Some find the existence of evil to be convincing proof God doesn’t exist, but the Truth is that the existence of evil would prove God does exist.
Man has long asked how a loving God could allow evil to exist in the world. It’s an age-old philosophical question that can cause those who want faith to doubt and those who want to doubt to mock faith. A Christian’s answer to this question is “free will,” a concept critics may regard as something reduced to a convenient cliché. The truth is, though, that this is a most fascinating subject to inquisitive minds.
The two qualities that make us like God are intellect and free will, despite the fact that the former can seem as lacking as the latter is abused. Why intellect has prerequisite status is obvious, but why free will? If God is omnipotent, He can prevent the immeasurable pain and suffering we inflict on one another with the blink of an eternal eye. Why doesn’t He do it? Perhaps this problem is what caused people such as Thomas Jefferson to embrace deism, the belief that God set the Universe in motion but then receded into the background, indifferent to our plight. So let’s examine free will.
Imagine you have a child, and technology has advanced to a point where you can implant a computer chip in his brain, one that would ensure he never acted wrongly. If everyone were thus controlled, we would have a world in which everyday transgressions were unknown. Yet, would you view this as an acceptable remedy for your child’s human frailty?
A good father certainly would not, for it would render the child something less than human. He would then be nothing more than an organic robot, an automaton, controlled by an outside agency whose will has supplanted his own. Just picture the Borg in Star Trek.
After all, what of love? While a child thus controlled would behave in ways that may seem loving in a superficial sense, he would not be acting out of love at all. We only exhibit love when we could be hateful, but choose to be loving instead.
As to this, think about how much more we appreciate aid rendered voluntarily than that which is coerced. When starving, we may certainly be happy to receive a meal from a man who has a gun to his head, but it sates our soul as well as stomach when he helps us with a happy heart and of his own accord. Likewise, it’s considered a mitigating circumstance when a person is coerced into committing a crime. (Note: these examples involve incomplete consent of the will due to duress, not the elimination of free will, as my computer-chip hypothetical does.) Or, think about dolphins trained by the military to detect mines in the ocean, attack enemy divers or plant explosives on ships. While we certainly may appreciate what these animals can do, it cannot be compared to the conscious decision made when a man accepts the risk to life and limb on a bomb squad; the dolphin acts in accordance with his training – or programming, as it were – whereas the man has made a decision to risk his life with full knowledge and consent of the will. Intellect and free will are what separate us from the animal kingdom.
Getting back to our hypothetical child, a good parent wants him to be more than just controlled. Sure, when he is young, he may be watched continually and his life micromanaged, owing to his immature state. As he grows, however, we can loosen the reins commensurate with his increasing capacity to govern himself from within. And we look forward to the day when he will exercise his free will rightly, for only then will he have come to full flower as a human being.
If we fail in this task of moral formation and the child goes astray, he may end up in prison, a place where his ability to exercise his free will is limited. From a moral standpoint, we then may consider him to be a malformed human being. Were he to not have free will in the first place, however, he would be something less than a human being.
Then, when saying that we cannot believe in God because of the existence of evil, we accept a contradiction. If God doesn’t exist, how can we label a position evil with credibility? If man is the author of what we call right and wrong, if morality is all a matter of opinion, then there is no evil in any real sense. In other words, if we are judging some things to be good and others evil, we have to ask what standard we’re using as a yardstick. If the standard is simply consensus opinion, then what we call morality falls in the realm of taste. And if 90 percent of the world liked chocolate ice cream and disliked vanilla, we wouldn’t think this rendered chocolate good and vanilla evil; it’s simply a preference. So, should we think murder was evil simply because 90 percent of the people said they didn’t like it? If there is nothing outside of man and his emotions that deems it so – if it is not objective reality – then it also is simply a matter of taste.
“Oh, but it involves death, not dessert. C’mon, it’s morality!” say the critics? Sure, your feelings may tell you this distinction is significant, but if it doesn’t accord with external reality, those feelings are in error. They are then simply biases, ones powerful enough to evoke passion, but biases nonetheless. And those very different terms, taste and morality, would be nothing but semantics.
So, for “good” and “evil” to truly be reckoned as such, the standard we use cannot merely be taste masquerading as “values.” And since man is being judged (we are, after all, talking about our actions), he cannot be the standard, for a standard cannot judge itself any more than a board can be used to measure itself for a carpentry project. For a standard to judge what is good and evil, it must be both outside and above them, in which case that standard starts to sound an awful lot like God.
So it’s ironic: Some find the existence of evil to be convincing proof God doesn’t exist, but the Truth is that the existence of evil would prove God does exist.
When we look around us at man’s inhumanity to man, it may seem a high price to pay for free will. Yet, when pondering how much we value freedom and have often sacrificed for it, the matter is illuminated. Our founding fathers and many others were willing to shed blood, both theirs and others, and risk wealth, land and status for that cherished value. If in our finer moments we are willing to endure hardship and misery so that we will not be puppets of the worldly, it should surprise us not that He who has only fine moments would allow us to endure same so that we would not be puppets of the divine. The difference is that what man offers his brother only when there is a full flowering of the human spirit, He grants without reservation so that the spirit may be truly human.
SD@SelwynDuke.com
http://www.SelwynDuke.com
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Let me quote from C. S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity": "God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot."
The only problem with this that he actually could imagine a being with free will and yet with 'no possibility of going wrong': God. If we accept this postulate - that free will inevitably carries with it the possibility of doing wrong, that it's logically inconsistent to propose a being that both has free will and yet would never do evil - then we are immediately faced with a problem. Either there is a possibility of God doing evil, or else God does not have free will. (Note the author's comments about free will and love above; how should that make us feel about God's love?)
There are other, related problems. If heaven won't have evil, then it follows automatically from that postulate that heaven also won't have free will; it's a straightforward syllogism. "If p, then q; not-q; therefore, not-p." -> "If (free will), then (the possibility of evil); (no evil in heaven); therefore, (no free will in heaven)."
As to the question of how we can "label a position evil with credibility" without recourse to a God, I've put forth an answer to that on this very site:
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/07/12/universal-morality-and-the-morality-of-the-universe/
It also points out the problems - the Euthyphro Problem - with attempting (as the author appears to attempt here) to ground morality purely in a divine command.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | October 25, 2007
Empty postulating, Mr. Ingles. The nature of God by definition is a being who is altogether good. A god who would do evil is by definition not God.
Also, you are attempting to anthropomorphize God into some sort of creature that is at the mercy of forces beyond His control. God, by definition, created the very circumstances and conditions that you think "logically" explain Him away. Kind of ironic, don't you think?
Last, if we accept for a moment that there is a God, what do we know about Him, except that which He has revealed about Himself? In other words, everything we could know about God is by His choice. Therefore, what He is in fulness and what we know about Him are two different things. So, is God capable of doing evil? We can only know what He has chosen to reveal, and He has described Himself as containing no darkness (evil) at all.
I really had to chuckle that you would think your exercise in logic is enough to relegate God into a conundrum.
Comment by Mountain Man | October 25, 2007
Nice job MM. Did you happen to notice how RI changed "creature" to "being"? It's a small thing but it seems that RI realized that "creature" implied an inhabitant of Earth and in his mind "being" could include God. As you said, we don't know everything about God. We just know he is good. I suspect God doesn't care about free will very much. It's just something he came up with for us humans so that we could choose good. After all, if God is good, then why does he need the human concept of free will?
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | October 25, 2007
Well, Mountain Man, you can define God as a being that's "altogether good", but that opens up a couple of problems. First, of course - 'good' by what standard? And second, I can define a 'plebny' as 'a circle with four corners' but that doesn't mean that something exists that fits that definition…
The Euthyphro Problem addresses - very specifically - the question of whether God is subject to 'circumstances and conditions'. What does it mean that something's 'good'? Is it good because God says so? If so, we've reduced 'good' - and morality itself - to the ultimate case of 'might make right'. Or is there something about good things that God recognizes and approves of? If so, then there's something external to God that frames that standard.
And, finally, do you really want to argue that we can't know anything about a God except what It tells us? What if God is exactly like a shepherd - including the shearing and the slaughtering? How could we ever know that we weren't just being fooled by the ultimate Hoaxer? The alleged revelations so far have seemed to be a very mixed bag. Certainly 1 Samuel 15:3 and Joshua 10:40 (not to mention Duteronomy 25:11-12) seem… iffy to me.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | October 25, 2007
Mr. Ingles, you make it sound as if Heaven (which I will define as living in the presence of God) would only be Heaven if it allowed Evil to exist there, because Evil can only exist through free will excersise: Ergo Heaven would be a dictatorship, therefore God is either evil or non-existant, or the ultimate Loki of Norse mythology - the Trickster who deserves no loyalty.
What if the reason no evil exists in Heaven is the ultimate Choice? One chooses Good over Evil after endlessly comparing and living and following and LOVING God and His teachings? (You choose to follow Him because you love Him, not because you are forced to follow. Do you follow some of the teachings of a beloved parent or teacher simply because you have grown to love them? Are you married, and does your partner influence you to live a certain way simply because you love her/him?) What happens when all people in a society choose to be good, according to the teachings of a Loving God, or even a great philosopher and teacher, who promises (covenants) to teach them nothing but precepts that lead to Joy? Does that make their society a Dictatorship?
Of course, you may have thought of this, since you bring up the scriptures where God commands the slaughter of people and the punishment of homosexuals (and those who would protect them from punishment) as proof that God must be bad. Instead of looking at the Old Testament as the preparation of a covenant people to accept a higher covenant to be brought to them by a Messiah, you see it as an inclusion of the commandments God forces us to accept. Never having read the Bible as a person seeking God and His will, and also believing today's relativistic morality trumps that of the Middle Eastern tribes of 4,000 years ago, you would see those verses as big proofs of the non-existence of a Judeo-Christian God.
As far as your attempts to pull off a "what 'is' is" conundrum (what is good?), the answer is yes, it is good because God says so; it is good because lives lived according to his word are fulfilling and joyful; because, even in the presence of Evil and Pain (most often brought on by our own choices or the choices of others), we are given keys to change and love instead of becoming angry, bitter and selfish. Throughout the Bible, He says to put his teachings to the test, to ask and learn about them and about Him. How can Someone be a dictator when He not only allows us to seek and find, but also allows us to make mistakes and be forgiven of them?
As far as whether God is subject to 'circumstances and conditions'; He is, to a point. He has created a Universe where we are subject to circumstances and conditions, therefore He must deal with us through that structure. And, He had promised us that we will be blessed when we do as He has taught us, that He is bound to bless us if we follow His teachings. Does that make Him not-God? How can He be the Creator and Father of all, and not be God in spite of being subject to structure, or Laws, if you will? You attempt to pull the old logic puzzle of the immovable object and the irresitable force, without understanding that God is still God outside of your feeble attempts to logic-puzzle Him away so you can go on with your relativistic morality.
Comment by daverock | October 26, 2007
Mr. Ingles,
This is not "pick your definition of God" day today. An evil god is not God. If we are talking about a being who is evil, we are not talking about God.
"Good by what standard." Ah, now we are getting to it. "Good" is a moral concept, bereft of meaning apart from an absolute standard. If there is no God, then there is no morality. It is you as an atheist that has to demonstrate meaning in moral concepts, not me. There is no shadow of meaning for me, unlike you. I clearly know what good is, because I have a God that is good and holds Himself out as the standard.
I am not trying to prove God's existence. Such an undertaking is unecessary. I simply pointed out the absurdity of your statements. I have faith that there is a God, you have faith that there isn't. There is little difference in that arena, except that my faith is better placed.
Of course I want to argue that we cannot know anything about God (not "a God") except what He reveals. God could hide if He wanted to. But since we are talking about Him, it is clear that He has cracked open the door to see. The difference is that I look at that little bit He has revealed and find wonderand faith, while you look and find contradictions and inadequacy. I think you need to look a little harder.
If He is the ultimate hoaxer, we wouldn't know, would we? It wouldn't even matter. But we have no eveidence at all that He is pulling a hoax, so you are engaging in more empty postulating. But of course, a hoaxer fails the definition of God once again.
Your first two Scripture references indicate that God punishes evil doers. So what? Your third one is a matter of ancient Hebrew law. Again, so what?
Comment by Mountain Man | October 26, 2007
daverock
I like your analogy of a parent or teacher. I remember a great science teacher I had in high school. We would never think of him as being wrong or evil in the classroom even when he scared us by lighting a bottle filled with a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen causing a big boom. When we received grades, less than 100%, we did not consider him to be evil. He was just encouraging us to do better. I do recall that he made a mistake once. Really it was just a social faux pas, which we began to laugh at, and when he realized what he had done, he laughed with us. I suppose God to be one that does not make faux pas.
Thank you
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | October 26, 2007
daverock - Apparently you didn't read the references I made, either to the article I posted here (I don't believe morality is 'relativistic' in the way you seem to mean) or to the bible verses (none of the Bible references I listed discuss homosexuality).
I didn't say anything about "Dictatorships," capitalized or otherwise. I was simply pointing out an issue with the author's thesis here, that free will necessitates the possibility of evil. If that's true, and heaven is a place without the possibility of evil… well, I still don't see how the logic is invalid. Perhaps heaven is a place where people choose to give up their free will. If there's no possibility of evil, then there must be no possibility of people changing their minds.
It's not the slaughter of people per se that bothers me about the first two cites; war's sometimes necessary. It's the deliberate, commanded slaughter of children that I can't get behind. How is this involved in the "preparation of a covenant people"? (The third cite is just, well, too vindictive and petty to be an admirable example.)
And, finally, you're actually in the neighborhood of my own position with regard to morality. You specify that it's "good because lives lived according to his word are fulfilling and joyful" and "He has created a Universe where we are subject to circumstances and conditions". That's cousin to the case I made in the article I linked to - morality is the best strategy to follow, it's enlightened self interest, based on our desires and the circumstances of the universe we're in (however it got to this point).
But then that implies that we *do* have, in the author's words, "a standard to judge what is good and evil" that is based on "objective reality" and isn't just "consensus opinion". So… apparently you agree with me that his case is weak.
And since some elements of that morality are pretty obvious - e.g. "you don't needlessly harm innocents", and "babies and children are innocent of capital crimes" - commands to slaughter infants are, well… evil.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | October 26, 2007
Mountain Man - My first two scriptural references indicate that the God as postulated in the Bible doesn't just punish evildoers, It orders the slaughter of "infant[s] and suckling[s]". If you think that's a "so what"… well, I'm not sure we have any common ground to discuss this on.
Nor do you seem willing to actually engage in discussion. I, um, actually did work to "demonstrate meaning in moral concepts". I recall you responding on that thread, pointing out Jesus' self-abnegating morals. When I asked you if our troops in Iraq should "turn the other cheek" to insurgents… I don't recall you ever responding after that.
And you seem to have missed another point. Consider, you say that "If He is the ultimate hoaxer, we wouldn’t know… But we have no eveidence at all that He is pulling a hoax…" That's, um, exactly what I was saying. No evidence of a hoax is exactly what we'd expect from a perfect hoaxer. In other words, if you assume that a God is completely beyond understanding… then evidence is totally irrelevant. No amount of evidence of any kind could be remotely relevant for any statement about a God.
If that's your position… then you are, in effect, saying you have no good reason to believe anything about a God. I guess we can agree on that, at least.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | October 26, 2007
Ivan, daverock - the 'parent' or 'teacher' analogy doesn't seem to work, either. If you were walking down the street, and happened to look into a window and saw a child being abused by their parents, you would, of course, be obligated to do something about it. Personally, I think I'd be obligated to do whatever was necessary, up to and including risking my life, to help the kid out; but ask yourself, WWJD? (Would Jesus say, "I don't want to step on the free will of that abuser. I'll just wait, and later on, make sure that kid gets therapy"?
Let's assume that an assassin tries to kill someone, and by sheer good luck the target survives. Does that mean the assassin didn't commit any sin by trying to kill the victim? Isn't the choice to do evil the real sin, irrespective of (or at least in addition to) the consequences of the act itself?
Now, of course, God is alleged to be omniscient, to see everything that everyone does. If this is the case, God must see many cases of child abuse every second. If you or I were in that situation, we'd be morally obligated to interfere, no? And our interference would not affect the free will of the abuser in the slightest, right? I don't see evidence of a God living up to such moral obligations, unfortunately.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | October 26, 2007
Mr. Ingles,
Do you stutter when you write, or is your use of the word "um" a clumsy effort to condescend?
You are a demonstrated master of sidestepping the point yourself. You either don't read what I write closely enough, or you don't understand what I'm saying, or you are deliberately trying to twist.
What irony that you would suggest we have no common ground based on your superior morality! You care about babies, even ones in an ostensibly mythical work, while I don't? Hilarious! My answer is still "so what." A nation of evil doers gets judged and punished, including their offspring. Apparently you object to babies being killed, but I wonder why. Tell me what you believe about abortion.
I acknowledge that you did work to demonstrate meaning in moral concepts, but good intentions are not enough. You failed to establish any moral context that would be valid apart from an absolute standard. You atheists have to depend on a moral understanding as you make your case. I have yet to hear any atheist make their case for any part of their anti-theology without relying on the premises already established by religion.
It is you that continually misses the point. A god that isn't good isn't God at all. A hoaxer by definition does not possess the necessary requisite characteristics to be termed "God." Your manifest lack of understanding of religious concepts, like the nature of God, makes you ill-quipped to critique them.
Comment by Mountain Man | October 26, 2007
Mountain Man - When I write "um", that usually indicates tentativeness because I'm confused about what someone wrote. I don't intend condescension - I'm trying as best I can to indicate 'tone of voice' in writing - but if it bothers you I'll avoid it.
I've not hidden my beliefs about abortion - I've referred to them in the thread you abandoned, and they're on my website (http://ingles.homeunix.net/rants/atheism/braincase.html#abortion). To quote from there: "My best guess is that self-awareness depends on a cerebral cortex of substantial size. But I'm kind of conservative; the cerebral cortex starts forming within one month (~33 days, though apparently all the connections to the rest of the brain don't fully form until almost 30 weeks), and we just don't know the minimum necessary size. Personally, I have real problems with abortions after the first month. Of course, frequently women don't know they're pregnant until after this point.
I'm more troubled in the case of rape; I know the mother didn't have a choice, but after a month or so there's (at least a good chance that there's) another human to consider. Certainly the woman can and should start checking for pregnancy early on, before the brain has a chance to form. Incest is a different problem; while there's a higher likelihood of genetic problems, that's no automatic reason to deny the child a chance at life. (Incestuous rape would come under the heading of regular rape.)
What about threat to the life of the mother? At that point I think it's her decision."
Yeah, I'm pretty down on killing babies, even before they're born. (My wife volunteered for, and was on the board of, a crisis-pregnancy center. We're pretty sympatico in that regard.) Of course, that's not what happened in the cites I listed, right? That was post-birth slaughter there. Almost no one claims that born babies aren't human - I don't and I seriously doubt you do - so abortion's not really relevant here. You really do appear to be saying "so what" to slicing up babies. Hopefully you can understand my confusion now.
And, yes, I did point out an absolute standard, based on the fixed laws of the universe. (I'll assume them absolute until presented with, say, a flying carpet.)
And, finally, you can insist repeatedly on 'God being by definition good', but that truly does raise the question of whether or not something actually exists that fits that definition. People who play miniature wargames develop elaborate rules for how laser guns or lightning spells work, and derive detailed ramifications of those 'definitions' and how they would behave. A lot of science fiction involves assuming some impossible phenomenon, and working out the logical implications of what would happen if it were true. That doesn't mean that there actually are laser handguns or warp drives or flying broomsticks. Most of theology strikes me along those lines - elaborate mental models based on various postulates, but no testing to see if they match up with the world we see.
I agree that a Hoaxer would not be 'absolutely good', but that's not the point. The point is, we'd have no way to tell the difference between a God and a Hoaxer. Any evidence, including revelation, would support the one as well as the other.
It's not that I 'have faith that there isn't a God'. I don't have faith that there is one. (Some theists I've seen say that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"; well, "absence of faith is not faith of absence" either.) I haven't seen evidence that such a thing exists, and the actions and events attributed to It don't seem to be in character with something I'd consider 'absolutely good'.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | October 26, 2007
There are three evils in the world, natural evil that came to us because of the "fall", evil of the flesh which is due to our being housed in flesh while on this world, and of course evil of satan and his followers. We are supposed to see the creation realize there is a God seek Him out and follow His teachings. Now not all people see this existence this way. Most will seek the easy path and allow themselves to follow their own deterministic morals and intellectual nonsense. Some will see life as the ultimate challenge and will shun evil in all forms. Others will embrace evil and will actively become a soldier in an army against God. The battle for man's soul is being fought right in front of our eyes. Most choose not to see it.
Placing all of this to the side for a moment do we as a species have the ability to love. Can that love extend to all of mankind so that our personal choices would be considered "good". I know that over history there have been many "good" people. I also know that most people fall below this level. To argue that some dialog would change the masses to one side or the other is to give our intellect too much credit.
Where does this leave us? It leaves us with personal choices. Do you place your faith in man, or do you place your faith in a higher power. I see first hand what man does and choose not to follow that path.
Comment by fbaginski | October 26, 2007
Well said, Mountain Man
Comment by Jekken | October 26, 2007
Mr. Ingles,
You make a strong and insightful argument. I do believe in God, though. The intricacies and unbelievable perfection of things as simple as the human eye seem, to me at least, to suggest intelligent design. However, I am not so sure of the God as professed in the Christian theology. When I say, Judeo-Christian let me explain it as the prevelant belief system found in the Catholic, Orthodox, and main line Protestant faiths.
My reasoning is simple and no one has given me a sufficient answer. How can God, in the Christian context, be good? In this theological concept, God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. God knew that man would 'fall' into sin as well as 1/3 of the angels. God provided for what he knew would happen by sending His Son into the world to pay for our sins. Our sins merit eternal damnation. Torture for all eternity in a lake of fire. My question is: Since God knew man and the angels would fall-why continue on with creation? Why continue on, when you know full well millions will choose to not believe and choose eternal torture. Is this not a form of malice? To create knowing you will damn?
Comment by scopio | October 26, 2007
Scopio,
Not knowing God but through some limited history and writings it would be impossible to address your questions. But within the limits I have described I can take a stab at it anyway.
It you take scripture very seriously as I do then when God said that He made man in His image then we would suppose that is some sense we are a subset of Him. Our emotions and feelings are of course some kind of subset of His. Just because someone can have rage does not mean they excersize it all of the time. I think our ability to reason is probably closer to the mind of God than blind rage is. Using this kind of reasoning should bring some insight. The search to know God's mind is a fools game. Scripture tells us we do not have the ability to know it. I for one do not need to know or even seek the mind of God. I tend to think of myself as a child and seek the wisdom and advise that God can bring. Treating God as one's parent and showing respect is appropiate and wise.
Comment by fbaginski | October 26, 2007
The existence of evil originates where there is a lack or omission of goodness, just as the existence of darkness is the lack or omission of light. When the Light of God is rejected, what remains is the darkness of evil. Free will is simply the vehicle which either allows or prohibits that rejection.
Comment by rainwolf | October 27, 2007
"Absence theodicy" doesn't work too well, rainwolf. Pain is not the absence of pleasure, and "not helping" is not the same "actively harming".
Comment by Raymond Ingles | October 28, 2007
what about the randian objectivist philosophy on which many modern libertarians (and avowed satanists) base their "morality"? economic nihilism, american style, beyond good and evil - which means evil without guilt…sociopathic philosophy.
Comment by ibbleblibble | October 28, 2007
Mr. Ingles,
The point I'm trying to make is that we can parse the killing of the offspring of an evil nation in exactly the just the same manner as you parsed abortion.
So, would you accept that there may be provisos, exceptions, and what ifs to invoke regarding the wiping out of a evil nation?
Moving on, I wonder why you have such trouble accepting as part of the definition of God that He must be good to be God. Whether or not God exists is not part of the question. IF, IF, there is a God, He must be good, by definition. One of the attributes of God, by definition, include goodness.
Therefore, IF, IF, there is a God, He cannot be a hoaxer. He doesn't make mistakes. He cannot be weak. He must be just, all powerful, all knowing, uncreated. By definition. So, all discussion about God must regard his intrinsic nature.
That's the problem I have with most atheistic apologists. They do their level best to reduce God to a quasi-diety first, before trying to refute Him. Example: If God is good, why is there evil in the world? Is He too weak to fix it? Or doesn't He care? Or maybe he doesn't know about it? Or maybe He… You see, every part of this assumes a reduced-down, less-than-God being.
The hardest part for atheists to deal with is that God might know more than they do. Atheists are so proud of their IQs, they are so convinced that their logic is flawless. And how they love to shred an unsuspecting Christian to a pile of rubble for the twisted fun of it, as if such a thing would validate their existence.
Most of the atheists I run into are angry, mean, and unpleasant. Their hatred of God permeates everything they do and say. There is nothing worse than spending time with an atheist.
Comment by Mountain Man | October 29, 2007
It strikes me as somewhat ironic that I, the atheist, am trying to defend a moral absolute while Mountain Man, the theist, is arguing for situational ethics. Let me ask this, then: if you believe there are situations where slaughtering children would be justified, or indeed holy… are there situations where suicide bombing would be justified, or indeed holy? What about, say, child sexual abuse? Can you be sure that, to take a recent example, Jesuit priest Donald McGuire wasn't commanded by God to molest young boys?
You seem to misunderstand what I've been saying regarding God's goodness. Perhaps I didn't make my position explicit enough. First, the standard defining 'good' is, indeed, important. As the Euthyphro problem points out, we do have to ask why defining God Itself as the absolute standard isn't just 'might makes right'. I've not seen anyone really address that.
Second, we then have the problem of deciding whether or not a God actually exists. I've tried to point out some issues with that. By the definitions you're using, we couldn't tell the difference between a God and, say, a Loki, even if all their actions were universally considered above reproach. But the actions of God as described in the Bible (and the Koran, as well) seem inconsistent with the notion of 'absolute good', for the reasons I've pointed out.
And, finally, in your most recent post you descend to ad-hominem. Perhaps you don't like atheists. Perhaps you don't like me. But I have been nothing but polite here, addressing people's arguments and not their persons. I certainly haven't made any blanket statements, let alone disparaging ones, about 'Christians' or 'theists'. I definitely haven't made any disparaging remarks about you. Considering that this is a site devoted to the discussion of ideas, and the author above actually posted his work here for study and discussion… I fail to see where I have done anything wrong, or even impolite, in actually discussing the problems I have with the arguments made.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | October 30, 2007
Mr. Ingles,
Perhaps you need a refresher course on the meaning of ad hominem. It literally means, "to a man." It is a technique whereby the opponent is personally attacked, rather than answered. Please point out the personal attack. Read my post again. Are you among the subset of people "most of the atheists I know?" If not, I was not talking about you, was I?
For your edification, let's find a couple of contemporary examples of ad hominem for over on the "meat eaters" posting:
"You do not believe in evolution for emotional reasons, not for scientific / logical reasons. You are letting your childhood beliefs in primitive creation myths (which are wholly inappropriate for a technical civilization, as the Council of Europe has recently ruled) continue into adulthood. As a species, we now know better - we have enough information to craft a better understanding of our origins…. You can rise above those Death Cult fairy tales of eternal punishment and do something worthwhile with your life instead of helping religious demagogues in their attempt to return to the Dark Ages of ignorance." PaulBurnett
"…but when some medievalist cromwellian fundyvangelist tries to shove his abrahamic mythology down everyone else’s throat in pure and undeniable contradiction to science, common sense, and the constitution of the united states of america, all i can say to them is - take your kids out of school and fill their heads with all the crazy bassackward crap you want to their and our country’s and our world’s detriment, but cease and desist trying to force those who dont agree to share your delusions!" ibbleblibble
There, see the difference?
Lastly, I am not arguing situational ethics any more than you are arguing absolutes. Your ideas regarding abortion are prima facia evidence of that. You clearly struggle with the various manifestations of abortion, and rightly so. It is a heinous act. There are a lot of factors to consider in a complex issue. It isn't cut and dry. Yet you seem to want to insist that the death of babies along with the rest of an evil nation is somehow plain and simple, i.e., that God must be some sort of orge to perpetrate this against "the innocent."
I'm just asking you to apply the same level of circumspection in both scenarios. Maybe you'll realize that there is a level of moral complexity you haven't allowed for.
Comment by Mountain Man | October 30, 2007
If you're not accusing me of engaging in the kind of behavior you decry in "most atheists", why even bring it up in a post specifically addressed to me? I'm not PaulBurnett. If you didn't mean to tar me with the brush of "angry, mean, and unpleasant", what was your intention? Guilt by association?
There's moral complexity, and then there's rationalization. One can imagine outlandish, improbably scenarios where almost any normally-evil act could be justified. As an example, see the TV series "24", where amazingly improbable circumstances conspire to make torture seem to be the only logical course. However, we live in the real world; one where interrogation professionals agree that torture is an unreliable method of extracting information from a subject, and 'we know for sure there's a nuke, we know for sure it's going to go off in a handful of minutes, and we know for sure that this guy right here knows where it is and how to defuse it' scenarios just don't happen. Torture is seldom - if ever - actually justified in the real world, for precisely the same reasons that suicide bombing isn't justified.
In the same way, one can indeed imagine circumstances where deliberately slaughtering babies would be necessary. I see no evidence indicating that such staggeringly improbable circumstances actually applied to the cases I pointed out. Even if they sacrificed children… how was it any better for those "infants and sucklings" to die by an Israelite blade than an Amalekite one?
I've seen it argued that the Israelites could not have supported the children and infants, and it was more merciful to kill them 'quickly' rather than let them die of thirst or starvation. Leaving aside the fact that the God who allegedly ordered this had an allegedly documented history of providing manna, that's not a line of argument open to you. You've argued elsewhere that people should follow Jesus' teachings, specifically "do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink…"
In such a case, I actually agree with that. If I had been forced to kill an infant's parents in self-defense, I'd prefer to die trying to keep it alive than live by abandoning it.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | October 30, 2007
Mr. Ingles,
"In the same way, one can indeed imagine circumstances where deliberately slaughtering babies would be necessary." Ok, issued closed. If there is a scenario where the killing of every member of a society is justified, then we have resolved your objection. I only needed you to admit the possibility that there was a soluton. I'm just trying to open your mind, Mr. Ingles.
I want to go a step farther. I assert there are reasonable interpretations of this event. But the thing is, this is only one of perhaps dozens of Scriptures you will throw out that will take many exhanges to sort out, and all for little profit. I say this because it isn't what you find objectionable about various passages that keeps you from understanding, it is that your preconceptions that color your viewpoint.
I start from the preconception that there are reasonable explanations for every "troublesome" detail in the Bible, and I look to see what they might be. The fact that there is possible explanation closes the issue, even if one cannot discern what the specific answer actually is. The rules of textual analysis are satisfied.
Yes, of course I wrote about unpleasant atheists in a post addressed to you. This is a public forum, where many people come to see what we are saying. The transition in my remarks for the specific to the general seemed quite obvious to me. Nonetheless, if this toxic attitude is one you do not share with these unpleasant atheists, I apologize for the inference.
Comment by Mountain Man | October 30, 2007
A little Bible study may be needed here to clear up some issues relating to God ordering woman and children killed.
Before the flood of Noah fallen angels came down to earth and slept with woman and had offspring. These were the giants of old. Noah "being perfect in his generations" did not contain any of the hybrid DNA. The earth was flooded to remove the tainted line. God then promised not to flood the earth again. After the flood there were some pockets of hybrid blood. This was concentrated in the promised land because Satan knew when to expect the chosen people. God then used the jews to wipe out the bad line. Since God is the creator and the work of Satan was to block God's plan God in this light was protecting His creation. Hybrids do not have a soul because that is placed into the flesh by God in the womb. So from one view the hybrids were not human and not ancestors of Adam. The spirits of the hybrids are held to the earth and become the demons that exist to this day.
If you use the Bible to define God you must use all of scripture and not cherry pick parts out of context.
What I find very interesting is that atheist will use some statements in the Bible as fact and others they toss as false. They say that God wants woman and children murdered. But they laugh at the book of Job where Job lives with dinosaurs. They say that God should take away evil and if He doesn't then He doesn't exist. But free will does not exist without the possiblity of wrong choices.
If someone wants to use scripture to discuss evil then I recommend reading the whole Bible. In addition a good book to read would be "The Handbook of Spiritual Warfare".
Most people who call themselves pastors do not talk about evil in any detail. This is a shame since people are left to this world. The drug companies love to sell products that claim to cure anything. Hollywood wants everyone to live in a cesspool. TV is flooded with witches,demons,the devil, and afterlife communication. Some of these are trying to be role models for our kids. If one is not aware that we live in a war between good and evil then evil has a major advantage.
Comment by fbaginski | October 30, 2007
I did not see the purpose of your last paragraph as it seemd to be only a rant.
I agree that atheists should not use the bible at all when trying to present their case that a god does not exist.
However that last paragraph is exactly what keeps people away from christianity. There are sects of Christianity that want to control what people can watch, play (Anti video games and Dungeons and Dragons), and what music they are allowed. I spent a childhood doing very safe activities (Video games, Dungeons and Dragons, listening to heavy metal) that I continually heard was damned by Christianity. I turned out fine. My friends turned out fine. I still listen to Heavy Metal. I have an intellectual job.
What some sects of Christianity defines as evil, good rational people actually enjoy.
Comment by Carl | October 31, 2007
To fbahinski, comment25.
"But they laugh at the book of Job where Job lives with dinosaurs"
Where is this in the Book of Job? (out of interest)
Doesn't the Book of Job explain evil? I always thought it did.
Comment by Leigh | October 31, 2007
Carl, I see your point. I did not explain myself well. The greater point is not censorship, it is teaching our kids to place all of this in perspective. Watching a movie or playing a game is not evil of itself. If our kids are taught the Word and understand that evil does exist then they can be exposed to the worst (and they will) and hopefully not allow it to become part of them. Scripture says that it is not what goes into you that says who you are but what comes out of you. One can enjoy many artforms that may contain a message that we don't agree with. Christianity does not do a good job of separating the message from the vehicle. This has lead many to toss Christianity.
Leigh,
Job 40:15-24
Job 41:1-34
Comment by fbaginski | October 31, 2007
And in this fbaginski we are in agreement. Thank you.
Comment by Carl | October 31, 2007
Some very interesting questions have been raised as to God's character and the evil in the world. Not being a theological scholar but just an ordinary Christian, I'd still like to state what I think might be part of the reason for the seemingly horrible command to the Israelites to kill babies in that Old Testament passage that Raymond Ingles was referring to. The Israelites were God's covenant people and later, after Jesus' resurrection, God opened the covenant life for all the rest of mankind. This reality is in part what explains why God would order the killing of the babies of the enemies of the chosen people. Of course, there are many other scripture verses that explain God's incredible mercy and compassion for His enemies, such as in the book of Jonah where the book ends with God asking a question that reflects His greast compassion on all His creatures.
Today while driving home, I came across a little squirrel which had been partly run over by a former vehicle. It still had its legs twitching and I debated internally whether to finish the job and put it out of its misery. I couldn't bring myself to this task and now I regret not doing that in some ways, becuase I know that it will probably experience more suffering than if I had quickly done something to end the pain. I think it was too far gone to try to help it by nursing it back, although i know there are some people who do that with wild neighborhood creatures. Anyway, maybe God's command to quickly kill the babies in that particular passage in the Old Testament indicates that He wanted to eliminate as much suffering for ALL the people on both sides because He knew what the future would be if those babies grew up, becuase they were being brought up in an anti-God culture. I don't know, I'm just surmising.
We don't always know exactly why God does things the way He does things…if we did then we wouldn't have the need to trust Him. Sometimes things that appear cruel to us might be the kindest thing in the long run. God knows us humans by the love we share with those around us; our intellectual acumen is only a tool that can be used for good or ill to that purpose, although He gives the super intelligent the pleasure of experiencing all that such a developed and exercised gift can arouse. So maybe we all need to learn more about what the facets of love are and how they are demonstrated by examining WHY God operates the way He does, but always with the humility that He is the Creator, and we the created. If anti-Christian atheists would examine the ENTIRE bible as open-mindedly as possible, then maybe they would even be able to help Christians see the truth more clearly. Mr. Duke's writing, Mr. Ingles' inquiries and thoughts, and other commenters posts have certainly stimulated thinking more on God's attributes and the reasoning of what constitutes heaven and free will. I would not mind if I lose my free will in heaven, I believe, as long as there isn't any of the awful suffering that creatures can experience here. The New Covenant, brought in by Jesus' death and resurrection, gives one hope for something better, anyhow.
Comment by Rosita | October 31, 2007
I like Duke's point about the Borg in Star Trek, because, for some
strange reason, we complain that God does control us or controls
us too much. We are like the slaves out of Egypt. Or professional
complainers.
Comment by historypupil | October 31, 2007
Mountain Man: I didn't agree that "there is a scenario where the killing of every member of a society is justified", I said that I could imagine scenarios where killing babies might be justified. By the same token, it's entirely possible for all the air molecules in the room I'm in to spontaneously, by sheer chance, congregate by the far wall, leaving me in a vacuum. The problem is that the odds of that happening are so staggeringly small that it's effectively impossible. If you want to wait for something like that to happen, you'll be waiting trillions of trillions of trillions of years. (Actually, add a few dozen "trillions of" to that.)
To justify slaughtering babies, you need to posit similarly improbable circumstances. I don't see any signs in the text that such circumstances applied. Those kids could have been brought into the tribe and raised in a (putatively) moral environment. Assuming that the entire adult population of e.g. the Amalekites was utterly and irredeemably beyond salvaging (and perhaps I'm mistaken but I thought one of the tenets of Christianity was that no one alive was ever in that state), the kids weren't, and deserved good treatment and protection. Instead, they got…
Comment by Raymond Ingles | November 2, 2007
Mountain Man: I understand that you 'start from the preconception that there are reasonable explanations for every “troublesome” detail in the Bible', but the people who believe in Nostradamus have similar preconceptions. It's amazing how good the fit is between his verses and some current event… after the event has happened and rationalizing has been done. Somehow they never seem to get the interpretation right before some big event.
In the same way, I don't see a whole lot of difference between, say, the 'prophecies' alleged in the Bible and the 'prophecies' that Mohammed's supposed to have made: http://www.jews-for-allah.org/Muhammad-and-Judaism/prophecies_by_mohammed.htm
People are able to rationalize amazing things. Look at, say, the Mormons. Actually, along those lines… fbaginski, how did 'pockets of bad blood' survive the Flood, since it was supposed to have killed everything but what was on the ark? Where's the biblical support for the notion that the Amalekites were descended from fallen angels?
And speaking of the Bible, it's not at all inconsistent to accept some of it as factual and some of it as myth. There probably was a Greek messenger named Pheidippides, and he probably did run a message sometime around the battle of Marathon. But he probably didn't meet the god Pan along the way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheidippides
Comment by Raymond Ingles | November 2, 2007
I have a tree; a fruit tree.
Last year, I tended the tree, and it brought forth good fruit.
This year, I neglected the tree, and the fruit rotted on the tree, and fell to the ground.
The same tree produced good fruit, and it produced rotten fruit. But still, the tree produced fruit.
The tree is not evil; neither is it good: it just produces fruit.
Whoever, or whatever, created the tree, did not create good fruit or rotten fruit; He, or it, simply created a tree.
If we tend the tree, we get good fruit; if we neglect the tree, we get rotten fruit. We eat, or we starve.
It is up to us!
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Comment by Joseph BH McMillan | November 2, 2007
Well, now that we've hashed that issue around, it's time to move on to the next logical issue….
Which ONE concept of God (Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist etc) is the right one? Secondly, which SINGLE religion provides a path to eternal life?
Have at it!
GreginNY
Comment by GreginNY | November 2, 2007
GreginNY,
Excellent question but the wrong place to ask it. It gets too far from the general question of evil.
One has to wonder if you have a mouse in your pocket since this is your first post to this chain. (we)
Comment by fbaginski | November 2, 2007