Special Pleading and the Problem of Evil

[firedragon]

No, I don't know. Can you explain it in a nutshell?

Yep.

Noble in Pali can be Ayya, Abhi, Uthum or Utthama, etc. But the word used here is Arya, which is the race. Arya race. This word evolved in meaning to mean Noble because of the racial value given to it.

Even in this, they have their affinity to the Arya chakrawarthis.

 

[F1fan]

I don't think that atheists understand what it means for God to be transcended. In short, it means humans cannot understand the mind of God and why God wills what He wills.

Then believers, who are also human, cannot understand the mind of God either and God might well be malevolent. Just because you believe a God exists doesn't mean or imply you understand its mind.

 

[Trailblazer]

Then believers, who are also human, cannot understand the mind of God either and God might well be malevolent. Just because you believe a God exists doesn't mean or imply you understand its mind.

I never said that I or any other believer understand the mind of God. Not even the Messengers of God understand the mind of God. However, they can receive communication from God so they reveal the attributes of God and the will of God and that is how we as believers can know that God is benevolent.

 

[F1fan]

(a) God does not CAUSE suffering because God does not deliberately inflict suffering upon people.

Your scenario is like God holding a gun loaded with bullets and fires it into a crowd while looking the other way. And you can say God did not deliberately hurt people, it just fired a gun. It was the gun that fired bullets that caused bullets to fly, and then the bullets caused the injuries to people. You want to exonerate God completely because God isn't the bullets.

So you have a disingenuous argument that is true under a specific condition, but not in the broad scope of God's actions, and the results of those actions.

(e.g. a car manufacturer does not cause car accidents by manufacturing cars that have the potential to get in a car accident.)

As long as owners don't drive their cars, yes. But in the broader scope the manufacturer had a fault that does cause accidents in certain situations. The accidents would not have happened had the design been better.

(b) The EXISTENCE of Suffering and God's Benevolence are not contradictory by ANY standard, they are are only contradictory by YOUR standard (and by the standard of people who think like you).

Suffering has a range of depth and severity. Stubbing your toe is quite minor and not traumatic. Enduring the pain of bone cancer is catastrophic to the human's well being, and will likely kill the person.

Having a nervous system is a benefit for animals, so stubbing a toe is no big deal. But cancers existing in animals? There's no way this serves a good purpose (to a reasonable mind) and given theists claim God created the world where cancers exist the God is responsible for them existing. To suggest a God is good when it could have created a world without cancers is contradictory.

 

[F1fan]

I never said that I or any other believer understand the mind of God. Not even the Messengers of God understand the mind of God.

So it's safe to say you don't understand the mind of God, and God could be malevolent?

However, they can receive communication from God so they reveal the attributes of God and the will of God and that is how we as believers can know that God is benevolent.

Prove it. I'm bot convinced you are telling the truth.

 

[Trailblazer]

Your scenario is like God holding a gun loaded with bullets and fires it into a crowd while looking the other way. And you can say God did not deliberately hurt people, it just fired a gun. It was the gun that fired bullets that caused bullets to fly, and then the bullets caused the injuries to people. You want to exonerate God completely because God isn't the bullets.

God did not do any of that. You just imagine that God did that and you have no evidence whasoever.

All God did is create the universe, including this world. God rules and maintains all of existence. The only other thing that God does is send Messengers.

“Baha’is believe in an almighty creator who has fashioned the universe and has made man in his own image; they believe in a non-created cause of all existence, in a single God. The word ‘God’ is a symbol for that transcendent reality by which all existence is ruled and maintained. What we call God is not, as the critics of the concept of God believe, a product of human imagination, a creation of the mind, a fanciful invention which has no reality, or a reflection of particular social and economic circumstances.”
(Udo Schafer, the light that shineth in the darkness, p. 19)

So you have a disingenuous argument that is true under a specific condition, but not in the broad scope of God's actions, and the results of those actions.

God does not have actions becaues God is not a human. God has a will and when God wills something it happens. Humans can never know what God wills unless they read what was revealed by a Messenger of God.

As long as owners don't drive their cars, yes. But in the broader scope the manufacturer had a fault that does cause accidents in certain situations. The accidents would not have happened had the design been better.

Humans were created in the image in the image of God, who is all-good. After humans are born they start to choose between good and evil and thereby differentiate themselves. The ones who choose evil have the accidents.

Suffering has a range of depth and severity. Stubbing your toe is quite minor and not traumatic. Enduring the pain of bone cancer is catastrophic to the human's well being, and will likely kill the person.

Enduring major depression is catastrophic to the human's well being, and will often kill the person if they commit suicide.

Having a nervous system is a benefit for animals, so stubbing a toe is no big deal. But cancers existing in animals? There's no way this serves a good purpose (to a reasonable mind) and given theists claim God created the world where cancers exist the God is responsible for them existing.

To suggest a God is good when it could have created a world without cancers is contradictory.

To suggest a good God would have created a world without any suffering would be contradictory since suffering is beneficial to humans and it is one important way they grow spiritually and thereby prepare themselves for life in the next world.

God did create a world without cancers or any other diseases or physical suffering. It is called the spiritual world.
The material world is very temporary, only a preparation for our permanent home in the spiritual world.

 

[Trailblazer]

So it's safe to say you don't understand the mind of God, and God could be malevolent?

No, that is not safe to say because the workings of the mind of God are unrelated to God's attributes and what God wills for humans. God's attributes and what God wills for humans show that God is benevolent.

Why do you want God to be malevolent?

Prove it. I'm bot convinced you are telling the truth.

I cannot prove it to you. You'd have to prove it to yourself.

 

[Koldo]

Because we cannot control other people.

That is not even required though.
For instance, God could allow you to choose to be invulnerable to any sort of physical harm. Why can't you choose that? Why can't you freely will and therefore choose that to be the case?

 

[F1fan]

God did not do any of that. You just imagine that God did that and you have no evidence whasoever.

LOL, you missed the point yet again. You are blaming the gun and bullets for causing harm, but not the shooter. You blame evolution and genes for cancers, but not the God who created and uses evolution. You seem deliberately obtuse, like you understand the point but deliberately skewing it off to some unintended tangent.

And you don't have evidence either. I'm working with your guesses/beliefs/claims. So your denial is worth no more than my guess. No one knows if a God exists. You certainly don't know if a God exists. You're just denying it because you don't like the way it makes your God look. Tough luck, get a better God.

We have no facts about any Gods. But we can observe the world we live in. So since my guess is following the facts with more objectivity I suggest my guess is more accurate than yours. Your guess is ignoring facts, like not wanting your God to be accountable for the bad things that exist, or by insisting bad and good have fuzzy meanings.

So when we speculate about any version of God the only sound and reasonable thing to do is not ignore what we observe about the world. What we observe, what we experience, all has to be held to account for whatever version of God a person suggests exists. You are no exception.

 

[Trailblazer]

That is not even required though.
For instance, God could allow you to choose to be invulnerable to any sort of physical harm. Why can't you choose that? Why can't you freely will and therefore choose that to be the case?

God could not make me invulnerable to any sort of physical harm because I have a physical body.
Free will is irrelevant, I cannot choose what is logically impossible.

 

[Meow Mix]

(a) God does not CAUSE suffering because God does not deliberately inflict suffering upon people.
(e.g. a car manufacturer does not cause car accidents by manufacturing cars that have the potential to get in a car accident.)

(b) The EXISTENCE of Suffering and God's Benevolence are not contradictory by ANY standard, they are are only contradictory by YOUR standard (and by the standard of people who think like you).

I want to respect your wishes not to debate this because you said that it was toxic for you. Do you want me to respond, or no?

 

[Meow Mix]

(a) God does not CAUSE suffering because God does not deliberately inflict suffering upon people.
(e.g. a car manufacturer does not cause car accidents by manufacturing cars that have the potential to get in a car accident.)

(b) The EXISTENCE of Suffering and God's Benevolence are not contradictory by ANY standard, they are are only contradictory by YOUR standard (and by the standard of people who think like you).

I will go ahead and respond since you addressed me directly here.

With (a), the designer is culpable for flaws in the design if the designer is both aware the flaws are there and has the capability to remove them (but doesn't). So yes, God causes suffering by choosing to create the conditions for it -- under the premises that God is omnipotent and omniscient, anyway.

With (b), this is addressed in the OP.

 

[Meow Mix]

God could not make me invulnerable to any sort of physical harm because I have a physical body.
Free will is irrelevant, I cannot choose what is logically impossible.

Omnipotence would allow a being to make a physical body invulnerable by the definition of omnipotence.

 

[Trailblazer]

LOL, you missed the point yet again. You are blaming the gun and bullets for causing harm, but not the shooter. You blame evolution and genes for cancers, but not the God who created and uses evolution. You seem deliberately obtuse, like you understand the point but deliberately skewing it off to some unintended tangent.

I understand what you are saying but I don't agree with it. God does not USE evolution for anything, God just set it in motion and allowed it to unfold, naturally. Nobody is to blame for genes and cancers because they are not blameworthy. They simply exist. You want to blame someone so you blame God, but God can never be blameworthy because God is infallible so cannot ever make mistakes.

And you don't have evidence either. I'm working with your guesses/beliefs/claims. So your denial is worth no more than my guess. No one knows if a God exists. You certainly don't know if a God exists. You're just denying it because you don't like the way it makes your God look. Tough luck, get a better God.

I have evidence so I know that God exists. God looks fine to those who see the evidence. Do you think I care how God looks to atheists? Why would I care?

We have no facts about any Gods. But we can observe the world we live in. So since my guess is following the facts with more objectivity I suggest my guess is more accurate than yours. Your guess is ignoring facts, like not wanting your God to be accountable for the bad things that exist, or by insisting bad and good have fuzzy meanings.

I make no guesses because I don't have to guess about what I have good evidence for.
What you SEE in the world we live in is solely a reflection of humans because God is not "doing anything" in this world. That is why God cannot be accountable for the bad things that exist in this world.

So when we speculate about any version of God the only sound and reasonable thing to do is not ignore what we observe about the world. What we observe, what we experience, all has to be held to account for whatever version of God a person suggests exists. You are no exception.

So when we speculate about any version of God the only sound and reasonable thing to do is to ignore what we observe about the world. What we observe, what we experience, has nothing to do with God because God is not "doing anything" in this world.

 

[F1fan]

Tb: I never said that I or any other believer understand the mind of God. Not even the Messengers of God understand the mind of God.


F1: So it's safe to say you don't understand the mind of God, and God could be malevolent?


Tb: No, that is not safe to say because the workings of the mind of God are unrelated to God's attributes and what God wills for humans.

I asked if it's safe to say you don't understand the mind of God. So do you understand it, or not?

And if you don’t, couldn’t God be malevolent since you lack knowledge of the mind of God?

 

[Meow Mix]

I asked if it's safe to say you don't understand the mind of God. So do you understand it, or not?

And if you don’t, couldn’t God be malevolent since you lack knowledge of the mind of God?

This is a good point, too. If the argument that "maybe this horrible suffering is actually good for some unknowable reason" is allowable (it's fallacious taken to extremes, and shouldn't be), this sort of reasoning works both ways: it's equally likely that perceived good things are actually malevolent for some unknowable reason. Or that suffering is malevolent not for the obvious reasons but for additional unknowable reasons.

Saying one is true but not the other is trying to have a cake and eat it too.

 

[F1fan]

God does not have actions becaues God is not a human. God has a will and when God wills something it happens. Humans can never know what God wills unless they read what was revealed by a Messenger of God.

Prove it.

Humans were created in the image in the image of God, who is all-good.

Wait, you said that God used evolution to create humans, and after 13.7 billions years after creating the universe (want to have fun with dinosaurs first, and want to take your time and make sure the genes of humans are excellent quality).

After humans are born they start to choose between good and evil and thereby differentiate themselves. The ones who choose evil have the accidents.

So children riding their bikes having fun and being hit by a speeding car and killed is due to them choosing evil? Yet some how Hitler avoided two close calls with death in the trenches of WW1 and 44 assassination attempts as leader. So your claim here is absurd and proved false with only two examples.

Enduring major depression is catastrophic to the human's well being, and will often kill the person if they commit suicide.

Yup. I dated a girl with bipolar disorder and I can say the depressive episodes are brutal. It's a genetic disorder and only medication can keep her mind stable. I know you won't accept that the Creator is responsible for bipolar disorder being part of Creation, but it is. God has caused all pain and suffering by simply creating.

To suggest a good God would have created a world without any suffering would be contradictory since suffering is beneficial to humans and it is one important way they grow spiritually and thereby prepare themselves for life in the next world.

Irrational and not factual. You are justifying suffering by relying on the belief that there's an afterlife. That is special pleading right there. For example, you cannot make this claim by explaining the suffering of a gazelle as it is being eaten alive by a lion.

God did create a world without cancers or any other diseases or physical suffering. It is called the spiritual world.
The material world is very temporary, only a preparation for our permanent home in the spiritual world.

None of this is factual. I'm not quite sure why keep making these absurd claims and do so without offering any shred of evidence. It's as if you think you are God yourself, and what you say is absolute and fact.

Can you admit these claims you make have no evidence that is substantive?

 

[Meow Mix]

@F1fan I may start a thread about this, do you mind? (re: post #475-476)

 

[Trailblazer]

I will go ahead and respond since you addressed me directly here.

With (a), the designer is culpable for flaws in the design if the designer is both aware the flaws are there and has the capability to remove them (but doesn't). So yes, God causes suffering by choosing to create the conditions for it -- under the premises that God is omnipotent and omniscient, anyway.

With (b), this is addressed in the OP.

With (a), God is incapable of being culpable of anything at all because God is infallible thus God cannot make any mistakes or be wrong.

Infallibility refers to an inability to be wrong. It can be applied within a specific domain, or it can be used as a more general adjective. The term has significance in both epistemology and theology, and its meaning and significance in both fields is the subject of continued debate.
Infallibility - Wikipedia

With (b) The EXISTENCE of Suffering and God's Benevolence are only contradictory by YOUR standard but you do not determine standards for anyone except yourself.

You deliberately ignore the following:

(a) Suffering is often beneficial to humans, and
(b) God is infallible so God can never be wrong or make any mistakes, and
(c) God has more attributes than omnipotence and omniscience.

Ignoring the fact that suffering can be beneficial to humans is ignoring what is unfavorable to your point of view so it is special pleading.

special pleading
argument in which the speaker deliberately ignores aspects that are unfavorable to their point of view.
https://www.google.com/search?q=special+pleading

You want God to be only two things, omnipotent and omniscient, because you "believe" those attributes support your argument. But where do you get those attributes? You get them from the Bible. You cherry-pick the attributes that you believe are useful to you and ignore all the other attributes of God.

According to the Bible God is: Eternal, Holy, Unchanging, Impassable, Infinite, Omnipresent, All-Powerful, All-Knowing, All-Wise, Infallible, Self-Existent, Self-Sufficient, Sovereign, Immaterial, Good, Loving, Gracious, Merciful, Just, Righteous, Forgiving, and Patient.

Cherry Picking

(also known as: ignoring inconvenient data, suppressed evidence, fallacy of incomplete evidence, argument by selective observation, argument by half-truth, card stacking, fallacy of exclusion, ignoring the counter evidence, one-sided assessment, slanting, one-sidedness)

Description: When only select evidence is presented in order to persuade the audience to accept a position, and evidence that would go against the position is withheld. The stronger the withheld evidence, the more fallacious the argument.

Cherry Picking

 

[F1fan]

I understand what you are saying but I don't agree with it. God does not USE evolution for anything, God just set it in motion and allowed it to unfold, naturally.

Yet you claim that God knows HOW it will unfold. So God is not surprised to learn that cancers evolved in the genes, God knew cancers would exist as it created the world.

Nobody is to blame for genes and cancers because they are not blameworthy.

In science you are correct. But in your framework there's a creator who knows all. So there's blame.

You want to blame someone so you blame God, but God can never be blameworthy because God is infallible so cannot ever make mistakes.

I'm an atheist. I'm not convinced your idea of God is true, rational, or even plausible. To my mind you've defined and described your idea of God out of existence.

I have evidence so I know that God exists. God looks fine to those who see the evidence. Do you think I care how God looks to atheists? Why would I care?

It's the "seeing" that makes me suspicious that your evidence is heavily interpreted to mean vastly more than what it does at face value. The evidence you have presented me is exceptionally weak and unimpressive. If your evidence was so good we would be seeing billions accepting it. We don't.

I make no guesses because I don't have to guess about what I have good evidence for.
What you SEE in the world we live in is solely a reflection of humans because God is not "doing anything" in this world. That is why God cannot be accountable for the bad things that exist in this world.

You post almost nothing but guesses.