Special Pleading and the Problem of Evil

[Hermit Philosopher]

But what we can do is blame the designer, the God who made all this the way it is.

How does doing this help you, my friend? By turning grief into hatred…?

Grief can rip you in half but hatred leads you to thoughts and actions that spread misery onto and eat at your core, slowly, till there is nothing left of who you were.

…when a child and adult suffers for anything it is a result of the design of what God created.

I don’t see this. I do not blame worldliness on God. The code behind worldliness is God’s but what occurs there depends on how Man handles what he is faced with. Worldliness is Man’s reality; the result of his actions.

But humans didn't plan any of this

Intention is not a requirement for cause.
Not all things with negative consequences are planned, but that does not prevent them from being a cause of something.

God is either incompetent or a sadist

Many feel as you do. I do not.

Worldliness is not for God to evolve; Divine perfection does not need this. Worldliness is for Man.

Worldliness is not meant to be free from challenge, because it is the state of being in which the soul is given a chance to choose (by free will) to evolve spiritually. Man is free to choose not to attend to his spirit and waste his worldliness if he so wishes and God will not stop him because that is the spiritual challenge: Faced with all the beauty and horror of worldliness, what does Man do?*

*) The wisdom of right and wrong, received by “eating” from the “tree of knowledge”, is like an abstract equation that means nothing (to Man) and cannot be understood correctly (by Man) until it is manifested into worldliness and applied in practice.


I will here add that I was raised atheist, in a secular society and came into faith in my late 20’s/ early 30’s. I find what you say below very insightful:

Being an atheist allows me vastly more freedom to judge, and not believe.

To me, it is probable that this applies not only to how you approach (others’) faith but, more significantly, to how you approach your fellow Man in general.

My questions here would be:

1. Ought not the weight of a lie rest on the shoulders of the liar and if so, is not the need to judge their words and actions, simply transferring their burdens on our own?
2. Is walking through life judging our neighbour how we wish to spend our worldliness?

Humbly
Hermit

 

[F1fan]

How does doing this help you, my friend? By turning grief into hatred…?

Grief? Hatred?

I pointed out that if a creation exists, and a God is perfect and created it deliberately and with a plan, then how creation exists is EXACTLY as it wanted it to be. If creation ends up going off the rails and the humans God created start doing things it did NOT want or approve of, then we have to look at how the God designed the people. If God created mature, wise and smart humans consistently then we wouldn't have global wars, slavery, science denial, dictatorships, civil wars, tribes being exterminated, etc. We would see very stable and progressive societies cooperating very well.

We see many humans who continually make poor decisions, and believe in irrational ideas, and this all causes conflict and destruction. If this is not what the Creator wanted then it should have done a better job.

If you design a fault airplane and it breaks up in flight and kills the test pilots, you don't blame the pilots, or the plane, you blame the design for being inadequate.

I don’t see this. I do not blame worldliness on God. The code behind worldliness is God’s but what occurs there depends on how Man handles what he is faced with. Worldliness is Man’s reality; the result of his actions.

Have you ever heard the phrase "The buck stops here!"? That means the leader is ultimately responsible. You are making excuses for what god created. That would only work if God is no more perfect than the average human and couldn't force the effects of what it created.

Intention is not a requirement for cause.
Not all things with negative consequences are planned, but that does not prevent them from being a cause of something.

If your God is limited and couldn't;t force the effects of what it caused, then sure. But that suggests no one should honor or worship this God since it is out of the picture. The world seems some arbitrary creation if you want the God to be off the hook for how Creation is today.

Many feel as you do. I do not.

We atheists are not feeling that God is incompetent or a sadist, we are taking the claims you theists make, and than applying it to what we observe of reality, and making a rational conclusion that God is incompetent or a sadist.

If you feel different then it illustrates how feelings are unreliable. I suggest less feeling and more thinking.

Worldliness is not for God to evolve; Divine perfection does not need this. Worldliness is for Man.[/quote[
Just as God created. If it exists, then God created it.

Worldliness is not meant to be free from challenge, because it is the state of being in which the soul is given a chance to choose (by free will) to evolve spiritually. Man is free to choose not to attend to his spirit and waste his worldliness if he so wishes and God will not stop him because that is the spiritual challenge: Faced with all the beauty and horror of worldliness, what does Man do?*

*) The wisdom of right and wrong, received by “eating” from the “tree of knowledge”, is like an abstract equation that means nothing (to Man) and cannot be understood correctly (by Man) until it is manifested into worldliness and applied in practice.

However you want to distort all this the bottom line is the Creator could have done a better job. It either couldn't, or wouldn't.

Or Gods don't exist the way you believe.

I will here add that I was raised atheist, in a secular society and came into faith in my late 20’s/ early 30’s. I find what you say below very insightful:


To me, it is probable that this applies not only to how you approach (others’) faith but, more significantly, to how you approach your fellow Man in general.

My questions here would be:

1. Ought not the weight of a lie rest on the shoulders of the liar and if so, is not the need to judge their words and actions, si o gl and has serio transferring their burdens on our own?

It depends on what the lie is, and if it has an effect on us. Trump lying to to the nation has effects on the planet. People have died as a result of his lies. If the guy you are buying a car from lies about it and it breaks down on the way home, then that won't cascade to many people.

But I'm not sure how this is relevant to anything here, unless you're suggesting religion and irrational stories are lies, and religion can have a negative effect on society.

1. Is walking through life judging our neighbour how we wish to spend our worldliness?

What's wrong with making judgments? The dilemma with judgment is more related to how poorly a people thinks. Prejudice is poor judgment. But making reasonable judgments with some intention to improve the state of a person, the community, the world, is appropriate and what we need to do given the many, many poor judgments of those around us.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

Grief? Hatred?

I pointed out that if a creation exists, and a God is perfect and created it deliberately and with a plan, then how creation exists is EXACTLY as it wanted it to be. If creation ends up going off the rails and the humans God created start doing things it did NOT want or approve of, then we have to look at how the God designed the people. If God created mature, wise and smart humans consistently then we wouldn't have global wars, slavery, science denial, dictatorships, civil wars, tribes being exterminated, etc. We would see very stable and progressive societies cooperating very well.

We see many humans who continually make poor decisions, and believe in irrational ideas, and this all causes conflict and destruction. If this is not what the Creator wanted then it should have done a better job.

If you design a fault airplane and it breaks up in flight and kills the test pilots, you don't blame the pilots, or the plane, you blame the design for being inadequate.



Have you ever heard the phrase "The buck stops here!"? That means the leader is ultimately responsible. You are making excuses for what god created. That would only work if God is no more perfect than the average human and couldn't force the effects of what it created.



If your God is limited and couldn't;t force the effects of what it caused, then sure. But that suggests no one should honor or worship this God since it is out of the picture. The world seems some arbitrary creation if you want the God to be off the hook for how Creation is today.


We atheists are not feeling that God is incompetent or a sadist, we are taking the claims you theists make, and than applying it to what we observe of reality, and making a rational conclusion that God is incompetent or a sadist.

If you feel different then it illustrates how feelings are unreliable. I suggest less feeling and more thinking.

Haha, I think we can certainly agree on the fact that you and I will not see eye to eye about much in this world.


Humbly
Hermit

 

[pearl]

First of all, it is assumed that evil is a positive reality in the same sense that a dog, a tree, or you are a positive reality. This assumption is seen in the first premise where we claim that evil exists. The first question that we need to ask is: in what way does evil exist, and how does that
affect the argument? This means what we will need to explain what evil “is”.
The second premise is also home to a number of unexamined presuppositions: (1)goodness is a moral category, (2) to be omnipotent means to be able to do anything
–
no limits;(3) God can be defined positively
The third premise is based upon the assumption that Mackie introduces which claims that the good always seeks, in the best way possible, to eliminate evil. Furthermore, this third premise assumes that God is a moral being that can be judged based upon what he does or allows to
happen. God is, supposedly, a morally good and all-powerful being, and, so it seems to us, who
are moral creatures with some conception of what moral goodness is supposed to look like, a morally good and all powerful being would never permit evil to happen. We hold our standards of morality over God and blame Him for allowing evil to happen. It seems that any being who would allow a 6 year old boy to die from incurable cancer, when he had the power to keep that from happening, could not be morally good.
(PDF) GOD & THE PROBLEM OF EVIL | David Haines - Academia.edu

 

[F1fan]

Haha, I think we can certainly agree on the fact that you and I will not see eye to eye about much in this world.


Humbly
Hermit

There's a simplicity and advantage to discriminating how we see (understand) the world in more objective and factual ways.

 

[MonkeyFire]

God was betrayed by hatred, the devil. God created this world to satisfy the dharma in order to save warriors from samsara, and for LOVE to marry PERFECTION. The odds of this world occurring is one in infinity but we have been here forever and we are right in the middle of it.

 

[F1fan]

God was betrayed by hatred, the devil. God created this world to satisfy the dharma in order to save warriors from samsara, and for LOVE to marry PERFECTION. The odds of this world occurring is one in infinity but we have been here forever and we are right in the middle of it.

It was a big mistake for God to create the devil. Embarrassing.

 

[MonkeyFire]

It was a big mistake for God to create the devil. Embarrassing.

He didn’t create it, HATE had always been as the hunter of hell, then it rebelled for no reason and now non-believers blame God for there suffering. The best part is that it is LOVE trying to help them and KNOWLEDGE can’t help but watch them suffer, that’s what I call a fallen angel (turned prophet).

 

[F1fan]

He didn’t create it, HATE had always been as the hunter of hell, then it rebelled for no reason and now non-believers blame God for there suffering. The best part is that it is LOVE trying to help them and KNOWLEDGE can’t help but watch them suffer, that’s what I call a fallen angel (turned prophet).

I must have been thinking of some other God and devil. There are so many.

 

[MonkeyFire]

I must have been thinking of some other God and devil. There are so many.

I believe in the singular YHWH. The Bible begins with the consumption of the forbidden fruit, ends with Armageddon the final battle between good and evil, and the rest of it is the fall of man which is violence. Forgive me of my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

There's a simplicity and advantage to discriminating how we see (understand) the world in more objective and factual ways.

I’d say that there’s a simplicity and advantage for you to do so, my friend - because you have chosen to think as you do. And I respect that, so long as you respect that others may disagree with you and choose differently for themselves.

When I write, my aim is not to make you see things my way, but to describe another way by which something, sometimes is viewed.
My goal is not really to state who is “right” or “wrong” but rather to get at to why people see things differently.


Humbly
Hermit

 

[Ostronomos]

It's those damn facts and that pesky reason that leads atheists to understanding that can't grasp reality, you mean?

Explain the reality that atheists can't grasp. And be sure to use facts and reason to demonstrate to everyone that you are correct and not just making an emotional outburst.

It is not to be found in nature but the supernatural. Those who are lucky enough to be born with a genetic code that allows them to access the supernatural can attest to the claim. However, it may equally be assumed that they are born with the intelligence to channel a much needed scientific explanation to the layman. I don't possess that intelligence at the moment but other times I will.

 

[Trailblazer]

Well, I know the answer. Disasters happen because of physics and catastrophe theory. Blind mechanisms, basically, and there is no God that has power over them. Or a caring God.

look how simple everything gets.

ciao

- viole

You were half right.
Disasters happen because of physics and catastrophe theory. The God that has power over them does not cause them.

look how simple everything gets.

 

[Trailblazer]

The problem with that thinking seems to be to be this: once, cancer was pretty much a death sentence, but we mere humans have been working hard and learning more and more until, today, many formerly deadly cancers are routinely treatable. Thus, it appears that we are -- in your manner of thinking -- growing the strength to be able to thwart your God when he decides he wants to test the parents, test us. That we are, in fact, gaining control.

We not thwarting God because God does not use cancer to test people. All of life is a test because life is difficult...
We are doing exactly what God wants us to do, working hard and learning more and more so that many formerly deadly cancers are now routinely treatable.

 

[Trailblazer]

That, to me, sounds evil. To test by torture and killing is evil.

Good thing God does not do that then.

 

[F1fan]

You were half right.
Disasters happen because of physics and catastrophe theory. The God that has power over them does not cause them.

look how simple everything gets.

It's complex, confusing, and a paradox when the Creator is not responsible for what it creates.

 

[Trailblazer]

I suppose there are many different ways of looking at the question. One thing that theists bring up is that humans go to a paradise after death, which would mean that death, in and of itself, wouldn't necessarily be evil or tragic.

But this leads to a different question as to why murder would be considered sinful or evil, since it just means that someone is going to an idyllic afterlife. Death doesn't matter if it's merely a transition to paradise.

I've heard some say that this life here on Earth doesn't really mean anything, that it's our state in the afterlife that really matters. Pain is only temporary, and it supposedly makes our spirit stronger. (Imagine a reality show where the top prize is $1 billion. How much pain and humiliation would people go through for that kind of payout?)

I believe that some humans go to a paradise but evil humans go somewhere else.

Murder is wrong because it is unjust to take a person's life since this is the one and only life we have to make our spirit stronger. Earth matters a lot since it is what we do here that determines the state of our soul in the afterlife

How much pain and humiliation would people go through for that kind of payout? If you knew what I have endured then you would have the answer to your question.

 

[Trailblazer]

It's complex, confusing, and a paradox when the Creator is not responsible for what it creates.

Why would the Creator be responsible for what He creates?
If an artist creates a painting and then sells it at auction would he still be responsible for that painting?

 

[F1fan]

Why would the Creator be responsible for what He creates?

Because its THE creator. ITS responsible.

If an artist creates a painting and then sells it at auction would he still be responsible for that painting?

If the paint is made of toxic chemicals that end up harming people in the gallery and home where people are exposed to it, then yes. If the painting has a trap as part of it and it kills a person, then yes. The creator of the painting would be held accountable via the law.

 

[Trailblazer]

Because its THE creator. ITS responsible.

No, it does not work that way. God and humans are responsible for their own actions. God was responsible for creating the world but God is not responsible for what happened after that since God was out of the game after that.

Go to any court if law and tell them God is responsible for all the crimes men commit and see how far you get.
Ask any scientist of God is responsible for climate change, earthquakes, tornadoes, or hurricanes.

If the paint is made of toxic chemicals that end up harming people in the gallery and home where people are exposed to it, then yes. If the painting has a trap as part of it and it kills a person, then yes. The creator of the painting would be held accountable via the law.

If there was a defect in the painting when it was created the painter would be liable but there was no defect in humans when they were created. Nice try.