Theodicy argument failure?

[hikersong]

Your not understanding the issue.... Once you see that it is possible, that there is a higher purpose, and benevolent purpose, then it doesn't prove God, but it proves God is not impossible with a world of evil. That it's not necessarily maltheism or atheism as the options.

What have I said that suggests I don't accept such a possibility. I have simply said that we cannot know. And that is better to work with what we do know.

Why is better to assume when there is no proof a pig will remain a pig forever either? If you believe in benovolent Creator, why not believe everything will be given opportunity for highest potential but all have a purpose? That each creature has highest purpose in mind? Why not.

Well the sky's the limit. You can imagine a benevolent creator anyway you want.

I prefer to live as though this is all we have. That what we see is what is. It makes each moment matter a lot more. I would suggest that this is a healthy way to live even if you do believe in an after life of further chances to live and grow.

Do you value human beings over animals?

Yes.

Then wouldn't you hope for the souls of animals to be given opportunity of us humans?

Why would I hope for that? I mean, hey, if that's what happens great, but of all the things I could hope for that is quite low on the list.

Why is the view of assuming they will be recreated as the same thing more logical then they wouldn't and would eventually be created as being with high potential?

I don't believe that they will be recreated at all.

Imagining a world with no purpose, one life without potential of another, is all imagination too.

I'm not imagining a world without a purpose. But imagining a world without God is not imagining, unless God has revealed him or her self to you.

There is nothing wrong with imagining worlds, nope, but I think it is wrong when you say "only this imagination is logical while we shouldn't be concerned about other imaginary worlds".

I don't think I've argued that one sort of imagination is more logical than another. I think I may have suggested that some forms of imagining are more helpful than others. Imagining is imagining. It doesn't have to be logical. Personally, I would like to use my imagination for the purpose of improving my life and that of others in this world that I can see.

If we don't know, then the problem of evil argument fails.

I don't know what you mean.

I think it's better to hope this is the case, then to submit to a very low view of life.

Could you point out how I have a "low view of life". I would suggest that I take it more seriously and put more value on it than many people who treat future imagined worlds as though they are fact.

Can you explain why this is the case? One potential more good I would see, is that with a view of life after death, we are concerned more about the morality of people and want to change them for the better. With view of no purpose, people are satisfied in acting in a very vain matter. They give themselves up to their desires, and their will has no dignified resolve. If you put on western TV, you see so much undignified behaviour, and lying is made something funny and cool. I think a view of having purpose is better then a view of not having purpose.

Having no sense of purpose isn't good. You don't, of course, need to believe in God, or life after death, to have a sense of purpose. Until you can accept that this is possible, my explanation will be of little help to you.

But a world with a benevolent Creator and after world is better, and has higher potential. In fact, there is potential much more higher then this one time test thing with heaven and hell as reward where we will not be tested for our will anymore.

Fine. I'm really not trying to stop you believing that if it makes you happy and motivated to live better.

Most theodicy is argued with this view, that this world is the one time test. I think if you let go of this view, and argue with infinite worlds where our will are tested, it gives more justification. Because the problem with perfect paradise is that it goes against everything argued for this world. Children enter paradise with no test of character and will never have test of character for example.

As before, we are talking about imaginary scenarios. I'm not arguing for this world as a one time test or for a perfect paradise anyway. It's all I can see.

But the world I imagined doesn't have this perspective. When everything is created for the purpose of honor, then ifninite worlds with suffering and adversity is better then a perfect world of heaven, and even better then one time test with a world of heaven in the next.

Are you in the process of trying to set up a new religion? There's a lot of competition out there you know.

 

[AskTheFamily]

What have I said that suggests I don't accept such a possibility. I have simply said that we cannot know. And that is better to work with what we do know.

I think it's best to work with what we believe, and investigate what we believe, and search to gain sureness of what we believe.

Why be satisfied with not knowing when perhaps their is a way to know?

I prefer to live as though this is all we have.

Why is that? Why don't you live life as if it's possible this all we have, and possible we will have a next world or even many worlds and lives to come? Why are you living one possibility when you don't know. You don't know this the only life you have, yet you want to live life like it is? Why is that, why don't you think of long term soul development as a possibility? Why not live according to both being possible?

It makes each moment matter a lot more.

How does it matter more if it's going to end as opposed to mattering more because how it effects your future that doesn't end?

Why would I hope for that? I mean, hey, if that's what happens great, but of all the things I could hope for that is quite low on the list.

Well it's wishing good for other beings which is perhaps part of the design of this world, is to test this.

I'm not imagining a world without a purpose. But imagining a world without God is not imagining, unless God has revealed him or her self to you.

Imagining big bang, no God, no soul, etc, is all imagination. Even thinking material essence makes life as opposed to just conscious while everything else is just experience is imagination. Material existence is imagination.

Having no sense of purpose isn't good. You don't, of course, need to believe in God, or life after death, to have a sense of purpose. Until you can accept that this is possible, my explanation will be of little help to you.

How can you have purpose without God. You can decide how you want to act, but you can't state that is your purpose from materialism perspective?

Are you in the process of trying to set up a new religion? There's a lot of competition out there you know.

I'm not in the process. I'm just thinking ideas as possibilities with a benevolent Creator and world full of suffering and evil.

 

[Montalban]

Still going for the strawman, I see.

Not a straw-man. At worst it's a Reductio ad absurdum, which is a different thing!

Why not ask: "Should God prevent us from running a red light?"
Or even: "Should God prevent us from having naughty thoughts about our married neighbour?"

All of that takes the point to ridiculous and unnecessary extremes, yet in no way excuses the non-action of an all-powerful entity in preventing people from murdering others. Especially considering that said deity is supposedly interfering with our world on a regular basis by means of miracles.

But that's the outcome of your theory. All you've done to ameliorate your theory is to establish an arbitrary line now that differentiates between 'serious' harm, and 'not serious' harm - where YOU think that line should go

razeontherock, for example, references something about God preventing rabid dogs from attacking, keeping a skier's bones intact after a spectacular fall and many other things. Other Christians have suggested that God has helped them to find lost contact lenses, parking space or even more frivolous nonsense.

I don't get this. You're saying God SHOULDN'T concern himself with the frivolous? And that you're annoyed that Christians think he does???

Now, your whole defense of God's inaction relies on "free will" being tantamount, dwarfing all other considerations.

Not 'now', but always.

However - and that's been pointed out before - being kept from murdering others would in no way turn us into robots, and in fact PRESERVE the free will of the potential victim.

It would turn the murderer into a robot

Hey, your own Bible states that your God supposedly took some drastic measures in the past, even in proving some rather minor points. What we're talking about here is considerably less invasive than the Flood, the plagues of Egypt or the Canaanite genocide.

So what's your point?

 

[Montalban]

So we've moved from God should intervene to stop us harming ourselves or others to God should intervene to stop us SERIOUSLY harming ourselves or others




That shows it's not a straw-man objection that's been presented.

 

[UnafraidOne]

The parent who knows that a child is going to suffer in a particular and enduring way if they are born, would be more like the hypothetical God we are discussing. It almost happens sometimes when a doctor will tell a parent that a foetus has a condition which will cause lifelong pain. They will probably be given the option, or possibly be advised, to abort the foetus.

Many, if not most, parents would take this course of action. Some won't because they believe that abortion is murder. And that God is the arbiter of how much pain a person should suffer. Or they believe that doctors can be mistaken (which they can) and that nature should be allowed to take it's course.

In general people who believe in one God, generally see Him as being totally omniscient and omnipotent, so even then it's not quite the same thing as the parental/doctor scenario. I would say, none-the-less, that the parent who goes on to have the baby for which 2 or more independent doctors are predicting a life time of pain, are more comparable to the God we are discussing than are the vast majority of parents. The vast majority are subjecting their children to a lifetime of possibilities not a lifetime of suffering. They (we) cannot be held culpable (though we do have a moral duty to protect our children, and nurture them to know how to competently protect themselves).

But God (allegedly) knows the details. And the Devil is in the details. Not only does he know, but he can theoretically intervene. Either at the Creation stage or afterwards, as Jane has said, by acting as a Divine Policeman.

I am going to keep going, although I realize this line of thinking can strike people as absurd, or, maybe, disconcerting. However I think it would be easier to stick to just the original, omniscient act of creation on the part of God (if that can be defended as not immoral why would it all of a sudden become required of God to intervene at a later time).

The consequence of the choice to have children does not end with that first generation, it continues with all descendants born afterwards. Having more children increases the odds of leaving many descendants over time – and if for some reason all your lines of descent are ‘cut off’ it is not realistically going to be because those involved all lived long, comfortable yet childless lives, and then died peacefully in their sleep.

That is the way it seems to me, that the choice of having children is a near certainty that you are the ancestor of people who will suffer badly.

If two people are drowning in a river, and one of them is related to you, and you have the opportunity to save one or the other first, you save the relative. The evolutionary logic (as opposed to your own) being that the relative shares more of your genes than the other person.

Recoiling at the thought of having a child who we know will suffer badly but not doing so at the thought of leaving a far-future descendant who suffers in the same way could well be expicable by the same logic. But, as the trolley problem illustrates so convincingly, moral intuitions do not always line up with moral reasoning.

So, apart from gut feeling, it isn't clear to me why it is immoral to leave a direct descendant who will suffer badly but moral to leave an indirect descendant who will almost certainly suffer badly.

 

[Montalban]

I am going to keep going, although I realize this line of thinking can strike people as absurd, or, maybe, disconcerting. However I think it would be easier to stick to just the original, omniscient act of creation on the part of God (if that can be defended as not immoral why would it all of a sudden become required of God to intervene at a later time).

The consequence of the choice to have children does not end with that first generation, it continues with all descendants born afterwards. Having more children increases the odds of leaving many descendants over time – and if for some reason all your lines of descent are ‘cut off’ it is not realistically going to be because those involved all lived long, comfortable yet childless lives, and then died peacefully in their sleep.

That is the way it seems to me, that the choice of having children is a near certainty that you are the ancestor of people who will suffer badly.

If two people are drowning in a river, and one of them is related to you, and you have the opportunity to save one or the other first, you save the relative. The evolutionary logic (as opposed to your own) being that the relative shares more of your genes than the other person.

Recoiling at the thought of having a child who we know will suffer badly but not doing so at the thought of leaving a far-future descendant who suffers in the same way could well be expicable by the same logic. But, as the trolley problem illustrates so convincingly, moral intuitions do not always line up with moral reasoning.

So, apart from gut feeling, it isn't clear to me why it is immoral to leave a direct descendant who will suffer badly but moral to leave an indirect descendant who will almost certainly suffer badly.

I cannot fault your reasoning

 

[Eudaimonist]

It would turn the murderer into a robot

How? Being preventing from doing something doesn't make one a robot.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Eudaimonist]

Why is that? Why don't you live life as if it's possible this all we have, and possible we will have a next world or even many worlds and lives to come? Why are you living one possibility when you don't know.

Because it's more honest to live based upon what one does know, and at least you are living according to facts you have instead of inventing "facts" you don't.

How does it matter more if it's going to end as opposed to mattering more because how it effects your future that doesn't end?

An infinite future doesn't make life more meaningful. It may even make life less meaningful.

The shorter life is, the more precious each moment. We don't value much what exists in endless supply. You probably don't even think about the air you breathe... until that is suddenly in short supply!

Also, if you are capable of valuing a finite life, that suggests that you are capable of valuing at least some moments as ends-in-themselves. If life is valued because it is neverending, that suggests that you only value the moments because they are merely a means to an infinite future...... that never arrives. A life that is all means and no ends isn't one that is likely to be experienced as meaningful.

You personally might be used to thinking of an unending life as more meaningful, but it can be the other way around.

Imagining big bang, no God, no soul, etc, is all imagination.

It is very odd that you are including the Big Bang on that list, since that is commonly regarded as natural and scientific.

Even thinking material essence makes life as opposed to just conscious while everything else is just experience is imagination. Material existence is imagination.

You are speaking nonsense. None of that is imagination, but is what we experience.

How can you have purpose without God. You can decide how you want to act, but you can't state that is your purpose from materialism perspective?

My purposes are choiceworthy because they aim at my well-being (my flourishing), which is my natural good. So, I have purpose without God because I have well-being without God.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Montalban]

Apparently if one can't act autonomously they're not an automaton!??!

 

[Eudaimonist]

Apparently if one can't act autonomously they're not an automaton!??!

So, if you can't walk through a brick wall as if it weren't there, you are an automaton?

I don't see anyone suggesting that people can't act autonomously. Only that they will be prevented from criminal acts.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

God should intervene to stop us harming ourselves or others[/I

Where did I say this?

God should intervene to stop us SERIOUSLY harming ourselves or others

OR this, for that matter? Literal quotes are very welcome.

These are your strawman versions of my POV, and of course it's not that hard to knock them over.

 

[Rationalt]

So we've moved from God should intervene to stop us harming ourselves or others to God should intervene to stop us SERIOUSLY harming ourselves or others

Innocent people getting murdered, raped disproves Theodicy
argument ;That is the issue,I gather.

 

[hikersong]

I think it would be easier to stick to just the original, omniscient act of creation on the part of God (if that can be defended as not immoral why would it all of a sudden become required of God to intervene at a later time).[/SIZE]

There is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't discuss the present lack of intervention on the part of our hypothetical God as well as the original creative act. And the reason an interventionist God is "required" is in order to make the original creative act moral. That is, if God is capable of intervening. If He or She is not able to intervene we have a different issue. But the common christian perception (which is the one I have at the back of my mind) is of a God who can intervene, but doesn't. There is a massive difference between this and the parenting choice you are presenting.

And on the issue of intervention, most parents would say that it is the moral duty of a parent to intervene when a child is in danger of being hurt. This should only occasionally result in the restraint of personal freedom in a healthy parent/child relationship because a child doesn't want to get hurt either.

If we have a non-interventionist God then we have, in effect, the Original Parent producing children and leaving them to fend for themselves.

The consequence of the choice to have children does not end with that first generation, it continues with all descendants born afterwards. Having more children increases the odds of leaving many descendants over time – and if for some reason all your lines of descent are ‘cut off’ it is not realistically going to be because those involved all lived long, comfortable yet childless lives, and then died peacefully in their sleep.

Of course it is possible that my future descendants will suffer in some way or another. I can't argue with your logic either despite my fairly tongue in cheek comment re. monty above. It clearly isn't going to make any difference on people's breeding patterns because we are, at heart, an optimistic race. We believe, unless it gets totally kicked out of us by a particularly rough life, that things can only get better. It is the possibility of improvement that keep us going, not the possibility of pain. It also seems to me that we have reason to be optimistic. We are a creative, innovative species, who do have the potential to make things better. And yes also worse, but an obsessive focus on our failures tends to lead to depressive inaction in my experience.

That is the way it seems to me, that the choice of having children is a near certainty that you are the ancestor of people who will suffer badly.

If some loving ancestor of mine had been able to experience the way I have felt at certain times in my life that experience would have certainly acted as a very effective form of contraception. However, I am glad that they went ahead and had my baby ancestor anyway. Even though I would have changed many things about my life and I would have expected any parental God to have protected me from some of my experiences, I am still glad that my ancestors, who didn't have the All Awareness of God, had me. So the issue is not the creative act, but a lack of intervention and protection when that is possible.

So, apart from gut feeling, it isn't clear to me why it is immoral to leave a direct descendant who will suffer badly but moral to leave an indirect descendant who will almost certainly suffer badly.

I hope I have shown that specific knowledge and a refusal to intervene is very different (to the point of being immoral) from a creative act which has many possibilities that are out of the creators control.

 

[hikersong]

I think it's best to work with what we believe, and investigate what we believe, and search to gain sureness of what we believe.

I agree with that. I have only said that we cannot gain "sureness" of future worlds until after we die. So the only things we can test are to do with this world.

Why be satisfied with not knowing when perhaps their is a way to know?

I agree. But if you can show me a way to know that there are many future worlds and future lives ahead of me, be my guest.

 

[Montalban]

Innocent people getting murdered, raped disproves Theodicy
argument ;That is the issue,I gather.

That's the argument, however I think it would deny free will, that is my counter argument.

Jane counters (with some logic) that I can have free will, and not wish to be murdered, but a murder can still happen - she question how does this mesh with free will - and why doesn't God intervene when my own free will is actually infringed by the will of others (such as the murderer).

However I counter this, in turn by saying that God won't intervene on ANY free will - such as the free will of the murderer to do an action.

I certainly don't 'will' to be murdered, but God won't intervene to stop another exercising their will

It's a paradox, free will is an absolute, in that sense, though in another it's still limited. I may will to fly, but jumping off a cliff my willing something doesn't make it so.

 

[Rationalt]

That's the argument, however I think it would deny free will, that is my counter argument.

.

I am talking about the victims.I dont understand why you are talking about perpetrators.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

When you were talking about why he allows a murderer to infringe on our free will

Quote me. Verbatim.
I'd like to see how you manage to construe anything of what I've actually written to mean: "God should intervene to stop us (SERIOUSLY) harming ourselves or others."

It's not what I've said, it's not what I've implied.
It is a misrepresentation of my argument, designed to be easily refutable. In short: a straw man.

 

[AskTheFamily]

Because it's more honest to live based upon what one does know, and at least you are living according to facts you have instead of inventing "facts" you don't.

But you don't know their isn't a Creator and purpose for your life, so if you live only according to this notion, your not acting on what you know but on what you don't. If you don't know their isn't a Creator and after life, then why should you be acting as if this is true?

An infinite future doesn't make life more meaningful. It may even make life less meaningful.

I would say it does it make it more meaningful. This specially for people whom suffer and they have opportunity to build a character that lasts.

The shorter life is, the more precious each moment. We don't value much what exists in endless supply. You probably don't even think about the air you breathe... until that is suddenly in short supply!

It maybe be more precious from your perspective or it can be all vain from another perspective. Every moment is for nothing but the moment? This life is just for this life? I don't see how this makes life more precious, it seems to me to make it more vain. A person lives a honorable life of sufferring where they are patient, and it leads to nothing but nothingness at the end? How is their honor precious now, as opposed to dishonorable people whom enjoyed life?

A life that is all means and no ends isn't one that is likely to be experienced as meaningful.

I really don't see the logic here. Also you can enjoy moments, do things for the moments, but also not at the end, your life is not in vain, and it has a purpose that will continue. I don't see how it makes life less meaningful at all.

You personally might be used to thinking of an unending life as more meaningful, but it can be the other way around.

I don't see how a life that ends and had no purpose, can be more meaningful.

You are speaking nonsense. None of that is imagination, but is what we experience.

In the matrix, the world people lived in the matrix was not really material but seemed to be. We experience thing with our senses and experience space, but we don't know what defines reality, if it's really material at all. This the imagination. For all you know, the only thing that exists truly is consciousness.

My purposes are choiceworthy because they aim at my well-being (my flourishing), which is my natural good. So, I have purpose without God because I have well-being without God.

Your choices have a purpose for your well being, but that doesn't mean your life has a purpose.

 

[Rationalt]

Askthefamily,

I think your arguments in post 122 are coherent and refined.Credit also goes to those who dissected your arguments with patience.

 

[hikersong]

But you don't know their isn't a Creator and purpose for your life, so if you live only according to this notion, your not acting on what you know but on what you don't. If you don't know their isn't a Creator and after life, then why should you be acting as if this is true?

Nor do you KNOW there isn't a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Have you gone looking for it? If you don't KNOW it doesn't exist why are you are acting as though there isn't?

This life is just for this life? I don't see how this makes life more precious, it seems to me to make it more vain.

More vain? If you know how much is in your wallet you are more careful how you use it. Where does vanity come in?

A person lives a honorable life of sufferring where they are patient, and it leads to nothing but nothingness at the end? How is their honor precious now, as opposed to dishonorable people whom enjoyed life?

I would agree that is quite depressing to see seemingly good people have hard lives for seemingly little reward, and vice versa. We do the good people who have gone before a greater honour by trying to make the world of the present and future a more just place.

But you seem to be upset that some people want to do the right thing for it's own reward. Why? It looks to me like a mature attitude to take.

I don't see how a life that ends and had no purpose, can be more meaningful.

I don't think anyone is saying it is more meaningful. We can't compare something we can see with something we can't. But it is certainly ridiculous to suggest that a life that ends at death has no meaning at all. Maybe it does for you, but you have to accept that other people manage to find a purpose without a belief in life after death. Why are you trying to tell them their lives are meaningless.

Worry about your own life.

In the matrix, the world people lived in the matrix was not really material but seemed to be. We experience thing with our senses and experience space, but we don't know what defines reality, if it's really material at all. This the imagination. For all you know, the only thing that exists truly is consciousness.

For all we know the only thing that really exists are snickers bars. All these worlds of the imagination are "possible"...but if you really believe in your world of consciousness only then may I suggest you communicate with me without typing on your keyboard.

Your choices have a purpose for your well being, but that doesn't mean your life has a purpose.

You're starting to sound like the religionists who are insistent that unless we believe what they believe we must be miserable, pathetic creatures. It is very patronising, and treats the testimony of others with contempt. You either accept that my life has a purpose or you don't. But why try and persuade someone that there life is purposeless.

That perplexes me. Again, perhaps you should worry about yourself first.