Omniscience and omnibenevolence

[Astro Cat]

If it's reasonable to suppose lightning strikes are natural occurrences (until proven otherwise), it's reasonable to suppose that lightning striking people is a natural occurrence (until proven otherwise). Then, of course, it's obvious that people suffer if struck by lightning (with injuries including muscle pains, broken bones, cardiac arrest, hearing loss, seizures, burns, ocular cataracts, and death). It follows that it's reasonable (not omnisciently certain, but reasonable) to suppose that lightning strikes on people are an example of a natural and random example of suffering the same way it's reasonable to suppose lightning striking a rock is a natural and random event. If a person claims that all suffering is non-gratuitous, they are the ones that have to demonstrate there is a plan behind all suffering to render it non-gratuitous, including lightning strikes.

And yet, it remains nothing at all but a presumption. And it's one that requires us not to notice the amphiboly between lightning "strikes" and other events that "strike" in a metaphorical sense only.

But let me grant you your presumption. You're free to regard it reasonable to think that cancer "just struck" Aunt Phillis. But then again, Aunt Phillis smoked. Or maybe Uncle Phil did, and she breathed his smoke. And you're free to think the plagues "just struck" the Egyptians; but then again, maybe God "struck" them, and had a purpose in so doing.

We're very far from the sort of evidence you need. We need a certain case of "gratuitious" suffering, suffering that simply CANNOT be explained as meaningful, anytime, by anyone, even God. Absent that, you've lost the basis of your first two premises, and have only a gratutious conclusion left.

Which is what a presumption is: it's a conclusion without the requisite evidence.

It's a reasonable presumption, just as with the lightning strike. The person that claims there's a plan is the one that has the burden to demonstrate there's a plan. We will only go back and forth on this until we have the discussion about revelation, I think; since that's your purported evidence there is a plan.

Your position is the one that adds, positively, "...but there is a plan behind it such that it happens for a purpose,"

Look back. You will not find I have said this. Anywhere. Ever.

You'll find, instead, that I've been consistently asking for the evidence of "gratuitious suffering." And while I don't deny that what you attribute to me is possible for somebody to assert, it's a paraphrasing from you about what you hope I might say, but have not said. It's not my words, and it's not my argument.

What I would, in fact, say, and what I have already said, is somewhat different. I've said that mankind is limited, contingent, time-bound and fallible. As such, he/she has no reasonable expectation of ever eliminating so many variables and possible explanations for suffering that he/she can safely ask us to conclude that "gratuitious" suffering exists. He/she would have to be God Himself.

And that's my real position. I think it's quite evident that every clause in it is true beyond reasonable dispute. We are limited, localized, fallible, perspectival beings. No doubt about it. If there is an explanation of suffering it's bound to be complicated, involved multiple, complex interplays of purpose, cross various timelines, and thus exceed the mental capacities of any person who has ever lived. If there's an answer to why suffering happens, it's clearly not an easy one-off kind of explanation. It's bound to be complicated, very complicated.

As I've argued, you can't be agnostic about whether there is a plan for suffering as you are wording yourself to be here. If you accept the premise that God would seek to never cause or allow gratuitous suffering, then it follows that no suffering is gratuitous: if you believe that premise about God, then you're already committed to the premise that no suffering is gratuitous, which means being committed to the premise that there is a plan behind all suffering.

If you don't accept the premise that God would seek to cause or allow gratuitous suffering, then the Problem simply doesn't apply to your conception of God. Though I personally wouldn't call a God that doesn't have such a property as seeking to never cause or allow gratuitous suffering a sort of being I'd want to have anything to do with, though.

If we start from a tabula rasa, the way this would go would be that I might say something like, "if God is supposed to be good, then why is there suffering?" It's an open question; a problem. The theist's response would usually be, "well, because maybe suffering serves a purpose." Presenting the Problem the way I have presented it just skips some steps to save time, it is ultimately the theist that brings up a plan "first."

We could start all the way over from the bare basics for me to make this point. I could argue that "good" beings generally don't cause or allow other beings to suffer, then I could point out that there's all kinds of suffering in the world that God ostensibly created, and then I could point out that this doesn't seem to mesh together well conceptually. So far the only positive claim having been made is that suffering exists, which both sides agree on. Very quickly, when the theist moves to explain the apparent contradiction, they will be the ones to make a positive claim in some way: that there is a plan, or that suffering is caused by free will, etc. It would be a waste of time because we'd just end up back to redefining the Problem a few times to take care of some common objections until we get back to where we started; but it's still the theist that has the onus of evidence if they argue there is a plan behind suffering that renders it non-gratuitous.

So, I think we need to move on to a discussion about revelation and how or why you think it has sufficient warrant.

[Immanuel Can]

Which is what a presumption is: it's a conclusion without the requisite evidence.

It's a reasonable presumption,

Do you suppose so? I would question that.

I would suggest that it's not at all reasonable to jump from "I don't know" to "there's no explanation."

You're in the sciences, I think; and if that presumption were right -- that we could make that jump -- it would pretty much finish off science altogether. If "I don't know" means "there's no explanation," then there's no use in proposing any hypothesis or devising any test. We already know there's no explanation to be found. Why would we, as scientists, go on snipe hunts for answers that our own bafflement already gives us proof we cannot ever find? And that's really the same kind of presumption required here, for your major and minor premises in the original skeptical objection (P1, P2) to be accepted as they are.

We will only go back and forth on this until we have the discussion about revelation, I think; since that's your purported evidence there is a plan.

I'm fine with that. I don't think there's a difficulty with our lack of an explanation, especially a comprehensive one, or for every particular case of suffering, if there's such a thing as revelation.

But I also return to the analogy for our real problem: our problem is not the question of whether the Pacific Ocean (the comprehensive explanation, obviously) exists...it's whether we're in a position to conclude it cannot exist unless we can get it in our Dixie cup (the human brain).

it's clearly not an easy one-off kind of explanation. It's bound to be complicated, very complicated.

As I've argued, you can't be agnostic about whether there is a plan for suffering as you are wording yourself to be here.

I would say my objection absolutely requires it. How can I say, "The right answer exceeds the capacities of the human brain," but also be asked to believe "If we haven't got that comprehensive kind of explanation, then there can be no reasons for suffering." It's again, that mistake of epistemological limitations for ontological possibilities. It's a category error, and a fallacy, I would say.

If you accept the premise that God would seek to never cause or allow gratuitous suffering, then it follows that no suffering is gratuitous:

So far, so good.

...which means being committed to the premise that there is a plan behind all suffering.

Still good...you're on the right track.

If you don't accept the premise that God would seek to cause or allow gratuitous suffering, then the Problem simply doesn't apply to your conception of God.

It's actually worse for the argument. It means "the problem" is only apparent, but not real.

Now, let me hasten to add this -- that doesn't mean that suffering isn't real, or that we have to diminish its significance in some cavalier fashion, far less with superficial attempts to explain it away; rather, by contrast, it means that suffering is actually more significant than we might, at first suspect, if we come from a secular perspective -- that rather than being a sort of inexplicable horror or vague accident of an indifferent universe, it is capable of being integrated into a divine plan for meaning, and ever for blessing.

And that's exactly what revelation says about the situation, from a Christian perspective. It says,

"For I [Paul] consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

For the eagerly awaiting creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

And not only that, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, through perseverance we wait eagerly for it." (Romans 8:18-25, emphasis mine)

So suffering is temporary, and is directed toward the infinitely more important goal of producing not only unending future happiness but also human freedom, when the hope we have reaches its fulfillment. So much so, that the suffering we see is actually relativized by the good that is ahead...for those who know and love God. The future good of having the possibility of free, genuine, personal relationship with God forever is actually so overwhelmingly a "good" that it wipes out,(by comparison, if not present-experientially) any suffering that can be named now.

That's the Christian view.

Though I personally wouldn't call a God that doesn't have such a property as seeking to never cause or allow gratuitous suffering a sort of being I'd want to have anything to do with, though.

Well, of course.

...ultimately the theist that brings up a plan "first."

Well, yes, the Theist would be first to use the word "plan," perhaps. But he's not the first to speak. In fact, he won't ever even need to, if the skeptic has not already raised the argument and made the case that there's a "problem" to be addressed. And you're not wrong to think that the skeptic is going to need something like your three-stage argument, or there will be no question for the Theist to respond to.

The secular perspective does not even give us reason to think there COULD be a plan or purpose to suffering, so it would be illogical for him/her to mention it at all.

But that raises a very serious counterpoint. If the secularist does not like the Christian's position, namely that suffering has a comprehensive rationale presently in the mind of God -- one humanly attainable, even, but only after full salvation, as Romans says -- then what has secularism got to offer in the place of such an explanation? Is the whole "payoff" of secularism merely to end in Nihilistic hatred of the way the universe works, and in bitterness and death, as it forces upon us the belief that we are accidental byproducts of an indifferent and harmful universe, and all our sufferings are mere accidents for which we can expect no answers?

Is that really what we get for believing the secular perspective? If that's all, what's the "win" there? Why is the secular perspective to be preferred...not only to the real answer the Theist proposes, but even to some convenient delusion that offers at least some consolation, a consolation of which the secular perspective appears to be entirely devoid?

...it's still the theist that has the onus of evidence if they argue there is a plan behind suffering that renders it non-gratuitous.

Well, I think I've suggested why this isn't the case, just a bit earlier.

If there's no skeptical question, then the Theist doesn't even need a response. He doesn't have to mention the "plan" at all, if one accepted as possible by all parties. It's only because the skeptic first asserts that there is "gratutiousness" to suffering (which is essentially the same as saying, "no plan").

In this case, the Theist isn't the one making the argument. It's the skeptics argument. And he has to raise it first. So then, the burden is on the skeptic. And it doesn't lift until the skeptic gives us evidence that the suffering we perceive is actually "gratuitious." Without that, the skeptical premises needed for the argument don't even get launched, and "plan" never gets raised as an issue by the Theist, at all, because there aren't any cases of gratutious suffering assumed for the skeptic to refer to.

So, I think we need to move on to a discussion about revelation and how or why you think it has sufficient warrant.

I'm happy with that.

But if you go back to the blue print, you'll see I've already started an answer above. I've really given it to you there, in a nutshell, and by using the words of the revelation itself, too. So maybe a good point to start is to say, "What's your reason for thinking that what that revelation says isn't true, and can't even possibly be true?" Because unless it's an impossible answer, and we have reasons to know it's impossible, then the question's already answered: we don't have any confidence that suffering is "gratuitous," and we don't have any warrant to contradict the revelation in the Bible about that.

But I want to be as fair as I can be in my response as well, and point out that while I don't think we have sufficient logical warrant to believe suffering is "gratuitious," I am certainly very sympathetic with the existential experience of the secular person, who may genuinely experience all suffering as if it were totally unjust, arbitrary, pointless and the product of unguided processes. That's a painful thought, in itself; particularly when one is in the middle of suffering. And if somebody wants to say to me, "I feel like suffering is gratuitious and pointless," then I have a lot of empathy with that existential feeling. I, too, am sometimes tempted to leap to the conclusion that something that causes me to suffer is devoid of purpose, or rather of sufficient countervailing benefit to warrant the pain I may be experiencing at the time. And I, too, may want to cry out, "Lord, why doest Thou thus?"

Fortunately, there's another thing God does: He often condescends to provide at least partial answers, promissory answers, and often retrospective answers, to why we suffer. And so we hear the Psalmist in Psalm 119: 65-72 actually even saying, "It is good for me that I was afflicted," because "Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I keep Your word. Your word is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces."

But to have such answers, of course, one has to at least believe that there IS a God and that He is capable of offering answers. Without that, what answers can one possibly have? What reply can one expect to come booming back from the dark reaches of the vast, indifferent, Material universe?

So if you want to point to the existential experience of suffering, I have great sympathy for the intuition of pointlessness, of "gratuitousness." I can well understand how suffering can "feel" that way. But I think that's different from the question of what it all actually means. I am more hopeful than the secularists can find warrant to be.

[Gary Childress]

Which is what a presumption is: it's a conclusion without the requisite evidence.

It's a reasonable presumption,

Do you suppose so? I would question that.

I would suggest that it's not at all reasonable to jump from "I don't know" to "there's no explanation."

You're in the sciences, I think; and if that presumption were right -- that we could make that jump -- it would pretty much finish off science altogether. If "I don't know" means "there's no explanation," then there's no use in proposing any hypothesis or devising any test. We already know there's no explanation to be found. Why would we, as scientists, go on snipe hunts for answers that our own bafflement already gives us proof we cannot ever find? And that's really the same kind of presumption required here, for your major and minor premises in the original skeptical objection (P1, P2) to be accepted as they are.

We will only go back and forth on this until we have the discussion about revelation, I think; since that's your purported evidence there is a plan.

I'm fine with that. I don't think there's a difficulty with our lack of an explanation, especially a comprehensive one, or for every particular case of suffering, if there's such a thing as revelation.

But I also return to the analogy for our real problem: our problem is not the question of whether the Pacific Ocean (the comprehensive explanation, obviously) exists...it's whether we're in a position to conclude it cannot exist unless we can get it in our Dixie cup (the human brain).

it's clearly not an easy one-off kind of explanation. It's bound to be complicated, very complicated.

As I've argued, you can't be agnostic about whether there is a plan for suffering as you are wording yourself to be here.

I would say my objection absolutely requires it. How can I say, "The right answer exceeds the capacities of the human brain," but also be asked to believe "If we haven't got that comprehensive kind of explanation, then there can be no reasons for suffering." It's again, that mistake of epistemological limitations for ontological possibilities. It's a category error, and a fallacy, I would say.

If you accept the premise that God would seek to never cause or allow gratuitous suffering, then it follows that no suffering is gratuitous:

So far, so good.

...which means being committed to the premise that there is a plan behind all suffering.

Still good...you're on the right track.

If you don't accept the premise that God would seek to cause or allow gratuitous suffering, then the Problem simply doesn't apply to your conception of God.

It's actually worse for the argument. It means "the problem" is only apparent, but not real.

Now, let me hasten to add this -- that doesn't mean that suffering isn't real, or that we have to diminish its significance in some cavalier fashion, far less with superficial attempts to explain it away; rather, by contrast, it means that suffering is actually more significant than we might, at first suspect, if we come from a secular perspective -- that rather than being a sort of inexplicable horror or vague accident of an indifferent universe, it is capable of being integrated into a divine plan for meaning, and ever for blessing.

And that's exactly what revelation says about the situation, from a Christian perspective. It says,

"For I [Paul] consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

For the eagerly awaiting creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

And not only that, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, through perseverance we wait eagerly for it." (Romans 8:18-25, emphasis mine)

So suffering is temporary, and is directed toward the infinitely more important goal of producing not only unending future happiness but also human freedom, when the hope we have reaches its fulfillment. So much so, that the suffering we see is actually relativized by the good that is ahead...for those who know and love God. The future good of having the possibility of free, genuine, personal relationship with God forever is actually so overwhelmingly a "good" that it wipes out,(by comparison, if not present-experientially) any suffering that can be named now.

That's the Christian view.

Though I personally wouldn't call a God that doesn't have such a property as seeking to never cause or allow gratuitous suffering a sort of being I'd want to have anything to do with, though.

Well, of course.

...ultimately the theist that brings up a plan "first."

Well, yes, the Theist would be first to use the word "plan," perhaps. But he's not the first to speak. In fact, he won't ever even need to, if the skeptic has not already raised the argument and made the case that there's a "problem" to be addressed. And you're not wrong to think that the skeptic is going to need something like your three-stage argument, or there will be no question for the Theist to respond to.

The secular perspective does not even give us reason to think there COULD be a plan or purpose to suffering, so it would be illogical for him/her to mention it at all.

But that raises a very serious counterpoint. If the secularist does not like the Christian's position, namely that suffering has a comprehensive rationale presently in the mind of God -- one humanly attainable, even, but only after full salvation, as Romans says -- then what has secularism got to offer in the place of such an explanation? Is the whole "payoff" of secularism merely to end in Nihilistic hatred of the way the universe works, and in bitterness and death, as it forces upon us the belief that we are accidental byproducts of an indifferent and harmful universe, and all our sufferings are mere accidents for which we can expect no answers?

Is that really what we get for believing the secular perspective? If that's all, what's the "win" there? Why is the secular perspective to be preferred...not only to the real answer the Theist proposes, but even to some convenient delusion that offers at least some consolation, a consolation of which the secular perspective appears to be entirely devoid?

...it's still the theist that has the onus of evidence if they argue there is a plan behind suffering that renders it non-gratuitous.

Well, I think I've suggested why this isn't the case, just a bit earlier.

If there's no skeptical question, then the Theist doesn't even need a response. He doesn't have to mention the "plan" at all, if one accepted as possible by all parties. It's only because the skeptic first asserts that there is "gratutiousness" to suffering (which is essentially the same as saying, "no plan").

In this case, the Theist isn't the one making the argument. It's the skeptics argument. And he has to raise it first. So then, the burden is on the skeptic. And it doesn't lift until the skeptic gives us evidence that the suffering we perceive is actually "gratuitious." Without that, the skeptical premises needed for the argument don't even get launched, and "plan" never gets raised as an issue by the Theist, at all, because there aren't any cases of gratutious suffering assumed for the skeptic to refer to.

So, I think we need to move on to a discussion about revelation and how or why you think it has sufficient warrant.

I'm happy with that.

But if you go back to the blue print, you'll see I've already started an answer above. I've really given it to you there, in a nutshell, and by using the words of the revelation itself, too. So maybe a good point to start is to say, "What's your reason for thinking that what that revelation says isn't true, and can't even possibly be true?" Because unless it's an impossible answer, and we have reasons to know it's impossible, then the question's already answered: we don't have any confidence that suffering is "gratuitous," and we don't have any warrant to contradict the revelation in the Bible about that.

But I want to be as fair as I can be in my response as well, and point out that while I don't think we have sufficient logical warrant to believe suffering is "gratuitious," I am certainly very sympathetic with the existential experience of the secular person, who may genuinely experience all suffering as if it were totally unjust, arbitrary, pointless and the product of unguided processes. That's a painful thought, in itself; particularly when one is in the middle of suffering. And if somebody wants to say to me, "I feel like suffering is gratuitious and pointless," then I have a lot of empathy with that existential feeling. I, too, am sometimes tempted to leap to the conclusion that something that causes me to suffer is devoid of purpose, or rather of sufficient countervailing benefit to warrant the pain I may be experiencing at the time. And I, too, may want to cry out, "Lord, why doest Thou thus?"

Fortunately, there's another thing God does: He often condescends to provide at least partial answers, promissory answers, and often retrospective answers, to why we suffer. And so we hear the Psalmist in Psalm 119: 65-72 actually even saying, "It is good for me that I was afflicted," because "Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I keep Your word. Your word is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces."

But to have such answers, of course, one has to at least believe that there IS a God and that He is capable of offering answers. Without that, what answers can one possibly have? What reply can one expect to come booming back from the dark reaches of the vast, indifferent, Material universe?

So if you want to point to the existential experience of suffering, I have great sympathy for the intuition of pointlessness, of "gratuitousness." I can well understand how suffering can "feel" that way. But I think that's different from the question of what it all actually means. I am more hopeful than the secularists can find warrant to be.

Good grief. Why don't you just admit you have faith in God and that's it. If having faith in a 2000 year old book requires you to abandon the sciences, then maybe that's the best thing. The sciences seem to produce as much evil as whatever good comes out of them. If everything has turned out well for you and it looks like there is a plan, then that's great. If it hasn't and you want to believe it's for the best, that's great too. I don't know how to think there is a "plan" for people in Turkey and Syria right now who lost everything in that Earthquake. Or maybe God's plan is to shake people off of ridiculous beliefs in a ~2000 year old book written by fallible human beings who seemed to think they were the "chosen" ones. I don't know. Knowing the world we live in, the thought of the God who created it having a "plan" doesn't strike me as entirely reassuring. For all I know I could be next victim in that "plan". Any of us could.

[iambiguous]

You're actually comparing God making Earth round with God creating a planet where all of these things...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... _eruptions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... l_cyclones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landslides
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... ore_deaths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_diseases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events
...are reconciled with the belief that God is loving, just and merciful?

No, I'm saying that appearances are often exceedingly deceptive to human beings. I'm saying that we're nowhere near having the kind of knowledge required for us to say that these things don't all reconcile in some way. So our objections are based on our own epistemic limitations, not on some known feature of the situation.

Oh, I see. What human beings appear to see as the consequence of all the links above, is, as mere mortals, no match for what your loving just and merciful God sees. Make it all about "epistemic limitations" with those like Astro Cat instead of flat out admitting that just like all of the other Christians, you really only have God's "mysterious ways" to fall back on.

And then you can always come back with, "so, Mr. Atheist, prove that those links are not as a result of a loving, just and merciful God's mysterious ways."

Again, though, not to worry. I don't expect anything from you that is actually more sophisticated. I'm still basically in entertainment mode with you until you provide me with that video.

Or at least something -- anything -- in the way of an explanation as to why you don't.

On the contrary, No God and it's all just the "brute facticity" embedded in an essentially meaningless world.

Quite so. And that leaves you...where?

Hey, I'm the first to admit just how ghastly the consequences of that are. I only suggest that even you yourself know there is not any substantive proof that the Christian God and not one of these...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

...One true Paths is the One True Path. I mean, how naive do you have to be to believe that the Christian God exists merely because it says so in the Christian Bible?

But, again, no doubt about it, to the extent that you are able to convince yourself that He does exist, you can then sustain that comfort and consolation all the way to the grave. You've got me there, I agree.

As long as you accept that for all the other paths above your own soul is lost.

Just read Genesis. God created Heaven and Earth and it was good.

Well, when you actually read the narrative you want me to read, then you'll find out about a thing called "the Fall," which explains what happened. But that's a very important missing piece in your summary.

Right, right. All of this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... _eruptions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... l_cyclones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landslides
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... ore_deaths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_diseases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events

...because Adam and Eve fucked up.

This part:

"The Old Testament tells of Adam and Eve, our progenitors. They lived in paradise in total innocence until the serpent (the devil) enticed them to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. As punishment for their disobedience, God banished them from Paradise."

And then for all the rest of us those terrible, terrible, terrible links above. As though God was powerless to stop the Devil. As though knowledge itself is our curse. As though an omniscient God did not require Adam and Eve to do only that which He already knew that they must do.

...when it comes to just and unjust behavior, I believe that, as the man said, "in the absence of God all things are permitted".

The quotation goes, "If there is no God, all is permitted." And "the man" was Dostoevsky. And he was right.

Good thing that's not the universe we actually have.

The proof of that? Of course: you believe it "in your head". Or do you have another video or an article from William Lane Craig effectively arguing that not only does God exists, but it is in fact the Christian God that exists?

[Immanuel Can]

Why don't you just admit you have faith in God and that's it.

I've never denied I have faith in God, Gary. You've been asleep if you think otherwise. But you don't seem to know what "faith" is, so it's not worth me repeating that. You seem to think it's the opposite of evidence. Dawkins, or somebody like him, has eaten your brain.

But that's just wrong. In fact, you need to do some reading about the history of science. Then you'd realize the method was essentially invented by Christians, such as Francis Bacon, in particular. And you'd have to rethink your assumptions about what faith and science mean to each other.

Knowing the world we live in, the thought of the God who created it having a "plan" doesn't strike me as entirely reassuring.

That's only because you don't know God, Gary. But that's been your choice.

[Immanuel Can]

What human beings appear to see as the consequence of all the links above, is, as mere mortals, no match for what your loving just and merciful God sees.

That's self-evidently true.

You're surely not going to claim you have omniscience, are you? That's the only alternative you've got left.

So no, nobody's going to believe that.

On the contrary, No God and it's all just the "brute facticity" embedded in an essentially meaningless world.

Quite so. And that leaves you...where?

Hey, I'm the first to admit just how ghastly the consequences of that are. I only suggest that even you yourself know there is not any substantive proof that the Christian God and not one of these...

I disagree. I think anybody who makes an honest search will also very quickly realize I'm right about that. But that's for you to do, not me. I can't do it for you.

But if you want more, track my conversation with AstroCat. She's obviously extremely smart and insightful, and you might learn what a good conversation looks like from her. We are on different sides, and she's no slouch; but we are managing to talk without pettiness, grandstanding or other forms of unreasonable behaviour. She's great: I'm finding conversation with you extremely low-level and tedious, by comparison. So that's where I'll invest my limited time and energies, I think.

[Dubious]

You seem to think it's the opposite of evidence.

Strictly speaking, faith is not the 'opposite' of evidence; it just doesn't require evidence to maintain itself as faith.

Dawkins, or somebody like him, has eaten your brain.

Better Dawkins doing it than the bible. Most, except some leftover idiots, can see how that turned out!

That's only because you don't know God, Gary. But that's been your choice.

You don't know god either, Immanuel! You only know the bible. Theists perennially and purposely conflate scripture with what it describes...which has been your choice for who knows how long!

[Immanuel Can]

You seem to think it's the opposite of evidence.

Strictly speaking, faith is not the 'opposite' of evidence; it just doesn't require evidence to maintain itself as faith.

Strictly speaking, Biblical "faith" is always predicated on evidence and on the character of God. There is no such thing as "faith" that floats free of facts, and just expresses a willingness to believe, unanchored to truth.

But Dawkins et al. would like you to think otherwise, because they think it affords them an easy win.

[Gary Childress]

Knowing the world we live in, the thought of the God who created it having a "plan" doesn't strike me as entirely reassuring.

That's only because you don't know God, Gary. But that's been your choice.

Is it? If I "knew" God would that change anything regarding earthquakes or suffering?

As far as being my choice, I assume then it's all my fault that God hasn't spoken to me yet? Have you ever spoken to God and had him speak back to you? I'm not talking about "aha" moments or coming to realizations about things. And I'm not talking about supposedly hearing God speak through other people speaking to you. I'm talking about God's actual voice? Has he literally spoken to you in a voice? And if so what did it sound like? Was it male or female? High pitch, low pitch?

[Gary Childress]

You seem to think it's the opposite of evidence.

Strictly speaking, faith is not the 'opposite' of evidence; it just doesn't require evidence to maintain itself as faith.

Strictly speaking, Biblical "faith" is always predicated on evidence and on the character of God. There is no such thing as "faith" that floats free of facts, and just expresses a willingness to believe, unanchored to truth.

But Dawkins et al. would like you to think otherwise, because they think it affords them an easy win.

If there's evidence then it isn't "faith" strictly speaking. So which is it? Is your belief in God a matter of faith or fact?

[Dubious]

You seem to think it's the opposite of evidence.

Strictly speaking, faith is not the 'opposite' of evidence; it just doesn't require evidence to maintain itself as faith.

Strictly speaking, Biblical "faith" is always predicated on evidence and on the character of God. There is no such thing as "faith" that floats free of facts, and just expresses a willingness to believe, unanchored to truth.

But Dawkins et al. would like you to think otherwise, because they think it affords them an easy win.

Your logic is truly weird! If faith is always predicated on evidence, why require "faith" to believe. One doesn't need to believe if one knows based on evidence - which you assert there is but haven't shown once when asked utilizing your usual techniques for avoiding it.

The character of god on the other hand, as you identify it, is based exclusively on the bible, which, as is well known, is a stitched together tome of various and selected scriptures, an enterprise of human manufacture that took a few centuries to accomplish!

It does indeed take a hell of a lot of faith to believe that such could be the word of god.

Likewise, your Dawkins statement is too glib to take seriously; but it's always been a function of faith to make bold-faced assertions commensurate with its beliefs. Faith, in your view, is that which insists on there being evidence for its claims and yet never offering any, almost as if it were taboo that a 'truth', assumed or not, should ever be sacrilegiously questioned...which your 'steady-state' mentality, regarding both god and the bible as sacred entities, depends on.

Claim evidence but retain silence concerning it. Freeze it as fact and never attempt to bring it into the sunlight where all such pronouncements liquify instantly joining the torrent of lies we have created since the beginning of our existence.

[Gary Childress]

But if you want more, track my conversation with AstroCat. She's obviously extremely smart and insightful, and you might learn what a good conversation looks like from her. We are on different sides, and she's no slouch; but we are managing to talk without pettiness, grandstanding or other forms of unreasonable behaviour. She's great: I'm finding conversation with you extremely low-level and tedious, by comparison. So that's where I'll invest my limited time and energies, I think.

Yes. Some of us have been reading your blathering epic long, dodgy posts to Astro Cat. My point is your rebuttals can easily be summed up as placing faith in the Biblical God before anything else and then shoehorning reality into that starting tennet of "there is a God, and the Bible is his true word". It would save us all a tedious read of evasion and fancy dancing to just summarize your posts that way.

It's painfully obvious that Astro Cat has been trying to reason with you and in the end your last line of defense is that the Biblical God is the case and if you needed to make planets revolve around the Earth in order to maintain that faith, then you'd do so. I posted a while back in this thread about a Christian astronomer's belief that when the Biblical God created the universe 6000 years ago he placed the photons of objects in the universe that are further than 6000 light years from us already progressed on their journey so that it would only take 6000 years from that creation date to reach Earth so that we can see them today even though the universe (according to him) is no older than ~6000 years. A virtual modern day Ptolomy.

[Immanuel Can]

I assume then it's all my fault that God hasn't spoken to me yet?

Hey, you know the route. We've talked about that. But nobody can make you take it.

[Immanuel Can]

If there's evidence then it isn't "faith" strictly speaking.

That's the falsehood. Nowhere in the Bible will you find "faith" defined or exemplified that way. So you're just wrong, Gary...sorry.

[Immanuel Can]

Your logic is truly weird! If faith is always predicated on evidence, why require "faith" to believe.

Because faith is a relational quality.

It's what one uses in an relationship, in other words.

Take, for example, your relationship with a partner. You know his/her character. You know his/her skills, abilities, inclinations, past...and so on. You have lots and lots of data, lots of precedents.

But still...how much do you know you can trust him/her? What will take you beyond the point of merely knowing the data about him/her, and take you as far as believing this is a good life partner, one on whom you can rely, one who will not betray you?

You do not have certainty. But you do have evidence. You have a lot of data, in fact. But now you have to invest yourself in what you know, and risk yourself on a relationship that will make you vulnerable to him/her.

So how much faith in him/her do you have? That's the question.

That's faith. That's how it works.

Likewise, your Dawkins statement is too glib to take seriously;

Not at all. Dawkins himself tries to define "faith" that wrong way, as if it's opposed to science, and he does so explicitly. Check it out.

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Richard Dawkins
@RichardDawkins
"Faith means belief in the absence of evidence. There are people out there who actually praise belief without evidence as a supreme virtue."