Well, that and the willingness to attempt to beat others over the head with their superior first year philosophy learnin, ehe DtC? 
-XT
I have a full 4 years in bullshit. Philosphy was a required part of my major. So was theology.
Ah…well, it wasn’t required in my own degree, even as electives, so I avoided philosophy (and theology…yikes) like the plague. I took my electives in anthropology, history and laying out on the mall and watching the pretty girls wander about in halter tops and shorts. My minor was in drinking.
In case you didn’t get it, most of what I posted in this thread was tongue in cheek. I figure you DID get it, but just in case…
-XT
I sure hope the not understanding the arguments I and others have made and the accusing me of arguing by assertion wasn’t tongue in cheek. 'Cause there’s a term for that, and it’s not “devil’s advocate”.
The purpose of intellectual exercises of this sort is to figure out what properties any god might have, if it so existed. This information can be useful when engaging in the futile exercise of trying to get theists to accept reality, and it can be useful in ruling out fears that might be clouding your decision-making system into making poor choices (like Pascal’s Wager seeks to do). Also, of course, intellectual exercises are good to do just to keep your intellectual muscles from getting flabby.
Since I’m not trying to convince any theists of anything at the moment, and since I’m not currently laboring under any unfounded worries about demanding dieties, this debate for me is simply an intellectual exploration.
So - the question is, given that the earthquake hit Haiti, what does that (and other natural disasters) tell us about the properties of any god or gods that may exist? Well, not a lot - it only tells us things if we make certain other assumptions about the property of the god in question. Which is actually fair to do, because if you don’t make at least a few assumptions, then you might be referring to anything. I’ve got a styrofoam cup here; it exists quite handily despite natural evil. So, if you don’t arbitrarily establish that God isn’t at least a little different from this styrofoam cup, then there’s clearly no chance you can disprove its existence.
An obvious place to start assuming things about the gods you’re postulating about is with some established religion. After all, they make claims about their diety - why not start with those claims? Christianity is a nice place to start, being as it’s the religion I most commonly encounter; specifically the variant that watches sparrows fall and can move mountains if it wants and who everybody keeps telling me loves me. In other words, Mr. Omnimax.
Of course, the POE is the standard hammer for shattering the myth of the Omnimax, and it’s not exactly new. What does the POE argument tell us?
It tells us that:
- If we’re suffering,
and there’s a diety that: - knows about our suffering
- would prefer we weren’t suffering, and
- can correct our suffering without interfering with a goal he cares about more,
then the diety would correct the suffering. Because we are still suffering, we can therefore logically conclude that no such diety exists. This argument isn’t too hard to comprehend, obviously; it makes perfect sense. For convenience, the numbered parts of the argument can be abbreviated: - Evil
- Omniscience
- Omnibenevolence
- Omnipotence
So. Many theists aren’t fond of the POE, because it handily disproves the existence of any omnimax god, which would include many or most versions of the Christian god. So, they’ve come up with several arguments to attempt to disprove the POE argument. All such arguments must (logically enough) attack a part of the argument, so logically must be either claiming that no Evil (suffering) happens, which is silly, or that their god isn’t omnimax. Their arguments usually fall apart when they try and claim they’ve refuted the argument without denying suffering or de-omnimaxing their god, which is silly for the obvious reason that if they don’t do one or the other the argument can’t be refuted. Still, some keep trying to have their cake and eat it too, which usually results in arguments that implode and collapse in flames.
Because I feel like it, I’ll look at a few arguments that can be used to get a god past the POE - or to try to, at any rate.
“The god’s not benevolent.”
This argument isn’t used directly too often, at least not for the Christian god, but it handily gets various ancient gods like the greek and norse gods throught the filter. Of course, there are ways to say your god isn’t benevolent without actually admitting you’re saying so; I’ll address one or two of these down the line.
Theists that worship gods that are overtly clueless about human pain or who are completely unable to do anything it are similarly rare in modern times. Ancient people often believed in specialized dieties that only had dominion over specific things and were otherwise irrelevent, though.
“God works in mysterious ways.”
This argument has already been beat to death in this thread (and then beat past death because somebody was twitching the horse to make us think it was still alive), so I won’t reiterate it, except to point out that obviously the “mysterious ways” argument effects the POE as a refutation of the “omnipotence” precondition. Obviously any diety that is sadly forced to stand by and watch people suffer lest his ultimate goal be wrenched from his impotent fingers isn’t omnipotent. Such gods could exist, of course (my styrofoam cup is one of them), but most religions wouldn’t claim them or worship them - at least not under most circumstances.
There is one other interesting thing to note about the “mysterious ways” argument: it’s rather obviously based on a miscomprehension of omnipotence based on the assumption that things would work the same way for Mr OmniGod as they do for humans (“humans have to break omelets to make eggs, therefore God could have to too”). This is not too outrageous a mistake to make, particularly if you’re already anthropomorphizing the hell out of your god anyway, like most religions seem to. However to juxtapose the “mysterious ways” argument with a criticism of somebody suggesting that god might have humanlike impatience because God’s not a human, is hilariously ironic. Like, tear-off-your-own-arm-to-be-better-able-to-beat-yourself-to-death-with-it-to-stop-having-to-hear-it hilarious!
Moving on.
“Free will”
This argument is primarily the refuge of people who haven’t thought too hard about what free will means, and often devolves to a debate trying to bring people up to speed on the incoherence of the concept. Putting that aside, though, the free will argument is basically a variant on the mysterious ways argument, except the ways aren’t mysterious: God lets bad things happen because if he stopped them, this would curb free will, because it’s impossible to have free will and never want to do evil. Wait, impossible? For God? Like all arguments invilving justifications and higher goals, this is a denial of omnipotence. Clearly a truly omnipotent god could create entities that had free will but never wanted to do evil. ‘Nu-uh!’, say the theists, “To have free will you have the be able to choose evil!” “But,” sayeth I, “What about God? Doesn’t He have free will? Isn’t He omnibenevolent?” Theist: “…Uhhh - hey, how about that Pascal’s Wager! Doesn’t that convince you to be a Christian?”
(Bonus argument: “But, I can’t choose not to breathe - my body won’t let me. Does that mean I don’t have free will? Because if it doesn’t, then what if my body physically rebelled against doing evil, in the same way it rebells against holding my breath too long? It could be just like breathing - I get some control, but not enough to do real harm. The two situations seem really similar to me - if one is free will, then so’s the other, and if a physical inability to do evil isn’t free will, then the fact I’m unable to completely stop breathing means I already don’t have free will either. Right?”)
Anyway, ignoring all that, suppose that free will can’t exist without the ability to choose evil (perhaps by definition); then what happens? Well, at that point this becomes a benevolence issue - the situation becomes, God wants people to have free will, but why? Why does God want people running around doing bad things? Well, because having people running around doing bad things is his end goal. (We know this because he’s still mostly omnipotent, remember.) So, if God is letting people do harm to other people, it’s because he likes (or at least doesn’t mind) people getting hurt.
God not minding people getting hurt is so awesome, I’m giving it it’s own section.
“God doesn’t mind when people getting hurt.”
This is, of course, a refutation of omnibonevolence, and thus an instant ‘win’ against of the POE. And I’ve actually heard it argued by theists! I won’t name names, but the argument was more or less “our living bodies don’t matter, it’s our souls that matter. When people suffer horribly or die, the soul emerges unscathed, so it’s all cool, and no real harm is done - so God can still be benevolent!”.
First, to again give kudos to the argument for beating the POE, which it handily does - as long as you’re careful about what words you use to describe how benevolent your diety is. (More anon.) Anyway, because the argument defeats the POE, it forces the atheist to think quickly and muster up a new argument, one Der Trihs is fond of: “Your diety is a monster!”
The obvious response to the YDIAM argument is, “No he isn’t! He’s all kinds of benevolent to your soul! And your soul is you!” The thing is, though, for the argument to hold up, the soul can’t be me. Because I’m suffering. I’m in pain, and I’m experiencing not just physical but also mental and emotional damage. If the soul isn’t experiencing these things, then what does it have to do with me anyway? It’s a completely distinct and separate entity from me -and one that doesn’t even sympathize with me much! If it did, then it would be at least a little miffed that God’s letting me be raped or tortured or crushed by rocks or driven insane or whatever.
The ‘the soul is fine’ argument, therefore, pushes the soul off to be a completely separate entity from us, such that it’s like the owner of a dog, and we’re the dog. And God is, true to form, completely benevolent to the dog owners - except that he throws the dogs into meat grinders periodically for no particular reason besides his own whim. Remember omnipotence - there can be no higher purpose. He’s not doing it to get tasty dog sausages - he just likes seeing the dogs get ground up. Which is to say, he likes seeing us get ground up.
(This is why you have to phrase the argument correctly, by the way - a diety that’s kind to dog owners but mean to dogs may be called “benevolent”, but it’s clearly not omnibenevolent.)
Anyway, I dunno about you, but as one of the dogs, this doesn’t especially inspire my devotion to Him and His holy meat grinder - especially since he demonstrably uses it pretty much equally on the devoted and the heretic. Wait - did somebody just mention heaven? When we get to heaven, God will supposedly stop being so random with his meat grinder and will let the people who suck to Him up hard enough off the hook, and everybody else gets stuck in the meat grinder forever. Putting aside the fact that this is the behavior of an insecure child who is desperate for syncophants, and not a wise and above-it-all god, doesn’t this (belated) preferential treatment for the devoted justify devotion now?
This sounds like Pascal’s wager but it isn’t - as we’re discussing whether the god is theoretically possible, it is assumed to be the real and correct god for the sake of discussion. So, no pointing at other religions or made-up gods that love atheists or whatever. Is a benevolent omnigod that will reward us for our earthly devotion possible?
The answer? NO.
Problem 1: Why bother waiting? It’s not as if god doesn’t already know who’s going turn out good or bad. Why not just reward the inherently good people now and skip the slow death from cancer?
Th: “Um, free will!”
Ath: “What, you mean he can’t predict what we’ll do? He’s not omniscient?”
*Some theists will say “yes, he can’t predict what we’ll do.”. If so, go to Problem 2.
Th: “Er, we need to actually do the bad deeds, to earn the punishment.”
Ath: “Why? Wouldn’t it be better if the bad deeds were prevented, since god knows they’re going to happen? We allow cops to arrest criminals prior to the crime if there’s sufficient evidence, which God certainly has.”
(I can’t think of a cogent theist reply to this, so moving on…)
Problem 2: Benevolent OmniGods don’t roast people in hell. Remember, the roasting can’t be for some other purpose to an omnimax god - it has to be it’s own purpose. So, since a benevolent God doesn’t like seeing souls roast in hell, no hells are allowed.
Th: “Maybe God likes seeimg them roast - they’re evil! They did bad things!”
Ath: “The bad things that he stood by and with full knowledge let happen? That makes him an accomplice, right?”
Th: "Er, okay, so what if those crazy Jews were right when the said in the bible that the evil people are annihilated? It’s okay for a benevolent god to just make the bad people vanish and just reward the good people, right?
Ath: “Yes, conceded! Except:”
Problem 3: The good people don’t actually get to go to heaven!
Th: “WHAT?? -Yes they do!”
Actually, no they don’t, which is the fun part of this argument and most of the reason I spent all this time writing it out. Keep in mind that to get this far, we have posited that the soul is a completely separate entity from the me-as-we-know-it. If you don’t assume this, then when God lets people get hurt souls are getting hurt and evil is getting done for no reason (omnipotence!) and God’s a sadist. The only way to even escape this is if mortal people’s pain and experiences are unimportant, which isn’t going to happen if any meaningful part of us survives to carry our pains into eternity. So, the souls go to heaven -and we don’t. We’re just the dogs getting thrown in the meat grinder and nothing more. Yay!
Note that while this pretty much is the final nail in the cross for the Christian God on the POE front, you can pretty easily postulate a model where the diety in question is pretty much a nice guy, other than the fact that he doesn’t give a crap about humans or earthly suffering. One such model would be the “Dungeon Master” model - God is the DM, our souls are all players, and we humans are the characters being directed by the players (who are our souls). Our world is rough for the same reason that D&D has gelatinous blobs - because pain and risk is exciting and fun if no real harm is done. “Aw, freddy, you rolled muscular distrophy! Sucks to be you!” (Everybody laughs together.) “An earthquake happens! Everybody wich characters in Haiti roll!” (dice clatter) “Okay, all of you died horribly, all of you suffer 2d12 of horrific injury, and the rest of you roll for panic and terror! And don’t forget to account for emotional pain from dead relatives! Okay now, everybody’s who’s dead grab a character sheet from the gestating fetus pile, and everybody else get ready to earn yourself some humanitarian experience points!” (Everybody cheers.)
This sort of scenario is kind of fun - if you’re not the character who just got a lot of damage marked on his character sheet (assuming that the sheet wasn’t just wadded up and thrown in the garbage). Which we are. Sucks to be us! Remember boys and girls, the DM is god, and he’s a capricious and heartless bastard. Amen.
Okay, I think I’ve rambled on long enough - let’s see if anybody wants to pick this apart. I left lots of spaces where one could do so, by exanding on one of my “Th:” sections with a better argument, or of course by simply finding a hole in one of my arguments as presented. Let’s see if there’re any takers!
Though, if you want to play devil’s advocate, please play a devil that’s semi-intelligent and can actually argue decently. I’d rather not deal with the other kind; I can’t really afford to lose too many more points off my sanity stat, after all.
No, I was serious about that part…
-XT
Okay, fair ehough. I hope I was clear enough on my last post on the subject then - it’s entirely possible to be unclear.
More than enough. I can’t be bothered to wade through it. I stopped where you got into DISproving God’s existence. Stop there. No one is required to disprove it. Someone who claims God exists needs to prove it.
I was just messing with you, man. While I’m no philosophy major, I was at least vaguely aware of the philosophic blind alley one can travel down if one assumes this theoretical being is all powerful, all knowing, blah blah blah. FWIW, you explained it very well, going into a hell of a lot more detail and putting in a lot more time than you probably should have.
As a bonus, you and the others actually got someone (me) to play with in such a thread, and I had my share of fun too…for as long as I could keep a straight face.
-XT
Don’t worry - I wrote it 80% for myself, and 20% for those with the stamina and fortitute to slog through. You know, the real men. 
(And it’s fun to disprove gods! - and there are times when it’s quite handy. You ever been dragged off to a witch trial? One good long boring philosophical dissertation could totally convert them all to atheists and save your life, man!)