An interesting article on the BBC website today trying to figure out why God allows natural disasters to happen:
Evil has always been a thorn in the side of those - of whatever faith - who believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good God.
As the philosopher David Hume (echoing Epicurus) put it in 1776: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?"
St Augustine, author CS Lewis and others have argued God allows our bad actions since preventing them would undermine our freewill, the value of which outweighs its ill effects.
But there's a counter-argument. Thoroughly good people aren't robots, so why couldn't God have created only people like them, people who quite freely live good lives?
Doesn't our world contain a surplus of suffering? People do truly awful things to each other. Isn't the suffering they create enough for soul-making? Did God really need to throw in earthquakes and tsunamis as well?
Suffering's distribution, not just its amount, can also cause problems. A central point of philosopher Immanuel Kant's was that we mustn't exploit people - we mustn't use them as mere means to our ends. But it can seem that on the soul-making view God does precisely this. He inflicts horrible deaths on innocent earthquake victims so that the rest of us can be morally benefitted.
That hardly seems fair.
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
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12 comments:
So you're saying god created a universe in which hundreds of thousands are arbitrarily killed in order to make life interesting?
Not very interesting for those who are dead and a diversion those made homeless would rather do without. Maybe it's to provide amusement for those of us who watch from afar?
You didnt read that very well did you Mel?
In the emptiness of space there is no harm possible, nor life. That is because space is in a static state of no change. Life requires the presence of a dynamic environment where rapid change takes place on a continual basis. Life requires constant exchange between energetic systems store up and release energy.
Your comments ahd the writer's comment reflect the truth of Daniel Pozzner's essay which says socialists seek a return to the Eden they deny; that socialism is Calvinism in another form and this is why we see the harsh rethoric expressed in the repressive tolereance the left engages in these days.
What is death Mel? Do you know? Maybe it is far less horrible than you imagine, at the very worst one second after the life of your body ceases you will be in the same state you were in before you were born. Was that a horrible state?
It is a useless pursuit to whine about a world that never was, when we manage the environment far better than ever before, and it is useless and silly to claim not to believe in God while reviling God for not acting like the perfect socialist and carrying for each and every need from cradle to eternal life (there would be no death in your perfect world would there).
I just dont get why you socialists are afraid of discomfort. Discomfort is not permanet, like all things it has a beginning and an end. I think the truth is that the reason you socialists like to go on about how bad God is for allowing it is because you are really saying you are better than God and would have made a better world (if you could do anything other than use the resources God has created and given to you); you like to put your compassion on display so you can be admired by others of like mind, like those who pray loudly in church and are first at every scene of tragedy so they can display their goodness.
Well I suppose if you were ignorant and wished to remain so you could subscribe to all the rubbish that Marty is cutting and pasting here (Marty you should really read some science books, space isn't empty!) or simply take on board the most obvious conclusion that fits all the evidence, i.e. the universe is oblivious to you and there is no such thing as God. (in the Abrahamic sense)
*This is where Marty back-tracks and redefines the word "God" to mean "everything", to which Hume's razor can be applied with ease of course.
I didnt cut and paste a single thing here Steve. It was Elizabeth who did the cutting and pasting to create the topic.
When I said "the emptiness of space" I was referring to the vacuum of space which by definition contains no matter, smart guy.
I am surprised a scientist such as yourself does not realize that life requires energetic exchanges across many systems and subsystems, and that it also requires a place to be- in our case earth, which is also subject to energetic exchanges of its own with the sun and its other local and remote galactic neighbors and with its own various structural systems. Such awesome forces are bound to, at some point or another, involve enormous energy releases when equilibrium is sought between systems. And if you happen to be in a place where that happens, you better watch out. When the stress of two tectonic plates pushing against each other is relieved, then the ground above will shake, and if you live in a poorly built structure it will crash down upon you. That is not a natural disaster, that is the simple interplay of forces. If you choose to live in an earthquake area, choose one with building codes, then God's greatest wrath will be a smashed dish or two.
Also, smart guy, when I say god is everything I do not backtrack. I never did believe in god in the Abrahamic sense, at least not after I was about 7.
If the universe does not contain intelligence, where does ours come from? I am familiar with your view that it all just happened, the universe just happened to create itself and then to form beings who could reflect upon the nature of this creation and then write blogs asking why it isnt a better creation more to their liking. Yet even your scenario is marvellous enough to satisfy me as to the beauty and wonder of your creation so I do not care if god exists or not. I do not expect god to wipe my ass or pay my bills or keep unpleasant things from happening around me, I only expect that if god does exist then god must have provided some natural mechanism to reveal itself to me and that should that happen it will be relevant only to me and no one else, except that if it turns out that god really is love then perhaps I would become a reflection of that love and a more pleasant person to be around.
So there smart guy, put that in your pipe and smoke it while you rest one leather-patched elbow in one cupped hand, and look wise and sagacious while you ponder your next inane response to me. Sip a glass of your earth killing carbon producing wine, flow, trucked, or shipped in from France or wherever, and tell me about the evils of global warming and the beauty of totalitarian socialist states- I am all ears, smart guy.
Why bad/evil things happen in this world? Why God let such evils happen? Why horrible and unimaginable natural disaster like the one that happened recently in Haiti happened and killed tens of thousands people? I think it is in-answerable. Not only natural disaster. How about evil acts by human beings against human beings. go to: http://www.crimelibrary.com You will read shocking crime stories with gruesome details. Have you heard about two monsters by the name Charles Mason and Jeffrey Dahmer? you find their stories in the above cited website. Well, there are two evils in this world. 1. Natural evil better known as natural disaster. It is evil. 2. Moral evil. This is committed or being committed or is about to be committed by human beings against human beings --their own kind. Even carnivore wild animals like lions, tiger etc don't eat their own kind. What you see in a human society is a dog eat dog situation. example: Holocaust, 1st world war, 2nd world war, apartheid, red terror, white terror, the looming war with Iran or crimes committed or about to be committed by the so called leaders (actually mislead (ers) etc : example: Idi Amin, Bokassa, Emperor HSI, Mengistu H/M etc. The list goes on. The question here is why does God, the "omnipotent" and "omnipresent" let these evils happen now and then and allow them to claim human lives, including the elderly, women and children. Why? The believers say, there is a reason for it and quote verses after verses from the holy book(s). The atheists use it for their argument against all types of faiths which they call closed systems that do not allow logic and reasoning to prevail. Where do you stand?
All very best
I understand what you're trying to say Marty, but you are still wrong. The "vacuum of space" isn't empty, never mind all the EM radiation flying around but the so called "vacuum" isn't empty either. Quantum fields (like the Higgs field) mean that particles pop in and out of existence all the time, this has been experimentally verified and should be easy for you to Google.
You see, not everything conforms to the perspective offered by your five senses. You seem to sneeringly expect this of science, but conveniently ignore it when it comes to your "spiritual beliefs". It's a common attitude among faith-heads of all shades certainly, but never the less totally incoherent.
Intelligence is an emergent property as is conciousness, it doesn't require creation at a particular "instant", evolution explains quite adequately how it gets here. I don't believe everything "just happened" that's ridiculous, and a little straw man you just invented for yourself.
PS, I gave up smoking many years ago but love the picture you paint. I could see myself in a quilted velvet smoking jacket sitting in one of those sumptuous leather arm chairs quaffing the finest claret, unfortunately reality is far less glamorous. But never fear Marty, I'm exploiting your beloved Capitalist system as hard as I can to ensure I have sufficient funds to lord it over all you hard done-by colonials at every opportunity :)
Anonymous ask in-answerable question. Why talk about carnivore animal? Herbivore hamster and rabbit eat own young but God say we people can not do it? We not question God. We question hamster but he no answer either.
That is exactly my point Steve. What happens to our consciousness when the particles that make up our nervous systems vibrate out of existence?
And, since it is true there are ever finer fields of matter, what makes you so sure there isn't some subtle body of consciousness that is not detectable by our normal senses?
Marty, I don't concern myself with the undetectable, like the non-existent I find it too hard to distinguish between them.
Marty, I don't concern myself with the undetectable, like the non-existent I find it too hard to distinguish between them.
Yet, Steve, you believe in quantum fields.
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