The Problem of Evil.

www.youtube.com...

The video above is about 7 minutes long, and gives a pretty quick pitch on why the existence of Evil is an evidence for their being a God. The speaker addresses two philosophical points: one is that when someone brings up the problem of Evil they assume there is something good, and two, to assume there is something good is to assume there is a moral law. He goes on to say that if there is a moral law, then there must be a moral law giver, and if there is no moral law giver there is no moral law. If there is no moral law then there is no good, and if there is no good there is no evil. He points out that without these basic assumptions the question self destructs.


Start at 13:22 and watch until you fill that you have heard his response to the question


One of the speakers in this video makes a really good point later on. He points out that many times when some of us think about the problem of Evil, we picture the world we are in now, and then we think of a better world view and ask ourselves, "why didn't God make me in that universe?" Ask yourself if God had created the universe in any other way, would you still be you? The speaker gives a really good analogy. He says that sometimes he thinks about what if his mom and dad hadn't gotten together. That maybe his mom married someone else, and maybe he would have been taller or better at sports or vice versa. He says that whenever he actually thinks about it that kid wouldn't have been him. Some other kid might have been better or taller at sports, but it wouldn't have been him. Now this is were I believe Dawkins is mistaken. I have heard him say that you might could convince him of a Creator, but never a personal God. Dawkins also says that what Jesus did on the cross was petty. What if God created this universe the way it is, because he values you specifically and loves you and wanted to know you just the way you are. If he had done it any differently would he have still gotten a chance to meet you.

Who is the one who interprets things as "good" or "bad" though? Each individual person. What one thinks as good may be bad to another or vice versa, so the only "lawgiver" is the moral compass ingrained at birth within each individual person. If something hurts you, you know it will hurt another so your natural moral compass tells you it is wrong to do it to others.

Morals can be summed up with one sentence: treat others as you would want to be treated. If you kill someone you are willfully ignoring your moral compass, something you and everyone else is born with.

The fact that there is right and wrong has no bearing on whether God exists or not, especially the ones mentioned in holy books. In my opinion, that line of thinking is a form of confirmation bias.

reply to post by ServantOfTheLamb


Good and evil are only how will interpret stuff. If you had no opinion on something that happened, its just something that happened.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1


I don't believe in a "moral law giver". There is no such thing as empirical morality, in my opinion. What "good" and "bad" are is something that is directly related to our evolutionary place in the natural word. It would be "bad" if an asteroid plowed into Earth, but there is nothing evil about the asteroid.

Chaos, not being in control, not feeling safe and secure are "bad" things. Believing that "God" is control doesn't make chaos suddenly "good".

reply to post by windword


Good point, but I'd have to say that an asteroid crashing into Earth is morally ambiguous and has no intent or will behind it, it lies within the gray area.

As for an act having intent or will behind it, as in human actions, there is such thing as "universal" morality in my opinion. An asteroid doesn't have a moral compass, humans do. Humans should base their morals on the golden rule and I'd argue that universal morality IS the golden rule.

reply to post by ServantOfTheLamb


I'm afraid I have no intention of watching the video, though I would be happy to read a transcript of it. The problem of evil is an intractable one, and Epicurus's statement of it retains the adamantine unanswerability it possessed over two thousand years ago, when it was first formulated.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

The mistake in the argument proposed in the video is this:

if there is a moral law, then there must be a moral law giver, and if there is no moral law giver there is no moral law

This is not the case at all. A moral law can exist without a lawgiver; traditional usages and customs do, so what is so special about laws? Perhaps you need a lawgiver to define and write them down. That is not the same as inventing them, though: laws can exist and be obeyed without being defined or written down. The British Constitution is an example of this: it has never been written down, but the laws of the United Kingdom, which are written down, are derived from it.

Whence, you may ask, come custom and usage? They are consensual or at least represent majority views and practices in the society that follows them. On a more basic level, they are derived from our biological instincts — instincts such as parental care, kin altruism, sexual bonding, social exchange and so on, all of which are exhibited by higher primates.

The problem of evil is, simply, that it makes it impossible for God to be both good and omnipotent. There have been many attempts by the religious to resolve this contradiction, but they all amount to an eyewash. This video, if you have reported its arguments correctly, is no different.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1


It's true that the asteroid itself had no ill intent, or any intent at all. The asteroid is a direct result of cause and effect, a universal law. Math, physics, chemistry, all display empirical "truths" but are unaffected by any "ideal" morality. I propose that if there were a moral law giver, then the laws of the universe would be moral too.

Nature knows nothing of morality. My cats torture mice, not because they're hungry, their bowl is full of crunchies, but because of their evolutionary place in the nature. That evolutionary place requires cats remain unaffected by any thought of suffering on the part of the mice, otherwise, cats, in general, would die of starvation.

reply to post by windword


I agree. The only true "lawgiver" is ourselves in my opinion. As far as I know we are the only species that knows right from wrong, so our own moral compass decides what is right or wrong and is the "lawgiver", not some outside entity.

Another good example for what you're describing is when a brand new alpha lion of a pride kills all of the current cubs in order for his bloodline to continue instead of another bloodline. Nature itself definitely doesn't have a sense of right or wrong the majority of the time.

I think the moral of the story is that cats are ***holes.

Astyanax
The problem of evil is, simply, that it makes it impossible for God to be both good and omnipotent.

Didn't your father ever let you make mistakes so that you'd learn how to do deal with the consequences and grow from your experiences?

If he did, does that make him a bad man?

reply to post by NthOther

Didn't your father ever let you make mistakes so that you'd learn how to do deal with the consequences and grow from your experiences?

Consequences such as, for example, the Mongol conquests and the Holocaust? Such as chattel slavery, gladiatorial combat and the institutionalised exploitation and abuse of women and children? Consequences such as the genocide of the native Americans? Consequences like torture for religious and political purposes? Consequences like North Korea? No, my father never let me make mistakes with consequences like that. If he had, he would have been a monster.

And that is precisely the problem. If God is omnipotent, he is responsible for all the suffering in the world. Not only all the suffering caused by humans, but also the suffering caused by plagues, famines and the careless cruelty of the natural world, of which windword and 3NL1GHT3N3D1 have already given some examples. The classic example of the ichneumon wasp, quoted by Darwin among others, is particularly horrible, but the modus operandi of any common virus is just as bad. Do you seriously believe a benign creator thought up viruses? If those things had a creator, that creator was not a moral lawgiver but a moral imbecile.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Nature itself definitely doesn't have a sense of right or wrong the majority of the time.

Maybe not, but nature makes sure that life persists, and kills without prejudice to make sure it's so! From our perspective, live itself is immoral. Life devours life. Life is deadly.

I think the moral of the story is that cats are ***holes.

LOL



"I gave you dead mouse, I can has cheezeberger neow?"

I find all of the arguments used in addressing this problem, not just those in the video, as being pointless. I say this because everyone is assuming that a Creator, or God, would actually be operating on what we call moral laws, or morality in general. Our entire existence on Earth could be extremely trivial, and just a small part of everything that truly exists in the spiritual and physical worlds, and our existence here could mean very little in the grand scheme of things. So for instance, if God wanted to kill someone, everyone would view that as a bad thing. But in reality it may not be a bad thing, considering we have no idea what happens after death. God could have been doing that person a favor for all we know.

So we have a tendency of viewing ourselves as the center of everything, as well as viewing "bad" or "immoral" actions as having to be viewed in the same way by the Creator. I just don't think this is an assumption that should be made.

reply to post by JiggyPotamus


But discounting the assumptions you identify involves taking on even larger assumptions, such as that life after death exists, that other intelligences exist in the universe, that intelligence is valuable, that life is valuable, etc.

One simple assumption eliminates the need for any other: there is no God.

reply to post by windword


Are you saying what is good and bad differed throughout the ages?

There is a standard for good and bad. When ones own judgement differs from this standard one is wrong.

3NL1GHT3N3D1
reply to post by windword

 

I agree. The only true "lawgiver" is ourselves in my opinion. As far as I know we are the only species that knows right from wrong, so our own moral compass decides what is right or wrong and is the "lawgiver", not some outside entity.

Our own moral compass is designed by an external force which can live within you though. Our own moral should be tuned into the moral of our Creator. When your moral suddenly changed to murder is good, then there is something wrong with your moral.

reply to post by Astyanax


Logically, good and pleasure must be the prime motive of consciousness, but if this is true, from whence did good come? If creation is the creation of pleasure byway of creating good, good must have existed before creation - the concept of good must have always existed.

Do you know of any creation that is consciously made for a purpose beyond creating a good image for pleasure? (What I mean by good image is that the action is the creation of an image representative of a concept that is good.)

If you say you know of one, you will have to say you know things outside of your own conscious creation.

If you say your conscious actions are not motivated by your desire to create good images for pleasure, then I don't believe it for a second, nor do I think you would if you honestly thought about it.

Don't immediately try to make a counter argument - take time to think about it. Do you consciously do things you think are not good? In the moment you create, do you not do it in order to create good?

You may do something you think is not good but you do it for a reason you think is good.

oktopus
reply to post by windword

 

Are you saying what is good and bad differed throughout the ages?

There is a standard for good and bad. When ones own judgement differs from this standard one is wrong.

You have the golden rule that brings "service to all" vs "service to self" (karma and what you seed you will get). Then you have the eating of the apple from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" where people deviate from the golden rule by changing what is right (good) and wrong (evil) to get the ego benefits and fall into "service to self".

"service to all" vs "service to self" have always been the same. How far humanity falls into "service to self" and parasite on their soul brothers and soul sisters fluctuates thru the ages.

LittleByLittle

oktopus
Then you have the eating of the apple from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" where people deviate from the golden rule by changing what is right (good) and wrong (evil) to get the ego benefits and fall into "service to self".

"service to all" vs "service to self" have always been the same. How far humanity falls into "service to self" and parasite on their soul brothers and soul sisters fluctuates thru the ages.

Interesting. I need to heal from that myself.

edit on 8-3-2014 by oktopus because: (no reason given)

LittleByLittle

oktopus
reply to post by windword

 

Are you saying what is good and bad differed throughout the ages?

There is a standard for good and bad. When ones own judgement differs from this standard one is wrong.

You have the golden rule that brings "service to all" vs "service to self" (karma and what you seed you will get). Then you have the eating of the apple from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" where people deviate from the golden rule by changing what is right (good) and wrong (evil) to get the ego benefits and fall into "service to self".

"service to all" vs "service to self" have always been the same. How far humanity falls into "service to self" and parasite on their soul brothers and soul sisters fluctuates thru the ages.

Can I just say that the concept of STS vs STO is illogical and part of the new age illusion. People treat me like crap because I am honest and yet I am expected to serve them?
For what, they are not making my life any better, I do this myself. By bringing this concept into any discussion I feel it ruins the point.
Good and evil has nothing to do with service to anything, it has to do with how people treat people. If I treat people the way I want to be treated and get rejected that says something about the whole concept, at least to me anyway

ChrisdolmethSachs

LittleByLittle

oktopus
reply to post by windword

 

Are you saying what is good and bad differed throughout the ages?

There is a standard for good and bad. When ones own judgement differs from this standard one is wrong.

You have the golden rule that brings "service to all" vs "service to self" (karma and what you seed you will get). Then you have the eating of the apple from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" where people deviate from the golden rule by changing what is right (good) and wrong (evil) to get the ego benefits and fall into "service to self".

"service to all" vs "service to self" have always been the same. How far humanity falls into "service to self" and parasite on their soul brothers and soul sisters fluctuates thru the ages.

Can I just say that the concept of STS vs STO is illogical and part of the new age illusion. People treat me like crap because I am honest and yet I am expected to serve them?
For what, they are not making my life any better, I do this myself. By bringing this concept into any discussion I feel it ruins the point.
Good and evil has nothing to do with service to anything, it has to do with how people treat people. If I treat people the way I want to be treated and get rejected that says something about the whole concept, at least to me anyway

edit on 8-3-2014 by ChrisdolmethSachs because: (no reason given)

I think you do not understand the concept of "service to all" vs "service to self" by your response.

You are allowed to be neutral and do things for yourself. Helping yourself (when the behavior is neutral to all) is service to the all since the self is included in the all. It is the service to self by limiting others or taking from others that is the downward spiral.

All behavior can defined as ego based (parasitic to all except the self), neutral or symbiosis based (good for self and all). This is the core in the golden rule. What you seed you will reap. Karma.

Give me any behavior that you call evil and see if it is classified as ego based or symbiosis based when you really look on the reason for the behavior and the impact on others.