The atheists best argument?

[Ruqx]

And where we think our life’s really important.

That is not how the catholic church “behaves”. It establishes hospitals (etc…) to alleviates suffering here and now. So in the eyes of the church, this existence matters.

But God’s on the other side of the finish line. He’s aware that our life’s just a 5 second action. So why should one type of death really move Him around instead of another?

For the same reason that the disappointment of your child matters to you. When your child’s favorite toy breaks, you are aware that it does not matter a whole lot in the greater scheme of things, but for the child it does matter - very much. So as a good parent, you console the child, try to make his sorrow disappear. Because you love your child.

But in a sense you are right. Based upon the observation of God’s non-actions nothing that happens to us here and now matters to God. Whether we are healthy or sick, happy or desperate, God allows the chips to fall where they may. And the alleged once-in-a-blue-moon intervention (miracles to heal the terminally ill) make this indifference even worse. Why did God perform a miraculous recovery of my neighbor’s child and let mine die in horrible pain? Where is the “love” and “justice” in that?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Certainly there can be no prescriptive law without someone to make it. But the law need not be imposed from an external source. Laws can be agreed by those that will be subject to them.

With respect to the problem of evil, the ‘moral authority’ is the consensus opinion of people. Our societies agree that child abduction and abuse is evil. No external moral authority is needed.

This just begs the question of WHY “our societies” agree that “child abduction and abuse is evil.” Essentially, you are saying the “consensus opinion of people” in societies AGREE because the “consensus opinion of people” in those societies agree. That would be a completely tautological argument.

The question then might be asked, “Why does the consensus of opinion of people in those societies tend towards viewing child abduction and abuse as evil?” AND “Is that consensus of opinion correct?” “How can we know that for sure?”

If you ask five friends for advice on an issue, you won’t take the consensus of their opinions as correct merely because it is the consensus opinion, do you? OR do you? Is it correct merely because it is the consensus?

Argumentum ad populum is a fallacy, no?

 

[Tomdstone]

This just begs the question of WHY “our societies” agree that “child abduction and abuse is evil.”

Is child abduction always wrong? for example,was it wrong for the Pope to support the kidnapping of Edgar Mortara ?
jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11028-mortara-case

 

[Peter_Plato]

That is not how the catholic church “behaves”. It establishes hospitals (etc…) to alleviates suffering here and now. So in the eyes of the church, this existence matters.

For the same reason that the disappointment of your child matters to you. When your child’s favorite toy breaks, you are aware that it does not matter a whole lot in the greater scheme of things, but for the child it does matter - very much. So as a good parent, you console the child, try to make his sorrow disappear. Because you love your child.

But in a sense you are right. Based upon the observation of God’s non-actions nothing that happens to us here and now matters to God. Whether we are healthy or sick, happy or desperate, God allows the chips to fall where they may. And the alleged once-in-a-blue-moon intervention (miracles to heal the terminally ill) make this indifference even worse. Why did God perform a miraculous recovery of my neighbor’s child and let mine die in horrible pain? Where is the “love” and “justice” in that?

What is interesting here is how a virtue like, say, courage would be completely made meaningless by certainty. Someone shows courage in the face of possible loss precisely because he faces the possible loss of everything. It is the uncertainty itself which gives the virtue any value at all, no?

Similarly, with love. If love is assured or certain that it will be requited, it wouldn’t require any virtue to actually love since it would be indistinguishable from investing in an absolutely guaranteed return, and thus indistinguishable from say, calculated greed or selfishness.

The hiddenness of God provides a backdrop of uncertainty which is the perfect environment within which life takes on a dramatic moral gravitas and within which we humans can realize that life is, indeed, serious business. We may not like that state very much and recoil from it, but isn’t it precisely our lack of virtuousness which causes us to do that?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Is child abduction always wrong? for example,was it wrong for the Pope to support the kidnapping of Edgar Mortara ?
jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11028-mortara-case

Interesting question. I don’t know all of the particulars of the case, but I can tell you with certainty I wouldn’t resort to a “consensus of the people” to decide whether it was right or wrong. The case would be decided, if it can be at all, based upon sound moral thinking, not upon ad populum fallacies.

I am still not sure what your point is here except to bash the Church or the Papacy and, very likely, your example is rung up based upon a misunderstanding of what papal infallibility entails. Still, very much off-topic. Start a new thread.

 

[truetofaith]

God could have ended all evil right at the start by destroying Adam & Eve…but in His infinite mercy, God gave them & all of us a chance to change & gain heaven!

 

[Nixbits]

This just begs the question of WHY “our societies” agree that “child abduction and abuse is evil.” Essentially, you are saying the “consensus opinion of people” in societies AGREE because the “consensus opinion of people” in those societies agree. That would be a completely tautological argument.

I agree that such a statement is a pointless tautology. Fortunately I didn’t make such a statement. I didn’t suggest an explanation of why.

The question then might be asked, “Why does the consensus of opinion of people in those societies tend towards viewing child abduction and abuse as evil?” AND “Is that consensus of opinion correct?” “How can we know that for sure?”

I think the consensus is reached on the basis of promoting the greatest well-being and the doing the least harm. Sometimes, on less clear cut issues, the consensus might not be ‘correct’ (i.e. is not the optimum approach to achieve the desired aim). But when it comes to child abduction and abuse, there is plenty of actual evidence of the harm such behaviour does to the child and society as a whole.

If you ask five friends for advice on an issue, you won’t take the consensus of their opinions as correct merely because it is the consensus opinion, do you? OR do you? Is it correct merely because it is the consensus?

No, not merely because it’s the consensus. But if the consensus of a society agrees on a law, you either accept that consensus, or leave the society, or stay and run the risk of sanctions if you disobey.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

I’m not an atheist, but to me, the strongest argument for atheism is the problem of “divine hidden-ness.”

If God loves us and wants an intimate personal relationship with us, as Christians say, where is he? Why does he play hard to get? Why have I never met two people who understand God the same way?

Imagine if everyone ran around saying they had a deep intimate relationship with “Jim.” Except, none of them agreed on precisely who Jim was, where he lived, his age, what he looked like, what he wanted, etc. Most of the people admit to never having seen Jim. Of the people who claim to have seen Jim, their claims contradict, and an uncomfortable number of them are frauds, charlatans, sexual deviants, abusers, and crooks.

If God cares about the truth so much, why doesn’t he unambiguously reveal himself to all of humanity?

“Cuz free will!!!” is the response right? As if knowledge can destroy freedom. If that were the case, God himself, if omniscient, would be utterly un-free. Knowledge and freedom cannot be opposed, then, can they?

To me, I think he stays hidden because we like to learn the hard way as a species. We love to struggle, fail, and overcome. We also like to learn things ourselves. But, then again, I don’t suppose failure is synonymous with endless torture in a realm of demons. I also don’t suppose being a member of a different religious tradition or being morally imperfect are forms of ultimate failure either.

The hidden-ness problem is a problem for a God who says “you must find, me, only me…but I’ll leave you blind, almost helpless, and under the power of frauds, sycophants, and charlatans. And if you fail, I’ll torture you forever. Oh…but I’m perfectly good.” I think this argument suggests that God doesn’t exist.

 

[Nixbits]

I do precisely because living a life as if it and all other lives have eternal value, far, far exceeds the alternative of living as if they don’t. ALL other options devalue life in some way and that devaluation has repercussions in terms of what compromises you will accept that will cheapen every life.

I’m struggling to understand your point of view here. Could you please give an example of how believing that lives do not have an eternal value, but only the value we put on them during our physical lives, devalues those lives and what sort of compromises might be accepted that cheapen every life?

 

[Ruqx]

What you said here has nothing to do with the post I made.

What is interesting here is how a virtue like, say, courage would be completely made meaningless by certainty. Someone shows courage in the face of possible loss precisely because he faces the possible loss of everything. It is the uncertainty itself which gives the virtue any value at all, no?

Who says that courage is a “virtue”? I would prefer certain peace over an uncertain conflict. There is a wise German phrase: “Aus einer not eine tugend machen”, that is to change the undesirability of something negative by declaring it a “virtue”. A simple way to translate it would be: “Sour grapes!”

Similarly, with love. If love is assured or certain that it will be requited, it wouldn’t require any virtue to actually love since it would be indistinguishable from investing in an absolutely guaranteed return, and thus indistinguishable from say, calculated greed or selfishness.

I don’t know what kind of “love” are you talking about? Eros, philia, storge, or agape? The real love is an emotion. If it is not reciprocated, so be it. When I go to a doctor for help, I am very certain that he will do his best to help me. That certainty does not make his help less valuable.

The hiddenness of God provides a backdrop of uncertainty which is the perfect environment within which life takes on a dramatic moral gravitas and within which we humans can realize that life is, indeed, serious business. We may not like that state very much and recoil from it, but isn’t it precisely our lack of virtuousness which causes us to do that?

That is nonsense. If God’s existence would a certainty (along with the requirements to get to heaven) then we would have true freedom to choose God or not.

 

[Ruqx]

God could have ended all evil right at the start by destroying Adam & Eve…but in His infinite mercy, God gave them & all of us a chance to change & gain heaven!

God could have prevented all the “evil” by choosing to create John and Mary (instead of Adam and Eve), who would have resisted the temptation, and thus there would be no “original sin”, and we could still live in the Garden. What would be wrong with that?

Of course the optimal solution would have been NOT to place that “tree” into the Garden in the first place. A loving and caring parent does not place an uncovered live socket into the child’s room along with some wires, and does not “command” the child to avoid pushing the wire into the outlet… a real loving parent prevents a fatal action.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I’m struggling to understand your point of view here. Could you please give an example of how believing that lives do not have an eternal value, but only the value we put on them during our physical lives, devalues those lives and what sort of compromises might be accepted that cheapen every life?

Either persons have value in themselves or they don’t. If their value is conditional upon time, circumstance, benefit or some other non-eternal (i.e., a non self-existing reality) then the value of persons is conditional or accidental since it is determined by temporal and changing reality, (i.e., on something other than the self-existent reality that grounds the value of the person as self.)

If love is unconditional (and it is because love seeks the good of the one loved for its own sake and not for any derived benefit,) then love has to be grounded in what is unconditional to even be possible – eternal being or existence itself (aka God.)

So, in effect, by abdicating the eternality of existence itself and trading it for a lesser foundation for morality we are essentially devaluing others and ourselves by grounding the basis for morality upon something less than what properly establishes the inherent value of persons.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

A lot of what atheists say does not really make sense. I know in my heart there is a God.

But the atheists best argument, IMO, and the one that has at times made me despair of a God existing at all is this: The problem of evil. And I don’t mean everyday evil like illness,death, heartback, confusion etc, but more like the spectacular kind, such as child abductions, where children/people are held in basements and abused for years.

It seems God isn’t present in their lives and indeed did not try to intervene to give them a normal, reasonable life.

The fact that such extraodinary suffering and sorrow exists, makes my own problems seem paltry and perhaps makes me want to be a little bit kinder in the world.

Still though. Child sexual abuse/abduction seems one of the worst things to me. I know free will and all that… but stilll.

Has anyone ever felt my thoughts? I mean… I am a Catholic to the core… but stuff like this… makes me question… or really question at times.

It seems the evil of such a thing ( think Jacob Wetterling) far out weighs the good. I just don’t know sometimes… it’s like I wish God to be real… but the suffering of others makes and has made me question it…

There must be evil in this world because it is not a perfect world.

Jesus made himself an example of undeserved evil. He could have used his miraculous powers to defeat those who opposed him. In fact, he did. Dying on the cross was his miracle. Whatever anyone suffers can hardly compare with the humiliation and suffering Jesus volunteered to experience for our redemption, so as to undo the fatal flaw of our first parents. But Jesus triumphed, and I cannot help but believe that those who suffer in this life will be rewarded with some kind of glory in the next one.

The error of atheism is that it assumes there is no next life where we might recoup our loses in this one. With that assumption, you can see why they rage against the Christian God.

Fom the purely logical point of view, suffering is no argument against the existence of God so much as an argument for the existence of Satan.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

God could have prevented all the “evil” by choosing to create John and Mary (instead of Adam and Eve), who would have resisted the temptation, and thus there would be no “original sin”, and we could still live in the Garden. What would be wrong with that?

Of course the optimal solution would have been NOT to place that “tree” into the Garden in the first place. A loving and caring parent does not place an uncovered live socket into the child’s room along with some wires, and does not “command” the child to avoid pushing the wire into the outlet… a real loving parent prevents a fatal action.

Parents cannot prevent fatal actions. They can explain why some actions can be fatal, but a child who is obedient will be safe, whereas a child who is disobedient will not.

By your argument, God should prevent us from having the power to choose between good actions and bad ones. But every person’s childhood is a training period for learning about sin and virtue. The only way to do otherwise is to surround the child with so many antiseptic conditions for living that the child never makes a mistake, never gets in trouble, never meets a difficult challenge, never overcomes adversity because these thing never happen to him either as a child or as an adult. This is what utopian socialists want … complete control over us from cradle to grave. Look at what socialism ends up doing in every country in the world … bringing economic mayhem and spiritual misery.

 

[Ruqx]

Parents cannot prevent fatal actions. They can explain why some actions can be fatal, but a child who is obedient will be safe, whereas a child who is disobedient will not.

I don’t know about you, but went much further than that. I did not place a glass of acid within easy reach of my kid, and did not explain him what would happen if he drank it. I did not place a loaded gun in his hand even with the explanation what would happen if he pulled a trigger. I did not allow him to go too close to the abyss, I prevented him from getting too close. In other words, I protected him as much as I could.

Because I LOVED him. Being a non-omnipotent parent that is all I could do.

By your argument, God should prevent us from having the power to choose between good actions and bad ones.

Wrong. My argument is totally different. If God really “loved” us, he would have created everyone directly into heaven. There is no point of this “vale of tears”.

 

[Tomdstone]

By your argument, God should prevent us from having the power to choose between good actions and bad ones.

When you are in heaven, do you have the power to commit a mortal sin or to do bad?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Wrong. My argument is totally different. If God really “loved” us, he would have created everyone directly into heaven. There is no point of this “vale of tears”.

And by your logic he would have forced them to stay there.

Robots.

Heavenly Socialism redux.

 

[Ruqx]

And by your logic he would have forced them to stay there.

Why would there be a need for a “force”? Heaven is supposed to be eternal bliss, basking in the outpouring of God’s love. There will be no desire to be anywhere else.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I don’t know about you, but went much further than that. I did not place a glass of acid within easy reach of my kid, and did not explain him what would happen if he drank it. I did not place a loaded gun in his hand even with the explanation what would happen if he pulled a trigger. I did not allow him to go too close to the abyss, I prevented him from getting too close. In other words, I protected him as much as I could.

Because I LOVED him. Being a non-omnipotent parent that is all I could do.

At what point does “protective parent” become “overprotective parent?”

If all you did was protect your child from all those dangers then you have only partially fulfilled your responsibilities as parent to that child. A complete parent recognizes that their responsibility is to form autonomous adults and competent moral agents who are able to make good moral choices, i.e., to curb evil and not merely avoid the fallout from it.

There are parents who teach their children to use and respect guns properly. Merely because you kept your child away from guns does not mean you have completed your child’s formation. Sure, you may have protected them, but they would have no clue with regard to how to properly deal with dangerous situations if all you did was keep them away from all such situations.

Wrong. My argument is totally different. If God really “loved” us, he would have created everyone directly into heaven. There is no point of this “vale of tears”.

As far as you know.

If all you did was protect your children from morally challenging situations, then what you have formed are adults who don’t know how to successfully deal with morally challenging situations.

Perhaps this was the point of the “tree of knowledge.” God completely left it up to the first humans to decide to what degree they would require further formation in dealing with moral evil. If they simply said, “Meh, not interested in knowing about evil,” God would have responded with, “Okay, you are good to go.” But since they wanted first hand experience, God said, “Okay, but the learning curve will be steep and there will be tears.”

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Why would there be a need for a “force”? Heaven is supposed to be eternal bliss, basking in the outpouring of God’s love. There will be no desire to be anywhere else.

Then how did so many angels get thrust into hell by Michael the Archangel?