Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Philosoft · 08-27-2002, 07:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by wordsmyth:
God may possibly be a one eyed, one horned, flying, purple, people eater.

Grrr. Get this song out of my head now, mister!

wordsmyth · 08-27-2002, 07:25 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Philosoft:
Grrr. Get this song out of my head now, mister!

Sorry, how about this instead...

God may possibly wear an...

itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka dot bikini... that he wore for the first time today.

or how about...

Today I called God and this is what he said...

he said, oooo, eeee,
oooo, ahhh, ahhh,
ting, tang,
walla-walla, bing-bang

luvluv · 08-27-2002, 07:41 PM

word:

Quote:

Are you making it all up as you go a long or can you actually provide some reasoning or evidence for any of this?

If you read back through the thread I've provided plenty of reasons. If you want to comment on any one of them, please do so. You can understand how I would be unwilling to repeat all of my arguments every time someone asks me to, can't you?

Quote:

The truth is, there may possibly be any number of reasons, what I want to know is without any evidence or sound reasoning what makes your apologetic more valid than any other explanation.

All I am trying to point out is that there is no problem of evil. There can be suffering and an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God. Such a God may not exist, but He is possible. You can choose to believe in God or not, but it is invalid to disbelieve in Him because of the problem of evil.

Philosoft:

Quote:

How do you know his purpose, his character? You have a group of sentient animals that value freedom more than slavery and a book that says, guess what? we value freedom more than slavery because of our unobservable creator's character! Convenient, eh?

Again, as I was pointing out to wordsmyth, this thread is about why MrDarwin does not believe in the Christian God. I am explaining to you why the Christian God is not logically incompatible with the existence of suffering. Again, maybe such a God does not exist (I obviously believe He does) you cannot eliminate the possibility of His existence simply from the presence of suffering. Your objections (and wordsmyth's) are simply outside the context of this discussion.

Quote:

You said it yourself. God cannot bring about a world in which humans value slavery more than freedom. Thus, God's power is necessarily limited.

I think you misunderstood me somewhere. I said that God COULD make us value slavery more than freedom, but that doing so would not advance His purposes. I did not mean to imply that He was unable to do so, only that it would not help him.

AGAIN:

Is anyone going to answer my question as to why a good who values human freedom is not a viable answer to the problem of evil? If you can't I'll assume you've conceded the point that it is and that there is therefore no problem of evil.

Jobar · 08-27-2002, 07:45 PM

"Today I called God and this is what he said...

he said, oooo, eeee,
oooo, ahhh, ahhh,
ting, tang,
walla-walla, bing-bang"

Wordsmyth, you are an evil, evil person.

wordsmyth · 08-27-2002, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
If you read back through the thread I've provided plenty of reasons.

I have read the entire thread and you have not provided evidence to support any of your reasoning. Every apologetic you have given to this point amounts to "possibly this" and "maybe that". So my comment is directed at all of them and how you can validate any of them.

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
All I am trying to point out is that there is no problem of evil. There can be suffering and an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God. Such a God may not exist, but He is possible.

Sure, anything is possible, but the real question is whether or not its probable for which you have provided no evidence for us to believe it is.

Since the purpose of evil and suffering is not readily apparent, the existence of both is incomprehensible and incompatible with a belief in an omni-benevolent deity.

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
I am explaining to you why the Christian God is not logically incompatible with the existence of suffering.

Yes, we understand this, but all your explanations are based on a personal philosophy and does not appear supported by any evidence textual or otherwise which means you have not supported your assertions with anything more than "possibly this" and "maybe that". You can not discern the probability or validity of a "logical" argument that is based on "maybes".

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
Again, maybe such a God does not exist (I obviously believe He does) you cannot eliminate the possibility of His existence simply from the presence of suffering. Your objections (and wordsmyth's) are simply outside the context of this discussion.

Um, no our objections are not outside the context of this discussion. It is not specifically the possibility of God(s) presence that we are attempting to eliminate, but his alleged attribute of omni-benevolence.

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
I think you misunderstood me somewhere. I said that God COULD make us value slavery more than freedom, but that doing so would not advance His purposes.

Again you are imposing your personal philosophy into xianity by claiming that you have knowledge of God(s) purpose and whether or not slavery has any value in that purpose.

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
Is anyone going to answer my question as to why a good[God?] who values human freedom is not a viable answer to the problem of evil? If you can't I'll assume you've conceded the point that it is and that there is therefore no problem of evil.

Convenient and since you haven't answered all of my questions, I'll assume you have conceded the point on those you have not.

The problem in answering your question is that you have not shown how the existence of evil is necessary for human freedom to exist. Why could freedom not exist without evil and/or suffering?

Philosoft · 08-28-2002, 05:32 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
I am explaining to you why the Christian God is not logically incompatible with the existence of suffering. Again, maybe such a God does not exist (I obviously believe He does) you cannot eliminate the possibility of His existence simply from the presence of suffering. Your objections (and wordsmyth's) are simply outside the context of this discussion.

My objections are to your characterizations of God's alleged character. How is this not relevant?

Quote:

I think you misunderstood me somewhere. I said that God COULD make us value slavery more than freedom, but that doing so would not advance His purposes. I did not mean to imply that He was unable to do so, only that it would not help him.

I'm sorry, how do we know what his purposes are again?

Quote:

Is anyone going to answer my question as to why a good who values human freedom is not a viable answer to the problem of evil? If you can't I'll assume you've conceded the point that it is and that there is therefore no problem of evil.

My objection, clearly lost on you, is that your God is ad hoc. You are looking at various states of affairs and saying, "Since events a, b & c obtain and since there must be an omnibenevolent God, said God must have characteristics x, y & z." This is cart-before-the-horse, so to speak.

This is what is often silly about apologetics. Your God must have certain characteristics, namely benevolence, in order for you to think he's a swell guy, so that one can't change, and everything else must be shoehorned to fit.

MrDarwin · 08-28-2002, 06:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:


I think you may be misunderstanding me. I'm not necessarily saying that there must be a SPECIFIC reason for every single instance of suffering, I'm saying that in order for moral freedom to exist, there must be an allowance of suffering to exist in general, and God cannot interfere with nature solely to eliminate suffering. So, there may be no specific purpose for these particular children to have been born with birth defects, but there is a reason why birth defects are allowed as a possibility and why God does not intervene immediately to correct them each and every time they occur.

In other words, God does not produce many specific acts of suffering for many specific goals, he allows the overall possibility of suffering for one specific goal. (As I see it anyway, I'm not the final word on this.)

Quite often there may be a very specific reason for a very specific incidence of suffering (the crucifixion of Christ for instance) but as often as not it may simply be allowed for the overall purpose of meaningful human freedom.

As I thought; even as you admit that there is no purpose to a specific incidence of suffering, you then turn around and say that suffering in general serves some purpose.

luvluv, do you believe that these suffering infants are saved when they die?

K · 08-28-2002, 07:26 AM

luvluv:

Forget about the suffering on earth which you say must have a purpose. Could an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god ever subject his creations to an eternity of suffering? Since it is eternal, it couldn't possibly be used to help a person to reach a greater good. You could say that freewill is why some make choices that doom them to an eternity of suffering, but an omnibenevolent god would show mercy and ignore the transgressions of His subjects. That's what benevolence is. Now if God had no choice but to damn sinners to an eternity of suffering, then He can't possibly be considered omnipotent.

ex-preacher · 08-28-2002, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:


I think you may be misunderstanding me. I'm not necessarily saying that there must be a SPECIFIC reason for every single instance of suffering, I'm saying that in order for moral freedom to exist, there must be an allowance of suffering to exist in general, and God cannot interfere with nature solely to eliminate suffering. So, there may be no specific purpose for these particular children to have been born with birth defects, but there is a reason why birth defects are allowed as a possibility and why God does not intervene immediately to correct them each and every time they occur.

Don't you see, we're not saying that a good God should interfere with nature. We're saying that a good, omnipotent God would have created a world without birth defects. Are birth defects somehow necessary to human free will?

Who created the 7,000+ diseases that plague humans? (for now, I'll leave aside the tens of thousands of diseases that afflict only non-human animals) Did humans create disease? Did Satan? Hmmmmmm - who created disease, luvluv?

Kantian · 08-28-2002, 03:27 PM

Quote:

WJ: God is logically necessary! Any questions?

No questions here. However, He does not exist.

Therefore I am God.

One knows that God is necessary and must exist, by definition. However, one also knows that God does not and cannot exist. Therefore one is God.

~Transcendentalist~

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08-27-2002, 07:45 PM	#144
Jobar Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: secularcafe.org Posts: 9,525	"Today I called God and this is what he said... he said, oooo, eeee, oooo, ahhh, ahhh, ting, tang, walla-walla, bing-bang" Wordsmyth, you are an evil, evil person.

08-28-2002, 07:26 AM	#148
K Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Chicago Posts: 1,485	luvluv: Forget about the suffering on earth which you say must have a purpose. Could an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god ever subject his creations to an eternity of suffering? Since it is eternal, it couldn't possibly be used to help a person to reach a greater good. You could say that freewill is why some make choices that doom them to an eternity of suffering, but an omnibenevolent god would show mercy and ignore the transgressions of His subjects. That's what benevolence is. Now if God had no choice but to damn sinners to an eternity of suffering, then He can't possibly be considered omnipotent.

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