The "Problem Of Evil" does not exist

[Sair]

If we don’t break out of our programming we are doing exactly what we are programmed to do. There is no escape from that conclusion. Every choice we make is made for us already and free will must be an illusion. Enormous quantities of information don’t alter that fact in the slightest. In your view the action taken to satisfy a preference is caused by the outcome of a conflict between different physical needs - in which “we” (biological machines!) play no part whatsoever.

Our programming is something that takes place throughout the course of our lives - so goes the theory of neuroplasticity, or the ability of the brain to learn and change at any time of life. Sometimes we have conflicting programming, but ultimately we can only perform one set of actions at a time. We are self-directing biological machines. There is no ‘we’ that exists independently of the physical entities called humans.

If the self is no more than a construct there can be no self-control!

Doesn’t follow. The construct is our understanding of ourselves, and much of that understanding takes place in the context of our understanding of others - some have even theorised that what we know as consciousness is a phenomenon that takes place ‘between’ people - it’s a product of the interaction of minds, rather than just the individual minds themselves.

In other words you agree that moral laws are necessary conditions for personal fulfilment and social harmony? They exist whether we recognise them or not.

Sure, but those conditions exist in relation to human beings, not independently of them. All people seek happiness, and in a morally perfect society, everyone would have maximal ability to achieve it. But have you ever known any set of humans to agree upon the conditions of a morally perfect society? What is often dismissively referred to as ‘moral relativism’ is merely an acknowledgement that conditions are rarely if ever ideal, and moral decisions must be made on an imperfect basis, because happiness, and the available means of achieving it, are relative to the circumstances in which one lives, including the mental environment created by upbringing and experience.

Our basic preferences stem from our nature as persons, not gregarious animals.
We are not compelled to live at the physical level of instinct and conditioned responses to stimuli. We have a “mind of our own” and are directly responsible for our decisions, a fact which is the basis for every legal system throughout the world.

Actually, our basic preferences are very much part of our animal nature. We have preferences for having sufficient food and water, for having shelter and safety, and for having the company of our own kind and the opportunity to reproduce. If we tried to ‘transcend’ these basic preferences, we wouldn’t last very long! I think if you actually examined your daily life, you would be surprised at the number of things you do unthinkingly, because you have been conditioned to do them. Have you ever heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Our physical, instinctive needs have to be met before we can focus on the needs stemming from our higher cognitive functions.

Incidentally, I think the fact that we no longer hang people for stealing bread to feed themselves and their families represents a victory for our understanding of our basic animal needs.

And what are humans, if not gregarious animals?

Morality is not restricted to human beings. As I pointed out moral laws are not human conventions but necessary conditions for personal development.

Animals are not considered responsible for their behaviour but we are. Why?

Morality is not a construction at all. It is an intellectual recognition and practical implementation of the fact that actions have consequences which are positive or negative for the individual and society. “By their fruits you shall know them…”

Morality is, however, a product of the existence of sentient, social creatures. There was no such object as ‘morality’ in the world before such creatures evolved. It is indeed a construction, based upon the reality of needs and preferences.

Most other animals do not have the cognitive processing power of humans, and so we humans don’t consider them to understand what it’s like to be human and act accordingly. That’s pretty much what is meant by saying that we don’t hold other animals responsible for their behaviour. We don’t see a cheetah running down a gazelle and think that the cheetah is acting immorally, no matter how detrimental its actions might be for the gazelle. The cheetah is meeting its basic need for food, that’s all. The only reason that humans hunting for food nowadays might be considered immoral is because hunting is no longer our only option for feeding ourselves.

The upshot of the fact that we don’t consider other animals morally responsible for their interactions with humans is that we tend to be much less considerate of them. If a dog attacks a human child, the dog is generally put down, regardless of how provoked it might have been by the child’s actions, regardless of how the dog’s upbringing by an abusive owner might have led to its aggression. We tend to offer human attackers the opportunity for redemption, no matter how heinous their crimes might be, no matter how much safer other humans would be without them. Sometimes I think faith in some mysterious property of ‘personhood’ is misplaced. And, I am happy to say, there are beginning to be more people who are prepared to take on the task of rehabilitating aggressive dogs, too…

 

[Sair]

As far as I’m concerned, there can be no meaningful discussion on the topic of this thread unless you and I agree on the existence of objective good. In my mind there is no such thing as the problem of evil unless there is objective good. Evil only has meaning in context of Good (just as Black only has meaning in context of Light and a Lie only has meaning in context of Truth). You and I can’t continue in this discussion unless we both agree we are looking at the same elephant - objective reality that is good. Either objective reality and objective good does exist or it doesn’t. There is no in between.

For the sake of shelving the present impasse, let us suppose that human existence is objectively good (meaning, so I presume, good in and of itself, regardless of consequences or feelings) and that the experience of love is objectively good (though strictly speaking, to avoid misunderstanding I prefer the words ‘demonstrably beneficial’, but we’ll let that pass for now) for humans.

To where does your argument progress, given these premises?

 

[tonyrey]

If we don’t break out of our programming we are doing exactly what we are programmed to do.

“neuroplasticity” is a perfect description for physical objects moulded by physical events! It is clearly incompatible with “**self-**directing biological machines”… A more accurate description would be “biological machines operated by physical events” - in which there is no room for freewill.

If the self is no more than a construct there can be no self-control!

Doesn’t follow.

It follows as the night follows the day… as you will see…

The construct is our understanding of ourselves, and much of that understanding takes place in the context of our understanding of others - some have even theorised that what we know as consciousness is a phenomenon that takes place ‘between’ people - it’s a product of the interaction of minds, rather than just the individual minds themselves.

Interaction between biological machines does not produce autonomous activity. They are still operated by physical events

In other words you agree that moral laws are necessary conditions for personal fulfilment and social harmony? They exist whether we recognise them or not.

Sure, but those conditions exist in relation to human beings, not independently of them.

Moral laws exist in relation to all rational beings.

All people seek happiness, and in a morally perfect society, everyone would have maximal ability to achieve it. But have you ever known any set of humans to agree upon the conditions of a morally perfect society? What is often dismissively referred to as ‘moral relativism’ is merely an acknowledgement that conditions are rarely if ever ideal, and moral decisions must be made on an imperfect basis, because happiness, and the available means of achieving it, are relative to the circumstances in which one lives, including the mental environment created by upbringing and experience.

You are conflating three causes of unhappiness: ignorance, selfishness and human limitations, none of which demonstrates that moral laws are relative. It merely shows that they are not always attainable or respected, not that they are invalid.

We are not compelled to live at the physical level of instinct and conditioned responses to stimuli. We have a “mind of our own” and are directly responsible for our decisions, a fact which is the basis for every legal system throughout the world.

Actually, our basic preferences are very much part of our animal nature. We have preferences for having sufficient food and water, for having shelter and safety, and for having the company of our own kind and the opportunity to reproduce. Have you ever heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Our physical, instinctive needs have to be met before we can focus on the needs stemming from our higher cognitive functions.

Our physical, instinctive needs do not have to be met! Many people sacrifice them for the sake of their principles. Would you prefer to live as a slave rather than die fighting for freedom and justice?

Incidentally, I think the fact that we no longer hang people for stealing bread to feed themselves and their families represents a victory for our understanding of our basic animal needs.

Indeed!

And what are humans, if not gregarious animals?

Responsible persons.

Morality is not restricted to human beings. As I pointed out moral laws are not human conventions but necessary conditions for personal development.

Animals are not considered responsible for their behaviour but we are. Why?

Morality is not a construction at all. It is an intellectual recognition and practical implementation of the fact that actions have consequences which are positive or negative for the individual and society. “By their fruits you shall know them…”

Morality is, however, a product of the existence of sentient, social creatures. There was no such object as ‘morality’ in the world before such creatures evolved. It is indeed a construction, based upon the reality of needs and preferences.

You are assuming that all sentient, social creatures exist on this planet - or in this universe.

Most other animals do not have the cognitive processing power of humans, and so we humans don’t consider them to understand what it’s like to be human and act accordingly. That’s pretty much what is meant by saying that we don’t hold other animals responsible for their behaviour. he cheetah is meeting its basic need for food, that’s all. The only reason that humans hunting for food nowadays might be considered immoral is because hunting is no longer our only option for feeding ourselves.

Computers have cognitive processing power but they are not held responsible for their activity. I wonder why …

Sometimes I think faith in some mysterious property of ‘personhood’ is misplaced. And, I am happy to say, there are beginning to be more people who are prepared to take on the task of rehabilitating aggressive dogs, too…

You seem to believe that rehabilitating aggressive persons is the sole solution - and when that fails life imprisonment. In other words we are all, allegedly, brainwashed into our beliefs and values… but more than that cannot be expected from biological machines…

 

[Oreoracle]

This is your claim. But there are plenty of ex - atheists and agnostics that have come to believe in God through experience and independent thought. One of them includes Anthony Flew; but you would probably call them liars.

And there are many ex-Christians who have come to view their past faith as absurd, and so they’ve become atheists. One of them is Dan Barker, but you would probably call him a liar.

And for the record, every theist was an ex-atheist. No one is born believing in a god. The typical theist begins believing in God for the same reason he began to believe in Santa: Mommy and Daddy said he exists.

 

[Sair]

“neuroplasticity” is a perfect description for physical objects moulded by physical events! It is clearly incompatible with “**self-**directing biological machines”… A more accurate description would be “biological machines operated by physical events” - in which there is no room for freewill.

Whence free will, in your opinion? If interaction with the external does not shape the internal experience, it is not possible for us to grow and develop in accordance with our understanding of our environment. I maintain that we are self-directing biological machines, implying that the source of our actions is electrical and chemical impulses in the brain, built up by our perception of our surroundings. These things are not external to us - they’re part of us.

It follows as the night follows the day… as you will see…

Nope - haven’t seen it yet. Need more concrete explanation and evidence.

Interaction between biological machines does not produce autonomous activity. They are still operated by physical events.

Yes, quite. By physical events that occur within our bodies. There is absolutely no evidence that the ‘self’ exists independently of the body and brain, or that our internal experiences are not shaped by our external environment. If you have such evidence, please present it - as opposed to merely asserting that our internal lives are entirely separate from and fundamentally unrelated to our external lives.

Moral laws exist in relation to all rational beings.
You are conflating three causes of unhappiness: ignorance, selfishness and human limitations, none of which demonstrates that moral laws are relative. It merely shows that they are not always attainable or respected, not that they are invalid.

Again you’re assuming a source of moral laws independent of sentient beings. The causes of unhappiness to which you refer are surmountable if one does not subscribe to the kind of black-and-white morality often espoused by organised religion. If learning is encouraged, if our natural, biological tendency to look after ourselves and our own is recognised, and if our physical and emotional limitations are understood, there is no real reason for us to feel dissatisfied with reality - rather, we can work within it to achieve our potential and pursue and realise happiness - here and now, rather than in a disembodied afterlife whose existence cannot be proven.

Our physical, instinctive needs do not have to be met! Many people sacrifice them for the sake of their principles. Would you prefer to live as a slave rather than die fighting for freedom and justice?

Of course - we die, ultimately, if our basic needs go unmet, and there are people who feel that death is a better option than a life of intolerable suffering, whether the source of that suffering is straightforward bodily pain, or emotional anguish. That’s why there are people who would rather die than live in an environment that is anathema to their principles, and also why there are people who are in favour of euthanasia. When it comes right down to it, life only has value if we can bear to keep living.

You are assuming that all sentient, social creatures exist on this planet - or in this universe.

Until we have evidence of sentient life elsewhere in the universe or indeed outside it, its existence or otherwise is largely irrelevant to any of our experience. Unless it interacts with us, how can it possibly matter to us?

Computers have cognitive processing power but they are not held responsible for their activity. I wonder why …

Because they are nonsentient extensions of human cognitive processing power, subject to the (name removed by moderator)uts they receive from human programmers and users.

You seem to believe that rehabilitating aggressive persons is the sole solution - and when that fails life imprisonment.

Or we could just get rid of them altogether. I certainly don’t think rehabilitation is the *only *option, and I’m not sure how you read that into what I wrote. I guess it all depends upon, firstly, the moral standards the society claims to uphold, whether it assumes the aggressor still retains a fundamental ‘human dignity’ (whatever that means), and just how far gone - psychologically speaking - the individual aggressor is, as to what is ultimately done with them.

 

[tonyrey]

Whence free will, in your opinion? If interaction with the external does not shape the internal experience, it is not possible for us to grow and develop in accordance with our understanding of our environment. I maintain that we are self-directing biological machines, implying that the source of our actions is electrical and chemical impulses in the brain, built up by our perception of our surroundings. These things are not external to us - they’re part of us.

The source of our actions - of free will, consciousness and rationality - is not electrical and chemical impulses. Biological machines cannot be "self-directing " because they have no self! Minds cannot be reduced to matter because the Ultimate Reality is not material but spiritual. Free will, consciousness and rationality are fundamental facts.

Interaction between biological machines does not produce autonomous activity. They are still operated by physical events.

There is absolutely no evidence that the ‘self’ exists independently of the body and brain, or that our internal experiences are not shaped by our external environment.

The evidence is in our rationality, consciousness and free will - which are lacking in objects composed solely of atomic particles. There is also the order, beauty and richness of the universe and nature which presuppose Design.

If you have such evidence, please present it - as opposed to merely asserting that our internal lives are entirely separate from and fundamentally unrelated to our external lives.

Please specify where I have stated that “our internal lives are entirely separate from and fundamentally unrelated to our external lives”.

Moral laws exist in relation to all rational beings.

Again you’re assuming a source of moral laws independent of sentient beings.

Not at all. Moral laws stem from the existence of rational beings.

The causes of unhappiness to which you refer are surmountable if one does not subscribe to the kind of black-and-white morality often espoused by organised religion.

“often” is the key word. The belief that one should choose the lesser of two evils is hardly a black-and-white morality…

If learning is encouraged, if our natural, biological tendency to look after ourselves and our own is recognised, and if our physical and emotional limitations are understood, there is no real reason for us to feel dissatisfied with reality…

The implication that the theist is “dissatisfied with reality” is clearly false because the view that we exist by Design is far more inspiring and fulfilling than the notion that we exist by chance.

… rather, we can work within it to achieve our potential and pursue and realise happiness - here and now, rather than in a disembodied afterlife whose existence cannot be proven.

A false dilemma. There is no discontinuity between this life and the next. Heaven and hell begin in this world according to what we choose to believe and how to live.

Our physical, instinctive needs do not have to be met! Many people sacrifice them for the sake of their principles. Would you prefer to live as a slave rather than die fighting for freedom and justice?

Of course - we die, ultimately, if our basic needs go unmet, and there are people who feel that death is a better option than a life of intolerable suffering, whether the source of that suffering is straightforward bodily pain, or emotional anguish. That’s why there are people who would rather die than live in an environment that is anathema to their principles, and also why there are people who are in favour of euthanasia.

It is significant that you specify “principles” as well as physical, instinctive needs.

You are assuming that all sentient, social creatures exist on this planet - or in this universe.

Until we have evidence of sentient life elsewhere in the universe or indeed outside it, its existence or otherwise is largely irrelevant to any of our experience. Unless it interacts with us, how can it possibly matter to us?

The significance of persons does not depend on whether they are known to, or interact with, us. They matter to us because we and they are part of a universal community. To confine our attention to what we know is both unscientific and unreasonable.

Computers have cognitive processing power but they are not held responsible

for their activity. I wonder why …

Because they are nonsentient extensions of human cognitive processing power, subject to the (name removed by moderator)uts they receive from human programmers and users.

Which demonstrates that reasoning is more than a mechanical process because it entails consciousness, freedom, insight and creativity.

You seem to believe that rehabilitating aggressive persons is the sole solution - and when that fails life imprisonment.

Or we could just get rid of them altogether.

To “just get rid of them” is a logical consequence of atheism which asserts that the right to life is no more than a human convention.

I certainly don’t think rehabilitation is the only option, and I’m not sure how you read that into what I wrote. I guess it all depends upon, firstly, the moral standards the society claims to uphold, whether it assumes the aggressor still retains a fundamental ‘human dignity’ (whatever that means), and just how far gone - psychologically speaking - the individual aggressor is, as to what is ultimately done with them.

Your uncertainty regarding fundamental human dignity “(whatever that means)” is understandable in the light of your atheism. When the power to determine whether a person should live or die is left to human beings we know full well the atrocities to which it leads: abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, genocide… “If God does not exist everything is permissible.”

 

[MindOverMatter]

And there are many ex-Christians who have come to view their past faith as absurd, and so they’ve become atheists. One of them is Dan Barker, but you would probably call him a liar.

I have heard of Anthony Flew and Paul Davies, and neither of them are idiots. Anthony flew in particular is a deist, since he is not so in love with his atheism that he can continue to deny the obvious fact that the world looks designed, and also that an intelligent designer is the only concept that can make sense of physical reality in its entirety; laws warts and all. Perhaps they are seeing something Dan Barker is not. I have never heard of Dan Barker, but I would say that he doesn’t understand the meaning of absurdity and, based on my experience, probably takes physical reality and faith for granted. But then again maybe i shouldn’t assume to much about the whys of why people believe things; and instead stick with the facts. What are the facts? That we find specific reasons for things, that are meaningful in terms of rules and laws, should have inspired him to qeustion where all these specific rules and laws came from. But that would mean him having to transcend physical reality, since it would be absurd to suggest that physical reality is the cause of the laws of physics, since they are a product of those laws in so far as their behavior and forms. I wonder what he would say to that? I know. He would say it just exists or he doesn’t know. Anything but the idea that he is responsible to a higher power. Well he is free to remain in denial of the obvious.

And for the record, every theist was an ex-atheist.

Well, not consciously. At least not necessarily. Children, unless they are encouraged to believe in God on the authority and trust of their parents, are simply blind to such questions until they reach an age of understanding that forces them to confront existence. Once people understand what God is, they either make a conscious decision to believe or disbelieve.

No one is born believing in a god. The typical theist begins believing in God for the same reason he began to believe in Santa: Mommy and Daddy said he exists.

A popular cuss given by Richard Dawkins. Unfortunately for you, this assumes that adults whom have Christian parents don’t reflect upon, reason, or ask questions about their faith once they grow up. That is what the propaganda makers would have us believe. Perhaps there are people who believe what ever their parents tell them with out qeustion or reflection, but they certainly don’t comprise the many members who come to Catholic Answers Forum to learn and ask questions. The history of Catholic philosophy, doesn’t reflect a faith built purely upon whispers. The idea that the catholic faith survives today just because it is built upon children believing their Parents, is as ridiculous and naive as believing that their really is a Santa Claus. Your attempts to imply that the typical christian is stupid, is feeble at best, and quite frankly miserable.

 

[MindOverMatter]

I’m not going to label someone a liar because their experience leads them down a different path than mine.

Er…Hem…coff… Reason and logic dear wattson. Reason and logic.

 

[MindOverMatter]

• the existence of a complex set of receptors in our brains is not something brought about by our own preference, so in that sense, subjective experience has an objective basis, and is most certainly a true experience for the individual subject. However, when we experience love, beauty or goodness, we are not drawing upon a source of these things that exists outside of sentient experience. That is the primary point of difference in our understanding.

What you have given here is a circular argument. You take materialism for granted and at the same time imply falsely with a slight of hand that science represents this worldview. You are assuming that because we perceive things through receptors, that therefore this somehow means that what we perceive does not correspond to an objective reality. But you have no idea whether or not our minds perception of the universe represents what objective reality really is like beyond the imagery of our senses. We perceive everything subjectively. This fact has no bearing on the objective truth or whether or not it is reasonable to believe in objective moral values. You are making a prejudiced distinction between what you perceive with your eyes and what you experience through your emotions or feelings. But there is no real qualitative difference given the fact that we experience these things subjectively. You experience yourself subjectively. So your choice to disbelieve in objective morality is purely a value judgment on your part; and i bet that if you didn’t already know the implications of what objective morality means for the universe, then i dare say that you would probably be a moral realist and think nothing of it.

The fact is, you value some aspects of your experiences more than others. But there is no epistemological basis. It seems to me that our experience of reality, especially our experience of guilt, suggests to me that there is such a things as the objective good, just as much as my experience of the universe suggests to me that there is a universe. Thus it is reasonable for people to be moral-realists. It is also reasonable to believe that we are more than physical reactions, since we have freewill and self-awareness and can picture non spatial ideas in our minds. Atoms do not have ideas and neither are they aware. People have ideas and have minds.

Just as it pleases you to impose your misunderstanding upon my worldview - to insist that it’s impossible for me to realize a purposeful and fulfilling life without belief in a god,

If you happy to tell yourself that you have more value than cows dung, then by all means, do as you please if you think that’s an honest position.

You claim that belief in god is the natural end of rationality, but there are many who would disagree with you.

Its irrelevant. What matters is the objective truth. I have demonstrated my position as logical fact. You denial of it will never change it.

To be continued…

 

[MindOverMatter]

Your use of the words ‘tragic, depressing and hopeless’ reflects nothing objective, but only your subjective opinion.

Not my subjective opinion, but rather the objective effect that naturalism necessarily has on “human nature”. That i experience theses things subjectively is besides the point; simply because i experience them as a person in response to the objective world; and how this effects me corresponds meaningfully to how i feel. When i know that there is an objective fret to my life i feel fear. Atoms do not know about life or fear; yet my fear corresponds meaningfully to an objective event in so far as i am a living personal being that naturally desires life rather than destruction.

I can speak of tragedy, depression, and hopelessness, only because there is such a thing as a personal nature to which those emotional realities objectively apply. This is an objective truth. It is an objective fact that some objective effects impose hopelessness depression and tragedy on that which is objectively personal by nature, and is only meaningful in so far as these words correspond to existential events – past or future – that do not fulfill the personal nature of human beings. The permanent end of existence contradicts absolute personal fulfillment, in so far as we naturally desire a perfect life which includes freedom from death and moral fulfillment. Only the existence of Heaven and Good can fulfill us in this respect, and thus people hope that the object of their natural desire objectively exists. Naturalism provides the absolute opposite, as i explained, and works against the objective existence of our desire.

Just because you might be good at making the best of things (which is a far cry from an objectively fulfilled nature) does not change the negativity and personal contradiction that naturalism holds as a belief system. Neither are you more rational for not believing and denying your natural desire to fulfillment. You are practically irrational in so far as it is reasonable to seek that which absolutely fulfills your personal existence, which includes objectivity as well as subjectivity since the nature of the objective world fundamentally effects our subjective experience. You your self made a similar claim to that effect.

I think its obvious and reasonable to acknowledge that a personal nature is an objective fact of reality, regardless of the fact that we experience it subjectively. It is true that some people are not as unhappy as others, but that is only because some people are in a better position to ignore the reality of our existential situation or tolerate life to a relative degree in so far as there being any naturalistic implications on our lives, such as death, insecurity, potential frets and social complications. Hence the term ignorance is bliss. You can certainly be “relatively happy”, as in to say more happier then another person. And any social or material achievement can give you a relative sense of fulfillment for a period of time. But you cannot be existentially fulfilled without God, in the objective sense of the word “fulfillment”. “When i am hungry, there is such a thing as food.”

This is “The argument from desire”. It argues that it is reasonable to have a practical faith in God in so far as it is reasonable to seek absolute existential fulfillment. Thus naturalism is an irrational belief, and ought not to be accepted unless absolute evidence forces us to accept it.

 

[Sair]

As far as I’m concerned, there can be no meaningful discussion on the topic of this thread unless you and I agree on the existence of objective good. In my mind there is no such thing as the problem of evil unless there is objective good. Evil only has meaning in context of Good (just as Black only has meaning in context of Light and a Lie only has meaning in context of Truth). You and I can’t continue in this discussion unless we both agree we are looking at the same elephant - objective reality that is good. Either objective reality and objective good does exist or it doesn’t. There is no in between.

For the sake of meaningful discussion, it might be worth understanding exactly what is meant by ‘the problem of evil’.

As discussed in this thread, it is largely a philosophical problem, not a social or political problem that requires denial or affirmation of the objective existence of evil.

Christians believe in a god who is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. However, it is also abundantly clear that harm, suffering and destruction are prevalent in our world - no-one in possession of their senses would deny this - and when these things are deliberately, gratuitously inflicted, we refer to them as evil (if this means objective evil, there it is - a case could also be made that consciously doing things of a beneficial nature gives us a workable definition for objective goodness as well, but that is a slightly different point from the one at issue here).

The problem of evil, then, is not just that it exists (although most would agree that its very existence is a problem that needs addressing) but that it exists in a universe believed by some to be created and inhabited by the Christian God.

A number of solutions present themselves:

• One of the 'omni’s is missing - either God can’t do anything about the presence of evil, or he doesn’t know about it, or doesn’t care about it, or is malicious.
• God has some inscrutable plan that requires the existence of evil, thus rendering evil ‘not really evil’, since it conforms to God’s ultimate intentions - that, in a nutshell is the position put forward in the OP.
• There is no such being as the Christian God.

It was in criticising the OP’s contention (the second one, above) that I entered this thread. My original claim was that this ‘solution’ to the problem of evil - this airy sweeping under the rug of hundreds of years of philosophical agonising over a seemingly paradoxical situation - really makes the presence or absence of god a moot point: the world is the way it is either because God planned it so, or because there is no God - it’s hard to know how we’d be able to tell the difference, except in seeking other avenues of evidence for God. That is where the debate over theism/atheism came into play.

 

[Sair]

I think its obvious and reasonable to acknowledge that a personal nature is an objective fact of reality, regardless of the fact that we experience it subjectively. It is true that some people are not as unhappy as others, but that is only because some people are in a better position to ignore the reality of our existential situation or tolerate life to a relative degree in so far as there being any naturalistic implications on our lives, such as death, insecurity, potential frets and social complications. Hence the term ignorance is bliss. You can certainly be “relatively happy”, as in to say more happier then another person. And any social or material achievement can give you a relative sense of fulfillment for a period of time. But you cannot be existentially fulfilled without God, in the objective sense of the word “fulfillment”. “When i am hungry, there is such a thing as food.”

This is “The argument from desire”. It argues that it is reasonable to have a practical faith in God in so far as it is reasonable to seek absolute existential fulfillment. Thus naturalism is an irrational belief, and ought not to be accepted unless absolute evidence forces us to accept it.

To an extent, you’re right, and I apologise for seeming to belittle your personal experience. I do think that a lot of the arguments subsisting over the ‘objective/subjective’ dichotomy are based upon the notion that subjectivity doesn’t matter, and that only objective reality is to be trusted. This is to ignore the objective fact of human subjectivity, if I may so phrase it. In the sense that our subjective feelings are caused by and can affect physiological process, and can thus have very serious effects upon our quality of life, they are not to be ignored or taken lightly.

However, you correctly point out that subjective experience has a direct link with our external environment, and our perception thereof. Knowledge and experience affect our emotions. As a small child, I was absolutely terrified of needles - a fear that was quickly and effectively quashed by the fact that I had to have a long series of injections for allergy treatment. Knowledge that needles were not inherently harmful, nor indeed particularly painful, changed my emotional response to them. Our perceptions are not always correct - a perceived threat may turn out to be harmless, and vice versa.

Another example of how knowledge affects emotional response is provided by your claim that the atheist’s life is necessarily one of tragedy and ultimate despair. This is most certainly your subjective evaluation - if it had a basis in observable fact, it would be empirically testable, and ultimately even the most staunch atheist would acknowledge it. It is not, however, my subjective evaluation, because my experience has been different to yours. I would once have agreed with you, perhaps even without giving it much thought beyond my automatic emotional response (which is not to say you’ve done the same - it’s apparent that you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this). Even after I had shaken off the other trappings of Christianity, I still found that it was comforting to believe that there was a god and an afterlife. In the process of discovering that it is possible to find happiness, wonder, awe and hope in life in this world - a process that is ongoing, I might add - I began to lose my fear of the unknown quantity that is our eventual death. I find that I don’t need to believe in a god and an afterlife to feel that my life is worth living, worth sharing with others.

The atheist finds value in life, because of what life is, not because of any belief about what comes after life, or what might lie beyond the known universe. Read Dawkins, Gould, or any other learned biologist and what you will find is wonder, a deep and abiding love for life and the whole of the natural world, that has nothing to do with religion or the supernatural. One of the arguments I’ve heard for why people turn to religion is the need to feel that we are part of something larger and more significant than ourselves - but we already are, if only we allow ourselves to recognise it.

 

[Sair]

The source of our actions - of free will, consciousness and rationality - is not electrical and chemical impulses. Biological machines cannot be "self-directing " because they have no self! Minds cannot be reduced to matter because the Ultimate Reality is not material but spiritual.

A lot of unproved and unprovable statements. How do you know that biological machines have no ‘self’? Do you have experience of being some other kind of biological machine than a human - a dog, say, or a gorilla? It seems arrogant to suppose that such creatures have nothing like an inner life. We know they experience emotions, and are self-directed, if only in the sense that their instincts are internal to them. Humans only have a larger cerebral cortex layered over the other components of our mammalian brains. We have no way of knowing if there is an ‘ultimate’ spiritual reality. There is nothing to verify it but subjective experience, (itself the product of physiological processes) and we know that our untested perceptions are not always reliable.

There is also the order, beauty and richness of the universe and nature which presuppose Design.

Funny how people can find supporting ‘evidence’ for anything, if they presuppose its existence rather than following where the evidence leads. The things you cite as evidence for design are, to those who don’t presuppose design, evidence of physical processes, slow evolutionary adaptation and geological change. And for those who presuppose design, there remains the problem of verifying and explaining the existence of a designer of sufficient complexity to have built the universe.

Please specify where I have stated that “our internal lives are entirely separate from and fundamentally unrelated to our external lives”.

It seems to have been your contention throughout that consciousness maintains a separate existence to the neurological, physiological processes that manifest it.

Moral laws stem from the existence of rational beings.

And hence are subject to the existence of rational beings, not manifest in the rest of the universe. This is what I believe is the fundamental difference between objective morality, as theists understand it - as existing independently in the universe, coming from the mind of god - and subjective morality as a product of human experience and relationships.

The significance of persons does not depend on whether they are known to, or interact with, us. They matter to us because we and they are part of a universal community.

Everything is part of the universal community. The molecules that make up my body and yours are as old as the universe, according to what we know as the law of conservation of matter. They will go to make up other bodies after we are dead. It is a form of vanity that makes us cling to the notion that our individual consciousness will outlast our physical body - and human chauvinism to suppose that human life is inherently more valuable than any other life. One of the great virtues of evolutionary theory, over the argument from design, is that it makes it abundantly clear that all life is connected.

Your uncertainty regarding fundamental human dignity is understandable in the light of your atheism. When the power to determine whether a person should live or die is left to human beings we know full well the atrocities to which it leads: abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, genocide… “If God does not exist everything is permissible.”

This is nothing but the bog-standard contempt of a theist who doesn’t understand what it means to embrace an atheistic existence, and who finds that in the absence of empirical evidence in support of religious faith, the argument from morality is a useful tool. It would be, if atheism was nothing but an abandonment of all ethical responsibilities.

The fact is, any doctrine can be used to justify atrocities, even Christianity. The majority of atheists I’ve met, or whose writings I’ve read, are much more thoughtful about morality than most theists I’ve met or read. This is because they are seeking to do what is justifiably the right thing, not merely toeing the doctrinal line.

The “everything is permissible” line ultimately demonstrates the difference in theistic and atheistic notions of human dignity (hence my admitted hesitation in using the term). Whilst I don’'t think genocide is ever justified, objectively or subjectively, I do think there are arguments to be made for abortion, euthanasia, even capital punishment in some circumstances. The Catholic notion of ‘human dignity’ is problematic, because in practice it isn’t really anything more than a label, and as such it takes no account of quality of life or of individual differences. It would ascribe full human rights to a nonsentient bundle of cells, even at the expense of the fully sentient mother, and it would force a terminally ill person to linger in unremitting agony, even if it is their expressed wish to end their life; all this for the sake of ‘human dignity’, which is, I repeat, a problematic concept when it denies the reality of variant human experience. To an atheist, human dignity implies respect and reciprocity - no, ‘anything’ doesn’t go, when you acknowledge that you must live as part of a community and take the needs of others into account. To an atheist, human dignity is a concept that must be lived, not merely a badge to be unthinkingly slapped on for the sake of adhering to doctrine, or worse, making a political point.

 

[Sair]

What matters is the objective truth. I have demonstrated my position as logical fact. You denial of it will never change it.

Dare I say that you have great faith - not just in a supernatural god, but in your ability to present factual arguments, and in the primacy of logic. You have not presented any empirical facts in support of your case, and observable, testable data can alter the process of logic, which depends upon premises - and you have yet to offer any objective justification for your premises. Merely labelling something as objective does not make it so, and you cannot ascribe your own subjective experiences to the whole human race.

 

[tonyrey]

How do you know that biological machines have no ‘self’?
It seems arrogant to suppose that such creatures have nothing like an inner life. We have no way of knowing if there is an ‘ultimate’ spiritual reality. There is nothing to verify it but subjective experience, (itself the product of physiological processes) and we know that our untested perceptions are not always reliable.

Have I stated that animals are mindless? Subjective experience which you assume is entirely the product of physiological processes and whose perceptions are not always reliable is that which you cherish so much! Since it is clearly not **identical **with physiological processes it should be considered a reality of which we are more directly and immediately aware - and certain - than anything else…

Funny how people can find supporting ‘evidence’ for anything, if they presuppose its existence rather than following where the evidence leads.

Precisely the same objection can be made to materialists!

The things you cite as evidence for design are, to those who don’t presuppose design, evidence of physical processes, slow evolutionary adaptation and geological change

It is not a question of presupposition but of grasping the inadequacy of materialism with its derivation of persons from purposeless particles.

And for those who presuppose design, there remains the problem of verifying and explaining the existence of a designer of sufficient complexity to have built the universe.

How do verify the existence of your intangible mind and its intangible power of reason?

It seems to have been your contention throughout that consciousness maintains a separate existence to the neurological, physiological processes that manifest it.

On the contrary I have maintained that the mind and body are intimately related although the mind is not produced by the body (which would make us machines rather than persons).

And hence are subject to the existence of rational beings, not manifest in the rest of the universe. This is what I believe is the fundamental difference between objective morality, as theists understand it - as existing independently in the universe, coming from the mind of god - and subjective morality as a product of human experience and relationships.

I’m not sure what you mean by “not manifest in the rest of the universe”. Obviously non-rational beings have no moral laws. If persons could exist without God they would still have objective moral laws which stem from free will and the immense value of a rational existence. Objective morality cannot exist without free will. If “subjective morality” is the product of human experience and relationships it is objective! It is based, as you observed, on needs…

It is a form of vanity that makes us cling to the notion that our individual consciousness will outlast our physical body - and human chauvinism to suppose that human life is inherently more valuable than any other life.

You assume consciousness cannot exist without the body. If it is human chauvinism to suppose that human life is inherently more valuable than any other life then you must consider all legal systems are based on a false assumption. Do you advocate equal rights for every living thing?!

One of the great virtues of evolutionary theory, over the argument from design, is that it makes it abundantly clear that all life is connected.

If everything is Designed all life must be inextricably linked!

This is nothing but the bog-standard contempt of a theist who doesn’t understand what it means to embrace an atheistic existence…

You were the one who stated “a fundamental ‘human dignity’ (whatever that means)”. Your contempt for “the bog-standard contempt of a theist” is totally unfounded as far as I am concerned. I am well aware that most atheists have high moral principles and live up to them…

The fact is, any doctrine can be used to justify atrocities, even Christianity. The majority of atheists I’ve met, or whose writings I’ve read, are much more thoughtful about morality than most theists I’ve met or read.

The subject is theism not theists or atheists of any particular variety…

The “everything is permissible” line ultimately demonstrates the difference in theistic and atheistic notions of human dignity (hence my admitted hesitation in using the term). Whilst I don’'t think genocide is ever justified, objectively or subjectively, I do think there are arguments to be made for abortion, euthanasia, even capital punishment in some circumstances.

Why do you single out genocide? (It is directly relevant to the OP).

The Catholic notion of ‘human dignity’ is problematic, because in practice it isn’t really anything more than a label, and as such it takes no account of quality of life or of individual differences. It would ascribe full human rights to a nonsentient bundle of cells, even at the expense of the fully sentient mother, and it would force a terminally ill person to linger in unremitting agony, even if it is their expressed wish to end their life; all this for the sake of ‘human dignity’, which is, I repeat, a problematic concept when it denies the reality of variant human experience.

A load of nonsense!

To an atheist, human dignity implies respect and reciprocity - no, ‘anything’ doesn’t go, when you acknowledge that you must live as part of a community and take the needs of others into account. To an atheist, human dignity is a concept that must be lived, not merely a badge to be unthinkingly slapped on for the sake of adhering to doctrine, or worse, making a political point.

According to you all theists adhere to doctrines and a badge… I should have thought all decent atheists agree on fundamental human rights…

 

[jkiernan56]

Objective reality exists independently of subjective experience. Subjective experience exists on the basis of objective realities. But this is not the same as saying that subjective experiences constitute objective realities, because they don’t exist independently of sentient minds.

It is nice to see you and I agree objective reality exists independently of subjective experience. I wasn’t sure you held this position and needed you to affirm it. Without the confidence we both see the same elephant (objective reality), any further discussion on this thread would have been futile and a waste of our time.

It is nice to also see you acknowledge objective reality has always existed since “something cannot come from nothingness”. Absolute nothingness does not exist since objective reality does exist. For your information, I do NOT agree with the teaching of the Catholic Church as stated in the CCC that the universe was “created out of nothing”. We were created out of potentiality that existed as a result of actuality - but that is a topic for another thread.

You further stated for you it is “the universe that has always existed” since it was less problematic. I hold to be true there is a reality who has always existed and whose essence is existence itself - “I AM WHO AM”. For me there is a Primary Mover - that which causes but is not caused. Regardless of our difference in what each of us believes to have always existed, we both agree “something has always existed” and this something is objective reality. Now we can continue our discussion since we have common ground to work with.

This has been my contention all along - there is no ‘object’ in the universe that is called goodness; there is no ‘object’ in the universe that is called love. These are names we give to our subjective experiences, which are in turn built upon a physical base.

For the sake of shelving the present impasse, let us suppose that human existence is objectively good (meaning, so I presume, good in and of itself, regardless of consequences or feelings) and that the experience of love is objectively good (though strictly speaking, to avoid misunderstanding I prefer the words ‘demonstrably beneficial’, but we’ll let that pass for now) for humans.

To where does your argument progress, given these premises?

We both hold to be true objective reality exists and has always existed. The next step in my argument was to demonstrate that objective good exists in the universe. We both agree human existence is objectively good (good in and of itself). You even went so far as to acknowledge “the experience of love” is objectively good or as you like to put it “demonstrably beneficial”.

That was going to be the next progression of my thought – realities that exist but which cannot be seen or put under a microscope, and are universally good (or beneficial) to each and all of the whole human race. The experience of love is a universal objective good (benefit). There are many others as well which are connected to love, but let’s just stay with love.

Would you also agree there are many in the world that go through life NOT experiencing this universal GOOD (benefit) of love?

Where I intend to take this discussion is to show that the “problem of evil” does exist and can be demonstrated in context of our understanding of universal objective good. When I say the “problem of evil” - my reference point is the human race and not that of a divine being with non-contingent existence.

 

[MindOverMatter]

Merely labelling something as objective does not make it so, and you cannot ascribe your own subjective experiences to the whole human race.

…And that is if there is even a human race out side of my mind.
Wait a minute, i must have been talking to myself this whole time! Since my subjective experiences cannot determine objective truth, i cannot rely on my experiences for true knowledge; and thus i have no justified reason to think that i am talking to another person even if it feels like there are other people!

 

[MindOverMatter]

Dare I say that you have great faith - not just in a supernatural god, but in your ability to present factual arguments, and in the primacy of logic. You have not presented any empirical facts in support of your case.

Darn it! I didn’t know i had to provide empirical evidence for that which is self evident or reasonable to believe. I guess i can’t believe that you exist.

 

[MindOverMatter]

In the sense that our subjective feelings are caused by and can affect physiological process, and can thus have very serious effects upon our quality of life, they are not to be ignored or taken lightly.

Our perceptions are not always correct - a perceived threat may turn out to be harmless, and vice versa.

You have failed to see the problem. The fact that fear corresponds meaningfully to a possible objective fret is enough to prove my position. A lot of the time the fret is real. That we might be mistaken is irrelevant. Fear was the correct response because the needle was a possible fret for all you knew, and it still might have been fatal. The senses can be fooled if something appears to be a fret, but is nothing more than a superficial similarity. That you came to fear it less because of your understanding of the context in which you were receiving the needle, does not change the fact that your flesh is being pierced, which can possibly lead to serious damage. Fear corresponds meaningfully to objective events in so far as we are “persons” in an objective reality full of possible dangers, evils and predators. This fact, wreaks with purpose and meaning.

Similarly we feel “guilt” when we “know”, or come to believe, or come to acknowledge, that we we have degraded or damaged another “person” existing objectively from our senses. We can resist and refuse to acknowledge that we “ought” to feel guilty, and we can also be fooled in to thinking that we have done wrong when the objective situations and actions have similarities to that which we understand to be morally wrong, but are not in fact the same.

Another example of how knowledge affects emotional response is provided by your claim that the atheist’s life is necessarily one of tragedy and ultimate despair. This is most certainly your subjective evaluation - if it had a basis in observable fact, it would be empirically testable.

So your “philosophical” position is this: we must believe only that which can be proved empirically, and only that which is proven empirically can be known to be a “fact”?

What about the fact that you exist? We know about existence only because we subjectively experience it.

What about the fact that we acknowledge the existence of other minds? We only know of them because we have subjective knowledge of ourselves and can relate the behavior of an external object to our own.

Neither of these “Facts” required empirical verification or falsification before we believed or accepted the objective truth of them. Similarly, i experience moral right and wrong, and i do not need empirical evidence for that either.

I’m sorry, but i don’t think that you really understand what you are talking about. You seem to be just throwing things out there, and hoping that i might be blind enough not to see the fatal flaws in your thinking.

 

[jkiernan56]

For the sake of meaningful discussion, it might be worth understanding exactly what is meant by ‘the problem of evil’.

As discussed in this thread, it is largely a philosophical problem, not a social or political problem that requires denial or affirmation of the objective existence of evil.

Christians believe in a god who is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. However, it is also abundantly clear that harm, suffering and destruction are prevalent in our world - no-one in possession of their senses would deny this - and when these things are deliberately, gratuitously inflicted, we refer to them as evil (if this means objective evil, there it is - a case could also be made that consciously doing things of a beneficial nature gives us a workable definition for objective goodness as well, but that is a slightly different point from the one at issue here).

The problem of evil, then, is not just that it exists (although most would agree that its very existence is a problem that needs addressing) but that it exists in a universe believed by some to be created and inhabited by the Christian God.

A number of solutions present themselves:

• One of the 'omni’s is missing - either God can’t do anything about the presence of evil, or he doesn’t know about it, or doesn’t care about it, or is malicious.
• God has some inscrutable plan that requires the existence of evil, thus rendering evil ‘not really evil’, since it conforms to God’s ultimate intentions - that, in a nutshell is the position put forward in the OP.
• There is no such being as the Christian God.

It was in criticising the OP’s contention (the second one, above) that I entered this thread. My original claim was that this ‘solution’ to the problem of evil - this airy sweeping under the rug of hundreds of years of philosophical agonising over a seemingly paradoxical situation - really makes the presence or absence of god a moot point: the world is the way it is either because God planned it so, or because there is no God - it’s hard to know how we’d be able to tell the difference, except in seeking other avenues of evidence for God. That is where the debate over theism/atheism came into play.

I apologize for my snide remarks (ie - my comment about whether the lights were on at home) in response to a misunderstanding of your position on the reality of evil. I mistakenly thought you were a subjective relativist and that you considered evil only a subjective experience. Thank you for clarifying what you really think for me. I was arguing about the objective reality of evil (which only has meaning in context with objective good to me) with the incorrect idea you were in denial about it’s existence. I realize this discussion with you about the reality of evil was out of context with the OP and was a diversion from it’s central theme.

Question just so that I don’t spin any more wheels in the wrong direction - are you an athiest or agnostic?

This topic is the same as discussed by CS Lewis in his book “The Problem of Pain”. How do you reconcile the existence of evil, pain and suffering in the world if God is all knowing, all powerful, and all loving? This is an extremely important topic.