Two things:
I’m not a theist, I’m an undecided coward.
Regarding your last point, I’m of the opinion that evil and good are relative to each other. [dumb metaphor] Gravity not being a choice, you can’t legitimately claim to choose to be rooted to the earth, or take any credit for it. You may desire to float freely, but you don’t have the choice or the temptation. [/dumb metaphor].
If you could not do evil, you could not do good. You must agree with me on at least this.
I must? But what about Free Will?!?
No, I believe one could do good if even one could not do evil. There are choices that are neither good nor evil, and some that are good but not as good as others. So, say you can’t do evil, but you can choose whether or not to devote your life to helping those less fortunate or just hanging out at home. See? Now, you dont’ get any brownie points for avoiding evil, but you rightfully should get some for doing good.
But if the only choices you had were to either stay at home, or do good, then you might just be doing good out of boredom or for entertainment (which might not be good after all.) Afterwards you might get bored doing good right when you are relied on and needed. So, you go home and hang out again. All of a sudden someone is suffering who would have been taken care of by another had you never gotten involved. You have made a selfish choice that injures others through your selfish action to alleviate boredom. Evil.
Right, doing good out of boredom is not proper “good”, I agree. However, if you are arguing that doing less that the absolute “Most Good” we can do at every single second is “evil”, then both you and I are wallowing in evil right this second. You’ve now defined “evil” as “anything less than ultimate good” and even lesser “goods” or neutral actions are now evil. Therefore what you are essentially saying is, “if one can only do ultimate good at all times, one cannot choose to do anything other than ulimate good”–which is true, but a distinct difference from your initial statement.
I swear, some of the things people argue in their logical contortions… 
So it’s better to never do good than to do good for a little while and then quit, since if you sit on your duff someone else will take up the slack, but if you try to help and don’t follow through for the rets of your life people will die. O-kay.
I don’t think I did what you thought I did. In my above example I committed evil not by doing good out of boredom, but by ceasing to do so when it became relied upon and under the circumstance that I had never started my role would have been satisfactorily fulfilled by another.
I did not do good because I only acted out of boredom.
My direct actions resulted in suffering. Evil.
Had I simply stayed home my actions would have been morally neutral.
No logical contortions.
Let’s say I choose to feed birds near my house in the winter. I put out the food, they eat it. They do not forage elsewhere.
Now I stop in the middle of winter.
The birds never sought an alternate source of food, and now it is too late in the winter for them to do so.
They starve.
Two pictures:
The Machiavellian sadist looking out his window, rubbing his hands in glee as the same birds return to the empty feeder day after day, getting weaker and weaker until they die.
The guy who decides the birds weren’t pretty anymore and feeding them was a pain in the neck, so just stopped, though without malice.
IMO both have done evil.
Now you’re acknowledging that there are both “neutral” and “good” options even if one cannot do evil?
But “selfish” good doesn’t always result in evil, either. Giving millions of dollars to charity becuase you like the ego boost is not truly “good”, but it’s hardly evil. Giving blood because you want cookies is hardly proper “good”, but it doesn’t lead inevitably to evil, either. Helping out in a soup kitchen for a week because you’re bored is not pure “good”, but it takes some bizarre circumstances to make it evil. I also object on principle to something that would discourage people from doing good rather than just sitting on their duffs simply because they don’t have the loftiest motives. If I choose to shovel my neighbor’s driveway rather than watch cartoons because I’d like some exercise, are you going to castigate me for my evil selfish motives and tell me to go back indoors and catch up on Pokemon?
If the force field isn’t better (and is in fact probably worse since it doesn’t work in all types of abuse cases) why didn’t you choose the “can’t-think-about-it” option for your hypothetical world? Wouldn’t it eliminate abuse more effectively?
Grim
How do you think that her force field isn’t better? Suppose it’s only effective in… hmm… 75% of child abuse situations. That’s a helluva lot less child abuse, all because of her forcefield. That’s not better to you?? She’s not claiming her solution is perfect, just better to what we have now, i.e., no forcefield.
For your second point, Gaudere is working under a framework of “We want the world better, but we want to have the same free will.” She didn’t impose this stipulation; she’s working under it because the “opposition,” i.e., fundies, believes that humanity was given free will and that’s why evil happens. Moreover, God gave us free will and he did that because He loves us. Taking away that free will means that we can’t willfully love God. So, in Fundie eyes [generalization] free will comes with the good–we can freely love God, go to Heaven, etc.,–and the bad–we can abuse our children, etc.
Gaudere is saying, “Ok, you want the good, so my hypothetical world will still let you choose to love God, you’ll still have free will. But I’m going to diminish the bad–you can no longer beat your children. You still have the will to think about beating your kids, but the resulting evil is diminished.” As I said, she imposed this to satisfy the opposition. She also has said (and please correct me if I’m putting words in your mouth) that she doesn’t understand why child abuse can’t be put into the same category as flurblegurgling, a sin so terrible we can’t even think about it, because God has removed our free will WRT flurblegurgling.
As she’s said MANY times, if a Christian wants to answer, “Mysterious ways,” so be it–there’s no way to dispute that. If a Christian wants to offer up Candide’s favorite saying, “This is the best of all possible worlds,” well, there’s a problem with that. ForceFieldLand is a better world, IMO, and I’m going to get a InterHypothetical Passport as soon as possible.
Quix
Newton believed god exists but only intervenes now and then, this seems to fit. I keep posting this because its an important idea from an important person.
Perhaps if we all tried harder to make the world a nicer place without gods help then it would be better, he needs a hand.
Then again, who are we to know the mind of god ?, oooo, what a cop out that is.
Lets all grow up, where is god ?
Either he isn’t around a lot or he has given up on us.
Isn’t it about time we tried to stand on our own 2 feet, then again perhaps thats why god isn’t around, he is letting us ‘grow up’ !
I typed out a post, and all it was in the end, essentially, was, “what Quix said”. So I’m just going to start working on printing up InterHypothetical Passports. 
Quix, Gaudere…
You aren’t reading what I’m posting. Here it is again:
Let me rephrase.
Let’s say that the force-field stops (to use Quix’s hypothetical stat) 75% of child abuse. Now let’s say that if God decided to make it impossible for a person to even think about child abuse that it stops %100 of child abuse.
Why have you picked the force field (75% success rate) solution over the “inability-to-think-about-it” (100% success rate) solution?
Grim
You aren’t apparently reading either my or Quix’s posts. As stated (twice at least), I avoided the can’t-even-think-about-it option since those who use the “free will” option claim that removing in any way the ability to desire every possible evil infringes unacceptably on free will. However, I do also note that we have no way of knowing if in fact we are prevented from even thinking about certain evils, because if we were, we couldn’t even think of them! Is my free will infringed because I lack teh ability to desire fleebleflurbing?
I completely forgot about your previous statement on this matter. Please disregard pevious reasoning along the “cant-think-about-it” lines.
To clarify a few things…
I’ve been assuming that the force field would have been implemented since the beginning of time rather then at an arbitrary point in time after the existence of Homo Sapiens. Is this your assumption also?
Perhaps I didn’t express myself clearly in that post. What I meant to say was something along the lines of “let’s say the force-field was implemented and it had these unforeseen results”. Not that these things specifically would happen if the force-field was implemented. If you felt that I implied that we should cease working to end existing evil then you have misinterpreted my intent.
I wasn’t suggesting that 10, 20, or 100 people would draw the line where it is now. I was suggesting that 10, 20, etc. people would draw the line further from where you’ve drawn it. In other words some people would say the force-fields should prevent rape, some would say it should prevent all murder, some would say all violence… I’m sure some wouldn’t even object to the hypothetical Barney clones. I was asking why where you draw the line is better than even more restrictive behavior (not thought).
Of course we should try to reduce child abuse. Have I stated that we shouldn’t? You seem to believe that…
Because I don’t know why God drew the line where he did and…
Accept that it was for a reason (“Mysterious ways”)…
That…
“Grim_Beaker must believe child abuse is a necessary thing and therefore thinks no one should do anything about it”. Or, if you don’t believe that then why do you repeatedly suggest it?
Grim
Let’s say it evolves naturally, little by little, in the primate family. Does it matter?
Well, to be a good argument, your unforseen results must be both significant enough to make the force-field worse than having no force-field, and also reasonably possible. I mean, arguing that abusive parents will be slightly less fulfilled (which I know you did not argue, it’s an example) is not a compelling argument, because it does not argue that the forcefields do more harm than good, though it is a reasonable expectation that abusive parents will be annoyed that they cannot abuse their children. Arguing that abusive parents will kill their children as soon as the protection wears off is also not a good argument, since it does not seem reasonable; abusive parents are unlikley to have the same power over full-grown adults as they do over helpless babies and it does not seem likely that the majority of parent prevented from abuse would therefore kill their children. As well, as I noted, if you believe that reducing child abuse would be worse than letting it go on because more children will be murdered if parents cannot abuse, logically you would have to believe that we should not attempt to reduce child abuse right now. And I don’t think you believe that.
It doesn’t matter, frankly; I’m not arguing that Forcefieldworld is the ideal world, nor have I attempted to make it ideal. My argument is not that my world is ideal (clearly it isn’t) but that it is better than the one we have now. If you want to make up a better world than Forcefieldworld, I encourage you to do so–I agree my ideas could use refinement. But for my argument to be effective, all I have to do is posit a reasonable possible-world that does not infringe on free-will and does appear superior to the one we live in.
I suggest it, not as a slur against you, but because you have come up with several arguments about why reducing child abuse could be bad–not ones solely bearing on my forcefield method, but ones that hold equally well for any reduction in child abuse. You have not simply said “I don’t know why, mysterious ways, the end”–you have apparently argued that it is a reasonable consequence that if child abuse is reduced, more parents will murder their adult children, and that this somehow makes stopping abuse of children do more harm than good–which most certainly appears to be an argument against reducing child abuse!
My reply is referenced to Paul’s take on this, writing to the Romans(8:18-23)
Go ahead, you can blame it all on God. If what we are experiencing are the pangs of childbirth, I trust in God that His eye is on the big picture and that we will all be in agreement that it had to be this way. The child molester might be excercising free will but it is within the confines of a corrupted mind.
Addendum: I don’t think YOU, personally, think child abuse is good (aside from the “it must be good somehow, I just don’t understand how” mysterious ways belief). However, you have made arguments that have at least attempted to show how reducing child abuse would be a bad thing. I don’t think your heart thinks child abuse is good, but your posts do appear to argue that! If you are uncomfortable with your arguments against reduction of child abuse, simply stop using them.
Let me move away from the nature of good and evil and jump into the force field debate. Hopefully Gaudere will be willing to fix my UBB code errors here, since I’m in a different thread (Thanks again.)
I don’t think force fields would do much good except in instances where the child abuse is fatal or does irrevocable physical harm.
I think the worst evils of child abuse aren’t physical at all.
A child may be severely injured by accident, recover, and go on as if nothing happened.
Mommy and Daddy though are the babies world and in large part babies’ identity. There is an instinctual contract there, that has lasting impact upon a child’s development when it is betrayed.
Given a force field, abusive parents would simply abuse their children mentally, causing the same damage. I would take a WAG and suggest that the physical damage of abuse is apt to heal the fastest, and the mental aspects are the most lasting.