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My example was based on a real early watch design that was made hundreds of years ago in Europe. Automated process cannot be assumed, and you can actually look at metal objects and tell how they are made.
As am I...Still waiting...
You keep coming back to your tired, stubborn response that I or others here need to provide you with evidence. We do not.The premise of Epicurus' whole argument is that some created gives us good enough knowledge as to ascertain the nature of the creator with some degree of certainty.What's the "incorrect" premise? By the way, no one needs to give you an example because we are dealing with a special case here. No human's creation is completely 100% their responsibility the way it would be for someone who is both omniscient and omnipotent. Which leads us to your next comment...
You have not demonstrated this.
But, you respond "we have a special case." Based upon what? God's perfect foreknowledge you say. You assert that makes God totally responsible.
I will concede you that, even though I don't have to, because you are yet to pose evidence. So, I reiterate: based upon what foreknowledge of the future of your own do you know that what we have now does not serve a greater purpose?
You cannot prove that because you don't have perfect foreknowledge.
Further, based upon what evidence can you show that we have an anthropocentric universe in which if something is evil to people, that this shows a deficiency in the purposes of this god you speculate about.
Lastly, I return to the beginning. How do you even know God is a special case? We don't have any indication that created things reflect characteristics of their creators. So, without any example of that, it seems to me pure speculation and absolutely baseless.
Why not? Because as my last response indicated, I can do so through pure reason. And no, not having perfect knowledge is not a limitation for me to do this.
Bachelors are by definition unmarried. If you were to ask me to provide you with evidence for this you would be asking an irrelevancy. I don't need to go out into the world interviewing or investigating all bachelors in the world. Nor would I have to have knowledge of all bachelors (i.e., omniscience) because I can merely use pure reason (rationalism) to arrive at the conclusion that bachelors are unmarried. Mathematicians call this Proof by Contradiction. If we assume that God exists (which I have here, since in reality I don't believe in one but merely doing so purely for the sake of this discussion) and that he has certain characteristics (omniscience, omnipotence, omni-benevolence) and that this world has suffering of a scope and scale that would embarrass the most ambitious psychopath, and even assume this ridiculous idea that there is a dichotomy of heaven and hell which are eternal and of which mere non-belief can land you to the latter, these suffice for me to use pure reason to infer specific points and problems. I'm using what's on the table and the rules of reason. There's no need for empiricism.
You're also pointing out a premise that I've never made. I didn't say created things imply qualities of their creator. I said that given that we've assumed the creator has certain characteristics that these characteristics are incompatible with the other assumptions as well as facts of this world that we've accepted for this discussion. So when you ask, "How do you even know God is a special case?" the question expresses pure confusion on your part because that is what we've assumed to begin with: that he has special characteristics no one else has (omniscience, omnipotence, omni-benevolence). This is why classically theologians, who have actually recognized that this is indeed a problem (for believers), have to modify their conception of God and take away certain qualities, like saying that he isn't fully powerful, etc.
You just said because we do not have perfect knowledge that we don't understand all of God's will and therefore this is a limitation that diffuses the problem. As I said earlier, this expresses pure confusion on your part. I also do not have perfect knowledge of all bachelors. Nor do I need to have it in order to draw specific conclusions.Never said nor argued thatSo I was correct when I said in my last response that this was going to be one of those banal "God is mysterious/who can understand God's will" cop-outs.
You type in call caps because you do not understand what my specific objections have been. God indeed needs to care if we are assuming omni-benevolence. Already you are making my point. Again, in assuming any of these absolute characteristics all we need to show is other phenomena that contradict it. The existence of suffering in the world is enough to show this because if indeed you are correct that there is knowledge we are not privy to based on our limited knowledge, that God has an ulterior motive or some goal in mind of which suffering was the mere byproduct thereof, you are conceding (albeit, unbeknownst to you) that he is not omnipotent. If here were omnipotent he could create a state of affairs in which he gets at whatever goal we don't know about without our existence. He doesn't need to create us and our attendant suffering because saying so makes him a slave to his creation and thus is not omnipotent.No, your god doesn't need to care, nor is there any evidence THAT IF MAN DOES NOT SUFFER THAT THIS SOMEHOW DOES NOT SERVE SOME GREATER PURPOSE FOR SOMEONE OR SOMETHING GREATER THAN MAN. (Sorry about the caps, don't feel like retyping it).Well, a few things. If God is truly in total control, in other words is omniscient and omnipotent, then he doesn't need to create us and subsequently have us experience misery.
Not that it's the primary way, it's the only way we have! After all, you're drawing hardline conclusions yourself without having perfect knowledge either. We need not have perfect knowledge to use the rules of logic such as the Law of Non-contradiction and subsequently Proof by Contradiction (as in proof of its converse) to show the clumsiness by believers of cobbling together these assumptions.No, it is hubris to think that how man relates to the universe is the primary way of judging whether a deity is evil. I just don't see how our feelings are anymore consequential than a lemming's.So wanting questions from an assumed creator is now hubris?!
You keep coming back to your tired, stubborn response that I or others here need to provide you with evidence. We do not.
Why not? Because as my last response indicated, I can do so through pure reason.
And no, not having perfect knowledge is not a limitation for me to do this.
Bachelors are by definition unmarried. If you were to ask me to provide you with evidence for this you would be asking an irrelevancy.
No, in fact you are confused. I said without perfect knowledge of the future, we are unable to make moral judgments about God in the present, because we don't know where all of this evil is heading. It might have a purpose.You just said because we do not have perfect knowledge that we don't understand all of God's will and therefore this is a limitation that diffuses the problem.
God indeed needs to care if we are assuming omni-benevolence...The existence of suffering in the world is enough to show this ... if God has an ulterior motive or some goal in mind of which suffering was the mere byproduct thereof, you are conceding (albeit, unbeknownst to you) that he is not omnipotent.
No, He does not necessarily, but maybe He wants to. I don't see the contradiction here.He doesn't need to create us and our attendant suffering because saying so makes him a slave to his creation and thus is not omnipotent.
After all, you're drawing hardline conclusions yourself without having perfect knowledge either.
Proof by Contradiction (as in proof of its converse) to show the clumsiness by believers of cobbling together these assumptions.
I admit, this is probably the first time in a while where I actually did not have a response prepared within the first few minutes of reading a post. Most of the time, the responses given to the problem of evil are the same rehashed ones over and over again. You are philosophically-versed on the issue, and gave a decent, original response. I actually had to think of a decent response and go through the logic behind my position, something I had not done so in a long time. Im smarter now, and I thank you for it.
However, I stand by my position.
In God's eyes Sin is sin, whether you tell a lie or murder fifty people. The flesh would say lying is not as bad as murder. And those who would agree that lying is not as bad as murder, have never been touched by the saving grace of Christ.
And I would say that anyone who judges a lie to be equally bad to a murder isn't being realistic.
It is not the degree or the amount of sins, but rather the nature of who is wronged. Punching the President in the face carriers a larger penalty than punching me in the face. So, the logic goes, a small sin against an infinite God carries the weight of infinite condemnation.
I appreciate this response, and give me some time to go through your response, as I might not be able to get right back to it right away.
I'm a former agnostic, so in some ways that helps me understand the worldview of those I am debating against here.
That aside, even as an agnostic, I was not wedded to Epicurus' argument. I saw it as flawed back in my Philosophy 101 class and that has not changed today. So, I never saw the existence of evil as a convincing argument against God's existence. Even if it can be proved that the deity is evil, what does that really change? Not much. Further, it presupposes that evil is something tangible and real, and that our understanding of it is perfect, which I was always skeptical of anyway.
-_- pretty sure that even to god a murder would be worse than a lie.
Epicurus wasn't arguing against the existence of gods, since he believed in the gods. And I've not heard anyone use his words as an argument against the existence of gods in general, but against a particular type of god.
I agree that "evil" isn't tangible and real. But suffering is, and so I use that term instead of "evil". And it's not necessary to have a "perfect" understanding of suffering (if that's even a coherent idea) in order for the problem to be... a problem.
That does not necessitate a difference in judgment.
The statement of “the creation gives perfect knowledge of the creator” is a strawman. I never claimed that. I claimed that a creation gives us some knowledge of the creator.
The former yes, the latter not with any degree of certainty. If you can show a fair degree of certainty I can concede this point, but I simply cannot based purely upon the assertion that it is so, because I do not know of any examples of created things that can tell me the nature of their creator.There are two possible things that can be drawn from an object: the creator has the ability to create the creation and, possibly, the intention of the creator.
The second point is less obvious, but still there. Take, for instance, a gun. When someone created a gun, they are aware of its possible purposes...Perhaps the creator of the flashy gun thought that the decorations gave the gun power, and were, therefore, necessary in the guns design, which I’ll grant. However, we can still draw a conclusion for this. Either the gunsmith lacked knowledge about reality and proper gunsmithing and honestly thought he was making a practical gun, or he knew what he was doing and created a flashy gun knowing it was really practical.
This brings me to poolerboy’s point of God being a special case..
if a being is omnipotent and omniscient, then there is no barrier in between the creator’s intention and what the creation exhibits.
Omni-traits are yes and no cases. There is no middle ground. You are either all-powerful or you are not. You are either all-knowing or you’re not. So on and so forth.
P-All-powerful/omnipotent
L-All-loving/omnibenevolent
KAll-knowing/omniscient
.-and
,-not
Possibilities of God traits, in regard to P,L, and K:
1. P,L,K
2. P,L,~K
3. P,~L,K
4. P,~L,~K
5. ~P,L,K
6. ~P,L,~K
7. ~P,~L,K
8. ~P,~L,~K (not a god and possibly not existent)
Unless you want to prove Epicurus and us true, you don’t want anything with ~P or ~L, as you would admit God is not all-powerful and/or all-loving. 3,4,5,6,7, and 8 are, therefore, out. They would fall into the problem of evil’s riddle.
I’m going with nothing, as I don’t understand why there is evil. I can find no reason why evil exists and why the being would not tell us the reason if it cares for us so much.
As I said previously, the existence of mercy. If this were part of God's nature, if this part of His nature was never utilized, then God's creation would be incomplete in some way.Name one reason evil should exist that an omnipotent and omniscient being could not achieve through some other means?
Never said it did, although to punish both in the same way to the same extent is excessive.
Not necessarily. If we agree upon the premise that the punishment for something in terms of degree should be proportionate to who was wronged, then if who was wronged is infinitely times greater than anyone else who can be wronged, then the punishment theoretically should be infinite so there can be justice.
Again, I am not saying I necessarily believe this, but the logic is sound.
With god as the judge, is it really fair for it to judge crimes committed against itself? It isn't a neutral party in such cases.
BTW, Job asked the same question.
But no, that's a bad assumption. You are presupposing a modern view of justice. Unless you can prove that a pluralistic government is preferable to autocracy, you cannot make that claim.
Further, if the infinite judge was infinitely knowledgeable about justice, there wouldn't be a more able judge, even if He was the one violated.
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