Philosoft

Perhaps then, you'd like to clarify this:
This looks a whole lot to me like you're calling the above mentioned things "good."

<strong> I don't have to give God credit for anything. As I note, you made the initial argument. Now it's up to you to explain why you think non-lethal meteorite strikes are "good."

<strong> Well, no. If 'God' has the attribute 'omnibenevolence,' then all good must come from God; it is a logical necessity. Any argument that God also does "good" things is entirely superfluous. The atheists' argument, then is that, given an omnibenevolent god (concept), why do bad things happen; or even, why do things happen that are less good than they could be?

[ May 02, 2002: Message edited by: Philosoft ]</p>

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Philosoft,
I claim there is no (zero) moral value to 'meteor landing on earth' or 'tectonic pressure release'. However, I do think it 'good' that the 1908 meteor landed in the middle of nowhere (Siberia) as opposed to striking some immensely populated area (like New York City).


Yet you do give God credit for something...namely all the 'bad' things!

Your conundrum becomes blatantly obvious here.

However *you* define the terms 'good' and 'evil' (I don't care how) it is illogical to blame God for the 'evil' things and not give Him credit for the 'good' things. Doing so is biased and therefore irrational.


Exactly!

By your own words you admit that all good comes from God...yet you blame Him for bad things.

Amazing.


It should be quite obvious now that your position is self-contradictory.



Thoughts and comments welcomed,

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

[ May 03, 2002: Message edited by: Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas ]</p>

Silent Dave

SOMMS, sorry it took so long to get back to this.


<strong>Do you think a valid distinction can be made between premature and non-premature death? If not, why not?


I don't understand the question. What do you mean specifically by premature and non-premature death as it refers to this context?
</strong>

Premature death means death before an advanced age at which one has lived a full life, and his body is simply wearing out naturally. I realize that this is a vague definition, but assuming that definitional problems such as borderline cases could be solved, do you think a valid distinction can be made between premature and non-premature death?


<strong>Regarding the last three chapters of Genesis, do you regard the events described therein to be literal historical truth, or allegorical? If the latter, please clarify.

What specific events are you refering to?</strong>

Whichever events you yourself were referring to when you said the following: "This is a far less arbritary (and imho) more meaningful question to ask...'Why would a good God create a world in which there is death?' For this question there is an answer...it's found in the first few chapters of Genesis."


<strong>
What about common biological occurences, such as appendicitis, that do not (necessarily) lead to death, premature or otherwise, and are not natural "disasters" (in that they are freak occurences with few victims), and yet unquestionably do lead to human suffering?
Dave

What about them?
</strong>

How does your theology deal with them? Are they, too, the products of sin?


A couple more questions have arisen.

When you respond to specific instances of suffering with things such as "They don't occur that often" (meteors) or "God gave us some protection from it" (cosmic rays), do you mean to say that the existence of such things are not incompatable with the existence of God? If so, then, assuming that such things are not logically necessary (or are they?), what exactly makes them morally permissible, even taking your responses to them into account?

Why is it that some causes of suffering can be shown to be compossible with the existence of God by taking into account man's sinful nature, and others cannot (such as the examples above)? Or can they?

It would be pretty silly of an atheist to blame God for the suffering in the world, since he/she doesn't believe in the existence of the object of blame. It would, in fact, be downright impossible -- such a person could not really be an atheist. Why, therefore, do you attack this position as though it was not only commonly held by atheists, but in fact the predominant atheist position? Or are you not all that interested in the atheist (as opposed to the aporetic) problem of suffering?

Finally, if a meteor fell on your home town tomorrow, killing many people that you love, how would you reconcile that event with your belief in God?


Dave

Philosoft

Okay. Neither of us mentioned the moral value of "meteor landing on earth," so I don't know where this fits.

<strong> No, I don't. Enough with the strawmen. I'm pointing out deficiencies in the degree to which your god concept agrees with the real world, not presuming God exists so I can blame bad stuff on him.

<strong> A simple argument for God's goodness might take this form:
P1) If God only does good actions, then he is omnibenevolent.
P2) God only does good actions.
C) God is omnibenevolent.

I am arguing that P2 is false. I don't give a flying circus how many good actions he does because it is not in any way central to my argument. All I have to show is that God does evil actions (or allows evil to happen).

<strong> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />
This crap is getting old. I'm an atheist for Thor's sake. Simply because I do not attach the word "alleged" to every reference I make to a god concept (pay attention here) does not mean that I have at that point accepted that concept as a belief. I'm trying to be as clear as I can here because I sincerely hope you're confused about my actual position and not just being an ass.

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Philosoft,

A quick recap.

You started asking 'Why doesn't God stop X?'...where X is something bad. A few bad things were listed.

I responded 'It seems God does stop X'...where X is something bad. A few good things were listed. Most would interpret these as 'good'. I then said it is illogical to blame God only for 'bad' things and not 'good' things as well.

You replied 'No...God *should* do good things by default...He is benevolent. Him doing a good thing should not count for anything (paraphrase).
You then defined what it means for God to be benevolent.

I replied 'If you define God that way (as do I) then your argument is self-contradictory...for God only does good things but you blame him for bad things.'

This is where we are:

In this last post you present a short argument for proving God is omnigood (it's shorter to type then 'benevolent').
In addition you show why you think this argument breaks down. Namely you thing P2 is false because (according to you) God does some 'evil' actions.


I would like to make a quick comment about this.

You can't actually make the claim 'God did an action that was not good'. This statement necessarily assumes there is Objective Good (a bizzare statement for an atheist to make) outside of God by which you 'judge' God.

While you could spend much effort attempting to convince others of this Objective Good to support your case...it is self-defeating (in terms of your argument). For in fact many define God as this Objective Good and there would be no way for you to make a distinction between the two.


In addition, you argument is non-sensical. No ones needs to 'prove' God is benevolent. God is omnibenevolent by definition.

For your argument to hold...you must show that if God is defined as omnibenevolent then God is incoherent...self contradictory. A dubious task which no one has really done.

The best the atheist can do is muster an argument from ignorance and begin asking questions like 'Why would God allow evil?' Notice, that this is not even a valid argument...asking for a reason does not logically entail that God doesn't have one. It is truly a slippery philosohical slope.


Thoughts and comments welcomed,


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

[ May 04, 2002: Message edited by: Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas ]</p>

Silent Dave

A valid argument from suffering might take the following form:

(1) P(~G/S)=x
(2) S
==============x
(2) ~G

where G is the existence of God, S is there being a great amount of suffering in the world, and x is a number between 0 and 1. The higher x is, the more forceful the argument is -- if x is 1, then the conclusion is certain. There are many reasons to think that x is very close to 1.

Did you plan to answer my questions above?


Dave

Philosoft

SOMMS,

I was hoping we could avoid this form of the "God works in mysterious ways argument," but alas.

Rhetoric aside, I fail to see how a truly omnipotent God is required in any sense to allow evil actions in order to bring about greater good. To say there is no other way is simply incoherent. To say it is part of God's 'unchanging nature' or some such is a further arbitrary violation of omnipotentce. Can you actually deal with these issues without handwaving?

[ May 04, 2002: Message edited by: Philosoft ]</p>

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Silent Dave,

Sorry it took so long to get back to YOUR post.

At a high level I think you can make a distinction between 'person X dying from the natural process of aging' and 'person X dying from something other than the natural process of aging'. You can use the term 'premature' to describe this.

I was refering to the fall of mankind by which man became subject to the process of decay.

They are products of sin in the same manner that the process of decay and aging are products of sin.


This question brings up an excellent theological point that should be explicitly stated here.

Suffering is not a punishment for sin...it is a consequence of sin. There is a real association between sin, seperation from God and decay.


I do mean these things (meteors/cosmic rays) are not incompatable with God. I do feel they are a physical (not logical) necessity in that they are elemental laws (gravity/radiation) that govern the behavior of the physical universe.

Moreover, I feel these laws are completely orthogonal to the issue of morality. That is to say that meteorite activity and radiation are not inherently evil in some way. I feel you hold this same belief.

I claim that had the fall not occured then mankind would not be as subject to these things as he now is. In this sense man has 'put himself in harms way' as it were.

I also hold that God is under no obligation to lessen the consequences of the natural universe simply because sometimes mankind makes choices that do have sufferable consequences.


From my perspective they can...see above. In short I hold that ALL suffering is the consequence (not punishment) of sin.


Because it is in fact the position I encounter most of the time. As you have clearly stated this is a non-sensical argument (regarding the atheistic position) for it assumes God exists.

So the goal of the atheist should be to show that the concept of God is incoherent with the fact of suffering. This, however, proves to be an intractable problem. For if one supposes God to show he is incoherent, one must must also account for the implications of his existence: namely his benevolence and what that entails...that he can do no wrong and that he IS the objective standard/authority of 'good'.

This leaves the atheist with the dubious task of disproving a tautology...a logical impossiblity. Moreover, the atheist should hope with all intent that they CAN'T prove God is incoherent. For if they could disprove the tautology of God then they could just as easily disprove the tautologies of math and logic as well.


This is not to say that the atheist doesn't have a meaningful position to take. The best stance for the atheist to hold here is to simply claim 'I have no belief in God.' The atheist need not address the issue of suffering and God because the atheist has no belief in God. The flip side, however, is that the atheist can not use the fact of suffering to support his disbelief in God.

This is a fallacy that IS widespread among atheists. That is many atheists use suffering as a reason to support their non-belief in God.

Sadly.

Thoughts and comments welcomed,

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Ender

Great. A one-liner!
Once more unto the breech- perhaps monosyllabic grunting will get my point across:

• Read Leibniz’ Theodicy first.
• Then re-read my questions.
• Then put two and two together.
• And give me something a bit more substantial than a pithy one-liner that does Ed justice.

~WiGGiN~

[ May 06, 2002: Message edited by: Ender ]</p>

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Ender,
...or perhaps you would care to simply present your case.

Would that be so much trouble?


Thoughts and comments welcomed,

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas