I want to further discuss hate speech and censorship in general, but I feel that this would be a different topic of the thread, which was to acknowledge the authoritarian left. Do you all think I should make a separate thread or should I just post about hate speech here?

I guess that nonexistent things can talk now. Oh well!

Also, we should get a site timer that counts down to Friday 7:30pm.

But what does it mean to exist?

The word "god" in the problem of evil means the tri-omni god of classical theism. The second you redefine the word "god", the argument will obviously no longer apply.

I never really used evil in that way. For example, the phrase "necessary evil" is completely useable in my books. However, definition issues are irrelevant. If evil is unjustifiable by definition, then I am not sure that evil and God are actually compatible- they might be, or they might not. It depends on a number of factors I do not think we have fully explored yet.

Unjustifiable evil, however, might. Even if it is not logically possible (debatable), it might practically be.

I am not entirely sure what this would entail. I cannot think of a thought experiment that would not lead to a situation where the justifications for free speech are applicable. Do you have something in mind?

My thoughts:

1. There is a need to distinguish the authoritarian left from the libertarian left who support similar ideology in terms of ends, but do not use the same methods to achieve said ends. There is a difference between trying to cancel an event through direct and immediate action and trying to cancel an event by raising awareness of the event's content and having no one show up. There is a difference between saying that we should not say certain speech because it may be harmful or insensitive, and saying that we should not allow certain speech because it may be harmful or insensitive.

2. Regarding trying to get disinvites and canceling speakers to events on college campuses, I think this is where we might run into problems. It seems odd to say that aiming to get a speaker disinvited is an inherently bad action. If someone invited to speak at a college supported Nazi ideology, we hardly would bat an eye. I generally support the notion that more freedom is better. However, I understand the pragmatic view the college staff have to take and the oddity of saying a private institution should not be responsive to its members.

If you define water as a liquid, then the conceptual p-water would not be concievable, it would be impossible. The question revolves around conceivability: is a p-zombie is actually conceivable and, if that is true, what does that imply? Defining consciousness as physical or saying that consciousness is physical from the start without a ton of supporting evidence is not going to solve the issue.

We can distinguish logical possibility from metaphysical possibility. It is possible that Donald Trump is a staff at Kakao Corporation, but it is not possible that Donald Trump is a fried egg. P-zombies are logically possible, but they are metaphysically not possible. — quine

Yes, you can distinguish between logical possibility and metaphysical possibility. However, the argument only requires logical possibility, as it would mean that what consciousness is cannot be reduced to the physical on a conceptual level. What consciousness would be is ultimately nonphysical.

I do think that there may be something to pointing out that there is a dinstinction between what is logically possible and metaphysically possible, such as saying "there is nothing logically impossible about nonphysical entities or consciousness, but the possible world they reside in is not the actual world. The actual world is physical only and does not possess nonphysical entities." However, I am not sure this being possible is enough to defeat the argument outright. One may still have to argue to show that physicalism is likely, especially in light of this argument, which would show that consciousness, by its very conceptual nature, cannot be explained by purely physical means.

If you are asking for a mechanical explanation of the mind, no one has that answered. If you are asking for a mechanical explanation of a p-zombie, then you are never going to get an answer because even if a p-zombie exists, we could never test it in any meaningful way or even know of its existence. The mechanics of p-zombies do not need to be explained, however; they only need to be concievable. By admitting that p-zombies are logically possible and coherent, you are saying they exist in some possible world, meaning that they can, in same way and in some state of affairs, exist. As such, your argument is question begging when you bring up material incoherence, as, from my understanding, the entire p-zombie argument is supposed to show that consciousness, at its core, is not material.

The best you could do is a Moorean shift, such that:

1. Physicalism is true
2. Consciousness is reducable to the physical
Therefore,
3. P-zombies are inconcievable

Again, however, I do not think you have provided a case for 1.

Sorry, physically identical to conscious beings, but lacking consciousness.

No, the definition of p-zombies literally means that they are physically indentical to a conscious being and, therefore, exhibit the behavior of a conscious being. You could say that they are inconcievable, but that is the entire debate.

To say that they are materially incoherent and that consciousness requires a physical/material change is question begging in referrence to the p-zombie argument. The entire point of the p-zombie argument is to try to show that consciousness is cannot be reduced to physicalism. You would need a lot more support for a physical mind than an implication.

I agree. Actually, now that I'm thinking on it, I am not sure if it attacks the logical problem of evil. I hypothesize that one of the reasons the free will defense may be so popular is that it is meant to combat Mackie's version of the argument: namely, there is a logical possible world in which all moral agents pick the moral thing to do whenever faced with a moral situation. It bypasses the whole "obscure possibilities" deal the child analogy seeks to establish by attacking a type of evil we are very familiar with: the evil of other human beings. If this evil is unnecessary, then God's existence runs into a massive problem. The free will defense says that because of the nature of morally significant free will, such a world cannot be brought about by God, but can only be brought out by free agents.

Then again, I am not really sold on the whole free will defense either. Maybe it is better in the actual source material, but from what I've been taught and read about it online, I do not understand how it refutes the logical problem of evil without also including something questionable like open theism, which states that it is logically impossible for God to have divine foreknowledge of free will decisions. And I have a feeling that most theists, at least within mainstream Christianity and certain sects of other religions, would never admit to that.

Then you can't read. Read the thread.

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.

1. If Socrates is a man, then Socrates is mortal.
2. Socrates is a man.
Therefore-
3. Socrates is mortal.

According to you, this is a bad argument because of the possibility of one of the premises being false.

I think it is obvious to any reasonable observer that you have not dealt with any objections with anything more than a restatement of the original proposition, are engaging in special pleading, and are not acknowledging the differences between various forms of the problem of evil and what they aim to do. Therefore, I think we are done here.

Why don't you read the thread and find out?

The problem of evil is not a single argument. That is what you fail to grasp. It is like refuting one of the cosmological arguments for the existence of God and then saying you refuted all of them. 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).

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

Then I know you are special pleading. Because, if this is true, then god really does not change anything and so it is not that important.

Exactly. People believe things for different reasons. People have positions on various topics, of which the god question is one. I do not even like framing the debate in atheist-theist. I feel it ignores all the other positions, namely agnosticism, and tends to overlook attitudes and nuance within people's positions. I know people who are ignostic: they simply do not care enough to even form a position.

Isn't the problem of evil (which I'm refuting) a deductive argument. If what you say is right (about the relevance of possibility in deduction) I'm on the right track. — TheMadFool

The form of Rowe's argument is valid, meaning, in that sense, it is deductive: if the premises are true, then the conclusion must follow. However, the argument is an evidential one: the premises may not be necessarily true, but the argument openly admits that. It is simply puts itself into a deductive form to show that if you accept the two premises as true, the conclusion follows.

The logical problem of evil must show that evil and God are, in a way, logically contradictory. This one does not attempt that. It, rather, claims that gratuitous evil, if it exists, creates massive problems for the existence of God. It just needs to show that the premises are very much more likely to be true than not. Again, read the link I provided: it does not try to hold itself up to the standard of being infallible and definitive.

Also to make matters clear let us take a legal example. Perhaps it'll drive the point home. A person is being charged with murder. It is then the prosecutor's solemn duty to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. In other words there should not be a shadow of doubt that the accused committed the crime. Even the slightest possibility of innocence will affect the verdict. Our situation here is similar. — TheMadFool

This actually quite a good example for my point, not yours. The legal system often operates under the notion of the reasonable observer. For example: would the reasonable observer find that this government policy violates the establishment clause of the first amendment for church-state separation? Would the reasonable observer find this voting registration law to unfairly target and infringe upon people's right to vote? And so on. Reasonable doubt operates under a similar vein. Would the reasonable person find doubt in the case of guilt? They use words like "shadow of a doubt", but, again, through the lenses of reasonable doubt. There is always the possibility that someone was possessed by a demon and the demon framed them for the murder, but this would be considered unreasonable doubt without any reason to believe it to be the case.

The emphasis is on reasonable doubt. In a murder case, the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty; not an exactly parallel here, but that is not what matters, as we are interested in the what the prosecution and defense must do. The prosecution must present that the only rational, logical explanation for the available evidence surrounding a murder case must be that the defendant is guilty. The defense, on the other hand, must ensure that there remains reasonable doubt, that there is reason to doubt that the defendant is guilty. This is why defense attorneys will try to argue to implant alternative scenarios in the juror's heads or argue that critical evidence that points to the defendant's guilt can be interpreted in another way. They want to create an alternative account of what happened that can serve as a reasonable alternative. I emphasized "reasonable". The prosecution does not need a smoking gun: it does not need direct video evidence of the crime taking place in order to get the jurors to find the defendant guilty. It needs a case that no reasonable interpretation of the evidence can exclude the guilt of the defendant. So, if the defendant has a motive, does not have an alibi, was spotted at the scene of the crime around the time of death, was in possession of the murder weapon at the time, and was found at the scene of the crime with a body and no evidence offering an alternative, there is no reasonable doubt and the only way the evidence makes sense reasonably is that the defendant must have committed the murder. It is possible that this was all a grand conspiracy by a third party to frame the defendant, but without any positive reason or evidence that this is the case, it is unreasonable and, therefore, not reasonable doubt.

Also, even if I agree with you, you still have not necessarily dealt a killing blow to the argument, as you are attacking a strong version of the argument that requires a high degree of confidence and high epistemic standards. I can simply argue for a more moderate version that still has relatively high epistemic standards, just not as high as the strong version. It still offers strong evidence, just not as strong as the one you are arguing against.

To further elucidate my concerns about rationality we can take examples from quantum physics and even well known philosophical paradoxes - they are all instances of the inability of rationality to grasp these phenomena. And these are rather mundane matters compared to the mind of a god that can create a universe. How then can atheists be so confident, so dead sure, so definitive about god e.g. by relying on rationlity to deny god's existence. It perplexes me as it should you. — TheMadFool

I will not pursue quantum mechanics further, as I am not a physicist and all my information on it comes from people using it for whatever philosophical argument they want to bolster at the moment. I doubt you are a physicist as well, as whenever I hear a physicist talk about quantum mechanics, they seem to not freak out over it like it’s some impenetrable entity destroying our reality. And what of paradoxes? It’s not like we do not have potential solutions to them. They are problems, yes, but we still parse through them, and solve some of them. And the vast majority of philosophy does not involve paradox. Lastly, you really do not understand atheists, their reasoning, or their arguments that much, as you demonstrated over the course of the thread.

I'm not an extremist. At least not yet. Rationality has its uses and it is the most productive human tool ever. I just think its deficient in key respects when it comes to god — TheMadFool

And my original point stands. You have to explain why we should suspend rational argument when it comes to god. If you cannot do so in way that does not include other arguments, then you are using special pleading. You have to show it is special. Importance is not special, so it is not a valid reason.

And to point out again, in order to do so, you have to give a rational argument about something related to god, defeating the original stance you are arguing for.

I feel the problem of evil is a good counter-argument to god. However, it is, at its heart, a rational argument and rationality itself has a rather shaky foundation. — TheMadFool

At the point rationality is completely thrown out the window, we can throw out the entirety of philosophy, science, and every other intellectual pursuit. At best, we are left with Kierkegaard's faith of Abraham on practically everything, which is a very horrifying thing. And even then there are reasons given for why we would want the faith of Abraham.

Also, this lack of cognitive ability is an argument against God in and of itself.

All I want to say is rationality may be wrong about the whole god issue. — TheMadFool

Then you have not solved the problem of evil in all its forms and have missed the point. Again, mere logical possibility is irrelevant to truth claims unless we are talking about deductive proofs (arguments that prove necessary truths or show logical contradictions and impossibilities). The existence of a particular god does not get to have special status because, as I stated in one of my earlier posts, unless you already follow s specific religious doctrine that says a lot about metaphysics beyond the existence of god, the god of classical theism does not, as you claim, automatically change everything. It changes some things, but so would the truth of a lot of philosophical positions. It does not get special status.

Ultimately, the merits of the child-parent analogy are not based on whether it is possible we are wrong; there is only one proposition I can think of that people could not argue the truth over and lead to a possibility of error. Heck, even the version of the problem of evil I am defending says it may be mistaken. Rather, The merits are based on whether the child-parent situation are actually analogous with the person-God situation. I have pointed out that the situation is not very analogous because a) the lack of ability of the parent to explain to the child is not present with God, b) the cognitive limitations that the person is supposed to have towards God should not be there without special reassurances from God about the very specific reasons he cannot reveal right now.

The issue I question is whether political liberalism falls into a similar fate. For example, consider the definition of facism presented:

a state/group/person that rules their people by force; characterized by authoritarian policies and behavior. — VagabondSpectre

First, all states are necessarily centers of violence and power. States ultimately use force and the recognized monopoly on power they possess to enforce law and policy, so that part of the definition is not problematic. The next part is actually leads to an interesting discussion: liberals may have a wider area of what is allowed and is not allowed, but they still have an area and will use force, suppression, and peer pressure in order to get others to conform to their ideology. For example, there are certain things you cannot say and expect to be taken seriously within a liberal society, to the point where saying such will merit being ridiculed, publicly shunned, or, in certain instances, forced if you try to do certain actions regarding your beliefs. Ultimately, if a group with anti-liberal values or something outside the scope of currently acceptable speech starts becoming anything more than some extreme fringe of blog-posters, you can expect extreme conflict.

The extreme libertarian must, ultimately, be brought to conform within liberal society. We can let the libertarian publish books and maybe hold a couple of meetings, but, at some point, there are core liberal values that must be enforced. The act of speech may be very much protected within liberal society, but everything else and protection from reactions of speech are not protected. I can lose my job, be blacklisted, be shunned by the community, and be forced to cooperate with authoritarian policies under force of punishment. This is how things are: there is a scope of acceptability within every society. There are values that liberal society enforces and if you step over the line, you are out, whether that line is legal or social.

And that is what people are arguing for today. They are saying the scope of acceptability within our society should shift, just like we all try to argue for in our own way. There are statements you just couldn't say today that you could fifty years ago. You could call racial groups ethnic slurs or openly state things that we would clearly find racist by any reasonable standard, and you would have a plethora of defenders.

The problem here is equating continuity with infinite divisibility, as if space and time consisted of infinitely many points and instants, respectively. The reality is that there are no actual points, just continuous space; and there are no actual instants, just continuous time. An infinitesimal distance can be traveled in an infinitesimal interval of time. A finite distance can be traveled in a finite interval of time. — aletheist

I think you are onto a good idea and your argument makes sense; the paradox arises because Zeno slips in between reality and the abstract language we need to use to discuss certain aspects of reality, mathematics.

It depends on what you mean by truth. Everyone has a different take on it, so everyone is going to answer differently. Everyone deals with issues differently and big parts of philosophy seek to answer the questions raised in this discussion.

I used to go on a site with people like this all the time, so it does not bother me. And, I actually learned a lot about science and stuff over the course of the thread. To be honest, philosophy of religion is one of the few areas I like discussing and feel I can actually attribute to, though I am done with this thread at this point. I thought I finally made progress, but I realized that was not true.

The stakes are high in this one. The truth/falsity of god is crucial to what we value, how we live our lives. Doesn't this make it reasonable (your words) to reconsider the possibility no matter how small? — TheMadFool

This statement speaks more to what you are bringing into the discussion than the discussion itself. The existence of the god of classical theism may tell us a bunch of things about reality, but, without a bunch of other concepts and ideas attached to said god, it would not change things anymore than other important issues would change things. God existing means:
1) We know the universe was created by God (I think, I never actually pondered a god who had nothing to do with the existence of the universe)
2) There is a purpose for our evil (the problem of evil is practically solved)
3) We know there is an objective moral system
4) Physicalism is false
There might be a couple of things missing from the list, but if nothing else changes, we still have a group of problems. First, if people do not necessarily need to believe in the correct god or, so nothing changes there; atheism and nontheistic religions are off the table but that still leaves the rest of them. We know morality is objective now, but we have no idea what exactly is good. Epistemology is still a problem, and there are a boatload of metaphysical questions still unanswered.

Again, I apply it to the scenario I said above. There are a lot of things that are serious and can change a lot of how we do things and how we think about things, but the mere logical possibility that something is true alone does not matter. I actually think that there are questions in philosophy related to epistemology (how we know generally, peer disagreement) and metaphysics (free will, personal responsibility) that matter as much as, if not more than, the god question, and I do not see the reason to change the entire rule set of philosophy for them. Particularly for an argument that does not claim to disprove God, but provide strong evidence against God's existence.

You're committing the fallacy of accident. This is a special case and so must be given due respect. — TheMadFool

It is only a special case if your entire worldview already revolves around the existence of a particular god and you desperately need that god to be true within your own mind. In philosophy generally, it is a question among many. Again, we have general rules about epistemology and philosophical investigations. We can argue about the rules themselves, but we cannot arbitrarily suspend or changes them to fit our needs. We need to be consistent.

So, unless you want to say that "the mere possibility of determinism being true warrants us to ignore any argument for free will where the premises have a logical possibility of being false, no matter how true it appears to be in the actual world and how much support we muster for free will," and "we cannot dismiss the claim that terrorism is all secretly a conspiracy by the U.S. government to keep the populations of the world fearful because there is nothing inherently contradictory about the proposition," you have to say the hyperskeptical attitude you demand is special pleading.

You haven't yet convinced me that I should ignore the simple possibility that we and our reason could be mistaken. — TheMadFool

Because your argument rests on an analogy between God and man and man and child. The analogy fails because humans and children have limitations on what we can understand and what we can do, while God created us with limited cognition and can explain these facts to us.

I want to do that with god. So, will you help me or not? What are the competing hypotheses? — TheMadFool

Each observation would have to be taken per case by case, ultimately, though we may be able to group some into categories if we are lucky. What observation do you want to use God to explain?

Suppose I'm wrong. How would you explain temples, prayer, rituals, ceremonies, festivals, etc.? — TheMadFool

Here a potential explanation: people do not like the unknown. We look for patterns and tend to find them in places they do not exist. We also like to apply agency to things; we like to believe things are like us, and have minds like us. Simply put, we made something like a god up as an explanation for something we saw. The concept of god became refined as time went on and eventually reached to where we are at now. Again, as I said earlier, notice how a lot of the pagan gods are effectively really powerful people with magical powers over a specific domain who demand sacrifices that a human would have.

I'm trying to solve the problem of evil, in effect making god's existence compatible with evil. It all rests on the possibility that there's nothing impossible about us, our thinking, being wrong. — TheMadFool

The evidential problem of evil makes no such claim; read the link provided and the authors of the argument (Rowe and Russell, but mostly Rowe) specifically state that there may be other lines of evidence for the existence of God that outweigh the first premise or the argument in general. However, logical possibility alone is next to meaningless within arguments that do not revolve around logical impossibility or logical necessity. Pigs can logically fly, but pointing out that pigs can logically fly does nothing against the state of non-flying pigs in the actual world. The possibility has to be a reasonable one worth considering. The first premise does not require absolute certainty to be supported- but most premises in most arguments do not require this.

I understand that global skepticism is impractical but look at the issue. It is of universal importance - what if there is a creator, a god? It would change everything: the way we conduct ourselves, the way we think, etc. Therefore, it is wise to entertain this doubt, this skepticism. In this case even the tiniest of possibilities is very significant. — TheMadFool

What you are effectively asking for is special pleading in the case of the existence of God. You are not merely asking for the uncontroversial condition of being more rigorous in possibly important statements; we are not going to approach philosophical issues like we do with whether there is soda in the fridge. We want to be rigorous in intellectual pursuits. But what you are asking for us to do become hyper-skeptical on a specific issue because without said hyper-skepticism, you run into problems. You cannot ask to change the rules of game just because the rules of the game do not favor you. If we accept your stance- that on issues that are considered important to us, we should adopt hyper-skepticism- then we have to do the following: imagine a person claiming that every single terrorist attack and action supposedly done by Islamic extremists to Western countries was a conspiracy by the United States government to make the population of the country scared and complacent. Every shooter was a sleeper cell brainwashed by government, every terrorist video was invented by the government, etc. Imagine if we provided an argument with lots of evidence that it is the case and that there are no reasonable grounds to maintain that position. The person's response to the argument goes, "There is a logical possibility that the government does these things and that we just do not know how it is done. I understand that global skepticism is impractical but look at the issue. It is of global importance - what if the U.S. is killing the citizens of the world and are blaming it on Muslim extremists? It would change everything: the way we conduct ourselves, the way we think, etc. Therefore, it is wise to entertain this doubt, this skepticism. In this case, even the tiniest of possibilities is very significant." Do you find their counterargument very good?

Also, you are assuming that the God question actually matters. It is assumed God cares about humanity, but this might not be the case. As a joke from a television show goes, "And on the eighth day, God created a magical talking snow leopard and forgot all about us." There is, as it stands right now, no reason to believe a God that exists would actually care.

So, I restate: what is wrong with my analysis of the child analogy as faulty?

Shifting goalposts from observable religious practices to the general teleological argument for the existence of god. Take it one step at a time.

Regarding your initial argument, the observation of religious practices as proof of God's existence, do you admit the argument is faulty and that we cannot use religious practices as good evidence of God's existence?

Let's say I believe that my car works. That is the hypothesis: my car works. In order to verify this hypothesis, I must be able to do a set of actions (an experiment) that produce observations that might falsify the hypothesis; if I cannot, science cannot work and science cannot make any claims on the truth of the hypothesis. In this case, I can by putting my key in the ignition and turning it. I turn the key and the car starts working. My belief is verified because I did an experiment whose outcome could have been the car did not start and did not work. Note that the fact of the car working is independent of my belief that the car will work. If the car had mechanical problems and actually would not work, then when I went to turn on the car, the car would not start and I could not drive. My belief in the car working does not influence the actual outcome or the observation of the car starting. If the car does not start, my belief that car works is false.

Let's say I believe that God is the cause of human religious beliefs. That is the hypothesis: the explanation for human religious beliefs is that God exists and is the religious are just responding to God's existence. In order to verify this hypothesis, I must be able to do a set of actions (an experiment) that produce observations that might falsify the hypothesis; if I cannot, science cannot work and science cannot make any claims on the truth of the hypothesis. We run into a problem here; what experiment can we set up or what set of observations can we discover that would a) falsify the hypothesis, and b) falsify the alternative hypothesis (the explanation for religious beliefs is that the religious believe in a nonexistent being and act according to their false beliefs)? We already know that, at most, all but one view on God is false, so we already know people can be motivated by false beliefs in a false God.

A fictional being runs into this situation quite often. We cannot find any observations that would indicate that being is anything more than fiction. All the observations of the supposed being can be explained away. The existence of the supposed being may even contradict known facts about the world. For example, the Loch Ness Monster: we know the original photographs are faked. We know that there is nothing in the lake because we scanned the entire thing and found nothing. We know that an animal population could not survive for such a period of time without being discovered. There is absolutely no reason to believe the Loch Ness Monster exists and every reason to believe it to be nothing but fiction. Therefore, based on science, the Loch Ness Monster is effectively falsified and is a fictional being. The fact that I have to explain this is sad.

Also, you ignored the first part of the post. Your argument is refuted because I can prove things I know are fiction to be true using your argument, like the Loch Ness Monster. People believe in the Loch Ness Monster and go on tours, have sightings, and commission documentaries, despite all the evidence against it existing. But, according to your argument, the Loch Ness Monster exists, because people believe in it and behave as if it were real.

P.S.

Science relies on effects of hypothesized entity to prove that said entity exists. — TheMadFool

This sentence indicates that you do not understand the modern scientific method or how it works. It does not prove directly, it falsifies competing hypotheses and deduces that to the only hypothesis left. If you do not get that, you do not understand science.

A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us....Friedrich Nietzsche — TheMadFool

Okay? Fortune cookie wisdom?

I think everybody, even non-philosophers, understands your point. So much so that it needn't be explicitly stated. — TheMadFool

Except you use this view of the mind to criticize an argument I presented. Now that this avenue of attack is out of the way, please explain what is wrong with my argument regrading the failure of the child analogy.

But its not. You have to set up controls for the experiment to eliminate variables that could make the can unequal. If not, there is always a way for me to criticize the exercise and claim the two cans were not equal in your mind. I am saying it is impossible to account for all the control variables in this case, which is required for the experiment to work.

This is irrelevant. I know Harry Potter is a fictional being because the author made up the character and openly admits to that by putting the book in the fiction setting. Your argument proves Harry Potter is real. Therefore, it is faulty.

If you want an explanation as to how to distinguish between fact and fiction, please reread the many posts explaining just that.

There is a difference between leaving the possibility for error and claiming that something is unjustified. If you are saying that I cannot, with absolute certainty, disprove God via the current argument, you are right, but this is nothing new. The problem of evil the child analogy targets seeks to provide evidence for the nonexistence of God and claim that, ignoring all other relevant evidence, it is more likely than not that God does not exist. If you you do not trust the mind's ability to make sound judgments to any degree, then we are left in a permanent state of agnosticism on everything. If you trust our mind's ability to make judgments, then what is wrong with my argument regarding why cognitive limitations are not a good reason to avoid the problem of evil?

Completely missing the point there: I do not accept that the human mind is so faulty to the point of inability to generate arguments. I am saying your stance is self-defeating.

My beliefs are irrelevant to the validity and soundness of your argument. Do you admit your argument is faulty?