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.
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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.
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