Stephen Fry - Why does God let children suffer?

[AnimalSpirits]

Did you read her entire conversion story?

I read until it became clear that she almost certainly wasn’t going to make a strong case for the existence of objective morality- it could well be that an objective morality requires a higher power, but I’m not inclined to grant it as a premise. If the premise is no good, the argument that follows isn’t all that interesting. Like that history chanel show about aliens and early humans- if ancient monuments were truly beyond the means of hullabaloo 4000+ years ago, then we have to consider alternate explanations. But since the argument for the premise is so weak, the rest of the story has no value.

 

[PRmerger]

I read until it became clear that she almost certainly wasn’t going to make a strong case for the existence of objective morality- it could well be that an objective morality requires a higher power, but I’m not inclined to grant it as a premise. If the premise is no good, the argument that follows isn’t all that interesting. Like that history chanel show about aliens and early humans- if ancient monuments were truly beyond the means of hullabaloo 4000+ years ago, then we have to consider alternate explanations. But since the argument for the premise is so weak, the rest of the story has no value.

I see.

Let’s say you’re in dialogue with an anti-vaccine fanatic.

You send him to a site that documents evidence for vaccine success.

He says he doesn’t find the arguments compelling. And he read it “until it became clear the site wasn’t going to make a strong case for the value of vaccinating your children.”

What would you say?

 

[AnimalSpirits]

And the problem is when someone doesn’t have a common set of assumptions.

All you can do, as a denier of objective morality, is say: you like turnips. I like potatoes. Who’s to say one is better?

Nobody. Although in practical terms there’s no real difference- if you say the divine wants the people to pray and go to church, and I say the divine wants us to acquire and burn the hearts of our neighbors, the point is moot unless the divine being(s) in question show up and tell us which is right. Even if two people that agree that morality is objective and that divine lawgivers make the objective rules, effective dispute resolution requires yet more agreement (or divine intervention).

Well, yeah. They’re objectively wrong about some things, but not everything.

I mean, we can agree that Shirley Phelps-Roper is objectively correct when she says: if you believe that gay sex is ok, then you believe it’s not a sin.

Or when she says that adultery is one of the ten commandments. She’s objectively correct, no?

Or when she calls her daughter, “Grace”. That’s her name, after all, right?

youtube.com/watch?v=qeqYm9DvCDo

These all seem valid to me, yes.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

I see.

Let’s say you’re in dialogue with an anti-vaccine fanatic.

You send him to a site that documents evidence for vaccine success.

He says he doesn’t find the arguments compelling. And he read it “until it became clear the site wasn’t going to make a strong case for the value of vaccinating your children.”

What would you say?

Not a comparable situation, as you did not send me a document or site that gives evidence for or makes arguments in favor of objective morality. She talks about struggling to undersrand where moral law comes from, how humans can understand it, and so on- but gives exactly zero reasons to believe that the phrase “objective moral law” should be considered meaningful in any sense.

If I sent a anti-vaxxer a site that begins with the premise that vaccines are good and have no side effects, then they’re objection would be wholly valid.

I’m rejecting her premise, but I’m not passing judgment on where she goes with it.

 

[PRmerger]

Nobody. Although in practical terms there’s no real difference- if you say the divine wants the people to pray and go to church, and I say the divine wants us to acquire and burn the hearts of our neighbors, the point is moot unless the divine being(s) in question show up and tell us which is right.

And that’s why we have a Church, AS, and Sacred Tradition.

These all seem valid to me, yes.

Excellent. So we are agreed that the WBC folks are objectively wrong in some things, but not everything.

 

[PRmerger]

Not a comparable situation, as you did not send me a document or site that gives evidence for or makes arguments in favor of objective morality. She talks about struggling to undersrand where moral law comes from, how humans can understand it, and so on- but gives exactly zero reasons to believe that the phrase “objective moral law” should be considered meaningful in any sense.

If I sent a anti-vaxxer a site that begins with the premise that vaccines are good and have no side effects, then they’re objection would be wholly valid.

The point is not the content of the arguments.

But rather passing judgement on the arguments after reading X number of minutes.

One cannot assess the evidence for vaccine efficacy after reading X number of minutes.
Similarly, one cannot assess the evidence for Libresco’s conversion after reading X number of minutes.

I’m rejecting her premise, but I’m not passing judgment on where she goes with it.

Of course.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

And that’s why we have a Church, AS, and Sacred Tradition.

Not really a solution- if you think the Vatican is the arbiter (or at least, the interpreter of the will of the arbiter), that doesn’t provide dispute resolution unless the person you disagree with thinks the same thing and the Vatican has given an authoritative statements on the matter. For the vast majority of disputes, you’ll find yourself without an agreed upon arbiter.

Excellent. So we are agreed that the WBC folks are objectively wrong in some things, but not everything.

I agree that we’re agreed.

 

[PRmerger]

Not really a solution- if you think the Vatican is the arbiter (or at least, the interpreter of the will of the arbiter), that doesn’t provide dispute resolution unless the person you disagree with thinks the same thing and the Vatican has given an authoritative statements on the matter. For the vast majority of disputes, you’ll find yourself without an agreed upon arbiter.

But we follow an intellectually integrated path.

God exists>>God sent his son>>Jesus started a Church>>the Church is the arbiter of truth, as it speaks for God.

Everyone else is simply offering something akin to: my preference is for butter pecan ice cream. You like chocolate swirl. Who am I to say one’s better than the other?

 

[PRmerger]

I agree that we’re agreed.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

The point is not the content of the arguments.

But rather passing judgement on the arguments after reading X number of minutes.

One cannot assess the evidence for vaccine efficacy after reading X number of minutes.
Similarly, one cannot assess the evidence for Libresco’s conversion after reading X number of minutes.

Of course.

I haven’t really passed judgement on the argument- it may or may not be perfectly valid given her premise. Imagine I linked to a similarly structured article, but which argued for the contrapositive. That is, it assumed no higher power and used that assumption to prove that there was no objective morality. What’s to be gained from entertaining that argument? Her piece made no effort to provide evidence for its premise, and I don’t accept the premise.

 

[PRmerger]

I haven’t really passed judgement on the argument- it may or may not be perfectly valid given her premise. Imagine I linked to a similarly structured article, but which argued for the contrapositive. That is, it assumed no higher power and used that assumption to prove that there was no objective morality. What’s to be gained from entertaining that argument? Her piece made no effort to provide evidence for its premise, and I don’t accept the premise.

That’s what I’m saying, AS. Don’t read just one thing she wrote.

Just like you wouldn’t expect an anti-vaccine fanatic to be moved after reading one pro-vaccine article.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

That’s what I’m saying, AS. Don’t read just one thing she wrote.

Just like you wouldn’t expect an anti-vaccine fanatic to be moved after reading one pro-vaccine article.

Ahhh, I missed what you were after. I don’t particularly see the need to go through one person’s whole experience. If I began with “read this book by Hitchens, then we can talk”, I wouldn’t expect that to lead to a fruitful discussion- even less so if I linked to a random blog. If you think she presents a persuasive and concise argument somewhere along the line, I’ll take a look.

But, to put it lightly, I’m not optimistic based on the linked article or her comments on it.

 

[faithsmind]

Actually, if we posit that the Truth about God is, among other things, such that all humans are in some way in deep accord with it, it is ultimately not possible that someone could teach the Truth about God and yet not be agreeable to the one who seeks the Truth about God.

I’m thinking that “deep accord with (truth)” does not necessarily mean that everyone has the ability to understand this deep accord. I for one, don’t fully understand truth or science, but I definitely believe there is a foundation for this in which to build off of.

It occured to me today that when Jesus was talking about bringing the sword, separating parents from children, children from parents etc., and that if anyone loves their family and friends more than Jesus, then such a person is not fit to follow Jesus – he might have also been referring to the sort of situations of attachment (even if that attachment is due to traumatic bonding) that a person may have to the particular person who teaches them about spiritual topics.
That for the sake of Jesus, one ought to cut any undue attachments to one’s worldly religious teachers (and do so by doing one’s best to follow Jesus).

I’m not sure the ultimate goal of your interpretation of this, here. Actually, I have no idea why you are even on a forum such as this or why you’d even waste your time contemplating one of Jesus teachings. Anyhow, I find it mostly unnecessary to the OP’S original question.

 

[ericc]

How they died isn’t a really a concern- the point is that the ailments that plague humanity predate the fall.

Are you saying that God should create beings that don’t die? Whether it is by sickness, natural calamities or by other predators? That is a ridiculous thing to create. If things don’t die and they just multiply, you won’t have room or resources eventually to support an endless growing population.

Well, no- just because not all viruses are intrinsically bad doesn’t mean that particular ones aren’t. Moreover, I object to the ones which make children suffer- lethal or otherwise.

I’ve been using smallpox in this manner- sure, not a huge problem today, but it ravaged humans for millennia. It’s nice for us that we don’t have to worry about, but too late for the millions of children that suffered and died as a result of this particular (supposed) creation of your god. I’d still say these things are intrinsically bad (from the human POV), but we’ve just found ways to mitigate them.

Bottom line is you have no idea whether the absence of any microorganism would cause any other problems elsewhere. Any knowledge gained is though accumulating prior knowledge. Knowledge to cure any disease doesn’t come on a plate with ribbons. You are suggesting that all sicknesses should come with pre-packed cures? Then how would a doctor learn? How would a cure come about? If scientists today create an artificial super lethal bug in the lab and the only cure is the smallpox virus, what would you say then? The same way cowpox was used to generate a vaccine , the smallpox virus is used to create a vaccine for the artificial lethal bug. This is conjecture but the point is we just don’t know whether something bad can be used for something good. You only see the bad in the world and that’s sad. There are millions who died from diseases in the past before a cure was found. I guess you would want to use that to shoot God too.

I don’t know how to create a best possible world and neither do you. So there is no need to ask why didn’t God create the world in a different way because you have no measuring yardstick what the best possible world is.

Who says that it is? It seems quite blindingly obvious that it isn’t. Has the Vatican stated this belief publicly somewhere?

I don’ t need Vatican approval to say this. You don’t believe God exist or he exists but imperfect. I believe he is perfect and created the best possible world. It is your POV vs mine. You justify your POV, I justify mine.

Well, yes. To return to the minefield example- your logic is basically “well, ya mines explode when they’re stepped on. Not god’s fault!” The fact that bad combinations of DNA exist is wholly the fault of your god, since he is the one that determined what DNA would look like and how different combinations would interact.

If the best possible world includes suffering, you have to accept that it maximises overall good. If DNA of a particular type is eliminated, then all possible good combinations with that DNA is also eliminated and it won’t be the best possible world because overall net good is not maximised. Basically throwing out the baby with the bath water.

This would be a separate argument that I’m not going to tackle right now- thus far, we’ve only taken aim at pieces of your gods creation that cause suffering in children entirely naturally.

I’m not arguing that your god is bad, just imperfect. Moreover, I haven’t objected to death, just suffering in children.

If your approach is that suffering must be eliminated, then it also mean you are aiming for a less than optimal world where overall good is not maximized. Then you can also attack God for not building the best possible world. You can’t have your cake and eat it. Since you don’t know how to create the best possible world, you are just an armchair critic accumulating all bad points and just finger pointing God for being “imperfect” when the accuser is in no position to judge what perfection is.

I’m not asking him for an explanation. Perhaps I could try, but I suspect he’d invoke his 5th amendment rights. Instead, I’m asking you, why this supposedly perfect being seems to create innocent people and then hoist suffering upon them.

Making babies requires 2 adults, male and female. God didn’t force the babies on to them. So why don’t you accuse the parents since they “created” the babies?

Ask yourself , why are you targeting God? If you hate God, just declare it upfront. There is no need to beat about the bush and question his method of how to create a world. If you don’t believe God exist but others do, then you are uncharitable trying to impair the believe of others by coming here to CAF where you know many of us are believers… You are not bringing anything positive to the table. What good does that bring to the world by your actions? Why attack an “imaginary” God? That can’t bring you happiness. But may cause unhappiness to someone else. So what you are doing is not maximizing good.

Even if you are sure that God doesn’t exist or he exist in an imperfect form, how would attacking God solve the problems you have brought up? It doesn’t change a thing. So you are not bringing any value to the table. You do not provide solutions, only complaints and criticisms.

Believe in God maximises our happiness/good for us. Even if you remain in your unbelief, you are not maximising anything, just stagnant. So in order to maximise the happiness/good in the world, you should therefore encourage even more belief in God for believers to maximise overall good/happiness. Attacking the belief of others is NOT maximising overall good /happiness. It diminishes.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

Are you saying that God should create beings that don’t die?

No, I’m saying it’s absurd to believe that suffering did not exist prior to human sinfulness.

Bottom line is you have no idea whether the absence of any microorganism would cause any other problems elsewhere. Any knowledge gained is though accumulating prior knowledge. Knowledge to cure any disease doesn’t come on a plate with ribbons. You are suggesting that all sicknesses should come with pre-packed cures? Then how would a doctor learn?

I hope this is obvious to you, but if there was no smallpox, there would be no need to cure small pox. If the world was plagued by insects that entered people’s brains and caused the maximum amount of pain, you could just as easily argue that god had to create said insects or else we wouldn’t be able to learn how to fight them.

I don’t know how to create a best possible world and neither do you. So there is no need to ask why didn’t God create the world in a different way because you have no measuring yardstick what the best possible world is.
I don’ t need Vatican approval to say this. You don’t believe God exist or he exists but imperfect. I believe he is perfect and created the best possible world. It is your POV vs mine. You justify your POV, I justify mine.

You talk about believing that your god created the best possible world, but then go on to say there’s no way to discern whether or not the world could have been better.

So I’ve got to ask what you’re basing your “best of all possible worlds” belief on. I know for a fact that it has not been endorsed by scripture or your church. If we cannot discern whether or not a better world was possible, and sources you recognize as divine do not support the view that this is the best possible world, then your claim is wholly baseless.

When the best you can to support your claim is to say that I can’t know 100% for sure that the world coul have been better, you aren’t arguing for your claim- you’re just saying “I think this and I’m right unless you prove me wrong.” I could just as easily claim this is the worst possible world and you couldn’t prove otherwise either.

If your approach is that suffering must be eliminated, then it also mean you are aiming for a less than optimal world where overall good is not maximized.

I have not claimed there would be no suffering in the best possible world

I have not claimed that suffering must be eliminated

Making babies requires 2 adults, male and female. God didn’t force the babies on to them. So why don’t you accuse the parents since they “created” the babies?

Among other things, I do not believe that all parents are all knowing, all powerful, and perfectly good. As such, I don’t see any problem with them being imperfect. Moreover, they don’t have the power to prevent all the suffering their child might go through- most parents would seek to prevent their 1 year old from suffering from diseases, to the greatest extent possible. If they could will bone cancer in children out of existence, I suspect they would- because they love their child and don’t want him or her to suffer needlessly.

Ask yourself , why are you targeting God? If you hate God, just declare it upfront. There is no need to beat about the bush and question his method of how to create a world. If you don’t believe God exist but others do, then you are uncharitable trying to impair the believe of others by coming here to CAF where you know many of us are believers…

I broadcast my affiliation and my former affiliation at the top of every post. I don’t hate your god any more than you hate Zeus.

You are not bringing anything positive to the table. What good does that bring to the world by your actions? Why attack an “imaginary” God? That can’t bring you happiness. But may cause unhappiness to someone else. So what you are doing is not maximizing good.

Even if you are sure that God doesn’t exist or he exist in an imperfect form, how would attacking God solve the problems you have brought up? It doesn’t change a thing. So you are not bringing any value to the table. You do not provide solutions, only complaints and criticisms.

It’s an argument from contradiction- work within the assumptions of a claim I believe to be false and show that the two don’t mesh.

Believe in God maximises our happiness/good for us. Even if you remain in your unbelief, you are not maximising anything, just stagnant. So in order to maximise the happiness/good in the world, you should therefore encourage even more belief in God for believers to maximise overall good/happiness. Attacking the belief of others is NOT maximising overall good /happiness. It diminishes.

The people on this forum and in this thread have chosen to be here, I presume because they enjoy discussing their beliefs as much as I enjoy discussing mine. I am not running into a church yelling that god is not real. If you find this discussion displeasing, you are by no means required to continue.

 

[Lucy107]

Perhaps what is taken to be offensive is that Catholics are… well… offering answers

It’s not offensive.

In case you haven’t noticed, there is quite a bit of dispute among Catholics themselves, and this is one of the first things that an outsider will notice.

While many Catholics like to tow the line “we’re all unified, any Catholic can speak on behalf of Catholicism”, the reality is that this makes for a very confusing picture of Catholicism.

The preferred option in our “culture" is that answers ought not exist – no fun in having those.

Ignorance, is – apparently – supposed to be “bliss;" not beatitudo, mind you; just the “settled for,” "not anything better available” mindless kind of “bliss.”

No. The contemporary inquirer faces a whole set of other issues.

The contemporary inquirer needs to deal with the conflicts among Catholics, and the inconsistency in their answers. And their sins.

As things stand, despite the image of simplicity, unity, and perfection that many Catholics appear to operate out of, the reality of day-to-day interactions with Catholics is much more confusing.

 

[Lucy107]

I find her arguments exceptionally uncompelling. She’s basically arguing that humans feel, quite strongly, that certain moral tenants ate objectively true, therefore objective morality must exist./QUOTE]
“It is immoral to believe something that is demoralizing” is another line of moral reasoning.

 

[Prodigal_40s]

Stephen Fry is like every atheist I’ve known, loud, preachy and insecure

 

[Lucy107]

No, I’m saying it’s absurd to believe that suffering did not exist prior to human sinfulness.

If suffering is due to being separated from God,
and sinning is an act of separating oneself from God,

then there can be no suffering without sinning.

Suffering is not inherent to the experience of poverty, hunger, disease, physical assault, natural catastrophes etc.

On its own, the experience of poverty, hunger, disease, physical assault, natural catastrophes etc. is neutral, it doesn’t mean anything.

(Ask a traditionalist Buddhist to explain the nature of suffering and they’ll tell you about the conditioned nature of suffering.)

 

[Lucy107]

Stephen Fry is like every atheist I’ve known, loud, preachy and insecure

Yes … and with only a shoddy knowledge of theology.