rainbow walking

Since my last defense against the problem of evil and suffering went so well I thought I'd continue to play devil's advocate and see if I could devise and defend a christian argument that's defensible against PoE. This is one based on an interfering god...


1. The Contemporary PoE: If an omni-max being existed he should do something about man’s suffering, either reduce the current levels or address the causes.

This will be a Christian theist’s argument designed to address the conclusions of the Contemporary PoE.

The Argument
To narrow the focus of the argument down to its essentials, we must consider what moral culpability is incurred due to any perceived action or inaction on God’s part. So let us assume the gospel of Mark is the one true account of the life of Christ and represents the totality of God’s literal intervention in the progressive history of man.



The Meta-Path
Let us say man has demonstrated a propensity to progress from a position of complete ignorance, (primitive man/cave dweller/hunter gatherer), to a position of less ignorance, (domestic man, social orderliness and primitive technology), to a position of higher understanding, (modern man and all that currently entails).

Let us call this progressiveness The Meta-Path and define it as “man’s journey towards his own greater good”, (GG). The meta-path describes man’s state of affairs as the best of all possible paths to the attainment of the best of all possible worlds.

Let us base this concept of man’s GG on his political history, (politics being the best reflection of his prescriptive, or moral, position), and his scientific history, (science being the best reflection of his descriptive faculties needed for the security of his GG as he struggles against nature). This describes man’s historical struggle against himself in politics and his environment in science.

These two factors of man’s existence represent his response to both premeditated acts of evil, and gratuitous causes of suffering, inflicted by natural phenomena like tornadoes, earthquakes and disease.



So let us conclude the “Meta-path” to be a state of affairs where a “greater good” can be obtained by man and that “greater good” is understood to be a process developed as a response to evil and suffering.

Let us also say that in order to propel man along the meta-path, God would create a state of affairs where the maximum amount of evil and suffering “could” obtain in order that a GREATER amount of good “would” obtain.

Let us say God created the meta-path as described and is morally obligated to intervene to prevent the maximum amount of evil and suffering from obtaining.

Let us describe the maximum amount of evil and suffering that “could” obtain as those events leading up to man’s extinction.




Finally let’s describe the possible levels of intervention and ascribe guidelines God would likely follow to determine the proper degree of intervention:

1. God could not intervene to such a degree as to incur a hindrance to man’s willful participation of the acquisition of his own GG. Let’s call this level T for “too much intervention”.

2. God would have to intervene to such a degree as to prevent the maximum amount of evil and suffering from occurring. Let’s call this level N for “necessary intervention”.

3. God would have to intervene to such a degree as to elicit a minimal amount of evidence of his intervention so as not to violate the conditions of T. Let’s call this level ME for “minimal evidence of intervention”.

4. God’s intervention would have to be evidential enough to justify the Christian’s claims and to nullify the proponent of CP’s evidential claim of insufficiency of intervention. Let’s call this level S for “sufficient evidence of intervention”.

Conclusive Statements:
Man still exists thus the maximal amount of evil and suffering has not obtained and God has satisfied the conditions of “N”.

Man is still actively engaged in his own progressive affairs thus God has satisfied the conditions of “T”.

Such evidence as does exist of God’s intervention is insufficient to over-ride man’s willful choice of worldviews thus he has satisfied the conditions of “ME”.

God has provided a perfect living example of the virtues man’s GG should reflect upon attainment in the person of Jesus Christ and has thus satisfied the conditions of “S”.

Any additional evil and suffering incurred by man is man’s responsibility and serves only to drive man further along the meta-path towards his acceptance of JC in the acquisition of his GG.

Now you have an intervening God and PoE still does not obtain.

NonHomogenized

Ok, shoot


To clarify one thing: We are taking god as being omni-max, right?

If so, your argument falls flat. Being all powerful, god could have created mankind such that it didn't require suffering and evil to propel it [mankind] along towards GG.

In fact, to circumvent the problem of evil, one must either not have evil, or not have an omnimax creator god, by definition. If god allows a state of affairs where evil exists, much less is necessary, then god is obviously not omnibenevolent.

Indeed, god, being all powerful, could simply have not created the possibility of evil. But let's ignore that, for this discussion.

Really, I think that the PoE, as posed about a hypothetical omnimax god, cannot be resolved; it's a problem between reality and fantasy, which has no resolution short of discarding either attributes of the fantasy, or attributes of reality.

Koyaanisqatsi

Oh, rainbow, not again!

Except that, this is merely an unfortunate wording of PoE. PoE's essence (i.e., why it's a legitimate argument) is that an omimax being would do something about man's suffering. Omnibenevolance demands it, omnipotence allows for it and omniscience confirms it. That's the point and that's the logical progression of omnimax qualities to be applied to the question.

If I am an omnibenevolent being, then that rules the innate manner in which I view elements of personal interaction; of how one should (and would) treat one another. Such an attribute would be a quality of my integrity; of my "nature" and would therefore be the only such prevalent concept within this paradigm of my nature (the "altruistic" paradigm, for lack of a better term).

Now, if I am omnipotent, then I am (almost) unlimited in my strength and physical abilities (so long as they're logically possible). I would be able to run fastest and climb fastest, etc., etc., etc., and would be able to do anything physcial. I would be able to create whatever I wanted to create, thus this element of my "nature" would be in the paradigm of physical abilitiy (or, better, the ability to shape the physical).

If I am omniscient, then I would be able to know all that is logically possible to know and therefore foresee all logically possible events and "timelines." it would be an innate quality of my "perspective" paradigm.

Got all that (and see any convenient parellels)? Three paradigms of the "nature" (the "makeup") of this omnimax being just like the three paradigms of the trinity.

The first is an abstract, morality-concept quality, relating to a personal, social ideal; the second is a tangible, physical quality, relating to the physical world; and the third is the foreknowledge to confirm the veracity of the first two, if they were ever applied in a creation mythology.

The problem is that a logical combination of those attributes would (not "should" as it is often worded in questions and by novice debaters, but would) result in a creation of beings (let's presume "humans," even though I'm loathed to make that unwarranted leap in logic) who would behave benevolently toward one another at [b]all[b] times and, logically, would not have any reason to behave toward one another any other way, because of the creator-God's omnimax attributes.

Ironically, it is the same argument used in scrambled order by cult members, but when taken logically (as a coherent application of the various and distinct omnimax abilities and how those abilities represent specific delineations that would not and should not and could not contradict one another) then and only then do they result in a creation that is devoid of man's inhumanity toward man and that's the deconstruction of the essence of the PoE argument.

Positing and omnimax god with those attributes would--logically--result in a world in which there was no inhumanity toward man as a result of man.

The irony is, that this describes perfectly what you were trying to argue for in the other threads. In this proper, logical combination of omnimax attributes, humanity would only be confronted with suffering (and therefore challenges to humanity designed to progress them morally) through natural disasters (i.e., "acts of god").

That logically follows from positing an omnimax creator. Unfortunately, we see no evidence of this overriding, built in benevolence in humanity; indeed, just the opposite.

This is why cults create "devils" and "Satans" and the like, of course, in order to apologize for that glaring fallacy in positing an omnimax creator.

Without the existence of a balancing "evil" (that is somehow equal and yet completely subordinate to the "good"), then there is no way to account for human "evil" in light of an omnibenevolent creator.

You know this. This is why it was manufactured in the first place; to cover a logical hole in the mythology. It's also why the PoE is a valid argument against positing an omnimax creator-God; because without the transparent backpeddling of addending an equal (but subordinate) counter weight to the concept of an omnimax creator, there can be no such creator; the omnimax attributes innately negate even the possibility that such a being would create anything in the manner in which humans were alleged to be created. It would be logically contradictory for such a being--with all of the attributes listed above--to create other beings without the same innate qualities of benevolence.

Free will doesn't even enter into it. An omnimax creator would not be able (according to its inherent nature) to create humanity as we know it.

You've tried to argue before that it would by doing the same illogical thing as most theists who try to dodge this point; by scrambling around the omnimax attributes and selectively applying them according to disparate and contextually rearranged paradigms (i.e., you focused on too narrow of a point because it would allow you to shift focus).

This is the logical schema of omnimax attributes, including the proper hierarchy of what would overrule what and how one would effect another:

1. Omnibenevolence. The SuperEgo. The innate understanding of the quality of interactions between like beings.
2. Omnipotence. The Id. The physicallization of internal power and the understanding of the limits and non-limits of that power.
3. Omniscience. The Ego. The knowledge of the self that mandates and confirms a balance of the internal qualities of the SuperEgo and the external abilities of the Id.

See how that breaks down and see how that does not obtain in the theoretical application of such a being creating "mankind?"

That's not an argument. That's the assumption of an argument.

Why should we grant this? It's not legitimate, so don't base a conclusion upon it. Man was never completely "ignorant." If our ancestors were, we wouldn't have survived. You mean, "comparatively ignorant of certain things we are no longer ignorant toward." That's a vastly different and far more accurate assessment, yes?

If you look backward with an assumptive bias toward your conclusion, then you have posited an invalid assumption, yes?

In what way? Morally? Physically? Technologically? Personally? As a group?

A state that does not, in fact, exist, right, so why posit it? Forgive me, my friend, but you keep mistaking a goal for the journey toward that goal. A journey is only linear from a post or removed perspective. When one is on a journey, it only becomes cumulitively relevant once that journey has ended or a plateau is reached. In other words, if there is no end to the journey, then there is only the ability to reflect back on parts of the journey. How could one evaluate the whole of a journey unless that journey actually ends?

If you are forever running a marathon (and don't know it), then nothing ancillary about the marathon is relevant to you; you only know the five or ten feet of asphalt in front of you and perhaps a blurred, vague awareness of how far you've run.

If there is no end-game, then what difference would it make to you whether or not you're even playing a game? You'd be the dog or the shoe or the hat, forever being moved around a board and occasionally staying in a penthous apartment on Park Avenue or a slum house on Baltic.

Around and around and around and around and around and around and around you'd go, ad infinitum, with only occasional moments to reflect on the journey so far in jail.

What good is a never-ending journey toward "goodness" if "goodness" can never actually be obtained? It would instantly mean that "goodness" is nothing more than a carrot on a stick and not actually attainable, which, in turn would mean that the journey would be nothing more than a dynamic journey; a journey of perpetual corkscrew, where identical scenarios always arise.

In other words, it would be what we have and not the result of an omnimax creator.

And says nothing about his "greatest" moral "good," thereby wholly discarding the omnibenevolence nature of the alleged creator and the foundation of positing such a creator to begin with. If a god does not have omnibenevolence, then it does not mandate human morality or punish for non-compliance or instill the ability for benevolence or morality or rightousness, etc., etc.

There are specific purposes for omnimax attributes and if they aren't always applied in the proper manner, then they negate the entire construct in the same manner they do when applied in the proper manner; which is to say, of course, that no matter how one posits an omnimax being, the argument fails due to humanity's attributes.

In other words, to turn post hoc, ergo propter hoc on its ass, Humanity's attributes prove that no omnimax creator was involved.

This conclusion was precisely why the early christian cult came up with "free will" to begin with; to try and get around this obvious, non-sequitur of positing an omnimax god to begin with.

False. They can only account for personal acts of "evil" or "suffering," and not the "evil" or "suffering" that is inflicted by natural phenomena.

It is logically consistent to posit a perfectly moral being as the result of a perfectly moral, omnipotent, omniscient creator who, nonetheless also adds in "evil" and "suffering" as a result of natural phenomena, since surviving natural phenomena need not be a moral lesson and often does not impart a moral lesson.

I think here (again, if you'll forgive me), you're confusing a popular ideal for a practical reality. 911 is a good example, since it represents both a natural disaster and a man-made disaster. I was living in Brooklyn at the time and was actually driving into Manhattan at 9:00 am, listening to the Howard Stern show when I couldn't get onto the Williamsburg Bridge (one of the main bridges closest to downtown). I'll spare both you and myself recounting the facts of that day, because the point I'm making is that, the next two days in Brooklyn and Manhattan were surreal.

One could certainly sense that everyone felt "better" toward one another and even describe it that way, but was it actually the case and was it actually the result of the tragedy and, more importantly and on topic, was it necessary in any way?

That was a Tuesday. By Thursday, the friend I was staying with (I was moving on 911 and was going into the city to meet the movers when it all happened, so it all got, naturally, delayed) and I were going crazy. We had no cable TV and his reception was bad, so all we had were radio accounts and terrified isolation. The radio mentioned that supplies were badly needed (saline solution and boots and surgical masks and food and clothes, etc.). So, we went out and bought up whatever we could from the local shops and took in duffel bags of supplies; food to the Planet Hollywood on 57th street (that was the official place handling food for the workers) and clothes and medical supplies to the Javit's Center on 34th street.

When we got off the subway at 57th street, it was surreal to say the least. It was business as usual. One could literally not tell the difference from any other day in Manhattan, save for the fact that a few among the throng were noticeably "altered" (is the best I can describe it). Other than that, however, people were in restaurants and walking around and going to work, etc., etc. The friend I was with actually had an audition to go to at his agent's office in between us dropping off loafs of bread and peanut butter and going down to the Javit's center to drop off clothes and medical supplies.

When we got to the Javit's center, however, it was a completely different world entirely; it was a highly departmentalized, quasi-military operation, with thousands of volunteers coordinating the separation of clothes and medical supplies and water and boots (those were the big things, since the metal and glass debris tore the shit out of all the worker's shoes).

There was an incredible feeling of comraderie and working together on a common goal, but did any of that make us more moral people ten days later? Twenty day later? A year later? Hell, two days later and everyone on 57th street (two miles from ground zero and only two days later) were pretty much back to "normal."

Right now, almost three years or so later, seven of the fire departments who responded and lost lives in the disaster have been closed because a paltry $11 million dollars couldn't be raised or cut from the budget to keep them going (even though Bush just came here and raised $4 million for his campaign after giving a ten minute speech).

Worse, the tragedy was turned into a justification for insitgating a war against people who had nothing to do with what went on.

No net benefit for a "morally" progressive humanity to be found; indeed, a net loss.

Every generation learns the same things over and over and over again with the result being that nothing gets changed in the manner in which we treat one another; i.e., "man's inhumanity to man." Why? Because it's dynamic; ever expanding in perfect symmetry as humanity expands (or contracts). It is a constant, not a varient, so to posit it as one is a fallacy.

As history proves, linear progression in technology does not equate with linear progression in morality. But it must if there is an omnibenevolent creator, or else omnibenevolence is negated.

If omni-b is negated, then so is the entirety of your "meta-path."

But this does not follow from an omnimax god! There is no need for a "maximum amount of evil and suffering" obtaining as it relates to "man's inhumanity to man!" Man does not need to be created inhumane toward fellow man in order for a "greater good" to obtain.

We could (and therefore would) obtain a "greater good" without the necessity for humanity to be inhumane toward one another in addition to nature being "inhumane" toward man.

We could weather those storms together and still grow towards being "better" human beings, if everything in our society were exactly the same except for one small varient; no one was capable of inflicting harm on each other. We just weren't capable of even thinking of harming another human being (if that's your measure of morality). Just like you're not capable of speaking the language Phildieoajnad, humans would not be capable of even thinking of inflicting harm upon one another.

That would mean that man's only obstacle would be natural disasters. And what would they teach us in order to become "better" humans (in keeping with your imposition that humanity is on a "bettering journey")? They would teach us precisely what they did teach us. To rely upon one another's strengths and defend against one another's weaknesses. To survive both as a group and as individuals.

In other words, natural disasters would teach us to become a better, cohesive "whole" (aka, humanity); but personal disasters (aka, disasters of immorality) detract from that ideal. They do, in fact, destroy that ideal.

Why? Because humanity has not been innately programmed (i.e., from an omnimax deity) to behave consistently "moral" toward one another, or, indeed, to even know what that means.

Morality (aka, "benevolence") is not an innate quality; a programmed response. It is a learned concept as a result of living in a society and, indeed, created by a society in order to rule and control.

Did it arise out of millions of years of surviving nature as a group? Yes. Was it caused by years of surviving nature as a group? No. If it had been, then nobody would be or act in an "immoral" manner. How could we if natural disasters were meant (i.e., designed to remove our immoral tendencies?

And if they weren't designed to remove or augment our immoral tendencies, then how can one claim they are the result of an omnimax creator?

Now, if all you're talking about are personal, individual "immoral" tendencies and whether or not natural disasters as well as our own nature's were created by an omnimax being to deliberately trigger a progressive lessening of those tendencies, then why didn't Nagasaki end nuclear proliferation instead of instigate it? Why didn't using mustard gas in WWI end all manufacture of bio-chemical warfare? Why didn't 911 put an end to American terror in the mid-east?

If it's all about personal "righteousness" and all of the "evil" and "suffering" in the world is meant to trigger a progressively less level of "man's inhumanity toward man," then why does the entirety of human history record the exact opposite?

Because we now have smart bombs instead of no bombs at all? Because we now instigate wars against known inferiors in order to efficiently destroy a certain population's deisres to control another population's resources?

How does that not describe almost the entirety of human history; of man's dynamically progressive inhumanity toward man?

I know you will erroneously dismiss this as my "pessimism," but that doesn't change the facts you're avoiding. An omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient being would not create such beings. It would contradict its own atrributes and therefore would not be logically possible for such a being to create.

There is no need for death camps to a creature who has no need for death camps. Not having death camps will make absolutely no difference whatsoever to a being who does not have the ability (by design) to even consider the concept of death camps.

Just as tragedies like 911 do not have lasting negative/positive effects on the vast majority of people--note the qualifiers-- n their day to day existence and how they respond to one another in the long term, neither do, unfortunately, death camps.

Time heals all wounds precisely because, with time come new wounds.

Positing a creator who only promises new wounds (as your's does, with its never fulfilled promise of a "progressive greater good"), however, is to posit a worthless creator, whose existence would be entirely moot and contradictory to its own omnimax attributes.

Never-ending personal torment does not an omnibenevolent creator make. Nature? Yes. Omnibenevolent creator? No.

Why? Because "nature" is not a being. It is not an entity or a pronoun or an anthropomorphic projection of an idealized self. It is not even an "it;" it is a "that." No empathy; no sympathy; no altruism; no benevolence or similar human attribute of any kind. Utter indifference (a necessary redundancy if ever there were one ).

The proof is in the fact that a global plague or a meteor or a solar eruption or a plate shift or our own stupidity can result in total global annihilation at any time for any number of "reasons" or "non-reasons" and has many, many times before. Just ask the dinosaurs what millions of years of existence meant in the end. Bones in a museum.

What happend to their "meta-path?" A "lesson" for all other creatures to be ware of extinction? Then what of the trillions of other species that have gone extinct over the hundreds of millions of years on just this planet?

Again, my friend, we deal with the unwarranted application of homocentrism; making humans significant and therefore created simply because we now have the ability to say, "We are special and therefore created."

This does not logically follow from the "lesson" of both human history as well as global history, not to mention, universal history. You're analyzing a literal blink in a quantum eye and proclaiming it's human.

It isn't. So that means (and here's where I hope to entice you), that it must be something else, if it's anything at all. If we're primarily three (and four) dimensional and the god concept is the closest we can imagine to a "higher realm" (i.e., one more step outside the box), then we haven't even begun to step outside this box.

If it's about anything, it ain't about an omnimax creator, since that can only result in a self-defeating, illogical, "logical" infinite regress. That's why, philosophically and theologically speaking, such concepts must be jettisoned as nothing more than Human Philosophy 101, if humanity is to ever honestly explore any possible "metaphysical" existence.

It's just too easy to defeat.

Why? Evil and suffering as the result of "man's inhumanity to man" does not necessarily equate with "leading up to man's extinction." A meteor on a crash course, however, does.

Humans have acted horribly toward one another for all of recorded history, yet we haven't gone extinct as the result of this (yet). It's been a dynamic flux; changing from generation to generation, but, so far, not resulting in our extinction no matter how many times in the past each generation's excitable ones have proclaimed "the end is nigh."

Humanity has always existed within the crazed shout of "the end is nigh," but that has never meant (so far) that "the end" is, indeed, "nigh." The only reason this has been a snake-oil salesman's cry in the past and throughout humanity's recorded history is due to the fact that we all die, primarily. It's a fact of life; life is terminal.

If individual life is terminal, then why couldn't someone sell you the idea that all life is terminal? It's called "Life Insurance." Better still, as we have done in America, why couldn't someone sell you the idea that life is not terminal? Even better!

Does all of this selling, however, change anything or add or detract from one's own personal morality? No, it does not, other than to make one "less moral," since it arguably detracts from what is important; the idea that we're all in this box together and should therefore not be manipulating one another's feelings and emotions and fears in this manner.

A condition that could easily be removed by an omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent creator without any adverse effect on that creator's creation, in regard to a "greater good" progression toward non-extinction.

Our non-extinction does not hinge upon how moral or immoral we are toward one another individually. It hinges on how we are toward one another globally when natural disasters strike, but as history has proven, not when humanity's disasters strike.

When humanity's disasters strike, we simply forget them after a few generations and then repeat them a few generations later.

Now, why would this be if we were designed by an omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent creator?

See the logic of the deconstruction? It would not be the case, if we were created by such a being.

All right, but you'd better properly deal with the variation in the paradigms the omnimax attributes logically mandate.

Whoa. Why not? You're already positing an omnipotent creator god. There would therefore be no "could not." Man's "willful participation" is irrelevant in the very fact of positing a creator.

You can't pull "free will" out of your aspirator like this, my friend . If a being created us, then there is no justification for claiming we possess "free will" ipso facto this way. How could we have "willful participation" from an omniscient being? "Willful participation" implies that we have the option of "willful non-participation." If that's the case, then there can't be any punishment for non-compliance and a complete defeat of creating us with such an attribute; a defeat that omniscience would already have foreseen and corrected for, if "willful participation" is necessary.

In other words, if it were necessary that humans do as they are instructed to do, then an omnimax being would know that the only way this is possible is to program us to do as we are instructed to do; to insure that we could do nothing else.

If not, then you have defeated the purpose of positing any kind of creator-being at all.

You can't contradict or negate any omnimax attribute without destroying your defining premise.

No reason to, since this is a strawman. "Necessary intervention" would not have to obtain during natural disasters if humanity were already programmed to do only that which is good toward one another.

Ironically, the only time "necessary intervention" would be "necessary," is if there were no innate programming in human beings, but if there is no innate programming in human beings, then, logically, there is no omnimax god.

Here's the fallacy of your perspective. You're starting with the following syllogism (inadvertantly, perhaps, and/or as a result of "devil's advocacy"):

As you can clearly see, P2 has not been determined as valid.

You know this, because of PoE, but your argument against PoE takes it a step further, by taking the conclusion and forming a new, invalid syllogism, by incorrectly placing it in the syllogistic hierarchy:

See what I'm getting at? You're incorrectly conflating premises and conclusions from one invalid syllogism and applying them incorrectely into another syllogism.

In both syllogisms, P2 is invalid, yet you're overlooking that invalidity in one syllogism in order to argue the other.

Raising valid points toward P2 does not equate with demonstrating that P2 is valid, and that's the biggest problem with your take on PoE in general.

No need to, since there is no such valid condition.

This doesn't follow either from your own conditions. Again, you're basing your arguments on a P2 (two of them, in fact) that [have] not been demonstrated to be valid.

Non-sequitur.

Non-sequitur.

Non-sequitur.

Non-sequitur and that's all the memory I have, so I can only apply this to what you posted as your conclusion as well. None of this addresses PoE in any effective manner. I'm sorry, rainbow, but it's just not logically possible to posit an omnimax creator given "Humanity."

rainbow walking

Originally posted by NonHomogenized
Ok, shoot




To clarify one thing: We are taking god as being omni-max, right?

rw: Yes, logically applied.

If so, your argument falls flat. Being all powerful, god could have created mankind such that it didn't require suffering and evil to propel it [mankind] along towards GG.

rw: That should be easy enough to support. Describe such a state where man can willfully participate in the acquisition of his own GG without making mistakes in having to learn about himself and his environment, and incurring various degrees of suffering during the process. Also account for the physics of such an environment that necessitate natural phenomenona dangerous to man's mortality. If you can do this, using omni-max attributes logically, and create a logical state of affairs, I'll concede the victory.

In fact, to circumvent the problem of evil, one must either not have evil, or not have an omnimax creator god, by definition. If god allows a state of affairs where evil exists, much less is necessary, then god is obviously not omnibenevolent.

rw: Remember evil is a human assignment of specific anti-survival behaviors. I am only postulating a god who allows man to pursue his own destiny. This needn't include any moral infractions beyond the initial learning stage of what constitutes evil for mortal man. If such a god didnot care for mankind he would not have taken on the mortality of man, walked among him, and displayed the characteristics of the finished product in the life of JC, so that man would have a clear understanding of what a morally perfect life should reflect.

Indeed, god, being all powerful, could simply have not created the possibility of evil. But let's ignore that, for this discussion.

rw: Indeed, that is not a fruitful direction for you to pursue, I can assure you.

Really, I think that the PoE, as posed about a hypothetical omnimax god, cannot be resolved; it's a problem between reality and fantasy, which has no resolution short of discarding either attributes of the fantasy, or attributes of reality.

rw: Of course you do, as do all atheists, but you are wrong. It doesn't prove what you think it does for a number of reasons which will, no doubt, begin to surface, when we examine PoE's assumptions and follow those assumptions to their logical conclusion. Given the degree of personal freedom that's necessary for a man to willfully commit an act of evil and the degree to which removing this capacity would also affect man's capacity to do good, are you sure an alternate state of affairs could be created by divine fiat that would be "better" than the current state? That is what PoE must demonstrate to obtain. Focusing on all these non sequiters about contradictions between attributes doesn't bring you any closer to an improved alternate state.

rainbow walking

Koy: Oh, rainbow, not again!

Rw: Hey, you gotta have somebody to blame for the calluses on your fingers:^D



koy: Except that, this is merely an unfortunate wording of PoE. PoE's essence (i.e., why it's a legitimate argument) is that an omimax being would do something about man's suffering. Omnibenevolance demands it, omnipotence allows for it and omniscience confirms it. That's the point and that's the logical progression of omnimax qualities to be applied to the question.

rw: That is what remains to be proven…yes? Regardless of how it’s worded, it behooves us to test its veracity to ensure we haven’t embraced an illegitimate response to theism.

koy: If I am an omnibenevolent being, then that rules the innate manner in which I view elements of personal interaction; of how one should (and would) treat one another. Such an attribute would be a quality of my integrity; of my "nature" and would therefore be the only such prevalent concept within this paradigm of my nature (the "altruistic" paradigm, for lack of a better term).

rw: You aren’t immortal so this immediately negates any comparison to how you view benevolence and how a god would. That is one of the inherent fallacies of PoE.
One that you, and a host of others who continue to flail at away with PoE, haven’t seemed able to grasp. Benevolence…value assignment…is based on mortality and derives from assigning value to that which hinders or enhances mortal existence. It’s only relevant to mortal beings. An immortal being would be exempt from assigning value based on hindrance or enhancement as it pertains to such a god. Nothing could hinder or enhance his existence and certainly nothing man could do would have this effect on such a being. From this perspective anything a god does or doesn’t do will automatically fall out to man’s benefit somewhere down the beaten path of history. Even if such a being became malevolent towards man, but not entirely destructive, man would eventually learn how to address the malevolency. In doing so he would come closer to manifesting this god’s attributes which is why a benevolent god would demonstrate the benefits of his attributes in practice in the person of JC.

koy: Now, if I am omnipotent, then I am (almost) unlimited in my strength and physical abilities (so long as they're logically possible). I would be able to run fastest and climb fastest, etc., etc., etc., and would be able to do anything physcial. I would be able to create whatever I wanted to create, thus this element of my "nature" would be in the paradigm of physical abilitiy (or, better, the ability to shape the physical).

rw: This is true, as long as you remain logically consistent to the postulates of my challenge. You are hindered from doing anything imaginable by my postulates. They represent a logical chain around your neck. But consider, it is PoE that is wielding logic to arrive at a logical conclusion, so PoE cannot violate logic at any point along the way and still obtain.

koy: If I am omniscient, then I would be able to know all that is logically possible to know and therefore foresee all logically possible events and "timelines." it would be an innate quality of my "perspective" paradigm.

rw: And this is where you stumble. Only that which is “logically possible” to know is available to be known. That which does not yet exist is not logically possibly knowable…only logically predictable. The difference is minor but extremely pertinent to man’s autonomy of will. To over-extend omniscience beyond the logically possible is to create a contradiction where one needn’t exist. It is logically possible to predict specific results but not to completely know that those predictions are written in stone. Thus an autonomous being still retains the power to thwart the prediction and surprise the prognosticator. This is born out scripture-wise as most prophetic warnings are conditional and not uttered as if written in stone.

koy: Got all that (and see any convenient parellels)? Three paradigms of the "nature" (the "makeup") of this omnimax being just like the three paradigms of the trinity.

The first is an abstract, morality-concept quality, relating to a personal, social ideal; the second is a tangible, physical quality, relating to the physical world; and the third is the foreknowledge to confirm the veracity of the first two, if they were ever applied in a creation mythology.

The problem is that a logical combination of those attributes would (not "should" as it is often worded in questions and by novice debaters, but would) result in a creation of beings (let's presume "humans," even though I'm loathed to make that unwarranted leap in logic) who would behave benevolently toward one another at all[b] times and, logically, would [b]not have any reason to behave toward one another any other way, because of the creator-God's omnimax attributes.

rw: I see no would being forced from this comparison. I see wishful thinking based on human conceptualization of the attributes strained through mortal understanding. I see rejection based on human realization that such attributes, as humanly conceived, apparently don’t engender the results humans anticipate in their definition applied via mortal conception.(This applies equally to the theist) And this is not an appeal to mysterious ways because I’m defining the ways and means in my challenge. You, as the opponent, must necessarily continue to deny those ways and means due to your endearment to PoE. The atheist is chained to this argument as mercilessly as the theist is to his. That’s why I continue rubbing noses in the poop that has been piled high on both sides of the fence. These ideological tools are wearisome and prohibitive to creative addressing of the levers of manipulation inherent in all ideologies. Theism is not going to vanish of its own accord. The dangers inherent in theism, (as they are in all ideologies), however can be isolated, exposed and theists educated as to their potential for leading to violence.

My mission is to get my fellow atheists far enough away from the fence to suggest a different course of action. Theistic ideology is too pervasive at this juncture of man’s history for the atheist to entertain any hope of over-coming. But this isn’t the only course of action an atheist has if world peace is his goal. He can step back, realize the utter size of this problem, change tactics and wade back into the struggle. Atheism is unique in that it is, on it’s own, NOT an ideology, but a rejection of an ideology. However atheists, to compensate for the loss of the “goddunnits” in his rejection, resorts to naturalism as a replacement ideology. And naturalism, for all its hooplah has its own share of burdens. Naturalism has arisen due to scientific investigation revealing the inherent flaws in goddunnit, but along the way has created a means of pushing a few buttons and destroying humanity. All that remains is for a mis-guided theist to push those buttons.

Theism, as an ideology, is in need of some major overhauls. Now we can spend an eternity trying to disenfranchise the theistic mindset from its foundation and create monsters, (like me), or we can allow the beneficial aspects of theological ideologies and move into those ideologies to educate the theist of the inherent manipulative factors. An educated theist is preferable to a fundamentalist maniac. Just because the fundamentalist maniacs happen to be rising up out of a different expression of this theistic ideology today doesn’t change a thing. It only further demonstrates the inherent levers of manipulation and how powerful they really are. Since these levers are inherent in all ideologies across the board the atheist has no superior limb from which to roost unless he takes advantage of his unique position in history to begin the education process. I cannot do this alone and for some goddam reason I can’t get my fellow atheists to realize the necessity of it. They insist on toeing the party lines of atheism at any cost, rather than moving towards a more useful goal of exposing these weaknesses in all of man’s ideologies and addressing those weaknesses with the salve of knowledge needed to put a lock on these levers that lead to violence.

I don’t care what my fellow man believes about the existence of a god. I only care what he allows to ensue from those beliefs. If he finds his beliefs to be beneficial to his existence…why should I wish to disrupt that. But all too often he finds himself faced with false dichotomies, demonizing of those who don’t believe, isolationism, and eventual violent reaction. These are the common paths that all theistic ideologies gravitate towards, And when you further empower these levers of manipulation by politicizing the inherent dangers, such as the struggle between Israel and the Palestinian people, you are only lighting a fuse that will lead to violence 100% of the time. Now that I’ve strayed sufficiently from the subject….

koy: Ironically, it is the same argument used in scrambled order by cult members, but when taken logically (as a coherent application of the various and distinct omnimax abilities and how those abilities represent specific delineations that would not and should not and could not contradict one another) then and only then do they result in a creation that is devoid of man's inhumanity toward man and that's the deconstruction of the essence of the PoE argument.

Positing and omnimax god with those attributes would--logically--result in a world in which there was no inhumanity toward man as a result of man.

The irony is, that this describes perfectly what you were trying to argue for in the other threads. In this proper, logical combination of omnimax attributes, humanity would only be confronted with suffering (and therefore challenges to humanity designed to progress them morally) through natural disasters (i.e., "acts of god").

That logically follows from positing an omnimax creator. Unfortunately, we see no evidence of this overriding, built in benevolence in humanity; indeed, just the opposite.

This is why cults create "devils" and "Satans" and the like, of course, in order to apologize for that glaring fallacy in positing an omnimax creator.

rw: No, that is not why they appeal to such monsters. The appeal to demons, devils and satan is a pressure relief valve built into the ideology to salvage its constituents from the inevitable failures they’re going to incur in their efforts to live up to the presently impossible challenge a JC presents. The reality is far too pervasive to allow man to practice what he preaches but the failures must be softened so as not to overrun the ideology with suspicions of insufficiency and create a mass exodus.
Do you imagine the cult of naturalism doesn’t have its pressure relief valves? Its appeal to “I don’t know” and its absolute dependence on “brute fact”, scientific methodology and metaphysic reconstruction?

Do you imagine the art of “demonizing” doesn’t flourish within this ideology as well? Just look at how you demonize theism with terms like “cult”. Do you think this helps the situation or further exacerbates it? Until atheists learn that their own embraced “cultish” ideologies are just as fraught with levers of manipulation, this divisive tactic is going to push man further along a path towards his own extinction.

All ideologies, whether they be political or religious, contain these factors. The man who recognizes this is exempt from the use of these levers. The man who does not…finds himself a pawn in another man’s chess match. There are much deeper psychological forces at work here that demonizing only incites and empowers disrespect and eventual bloodletting. Do you imagine that if America gravitates more and more towards secularization that certain infectious ideologically trained minds aren’t going to use this gravitation as justification to operate these levers and manipulate believers into taking up arms? I hope you, and all my fellow atheists can see this…at least. So what does it profit us to continue down a path of repeating history?


There is a better way…a way of diffusion and education and stripping away of the levers before the fundamentalists have a chance to manipulate them. But no man is going to learn anything from his enemy except hatred. The clash of the titans can be reduced to a synthesis of ideologies. The path of least resistance is the loophole that enables man to slip through the legality and assuage the fears. Mortality is the enemy and all men are mortal but this needn’t be translated into all mortal men are enemies. Ideologies are designed to allow man to function in the face of his mortality.

koy: Without the existence of a balancing "evil" (that is somehow equal and yet completely subordinate to the "good"), then there is no way to account for human "evil" in light of an omnibenevolent creator.

rw: Without a justification for the prevalent “evil” there is no way for any ideology to continue. An omni-benevolent creator has nothing to do with this anomaly. The paradox of man’s mortality is at the root of it and theistic ideologies are the response. Life beyond the grave. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is the tendency of all ideologies to drag man down a beaten path of bloodshed and evil. The atheist imagines that if theism were to vanish evil would diminish. This is a fallacy inherent in the atheist’s ideologies and the theist is infected with this same mindset. Ideologies are endowed with a survival instinct because they are a response of man’s mortal paradox.

koy: You know this. This is why it was manufactured in the first place; to cover a logical hole in the mythology. It's also why the PoE is a valid argument against positing an omnimax creator-God; because without the transparent backpeddling of addending an equal (but subordinate) counter weight to the concept of an omnimax creator, there can be no such creator; the omnimax attributes innately negate even the possibility that such a being would create anything in the manner in which humans were alleged to be created. It would be logically contradictory for such a being--with all of the attributes listed above--to create other beings without the same innate qualities of benevolence.

rw: Benevolence is logically uncreatable. It is a willful expression that cannot be duplicated by divine fiat. It absolutely requires adverse conditions to be expressed. Without hungry people no one is motivated to respond benevolently by feeding them. The alternative is to create robots who automatically respond without the response passing through a thinking, planning process. A world of robots is not a logical improvement to this one. To create a world devoid of adversity is to eliminate all value assignment.

koy: Free will doesn't even enter into it. An omnimax creator would not be able (according to its inherent nature) to create humanity as we know it.

rw: An omnimax god would be logically unable to create a world of humans in any other way than the way we currently know it. I challenge you to describe such an alternate state with willful creatures intact who display “value assigning” attributes more consistently so as to produce a better world.

koy: You've tried to argue before that it would by doing the same illogical thing as most theists who try to dodge this point; by scrambling around the omnimax attributes and selectively applying them according to disparate and contextually rearranged paradigms (i.e., you focused on too narrow of a point because it would allow you to shift focus).

This is the logical schema of omnimax attributes, including the proper hierarchy of what would overrule what and how one would effect another:
1. Omnibenevolence. The SuperEgo. The innate understanding of the quality of interactions between like beings.


rw: Fallacy of special pleading. Humans are not “like beings” to a god. Mortality and immortality are two separate and distinct attributes that render this claim fallacious.

koy: Omnipotence. The Id. The physicallization of internal power and the understanding of the limits and non-limits of that power.
Omniscience. The Ego. The knowledge of the self that mandates and confirms a balance of the internal qualities of the SuperEgo and the external abilities of the Id.


See how that breaks down and see how that does not obtain in the theoretical application of such a being creating "mankind?"

rw: Nope…don’t see anything in this that breaks down to your conclusions. Sorry.



koy: That's not an argument. That's the assumption of an argument.

rw: That’s the first postulate. All arguments proceed on basic assumptions. I challenge you to present a PoE that doesn’t also proceed on basic assumptions. PoE is also the assumption of an argument that fails to obtain to anything but further reinforcement of illogical assumptions…period.



koy: Why should we grant this? It's not legitimate, so don't base a conclusion upon it. Man was never completely "ignorant." If our ancestors were, we wouldn't have survived. You mean, "comparatively ignorant of certain things we are no longer ignorant toward." That's a vastly different and far more accurate assessment, yes?

If you look backward with an assumptive bias toward your conclusion, then you have posited an invalid assumption, yes?

rw: No. Straining at a gnat doesn’t negate the force of the postulate. Complete ignorance of science and politics is not an invalid assumption.



koy: In what way? Morally? Physically? Technologically? Personally? As a group?

rw: Politically, scientifically, psychologically. What other way is there?



koy: A state that does not, in fact, exist, right, so why posit it? Forgive me, my friend, but you keep mistaking a goal for the journey toward that goal. A journey is only linear from a post or removed perspective. When one is on a journey, it only becomes cumulitively relevant once that journey has ended or a plateau is reached. In other words, if there is no end to the journey, then there is only the ability to reflect back on parts of the journey. How could one evaluate the whole of a journey unless that journey actually ends?

If you are forever running a marathon (and don't know it), then nothing ancillary about the marathon is relevant to you; you only know the five or ten feet of asphalt in front of you and perhaps a blurred, vague awareness of how far you've run.

If there is no end-game, then what difference would it make to you whether or not you're even playing a game? You'd be the dog or the shoe or the hat, forever being moved around a board and occasionally staying in a penthous apartment on Park Avenue or a slum house on Baltic.

Around and around and around and around and around and around and around you'd go, ad infinitum, with only occasional moments to reflect on the journey so far in jail.

What good is a never-ending journey toward "goodness" if "goodness" can never actually be obtained? It would instantly mean that "goodness" is nothing more than a carrot on a stick and not actually attainable, which, in turn would mean that the journey would be nothing more than a dynamic journey; a journey of perpetual corkscrew, where identical scenarios always arise.

In other words, it would be what we have and not the result of an omnimax creator.

rw: Sorry Koy, but this mis-understanding on your part is non sequitur. I’m not positing an end result other than that which PoE posits: an improved state of affairs. In fact, I’m being very generous to PoE in not pointing at the improvements that man has already attained without divine intervention. Man in the aggregate has come to understand that slavery is not a preferable means of encouraging cooperation. This is an improvement that cannot be denied. So basically, until PoE can account for the historical progress that’s already been made, it doesn’t stand a prayer against my argument. PoE was eviscerated before it got the first “if” out of its mouth.



koy: And says nothing about his "greatest" moral "good," thereby wholly discarding the omnibenevolence nature of the alleged creator and the foundation of positing such a creator to begin with. If a god does not have omnibenevolence, then it does not mandate human morality or punish for non-compliance or instill the ability for benevolence or morality or rightousness, etc., etc.

rw: How so? It is assumed by any rational being that an improved politic and scientific reaction to premeditated evil and gratuitous causes of suffering would represent a moral victory.

koy: There are specific purposes for omnimax attributes and if they aren't always applied in the proper manner, then they negate the entire construct in the same manner they do when applied in the proper manner; which is to say, of course, that no matter how one posits an omnimax being, the argument fails due to humanity's attributes.

rw: Then you are arguing that because humanity isn’t immortal an immortal god cannot exist. This is the same tired old fallacious reasoning that continues to falsely empower proponents of PoE with the illusion of logical obtainment. All humans are also not billionaires but I don’t expect you to argue that billionaires don’t exist.

koy: In other words, to turn post hoc, ergo propter hoc on its ass, Humanity's attributes prove that no omnimax creator was involved.

This conclusion was precisely why the early christian cult came up with "free will" to begin with; to try and get around this obvious, non-sequitur of positing an omnimax god to begin with.

rw: Nobody came up with freewill, it has always been an attribute of human mortal existence. You wish to jettison the attribute and still try to obtain a morally better world for humans?

[quoteMORE: These two factors of man’s existence represent his response to both premeditated acts of evil, and gratuitous causes of suffering, inflicted by natural phenomena like tornadoes, earthquakes and disease. [/quote]



koy: False. They can only account for personal acts of "evil" or "suffering," and not the "evil" or "suffering" that is inflicted by natural phenomena.

rw: Did we forget science? That is an integral postulate in my argument…or are you now denying that man has installed early warning devices to detect the possibility of some of these natural phenomena?

koy: It is logically consistent to posit a perfectly moral being as the result of a perfectly moral, omnipotent, omniscient creator who, nonetheless also adds in "evil" and "suffering" as a result of natural phenomena, since surviving natural phenomena need not be a moral lesson and often does not impart a moral lesson.

rw: Yet responses to them necessitate moral value assignment to loss of life had they been ignored.

koy: I think here (again, if you'll forgive me), you're confusing a popular ideal for a practical reality. 911 is a good example, since it represents both a natural disaster and a man-made disaster. I was living in Brooklyn at the time and was actually driving into Manhattan at 9:00 am, listening to the Howard Stern show when I couldn't get onto the Williamsburg Bridge (one of the main bridges closest to downtown). I'll spare both you and myself recounting the facts of that day, because the point I'm making is that, the next two days in Brooklyn and Manhattan were surreal.

One could certainly sense that everyone felt "better" toward one another and even describe it that way, but was it actually the case and was it actually the result of the tragedy and, more importantly and on topic, was it necessary in any way?

That was a Tuesday. By Thursday, the friend I was staying with (I was moving on 911 and was going into the city to meet the movers when it all happened, so it all got, naturally, delayed) and I were going crazy. We had no cable TV and his reception was bad, so all we had were radio accounts and terrified isolation. The radio mentioned that supplies were badly needed (saline solution and boots and surgical masks and food and clothes, etc.). So, we went out and bought up whatever we could from the local shops and took in duffel bags of supplies; food to the Planet Hollywood on 57th street (that was the official place handling food for the workers) and clothes and medical supplies to the Javit's Center on 34th street.

When we got off the subway at 57th street, it was surreal to say the least. It was business as usual. One could literally not tell the difference from any other day in Manhattan, save for the fact that a few among the throng were noticeably "altered" (is the best I can describe it). Other than that, however, people were in restaurants and walking around and going to work, etc., etc. The friend I was with actually had an audition to go to at his agent's office in between us dropping off loafs of bread and peanut butter and going down to the Javit's center to drop off clothes and medical supplies.

When we got to the Javit's center, however, it was a completely different world entirely; it was a highly departmentalized, quasi-military operation, with thousands of volunteers coordinating the separation of clothes and medical supplies and water and boots (those were the big things, since the metal and glass debris tore the shit out of all the worker's shoes).

There was an incredible feeling of comraderie and working together on a common goal, but did any of that make us more moral people ten days later? Twenty day later? A year later? Hell, two days later and everyone on 57th street (two miles from ground zero and only two days later) were pretty much back to "normal."

Right now, almost three years or so later, seven of the fire departments who responded and lost lives in the disaster have been closed because a paltry $11 million dollars couldn't be raised or cut from the budget to keep them going (even though Bush just came here and raised $4 million for his campaign after giving a ten minute speech).

Worse, the tragedy was turned into a justification for insitgating a war against people who had nothing to do with what went on.

No net benefit for a "morally" progressive humanity to be found; indeed, a net loss.

Every generation learns the same things over and over and over again with the result being that nothing gets changed in the manner in which we treat one another; i.e., "man's inhumanity to man." Why? Because it's dynamic; ever expanding in perfect symmetry as humanity expands (or contracts). It is a constant, not a varient, so to posit it as one is a fallacy.

As history proves, linear progression in technology does not equate with linear progression in morality. But it must if there is an omnibenevolent creator, or else omnibenevolence is negated.

If omni-b is negated, then so is the entirety of your "meta-path."

rw: Then are we to invest our understanding in your passionate claim that man has not improved his behavior? Do you deny man’s abolition of slavery? Would you have preferred the authorities to have bounced you out of bed and forced you to work in the clean-up? You also have a female representative in the senate. Would you like to return to the time when women were excluded from the affairs of humanity? Things do not change overnight but they do change. If they didn’t, modern man would be an illusion and cave dwelling would be the norm. Man did not progress from the caves to walking on the moon by science alone. His other ideologies also made their contributions. America has the potential to be an improvement over feudal states and colonialism but there have been nations in the past with greater freedom and flexibility than America. Freedom alone is not the do-all-end-all of man’s paradox. That is why neither politics nor religion will completely satisfy the natural man. These are nothing more than expressions of his angst in response to the paradox of his mortality.



But this does not follow from an omnimax god! There is no need for a "maximum amount of evil and suffering" obtaining as it relates to "man's inhumanity to man!" Man does not need to be created inhumane toward fellow man in order for a "greater good" to obtain.

We could (and therefore would) obtain a "greater good" without the necessity for humanity to be inhumane toward one another in addition to nature being "inhumane" toward man.

rw: Perhaps we could…perhaps not. The burden is yours to support this assertion. But you are right about one thing…the maximum amount of evil and suffering needn’t occur to propel man towards his destiny of improving this state of affairs. It’s man’s choice.

koy: We could weather those storms together and still grow towards being "better" human beings, if everything in our society were exactly the same except for one small varient; no one was capable of inflicting harm on each other. We just weren't capable of even thinking of harming another human being (if that's your measure of morality). Just like you're not capable of speaking the language Phildieoajnad, humans would not be capable of even thinking of inflicting harm upon one another.

rw: Why is this capability present? And why is it so often resorted to? What is the underlying factor in this capability? Man’s mortality. When man resorts to violence, whether it be propagated by a State or individual, it all flows up from his desire to control the uncontrollable…his own mortality. Man always expresses his greatest degree of moral understanding at precisely this point: Might makes right. That is the height of man’s current moral understanding. We don’t seem to understand that aspect of the paradox yet, and no further progress will entail unto we do.

koy: That would mean that man's only obstacle would be natural disasters. And what would they teach us in order to become "better" humans (in keeping with your imposition that humanity is on a "bettering journey")? They would teach us precisely what they did teach us. To rely upon one another's strengths and defend against one another's weaknesses. To survive both as a group and as individuals.

In other words, natural disasters would teach us to become a better, cohesive "whole" (aka, humanity); but personal disasters (aka, disasters of immorality) detract from that ideal. They do, in fact, destroy that ideal.

Why? Because humanity has not been innately programmed (i.e., from an omnimax deity) to behave consistently "moral" toward one another, or, indeed, to even know what that means.

Morality (aka, "benevolence") is not an innate quality; a programmed response. It is a learned concept as a result of living in a society and, indeed, created by a society in order to rule and control.

Did it arise out of millions of years of surviving nature as a group? Yes. Was it caused by years of surviving nature as a group? No. If it had been, then nobody would be or act in an "immoral" manner. How could we if natural disasters were meant (i.e., designed to remove our immoral tendencies?

And if they weren't designed to remove or augment our immoral tendencies, then how can one claim they are the result of an omnimax creator?

rw: Who said they were? All I’m claiming is a god who created a meta-path that has…of it’s own volition…unfolded in this way. Not that he specifically installed these aspects of the paradox, only that he stepped in and offered himself as an example of the way to react to them.

koy: Now, if all you're talking about are personal, individual "immoral" tendencies and whether or not natural disasters as well as our own nature's were created by an omnimax being to deliberately trigger a progressive lessening of those tendencies, then why didn't Nagasaki end nuclear proliferation instead of instigate it? Why didn't using mustard gas in WWI end all manufacture of bio-chemical warfare? Why didn't 911 put an end to American terror in the mid-east?

rw: I can assure you, having such power in the hands of only one nation is not a good thing. Knowing that other nations also have this capability will do more to deter the Bushes and their equivalents from launching such weapons in the future…or at least we all hope it does.

koy: If it's all about personal "righteousness" and all of the "evil" and "suffering" in the world is meant to trigger a progressively less level of "man's inhumanity toward man," then why does the entirety of human history record the exact opposite?

rw: It doesn’t. Only your skewed interpretation does.

koy: Because we now have smart bombs instead of no bombs at all?

rw: Smart bombs are an improvement to carpet bombs. Arguing over why we have bombs at all is irrelevant. God didn’t give them to us or force us to invent them. That we did has no bearing on his attributes. It has every bearing on ours.

koy: Because we now instigate wars against known inferiors in order to efficiently destroy a certain population's deisres to control another population's resources?

rw: Men…and nations…who live in fear always lash out at “inferior” groups. It’s a psychological response to the fear and angst that resides beneath the ideology. That a nation of millions allowed a handful of idiots to perpetrate this offense is a greater damnation to all Americans than to those who spearheaded the assault.

koy: How does that not describe almost the entirety of human history; of man's dynamically progressive inhumanity toward man?

I know you will erroneously dismiss this as my "pessimism," but that doesn't change the facts you're avoiding. An omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient being would not create such beings. It would contradict its own atrributes and therefore would not be logically possible for such a being to create.

rw: Because it’s offset by many accomplishments and improvements that you insist on ignoring. The internet was made possible by the military. What made the military necessary?

koy: There is no need for death camps to a creature who has no need for death camps. Not having death camps will make absolutely no difference whatsoever to a being who does not have the ability (by design) to even consider the concept of death camps.

rw: Irrelevant. Man has the ability to imagine much more wicked horrors than death camps. But these horrors are not necessary. Death camps were enabled by scientists. Or have you forgotten?

koy: Just as tragedies like 911 do not have lasting negative/positive effects on the vast majority of people--note the qualifiers-- n their day to day existence and how they respond to one another in the long term, neither do, unfortunately, death camps.

Time heals all wounds precisely because, with time come new wounds.

rw: The only way you can make this argument work is if man, starting from the caves, instead of walking on the moon, was slowly burrowing his way through the earths crust towards that literal hell of magma that lies beneath. Such a man would fear the sunlight and dwell in the subterranean crevices of the earth. Or you must posit a man starting out in the caves and still residing in them. But reality tells a different story. Yes, every generation has its Hitler’s, but these perverted ideological examples all appealed to men of science, men morally dedicated to truth, even if only in making better death camps, for their brief victories. All such men, as all such ideologies that produce them, finally and eventually find their bitter conclusion in being swallowed up by man’s inexorable progressive march towards his own willful acquisition of a better world and GG. No amount of nihilistic denial can negate the reality of man’s history.


koy: Positing a creator who only promises new wounds (as your's does, with its never fulfilled promise of a "progressive greater good"), however, is to posit a worthless creator, whose existence would be entirely moot and contradictory to its own omnimax attributes.

Never-ending personal torment does not an omnibenevolent creator make. Nature? Yes. Omnibenevolent creator? No.

rw: Neither nature or a god promotes such a thing. If it did, man would be extinct centuries ago. These ideologies do facilitate enough repressive insulation between man and the angst of his paradox of mortal existence to allow him the opportunity to progress.

koy: Why? Because "nature" is not a being. It is not an entity or a pronoun or an anthropomorphic projection of an idealized self. It is not even an "it;" it is a "that." No empathy; no sympathy; no altruism; no benevolence or similar human attribute of any kind. Utter indifference (a necessary redundancy if ever there were one ).

rw: Nature is another method of positing an ideology that facilitates the same propensity towards control, complexity, specialization, demonizing, isolation and eventual stagnation as all other ideologies. Until you realize this you will always be a source of manipulation rather than a guide away from it.

koy: The proof is in the fact that a global plague or a meteor or a solar eruption or a plate shift or our own stupidity can result in total global annihilation at any time for any number of "reasons" or "non-reasons" and has many, many times before. Just ask the dinosaurs what millions of years of existence meant in the end. Bones in a museum.

What happend to their "meta-path?" A "lesson" for all other creatures to be ware of extinction? Then what of the trillions of other species that have gone extinct over the hundreds of millions of years on just this planet?

Again, my friend, we deal with the unwarranted application of homocentrism; making humans significant and therefore created simply because we now have the ability to say, "We are special and therefore created."


This does not logically follow from the "lesson" of both human history as well as global history, not to mention, universal history. You're analyzing a literal blink in a quantum eye and proclaiming it's human.

It isn't. So that means (and here's where I hope to entice you), that it must be something else, if it's anything at all. If we're primarily three (and four) dimensional and the god concept is the closest we can imagine to a "higher realm" (i.e., one more step outside the box), then we haven't even begun to step outside this box.

If it's about anything, it ain't about an omnimax creator, since that can only result in a self-defeating, illogical, "logical" infinite regress. That's why, philosophically and theologically speaking, such concepts must be jettisoned as nothing more than Human Philosophy 101, if humanity is to ever honestly explore any possible "metaphysical" existence.

It's just too easy to defeat.

rw: Okay, let’s explore your metaphysical existence? Positing man as just another glitch in the matrix accomplishes what…exactly? Declaring man to be less than dinosaurs accomplishes what…exactly? Bemoaning the extinction of billions of less durable creatures accomplishes what…exactly? Let me tell you what it accomplishes in the final analysis. It brings man in direct contact with his angst and the reaction to that contact will be anything but what you apparently are expecting.

And, never mind that all of this is the product of yet another ideological junta, you cannot escape the paradox by embracing it, declaring humanity less than or equal to all other creatures that have gone before. Their fate is irrelevant unless you wish to claim that man is soon to follow. Care to build an ideology on that declaration?

Man must have hope…and does have hope…even if some men disagree. There is no evidence that dinosaurs or other life forms had the imagination man has…had the tool making capabilities that derive from that imagination…had any hope at all… Mercifully for them…they likely didn’t have the conscious awareness of their shortcomings that your penchant for storytelling seems to imply. Unfortunately for you, man does have the ability to imagine the inevitable conclusion of buying into the natural ideology that depicts man as nothing more than another silly animal with delusions of grandeur. That’s a bullshit ideology and one that denigrates the accomplishments of moral men dedicated to science.

My view is not to strip man of his insulations. To do so is to invite a catastrophic response the like of which you would never wish to be associated with. To depict man in such an unfavorable light, to render him equal with lower life forms is stupidity in its finest hour. Man must have higher ideals for his ideologies. Anything less will not generate cooperation among men. All ideologies begin by positing something as being wrong and that ideology as being the way to make it right. Well, in this respect, all ideologies are recognizing a moral truism. There is something wrong…man’s mortality…that is the paradox that ideologies are designed to address.

Taking man back to an evolutionary catagory equal to the amoeba is not the way to address the paradox. Whether you care to admit it or not man is superior to his environment. If any life form comes along that is superior to man, man will survive by learning how to mimic its superior qualities…the same way man has learned to drag himself up to the top of the food chain in all other areas.



koy: Why? Evil and suffering as the result of "man's inhumanity to man" does not necessarily equate with "leading up to man's extinction." A meteor on a crash course, however, does.

Humans have acted horribly toward one another for all of recorded history, yet we haven't gone extinct as the result of this (yet). It's been a dynamic flux; changing from generation to generation, but, so far, not resulting in our extinction no matter how many times in the past each generation's excitable ones have proclaimed "the end is nigh."

Humanity has always existed within the crazed shout of "the end is nigh," but that has never meant (so far) that "the end" is, indeed, "nigh." The only reason this has been a snake-oil salesman's cry in the past and throughout humanity's recorded history is due to the fact that we all die, primarily. It's a fact of life; life is terminal.

If individual life is terminal, then why couldn't someone sell you the idea that all life is terminal? It's called "Life Insurance." Better still, as we have done in America, why couldn't someone sell you the idea that life is not terminal? Even better!

Does all of this selling, however, change anything or add or detract from one's own personal morality? No, it does not, other than to make one "less moral," since it arguably detracts from what is important; the idea that we're all in this box together and should therefore not be manipulating one another's feelings and emotions and fears in this manner.

A condition that could easily be removed by an omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent creator without any adverse effect on that creator's creation, in regard to a "greater good" progression toward non-extinction.

rw: And how would this so easily be removed? Such a being could move in with man and man could start clamoring for god to grant the obvious…immortality and indestructibility.

koy: Our non-extinction does not hinge upon how moral or immoral we are toward one another individually. It hinges on how we are toward one another globally when natural disasters strike, but as history has proven, not when humanity's disasters strike.

rw: Then you propose that more humans have perished in natural catastrophes than in premeditated acts?

koy: When humanity's disasters strike, we simply forget them after a few generations and then repeat them a few generations later.

Now, why would this be if we were designed by an omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent creator?

See the logic of the deconstruction? It would not be the case, if we were created by such a being.

rw: You keep saying this but haven’t made a logical connection as to why. What is it about being on a created meta-path that demands some progressive journey, in your mind, that is better than the one we’ve followed? You seem to believe that something should have entailed that hasn’t? What exactly makes you convinced that man hasn’t made any progress? So what if men continue to ignore the strings in their ideologies? Eventually some one will come along and point out to the king that his invisible clothing hasn’t been in fashion for a very long time. You also need to arrest progress at this level today to get your indictment past the grand jury. Excuse me, but if man still has a future don’t you think all this pessimistic nihilism is a bit premature?



koy: All right, but you'd better properly deal with the variation in the paradigms the omnimax attributes logically mandate.

rw: Variation is a good thing. We could use a bit more of it around here.



koy: Whoa. Why not? You're already positing an omnipotent creator god. There would therefore be no "could not." Man's "willful participation" is irrelevant in the very fact of positing a creator.

You can't pull "free will" out of your aspirator like this, my friend . If a being created us, then there is no justification for claiming we possess "free will" ipso facto this way. How could we have "willful participation" from an omniscient being? "Willful participation" implies that we have the option of "willful non-participation." If that's the case, then there can't be any punishment for non-compliance and a complete defeat of creating us with such an attribute; a defeat that omniscience would already have foreseen and corrected for, if "willful participation" is necessary.

In other words, if it were necessary that humans do as they are instructed to do, then an omnimax being would know that the only way this is possible is to program us to do as we are instructed to do; to insure that we could do nothing else.

If not, then you have defeated the purpose of positing any kind of creator-being at all.

You can't contradict or negate any omnimax attribute without destroying your defining premise.

rw: Oh pulease…not that same tired old l party line again. Nothing in an omnimax beings attributes negates man’s willful participation in his own progression…nothing. You keep reciting this argument as though saying it enough will somehow make it true. Do I have to go into all the many factors of your natural existence to which you have no control over that could be equally applied to this fallacious reasoning? I’ve yet to see one logically supportable argument that the existence of an omnimax god negates man’s will. This is just another misapplication of attributes.



koy: No reason to, since this is a strawman. "Necessary intervention" would not have to obtain during natural disasters if humanity were already programmed to do only that which is good toward one another.

rw: Yes, I can just envision “programmed” robots running about picking up the pieces of their counter-parts and depositing them in the recycle bin at Wal-mart. You cannot even avoid the restrictive terminology necessary to convey the alteration and where that leads. Programmed indeed.

koy: Ironically, the only time "necessary intervention" would be "necessary," is if there were no innate programming in human beings, but if there is no innate programming in human beings, then, logically, there is no omnimax god.

Here's the fallacy of your perspective. You're starting with the following syllogism (inadvertantly, perhaps, and/or as a result of "devil's advocacy"):

rw: Well, excuse me, but aren’t we forgetting the innate genetic programming inherent in all humans? You know the basics, survival, replication, socialization, imagination, valuation…etc. So if there is a degree of innate programming in human beings are you willing to just as logically allow that there is a god? I didn’t think so. See the fallacy in that special pleading?



koy: As you can clearly see, P2 has not been determined as valid.

rw: Natural and premeditated disasters have no meaning, no reason? No cause that can be traced back to the meta-path? No inherent factors involving the properties of matter and the psychological properties of humans? You’ve just negated the last 3000 years of science. If they have no meaning mankind has no further impetus to resist their consequences and should just expire.

koy: You know this, because of PoE, but your argument against PoE takes it a step further, by taking the conclusion and forming a new, invalid syllogism, by incorrectly placing it in the syllogistic hierarchy:

P1 If we were created and/or programmed by an omnimax god, then natural disasters and human disasters have meaning.
P2: We were created and/or programmed by an omnimax god.
Therefore,
C: Natural disasters and human disasters have meaning.



See what I'm getting at? You're incorrectly conflating premises and conclusions from one invalid syllogism and applying them incorrectely into another syllogism.

In both syllogisms, P2 is invalid, yet you're overlooking that invalidity in one syllogism in order to argue the other.

Raising valid points toward P2 does not equate with demonstrating that P2 is valid, and that's the biggest problem with your take on PoE in general.

rw: Okay then if we are a product of evolution that means natural and human disasters have no meaning. They just exist and we just exist and the two just happen…like all shit happens. We have no good reason to discover their causes, assign motives to premeditated criminal behavior, no meaning to those acts…they all just…are? Why would nature just exist? Why would it care or we care if anything just happens? There’s no rhyme or reason for anything, it’s all just a maniacs nightmare and we’re just pawns of nature.



koy: No need to, since there is no such valid condition.

rw: The existence of theism and atheism aren’t valid conditions? The ability to choose between them aren’t valid conditions?



koy: This doesn't follow either from your own conditions. Again, you're basing your arguments on a P2 (two of them, in fact) that [have] not been demonstrated to be valid.

rw: The entire purpose of the rebuttal of PoE is to demonstrate them to be valid. This is just circular reasoning. You’re basically arguing that they have to be valid for PoE not to obtain…which is what I’m arguing. You haven’t shown any invalidity in them thufar, so PoE still stands in need of validation.





koy: Non-sequitur and that's all the memory I have, so I can only apply this to what you posted as your conclusion as well. None of this addresses PoE in any effective manner. I'm sorry, rainbow, but it's just not logically possible to posit an omnimax creator given "Humanity."

rw: Apparently what it isn’t logically possible is for a proponent of PoE to effectively argue his position without trying to redefine mine, claiming it must be true for PoE to fail, then claiming victory on some unspecified basis that it cannot logically be possible. It’s like saying, “you can’t possibly be right because that would mean I’m wrong.” Sorry Koy, in spite of all your efforts you haven’t even scratched the surface of this argument yet. But you tell some vivid stories along the way.

NonHomogenized

I'm sorry, I don't see how this is relevant. An omnipotent, omniscient being could, by definition, do this, whether I can or not. In fact, I could probably make something up that would meet your requirements; however, as it would have to be around the length of a small novel, I don't think it's practical. Regardless, you seem to be arguing that if I don't have a mechanism for it, it can't happen. This would be an argument from ignorance.

Wait... evil is anti-survival behaviors? So, rape wouldn't be evil? I'd say that evil is the set of actions, behaviours and/or occurances that no one (who doesn't wish harm upon themselves) would desire to have happen to them.

However, back to the issue. You said "I am only postulating a god who allows man to pursue his own destiny". You're postulating a god who, by virtue of omnipotence and omniscience, decided what that destiny would be before he even started. If he had decided to not create evil or suffering to begin with, it could hardly be an issue, right? And he'd still be allowing man to pursue his own destiny.

Irrelevant. This is an entirely different unsupported assertion. If such a god existed, the universe would not be the way it is, as I've been pointing out. Such a god would not have created the possibility of evil, or, failing that, would not have made man in such a way that evil was necessary for progress (instead, perhaps, he could have made man such that humans simply sought to better their surroundings, no matter how pleasant they might be)

I'm not really sure why you say that. If an omni-max being did exist, it's omnibenevolence would effectively require it to do exactly that. But, again, that's not the issue I'm taking up here, so I'll drop it.

I'm not talking about removing this capacity for evil. In fact, no one is. In the argument I am using, there would be no need for evil; in fact, god could simply have made man with the ability to do evil, but no inclination. Remember, if you claim that an omnimax god created us, then he knew how each and every one of us would turn out. No matter how we end up, it's because of his choices.
The inclination of some people to do evil is not their choice, it was god's, way back at the beginning. To not have given humans that inclination would not reduce their free will, it would simply have given them different parameters for that free will.
Am I sure that such an alternate state of affairs would be "better" than the current state? No. I am sure that it could be better, and that an omnimax being would make sure that it was, if one existed, due to the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. (It has the motivation and the ability, and nothing preventing it from doing so; obviously it would do so).

rainbow walking

NH: I'm sorry, I don't see how this is relevant. An omnipotent, omniscient being could, by definition, do this, whether I can or not. In fact, I could probably make something up that would meet your requirements; however, as it would have to be around the length of a small novel, I don't think it's practical. Regardless, you seem to be arguing that if I don't have a mechanism for it, it can't happen. This would be an argument from ignorance.

rw: So you don't think it's relevant to have to support one of your postulates? Claiming that a god X could create alternate state of affairs Y, is one of the crucial postulates in PoE. I am well within reason to ask you to support this claim. I am just as reasonable to make a specific request that you describe such an alternate state. If you hand-wave it away as irrelevant, that tells me YOU are the one who is arguing from ignorance. You are ignoring the fact that you, nor anyone else who's ever tried, can describe such a state that sustains a logical connection to the necessary components of man. If you persist in this ignorance you basically have no argument.


NH: Wait... evil is anti-survival behaviors? So, rape wouldn't be evil?

rw: Only if you consider physical survival as the only form of survival that requires protection. There is also emotional and psychological survival needs to be considered here...yes?

NH: I'd say that evil is the set of actions, behaviours and/or occurances that no one (who doesn't wish harm upon themselves) would desire to have happen to them.

rw: Okay...describe it anyway you wish. I'll accept that description.

NH: However, back to the issue. You said "I am only postulating a god who allows man to pursue his own destiny". You're postulating a god who, by virtue of omnipotence and omniscience, decided what that destiny would be before he even started. If he had decided to not create evil or suffering to begin with, it could hardly be an issue, right? And he'd still be allowing man to pursue his own destiny.

rw: And where did I postulate this? You are rewriting my argument based on your misconception of those attributes. Nowhere in my argument do I assert this god created good and evil. Man did.



NH: Irrelevant. This is an entirely different unsupported assertion. If such a god existed, the universe would not be the way it is, as I've been pointing out.


rw: Pointing out? You mean asserting without support, don't you?

NH: Such a god would not have created the possibility of evil, or, failing that, would not have made man in such a way that evil was necessary for progress (instead, perhaps, he could have made man such that humans simply sought to better their surroundings, no matter how pleasant they might be)

rw: Fine, describe any state of affairs you think this might entail, and let's see if it holds. The economics, politics and science of this world were all created in response to evil and suffering and seeking enhanced life conditions. These are the motivators. A Utopian world where all is bliss and happy, happy requires some motivational factors to explain how man continues to willfully participate in his own existence. Bettering one's surroundings sounds nice but what about eating, clothing, housing, transportation, how does man in this world secure these things?



NH: I'm not really sure why you say that. If an omni-max being did exist, it's omnibenevolence would effectively require it to do exactly that. But, again, that's not the issue I'm taking up here, so I'll drop it.

rw: And this another of those unsupported assumptions PoE incorporates in its postulates. Why does omnibenevolence require a god to do something for man that you can't describe as doable without drastically altering man to such a degree that there is no way the alteration would be seen as a betterment? You're gonna have to breath some fire into that dragon before I slay it.



NH: I'm not talking about removing this capacity for evil. In fact, no one is. In the argument I am using, there would be no need for evil; in fact, god could simply have made man with the ability to do evil, but no inclination. Remember, if you claim that an omnimax god created us, then he knew how each and every one of us would turn out. No matter how we end up, it's because of his choices.

rw: And what do you think the present world holds as the "inclination" factor of evil?

NH: The inclination of some people to do evil is not their choice, it was god's, way back at the beginning. To not have given humans that inclination would not reduce their free will, it would simply have given them different parameters for that free will.


rw: Okay, describe these parameters. And why is god responsible for man's willful choices? Because he created a meta-path that evolved into beings able to wullfully choose? Would you prefer life as a robot or an ameoba?


NH: Am I sure that such an alternate state of affairs would be "better" than the current state? No. I am sure that it could be better, and that an omnimax being would make sure that it was, if one existed, due to the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. (It has the motivation and the ability, and nothing preventing it from doing so; obviously it would do so).

rw: Ummm...it "could" be better is exactly my argument. Only difference is, in my argument, man gets the glory. Again, why do you think these attributes automatically fall out to be supportive of PoE's conclusion? Have you seriously considered all the aspects of PoE? It resides on some fairly gaping assumptions that have yet to be supported...by anyone...anywhere.

However, consider this: Whether a god exists or not, theism does, which means alot of people believe a god exists and have developed some sophisticated ways of expressing that belief and have used that belief to justify some serious violence. Would it behoove us to continue beating our heads against the wall of non-existence...or to delve into the ideology of theism and show as many theists, as possible, the manipulative levers that facilitate the advent of violence.

Would it be reasonable to say to the theist, "Okay, you believe a god exists and I have no reason to doubt that you believe so. I can't conclusively prove a god doesn't exist and you can't conclusively prove one does. However, what you can't deny is the extreme levels of bloodletting that have ensued from your beliefs down through history. Never mind that the current bloodshed is being primarily perpetrated by Muslims, the fact remains that all theistic ideologies have a history of violence to the extreme. So, rather than us butting heads over the unverifiable, let's look into these ideologies and find the causes of their devolvment into violence. Wouldn't you prefer to smell a rat before becoming one?"

Until I can get my fellow man to take a reasoned approach to this dilemma I'm going to continue demonstrating the ignorance in all these arguments to both the atheist and the theist.

NonHomogenized

First of all, we are presuming in this argument that god is all-knowing and all-powerful. I, on the other hand, am not. By definition, god knows of a way to do exactly what I describe, and has the ability to do so, no matter how you try to get around it. Even if I cannot give details, the definition of god is such that it is irrelevant to the problem.

I don't know the exact mechanism by which gravity works. That doesn't prevent me from observing that there is gravity. I don't even have to give the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the earth; I can observe that it exists, even if I cannot quantify the effects.

Likewise, I can observe that such a state of affairs would be within the ability of an all-knowing, all-powerful being to create.

In your initial reply to me, right after "Remember evil is a human assignment of specific anti-survival behaviors.", and right before "This needn't include any moral infractions beyond the initial learning stage of what constitutes evil for mortal man."

I took a direct quote from you. Notice those quotation marks.



God, according to your argument, is both omniscient and omnipotent. Before he ever created man, he knew every action that humanity would ever take. He knew that they would create both good and evil, and, by his inaction (the fact that he didn't decide to create man such that one or both of the above would not be created), it is just as surely his responsibility as if he had created them himself.

If I were to brainwash someone into hating another person, and train them to kill people, and give them a gun and point them towards that other person, would I not be responsible for that person's death? As god is all-knowing and all-powerful, that responsibility is magnified infinitely.

No. And I would appreciate it if you would not put words in my mouth.
My argument has been based on three characteristics of god. The first of these is omnipotence, which means "all-powerful", and entails the ability to do absolutely anything. The second is omniscience, which means "all-knowing", and entails absolute knowledge of every event which ever does, has or could happen. Finally, there is omnibenevolence, which means completely inclined to perform kind, charitable acts.
What further support do I need for my assertions? Each of them is founded in those three characteristics, and need not rely on anything else. What further support would you consider necessary?




1) you're looking for why, not how, I would presume. The "how" could be essentially the same as in this world. Hunting and gathering, and such.

2) The why would be "because he enjoys doing so". Enjoyment is a powerful motivator, you know.

3) For improvement, a combination of curiosity and enjoyment would provide sufficient motivation.

4) It's still irrelevant. Do I look like god? No. I, unlike god, am not omniscient. Regardless of whether or not I could have answered your questions (and I did, so far as I understood them), god, being omniscient, by definition, knows how to do it. If he didn't, he obviously wouldn't be omniscient.




again, you're disregarding attributes of god. All powerful, all knowing. Ring any bells?

Furthermore, how can you say "there is no way the alteration would be seen as a betterment" when there are two flaws with such a statement: 1) it wouldn't involve altering humanity. It would have involved creating it differently to begin with. 2) It is your opinion that it would not be a betterment. It is my opinion that such a world, if made competently (as one would presume it would be, being created by an all-knowing, all-powerful being), would be a great improvement. That I see such an "alteration" as a "betterment" disproves your statement.




Rephrase, please, I don't understand your question.



:banghead: I presume you didn't understand the statement "To not have given humans that inclination would not reduce their free will, it would simply have given them different parameters for that free will." If you had, you would surely not create a strawman of me being against free will. Are there an unlimited number of choices available to a being with free will?

If so, then half of that infinity is still infinity. Without the capacity to do evil, we would still have an infinite number of choices, and, as such, our free will isn't diminished.

If not, then there are already constraints on our free will, and further constraints should be no more objectionable, so long as the subject still has free will. Indeed, even if, at every juncture, you only have two options, so long as you can freely choose between them, you still have free will. And I'm not proposing anywhere *near* that kind of restriction. In any situation, you'd still have millions of choices, at the very least.



I'm sorry, I don't see that this makes any sense. It's not about glory. God, being omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, saw all possible outcomes, and chose one, before creating the universe. To imply anything else would be to negate his omnipotence or omniscience. There is no glory involved. Either god a) allows suffering, which goes against his omnibenevolence, or b) disallows suffering, in which case we would not have the world that we do. To say that he does it for the "greater good" is silly at best; an omnipotent, omniscient being can arrive at the "greater good" however it damn well pleases. That it chose to allow suffering, if you claim that it exists, is telling.





More or less. The current violence is not, in fact, primarily perpetrated by muslims. I suppose you've never heard of northern Ireland, or Matthew Shepard, or abortion clinic bombings, or so on and so on and so on. Like it or not, Christianity is just as bloodthirsty as Islam. And both are as peaceful as the other. Yes, it's the extremists who are usually the violent ones, but look at what just a small percentage of extremists can do.

So, rather than butting heads over a hypothetical entity which there is no evidence for, let's worry about why these people become extremists, and what causes them to go out and kill other people.

I'm still waiting for you to demonstrate any ignorance in the PoE. You seem to alternately accept the omnimax god, and then deny attributes whenever convenient.

Stephen T-B

As a point of information: does the Bible mention, anywhere, that god is interested in promoting the betterment of mankind’s existence in this life?
I thought a lot of what it is about concerns obedience to god’s commandments.
Jesus introduces the notion of behaving in a socially responsible way by loving our neighbours and turning the other cheek, but I was under the impression that these teachings are related to getting to heaven, rather than making Earth a heavenly place.
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven...” surely means everyone obeying god?

When Christ prayed: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” was he referring to “evil” as in bad things hapening to us, or does he mean that if we are tempted, we might be “evil” in terms of failing to obey god?
I suspect that the writers of the Bible had a very different take on evil than we do in modern Christian societies which have been contaminated by new-fangled, liberal humanitarianism.
The PoE is possibly a modern construct, and to have mentioned it to a second Century Christian would have been as sensible as talking about the World Wide Web.
Christians today have the difficulty of having to marry modern ideas to ancient concepts. And as we see, it cannot be done.

The Bible is contradictory in that sometimes it refers to the Chosen Few who are destined for Heaven and sometimes it refers to people going to Heaven because they love and obey God, or because they believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, but it is certainly possible to read quite large chunks of the Bible and come away with the impression that god’s purpose is that we should do his will and have everlasting life. When we don’t obey him, there are bad consequences for us on earthy, and bad consequences after we’re dead. But these are of our own making - not god’s.
The people who proposed this idea simply did not think that it violated the principal of an omnipotent god - possibly because no-one around at that time had the audacity to say: “Hang on - you’re talking inconsistencies here.” And thus it became part of the dogma with which modern Christians are saddled.

Their best defence might be to say that what we think of as being evil and what god regards as being evil do not coincide.

rainbow walking

NH: First of all, we are presuming in this argument that god is all-knowing and all-powerful. I, on the other hand, am not. By definition, god knows of a way to do exactly what I describe, and has the ability to do so, no matter how you try to get around it. Even if I cannot give details, the definition of god is such that it is irrelevant to the problem.


Likewise, I can observe that such a state of affairs would be within the ability of an all-knowing, all-powerful being to create.



God, according to your argument, is both omniscient and omnipotent. Before he ever created man, he knew every action that humanity would ever take. He knew that they would create both good and evil, and, by his inaction (the fact that he didn't decide to create man such that one or both of the above would not be created), it is just as surely his responsibility as if he had created them himself.



My argument has been based on three characteristics of god. The first of these is omnipotence, which means "all-powerful", and entails the ability to do absolutely anything. The second is omniscience, which means "all-knowing", and entails absolute knowledge of every event which ever does, has or could happen. Finally, there is omnibenevolence, which means completely inclined to perform kind, charitable acts.
What further support do I need for my assertions? Each of them is founded in those three characteristics, and need not rely on anything else. What further support would you consider necessary?

rw: Based on your responses, it is clear that you have no intention of supporting anything in PoE’s assumptions other than to say, “nuh uh…god is omni-max and that’s all I need to say.”

I have no desire to waste any time responding to straw man arguments. However, I probably should have defined those attributes at the outset, because it is clear where you are getting the straw stuffing. You are using the definitions commonly propagated by the ignorant theist. If you wish to argue with an ignorant theist then you are in the wrong thread. Let me refer you to aisle three where you’ll find definitions designed by ignorant theists for the express purpose of allowing those definitions to be ripped to shreds and demonstrate only that logic is superior to ignorance.

If you wish to continue discussing this with me then we must clarify the definitions which are dedicated to logical application of those attributes, as follows:

Omniscience: Is the primary directing attribute that dictates any course of action taken or not taken and rules over the other attributes. It is defined as the knowledge of anything logically knowable.

Qualification to rescue from the ignorant theists standard definition: This does not include knowing that which does not yet exist. That which does not yet exist is not logically knowable. This further means that such a god does not know, even in the most liberal definition of “know” our every future or immediate decision.

It does mean that being immortal makes him extremely knowledgeable of man’s past history such that making accurate predictions is well within his range of omniscience.

Omni-benevolence: Is the second most directive attribute and is defined as the ability to assign value to man’s state of affairs and interdict under specific circumstances in a way that benefits man.

Note: This is not to be construed as a value assignment conferred upon this being by man, but is an attribute that will be reflected in every decision or action undertaken, or not taken, as deemed by omniscience to be necessary to the betterment of historical man in the aggregate. This does not obligate such a being to intervene on behalf of any individual or to be construed as a motivating factor facilitating the violation of logic.

Omnipotence: Is derived from the two attributes above and subservient to them. It is defined as the ability to do anything logically possible. This is derived from omniscience as being the dictate of what is logical.

Note: Since we are not as knowledgeable as such a being I will concede that such a being could also have the ability to create any state of affairs whether we deem it logically possible or not…with the qualification…that any illogical state of affairs will be just that…an illogical state of affairs until it can be logically described as a state that maintains the integrity of humanity and its willful participation in its own future…if not, you have only an illogical state of affairs. Whether such a state is capable of being described as better than this one will depend on its description.

Now, these are the definitions that constitute the rules of this discussion in relation to my argument. They are as power granting as anything an ignorant theist can define without the loopholes that allow you to evade the responsibility of defending PoE’s assumptions. If you wish to continue this discussion, these are the rules to play by. If not…then we are wasting each other's time.

To be fair, if you wish to discuss any of these definitions I’ll be happy to accommodate.

Additional clarifications: The meta-path is precisely this universe and all that entails. This beings role in creation, that led to humanity, is not to be construed as having been preordained in any other way than to lead to mortal creatures capable of sentient willful participation in the creation process as long as progression remains a logical possibility. Nothing is locked in by this beings attributes except the continued existence of this universe. Whether man progresses or regresses is up to man. This being has fulfilled his direct obligation to man with the introduction of JC.