The atheists best argument?

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PumpkinCookie said:
  1. So God is not ultimately responsible for evil…or good, right?
  2. If abortion is a contract-killing of a baby, the mother and doctor deserve to be punished.
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Are you talking about a Catholic point of view?
If so, what does “deserve” mean? Are you talking about “culpability”?
The killing of an innocent person is grave matter. Murder cries out for justice.
Culpability has factors attached to it in individual circumstances.
So you are making assumptions as to the culpability of the mother. Doctor not so much.
If God would send the woman and doctor to hell and the Catholic Church would impose excommunication,
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You are making an assumption, especially in the case of the mother. The Church does not make assumptions in regard to the state of a person’s soul.
why would secular law let them get off “scot-free?” It would be a greater evil to let such a crime go unpunished.
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Laws should be just. Justice protects the rights and dignity of every person, starting with the defenseless child. Would it serve justice to punish the mother? In many/most cases, probably not.
Laws should serve morality and justice.
The first question might be, what objective standards of morality are you using?
That is a question that goes unanswered.
NOTE: I do not believe the above two statements. I am reflecting on the implications of the positions presented by tonyrey and others.
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Your implications are more assumptions.
Pardon me while I gently observe again that you do not understand what the Catholic Church teaches. You are debating with a straw man.
 
Peter_Plato said:
It would appear that an omnimalevolent being would have to permit some good in order to allow evil to continue to exist precisely because evil is parasitic on the good.

Notice, that that isn’t true of the omnibenevolent God who only permits evil to exist because of the possibility of redemption of those free agent beings who have chosen to do evil. At some point the omnibenevolence of God will determine that evil will be eradicated because the tradeoff of permitting evil to exist will reach a certain point – when the free agent chooses evil irrevocably – at which time it is no longer necessary to permit the evil to infect the host because at that point there is no longer hope for the host to be redeemed and become good. Evil will run its course and destroy the host and malevolence in each instance will reach its logical terminus in each host until all evil is completely eradicated. Evil cannot and will not exist eternally, only temporarily.

Omnimalevolence is impossible because good has to exist to provide a host for the evil. So, being all-evil (omnimalevolence) is not possible in the sense that being all-good (omnibenevolence) is. It is ontologically self-defeating as a possibility.
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👍 Irrefutable!
 
goout said:
Laws should be just. Justice protects the rights and dignity of every person, starting with the defenseless child. Would it serve justice to punish the mother? In many/most cases, probably not. .
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Would it serve justice to punish a wife who contracts to murder her husband?
 
PumpkinCookie said:
  1. If abortion is a contract-killing of a baby, the mother and doctor deserve to be punished.
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Yes, I think so. If a woman deserves to be punished for the contract killing of her husband, then, she deserves to be punished for the contract killing of her child.
 
Tomdstone said:
Yes, I think so. If a woman deserves to be punished for the contract killing of her husband, then, she deserves to be punished for the contract killing of her child.
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What do you mean by “deserves”? And are you speaking about moral or civil law, since they are not always of the same mind? Which?
Can you see the possibility of any nuance between the two situations, as far as culpability and punishment are concerned?

Grave matter: both take an innocent life.
Apparently we agree on that.
 
goout said:
Are you talking about a Catholic point of view?
If so, what does “deserve” mean? Are you talking about “culpability”?
The killing of an innocent person is grave matter. Murder cries out for justice.
Culpability has factors attached to it in individual circumstances.
So you are making assumptions as to the culpability of the mother. Doctor not so much.

You are making an assumption, especially in the case of the mother. The Church does not make assumptions in regard to the state of a person’s soul.

Laws should be just. Justice protects the rights and dignity of every person, starting with the defenseless child. Would it serve justice to punish the mother? In many/most cases, probably not.
Laws should serve morality and justice.
The first question might be, what objective standards of morality are you using?
That is a question that goes unanswered.

Your implications are more assumptions.
Pardon me while I gently observe again that you do not understand what the Catholic Church teaches. You are debating with a straw man.
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OK I’m bored now. I’m not interested in discussing what you think the Church really teaches. I’ve had enough, it’s all gibberish to me anyway. See the thread “The confusion of Catholicism” in this very forum for a tiresome and detailed discussion. There is no consistent “Church teaching.” All we have are opinions about it from various quarters.

Anyone can google and see the current version of the RCC teaches abortion is a mortal sin. It also teaches that unrepentant mortal sin results in a person going directly and immediately to hell forever. Apparently God thinks this “serves justice” so why wouldn’t some jail time?

If you really want to discuss the relationship between morality, law, and nature I’d be happy to do that. Start a new thread. That’s interesting and fruitful: this is not.
 
PumpkinCookie said:
OK I’m bored now. I’m not interested in discussing what you think the Church really teaches. I’ve had enough, it’s all gibberish to me anyway. See the thread “The confusion of Catholicism” in this very forum for a tiresome and detailed discussion. There is no consistent “Church teaching.” All we have are opinions about it from various quarters.

Anyone can google and see the current version of the RCC teaches abortion is a mortal sin. It also teaches that unrepentant mortal sin results in a person going directly and immediately to hell forever. Apparently God thinks this “serves justice” so why wouldn’t some jail time?

If you really want to discuss the relationship between morality, law, and nature I’d be happy to do that. Start a new thread. That’s interesting and fruitful: this is not.
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Begs the question “why did you bring it up?” if it’s all “gibberish”.

How should a person respond to you? What you claim is RCC teaching is not RCC teaching. You don’t understand what mortal sin necessarily is. And why is that important to you, if you are “bored now” with what you call “gibberish”?

If it were not important, why are you asking and asserting?
Call me confused.
 
goout said:
Begs the question “why did you bring it up?” if it’s all “gibberish”.

How should a person respond to you? What you claim is RCC teaching is not RCC teaching. You don’t understand what mortal sin necessarily is. And why is that important to you, if you are “bored now” with what you call “gibberish”?
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The problem with this line of reasoning isn’t so much that it’s boring, but that it can be a bit of a “no true Scotsman” problem. Sure, you can put forward the idea that the true teachings of Catholicism are beautiful and perfect and that anyone who says that an ugly or imperfect teaching belongs to Catholicism is obviously wrong. But real actual Catholics (including Catholic educators) believe and teach imperfect and ugly things. To dismiss people who learned about Catholicism from those real actual Catholics is to simultaneously demand that they learn more about Catholicism than many actual Catholics do, and claim that the Catholics they got their information from weren’t true Catholics. Indeed, the more that happens, the more people will begin to suspect that there simply aren’t any *true *Catholics, or *true *Catholic teachings.
 
JapaneseKappa said:
I too think the “problem of evil” is one of the strongest cases that can be made for strong atheism. The “problem of instruction” and “problem of natural evil” are lesser, and I think only serve to support the main “problem of evil.”

The ways of attacking the problem have essentially already been mentioned here:
  1. Deny that evil exists.
  2. Claim that it is possible to reconcile the existence of evil with God.
I personally think that #1 is a “fingers in the ears” kind of argument. You have to ignore so much evidence that evil exists, including the existence of the sacrament of reconciliation.

#2 Is the more common approach. This proceeds in a few different ways:

2a. Evil can be reconciled with God because there is some greater good (e.g. the existence of free will) that requires evil to exist.

2b. Relax one of God’s omni- properties. For example, argue that God’s omniscience did not allow him to predict the existence of evil when he created the universe.

2c. Deny that there is an actual logical contradiction between the existence of evil and God’s properties.

I personally think that 2a is weak argument, because it becomes difficult to maintain a consistent definition of evil. In other words, if there is some evil that actually makes the universe better, is it really an evil at all?

I think it is quite possible to make a 2b defense, but it requires taking some positions that are contrary to Christian theology.

2c is probably the most promising line of attack, but least frequently made on forums like this.
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You should read about stoicism. Number 1 is not fingers in the ears. Suffering is only a illusion caused by your own bias. Suffering is when your expectations collide with reality. If you welcome everything then everything is nice.
 
Cherubin7th said:
You should read about stoicism. Number 1 is not fingers in the ears. Suffering is only a illusion caused by your own bias. Suffering is when your expectations collide with reality. If you welcome everything then everything is nice.
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We’re not talking about suffering, we’re talking about evil. Some people do use those terms interchangeably, and there are frameworks in which they are interchangeable, but it is not an assumption you can make a-priori.
 
JapaneseKappa said:
The problem with this line of reasoning isn’t so much that it’s boring, but that it can be a bit of a “no true Scotsman” problem. Sure, you can put forward the idea that the true teachings of Catholicism are beautiful and perfect and that anyone who says that an ugly or imperfect teaching belongs to Catholicism is obviously wrong. But real actual Catholics (including Catholic educators) believe and teach imperfect and ugly things. To dismiss people who learned about Catholicism from those real actual Catholics is to simultaneously demand that they learn more about Catholicism than many actual Catholics do, and claim that the Catholics they got their information from weren’t true Catholics. Indeed, the more that happens, the more people will begin to suspect that there simply aren’t any *true *Catholics, or *true *Catholic teachings.
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I have no idea what you just said there.
 
PumpkinCookie said:
God doesn’t consent to any form of evil.
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We don’t consent to our descendants’ crimes unless we are evil.
What role does God play in your scheme of things?
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I’m not sure! I don’t speak for God and have only the faintest idea of what he is up to. I suspect he is both the playwright, the play, the director, and the actors.
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In that case He is **directly **responsible for evil…
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PumpkinCookie said:
Anyone can google and see the current version of the RCC teaches abortion is a mortal sin. It also teaches that unrepentant mortal sin results in a person going directly and immediately to hell forever. Apparently God thinks this “serves justice” so why wouldn’t some jail time?
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It isn’t a question of what “God thinks”. Unrepentant sinners **choose **of their own free will to exist for themselves and be separated from God for ever.
 
JapaneseKappa said:
The problem with this line of reasoning isn’t so much that it’s boring, but that it can be a bit of a “no true Scotsman” problem. Sure, you can put forward the idea that the true teachings of Catholicism are beautiful and perfect and that anyone who says that an ugly or imperfect teaching belongs to Catholicism is obviously wrong. But real actual Catholics (including Catholic educators) believe and teach imperfect and ugly things. To dismiss people who learned about Catholicism from those real actual Catholics is to simultaneously demand that they learn more about Catholicism than many actual Catholics do, and claim that the Catholics they got their information from weren’t true Catholics. Indeed, the more that happens, the more people will begin to suspect that there simply aren’t any *true *Catholics, or *true *Catholic teachings.
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Your argument boils down to the assertion that there is no true Catholic teaching because there is disagreement among Catholics - which is clearly a non sequitur…
 
PumpkinCookie said:
  1. Hitler was not an atheist. Just google it.
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The three cruelest madmen in modern history.

Hitler
“The religions are all alike, no matter what they call themselves. They have no future – certainly none for the Germans. Fascism, if it likes, may come to terms with the Church. So shall I. Why not? That will not prevent me from tearing up Christianity root and branch and annihilating it in Germany.”

Stalin
“We guarantee the right of every citizen to combat by argument, propaganda, and agitation all religion. The Communist Party cannot be neutral toward religion. It stands for science, and all religion is opposed to science.”

Mao
“Religion is poison.”
 
JapaneseKappa said:
The problem with this line of reasoning isn’t so much that it’s boring, but that it can be a bit of a “no true Scotsman” problem. Sure, you can put forward the idea that the true teachings of Catholicism are beautiful and perfect and that anyone who says that an ugly or imperfect teaching belongs to Catholicism is obviously wrong. But real actual Catholics (including Catholic educators) believe and teach imperfect and ugly things. To dismiss people who learned about Catholicism from those real actual Catholics is to simultaneously demand that they learn more about Catholicism than many actual Catholics do, and claim that the Catholics they got their information from weren’t true Catholics. Indeed, the more that happens, the more people will begin to suspect that there simply aren’t any *true *Catholics, or *true *Catholic teachings.
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The “No True Scotsman” fallacy cannot apply here in any sense. Individual Catholics who do not subscribe to well defined Catholic teachings are not true Catholics because true Catholics are obedient to Church teachings. As a Catholic you can be in error and not know you are in error, in which case you are still intentionally obedient; but if you say the Church is in error you intentionally oppose the guaranty of Jesus that he would send the Holy Spirit to sustain the Church and that the gates of hell would never prevail against the Church. Heresy is a sin. Jesus answered those who insisted that they had been true to their faith when they had no been true. He said, “I never knew you.” This means they thought they were true Jews, and claimed they were true Jews, but Jesus knew in their hearts that they had repudiated God, and the one who sent God to teach them saving truth.

Matthew 7:21-23

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’"

"Thee have I preached; Thee have I taught. Never have I said anything against Thee. If anything was not well said, that is to be attributed to my ignorance. Neither do I wish to be obstinate in my opinions, but if I have written anything erroneous … I submit all to the judgment and correction of the Holy Roman Church, in whose obedience I now pass from this life.” Thomas Aquinas
 
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