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(Note that this discussion is purely philosophical about the nature of A god, not whether or not there actually is one. This is purely regarding the flawed mechanics of our concepts of deities and their claimed characteristics.) ------------------------------------------------------------------ God stands before humanity, and proclaims 1 simple instruction for gaining his approval, and thus admittance into heaven. "Bring some chips with you when you die" One pious American dedicates his life to obeying God, dies and comes before God holding a shiny bag of thinly sliced, deep fried, salted crispy potato discs. "Here are your chips God!" the American declares, confident in his ticket to heaven. Immediately after, a British man rushes up, arms forward, eager to show the Lord his generously piled plate of thick slab-cut strips of potato wedges. "Here are your chips God!" the Brit declares, confident in his ticket to heaven. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ And here, we are left with a philosophical dilemma when it comes to God and deities in general. What does a God do in this situation? What CAN He do? What SHOULD He do? Both of the humans fulfilled the contract in his own mind, but fell short in the mind of the other. There is no absolute. Contracts cannot work this way. The fact of the matter is, this would occur 100% of the time in any situation where a God is understood to form a contract with humanity. God says "Do this" or "Don't do this", and in return we are rewarded or punished. "Drive only trucks and you'll get into heaven" So, One man drives a Dodge Ram, one man drives a Chevy El Camino, and another drives a Semi-Truck. What now? or "Don't fly on planes" What makes it a plane? "Something that has wings" What if I put wings on a car? "It can't fly, so it's not a plane" What if I push it off a cliff? And so on, and so forth... As we can see, this is caused 100% due to the fact that a contract necessitates the use of labels to convey meaning. "Car", "Plane", "Chips", etc... The problem with this is that labels are shortcuts to avoid having to comprehensively describe every element of the contract. However, with the use of shortcuts you create loopholes. Gray areas, if you will. The problem is, the only way to make a distinction between fulfillment/failure of a contract of this nature (with extensive gray area), is to make the requirement "Intention". Did the American man really try to fulfill the contract? Did the British man really try to fulfill the contract? This is the only manner in which a God could salvage his contract. However, through doing this, the contract has been invalidated. The contract is no longer "Bring chips". The contract is ACTUALLY "Just do what you THINK I want you to do" This is an entirely different situation! The main question I throw out there is this: Could a God, who is understood to be a just and ABSOLUTE being, even have the technical latitude to create a contract devoid of absolutes? Could a God create a gray-area contract? Is "Don't fly in airplanes?" even a sensible statement? Does it really mean anything from a one-sided declaration? For instance: "When does life begin?" Ultimately, this is a nonsensical statement. There is no answer. It is purely made up of concepts and understandings and agreements. Any "answer" is actually just an agreement. The same thing with the term "airplane". Ultimately, the only meaning of the word is what we agree upon it to have. Without an agreement and a universal understanding, "Don't fly in an airplane" is a useless and nonsensical statement until we agree on the terms of the words. Could a God even utilize this sort of contract, due to the fundamental lack of 100% absolute clarity and two-sided agreement & understanding? If it's not 100% firm, then the decision can only come down to intent and nothing more, and at the end of the day not a single statement in the world is 100% firm and inherently defined. Should this invalidate any sort of idea that a God could create a binding contract like "Don't/Do _______, and in return ______?" The contract would only be an illusion, no? There would be no pass/fail, as long as you tried.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 20:24 |
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| # ? Nov 22, 2009 10:49 |
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More importantly, how do you enforce the God's end of a contract? Is it still a contract if one party cannot be bound to it? Regardless of the inaccuracy of language and meaning, what would enforce a contract on an all-powerful being?
anonumos fucked around with this message at Nov 06, 2009 around 20:34 |
| # ? Nov 06, 2009 20:32 |
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anonumos posted:More importantly, how do you enforce the God's end of a contract? Sue him in small claims court for the value of the chips, obviously.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 20:39 |
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What if God speaks in Arabic or ancient Hebrew, a lot of Americans are going to be really pissed off! Everyone 'hears' God in their own native language and thus there would be no confusion; no dealer from Vegas is going to show up with a stack of...wait a minute, how would a dead person arrive before God holding anything at all? That doesn't make any sense. Dead = disembodied noncorporeal spirit.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 20:48 |
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Any contract with God would be made under duress, and therefore void.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 21:00 |
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Your fancy lawyer talk isn't gonna do much good against a city destroying, earth drowning, army smashing Lord of Hosts. God turns people into pillars of salt and kills the wives and children of his most devoted followers, do you really think he cares if his orders aren't entirely clear?
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 21:05 |
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Would God's words be translated for all other languages, or in this scenario would all non-English speaking people be screwed cuz they didn't know what God wanted them to do? If it's translated, then perhaps the British man would simply hear "Bring some crisps with you when you die" (or the American would hear "fries").
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 21:27 |
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Communicating precisely is hardly all that difficult for an omnipotent being or really any sort of god.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 21:50 |
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evilweasel
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Humans are not capable of giving informed consent when it comes to engaging in behavior with supernatural consequences.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:02 |
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The real joke is that god wasn't actually speaking to us when he asked for chips.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:03 |
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evilweasel posted:Communicating precisely is hardly all that difficult for an omnipotent being or really any sort of god. This is true. Really, there is little reason to believe that God, if he wanted to make contracts of the sort in the OP, would have to resort to communicating them verbally, with all the attendant ambiguities; surely God, being both all-powerful, all-knowing and immaterial, could communicate the content of his contract to the intellect of the receiver and so avoid having to resort to using any particular language. Or, if he did decide to issue a verbal contract, would make sure that it was supplemented by such a direct intellect-to-intellect clarification, so that the person charged with spreading the details of the contract would be able to do so in his own language while also being able to clarify any ambiguities. The example the OP used is also not very helpful, though I realise you chose it because of the different meanings of the word 'chip'. A better example, and one more consonant with the sort of contract one would expect God to make, would be a moral demand, such as 'thou shalt not kill'. Now, kill is an ambiguous term. Does it mean don't kill anyone ever, or just don't kill innocents? Or what about the Biblical injunction against graven images. Is that literally a law about depicting God in art, or is it a law against worshipping those depictions, or against idolatry in general? The terms are clearly ambiguous. The question is then: when God gave the contract, did he intend them to be ambiguous? Is morality such that there is no single rule of action for every situation, but that to be a morally responsible agent one must learn a certain way of thinking, rather than be content with following a rigid set of rules, applicable in some situations and not in others? Kant, for example, while he believed in God, was of the opinion that, if human intuitions about what is right conflict with what is taken to be a divine mandate, then human intuition has moral precedence. So the assumption that God's contracts must be clear is (in a realistic situation, one not involving chips) not to be taken for granted. It might be the case that the proper fulfilling of the contract requires, by its nature, the exercise of human moral autonomy. Not even God could give you a precise template for moral action, for example, if the nature of morality ruled out such templates. Nicholas Wolterstorff actually wrote a book on the claim that God speaks. I haven't read it, but it might be a good place to start. And while I'm recommending books, Finite and Infinite Goods by Robert Merrihew Adams gives an extremely detailed and informative treatment of the so-called 'divine command theory' with all its attendant difficulties.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 22:59 |
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Plus, severely mentally disabled people can't sign contracts, right? It would be exploitation for someone to form a contract with someone whose power of reason was so far beneath their own. How, then, is it ethical for a god to form a contract with mortal humans, who exist on such a lesser plane than himself that we couldn't begin to comprehend his thoughts and actions?
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 23:14 |
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anonumos posted:More importantly, how do you enforce the God's end of a contract? Is it still a contract if one party cannot be bound to it? Regardless of the inaccuracy of language and meaning, what would enforce a contract on an all-powerful being? If the god's power was dependent on people worshiping him it would be more of a symbiotic relationship. If I'm not mistaking them with someone else this was how the Roman's viewed their relationship with their gods, as a highly legalistic business enterprise. The gods would help the city and in return they would perform the rituals and gave the offerings that pleased them.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 23:32 |
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Cichlid the Loach posted:Plus, severely mentally disabled people can't sign contracts, right? It would be exploitation for someone to form a contract with someone whose power of reason was so far beneath their own. How, then, is it ethical for a god to form a contract with mortal humans, who exist on such a lesser plane than himself that we couldn't begin to comprehend his thoughts and actions? God defines ethics, everything he does is good by definition. I think a better question than "could God create a rock so heavy he couldn't lift it?" would be "Can God sin if he wants to? Can God want to sin?".
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 23:37 |
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Yes, but God is judgment proof  anonumos posted:More importantly, how do you enforce the God's end of a contract? Is it still a contract if one party cannot be bound to it? Regardless of the inaccuracy of language and meaning, what would enforce a contract on an all-powerful being? Pretty much this. You can't really shoehorn legal concepts like contracts onto a supernatural being that by definition can make up the rules as it goes along. quote:The contract would only be an illusion, no? There would be no pass/fail, as long as you tried.  All contracts are "illusions" in that they are only as binding as their enforceability.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 00:09 |
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Binary Logic posted:What if God speaks in Arabic or ancient Hebrew, a lot of Americans are going to be really pissed off! They're ghost chips, just like how spirits are always in ghost clothes.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 00:09 |
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problem is you are defining a contract though the mind and definitions of man. God is defining the contract terms, God decides whether or not you have meet his terms. This is kind of like the people that try to argue whether or not God is "good". God gets to cheat. It defines what "good" is and gets to measure everyone else against it, not the other way around. It is the same with this contract. God isn't bound by an assumption of equality by both parties, It defines exactly what it is It means. God decides whether chips are what Person A believed or Person B believed. All we can do is try to define what God wants in terms that we understand. However, in the end we can win arguments and debates against other people. When we confront God, if God exists, It is right, and our perceptions either match or they are wrong. There is no argument, no debate, God is right by definition. All we can do is try our best to meet the expectations which we have no real understanding of. There is no real defense, you failure to properly interpret creation is your failing.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 00:54 |
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I agree with some others in this thread. I think that if God wanted to communicate with us, he could use some form of communication which was not human language. Assuming God is omnipotent, he should be able to find some way of conveying (a) his message and (b) the fact that it is God giving this message.Binary Logic posted:What if God speaks in Arabic or ancient Hebrew, a lot of Americans are going to be really pissed off! Except the Muslims American who already believe that God speaks Arabic. (Oddly, God hasn't been keeping up with the times and his word can only be properly understood in ancient Arabic.)
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 02:11 |
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I'd like to believe if there is a god he's an exacting bastard who expects nothing but perfect adherence to everything he's taught since day one. If you fail due to miscommunication, mistranslation, elements removed from the bible by theocratic authorities, or ignorance of the subtle nature of language and meaning as it existed in ancient times you go to hell. So pretty much the only people in heaven are babies who are babies forever and never grow to appreciate that they're in heaven so the place is essentially as formless and meaningless as a shiny set of keys rattled in their faces forever and ever. And all the rest of us are in hell forever while he shrugs his shoulders and says "I told you all what to do not that long ago". To be more serious, I don't think using the term "contract" is the right idea. There's no negotiation or communication for each person. It's pretty much a matter of faith that if you show up with "chips" you'll get "heaven". But knowing what "chips" are or what you can expect to find in heaven is entirely a matter of faith. So if you show up with American chips and he meant American fries you messed up but there's really no redress other than to shake your fist at your spiritual leaders. I don't see how there can be an alternate interpretation. There are too many contradictory assignments and restrictions for there to be anything but a matter of faith. Don't do this/make sure you do this/they're going to hell/only we're going to heaven. Basically you have to hitch your wagon and when you get up there you find out if you got involved with the wrong crowd or not. Either heaven is inclusive enough to accept all the varying religions regardless of their contradictory restrictions (and plausibly would accept satanists and atheists and drat near anyone) or these things actually matter so only one kind of chips work and all of the rest are accompanied with the priceisright.wav. Now I suppose you might wonder if the latter is the case and heaven is exclusionary by nature if god would let things slide but who is to say he sees billions of people going to hell and only a handful getting into heaven as "a bad thing"? I mean, he would have created all the people expressly knowing we'd not follow the rules. To this alien intelligence that might be pretty good, like he's trying to create an all star team. There are billions of people on the planet but only a few dozen get on the US all star basketball team. That doesn't make us evil, right? We just want the best of the best. Maybe it's the same thing, except instead of sending people to lesser teams or to work at Arbys people get sent to hell instead.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 02:30 |
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I would think the burden of clarification of a contract would be with God. If misinterpretation of a contract happened I have a hard time believing God would just holler over to Gabriel to flip the lever to Hell with you. But I agree with what has been posted that I think a God would be able to convey to you what he means in the contract. Otherwise would it really be considered a God?
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 02:31 |
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sonofsunaj posted:This is kind of like the people that try to argue whether or not God is "good". God gets to cheat. It defines what "good" is and gets to measure everyone else against it, not the other way around. I don't see how thats true in any way at all though. He can say he is good, but so can I. Of course he says it holding the ultimate gun to everyone's head but that doesn't make it meaningful.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 02:58 |
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sonofsunaj posted:This is kind of like the people that try to argue whether or not God is "good". God gets to cheat. It defines what "good" is and gets to measure everyone else against it, not the other way around. It is the same with this contract. God isn't bound by an assumption of equality by both parties, It defines exactly what it is It means. Why does god get to decide whats "Good" or not? What if God is a complete stinkyhole, surely that'd disqualify him from having authority over the matter?
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 03:45 |
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Ape Agitator posted:Now I suppose you might wonder if the latter is the case and heaven is exclusionary by nature if god would let things slide but who is to say he sees billions of people going to hell and only a handful getting into heaven as "a bad thing"? To me, the idea of Heaven isn't that much better than Hell. You sit around praising and idolizing The Big Guy for all eternity. Seems like a lovely way to get through day after day after day. "God is great" Yeah, he is, but how great? "God is so great, he is greater than all other great things combined. Praise be to Him". Variations on this theme, forever and ever amen. I'd be bored of that after about 5 minutes but it's going to go on for all time. Also, there have been contracts. The Bible usually refers to them as covenants. Pretty sure God made a contract after the Flood that he wouldn't do that again, and used rainbows as His signature. He had a contract with Abraham but then went, "Just kidding, dude! You don't have to kill your only son. Gotcha!" I think He also entered into some contractual obligations with Moses around the time of the Exodus from Egypt.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 15:08 |
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The contract between man and Christian God: "Say you're sorry and I'll forgive you." A lot of sermons go on and on about how much better this "Second Covenant" is for everyone and how the "First Covenant," i.e. the Judaic prophecies and Ten Commandments and whatnot, are obsolete and unnecessary by comparison. quote:Why does god get to decide whats "Good" or not? What if God is a complete stinkyhole, surely that'd disqualify him from having authority over the matter? You kind of have to assume that God is "good" by inherent definition, anything else is more semantics. Mr. Jive fucked around with this message at Nov 07, 2009 around 15:21 |
| # ? Nov 07, 2009 15:19 |
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Do you really think that a God would want to take the time to play semantics with you? If there is a god or gods, then I believe that their form of reasoning, existence etc is completely out of our scope of understanding. 
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 15:26 |
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I don't think the problem in the OP is a problem. There doesn't need to be a meeting of the minds between the Brit and the American. There just has to be a meeting of the minds between God and a given person. And it's possible that God, being omniscient, knows the different kinds of "chips" and had them both in mind when forming the contract. Others itt have pointed out more serious problems. Here's a couple more: 1) How can a mere mortal ever give consideration (a thing of value) to a being whose power is infinite, and 2) Can God really have a contract with "humanity"? Who among us can enter in to such a contract? We're not exactly a corporation.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 17:02 |
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Angry Midwesterner posted:I don't think the problem in the OP is a problem. There doesn't need to be a meeting of the minds between the Brit and the American. There just has to be a meeting of the minds between God and a given person. And it's possible that God, being omniscient, knows the different kinds of "chips" and had them both in mind when forming the contract. But hasn't there been presumably very few human being in direct back and forth conversation with god? I mean you've got those people in the Old Testament, a few people after, and then whatever percentage of crazy people who aren't actually crazy. And yet the whole of humanity takes part in this process. So you can't say that god sets down and tailors the contract with everyone given that he talked to so very few people (and presumably very few people recently). How can the process be dynamic when there is very little dialogue going on unless the process is so inclusive as to mean practically anything qualifies.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 17:35 |
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Mr. Jive posted:You kind of have to assume that God is "good" by inherent definition, anything else is more semantics. Why? That doesn't make any sense. In the Calvin example up the page Calvin is quite clearly not "good" by any useful definition, yet he's still God.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 17:57 |
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If such a thing existed, they could give instructions (not so much a contract) to humanity easily - if they stayed involved with it. One of the things that blows my mind about religion the more I consider it is that there is an all powerful God out there, capable of doing anything, that loves us yet won't even take the time to pop in and clear up rules / let's "his words" be twisted / refuses to prove he exists to anyone, making your entire faith based on someone telling you something. A God that existed and steadily took a part in humanity could easily have none of these issues, but obviously there are no religions like this because the concept of the supernatural becomes more and more absurd the more we learn about the universe. Though I must admit, the Chip God is pretty awesome. Do you get made into a Saint if you bring every possible meaning of the word chip with you? (Chocolate chips, poker chips, potato chips, British fry-chips, Chip the dog, a Chip off some material, a computer Chip, etc?)
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 20:43 |
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I disagree with the notion that God is inherently good. God is just as easily purely evil.Rutibex posted:I think a better question than "could God create a rock so heavy he couldn't lift it?" would be "Can God sin if he wants to? Can God want to sin?". Yes, god can sin, but just like with the rock example, afterwards he can declare his action not sinful if he wanted. Although, what would be the point? Ape Agitator posted:I'd like to believe if there is a god he's an exacting bastard who expects nothing but perfect adherence to everything he's taught since day one. If you fail due to miscommunication, mistranslation, elements removed from the bible by theocratic authorities, or ignorance of the subtle nature of language and meaning as it existed in ancient times you go to hell. So pretty much the only people in heaven are babies who are babies forever and never grow to appreciate that they're in heaven so the place is essentially as formless and meaningless as a shiny set of keys rattled in their faces forever and ever. In a different conception of heaven, upon death God first sends you to face all of your wrongdoings and maybe to "suffer" for them. Upon learning one's lesson, you are allowed into heaven. Edit: Binary Logic posted:To me, the idea of Heaven isn't that much better than Hell. You sit around praising and idolizing The Big Guy for all eternity. Seems like a lovely way to get through day after day after day. "God is great" Yeah, he is, but how great? "God is so great, he is greater than all other great things combined. Praise be to Him". This is a very Christian conception of heaven. RegisteredJustNow fucked around with this message at Nov 07, 2009 around 21:24 |
| # ? Nov 07, 2009 21:20 |
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zzyzx posted:Sue him in small claims court for the value of the chips, obviously. C.S.Lewis, when he was an atheist, came up with a plot to a book wherein a mortal 'sues' God. After his conversion, he wrote 'Till we have Faces', which is in two parts - the first being what he thought up as an atheist, the second being God's response. If you're interested in this, it might be worth reading. I don't remember much of it, but I read and loved it in high school, when I was a catholic. I've since studied a great deal of philosophy and become an atheist, so take my endorsement for what you will.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 22:43 |
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RegisteredJustNow posted:This is a very Christian conception of heaven. No, it isn't. I can't think of a single philosopher or theologian who has ever thought that heaven was literally sitting around day after day singing about how good God is. Not Augustine, not Aquinas, not Gregory of Nyssa--not a single one. Your entire post shows clearly that you have no idea what you're talking about beyond the most caricatured third-hand information. The puzzle over whether God's actions are good because he does them or God does his actions because they're good is a question that Plato broached and probably predates him by quite a long time. It's not new. It's been discussed in great depth; it's intimately tied up with the problem of evil, which is intimately tied up with the nature of God. Before going around as if it's a newly discovered knock-down proof that God is just as easily evil as he is good, it might be worthwhile familiarising yourself with at least the basics of the tradition--even if it's only to criticise that tradition from a position of actual knowledge. The Adams book I linked to above is probably the best place to go for discussions of the nature of goodness in relation to humanity and to God. If you want arguments from an atheist that are actually serious and informed, read Quentin Smith. If you're interested about reading some of the best criticisms of the classical tradition from a different point of view to both these people, read some Hartshorne. Address the best representatives. That's not to say I think the tradition is right on. Far from it. I think a lot of the so-called 'theodicies' are disastrous, such as Liebniz's best possible world, or Calvin's God who is supposedly 'above' or 'beyond' ethical categories but is really just indistinguishable from an evil, predestining tyrant. All I'm saying is that memorising a couple of facile one line arguments isn't enough. If you want to have big opinions, you have to do some serious study. Otherwise you're just a bullshitter. It's like Creationists who smugly go around merely 'asking questions' about evolution: If we came from apes, where's the missing link, then? and so on. What's frustrating isn't just that their questions are stupid, but that they have no interest in doing the work to find out the answers, or at least better inform themselves so as to be able to ask better questions. They're happy with the illusion of knowledge.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 00:27 |
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I'm not a philosopher. I'm not exactly and atheist either. I'm Jewish. This conception of an afterlife is something I learned from my rabbi.quote:In a different conception of heaven, upon death God first sends you to face all of your wrongdoings and maybe to "suffer" for them. Upon learning one's lesson, you are allowed into heaven. I'll take a look at the links you've posted.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 00:36 |
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Hey, sorry to be so aggressive. I presumed too much about who you were. I just think a lot of potentially fruitful threads are just wrecked by one-liners and easy arguments and intellectual presumption (and personal presumption, like what I just did). EDIT: By the way, if you're Jewish, read Abraham Heschel. He's extremely influential, and once said that he'd 'sooner die than become a Catholic'. boogs fucked around with this message at Nov 08, 2009 around 01:03 |
| # ? Nov 08, 2009 00:55 |
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MolecularHydrogen posted:(Note that this discussion is purely philosophical about the nature of A god, not whether or not there actually is one. This is purely regarding the flawed mechanics of our concepts of deities and their claimed characteristics.) You could take it to another level outside of just the semantics of chips and their ilk. For instance, what if this God passed on his commandment to someone who never bothered to share the wisdom? The man died with his chips, sure, but it's not like anyone else was ever aware that was part of the deal and could hardly be accountable for not knowing. Or what if God decided to use a renowned liar as his vessel and nobody believed him when he tried to spread the message. Or what if God passed on the message and people followed it for a few hundred years but never received a sign that they were actually on the right track, and thus partially stopped doing it? The people who were still bringing the chips wouldn't be doing it for God, they'd have no reason to know. Instead, they'd be doing it because they trusted that the people who did it before were on the right track and therefore had more faith in men than God. The only way for any of it to be fair, just or wise would be for the God to individually and undeniably give everyone the chip request personally.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 01:23 |
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Mr. Jive posted:You kind of have to assume that God is "good" by inherent definition, anything else is more semantics. Why? A lot of folks, myself including , think that if he's real, he's pretty loving evil. Since God permits evil, then it stands to reason that at LEAST by innaction, but also by design, God is an evil-doer. How can an evil-doer be good?
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 04:36 |
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I'd say you're only in trouble if you didn't think that your chips were the right chips, but you brought them anyway.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 04:42 |
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duck monster posted:Why? A lot of folks, myself including , think that if he's real, he's pretty loving evil. Since God permits evil, then it stands to reason that at LEAST by innaction, but also by design, God is an evil-doer. How can an evil-doer be good? Maybe you should read some of the few thousand year old tradition of philosophical and theological literature dealing with this topic, because all you've done is articulate the basic problem of evil. I happen to think that the problem of evil is by far the most powerful argument for atheism, but that's not to say it hasn't been discussed or that it's anywhere near so simple as you make it out to be. In fact, over the last fifty years the problem of evil has been given a huge amount of attention by analytic philosophers. Marilyn McCord Adams comes to mind.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 04:43 |
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boogs posted:Maybe you should read some of the few thousand year old tradition of philosophical and theological literature dealing with this topic, because all you've done is articulate the basic problem of evil. I happen to think that the problem of evil is by far the most powerful argument for atheism, but that's not to say it hasn't been discussed or that it's anywhere near so simple as you make it out to be. In fact, over the last fifty years the problem of evil has been given a huge amount of attention by analytic philosophers. Marilyn McCord Adams comes to mind. That seems to be your go to argument in this thread. I mean it's cool to suggest further reason but it's kinda the worst form of debate on the internet to say "hey instead of saying my argument I am going to win the debate by referencing thousand page books I know you won't read so I can pretend I have secret knowledge that beats your argument that I won't tell you"
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 05:06 |
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I made a really long post on why I think that God, if he wanted to, could make a contract with humans and not be hampered by the ambiguity of language. Only then did I reference a book that dealt directly with it. And yes, on the problem of evil I referenced an author. It's a huge, complicated problem. It's impossible to give a proper treatment on the internet, especially when no-one seems to know the first thing about it. And the knowledge isn't secret; it's absolutely easy to come by. It just takes some time and work to understand. If you want simple, bite-sized answers to big, intractable problems, then I can't help you. And I'm certainly not going to reply to facile, one-line arguments with equally facile responses, like 'human freedom explains evil, therefore the problem of evil is nullified' or 'evil is good because it makes us whole' or, the worst of all, 'God lets us (or causes us) to suffer because it's all for a greater, unknowable good'. It's not my 'go to argument', because it's not an argument, and I never pretended it was. I'm pointing out that a proper understanding of just one problem in the philosophy of religion--the problem of evil--can't be addressed adequately in a paragraph or two. But if you really hate reading books, then the best I can come up with off the top of my head is this very recent journal article. It's not easy going, but it's perfectly understandable if you put in a bit of effort, and at least is at pains to clarify what the problem of evil is and the various ways that have been proposed to deal with it. boogs fucked around with this message at Nov 08, 2009 around 05:20 |
| # ? Nov 08, 2009 05:16 |
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