Evil means a Christian God cannot exist?

[dannydamagichobo]

Ah, I must apologize for my last post. I failed to explain the precedents of what it means to "hurt" someone, as well as the continually changing morals of society in general. I was hung up on your comment before that one regarding a father being imprisoned for his son's murder, assuming he had no knowledge before hand. I don't know about you, and this excuse does not excuse my lack of explaination, of I have had about 12 hours of sleep for the past three days, and was very tempted to sleep today, but saw this thread, and felt compelled to contribute, or else forget and come back a year from now :X

To go on about your argument about the human condition, a flaw is what? Some action/mentality that is against society? Non-conformity? Harming another person bodily or their well-being? To call any of these "flaws" indicate a standard which yo are appealing to; in nearly every case of my hearing this argument it had something to do with the Christian religion and doctrine concerning it. I must argue that the word "flaw" has no relevance to any one of my arguments, particularly if there is no God in my belief (as there is none). Flaw indicates a standard, and seeing as I believe in none, it was from there that I was arguing that yo could be raised without "flaws" (yes, as ludicrious as it sounds) only because the word flaw itself has many definitions, each adhering to a different standard. I did a very poor job in explaining this (or rather, I failed ro explain it entirely) and for that, I apologize. However, my argument still stands: If God is all-powerful/knowing/loving, he cannot exist, as his ability to manipulate all things goes beyond normal minds, and can do things beyond comprehension. However, to argue that is to arge that he is not only unable to be understood, but to be emulated. However, it is the case with most Christians that their claim is that he is not only to be understood as one who "cares" for us all and "loves" us all, and only wants the best for us, but that he is all-powerful and all-knowing within these things. Yet people who don;t believe in this die every day, his power to show them the "Truth" fails to be realized. He even says that he chooses who will believe and who won't:

For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. Romans 9:15. In fact, if yo have any time on yor hands, read the whole book of Romans, and you'll see many things, but especially the belief pertaining God's absolute authority over all, inclding Satan. Even the Apostle Paul had no argument to those who were asking him how they could be punished for their sins if God was in control of everything. He doesn't tell them that they have free will. He tells them that they have no right as the creation of God to judge him. He does as he pleases, and as he is their creator and the spreme being over all, tey should not condemn him for their sins.

 

[dannydamagichobo]

And Altmer, I'm not saying that being in control of everything means that you'll just whiper in someone's ear to have them do something. It is clear even to Christians that these things don't happen like that (for the most part). They'll say that God sent this person, or this catastrophe, or that he gave them a bountiful harvest, or that he sent them down this pat, etc. THe more you keep looking at WHY these things happened shows you how complex everything is, and that a God who is all-powerful could easily mnaipulate everyhting form the start. It shold be easy, as if he predates all things, and for one reason or another, decided to create things at a certain point, he should be able to manipulate the circumstances of anything to how he sees fit. Nothng is as simple as "If free will doesn't exist, then we're all puppets," or that you didn't join just because God whispered in your ear. Things are so mch more complex than that, and to understand that is to be able to manipulate it to a certain point to match your understanding of that. We are pupets in a sense becase everything we do is a reaction. Everything we do and think has a reason behind it, God-propelled or not.

 

[Altmer]

And Altmer, I'm not saying that being in control of everything means that you'll just whiper in someone's ear to have them do something. It is clear even to Christians that these things don't happen like that (for the most part). They'll say that God sent this person, or this catastrophe, or that he gave them a bountiful harvest, or that he sent them down this pat, etc. THe more you keep looking at WHY these things happened shows you how complex everything is, and that a God who is all-powerful could easily mnaipulate everyhting form the start. It shold be easy, as if he predates all things, and for one reason or another, decided to create things at a certain point, he should be able to manipulate the circumstances of anything to how he sees fit. Nothng is as simple as "If free will doesn't exist, then we're all puppets," or that you didn't join just because God whispered in your ear. Things are so mch more complex than that, and to understand that is to be able to manipulate it to a certain point to match your understanding of that. We are pupets in a sense becase everything we do is a reaction. Everything we do and think has a reason behind it, God-propelled or not.

This doesn't preclude the existence of things like: Last Thursdayism, FSM, IPU, etc.

Those could do the same things and we don't believe in them, now do we?

Free will doesn't exist, but it's because, you know, you don't just kill babies. It's called Golden Rule.

 

[dannydamagichobo]

ok, first of all, what in the hell does LT, FSM, or IPU have to do with ANYTHING we're talking about right now? And allow me to establish that I am not a Christian, in case if you haven't been carefully reading my posts. My argument originated in response to arguments from people like J-man, who argues with the authority of the Bible behind him. I'm arguing that the Bible says alot of things. So if you're bringing up these to show me how rediculous Christianity may be to you, save it. I'm not a believer. My point was to counter against the notion of "Free-will", especially when Free-will is used as a scapegoat of why Adam and Eve (all well as everyone else on this Earth) sinned against a supposedly all-powerful god.

 

[cantab]

Sorry I couldnt resist coming back.

What disturbs me about this thread is some of you won't listen to other's points, let alone consider them. A decent point comes up and you just dismiss it.

This isn't a discussion or a debate, it's a bunch of people screaming "you're wrong!".

So you think what I was referring to was not preaching. It certainly came across as preaching to me.

How can you blame the creator when he didn't do the act of evil? That's like throwing a man in prison because his son killed someone.

Because God is not a man - he's omnsicient and ought to be able to forsee the consequences of his actions. And unlike a person reproducing, God is supposed to have created every aspect of us. If he gave us the capability for evil accidentally your point would be valid, but God's not supposed to do things accidentally.

I should have explained better. Say you are considering having a child. Now you know your kid will lie, cheat, and hurt other people in thier lifetime since nobody is perfect. You know that your child will cause others pain, and that your kid will suffer but in the end people still have children (sometimes by accident though :naughty:)

But you cannot make any other sort of child. Whereas the issue of this thread is whether God could have created us with the inability to lie, cheat, and hurt people.

One other note: There is of course one thing we've been silently assuming, a part of the 'context' of this whole debate - that free will exists. Virtually all the points raised depend on that. Of course if you believe free will does not exist you're probably contradicting Christianity anyway. (I don't think we should debate the existence of free will in this thread, but I'm just pointing the assumption out so that we all know it is there; hidden assumptions are a bad thing IMHO)

 

[Ballad]

Honestly, looking for sense in religion is pretty stupid. Outside of philosophical religious like Confucianism, it's mostly just faith. How much and what you believe is up to you. There's really no point asking why something works some way, that's just part of the religious belief.

 

[Altmer]

why would we believe in something that has no evidence going for it

 

[Brain]

That is an excellent argument, Brain, although I would be surprised if many Christians were to accept it (particularly since they don't like to see God as deceitful.)

Indeed, but that's very hypocritical. Christians at large have no problem with the existence of suffering because they trust that God has good reasons, probably beyond human comprehension, to do that. But at the same time, God can't have good reasons, probably beyond human comprehension, to lie to us?

God has to be benevolent. God has to be just. God cannot be deceitful. God has to be omnipotent. Christians don't have faith that God exists. They have faith God exists and that he has all the attributes they cherish. Of course God has to be beyond human comprehension when his believers paint him into a fucking corner with all these idiotic, inconsistent superlatives they affix to him. God is engineered to be incomprehensible.

"God cannot be made sense of" my ass. I'm not the one saying God has to be good. I'm not the one saying he can't be deceitful. I acknowledge that God as "some conscious entity that presumably created the universe". He can be good or an evil, deceitful son of a bitch, he can be limited, etc. However, the only grounds I have to describe God are observation, not arbitrary decree from religious authorities.

It's Christians that try to box God by saying he isn't evil/deceitful/etc on dubious grounds. Why? Well, there's wishful thinking - feels all warm and fuzzy to think God's a good man, despite all the evidence to the contrary. But hey, these atheists, they just don't understand, they are trying to make sense of God, but he can't be made sense of, he's good, of course he is good, he is necessarily good, but we can't make sense of him! You just made sense of him by saying he's good, you sons of bitches, if you can do it so can I. And then there's brainwashing from family, peer pressure, the fact Christianity appears more true by being widespread, and so on.

Unfortunately though, in however small a way, every person would suffer if they could, regardless of whether everybody else was doing so. You (hopefully) even suffer indirectly as a result of the disaster in Haiti. This is a different scale of suffering, but there still lacks a decent explanantion for its existence.

The amount of suffering a certain creature is expected to feel is bounded by its nature. In a sense, the problem of evil is present in two phases of creation:

1) First, the nature of the creature has to be established. That nature, in turn, defines suffering. Some creatures will have no such concept at all, they just could never suffer. Some creatures will suffer all the time because they're internally built like that. Humans are a particular option here, but even within humanity there are people who are more prone to happiness or suffering than others.

2) Second, the creatures have to be put in an environment in which they will live. Given the definition of suffering for that creature, different environments will lead to more or less suffering for the creature. Furthermore, if many creatures are made to interact, their natures will lead to a dynamic where they can hurt each other and so on. If we suppose that we have created humans, they will suffer from nature (whether it be disasters, heat waves, cold, dehydration in the middle of a desert, and so on), and if put together they will presumably hurt each other.

The problem of evil can be fully solved in phase 1) by making creatures that cannot suffer, neither physically or mentally. These creatures would be vastly different from humans, but I do not think any argument can be made that these creatures would not be just as interesting. And in a sense, there are some conditions in humanity that approach this - some humans cannot feel physical pain (which doesn't work well for them since they have no cues that would normally make them avoid walking on a broken foot and so on, but their bodies could be made indestructible). I don't know if they exist, but some people might not feel any emotional pain either - some people are definitely more sensitive than others in that regard.

However, it is not clear that we necessarily want to solve the problem in phase 1). We could imagine a God who really wants to make creatures that are in a certain way. The Bible said we were made in his image, so perhaps God wanted creatures like him, and if he can suffer, then he made it so that we could, leading to suboptimal design. While it detracts from benevolence a bit, it's not a huge deal. The challenge then shifts to designing a proper environment for the creature(s), one that would maximize their happiness. Given the nature of the creature, it might be impossible to get rid of suffering or to maximize happiness, and the optimal environment might be slightly contrived as a result. For instance, perhaps the earthquake in Haiti, though I am not necessarily conscious of it, makes me happier because to be sad for them, to emphasize with them, makes me feel good about myself. Or maybe it makes me appreciate my life more.

However, not just any suffering can be justified that way, and that's the crux of the problem of evil. Even given human nature, suffering has to occur on a vastly inferior basis to happiness, and in order to deem some suffering beneficial, you need a solid justification (I think my justification in the previous paragraph is good enough in response with your point, but I don't think I could find one for getting AIDS).

In reality, you should not be asking whether you are satisfied with your life, but why your life is not perfect.

To me benevolence is more about preventing suffering than about maximizing happiness, but your perspective seems to be equally valid. In a sense, I am trying to be as generous as possible to God :)

What disturbs me about this thread is some of you won't listen to other's points, let alone consider them. A decent point comes up and you just dismiss it.

You mean the "stop the preaching" part? It was not a dismissal of a decent point. What it is responding to is irredeemably bad: all J-man does is describe his beliefs, rather than justify them. Please, just read what he wrote. Nobody can answer a description of one's beliefs, I mean, that's not even a point. Not to mention that anything mentioning "choosing" heaven or hell is nothing short of insulting.

If you have any other examples, please state them so that they can get a second look.

How can you blame the creator when he didn't do the act of evil? That's like throwing a man in prison because his son killed someone.

No, it's like firing a manager because he hired people with no credentials. A man does not know what his son will do and has no way of knowing in advance of making him. In contrast, a manager can choose who to hire based on information about their experience, education and so on. If an employee fucks up, the manager is to blame to the extent that he could (should) have seen it coming. In any case, if you want to start a successful business, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't hire just about anyone and blame them when they (predictably) make mistake upon mistake and ruin everything. You'd try to hire the best people you can, and then even if they fuck up, there's nothing you could have done to prevent it.

God, if he knows all, should obviously be to blame for any mess we do, because he knew we would fuck up and put us there anyway. Just like a manager is to blame for hiring people he knows in advance are unfit for the job. God can only be excused if he genuinely couldn't know if we'd be fit for life or not.

I should have explained better. Say you are considering having a child. Now you know your kid will lie, cheat, and hurt other people in thier lifetime since nobody is perfect. You know that your child will cause others pain, and that your kid will suffer but in the end people still have children (sometimes by accident though )

Way to give mild examples, champ. What if you know your kid will kill? Would you still have him or her? What if you know your kid will be a rapist? A pedophile?

You are saying that God should not have created humans because humans create evil, but by the same logic nobody would have kids in order to prevent "more evil" from occuring.

If every parent could predict with certainty the extent of the crimes their child would commit, it would of course be irresponsible for them to reproduce knowing their child would commit significant crimes, and they would of course be punished for it. That's workable because the vast majority of people never commit significant crimes. In God's case, he could do much better, by only allowing people to be born who he knows in advance will make the right choices. Anything else would be irresponsible, unless he just doesn't care.

 

[Obsessed]

I suggest some of you open your minds a little and consider some of the things people have said here. I'm not telling you to renounce your athiesm, I'm just saying actually think about what others are saying before shouting "nono you're wrong"

Maybe I am misinterpreting this sentence, but it seems to imply that atheists are close minded individuals who fail to even consider the other side. Surely no theists in this thread have shown signs of being "close-minded." Yep, it must only be the atheists. *rolls eyes*

Also perhaps if you offered an argument more compelling than quoted scripture I would be willing to consider your side.

Honestly, looking for sense in religion is pretty stupid. Outside of philosophical religious like Confucianism, it's mostly just faith. How much and what you believe is up to you. There's really no point asking why something works some way, that's just part of the religious belief.

Then hopefully you can understand why some people choose to reject religion. I find very little reason to accept something purely on faith.

 

[MrIndigo]

One other note: There is of course one thing we've been silently assuming, a part of the 'context' of this whole debate - that free will exists. Virtually all the points raised depend on that. Of course if you believe free will does not exist you're probably contradicting Christianity anyway. (I don't think we should debate the existence of free will in this thread, but I'm just pointing the assumption out so that we all know it is there; hidden assumptions are a bad thing IMHO)

I actually think free-will does not exist, myself, but that it doesn't actually matter. The important fact is that the illusion of free will exists. Rationally, any external stimuli will cause a certain type of cellular reaction to the body (sight will stimulate the optic nerves, etc.) This will send a particular electrical impulse to the brain. The cells in the brain will process this in the way they are physically designed to, and the response of the brain will generate the 'decision'.

The only place for "free will" to come into that is where determinism breaks down at the quantum level, and so the precise response of the brain cannot be known before it occurs/is observed. I'm prepared to change my view once we discover more about the physical function processes of the brain and cells, but I don't foresee anywhere that a separate, independant 'intelligence' makes any decisions.

EDIT: Semideterministic fate also fits with my understanding of the one-dimensionality of time.

 

[Brain]

The only place for "free will" to come into that is where determinism breaks down at the quantum level, and so the precise response of the brain cannot be known before it occurs/is observed. I'm prepared to change my view once we discover more about the physical function processes of the brain and cells, but I don't foresee anywhere that a separate, independant 'intelligence' makes any decisions.

First, the quantum level may be perfectly deterministic: see for instance the many-worlds and Bohm interpretations of quantum physics, which are completely compatible with evidence. In many ways, determinism is a question of perspective. Many deterministic events look random because information about them is incomplete, for instance, and any random function can be seen as a deterministic function on a sequence of previously computed random numbers.

Second, even if the quantum level was not deterministic, the only edge that quantum mechanics offer over classical mechanics is computational: many problems can be solved with smaller complexity using them. However, there does not exist any problem that quantum mechanics solve and classical mechanics do not.

Third, while it is true that random numbers are extremely useful in computation, and many evolutionary/learning algorithms make good use of them, what matters is that these numbers are sufficiently randomly distributed. Thermodynamical noise fits the bill just as well as quantum noise, but it is much easier to exploit. And it is not as easy to exploit as random environmental hazards either, such as slight variations in sensory input. Although quantum mechanics can, through cascading effects, influence the world in a "butterfly-effect" kind of way, all in all, pseudo-randomness is good enough. And randomness is only a tool to search the state space, not an end in itself. I expect most of the brain to be very robust to it.

Fourth, it is very unlikely that quantum events have any relevance to brain processes. The brain is a macroscopic system, it's built to be robust to most noise, it just doesn't seem likely that it would be sensitive to quantum events. Any real advantages quantum processes may yield are unrelated to the fact they are "not deterministic" - their "random" part pales in comparison to sources of pseudo-randomness that are infinitely easier to exploit (in fact, it's getting rid of them that would be a challenge). Also, I don't think they fit evolution's modus operandi in the sense that I'm not sure there are biologically plausible paths to exploiting them - it is stuff that's beneath the precision of the building blocks, essentially.

Based on all this, I just don't think the quantum level has any relevance whatsoever to intelligence - qualitatively, its absence would change absolutely nothing. But I could be wrong.

 

[cantab]

However, there does not exist any problem that quantum mechanics solve and classical mechanics do not.

Err, what? I'd like to see a 'solution' of the various electron diffraction experiments, or the photoelectric effect, or the Casimir effect, or any of many other phenomena, using classic mechanics.

 

[Brain]

Err, what? I'd like to see a 'solution' of the various electron diffraction experiments, or the photoelectric effect, or the Casimir effect, or any of many other phenomena, using classic mechanics.

I mean computationally speaking. If we are talking about quantum mechanics relatively to intelligence, we would be interested in how they can be leveraged to enhance the range of functions that can be computed. What I mean to say is that whatever a quantum computer can do, a classical computer can do as well, it will just take more time. Ergo, quantum mechanics are of little relevance in a discussion about free will (i.e. classical intelligence could behave the exact same).

 

[Thoughts]

Soo... whatsup guys =)

And exactly what is the arguement right now exactly ? I don't have the time ( or will ) to flip through all seven pages =(

To give an insight on the whole god is good and bad thing. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe good or bad doesn't exist in god's eyes ? iunno

Forgive me if this was touched or already answered in length

 

[mattj]

According to many Christians, God is:
- All Powerful (omnipotent)
- All Knowing (omniscient – arguably a subset of omnipotence)
- All loving (omnibenevolent)

The issue here is that if god loves us, knows about suffering and is able to stop it, why do evil and suffering continue to exist?

I don't understand why this is a problem? Why should God take care of all our troubles on Earth? The Bible never says we will have a "completely trouble free life on Earth". It says the exact opposite (1 Thess 3:4, etc, etc...) We have heaven to look forward to. Horrible, unfair stuff happens all the time on Earth. Just look at Hati.

 

[lilyhollow]

I don't understand why this is a problem? Why should God take care of all our troubles on Earth? The Bible never says we will have a "completely trouble free life on Earth". It says the exact opposite (1 Thess 3:4, etc, etc...) We have heaven to look forward to. Horrible, unfair stuff happens all the time on Earth. Just look at Hati.

You're just reiterating the point. I mean you're trying to present the Bible as "the word of God" or whatever right? So you're basically saying, "what? Of course God allows stuff like Haiti to happen. I mean, he told us he was going to do that right in the Bible, duh."

 

[Thoughts]

I don't get what you're saying. God didn't say promise us that everything was going to be good and happy is what he meant

 

[mattj]

You're just reiterating the point. I mean you're trying to present the Bible as "the word of God" or whatever right? So you're basically saying, "what? Of course God allows stuff like Haiti to happen. I mean, he told us he was going to do that right in the Bible, duh."

Oh, no. I hope I'm not confusing you.

The OP asked the question "Why does God allow suffering?"
I just asked "Why shouldn't He?"

I hope you understand what I'm trying to ask. The OP needs to prove the point that God should do something about suffering on Earth, beyond just saying "Most Christians say he should". I think he may misunderstand what many Christians mean by "All loving".

 

[Obsessed]

The OP asked the question "Why does God allow suffering?"
I just asked "Why shouldn't He?"

I am sure most people do not define benevolent as: standing idly while terrible (yet totally preventable) things happen to innocent people.

 

[MrIndigo]

@Brain: Actually, Classical physics breaks down all the time to quantum mechanics. Like, hardcore.

The first example off the top of my head is the radiation reaction equation. My friend did his 3rd Year Physics research project dealing with checking the last suggested solution; noone's proposed a new solution in about 30 years because it's such a stupid problem in classical physics.


If you use classical physics, it shows that when you apply an accelerating field extremely quickly to an electron, the electron is preaccelerated before the field actually applies. This is a little bit like the light going on just before you actually flick the switch. I think he showed the preacceleration occurs as though electrons (or the same electron) come from the future and start accelerating before the field gets there.

The problem is that classical physics makes certain approximations about collective phenomena and can't deal with things that are very big or very small or very fast, because those implicit assumptions no longer hold in those schemes.

The electron two-slit experiment isn't explained by classical physics either.


In terms of computing, though, you're mostly correct; quantum computation performs certain types of operations faster than classical, of note being searching and factorising algorithms. The speed issue, however, is actually a significant difference if you're dealing with a changing source material. For instance, if you had a sample that changed itself every X seconds, your analysis algorithm would have to run and output at a faster rate to be useful. So in that sense, increased speed means an actual difference in outcome/applicability. QC's also posited to be able to simulate quantum situations (e.g. solve for the the exact wavefunction of a complex molecule) in ways that a conventional computer can't.

One very recent development in the field of quantum computing is that one of the Shoelkopf groups at Yale University has demonstrated 2-bit computation using a superconducting transmon microwave cavity resonator. They're now moving on to 8-bit, but an Australian theoretical group wrote an analysis not long later that was intended to aid their crosstalk problems using a property unique to quantum computing.

A conventional computer works on an entirely binary basis; you have two states (usually stored as voltage levels in semiconducting diodes), ON and OFF. In quantum computing, you store information in the energy states of any of a number of structures (my lab, for instance, uses gallium arsenide quantum dots). These energy levels are not merely paired. All quantum computation alogrithms and demonstrations so far have focused on using only two levels to operate on. This australian theoretical paper proposed using a third, higher state, as a way of securing a particular bit of information from gate errors while using CNOT gates.

This opened up the idea of having quantum systems that don't perform binary operations along qubits, but can operate in trinary or higher logic systems, which potentially allows it to perform functions that are not just unfeasible in classical, but impossible. Watch this space!

(#NB: My honours project in physics last year was on ultralow temperature electronics for noise reduction in quantum computing using the aforementioned QDs).

 

[mattj]

I am sure most people do not define benevolent as: standing idly while terrible (yet totally preventable) things happen to innocent people.

Are we debating what most people think about God, or are we debating what the Bible says about God? If it's what most people think about God, then yes, I'll be the first to admit that the "common view" of God is 100% inconsistent. However, the Biblical view of God (in light of eternity) is 100% consistent. If we're debating "what the general consensus on God is" then I have nothing to debate :x

 

[Thoughts]

I am sure most people do not define benevolent as: standing idly while terrible (yet totally preventable) things happen to innocent people.

This is because of free will maybe ? lol

 

[Obsessed]

This is because of free will maybe ? lol

What does preventing an earthquake from killing tens of thousands on Haitians have to do with free will?

Unless of course you are implying that the Earth itself has free will, and as a result god cannot interfere with the activity of its tectonic plates. However, I do not think you believe that. ;)

 

[Thoughts]

So explain to me why an earthquake is 'bad' =)

 

[Obsessed]

Well to be honest it is entirely subjective. However, the death of innocent people is generally regarded as a bad thing so perhaps you could humor me and act like you agree with most of the human population. If you decide to do that then perhaps you could answer my question. How would preventing a natural disaster from claiming the lives of thousands impact free will?