Special Pleading and the Problem of Evil

[viole]

I don't believe every death is a punishment. I don't know the reasons to disasters from the religious point of view unless Allah mentioned it somewhere as is the case with Pharao and Lut, for instance.

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

 

[Meow Mix]

Spoiler: Caution: Mischief lurks within

Define evil.
Doctor Pangloss has eviscerated all attempts at this.
We must be rigorous, ya know.

It’s only fair. The answer is thus though: the Problem of Evil is just an unfortunate historical name for a class of paradoxes. I have used the original name for brevity and for name-recognition sake.

It works perfectly fine if put in terms of suffering rather than evil, which is a matter of introspection rather than defining a nebulous moral state. ^.^

 

[Revoltingest]

It’s only fair. The answer is thus though: the Problem of Evil is just an unfortunate historical name for a class of paradoxes. I have used the original name for brevity and for name-recognition sake.

It works perfectly fine if put in terms of suffering rather than evil, which is a matter of introspection rather than defining a nebulous moral state. ^.^

I added a video in that spoiler.
In it, Dr Pangloss explains how there is
no evil in this best of all possible worlds.

 

[Shakeel]

Does this use of children's pain to "put us in our place" seem good to you?

If it put you in your place you'd know it. Clearly it hasn't. Children's pain to test us? No problem. We all suffer. As children or as adults.

Your moral compass registers this as good?

My moral compass is Islam. We don't say it's good a child is ill, but we accept it is God's will and only God can cure him and if he dies it was God's will and we say, all praise and thanks belongs to God.

Why do theists keep on concentrating on the parents, and the ordeal they have to go through, and how spiritually and deep that tragedy can influence them, and forger the child?

Because a small child is often not very aware of religious matters and a lot of people assume children go to heaven (I don't know if that's true) while the parents might not.

What need does an omnipotent, omniscient being have for a test? Why does a sign to mankind that "you are not in control" have to be as traumatic as child leukemia?

Again, considering you haven't accepted the sign, it absurd of you to claim it too dramatic. Why God created us other than to worship Him, I don't know, but I'm happy to be here, aren't you?

 

[Meow Mix]

I added a video in that spoiler.
In it, Dr Pangloss explains how there is
no evil in this best of all possible worlds.

The video isn’t showing up for me, can you repost it?

 

[Revoltingest]

The video isn’t showing up for me, can you repost it?

I'll also add proof that even sexual subjugation has its positive side.

I like Barbara Cook in this role, but it's clear that
Voltaire wrote Candide with Chenowith in mind.

 

[Meow Mix]

I'll also add proof that even sexual subjugation has its positive side.

I like Barbara Cook in this role, but it's clear that
Voltaire wrote Candide with Chenowith in mind.

I’m going to need you to philosophize in musical form more often

 

[an anarchist]

Allright.
Now, volcanoes and asteroids were destroying life long before humans could accumulate negative karma. Which is a mechanism I would like to know more about, anyway. Prima facie, it looks just like yet another made up rationalization. But I might be too superficial. How does it work? Like the points we accumulate when we buy in our preferred supermarket?

Anyway, isn.t much more parsimonious to postulate that volcanoes simply explode every now and then, and that is incidental what form of lives live in their neighborhood at the time? And that God simply does not care?

ciao

- viole

Well for me, I’m a young earth creationist. So it fits into my believed narrative that mankind existed before any natural calamities, and Adam/Eve’s negative karma is what jumpstarted any natural calamities in the first place.
I believe that the Earth has a conscious spirit, like Mother Nature. I believe it can consciously and intelligently retaliate against the species of mankind. From a Taoist view, this is the natural conclusion when the pure yin (earth) has been fully corrupted by false yang (human immorality). It is by filling yin with pure yang (a Godly spirit) that natural disasters would be avoided. I think

 

[Meow Mix]

If it put you in your place you'd know it. Clearly it hasn't. Children's pain to test us? No problem. We all suffer. As children or as adults.

I was curious if you thought the use of childrens’ pain as some kind of lesson was good, but nevermind. That was more of a personal curiosity than relates to the argument.

Again, considering you haven't accepted the sign, it absurd of you to claim it too dramatic. Why God created us other than to worship Him, I don't know, but I'm happy to be here, aren't you?

I’m not sure what you’re saying here. I asked why a sign Allah is in control would have to be as traumatic as child leukemia. You say it is absurd for me to claim it’s “dramatic” (I assume you meant traumatic since that’s what I said, but don’t want to put words in your mouth). Why can’t I see leukemia and find it extreme, find it traumatic? Why would that be absurd?

Why would a being create things just to worship itself? That sounds like a megalomaniac, not a benevolent being. That is perhaps off topic though.

The topic is this: it’s possible for an omnipotent and omniscient being to make “points” without causing unspeakable suffering. So why does such suffering exist unless the being in question simply isn’t benevolent?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

This life is a test. If it was perfect, it would be no test.

You fail to comprehend that theists believe in God. When someone believes in God and a message He sent, they don't need to understand everything.

God has told us about the day of judgment and what would happen and why so the confusion of the individual in your story can only be because he has no idea about those things and his punishment can be only due to his own sins.

A child's cancer is a test. It is a test to the parents. It is a sign to mankind that should remind you that you are not in control. That despite all your knowledge, you just can't cure cancer unless God wills it. We are inherently weak, needy and ignorant. Your child dying slowly of cancer in the hands of the world's best doctors should make you think a little.

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.

 

[Polymath257]

This life is a test. If it was perfect, it would be no test.

You fail to comprehend that theists believe in God. When someone believes in God and a message He sent, they don't need to understand everything.

God has told us about the day of judgment and what would happen and why so the confusion of the individual in your story can only be because he has no idea about those things and his punishment can be only due to his own sins.

A child's cancer is a test. It is a test to the parents. It is a sign to mankind that should remind you that you are not in control. That despite all your knowledge, you just can't cure cancer unless God wills it. We are inherently weak, needy and ignorant. Your child dying slowly of cancer in the hands of the world's best doctors should make you think a little.

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

 

[Stevicus]

Today I'd like to address a particular response often given to the Problem of Evil: that God has a good reason for allowing evil to occur, even if we're don't know what that reason is. This theodicy usually looks something like this:



This is a form of special pleading: normally when we see someone allowing suffering, we conclude that they're malevolent or at least criminally negligent. But in the case is God, a special case is made appealing to the fact that God is powerful and knowledgeable; so we can't conclude that God allowing the suffering is malevolent.

There are two objections to note here. One comes in the form of a parody:

Say that an extraterrestrial lands on planet earth and blasts a bunch of people seemingly at random with a ray gun. Inexplicably, the extraterrestrial agrees to stand trial for its actions. "I am immensely more powerful and more intelligent than you are," ET says to the judge and to the people of Earth. "You cannot say that my actions were malevolent. I have benevolent reasons for them that you couldn't possibly understand."

Intuitively, is it the case that we are incapable of arriving to the conclusion that what ET did is malevolent in a reasonable fashion? They may be more powerful and more intelligent than humans, but it seems to me as though we are still behaving reasonably by concluding the actions were malevolent in the complete absence of any evidence they were benevolent. Do you agree?

The second objection is the consequence of allowing special pleading. Special pleading is a fallacy for a reason.

Let's say that our theodicist from the earlier conversation dies, and finds themselves in a throne room before God. God gets off His throne, whips out a holy flanged mace, and begins to mercilessly beat the everloving snot out of the theodicist.

"It's okay," the theodicist might think. "This is God, God is smarter and more powerful than me. I may not understand it, but God has a good, benevolent reason for doing this."

A day passes of beatings. A week. A month. "God must have a good reason for this," the theodicist continues to think. A year goes by. A decade. Millennia. Eons.

Is there ever a point where the theodicist can break out of their special pleading argument? Is there ever a stopping point where they may admit, "ok, maybe God is just malevolent?" No -- they can continue their special pleading argument infinitely. Can you see why that's a problem?

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?)

 

[Ostronomos]

Today I'd like to address a particular response often given to the Problem of Evil: that God has a good reason for allowing evil to occur, even if we're don't know what that reason is. This theodicy usually looks something like this:



This is a form of special pleading: normally when we see someone allowing suffering, we conclude that they're malevolent or at least criminally negligent. But in the case is God, a special case is made appealing to the fact that God is powerful and knowledgeable; so we can't conclude that God allowing the suffering is malevolent.

There are two objections to note here. One comes in the form of a parody:

Say that an extraterrestrial lands on planet earth and blasts a bunch of people seemingly at random with a ray gun. Inexplicably, the extraterrestrial agrees to stand trial for its actions. "I am immensely more powerful and more intelligent than you are," ET says to the judge and to the people of Earth. "You cannot say that my actions were malevolent. I have benevolent reasons for them that you couldn't possibly understand."

Intuitively, is it the case that we are incapable of arriving to the conclusion that what ET did is malevolent in a reasonable fashion? They may be more powerful and more intelligent than humans, but it seems to me as though we are still behaving reasonably by concluding the actions were malevolent in the complete absence of any evidence they were benevolent. Do you agree?

The second objection is the consequence of allowing special pleading. Special pleading is a fallacy for a reason.

Let's say that our theodicist from the earlier conversation dies, and finds themselves in a throne room before God. God gets off His throne, whips out a holy flanged mace, and begins to mercilessly beat the everloving snot out of the theodicist.

"It's okay," the theodicist might think. "This is God, God is smarter and more powerful than me. I may not understand it, but God has a good, benevolent reason for doing this."

A day passes of beatings. A week. A month. "God must have a good reason for this," the theodicist continues to think. A year goes by. A decade. Millennia. Eons.

Is there ever a point where the theodicist can break out of their special pleading argument? Is there ever a stopping point where they may admit, "ok, maybe God is just malevolent?" No -- they can continue their special pleading argument infinitely. Can you see why that's a problem?

Your caricature of God and examples of the phenomenon of evil are certainly eye-opening and indisputable evidence that there MUST be no God behind the material universe. NOT!

What those who believe they can dispute God in a few simple paragraphs or even a website fail to realize is that they are ignorant of the phenomenon they give examples of and because of that, it is inconceivable to them. Fools dismiss things they don't understand in a few words and if they wish to construct a world of lies they do it in more than a few.

Your failure to even remotely formulate a convincing argument that there is no supernatural dimension is a joke. But thanks anyways.

 

[blü 2]

I have a different theory on how God could claim benevolence whilst their is evil in the world. The cause of all human suffering is negative karma

What definition of 'negative karma' are you using?

How is "negative karma" a cause of anything?

I live in a first world country. People dying here of cancer just like any other country. I believe that I, and my fellow countrymen, are directly responsible for these children’s cancer.

Are you? Do you intend to turn yourself in to the police?

 

[blü 2]

Today I'd like to address a particular response often given to the Problem of Evil: that God has a good reason for allowing evil to occur, even if we're don't know what that reason is. This theodicy usually looks something like this:



This is a form of special pleading: normally when we see someone allowing suffering, we conclude that they're malevolent or at least criminally negligent. But in the case is God, a special case is made appealing to the fact that God is powerful and knowledgeable; so we can't conclude that God allowing the suffering is malevolent.

There are two objections to note here. One comes in the form of a parody:

Say that an extraterrestrial lands on planet earth and blasts a bunch of people seemingly at random with a ray gun. Inexplicably, the extraterrestrial agrees to stand trial for its actions. "I am immensely more powerful and more intelligent than you are," ET says to the judge and to the people of Earth. "You cannot say that my actions were malevolent. I have benevolent reasons for them that you couldn't possibly understand."

Intuitively, is it the case that we are incapable of arriving to the conclusion that what ET did is malevolent in a reasonable fashion? They may be more powerful and more intelligent than humans, but it seems to me as though we are still behaving reasonably by concluding the actions were malevolent in the complete absence of any evidence they were benevolent. Do you agree?[/quot]

The second objection is the consequence of allowing special pleading. Special pleading is a fallacy for a reason.

Let's say that our theodicist from the earlier conversation dies, and finds themselves in a throne room before God. God gets off His throne, whips out a holy flanged mace, and begins to mercilessly beat the everloving snot out of the theodicist.

"It's okay," the theodicist might think. "This is God, God is smarter and more powerful than me. I may not understand it, but God has a good, benevolent reason for doing this."

A day passes of beatings. A week. A month. "God must have a good reason for this," the theodicist continues to think. A year goes by. A decade. Millennia. Eons.

Is there ever a point where the theodicist can break out of their special pleading argument? Is there ever a stopping point where they may admit, "ok, maybe God is just malevolent?" No -- they can continue their special pleading argument infinitely. Can you see why that's a problem?

The well-known argument attributed to Epicurus addressed the same point. It can be put in this form ─

Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.

Is god both able and willing?
Then where does evil come from?

Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him god?​

 

[viole]

Because a small child is often not very aware of religious matters and a lot of people assume children go to heaven (I don't know if that's true) while the parents might not.

Yet, she is the one dying in pain. After only a few glimpses into life.

Anyone doing tests using the lives of innocents is a monster. Period. His only excuse is, if any, is to not exist.

do you really believe in such a being as the standard of objective morality, for you, and everyone else?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Ostronomos]

Objective morality is real.

 

[George-ananda]

Today I'd like to address a particular response often given to the Problem of Evil: that God has a good reason for allowing evil to occur, even if we're don't know what that reason is.

Good job on the OP Meow. There is paradoxes you can create with the traditional Abrahamic God concept.

Allow me to present my thoughts on the 'Problem of Evil' from my Eastern Hindu advaita (non-dual=God and creation are not-two) perspective.


Problem of Evil proponents look at good/bad events as happening randomly to people. Eastern thinkers believe a long series of causes/events (karma) causes things to be the way they are.


I look at life from the perspective that life is eternal and we are in the process of learning that. We live as individuals for eons and not one life. We all return to godhead in the end. If one could see one's life from separation from godhead through the eons to return to godhead then things and temporary sufferings make more sense. What we see as evil are very short temporary events in the grand scheme of things where each individual story ends in success; return to peace/bliss/awareness of godhead.


Plus, I also use the analogy of creation as some grand expansive multi-dimensional artwork. And human problem of evil proponents view from their little speck and dimensional perspective of the artwork and try to judge the entire artwork. Their view is too limited to be meaningful.



I think to understand the answer to the 'Problem of Evil' we need to start thinking in more eastern ways.


1) That we live for eons in a soul developing process; not one body's duration. In that perspective any suffering in one life is short and temporary in this grander view. And even an unfortunate life and death has lessons for that soul and for those seeing and interacting with the unfortunate life.


2) That such things are not as random as they appear. There is chain of cause and effect through time we can not see.


3) That those currently living an unfortunate life will have victory 'enlightenment' at the end of the challenges.


4) That it is God at the core of everything and it is He who experiences the temporary good and bad fortunes. It is ultimately not Him imposing it on other separate beings. It is His play/drama where He separates Himself from Himself and returns Himself to Himself but this play ends with a happy ending for all. In any great play/drama there is always drama/suffering in the middle.

 

[Kooky]

4) That it is God at the core of everything and it is He who experiences the temporary good and bad fortunes. It is ultimately not Him imposing it on other separate beings. It is His play/drama where He separates Himself from Himself and returns Himself to Himself but this play ends with a happy ending for all. In any great play/drama there is always drama/suffering in the middle.

That is the same argument, only structured in a different manner. "It'll all make sense in the end", when we don't actually know how, or if, this ever ends, is just another form of the special pleading outlined by Meow Mix in her original post.

Arguably, "enlightenment" may well consist of recognizing the wheel of existence as a bum deal and trying to escape it completely.

 

[Shakeel]

I was curious if you thought the use of childrens’ pain as some kind of lesson was good, but nevermind.

Had I said yes, it would sound heartless and we don't think of punishment so much as good but rather as necessary. Had I said no, I would be saying God has done something bad which is impossible. So it is perfectly clear why you didn't receive a simple answer.

I’m not sure what you’re saying here. I asked why a sign Allah is in control would have to be as traumatic as child leukemia. You say it is absurd for me to claim it’s “dramatic” (I assume you meant traumatic since that’s what I said, but don’t want to put words in your mouth). Why can’t I see leukemia and find it extreme, find it traumatic? Why would that be absurd?

No, I meant dramatic. You claim a softer sign would be enough, something less harsh and even with the harshest of signs, you don't believe. Then how can you claim less is enough?

The topic is this: it’s possible for an omnipotent and omniscient being to make “points” without causing unspeakable suffering. So why does such suffering exist unless the b

What kind of points would you like? We receive what is best for us. God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows what we can handle and what moves us.