The arbitrariness of it?
Your proposed alternative "No evil but finite good" is explained away by the all-loving god wanting what's best for us, and a net infinite good is better than a net finite good.
Why have "bad" (not really bad if infinitely made up for) at all? The religions have a multitude of answers, from god testing our faith to it being a consequence of free will. If these reasons fail, an all-loving god has to pick or allow either (a) no finite bad to be cancelled out by the good (b) finite bad that is cancelled out by the good, and as there is no reason to prefer "a" or "b", god acts completely reasonably in picking at random or letting what will be, be. — Down The Rabbit Hole
... (a) no finite bad to be cancelled out by the good (b) finite bad that is cancelled out by the good, and as there is no reason to prefer "a" or "b", god acts completely reasonably in picking at random or letting what will be, be. — Down The Rabbit Hole
You accept that good can make up for the bad? — Down The Rabbit Hole
Why have "bad" (not really bad if infinitely made up for) at all? The religions have a multitude of answers, from god testing our faith to it being a consequence of free will. If these reasons fail, an all-loving god has to pick or allow either (a) no finite bad to be cancelled out by the good (b) finite bad that is cancelled out by the good, and as there is no reason to prefer "a" or "b", god acts completely reasonably in picking at random or letting what will be, be. — Down The Rabbit Hole
If you take (b) and delete the bad you get (b+), which is better than (b), thus God could never choose (b). — SolarWind
You accept that good can make up for the bad? — Down The Rabbit Hole
That is the very thing I am disagreeing with. — Moliere
Bit inductive. How much good can you really do during a 100 billion year heat death followed by hawking radiation. By the exact same logic infinite/long infinity = 0 meaning God doesn't exist according to your system. I mean technically .000...001 — Cheshire
Nah, God is usually just the executive function being confused by the inner dialectic for an external master. Really, it sits and passively facilitates communication. Notice, how everyone is always in agreement with what they think God wants them to do? There might also be some emergent mind of the universe, but that experience is pretty distinct. Either case. Inside the world.God and heaven exists outside of this universe, so they say. — Down The Rabbit Hole
Why is "b+" better than "b"? — Down The Rabbit Hole
A better life can't make up for all the hard work in getting there? — Down The Rabbit Hole
If you have a sum of positive and negative numbers and you change the negative numbers to zero, the sum grows. Simple mathematics. — SolarWind
-10 + infinite good = infinite good
-157 + infinite good = infinite good
-258958 + infinite good = infinite good
-999999999999999 + infinite good = ..... — Down The Rabbit Hole
I am of the opinion that untreated leukemia in children, as an example, leading to excruciatingly painful deaths for what are clearly innocent people to all people of right mind simply does not make sense in a world where there is a God who can stop that from happening, even if there's a cookie at the end of the pain. — Moliere
Grow to more than infinity?
-10 + infinite good = infinite good
-157 + infinite good = infinite good
-258958 + infinite good = infinite good
-999999999999999 + infinite good = ..... — Down The Rabbit Hole
Not even close. In fact, if I accept your criteria, there is literally no limit to the amount of evil a being could commit while you're still calling the being omnibenevolent:As long as you accept that good can make up for the bad, for example a better life can make up for all the hard work in getting there, it's just a question of how much, and the infinite good of the afterlife will always make up for any finite suffering. — Down The Rabbit Hole
-10^15 + infinite = ...-999999999999999 + infinite good = ..... — Down The Rabbit Hole
=-10 + infinite good = infinite good
-157 + infinite good = infinite good
-258958 + infinite good = infinite good
-999999999999999 + infinite good = ..... — Down The Rabbit Hole
...As long as you accept that good can make up for the bad... — Down The Rabbit Hole
This infinity is never reached because it is only a potential infinity. We cannot be in the moment of "infinity" and therefore never have experienced infinite happiness. — SolarWind
And it's absurd. An all truthful being apparently can tell lies using this formula. An all spotless being can have spots. An all x being can have arbitrarily large non-x. No mathematician would accept this. All x doesn't mean an infinite amount of x; it means there is no non-x.
We don't have logic and math here supporting your theory; we simply have a confused poster distracting himself with a sum into thinking that things he concede exists don't. If Johnny has four apples, and you give him an infinite number of oranges, Johnny still has four apples. — InPitzotl
Nope. Reread my posts. I'm abstracting out what bad means greatly. "Puppy murder" and "puppy births" are essentially metasyntactic variables.You are effectively saying things are intrinsically bad — Down The Rabbit Hole
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? — Epicurus
Good here is being treated per your op as another thing that also comes in units; Johnny's infinite oranges (as in that same equation). You're so called logic and math is the absurdity that because:-157 + infinite good = infinite good — Down The Rabbit Hole
Googling for "practical badness" and "technical badness" gives me 287 hits. I'm 99% sure these are personal terms you just made up. Care to define them?I think when most people give standard examples of The Problem of Evil, they are talking about the practical badness as opposed to a technical "badness". — Down The Rabbit Hole
...does not map to what Epicurus is talking about:-157 + infinite good = infinite good — Down The Rabbit Hole
...it is not talking about the problem of evil.Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? — Epicurus
↪SolarWind
< This infinity is never reached because it is only a potential infinity. We cannot be in the moment of "infinity" and therefore never have experienced infinite happiness.> — SolarWind
All that matters is the good goes on forever. — Down The Rabbit Hole
I think it's perfectly benevolent to allow harm that for all practical purposes will not have existed. The subject of the harm will have the same net experience as those that would not have been subjected to any harm. — Down The Rabbit Hole
If you suffer 1 year and are happy for 9 years, then you have 10% suffering.
If you suffer for 1 year and are happy for 99 years, then you have 1% suffering.
If you suffer for 1 year and are happy for 999 years, then you have 0.1% suffering.
It never becomes 0, only in the limit.
But if you have never suffered, it is always 0%. — SolarWind
That is because you are not an omnibenevolent being. An all benevolent and omniscient being would not round the numbers. Zero evil is the only thing an all benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent being could tolerate.
The only way the problem of evil makes sense is if God is limited in some way. — Philosophim
Almost. It's not quite a matter of what I personally would consider bad or evil; this is more what the problem is. The whole point of the problem of evil is to resolve why there are evils in the world at all, given that this is evident, and given that there's a being alleged to have the three omni's.I think where we disagree is you would call things bad or evil even if the subjects that experience them are not left worse off in the grand scheme of things? — Down The Rabbit Hole
This doesn't make sense.I think where we disagree is you would call things bad or evil even if the subjects that experience them are not left worse off in the grand scheme of things? — Down The Rabbit Hole
Analogously here, evil is negative. Good is positive. The sum is positive, and that's what you're arguing. But to say that the 157 here isn't evil is analogous to saying that the term there is positive, because the sum is infinite. That makes no sense to me; what gives? Even in your form, those 157 thingies are surely things that have to be made up for, right? Given this model, is this not correct?:-157 + infinite good = infinite good — Down The Rabbit Hole
It's not convincing to me. This logic wouldn't work with raw mathematical concepts. I can't just say that -157 is "practially negative" because the sum -157 + 156 is negative, but -157 is "technically negative" because the sum -157 + 158 = 1 is positive. I see no difference in the -157 in the two equations; -157 is -157 is -157, and it's negative.This is what I mean by practical badness, badness that leaves the subjects that experience it worse off, as opposed to technical badness, a "badness" that is made up for. — Down The Rabbit Hole
My case is built upon the premise that the good will infinitely make up for the "bad". Thus the "bad" won't really be bad for those experiencing it.
Are you saying the good cannot make up for the bad? Or are you making the same point as InPitzotl that even if the "bad" can be made up for it still technically exists? — Down The Rabbit Hole
I think where we disagree is you would call things bad or evil even if the subjects that experience them are not left worse off in the grand scheme of things? — Down The Rabbit Hole
Almost. It's not quite a matter of what I personally would consider bad or evil; this is more what the problem is. The whole point of the problem of evil is to resolve why there are evils in the world at all, given that this is evident, and given that there's a being alleged to have the three omni's. — InPitzotl
Analogously here, evil is negative. Good is positive. The sum is positive, and that's what you're arguing. But to say that the 157 here isn't evil is analogous to saying that the term there is positive, because the sum is infinite. That makes no sense to me; what gives? Even in your form, those 157 thingies are surely things that have to be made up for, right? Given this model, is this not correct?:
-157 + 156 = -1 = slight evil
-157 + 157 = 0 = neutral
-157 + 158 = 1 = slight good
I don't see how you can say that the evil is "made up for" and also that the evil "doesn't exist", and claim that you're using logic and math here. — InPitzotl
What do you mean by "proponents"... proponents of the problem of evil? I don't even know what that means.I always saw (as I think most proponents do) the strength of The Problem of Evil in showing people being left worse off - in the examples of people being tortured and ravaged by disease, alarmingly so. — Down The Rabbit Hole
Again, it doesn't matter. Assume infinite puppy births, but one puppy murder. Why was there a puppy murder? If the gods allowed it, they are not omnibenevolent. If the gods couldn't prevent it, they are not omnipotent. If the gods didn't know, they are not omniscient. Note that the infinite puppy birth assumption here is completely irrelevant to the problem.If the premise that the bad will be made up for is accepted, said people would not be worse off — Down The Rabbit Hole
Again, in your OP you explicitly have a mathematical model of how this works. Translating your above claim into its mathematical analog, you're trying to pitch to me that in the infinite sum, none of the terms are really negative, as the sum is positive. I find that mathematical translation dubious. So if your claim doesn't work in your own analog, why should anyone be compelled to agree with it?In the grand scheme of things none of it is really bad or evil as people are not left worse off. — Down The Rabbit Hole
Sorry, I don't see the honesty you're referring to. If a being has the power to prevent evil, but does not exercise that power, said being is ipso facto, definitionally, disqualified from holding the label omnibenevolent.To be honest, neither of us really knows if an all-good god would care about technical "evils". — Down The Rabbit Hole
I always saw (as I think most proponents do) the strength of The Problem of Evil in showing people being left worse off - in the examples of people being tortured and ravaged by disease, alarmingly so. — Down The Rabbit Hole
What do you mean by "proponents"... proponents of the problem of evil? I don't even know what that means. — InPitzotl
If the premise that the bad will be made up for is accepted, said people would not be worse off — Down The Rabbit Hole
Again, it doesn't matter. Assume infinite puppy births, but one puppy murder. Why was there a puppy murder? If the gods allowed it, they are not omnibenevolent. If the gods couldn't prevent it, they are not omnipotent. If the gods didn't know, they are not omniscient. Note that the infinite puppy birth assumption here is completely irrelevant to the problem. — InPitzotl
In the grand scheme of things none of it is really bad or evil as people are not left worse off. — Down The Rabbit Hole
Again, in your OP you explicitly have a mathematical model of how this works. Translating your above claim into its mathematical analog, you're trying to pitch to me that in the infinite sum, none of the terms are really negative, as the sum is positive. I find that mathematical translation dubious. So if your claim doesn't work in your own analog, why should anyone be compelled to agree with it? — InPitzotl
To be honest, neither of us really knows if an all-good god would care about technical "evils". — Down The Rabbit Hole
Sorry, I don't see the honesty you're referring to. If a being has the power to prevent evil, but does not exercise that power, said being is ipso facto, definitionally, disqualified from holding the label omnibenevolent.
From my perspective, you're asking me to simultaneously forgo all qualifications I hold for the label omnibenevolent, and to apply that term anyway to a god for some reason. That ask is a non-starter. As for addressing the problem of evil, this is more reminiscent of just pretending there isn't a problem than solving one. — InPitzotl
There's a mismatch here. To advocate is to recommend or support a position. The Problem of Evil is a problem, not a position.Yes, those that advocate The Problem of Evil. — Down The Rabbit Hole
What I'm trying to convey to you is that this "being", that being an English word, that you are adding the English adjective "omnibenevolent" to, does not have the "all-good" property as we human English speakers use the terms if said being allows for evil unnecessarily.What I am saying is that an omnibenevolent being may not care about whether a particular instance should be labelled as "bad" if overall nobody experiences net-suffering. — Down The Rabbit Hole
That's not equivalent to what you're proposing, but it doesn't work either. If God's just breaking eggs to make omelettes, the problem would be why it would be necessary to break eggs. If God doesn't care about the broken eggs, God's not omnibenevolent. If God has to break the eggs to make the omelette, God's not omnipotent.Maybe god is a consequentialist, that only cares about the result. — Down The Rabbit Hole
Obviously not; see above. Maybe you're just wrong?Maybe that's what it boils down to: you think things are bad, even if the consequences are not? Maybe it's my consequentialism clashing with your moral principles? — Down The Rabbit Hole
Yes, those that advocate The Problem of Evil. — Down The Rabbit Hole
There's a mismatch here. To advocate is to recommend or support a position. The Problem of Evil is a problem, not a position. — InPitzotl
Maybe god is a consequentialist, that only cares about the result. — Down The Rabbit Hole
That's not equivalent to what you're proposing, but it doesn't work either. If God's just breaking eggs to make omelettes, the problem would be why it would be necessary to break eggs. If God doesn't care about the broken eggs, God's not omnibenevolent. If God has to break the eggs to make the omelette, God's not omnipotent. — InPitzotl
Maybe that's what it boils down to: you think things are bad, even if the consequences are not? Maybe it's my consequentialism clashing with your moral principles? — Down The Rabbit Hole
Obviously not; see above. Maybe you're just wrong? — InPitzotl
That's meaningless.Says you, a proponent of The Problem of Evil. — Down The Rabbit Hole
That's a fair definition. But look at it. Consequentialism is defined as a position on the morality of actions; i.e., it is dealing with moral good and moral evils.Consequentialism is defined as "the doctrine that the morality of an action is to be judged solely by its consequences". — Down The Rabbit Hole
Wrong. Consequentialism would be judging the morality of an action, not a product. The action would be making an omelette. Methinks you're confusing moral evils with natural evils or "benefit" or something. (Incidentally, the problem of evil applies to both moral and natural evils).If God is a consequentialist, the broken eggs won't be bad, the omelettes are all that can be good or bad. — Down The Rabbit Hole
No, the exact disagreement we have is whether or not you solved the problem of evil. "Good" and "bad", being just words, can be redefined to be anything you like, but defining away a problem is not solving it.That's the exact disagreement we have been having: whether good or bad only apply to the consequences. — Down The Rabbit Hole
There's a mismatch here. To advocate is to recommend or support a position. The Problem of Evil is a problem, not a position. — InPitzotl
Says you, a proponent of The Problem of Evil. — Down The Rabbit Hole
That's meaningless. — InPitzotl
Consequentialism is defined as "the doctrine that the morality of an action is to be judged solely by its consequences". — Down The Rabbit Hole
That's a fair definition. But look at it. Consequentialism is defined as a position on the morality of actions; i.e., it is dealing with moral good and moral evils. — InPitzotl
If God is a consequentialist, the broken eggs won't be bad, the omelettes are all that can be good or bad. — Down The Rabbit Hole
Wrong. Consequentialism would be judging the morality of an action, not a product. The action would be making an omelette. Methinks you're confusing moral evils with natural evils or "benefit" or something. (Incidentally, the problem of evil applies to both moral and natural evils).
Metaphorically, breaking eggs would be called a harm in consequentialist analysis. Producing an omelette would be a benefit. And there's still a question of why there needs to be any harm at all, which you are completely dodging. An all powerful being need not break eggs to make an omelette. So why do any eggs ever get broken? That's the problem of evil, and that's the question you're dodging, not answering. — InPitzotl
No, the exact disagreement we have is whether or not you solved the problem of evil. "Good" and "bad", being just words, can be redefined to be anything you like, but defining away a problem is not solving it. — InPitzotl
What are you talking about? The argument that there is a problem is the problem of evil. Incidentally, if there's a definition of humility, I'm pretty sure it applies no more to the random internet guy that solved a 2000+ year old problem by not solving it than it does to the other random internet guy that doesn't buy this because he hasn't heard a real solution.It means it's no surprise that you insist The Problem of Evil is (as a matter of fact) a problem as opposed to leaving it more humbly as an argument that there is a problem. — Down The Rabbit Hole
Right and wrong here are moral judgments. And consequentialism generally works by judging an action as being good if it results in more benefit than harm; or bad if it results in more harm than benefit.The point is consequentialist rights and wrongs are wholly contingent on the results. — Down The Rabbit Hole
That does not follow. In fact, the very fact that harm is compared to benefit in consequentialism is a recognition that harm is bad and benefit is good.If the result is not bad neither is anything in the process. — Down The Rabbit Hole
You're advancing severe misunderstandings of consequentialism.The broken eggs would only be bad if the omelette is bad. — Down The Rabbit Hole
...if we applied this criteria to humans, nobody would ever accept it. A serial killer who kills 30 people, who works as a doctor to save 50 people, we would judge as a person who does bad things. We would be insane to call such a guy omnibenevolent. Nevertheless, overall, this person saved a net 20 lives. Your argument, however, demands I recognize those 30 murders as not being bad given that a net 20 lives were saved. This is an absurd argument.It doesn't make sense for a consequentialist God to avoid creating harm or intervene to stop harm, if overall it is not bad. — Down The Rabbit Hole
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