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Special Pleading and the Problem of Evil
- Thread starter Meow Mix
- Start date
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
It is not a claim, it is a belief.
No, I don't need to demonstrate anything because these are all beliefs and beliefs cannot be demonstrated.
If they could be demonstrated they would be facts, not beliefs. I never claimed my beliefs are facts.
Are you suggesting God has limitations? If so then it isn't omnipotent.
Because it is cruel and would be a crime if some person caused this kind of disease on children.
The question is WHY did God create a world with these diseases at all? Do you think it would be good if you got diagnoses with bone cancer tomorrow? Look up the pain involved with this type of cancer, and explain how it isn't bad.
Since the only God we are dealing with is the one that you are claiming exists, I would say Meow Mix knows vastly more than God. She indicates that painful diseases are bad. I'll bet if she was the creator all these nasty diseases would not be part of any human experience. And that would be a vastly improved creation.
Now if you can explain why all these diseases are actually good (according to God) then I will adjust my conclusion and moral outlook.
I think you are being deliberately argumentative at this point. You posted definitions that describe your behavior, yet you deny it's accurate.
Then there is no rational reason to believe them. Thanks for your confession.
Facts support beliefs, and claims of those beliefs. You made strong claims as if they were factual, yet now you admit you can't show they are factual, or even reasonable. That is dishonest debating. You just state your beliefs as if they trump the views and questions of others, and then can't even show how your rebuttal is true.
This isn't humility. This is arrogance.
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For context, this question is response to what I said here:
Meow Mix said:
This argument follows if God is omnipotent and omniscient. If you're saying God is not omnipotent or omniscient, then none of this argument is directed at you. So, I need to be clear on what you're asking here.
If you're asserting that an omnipotent and omniscient being would not know the consequences of what creating biology, chemistry, and physics in a certain way would entail, then I would submit that you don't understand what omnipotence or omniscience are. An omnipotent being would be able to create any physics/chemistry/biology and be able to know exactly what the consequences of that choice would be (such as eventually making leukemia possible). That is by definition of what omnipotence and omniscience are.
If you're saying that it's uncertain whether or not God is omnipotent and/or omniscient, then again, the Problem of Evil only applies given those premises. So if you don't believe God is omnipotent or omniscient, then the argument does not apply to you in the first place.
Trailblazer said:
One of the premises of the Problem of Evil is also that God is omnibenevolent, meaning at least that God is never malevolent. Causing suffering is malevolent when there is a way to achieve desired results without suffering. The amount of suffering of the world lends evidence against any creator's omnibenevolence (or omnipotence, or omniscience, or all three).
No. This is what I had said for context:
Meow Mix said:
Notice my statement was termed conditionally, with if/then statements. I did not say "God is not concerned with human suffering." I said, if so, then this; if not, then this other thing.
Trailblazer said:
I have said that the existence of unexplained suffering is evidence of malevolence. It is reasonable to see tortuous suffering that God is culpable for, to not have a good explanation for it, to note that it could have been otherwise, and to count this as evidence of malevolence. That is reasonable.
What's not reasonable is to fall into an epistemic trap whereby God is exonerated of any culpability no matter what God does because an appeal to the unknown is made ("maybe there's an unknowable reason for it"). That is covered in the OP pretty succinctly. Positions that are literally impossible to be reasoned out of are not reasonable, and that is why special pleading is fallacious.
Trailblazer said:
If you submit that a child suffering horribly and then dying before they can learn anything from it is "beneficial," I think the onus is on you to explain how.
With this kind of "reasoning" anyone can argue anything: maybe up is down because of some unknowable reason. Maybe black is white because of some unknowable reason. Maybe if I shoot my neighbor in cold blood and refuse to give a reason to the judge that I still have some secret unknowable reason. This kind of "reasoning" gets nowhere, and "justifies" anything (which is to say that it justifies nothing).
Trailblazer said:
Trailblazer said:
If the argument here is that suffering is necessary to become a good person, I don't buy it. There are good people that have suffered very little in life. There are absolutely horrible people that have suffered quite a lot in life. Sometimes horrible people are horrible because they have suffered in life (people that perpetuate abuse for instance).
Besides, physical suffering could not exist and people could still go through crucibles that make them better people: for instance, if someone is a jerk and they lose all their friends, they have probably learned not to be a jerk. The existence of physical suffering is not necessary.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I never said that.
a) God did not cause it, and
b) God is not a person (fallacy of false equivalence)
I don't know, you will have to ask God why He created a world that is a storehouse of suffering. There must be a purpose or suffering.
I am not the judge of what is good and bad, all I can say is that it would be painful. Do you really think that cancer is the only painful disease or condition? Do you think that only physical pain matters? Do you think that clinical depression is a walk in the park? Who commits the most suicides, those with cancer or those with clinical depression?
Believe that if you want to but it is totally illogical because she has no way to know about God so she believes in the god she imagines, an imaginary god. By contrast, I have scriptures of more than one religion behind me so I believe in the one true God of all the religions.
You and Meow Mix can believe in the god you want, I prefer to believe in the God that exists. One of them has the keys to heaven, the other one has nothing at all, since it does not exist, except in your imagination.
God did not create any diseases. All He did was create a world in which they and many other things can develop.
Take away the physical creation and you will take away the possibility for physical pain.
That will come soon enough, in the spiritual realm of existence. However, there might be mental anguish there because the soul (mind) lives on, so what you take with you will stay with you. If you hate God that is the worst possible scenario, and the one unforgivable sin, according to Jesus.
I can't do that because I don't have a direct line to God so I guess you will have to retain your position.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
They have been demonstrated to me so that is my rational reason for believing them. YMMV.
I have facts about the Baha'i Faith that support my beliefs. I have told you what they are more than once. I even posted links to where you can research the facts.
I just present my beliefs when asked. There is no "as if" except in your mind.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
"The Problem of Evil"
I listened to this from an atheist on another forum for six years and I don't intend to listen to it here.Everything is God's fault, God should have done it differently, God is malevolent, etc. That man is no longer on this side of the great divide and I often wonder what his afterlife is like. For six years almost daily I tried to help him but his arrogance would not allow it. Six years and he never admitted he was wrong even once. He never wanted the truth, he only cared about being right. It's too late for him to change his mind now as there is no free will in the afterlife.
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Evil is caused by humans who do not obey God's Laws.
“God hath in that Book, and by His behest, decreed as lawful whatsoever He hath pleased to decree, and hath, through the power of His sovereign might, forbidden whatsoever He elected to forbid. To this testifieth the text of that Book. Will ye not bear witness? Men, however, have wittingly broken His law. Is such a behavior to be attributed to God, or to their proper selves? Be fair in your judgment. Every good thing is of God, and every evil thing is from yourselves. Will ye not comprehend? This same truth hath been revealed in all the Scriptures, if ye be of them that understand.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 149-150
God does not cause suffering and is under no obligation to prevent it just because some childish atheists cannot just accept the world as it is, i.e, reality.
Believe whatever you want to about God. You are obviously dead set on it. You cannot hurt me because I am under God's protection, and obviously you cannot hurt an omnipotent God. The only person you hurt is yourself if you hate God. I know that all too well because I hated God for 10 years.
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Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I don't care what you said. I only care about what God says through His Messengers.
I already explained why there is suffering in two different posts so it is not "unexplained."
I never said one could not be a 'good person' whatever you think that is unless one suffers, but as my quotes said suffering makes one grow stronger. There is so much proof of this from people who have actually suffered so you cannot deny it unless you call them liars.
Believe whatever you want to but please stop trying to convince me because I already have a belief.
This is toxic for me so I should have never engaged in it at all.
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firedragon
Veteran Member
I was referring to your association of God with our personal wishes. No worries.
See, you are still making God a human you. I mean you are making him you and all about your emotions. Its not a bad thing, but its not logical. What I am trying to explain is that you are coming up with options like Toy World or something which is good for you and in your perception to all. But you are only giving God one option for himself. Either there is no suffering at all, or he is some kind of weird dumbo or "non-existent". No other options that God maybe having which you dont know? After all, again I say, it was you who said that being omnipotent he should be like this or that? But no, being omnipotent means he also knows better than you.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Arrogance is believing you know more than God.
Alrighty then, thanks for the discussion.
You keep saying this about facts about the world your God created. And you insist the God has full awareness of what it created. That means it knows genetic diseases are part of what it created. I know you're trying to excuse God by asserting the mechanisms of evolution caused it, but God created evolution and knew what it would do.
God IS THE cause.
You refer to God as "he" while I refer to it as "it". Your idea of God is a male, which implies it has a penis. I'm just referring to it as whatever it might be assuming it exists.
So you not denying that God created a world with disease. And you admit God created a lot of suffering. Yet you insist it didn't cause disease to exist?
Of course you are a judge. You're just not a God. You get to experience pain and understand it's not good. All people with normal functioning brains can understand that pain and suffering is not good. The only reference where causing pain and suffering as if it is good is from the minds of sociopaths.
There is no "one true God of all religions". What you say here is what I meant when I wrote that we are dealing with the God you imagine and decided exists. We have no facts. No data. No coherent argument that will compel a rational mind you are correct. Whatever any other arbitrary person imagines a God is is equal to your idea of God.
We are giving you the opportunity to claim what God is and how your judgment is reasonable.
Yet you only believe it exists, you don't know it exists.
One thinks they have the keys of heaven because they believe the claims of others. The other two reject these ideas because they lack evidence and plausibility. So two have freedom, while the other is imprisoned by dogma.
Like building a bridge that is known to collapse. It wasn't the designer, it was the gravity, right?
Problem is the designer knows about gravity just as god knows about evolution. The bridge designer knows gravity will destroy the bridge just as God knows evolution will result in genetic diseases. The designer could have avoided the collapse with a better design just as God could have designed evolution to not create deadly mutations.
I'm not convinced this is true, nor factual. Why do you claim this?
Sorry, a mind is a set of functions that living brains perform. these functions cease when brains die. So this claim is not factual and untrue. And soul means nothing definitive.
I don't hate things not known to exist. And jesus is not likely an actual person of history as the myth describes, so not factual or relevant.
Then you shouldn't presume God is good given so much pain and suffering that exists in the world it created. The evidence suggests that if a God exists the way you imagine it it's either incompetent or a sociopath.
Rather presuming that a God exists with superior knowledge to a human known to exist and can speak for himself.
Not quite what's being said.
What's being said is that there is an inconsistency with the possibility that all of the following premises are true:
1) God is omnipotent
2) God is omniscient
3) God is omnibenevolent
4) Suffering exists in the actual world that could have otherwise been prevented
Nothing about this argument is saying God must be omnibenevolent. Nothing about the argument is saying God is any of these premises. The argument is just that if the premises are believed by someone to be true, then there is a problem in that when taken together, there is inconsistency between them.
So I am not saying God must be omnibenevolent. I am not. I am not saying God should be omnibenevolent. This is just an argument that shows a certain group of premises has problems if all of them are believed at the same time, that's all.
So, perhaps God is not omnibenevolent (that is an option). It would just mean that the Problem of Evil does not apply; the argument goes away. The argument also doesn't apply if any one of the premises are not believed to be true. This argument only works against people that believe all of the premises are true.
This is a really simplistic comparison, but consider this argument: "Tom being a married bachelor is impossible."
This only works if the premises "Tom is married" and "Tom is a bachelor" are both believed at the same time. If someone doesn't believe both premises at the same time, the argument doesn't apply; and Tom might be either married or a bachelor as far as we know. All we're saying is that Tom can't be both.
Likewise, the Problem of Evil is just saying all of those premises can't be true. Any of them might be true, but the argument is just that all of them can't be.
I know that was repetitive, but I'm trying to make it very clear that I'm not making an emotional argument saying that God needs to be this way or that way that I personally like. I'm saying there is a contradiction if certain premises are held by someone to be true at the same time. The rest of the argument just explains why there is a problem with all of the premises being held to be true at the same time.
If the problem for some people is the word "omnibenevolence" or "benevolence," then we can even just rephrase the premises:
There is a problem if the following premises are all held to be true:
1) God is able to actualize any logically possible states of affairs
2) God knows the consequences of actualizing any given state of affairs
3) God is concerned with human suffering and would minimize it if possible while allowing free will
4) There is abundant suffering observed in the actual world
It still takes some teasing out, but the argument is still there. The terms aren't as important as the concepts. We can avoid words that cause misunderstandings if we desire.
There is a problem if the following premises are all held to be true:
1) God is able to actualize any logically possible states of affairs
2) God knows the consequences of actualizing any given state of affairs
3) God is concerned with human suffering and would minimize it if possible while allowing free will
4) There is abundant suffering observed in the actual world
It still takes some teasing out, but the argument is still there. The terms aren't as important as the concepts. We can avoid words that cause misunderstandings if we desire.
firedragon
Veteran Member
I know your argument. See, your argument, for the sake of argument presupposes God is omnipotent methodologically. You are using that as a premise.
1. So with that being an ontology, dont you think that God transcends human emotion?
2. You are making an emotional case, which is your ontology for this argument. Dont you see its a logical fallacy to mix two ontologies to contradict one?
syo
Well-Known Member
So, the question is ''why diseases exist''?
Can you be more explicit by what you mean by God transcending human emotion?
The case is not emotional, it is about a logical contradiction. An emotional appeal would be about what God should do. This is not that. This is saying that there is a contradiction entailed between saying God has these premises and the observation that there is significant suffering in the world that did not have to exist given the same premises. The conclusion is that it must therefore exist on purpose (given the first two premises), which casts the third premise into doubt. That's not an emotional appeal. So I don't know why you keep saying this.
Going back to the simple example: saying that Tom can't both be married and be a bachelor at the same time is not an appeal that Tom should be married or should be a bachelor. It is sheerly about the logic.