In Missouri, a family on the way home from the hospital with their newborn were hit head-on by a Toyota that crossed the center line. Mother, father, and the baby’s older brother were killed. Only the newborn survived.
I do believe in God, but stories like this are the best reason I can think of to disbelieve.
JonF says: MH: we see only a miniscule slice of all there is, and was, and yet may be. You’re well aware, I assume, of all those “billions and billions” that Carl Sagan used to love to rhapsodize about? I rather think it hubristic in the extreme that we imagine we can judge the universe, let alone God.
John E. says: Erin, we heathens can only cower under the bed in existential terror for a little while before we get hungry.
There is that – and a good breakfast goes a long way towards dispelling the existential terrors.
BTW, just what exactly are these existential terrors Erin speaks of? The idea that someday I won’t be? Well, I wasn’t for a long time. It didn’t bother me then, either.
JonF says: Additionally, maybe we are asking the wrong question entirely.
There is a fairly brutal Zen parable that bears on this:
“Master,” asked the novice, “Will the Buddha nature also be consumed in the Final Fire at the End of Time?” whereupon the master took a candle and lit the novice’s rob on fire. “Put it out! Put it out!” screamed the novice.
The question of evil is not some abstract metaphysical question. The question is, What will we do about it?
Saint Andeol, to me the really important sections here are 846-848, which read as follows:
846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation.
848 “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”
(I’ve removed several footnote numbers from the above to avoid confused formatting, but anyone interested can look at the original passages.)
To me, what that passage says is: the devout Hindu may not be at fault at all for his ignorance of the Gospel, nor should it be supposed that all that is necessary to remove that ignorance is a simple presentation of that Gospel as a one-time event, or even his vague awareness of the presence of a Christian Church in some larger town or community, etc. God alone knows the hearts of men, and He alone knows whether this hypothetical Hindu has really received both the invitation and the spiritual grace to come to embrace the Gospel; thus, God alone knows whether or not this man is on a path to salvation regardless of whether he ever formally converts to Christianity or not.
But the Church is not in the least thereby absolved from her mission to evangelize all men; it is preferable that she should continue to witness to the Good News of salvation in every place and at every time.
Now, we’re speaking of hypotheticals, but someone I know knew a former Hindu who became a Protestant Christian. This man sat his Hindu parents down, told them about Christ, and when they refused to convert to Christianity immediately, wrote them off as headed for eternal damnation–which is not how a Catholic would view the situation at all.
John E… You know you may be a closet Calvinist if you find yourself objecting to the hymn, “When We All Get to Heaven”…
But back to Rod’s original question: if one is to believe that God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and good, then one cannot believe that everything that happens comes out the way God would want it to happen.
One can attribute the difference to sin, to free will, to both, to some random factor, or to the possibility that God intended for us to work some things out.
MH - secular misanthropist says: JonF, while the universe is indeed be vast, we can only reason based upon the evidence we have, not the unbounded amount we don’t know. If God expects us to believe in him and punish us for not believing, then it stands to reason that a benevolent God would provide us with information adequate to achieve that end.
Now I agree with your last statement that humans should do what we can to address evil and suffering. We’ve eradicated smallpox and are getting closer on polio, so I’d put two in the camp of mankind. But I ask you how could a God create smallpox in the first place and claim to be omnibenevolent? Think of all the pain and death those two viruses inflicted.
What about hunger and famine? Given geometric growth of populations they are almost a certainty. Again suffering is baked into fabric of our existence. But humans invented chemical fertilizers and created the green revolution which decreased the incidence of these events.
Roland de Chanson says: I must, upon reflexion, correct my previous thought. Yes, God is to be blamed for the lack of grandeur in the cosmos in the matter of air, sea, and land fury which result in the deaths of innocent beings. Not to mention the killer asteroid or comet. It is a poorly designed system from an engineering point of view, and from a theological one. Mere randomness.
God may not be omniscient after all, just really smart. Nor omnipotent. Just more able than we. We already know he is not all-forgiving. Just ask Cain. Or Jesus.
But the stochastic model might equally explain the errant Toyota. If the driver had had a heart attack or stroke or was drunk, to what extent is this attributable to a genetic propensity over which he may not have any control? A random mutation? Or a predetermined (i.e. predestined) one? God is not off the hook here.
The gods exist but they don’t give a damn about us. (Free translation from Epicurus.)
Orthodoxdj says: MH said:
“When I perceive the heat of a fire it is grounded in objective physical reality. It would be unreasonable to claim that fire is cold as valid a perception in that case.”
You’re proving my point. Above you arguing that you are experiencing something that is actual and that your mind and body are accurately perceiving it. Earlier you argued that thoughts are simply brain activity and not related to reality, i.e. morality isn’t real, it’s only one’s experience which is only a brain activity which is only a chemical reaction which is neither good nor evil. If you want to be believe in epiphenomenalism then you need to stop saying that something actually IS. You must only say you are having a chemical reaction.
You went on to say that working together as humans is good. You’ve begged the question. You’re essentially saying:
“Collectively working together is good because it allows humans to survive. Surviving is good because it allows humans to collectively work together.”
MH - secular misanthropist says: Orthodoxdj, not true. I am saying that humans view cooperation as good because they are the offspring of the survivors that did this behavior. Basically sociopaths make bad parents, so it was a necessary precondition for them to exist and gets wired into human psychology. We like food (and so do animals) for the same reason we have instincts.
Your first statement sounds like eliminative materialism which is not something all materialist subscribe to. So saying something is based in the material world is not saying it doesn’t exist. It is viewed as an emergent property like liquidity emerges when you combine hydrogen and oxygen in the right manner.
I can turn things around and point out the interaction problem with the immaterial. How does it interact with the physical world and since all material interactions require energy why can’t we measure this interaction?
Orthodoxdj says: Morality is not contained in cells or atoms. If you want to believe morality is real, then you have to concede that it is not made of physical parts. Liquidity is not a substance. It is a property. Something can be a liquiid, but something cannot be liquidity.
Once again you’ve begged the question when you say that sociopaths make bad parents. What makes them bad parents to you? Is it that they don’t value survival? Why should they value survival? You’ll say because survival is good. Do you see the circle? You’re saying survival is good but you’re not saying what good is. In essence, you’re saying morality is merely descriptive and not prescriptive. That means that in your framework morality is relative, which is really saying morality isn’t morality. Your view can never say how people ought to behave, It can only say how people behaved in the past. Then again, in your epiphenomenalist view the pastmight not be real since my recollection of the past is merely a chemical reaction.
John E. says: Siarlys – heh, also the old jokes about Saint Peter showing the new guy around heaven and warning him to be quiet over in this section because Group X (usually Baptists) think they are the only ones there.
Another Matt says: Andy C:
Based on the way I see morality, and the way I see the world work, an all powerful, loving God *can’t* exist.
Andy C, I think people point to the the three “big omnis” – omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence – as inconsistent with the evidence we have. If god there be, it’s got at most only two of the omnis – it’s the Epicurean Trilemma in a slightly different form. That leaves, roughly, Superman, the deist god, and Cthulhu.
The dodges (and they should be taken seriously) are 1) free will and 2) redefining “good” along the lines of divine command theory (appeal to mystery falls into category 2).
I find “free will” is the most satisfying answer, but I do worry about all the suffering that had to happen before anything that possessed human powers of will evolved, in order that humans emerge from the process already inflicting injury on other humans and animals (and then what is atonement supposed to be for?). Genesis has a logic to it, and in some ways I suppose it would be a better world if it weren’t false.
MH:
the classic rebuttal to that theodicy is the amount of suffering seems massively disproportionate to the amount required to be instructive.
Not only that, but you and I would also have to worry about getting injured as part of being used in god’s “instruction” for someone else.
MH - secular misanthropist says: Orthodoxdj, I won’t concede the existence of non physical parts until you can explain how they can interact with physical systems. You’re proposing their existence, so describe how this works.
I am saying that morality exists because of its utilitarian value. Sociopaths aren’t bad parents to me, they are bad parents to their children who fail to survive. Social insects for example make excellent care takers and display altruistic behavior. Do they have morality?
We value survival for the same reason we want to eat. We have instincts to do so because our ancestors that didn’t eat died and didn’t leave offspring. I fail to see why this description view says that morality isn’t morality or why it is relative.
JonF says: MH, my point was that we have insufficient evidence to conclude anything about the ultimate nature of the universe, or God’s ultimate purposes. We are like people living in a valley between two high mountain ranges beyond which we never stray; we might well conclude the Earth is concave when in fact it is the exact opposite.
Brian, I’d point you to another verse from Isaiah, to wit, 45:7. It is one that is not often discussed.
I have to agree with MH and John E. that death is endemic to the cosmos. Interestingly, J. R. R. Tolkien, who was a believing Catholic, suggested in some of his ancillary writings that the Christian mythos of death entering only after the first sin was mistaken. In his view, the Fall consisted exactly in viewing death as an interloper and an evil, rather than seeing it as natural to mankind. In Lord of the Rings, he calls death the “Doom of Man”. Of course, “doom” originally meant just “fate” or “destiny”, with no negative connotations; and as an Anglo-Saxon scholar, Tolkien knew well that the original form of the word, dōm also meant “glory”. A fascinating interplya of meanings.
In any case, any theology (or theodicy) needs to deal with the fact that the Universe has pain, suffering, and nastiness built in from the git-go. This fact, along with the citation from Isaiah I give above, would actually be a good argument for the Gnostic view that the creator of the Cosmos is the evil and/or deluded Demiurge who botched the job since it is his nature to do so; while the real God is distant from the material realm and coaxes us towards Himself indirectly. I’m not a Gnostic, but I’m sympathetic to many aspects of Gnostic thought; and those who’ve read the Ainulindale section of Tolkien’s Silmarillion know that Tolkien posists something not totally unlike the Gnostic cosmogony.
Having said that, I’d have to agree that such a thing as this is the most powerful argument for atheism one could make. In a broad way, I look at it like this: if there is no meaning in the cosmos, then stuff like this will happen with no real closure or purpose; and ultimately the whole human race will end its tenure on earth, and it will have been a blip in a meaningless, unfeeling, uncaring cosmos. Given the choice between that and the view that there is some meaning and resolution somewhere, even if it doesn’t seem so, even if I can’t understand it, I take the latter. That’s an egregious oversimplification of my views, but a fair summary.
Btw, I think lots of Hindus will be entering Heaven before lots of Christians I could think of. Hinduism also has an interesting theodicy that I find to some extent attractive–google līlā.
Anyway all we can do is extend our thoughts and (for those of us who pray) prayers to this tragically stricken family.
Socrates says: This just makes me crazy.
You cannot have both an omniscient god and human free will.
An omniscient god knows the future. That would mean the future is determined. If the future is determined, then humans don’t have free will.
If you don’t have an omniscient god, then you don’t have Christianity.
If people don’t have free will, then you don’t have Christianity.
You really must choose one or the other. Omniscient god, or human free will. It’s logically impossible to have both. And yet, in order to accept Christianity, you must have both.
But this is impossible.
Another Matt says: Socrates,
There are some people, e.g. Dan Dennett, who believe “free will” is compatible with determinism. If you have an hour:
Socrates says: Also, the accident Rod describes here is not a reason to doubt the existence of god.
It is, however, an excellent reason to reject the idea of a loving, personal god.
Socrates says: Thank you, Another Matt.
Socrates, you are talking like a Calvinist. C.S. Lewis debunked the entire predestination thesis in The Screwtape Letters, when he pointed out that time is not a limitation on God, only a dimension of our material universe. God does not look into the future and see what is GOING to happen. He sees it all, in one unbounded now, AS it is happening. “And to watch a man do a thing is not the same as to make him do it.”
John F. Haught’s God Since Darwin explores some interesting perspective about God having created a universe that he knew would be, by nature, imperfect, at some significant sacrifice of self to even create it in the first place, and then calling it back to himself — but with the sentient components at least having free will to choose.
It is easy to prove that God couldn’t exist, if you take the simplest two-dimensional pastel Sunday school version as the epitome of deistic revelation.
MH - secular misanthropist says: JonF, I concede that point willing. I have no idea why the universe exists or if even is a why.
Turmarion, I have no problem with other people making leaps of faith, but I would need to lie to myself to make one.
Socrates, you should read up on Calvinism and double predestination. It will make your head pop off.
Another Matt, I was raised in a conservative Protestant denomination. The solution to the problem of evil I was taught was the classic literal fall of a man (Adam) followed by substitutiary atonement. When I figured out at 16 there was no way that was true given all the evidence to the contrary I wound up disbelief contrary.
MH - secular misanthropist says: Accidently hit submit. The last sentence should end in disbelief.
Another Matt says: I was raised in a conservative Protestant denomination. The solution to the problem of evil I was taught was the classic literal fall of a man (Adam) followed by substitutiary atonement. When I figured out at 16 there was no way that was true given all the evidence to the contrary I wound up [in disbelief.]
Indeed, as was I. I ended up attending an Orthodox church for about two years because its god is far more worthy of worship than the protestant one; but in the end I just couldn’t summon the belief that any of it was true, however much I wanted it to be. So, according to conscience I declined baptism and left.
Rob says: God is beyond good and evil. He is there in death as well.
I could easily talk myself into atheism also, if I got wound up in every detail of the available translations of Scripture. But so many people around me were devout Christians, when I worked out of storefront organizations in low income neighborhoods, when I was at a hospitality house for people visiting at a nearby prison, and other situations since, that I took another look. Once I compared a good published article on the origins of life, with the actual words of Genesis, I realized there was an unavoidable congruence.
Now if some Biblical “literalist” starts quibbling about what day the sun was created and therefore it couldn’t have been there before the earth was, I have to set that aside, because like I said, I could easily talk myself into atheism if I took an empiricist approach to Scripture. But when I take a step back, realize this is a transcendent God talking to us, who has to try to squeeze things we can’t understand into words we can… I don’t get hung up on empirics. After all, to the best of our knowledge, the universe DID begin with a tremendous burst of electro-magnetism, and, barring a lot of pure speculation about bubbling multiverses, we have no good explanation that is not, possibly, creation ex nihilo.
Besides, I just have a sense that if God weren’t looking out for me, just a bit, not as much as I’d like, but sufficiently… by the laws of chance and the operation of either a cold, indifferent universe, or a ruthless capitalist economy, even or especially a liberal one, I would most likely be homeless.
Another Matt says: After all, to the best of our knowledge, the universe DID begin with a tremendous burst of electro-magnetism,
A small quibble – I think in the current understanding, electromagnetism would not have been a discrete interaction at all until a finite time after the big bang started.
In any case, arguing about cosmology can only get one up to a belief in the deist god or something like the Spinoza god (or maybe better, Einstein’s god). There’s still nothing that would correlate with Christianity as such – I don’t think Fall and Redemption are compatible with evolution at all without making them “metaphors” (metaphors for what, nobody knows) or twisting the science to accomodate them. It leads to too much cognitive dissonance.
meh says: Indiana toddler’s parents, siblings died in storm
(Reuters) – A toddler girl’s entire family was killed by tornadoes in the hours before she was rescued alone from a field miles from her home in ravaged southeast Indiana, officials said on Saturday.
So it goes.
Socrates says: C. S. Lewis may have an opinion on the matter (based on no evidence at all, I imagine), but I’m pretty sure he hasn’t “debunked” it.
Socrates says: “Besides, I just have a sense that if God weren’t looking out for me, just a bit, not as much as I’d like, but sufficiently… by the laws of chance and the operation of either a cold, indifferent universe, or a ruthless capitalist economy, even or especially a liberal one, I would most likely be homeless.”
I don’t mean to be personal here, but I really find this inexplicable. God is quite obviously not looking out for millions of other human beings and animals. Why is that? And it isn’t as if we’re talking about other people suffering a bit more. We’re talking about people being tortured, burned alive, killed in gas chambers, worked literally to death, starved, beaten, kept as slaves, forced to watch their children die, people being crushed in earthquakes, drowned in tsunamis… and in the animal kingdom, it’s common to be eaten alive, or to eat another animals eggs and babies.
Evil is baked in the cake. This is the product of an all-powerful, loving, personal god?
Socrates says: Oh, yeah, and one more thing. A lot of that mayhem has been done in the name of religion, including Christianity.
You are missing the entire point Matt: How did Moses know about the Big Bang, more than 4000 years before the Hubble Telescope was put into orbit?
Besides, there is the obvious foundation for evolutionary biology in the first two chapters of Genesis, almost as many years before Darwin had the foggiest notion.
As for the tornadoes in Indiana, we did that, collectively, to ourselves, as a whole, and the innocent are often the ones to suffer the most. Blame that one on the climate changed deniers.
Roland de Chanson says: Socrates,
Is time a category in the Divine Mind?
Mind you, I don’t know.
The last time I seriously contemplated human free will and divine omniscience, I was under the influence of an illegal substance. After the cops left, I vowed to eschew formal pursuit of the divine mystery and concentrate on pursuit of the human mystery. The human female to be precise.
Such pursuit is much more rewarding in its own right. Women can make you wish you’d live forever and wish you’d never been born. The result is illuminative of both the noxious menace of immortality and the ineffable mercy of permanent mortality
Don’t the Hindu philosophers have a name for that? They’ve a name for every thought ever thought. Or every act ever acted. But it escapes me. The Vedas: Platon sans vin.
Another Matt, the idea that free will and determinism are compatible is called “soft determinism” or “compatibilism” in philosophical circles. I must say I’ve always thought it to be totally incoherent or at least fudging in how it defines “free will”. I might give the Dennett video a look if I have time, but I’ve never yet seen a defense of soft determinism that I find compelling.
MH: I have no problem with other people making leaps of faith, but I would need to lie to myself to make one.
That’s fine, and I can respect that. This is why I don’t subscribe to any form of proselytism beyond, “You might want to check this out.” God (assuming, as I do, that He exists) made a cosmos in which His presences is far from obvious; and He apparently made us so that some have temperaments or life experiences that make it impossible for them to believe. For Him to damn such people for something that was essentially of His doing would be demonic. Of course the Calvinst god (at least in his TULIP form) actually does do that; which is why I could never be Calvinist.
It’s interesting that Robert L. Short, author of The Gospel According to Peanuts and other Peanuts related books, while a traditional Calvinist in terms of denying free will, realizes what kind of God that implies. In Short Meditations on the Bible and Peanuts he argues that such a view necessarily implies universal salvation; since otherwise—well, see above.
Anyway, if I’m wrong, at least faith has (hopefully!) spurred me to better behavior in this life, and the next, being non-existent, will be no loss; and if I’m right, then MH and John E. have made the world a better place (if nothing else in that I like reading their comments), and will be pleasantly surprised in the blessed futurity. Let’s all hope the Calvinists are wrong…. 
Another Matt says: How did Moses know about the Big Bang, more than 4000 years before the Hubble Telescope was put into orbit?
I imagine it’s the same way scholars of Islam believe Mohammed “knew about” embryology and how some Hindus believe their religion “predicted” the oscillating-universe cosmology: something in their mythology happened to correspond in vague, metaphorical terms to something discovered in science.
Besides, there is the obvious foundation for evolutionary biology in the first two chapters of Genesis, almost as many years before Darwin had the foggiest notion.
I know it’s convenient to believe this. The problem is there are a thousand ways of interpreting Genesis 1-2, and there was no way to know which was “correct” until someone did the science. If we were to discover that we’re actually a simulation running on some alien computer somewhere, “Moses” would still be “right” to within broad metaphorical interpretation.
And theistic evolution still makes a hash both of evolution and the Fall, and the presumed consequences of the Fall. I suppose the Orthodox theosis concept could provide an escape hatch – in that case “the Fall” would just be a metaphor for having evolved, and theosis would be a “next step” in evolution. It’s better theologically, but there are still tons of methodological problems if you have to twist the science to get evolution with telos. Original Sin is right out, though.
Another Matt says: Another Matt, the idea that free will and determinism are compatible is called “soft determinism” or “compatibilism” in philosophical circles. I must say I’ve always thought it to be totally incoherent or at least fudging in how it defines “free will”. I might give the Dennett video a look if I have time, but I’ve never yet seen a defense of soft determinism that I find compelling.
Yes, and Dennett is a compatibilist through and through. It’s largely a matter of perspective, I think, but soft determinism gets at the implications of what goes on in brains (and also by extension in natural selection). Briefly, let’s say I picked a card from a deck. Hard determinism says that my brain could not have chosen otherwise at that moment. Soft determinism allows that, but says “it is meaningful to speak of the other options my brain could have chosen but didn’t.”
Compatibilism allows constructions like “the bomb could have blown up an entire block if the bomb squad had not gotten there,” whereas hard determinism would require “the bomb could never have blown up because the bomb squad got there.”
If we’re committed to determinism, compatibilism is the perspective that allows science to happen because even though everything is determined (supposedly), it’s meaningful to talk about similarities and differences between situations at different times — under hard determinism all situations are completely different. A compatibilist perspective is why it’s possible to run the “same” experiment a number of times. I think it really just hinges on physical/metaphysical vs. epistemological interpretations of the words “could, “possible,” and the like.
This is probably enough from me in this thread – I worry I’m starting to annoy our host.
Socrates says: I bring up animals because it helps to cut through the BS.
Animals aren’t exercising their free will, they could not choose otherwise than to eat one another, and they’re not being tempted by Satan. They weren’t created without sin, but then ate from the Tree of Knowledge.
In the animal world, evil is baked in the cake. It is obviously the way the system was designed. They eat each other alive, the consume one another’s children.
Does anyone honestly believe that a loving, all-powerful, personal god would design a world like this?
Terry Pratchett says it perfectly:
“To summarize, he saw a mother otter and her cubs along a riverbank – a totally endearing sight. The mother dove into the river and came up with a large trout which she started ripping up for her cubs, while it was still alive. As the otter ripped at it, it split open and the eggs it was carrying spilled out. All of the otters were delighted at the treat.
One of nature’s wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining on mother and children.
And that’s when I first learned about evil.
It is built into the very nature of the universe.
Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.”
John E. says: Thanks Tuamrion, if there is anything after death, let’s all put in a good word for each other.
Hugo Longbone says: Really? This sort of event is the inspiration of atheism? For shame. We lament that our God is not like our Government, a force imposing its dogmatic will upon us. Imagine a world where God was such a vulgar display of power as you demand. Unlike government, there would be no law to protect you from the just wrath of his Truth. He would crush us to powder for our wickedness and sins and think NOTHING of it. God shows his very true love by holding his judgment, by showing his mercy upon all of us in this life. Death in this life is not God’s judgment, it is the natural course of living in the fallen world. Indeed, God loves humanity so much, he sent his only Son so that we may personally know his Truth and have the faith to follow it. Then again I think most people who scramble to justify their faithlessness by such arguments are no different than the people who rejected Christ, no matter how many feats of wonder Jesus performed they never would believe and I doubt they would either.
Another Matt, you have diligently demonstrated that if any participant in a debate has a free hand to set all the premises and all the syllogisms, that person is guaranteed to win that debate — all of which has nothing to do with what, if anything, is demonstrable objective truth.
It is my observation (not binding on you, of course) that almost everyone who gets hot and bothered about science triumphing over faith, or faith triumphing over science, starts with their preferred premise:
a) There is a God who made all that is, seen and unseen,
b) There is no God, or, there are no gods, or, both,
And then piles a mountain of more or less known data on this premise, after which they beam at any willing or unwilling audience and announce,
“See, this proves that [substitute premise for conclusion], is correct.” (Cf. C.S. Lewis on how an answered prayer can be just as good evidence that prayer does not work, as an unanswered one, since there is always a chain of observable physical events which are a necessary part of the prayer being answered, and can be interpreted “See, it would have happened anyway.”)
This makes the advocate feel very pleased with themselves, but enlightens nobody.
Meanwhile, Socrates is anthropomorphizing, while talking about animals:
Just as one possible example, what if God didn’t much care about anything from prokaryotes to chimpanzees, EXCEPT that the biological processes they embody would eventually give rise to homo sapiens sapiens, and in the process create a sustainable world to nurture homo sapiens sapiens? Who cares about the otters and the trout? (If you surmise that I am not a candidate for membership in PETA, you are right. Also, I do not allow cats or dogs in the house.)
A Biblical literalist once offered me the same argument, to “prove” that God couldn’t be the author of evolutionary biology. He pointed to the same kind of examples you did, and added “Does this sound ‘very good’ to you?” I responded, who am I to say that what God pronounced “very good” is evil? (An Orthodox rabbi to whom I repeated this agreed with my approach).
Philosophers prattling about “soft determinism” and “compatibalism” moves me about as much as Christians prattling about “modalism” when I question whether God is Triune in nature. Put any label you want on it — this means nothing about whether it is true or false.
Finally, I’m not trying to perpetrate a conversion by logic upon you. To point out that science does NOT prove that there COULD NOT be a loving, creative, omipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, is quite sufficient. You may well believe that such a God is highly improbable and offends your sense of reason and good order. So be it. Mine is not offended.
meh says: Infant who survived Indiana twister that killed her family dies a day later
“Angel has been reunited with her parents,” her grandfather, Jack Brough, said in a statement read by hospital staff. “All of us should look to God.”
.
meh says: Siarlys Jenkins: To point out that science does NOT prove that there COULD NOT be a loving, creative, omipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, is quite sufficient.
That’s not the half of it. Natural Selection would favor a religious fundamentalist with multiple progeny, who denied It’s glory, over an evolutionist who had none. Mother Nature is an amoral b*tch.
Also, I do not allow cats or dogs in the house.
What an a$$hole.
What about an evolutionist with twelve children over a committed gay couple who were Biblical literalists? You ought to know by now I like to think outside the box.
(You have also neatly summarized the feature of live dogs and cats I do NOT want in the house).
meh says: Natural selection does not favor the gay couple.
(You have also neatly summarized the feature of live dogs and cats I do NOT want in the house).
Touché. Toxoplasmosis is spooky.
“Saint Andeol, I don’t think quite as little of the devout Hindu’s chances as you do”
Do you mean their chances of renouncing their beliefs and accepting Christ, or their chances of getting into Heaven despite being Hindu?
I looked up section 843 of the Catechism, which says “the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as “a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life.”
So it sounds like our hypothetical Hindu is only safe if he uses his religion as a stepping stone to the greater enlightenment of Christ. What I’m saying is that statistically, through no malice or ill will, a significant segment of Hinduism will NOT make the step “up” to Jesus because there is no real or good reason for them to, since they’re making the same assumption you are: that their religion is the Truth. And it seems a little culturally myopic to believe they had a fair shot at avoiding Hell and should suffer for their “choice”, which to many is no choice at all.