But using all of the same terms from the flip side, the problem of evil says our experience of God changes with or without suffering. — Fire Ologist

I am saying that this comment from you:

But the real irony is, without God, for some reason, this same life is now seen as the triumph of nature, with life finding a way despite calamity after insufferable calamity. If we take God out of the equation, we see those beings that bear suffering and overcome pain as heroic and good. Suffering almost becomes justified by all of the lives that follow it. Suffering adds to the good of living once it is overcome. — Fire Ologist

Seems mistaken.

As an atheist who doesn't beleive that there are gods, reality does not become a triumph of nature just because there's no 'magic sky wizard' or ground of being, call the thing whatever you want.

We have to assume an all-good God who was all-powerful would use that power to eliminate all of our suffering. That’s not a necessary, logical assumption. — Fire Ologist

Not all atheists accept this argument.

Suffering aside, I think it is certainly worth remarking upon that predation and cruelty are built into the engine of survival for most creatures, but this is not a disproof of god. The problem of suffering does not lead you automatically anywhere, whether you are a theist or an atheist.

Without God or anything behind it, pain is just another experience, justifiable and justified as any experience might be justified. It is what it is; that’s how evolution works. Pleasure draws things toward each other, pain repels things apart; the living grow and take over, the dying diminish and are consumed. Suffering is no longer something to be eliminated or something that can even be imagined as eliminated. Pain is now a badge of honor to those for whom that which does not destroy us makes us stronger. — Fire Ologist

I don't recognise this way of thinking. It reads like bad Nietzsche to me. No doubt atheists hold diverse views on suffering. Trying to avoid it is my path. Suffering holds no intrinsic meaning.

Interesting excerpt, thanks.

I wouldn’t always call faith itself irrational,
— Tom Storm

So what do we mean with "irrational", here? — Dawnstorm

As per my examples.

Try these. If you take it on faith that black people are inferior to white people, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that women are inferior to men, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that LGBTQ+ individuals are morally corrupt, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that people of another religion are damned, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that any group is inherently superior or inferior without evidence, you are holding an irrational belief. All of these views I regularly hear from theists. — Tom Storm

For example, I think, if a Christian fideist would use the word "irrational", they might appeal to (b) above. — Dawnstorm

Well it would depend how it's being used.



Thanks, this discussion has gone all over the shop. My original problem with faith was those who use the word to describe a reasonable confidence that a plane will fly when we have empirical grounds not to doubt this.

But I don't think there's anything I need to add to this one for now.

It's curious that you keep making arguments against positions I do not hold.

It seems you are perhaps bigoted against atheists, perceiving them all as monstrous amalgamations of the worst traits of Dawkins and Hitchens.

Religious faith is irrational. Prove me wrong." — Leontiskos

I haven’t argued that, it’s far too totalising. I would say that many religious believers hold irrational beliefs, but so do many political adherents.

So I guess you can just get back to me when you find a more objective source than Bertrand Russell, or when you at least have the intellectual seriousness to look for some objective sources. — Leontiskos

I’m not seeking authority figures to follow; I leave that to zealots and fundamentalists.

On the pejorative definition of faith, anyone who believes something without evidence must be engaged in faith. — Leontiskos

That would be a bad argument. Try these. If you take it on faith that black people are inferior to white people, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that women are inferior to men, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that LGBTQ+ individuals are morally corrupt, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that people of another religion are damned, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that any group is inherently superior or inferior without evidence, you are holding an irrational belief. All of these views I regularly hear from theists.

Calling faith "irrational" isn't automatically an insult, since rational belief is belief proportioned to evidence. — Banno

I wouldn’t always call faith itself irrational, (and maybe my wording is lacking precision) but it’s often used to justify many of the irrational ideas listed above. I’ve spoken with numerous Muslims and Christians over the years who, when unable to find sound reasons for their beliefs (which are often bigotries), simply appeal to ‘faith.’

Are all expressions of faith wonky in precisely this way? I would think not. But it seems clear to me that faith can have many problematic uses.

I probably should be clear that I would still count faith as a virtue. Sometimes we must make a leap. Or commitment to fragile, finite things — like love, freedom, or democratic life — knowing they can fail. We might still praise faith when it means trusting, hoping, or committing in uncertainty — not when it means believing without evidence about factual matters. — Banno

Now that's a good point and I can't find anything to disagree with.

Did you take a look at the SEP article on Faith? Even a quick glance will show that the issue is far from settled, especially amongst the believers. — Banno

Yes, this is instructive. And corresponds to the fact that among my Christian friends there is a range of views about what faith is and whether people really have faith and whether it is reliable. My views are also formed by talking to Christians.

So what you have done here is not only to argue against the rationality of faith, but to demonstrate it by eliciting the responses above. This was never an open discussion, at least for some participants.

Consider this in relation to the recent chats hereabouts concerning liberalism.

Thoughts? — Banno

Indeed. I am quite interested in dogma and it seems particularly prevalent in religion and politics.

My friend, a Catholic priest called John, has often said (paraphrasing Dr Johnson, I think) that "Faith is the last bastion of the scoundrel.' He has spend decades fighting Catholic bulldogs on such views as, "I have it on faith that gays will burn in hell."

Thanks. There's a lot wrapped up in this notion of faith that has been left unsaid.

I just told you why: because your whole approach to this topic is absurd and bigoted. That's why you're being insulted. — Leontiskos

The problem is that you're just demonstrating that many Christians can't argue in good faith - they have to belittle and cajole and bully when challenged.

At least, I would think this if I were bigoted against Christians. :wink:

What I actually think is that you are trying the best you can to engage with this and with a view you don't or can't accept and this is what it looks like. As it happens, I'm trying the best I can to think this through as well.

So what are the take home messages here, apart from, 'Never start a land war in Asia?"

Notice the "But once the definition of faith shifts toward loyalty, duty, trust, or group belonging, "evidence" falls away and isn't part of the conceptual structure anymore"? This begins to show our differences in emphasis with the theists hereabouts. This is probably what causes Leon such indigestion. — Banno

That has been my instinct for much of this. Interesting.

But you're not being very philosophical, are you? It's just insults and ad hominems, presumably because you hate atheism and see everyone in the image of Dawkins or Hitchens.

You haven’t attempted to respond to this:

I recall talking to some apartheid-era South Africans who had it on faith that black people were inferior to white people. That’s the problem with an appeal to faith – there is nothing that can't be justified using an appeal to faith, since it is not about evidence. As per Hebrews 11: 'Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.' — Tom Storm

Maybe consider the idea that your whole approach to this topic is absurd, and that this is why you are being insulted. — Leontiskos

Well, you're the only one doing the insulting. I wonder why you feel this is necessary?

Provide some arguments. Dig in and show us how it is done. Make it easy for the dumb, uneducated atheist.

This is ironic, Tom. "Conviction" is here translating elenchos, which in many translations is rendered as 'evidence.'

For example, the King James Version, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." — Leontiskos

Good that's better - I got this off the Revised Standard Version. But no doubt there are endless arguments about which translations are correct, etc.

Just to be clear, ChatGPT was used here in order to cut the amount of work involved in Austin's method, which he envisioned as being done by a team of nerds in the confines of a few rooms in Oxford - after his experiences during the war... — Banno

Fascinating!

Well, your account was that faith involves trust in an authority. If this were so then we might expect to find "trust and "authority" amongst the main words found. While "trust" is there, "authority" isn't. — Banno

Curious. Am I wrong to want to include 'evidence'?

Are we able to talk without personal attack?

If so, then let's step this out.

It's hardly surprising that an atheist would consider religion to be wrong about reality and the world, just as you would consider the millions, perhaps a billion atheists to be wrong (possibly irrational) too.

But why stop at your precious 2.4 billion folks? Why not all the other billions of people from all the other religions?

I assume many Christians would hold that the 1.9 billion Muslims and 1.2 billion Hindus hold erroneous if not irrational beliefs.

So what?

I think faith is a bad pathway to truth. I'm talking about faith, not faiths. So we differ on this, and you appear to think you have transcendence and scholarship on your side. Isn't this what philosophy is about—conversations about positions that are different from our own?

If I'm wrong, there is nothing at stake here. I'm grappling with this material like anyone else.

As I said to Mr Ross -

I don't think 2.4 billion people are believing things without evidence. And we'd need to include other religions like 1.9 billion Muslims and 1.2 billion Hindus too. My view is that people believe in God for many reasons (faith not being the best of them), but mostly people hold the religion and values of their culture and upbringing. — Tom Storm

I hold a rather complex view on why people follow religions, and I spend a significant amount of time with theists (mainly Catholics). I am partial to Father Richard Rohr (no doubt a heretic to some) and to Thomas Merton. I consider spirituality to be a significant part of many people's lives.

But that doesn't mean I won't attempt to test views and thinking on a philosophy forum to see what works and what doesn't.

To be fair, I do think that there is a prominent sense colloquially where confused theists will explain faith in this manner; but I think if we are iron manning the position then what they really mean is that some propositions that they believe as true they could not completely verify themselves but, rather, they trusted some authority, in this case God, to tell them — Bob Ross

Ok, well that seems a more reasonable explanation.

If you believe, even in part, that the airplane will not crash because you trust the pilots to do their job (e.g., without drinking on the job, without making an improper turn, etc.); then that belief is in part faith-based: it has an element of faith mixed up in it. — Bob Ross

So this is probably at the nub of our difference here. I generally hold that “faith” isn’t a useful term outside of the religious use. But I see that perhaps my position here is unorthodox. For me it’s about a reasonable confidence given empirical results of flight. There is no need for faith.

But thank you for helping me rethink my position. As I said to Leon much earlier, I may well be wrong about this; I’m just trying to talk this through.

I don't think 2.4 billion people are believing things without evidence. And we'd need to include other religions like 1.9 billion Muslims and 1.2 billion Hindus too. My view is that people believe in God for many reasons (faith not being the best of them), but mostly people hold the religion and values of their culture and upbringing.

I recall talking to some apartheid-era South Africans who had it on faith that black people were inferior to white people. That’s the problem with an appeal to faith – there is nothing that can't be justified using an appeal to faith, since it is not about evidence. As per Hebrews 11: 'Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.'

As far as self-proclaimed atheists qua atheists, Austin Dacey is the only one I have read in this vein. Dacey is not irrational enough to believe that 2.4 billion people are just believing things without evidence, but the same is true of any atheist with half a brain. — Leontiskos

Cool. Thanks, I will check him out.

I don’t think we should continue a conversation about faith since you’ve determined that I’m an unreasonable interlocutor, and so this can only go, even further, to shit.

I can't tell whether your righteous indignation is genuine or just a performance. We're simply having a conversation about faith here. If that's enough to make you throw around insults and accusations so conspicuously, it suggests you might be struggling with the subject matter more than you're letting on. Is this a case of attack being the best defence?

I always assumed that engaging in philosophy means being open to challenging discussions and differing viewpoints. If disagreement feels like a personal attack to you, perhaps it's time to reflect on your commitment to philosophical inquiry. If you feel the need to twist other people’s arguments to justify such antipathy, perhaps you need to draw on your Christianity more deeply and find some compassion for those unlike yourself who are only asking questions. It’s not all about you, Brother.

What, in ongoing social praxis, does it even mean to "trust that a plane will fly me somewhere safely" — Dawnstorm

Theists often say to atheists, “You guys live by faith too—every time you fly.” I wouldn’t have thought to compare those two ideas myself.

I raised it because it seems like an equivocation.

The point is you don’t need faith that planes fly; the empirical evidence of their capabilities is so strong that to doubt this would be irrational.

Similarly, the focus on "faith that god is real" seems off, too — Dawnstorm

Evangelicals I sometimes converse with tell me, “God is real.” I ask how they know that. They say, 'my faith tells me it's true." It’s not my argument; I’m just responding to it.

So what are we comparing here to begin with? — Dawnstorm

We are comparing faith in the truth of a particular God with a reasonable expectation and belief in successful plane flight and, particularly, the role of evidence in both.

Clearly, both theists and atheists don't expect to crash when they get on a plane, and clearly both can find themselves in a crashing plane, and not quite as clearly but still somewhat transparently, both know that they can find themselves in a crashing plane before they get on. — Dawnstorm

The discussion has nothing to do with how anyone feels while on a plane or if, in rare instances, one may crash.

Where are genuine philosopher and the poet? — jufa

What counts as a genuine philosopher and poet?

I would just clarify that faith is about trust in the strict sense of "in an authority". I could trust in the chair in that "this chair will hold me if I sit on it" because I believe it is made of strong materials and bolts by my inspection; but this kind of 'trust' is not the same as if I were to trust the chair craftsman that made it and this is why I believe it will hold me. Of course, both of these kinds of trust are in play with most of our beliefs; but it is worth separating them out for this discussion. I would say the only legitimate, strict sense of 'trust' is this kind that is in an authority. — Bob Ross

So, at the risk of becoming boring, if I trust that a plane will fly me somewhere safely because of empirical evidence that they do, almost without fail, would it be fair to call this 'faith' in flying? How does this compare to faith that God is a real?

What you need to do is recognize that religious people are human beings, that human beings are not merely irrational, and then you need to generate a sincere interest in understanding why they believe the things they do. — Leontiskos

I don’t recall saying religious people aren’t human beings. I thought you disliked rhetorical stunts like this.

I was simply asking that we consider evidence in regard to the difference between faith and belief.

Because suppose you ask the question, "There are 2.4 billion people in the world who are Christians. Why are they Christians?" The answer, "Because they are emotional and irrational," is just plain stupid. — Leontiskos

I was saying that atheists find 'faith' used to justify a belief in god as irrational — the concept we are discussing. I did not make the argument that, beyond this, all Christians are emotional and irrational.

People who think 2.4 billion humans basically form beliefs in the absence of evidence or contrary to evidence simply don't understand the first thing about human psychology. They are so biased against religion that they adopt psychologically absurd theories. They are conspiracy theorists. — Leontiskos

This may be true, but we weren’t talking about human psychology, nor have I argued what you’ve written here, so it’s a bit of a red herring.

I have read Aquinas on faith, Avery Dulles' historical survey of faith, Pieper's essay on faith, Martin Laird's dissertation-derived book on faith, Ratzinger's treatment, and various academic encyclopedias on the topic. — Leontiskos

Not sure if this is an appeal to authority or if you’re saying that you only read writers who are Christians, mostly Catholics. Either way, this does not mean that you are right about faith. It just means that you have a very specific frame you wish to prosecute here. But I have already said you may be right about this, I wanted to have the conversation and not be shut down with "I know better". Nor is it helpful to be told what kind of atheist I am, or who would laugh at me, since these are just rhetorical tricks, which are worthy of David Bentley Hart — entertaining though he is.

Psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists would get a good laugh out of that sort of intellectual unseriousness. — Leontiskos

My background is in sociology, and my staff teams have psychologists, anthropologists, health science graduates. Most of them would agree with me on faith. It comes up. But I wouldn’t presume to offer this as justification for my own position.

If we have no common point of departure, then we will just talk past each other by using different definitions of 'faith'. — Leontiskos

Maybe this is the case. Perhaps our differences are too great.

Thank you, I've enjoyed the discussion immensely and am interested to learn more about the use of and limitations of the word faith. I'm just not sure it's you who can assist right now.

I'd be interested to know what a good secular philosopher would say about this discussion.

Are there any atheists you respect, or do you think the position is irredeemably unjustifiable?

But the real irony is, without God, for some reason, this same life is now seen as the triumph of nature, with life finding a way despite calamity after insufferable calamity. If we take God out of the equation, we see those beings that bear suffering and overcome pain as heroic and good. Suffering almost becomes justified by all of the lives that follow it. Suffering adds to the good of living once it is overcome. — Fire Ologist

I don’t understand this argument at all. Much life is suffering and gloomy regardless of theism or atheism. The experience doesn’t change with or without a deity.

The only position against God, then, to me, is, God should not have created anything. We should never have been given the opportunity to weigh in on our own lives or God's creation. Fine, if you are antinatalist or a miserable solipsist, or just contrarian. But the position that God must not exist because pain exists? Seems ultimately like a complaint to the hotel manager. — Fire Ologist

Lots of ideas here. Yes, perhaps God should not have created the world. I can see this as a legitimate response. I am not arguing that god does not exist because of pain. I am saying that there’s a design argument for pain and suffering being intentional to God’s plan. The hotel analogy isn’t terrible. You know what happens to dysfunctional hotels? They are shut down and the owners are prosecuted.

No, not really. I've pointed to dictionaries, philosophy of religion, historical usage, etc. You've appealed to members of your echo chamber. That's a rather big difference. — Leontiskos

You might be right - although I don't recall appealing to an echo chamber.

Note that the pejorative argument looks like this:

1. Religious faith is irrational
2. Faith in airplanes is not irrational
3. Therefore, faith in airplanes is not religious faith – there is an equivocation occurring

That’s all these atheists are doing in their head to draw the conclusion about an equivocation, and this argument is the foundation of any argument that is built atop it.

-

We can actually parallel the two propositions quite easily:

Lack of faith, lack of assent
1a. “I do not have faith that the airplane will fly, and I do not assent to the proposition that the airplane will fly.”
1b. “I do not have faith that God exists, and I do not assent to the proposition that God exists.”
Lack of faith, presence of assent
2a. “I do not have faith that the airplane will fly, but I assent to the proposition that the airplane will fly.”
2b. “I do not have faith that God exists, but I assent to the proposition that God exists.”
Presence of faith, presence of assent (where assent flows solely from faith)
3a. “I have faith that the airplane will fly, and I assent to the proposition that the airplane will fly (and my assent is based solely on my faith).”
3b. “I have faith that God exists, and I assent to the proposition that God exists (and my assent is based solely on my faith).”
Presence of faith which is not necessary for assent (overdetermination)
4a. “I have faith that the airplane will fly, but I would assent even if I did not have faith.”
4b. “I have faith that God exists, but I would assent even if I did not have faith.” — Leontiskos

I find this interesting. Now bear with me, I'm not a philosopher, so this is just how it looks to me.

What seems missing from your summary of this discussion is exploration of evidence. Doesn't that leave out the key element?

From the atheist perspective - let’s start with the top example:

Religious faith is considered irrational because god can't be demonstrated and there is no good reason to believe in a god.

Faith in airplanes is not irrational because we can demonstrate that they exist and that people fly safely every second of the day.
Therefore, faith in airplanes is not unwarranted.

Now, I grant you that the question of whether one believes in God or not generally comes down to whether one is convinced by certain arguments. If someone doesn't share particular presuppositions and beliefs, then the argument is going to land very differently.

Do you see that this is also pejorative? — Leontiskos

Sure, I can see that it's inflammatory. But polemicists aren't always wrong. Being polemical can be a kind of poetry.

As a theist, you would of course see it as pejorative. But you and other theists also use polemics and pejorative language when talking about atheists, so as far as that goes, it seems to be open season. Both camps often convinced that the other is obtuse, irrational and wrongheaded.

Have you looked at Pieper's essay? If you want to know what a group means by faith, you have to look at sources from that group. In this case the way that group (Christians) use the word is entirely consonant with historical and lexical usage. — Leontiskos

I started it but struggled with it. It's prolix, and I would need some hours to step out the argument with notes, which I don’t have time for. But I appreciate the piece being included and may get around to it. We've ended up in a debate about whose usage is correct, and, unsurprisingly, we've landed where the theist thinks their usage is correct, and the freethinker thinks theirs is.

So I have always held that faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they don't have a good reason.

The Russell quote seems to provide a polemical definition of faith.

My original issue with faith is that Christians often tell me that choosing to fly in a plane is an act of faith equivalent to belief in God. To me, this seems wrong on a couple of counts. First, we can demonstrate that planes exist. Second, they almost always fly safely. God, on the other hand, is a confused idea. Even within a single religion, people can't seem to agree on what God is or what God wants. And then there's the problem of proof, which in this context exists solely in making inferences of a certain kind.

But the reason I asked you about this is because how language is used seems to be a critical point in discussions of faith. I've been told that my understanding of faith is mistaken. The claim is that we all have faith of some kind, and that when we say faith is belief without evidence, we are oversimplifying or misrepresenting how the word is used. Sounds to me like there are multiple uses of the word faith going on, and they’re not all equivalent.

I don't think faith historically has ever referred to "belief despite the evidence" and that kind of usage is almost exclusively done by "new atheism" as a straw man. — Bob Ross

Forget the New Atheists - that was a publishing gimmick. I think this definition of faith has been used by freethinkers for many decades. It was certainly the one Russell used, long before Hitchens and company were being polemicists. I was using it back in the 1980's.

Your definition is clear. I'm trying to rethink mine based on feedback from theists.

What would you say is the rational justification for excluding, dismissing, or avoiding victimizers? What precisely is it about the victimizer that makes you oppose them? A specific example may be helpful here, and it could even be one of the three you mentioned (betrayers, trolls, or liars). — Leontiskos

I guess my angle here is that I exclude a range of people because of an intuitive feeling about them, and a range of preferences that I don't think I have conscious access to. Attraction and repulsion are not always easy to explain. In this way, I don't differentiate between the sports lover and, say, the proselytising Marxist—both of whom I would avoid, perhaps because to my taste, they seem unpleasant and dull.

At the more extreme end, I imagine I would avoid Nazis because I think their views are ugly and actively seek harm, and I don't want to contaminate my life with such malice. I also dislike totalising metanarratives like Nazism, which seek to dominate and eliminate others. I guess I prefer openness and less cruelty. Life is short, and I want to spend it with things worth caring about.

Much of what we call our knowledge consists in beliefs which are culturally accepted as facts so there is an element of faith of course. The assumption is that if had the time we could check the sources of such facts ourselves, that we have good reason to accept the findings and observations of experts, of scientists and scholars, and thus have good reason to believe in their truth. So there is also reasoning to the most plausible conclusion in play and such knowledge is not merely faith-based. — Janus

Good point.

Hence my earlier suggestion that faith is seen most clearly when one believe despite the evidence.

There is a rhetorical ploy at play here, where faith is used to account for belief both in something evident - that smoking causes cancer - and also for something contrary to the evidence - the bread is flesh; and these as if they were of a kind. As if the faith in transubstantiation were no more than a variation on the scientific method. There simply a fair amount of such bull in this thread.

The appeal to authority doesn't cut it for me. — Banno

That's clear. Thanks.

This thread is meant to tease out exactly what is going on in that sort of phenomenon. If we had to break it down rationally, what is it about a racist, or a Nazi, or a bigot, or a liar, or a betrayer, or a troll (etc.) that rationally justifies some form of dismissal or exclusion? — Leontiskos

There are lots of people I would exclude or, perhaps more to the point, not invite into my life. I tend to avoid people whose views or behaviours limit conversation and commonality and I avoid people with views I find ugly or unpleasant. Betrayers, trolls and liars would seem to be fairly good to avoid as there's a good chance we (or others close to us) would become victim of their behaviours. I've generally avoided people who are into sport, fashion and pop music. Things I don't like I avoid.

Faith is a subclass of beliefs, of cognitive dispositions about propositions, that have at least in part an element of trust in an authority mixed up therein. E.g., my belief that '1 + 1 = 2' is true does not have any element of trust in an authority to render, even as purported, it as true or false and so it is non-faith based belief; whereas my belief that 'smoking causes cancer' is true does have an element of trust in an authority (namely scientific and medical institutions) to render, even as purported, it as true or false and so it is a faith-based belief. — Bob Ross

@Banno sorry mate - what do you think of this definition? If I am wrong about faith is it
because I am wrong about the nature of belief? "An element of trust in authority" would count many of our beliefs as faith based. Is faith simply a trust in something we can't fully verify ourselves?

I've always taken faith to mean belief in things without evidence. Apparently, this is wrong.

I think I arrived at this view through Bertrand Russell, who said: "Where there is evidence, no one speaks of 'faith'. We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence."

I guess faith is one of those words that can be used in different ways and means different things to different people.

What do you understand faith to be?

(although I don't know if genocide was part of the narrative. That doesn't enter the language until WWII, and not through any act of God.) — Wayfarer

Mass extermination of a people is still mass extermination of a people, regardless of the word used. Deuteronomy 20:16–17: 'In the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.'

Samuel 15:2–3: "This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel... Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’

Curiously, Jesus never apologizes for the genocidal actions of the God he is said to incarnate. Nor does he acknowledge that the Old Testament was wrong for not speaking out against slavery, but instead being complicit with it, which suggests that JC's ethics are incomplete.

Of course, they are just stories and if god is a cunt in the books it's because we are and he is made in our image.

God is not a proximate cause operating within the causal order. He is not a being in the world, but the ground of all being, the cause of causes. His causality is not like ours — it is ontological, not mechanical or voluntaristic. — Wayfarer

And I suppose one would also want to argue that God didn’t deliberately design and create a world where countless insects and animals hunt, mutilate, and tear each other apart alive just to survive.

— The Violence of Oneness, Norman Fischer (On the Motivation for the 9/11 Terror Attacks — Wayfarer

Interesting.

(My own conception of God is not really as a being that "staged all the action.") I'm trying to stay true to the classic framing of a theodicy in the West, which conceives of God as omnipotent, omniscient, and all-benevolent. And I'm adding to that, the standard Abrahamic language of God as loving parent. If all of that is a misunderstanding of God, then the need for theodicy disappears, of course. — J

It does disappear if your version of god is less benevolent sky wizard and more ground of being. Mind you, the Bible deosn't help as it depicts a pretty nasty deity who has no issues with slavery and genocide and behaves like a mafia boss, demanding deference and worship to sooth his seemingly fragile ego, so there is that. He is totally consistent with a creation that is redolent with grievous flaws and dangers.

This is not my area but I was kind of interested in Third Man argument as it appears in Parmenides. (Section 132a-133b ).

If we say that all large things are large because they share in the "Form of Largeness," and that the Form of Largeness itself is also large, then there's a problem. The Form must be large for it to be the Form of Largeness, but that creates a need for another Form to explain why both the large things and the Form are large.

This creates a never-ending chain of Forms. We would need a third Form to explain the second, a fourth to explain the third, and so on, endlessly. This is called the "Third Man Argument," where you keep needing more and more Forms to explain the relationship between the first two, leading to an infinite regress.

My understanding is that Plato may consider the theory flawed and incomplete (perhaps the way some physicists feel about Quantum). Any thoughts?

Which to me suggests the question, does the perversity and cruelty of existence negate its worth altogether. Which again suggest nihilism. — Wayfarer

Not sure that would necessarily amount to nihilism—perversity and cruelty are value-laden terms, and many people actually find them galvanizing, even a kind of raison d’être.

And it also should be acknowledged that the most grotesque and needless forms of suffering to have been suffered by humans in recent history, has also been inflicted by them, in the form of world wars and military and political repression and conflict. Indeed, great suffering has been inflicted in the name of religions, but again whether that constitutes an indictment of a Creator is a different matter.

As to the suffering that is due to natural causes - the 2004 tsunami comes to mind as an example - how is that attributable to divine act? I'm sure there are those who would intepret it as such, and indeed they are sometimes referred to as 'acts of God', but whether they actually signify malign intent is the question at hand. — Wayfarer

Yes, those familiar examples are kind of boring. Far more damning is the design and creation of a world that uses death and pain as the engine of survival. That’s pretty twisted. A god might have engineered creation any way he wanted; creatures could have survived on water or light alone. But instead, he designed hunting, maiming, killing, and predation as the lingua franca of survival. None of this involves human sin or any other spurious theological cop-out.

I'm just exploring narratives here. As someone who doesn't believe in gods or ultimate purpose, these aren't facts I need to explain away.

So, what's the muted spiritual crisis? How do we know there is a crisis? — Banno

I think it’s the usual footnotes to Nietzsche’s god is dead and we’ve lost our way… But the solution is different to N’s it tends to be to be a nostalgia project - back to theism or Neoplatonism…

He seems more of a Protestant to me. I vote Anglican, which by sheer blandness is a sure path to Sanātana Dharma.

Edit - sorry I just saw the response…

What do you mean? — Martijn

I'm curious whenever someone paraphrases Nietzsche on this, just how they interpret this particular well-worn notion.

Peterson, as you may know, practically wraps his entire anti-modernist screed around this observation, which he likes to follow up with muddled account of what he terms 'post-modern Marxism' presumably taken from Stephen Hicks.

We should have listened more to Nietszche. We need geniuses like him now more than ever, to wake humanity up from its spiritual slumber and to start to take matters into our own hands. We are already stuck in an era of nihilism (and hedonism), since God is dead and we have no alternative. We have tossed the baby with the bathwater, and we cannot cope with an empty crib. — Martijn

This seems a pretty tired argument - are you a Jordan Peterson follower? What reasoning do you have to support this?

Indeed. In fact Hart places the problem of evil and suffering as one of the only matters which has him, on occasion, doubting his faith (I'm paraphrasing).

I remember author Anthony Burgess talking about faith. He told the story about his father narrowly surviving World War I in the abject misery of trench warfare, only to come home and find his wife and children dead from the Spanish Flu. 'My father knew immediately that this proved God was real...'

From that perspective, God is not the author of suffering but its adversary — not the architect of the “charnel house,” but the sure refuge beyond. — Wayfarer

That's a tricky perspective to proffer, if you ask me, since the very condition of life is suffering - it depends upon it for its continuance. Now we do know theology and exegesis can be spun to justify anything - so I have no doubt there will be escape hatches left, right and centre. I'll bugger off now...

But this essay is not an attempt to justify suffering, nor to offer spiritual guidance. It aims only to point out the mistake of that common assumption in modern discourse — the idea that if God exists, He must operate like a benevolent manager of human well-being. It’s a superficial way of seeing it. Recovering some understanding of the metaphysical and theological contexts against which the problem of evil has traditionally been resolved, allows us to reframe the question in a larger context — one in which suffering still has to be reckoned with, but not on account of a malicious God. — Wayfarer

Well, I don’t believe in God, but for the purposes of this exercise, I’d tweak the argument about suffering.

It’s not just that suffering happens—through accidents, natural disasters, terminal illnesses in children, and so on - but that if God created nature and all life within it, then he designed a system where predation and abject cruelty are the engine of survival. An essential feature, not a bug. Nature isn’t merely amoral; it’s grotesquely cruel and perverse by design. To me, this feels less like an argument against God’s existence and more like one for it, because only a conscious superbeing could intentionally design something that inflicts such a vile fate on so many billions. In other words, God isn’t just the hotel manager - he’s the fucking architect and builder of the joint and it's a charnel house.

You and J both have denied goodness as a possible principle for ethics, but then turned to "fairness," "harmonious relationships," and "justice." I am not really sure what the difference here is supposed to be, such that the latter are more acceptable, since these are also very general principles. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure, but I would choose "fairness" and "Justice" as they are understood intersubjectively.

An anti-realist says there are absolutely no facts about fairness, consistency, consequences, or human flourishing that have any bearing on which ends ought to be preferred. How exactly do you propose "facts and reasoning" to guide ethics if there are no facts that have a bearing on which ends are choice-worthy? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Isn't it the case that an anti-realist denies that there are objective moral facts that determine which ends ought to be preferred? However, an anti-realist might still acknowledge that there are facts about fairness, consistency, consequences, or human flourishing, they just hold that these facts do not have objective normative force.

I might appeal to fairness or facts as dependent on contingent human attitudes or practices, rather than being intrinsically normative.

However, an ethics based on facts about human flourishing is not anti-realism. Sam Harris, for instance, is not an anti-realist. He has an ethics based on knowledge about Goodness — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure Sam is not an anti-realist but his position seems different to what I was describing - he maintains that that moral truths exist and can be known through science.

Haven't seen as much as a sound bite from this election campaign so far, thankfully. But I have noticed that the big issue facing us, the housing affordability and supply crisis, is being assiduously avoided by the L&L parties at all costs, God forbid they start treating housing as a right and a place to live rather than an investment opportunity for middle class and rich cunts. Of course this hasn't stopped them from providing token, bogus solutions which will only deepen the housing affordability problem. Hopefully this will all be over before you can say negative gearing.... Think I'm going to vote Green this time. Don't tell my mum.

The Culture War is something that divides Democracts, but unites Republicans and thus it's the Republicans that promote in the US the Culture War debate. In other countries the rhetoric of a Culture War is mimicked by conservative and religious parties. — ssu

The world has been full of culture wars for decades, on issues like race, LGBTIQ rights, education, abortion, guns, religion, refugees, and privacy. Most of these battles have played out on Australian soil too. They're not owned by one side of politics; they’re fought by both the left and the right. These are emotional issues, often dominated by extremists on both sides, whom the media reliably spotlight to stir up the usual confected outrage.

Vietnam sparked a culture war, but we didn't use the term then. Slavery was a big one in the 19th century.

Today, it seems odd to me that something like trans rights, such a relatively small issue, can generate so much outrage and energy, while something like economic inequality, which affects umpteen millions, evokes far less passion. You can't help but wonder to what extent culture war politics are just a great way to distract us from real structural problems and get us fighting among ourselves about toilet use, while the corporations and the billionaires continue to expand their power and finances. :wink: