tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post1863143767142144958..comments2023-10-20T02:08:39.524-07:00Comments on Atheism: Proving The Negative: The Inductive Problem of Evil Argument Against the Existence of GodMatt McCormickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17071078570021986664noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-8014045461823660922012-10-05T21:58:54.328-07:002012-10-05T21:58:54.328-07:00I'd just like to note that, if, as a theist mi...I'd just like to note that, if, as a theist might wish to argue, a god let a fawn suffer for days and die because of a greater good that would eventually result, it implies two things.<br /><br />One is that this god is as much a slave to cause-and-effect as a human or an eroding rock formation, and is unable to cause this greater good to come about without the suffering of the fawn.<br /><br />Another implication is that this god's ends justify its means. This implication is perhaps not as strong, but theists who suggests that a god's ends justify its means must also explain why a human's ends do not, if they believe that ends do not justify means.<br /><br />Such theists must also live with the belief that the proposition, "the end justifies the means" is a relative proposition.Rim Crimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00757674785794068012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-13608132369808540542011-10-19T01:30:31.015-07:002011-10-19T01:30:31.015-07:00God created us with free will and in doing so He g...God created us with free will and in doing so He gave us the option of choosing good or evil. He cannot create a world without evil because then we wouldn't have free will. But He didn't necessary create evil. God create the tools for evil and Adam and Eve put used them to create evil when they first sinned or The Fall. Evil actually started when Lucifer thought he could place his own goodness over God, and in doing so he created the deprivation of good, or evil.golferdude7123https://www.blogger.com/profile/16888800579618017908noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-84916180006294697272011-10-19T01:30:16.284-07:002011-10-19T01:30:16.284-07:00God created us with free will and in doing so He g...God created us with free will and in doing so He gave us the option of choosing good or evil. He cannot create a world without evil because then we wouldn't have free will. But He didn't necessary create evil. God create the tools for evil and Adam and Eve put used them to create evil when they first sinned or The Fall. Evil actually started when Lucifer thought he could place his own goodness over God, and in doing so he created the deprivation of good, or evil.golferdude7123https://www.blogger.com/profile/16888800579618017908noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-76018943538108758762011-10-19T01:29:20.235-07:002011-10-19T01:29:20.235-07:00God created us with free will and in doing so He g...God created us with free will and in doing so He gave us the option of choosing good or evil. He cannot create a world without evil because then we wouldn't have free will. But He didn't necessary create evil. God create the tools for evil and Adam and Eve put used them to create evil when they first sinned or The Fall. Evil actually started when Lucifer thought he could place his own goodness over God, and in doing so he created the deprivation of good, or evil.golferdude7123https://www.blogger.com/profile/16888800579618017908noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-48011788161016646532007-09-22T06:31:00.000-07:002007-09-22T06:31:00.000-07:00Maybe suffering is not the greatest evil. Lets sa...Maybe suffering is not the greatest evil. Lets say that adoration of god is a good. Why not make a universe where everyone just was programmed to adore god. Maybe free adoration is a greater good. Then this would require a universe where god did not routinely interfere. Lets say god made 10 universes, one in which he never interfered, one in 10% of the cases of useless sufferring, one in 20%. I guess we could be sure we were not in the one with 100% interference, but for the rest we could not tell in which one we were living.<BR/><BR/>All we can show is a omnipotent god, who is constrained by the moral imperative to avoid unnessecary suffering does not exist.<BR/><BR/>In order to prove God does not exist, we have to be correct on the assumptions we make on the nature of god. But if god does not exist, then the assumptions we have made about god's nature are false.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-23479906280569801482007-06-30T02:06:00.000-07:002007-06-30T02:06:00.000-07:00One reason why the the Inductive Problem of Evil a...One reason why the the Inductive Problem of Evil argument does not work is simply because it is Inductive. I'm sure everyone knows that, but I just want to clarify induction, and then give an argument based on deduction. Induction gives us what seems as probability. i.e. an inductive argument may make it seem that the chances are 99.9x10 to the 500th power that are argument is sound. But it is not bulletproof. It does give us intelligent reasoning behind our daily belief's however, i.e. I believe that gravity will not jump 1 million fold so that I get crushed by a black hole event in the next five minutes. Maybe a deductive argument will go as follows. 1. God is all good. 2. God can only create perfect goodness. 3. No matter the reason or purpose for their being evil, the existence of evil would negate God's existence. 4. Evil exists at least in my mind. 5. Therefore God does not exist.Jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02877962468047811190noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-19298391256798893622007-06-30T00:43:00.000-07:002007-06-30T00:43:00.000-07:00There is another powerful argument concerning natu...There is another powerful argument concerning natural evil "The laws of quantum mechanics have an intrinsically random element that can never be eliminated. Why not - why can't we predict the future from the knowledge of the initial positions and velocities? The answer is the famoous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle." - Leonard Susskind's - The Cosmic Landscape, String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design - Randomness is a direct contradiction to an omni-god. Randomness causes natural evil as well as good. The universe or multiverse could have been designed perfect, predictable and profound. It is not, therefore there is no omni-god.Jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02877962468047811190noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-19928925506133806262007-06-29T09:51:00.000-07:002007-06-29T09:51:00.000-07:00You say "Reflecting carefully on the notion of an ...You say "Reflecting carefully on the notion of an omni-God and the kind of relationship he might have to the world, it undermines the powerful intuition we initially have in favor of Rowe’s first premise," and then leave it hanging. Surely an argument from personal reflection should not convince us that Rowe's premise (or argument) is fallacious. It is like saying "When I think carefully about God and all God's wisdom, there just has to be a really good reason for all of this apparently extraneous suffering" and hoping the rest of us nod our heads in silent agreement at the inscrutability and awesomeness of God's plan--in short, it is question-begging--what plan? what god? The problem of evil denier still owes us a proof of a an omni-god.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-68651872268290804912007-06-29T09:25:00.000-07:002007-06-29T09:25:00.000-07:00even if you do claim that some evil or suffering e...even if you do claim that some evil or suffering exists because of some greater good that can occur one day in light of the evil, or that by permitting this one instance of evil, god is not permitting something even worse from happening- isn't this sort of a week argument in the first place? it seems to me to be an argument from ignorance, and that rowe's argument doesn't even need to include this proviso in the first place.<BR/><BR/>because we are of course not omniscient, we can't know of this greater good that might take place one day because of the suffering that occurred, or the suffering that didn't happen in lieu of that which did. with that said, we are arguing straight from ignorance, that there MIGHT be something we don't know that is brewing, namely a greater good, that will manifest itself one day to explain the seemingly pointless suffering. <BR/><BR/>well, how long do we wait for this greater good? 10, 15 years? what if it never shows up? couldn't you always say, using the argument from ignorance, "just wait, the greater good will prevail. you just have to have faith. we can't see it now, but it's coming. it will explain this all." so how long do you wait for the greater good to manifest itself before you simply concede that an omni-god would prevent this pointless suffering, regardless; before you simply concede that there is just no greater good that can come from 240,000 people dying? after all, what greater good have we seen from the holocaust, and how long should we wait for it before we deem it pointless suffering? how long do we need to wait for the vindication of the suffering before we can just call it quits and deem it pointless? of course it's possible we're ignorant of the greater good that can come one fine day, but you can't just justify everything with the greater good argument. it's simply ignorant!<BR/><BR/>--Josh CadjiAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716347331682132223.post-31822671398467071712007-06-29T06:57:00.000-07:002007-06-29T06:57:00.000-07:00I'm interested to hear more about why you think th...I'm interested to hear more about why you think the argument doesn't work, and I'm impatient and don't want to wait for the book. Care to give a nutshell overview?Eric Sotnakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06162425851889399481noreply@blogger.com