Dangerous fundamentalists?

Originally posted by Omnislash
It has occured to me that I may have been going about this the hard way. It has been stated that the "life" of this thread had been removed. You want the human touch? This I can do, and thank you for the opportunity. Everyone please be ...[text shortened]... give me for being the idiot I am in the great scheme of things. 😛

You're obviously a bit upset. What other explanation could there be for your assertion that "There is no such thing as unnecessary evil." If you're right, all evil is absolutely necessary. But that means that for any evil action committed, the world would have been WORSE had it not occurred. But God supposedly punishes us for our evil actions, so he punishes us for actions that prevent the world from being WORSE. But punishing someone for not making the world worse is unjust, so God is unjust and hence morally imperfect. This is an argument that begins with your assertion. You disagree with the conclusion, so let me know where the argument goes wrong. All that stuff about bashing oneself in the head is totally irrelevant to the argument above, you fail to understand the simple distinction between 'thinking that something is necessary' and 'logical necessity'. It is the notion of logical necessity that is being employed in the argument.

Another example of your distress is your assertion that "Bah! I equally refute the concept that ALL suffering is evil." First off, just denying something does not constitute a refutation of it, to refute something you need to give conclusive reasons against it. And who ever was claiming that all suffering is evil? I brought up the example of the infant born with herpes encephalitis, the infant isn't wicked, nor did she deserve the suffering she had to endure. I'm claiming that if God was morally perfect, he would want to prevent the suffering in the world that wasn't necessary to bring about some greater good. Moreover, he is powerful enough to prevent such suffering. But there are obviously all sorts of instances of suffering that don't bring about any greater good. If you deny this, if you claim that all the suffering in the world is part of 'God's plan' or somehow necessary to bring about some greater good, then you are committed to the claim that for any evil action, if that action had not occurred, the world would have been WORSE. So again, the same argument leads to the conclusion that God's punishing us for immoral actions is unjust. Hence, God is morally imperfect.

All your hand-waving about free-will buys you nothing. I've presented an argument showing that if god is omnipotent (which I'm sure you believe) then we don't have free will. Just asserting "Thusly we have (tadah!) free will" is not an argument, nor is there any argument for free-will that I can make out in your posts, merely loosely strung together sets of beliefs without rational basis.

Furthermore, nobody is claiming that murderers aren't responsible for the murders they commit. What I'm claiming is that God is responsible as well. This is what the example about watching the drowning man illustrates (an example brought up again and again that you blithely ignore). I'll set this out slowly and clearly. Suppose God is in his Heaven watching Max the muderer break into the house of Victor the victim. Max takes a butcher knife and slowly creeps closer to Victor, who is fast asleep in his bed. God watches as Max raises the knife and stabs Victor repeatedly, causing Victor incredible pain and eventual death. Now, obviously Max has done something wrong, and should be held responsible. My claim is the God is ALSO partly to blame, because He could have stopped it without any difficulty at all. He could have whisked Victor away, or struck Max temporarily blind. He could have called 911. But he didn't do a thing, he just watched an innocent get stabbed to death. A morally perfect being would do whtever was in his power to prevent the unecessary suffering of inncoents. God didn't do anything at all, so he is either morally imperfect or the suffering and death of Victor was somehow necessary. If you think that the suffering and death of Victor was somehow necessary, then presumably you'll tell a similar story about all other putative cases of unnecessary suffering. But that would just be to claim that all suffering is necessary for the greater good, and we've already seen that that answer leads to the conclusion that God is unjust for punishing us for actions that, in fact, prevent the world from being worse.

It is for these reasons that the traditional christian view of God and his nature is incoherent. As soon as we start to investigate their claims, contradictions surface. So the beliefs of the traditional christian are irrational. You won't accept this of course, because your sense of who you are is bound up with your alleged relationship with God. Fair enough, I wish you well. But I hope at some point you actually take the time to seriously investigate the problem of evil. Untested faith isn't worth having, after all.

Originally posted by kirksey957
OK, Rob, let me see if I can help salvage this thread. It seems to me that the existence of God (assuming you buy into it) is experienced on either a transcendent level or on an imminent level. The transcendent level I think is where there is likely a debate about how can an all powerful God allow whatever. The imminent level is highly personal and ver ...[text shortened]... at if the Bible were simply about rules and conversion, it would be a hell of lot shorter. Kirk

I do not understand what you mean by the "imminent" experience of god. Are you saying that each person has their own unique conception of god, and that they are all simultaneously valid? This would seem to be a case of each individual creating god in his own image, and not the other way around. Or perhaps that god is synonymous with the Freudian ego. I think at that point, the concept of "god" would cease to have any coherent meaning.

Or perhaps I merely misunderstand where you are going with your line of reasoning.

Originally posted by Omnislash
It has occured to me that I may have been going about this the hard way. It has been stated that the "life" of this thread had been removed. You want the human touch? This I can do, and thank you for the opportunity. Everyone please be aware that this is significantly less.......cordial than other statements I have made, but is not intended to attack any ...[text shortened]... ey deserve, and overall to forgive me for being the idiot I am in the great scheme of things. 😛

It isn't even necessary to demonstrate that god is morally bankrupt because he tolerates the prescence of evil in the world he is supposedly the sole creator of. It would be sufficient to demonstrate that god is morally bankrupt because of the great amount of evil that he himself has directly perpetrated. The bible is replete with atrocities commited directly by the hand of the "LORD" himself. A small sampling of which include:

And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him. -- Genesis 38:7

And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also. -- Genesis 38:10

At midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.--Exodus 12:29

And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague.--Numbers 11:33

And there came out a fire from the LORD, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.--Numbers 16:35

...and so on, and so on. Men did not commit these atrocities, god did. God himself has the smoking gun right in his own hand. How anyone can say that man is sinful, and that god is perfect, is beyond me. In the unlikely occurance that god's existence is ever verified, he should be immediately indicted for crimes against humanity.

Originally posted by rwingett
I do not understand what you mean by the "imminent" experience of god. Are you saying that each person has their own unique conception of god, and that they are all simultaneously valid? This would seem to be a case of each individual creating god in his own image, and not the other way around. Or perhaps that god is synonymous with the Freudian ego. I th ...[text shortened]... meaning.

Or perhaps I merely misunderstand where you are going with your line of reasoning.

By imminent I meant something that is highly personal. For example, if I have a close friend and that bond is interpreted by me as"God given", that is on the imminent realm. Now to Freud. OK, I know both Jesus and Freud were Jews. Freud I consider to be one of the most courageous men of our time for his willingness to delve honestly into his unconscious. Western society is deeply indebted to him as much of the human potential movement has its roots in his thought. I do not equate his notion of the ego with God. In fact I will say that fundamentalist thought has far too much ego as part of its make-up. The unconscious is another matter. It is a reality and regrettably many religions do not honor the unconscious as part of healing capacity of that person. For example when I was in theological school there was a classmate who struggled with the fact that he had dreams occasionally of a sexual nature that went against his rational ego. There was no permission to consider the possibility that his dream was not about sex, but rather about his rigid, judgmental attitude about life. Was this the Holy Spirit trying to offer him wholeness? That is the question. Kirk

Originally posted by bbarr
LOL, hardest problem in philosophy. Alright, no more about free will. But I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how a God with the three properties of Omnipotence, Omniscience and Moral Perfection is compatible with the existence of unnecessary evil in the world, given that if all evil is necessary to make this the best of all possible worlds, then the whole concept of sin is fundamentally incoherent. Have at it, let the theodicies abound.

The problem of free will may be the hardest problem in philosophy, but is it a question that means anything? Whether or not it can be demonstrated that anyone has free will, it seems as though everyone (including the philosophers) is still going to live their lives as though they did. Does the question of free will then devolve into being merely a dry academic question of little relevance to the daily concerns of the bulk of the population? Is the problem of free will a conundrum that philosophers use to torment themselves, while everyone else incredulously shake their heads and go about their business?

...I've crossed the event horizon. I cannot escape the black hole.

Originally posted by rwingett
The problem of free will may be the hardest problem in philosophy, but is it a question that means anything? Whether or not it can be demonstrated that anyone has free will, it seems as though everyone (including the philosophers) is still going to live their lives as though they did. Does the question of free will then devolve into being merely a dry acade ...[text shortened]... go about their business?

...I've crossed the event horizon. I cannot escape the black hole.

Rob, I will start a new thread and dedicate it to you and your salvation from the black hole of free will and determinism. 😉 Kirk

Originally posted by rwingett
The problem of free will may be the hardest problem in philosophy, but is it a question that means anything? Whether or not it can be demonstrated that anyone has free will, it seems as though everyone (including the philosophers) is still going to live their lives as though they did. Does the question of free will then devolve into being merely a dry acade ...[text shortened]... go about their business?

...I've crossed the event horizon. I cannot escape the black hole.

Certainly some philsophers torment themselves with this question, but most philosophers use the question as a way to torment undergrads. It's an interesting debate, because in the process you get to talk about the nature of causations, randomness, agency and volition, and the value of freedom. The answer isn't that important really. But in the context of THIS debate free will is of crucial imprtance because theist want to use it as a solution to the problem of evil. But since free will is logically incompatible with the cherished idea that God is omniscient, the theist is forced to reject one of these beliefs on the pain of irrationality.

Originally posted by bbarr
Certainly some philsophers torment themselves with this question, but most philosophers use the question as a way to torment undergrads. It's an interesting debate, because in the process you get to talk about the nature of causations, randomness, agency and volition, and the value of freedom. The answer isn't that important really. But in the context of ...[text shortened]... niscient, the theist is forced to reject one of these beliefs on the pain of irrationality.

That depends on how you define 'omniscient'. A rather weak definition might be: knows everything that has ever happened. Now if the universe is not deterministic, God cannot predict the future with unerring accuracy.

I'd say there's an even more fundamental problem with good and evil. What do these words mean? One answer is to take God as your definition of good, ie omnibenevolence is assumed. This means that negligence is no longer necessarily evil, and so there is evil in the world simply because God chooses not to intervene (and this in itself is good.) The trouble is that this leads to a double standard: when God kills, it's good, but it's evil for a human to kill, because God has commanded us not to. It is therefore no basis for a sensible everyday moral code.