If there were no God

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catholic1seeks said:
Saying that pain and suffering are part of the biological reality of which animals form part is different from saying animal life is equated to a life of pain and suffering. Animal life includes pain and suffering, but it is hardly defined by it.
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And if that were true … in what way would it invalidate all this pain and suffering as evidence of lack of goodness?
 
I understand your Q now.

Then lemme ask this first:

How do you propose we quantify what pain and suffering is enough to disprove God (in the sense of probability - “evidence”)?
 
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PickyPicky said:
all this pain and suffering as evidence of lack of goodness?
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What is pain and suffering? Why does it really hurt when it is merely a different set of impulses in the brain than let’s say, those of the visual cortex, or the pleasure centres? Why do we care? What is the lost reality, which would make this an offense to experience?
 
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Then we need to correct that.

When we speak about God, we do not use language in an univocal way — but an analogous way. So for example, when we say God is a Mind, we do not mean that God is intelligent in the same manner that humans are.
 
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Gorgias said:
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Sophia:
No that is not a “moral code”, it just a generic observation about the lack of absolutes in the field of ethics. There is nothing “moral” or “immoral” about it. It is strictly “amoral”.
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No… it’s the moral code that claims “there is no absolute moral code” – in other words, it’s the moral code that says “each does as he sees fit.” That’s a positive statement (and an absolute one, to boot!), and not just a bald head. 😉
Maybe someone will benefit from an addition. It is a bad idea to confuse “ethics” with “meta-ethics”. The expression “there is no absolute moral code” is a meta-ethical proposition.
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Ooh! Nice distinction! No difference there, though, unfortunately. Even if there were, it would still be an absolute statement about ethics, (which creates a self-referential paradox). 🤷‍♂️
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It’s a little tortuous to constantly type: ‘As far as I am concerned…’ whenever an atheist makes a statement on a Catholic forum. But you can be absolutely sure (as far as I am concerned…) that when someone says that there is no absolute moral code, you can mentally prefix that statement with the aforementioned clause.

Which makes it subjective.
 
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catholic1seeks said:
Then we need to correct that.

When we speak about God, we do not use language in an univocal way — but an analogous way. So for example, when we say God is a Mind, we do not mean that God is intelligent in the same manner that humans are.
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So when you say God is good, He is not good as we would understand it. If He is goodness itself, it’s goodness, Jim. But not as we know it.

Right. Got it.
 
And so on a merely human level, we more readily say that allowing or causing unpleasantness (in the form of pain or whatever) is not “good.”

But God is the ultimate foundation of all that is, including all realities that would allow for unpleasantness (e.g., pain), say biological evolution, for example. We can’t just consider God as one extra being or creature in the Universe. A lot of the objections against God (including his goodness) mistake God for just another hypothesis or explanation within the Universe, on par with competing scientific theories (for example). Rather, God is the Ultimate Reality – existence itself. That makes God so very, very different than anything of our daily experience.

It is through Divine Revelation (which is not against reason, but transcends it) that we better understand God’s goodness.

Christ on the cross is a good starting point.
 
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feed_me - Precise and to the point. All it needs is a thorough reflection on such as physical temporality, time, eternity, cause and effect, and existence, to come to the conclusion that there is ‘something’ that is acaused in nature, and not constrained by the ‘laws’ and ‘natures’ of ‘it’s’ creations. That this ‘acaused being’ is both outside of, and inside/supporting of/allowing/permitting, the realms and being of ‘His’ creations. The ‘Always was, Always is, and Always will be’.
 
catholic1seeks said:
How do you propose we quantify what pain and suffering is enough to disprove God (in the sense of probability - “evidence”)?
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If God is omnipotent and absolutely good, I would expect absolute goodness in all His works. So a good measure of pain and suffering would be, let me see, zero? Above zero would seem to show a lack of absolute goodness.
 
catholic1seeks said:
And so on a merely human level, we more readily say that allowing or causing unpleasantness (in the form of pain or whatever) is not “good.”

But God is the ultimate foundation of all that is, including all realities that would allow for unpleasantness (e.g., pain), say biological evolution, for example. We can’t just consider God as one extra being or creature in the Universe. A lot of the objections against God (including his goodness) mistake God for just another hypothesis or explanation within the Universe, on par with competing scientific theories (for example). Rather, God is the Ultimate Reality – existence itself. That makes God so very, very different than anything of our daily experience.

It is through Divine Revelation (which is not against reason, but transcends it) that we better understand God’s goodness.

Christ on the cross is a good starting point.
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That razor that the nice Mr. Occam uses now and then would come in hand here.
 
Aloysium said:
What is pain and suffering? Why does it really hurt when it is merely a different set of impulses in the brain than let’s say, those of the visual cortex, or the pleasure centres? Why do we care? What is the lost reality, which would make this an offense to experience?
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Dunno. That’s too deep for me. And probably too deep for the antelope as the lion rips its throat out.
 
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Ergo the classic conundrum: would a good god allow us free moral agency?
 
Vonsalza said:
Ergo the classic conundrum: would a good god allow us free moral agency?
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I don’t argue about free moral agency and the consequences thereof. I argue: would a good god create animal life that depends for its existence on killing other animal life?
 
I don’t see a compelling reason to think it can’t. Obviously your labeling carnivorous animals as “bad” on that basis seems a bit subjective, don’t you agree?
 
Don’t think I’m labelling carnivorous animals at all. I’m labelling as less than absolutely good the creator who fashioned a system that depends on painful killing in order to continue.
 
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