Trying to steal my position? Inserting 'but' for the sake of contrary appearance, while agreeing? Not going to work. From the OP on, my position is consistent: ''good'' consists of far, far more than the scoffer argument can bear. Nobody's forgetting just because you employ the term 'but'.
That's pretty incoherent. I think I see what you're trying to say there, and it indicates is we need to review some pretty basic principles of logic if we're going to move forward here.
There is no way to remove the claim that God should comply with scoffer definitions from the ''problem of evil''. It cannot be done. Remove it, and there's no complaint remaining.
I'm sorry, but we really have reached the point where this scoffer-god stuff is coming off as insane. You've got this imaginary creature in you head, and you're obsessed with it. Your response to virtually everything is to berate and belittle your own construct. You're quoting posts and going through the motions of an argument, but you're spending more than half your energy insulting an idea of your own invention.
If you don't claim God should prevent or remove evil and suffering... Well people can see what's what. This is just an argument for senseless equivocation.
How many times do I need to explain to you whether or not God
should remove evil and suffering is irrelevant to the problem of evil. The problem of evil is concerned with the fact many people claim the existence of a God that
would remove evil and suffering.
It's an extremely simple concept: When considering the existence of a god who has both the desire and the ability to excise all manner of evil from the world, we are considering a god who's existence is mutually exclusive with evil. The universe can only contain evil, or the god described.
And we observe that the universe contains evil.
What is fair or reasonable to expect from God never enters into the question.
''Is or isn't'' God doing what you want people to think He SHOULD be compelled to do?
No. Do we observe what God-as-described WOULD be compelled to do.
No amount of wordplay can alter the essence of the argument, and no amount of words can hide it.
I've typed quite a few words, and the essence of the argument remains hidden from you, so that's not true at all.
This is self-defeating. If you did successfully hide the argument, you couldn't fool anyone into accepting it, now could you?
Apparently not.
The child burning their hand on a stove analogy is very popular, but it falls short of what we're talking about, here.
It's not what you want people considering - that much is clear. It proves pain can be profitable, that good can indeed come from something unpleasant. From a logical standpoint, this is significant. Are you suggesting your god would've chosen another option? I can't dispute you. If you mean to suggest that your god is better, or that God should have chosen another option, these things are easily disputed.
Of course it's possible you're just rambling to nowhere, no intending to make an argument there.
I note that you managed to whine about it, but never got around to any attempt to work with it.
The analogy falls short of what we're talking about, but it's close enough if you really do insist.
Like all God-as-parent analogies, the hot stove analogy implies a god who is not omnipotent.
Suppose a parent warns their child that a stove is hot, and if they touch it they will be burned. Why do you think they offer this warning? Is it that they feel obligated to go through the motions but have no real interest in convincing the child not to touch the stove, or are they making an effort to instill within the child an understanding that it would be harmful to touch the stove? (It's the second one)
Now the parent always fails in this effort. The analogy always runs that they
tried to warn the child, but the child foolishly touched the stove anyway, and only by suffering does the child come to understand. And so we have an example of someone who gains by suffering.
All well and good except for the part where the parent fails. The parent tries to instill in the child a sense of the danger, tries to make them understand that the stove is hot, that it can burn them, and what this means. They fail. They
lack the power to bring the child to understanding. They are forced to wait until the child errs and learns for themself.
So if God is not omnipotent, if suffering and evil exist in the world because God doesn't have the power to do anything about it, if the world-as-is is the best God can do, then fine. Great analogy. The problem is explained away.
Except that God's not omnipotent and you needn't have bothered with the analogy at all. You could have simply pointed at the problem of evil and said, "I reject the premise God is omnipotent." and we'd be done.
We can engage in all sorts of mental exercises to cope with stress, we can run to the drug store and buy some aspirin, we can be anesthetized during surgery, yes. It's all quite amazing for something so unconvincing. As supposedly miraculous as these "graces" are they only come along when some mere human wrings them out of the environment around him or herself. I've got no need for a god who isn't any stronger than I am.
It's better than nothing, I suppose, and if we examine it in that same context of an omnipotent creator the potential for it was all deliberately written into the world around us, but if that's the best your god can do it's starting to look awfully transparent.
Better than nothing? You lose, for without God NOTHING is what we'd have. My God's love is demonstrated; yours is not. Where is it written that God is your slave? Where is it written that He exists to do YOUR bidding?
You've ignored the thrust of what you were trying to respond to. You're trying to point out that God does in fact intervene when needed, but all your examples involve interventions that could be mistaken for merely human will and effort. Because they are no greater than the result of human will and effort. You're not really talking about an omnipotent God.
A lot of things are attributed to Jesus, but I'm not talking about whether or not someone who lived a couple thousand years ago slew an invisible dragon. I'm talking about the thousand children who starved to death since you wrote that sentence.
WHO ARE you talking about? WHO! If Jesus is too much for your argument, we cannot be surprised. No, this is rather a prediction of Christianity.
Who am I talking about? Why the people mentioned in the part of that paragraph you ignored, of course!
I'm talking about the thousand children who starved to death since you wrote that sentence.
Jesus isn't too much for the argument, he's just entirely outside it. The historically Jesus has been dead for nearly two thousand years, so he's got very little to do with any of this.
You say the divine Jesus defeated sin for us but, well, sin's something of an invisible dragon. Maybe Jesus defeated sin all those years ago, I've got exactly no way to check whether sin exists or whether or not someone defeated it for me.
Whatever the case those kids still died.
Why don't you run along and pester the followers of some false god?
Are you perhaps unfamiliar with the definition of the term "atheist"? I'm not sure why else you should expect me to differentiate between your god and anyone else's.
You might recall where you're posting.
You could do the same. You might notice this site has forums dedicated to apologetics which atheists are not permitted to interrupt, and that you created this thread outside those forums.
In fact, you seem to have created this thread as a rather confrontational, open challenge to atheists. You shouldn't be too surprised to discover it has participants who don't believe in your god.
This isn't some overtly atheistic hate site. There are rules here.
Well I'll admit I'm not tremendously familiar with the site. Perhaps there is a tradition of banning atheists who refuse to agree with you, but there's enough of them around that I rather doubt it.
