Amos

But he is because suffering exist only in our conscious mind and is a product of our imagination.

Wiploc

I don't see how you gain anything with this move.

First, it's a non-seller. We know we suffer.

Second, it's a linguistic error. Suffering is necessarily mental, but that doesn't make it non-real. If suffering were some kind of delusion, then that delusion would be what we meant by the word suffering.

Third, the problem of evil is a rebuttal of the traditional Christian god, the one who is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, who wants us to be nice to each other, who rewards believers with happiness, and who punishes non-believers with eternal torment. If you don't believe in him, that's all you have to say; the problem of evil doesn't apply to you. But you can't salvage him by saying that suffering is imaginary. That would mean there was no motive to avoid hellfire, no reason to be nice to each other, and no reason to aspire to heaven.

crc

Biff the unclean

How about this variation Thomas?

There is one Security guard and several children in a room. The Guard says to the older children. "I love all of you and want the best for you. I'm going to let you do what you want because I don't want to repress you (free will)" Then he adds "Don't any of you go near that open window, it's dangerous (evil). And be sure to tell the other kids."
And the older children do pass on exactly what the Guard said. The Guard in the mean time sits down on the window ledge.
One of the younger children, despite what the older have told him, heads for the window. The Guard sits silently on the window ledge with his arms folded. The young child leans further and further out the window, brushing against the Guard. He finally slips and is hanging from the windowsill by his fingertips, screaming for help. The Guard sits silently on the window ledge with his arms folded and looks at the child. The child plummets to his death and the Guard looks at the pool of blood and thinks "it served him right, I warned those kids."

Amos

We only suffer because we disagree with events as they come about.

Suffering is an illusion that serves a purpose for as long as we are not in harmony with our own self (ie. God). Believing in God is not the motive to avoid hellfire nor are niceties needed to get to heaven, eg. Jesus was counted among the wicked. God has nothing to do with evil because there is no evil or pain in heaven or else both of these would not be an illusion.

Wiploc

Do I understand that you believe unhappiness to be an illusion, but happiness to be real?
crc

Amos

You can say that but it is usually called eternal bliss or just being without desire wherein only we can be happy or unhappy.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by luvluv :

"Could ANY good have been gained by their deaths? Where are the children now, in the afterlife?"

That's all up to you. Every time you think of a possible good reason for them to die, ask yourself whether their deaths were necessary for that good reason, or whether instead their deaths were just sufficient for that reason. You get to guess whether they're in the afterlife, although I warn you that just because they're happy now doesn't mean their suffering at the time was justifiable -- if I told you that I would torture you for ten years, but at the end I'd take away all your pain and give you whatever you wanted, you'd still rather not be tortured.

"And isn't this just a tricky, emotional way of trying to promote an argument that cannot be made in an explicit, logical way?"

It's a way to support the second premise of this argument:

(1) There exists widespread intense inscrutable suffering.
(2) The best explanation for (1) is that God doesn't exist.
(3) Therefore, God doesn't exist.

mattbballman

Tom,

with regard to your first post,

>>>Suppose there is an orphanage in town, and you are told that ten omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect persons work there as security guards and caretakers.

How much of the orphans' condition is their own choice, though? How much of it has to do with following or not following guidelines laid down by the security persons? The analogy seems seriously flawed in that respect. Also:

>>>Now suppose that over the course of a week, every child in the orphanage dies painfully in various preventable

EVERY child? By analogy only a small number would die thusly if you are trying to compare this to the real world.

>>>Take stock of your intuitions. What do you think is the probability, roughly, that these security guards actually were present, versus the probability that they were all on vacation at the time? If you believe you're in a position to estimate such a probability, I think you have no choice but to conclude that the latter seems much more likely.

Not really. As long as the analogy is that seriously flawed, no such conclusion can be reached.

>>>So. Are there ways to improve the thought experiment? Is it suitably intuition-tugging?

Again, not really. Try http://www.christian-thinktank.com/gutripper.html and see if you can grab some hints from it.

matt

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by mattbballman :

"How much of the orphans' condition is their own choice, though? How much of it has to do with following or not following guidelines laid down by the security persons?"

I said these are accidents. I doubt you'll have much success if you try to blame humans' suffering upon their refusal to follow God's laws unless you can show independently that God probably exists and probably has indicated to us the correct way to behave.

But if you like, suppose the children tried to follow all the rules the security guards told them to follow.

"EVERY child? By analogy only a small number would die thusly if you are trying to compare this to the real world."

Are you saying the analogy provides more reason to disbelieve in God's existence as it stands now rather than if only a small number of children died?

The situation in which every orphan dies horribly is analogous enough to real life, because it happens frequently on a localized level, but God is everywhere.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by wiploc :

"Wouldn't it be easier and more satisfactory just to point out that if god were omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent then there wouldn't be any suffering at all?"

This is not completely defensible. There is always the possibility that God has an unknown reason for allowing suffering to exist, one such that its existence is logically tied to such suffering. The only way I could formulate this plausibly is something like "God wants freedom of action to exist, and this must allow for actions to cause suffering that are the result of decisions to cause suffering." This is not particularly intuitively likely, but it's an example of a story that might be told to highlight the possibility.

It's only a possibility, however, and a such will only function as a response to the deductive form of the argument from evil. Evidential forms seem to be immune.