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Special Pleading and the PoE (Part 3)

Meow Mix

Chatte Féministe
I have started quite a few threads about the PoE, but there is still more to talk about. Today I'd like to talk about this little issue: ostensibly, given the premises that God exists, that God is omnipotent, that God is omniscient, and that God created humans deliberately, then it is reasonable to conclude that God is responsible for our moral compasses: that evaluation that we perform when we feel something has morally good or morally bad implications.

For instance, perhaps this is the reason that we might feel guilty if we hurt somebody, even unintentionally.

Ostensibly, if God is benevolent and wishes for us to be morally good agents, God would endow us with functioning moral cognitive faculties: God would give us the ability to detect what is morally good and what is morally bad. (Now, obviously as a non-theist and moral non-cognitivist I don't believe any of this; just working within the framework of the premises).

Let us return again to the example given in the last couple of PoE posts: childhood leukemia. If we were to imagine a being giving or allowing a child to suffer horribly from leukemia and then die, most of our moral compasses tingle "this is bad."

But why? If we are to use the theodicy that this post series is about (that is, "God has an unknown, but benevolent, reason for causing/allowing physical suffering in the world"), why wouldn't our moral compasses register this as good even if we didn't understand why, if it was actually good?

In other words, we are between a rock and a hard place: if children with leukemia is actually congruent with God's benevolence, and God gave us functioning cognitive, moral faculties, why wouldn't this register as good to us?

If it is actually good, but registers on our moral compasses as bad, why did God give us malfunctioning moral cognitive faculties? Wouldn't that be an entirely new problem unto itself?
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I have started quite a few threads about the PoE, but there is still more to talk about. Today I'd like to talk about this little issue: ostensibly, given the premises that God exists, that God is omnipotent, that God is omniscient, and that God created humans deliberately, then it is reasonable to conclude that God is responsible for our moral compasses: that evaluation that we perform when we feel something has morally good or morally bad implications.

For instance, perhaps this is the reason that we might feel guilty if we hurt somebody, even unintentionally.

Ostensibly, if God is benevolent and wishes for us to be morally good agents, God would endow us with functioning moral cognitive faculties: God would give us the ability to detect what is morally good and what is morally bad. (Now, obviously as a non-theist and moral non-cognitivist I don't believe any of this; just working within the framework of the premises).

Let us return again to the example given in the last couple of PoE posts: childhood leukemia. If we were to imagine a being giving or allowing a child to suffer horribly from leukemia and then die, most of our moral compasses tingle "this is bad."

But why? If we are to use the theodicy that this post series is about (that is, "God has an unknown, but benevolent, reason for causing/allowing physical suffering in the world"), why wouldn't our moral compasses register this as good even if we didn't understand why, if it was actually good?

In other words, we are between a rock and a hard place: if children with leukemia is actually congruent with God's benevolence, and God gave us functioning cognitive, moral faculties, why wouldn't this register as good to us?

If it is actually good, but registers on our moral compasses as bad, why did God give us malfunctioning moral cognitive faculties? Wouldn't that be an entirely new problem unto itself?

I alway wondered about the need to rationally justify God. There is no need for that as far as I can tell, all that is needed is faith.
 

Meow Mix

Chatte Féministe
I alway wondered about the need to rationally justify God. There is no need for that as far as I can tell, all that is needed is faith.

I think that if someone values reason, they should strive to hold reasonable beliefs in some rational way. If they don't, then perhaps that is fine for them; but it also means people that do have no reason to take their claims seriously (by definition). And perhaps that is fine with them. But people that do value these things will continue to strive towards better understanding.
 

SigurdReginson

Grēne Mann
Premium Member
Hmmm... This reminds me of another thread I made in the past involving the conscience. It was interesting to see just how people experience how their conscience actually triggers, cause it's not all the same. We can't describe how we each see the color blue, but we can describe what goes through our physical processes when our conscience is triggered.

Empathy and the Conscience

It seems to me that you are using "moral compass" in a similar way, though I could be mistaken.

Still, I feel that's an aspect to consider when we are talking about what people feel in regards to their moral compass. It's not nearly a 1 to 1 ratio. Everyone experiences a different inner dialogue (or none at all) when this phenomenon happens to varying degrees. A lot of it also has to do with the way in which we are raised or with the way our culture exists in this place and time, not to mention our life experiences even to this point and time. It's a complicated issue.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I think that if someone values reason, they should strive to hold reasonable beliefs in some rational way. If they don't, then perhaps that is fine for them; but it also means people that do have no reason to take their claims seriously (by definition). And perhaps that is fine with them. But people that do value these things will continue to strive towards better understanding.

Yeah, I get it, the part about rational. The problem is that is limited in practice. Rationalism doesn't work.
 

Meow Mix

Chatte Féministe
Hmmm... This reminds me of another thread I made in the past involving the conscience. It was interesting to see just how people experience how their conscience actually triggers, cause it's not all the same. We can't describe how we each see the color blue, but we can describe what goes through our physical processes when our conscience is triggered.

Empathy and the Conscience

It seems to me that you are using "moral compass" in a similar way, though I could be mistaken.

Still, I feel that's an aspect to consider when we are talking about what people feel in regards to their moral compass. It's not nearly a 1 to 1 ratio. Everyone experiences a different inner dialogue (or none at all) when this phenomenon happens to varying degrees. A lot of it also has to do with the way in which we are raised or with the way our culture exists in this place and time, not to mention our life experiences. It's a complicated issue.

I agree that it's a complicated issue, especially as a moral non-cognitivist. However, within the framework of the PoE premises, I think it's reasonable to say that if an omnipotent/omniscient being created humans and furthermore desired for them to be good moral agents, said being should have provided humans with cognitive faculties that are capable of correctly discerning moral good from moral bad. If this being did not do this, that's a whole new problem. If the being did do this, then the theodicy the post series is about (the "hidden reasons suffering is congruent with benevolence" argument) is incongruent with that possibility itself. It puts the theodicist between a rock and a hard place.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
What do you mean that it doesn't work? Also, what are you calling rationalism? The valuation of reason?

No, you can't use reason and logic on all of the world. Both are in the end local in time, spaces and specific to given individual brains for some accepts of the world.
 

Meow Mix

Chatte Féministe
No, you can't use reason and logic on all of the world. Both are in the end local in time, spaces and specific to given individual brains for some accepts of the world.

What alternative is there to reason and logic? Logic is about self-consistency, and reason is about careful thinking with understanding of what follows from what. I don't see how you could do something besides that without it being nonsense in a very literal way.

Edit: Unless we're talking about art, feelings, the realm of aesthetic and things like that.
 

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
I agree that it's a complicated issue, especially as a moral non-cognitivist. However, within the framework of the PoE premises, I think it's reasonable to say that if an omnipotent/omniscient being created humans and furthermore desired for them to be good moral agents, said being should have provided humans with cognitive faculties that are capable of correctly discerning moral good from moral bad. If this being did not do this, that's a whole new problem. If the being did do this, then the theodicy the post series is about (the "hidden reasons suffering is congruent with benevolence" argument) is incongruent with that possibility itself. It puts the theodicist between a rock and a hard place.
That we have that moral knowledge, is actually a necessary pre-condition in Christianity. For, how would we know that we are sinning, otherwise? Or convince anyone that sin is actually something to avoid? The alternative would be to just declare some acts as wrong, and some as right, axiomatically, or just because they arbitrarily emanate from God, which would lead to fundamentally amoral conclusions like divine command theory.

So, either we acquired that knowledge by eating that apple, thereby causing the entire cosmic crisis, or its has been deliberately embedded in our design, like Asimov's robot laws. These are the necessary conclusions that a Christian must make, if she does not want to defeat the entire theological shebang.

Ciao

- viole
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
That we have that moral knowledge, is actually a necessary pre-condition in Christianity. For, how would we know that we are sinning, otherwise? Or convince anyone that sin is actually something to avoid? The alternative would be to just declare some acts as wrong, and some as right, axiomatically, or just because they arbitrarily emanate from God, which would lead to fundamentally amoral conclusions like divine command theory.
I agree that divine command theory just doesn't work, but it does seem to be a pretty common way to at least try to resolve the problem you describe.

It also occurs to me that if God were to institute a system where people who have endured suffering wind up better off in the end because of it (because of "reward in Heaven" or the like), then a strictly utilitarian moral framework would suggest it's best for me to inflict as much suffering as possible on as many people as possible.

BTW: have I mentioned lately that I prefer when people are inconsistent and kind rather than consistent and cruel?
 
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Ponder This

Well-Known Member
I have started quite a few threads about the PoE, but there is still more to talk about. Today I'd like to talk about this little issue: ostensibly, given the premises that God exists, that God is omnipotent, that God is omniscient, and that God created humans deliberately, then it is reasonable to conclude that God is responsible for our moral compasses: that evaluation that we perform when we feel something has morally good or morally bad implications.

For instance, perhaps this is the reason that we might feel guilty if we hurt somebody, even unintentionally.

Ostensibly, if God is benevolent and wishes for us to be morally good agents, God would endow us with functioning moral cognitive faculties: God would give us the ability to detect what is morally good and what is morally bad. (Now, obviously as a non-theist and moral non-cognitivist I don't believe any of this; just working within the framework of the premises).

Let us return again to the example given in the last couple of PoE posts: childhood leukemia. If we were to imagine a being giving or allowing a child to suffer horribly from leukemia and then die, most of our moral compasses tingle "this is bad."

But why? If we are to use the theodicy that this post series is about (that is, "God has an unknown, but benevolent, reason for causing/allowing physical suffering in the world"), why wouldn't our moral compasses register this as good even if we didn't understand why, if it was actually good?

In other words, we are between a rock and a hard place: if children with leukemia is actually congruent with God's benevolence, and God gave us functioning cognitive, moral faculties, why wouldn't this register as good to us?

If it is actually good, but registers on our moral compasses as bad, why did God give us malfunctioning moral cognitive faculties? Wouldn't that be an entirely new problem unto itself?

If we accept that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, does that entail that we also ought to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent? After all, if God made us as anything less than that, wouldn't you count that as a failing on the part of God?

But if we are not omniscient, not omnibenevolent, and not omnipotent, then how do you propose to know what it means to be omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent? To understand God, do you not have to be God?
 

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
I agree that divine command theory just doesn't work, but it does seem to be a pretty common way to at least try to resolve the problem you describe.

It also occurs to me that if God were to institute a system where people who have endured suffering wind up better off in the end because of it (because of "reward in Heaven" or the like), then a strictly utilitarian moral frame work would suggest it's best for me to inflict as much suffering as possible on as many people as possible.

BTW: have I mentioned lately that I prefer when people are inconsistent and kind rather than consistent and cruel?

The problem with divine command theory is that reduces sentences like "God is good", or "God is just" to mere tautologies, that say nothing about what is right or wrong. The whole concept of right/wrong would vanish, and could be replaced by the concept of jshdbj/fiuakjsn maintaining the same moral meaning. I noticed that Christians in general do not like that, even if that resolves their problem.

Another problem is that they defuse any moral argument for the existence of God, since any such argument is bound to be hopelessly circular.

Ciao

- viole
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Yeah, I get it, the part about rational. The problem is that is limited in practice. Rationalism doesn't work.


That reminds me of a comment on representative democracies: it's a bad form of government, just better than all the others.

You can't use rationality to choose your basic principles. But after that, it works pretty well. At the very least, it works better for understanding things than any other system we have found.
 

Link

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I have started quite a few threads about the PoE, but there is still more to talk about. Today I'd like to talk about this little issue: ostensibly, given the premises that God exists, that God is omnipotent, that God is omniscient, and that God created humans deliberately, then it is reasonable to conclude that God is responsible for our moral compasses: that evaluation that we perform when we feel something has morally good or morally bad implications.

For instance, perhaps this is the reason that we might feel guilty if we hurt somebody, even unintentionally.

Ostensibly, if God is benevolent and wishes for us to be morally good agents, God would endow us with functioning moral cognitive faculties: God would give us the ability to detect what is morally good and what is morally bad. (Now, obviously as a non-theist and moral non-cognitivist I don't believe any of this; just working within the framework of the premises).

Let us return again to the example given in the last couple of PoE posts: childhood leukemia. If we were to imagine a being giving or allowing a child to suffer horribly from leukemia and then die, most of our moral compasses tingle "this is bad."

But why? If we are to use the theodicy that this post series is about (that is, "God has an unknown, but benevolent, reason for causing/allowing physical suffering in the world"), why wouldn't our moral compasses register this as good even if we didn't understand why, if it was actually good?

In other words, we are between a rock and a hard place: if children with leukemia is actually congruent with God's benevolence, and God gave us functioning cognitive, moral faculties, why wouldn't this register as good to us?

If it is actually good, but registers on our moral compasses as bad, why did God give us malfunctioning moral cognitive faculties? Wouldn't that be an entirely new problem unto itself?

As far as I aware, we function like this: "It's evil and bad unless there is an explanation".

Which goes with a fallen world perspective of Abrahamic faiths.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
The problem with divine command theory is that reduces sentences like "God is good", or "God is just" to mere tautologies, that say nothing about what is right or wrong. The whole concept of right/wrong would vanish, and could be replaced by the concept of jshdbj/fiuakjsn maintaining the same moral meaning. I noticed that Christians in general do not like that, even if that resolves their problem.
Right. It turns morality into mere obedience to arbitrary rules. I think it's fair to say that such a system isn't a system of morality in any meaningful sense.

(And the rules have to be arbitrary, because if there's some objective basis for them, then that objective basis is the foundation of morality, not the commands of God).


Another problem is that they defuse any moral argument for the existence of God, since any such argument is bound to be hopelessly circular.
Heh... I haven't come across any argument for the existence of God that hasn't had fatal flaws.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
What alternative is there to reason and logic? Logic is about self-consistency, and reason is about careful thinking with understanding of what follows from what. I don't see how you could do something besides that without it being nonsense in a very literal way.

Edit: Unless we're talking about art, feelings, the realm of aesthetic and things like that.

Yeah, the edit - here in regards to science. https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12

That reminds me of a comment on representative democracies: it's a bad form of government, just better than all the others.

You can't use rationality to choose your basic principles. But after that, it works pretty well. At the very least, it works better for understanding things than any other system we have found.

Now here is the actual practical limit. You can't do a "we" without a given basic principle and you can use different basic principles to get different versions of "we" and also what makes a human a human.
So the problem is that you can't establish. You can choose to believe in it and act accordingly.

So Meow Mix as for logic, for a given context with 2 humans, there is not one context as such, because you could act with X is Y and I could act with X is not Y, but Z. And as longs we can both act there is no contradiction.
 

Hermit Philosopher

Selflessly here for you
I have started quite a few threads about the PoE, but there is still more to talk about. Today I'd like to talk about this little issue: ostensibly, given the premises that God exists, that God is omnipotent, that God is omniscient, and that God created humans deliberately, then it is reasonable to conclude that God is responsible for our moral compasses: that evaluation that we perform when we feel something has morally good or morally bad implications.

For instance, perhaps this is the reason that we might feel guilty if we hurt somebody, even unintentionally.

Ostensibly, if God is benevolent and wishes for us to be morally good agents, God would endow us with functioning moral cognitive faculties: God would give us the ability to detect what is morally good and what is morally bad. (Now, obviously as a non-theist and moral non-cognitivist I don't believe any of this; just working within the framework of the premises).

Let us return again to the example given in the last couple of PoE posts: childhood leukemia. If we were to imagine a being giving or allowing a child to suffer horribly from leukemia and then die, most of our moral compasses tingle "this is bad."

But why? If we are to use the theodicy that this post series is about (that is, "God has an unknown, but benevolent, reason for causing/allowing physical suffering in the world"), why wouldn't our moral compasses register this as good even if we didn't understand why, if it was actually good?

In other words, we are between a rock and a hard place: if children with leukemia is actually congruent with God's benevolence, and God gave us functioning cognitive, moral faculties, why wouldn't this register as good to us?

If it is actually good, but registers on our moral compasses as bad, why did God give us malfunctioning moral cognitive faculties? Wouldn't that be an entirely new problem unto itself?


Dear Meow Mix

I’ve never done this previously, but I was wondering if you would mind taking a look at below and give me your thoughts in relation to your PoE OP’s.


Humbly
Hermit


Dear Trailblazer

To legitimately answer those questions, one would need to know the purpose of worldliness, and - as far as I’m aware of - Scripture does not give us that.

My answer to the questions in your OP are therefore instead based on my own spiritual experiences:

If worldliness is the experience of a divine chosen, hypothetical code on trial, and it’s purpose is to understand what it stands for (think of my saying “God knows the symphony but cannot hear it, save through the ears of Man.”), then, suffering exists because it is embedded in the code that is being played out and tried. If God were to “remove” the effect of suffering, the code on trial would be a different one.

Should God have chosen a different code to assess? I believe it likely that God is simultaneously assessing all possible codes (combinations of data from within), but you and I are manifested in this one and in this one, suffering exists (embedded as an effect in the code itself) and cannot be removed without changing the whole experience of what the code signifies when manifested.


Humbly
Hermit


NOTES

On Divine Omnipotence
God is omnipotent in the sense that God both is and knows all that is. But all that truly is, is data that can be combined into codes and “played out” as hypothetical realities.
The codes that are chosen only receive meaning as they “play out” (manifest) and are experienced (by God, through manifested/embodied consciousness).*

*) I always feel a need to add that when I say that God experiences “through” Man, I do not mean that God is in you, but rather that you are (only) in God.


On Worldly Free Will
I use this silly paradox to understand whether worldliness is determined or free: Man is evolutionarily determined to acquire free will.

Worldly free will is embedded in the code that we are manifesting. That is; the option of free-will is there. We use it when we intervene with causality.
 

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
Heh... I haven't come across any argument for the existence of God that hasn't had fatal flaws.
I agree, but the ones which do not rely on divine command theory, are slightly more defensible. The ones which do, suffer from circularity from the start up.

Ciao

- viole
 

AlexanderG

Active Member
I have started quite a few threads about the PoE, but there is still more to talk about. Today I'd like to talk about this little issue: ostensibly, given the premises that God exists, that God is omnipotent, that God is omniscient, and that God created humans deliberately, then it is reasonable to conclude that God is responsible for our moral compasses: that evaluation that we perform when we feel something has morally good or morally bad implications.

For instance, perhaps this is the reason that we might feel guilty if we hurt somebody, even unintentionally.

Ostensibly, if God is benevolent and wishes for us to be morally good agents, God would endow us with functioning moral cognitive faculties: God would give us the ability to detect what is morally good and what is morally bad. (Now, obviously as a non-theist and moral non-cognitivist I don't believe any of this; just working within the framework of the premises).

Let us return again to the example given in the last couple of PoE posts: childhood leukemia. If we were to imagine a being giving or allowing a child to suffer horribly from leukemia and then die, most of our moral compasses tingle "this is bad."

But why? If we are to use the theodicy that this post series is about (that is, "God has an unknown, but benevolent, reason for causing/allowing physical suffering in the world"), why wouldn't our moral compasses register this as good even if we didn't understand why, if it was actually good?

In other words, we are between a rock and a hard place: if children with leukemia is actually congruent with God's benevolence, and God gave us functioning cognitive, moral faculties, why wouldn't this register as good to us?

If it is actually good, but registers on our moral compasses as bad, why did God give us malfunctioning moral cognitive faculties? Wouldn't that be an entirely new problem unto itself?

I think modern Christianity has developed a set of ad hoc arguments so that they can have their cake and eat it too. Namely, god is perfect and made everything perfectly, but humans messed it up through sin and The Fall. This allows Christians to rationalize why a world full of suffering, that seems consistent with no benevolent mind ordering it, could still have been created by a benevolent mind. Of course, I think this also creates a psychological problem where we must gaslight and tell ourselves that horrible random things are ultimately our fault, the byproduct of a miasma of lingering human depravity. Hurricanes are a product of gay sex, etc.

It also raises the question of why a perfect god would essentially create toddlers that don't yet understand right and wrong, and don't understand that they should obey god, and then this god puts a tantalizing feature in the middle of the toddler's play area (garden of Eden) and tells them to definitely not play with it or eat the shiny stuff on it? Like, shouldn't he have known what would happen? Didn't he by definition have foreknowledge of what would happen? Was it really a perfect creation if it had a giant red self-destruct button in the middle of his toddler pen, and how much blame goes to the one who knowingly orchestrated this scenario, versus the ones who literally didn't know better?

I haven't heard how Muslims or Jews argue about this. Still, the problem of evil boils down to god either being indistinguishable from an uncaring/evil god, or god not being all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. Either way, god is not very good. The only ad hoc argument left is that "god has unknown, morally sufficient reasons for doing apparently evil things," but that argument would equally rationalize any sort of god, whether good, evil, trickster, apathetic, or anything else. It just doesn't work and I've heard no good answer to this problem.
 
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