Count me out. Proving somebody evil doesn't prove they don't exist. And while the bible-god is without a doubt as evil as humans could possibly be, I don't argue that this proves he doesn't exist. I simply insist that it proves that the bible-god's self-serving statements about being "loving" are total bullshit.The problem of evil is often seen to be the greatest philosophical challenge to theistic belief.
The problem of evil is also most frequently raised by people who are ardent empiricists (which undergirds their atheism). There are many versions of empiricism, but the one we will investigate at the moment is naturalistic, atheistic empiricism, which holds both that there is nothing but the natural world in the sense of the world which can be directly accessed via the senses and only sensory, empirical evidence is sufficient evidence for holding a proposition to be true.
Sure is funny that it was by use of your naturalistic senses that you believe you came across proof that more things exist than simply those that are physical. Sounds like the abilities of our 5 physical senses are much closer to being infallible than you give them credit for. Unless of course you qualify and say that prayer and telepathy were part of the way you confirmed the existence of any non-physical thing.
Perhaps because you haven't debated me yet. Evil is the word that people subjectively use to characterize situations and actions which they subjectively think tend to cause unnecessary harm. One woman will call abortion evil, another woman calls it a blessing.On this view, it seems extremely difficult to figure out what exactly evil is.
Haven't read him recently, but the problem I see here is that you are automatically assuming "good" can be objectively defined (given your apparent eschewing of a subjective definition of the word). But you theists have your own problems, for example, if everything your god does must necessarily be morally "good" without exception, then when God "stirs up" the Medes to rape Babylonian women in Isaiah 13:15-17, the fact that these men are doing the will of God logically requires that such rapes were morally good. If God knew evil would happen should he step out of the way and allow evil men to act unrestrained, that's not morally different from you, knowing your dog will attack the jogger should you let go of the leash, letting go of the leash. Nobody will listen to you carp about how the dog's nature caused the attack and not your choice to let go of the leash. Accordingly, we don't listen when you "explain" that the Medes' evil nature to commit rape, not God's letting go the leash on their evil tendencies, was the cause of the rapes in Isaiah 13. Furthermore, the fact that the text says God "stirred up" the Medes to commit rape makes it sound more like God was encouraging them or putting a rape-desire into their hearts...a lot more evil than merely "stepping out of the way and allowing evil people to do what they want".Sam Harris is well known for trying to show that science is capable of dealing with moral issues (discussed here). The method basically involves finding out what makes people happy (which is “good”) and what makes them unhappy (which makes it “bad”) (see here). It remains totally unclear to me, however, how Harris makes the jump from “happy” to “objective good.” Measuring people’s happiness doesn’t mean measuring goodness. There are serial killers who are very happy to go about secretly killing as many people as possible. That doesn’t make their action “good”, unless you boil “good” down to a purely subjective basis, on which nothing can be decried as “evil” unless 100% of people agree it is indeed evil.
You will ask how I can call rape evil when I'm an atheist who doesn't believe in objective morals. I'm not using my own sense of morality to judge god, I'm using the fact that there's a contradiction in the bible between God's causing men to rape women, and God saying he "loves" everybody, to show that the bible-god doesn't even live up to his own standards, in which case, he is probably also lying about himself elsewhere in the bible, in which case it makes better sense to regard him as a sadistic lunatic (and on the basis of other arguments not relevant here, a fictional story character made in the continually evolving image of ancient barbaric tribes).
That's the wrong question. The truth is that our morals come from two empirical sources; our genetic predispositions (which is why some people are just more aggressive and selfish their whole lives than other people), and environmental conditioning (in which case you can warp a normal child's mind and turn them into a criminal).Returning to the problem of evil, then, it seems like theists can simply ask the atheists a question: “What evil?” Judging something as “evil” is necessarily a valuation of an action. How does one make an experiment which can make a value judgment?
God's nature causes men to rape women in Isaiah 13:16, so apparently, the only reason you think rape is always evil, is because your god hasn't "stirred" you up to commit rape just yet.Certainly, one can try to argue, as does Harris, that values are just [scientific] facts (note that the theist agrees that moral values are facts… but facts centered on the nature of God, not on empirical grounds).
If you think God views rape as evil, then my criticism of God is that he makes people engage in the very actions that he himself calls "evil". That is, your god is a hypocrite, thus justifying suspicion that he has more to do with being made in the image of mankind and less to do with inspiring people to write scripture.But simply asserting something doesn’t make it so. I often say “God exists.” People don’t tend to take this as profound evidence that the statement is true. (Though, perhaps if I said “God exists is a fact.” I might win some over… at least those who take Harris seriously when he makes a similar claim about values in the video linked above.)So the question remains: What evil?
And while he might not necessarily be "forcing" men to rape women in Isaiah 13, force is obviously present in Ezekiel 38:4 ff, where God boasts that his control over the freewill of future pagan armies is correctly analogous to putting a hook into their jaws. Nothing spells force quite like putting a hook in somebody's jaws and drawing them along in whatever direction you want. NOW your god isn't just "stirring" up people to do evil, he is forcing them to do the very acts that he himself views as evil. And read those chapters of Ezekiel carefully, god will also punish those puppet nations for moving in the direction that he was pulling their strings in. Sort of like the irrational fool who kicks you through his living room window, then charges you with destruction of property.
And there is no evidence that evil is anything more than an action that somebody or a group of people have expressed dislike for.On an atheistic empirical standpoint, there doesn’t seem to be any way to judge actions or events as “evil” other than by saying “I don’t like that.”
I deny the legitimacy of the question. If it is a moral issue, there is no objective "right" answer. But there might be a lot of people who mistake their strong subjective feelings for objective truth.But perhaps I do like that same event/action. Who’s to judge between us? Bringing numbers into the mix won’t help either. Imagine a scenario in which 1,000,000 people thought some action (rape) was evil. On the other side there were 10,000 who thought the same action was perfectly reasonable, because, after all, that’s how our ancestors behaved. Who is right?
Well, on empiricism, perhaps one could argue that the 1,000,000 are right, but then we’re making a judgment on values simply because of a majority vote. Science doesn’t work that way. We don’t just vote on what is empirically correct.
Correct, but irrelevant. You haven't demonstrated any logical or evidential flaws in moral relativism.
The only way to solve this problem would be to argue that in moral questions, the majority is correct. Yet I don’t see any way to argue in this matter other than metaphysically, which is exactly what the empiricist is trying to avoid. Therefore, on empiricism, there is no such thing as evil. Just good and bad feelings. And that’s not enough.
Why not?
And so we get to my main argument.1) One cannot rationally hold both to a proposition’s truth and falsehood.2) On atheistic empiricism, there is no evil.
Correction, there is no "objective" evil. That's because there's no objective standard for evaluating the morality of human actions, there's only human opinion.
3) Atheistic empiricists argue that evil disproves (or challenges) the existence of God [implicit premise: evil exists].
Then count me out, it's perfectly obvious that you cannot disprove Hitler's existence by showing he was evil, so it would be the same with God. And personally, I find that the alternative position (i.e, your god's forcing people to do things that he himself thinks are evil, then blaming them for acting that way, therefore, your god is a hypocrite) has much more force when dealing with apologists. They don't like atheism, but they are much more offended by biblical proof that their God is a sadistic lunatic.
I've already admitted that yes, it doesn't make sense to say that a being doesn't exist, because the information allegedly showing his existence, shows him to be evil.4) Therefore, atheistic empiricists hold that both evil does not exist, and that it does exist (2, 3).5) Therefore, atheistic empiricism is irrational (1, 4).
However, the evil nature of the OT god does indeed logically contradict John 3:16 and other passages that allege god "loves" us...unless the apologist is willing to redefine divine "love" so that it eventually looks suspiciously opposite of the only kind of "love" that we can agree exists, human love. There would be little reason to call it "love", if it is supposed to be so broad and encompassing that it will allow even those acts that loving people would never allow to happen to each other. If we can rightfully dispute that a father "loves" his daughter after finding out he stepped out of the way and allowed some other man to rape her, there is no compelling reason to reach a different conclusion if the "father" who allows rape happens to be the bible-god. And since I correctly reject the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, no, I do not think that scriptural statements assuring us that God always does good, must be read into Isaiah 13:16 and other statements where God is obviously contradicting his own alleged values.
In order to avoid the argument, the atheistic empiricist can simply deny 3). However, this would disarm the strongest anti-theistic argument. I see no reason to feel threatened by the problem of evil when it is leveled by an empirical/naturalistic anti-theist. In fact, some have argued that:1) If evil has meaning, then God exists.
no, evil can have a meaning in the dictionary. that hardly implies that God exists.
2) Evil has meaning.
Subjective meaning. The answer to whether Hitler was evil only seems "obvious" because Frank Turek's audiences are predominantly Christian, take place in the continental USA, and those who support Hitler usually don't attend. But the truly objective analysis doesn't automatically conclude the majority American view on Hitler is correct, the analysis will give legitimate weight to all human opinion on the subject. And I'm afraid that human opinion about human worth has radically changed over the centuries.
3) God exists (1, 2, modus ponens).This argument is a kind of reverse moral argument, and I think it works, though I doubt one will find many anti-theists who will accept premise 1). As is the case with the moral argument [1) If objective morals exist, then God exists; 2) Objective morals exist; 3) therefore God exists], I believe atheists will vary between denying 1) and 2) as they find convenient.
We do. You haven't demonstrated that any morals are "objective" in the sense of their basis transcending human opinion.
I leave it to the naturalistic/empirical atheist to show that science can, in fact, test for objective morality, rather than just measuring feelings.
I leave that to Sam Harris too, since I don't say objective morals exist any more than I say an objective value exists for a used dvd player at a garage sale.
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