The Root of all Evil : The God Delusion
POSTED BY: Calhoun
UPDATED: Thursday, December 17, 2015 06:12
VIEWED: 49488
PAGE 19 of 32
Quote:
Originally posted by fredgiblet:
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.
You say 'many', I'd say 'some'.
Atheism lacks such a push, I will grant. 'Religion' may or may not.
Quote:
But what if unquestioning obedience IS part of the religion?
Then I'd likely have a problem with -that- religion. I would also likely suspect that the establisher of the religion was not a true believer, but instead using religion for power (again, not always true; but I'm not sure it is material to our discussion either).
Re: Soviets: Did a bit of reading on communism at wiki (so you know it must be true ;-); and there is an entry for "religious communism". I'm personally satisfied that the Soviet establishment prior to it's demise qualified, in my humble opinion, as an "atheistic" power structure, primarily on the grounds that it actively blocked the participation of the religious and generally worked to the active suppression of religion. Were they indifferent to religion, then I would withdraw that opinion. I can see how you would believe otherwise.
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Causal:
Just curious, lets say I work thru the 'proof' that you reference; it establishs such a God is not logisticaly denied. However, it does not posit one exists? So we are back to the leap of faith?
I have the one advantage that I have no particular interest in disproving the existance of God; he's perfectly well able to take of his own existance.
[final comment deleted: off topic, and I really dont' want to take the thread there]
[Second edit to add:]
Causal "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."
Realizing this is likely not aimed at me in particular, but I'm happy to grant your 'solid reasons'. I'll go further to say I wish I shared the planet with more folks with similar reasoning and approach; despite not always reaching the same conclusions :-)
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Quote:
Originally posted by leadb:
Causal:
Just curious, lets say I work thru the 'proof' that you reference; it establish such a God is not logisticaly denied. However, it does not posit one exists? So we are back to the leap of faith?
Short answer: no. If Plantinga is right (and most theist and atheist philosophers alike agree that he is) then all he has established is that it is not logically impossible for God to exist. But that's all he's really going for. The logical problem of evil concludes that it is impossible for God to exist and for evil exist. Plantinga's Free Will Defense establishes that that's not the case. But as you say, that doesn't establish that God does exist, only that it's possible that he does. And that's all I want, because that means that I'm not illogical in believing that he does.
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Thanks. Yeh, I'll grant that. We be cool.
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Quote:
Originally posted by leadb:
Re: Soviets: Did a bit of reading on communism at wiki (so you know it must be true ;-); and there is an entry for "religious communism". I'm personally satisfied that the Soviet establishment prior to it's demise qualified, in my humble opinion, as an "atheistic" power structure, primarily on the grounds that it actively blocked the participation of the religious and generally worked to the active suppression of religion. Were they indifferent to religion, then I would withdraw that opinion. I can see how you would believe otherwise.
Minor disagreement, I'm good with agreeing to disagree at this point.
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Second double post ever... 
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Guess I wasn't done for today after all. But I'll done for today after this one. 
Finn:
Schools don't teach the students how to construct nuclear bombs, and no student could construct one with the knowledge gained from the school environment.
Now let's say, hypothetically, that schools taught students everything about science, including how to build nuclear bombs. Then they (together with free will 
) would bear responsibility if students started building nuclear bombs, and people would be calling for schools to stop teaching such things. The argument would be for schools to still teach the students science, preferably a lot of science, but not enough for them to be able to build nuclear bombs. Similar to my argument.
Causal:
Quote:An unfortunate use of conjunction on my part. My hypotheses are that there is a God who is omniscient and omnipotent (and all the other standard qualities except evidently omnibenevolence), but from the way I worded that sentence you're right in thinking that I was questioning his omniscience and omnipotence and in that case you were right to bring up the logical problem. I'll rephrase my sentence slightly:
Originally posted by Causal:Quote: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.
Originally posted by Khyron:
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.
By creating humans with unbounded free will, he allows evil to flourish. Since he's omniscient, he should've seen this design flaw, and since 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.
Apologies for not being clear.
Basically, since he has the power to have initially prevented humanity's capacity for evil by limiting free will from the get-go, or limiting free will after seeing all the carnage that results from unlimited free will (which he already would have known about in the beginning due to omniscience), it follows that since humanity still has the capacity for evil, and exercises it freely, that this must be part of God's plan, and since God's plan goes against the well-being of humanity, why should humanity worship him? People can believe in him if they wish, but why the worship?
But Causal, you keep referring to Pantinga's arguments and I first want to read your essay and read up on Plantinga before responding to your posts properly, then I could give the detailed responses they deserve. I'll only be able to do that after my exams end on Wednesday though, so if it's alright with you I'd like to put this discussion on hold until then, and hopefully you won't have already moved on to some other discussions.
Questions are a burden to others. Answers are prison for oneself.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:
By creating humans with unbounded free will, he allows evil to flourish. Since he's omniscient, he should've seen this design flaw, and since 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.
Yeah, I thought I had responded to this one, but I guess I didn't do it clearly enough. Basically, this whole argument turns on the assumption that free will resulting in moral evil is flawed. But why assume this? Prima facie, it seems obvious, given our perspective. But suppose there's some overriding reason why God created humans with a type of will that result in moral evil. Suppose we can call units of evil "turps" (following Plantinga) and suppose we can call units of good "gorps." Suppose that by creating creatures with a will that did not result in moral evil, God would have created a world with 0 turps and 15 gorps. And suppose further that by creating creatures with a will that results in moral evil, God would have created a world with 50 turps but 1,000 gorps. Surely this latter is the better of the two worlds. For although there is some evil in it, there is far more good than evil, and for more good than there would have been in the alternate world. I guess I just don't buy that a will that results in some moral evil really is of necessity flawed in some way, because I can easily see how it might turn out that the world is better with the "flawed" will than without.
Quote:
Basically, since he has the power to have initially prevented humanity's capacity for evil by limiting free will from the get-go, or limiting free will after seeing all the carnage that results from unlimited free will (which he already would have known about in the beginning due to omniscience), it follows that since humanity still has the capacity for evil, and exercises it freely, that this must be part of God's plan, and since God's plan goes against the well-being of humanity, why should humanity worship him? People can believe in him if they wish, but why the worship?
Whoa, and we've just moved from philosophical to theological (which is an area where, like LeadB, I'm hesitant to go). I can say at least this: if God is perfect (and I think most religions take him to be) then above anything else, he is worthy of adulation. That's about all I've got philosophically on your question. I wouldn't mind discussing it in another format, but I fear that it would just be incendiary here. As with LeadB, we've seem to come to both an understanding and an impasse. And, as with LeadB, I feel that we're at a point where I could still have a jolly good time with you over a pint or two!
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Quote:I knew how to build a nuclear bomb by the end of High School. It’s not as hard as you think it is. And you don’t need to be taught “how” to build one, any student with a basic knowledge of first year college Physics, Chemistry and Calculus can figure it out. And this represents the basic “hard” science curricula taught to students in the United States. (The trick is the materials; which we actually do try to protect, so this isn’t the best analogy in application, but you don’t need a nuclear bomb to do evil.) It’s even easier to build a gun, and easier still to build a conventional explosive bomb. We don’t have to be omniscient to know that someone will use this knowledge for evil, and we don’t have to omnipotent to set up society so that our students never learn the tools that they can use to build bombs or guns. By teaching our children we allow evil to flourish. So we should stop teaching our children?
Originally posted by Khyron:
Schools don't teach the students how to construct nuclear bombs, and no student could construct one with the knowledge gained from the school environment.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
If we're arguing the merits or downsides to God's masterplan, it's kind of silly to say "Well, but you have the choice not to believe!", since the basis of arguing about that masterplan is its validity in terms of God actually existing. Or people actually believing it. And within that context, not believing is not a neutral choice, as you imply.
Then I would say that before your point can be made, you’ll first have to define God’s masterplan, because we can’t discuss the merits or downsides to it, if we don’t know what it is.
I find it interesting that you choose to respond to this bit and ignore everything else, such as the fact that your focus on physical laws is completely invalid to the question of free will.
Ignore the masterplan bit. I was merely making a point about the fact that your argument of "But with religion you can choose not to believe it!" was just as invalid, because within a particular religion, everything is irrelevant unless you believe it. In particular if that particular religion makes not believing a punishable problem of itself.
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