Quote from: JimBobOz... Judaism does not require that you believe in God...

God doesn't require our belief, just that we follow the Law....

Thanks for your overview of Judaism.  

While Judaism may not require individuals to believe anything in particular (unlike most versions of Christianity), Judaism is committed to the claim that there is a God, etc.  That is, while individual Jews need only obey the Law in order to satisfy the demands of their religion for them, the religion (separate from what it demands of its followers) is committed to a certain account of God.  And it is that account that is the target of the 'problem of evil' argument.

Quote from: AkrasiaThanks for the link.

I should have been more careful in making that comment.  (Suffice to say that there is some debate amongst Catholic scholars on this matter, i.e., how to understand 'Hell'.)

"Catholic Scholars" debate all kinds of shit. But in Catholicism, the only thing that matters is the word of the Curia and the "holy father" Rat.

RPGPundit

Quote from: AkrasiaThis isn't correct, though, since it does not require 'faith' to disbelieve (or simply not form a belief in the existence of) something for which there is no evidence (or that contradicts the available evidence).

No, it absolutely does not require "faith" to disbelieve something for which there is no evidence.  So for example, I do not believe in the presence of the judeo-christian god.  However, you do not seem to be doing that.  What you are doing goes beyond mere "disbelief" to an active and activist belief in the absence of god.

QuoteI don't believe that invisible pixies are floating around me at all times.  That's not a 'faith-based' belief.

No but you do seem to believe that it is a certainty that God does NOT exist, when the truth is you don't know.

The best definition of faith I ever heard was "the power of trying to convince one's self of something one suspects to be untrue".

Disbelief would logically lead to a passive or active agnosticism, not to a militant atheism, which is already just another kind of dogmatism.

RPGPundit

Quote from: AkrasiaNow, that aside, it seems clear that I've done a rather poor job of explaining why the 'problem of evil' argument should be taken seriously.  

However, simply because I've failed to do this, doesn't mean that the argument is not worth taking seriously!  Surely, if the argument was as manifestly implausible as some of you seem to think, theologians and philosophers would not have struggled with it from the time of Epicurus onwards.

The problem of evil is a fundamental issue that confronts theology of just about all belief systems.  They all attempt to address it in different ways.  The problem of evil in the context of judeo-christian religion in particular has been a long-standing source of religious discourse for scholars and philosophers in the Christian (and Jewish, and Muslim) world.
But this does not mean, as you seem to have been arguing on this thread, that it is an issue against which theologians have just shrugged their shoulders in impotent helplessness, the achilles heel that has thwarted all of their beliefs and is unsolvable.  Just as it is an issue that has come up in many different forms over the centuries it has been responded to in many different ways (some adequate, others grossly inadequate, and some more satisfying than others).

RPGPundit

Quote from: AkrasiaMy point was that the term 'proof' can be used in many different ways (as made clear in that link).  It was unclear to me what meaning you were employing.  It's still somewhat unclear

I'm talking about the very first (and hence most commonly used) definition in the link I provided earlier. "evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth." You do not have that in regards to the nonexistence of God.

QuoteAll of the available evidence indicates that yes, atoms existed.

That's not the question, but perhaps I phrased it poorly. 1,500 years ago, the contemporaries of that time had no evidence to point to the existence of atoms. If Joe says "atoms exist" and Steve says "all available evidence says they don't, so I believe that they don't" does that mean that atoms did not exist? In other words, are you claiming that a lack of proof for something is proof of a lack of that something?

Quote from: James McMurrayI'm not talking about evidence. I'm talking about proof. One leads to the other but does not gaurantee it. If I drop a block, a chair, and a helium balloon I am presented with evidence that round objects fall upwards and pointy objects fall down. That's a simplistic example, true, but I think it applies.

There's a piece I actually used in d4-d4... It suggests for character generation giving the character likes, dislikes, etc - but also a philosophy, or "worldview," if you prefer. It's the filter by which we process the raw data which enters our minds. Filters are necessary to make sense of things. For example, it's possible for you to be blind or deaf not from damage to the eyes or ears, but from damage to the brain, to the part of the brain which processes the raw data and puts it into a coherent whole, into something which makes sense.

Our "philosophy" does the same thing. What the brain is to the eyes and ears for sights and sounds, the philosophy is to the events of the world.

Quote from: d4-d4A person has a long illness, and is told they've six months to live; they pray to Jesus, and live on, recovering fully.

The Empirical Scientist will call this a "spontaneous remission," and perhaps think it'd be good to study the hormonal effects of prayer, and whether those hormones promote natural antibodies, and…

Whereas the Charismatic Christian will say, "it's a miracle." The same event is thus interpreted differently by different Philosophies. Both people have "evidence" for their point of view - the recovery of the patient. In all philosophies, people tend to look for evidence to support their point of view: the Empirical Scientist sees "facts" everywhere, while the Charismatic Christian sees "miracles" everywhere. They tend to ignore evidence which disproves their point of view, or they interpret the evidence in very elaborate ways so as not to harm their philosophy. Of course, there are different degrees of philosophy. It’s up the player how strongly they’ll play the various personality aspects.

Just something the evidence/proof distinction James McMurray noted brought to mind. For most people, there is evidence, but there is never proof, except proof for what they already believe.

Quote from: AkrasiaWhile Judaism may not require individuals to believe anything in particular (unlike most versions of Christianity), Judaism is committed to the claim that there is a God, etc. That is, while individual Jews need only obey the Law in order to satisfy the demands of their religion for them, the religion (separate from what it demands of its followers) is committed to a certain account of God. And it is that account that is the target of the 'problem of evil' argument.

There's a wonderful old piece called Why I Am A Jew (link). It's too lengthy to quote entirely as a forum post, but the key and most quoted part is,

QuoteI am a Jew because, born of Israel and having lost her,

I have felt her live again in me, more living than myself.

I am a Jew because, born of Israel and having regained her,

I wish her to live after me, more living than in myself.

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel demands of me no abdication of the mind.

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel requires of me all the devotion of my heart.

I am a Jew because in every place where suffering weeps, the Jew weeps.

I am a Jew because at every time when despair cries out, the Jew hopes.

I am a Jew because the word of Israel is the oldest and the newest.

I am a Jew because the promise of Israel if the universal promise.

I am a Jew because, for Israel, the world is not yet completed; men are completing it.

I am a Jew because, above the nations and Israel, Israel places man and his Unity.

I am a Jew because above man, image of the divine Unity, Israel places the divine Unity, and its divinity.

The relevant part here is, "the world is not yet completed; men are completing it." That's the answer to the "problem of evil." A world with evil in it is imperfect, incomplete; it is humanity's job to complete it. Constructive work for the good of oneself, of one's family, of one's nation, of the world - in this work is found meaning and fulfilment. In this view, humans are the adult children of God. A parent doesn't want their adult children to be mindless puppets of the parent, they want them to be fulfilled autonomous people, with their own actions and desires, adults in their own right.

To behave in this way, as an adult, responsible for your own fate, and responsible for the fate of humanity - this is a good way to live, with or without any belief in God. That's why Judaism does not require belief in God - because we were not put here for God, but for ourselves. The focus on God and the divine is not for God, God doesn't need our worship in any way. It's simply because humanity has a tendency to worship the work of its own hands. That's what "idolatory" really is, not simply worshipping graven idols of other gods, but worshipping ourselves. This leads to dictatorial personality cults, to excessive materialism and vicious greed, and so on. Having something else to focus on, something greater than a man, helps prevent that.

Quote from: RPGPundit... you do not seem to be doing that.  What you are doing goes beyond mere "disbelief" to an active and activist belief in the absence of god.
... you do seem to believe that it is a certainty that God does NOT exist, when the truth is you don't know.

Okay, since I may not have been especially clear in many of my previous posts, let me sum up my overall position as succinctly as possible, and (hopefully) for the final time.

I hold that the proposition ‘the traditional monotheistic conception of God’ is false.  My basis for doing so is (one version of) the evidential ‘problem of evil’ argument.  Consequently, because my belief is based on an evidential argument, my belief is not a matter of ‘faith’.

QuoteIf the argument from evil is given an evidential formulation, what form should that take? There appear to be three main possibilities have been suggested in recent discussions. The first, which might be called the direct inductive approach, involves the idea that one can show that theism is unlikely to be true without comparing theism with any alternative hypothesis, other than the mere denial of theism. The second, which can be labeled the indirect inductive approach, argues instead that theism can be shown to be unlikely to be true by establishing that there is some alternative hypothesis -- other than the mere negation of theism -- that is logically incompatible with theism, and more probable than theism. Finally, the third possibility, which might be referred to as a probabilistic or Bayesian approach, starts out from probabilistic premises, and then attempts to show that it follows deductively, via axioms of probability theory, that it is unlikely that God exists.

(From http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/.)

Now, leaving aside the details of the different ‘evidential’ arguments here (as I’ve already mentioned, if you’re curious, one version is discussed at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/evil-evi.htm), it seems to me to be clear that forming a belief on the basis of an evidential argument differs fundamentally from forming a belief on the basis of faith.

If you think otherwise, all I can do is conclude that you understand the terms ‘belief’, ‘justification’, ‘evidential argument’, ‘induction’, ‘faith’, and so forth, in some idiosyncratic way.  There’s obviously nothing that I can do about that, as that’s your decision.   All I can do is point out that my use of these terms is the same as that found in analytical philosophy.

Now, I’m not saying that replies to the argument in question are impossible.  Indeed, if you look at the articles to which I’ve provided links, you can read about some possible (often very compelling) replies yourself.  Thus I’m not saying that (all possible versions of) the argument might not be wrong.  It could turn out to be wrong -- just as any belief that we have based an evidential argument might be wrong.  (The strength of different evidential arguments, of course, can vary widely.  But a belief based on an adequately strong evidential argument just is a justified, if not irrefutable, belief, and thus not a belief based on 'faith'.)

All I’m asserting is the rather simple (indeed, trivial) point that a belief formed inductively (i.e. on the basis of available evidence and argument) is not a case of ‘faith’.  So my belief, based on an evidential argument, that a certain conception of God is false is not a belief based on faith.  That’s it.

(Now, I suppose that one could argue, as James appears determined to do, that all of our beliefs about the external world are cases of ‘faith’.  That seems to me to be an exceedingly strange view -- it certainly involves a radical change in the meaning of ‘faith’.  If people want to assert and cling to such a bizarre definition of ‘faith’ that’s their decision, as I’ve already said in this post, but I see little value in trying to debate any further with such people.)

Quote from: JimBobOz...  For most people, there is evidence, but there is never proof, except proof for what they already believe...

Well, assuming that by 'proof' one means irrefutable, then we don't have 'proof' for pretty much any of our beliefs about the external world.  (Of course the term 'proof' is used quite differently in legal discouse, where a 'burden of proof' just does refer to 'available evidence' -- satisfying the 'burden of proof' can still lead to an unjust conviction!)

If one demands that our beliefs about the external world be 'irrefutable', then scepticism appears to be the inevitable conclusion.  One could go that route, if one likes, but the vast majority of philosophers throughout history (with some noteworthy exceptions, like Descartes) have not.

When forming beliefs about the external world, we rely on induction.  Evidential arguments provide justifications for beliefs.  These aren't 'irrefutable', but they are rational justifications nonetheless.

Quote from: JimBobOz...
The relevant part here is, "the world is not yet completed; men are completing it." That's the answer to the "problem of evil." A world with evil in it is imperfect, incomplete; it is humanity's job to complete it....

That is indeed a possible reply to the problem of evil.  For various reasons that I will not get into here, I don't find it convincing (i.e. I do not think that it seriously challenges the reasons that I have for my justified belief), but I certainly respect the right of people to advocate it.

QuoteOne could go that route, if one likes, but the vast majority of philosophers throughout history (with some noteworthy exceptions, like Descartes) have not.

Why the appeal to authority?

Akrasia, let me sum what i've read or somewhat read into so far.  Akrasia is an atheist.  Akrasia believes in many ways that atheists are somewhat persecuted in society.  Akrasia relates to many points in an article about the misconceptions people have of atheists.  The reason Akrasia is an atheist is because "the problem of evil" proves God does not exist.  The reason Akrasia believes in the validity of “the problem of evil” is because this is the best information available to make a logical conclusion.  

1. If God exists (as understood by the main monotheistic religions), he is omniscient and omnipotent and omnibenevolent
2. If suffering exists, God cannot be omniscient & omnipotent & omnibenevolent (at most he can only be two of those things, e.g. he might be all-knowing and all-powerful, but not care about the existence of widespread suffering).
3. We know suffering exists.
4. Therefore God does not exist (i.e. any God that is omniscient & omnipotent & omnibenevolent).

Let examine this:

1.  Assumes a correct interpretation of an individual’s perception of God.  Also assumes we can completely comprehend omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence.
2.  Makes the assumption that suffering is equitable to bad.
3.  Suffering is subjective to an individual’s perspective.  Suffering exists in many forms, so suffering exists.
4.  Is true only if all of the above assumptions are correct.

Actually “the problem of evil” is actually a better argument for an individual’s lack of understanding of omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience.  You see Akrasia, it seems you are using this argument to validate your belief structure not using the argument to establish your belief structure.  The argument seems to be more an indicator of what you believe, which is why it makes a great discussion piece for philosophy students.  There’s no way to test this argument because there is no measurable evidence to test the conclusion.  That’s what I mean when I say that the argument exists in a philosophical vacuum.  Being an atheist allows you to categorically deny any evidence that supports the existence of a God or at least deny a probability that there could be.  It really doesn’t seem any different than my roommate’s philosophy professor using philosophy to convince her students that they shouldn’t hurt animals because humans are vegetarians or mine using philosophy to instill in herself a false sense of superiority.  Yes, they also had PhDs in philosophy.  So I admit that my past experiences with philosophers may be a factor.

QuoteThe reason Akrasia is an atheist is because "the problem of evil" proves God does not exist. The reason Akrasia believes in the validity of “the problem of evil” is because this is the best information available to make a logical conclusion.

You're doing what several others have done (despite Akrasia's constant statements to the contrary). You've confused "one" argument to mean "the argument."

The rest of the post seems pretty close to what I've read.

God is Pai Mei.

That solves the problem.

Quote from: James McMurrayWhy the appeal to authority?

Because I simply don't have time to explain all of the various relevant arguments here; I cannot  give you an adequate survey in the history of epistemology.  And, moreover, you would certainly be better served by simply purchasing an introductory book on epistemology.  (I've come to realise that a forum like this is not the best place to try to explain or discuss complicated concepts.)

(For starters, though, it may be helpful to read up on inductive arguments:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/ded-ind.htm.  
Helpful general online resources include: http://plato.stanford.edu/
and: http://www.iep.utm.edu/)

Quote from: Gunslinger... Actually "the problem of evil" is actually a better argument for an individual's lack of understanding of omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience...

But only if we presuppose the existence of an entity that is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient.  Otherwise, the 'argument' you posit is implausible -- it is a classic case 'begging the question'.  In order to avoid that fallacy, my position is simply that, given the available evidence, it is more rational to maintain that such an entity does not exist

Quote from: Gunslinger...
You see Akrasia, it seems you are using this argument to validate your belief structure not using the argument to establish your belief structure....

I could not disagree more, especially since I was once a devout Christian.  Various philosophical arguments (ironically, not the one that has been the focus of this thread!) convinced me of the incorrectness of my previous beliefs.

Anyhow, given that the argument has succeeded with respect to some religious people over the centuries, and that others (especially theologians and religious philosophers) have felt the need to try to reply  to it over the past 2000+ years, the argument cannot be merely a rhetorical device to validate beliefs that people already have.

Quote from: Gunslinger...
Being an atheist allows you to categorically deny any evidence that supports the existence of a God or at least deny a probability that there could be...

This is not true.  There are arguments in favour of the existence of God.  I cannot discuss them here, but suffice to say that, while I find some of them interesting, I don't find them convincing (and the most convincing arguments can only establish a 'deistic' conception of God, i.e., a kind of God that it is pointless to worship).

Quote from: Gunslinger...using philosophy to instill in herself a false sense of superiority.  Yes, they also had PhDs in philosophy.  So I admit that my past experiences with philosophers may be a factor.

Yes, we can be quite irritating, can't we?  

Quote from: AkrasiaI could not disagree more, especially since I was once a devout Christian. Various philosophical arguments (ironically, not the one that has been the focus of this thread!) convinced me of the incorrectness of my previous beliefs.

Sorry, just read that way.

As to the rest, it doesn't seem like you're a firm atheist.  Just haven't ran across an argument or evidence to convince you otherwise...yet.  Really not that much different than someone saying they believe in God and not having found an argument or evidence to convince you otherwise...yet.  Atheism is the term that seems to describe a belief of your's best right now.  If your argument was that all along well, damn.  I spent hours thinking about this.  

Quote from: AkrasiaYes, we can be quite irritating, can't we?

I honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry when the prof asked if I would consider philosophy as a minor after the experience I had with her.