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I have seen a hawk swoop down and catch a mouse, and I’m sure others have done the same. If you haven’t seen this, it is easy to find and view videos of this event. While it can’t be varified scientifically that you had this experience, it can be scientifically varified that this event has occured multiple times. Therefore, your claim that you have observed an event is plausible.
If on the other hand I make the claim that I observed a mouse swoop out of the sky and catch a hawk, how willing would you be to accept my claim at face value? The claim is certainly out-of-the-ordinary and outside your view of what is possible(or at least I hope so-if not, this conversation is a complete waste of time). Does that mean that it didn’t happen, or do you accept it without trying to find out more?
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More than this, with the example that he used, no one else saw the hawk swoop down, right? So why would anyone be making the claim that a hawk swooped down yesterday and caught a squirrel? Especially if you’re talking about a specific area (i.e. your backyard).
No one has any reason to think that a hawk caught a squirrel in your backyard yesterday. Ergo, no one has any reason to believe that a hawk caught a squirrel in your backyard. You’d have to first make a claim that it happened. Before that point, it doesn’t even make sense for it to come into consideration.
What might make you make that claim? Well, maybe you saw part of the capture, or maybe you found a little blood and fur in your yard. Then you start to ask theoretical questions.
Where we split, however, is where the reasonable person selects one of the possible theories from the evidence available, and where the other person deduces that it was a UFO.
Some people look at the balance of happiness and misery in the world and address it with the evidence at hand. They look to human nature, to physical implications, to geography and socioeconomic stimuli. Other people look at the same thing and, without any discernible reason, extrapolate that into a system supportive of the idea of God.
They theorize that that which is hateful, humanly evil, unfair and completely unjust in the world is actually the product of an all-powerful, all-knowing, compassionate being. And the theory goes further by saying that this omniscient being gave us “free will” (which is itself debatable) and that the being isn’t at fault, it’s us. Meanwhile, they’ll play off the argument about God not needing to put us through all of this by saying that he’s so infinite and omniscient that his reasons are above our understanding.
All of this, had it a shred of evidence to support it, might be something worth thinking about. In reality, however, all we have is the evidence at hand. And the evidence at hand does not paint a shiny picture of a compassionate God.
(On a side note, these arguments remind me a lot of when I was in college. Up until my Sophomore year in university, I was extremely religious. I loved God, Jesus, etc. But I gradually became increasingly aware of the hedging and flexibility of these so-called divine decrees. Still being very religious, I decided that it would be better to just believe in God at the core and to see a path to God from all aspects of the world. Through violence, greed, Buddhism, etc. Every path would lead to God, and this made me feel better.
What it ultimately made me do, however, was to have me end up in the university library debating heatedly with some Southern Baptist friends of mine. What we were debating? We were debating my belief at the time that reincarnation was viable as a part of Christian faith.
Through this debate, I quite suddenly, shockingly realized just how ridiculous my own argument sounded. There was nothing to my belief. No reason for it. Not even a snippet of an ancient storybook. This experience was the frayed thread that would unravel the entire mantle of my belief.)
As it comes down to it… what reason do we have to believe that some Earth-based predator caught the squirrel, resulting in said blood and fur? Opposed to: What reason do we have to believe that a UFO abducted said squirrel? Or a troll? Or Big Foot?
One of these possibilities has merit. The others, should you be inclined to argue for them, have no supporting evidence.
To apply it directly to the argument at hand, let’s say you already believe in UFOs. Theorizing that God has a deeper plan at work to make all of this suffering worth it is equal to theorizing that the UFOs are abducting squirrels to fit them with impressive 1920s style ray guns. Even from the basis of belief, there’s no reason for that extrapolation. Even if you already believe in UFOs, why would you move forward on the completely unsupported theory about ray guns?
Even if you believe in God, why would you choose to exercise your imagination on a new explanation for what God does or his reasons for it? Is it because that’s the only way that an omnipotent, omniscient God who allows all of this to happen becomes palatable?
