Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

My response to "Special Pleading and the Problem of Evil"

#11
Yazata Offline
(Jul 5, 2021 04:34 PM)Ostronomos Wrote:
Yazata Wrote:Well it doesn't, absent its context. You mention a caricature of God. What caricature? It's impossible for us to know what kind of idea you are responding to without being able to see the post that set you off.

The thread on that board was about the traditional theological problem of evil. It wasn't (at least directly) "evidence that there MUST be no God behind the material universe". The problem of evil is more about the idea that the existence of evil is inconsistent with the widely held theological idea that among God's attributes are omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence. Was the idea that somebody questioned over on that board whether those attributes are consistent with the existence of evil the offense you perceived as the "caricature" of God that so obviously angered you over here? 

YES!

It pissed me off.

People have so many beliefs and misconceptions that they tout as evidence that there is no God. I hate it.

Fine, we know something about your agitated emotional state. Unfortunately, we don't know a whole lot about what triggered it or why. That's why posting replies to things said on one discussion board on a different discussion board doesn't make very much sense.

The thread that you went off on over there was about the Problem of Evil and how the thread starter thought that some theist responses to it are inadaquate. So, do you have anything intelligent to say about that?

You might start by explaining what "beliefs and misconceptions" you are talking about and precisely why you think that they are misconceptions. Why does somebody else having a misconception about something agitate you so emotionally? What alternative ideas can you present to correct what you believe are misconceptions and why should other people agree with those ideas?

I'll point out that the Problem of Evil isn't really an argument that there is no God. It's an argument that the existence of evil seemingly makes it impossible to simultaneously attribute omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence to God as divine attributes. It's about how to think consistently about the divine attributes. And the Problem of Evil isn't a slam-dunk by any means. I posted a hint at what I think could be a very strong rejoinder over in the thread on the other board.

Ostronomos Wrote:
(Jul 4, 2021 06:22 PM)Syne Wrote:
(Jul 4, 2021 04:21 PM)stryder Wrote: For instance lets say you consider yourself to be a genius (which is a label or moniker that nobody should give themselves). 
Too true. Even if you have an IQ that qualifies (or you're even in Mensa), you should be aware that no one on the internet is going to take your word for it. Then it's a matter of what you can demonstrate, not to your own self-deluded satisfaction, but to the satisfaction of others, to make that determination on their own. Unless a person is socially stunted, recognizing that much would seem to be a bare minimum for a genius. And if stunted, they're an idiot savant, at best. 

Oh shut up. I don't care if nobody gives themselves that label I do. And I wear it proudly.

Here it is again, I'M A GENIUS!

You can imagine anything you like about yourself. But that isn't going to convince anyone else to agree with it.

Genius isn't so much something you are, it's something that you do. It isn't something that one can just claim for themselves, it's something that has to be performed. Einstein wasn't a genius because he told everyone that he was. (Which I'm sure he never did.) He was a genius because he made epochal contributions to physics that transformed that subject.

So then, maybe it's time for you to do the same for philosophy and theology, maybe it's time for you to start presenting new and devastatingly brilliant philosophical points about the Problem of Evil.
Reply
#12
C C Offline
(Jul 5, 2021 04:34 PM)Ostronomos Wrote: [...] Here it is again, I'M A GENIUS!

As a possible remedy to any mild persecution arising in this particular area, you might relax the fourth wall long enough to admit to the audience that it's partly facetious performance. Or a faux-narcissist, salesperson personality gimmick. So the public won't keep issuing a diagnosis of braggadocio akin to what stage celebrities literally exhibit.[1]

OTOH, that revelation might not work anymore than it did for Trump after his transition from film and television to politics. With respect to retro publications and interviews where he seemed to acknowledge such. Probably due to his dogged persistence at maintaining that exaggerated facade, no matter what degree of detriment ensued from it publicity-wise. Thereby nullifying the perception of _X_ in people's minds as being just a marketeer's hyperbolic bravado. 

- - - footnote - - - 

[1] Gad Saad Ph.D., Psychology Today: I have always been fascinated by the narcissism and grandiosity displayed by celebrities. Jenny McCarthy is bewildered that the National Institutes of Health is not paying attention to her "proof" that autism is caused by the MMR vaccine. Apparently, it is due to a large conspiracy in part driven by the evil pharmaceutical firms (no doubt, Dr. Evil is the CEO of the conspiratorial consortium). Madonna has claimed that she has used "Kabbalah fluid" to neutralize radiation at a Ukrainian lake. Tom Cruise castigated psychiatry for being pure quackery as he had "studied its history." Suzanne Somers hails her hormone therapy replacement program as an elixir of youth. Deepak Chopra explains to us the causes of disease using a wide range of semi-random new age quackery. The problem has gotten so out of hand that there is now an organization, Sense About Science, that seeks to combat such celebrity-driven idiocy. Recently, Salon.com did the "unthinkable" by publishing an article on the contribution of Oprah to this lunacy. How dare anyone question Oprah's omniscience and omnipotence?
Reply
#13
Syne Offline
So seeing as we have to guess at what this thread is actually about....

As Yaz points out, Problem of Evil is not a problem for theism in general. And where it could be a problem for omnibenevolence, that alone doesn't make it a problem for either omniscience or omnipotence. God could just be an uncaring ass.

But I don't think the Problem of Evil is a problem at all, even for omnibenevolence. Free will is a greater benevolence than the lack of all suffering, and a world that allows for free will must also include the possibility for suffering. The only way to bar all suffering would be to curtail the free will of those who cause it, whether intentionally or by any degree removed from accident. In such a world, there could be no consistent cause and effect, and thus no science. Many actions taken would just fail to accomplish anything, because an omniscient god would know that somewhere down the line they'd cause suffering. That, or a chain of cause and effect would abruptly end somewhere before causing suffering. That is a world of capricious superstition that we would have no hope of understanding. Even just discovering the atom could, one day, lead to the A-bomb. Or we discover the atom, and because we're not allowed to create an A-bomb, we never discover any evidence to prove E = mc².

So a omnibenevolent god would want us to have free will and the potential to actually understand our world.
Reply
#14
Zinjanthropos Offline
Man spends thousands of dollars for a psychiatrist without success. The shrink was to help remove an irrational fear his son had about the boogie man residing under the bed. Problem was eventually solved by a simple carpenter friend who when informed of it, sawed the legs off the kid’s bed. Is that genius or what?

Man consumes copious amounts of a hallucinogenic drug. From his mind’s altered state he argues that the world we observe is already altered. The point made is that if one further alters the altered state then it will allow for clarity of a situation. Is this genius or what?
Reply


Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  The last in the line of defense against evil Ostronomos 2 120 Dec 17, 2022 12:43 AM
Last Post: Ostronomos
  Response to "God isn't real. Prove me Wrong" Ostronomos 0 289 Aug 24, 2018 04:56 PM
Last Post: Ostronomos
  Why God allows Evil Ostronomos 4 429 Jun 17, 2018 06:19 PM
Last Post: Magical Realist
  Evil Defined Ostronomos 0 215 May 6, 2018 07:25 PM
Last Post: Ostronomos
  Does experience provide a direct link to reality? Or is it simply creative response? C C 1 656 Apr 3, 2016 06:46 PM
Last Post: Magical Realist



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)