God created evil

[Bradski]

How is it that the manufacturer can make it up to all the victims in a way that makes this heinous act equivalent to a scrape on the knee?

They can’t.

But if they could, it would be classed as mitigating circumstances when it came to sentencing. They would still be found guilty

If you steal someone’s wallet and then later give them a few minion dollars to make up for it ( not that there’s a comparison with want you are thinking; I’m just using an example), then you are still guilty of theft.

 

[PRmerger]

They can’t.

And in this hypothetical what is the alternative to not having -]chainsaws/-] free will? How would these creatures live in this world without chainsaws?

 

[PRmerger]

But if they could, it would be classed as mitigating circumstances when it came to sentencing. They would still be found guilty

Sure.

 

[Bradski]

/-] free will? How would these creatures live in this world without chainsaws?

I’m not sure what you’re asking here. Could people live without chainsaws in my hypothetical world? Well, yes I guess. But the chainsaw is just the implement. It could be a hammer or a knife.

Or is it free will you’re asking about? In which case, no they can’t live without it.

 

[PRmerger]

I’m not sure what you’re asking here. Could people live without chainsaws in my hypothetical world? Well, yes I guess. But the chainsaw is just the implement. It could be a hammer or a knife.

Or is it free will you’re asking about? In which case, no they can’t live without it.

Well, chainsaws = free will in your hypothetical, no? Did you not say that? :yup:

So how is it that people in this hypothetical would live without chainsaws (free will)?

 

[Bradski]

/-] free will? How would these creatures live in this world without chainsaws?

I’m not sure what you’re asking here. Could people live without chainsaws in my hypothetical world? Well, yes I guess. But the chainsaw is just the implement. It could be a hammer or a knife.

Or is it free will you’re asking about? In which case, no they can’t live without it.

Edit: Was reading your last post on my phone and the crossing out of the word ‘chainsaw’ wasn’t apparent. So you must mean ‘what is the alternative to not having free will?’

Well, none. I thought that had been agreed by all and sundry (despite my personal jury still deliberating).

Are you now agreeing to what I’ve said? Are you saying, in effect: ‘Yes, I agree with you, but what is the alternative?’

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Hi, Gary,

If we could just go back a few pages…I’d like to get some clarification, if you don’t mind.

Are you saying, regarding the WBC/Fred Phelps that you are opposed to their beliefs, but that you don’t think my way of opposing them (“preaching” to them) is the right way to do this? Better to oppose them by simple action?

Is that your position?

Good Evening PR: I am not opposed to anyone’s beliefs, but this doesn’t mean that I share their beliefs. As for the late Rev Phelps, I do not share his beliefs. As for how you would deal with him if you met him, your ways are your ways. It’s not up to me to change your ways or to say that they are wrong. I don’t have an issue with your ways either. They are simply not my ways.

Your friend,
Gary

 

[PRmerger]

Are you now agreeing to what I’ve said? Are you saying, in effect: ‘Yes, I agree with you, but what is the alternative?’

I am saying that I agree with you that in your hypothetical there would be guilt assigned to the manufacturer of the chainsaws.

But I am trying to get you to see that your hypothetical cannot be extrapolated to this conclusion: therefore God is guilty of creating evil.

That would be a nonsequitur.

Let me give a parallel.

Let’s say I posit this scenario, borrowing heavily from CS Lewis:
There are some dwarves who are being offered flowers, but they insist that it is actually manure that they are being offered. Despite all the evidence (“don’t you smell the bouquet!” “feel the petals! so soft!”) they are adamantine: nope, it’s sh*t you are giving me.

If you agree: yes, these dwarves are being recusant to evidence and simply want to stand by in their ignorance…

it wouldn’t necessarily conclude to: therefore atheists are like these dwarves and despite being shown evidence of God’s existence, they continue to look at it as sh*t.

One doesn’t necessarily follow from the other, right?

 

[PRmerger]

Good Evening PR: I am not opposed to anyone’s beliefs, but this doesn’t mean that I share their beliefs. As for the late Rev Phelps, I do not share his beliefs. As for how you would deal with him if you met him, your ways are your ways. It’s not up to me to change your ways or to say that they are wrong. I don’t have an issue with your ways either. They are simply not my ways.

Your friend,
Gary

But I don’t understand, Gary. Why did you need to “deal with” his beliefs at all?

If he is simply professing something akin to “Turnips are the best vegetable!” and you believe, “Well, no, carrots are the best vegetable!”, then it would seem curious for you to have to “deal with” that at all, no?

However, if one has to “deal with” his beliefs, it would appear that you oppose them, no?

 

[Bradski]

I am saying that I agree with you that in your hypothetical there would be guilt assigned to the manufacturer of the chainsaws.

But I am trying to get you to see that your hypothetical cannot be extrapolated to this conclusion: therefore God is guilty of creating evil.

That would be a nonsequitur.

We haven’t got anywhere near saying that God is guilty of anything. What we have agreed is that if a person (not God) creates something that he knows as a fact will be used for evil, then he shares the responsibility for what happens. He certainly does not cause it to happen and he certainly does not, as you say above, ‘create’ the evil that occurs. He is not even guilty of that offence.

But acting with full knowledge of what will occur, he bears some responsibility for it.

Now you have said that accusing God of creating evil would be a non-sequitur. That’s because you believe that it is literally impossible. I haven’t gone there because of that (it would be exceptionally difficult for me to mount any argument that could come anywhere close to being accepted) and also because I think there’s a reasonable argument that He didn’t anyway.

However, for all the reasons that I have given and the agreements that have been made (some very reluctantly indeed) I have no other conclusion other than God does indeed bear some responsibility for evil.

If there is an argument to be made that God somehow makes up for this by granting everlasting life versus the ‘scraped knee’ or that it is simply the way He wishes the world to be to ensure we can actually use free as He would like us to or even ‘it cannot be any other way’, then that, as far as I am concerned, is another matter for another thread. Maybe entitled ‘Mitigating Circumstances concerning God and His responsibility for the Occurrence of Evil Acts’.

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

But I don’t understand, Gary. Why did you need to “deal with” his beliefs at all?

If he is simply professing something akin to “Turnips are the best vegetable!” and you believe, “Well, no, carrots are the best vegetable!”, then it would seem curious for you to have to “deal with” that at all, no?

However, if one has to “deal with” his beliefs, it would appear that you oppose them, no?

Hi PR: I didn’t address his beliefs or deal with them. I simply took part in a coordinated process whereby we made him and his group unable to disrupt a funeral and cause further suffering for a bereaved family. We took action without engaging his ideas. I don’t care much what his ideas were so long as he didn’t cause more suffering for others.

Thank you
Gary

 

[PRmerger]

Hi PR: I didn’t address his beliefs or deal with them. I simply took part in a coordinated process whereby we made him and his group unable to disrupt a funeral and cause further suffering for a bereaved family. We took action without engaging his ideas. I don’t care much what his ideas were so long as he didn’t cause more suffering for others.

Thank you
Gary

Bradski referenced a BBC documentary by Louis Theroux on the WBC which I watched. I also watched the sequel in which he returns after 4 years to catch up with the Phelps family, in light of the defection of several of their members–their daughters, to be specific.

Theroux writes, “But what I hadn’t expected was that the Phelpses felt obliged to pretend to be pleased their daughters had left.”

I feel a bit like Theroux here, listening to you act as if you have no problem with “his [Phelps’] ideas”, while you, curiously,* protest* his ideas.

While stating here, with presumably a straight face, that you *weren’t *protesting his ideas.

Theroux adds: “the Phelps parents did their best to stick to the script and express satisfaction. But it was all rather forced and unconvincing and a bit sad.”

Indeed.

I am quite certain that you do indeed care very much what Phelps’ ideas are, because you are good people. Any person without a warped moral compass cares very much what Phelps’ ideas are.

And I am quite certain you do indeed care very much what Phelps’ ideas are, else you would not have been there preaching a sermon with your actions.

'nuff said about that. That you are doing your very best to profess here that you don’t care at all what he believes is curious.

But I suppose it gets you out of my “gotcha” point which would be, were you to acknowledge that Phelps’ ideas are reprehensible: we all have ideas about what is right and wrong, and all of us with a conscience feel obligated to admonish those who are wrong.

That’s what you were doing.

Otherwise, when the WBC came to town to profess their personal tastes, it would be akin to your going down to meet them to tell them, “You like turnips? Interesting. I like carrots.”

And why would anyone take the trouble to do that?

 

[PRmerger]

We haven’t got anywhere near saying that God is guilty of anything. What we have agreed is that if a person (not God) creates something that he knows as a fact will be used for evil, then he shares the responsibility for what happens. He certainly does not cause it to happen and he certainly does not, as you say above, ‘create’ the evil that occurs. He is not even guilty of that offence.

But acting with full knowledge of what will occur, he bears some responsibility for it.

Now you have said that accusing God of creating evil would be a non-sequitur. That’s because you believe that it is literally impossible.

No. It’s a nonsequitur because the hypothetical doesn’t extrapolate to God.

The chainsaws are, as you say, our “free will”.

Yet there is no way to imagine a hypothetical without these chainsaws.

How can we apply this to God, then, if there is no equivalent?

What is it that you would have God do, in creating us with no free will? What would that look like to you?

 

[Bradski]

Yet there is no way to imagine a hypothetical without these chainsaws.

What is it that you would have God do, in creating us with no free will? What would that look like to you?

I’m not saying that He should create us without free will. I haven’t ever argued that point. In actuality,* the fact that we do have free will* is the main plank of my argument (I think that Amandil has finally grasped this because he is reduced to arguing that if we choose evil, then it wasn’t free will to start with. I might actually try a variation on this tonight: I’ll bet my son twenty bucks that the Roosters get up against the Mariners and if they lose I’ll tell him it’s not a bet unless they win).

I want free will. I need free will (starting to sound a little like Jack here). I can’t make those choices that God wants me to make without it. This will sound a little odd, but God needs to make sure that we have it.

But there is a price to pay. If He wants us to have it then He has to accept some responsibility for the choices we make. Well, in reality it means that some people like me are going to say:

‘If there is a God and He has given us free will and He knows what choices we make, then it is undeniably true that He must accept some responsibility for the results of those choices’.

I doubt is anyone is going to push back their chair, gaze thoughtfully into the distance and think: Hmmm, maybe Bradski’s got something here. But I’m gad I got that in before the thread closed.

 

[Bradski]

What would that look like to you?

In passing, I’m not sure I like the idea that we may not have it. I like that I feel that I can make my own choices.

But I am absolutely certain that I will never know and more than a little unsure as to whether I’ll be able to make my mind up about it either.

 

[Bahman]

A Perfect Being can do anything that is logically possible.

Thus, it is quite within the realms of reason and logic that a Perfect Being can create an imperfect creature.

There is no dichotomy whatsoever in this.

Creation of imperfect being is a imperfect action knowing the outcome.

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Bradski referenced a BBC documentary by Louis Theroux on the WBC which I watched. I also watched the sequel in which he returns after 4 years to catch up with the Phelps family, in light of the defection of several of their members–their daughters, to be specific.

Theroux writes, “But what I hadn’t expected was that the Phelpses felt obliged to pretend to be pleased their daughters had left.”

I feel a bit like Theroux here, listening to you act as if you have no problem with “his [Phelps’] ideas”, while you, curiously,* protest* his ideas.

While stating here, with presumably a straight face, that you *weren’t *protesting his ideas.

Theroux adds: “the Phelps parents did their best to stick to the script and express satisfaction. But it was all rather forced and unconvincing and a bit sad.”

Indeed.

I am quite certain that you do indeed care very much what Phelps’ ideas are, because you are good people. Any person without a warped moral compass cares very much what Phelps’ ideas are.

And I am quite certain you do indeed care very much what Phelps’ ideas are, else you would not have been there preaching a sermon with your actions.

'nuff said about that. That you are doing your very best to profess here that you don’t care at all what he believes is curious.

But I suppose it gets you out of my “gotcha” point which would be, were you to acknowledge that Phelps’ ideas are reprehensible: we all have ideas about what is right and wrong, and all of us with a conscience feel obligated to admonish those who are wrong.

That’s what you were doing.

Otherwise, when the WBC came to town to profess their personal tastes, it would be akin to your going down to meet them to tell them, “You like turnips? Interesting. I like carrots.”

And why would anyone take the trouble to do that?

Hi PR: I hope all is well today. What I am saying is that there are a lot of things that people believe in this world that I don’t agree with or believe in. I run into that a lot on this forum as well, but rather than try and change anyone’s minds, I simply share my ideas. I offer an alternative view that people are free to consider or to ignore.

From time to time, a person’s ideas cause them to do harm to others or to cause pain for others. To quietly intervene is simply positive action standing down negative action. It’s not an easy thing to change a persons thinking, but it’s incumbent to set an example with our actions. It is not a challenge to the ideas of other people, but rather to provide an example of another way people can act.

But you can call it protest if you like. I don’t know of many people who change their minds over a sign someone is carrying or over what someone says, but I do see people try to imitate examples they see from time to time.

Your friend,
Gary

 

[tonyrey]

In passing, I’m not sure I like the idea that we may not have it. I like that I feel that I can make my own choices.

But I am absolutely certain that I will never know and more than a little unsure as to whether I’ll be able to make my mind up about it either.

You’re assuming you have a mind to make up!

 

[PRmerger]

Hi PR: I hope all is well today. What I am saying is that there are a lot of things that people believe in this world that I don’t agree with or believe in.

Egg-zactly! My point is that you do believe that some people are wrong. And that you are right.

That’s what it means when you say, “I don’t agree with or believe in [what someone else believes in]”

I run into that a lot on this forum as well, but rather than try and change anyone’s minds, I simply share my ideas. I offer an alternative view that people are free to consider or to ignore.

From time to time, a person’s ideas cause them to do harm to others or to cause pain for others. To quietly intervene is simply positive action standing down negative action. It’s not an easy thing to change a persons thinking, but it’s incumbent to set an example with our actions. It is not a challenge to the ideas of other people, but rather to provide an example of another way people can act.

Sure.

There are many ways to protest someone’s wrong ideations.

It appears to me that you have some things a bit backwards.

You appear, in pridian posts, to be saying, “There is no right or wrong belief” and then you also appear to be saying, “There is a right way to intervene (i.e: to “quietly intervene” rather than “preaching”)”

So your position seems to be: no right or wrong morals, but yet I get to say there is a right and wrong way to handle differences.

My position is: there are indeed right and wrong morals, but there’s lots of different ways to handle these differences.

 

[PRmerger]

Creation of imperfect being is a imperfect action knowing the outcome.

Not if the choice of the outcome isn’t the choice of the Perfect Being, but is rather CONTRARY to His Will.