Anthropic Argument

[needimprovement]

If he's so merciful, why does he let Satan exist to do evil things to us?

You do not believe in God: why should you now believe in Satan? Do you really believe Satan exists if God doesn't? If you don't, yours is no argument.

[HerpetologyFangirl]

Maybe God is as much a scientist as we are, and we were just one of his experiments? The Bible seems to say something along the lines of, originally we were perfectly moral beings, but then we were corrupted by Satan and we went from a 10 to a 5. Of course, that begs the question, if we were corruptible in the first place, does that mean we weren't perfectly moral at all?

Edited December 30, 2010 by HerpetologyFangirl

[ydoaPs]

You do not believe in God: why should you now believe in Satan? Do you really believe Satan exists if God doesn't? If you don't, yours is no argument.

That is an idiotic objection. You can obviously analyze a belief without actually holding such a belief. In fact:

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."-Aristotle

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

You do not believe in God: why should you now believe in Satan? Do you really believe Satan exists if God doesn't? If you don't, yours is no argument.

 

Do you believe Satan exists? If so, why does Satan exist to do evil things to us?

[cypress]

God is omnipotent, isn't He? Are you saying He can't overcome laws of nature to stop evil? He is powerless in the face of a murderer with a gun?

 

I don't understand why you are still asking these questions. Why is free will an insufficient reason for you? Perhaps instead of repeating your questions you would instead show precisely why you think free will is not a sufficient response. Show us why this God would not value free will and would thus greatly diminish or eliminate it.

 

And what of the cases in which no external force is there -- the innocent baby with a painful terminal illness? How does free will make that necessary?

 

What of it? Free will necessarily requires non-intervention. Who are we to know when intervention is warranted and when it is not? Are we better equipped to know when this God should intervene and when this God should not? Can you demonstrate that intervention in the cases where you believe it is warranted would certainly not diminish the long term goals? If not, then you seem to be little more than an armchair quarterback.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I don't understand why you are still asking these questions. Why is free will an insufficient reason for you? Perhaps instead of repeating your questions you would instead show precisely why you think free will is not a sufficient response. Show us why this God would not value free will and would thus greatly diminish or eliminate it.

The existence of free will does not necessitate that everything I attempt should succeed -- merely that I be freely able to attempt it.

 

Suppose, then, I have free will, and I decide to murder my neighbor. Free will means I can take my gun over, aim it at him, and fire. Free will does not mean that God cannot stop the bullet in mid-air and prevent my neighbor's death, just like free will does not mean that I can travel at four times the speed of light if I want to.

 

What of it? Free will necessarily requires non-intervention. Who are we to know when intervention is warranted and when it is not? Are we better equipped to know when this God should intervene and when this God should not? Can you demonstrate that intervention in the cases where you believe it is warranted would certainly not diminish the long term goals? If not, then you seem to be little more than an armchair quarterback.

I am not concerned with God's goals. I am concerned with whether God is omnibenevolent. Should He value other goals at the expense of His benevolence, then we shouldn't go around calling Him omnibenevolent.

[immortal]

I don't think you can justify allowing evil things to happen by claiming that the victims shouldn't suffer while they contract smallpox and have their fingers chopped off with rusty spoons.

 

There are things in this world which are more evil than that. Infact people do evil things to themselves, they peel out their eyeballs from their eye sockets, they chop off their own hands and they do some crazy things all for to show their faith to god. Even though it is really stupid to do that one can not imagine how they make up their minds to do such things. So it is not that impossible to experience those things with a calm mind if we assume it is god itself who forced them to do it.

 

It all depends on how much a god fearing person are you and how much you really abide in the truth. If a person don't want to abide in the truth and if he just wants all the pleasures in the world without at the same time accepting the pain and harm that may arise due to natural causes then no one can help him. It is not god's fault.

 

We can please god by having a right conduct. A king who is captured by an another king should not accept to work as a slave for him just to get the pleasures in a palace. A king must behave like a king and must be ready to accept the torture as it is his duty given for him by god. Similarly a person who has abided in the truth should accept everything as it is the work of god.

 

If there were no mass extinctions then it would have not been possible for humans to arise in the first place so does this mean that mass extinctions are evil. We require everything from viruses to humans to make up this world. So god allows evil things to happen to produce things in this world which are good. If there were no new ecological niches how would new organisms could have evolved so it is inevitable for god to produce good things without harming anyone.

 

So on the whole all the events that are happening in this world is nothing but god's plan to produce good things in the world. We have to inevitably follow that plan set by god and should accept both the bad and good things that will happen in one's life as it is the work of god to produce good things. So a person who has abided in the truth still sees his god as an omnibenevolent god even if his hands are chopped off for some reason.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

We can please god by having a right conduct. A king who is captured by an another king should not accept to work as a slave for him just to get the pleasures in a palace. A king must behave like a king and must be ready to accept the torture as it is his duty given for him by god. Similarly a person who has abided in the truth should accept everything as it is the work of god.

What about an infant incapable of understanding that his terminal illness is the work of God?

[cypress]

The existence of free will does not necessitate that everything I attempt should succeed -- merely that I be freely able to attempt it.

 

Suppose, then, I have free will, and I decide to murder my neighbor. Free will means I can take my gun over, aim it at him, and fire. Free will does not mean that God cannot stop the bullet in mid-air and prevent my neighbor's death, just like free will does not mean that I can travel at four times the speed of light if I want to.

 

Most humans are rational beings and don't attempt a course of action that has no likelihood of success. Free will implies contingency of outcome. If there is no contingency there is no real choice and therefore no free will. It is also silly and illogical to suggest that free will to be real should be extended to the impossible.

 

I am not concerned with God's goals. I am concerned with whether God is omnibenevolent. Should He value other goals at the expense of His benevolence, then we shouldn't go around calling Him omnibenevolent.

 

If you cannot establish that observation is inconsistent with the posited characteristics then you can't falsify the premise. Rather than taking this approach you seem to prefer to redefine that it means to be omnibenevolent and omnipotent. For your definition, you seem to require that it include the impossible in that you want to require that competing goods all be maximized. This is not possible.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Most humans are rational beings and don't attempt a course of action that has no likelihood of success. Free will implies contingency of outcome. If there is no contingency there is no real choice and therefore no free will. It is also silly and illogical to suggest that free will to be real should be extended to the impossible.

And hence if evil were made impossible, it'd be silly and illogical to suggest that free will should be extended to the power to commit evil.

 

If you cannot establish that observation is inconsistent with the posited characteristics then you can't falsify the premise. Rather than taking this approach you seem to prefer to redefine that it means to be omnibenevolent and omnipotent. For your definition, you seem to require that it include the impossible in that you want to require that competing goods all be maximized. This is not possible.

 

No, I do not want all competing goods to be maximized. Omnibenevolence requires the maximization of only one: benevolence, which is defined in the OP's argument as moral perfection. Hence the God in the OP is merely required to maximize moral perfection, and nothing else.