A Problem of Evil for Atheists

[9-10ths_Penguin]

There are better ways to phrase the essence of what he's saying that don't cause the argument to rest on premises that are easy to dispute. The writer is correct in that the "problem of evil" (or the existence of things that cause humans to suffer, experience pain, emotional distress, etc.) does not evaporate because one abandons a theistic religion that proposes a one-god will redeem humanity. A better way to frame it might have looked something like this:

Granting that suffering is part of human life, and that this suffering is undesirable, what justifies perpetuating human life when such perpetuation gives rise to more suffering? And, of particular relevance to the religious perspective the author is coming from, how can it be justified when there is no means of redemption? From the author's perspective, addition of further humans only compounds the problem of suffering because there is no "get out of jail" card in the ideologies of what he is describing as naturalism.

Heh... that's still easy to dispute.

Your argument seems to rely on the idea that any suffering at all makes life not worth living. The way I see it, life is worthwhile as long as life is better (and "better" isn't necessarily defined only in terms of lack of suffering) than not being alive... and as far as I can tell, it is better for the vast majority of people.

Also, even if your argument worked and it really was irrational to value life, so what? I don't know any atheists who argue that people are perfectly rational. In fact, I know plenty who argue the opposite.

 

[Skwim]

A great example of the lack of correlation between verbosity and meaningfulness.

Agreed. A great negative correlation.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Agreed. A great negative correlation.

Negative correlation is probably even more apt.

 

[Quintessence]

Heh... that's still easy to dispute.

Your argument seems to rely on the idea that any suffering at all makes life not worth living. The way I see it, life is worthwhile as long as life is better (and "better" isn't necessarily defined only in terms of lack of suffering) than not being alive... and as far as I can tell, it is better for the vast majority of people.

Also, even if your argument worked and it really was irrational to value life, so what? I don't know any atheists who argue that people are perfectly rational. In fact, I know plenty who argue the opposite.

I was aiming to reframe the argument of the OP (and let me emphasize that - this is NOT my argument!) to avoid some of the disputed premises that were causing trip-ups based on the responses of other posters.

If we toss out the language about "evil" and "objective evil" or the couching in Abrahamic mythos and theology, the general question he poses - what makes life worth living given the existence of suffering - is as important for atheists to address as theists. I think that is the point worth taking out of what the author says. I think he's prompting us to think about that question and our answers to it regardless of our atheism, theism, religion, or irreligion. All of us have to find an answer to that question of human suffering.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I was aiming to reframe the argument of the OP (and let me emphasize that - this is NOT my argument!) to avoid some of the disputed premises that were causing trip-ups based on the responses of other posters.

If we toss out the language about "evil" and "objective evil" or the couching in Abrahamic mythos and theology, the general question he poses - what makes life worth living given the existence of suffering - is as important for atheists to address as theists. I think that is the point worth taking out of what the author says. I think he's prompting us to think about that question and our answers to it regardless of our atheism, theism, religion, or irreligion. All of us have to find an answer to that question of human suffering.

I think you're giving the author too much credit.

 

[metis]

Naturalism entails atheism, but atheism does not entail naturalism.

It may depending on how one may define "naturalism". Pantheists and panentheists are not atheists, for example. I'm a naturalist (Spinoza-type) but not an atheist.

 

[Skwim]

Granting that suffering is part of human life, and that this suffering is undesirable, what justifies perpetuating human life when such perpetuation gives rise to more suffering?

How about all the non-suffering that perpetuates more non-suffering.

And, of particular relevance to the religious perspective the author is coming from, how can it be justified when there is no means of redemption?

Who's justifying (additional) suffering?

From the author's perspective, addition of further humans only compounds the problem of suffering because there is no "get out of jail" card in the ideologies of what he is describing as naturalism.

Just what is this problem that more human suffering creates? And, wouldn't the addition of further humans also compound the benefits of non-suffering?

 

[Parsimony]

To claim that life is affirmable is to claim that it is reasonable to say 'yes' to it.

What does that even mean? A person doesn't ask permission to be born. Just because someone is alive doesn't mean it's because they agreed to be alive. This is complicated even more by the fact that many severely depressed people might not consider life to be worth living but fail to commit suicide because they are afraid of dying, have responsibilities they do no wish to burden others with, don't want to make their friends and relatives sad, etc. In such a case, being alive is just the lesser of two evils to them.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

There are better ways to phrase the essence of what he's saying that don't cause the argument to rest on premises that are easy to dispute. The writer is correct in that the "problem of evil" (or the existence of things that cause humans to suffer, experience pain, emotional distress, etc.) does not evaporate because one abandons a theistic religion that proposes a one-god will redeem humanity. A better way to frame it might have looked something like this:

Granting that suffering is part of human life, and that this suffering is undesirable, what justifies perpetuating human life when such perpetuation gives rise to more suffering? And, of particular relevance to the religious perspective the author is coming from, how can it be justified when there is no means of redemption? From the author's perspective, addition of further humans only compounds the problem of suffering because there is no "get out of jail" card in the ideologies of what he is describing as naturalism.

I was aiming to reframe the argument of the OP (and let me emphasize that - this is NOT my argument!) to avoid some of the disputed premises that were causing trip-ups based on the responses of other posters.

If we toss out the language about "evil" and "objective evil" or the couching in Abrahamic mythos and theology, the general question he poses - what makes life worth living given the existence of suffering - is as important for atheists to address as theists. I think that is the point worth taking out of what the author says. I think he's prompting us to think about that question and our answers to it regardless of our atheism, theism, religion, or irreligion. All of us have to find an answer to that question of human suffering.

Bingo! Thanks! :yes: :clap

 

[bobhikes]

So here's something interesting I came across. Never really considered it this way.

From: Maverick Philosopher: A Problem of Evil for Atheists


_______________________________________________________

The author defines everything but evil. Define evil or for that matter prove evil exists. Right now the biggest definition of evil is the holocaust and rightfully so but if Hitler won humans would still exist and the holocaust would be defined differently.

Our definition of evil is the problem for both the religious and atheists.

 

[Quintessence]

I think you're giving the author too much credit.

Possibly. This doesn't mean that there aren't ideas contained therin that are worth thinking about. I would much rather focus the discussion on that than nitpick the poor writing style and argumentation of the article. That is not useful. Considering the deeper ideas and issues the article brings up is significantly more interesting to me.

This topic actually reminds me a bit of a discussion we had in one of my undergrad psychology courses. When we were discussing the topic of suicide, it was pointed out that we tend to think of it in terms of "why would someone kill themselves?" What if we turn that on its head? What if instead we ask "why would someone choose to live?" With the frequent trials and troubles that life throws at us, why do we continue to choose to live? We don't think about that often enough, I think, but the answer to that question is so important! It's what keeps us alive and motivated in life, whether we be (a)theists or (ir)religious.

 

[Iti oj]

Neither atheism nor naturalism deal with morals. Their is no need or way to answer.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I was aiming to reframe the argument of the OP (and let me emphasize that - this is NOT my argument!) to avoid some of the disputed premises that were causing trip-ups based on the responses of other posters.

If we toss out the language about "evil" and "objective evil" or the couching in Abrahamic mythos and theology, the general question he poses - what makes life worth living given the existence of suffering - is as important for atheists to address as theists. I think that is the point worth taking out of what the author says. I think he's prompting us to think about that question and our answers to it regardless of our atheism, theism, religion, or irreligion. All of us have to find an answer to that question of human suffering.

I don't get that question from what he says. I think he's trying to come up with a "gotcha" for atheists that's as problematic as the Problem of Evil is for his own beliefs. I don't think he's trying to explore the question of what makes life meaningful at all... the fact that he tries to exempt himself from the questions he's asking by making a poorly-thought-out appeal to "naturalism" gives this away.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I don't get that question from what he says. I think he's trying to come up with a "gotcha" for atheists that's as problematic as the Problem of Evil is for his own beliefs. I don't think he's trying to explore the question of what makes life meaningful at all... the fact that he tries to exempt himself from the questions he's asking by making a poorly-thought-out appeal to "naturalism" gives this away.

Yep, that was pretty much what I thought when reading it as well.
The questions of suffering, what makes life valuable, why we even bother, etc, are universal.
But the framing of this article was interesting. It was trying to get atheists to answer these questions on monotheist terms.

Objective evil doesn't make a lot of sense to me, unless we're moving the discussion to very specific acts.
Is 'murder' objectively evil? I'm sure we could have a very long thread discussing the pros and cons of that.

But ultimately I don't believe in a universal evil any more than I believe in a universal deity.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Oh, so just so everyone knows: I didn't know the author of that blog is a Christian when I posted that and I don't necessarily agree with all the things he says. But, as Quint pointed out, there's very important food for thought in it.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Oh, so just so everyone knows: I didn't know the author of that blog is a Christian when I posted that and I don't necessarily agree with all the things he says. But, as Quint pointed out, there's very important food for thought in it.

Hey bud,

Speaking purely for myself here, but it's not a problem to post articles by Christians about atheists. In this particular case the author has framed things in ways I've never heard atheists frame them, so it makes kinda a disconnect between his points and our responses, I suspect.

I think there are important issues around life affirmation, etc, but they're not really addressed in the article in ways which make sense to me, based on my view of how the world works.

There is nothing inherently unexpected or unreasonable (or evil) about there being suffering in the world, and one of the things I keep to mind is that suffering is commonly temporary, rather than permanent.

Having said all that, I don't like there being suffering in the world. There's just no connection between my likes and dislikes and how the world works. Well, perhaps apart from the very small influence over it I can have.

 

[viole]

More precisely: Is life affirmable by naturalists given the fact of evil? There is a problem here if you grant, as I hope you will for the sake of this discussion at least, that natural and moral evils are objective realities. Thus evil exists and it exists objectively. It is not an illusion, nor is it subjective.

I think this is a false premise. Nature is amoral and indifferent if our life is affirmable or not. If we spread our genes we survive, if we don't, we don't, and that's it. Independently from the affirmation of the gene carriyng vessels that are our bodies and minds.

There is no objective and universal evil under naturalism. Evil makes sense only within a certain biological context. I feel pain when I see a child tortured to death or put into slavery, but I feel pain also when I have a migraine.

That does not entail that there is a universal and objective thing like migraine that can be stripped from human biology. They feel somehow different, but many things in our brains feel different and this does not justify that some are more metaphysical than the others. These are mere responses of the neuronal network inside my skull to external impulses, call it the computation of moving images of a tortured child or the result of imbalance in some brain chemicals. To postulate more than that is metaphysics and therefore outside the framework of naturalism.

When a naturalist invokes the problem of evil against theism, she does not use her worldview but the one of the theist, who is committed to the universal objectivity of these things. Reductio ad absurdum, so to speak.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Sunstone]

The OP is slop.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Oh, so just so everyone knows: I didn't know the author of that blog is a Christian when I posted that and I don't necessarily agree with all the things he says. But, as Quint pointed out, there's very important food for thought in it.

It argues that anything less than a perfect life might not be worth living. How is this "very important food for thought"?

 

[Willamena]

All your disagreeances make mine seem petty. I disagreed that a life has to be worthy throughout the course of a life-time in order to be affirmed. I think it just has to be worthy now, in the moment.