Special Pleading and the PoE (Part 3)

[firedragon]

For instance, I can argue that there are no married bachelors.

The problem with this is there are many married men going to meet their "friends" leaving their rings at home. (Now again, dont jinx me).

I agree with you. You are arguing the right way.

 

[Meow Mix]

The problem with this is there are many married men going to meet their "friends" leaving their rings at home. (Now again, dont jinx me).

I agree with you. You are arguing the right way.

You're asking for it, one jinx, coming up! ^.^

 

[firedragon]

You're asking for it, one jinx, coming up! ^.^

Please jinx me with less carbs.

 

[Meow Mix]

@firedragon You and me both, brother (assuming I can call you this affectionately as you call me sis?). I used to be able to eat whatever I wanted and stay thin as a waif. Now I actually work for it. How annoying.

 

[firedragon]

@firedragon You and me both, brother (assuming I can call you this affectionately as you call me sis?). I used to be able to eat whatever I wanted and stay thin as a waif. Now I actually work for it. How annoying.

Absobloodylutely annoying. I am on low carbs because I am thinking it might not get me diabetes in a few years. But I dont put on weight no matter what I eat. Although I have a washboard tummy. By washboard I mean a washed away, soaked up board warped crooked.

Haha. Yes sis. You can call me brother.

Cheers to you.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

The text below goes as follows: My response would be this: an omniscient being (which is given in the premises of the PoE) would not need to perform any kind of trial because such a being would know the outcome of any trial without having to do it. This would still render the existence of suffering unnecessary and incongruent with benevolence.

Thank you Meow Mix for you response.

I was however a little disappointed to see that in your quote of my post, you chose not to include my notes on omnipotence, as it is there that I try to explain why I think that in order to properly address omnipotence, we must first decide on a definition of “reality”.

If our definition of reality is 1) physical existence/worldliness, then I absolutely understand why you say what you do about our world, God and omnipotence. Though, I’d have to point out that in defining “reality” as physical existence, one is either saying that God is not real or that God is physical/ worldly. Which one do you mean…?

But, if we instead define reality as 2) God Itself - i.e. we consider God to be the only one/thing that truly is - then we’d have to conclude that physical existence/worldliness is not in real. And if our world is not real (but, in lack of better a term, just a “thought-process”), then our understanding of what omnipotence means in relation to God, depends on our epistemological view regarding the knowledge of what is not.

I sometimes find it hard to put what I mean into words. Forgive me if this has been one of those times.


Ps.
I once said that God knows the symphony but cannot hear it, save through the ears of Man.

Omnipotence is about knowledge, not about understanding. God knows all data and chooses all codes, but for these to acquire meaning and be understood, they must be experienced - we are God’s experience of them.


Humbly
Hermit

 

[AppieB]

What alternative is there to reason and logic? Logic is about self-consistency, and reason is about careful thinking with understanding of what follows from what. I don't see how you could do something besides that without it being nonsense in a very literal way.

Edit: Unless we're talking about art, feelings, the realm of aesthetic and things like that.

Excelent point. I haven't seen a proper answer by mikkel_the_dane. I'm wondering what his alternative is. Faith?

I alway wondered about the need to rationally justify God. There is no need for that as far as I can tell, all that is needed is faith.

How does faith lead to reliable knowledge?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Excelent point. I haven't seen a proper answer by mikkel_the_dane. I'm wondering what his alternative is. Faith?

How does faith lead to reliable knowledge?

I think @Polymath257 gave the answer in this thread or another.

You can use reason and logic on basic assumptions, you choose; but you can't derive basic assumptions from reason and logic.
Or any variant to that effect.
It connects to these 4:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12
Philosophy of science - Wikipedia
Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Münchhausen trilemma - Wikipedia

So to a strong cognitive relativist like me, I apparently use another set of basic assumptions than you in some likelihood and to me proper is a cultural/social belief just as reliable knowledge.

Also for @Meow Mix

 

[Segev Moran]

I have started quite a few threads about the PoE, but there is still more to talk about. Today I'd like to talk about this little issue: ostensibly, given the premises that God exists, that God is omnipotent, that God is omniscient, and that God created humans deliberately, then it is reasonable to conclude that God is responsible for our moral compasses: that evaluation that we perform when we feel something has morally good or morally bad implications.

Actually, That is not that reasonable.
God is not responsible for our morals, it gave us the ability to understand morality.

For instance, perhaps this is the reason that we might feel guilty if we hurt somebody, even unintentionally.

Not really

Ostensibly, if God is benevolent and wishes for us to be morally good agents, God would endow us with functioning moral cognitive faculties: God would give us the ability to detect what is morally good and what is morally bad.

It did.
The fact you can speak of this is the proof of that.
Conscience and Intuition are a part of it.
For some people, it is much more developed than others.

(Now, obviously as a non-theist and moral non-cognitivist I don't believe any of this; just working within the framework of the premises).

The moral is a name for what we perceive as "serves a good purpose". It is a subjective collective idea.
There is no objective morality. there can be none.
How do you perceive "Good and Bad"?

Let us return again to the example given in the last couple of PoE posts: childhood leukemia. If we were to imagine a being giving or allowing a child to suffer horribly from leukemia and then die, most of our moral compasses tingle "this is bad."

I Cant see how morality has anything to do with a disease?
Unless you assume that God deliberately made the child sick... which is obviously not the case.
The belief that god points its "finger" to someone and causes him to be sick or something like that is rather naive.
It is all a case of outcomes.
The "punishment" is not really a punishment but rather a consequence of an action. Same as sticking your finger into the fire. The fire doesn't punish you... your finger will burn as an outcome of your action.
God generated a set of laws. Nature laws, physical laws, spiritual laws.
Then, it gave us the ability to follow or not follow those laws.

But why? If we are to use the theodicy that this post series is about (that is, "God has an unknown, but benevolent, reason for causing/allowing physical suffering in the world"), why wouldn't our moral compasses register this as good even if we didn't understand why, if it was actually good?

Because it is not actually good or bad.
One of the main key points in the Jewish (and most others) religion is that the idea of Good and Bad is an illusion.

In other words, we are between a rock and a hard place: if children with leukemia is actually congruent with God's benevolence, and God gave us functioning cognitive, moral faculties, why wouldn't this register as good to us?

Because we have a "law" imprinted in us. it is the most basic "law" that drives all life as we know it. Survival.
When someone has the potential of not surviving, we treat it as against our goal.

It is very funny to hear people speak of evolution and claiming God is not required because of it.
Although it describes beautifully the way life advance over time, but it is all based on the "simple rule" that was imprinted in ALL living things.
Survive!
Why do life "wants" to survive?

As an individual, we want to survive (if this is not the case, it is most likely to a big problem we suffer from).
As a society, we want to survive.
As a species, we want to survive.
As an organism, we want to survive.
As a collective, we want to survive.
Although not proven, I can assume with high probability, that every life form in our universe (and probably beyond) "wants" to survive.

If it is actually good, but registers on our moral compasses as bad, why did God give us malfunctioning moral cognitive faculties? Wouldn't that be an entirely new problem unto itself?

The story goes like this:

We were created. We were created with a flawless ability to be part of life. We were given the ability to remain part of this "life collective" or choose to separate ourselves from it.
The consequence of such a choice is that we will now have the ability to experience and understand the "two sides" of existence.
What we call Good and Bad.
Once we took that path, nothing really changed besides the fact we are now aware that there are "two sides".
One that is beneficial to our goal, and one that is not.
The beauty of the "freedom of choice" is that you have the ability to choose whether or not you want to follow a more beneficial path or a lesser one (חטא - Sin: In Hebrew the word means "Miss").
So you are "Missing" the more beneficial path to our Goal.
What is the Goal? To survive.
How can we survive? We need to understand that everything, everyone, are connected. not just humans to humans.

When you eat, for example, your body cannot digest anything unless it has billions of bacteria living in your stomach. These bacteria release the materials our body requires to operate.
AntiBiotics was considered a wonder. It killed bacteria! but today we now it is a dangerous drug as it also kills our "friendly" bacteria.

I think that one of the biggest mistakes people often make is thinking that the individual person (or for that matter, any living being) is really an individual.

Similar to your example,
If you have a "zit" on your skin, is it good or bad?
It is not eye-pleasing, it might be scratchy, it might cause shame, pain, and whatnot, but a zit is a positive thing in the end.
This is the way the body treats problems.

Pain is not a negative thing. People who do not feel pain are in constant danger of death even from the most simple things.

Although we each have a sense of "self", it is long been proven that we are all connected.

It is easy to understand if you look at yourself.
There is you....
You have your family. You are as part of your family as you are your own persona.
You have your friends. You are as part of your friends as you are your own persona.
neighborhoods, cities, countries, world ... we are all smaller parts of a whole.

Our moral understandings are not something personal. You might understand something different than the other person, but eventually, the more advanced we become, the more "moral" we become.

A child being sick is no better or worse than an adult being sick. It is just the impact it has on us as a person.
I can tell you I've met many people who say it is harder for them to see a dog suffering rather than a human, the reasoning behind this is that a dog is innocent and humans are not.
It relates to the idea of a sick child, as we grasp children as innocent.

The idea of good and bad is just that. There is no real Good or Bad, it is just the way we interpret reality.

Sadly, to some people, Hitler is considered a hero.

At the end of things, there is one thing that leads all of us. Oddly enough it is also the first "law" that God gave us.
It is the Law of reproduction.
No matter how you look at it, the entire "drive" of all living things (so far at least) that we know, is to survive.
The evolution theory describes this in much more detail than one can even imagine.

Eventually, there is one goal, to survive as a species.

If you will ask, so if humans kill all predator animals, isn't it good? once upon a time, humans thought so, so the "moral" idea of killing entire species because they are in our "way" was not considered wrong.
Today, we know better. Not only that it is wrong, but it will also quickly contribute to our extinction.

We have no idea (yet) what causes cancer. We have a general idea... radiation, pollution, toxic substances, genetics... There are so many variables.
It's neither good nor bad. It's an outcome.

When someone deliberately harms someone else, we can say it is bad... why? because we strive to survive, and if people will start harming others without any restrictions, the chances of survival are slim.

 

[Polymath257]

Because we have a "law" imprinted in us. it is the most basic "law" that drives all life as we know it. Survival.
When someone has the potential of not surviving, we treat it as against our goal.

It is very funny to hear people speak of evolution and claiming God is not required because of it.
Although it describes beautifully the way life advance over time, but it is all based on the "simple rule" that was imprinted in ALL living things.
Survive!
Why do life "wants" to survive?

Quite simply, any life that didn't want to survive at least long enough to reproduce did pass on its genes to the next generation. So those lines died out.

Over 99% of all species that have existed have gone extinct. Those that have survived have genetics that determines they *want* to survive.

 

[AlexanderG]

My answer is that God did not create people that way. God created people who have the capacity to understand why they should do "Y," and also created them knowing in advance that they will do either "X" or "Y" (because God is all-knowing so God has foreknowledge), and then when they do "X," he holds them morally responsible because they have a choice between (X) and (Y).

Allow me to further explain. Man has two natures, a material nature (X) and a spiritual nature (Y) We all have free will to make moral choices so we can choose to act according to (X) or (Y), our material or lower nature or our spiritual or higher nature. If we act according to our material nature (X) we show forth untruth, cruelty and injustice. If we act according to our spiritual nature (Y) we show forth love, mercy, kindness, truth and justice.

All human behavior exists along a continuum, with the material nature (X) at one end and the spiritual nature (Y) at the other end. No human is purely material or purely spiritual, but rather we can gravitate towards one or the other according to the moral choices that we make.

“In man there are two natures; his spiritual or higher nature and his material or lower nature. In one he approaches God, in the other he lives for the world alone. Signs of both these natures are to be found in men. In his material aspect he expresses untruth, cruelty and injustice; all these are the outcome of his lower nature. The attributes of his Divine nature are shown forth in love, mercy, kindness, truth and justice, one and all being expressions of his higher nature. Every good habit, every noble quality belongs to man’s spiritual nature, whereas all his imperfections and sinful actions are born of his material nature. If a man’s Divine nature dominates his human nature, we have a saint.” Paris Talks, p. 60

To continue: THE TWO NATURES IN MAN

Hey, thanks for the reply. If I'm understanding correctly, you're saying that god is all-knowing if he knows that:

1. "Adam and Eve will either choose to disobey god and eat the fruit, or they will not choose to disobey."

By this definition, aren't I also all-knowing if I know that:

1. "Today I will either choose to eat a ham sandwich for lunch, or I will not choose to eat a ham sandwich for lunch." or
2. "Tomorrow I will choose to go for a walk around the lake, or I will not choose to go for a walk around the lake."?

It seems like in order to solve the problem of evil, you've redefined all-knowing to functionally mean "not all-knowing." You've defined "god's infallible plan" to be a set of many contingencies that god knows might happen, and I don't think that's what "all-knowing" means to very many people. That's exactly how humans anticipate and plan for the future with our lack of perfect foreknowledge.

I've also seen people redefine god as not all-powerful to avoid this problem, and I've seen others redefine "all-good" to encompass what I would call evil, basically arguing that there is no problem of evil because none of these horrible things are actually evil. Defining away the omni properties to get around the problem still doesn't convince me, though, and I think it just creates other logical problems. And I think the idea of free will is logically incoherent under my determinist model but also under most theistic models. If god is all-knowing and all-powerful then I don't see how free will is possible. At all. That's another overarching theological contradiction like the problem of evil.

 

[Ponder This]

No, God could still make us finite without it being a failure. However, it would still be God's responsibility (given the premises) to provide us with working cognitive faculties, including those responsible for detecting moral truths (again, I am not a moral realist, just staying within the premises).

We don't have to be any of the omni's to understand what they entail. It's similar to knowing how to operate a vehicle without knowing how the engine works on a technical level of expertise. We can understand that to be omnipotent is to be capable of actualizing any logically possible state of affairs even if we don't necessarily know how that works: we can know what possible outcomes are.

If you accept that it is not a failure to have been made with limited capacities: not omnipotent, not omniscient, not omnibenevolent (God may make us ignorant, impotent, and not benevolent despite God being omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent), then it seems there is no argument that we must be equipped with a knowing moral compass.

Logical possibility is something we can understand, but often people assume outcomes are logically possible that they really don't know are logically possible - it's a very common mistake. If you want to claim something is logically possible, then you really do need to show it. You really cannot say it seems "reasonable" and leave it at that, because people will say that any little thing they can imagine is logically possible simply because they imagine it to be logically possible. Of course, someone else can just as easily imagine that such a thing is not logically possible, because pure imagination is flexible like that. Quite simply, imagination does not suffice; assuming something is logically possible is not the same as knowing something is logically possible.

 

[Koldo]

If you accept that it is not a failure to have been made with limited capacities: not omnipotent, not omniscient, not omnibenevolent (God may make us ignorant, impotent, and not benevolent despite God being omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent), then it seems there is no argument that we must be equipped with a knowing moral compass.

Logical possibility is something we can understand, but often people assume outcomes are logically possible that they really don't know are logically possible - it's a very common mistake. If you want to claim something is logically possible, then you really do need to show it. You really cannot say it seems "reasonable" and leave it at that, because people will say that any little thing they can imagine is logically possible simply because they imagine it to be logically possible. Of course, someone else can just as easily imagine that such a thing is not logically possible, because pure imagination is flexible like that. Quite simply, imagination does not suffice; assuming something is logically possible is not the same as knowing something is logically possible.

This is a clear case of when people have two distinct definitions for a term.

By saying that something is logically possible we (as in both me and @Meow Mix) merely mean that a given statement is not logically contradictory.

For instance, 'Joe is a married bachelor' is a logical impossibility, whereas 'Koldo is using a computer to type this post' is logically possible. Therefore, to show something is logically possible it suffices to show it is not logically contradictory.

 

[F1fan]

1. Yes, it's a huge factor.
2. Yes, if we were humble it would be better, but technology is good if we are humble.

Science is just a way to understand how reality works. As science ce learns more many theists are more upset and at odds with it, even to a degree that some theists deny what results and conclusions. that's not humility.

And technology is just tools we have available for us to use. How we use tools does depend on our moral framework. We've been oddly lucky as an over-populated species to not use nuclear weapons since 1945. I'll admit I'm surprised. But I do have suspicion it's more to do with selfishness than moral duty.

 

[Link]

Science is just a way to understand how reality works. As science ce learns more many theists are more upset and at odds with it, even to a degree that some theists deny what results and conclusions. that's not humility.

And technology is just tools we have available for us to use. How we use tools does depend on our moral framework. We've been oddly lucky as an over-populated species to not use nuclear weapons since 1945. I'll admit I'm surprised. But I do have suspicion it's more to do with selfishness than moral duty.

Yeah but if your life can die the next day in a very high amount of chance (high amount of death result of illnesses that can be cured now), I believe people would take afterlife bet more then this world life bet, and would open their eyes to the unseen world more. They would more humble because of remembrance of death and how likely it is.

 

[AppieB]

I think @Polymath257 gave the answer in this thread or another.

You can use reason and logic on basic assumptions, you choose; but you can't derive basic assumptions from reason and logic.
Or any variant to that effect.
It connects to these 4:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12
Philosophy of science - Wikipedia
Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Münchhausen trilemma - Wikipedia

So to a strong cognitive relativist like me, I apparently use another set of basic assumptions than you in some likelihood and to me proper is a cultural/social belief just as reliable knowledge.

Also for @Meow Mix

It sounds to me you are saying that, because we can't know anything with (absolute) certainty, all claims of knowledge are on equal footing? That's sounds absurd to me. Just because we all have basic beliefs/assumptions/presuppositions doesn't mean for instance that knowledge obtainded by the scientific method is as reliable as a wild assumption based on faith. You refer to the answer of @Polymath257, which was:
"That reminds me of a comment on representative democracies: it's a bad form of government, just better than all the others.

You can't use rationality to choose your basic principles. But after that, it works pretty well. At the very least, it works better for understanding things than any other system we have found."

I would agree. It works better than other systems we have found.

Or do you have a better suggestion?

 

[F1fan]

You are a logical person. Lol. Okay that sounded bad. You are taking arguments into the logical realm. The philosophical realm. Thus, its better to take the two arguments separately.

The dilemma for theists and their beliefs is that they seem to assume them to be rational. We see this in how theists present their beliefs and reasons why they believe them true. It's only after engaging with people more skilled at reasoning and logic that theists realize they have a problem. Typically this is solved by filing back on faith, where anything can be true because it is believed true.

But ultimately belief SHOULD BE a reasoned and calculated process. We should believe as little as possible, and what we do believe we should understand there's a chance we are mistaken, so don't get too attached. Bad beliefs are exposed with reasoning and logic. It's an opportunity for believers to abandon bad belief.

Lets say logically you prove God is an evil being, then God could still exist. This will not prove the nonexistence of a so called God.

This is a distortion of the intention, and you do your usual thing of manipulating atheists debating here as if discussion ideas somehow suggests the ideas are true. We can discuss how much money the Tooth Fairy should leave for kids these days, but does this imply the TF exists?

To respond to your point, we aren't discussing the attributes of an actual God, rather the CLAIMS that theists make about the nature and attributes of their ideas of God, and how well these ideas work in what we observe of the world. As this series has exposed there are theists who believe in many ideas of the God that just doesn't work with what we observe. The beliefs contradict facts and observations, and also with what most humans feel as moral good. We have to trust a God that is likely imaginary over trusting our own moral sense. That's dangerous. It's why the 9-11 hijackers did Allah's will. It's why Conservative Christians won't cooperate with climate change legislation. It's dogma over morality.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It sounds to me you are saying that, because we can't know anything with (absolute) certainty, all claims of knowledge are on equal footing? That's sounds absurd to me. Just because we all have basic beliefs/assumptions/presuppositions doesn't mean for instance that knowledge obtainded by the scientific method is as reliable as a wild assumption based on faith. You refer to the answer of @Polymath257, which was:
"That reminds me of a comment on representative democracies: it's a bad form of government, just better than all the others.

You can't use rationality to choose your basic principles. But after that, it works pretty well. At the very least, it works better for understanding things than any other system we have found."

I would agree. It works better than other systems we have found.

Or do you have a better suggestion?

That science is not the world nor a thing. It is a limited human behavior that itself is neither good nor bad.

 

[F1fan]

Yeah but if your life can die the next day in a very high amount of chance (high amount of death result of illnesses that can be cured now), I believe people would take afterlife bet more then this world life bet, and would open their eyes to the unseen world more. They would more humble because of remembrance of death and how likely it is.

Yeah, you're really living in fear, aren't you?

A few years ago i got hit head on by car while I was on a training ride on my bike. That is a huge fear of cyclists, and it happened to me. I had about 2 seconds. It happened. I could have died. I still have no interest in belief in any gods, no afterlife, no 72 virgins, whatever the latest offer is. I live my life. I pursue goals as a living person. I don't feel fear and project some comfort into some imaginary paradise. I'm much too self-aware for that to be an effective fantasy to cope with fear.

BTW, I survived the collision intact. My wrists were sprained badly but I was back on a bike the next day. God keeps trying to kill me but it's just not very good at it.

 

[Link]

Yeah, you're really living in fear, aren't you?

A few years ago i got hit head on by car while I was on a training ride on my bike. That is a huge fear of cyclists, and it happened to me. I had about 2 seconds. It happened. I could have died. I still have no interest in belief in any gods, no afterlife, no 72 virgins, whatever the latest offer is. I live my life. I pursue goals as a living person. I don't feel fear and project some comfort into some imaginary paradise. I'm much too self-aware for that to be an effective fantasy to cope with fear.

BTW, I survived the collision intact. My wrists were sprained badly but I was back on a bike the next day. God keeps trying to kill me but it's just not very good at it.

I'm glad you're still alive. <3