This is a recurring theme. I made the reasons for believing make believers out to be incredibly dull people yet you only look at the way I made non-belivers look. Remember, I just pulled these off the top of my head. I in no way make judgements on people who believer or do not believe. I am simply trying to agree what constitutes a justifiable reason for belief and disbelief.
My explanation of Epicurius’ argument? I was presenting it as a reductio ad absurdum - to prove something (in this case, “God does not exist”), we start by assuming its opposite (“God exists”), then show that this assumption leads to a contradiction. If the opposite of our thesis demonstrably leads to a contradiction, then our thesis is true.
If you prefer: Not-p implies q: Not-p implies not-q. Therefore, p.
OK, I’m afraid I misunderstood your post. What, then, do you mean by “justified”? The last arguments in both your lists are simple ad lapidems - “I know this is true”. What criteria do you use to separate a “justified argument” from a mere assertion?
Why does a lack of belief in sky gods have to be “justied.”
As long as there is neither evidence nor necessity (nor, I would argue, physical possibility) for the existence of such entities then the logical default is to presume they don’t exist. This is not a question for which the binary answers are logically equivalent. Just because someone else can imagine a magical creature does not mean the existence of magical creature in reality has now acquired some sort of provisonal plausibility which needs to be overcome by logic or that an absence of belief in said creature needs to be “justified.”
Incidentally, the problem of evil (while insurmountable, IMO) is not really an argument against the existence of God but against a specific definition of God as being simultaneously omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omnscient.
Within reason I see your point. After all without pain there would be no reason for compassion. However I don’t feel you actually need pain to have pleasure, or you need horror to feel enough love for your neighbor to try to protect him/her from horror because these emotions are just due to brain chemistry. The chemistry could be created independent of each other and in fact it has been found that alot of positive emotion comes from the left prefrontal cortex and negative emotion comes from the right prefrontal cortex. Even if you do it is a pretty crappy trade off. Throwing boiling water on someone in the hopes that someone else will help him (and if not, too bad) is pretty evil.
http://www.meditationsource.com/researcharticle.html
On another note (I forgot to add this in my first post) the right temporal lobe is the part of the brain that is (partially) involved in religious experience.
So whether there is a god or not is also largely dependent on how developed your right temporal lobe is. Religiousity is just as genetic as how happy you are or (almost) as genetic as how much you weigh.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbrainqa.shtml
Could it be there is a genetic component to religious belief?
Religious behaviour is so complex it is very unlikely that there will be a single gene for religious activity, but it does seem as if there is some sort of as yet unidentified genetic component. Several studies of identical twins separated at birth and brought up separately have measured religiosity. Religiosity is defined as the intensity of religious belief. These studies have shown that there appears to be about a 50% component to religiosity.
In addition, while the existence of evil done by people can get explained by a free will argument, natural evils (tsunamis and the like) cannot be. Either god causes these or god allows them to happen, and god made a world where they can happen. They don’t rule out an evil or indifferent god, but they do rule out a benevolent one.
Not at all. Earlier, I mentioned philosopher Alvin Plantinga. In his writings, he emphasizes that a benevolent God may allow pain and suffering during this temporary mortal lifetime, if he has purposes that transcend mere earthly existence. For example, if he desires for people to seek salvation in him, and if suffering has a way of drawing people closer to God, then God might conceivably allow pain and suffering to occur (even those caused by natural evils) so that people will freely seek him – that is, seek him without being forced to do so.
That was just a cursory treatment of this topic, of course. Plantinga himself discusses this more thoroughly; however, you can find a fairly accessible discussion here, and some more thorough treatments in the various writings of Dr. William Lane Craig.
That certainly qualifies as an evil god. It’s also contradictory; tormenting people so they worship you does qualify as force.
Given Dio’s clarification, #3 is a perfectly justifiable reason for not believing in the perfect and perfectly just and loving god. I admit to agnosticism about Vishnu and a god who doesn’t give a shit about people, but the Problem of Evil is completely justified w/r/t the traditional Christian conception of god.
–Cliffy
This argument also fails because any “purpose” which God may have is already instantly attainable to him at any instant and with the snap of a finger. There is nothing God can accomplish by giving children leukemia that he can’t accomplish without giving chldren leukemia. If he can’t accomplish his goals without causing or allowing unnecessary suffering, then he’s not all powerful.
I would also argue that there is no conceivable divine purpose which justify allowing something like the holocaust. The imperative to protect the innocent from undserved suffering automatically supercedes any higher purpose of God’s.
My own personal take is just the opposite:
The Law of Averages suggests to me that, if the universe is infinite, then circumstances must exist somewhere for life to be present. And, if the universe is infinite, then the circumstances that make life possible on this planet should exist somewhere else, also.
Apart from that, I consider myself a severe agnostic, for one reason:
The belief in a “supreme being” is against conventional logic.
If you were to go back to ancient Greece, or Egypt, or Rome, they could show you proof that the gods that they believed in existed. It seems to me that we’re (and I mean society at large, nothing more than that) caught in a modern-day mythology.
Charger, if you’re comfortable believing in a creator, more power to you and everyone else who is motivated to do so, but you have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not the universe is too complex to have occured without an intelligent impetus (or as you put it, "ramdom"ly), and presenting your opinion or belief as fact is irresponsible, at the very least.
Also, you state that the creator could be anything, but Charger, I’ve only ever heard Christians make such a statement, so your qualification doesn’t hold much weight, in my opinion.
It amazes me that Christians constantly purport the universe to be too complex for…whatever, as though they have a knowledge of physics, advanced mathematics and quantum mechanics that no one else has, only “shhh, we’re keeping it a secret.”
I apologise for going slightly off-topic here folks, but if I had a dollar for every time I read someone make the same assertion Charger did, in his exact words (sheesh, was there an ID talking points bulletin distributed?), I’d have enough money to fill my car’s gas tank for a month.
This is where I was trying to go with the argument. What constitutes a justifiable reason for believeing or disbelieving in God? The answer to that question is much harder than answering what is not justifiable. As an example, take a person who completely and genuinely believes in God. Not because of what they were told or because of tradition, but because of who they are. Now, say that a tramatic event happens to them that they cannot explain and they choose not to believe in God because of this. I am arguing that, in an example such as this, it is not justifiable to quit a belief in God because of the fact that there was something that happened to you that you cannot explain.
Please. You consider yourself to follow facts, yet your words and actions show completely otherwise. Your argument would be like me saying that the universe does not exist because I cannot come up with a feasible way the universe was created. Just because you do not understand how a natural evil can happen does not rule out that God is benevolent. If your agenda is to get rid of unthinking religion, then more power to you. But you really need to stop spreading false information when you really have no idea. Just because you can find a lot of terrible black people, does not mean that all black people are terrible. Likewise with religion my friend.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you to explain your point better. How can you get past free will? Without it, we are robots. With it, we are allowed to make any choices.
I personally think free will is a myth but to address the standard Christian defense about it, I would cite Richard Gale’s response to Plantinga that God has the ability create only people who will freely choose the good and choose not to create people who will choose to do evil. This would not compromise free will, and since God has the ability to do this, then he also has the obligation.
In addition, I would say that the free will argument fails to account for God’s own free will. If I, as a human, am ever in a situation where I have the ability to prevent evil than I have the moral obligation to do so. If this is binding on me then it’s binding on God.
Finally, I would say that the Free Will defense does not get God off the hook for evil which is not caused bu humans, so it doesn’t solve the problem of evil in toto.
It’s not a question of tormenting them. It’s a question of allowing suffering to occur so that these people will learn, and so that they will draw closer to him. This is not the same as torment, however tempted one may be to paint it as such.
Consider a mother whose child is learning to walk. Should this mother shadow the child at every possible moment, in an attempt to catch the child if he/she should start to stumble? Or does the mother let the child fall on occasion, even to the point of enduring some pain, so that the child can learn from these experiences? (Before anyone objects, I acknowledge that this type of pain does not compare to the suffering that people can endure amidst natural disasters. The point, however, is that a loving parent may allow pain to occur for some greater, long-term good.)
As I said earlier, if our ultimate purpose was to seek pleasure during our earthly term, then a God that permits suffering would indeed be malevolent. However, if there is an ultimate purpose that transcends our temporary earthly existence, then this purpose may override the need for our earthly comforts. In a world where human beings have free will, it could very well be that only with a certain measure of suffering will the maximum number of people choose to seek and follow God. (This is not mere idle speculation, BTW. The greatest religious revivals in the world are occuring, not in prosperous First World nations, but in nations that are beset with unspeakable horrors and suffering.)
That would be like creating a square circle or a married bachelor. One cannot give people free will and yet simultaneously create them such that they will only choose to do good. Such people would be nothing more than robots, and would not have free will in any meaningful sense.
If God wants people to draw closer to him, he can start by providing a shred of evidence that he exists.
An what “ultimate purpose” could God have in mind which he could not make so immediately and without causing suffering? If God can’t acheive his goals without causing suffering, then he’s not all powerful. If he can and chooses not to, then he’s not all good.
You misunderstand. The argument is not that God should create people who are unable to choose evil, but that if he is omniscient, he will know ahead of time what people will choose evil and he can simply choose not to create them. God can choose to create only people who he knows will FREELY choose good. The choice for good need not be implanted by God, merely selected for.
That assumes that there is no such evidence, which I deny… as do a great many philosophers. Moreover, that is ultimately irrelevant to the topic at hand, which is whether the problem of evil is incompatible with theism.
Again, eternal life. Life beyond mere earthly existence.
Are you saying that God should be able to do anything at all? That’s not how theologians and philosophers approach God. Rather, they typically acknowledge that God cannot create a married bachelor or a square circle, as such concepts are inherently self-contradictory. They are mere combinations of words, and do not correspond to any sort of reality.
In the same way, it is not possible for God to create people with free will who are constrained to always choose to do good. That is a self-contradictory postulate. For that reason, it is entirely possible that God would allow (temporary!) pain and suffering to occur, knowing that this would drive people to draw closer to him… thus fulfilling an ultimate purpose that transcends our temporary mortal existence.
There is no practical difference between the two, IMO. It would ultimately amount to designing these individuals such that they would only choose to do good.
Moreover, I see no reason to accept the notion that one can have people with free will who will, without exception, invariably choose to do good. If anything, I see the exact opposite.
Well, perhaps I should have replaced “complex” with “seemingly purposeful” or “deliberate.”
I know better than to assert that there is, without question, a God. But the notion of there being some sort of director(s) guiding each phase of development is certainly not out of the realm of possiblity.
With the universe being as vast as it is, there should also be a lot of different forms of life arising throughout it. Which is also completely in the realm of possibility, but wouldn’t really prove or disprove anything.