Big Think

favour andrew on October 28, 2008, 9:44 PM

Hello
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Musycks on October 28, 2008, 10:24 PM

Dear Miss Favour… I think you have stumbled onto the wrong site… I might be speechless for once.

Luke Allen on October 28, 2008, 11:26 PM

Hey Musycks,

WOW I am speechless to… I was going to answer your original posting and then bam one of those internet phishing scams pops up on bigthink.. it is everywhere!

Anyway if you can answer the free-will without suffering paradigm then I think you can blame our God for “creating” evil.

Real terms argument: If I let my daughter choose whatever she wants to eat. Chances are she will only eat candy. If she only eats candy then she gets cavities. The only way to stop my daughter from eating too much candy and stopping her from getting cavities is to eliminate her free-will. Hence, an omnipotent God doesn’t need to create suffering if suffering is a by product of something he created. Suffering is the cavity of eating too much candy.

Keep swinging pal.

Musycks on October 29, 2008, 1:39 AM

thanks RO… Python makes me smile everytime.

Hi Luke.. C’mon Obama! fingers crossed you guys elect a leader with a brain for once.

the candy argument won’t cut it for me. I love candy!.. and as Herbie said, denying god is not necessarily to choose evil. Those things are only linked because you say so, yet again via subjective reasoning.
If we ask for objective proof for any of the invisible realm you claim to have experience of, the best you can do is say ‘how dare we ask for that’… we don’t get it.
How is your argument any different than the guys who hear ‘channelled’ voices? I’d say you’d put as much faith in their veracity as I do… which is as much as I put in yours.

Swing on pal… good luck with the vote.

HerbieP on October 29, 2008, 3:06 AM

Luke does you daughter have the choice between having cancer and not? Does she have the choice of being caught in an earthquake or not being born to a starving family in the third world?

HerbieP on October 29, 2008, 5:14 AM

“Hence, an omnipotent God doesn’t need to create suffering if suffering is a by product of something he created.” As I see you argument Luke it’s a bit like carbon dioxide being an unintended by-product of us burning fossil fuels. You’d think that god would have had a bit of forethought about his unintended by-products and maybe been a bit more green.

Pastor Jennifer on October 29, 2008, 4:34 PM

I’m on Luke’s side for once. I will play God’s advocate instead of his usual counterpart! You have to allow for Luke’s nuanced understanding of evil. If I may speak on his behalf… There is evil in the world – bad things happen to people, and people do bad things. The two are called physical (or natural) evil and moral evil respectively.

Luke is arguing from the position that God gave us freedom, because (according to St Augustine), to have freedom is to have the possibility to become more like God. So we are morally evil when we don’t use our freedom in this divinely approved way.

The stuff cited by HerbieP and Ro – cancer, earthquakes etc are examples of physical evil. Now Luke has to do some explaining to do on God’s behalf on that score!

HerbieP mentioned the birth of a child being born into abject poverty. Just to complete the ‘evil’ story HerbieP identified the third type of evil that is usually neglected in most theodical discussions, and that is the evil consisting in a disproportion between virtue and happiness, between vice and misery: an evil exemplified when the wicked prosper and good people meet a grim fate.
You can’t pin that one on God either if it’s a consequence of human agency and free will.

So to put it in the old Humean/Epicurean chestnut:
Is God willing but not able to prevent evil(ie impotent); or able but not willing to prevent evil(ie malevolent); is he able and willing to prevent evil? (then why is there evil?).

If you accept the concept of free will as a gift from God the only evil you can really put on God’s shoulders is physical or natural evil.

I think I can resolve this problem for Luke by rejecting the categorization of physical or natural evil as an absurd projection of human values onto the physical non-human world.

Hi Luke :-)
Bye Luke :-(

Musycks on October 30, 2008, 2:17 AM

Pastor Jen… who says turning away from God is necessarily evil? and this evil came form where… the same place everything else did surley if you’re a Xtian?
the moral arguments are pointless for me, theodicy is gobbledegook inside obfuscation wrapped in hot air.. no wonder the bible bashers are so keen on it. meaningless twaddle.

but welcome back to the smelly boys club!

Musycks on October 30, 2008, 7:21 PM

thanks PJv2 (what was wrong with v1?… I liked her!)
I wassn’t intending to imply you were saying it… it was a generic statement, so maybe my wording was not up to the task?
anyhoo.. the Xtian perspective is the god made everything, and I agree it is nonsense, and that’s why I think theodicy is pap. They also contend that god is love?
If at one point the only thing was god, therefore the only thing was love, then how was evil introduced? where did evil come from if not ‘him’?
the distaff perspective please v2. (hope your surname isn’t von Braun?!)

rock on madame.

Adam Bracegirdle on November 3, 2008, 2:02 PM

I don’t see why if this day and age you can’t simply take god completely out of the equation when speaking of free will. Why not just say “We do what we comes naturally and sometimes pay the price”. The rest is quite obviously a human construct and an attempt to define evil for those unwilling to do so for themselves. To even begin a discussion about what god intended by free will not only seems pointless in light of his absence but also a flimsy deus ex machina in a narrative riddled with plot holes.

Musycks on November 3, 2008, 6:09 PM

nicely put Mr (Judging by the picture)bluedot.
Of course free will cannot exist under the paradox the Xtians et al have constructed, it’s impossible… strangley it won’t stop them from still saying it does.

Matt Botkin on November 3, 2008, 8:52 PM

To blame God for evil is to blame the sun for shadows.

He can not exsit without evil exsiting as a result.

Musycks on November 3, 2008, 9:39 PM

sorry killtheman, you seem to be saying evil is not the fault of god? why should evil or suffering exist at all? why does ‘turning away from god’ mean we must suffer? or is he a cruel, vain and jealous god who wants to punish us for rejecting him?

Luke Allen on November 6, 2008, 8:40 PM

PastorJennifer,

Great to have you on here again. You argued our mutual perspectives amazingly. Thank you.

Musycks on November 6, 2008, 9:24 PM

Jesus Jennifer!… you’ve been busy.
thanks for the thoughtful reply… I’ll try to keep up.
I understand not all believers opt for the Omni/Omni model.. but it’s a pretty popular one nonetheless and a useful indicator at what level belief operates.
Yes, religion syncretises over many generations.. the utilaitarian god of middle eastern desert nomads 1500 BCE is eventually fused with Greek ideas of Deism, mix for a while with some far eastern influences and viola!, here we are. What the thinking scholars even then knew was a paradox is no impediment now to modern evangelists selling that snake oil and growing the business exponentially.
While a thinking person might be forced to look for the metaphorical, if they have a need to come to terms with abstracts like divinity et al.. most believers can’t operate at that level. The instinct for them seems infantile to me, looking for a perfect love… and if that means constructing a perfect love figure (even out of the mash of the putrid Old T Yahweh)like dear old mythical JC, then off we go.

semi omnipotent gods? as you would know, there’s been no shortage of those over the years. I prefer the Marvel comic versions..
Thor rocks! when does he get a movie for gawdsakes!


ps… for me, what most people define as god, is just a human ability to embrace the abstract and conceptual…. so I liked your point about god being in imagination… Resonator might be a case in point? We have great imaginations and love a good story… the trick is knowing which one is real and which one construct.

thanks for the effort, I appreciate it.

Robert Landbeck on November 11, 2008, 6:09 PM

It depends how one understands evil? From an evolutionary standpoint, it should be evident that human nature has yet to complete its ethical development. Religion was meant to fill that vacuum. Something obviously hasn’t worked as ‘evil’ remains with us. Thus ‘evil’ is first of all our own ignorance in the absence of true moral insight and the fidelity to that insight, which must exist outside our evolutionary paradigm. That ‘absence’ can only mean that religion, as we understand the term, founded upon the very human study called theology, cannot be of God. True religion therefore hasn’t started yet.

Musycks on November 11, 2008, 9:34 PM

can I extrapolate from your post klatu, that humanity will be rid of evil when it ‘completes it’s ethical development’?
On what basis do you assert that ‘true moral insight’ exists ‘outside our evolutionary paradigm’?
Regarding your last sentence… which god? and when will we know it’s started?

Momo Smith on November 11, 2008, 10:45 PM

DUDE You are asome

Jesse Akers on November 12, 2008, 3:37 PM

Atheists could learn a lot from Carl Jung… something I think jennifer was hitting on there for a minute… it was hard to pin down exactly what Jung believed but he was def. accepting of others beliefs and even saw lack of a belief as determental… he def. wasnt a fundamentalist, but on the other hand i dont think he would bode well with the “new atheism”

Musycks on November 12, 2008, 6:10 PM

G’day Jesse, are YOU trying to suggest something about the duality of man now? ;)

as for Mr Jung, it’s not remarkable that someone from his era, son of a pastor no less, was facinated by spirituality and factored that into his area of interest. Just as the brilliant Isaac Newton would have had no choice but to be a believer in his time, and that position flawed his work as a result.
Jung also was interested in ‘flying saucers’ too, but I wouldn’t see that as unusual either, just another product of his time.