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Thought Experiment 95: The Problem of Evil

5/29/2017

2 Comments

 
Picture
In a world with cats, how can one claim God exists?
After some fun thought experiments dealing with zombies, artificial intelligence, and a deep flaw in the laws of logic, Baggini is taking us back to an old chestnut about religion this week. How vile of him.

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     And the Lord spake unto the philosopher, "I am the Lord thy God, all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing."
     "Surely not," replied the philosopher. "I look at this world and see horrible disease, hunger, starvation, mental illness. Yet you don't stop it. Is it that you can't? In which case you are not all-powerful. Is it because you don't know about it? In which case you are not all-knowing. Or perhaps you don't want to? In which case you are not all-loving.
     "Such impudence!" replied the Lord. "It is better for you if I don't stop all this evil. You need to grow morally and spiritually. For that you need the freedom to do evil as well as good, and to confront the chance occurrence of suffering. How could I possibly have made the world better without taking away your freedom to grow?"
     "Easy," replied the philosopher. "First, you could have designed us so that we feel less pain. Second, you could have made sure we had more empathy, to prevent us doing evil to others. Third, you could have made us better learners, so we didn't have to suffer so much to grow. Fourth, you could have made nature less cruel. Do you want me to go on?"

Source: The problem of evil recurs in different forms throughout the history of theology.

Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 283.
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What do you think? Is the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic concept of God really undermined by these rational arguments? Why don't billions of people think so? I'll be back on Friday with my thoughts on this.
2 Comments
SelfAwarePatterns link
5/29/2017 04:14:35 pm

The problem of evil is an issue for traditional Christian theology. But the issue seems to come from insisting on a tri-omni outlook: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence.

When I used to argue with apologists, I had a couple solve the dilemma by giving just a bit on the omnipotence property, instead positing a being who is supremely powerful instead of all powerful, but still all knowing and all loving. From what I've heard, Muslim theology gives on the omnibenevolence property, positing a being who isn't necessarily always benevolent but who should be worshiped because he is all powerful and all knowing.

Personally, my lack of belief comes more from lack of evidence for anything supernatural, the lack of consensus among cultures on God, gods, or ultimate reality, and the fact that all scripture or revelation seem like a creation of certain cultures rather than any universal intelligence.

Reply
Ed Gibney link
5/30/2017 10:50:58 am

Yes, I agree with you on all those points of what happens in reality. If I was an apologist, I'd probably give up on the all-loving aspect and vote for a vengeful trickster god a la the Old Testament. But clearly, I'm on your side with a lack of belief.

Reply



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