The Problem of Evil

[Dave Ellis]

Great! You and I are in agreement.

Now, I will present you with the following premise from a moral argument for God's existence and since you already affirm premise 2 of the argument, you must show that premise 1 is not more plausibly true than its negation. If not, then you, on pain of irrationality, must say goodbye to atheism and are committed to the argument’s conclusion, i.e. God exists because the argument's form is logically valid.

1. If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.

I see no justification to make that claim on a number of fronts.

First off and most obviously it hasn't been demonstrated to be correct, so we can't assume it is until that has been demonstrated. To assert that it's correct until we can prove it wrong is an argument from ignorance fallacy.

That being said, I believe it can be demonstrated to be incorrect.

First off, the objective consequences that arise from an action will still be the same regardless of if a god exists or not.

To go back to the original example I made in my last post, if you wish to live in a moral society, you ought not to kill or steal from people. That is true whether a god exists or not. The actual objective consequences of your actions, and the well being of the people you affect will be the same either way.

Those objective consequences are where we find our objective basis for morality without a god.


Secondly, and I'm not sure if you hold to this idea, but it's worth pointing out just in case: If your argument is that morality or moral values are objective because god defines what is moral and what is not, then your argument is demonstrably wrong as well. The reason is your basis for morality would then depend on god's subjective opinion on the various issues. Any pronouncement based on the opinion of any being, even a god is necessarily subjective.

But again, I don't know if you hold to that view so my second point may or may not be relevant to the discussion.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I htink that an all good God is an inspiring concept, for it can (or has in the past) provided a focal point for interesting and productive discussion of moral ideas. So therefore, ther eis evil because God wants us to philosophise.

 

[talquin]

Great! You and I are in agreement.

Now, I will present you with the following premise from a moral argument for God's existence and since you already affirm premise 2 of the argument, you must show that premise 1 is not more plausibly true than its negation. If not, then you, on pain of irrationality, must say goodbye to atheism and are committed to the argument’s conclusion, i.e. God exists because the argument's form is logically valid.

1. If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.

How does it follow that if God doesn't exist, then objective moral values & duties don't exist? Is 'God' merely a pseudonym for objective moral values & duties?

Or perhaps you could start by defining 'objective moral values & duties' and provide me a few of your best examples.

 

[com7fy8]

One thing that may not have been thought of is that God may have stopped a portion of the evil things in the world. You argument assumes that God has done nothing at all.

Just a thought

"For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe." (1 Timothy 4:10)

So, God is doing some kind of good for "all men", I see from this.

But how we are can have a lot to do with how much good we can receive and benefit from.

If you think God should take away all the moral evil, this would mean we need Jesus on the cross, so we can be forgiven, and then we need to trust God to change our character so we become loving

 

[Achilles6129]

Several questions:

1) What is the definition of "good" and "evil"?

2) What is meant by "objective moral values"?