The Root of all Evil : The God Delusion

Quote:

---

Originally posted by fredgiblet:
How about another alternative then? How about rewriting the holy book of a current religion? Take the Bible strip out the justifications for violence and discrimination, clear up the language to make it unambiguous, add in some disclaimers stating that not everything in the Bible is meant to be taken as literal truth, some of it is metaphorical and strip out the parts that imply blind obedience and BAM! you've got a religion that has an enormously reduced potential for abuse.

---

I had almost suggested this myself; however, I'm not sufficiently involved in anything you would recognize as an organized religion to allow for my participation in the same. No beef from me on this; however, you gotta sell this to the folks with the 'control' of the 'books'.

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I'm not clear that religion is necessarily a good 'control' for a psychopath either. I'm talking about subtler positions. Keep in mind that should one reject god, a person may not necessarily choose 'secular humanism' or other decent non-theistic approach to life.

---

I'll stipulate if you agree that even people who believe in god may choose lifestyles or goals that are detrimental to society.

---

:-) Absolutely.

fred "Right, but that's just it, there is no power structure in atheism, there are no prophets there is no reason to follow someone because they are atheist. People didn't follow Stalin because he was an atheist, they followed him because he promised them things they wanted. On the other hand many religions stress obedience to the leaders of the religion giving over control of their lives to someone else."

lead "That's a tough one. The Soviet Union actively discriminated against religions; there was clearly profit in being an atheist. One did not rise high in -anything- if one was overtly religious."

fred "Sure...but. There is a clear advantage to being an atheist IF you already are following him. Once again, atheism is not the reason people followed him, they became atheists because they followed him. Though doubtless some of the more militant atheists probably supported him BECAUSE he was an atheist I'd bet they were in the minority by a wide margin."

At the begining, yes. I suppose my point is he (well, participated in with the other communists of the time) -created- what was effectively an organization which, via reward and punishment by the government/economic system, steared people to atheism. One could claim to be a "communist" but religious and be "outside" this structure (of course, Soviets defined 'communism' such it required you to be atheistic, but I am fairly confident that not all "communist" countries required this; thus it is diffult for me to separate the two here). Additionally, this gave atheists (and of course, hypocrits and those willing to subvert the system from within by pretending to be atheists) a 'power structure' to use. Of course, these people also had to be communists (or again, pretend for whatever reason). So we have here an example of a power structure available to communistic atheists. This power structure was -not- available to those known to be religiously inclined, "communist" or not.


leadb "Being a strong advocate of the -seperation- of Church and State, I think the Soviets went a bit too far the other way. It's not clear to me that atheism was not the 'state religion' of the Soviet Union to the extent that is 'possible'."

fred "I think the wiki entry on religion in Russia made it pretty clear."
So... perhaps you do agree with my above observation, and I'm somewhat guilty of beating the equine corpse. Or perhaps you will say the communists established the above not -because- they were atheists, but instead because they wanted to preserve the 'power' for the 'communists' (though this -particular- 'brand' of communism also required you to be atheistic). Which might draw back to the conclusion 'atheists may make poor choices too' above.


leadb"Regarding stressing "obedience to the leaders", you can't pos

NOTIFY: N  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Khyron:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Causal:
At most, he is at fault (maybe) for having created free will.

---

Exactly my point. By creating humans with unbounded free will, he allows evil to flourish. If he's omniscient, he should've seen this design flaw, and if he's omnipotent, he can fix it, and if he's clever about it, humans won't even be able to tell that their free will has limits.

---

See? This is why I brought up the logical problem of evil! Your arguments come directly out of that playbook. You should read J.L. Mackie--he's the guy who gave the logical problem its classic formulation.

Well, I don't think that you quite picked up on what I meant when I said "at fault (maybe)." What I intended by that is that on a libertarian understanding of free will, your hypothetical syllogism breaks down such that God is not the cause of the evil in the world.

You are clearly right about this, though: God does allow evil to flourish in the world. Typically the advocate of the logical problem is going to maintain that this means that either 1) God is not omnipotent (he can't prevent the evil) or that 2) He isn't omnibonevolent. The advocate of the logical problem says that evil, omnipotence and omnibenevolence can't coexist. This, of course doesn't quite work, because those things are explicitly or implicitly contradictory (read my essay, or better yet, Plantinga's book for a better explication of that notion). And this is exactly what Plantinga has established.

If that tack won't work, we have to look at the other elements.

One is "design flaw." This presupposes that free will that results in evil is a flawed in some respect. But I would maintain that free will that can't result in evil isn't free will at all! Because the will is constrained in some significant way (namely, with respect to moral choices). Now suppose that God wanted to create a world with free creatures. As you say, if he's omniscient, he would have known that this would result in evil being brought into the world. But suppose, for the moment, for the sake of argument, that the having of free will outwieghs the moral evil that comes about as a result of that free will. If that is true (which we are assuming for the moment), then God was not wrong to create humans with free will even though he knew that that would mean the creation of evil. It seems to be at least be possible that this is the case. So the defender of atheism would have to show why that's not even possible.

The second objection you raised is that if God was omnibenevolent, he would have fixed this situation. But suppose that he couldn't? Most philosophers maintain that God, if he exists, is omnibenevolent, by which they mean that he can do anything that is logically possible. Creating a human man who is 15 feet tall is logically possible (because a man's height is not essential to his being) but creating a human man who is a cat is not logically possible (because being a human is essential to the nature of a man's being). Likewise, God couldn't create a triangle with four sides, because having three sides is what defines a thing as being a triangle. It could turn out that it's not possible to create a world with free creatures but with no moral evil. Certainly there are such possible worlds. But it might be the case that God couldn't have brought those into existence because doing so is logically impossible (for a more adequate explanation, check out my paper). I don't have time to get into why that might be, but it is at least possible that God couldn't have create a world with moral good but no moral evil.

I understand your objection, "Why couldn't God have constrained our wills such that we are free except in moral choices?" But I think that libertarian freedom of the will is essential to the nature of what it means to be human. God could certainly have made such creatures, but whatever they would have been, they wouldn't have been humans

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

Quote:

---

Originally posted by leadb:
No beef from me on this; however, you gotta sell this to the folks with the 'control' of the 'books'.

---

Geh, just the thought makes my head hurt.

Quote:

---

At the begining, yes. I suppose my point is he (well, participated in with the other communists of the time) -created- what was effectively an organization which, via reward and punishment by the government/economic system, steared people to atheism.

---

Sure, but they are Communists who happen to be atheists pushing atheism, not atheists who happen to Communists pushing atheism...do you see the difference? My point is that atheism in itself does not indicate that you should follow the orders or beliefs of anyone else, where many religions stress the importance of obedience.

Quote:

---

(of course, Soviets defined 'communism' such it required you to be atheistic, but I am fairly confident that not all "communist" countries required this; thus it is diffult for me to separate the two here)

---

Basically the creators of Communism disliked religion, I don't think that atheism was stressed as a necessary part of Communism (though I may be wrong) but it was generally accepted that a true Communist should owe allegiance only to the state.

Quote:

---

Additionally, this gave atheists (and of course, hypocrits and those willing to subvert the system from within by pretending to be atheists) a 'power structure' to use.

---

Right, but again the atheism was incidental, the power structure was based off of Communism, it was much more important that you were a good Communist then a good atheist. If the Communists had decided to push Catholocism, Protestantism, Islam or Scientology the power structure would have been identical.

Quote:

---

So... perhaps you do agree with my above observation, and I'm somewhat guilty of beating the equine corpse. Or perhaps you will say the communists established the above not -because- they were atheists, but instead because they wanted to preserve the 'power' for the 'communists'

---

Right, the power structure was for Communists, they just happened to require that people be atheists too. It's certainly not a shining example of atheism but it's far from a push for power structure coming from atheism.

Quote:

---

We might have to simply disagree on this point, but I'll take one more refinement. I'm willing to maintain that for the most part those who stress this in organized religion do not do so because they are religious, but rather because they wish to exersize and preserve their power.

---

Sure, but many religions set the groundwork by insisting on unquestioning obedience making the believers easy to control. My contention is that atheism lacks a push for obedience and thus does not encourage the ability to gather that sort of power in the first place.

Quote:

---

I will concede that a religious leader is more likely to imbed this into the "formal crede", but this is not 'religion', this is 'manipulation of religion'. I concede this is not a 'provable' point, so this might simply be something we disagree on.

---

But what if unquestioning obedience IS part of the religion?

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

Causal:

Wouldn't it be possible to create man with free will but a strong instinctual impulse towards good? Not necessarily eliminating evil but giving a much better result then we have now.

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

Maybe. But I think that at least one of the reasons why we do such a lousy job at behaving ourselves morally is because we are imperfect in our ability to understand the moral law, its implications for our behavior and how it applies in given situation. It's obviously the case that God could have made humans with the capacity to perfectly understand the moral law, its implications, and its applicability. But again, I take imperfection to be part of what's essential to the nature of being human, so whatever else he might have created, if it could reason perfectly, it wouldn't have been human in the sense that I understand it.

Of course, I hope everybody realizes that I make no demand on anyone to accept what I say as true. The most I'm hoping for is an acknowledgement that I have solid reasons for believing what I do, and that we'll all be able to respect the dignity of the others by permitting them their own beliefs.

________________________________________________________________________

- Grand High Poobah of the Mythical Land of Iowa, and Keeper of State Secrets
- Captain, FFF.net Grammar Police

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME