Quote from: Gunslinger1. 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.

Good summary.  The problem of evil is an argument against the Judeo-Christian diety only by the way, it isn't an argument against several other faiths.

The reason though it is powerful in respect of the Judeo-Christian deity is that those religions posit that God is good, indeed that God is in fact all loving and omnibenevolent.  They also posit that God is omniscient and omnipotent, but for some reason not omnifiscient.

The problem of evil is an application of logic to those claims, no more and no less.  If the claim is that God is all powerful, all seeing and is good, then one should not expect evil in the world save possibly as a product of free will.  One sees such evil in the world however every day.  Ergo, if there is a God he is either not omnipotent, not omniscient or not omnibenevolent.

Pundit's response that we cannot understand God's goodness is an old argument long since discarded in philosophy, because it is essentially semantic.  God's goodness is not our goodness, in which case it isn't what we mean by the term good.

The problem of evil is generally regarded by Christian philosophers as insoluble, a mystery which can only be answered by faith as it is logically generally agreed to be pretty unassailable.  I find the ignorance of it here slightly surprising.

That said, it presents no great difficulties to many other faiths, Buddhists are fine with it, Hindus likewise, any of the manichean faiths has no problem dealing with it.  The problem of evil is only a problem if you posit an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent god and only the Christians, Jews and Moslems do that (not sure if the Jews do actually, my knowledge of Jewish theology is very limited).

Oh, although for some atheism clearly has become some sort of faith, the militant atheist brigade, the idea that it is a faith per se is nonsense.

It is merely an absence of faith.  The universe I see around me presents only very weak evidence for any kind of theist hypothesis while also presenting strong evidence for it's origin being a natural phenomenon, thus I reject the theist hypothesis.  No more, no less.  If the evidence changes then I may change my view, but I think the evidence that the universe is a natural phenomenon has considerable strength and it would now take a lot to overcome that hypothesis.

Quote from: JimBobOzIf you'd like to know what Jews believe, or want to believe, you could always ask one. Hastur already pointed out that you don't know the most basic thing about Catholicism - that hell still exists in that faith. Now, about Judaism...

Judaism does not require that you believe in God.

Just hold onto that thought for a moment.

Got it? Haven't lost it in prejudice or nonsense? No? Okay, keep hold of it.

Judaism proposes a set of laws which must be followed. Some of those laws (like kosher) are for just for Jews, and some of those laws (like not murdering people) are for eveveryone.

Follow the Law, says the Law, and you'll be off to Heaven; exactly what Heaven is, is left pretty vague. Don't follow the Law, and you're off to Hell. Hell's even vaguer, but is usually understood to be simply the absence of the presence of God. Anyway, it's thought that following the Law will make life better, whether or not it makes the afterlife better. See, Judaism focuses on now. That's why we have a whole shitload of sayings like, "break one law, so as to fulfill many others" - eg, eat a pork sausage so you can not starve, and live on to eat kosher in future, rather than just starving now. Or, "pray as though everything depends on God, act as though everything depends on you." Or "he who takes one life, it as if he has killed the whole world; he who saves one life, it is as if he has saved the whole world" (because each person saved may become a parent, and their children will have children, and so on; or if beyond child-bearing age, they may at least protect the lives of others).

God doesn't require our belief, just that we follow the Law. This isn't so hard to make sense of, really. If I say to a cop, "I don't believe Parliament exists!" the cop might reply, "um... will you obey the laws passed by Parliament?" If I say, "yes," the cop will say, "good enough." My belief or disbelief in the existence of Parliament has no effect on whether their laws are good, and on whether I follow those laws.

Likewise, with God and his Law.

Judaism requires no belief. It requires action. Good actions are good actions, whatever the belief or motivation behind them, and bad actions are bad actions. The laws are good or bad, harmless or harmful, give us fulfilment or emptiness, in and of themselves; whether they come from God or humanity makes no difference.

Faith makes more sense when you ask the people who hold that faith about it, rather than vague half-remembered musings from some website somewhere. I imagine that's where you got your "Catholics don't believe in Hell anymore" from, from the recent abolition of the ideas of Limbo, etc. It's ironic that one of the criticisms of atheists of those with faith is that their faith leads to muddled thought; atheists are entirely capable of muddled thought. Catholicism still has Hell, and Judaism does not require belief, only action.

I missed this, I'm glad I caveated about Judaism now as the problem of evil wouldn't be a great problem on this argument.  Thanks Jim-Bob.

It still is a real issue for Christians and Moslems though.  Not much for anyone else however.  All too often, when we discuss theist hypotheses we speak only to our own religious traditions ignoring the many others.

Quote from: RPGPunditYes, but you aren't. And therefore, cannot know what "perfectly good" even looks like.


RPGPundit

That's the semantic argument pundit, it isn't a good one.

If we say that whatever God does is good, it just doesn't necessarily match what we perceive as good, then that is not really any different to saying that God does things which are not good.  It's semantics, nothing more.

The other problem with the argument that suffering may be necessary for a greater good, is it begs the question of who benefits from that greater good.

If someone dies horribly and painfully, but that death creates a better world for others, then you can argue that overall good is being served.  But that's not much comfort to the dead guy.  It starts to argue that god plays favourites, that some are sacrificed for the whole regardless of the cost to them, it's an argument one can rationally make but it doesn't fit well with the Christian notion of a personal saviour who cares about each of us equally.

When at Uni I coined the Rigellian argument, ie that all our suffering could be for the greater benefit of the inhabitants of Rigel V, and they're the ones God is actually more interested in.  Logically that holds good, but it doesn't lead you to a very comforting deist hypothesis.  It also frankly doesn't fit that well with the world we see, in which all too often suffering at the personal level has no great benefit to anyone much.  Try telling someone who's kid just died of an agonising cancer that it was for the greater good and see how comforting they find that.  Logically it could be true, but it's cheap and if you're affected by the suffering it's hard to conclude that the deity which tortured your kid to death effectively is good overall because there will be some long term benefit to some other guy.

Again though, outside the Christian paradigm none of this is an issue.  For a buddhist or Hindu the chances are the kid was working off some shitty karma and so their suffering helped burn that off, which may genuinely present some comfort to the grieving relatives.  The individual suffers, but for the long term benefit of that individual, not for the benefit of some other guy.

Quote from: BalbinusI missed this, I'm glad I caveated about Judaism now as the problem of evil wouldn't be a great problem on this argument.  Thanks Jim-Bob.

No worries, mate.

For Judaism, the argument isn't that we're suffering for the Greater Good. The argument is that if we're suffering, it's our fault for causing suffering, and we've been put here to improve our lives.

The world is not complete, it's our job to complete it.

So in Judaism, asking why the benevolent God doesn't make the world perfect is like some school student asking why the teacher doesn't just do all his homework for them. The child develops into adulthood by doing their own study, both academically and otherwise. Humanity becomes better by doing their own work.

The end goal of some kind of utopia may not be reachable, but striving for it is worthwhile in itself. There are things which enhance or degrade us, whatever they do to the world. For example, in Judaism we say that one shouldn't be cruel to animals or hunt them for sport. An animal which is killed slowly and painfully, it's just as wrong to eat it as it would be to eat swine or shellfish. More wrong, in fact - kosher food is just for Jews, meat killed swiftly is for everyone, says the Jewish law. Not being cruel to animals isn't presented as, "poor animals, they will be sad," but instead, "us being cruel degrades us, whatever the victim feels."

I know this sort of argument confuses militant atheists, because fundamentally it just makes sense, and it puts responsibility for human actions and suffering back on humans. Since militant atheists usually argue that the religious all have blind stupid faith, passively awaiting their fate, this sort of argument just stumps them.

Which of course is another wonderful thing about Judaism. Anything that silences a militant of any kind is good

Quote from: JimBobOzI know this sort of argument confuses militant atheists, because fundamentally it just makes sense, and it puts responsibility for human actions and suffering back on humans. Since militant atheists usually argue that the religious all have blind stupid faith, passively awaiting their fate, this sort of argument just stumps them.

In my experience, most militant atheists confuse American evangelical Christianity of the sillier sort with religion generally.  

The thing is, just because the US evangelicals shout loudest doesn't mean they're representative of anything much, frequently I doubt they're even representative of most US evangelical Christians.

Quote from: JimBobOzFor Judaism, the argument isn't that we're suffering for the Greater Good. The argument is that if we're suffering, it's our fault for causing suffering, and we've been put here to improve our lives.

The world is not complete, it's our job to complete it.

Incidentally, this viewpoint is also common in Eastern Christianity and is beginning to move it's way westwards as Orthodoxy becomes more fashionable

Well, it's more optimistic than Calvinism, anyway

Quote from: JimBobOzWell, it's more optimistic than Calvinism, anyway

You only say that because you're not one of the elect.

QuotePundit's response that we cannot understand God's goodness is an old argument long since discarded in philosophy, because it is essentially semantic. God's goodness is not our goodness, in which case it isn't what we mean by the term good.

It's not so much that we can't understand God's goodness, it's that even if we do understand it, we don't have all the information or the perspective an omniscient being would have, so we can't possibly know whether or not some amount of suffering is actually better or not.

QuoteIt is merely an absence of faith.

Not if you speak english. Agnosticism is the absence of faith. The moment you make an actual claim one way or the other and you can't prove it you require faith.

QuoteIf someone dies horribly and painfully, but that death creates a better world for others, then you can argue that overall good is being served. But that's not much comfort to the dead guy.

Supposedly this is a multi-layered existence. As such, why is it impossible to consider the idea that the suffering and death may be both good for those that stay behind and the person it happens to?

Quote from: James McMurraySupposedly this is a multi-layered existence. As such, why is it impossible to consider the idea that the suffering and death may be both good for those that stay behind and the person it happens to?

Because Christianity posits a binary afterlife, either you go to heaven or you don't.

If the suffering prompted you to reconsider your life, thus tilting you to heaven when otherwise you wouldn't have got there, plainly you benefit.

If however you were already saved, or are not given a meaningful opportunity to reconsider, then you get no post-mortem improvement in position.  Therefore you have no personal benefit.

On your first para, better for who?  If a child suffocates slowly under a mud landslide in Peru, it is fair to ask how the child benefited.  If some other guy benefited from the child's suffering at the very least we're getting to an idiosyncratic idea of good.  If the child was too young to understand what was happening, or was religiously devout already, then it is difficult to see any possible benefit to them of slow suffocation in a tide of mud given a binary afterlife.

Now, with buddhism ain't none of that a problem, but with Christianity it definitely is.

Quote from: James McMurraySupposedly this is a multi-layered existence. As such, why is it impossible to consider the idea that the suffering and death may be both good for those that stay behind and the person it happens to?

Also, and to be clear here I am going to matters of personal view rather than logic, I struggle remotely to believe that some forms of suffering can have any value at all.  Vomiting faeces while you die slowly in hideous pain (and that is a real example I encountered once in a debate about euthanasia) is not something which can I personally regard as an acceptable fate to deliberately expose someone to.  This does go to a question of faith (which I don't think the arguments generally do), but it simply is not in me to believe that that is a necessity for anyone and that no other means of benefitting them would have sufficed.

What, no purgatory?

As whether you were saved or not, what if you ask forgiveness while being burned or buried alive, thus becoming saved? What if you already were saved but would mostly likely fall from grace soon, and the early death saved you from an eternity of Hell? What if your suffering were brought about because of choices you made, so God stepped back and let it happen because his omnibenevolence includes the idea that a GM shouldn't fudge the dice rolls and shouldn't force his plot on the players?

I personally have no idea what benefits that child may or may not experience from a slow muddy grave. But then again I a) have no idea what sorts of things got hrough someone's head when they're dying that might be beneficial, and b) am not God.

And has it occured to you that perhaps there are more "good things" that can happen then just "dies and goes to heaven?" I know I've got just a tiny little mortal brain and I can think of lots of good things beyond that just in therapy-oriented thought processes alone. Who knows how many good things an honest to Himself deity could brainstorm out in a minute or two.

Quote from: James McMurrayNot if you speak english. Agnosticism is the absence of faith. The moment you make an actual claim one way or the other and you can't prove it you require faith.

That's not actually correct, disbelief in the existence of god falls within the dictionariy definition of atheism.  Agnosticism is a belief that the existence or otherwise of god is essentially unnowable.  Both the OED and I think Websters support this.

That said, I really don't want to get into dictionary definitions and I am happy to use your terms, I just rather objected to an implication I didn't speak English when I am using a perfectly standard usage of the term.