Why God allows evil

Tinker Grey said:

Dude, chill. I'm just having a conversation.

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No, actually, you are not. You're casting aspersions without directly responding to anyone's actual words.

Ken-1122 said:

The action will no longer carry the label evil.

Actions are CALLED evil
...

My point was extenuating circumstances are often taken in to consideration before we label something evil.

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I'm sorry, I wrote my responses to you thinking I was responding to Kylie, so some of what I said was colored by things she had said.

I'll respond to your post by summarizing this way.

1. You were not understanding when I was asserting my own views and when I was summarizing the positional statements that I was responding to. Case in point: My comment about abortion ("Oh, I forgot...") was not my own position, but a summary of the responses I have been reading here that cannot give me a true source for morality, because they deny the existence of God.

2. This entire thread is about basically the attempt by some here to hold God accountable for "evil" in this world. The "problem of evil" is one that basically asks, "How can God be real and good but allow evil to exist?"

3. My response to your words here is that if you believe evil is just a human label for things that change generation by generation, it is totally illogical to judge God based on the changing moral whims of mankind.

Ken-1122 said:

You are confusing moral subjectivism with moral nihilism. If someone says that it is "wrong," but disagrees that it is "objectively wrong" on the grounds of subjectivism, it doesn't follow that they are therefore saying that it's "not wrong.”

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Nothing is truly and actually "wrong" if it is "right" for some people.

Try to give it some other label like "subjectivism" doesn't change that.

Again, this thread is about GOD and real "evil"... not about GOD what "most" people think about what they would consider "evil". If we cannot have an absolute standard of morality, why would we even think about applying subjectivist notions to the question of God?

Ken-1122 said:

*Who is God’s outside source for morality?
*If God doesn’t need an outside source, why do we?
*How do you know God is an adequate source for morality?

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Now these are Good questions.

The answers really come from the definition of "God"... which is not really what this debate is about... although it's probably accurate to say that there's not anything close to agreement about the definition.

God is sometimes described as the "Uncaused Cause." Everything has to be caused by something else... but at some point, you have to get back to a cause that started it all... the one Cause Agent that without any cause itself.

That there must be a "first cause" is logically inescapable. For some, it is the "Big Bang" (or the first of many "Big Bangs"). Others are more comfortable with calling the "First Cause" or the "uncaused Cause" God. Science teaches us a lot, but the scientific method cannot provide us with the answer of which of these two views is correct.

This forum and this thread takes the second view. So, the answer to your first question is that just as God is the "Cause" that needed not outside cause, He's also the morality that needs no outside validation.

That statement is also the answer to your second question. Only the "Uncaused One" can be free from being held accountable, morally, to His/Its "maker." The reason is obvious... because He has no maker.

And that highlights another good point to note... The entire notion of "morality" presumes that there must be some sort of "accountability" for one's actions. If there's absolutely no accountability, then what's the point of calling anything "wrong" or "evil."

The answer to your third question is this... Just as the "Uncaused Cause" is THE source for all other things, so He is the source of anything we call "moral." He is the measure of morality. What He is... IS what is "moral."

These answers may not satisfy you, but I assert that they are innate in the very definition of the concept of "God."

This is why, for the record, why it is so logically inconsistent to attempt to assert ANY morality in a belief system that denies God and only asserts natural causes for everything. If everything is an "accident," that happened without any meaning, then morality is just an accidental concept without any meaning.

Kylie said:

But we can determine that the winner will be someone who is running in the race at the halfway point. And the concept of God has never shown any predictive powers at all. No discoveries were made using religious notions. There has never been a case where there was once a scientific explanation for a thing, but that thing is now better explained by religion. Religion has never made any reliable predictions about the future. It has done nothing to suggest in even the slightest degree that it will ever be a better explanation for the world than science.

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Wow, Kylie... you need to do some homework...

Some of the greatest scientists of all time were deists. Galileo Galilei. Sir Isaac Newton. Albert Einstein. Max Planck. See a LOT more here...

And if it were not for the church, we would never have had the Scientific Revolution. One guy even wrote a book called, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution

Here's a blog article by the same author giving a summary.

Your assertions are not grounded it fact. One of the most obvious predictions of a theistic perspective is the expectation that we should find order in the universe at all. If there really is a God who intelligently created all things, then we should expect there to be order and reason and the evidence of intelligence within Creation. And that's exactly what we find. If there's no God, then we should rather expect utter randomness and no order.

Why do sub atomic particles behave as precisely as they do? Why to astronomical bodies behave as precisely as they do? One of the most astounding observations in all of the universe is how it is completely and utterly governed by very precise and immutable rules of existence. That's the prediction of a religious belief in a God... it is not the prediction of a belief in no God.

MyChainsAreGone said:

No, actually, you are not. You're casting aspersions without directly responding to anyone's actual words.

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Quote my aspersions or please retract.

Tinker Grey said:

Quote my aspersions or please retract.

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Easy.

Tinker Grey said:

I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that when someone invokes "objective" or "absolute" morality, they can only mean "everyone should agree with my morality."

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Your statement Infers that people like me are acting and speaking out of a sense of false moral superiority.

I had not even made any claims about any moral standards that someone must "agree with," yet your comments were clearly aimed at me, since I was the only one claiming that there actually IS such a thing as moral absolutes.

MyChainsAreGone said:

Easy.


Your statement Infers that people like me are acting and speaking out of a sense of false moral superiority.

I had not even made any claims about any moral standards that someone must "agree with," yet your comments were clearly aimed at me, since I was the only one claiming that there actually IS such a thing as moral absolutes.

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Thanks for the attempt.

I would say, however, that this is not an aspersion ... it was an attempt at speculative psychology. I didn't mean to suggest that this was a conscious act on the "someone".

I suspect that you could get Muslims and Christians to both agree that there is objective morality. A Muslim believes they have access to that objectivity and that Christians are wrong; Christians would believe the opposite. Both would assert that the other is wrong as to what objective morality entails.

I've never run across anyone who believes in objective morality that entertains the idea that they are wrong about what that morality entails. (That is not to say that they might agree that they fail to follow it; that's another thing.)

As such, implicitly, the assertion of objective morality means "do what I think is objectively moral."

Tinker Grey said:

Thanks for the attempt.

I would say, however, that this is not an aspersion ... it was an attempt at speculative psychology. I didn't mean to suggest that this was a conscious act on the "someone".

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If your "speculative psychology" is demeaning or insulting towards specific people in a discussion, couldn't that be considered an aspersion?

Definition:
Aspersion - an attack on the reputation or integrity of someone or something.

MyChainsAreGone said:

If your "speculative psychology" is demeaning or insulting towards specific people in a discussion, couldn't that be considered an aspersion?

Definition:
Aspersion - an attack on the reputation or integrity of someone or something.

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Perhaps. But, how "objective" morality works in the minds of people seems to be a valid part of the discussion. I didn't mean it to be demeaning.

Tinker Grey said:

I've never run across anyone who believes in objective morality that entertains the idea that they are wrong about what that morality entails. (That is not to say that they might agree that they fail to follow it; that's another thing.)

As such, implicitly, the assertion of objective morality means "do what I think is objectively moral."

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But the content of moral positions was not the point of the discussion. The reality is that there has not been much disagreement about what is "evil"... but the very foundation by which something could be called evil. I contend that if there is no God, there is no basis upon which to declare anything to be evil. My assertion is that the very existence of evil (which we agree upon) demands that we also acknowledge an absolute moral standard source (God) by which morality can be measured.

The point of our discussion is really more about the existence of God than about who that God is or what His standards are.

Tinker Grey said:

Perhaps. But, how "objective" morality works in the minds of people seems to be a valid part of the discussion.

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Actually, it's not germane to the discussion... at least not to me. The point of the word "objective" means that we're talking about something that is truly independent of people's perception of it.

I didn't mean it to be demeaning.

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Thanks for saying that.

MyChainsAreGone said:

I contend that if there is no God, there is no basis upon which to declare anything to be evil. My assertion is that the very existence of evil (which we agree upon) demands that we also acknowledge an absolute moral standard source (God) by which morality can be measured.

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I disagree (obviously) with your assertion. I think that if I think something is evil I am justifying in calling it that. The fact that humans agree, by-and-large, on what is evil is because we are more alike than different. We evolved as a social species. We evolved to cooperate. Those individuals who fail are sometimes deemed evil.

That is to say, what is evil is a societal convention. The fact that different societies disagree is evidence, in and of itself, that the definition is societal.

As to:

MyChainsAreGone said:

The point of our discussion is really more about the existence of God than about who that God is or what His standards are.

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I would say that the subject "Why God allows evil" is very much about "who that god is or what his standards are."

The very question presumes a god's existence.

MyChainsAreGone said:

Actually, it's not germane to the discussion... at least not to me. The point of the word "objective" means that we're talking about something that is truly independent of people's perception of it.

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I agree with your definition of objective. However, as you'll note in my previous post, I don't think morality qualifies as something that can be objective or even have an objective standard.

I think the reason we interpret morality as objective is because attempting to go against what we've evolved to be feels like pushing against something external to ourselves.

That there are psychopaths demonstrates that brain chemistry obviates that perception.

Thanks for saying that.

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You're welcome. I try not to be a jerk.

Morality and accountability...

Hey, everyone reading this thread.

There's been all sorts of claims that there can be "morality" (evil) without there being a God.

It occurred to me that any standard of "morality" means absolutely nothing unless there is some sort of accountability for one's actions.

If something is "immoral," what does it matter at all if there's no accountability for someone's choice to act immorally? It's not "immoral" if a rock happens to fall on someone and kill them... because there's no way to hold the rock accountable for what happened.

And if a lion kills a gazelle, it's not immoral because there's no way to hold that lion accountable for the killing.

But if a person kills another person... it is immoral. Why? Not because other people will hold them accountable, because sometimes people do NOT hold others accountable for evil deed (who held slave traders accountable for their evil enslaving of other humans?). It is immoral because they will be accountable to God.

So, if there is no God, there can be no accountability for some acts. If there's no accountability, there's no morality.

MyChainsAreGone said:

But if a person kills another person... it is immoral. Why? Not because other people will hold them accountable, because sometimes people do NOT hold others accountable for evil deed (who held slave traders accountable for their evil enslaving of other humans?). It is immoral because they will be accountable to God.

So, if there is no God, there can be no accountability for some acts. If there's no accountability, there's no morality.

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I don’t tie accountability to morality at all, so I don’t share your opinions.

Tinker Grey said:

I disagree (obviously) with your assertion. I think that if I think something is evil I am justifying in calling it that. The fact that humans agree, by-and-large, on what is evil is because we are more alike than different. We evolved as a social species. We evolved to cooperate. Those individuals who fail are sometimes deemed evil.

That is to say, what is evil is a societal convention. The fact that different societies disagree is evidence, in and of itself, that the definition is societal.

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Yes, that is the only thing that you can base the concept of "evil" on.... if there is no God.

But that means that in a time or place where society does not deem something to be evil, that we no longer have any basis to call it such. In societies that have treated other humans as slaves, the societal conventions did NOT call the dehumanizing treatment of slavery "evil." So... according to your standard... it wasn't evil... at that time. Societal conventions have changed, so now we call it evil... even though it was not evil at the time.

The societal convention these days say that it's OK to kill the baby growing inside your own womb. Not evil, right? But isn't that the same way they justified mistreating and killing human slaves? They are less than fully human. They aren't persons. They do not have a right to live, except according to our convenience or preference or permission.

So... why would we look back on times of slavery when society did NOT call it "evil," and presume moral superiority to call it "evil" now... while we are guilty of the very same "evil" determining that the unborn are somehow "less than" human, and therefore it is permissible to kill them?

Tinker Grey said:

I would say that the subject "Why God allows evil" is very much about "who that god is or what his standards are."

The very question presumes a god's existence.

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True.

But some in this thread have been speaking to the problem of evil as if it were some sort of "proof" that God does not exist... as if the problem of evil precludes any rational understanding of a "God" that can allow evil to persist.

My effort has been to demonstrate that the problem of "evil" requires a God... else we can't truly know that anything is actually "evil."

ToddNotTodd said:

I don’t tie accountability to morality at all, so I don’t share your opinions.

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It goes back to this problem...

If there's no accountability, why would morality matter at all?

Tell me how morality as a concept has any significance at all absent any accountability for actions.

If I may jump in -

MyChainsAreGone said:

It goes back to this problem...

If there's no accountability, why would morality matter at all?

Tell me how morality as a concept has any significance at all absent any accountability for actions.

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Both our sense of morality and any accountability is basically just in our heads. We act as if there are moral absolutes, and we can't help it. But just because we feel it very strongly, doesn't in itself mean it must be real. In that sense it's a bit like our sense of self - if you try to pinpoint your "self" you will invariably fail. There's no part of you or your personality that you could remove and you would cease to be you. Yet it's extremely hard to escape the notion of there being a, well, you in there, right? Christians will probably think that this feeling of self means we are, at the most fundamental level, souls. And likewise, that this feeling of moral rules means that there are in fact objective moral standards. Personally I think psychology and the theory of evolution are completely valid explanations for why we see the world this way.

If God made morality, then it's still not objective by the way, it's just that it's his subjective values. And of course it would also mean that if God said it's good to torture infants, then it is good to torture infants. And if you happened to disagree with that, you'd be an immoral person by definition.

In any case I can't claim there is such a thing as objective morality. Without belief in some sort of god, I don't know how such a rule could exist in and of itself. But that doesn't make me an immoral or amoral person. Sure, you can name some horrible crime that I'll object to, and you can say "says who?" when I say it's wrong. My answer would be "you. You think it's wrong." I think all moral questions are really just a matter of knowledge. The more you know, the more moral you'll act. Slave owners weren't evil per se, they were ignorant. They didn't know that blacks were every bit as human as them. When I kept my pet rabbits in a cage, it was because I didn't know how horrible it was for them. Seeing them run about in the garden made me change my mind.

The world is full of examples of this, demonstrating that what we call morality follows knowledge. The more we know, the more we care.

holo said:

If God made morality, then it's still not objective by the way, it's just that it's his subjective values.

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I think you're playing around with definitions here...

If God is the source of all things (a significant inference of the definition of God), then morality is not something he made, but something He IS.

What God IS (whatever He actually is)... THAT is the definition of "objectivity"... and any other description of "God" the does not include that assertion... is not "God" at all.

The One who created all that is, is the measure of all that is. There can be no other. The One who established "truth" is the measure of all truth. And if truth, then also "objectivity." The source of objectivity cannot be considered "subjective." That's just nonsense.

You can play philosophical or semantic games all you want, but the reality is that if God is NOT, then nothing really matters, for even the value of life itself is subjective and just a matter of opinion. And if life itself is just a fluke of natural processes, then it really has no objective meaning. And if life has no objective meaning, then destroying a life is no more wrong than crushing a rock.

holo said:

Both our sense of morality and any accountability is basically just in our heads. We act as if there are moral absolutes, and we can't help it.

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Interesting that you would say that. I just saw an article a couple of days ago about an Atheist who became a Christian... precisely because she could not reconcile the universal sense of right and wrong--that is part of being human--with the notion that we just evolved by "accident." She finally determined that a theistic perspective better explained the undeniably universal preoccupation that the human species has with the concept of moral right and moral wrong.

So... let me ask you...

Where exactly does any sense of "morality" come from? The natural law (upon which evolution depends) only rewards self-preservation, so it would never create any benefit for an organism by means of any sense of "morality." Right and Wrong are irrelevant. Self-benefit is all there is. If that's at the expense of others, then so be it. Sometimes group benefit also benefits self, so some species have herd-type behavior... but even that doesn't give rise to "right" or "wrong." Staying with and strengthening the herd is safer than not staying in the herd... self-preservation is still the driver.

Where do humans get that? Why can't we "help it"?

Of all species on this planet, we alone are afflicted with a sense of moral conscience. Why?