Quote from: GRIM... I'm beginning to think if the pub was as important in US culture they'd be as apathetic towards religion as we are.

Note entirely untrue ... :cool:

Quote from: HinterWelt... To me, atheism is just another belief structure....  

I have no clear idea what you mean by 'belief structure', but if you mean something like a set of beliefs then obviously atheists have such a thing.

The difference is that atheists care about whether that 'belief structure' is 'well justified' (i.e. better justified than the alternative 'belief structures').  And they do care (at least the atheists I know) , and they find that their position is indeed -- after looking at the relevant evidence and arguments  -- the most plausible one available.

Quote from: HinterWelt...
I dare say, atheists have some form of moral set and system of rationalizing actions and the world that would closely resemble the implementation of a religious person.

But that's just not true.  A religious person 'rationalizes' things (to fit with his/her faith).  An atheist (or philosopher, more genrally speaking) tries to ascertain what is rational.

There is a fundamental difference.

Quote from: AkrasiaWell, I taught a bit of Aquinas while I was labouring away at the 'Introduction to the Humanities' program at Stanford (2002-2005), and I thought that I understood what he was saying well enough.  While I'm not an expert on Aquinas (far from it!), as far as I could tell, his conception of God was pretty much the same one that the POE addresses.

Aha! We agree on something -- Aquinas is a tough read.

My complaint is that you are using Christian words imprecisely. We've already agreed that 'suffering' is too sloppy of a term. I have similar caveats with 'unnecessary suffering,' 'good Samaritanism' and 'omnijustice.' Those terms are slop. Still, the PoE can be written forcefully.

Did you know that just about every introductory text to Catholicism starts with the PoE? That's because the discord between a Good God and a fallen world is a 'selling point' for the Church. The bigger that inequality is perceived to be, the greater Christ's sacrificial atonement looms in the mind. It's the same genre as fantasizing about how painful crucifixion must be, or agonizing about how mankind is naught but "sacks of filth.' It doesn't mean that the Church is going belly up, it means that people are thinking through how thankful they are. So when Aquinas takes the PoE seriously it doesn't mean he's about to become an Atheist -- he's trying to calculate the incalculable love of our Redeemer.

QuoteFeel free to elaborate on that, if you like.

"Holy" and "evil" are the original criteria for the PoE. They're well chosen because something that is holy abhors evil by it's very nature. According to scripture, evil is an 'unbearable stench' to the thrice holy God. So by picking the criteria "evil" and "holy" you can press the issue and be backed by scripture.

When educated Christians like Aquinas speak, they use their native language to express ideas that originated in Hebrew words. The 'trap' is that unless you're familiar with that background, you end up thinking that the word 'omnipotence' means 'all powerful' and the phrase 'perfectly benign' means 'not harmful.' Assumptions that are reasonable and false.

Anyway, Aquinas puts a very fine point on the PoE. God is Simple (a unity with no parts or duplicates) and Perfect (better than anything else). By that definition, the question is not why did God create 'evil' or 'suffering' but:

Why would God create anything at all knowing that his creation must necessarily be separate from and less perfect than himself by it's very nature?

It's cool because instead of quibbling over how much suffering is necessary or defining what evil is you only have to show that something exists besides God.

QuoteWell good luck with that!  I'm sure that that approach will discover a cure for cancer in no time.

Statements like this make me wonder if you ever read Aquinas. Truth is beautiful.

Mathematicians and Physicists often claim that they were drawn to their discoveries by their ability to sense beauty. (But that could just be because we love to ape Paul Erdős :teacher: )

Quote:rolleyes:
You never did read that link I gave you to 'inductive arguments' did you?

I did and I was puzzled. Isn't it guaranteed / deductive? You seem adamant that only Atheism is well justified.
   Either God is triple-o or unnecessary suffering exists.
Unnecessary suffering exists.
Therefore God is not triple-o.
Again, my hangup is there are so many unjustified assumptions that they trump any consideration of validity, inductive or otherwise. Is that excused by being inductive?

QuoteWe should have beliefs that are well justified.  Faith, in contrast, asserts that we should believe certain propositions as true without justification (or without adequate justification).

I can understand not getting the finer points of Aquinas, but it seems to me that you are intentionally using equivocation to obscure what people of Faith mean by 'faith.'

I just have a few questions on some things you and other christian folk talk about.

Quote from: malleus arianorum... something that is holy abhors evil by it's very nature.

How do you know? What tangible thing can you point to, other than some book, that can be defined as "holy" that I can investigate to determine for myself if it truely "abhors evil"?

 

QuoteAccording to scripture, evil is an 'unbearable stench' to the thrice holy God.

What evidence do you have, outside of this "scripture", that would confirm this assertion?

QuoteSo by picking the criteria "evil" and "holy" you can press the issue and be backed by scripture.

Why should being "backed by scripture" carry any weight at all? What is there, outside of this "scripture" that would confirm it's validity? Why should this "scripture" carry more weight to me than my own capacity for thought and reason?

Quote from: malleus arianorumWhy would God create anything at all knowing that his creation must necessarily be separate from and less perfect than himself by it's very nature?

Because it's cruel... sadistic even. Perhaps bored and self-centered. What difference does this make? All I need to understand is that for some god to be "all-powerful", as I define it, and for this world to still be so fucked up, this god couldn't love me or anyone the way I define love. Or perhaps this god does love me, but isn't able to do anything about how fucked up it's creation is, revealing itself as irresponsible. Either way, why should I revere... worship even... this hypothetical entity? The world as it exists demonstrates to me that if this creator were to exist, it is in one way or another as flawed as I am, and not deserving of any more reverence or consideration as any of the rest of us.

Oh yeah... "the plan". This god has some "plan" for me, that is somehow supposed to make all the pain of life and death worthwhile. Yet even allowing for the existence of this "plan", keeping us "lesser beings" in the dark about it strikes me as cruel in and of itself. We wonder, question, and stumble in the dark. Either this god doesn't care about our confusion and despair, or can't do anything about it, in which case I'm back to where I've started.

I had a good friend who had spent all his adult life in the hell of abusing drugs and alcohol. He ended up in a rehab, and struggled with every fiber of his being to break free of this addiction. He finally succeeded, and was clean for a little bit of time when he was diagnosed with cancer, and within 6 months was dead. The sad part is, this is one of the least tragic of the many tragic stories I have personally witnessed relating to the suffering of addiction. If these tragedies are all part of "the plan", then I want no part of it.

Quote from: SigmundBecause it's cruel... sadistic even. Perhaps bored and self-centered. What difference does this make? All I need to understand is that for some god to be "all-powerful", as I define it, and for this world to still be so fucked up, this god couldn't love me or anyone the way I define love.

Do you think it's similarly irresponsible or even cruel or sadistic for a parent to bring a child into the world?

My son was born two weeks after 9/11 and my wife and I had some serious discussions about what kind of world we were bringing him into. Obviously we decided it was an ok thing to do, since we had another two years later.

Quote from: SigmundI just have a few questions on some things you and other christian folk talk about.

Why should being "backed by scripture" carry any weight at all?

It matters in this thread since we're trying to show that 'typical Monotheists' are irrational on the basis of hoisting their God by his own pitard. Relying on scripture in this context doesn't mean that you acknowledge divine inspiration, just that you acknowledge it's a  pitard that could hoist three religions in one go.

QuoteWhat is there, outside of this "scripture" that would confirm it's validity?

There's the inspirational effect it has on it's readers.
There are the miracles of Christ which continue to the present day.
The fufillment of the prophetic statements of scripture.
There's the totaly awesome track record of the Catholic Church. It's 2000 years old, faithful to it's ideals, it keeps cranking out saints who are full of joy and love. And most spectacularly, it's survived 2000 years of Catholics! :rolleyes:

QuoteWhy should this "scripture" carry more weight to me than my own capacity for thought and reason?

It shouldn't. However, you could treat scripture like any other book. Read it. Think about it. Understand it on it's own terms. If, someday, you think that scripture (or preferably the Magisterium of Catholic Church) is trustworthy you can freely choose to trust it and live by it. That free choice is called 'faith.' A person is 'faithful' when they freely choose to live in accordance with 'The Faith' instead of by their day to day whims and disincentives. It's like an oath.

QuoteHow do you know? What tangible thing can you point to, other than some book, that can be defined as "holy" that I can investigate to determine for myself if it truely "abhors evil"?

I could point to somone like Bessed Mother Therisa. She was a holy woman who abhored evil because of her holiness.

QuoteWhat evidence do you have, outside of this "scripture", that would confirm this assertion? [According to scripture, evil is an 'unbearable stench' to the thrice holy God. ]

There isn't any. Just like outside of Shakespere's writings, we can't confirm what's in Shakespere's writings. I suppose that if we lost God's writings or Shakespere's writings we might be able to piece them back together from people who have memorized them, or books and movies based on them, but if they were absolutely expunged there would be no way to find out what God or Shakespeare wrote.

Quote from: malleus arianorumThe 'trap' is that unless you're familiar with that background, you end up thinking that the word 'omnipotence' means 'all powerful' and the phrase 'perfectly benign' means 'not harmful.' Assumptions that are reasonable and false.

Well, I'm not sure what 'omnipotence' could mean other than 'all powerful'.  It's clear that Aquinas (and pretty much any Christian thinker that I'm aware of) is committed to the view that God is indeed 'all powerful'.  There are problems with the concept, obviously, and exactly what it involves can be debated (e.g. most Christians don't think that God could have selected different 'logical truths', whereas Descartes and most Muslims do think this).  As for 'benevolence', that is supposed to follow straightforwardly from God's goodness (and the fact that 'God is Love', etc.).

Quote from: malleus arianorumAnyway, Aquinas puts a very fine point on the PoE. God is Simple (a unity with no parts or duplicates) and Perfect (better than anything else). By that definition, the question is not why did God create 'evil' or 'suffering' but:

Why would God create anything at all knowing that his creation must necessarily be separate from and less perfect than himself by it's very nature?

I'm familiar with the doctrine of 'divine simplicity'.  I don't see how it any way renders the POE argument ineffective, or why the question you pose above is the only natural one that follows.  Or, more precisely, why the above question wouldn't be supplemented by a critical thinker with: 'Given that God created something other than Himself, why did He choose to create something so horribly imperfect and filled with suffering?'

For a humourous exploration of that question, I'd recommend the novel Job by Robert Heinlein.

Quote from: malleus arianorumIt's cool because instead of quibbling over how much suffering is necessary or defining what evil is you only have to show that something exists besides God.

I have no idea why that would follow from what you've stated earlier.

Quote from: malleus arianorumMathematicians and Physicists often claim that they were drawn to their discoveries by their ability to sense beauty

Well, beauty aside, only 7 percent of leading scientists believe in a 'personal god':
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/sci_relig.htm

Quote from: malleus arianorumI did and I was puzzled. Isn't it guaranteed / deductive? You seem adamant that only Atheism is well justified.

I do think that atheism is 'well justified' -- or certainly far better justified than any alternative view.   (However, even if I only thought that it was slightly more likely that atheism was true than theism, a belief in atheism would still be comparatively justified.)

Inductive arguments are fundamentally different than deductive arguments.  Inductive arguments can be strong or weak, depending on the available evidence.  But even an extremely strong inductive argument – e.g. all the available evidence that we have in support of the proposition 'the earth is round' – can still be potentially false (as extraordinarily unlikely as that is).  A valid deductive argument, in contrast, is one in which the conclusion must be true if its premises are true, and a sound deductive argument is a valid deductive argument in which the premises are in fact true.  (The relation between the two kinds of arguments is tricky, since pretty much all of our beliefs about the external world are ultimately inductive in nature, but for the purposes of most deductive arguments we can simply assume that a premise about the external world that is very likely to be true simply is true.)

The POE argument can be formulated as either a deductive argument or an inductive one, as explained here:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/

For a discussion of one inductive version of the POE argument, check out:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/evil-evi.htm

Quote from: malleus arianorumI can understand not getting the finer points of Aquinas, but it seems to me that you are intentionally using equivocation to obscure what people of Faith mean by 'faith.'

For Aquinas, we can know things (including things about God) through both reason and revelation.  Things we can know through reason alone include the fact that there is a God (a perfect being).  However, we can only know that God is the Christian God by means of revelation.  By definition, things we can 'know' by revelation are things that we should believe in it, but for which we cannot provide a rational justification (although they must be compatible with reason).  

So faith concerns things beyond the scope of rational justification.  This doesn't seem like a controversial view about faith.  Moreover, it doesn't rule out the possibility that one might instead decide to conform one's beliefs to what reason can justify (and hold those beliefs as strongly as the available justifications), and refrain from believing anything on the basis of 'faith' (as the atheist endeavours to do).

Quote from: John MorrowDo you think it's similarly irresponsible or even cruel or sadistic for a parent to bring a child into the world?

On one level, yes I do. The caveat is that procreation is a nigh irresistable compulsion that is hardwired into our systems. Since neither I nor anyone I've ever met were consulted in the design process, I'm able to forgive us this myself. Others may not be so magnanimous, that's not my business.

Quote from: malleus arianorumIt matters in this thread since we're trying to show that 'typical Monotheists' are irrational on the basis of hoisting their God by his own pitard. Relying on scripture in this context doesn't mean that you acknowledge divine inspiration, just that you acknowledge it's a  pitard that could hoist three religions in one go.

Acknowledging that it's a "pitard" doesn't seem to me to have anything to do with whether or not to give it weight. You seem to be holding the bible up as proof of the divine, as many christians do, when in fact it is nothing of the kind.

QuoteThere's the inspirational effect it has on it's readers.
There are the miracles of Christ which continue to the present day.
The fufillment of the prophetic statements of scripture.
There's the totaly awesome track record of the Catholic Church. It's 2000 years old, faithful to it's ideals, it keeps cranking out saints who are full of joy and love. And most spectacularly, it's survived 2000 years of Catholics! :rolleyes:

Chicken Soup for the Soul, Message in a Bottle, Lord of the Rings, Forrest Gump, Cars... all these and more have inspirational effects on people. This in and of itself does not make the media in any way "true". Just inspirational.

Where can I find documented proof of a "miracle of christ"? What evidence can I view that reasonably confirms that any "miracle" indeed originates from christ? What makes these "prophetic statements of scripture" any less vague, more valid, or more authentic than the prophecies of any other religions/prophets?

Why does the 2000 years of the christian church carry more weight than the even longer histories of other religions? Why does longevity have any bearing at all? War, crime, prostitution, tyranny... these all have been around far longer than 2000 years. Why would the institutions that create and support these not be even more important and deserving of veneration if longevity is to be a measuring stick of value?

 

QuoteIt shouldn't. However, you could treat scripture like any other book. Read it. Think about it. Understand it on it's own terms. If, someday, you think that scripture (or preferably the Magisterium of Catholic Church) is trustworthy you can freely choose to trust it and live by it. That free choice is called 'faith.' A person is 'faithful' when they freely choose to live in accordance with 'The Faith' instead of by their day to day whims and disincentives. It's like an oath.

I have read the christian bible. Not cover to cover mind you, but I have 3 different versions along with my other religious books and I have read through them all. So far, I have never seen more value to any of the copies I have than as story books that also teach people how to be nice. Kinda like fairy tales do.

 

QuoteI could point to somone like Bessed Mother Therisa. She was a holy woman who abhored evil because of her holiness.

How can I know she was "holy"? I do not dispute that she was very kind, compassionate, and helpful. Is this all it takes to be "holy"? Does that mean Ty Pennington and the Extreme Home Makeover crew are "holy" too?

 

QuoteThere isn't any. Just like outside of Shakespere's writings, we can't confirm what's in Shakespere's writings. I suppose that if we lost God's writings or Shakespere's writings we might be able to piece them back together from people who have memorized them, or books and movies based on them, but if they were absolutely expunged there would be no way to find out what God or Shakespeare wrote.

Since Shakespeare wrote fiction, why is his work in any way relevant to this discussion? The Bard is no more relevant than Stephen King, Tolkien, or Danielle Steel. With the Bard's works, whether Shakespeare himself actually wrote them doesn't really matter. The bible, however, is presented as being written (through "divine inspiration") by god itself. Since this would make a big difference on how valid it is, I am going to require a little more than just the work itself as confirmation of this idea's validity before I just swalllow it hook, line and sinker. Otherwise, I could write a "bible" too and contend that it was divinely inspired and who could prove me wrong? There's nothing to convince me to believe that the authors of the bible were writing anything but common stories. In fact, based on other sources I have checked out that are apparently from the same time period there is plenty of evidence to support the belief that the bible as currently presented is at best incomplete and at worst in large part a deliberate deception.

Holy fuck, people.  Do any of you actually play RPGs or have you just decided to jack off here instead of in the bathroom?

Quote from: SigmundOn one level, yes I do. The caveat is that procreation is a nigh irresistable compulsion that is hardwired into our systems. Since neither I nor anyone I've ever met were consulted in the design process, I'm able to forgive us this myself. Others may not be so magnanimous, that's not my business.

We live in an age where reproduction is fairly well understood and can be stopped through fairly basic sterilization procedures.  Do you think that any adult that understands this yet fails to act on it is irresponsible, cruel, and even sadistic?  And if every adult did act on it, do you think that would be a good thing?  Forget blaming people for it.  Do you think the world would be better off if no human beings reproduced?

I think it would be a vastly better place if fewer people reproduced.

Quote from: James McMurrayI think it would be a vastly better place if fewer people reproduced.

And who are the people who shouldn't be reproducing?