectively ruled out. I am now dead and somehow my choices in life are presented to me along with the experience of what choices I didn't make and why, comparatively I chose a path that resulted in my own personal "greatest good." What now? End of god's experiment? I'm given my fifty dollars and told there might be another experiment coming up next semester and because I did so well in this one, I will definitely be called back for the next one?

What? This is what I meant before about what it is in relation to. A "greatest good" for humanity will not result from one's child dying from AIDS, since once AIDS is cured, there will be another horrible, life-threatening disease that we don't understand. So these "acts of god" cannot be for humanity in general; they must be for individuals in specific.

So what obtains from an individual achieving their "greatest possible good" prior to dying? Keys to god's ferrari? What?

You've got to justify the notion that achieving a personal "greatest good" is warranted in some way. Most cults do so by positing reincarnation or salvation from hell. I'm dead. Life no longer matters to me and likewise, humanity no longer matters to me. Humanity will continue as it has always continued after death; by doing the same things over and over and over again. Why? According to your argument, it must be in order to teach individuals of their ability to achieve their own personal "greatest good."

AIDS and SIDS and bee stings will remain in one form or another, since they are beyond the control of humanity and, according to your argument, necessary, but necessary for what? For me to be dead and reallize that I achieved a blue ribbon in life? How does that ultimately help me and/or humanity?

rainbow walking

Hi Koy,
I see you've been up late. Thanks for the attention and detail you've given to this argument. It's been fun and informative for me and I hope for you also.

koy: I'm sorry, rw, but your last response was too confusing for me to go through, so I'm going to address what I think is the root fallacy of your argument.

rw: It was the best I could do with what I had to go on so we both share some blame in that respect but that’s neither here nor there. It has sufficed to bring us to this point. So let’s examine my “root fallacy” as you call it and some of yours, as well.

RW: And if God interferes in this parenting responsibility what message does that send to parents?



koy:You're missing the point. Had god not set up the world in the way he did, then there would have been no need for or question of god's interference or non-interference.

rw: I should point out that you’re no longer arguing the CP but are now complaining about the way the world naturally evolved. Thus you are advocating God instantiate a different state of affairs, from the outset, than what has obtained, which is the traditional PoE. Since my argument doesn’t address the TP we need to decide on which form of PoE we’re discussing else you achieve nothing but confusion.

Koy: You're saying, in essence, that god created bees to sting a child to death in order to instill better parental responsibility.

rw: No, I’m saying no such thing. But let’s consider the extremely narrow parameters of this example. A simple google search has revealed that death by anaphylactic shock only occurs about 17 times a year in the US and occurs most often.in men in their 70s or 80s who were known to have poor cardiopulmonary functioning. So Thomas’s example represents the extremely rarest of cases, if in fact a case at all.


koy:What if the child were an oprhan?

rw: Orphans have no assigned guardian?

koy: Or just taking a walk in the park within eyesight of the parents (let's say ten feet away) and got too close to the tree with the bees; bees the parents would have no way of knowing existed? Was it irresponsible for parents to allow their child to take a little walk?

rw: As pointed out above, for death to have occurred in a child from a bee sting would entail very bizarre circumstances. Parents only ten feet away could easily extricate their child from the area and seek medical attention. People, especially children, do not die immediately from the venom of multiple bee stings. The parents would have had to be so far out in the wilderness as to preclude medical attention, the child extremely allergic and the parents unaware of this, (else they’d be carrying some form of Benedryl as a precautionary measure as we did for our eldest son who was allergic to bee venom), and the multiple stings in the thousands. I’m not saying the example is impossible to imagine, mind you, only that it seems like one is grasping for straw in using such an extremely rare occasion to conclude a God doesn’t exist. (shrug) If you’re comfortable with such a bizarre example as this to support your argument it makes no never-mind to me.

koy: Wouldn't the lesson therefore be to never let their children go anywhere or do anything, thereby stifling the child's growth and making the parents more irresponsible, because they let fear irrational fear rule their parenting choices?

rw: The immediate lesson would be that bee stings are not dangerous enough to warrant such extreme stifling as this. That death could only rarely occur if a child is allergic and that by the time a child reaches an age where she can wander off, or would, the parents are likely to already know of the allergy and be prepared, especially if traveling to remote areas precluding the possibility of medical attention. But still the possibility exists, so let’s press on.

koy: And what lesson of responsibility is learned by allowing the child to die from bee stings? Wouldn't that be seen as undue punishment for actions that they could not have prevented (absent locking their children in a home and watching them 24 hours a day)?

rw: Down thru the expanse of man’s history many children have died of many causes, as have adults, as will you and I eventually. So if we set aside the trappings of this particular example what we see emerging is an argument that an omni-max being couldn’t exist because if he did man would not be mortal. Does my argument address this concern? Yes, via man’s greater good. One of the major accomplishments that will arise as a result of man’s greater good is when his science enables death to be a choice in lieu of an inevitability. This will not likely happen while man is confined to this planet, so the other major accomplishment necessary to man’s greater good is to free himself from the confinement to this planet; to launch himself into the expanse of the universe where resources are not limited and the many natural causes of death associated with this planet are no longer a threat to his existence. Man’s science, and his politic to a lesser degree, are already pointing in this direction even if these goals are not specifically stated as such. But man, as a species, has to survive long enough to attain these goals. Were God to eradicate death, how long would it be before this planet became over populated to such an extent as to threaten man’s extinction? But man will have to come to a place of personal maturity that far exceeds his current maturity, before he will begin to cooperate on a planetary scale towards the fulfillment of these goals. This maturity, though not yet fully visible from his history, is attainable when man is ready to embrace its necessity.
Your argument, taken from these examples, focuses on man and his immediate circumstances and further highlights the difficulties that lie ahead for man in realizing his greatest good. Such a vision, to a man mourning the death of his child, is meaningless…and rightly so. But a future where such mourning becomes history itself is not meaningless to humanity in the aggregate. And an omniscient God would know this also.

koy: Your argument takes the position that there is a willfull allowance; a decision on god's part (due to the greater good argument) to never intervene in a scenario that he instigated and set up with bees that will sting a child to death.

rw: My argument does not support such a claim as willful instigation of specific tragedies. They arise due to man’s natural habitat that serves the greater purpose of launching man into his destiny.

koy: He knows what the outcome is going to be if that particular child on that particular day walks ten feet away from her parents in the park and he knows that the outcome will be fatal. This is due to his omniscience.

Now, you're saying, that his omni-benevolence gets shut down in regard to the child in order for the parents to suffer the pain and loss of their child in order to do what? Become better parents by being so terrified of ever letting their other children go out into the world? By destroying that family's paradise, so that the father and mother eventually divorce, or one commits suicide, or one becomes a drunk, or they both die inside and therefore can't help out their other children, or even that they are able to all become closer as a family and love each other "more" because they survived this tragedy?

rw: Yes, these are all possible outcomes for the immediate family members struggling with the terrible loss of a child. Meanwhile, up here on the mountain over-looking all of man’s history, we see a planetary ecosystem reeling under the pressures of a dynamically reproductive species and its demands on that planets resources. We begin to wonder how long and how many such tragic scenarios must play out before this species begins to realize that these tragedies are not the result of anything but their confinement to this planet? We begin to wonder how long it will take for man to unite and cooperate to rescue himself from this plight? We begin to wonder if he ever will? We begin to see that the more populated his planet becomes the more precious its resources grow and the more his parenting skills will be tested in keeping his children alive during the frenzy of man competing for his private wants and needs in a world of such men. We begin to see these pressures having their inevitable effect on man’s sanity and morality and compassion as he struggles to survive. We look at our historical watch and shake our heads and wonder if perhaps man isn’t running out of time.

koy: Let's say that's the case; the best case scenario obtains and the family manages to grow stronger as a unit because they all were able to overcome their grief enough to wheather that storm. There have been literally billions if not trillions of such experiences throughout humanity's history prior to this one event. So how did all of those past events result in a "greater good" obtaining to prevent or deal with this particular event and how would, say, a similar event happening two or three generations later in that family lineage be effected in a "greater good" standard?

rw: Taken together they have stimulated, nay forced, man to progress in his science and politic. Progress from cave to moon walker; from a probable lifespan of 25 or 30 years to 70, 80, even 100 years. And, as you say, when a family weathers such storms it can have some positive results in their future.

koy: Let's jump ahead fifty years and the great, great granchild of these parents has a son who dies of say, SIDS in his crib while the parents sleep.

How did the experience fifty years prior result in a "greater good" standard effecting parental responsibility in the SIDS case?

For there to be a "greater good" standard for the "parental responsibility" subset to achieve, then each generation would have to be more and more and more "responsible" parents in general, yes? In other words, parenting in general would have to become more and more responsible with each passing generation for your conditions to obtain.

But it wasn't parental irresponsibility that killed either of the children.

rw: And if we jump ahead much farther and find man free of his confinement to this planet and fear of unsolicited death, can we say it would have become such a reality had God interfered in man’s journey? A journey that forced man to become extremely responsible in his parenting skills to survive the tribulations of coming to grips with his plight and deciding to address it?

rw: That they needn’t worry about the welfare of their children because God is standing ready to rescue them from every possible consequence of the parents neglect? You think this message has more value than man’s greater good secured by protecting his own children?



koy: That would only be a legitimate argument if there was a way the parents could have prevented the bees from stinging the child; it implies that the parents were at fault in some way; that they neglected their child on purpose and the resulting punishment (from god) was to allow their child to be stung to death in order to teach the parents a lesson.

But what lesson would that be that would result in them being "better" parents? Never letting their children out of their sight 24 hours a day?

What of the scenario I brought up here, of the child that dies in his crib? Is it the parent's fault? Were they being irresponsible parents for not somehow knowing that their child was dying in its sleep?

rw: And if an entire human species perishes in a frenzy of consuming the last of a planets limited resources because a supernatural being intervened and prohibited death as a possible consequence in the lives of children?
quote:

rw: Now this is when you’ll incorporate omnipotence…just watch and see.



koy: Well, won't you incorporate omniscience to the argument I made above? The omniscience of knowing that the SIDS case had some higher meaning not readily known by the parents?

Why do you get to throw this trump selectively to our arguments, but we're not allowed to throw an equal trump against yours?
rw: I never said I had exclusive rights to his attributes in defense of my position. What I have said is that the argument that depends on omnipotence to address my argument incurs a contradiction between God’s attributes and fails to address my argument. Wasn’t my statement above addressed to Thomas?

rw: I can hear it now, “God is omnipotent. He can protect all children without sending that message”. And in thus doing, totally ignore my argument completely: That God’s omniscience has determined that the greatest good for man will be for man to achieve his own greatest good. That this will provide the highest value. And you’ll introduce a contradiction in his attributes to do so…just watch and see.



koy: You're doing this as well, repeatedly.

You're saying that god's omniscience has "determined" that the greatest good for man will be for man to achieve his own greatest good. How did god "determine" this? Because he's omniscient.

rw: Uh…yes. And it corresponds to MY argument, which is what I’m defending here. Now when you employ omnipotence to over-come omniscience you incur a logical contradiction. My argument, as it stands, trumps PoE because it ascribes a reason for non-interference. Addressing those reasons with omnipotence fails to address the finer points of my argument and incurs a logical contradiction in his attributes when the consequences of your omnipotent acts are extrapolated out to their logical conclusion relative to my argument. To say, “God could do this and God could do that” fails to consider the logical consequences when protracted out on a historical scale to man in the aggregate. You are saying, in a sense, that God could achieve man’s greatest good for him while ignoring the simple fact that this would not be the greatest good for man. You eventually end up having God instantiate an entirely different state of affairs and we end up back at PoE in the traditional argument for a world sans evil and suffering. Now if my argument isn’t designed to address the TP, why take us there unless you have no recourse, which is what I’ve been trying to show everyone all along.

koy: You are the one asserting that the way man achieves his greatest good is by suffering, yet don't take into account that suffering is a constant and parenting a dynamic.

rw: No, my argument does not say that man achieves his greatest good by suffering. My argument says some suffering is an inevitable consequence of man’s achievement. There is a difference. My argument says man will achieve his own greatest good himself via science and politics. It then details the history of both to show the progress made from the caves. My argument says that the suffering and evil encountered along the way serves as a catalyst to propel man into his destiny. It is not his means of achievement but his reason for making the effort. It is important we keep these details in proper perspective here. If, and when, man achieves his destiny he will not look back at the suffering of his ancestors with satisfaction, no more than we do, but will look back with a sigh of relief and a certain regret that his ancestors had to endure such tragedies for man to arrive at his destiny. He will wonder if it had to be this way, just as we are now, and realize that any divine dilution of the catalyst would have likely hindered his journey or even prevented him from attaining his goals, and with a sigh and a sense of pride, press on towards even greater accomplishments, free from the constraints of this world and the inevitability of death.

koy: Each generation goes through the exact same things every other generation goes through. People are born, they live, they suffer, they laugh, they cry, etc., etc., etc., and then they die. Over and over and over and over, for literally thousands of years now. So where is the evidence of a greater good obtaining in all of this repetition?

rw: In his history, if one isn’t looking through nihilistic pessimism.

koy: My father was a great father up until a certain period of his life, when his business concerns crumbled all around him. My three brothers all have families and each one of them displays certain attributes of my father's parenting skills, while rejecting others. The point is, all of them are individual fathers in their own rights and according to their own personalities and experiences.

Likewise, their children will grow up to be similar, yet different and the permutations will (as they have in the past) continue in a dynamic manner, but not in a linear manner, which is what would obtain in a "greater good" scenario, yes?

rw: But you can’t deny history. You can try to interpret it from your own vantage here in the 21st century, but if you neglect to look forward your interpretation will not reflect anything more than your own personal prejudices.

koy: My older brother's children might grow up to be great fathers or terrible fathers, but your argument mandates that they become progressively better fathers than their fathers before them. As history proves, this is rarely if ever the case. What happens is they become different kinds of fathers than their fathers before them.

None of which, however, will necessarily mean that any of them could prevent and/or protect their children at all times from harm. So does that necessarily make them irresponsible parents?

rw: It is likely their parenting skills will have been much improved by the time their children are ready to become fathers. Then they will make excellent grandfathers. It is hoped that no such tragedy befalls them but if it does it is certain that something good will eventually arise from it, even if their names are not on the shrine. But these slice away views into the individual lives of men cannot tell a true tale of historical man. They will reflect the views of individual men only and history will be denied a voice. But history will not be denied, even if its gagged or hogtied to any particular interpretation. Man will eventually be forced to confront his enemies directly and that is one of the good things that will come out of all the evil and suffering encountered along the way. His confinement to this planet and his unbridled procreation will create a confrontation that he cannot evade.

koy: You mentioned before about good and evil being necessary components in order to learn/earn a "greater good," yet good and evil are constants in every generation. They never go away and are never vanquished (primarily because these are terms we created and not some omnimax god).

rw: This is true even, and especially, when men reach their destiny. But the negative concepts needn’t be a part of his choices and actions once liberated from his prison and oppressor, life on this small planet and the inevitability of death that incurs.

koy: Forget the generation to generation linear, meta-path, because that does not obtain. Every generation has their Hitlers and every generation has their Ghandhis. So there is no generational "meta" path obtaining in any "greater good" status. We still have needs and wants and desires, etc., that cause every generation to repeat the sins of the fathers, so to speak.

rw: And it will likely get much worse before it gets better, primarily because of the resignation factor contained in such interpretations as this. Nihilism, pessimism, complacency, lack of vision or imagination, surrender, no doubt you may not see this in your statement but it resonates in every word. Religion fairs no better as a means of interpreting history. Man as a corrupt, sinful creature will always view himself unworthy to pursue such goals and thus, they will forever remain beyond his reach. Why should he when he looks to this God to grant him a stay of execution.

koy: In medieval Europe, there was the black plague. Today, we have AIDS. Are less people dying? Is that the baramoter of a "greater good?" Medieval Europe didn't have the threat of global thermonuclear war to contend with. So is that a tradeoff? An example of a generational transference of "greater good" lessons? No, so there is no "greater good" progression from generation to generation. Certainly you've heard the term, "History repeats itself?"

That means that your "greater good" condition must obtain with each generation; that by the time of our deaths, we must achieve a "greater good" for ourselves prior to death (i.e., most theology).

rw: There is no time frame or limit for determining the frequency and degree of man’s baby steps towards his destiny. Things could rock on for another 2000 years before man makes another historical step towards his greater good, but it needn’t be so. It’s up to man to decide when he’s ready to confront his human predicament and address it as a species. This is the only way he will make any real progress. I am encouraged by the way nations are working together in our fledgling space program. It is an example of what man can accomplish when he has to. Let us hope this cooperation blossoms and produces results that will enable the world to appreciate what can be dome, what is within man’s reach when his vision is properly focused on the right problem. Much of man’s historical journey has been spent on figuring out the right questions to ask.

koy: But this then removes your claim (or renders it invalid) that god has set up our arena for a meta path; it isn't to make humanity as a whole--as a group or tribe--achieve a "greater good" generations to come; it is. at best, set up to make individual men and women achieve their greatest possible good within their lifetimes.

rw: It facilitates the good as well as the bad across the board whether you look at a cross section of cultures or a world, it works both ways.

koy: So, the "good and evil" we're talking about is not for anything beyond our own lifetimes; to make us better people before we die.

rw: If that is as far as your vision will permit you to see, yes, it also facilitates the good of the individual when they focus on what is right.

koy: But here's the problem. What end does that serve and how is it measured?

We've already established that it has nothing to do (and can have nothing to do) with a "meta" path; with humanity in general as a whole or a tribe (every generation has their Hitlers and every generation has their Gandhis) and this constant has been true for thousands and thousands of years, long before recorded human history.

rw: No we haven’t established any such thing except in your prejudiced interpretation of a small section of man’s history, but go on…let’s see where you’re going.

koy: Every child must learn not to touch the stove, but you're argument would imply that only a certain number of children would have to learn not to touch the stove and that one day, a "greatest good" will obtain in which children will simply know not to touch the stove or parents will simply know to never create anything that will inflict possible harm on children.

rw: Technology will likely render stoves an obsolete item sometime in the future. Microwaves have already set us down that path as well. You see the narrowness of your vision? It doesn’t allow for the future because it has already damned the past and present.

koy: But those are things that are within the control of the parent; bee stings and SIDS are not in the parent's control. These are, if you'll forgive me, "acts of god" in your scenario; acts that would only apply to the individuals who suffered through the tragedy in order to make them achieve their own personal "greatest good," hopefully before they die and its too late.

But what does that serve? Let's say I'm a father and my child died of drowning when I was watching him. I bent down to pick up the paper and when I looked back up, he had tripped, smashed his head on the concrete and fell into the pool. By the time I got him out, he was dead and couldn't be revived.

In your scenario, this would be an act of god. God created the possibility for this scenario and then did not intervene to save my child.


rw: God built your swimming pool and delivered your paper?

koy: Now, best case scenario is that I overcome my grief and create a child safe pool of some kind so that no other humans on the planet need ever worry about their children dying in a pool again. That would be an example of a "greater good" obtaining as a result of the lesson I learned regarding how fragile children are and how dangerous pools are and how even an innocent move to pick up my paper--the tiniest example of "neglect"--can result in the direst of consequences.

So I devote my life to create this child-safe pool and work dilligently to replace all pools throughout the world, thereby expanding my lesson and my greater good to all of the human family, thereby contributing to the human "greater good" (the one of your argument).

But, wouldn't I, therefore, then be depriving all of those other parents out there who would benefit in the same way I did by the death of my son? I must be, according to your conditions, since the reason god orchestrated and did not intervene on my child's behalf was to teach me a lesson of neglect through grief and loss, in order to, presumably, make me a better non-neglectful parent to my other children and by extension, all children of humanity (for there to be a meta greatest good for all humanity).

rw: The lesson of responsible parenting was by no means an exhaustive explanation Koy. It was only one example of how such things serve one such greater good. There is no way to predict the benefits that could come of your improved pool. You could discover an anti-gravity device inherent in your new design for a vacuum pump while designing the improved version. The microscope is one such tool that came to be utilized for many other accomplishments other than discovering germs. Your argument here is also limiting the myriad possibilities from any specific accident, that could arise as an indirect result and have far reaching consequences to future generations.

koy: So, even though my lesson has made me a better person and contributed to the greater good of humanity in general, my subsequent "gift to humanity," would arguably result in the same kind of negatives you are claiming would result if god simply mandated no evil. All of those millions of parents out there, whose children did not die as a result of drowning in a pool, but would have were it not for my intervention, will not learn the lesson I learned, yes?

rw: And your argument here also fails to consider there are an unlimited number of ways a parent could exhibit irresponsible parenting.

koy: If god shouldn't intervene then why should we? Shouldn't we learn from god's lesson and not intervene (the basis, unfortunately, of at least one christian cult that I know of)?

rw: Because we are responsible for our own greater good. It’s built into my argument. We are not God…we are man. God is not confined to this planet, we are.

koy: So, the humanity in general fallacy has to go from your argument and we're right back at the "greatest good" for the individual within the individual's lifetime (with the possible problem of this lesson of "shouldn't intervene").

So, again, what "greatest good" obtains in any of this? I suffer through the pain of losing my son and keep my family together and we all grow up and become better people in some way (let's leave the problem of human intevention as an arguable lesson to learn from god's lack of intevention aside), I am now on my deathbed looking back over my life. I conclude what? That the death of my son, though tragic, was worth it because it brought my family together in a way we might not have been prior?

How would I know this? Since I didn't live a life with my son, how am I to correctly assess that it was better for my son to die than to have lived?

Does god now come to me and say, "I will now show you how your life would have been if your son had lived" and it's a much worse tragic outcome?

Do I now say, "thanks?" Do I go to heaven? Do those who did not get their lives together after such a tragedy go to hell? Do they get to see what their life could have been like if they hadn't let the personal grief from their loss ruin their families?

And, again, to what end? Remember, it's no longer for humanity's sake in general; that's effectively ruled out.



rw: No koy, that has not been effectively ruled out in your reasoning. That has been effectively pushed aside so you could focus your arguments on an individual. Only by narrowing our view to the microscopic level of mankind can you raise such objections. But my argument specifically bases its postulates on historical man in the aggregate. I suspect you imagine this to be a weakness and why you are trying to pull our heads back into the present and focused on one unfortunate incident. It’s up to each of us how to deal with the tragedies and pain that we ultimately experience during the course of our lives. Sometimes the philosophical perspective is the only thing that saves us from allowing these tragedies to blossom into greater tragedies. Without a vision the people perish.

koy: I am now dead and somehow my choices in life are presented to me along with the experience of what choices I didn't make and why, comparatively I chose a path that resulted in my own personal "greatest good." What now? End of god's experiment? I'm given my fifty dollars and told there might be another experiment coming up next semester and because I did so well in this one, I will definitely be called back for the next one?

What? This is what I meant before about what it is in relation to. A "greatest good" for humanity will not result from one's child dying from AIDS, since once AIDS is cured, there will be another horrible, life-threatening disease that we don't understand. So these "acts of god" cannot be for humanity in general; they must be for individuals in specific.

So what obtains from an individual achieving their "greatest possible good" prior to dying? Keys to god's ferrari? What?

rw: In relation to my argument they’ve proven one of my postulates: that a greater good comes of evil and suffering. If such a person recognizes or believes he has achieved the greatest possible good he could in his life he will die happy.

koy: You've got to justify the notion that achieving a personal "greatest good" is warranted in some way. Most cults do so by positing reincarnation or salvation from hell. I'm dead. Life no longer matters to me and likewise, humanity no longer matters to me. Humanity will continue as it has always continued after death; by doing the same things over and over and over again. Why? According to your argument, it must be in order to teach individuals of their ability to achieve their own personal "greatest good."

rw: It is not within the scope of my argument to establish the personal greatest achievable good for individual men, that is none of my business, but only to show that a personal greatest good is achievable as a viable aspect of my argument. Since you’ve just argued valiantly that it is, I can only concur that it is and point to this as evidence that whether you examine man from a cross section of individuals or from the expanse of history “greater good” is a viable concept and something every man strives to obtain. How he views its attainment is up to him. Taking the argument beyond the mystery of death is also not within the scope of my argument.

koy: AIDS and SIDS and bee stings will remain in one form or another, since they are beyond the control of humanity and, according to your argument, necessary, but necessary for what? For me to be dead and reallize that I achieved a blue ribbon in life? How does that ultimately help me and/or humanity?

rw: If it takes humanity to the realization that their destiny lies in the stars that will have been enough…and more than enough to render my argument a valid description of man’s history. If it’s a valid description of man’s history then it’s a valid disclaimer of PoE.

Now I have to pack and leave for Albany, NY immediately after posting this so I will have nothing more to contribute until I return. You are, of course, free to go on dissecting the argument in any way that pleases you. If and when I return, can’t say when that will be, I’ll find it and pick up where we left off. Maybe I’ll make it into the city and look you up. Depends on my schedule. I wish I knew how to contact you?

Koyaanisqatsi

You keep saying that my arguments are simply the result of a nihilistic, pessimistic view of history that lacks "vision" as some sort of counter-argument to all of my points.

But, you justify your argument because you have an optimistic, generative view of history, with a marked progression toward a "greater good," but isn't that just your own interpretation?

You claim that an extended life span is an example of a progression toward man's "greatest good," but don't explain why that is the case. You leave it as a self-justifying claim. When I point out why it is not a self-justifying claim and not an example of "greatest moral good," you counter with that just being my pessimism.

You also claim that leaving this planet and somehow, as a result, making death a "choice" is a positive thing for humanity as a self-justifying position, claiming that my pessimistic interpretation is therefore negated due not to its argument, but to its pessimism.

But the argument is that self-justifying premises do not a valid syllogism make, my friend, regardless of how you classify my "view."

You are saying that the PoE fails because in your vision, humanity has progressively grown better and better in the moral ways we treat one another, therefore evil is self-justified and I am pointing out that this is not the case; that every generation has its Hitlers and its Gandhis and that each generation must deal with the exact same human condition as the first homo sapiens did in a dynamic manner; shifting and altering to accomodate the illusions of linear progression your "optimistic" interpretation represents. Survival, yes, but also the entirety of human interaction; of how we treat (or mistreat) one another is the crux of any argument regarding a "greater good" as a result of necessary evil, so the question must be about the individual and the individual's personal journey and how that individual deals with the PoE in their own lifetimes and therefore has nothing to do with interpreting a positive, linear progression where one does not necessarily exist.

It is just your interpretation that it exists.

You can't counter my argument that each generation learns the same lessons over and over and over again with, "that's just a pessimistic view. Look at the progress we've made in lifespans and medicines and politics" etc. when the question goes to mankind itself. Why would there be no death in space as a result of murder or human foibles? How will technology and/or time remove hatred or anger or jealoulsy or greed or love or happiness, etc.., , the constants of the human condition that arguably need to be changed in order for humanity as a whole to achieve its alleged "greater good?"

And how does death by bee sting or SIDS faciliate this? The examples I provided (the death by bee stings and SIDS and AIDS) were, of course, meant to address the suffering that is inflicted that has nothing to do with any individual or group actions; "acts of god" in other words, or, more appropriately, acts of nature's utter indifference to man's existence.

How will my child dying of SIDS help me remove greed or anger or hate or any of the "baser" emotions that arguably lead humanity in general to wars and other, in your view, detrimental elements that prevent us from achieving our "greatest good?"

You keep asserting that a "greatest good" is just naturally to be asssumed desireable and therefore sufficient justification for the existence of evil, thereby defeating PoE. But you fail to show how "acts of nature" obtain in this greatest good and avoid addressing the fact that you've simply romanticized (your "vision and imagination") of humanity as a whole to conclude that we are on some sort of progressive journey of self-betterment.

That there is evidence of mankind attemtping to better itself is not evidence of a god who instantiated either the concept or the arena in which this would obtain and the fact that there are "pessimistic" but nonetheless true events in life that inflict suffering that has no bearing on how humans relate to one another that would contribute to a "greater good" argues against your fallacy.

How does an earthquake in Bangledesh better the human condition? We already know through "normal" life that death is a part of life and that suffering the loss of somebody is a terrible burden. This "lesson" has been imparted countless trillions of times already. So what purpose does such a catastrophe of an earthquake killing thousands all at once serve that couldn't have been gotten in less catastrophic means?

Your response is to pull your omniscience trump, itslef just another assertion. See what I mean? One can't defeat an argument with assertions of self-justifying premises.

The only way to defeat PoE is to demonstrate the necessity of instigating evil; of creating evil for a necessary end and having that evil being purposeful, not just passive.

The reason god created earthquakes that result in the deaths of people is.....? What?

You try to get around this by saying that god just created the arena and let us all go within it, but then that removes purposeful evil; like a long-forgotten mine field that occasionally kills those people unfortunate enough to have been walking through that field on that day.

You say "resignation," I say, "realistic interpretation absent undue romanticism."

Fine, let it resonate, but don't let this be a counter argument to my points, since it is not. How will colonies off this planet no longer have greed or anger or jealousy or needs or wants or desires or pathology or any of the other things that every single human experiences every single generation that causes us to act in "immoral" ways; that would block us from your imagined "greater good?"

Because Gene Roddenbery predicted it was possible? Looking at history with the so-called "pessimistic" eyes you accuse me of, demonstrates that history always repeats itself. Not just some of the time, but always as a condition of human existence. Absolutely nothing of any significance has changed since proto-humans first contemplated the human condition. We all still love and hate and experience the panolopy of human emotions and human foibles in dynamically identical ways that our ancestors from tens of thousands of years ago dealt with.

What, therefore, gives you the justification for asserting that this will change at some point in our evolution or that this is a beneficial, desirable thing?

You contradict your own conditions. Again, let's project ourselves to the year 1,778,987 C.E. Humanity has "conquered" death and lives on just about every planet in the universe and we have achieved our "greatest good." What then? We stop? We cease to exist? And how could that "greatest good" be obtained if we seek to systematically remove all components of "evil" within our natures?

Your argument states that evil is necessary for us to ahieve our "greatest good;" but achieving our "greatest good" will mean to progressively remove our evil (by humanity's own choice over time). So, all right, again, projecting forward, our generation represents the very first generation to have finally achieved the self-removal of all "evil" components of our natures and then we give birth to what? A tabla rassa child who will need to be taught the right lessons. But how can we teach them the "right" lessons, when there are no more instances of evil for the child to understand what "good" is? What happens then?

The same arguments you used to innitially shoot down the notion of god mandating "no evil" will result in that next generation, yes? After we have achieved our "greatest good?"

Again, nice poetry and I agree, but the question is to the fallacies of the manner in which you've constructed your "defeat" of PoE.

It is not self-evident that humanity is progressing on a "meta" linear path toward a "greatest good" nor is it self-evident that achieving a "greatest good" is a desireable or worthy goal to support the notion that a god therefore instantiated all of this. Your examples, likewise, do not establish evidence to support your "optimistic" assertions, upon which your fallacy is based.

Once "humanity" has achieved its greatest good, then what? What happens to the children of that generation and their children and their children's children? Yes, their great, great grandparents had earned the completion of their journey, but no generation after that would. The scenario would be identical to god mandating the greatest good right from the start; of god cutting out all the suffering to get there and just put us there.

What would the children's children of the "greatest good acheived" generation earn? And if you say, "the fruits of their ancestors labors" I'll smack ya'

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by rainbow walking :

Are you really telling me that if you saw a kid attacked by bees, you wouldn't help her, because her parents need to learn to be responsible parents? Are you really telling me that if you saw a kid about tip a pot of boiling water of her head, you wouldn't intervene, because her parents need to learn to be responsible parents? If yes, then you're occupying a thankfully small ethical minority. If no, then you're being inconsistent, because intervention prevents a greater good, according to you.

I deny none of that. But those are all sufficient conditions for humans to learn, not necessary conditions. We've been through this over and over and over again. Sometimes, humans learn things by trial and error. But that doesn't mean that's always the best way for them to do it. (As I've proven with the "pot of boiling water" analogy.)

Prove that that's really the greatest good. That's what I've been asking you to do the whole time. I've provided strong reasons to doubt it with "bees" and "boiling water."

Does anyone else on this thread agree with you? Speak, if you do.

Marz Blak

Hello again, rw. Sorry it took so long to respond--I've been a bit busy. Since I anticipate continuing to be busy and thus not having time to carry on with a detailed, fine-pointed dialogue, I'll reply in a sort of generic way in an effort to give you a better sense of where I'm coming from.

Marz: ...It seems to me that rw's response to the 'unnecessary suffering' objections opposing him do indeed amount to little more than a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy, combined with more than a smattering of Unknown Purpose....In other words, to my thinking, while rw's approach is self-consistent, it seems to me that in order to accept it as valid, one must accept certain presuppositions about the existence and nature of god on, well, on faith. So to my thinking, it is good apologetics, but like all apologetics with which I am familiar, it is persuasive only to those already predisposed to believe it.

Rw: What is this fallacy of which you speak? And as far as unknown purpose, I thought I’d elucidated the purpose quite clearly? Where have I left room for this claim?

Marz: Perhaps my use of the phrase post hoc, ergo proper hoc isn't quite right. 'After this, therefore because of this' captures some of the sense of what I was trying to say, but maybe wasn't quite exactly it.

What I meant was this: from my undertstanding of your position, your response to the 'unnecessary suffering' objection to it is in essence a counter-assertion that what the objection takes as being gratuitious suffering is not at all gratuitious; that such suffering does indeed serve a higher(?) moral purpose, and that the objeciton discounts the inherent moral value of humanity's struggle to overcome such suffering.

To this, my interpretation of your argument, my response is that there are a number of implicit assumptions upon which it is based that I fail to see as justified. Firstly, there is an assumption underlying this entire line of reasoning that there is indeed some objective or universal set of ethical principles. I think this is to say the least a debabable proposition. Secondly, even assuming the existence of such universal ethics, it contains an assertion that it is inherently better in some way for mankind to aspire towards them in the face of ethically objectionable conditions and events, rather than, say, having the purported omnipontent being simply create us as creatures imbued with these superior ethics. This is also an imminently arguable proposition to me, your theories about the relativity of value judgments notwithstanding (or rather, these theories being also debatable to me).

So to attempt to clear up my prior post, I believe that your position has 'post hoc...' and Unknown Purpose aspects to it in that the only way I see to your argument as justifying the implicit assumptions I see underneath it is to (1) hold that the sort of 'moral vector' we as a species are traveling is evidence of some objective moral goal (this is the post hoc part); and (2) that there is some way in which suffering enhances this moral aspiration that makes its attainment through suffering inherently better than having it handed to us, if you will (the Unknown Purpose part).

I hope this clears up my thinking, and I apologize both for being unclear and for taking so long to respond.

Regards,

rainbow walking

Hi Koy, I’m at the Catskill’s public library, (gotta feed this addiction), so maybe I can get in a brief response.

Koy: You keep saying that my arguments are simply the result of a nihilistic, pessimistic view of history that lacks "vision" as some sort of counter-argument to all of my points.

But, you justify your argument because you have an optimistic, generative view of history, with a marked progression toward a "greater good," but isn't that just your own interpretation?

You claim that an extended life span is an example of a progression toward man's "greatest good," but don't explain why that is the case. You leave it as a self-justifying claim. When I point out why it is not a self-justifying claim and not an example of "greatest moral good," you counter with that just being my pessimism.

rw: It’s a matter of historic fact that man has extended his lifespan on earth since the days of proto-man. The “why” is simple: science.

Koy: You also claim that leaving this planet and somehow, as a result, making death a "choice" is a positive thing for humanity as a self-justifying position, claiming that my pessimistic interpretation is therefore negated due not to its argument, but to its pessimism.

rw: No, I claim your pessimism is due to ignoring history and modern science. Medicine and space exploration are facts of our reality and both have made significant advances in these directions. Politics are tad more tricky.

koy: But the argument is that self-justifying premises do not a valid syllogism make, my friend, regardless of how you classify my "view."

You are saying that the PoE fails because in your vision, humanity has progressively grown better and better in the moral ways we treat one another, therefore evil is self-justified and I am pointing out that this is not the case; that every generation has its Hitlers and its Gandhis and that each generation must deal with the exact same human condition as the first homo sapiens did in a dynamic manner; shifting and altering to accomodate the illusions of linear progression your "optimistic" interpretation represents. Survival, yes, but also the entirety of human interaction; of how we treat (or mistreat) one another is the crux of any argument regarding a "greater good" as a result of necessary evil, so the question must be about the individual and the individual's personal journey and how that individual deals with the PoE in their own lifetimes and therefore has nothing to do with interpreting a positive, linear progression where one does not necessarily exist.

rw: My argument isn’t based on individual cross sections of humanity but historical humanity in the aggregate. You aren’t allowed to rewrite my argument. You can define it any way you please but the focus of the argument is on humanity historically. Every example you submit of any specific event within that history must be taken within the historical context or it fails to address my argument. I detailed very clearly man’s historical trek from the caves to the 21st century. To deny any progress has been made, both morally and scientifically, is to ignore the facts. That the moral aspect of humanity lags behind I readily admit, but some progress has been made.

koy: It is just your interpretation that it exists.

You can't counter my argument that each generation learns the same lessons over and over and over again with, "that's just a pessimistic view. Look at the progress we've made in lifespans and medicines and politics" etc. when the question goes to mankind itself. Why would there be no death in space as a result of murder or human foibles? How will technology and/or time remove hatred or anger or jealoulsy or greed or love or happiness, etc.., , the constants of the human condition that arguably need to be changed in order for humanity as a whole to achieve its alleged "greater good?"

rw: Because, in order for man to make this transition from an earth bound species to star traveler will require a world wide cooperative effort. Those involved in the accomplishment will have to be morally superior people to facilitate this cooperation. Additionally, I’m not saying the potential for these human frailties won’t exist in space, I’m only predicting they won’t exist on the scale they exist on earth. My argument doesn’t incorporate the concept of perfection. I’m arguing that the constraints of our planet are the primary causative agent responsible for most, if not all, premeditated immorality.

koy: And how does death by bee sting or SIDS faciliate this? The examples I provided (the death by bee stings and SIDS and AIDS) were, of course, meant to address the suffering that is inflicted that has nothing to do with any individual or group actions; "acts of god" in other words, or, more appropriately, acts of nature's utter indifference to man's existence.

How will my child dying of SIDS help me remove greed or anger or hate or any of the "baser" emotions that arguably lead humanity in general to wars and other, in your view, detrimental elements that prevent us from achieving our "greatest good?"

You keep asserting that a "greatest good" is just naturally to be asssumed desireable and therefore sufficient justification for the existence of evil, thereby defeating PoE. But you fail to show how "acts of nature" obtain in this greatest good and avoid addressing the fact that you've simply romanticized (your "vision and imagination") of humanity as a whole to conclude that we are on some sort of progressive journey of self-betterment.

rw: I’m saying all of these tragedies are the natural evolutionary stimulus for man to escape his entrapment on this planet or perish. Some of these diseases and natural causes of death, pain and suffering are resolvable issues given man’s science and technology. When man makes it into the stars many of these earth resident evolutionary forces will be left behind. I am not arguing that personal tragedy will thrust you into the stars or extended life. Basically, what you’re saying is, “What’s in it for me?” I thought CP was about a logical proof a god doesn’t exist? T It’s true that none of us are exempt from some degree of suffering and also true that some of that suffering actually matures us. But my argument is based on historical man and his progress in the aggregate. Your attempts to make it explain the benefits to individual men at various points along man’s history ignores the major thrust of my argument. I am certainly not arguing that losing a child will thrust you into the stars and extend your life indefinitely. Your objections seem to be based on just such an interpretation.


koy: That there is evidence of mankind attemtping to better itself is not evidence of a god who instantiated either the concept or the arena in which this would obtain and the fact that there are "pessimistic" but nonetheless true events in life that inflict suffering that has no bearing on how humans relate to one another that would contribute to a "greater good" argues against your fallacy.

rw: My argument is not an evidential argument for the existence of a god. It is a response to the contemporary PoE. The argument offers historical progression, along with all the pain and suffering endured, as a logical justification for an omni-max being to refuse interference. It does not claim to prove that such a being necessarily exists but to show that such a being doesn’t necessarily not exist, just because evil and suffering does.

koy: How does an earthquake in Bangledesh better the human condition? We already know through "normal" life that death is a part of life and that suffering the loss of somebody is a terrible burden. This "lesson" has been imparted countless trillions of times already. So what purpose does such a catastrophe of an earthquake killing thousands all at once serve that couldn't have been gotten in less catastrophic means?

rw: Earthquakes have a scientific explanation. They are necessary to the stability of the earth’s configuration. When man launches himself into the stars this is one phenomenon he’ll no longer face as a potential threat to his existence.

koy: Your response is to pull your omniscience trump, itslef just another assertion. See what I mean? One can't defeat an argument with assertions of self-justifying premises.

The only way to defeat PoE is to demonstrate the necessity of instigating evil; of creating evil for a necessary end and having that evil being purposeful, not just passive.

The reason god created earthquakes that result in the deaths of people is.....? What?


rw: In the first place, my argument doesn’t entail a god who specifically created such phenomena, only that they represent the way this universe evolved in relation to the properties inherent in matter. So your complaint is immediately trying to assign a malevolent motive to god for these natural phenomena. I reject that assignment. All such earth specific catastrophes serve to thrust man into a position of facing his confinement to such a world and the consequences of escape or resignation. One day man might decide, on a planetary scale, to face his predicament and reach for the only logical solution.

koy: You try to get around this by saying that god just created the arena and let us all go within it, but then that removes purposeful evil; like a long-forgotten mine field that occasionally kills those people unfortunate enough to have been walking through that field on that day.

rw: You make it sound as if man is a totally helpless lemming at the mercy of his ecosystem with no resources of his own just wandering around waiting on the next disaster to strike. Science will make it possible for man to predict these phenomena, avoid or reduce deadly consequences and plan for future construction on or around such areas of historical occurrence. My argument also allows that man is the major player in his own future.



koy: Fine, let it resonate, but don't let this be a counter argument to my points, since it is not. How will colonies off this planet no longer have greed or anger or jealousy or needs or wants or desires or pathology or any of the other things that every single human experiences every single generation that causes us to act in "immoral" ways; that would block us from your imagined "greater good?"

rw: Again, my argument does not say these human emotions and reactions will no longer exist, only that by the time we reach the stars, we will have matured in these areas such that they will be better contained as undesirable choices.

koy: Because Gene Roddenbery predicted it was possible? Looking at history with the so-called "pessimistic" eyes you accuse me of, demonstrates that history always repeats itself. Not just some of the time, but always as a condition of human existence. Absolutely nothing of any significance has changed since proto-humans first contemplated the human condition. We all still love and hate and experience the panolopy of human emotions and human foibles in dynamically identical ways that our ancestors from tens of thousands of years ago dealt with.

What, therefore, gives you the justification for asserting that this will change at some point in our evolution or that this is a beneficial, desirable thing?

rw: Koy, my argument makes no such claim. I claim that man’s preference for rightness will have developed to such a degree as to make these human attributes far more manageable. Not that humans will cease to experience the entire panoply of emotion. My argument does not entail an alteration of human nature the way CP does. It allows for natural human development. CP argues that a god should have bypassed nature and I say that’s not going to produce a natural man but an aberration. CP proponents act as if that’s perfectly fine with them, so long as man avoids pain, suffering and death.

koy: You contradict your own conditions. Again, let's project ourselves to the year 1,778,987 C.E. Humanity has "conquered" death and lives on just about every planet in the universe and we have achieved our "greatest good." What then? We stop? We cease to exist? And how could that "greatest good" be obtained if we seek to systematically remove all components of "evil" within our natures?

rw: Best case management, not eradication. PFR is not a forced compendium but still a choice.

koy: Your argument states that evil is necessary for us to ahieve our "greatest good;" but achieving our "greatest good" will mean to progressively remove our evil (by humanity's own choice over time). So, all right, again, projecting forward, our generation represents the very first generation to have finally achieved the self-removal of all "evil" components of our natures and then we give birth to what? A tabla rassa child who will need to be taught the right lessons. But how can we teach them the "right" lessons, when there are no more instances of evil for the child to understand what "good" is? What happens then?

The same arguments you used to innitially shoot down the notion of god mandating "no evil" will result in that next generation, yes? After we have achieved our "greatest good?"

rw: No, my argument needn’t predict man’s future exhaustively, only show that a positive beneficial outcome can logically arise from man’s historical journey.

rw earlier: : Religion fairs no better as a means of interpreting history. Man as a corrupt, sinful creature will always view himself unworthy to pursue such goals and thus, they will forever remain beyond his reach. Why should he when he looks to this God to grant him a stay of execution.



koy: Again, nice poetry and I agree, but the question is to the fallacies of the manner in which you've constructed your "defeat" of PoE.

It is not self-evident that humanity is progressing on a "meta" linear path toward a "greatest good" nor is it self-evident that achieving a "greatest good" is a desireable or worthy goal to support the notion that a god therefore instantiated all of this. Your examples, likewise, do not establish evidence to support your "optimistic" assertions, upon which your fallacy is based.

rw: Then refute history. Show me that man has not climbed up out of the caves. Do it on a historical disputation and stop pointing at the worst case scenarios as justification for this pessimism. There are more best case scenarios than worst because if there weren’t man would be extinct…period. I defy you to prove otherwise.

koy: Once "humanity" has achieved its greatest good, then what? What happens to the children of that generation and their children and their children's children? Yes, their great, great grandparents had earned the completion of their journey, but no generation after that would. The scenario would be identical to god mandating the greatest good right from the start; of god cutting out all the suffering to get there and just put us there.

What would the children's children of the "greatest good acheived" generation earn? And if you say, "the fruits of their ancestors labors" I'll smack ya'

rw: It isn’t necessary I predict man’s entire history…how could I? I only need demonstrate enough to justify man’s historical progressive journey and the role evil and suffering plays in that progression. I need only show that such a role is not an automatic indictment against the existence of an omni-max god. Which, of course, it isn’t. The tremendous amount of pain and suffering endured by man thusfar is a testimony to man’s stubborn, ignorant refusal to face the obvious causes of his predicaments. We’d rather invent new and imaginative ways to squeeze labor from our neighbor to turn the natural resources we need into goods and products for our comfort and existence and to hell with man as a species. It is, and always has been, “What’s in it for me?” Until we develop a happy medium between that and what’s necessary for our future, nothing will change but the names and faces.

Alix Nenuphar

rw:

To my knowledge, the POE has never been used as a proof for the non-existence of a God; rather, it is a demonstration that the presence of unecessary evil and suffering is inconsistent with a being who is simultaneously omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

Your solution to the 'indictment' posed by the PoE is to assert that unecessary evil and suffering do not exist: that all evil and suffering is necessary to advance man along a 'meta-path' to a goal desired by the omnimax being.

Unfortunately, you have not demonstrated why the omnimax being could not simply create the state of affairs wherein the goal is achieved, although such a thing is clearly within the capacity of an omnipotent being, and just as clearly satisfies the lack of evil and suffering desired by an omnibenevolent being.

While this diatribe is well-written, it does not appear to have any particular relevance to the logic behind the PoE. In fact, by implying that some 'happy medium' is required for change, you leave open the possibility that all of the evil and suffering experienced by man is for naught - that the goal will never be achieved. In which case, you omnimax being has created suffering and evil for no purpose.

rainbow walking

rw: These are not the only reasons I would refrain from interfering. However, were I to interfere I would do so in ways that people wouldn't be able to prove and would have to conclude as good fortune, in fact, were "good fortune" to be stated on a number of occasions, such that the concept of good fortune became a commonly held concept, it might very well be due to my interference in many such cases. It is a fact that many, many people have been faced with life threatening circumstances and seemed to squeek by them in totally inexplicable events that prevented them from becoming deadly. So it isn't an unreasonable or illogical possibility that if such a being existed, that he would express his benevolence in just this fashion.

rw: The trial and error method works only when people are actively seeking knowledge. There are many cases where people learn things that they weren't interested in learning, accidental learning, you might say. Sometimes knowledge comes cheaply and sometimes not. Your examples entail a god who by-passes all such avenues of human learning to prevent the serious consequences that often accompany some forms of knowledge. None of your descriptions of how a god could do this without possible adverse consequences has withstood my extrapolations out to some of those consequences. You eventually retreat to "omnipotence" meaning god could this "somehow". You continue to switch back and forth between declarations that god should be a supercop, supersafety man, super babysitter and super anesthesiologist. Or, you revert back to the traditional PoE and argue that he should just change our current state of affairs to eliminate the possibilities of pain and suffering inherent in learning. So basically, you're just demanding god provide everyone with automatic knowledge or instinct. Such people may as well be programmed robots.

As far as your sufficient/necessary contingents, as I've pointed out ad naseum, until you establish a baseline from which we can accurately determine the "too much" factor you keep implying in your argument, I have no reason to take your unsupported assertions as gospel.

rw earlier: Now this is when you’ll incorporate omnipotence…just watch and see. I can hear it now, “God is omnipotent. He can protect all children without sending that message”. And in thus doing, totally ignore my argument completely: That God’s omniscience has determined that the greatest good for man will be for man to achieve his own greatest good.



thomas: Prove that that's really the greatest good. That's what I've been asking you to do the whole time. I've provided strong reasons to doubt it with "bees" and "boiling water."

rw: I'm not obligated to prove such a claim Thomas, just show it as a logical possibility. You do understand these are inductive arguments that depend on logical possibilities. It is a fact, which you have conceded, that good things do often accompany bad things; that people mature and grow intellectually and emotionally, that nations and man's history demonstrates that humans do eventually over-come the consequences of bad policies and learn from their mistakes. My argument is based on historical man in the aggregate, not individual cross sections of personal life at some point along the time line. Many, many people have been stung by bees and not a few have been burned in various ways and all who survived learned to respect bees and fire. This alone proves that man's survival depends on his ability to learn. Short circuit this survivability factor and man may not survive. I'm arguing on the basis of a cost analysis consequentialist ethic. That such a being, who is omniscient, would know that the end justifies the means, where humans, who are not omniscient, would not know such a thing.



thomas: Does anyone else on this thread agree with you? [b]Speak, if you do.

rw: Chuckle...