I should ask, though, as you believe that God's mind is inscrutable, do you adhere to the notion that we cannot say what God's wishes and wants may be on any matter?
— Arkady
Yes. — TheMadFool
It, rather, claims that gratuitous evil, if it exists, creates massive problems for the existence of God — Chany
Again, read the link I provided: it does not try to hold itself up to the standard of being infallible and definitive. — Chany
The emphasis is on reasonable doubt. — Chany
It, rather, claims that gratuitous evil, if it exists, creates massive problems for the existence of God — Chany
Exactly. And I've shown that this is not the case. — TheMadFool
"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." : Richard Feynman (physicist) — TheMadFool
And there's a sort of hidden premise in virtually every argument, which is the assumption that we're being rational, and I've explained why that assumption is required. — Sapientia
ignorance doesn't really resolve the problem — Sapientia
and that we are fallible. — Sapientia
you actually meant that we can understand God to a significant extent, just not completely at the current time, and with some difficulty, and with the possibility of error — Sapientia
Your comments are too fast, too many. I focussed on the key points in your argument. — TheMadFool
What I'm basically saying is there's a possibility that the problem of evil, as a refutation of god, commits the black/white fallacy (either god is not ommipotent or god is not omnibenevolent). There's a third possibility viz. we don't understand or worse, we've misunderstood, god. — TheMadFool
Either you know shit about God or you're like a monkey and don't know shit. You can't have it both ways. Make up your mind and keep it that way unless you concede. If you know shit about God, then you should go back and answer my request to clearly state what it is that you know and how you know it, rather than evade it. And you should also stop contradicting yourself or making misleading statements by saying things like you can't understand God. — Sapientia
''I know one thing; that I know nothing'': Socrates (2500 years ago). — TheMadFool
Funny how you seem to be suggesting that you know nothing, yet you also claim to understand God to a significant extent. — Sapientia
All you might have done is refute the logical problem of evil (which I do not think you have done since you are not addressing that particular argument). — Chany
How does ''maybe we're wrong about god'' become ''i understand god to a significant extent''? — TheMadFool
No I'm not giving up on omnibenevolence. I'm giving up on human ability to comprehend god. — TheMadFool
It's incomprehensible, the word is essentially meaningless — dukkha
But it appears to me like you want it both ways. As in, "god has x nature (exists, is omnipotent, non-evil, what have you), while at the same time, "gods nature is incomprehensible to humans". — dukkha
There is a disgustingly abhorrent amount of suffering in this world, and I simply can't perform the mental gymnastics required to believe that an all powerful being (benevolent) being couldn't EASILY resolve. At the risk of sounding antagonistic, this "it's all for some obscure greater good so it's not REALLY that bad" strikes me a wishy washy self-comforting delusional nonsense. Forming this belief is like a child reaching for his blanket - it's a comforting feeling, but not particularly mature. — dukkha
Does a child understand why she won't be getting ice cream for dessert? She doesn't. It's painful and yet there's a greater good in the parent's actions. — TheMadFool
If our understanding of morality is as unreliable as you suggest, then you would have no reliable comparison to make here. You'd be forced to completely scrap our human understanding of morality, so you wouldn't even be able to make that analogy in the first place — Sapientia
You'd need something more than mere possibility to go by here. — Sapientia
I'm not proposing such radical measures as ''scrap our human understanding of morality''. — TheMadFool
I only suggest caution. A child latches onto what he understands about his parents and defers his analysis of what he doesn't understand. Likewise we too can do the same. — TheMadFool
This is beside the point though. — TheMadFool
I'm not affirming god's existence, nor am I denying it. I only want to test the soundness of the problem of evil and so far it doesn't look as good as it's made out to be. — TheMadFool
As I said I'm only questioning the soundness of the problem of evil argument. It doesn't look good because it ignores a very important possibility that we've misunderstood or don't understand god. This mere possibility is a real possibility as I've demonstrated countless number of times with my child-adult analogy. — TheMadFool
I didn't say that that's what you're proposing. I said that that's what you'd be forced to do for sake of consistency. I didn't think that you'd find that logical consequence acceptable, but that's what it is. — Sapientia
I already know what your argument is. Why repeat it? That doesn't address my criticism. — Sapientia
As Chany has explained, your interpretation is uncharitable, since it is a considerably weaker version of the argument. — Sapientia
If MadFool is attacking any problem of evil other than the logical problem, then their analogy is, at best, highly questionable. If MadFool is attacking the logical problem of evil, they are attacking the strongest form and are honestly not showing much, as a) I do not need to show something is logically impossible in order to claim it does not exist, b) logical possibility is the weakest form of evidence, considering it simply means the idea is coherent and internally consistent, and c) to my understanding, most people, including the original author of the argument, Mackie, already admit the argument is flawed, so refuting it is a moot point only useful in a teaching setting. — Chany
If MadFool is attacking any problem of evil other than the logical problem, then their analogy is, at best, highly questionable. If MadFool is attacking the logical problem of evil, they are attacking the strongest form and are honestly not showing much, as a) I do not need to show something is logically impossible in order to claim it does not exist, b) logical possibility is the weakest form of evidence, considering it simply means the idea is coherent and internally consistent, and c) to my understanding, most people, including the original author of the argument, Mackie, already admit the argument is flawed, so refuting it is a moot point only useful in a teaching setting. — Chany
A child may choose to accept parts of a parent's personality and reject/modify others. She has no logical obligation to accept everything the parent does/says. — TheMadFool
Read on. I'm responding to your criticism. — TheMadFool
The problem of evil argument I'm concerned with:
1. Either god doesn't exist or evil doesn't exist
2. Evil exists
Therefore,
3. God doesn't exist
It has the strongest conclusion: certain denial of god's existence. If you have another problem of evil argument in mind please post it.
What I want to point out is that this is a false dilemma and presented through my analogy a third alternative viz. we misunderstand or don't understand god's will. Evil could very well be for the greater good just as an adult might discipline a child in a way that causes the child to suffer. — TheMadFool
Then you (and others) said I was contradicting myself viz. that I was making god both incomprehensible and comprehensible at the same time. To this I replied that, as in my analogy, a child may understand part of an adult's personality while remaining ignorant of the rest. There is no contradiction there. — TheMadFool
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