Yeah. As usual with Bartricks's types of argument, they're based on one massive flaw, and this is it. The Problem of Evil is a question of why God brought Evil into the world - any amount of evil at all. The problem of deciding to procreate is one of whether there is too much evil in the world to outweigh the good. — Isaac

I don't know what massive flaws you're talking about. Perhaps the mere fact an argument leads to a conclusion you dislike constitutes a massive flaw as far as you are concerned - I suspect so. But it's Reason's view that counts, not yours. So, you know, get over yourself.

You say "The Problem of Evil is a question of why God brought Evil into the world - any amount of evil at all". Well, no. When you make such confident pronouncements you do nothing more than reveal your ignorance of the problem.

The problem is to do with unjustified evil. For it is only that kind of evil whose creation seems prima facie incompatible with being omnipotent, omniscient, and morally good. That's why those who believe in God attempt to tackle with the problem by showing that the evils that exist are 'justified' rather than non-existent (although showing them to be non-existent would also work, of course).

For example, take the standard free will defence against the problem of evil. According to this line of argument, God was justified in permitting the moral evils that we - we, free agents, that is - create because they were an unavoidable aspect of giving us free will and the value of free will is greater than the disvalue of the evils it creates.

Note, those who run the free will defence - and it is far and away the most popular line of reply - are not denying the existence of evils. They are not denying that God brought them into being. They are arguing, rather, than the evils in question are justified and thus do not redound to the moral discredit of God (and thus do not imply his non-existence).

Another example - another popular line of reply is the so-called 'soul making' theodicy, according to which the whole point of our being here is to cultivate and exercise certain virtues. And then the point is that we need to live in a world like this one - one that contains natural disasters and injustices and arbitrary reversals of fortune - in order to be able to acquire and exercise them. You can't be forgiving, for example, if no-one wrongs you; you can't be brave if there's nothing to fear, and so on.

THe point is not whether these attempts at dealing with the problem of evil work, the points is that in both of these cases there is an acknowledgement that evils exist, but a denial that their existence is unjustified.

So, once more: you're wrong. The problem of evil is not a problem to do with any evil whatever, but to do with apparently unjustified evils.

But let's assume - falsely - that you're right and that any evils whatever raise it. Well, that just makes my case even stronger. For it is undeniable that by creating new innocent sentient life you create some evils.

So not only are you wrong and, as usual, demonstrate that standard combination of ignorance and confidence, if you're right you've made my case stronger, not weaker. Good job!!

I ask myself if I would give up all of the extraordinary pleasures of being alive to be free from all the agony and pain life brings...

I would have to say, I'm not sorry I was born. Life is frequently a struggle, sometimes quite painful. But the exquisite joys of: a praying mantis on my pitcher plant, love, music, the joys of being in the body, achievement, learning, helping others, and vaping Cannabis--all of it makes the suffering of being human worthwhile. I choose to live. — uncanni

Some say (surely pessimists do) that no amount of pleasure or joy can compensate for the least pain or sorrow. Sounds overly narcissistic to me too. I couldn't say "I choose to live" because it doesn't seem to me I have a choice in the matter - that ol' switch don't flip itself, does it? - except in choosing how I play the cards I'm being dealt (& occasionally deal myself), so to speak. Homo ludens - one plays this 'mug's game' to win or lose or draw; in hindsight, now, it's clear to me I've chosen to play the Reeper to a draw. Amor fati? Not nearly 'the safe play' it seems - tightrope dancing - even after I've learned how not to look down ... Anyway, sometimes I regret not having played to win, but mostly I don't. And so it goes.

The best reason I can think of for not having children right now is global warming. — uncanni

No doubt. My gift to oblivion is I remain childless by choice. Whatever instincts I've had are being spent to the dregs on my brother's cousins' & friends' children, and that, surprisingly despite everything, I find worthwhile.

Antinatalists are against beginning lives; they are not thereby against continuing lives that are already underway. — Bartricks

:up:

Whew... I saved myself. I never had any children.

I guess it does not matter then that I fornicated left-right-and-centre back in the late seventies and all through the eighties. And add to this about a thousand times more incidents of auto-erotcia.

God should be pleased with me.

The reason I would advocate for humans in general to keep procreating even if life sucked for everyone right now is the same reason I advocate that individuals having hard times don't just kill themselves and end the suffering now: because it can get better. I have hopes that humanity can create a future world that is not so full of suffering as this one always has been, and in order for that to be worth doing, someone needs to be alive in the future in order to enjoy it. — Pfhorrest

But I, an antinatalist, am not arguing that life sucks. Antinatalism does not entail pro-mortalism (that is, the view that we have overall reason to kill ourselves). Antinatalists are against beginning lives; they are not thereby against continuing lives that are already underway.

For an analogy: someone who discovers that, were they to get pregnant, their child would suffer some sort of disability and decides on that basis not to have a child is not thereby expressing a judgement that those with disabilities do not have lives worth living.

And the problem of evil does not assume that life sucks either, only that the evils of life are unjustified.

If some kind of simple utilitarianism is the correct normative ethical theory, then the balances of pleasures and pains in a life would settle the matter of whether it is morally right to bring it into existence.

There would still be a problem of evil even assuming that kind of view is true, and it would still have some very odd implications in respect of procreation (it'd imply we ought to start breeding like rabbits if, that is, most lives record greater average balances of happiness over misery). But the point is that to show God to be justified in creating innocent sentient life one would only need to show that the pains were necessary to secure some maximal quantity of pleasure later.

But utilitarianism is false and certainly I am not assuming it is true and most of those who believe there is a problem of evil do not assume it is true either. Happiness is not all that matters. Dignity matters and it matters what kind of person you are. Better, for instance, to be a miserable kind person than a happy bastard. Better if wicked people suffer than good people. And so on.

For example, imagine two possible worlds. One is full of good people who are miserable. The other is full of wicked people who are happy. Which is the better one to create if creating one and one alone is the only option you have? Which one would a good god create? Surely it is not obvious.

But, importantly, if the god also had the option of creating neither, then surely the god would take that option?

Or imagine that only way to make everyone else maximally happy is to make one person utterly miserable. Would a good god create such a world? Surely not. For that world, though it contains maximum happiness, also contains a terrible injustice. And a good god would resist creating a world that contains an injustice like that.

In saying that am I thereby committed to the view that, if we live in such a world, our lives are not worth living? No, clearly not. Most of the lives in that world are most certainly worth living. Eminently so. Yet I think no good, omnipotent, omniscient being would create such a place.

And if we lived in such a world - that is, a world in which we are all happy bar one person whose miserable life is a necessary condition of our lives being happy - then though we have no obligation to kill ourselves we would, I think, have an obligation not to perpetuate the situation by breeding (assuming, that is, that breeding perpetuates it).

My point, then, is absolutely not that most of our lives are not worth living. I think most of our lives are worth living. My point is that it is reasonable to believe that an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good god would not create a world like this one and that, on that basis alone, it is reasonable to infer that we would not be good if we acted in a like manner and created more innocent sentient life and made it live here.

thank you for that insight into your mucky younger days. But I don't think Reason approves of rampant fornication, so despite your success at not breeding I suspect God is still displeased with you.

You don't make it clear perhaps, but I re-read your OP and now I take it that you are rejecting the problem of evil in order to defend some kind of theism?

No, he wants to kill all the children in the world and he’s trying to build his court case for why he’s not evil and that he’s just an angel of death helping us all find peace in true serial killer fashion. Bartrick you’re genuinely scary. I hope you don’t work with kids ever in your life.

But there are ways in which the world may well be one in which the good outweighs the bad and yet still it would not plausibly be a place an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being would have created.
For example, imagine that in fact most people freely conduct themselves in ways that make them deserving of all the suffering and indignities that befall them. Well, now the universe contains more good than bad, for suffering and indignity is not bad when it is deserved. Yet would an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being create such a place? Surely not.

Thanks for the reply, just a couple quick thoughts:

1. As a Christian Existentialist, I don't know what an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent Being means, so I can't comment on that. In other words, I don't objectively know the true nature of the Mind of God. And I'm OK with that. I don't spend time reconciling those three in terms of judgment or judging people or otherwise making sense of that mystery.... . I don't measure our existence in that way, nor do I use those features as a guide to ethics. At best it's a metaphysical theory.

2. With respect to what I'll call 'law of attraction' or reaping what one sow's, I only agree that those cause and effect things have intrinsic value. The value would be gaining wisdom on how to be, and what to avoid or not do for a healthy lifestyle/health and well being.

What I do feel I know, is that in the OT Ecclesiastes we have that existential angst you describe. In the NT we have an 'answer' in faith with a savior Jesus, that is a model for Love. The connection to part of that quandary you've described, some of which is in the Ecclesiastes, gives follower's hope.

So maybe Hope is the concept one should hold onto here viz. your procreation concern... .

I do get what you're saying though for sure. With procreation comes responsibility.

No, he wants to kill all the children in the world and he’s trying to build his court case for why he’s not evil and that he’s just an angel of death helping us all find peace in true serial killer fashion. Bartrick you’re genuinely scary. I hope you don’t work with kids ever in your life. — Mark Dennis

Er, no - that's not implied by anything I've argued. It's your reasoning skills that are truly scary - there's really no telling where your reasoning will take you or persuade you to do.

Yeah, project all you like. I’m not the one condoning the genocide of our species here and all other life too as it seems your argument could apply to all life.

See because of my ethical stance people actually know what I’m inclined to do. You however can’t be trusted around children or access to the human water supply. I wear my principles for everyone to see whereas you keep changing them to fit your own end which is humanity must die. You are the epitome of evil and an Antinatalist evangelical who really should just be removed from the site.

Also, if you had any understanding of moral psychology you’d stop blaming the species for whatever wrongs you feel life has personally slung at you. Grow up, learn how to have a little gratitude toward your parents. I don’t care what arguments you have anymore as there are a lot of not good reasons someone would actually believe sterilising an entire species without its consent is okay and then have the audacity to call it Kantian in another post. I care about what psychologically motivates someone to hold an Antinatalist view and it’s nearly always coming from a selfish egotistical place.

As a Christian Existentialist, I don't know what an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent Being means, so I can't comment on that. — 3017amen

Hm, I am not sure I understand that. I mean, surely you have to have some idea about what you believe in, otherwise you don't really qualify as believing it?
But anyway, it does seem reasonable to suppose that a morally good being will not necessarily bring about the best of all possible worlds.

For, as in my previous example, if a good god has the power to actualise one world and one world alone, and the world in question is one populated by wicked people coming to suffering deserved harms and indignities, then though that world contains more good than bad, the god would not actualise it. Creating such a world - even though it is a world of great justice - seems like something a good person would not do.

What if the good god had the power to actualise a world in which sometimes the wicked get their just deserts and sometimes the good get their just deserts, but equally often the wicked prosper and the good suffer? Would a good god actualise such a world if that was the only world they had the power to actualize? I do not think so. if that was the god's only option, then I think he'd desist from creating it.

Yet that seems to describe the world we are living in. And so I think a good person, though they do not have the power to change the world, will at least have the decency not to create a new innocent life and subject it to existence here.

Of course, in a way by doing such a thing the person makes themselves deserving of living here - for now they are being done as they have done to another. But this just underscores that there are some goods that a good person does not try to bring about.

With procreation comes responsibility. — 3017amen

I am saying that it is wrong to procreate and that one way to recognise its wrongness is to reflect on the problem of evil and, upon recognising that it is not reasonable to suppose that an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient being would create a world like this one and subject innocent sentient life to living in it, that it is therefore most likely wrong for us to in effect do the same by procreating.

n the OT Ecclesiastes we have that existential angst you describe — 3017amen

I have to be honest and say that I am not sure what 'existential angst' is. As I see it I am simply describing the moral implications of a well-known problem for our procreative decisions.

Yeah, project all you like. — Mark Dennis

No, you're the one projecting.

You're attributing to me views I do not hold and that are in no way implied by anything I have argued. You are, I think, hopeless at reasoning about ethical matters. I mean, just laughably bad. How on earth - how on earth - does it follow from being anti-procreation that one is pro killing children? Present the argument - show me how that conclusion follows.

You are the epitome of evil and an Antinatalist evangelical who really should just be removed from the site. — Mark Dennis

Arr, does Mark want a safe space where he doesn't get exposed to views he can't properly understand but feels very angry at? Must accommodate Mark. Grow up.

Why? Because an earthquake isn't bad until it starts maiming and killing people, yes? An eruption isn't bad until the larva starts burning people alive, yes? Viruses aren't bad until they make people ill. Innocent, sentient life. — Bartricks

IT seems the problem of evil to which you refer is a human-made problem, primarily--not so much about volcanos and earthquakes. Humans inflict infinitely more suffering upon other sentient beings and seem to enjoy it for the most part. It does, in my estimation, render the "good diety" issue a moot point: No good diety would create such a potentially psychopathic species that tortures its own kind as well as other species. So perhaps we should consider whether if there were a diety, that it is characterized by insecurity, jealousy, ambition. greed, and all the other vices. And created humans in its own image.

No, I want a space where people don’t break the rules of the site. Read site guidelines exactly.

I actually have a masters in applied ethics, so I actually do understand moral debate. Pity you don’t. I also have a degree in logic and it follows that if you are against procreation, you are against life, if you are against life, you are pro killing/suicide or at the very least will find it shockingly easy to convince yourself that killing is justified because of your stance against procreation.

Also, O’niell who you subjectively claim to be influential isn’t an Antinatalist and her understanding of Kantian Ethics is vastly different to your misunderstanding.

You’ve been told by multiple people that you are just wrong and that your reasoning skills are subpar yet comparatively few seem to be saying the same of my criticisms of you. You don’t have a grip on reality, you say the labels don’t matter every time someone here proves them to be incorrect.

I am arguing. You, by contrast, are attributing to me ludicrous views that I do not hold and that are in no way implied by anything I have argued. Stop it. Do some actual philosophy - that is, argue something - rather than just venting your anger at me.

I don't believe you do have a masters in applied ethics - not from a reputable university anyway - as you demonstrably do not understand moral debate.

Prove me wrong by providing the argument that shows how my antinatalist view implies that I think it is right to kill children.

So perhaps we should consider whether if there were a diety, that it is characterized by insecurity, jealousy, ambition. greed, and all the other vices. And created humans in its own image. — uncanni

Yes, although there are far more ways of dealing with the problem of evil as it pertains to God than there are to the problem of evil as it pertains to human procreators. One way is to revise the attributes - though in a way this does not deal with the problem so much as concede that God does not exist. But there are other ways, consistent with God being God. For instance, perhaps the only way to have a truly ecstatic afterlife is first to have spent some time here (perhaps that is some kind of necessary truth that even God is powerless to alter). That is one possible way of squaring the evils of life here with the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being (not saying it works, just that it has legs). Yet we cannot say similar things about human procreators.

So I think that the problem of evil for God highlights a problem of evil for human procreators that is, in some ways anyway, more acute than the problem of evil for God.

Then i agree that zero humans would definitely be a fast way to fix a lot of problems.

The problem of evil implies God does not exist. — Bartricks

The PoE, however, doesn't imply that procreators do not exist, so I don't see how it's relevant. Since "Be fruitful & multiply" theists handwave away the PoE with their ad hoc theodicies and therefore are not buying what you're selling anyway, try arguing on secular nontheistic / naturalistic grounds that procreating is immoral.

...well Bartricks, I must say that's a pretty extreme view, of procreation that is. And of course we would not share in that view, though I get your logic.

And sure, it occurs to me from time to time what it would be like not to live. And the problem of our finitude and imperfection here can be depressing (existential angst). And that coupled with folks who have kids without thinking about responsibility and who are just selfish narcissists wanting to create a clone of themselves is disheartening.

However, I myself, as you might too, conclude that life is worth living enough to consider the virtues of bringing someone else into the world. As Maslow suggested, reaching those self-actualized euphoric times of Being, where one truly feels that they've accomplished exactly that which they were born to do, validates fulfillment of living this life.

My recommendation would be (and I have a friend who is kind of glass half-empty and tends to be more cynical than not) is to not focus on your sense of ethical judgement about others and how the world works at its worst. The danger there is going down a path of interminable angst that cannot be healthy.

Not to sound idealistic; have you considered using that energy to make change happen?

Hm, I am not sure I understand that. I mean, surely you have to have some idea about what you believe in, otherwise you don't really qualify as believing it? — Bartricks

And I wanted to briefly share my response to that statement you made above. Quite simply, I don't dichotomize and throw the baby out with the bathwater. Does that make sense?

But you seem to be assuming I'm a pessimist. I'm not, I think. And you're assuming that I think life is not worth living. But I don't. I think most human lives probably are worth living.

My point is just that despite our lives being worth living it remains the case that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god would not have created a world like this one and made innocent sentient creatures live in it, other things being equal. And that in turn, this implies that it is wrong for us to force innocent sentient creatures to live in it by creating more of them.

For example, imagine a universe in which everyone is extremely happy bar one person, on whose utter misery everyone else's happiness depends. Well, I think God would not create a world like that one. But in thinking that I am not thereby expressing a pessimistic attitude or supposing that the lives of most people in that world are not worth living. Rather, I am simply expressing the view that creating such a world would be incompatible with being morally good, omnipotent, and omniscient. Even if, for some reason, the world I have just described was the best possible world among all of those the god was capable of creating, it would be wrong for the god to create it. A good, omnipotent, omniscient being would simply desist from creating it. But again, that is not a pessimistic judgement nor does it express a belief that most lives in that world are not worth living.

I think that is relevantly analogous to the sort of situation we find ourselves in.

And I wanted to briefly share my response to that statement you made above. Quite simply, I don't dichotomize and throw the baby out with the bathwater. Does that make sense? — 3017amen

Not to me, because you can't really believe in God if there's no content to your belief. It can be out of focus to some degree, but it can't not be there at all.

Zeroing in on exactly what omnipotence, omniscience and moral goodness involves may be tricky, but we know enough about each to know that this world's existence and our presence in it seems inconsistent with the existence of such a being. (Which is not to say that it is, in fact, inconsistent, just that it appears to be).

The PoE, however, doesn't imply that procreators do not exist, so I don't see how it's relevant. — 180 Proof

The problem of evil implies that God does not exist because omnipotence, omniscience and moral goodness are essential attributes of God. Thus one cannot, for instance, conclude that God is actually a bit immoral. For a being who is not morally perfect is not God.

We are not essentially omnipotent, omniscient, or morally good. Hence the problem of evil applied to human procreative decisions does not imply the non-existence of human procreators. Rather it implies their immorality (if and when those who procreate knew what they were doing and were free to do it).

And so that's the conclusion I draw - I don't conclude that human procreators do not exist, I conclude that they are immoral.

Rather it implies their immorality (if and when those who procreate knew what they were doing and were free to do it). — Bartricks

And again, Bartricks, this doesn't follow, at the least, for the "Be fruitful & multiply" JCI religious (as well as irreligious) procreators.

And so that's the conclusion I draw - I don't conclude that human procreators do not exist, I conclude that they are immoral. — Bartricks

Which is a non sequitur.

As I have already said, the problem of evil addresses the thesis that this world and we in it are the creation of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being. It predates the bible. And anyway, you can't solve these problems by biblical stipulation. How on earth does the fact the bible somewhere says "be fruitful and multiply" (which may, incidentally, be an injunction to do some maths) do anything at all to overcome the problem of evil??

It is not a non-sequitur. You've just said my conclusion does not follow. Explain.

My point is just that despite our lives being worth living it remains the case that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god would not have created a world like this one and made innocent sentient creatures live in it, other things being equal. — Bartricks

I can't stress enough the importance of dropping all of this Omni nonsense. Why would you, or anyone, assume they know the mind of God? Otherwise I think it was Epicurus who rejected such ideas... .

It's meaningless/counterproductive in this context of rationalizing any sense of reconciliation between those two things in your OP.

Let's be a little more sophisticated shall we? For example do you believe the Bible is a modern physics, medical, and cognitive science book? Of course not.

Why would you, or anyone, assume they know the mind of God? — 3017amen

If you dont know the mind of God, how do you know it has one?

The concept of God just is the concept of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being.

If you want to define God as a potato, that's fine - then it is beyond dispute that God exists and there is no problem of evil. But then you believe in a potato and it would be grossly misleading to describe yourself as a believer in God, or a Christian, given that these words have well established uses that you are flagrantly playing fast and loose with.

It is not 'meaningless'. Rather, what you believe seems to be meaningless. You're calling yourself a Christian. But that clearly doesn't mean anything substantial in your mouth.

As for being more sophisticated - how am I not being sophisticated? You are the one who does not seem to understand what the term 'God' refers to, or to understand what it means for a being to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, or to understand that the problem of evil arises for the view that God - understood as a being with the omni properties - exists and created everything.

Show me you are sophisticated and actually start explaining things.

Not to me, because you can't really believe in God if there's no content to your belief. It can be out of focus to some degree, but it can't not be there at all. — Bartricks

Again, you're dichotomizing. Please pause momentarily, and reflect, accordingly. This is not providing any import to the aforementioned reconciliation.

You don't have to believe God is omni-x3 to be a Christian.