The situation with my existence has another wrinkle. You have evidence that something is talking to you in the form of this post. There are a few possible scenarios where I may not be human (brain in a vat and the like,) but the reasonable conclusion is that I am just some person on the internet. Therefore, even without any sort of detailed definition of me, you can reasonably conclude that you are talking to something that exists, and that thing is probably human. However, with God we don’t even have a forum post. Therefore, to avoid stupid arguments like “I define myself to be God, I exist, therefore God exists” we need a coherent definition or set of conceptions as a target in order for the question “Is it Rational to Believe God Exists?” to be meaningful in the first place.
No, you didn’t actually provide a rational concept that “captures” who you are, what you did was describe yourself by relating a few accidental features - where you live, your age, etc. what I am getting at is that your attempt at a “conception” could be viewed as a pragmatic construct that avoids the more sticky problem of solving a paradox - how a bag of chemicals (matter) can be said to ‘think’ (conceptualize, generalize, abstract, intend, signify or symbolize) in the first place.
So, you see, humans have a similar problem with regard to ourselves that you claim we have with regard to God.
You can defend whatever conception(s) of JapaneseKappa you want, the purpose of this thread is to see if JapaneseKappa’s existence as a rational being is rational. Accepting apparently contradictory accounts uncritically is not rational. As I said, having different conceptions of JapaneseKappa wouldn’t be a problem if they were obviously isomorphic to each other. The two accounts 1) “thinking” by conceptualizing, generalizing, abstraction, intention, signifying or symbolizing and 2) being a bag of chemicals are so obviously NOT isomorphic to each other - chemicals can’t think, signify or intend anything - that accepting this account of JapaneseKappa’s existence is irrational.
The problem is that “apparently contradictory” remains only apparent - in the real world - until we come across an example of something, in this case human beings in general, where we are compelled to face the difficult task of accounting for paradoxical accounts - in this case how chemicals could possibly think or intend anything.
Ditto with the God of the Old and New Testaments. We are faced with an apparent contradiction, like thinking chemicals, which can’t just be dismissed on the pretext that we don’t understand how to reconcile the two accounts. Time to roll up sleeves and get down to work, not take the “easy” or “elegant” ( read: “lazy”) way out merely because on the surface we are faced with a paradox. Time to dig a little deeper.
Maybe the “simple” answer is that we really don’t understand the nature of evil and are confusing human inconvenience with evil or conflating a symptom (suffering) or “accident” that often accompanies evil with the phenomenon itself. Hence, the inaccurate conclusion that God causing human suffering means, inevitably, that he is evil. Not necessarily so, however.
