Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Arguing with James is as pointless as arguing with God. No wait... it's much worse, since James is REAL!
For James R. 'The Honest Theist'.
- Thread starter phlogistician
- Start date
You mean to say in your studies about Epicurus you have never encountered the grounds for refuting his arguments?
scifes provided a decent overview
I see you are not up to date on ideas about theodicy that have have been current for the past few thousand years ...
In your quest to highlight the phenomena of the so-called "dishonest theist" it appears you are simply presenting the plight of the "fanatical ill informed and philosophically impoverished atheist who subjects the scientific process to their own pathological literal-mindedness"
:shrug:
Point 1: There's no evidence that Epicurus made this argument.
Point 2: Your reliance on Epicurus is an appeal to authority, which is a logical fallacy. I might also point out that your reliance on 4 other people on sciforums supposedly agreeing with you is another fallacy, known as an appeal to popularity.
Point 3: The statement from Epicurus is unsupported by any argument. It cannot be simply taken as proven, but must be established before we can accept it. You have made no attempt to defend the statement.
We are talking about bigger things here, like Malaria and Cancer. Not veggies. Like earthquakes and tsunamis. Events that kill and maim and cause real suffering.
I can't take anyone seriously that relies on rape to make their point.
Then clearly in saying that you have a perfectly logical argument for God. Please share.
Afraid not. Let's have your logic for God, rather than your egotistical dismissal of just one of the arguments against your God.
So what, doesn't mean that it's not a good argument.
Nope, I don't give a rat's ass who said it, whether it's attributed to him, paraphrased, a summary or whatever. It's a good argument. So good in fact you prefer to play the man, rather than tackle the substance. I guess you cannot refute it, hence are using the fallacious debating tacting of questioning the source.
It stands for itself. It it logically self supporting, IF the claims made by theists are taken at face value. If you want to start excusing your claims of omnipotence and omniscience, feel free, but that's you being reduced to being an apologetic.
If you think you have, please share.
That wasn't good, it was pretty weak.
Oh please. If there was any decent logic or argument, theists would make such. You don't. You are vague, apologetic, and your argument remains the 'god of gaps'.
Oh really. James has flipped flopped on God's gender, made unsupportable statements about whether God is a biological entity, refused to admit that he just cannot know that, whilst trying to use the same argument that hangs him on that point against me on proving a negative! But if you have a better definition of God than the one JamesR has so far offered, please feel free to share it, and we can discuss that.
Why do you take them at face value - your face value, that is?
veggies are big things for kids, they're small relative to adults.
what are big things for adults may be small things for god.
and my point was that just because something looks evil to you, doesn't mean it is so objectively, just because there is pain at a certain time and place, doesn't mean there isn't joy because of that pain in another time and place.
malaria and cancer may actually make people happy, for example it may make them appreciate what they've got left more than how they appreciated what they lost. and with that new outlook on life, be happier.
earthquackes may cause sadness in a part in the world, but happiness in a another bigger part of the world. tsunamis may flush out bad governments, expose which by getting fixed will lead to a better life for future generations.
you must look at the bigger picture, for those big things. and the one who can see the biggest picture is god, not you.
look, to break it down for you, in order to label an action or happening as evil, you need to know the repercussions of that actions on everything, and i mean EVERTYHING everywhere future and present, and when the gross evil outweighs the gross good, then that action can be labeled as evil.
since nobody has such knowledge but god himself[by definition], you cannot judge his actions.
understood?
strong argument.
no. not "clearly".
not my point here. stop shifting goal posts. you provided an argument against god, it was logically rejected, admit that.
Scifes, when you lose a loved one to Cancer, come back and try and tell me it was OK because somewhere, someone enjoyed the experience.
My argument has not been logically rejected, because your points are bogus. Natural disasters cause anguish and suffering. That you claim there could be some benefit is meanwhile, pure speculation. I have facts, you have speculation. You lose.
My argument has not been logically rejected, because your points are bogus. Natural disasters cause anguish and suffering. That you claim there could be some benefit is meanwhile, pure speculation. I have facts, you have speculation. You lose.
Dissect the quote for yourself.
phlog, when the best thing in your life happens to you, know that the long chain of events that led to that best thing happening has included people dying of cancer, and that if it weren't for them the present would've changed in ways that would've prevented you from experience that best experience.
besides, not necessarily others in other places would "enjoy" cancer. but those who got cancer themselves may feel better in other ways than before getting cancer.
and remember, no matter how bad things are, they are good compared to being an alternative future that which is worse.
and since we're talking theists' viewpoints, challenges and pain in this life is considered cleansing from god, and any pain you get now in this world you will be rewarded it joy tenfold in the afterlife. so it's a win-win situation, which is why religion is very important for people's lives, especially the poor and misfourtunate.
But that is bogus logic, because there was no need for them to have died from cancer.
Not true. This is a mis-understanding of 'The Butterfly Effect'. Somethings are prone to change due to the most subtle persuasion, others not. You cannot make the statement honestly that my wellbeing relies on other's suffering.
Now you are talking complete and utter bullshit.
there are heaps of them
There are literally stacks of arguments in the defense of theodicy.
In fact you could say it has been the hottest topic in religious philosophy for at least the past 400 years.
IOW I think you would be hard pressed to find any body of scriptural commentary from the past 1000 years that doesn't touch on the defense of theodicy.
Your questioning is kind of like a person making a scientific inquiry yet being totally ignorant of physics
It's like, "Where the hell have you been?"
I'm not sure what makes you think dialogue surrounding the defense of theodicy requires a "god of the gaps".
Perhaps you can cite your sources
The points he has made have been clear and concise.
Apart from a need for obfuscation on your behalf to support the obviously biased claim "theists are dishonest", its not clear why you don't see that.
IOW the real topic of this discussion (in regards to the in/validity of theistic claims) is why you need to move outside the standard philosophical tools of thesis vs antithesis and instead opt for "you are wrong because I said so" (the later admittedly being a popular tool amongst great boneheads of history on both sides of the a/theistic spectrum)
Given that the individual soul is bestowed with eternity (and accepts corporeal existence within biological frameworks as a temporary phenomena), there are also bigger things that contextualize your reference to "real" suffering.
I mean you do understand how death and deprivation of liberty at the hands of other living entities also afflicted with the same issues of mortality (along with a several other key sufferings - like old age, suffering from one's own mind - eg the cycle of lust, anger, regret, etc) are inherent qualities of this world, yes?
Ironically enough you also get similar hard luck cases in mental and prison institutions (or even grounded children) who some how or other fail to acknowledge their current state of deprived liberty as a consequence of their previous choices or actions
On the contrary, the picture of a world where you have a plethora of necessarily free willed fallible entities who (somehow or other) can't make mistakes is not only absurd but contradictory.
IOW trying to argue for free will and the inability to not make mistakes in a living entity stuffed to the hilt with material desire that has no scope for absolute lordship is bonkers.
(or alternatively, trying to argue for the absence of free will effectively puts the boot in any discussion of good or evil so you might as well end your tirade about god's malevolence right now)
The best use of a bad bargain is to relegate all such afflicted entities to a sort of virtual existence - ie one where they can role-play out their dramas of ignorance in a safe environment to come to grips with their stupidity
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It is dishonest to claim the truth of a Creator Being that cannot be shown. It doesn’t matter why the believers say it can’t be shown, Can it be outright shown? No, plain and simple. They then go on to speak for it, which is just more dishonesty piled on. They would have been OK if they had said instead that they just wanted it to be true.
Now add to this that science finds otherwise, such as no immutable forms, and more, and that there are paradoxes of self-contradiction left and right. Even all this doesn’t matter, for the Creator Being cannot be shown in the first place. All that follows the Being claim thus becomes baloney that then approaches the ridiculous, ever deepening the intellectual black hole, even leading to the posting of false religious ‘science’. For example, on another site, it was said that the Creator Being gave power to the Hebrew alphabet. Yeah, sure thing.
Now add to this that science finds otherwise, such as no immutable forms, and more, and that there are paradoxes of self-contradiction left and right. Even all this doesn’t matter, for the Creator Being cannot be shown in the first place. All that follows the Being claim thus becomes baloney that then approaches the ridiculous, ever deepening the intellectual black hole, even leading to the posting of false religious ‘science’. For example, on another site, it was said that the Creator Being gave power to the Hebrew alphabet. Yeah, sure thing.
what a nonsense statement
Why or how something cannot (or can) be shown is something even a 5 year old can fathom.
If you disagree please explain how you would (outright) show the colour blue to a blind person.
:shrug:
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think of it this way, your mother meets your father while she stays up late nursing a cancer patient who dying.
you turn out to be the savior of humanity.
:shrug:
everything is interconnected in ways you can't grasp.
so you shouldn't act if you DO.
if god is just, then he will reward us for all the pain he puts us through magnified and eternal.
in that case, the more pain in this life the better. you have omitted that part in your reply.
am i?
i personally know who accomplished wonders, ONLY after they lost their sight in their forties, and were able to do things they couldn't before.
happiness is relative, problems battering you lower your expectations and your standards for happiness, that makes you appreciate things more, and so become happier.
not always, but it happens.
phlogistician:
Of course not.
So I take it I won't be hearing any more appeals to authority or appeals to popularity from you.
Great! Let's move on.
Very little stands for itself.
Let's break it down. The statement is: "If God is able to prevent evil from occurring, but unwilling to do so, the he is malevolent."
Breaking it up into a structured argument we have:
1. Premise: any being who is able to prevent evil yet is unwilling to do so is malevolent.
2. Premise: God is a being who is able to prevent evil yet is unwilling to do so.
3. Conclusion: God is malevolent.
This argument can be attacked by questioning either premise 1 or premise 2. Note, in particular, that the argument is not "self-supporting". It relies on two premises, either of which may be questioned.
To get you started:
Premise 1 may be attacked on the basis that there might be an omnipotent being who has good reasons for being unwilling to prevent evil from occurring. One such argument revolves around the notion of free will. I can explain if you're unfamiliar with it.
Premise 2 may be attacked on the grounds that perhaps God is not omnipotent. However, for the purposes of this thread I will not pursue this line of argument.
Empty, repetitive claims, amply refuted in prior discussion.
Of course not.
So I take it I won't be hearing any more appeals to authority or appeals to popularity from you.
Great! Let's move on.
Very little stands for itself.
Let's break it down. The statement is: "If God is able to prevent evil from occurring, but unwilling to do so, the he is malevolent."
Breaking it up into a structured argument we have:
1. Premise: any being who is able to prevent evil yet is unwilling to do so is malevolent.
2. Premise: God is a being who is able to prevent evil yet is unwilling to do so.
3. Conclusion: God is malevolent.
This argument can be attacked by questioning either premise 1 or premise 2. Note, in particular, that the argument is not "self-supporting". It relies on two premises, either of which may be questioned.
To get you started:
Premise 1 may be attacked on the basis that there might be an omnipotent being who has good reasons for being unwilling to prevent evil from occurring. One such argument revolves around the notion of free will. I can explain if you're unfamiliar with it.
Premise 2 may be attacked on the grounds that perhaps God is not omnipotent. However, for the purposes of this thread I will not pursue this line of argument.
Empty, repetitive claims, amply refuted in prior discussion.
Just how does 'Free Will' get someone killed by an Earthquake? Or make them prone to anaphylactic shock when they get stung by a wasp?
Anything that can’t be shown to exist cannot be claimed to have a true existence, that’s all; yet, many state their beliefs as truth and fact to all, and it is therein that the dishonesty comes about, not in having the subjective belief itself. Whether the belief is helpful or not doesn’t enter in to its claim as true. Nor does denigration enter in, for the truth of the belief cannot be shown in the first place, and so there isn’t even a place for it. Because of human nature, the belief will even be elaborated upon, these additional layers also constituting a dishonest presentation.
The war is between the knowns and the claims of the unknowns that can’t be shown as ‘knowns’.
If the beliefs could be shown then there would be no unbelievers.
the only persons advocating that wholesale regarding god are atheists ... which effectively makes the statement "anything that cannot be shown to me cannot be shown to exist" (which bears a parallel to showing a colour to a blind person - IOW both blind people and atheists share by default an epistemological inability to approach the said objects)
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