I - an atheist - am morally better than the Christian God

[Whateverman]

To suggest that god has a need to show mercy is to suggest god to be needy. And why for people should there be a need for reward?

Beat me to it, by a mile. Thanks :)

[lee_merrill]

You appear to be arguing that evil (as thus our inevitable shortcomings) is necessary in order for God to show us mercy. The problem is that there's nothing in scripture or logic which says God needs to show mercy. He doesn't have to do that at all.

Certainly, though by this logic, why should God do anything at all?

Even worse is that when you argue God must do X, Y or Z - you're arguing that God is subservient to something outside of Himself; a standard that God has no other option but to meet.

I'm not arguing that God must show mercy, it's out of his love and grace that he shows us mercy. Not out of some standard that he has to meet.

And why for people should there be a need for reward?

No, God wants to reward us, thus the need for something to overcome.

Blessings,
Lee

Blessings,
Lee

[LeaC]

This is your original argument, and Starlight has never heard of it? Fascinating, since this lazy "thought experiment" is something I remember from my days on tumblr, which were more than a decade ago now. Casual google searches reveal multiple atheists who seem to think they invented this "brilliant" bit of reasoning. It was trite on tumblr, and it still is today. Go declare your yourself the victor and proudly cash in your internet points.

[Ronson]

This is your original argument, and Starlight has never heard of it? Fascinating, since this lazy "thought experiment" is something I remember from my days on tumblr, which were more than a decade ago now. Casual google searches reveal multiple atheists who seem to think they invented this "brilliant" bit of reasoning. It was trite on tumblr, and it still is today. Go declare your yourself the victor and proudly cash in your internet points.

The problem with theological exercises is that they have been thoroughly exhausted long before any of us were born. Brilliant theologians have mediated and been wrestling with some of these questions for 2,000 years or more. So although it is tempting to try to approach a subject from a new perspective, I'm pretty sure it has all been trodden before.

[Starlight]

This is your original argument, and Starlight has never heard of it?

Stable genius though I am, there are some things that exist that I haven't heard of. Amazing, I know. But your apparent belief in my omniscience is gratifying.

Fascinating, since this lazy "thought experiment" is something I remember from my days on tumblr, which were more than a decade ago now.

It's not unusual for people to independently have the same idea. Obviously this is a version of the 'Problem of Evil' which has certainly been done a zillion times over, but this is a somewhat novel (at least to me) twist on the standard version of it.

Casual google searches reveal multiple atheists who seem to think they invented this "brilliant" bit of reasoning.

Wouldn't surprise me. Again, not unusual for people to independently have the same idea.

[Starlight]

The problem with theological exercises is that they have been thoroughly exhausted long before any of us were born. Brilliant theologians have mediated and been wrestling with some of these questions for 2,000 years or more. So although it is tempting to try to approach a subject from a new perspective, I'm pretty sure it has all been trodden before.

Not at all true as a general rule. There are quite a few reasons why new arguments are being made in our time that haven't been previously.

1. There are more people alive in the present day than have lived in the previous 2000 years combined (due to exponential growth in the world's population in recent years).
2. A far higher percentage of people in Western countries today are far more educated that people who lived previously typically were (due to increasing use of high school, college, and university education).
3. Scientific discoveries that have happened very recently impact theological arguments (in genetics, astronomy, psychology, anthropology, etc).
4. There is far greater tolerance for serious questioning of church teachings than ever before (no getting burned at the stake today for being a heretic).
5. There is tolerance of self-identified atheists expounding arguments for atheism in a way there typically hasn't been previously (even a few decades ago the social stigma was pretty strong against atheists).
6. Western countries in the 19th and 20th century learned a huge amount about politics and morality, from their own experiences, from science, from philosophers grappling with new ideas, and from anthropologists studying cultures worldwide as the explorers encountered new civilisations. Today we have a lot more information on our hands, in terms of understanding and contextualising all the different types of moral ideas and philosophies.

In the previous 2000 years there was a lot of scope for a random theologian to say something dumb, have the Church declare it Truth, and for their half-baked argument that wouldn't last one page on the internet today to be passed down to the faithful as the final word on the topic. Offhand I can't think of a single argument produced by any theologian in Church history that you could legitimately convince the majority of philosophy academics at Western universities today was actually a good argument. The quality of the work produced by historical Christian writers is very poor by today's standards in terms of logical quality. Due to vast improvements in education, science, and our understanding of logic, the arguments that get produced today are usually vastly more interesting than historical ones.

P.S. In thinking about this last standard of what theological arguments from history would be typically considered correct today in the average university context (and speaking as someone who did a philosophy degree in a university context), I would say there are only two I can think of off the top of my head:
a. Socrates' Euthyphro dilemma.
b. Hume's Is-Ought problem.
Both those arguments criticise ways in which Christians have commonly approached the topic of morality. I can't think of any other mainstream theological arguments from history that you could muster majority academic support today for the view that it's a good argument. As LeaC has helpfully reminded us all, however, it's true there are some arguments in the world that I haven't personally heard of.

[Ronson]

Not at all true as a general rule. There are quite a few reasons why new arguments are being made in our time that haven't been previously.

1. There are more people alive in the present day than have lived in the previous 2000 years combined (due to exponential growth in the world's population in recent years).

Quantity doesn't equal quality.

2. A far higher percentage of people in Western countries today are far more educated that people who lived previously typically were.

IQ scores have been dropping since the 1970s.

3. Scientific discoveries that have happened very recently impact theological arguments.

Not in this case, unless you have an example?

4. There is far greater tolerance for serious questioning of church teachings than ever before (no getting burned at the stake today for being a heretic).
5. There is tolerance of self-identified atheists expounding arguments for atheism in a way there typically hasn't been previously (even a few decades ago the social stigma was pretty strong against atheists).
6. Western countries in the 19th and 20th century learned a huge amount about politics and morality, from their own experiences, from science, from philosophers grappling with new ideas, and from anthropologists studying cultures worldwide as the explorers encountered new civilisations. Today we have a lot more information on our hands, in terms of understanding and contextualising all the different types of moral ideas and philosophies.

In the previous 2000 years there was a lot of scope for a random theologian to say something dumb, have the Church declare it Truth, and for their half-baked argument that wouldn't last one page on the internet today to be passed down to the faithful as the final word on the topic. Offhand I can't think of a single argument produced by any theologian in Church history that you could legitimately convince the majority of philosophy academics at Western universities today was actually a good argument. The quality of the work produced by historical Christian writers is very poor by today's standards in terms of logical quality. Due to vast improvements in education, science, and our understanding of logic, the arguments that get produced today are usually vastly more interesting than historical ones.

Well, of course you believe that - you are an atheist. Just answer me this one question, using all of the improvements in education and modern technology: What foundation does an atheist have to believe that "evil" exists? Unless you redefine it to suit some modern sensibilities, you have no foundation.

[Whateverman]

This is your original argument, and Starlight has never heard of it? Fascinating, since this lazy "thought experiment" is something I remember from my days on tumblr, which were more than a decade ago now. Casual google searches reveal multiple atheists who seem to think they invented this "brilliant" bit of reasoning. It was trite on tumblr, and it still is today. Go declare your yourself the victor and proudly cash in your internet points.

aka. you can't address the argument.

[JimL]

Certainly, though by this logic, why should God do anything at all?


I'm not arguing that God must show mercy, it's out of his love and grace that he shows us mercy. Not out of some standard that he has to meet.


No, God wants to reward us, thus the need for something to overcome.

Blessings,
Lee

Blessings,
Lee

So, gods not fulfilling a need, he's fulfilling a desire? Just like a human being god has desires, he desires to show mercy, he desires to reward, and I guess it hurts his little heart as well when he just has to send you off to hell for being in error concerning his existence. According to Romans 9:14, you quoted Romans 22, but from Romans 9:14 on down is Paul describing what an evil and tyranical being is his god. For Pauls god, his creations are just toys for him to play with, to have mercy on whom he will, and to have pity on whom he will. In fact he creates them specifically for those purposes, some people to reward, and some people to punish. It describes the people as being robots, determined by god to do exactly what god determined them to do. Paul then describes god as being angry, angry at his own created beings for doing the evil that he engineered them to do. How silly! There goes your free will.

Paul then asks, who are we to to ask; "why then does god find fault?" Why is he angry with the evil doers?" For who can oppose his will." Seiously Lee? Do you think you are just a toy, a robot, determined by god to be one of the good guys, and that the bad guys are just toys as well, robots, determined to be the bad guys. If any of what Paul says there in Romans 9:14-24 is true, then his god, your god, is nothing but a child and we nothing but his wind-up toys. You're not good, not obedient, you have no agency, you're determined, determined to be gods wind-up toy for eternity. Pathetic. It's no wonder that Satan rebelled, he must have realized the evil nature of his boss. If it were an option, and according to Paul it isn't, I'd choose to go with Satan to his realm than to spend eternity with sociopathic child god in what you call heaven.

[Whateverman]

God wants to reward us, thus the need for something to overcome.

God doesn't need something for us to overcome in order to reward us.

If He did, He'd be less powerful than the bible describes. Heck, He'd be less powerful than me, because when I want to reward someone, I don't need for them to have overcome some hardship.

[Starlight]

Quantity doesn't equal quality.

That's where the higher levels of education and higher levels of scientific knowledge come in. For all those reasons about 1000x more high-quality material has been produced in the last generation about theological questions than in all of previous history combined.

IQ scores have been dropping since the 1970s.

False. In general the data points to IQ increasing right through the 20th century and perhaps plateauing in the first couple of decades of the 21st century. This is called the Flynn effect. This appears to be primarily due to an increase in the number of years spent in formal education on average, and a recent end to that increase. There is some diversity in the results of studies that focus on the very most recent decades (1990s or 2000s through to the present). I'm assuming your inaccurate claim of IQs dropping since the 70s comes from one of the most extreme data points among those studies and ignores the others, but I'm not aware of there being even one study suggesting a 1970s peak. If you'd said 1990s or 2000s rather than 1970s you might be able to defend that position somewhat.

What foundation does an atheist have to believe that "evil" exists?

You seem to be asking a question about word definitions. In general any word can be defined by any particular individual as a technical term, e.g. "For the purposes of this paper, I am using the word 'evil' to mean...", or they have some sort of semi-consensus meaning (which may change over time) among speakers of a particular language (or sub-culture) which the writers of dictionaries try and record.

In his other thread Whateverman gave his own technical definition of evil as "unnecessary suffering of conscious creatures", and followed it up with some examples of when he would/wouldn't title the suffering unnecessary. By his definition, and examples, it's pretty clear that evil as he defines it, exists.

Alternatively, we can grab one of the dictionary definitions of evil:
-"something which is harmful or undesirable." e.g. "the various social evils of our modern world"
Clearly there are things in the world that I would consider harmful or that I think are undesirable.

I'm confused that you seem to think this was some sort of gotcha. It's about as hard as "What's 1 plus 1? Checkmate atheists!"

[MaxVel]

This is a simple value judgement (yours) which bypasses the argument. If you feel that way, fine, but it doesn't in any way address the thread's topic.

I mean - I'm not arguing from my own opinions. I don't think thread Christian God exists at all. Here, I'm assuming He does, and that He is accurately described by Christians and the bible. My argument is predicated on the Christian world view, and I'm not giving voice to my own. I can't, because to do so stops conversation.

Charitably: Well, it's also a simple value judgment on your part that it is not a morally superior act to create a world with free willed, morally significant, creatures and allow them to freely choose their moral orientation, plus make a way for them to change from being morally corrupted to morally pure; mas compared to your solution, which is to make a world where any morally corrupted creatures are eliminated before they can be born.

So there's that, it's opinion vs opinion, and you have given no compelling reason to accept your opinion over the alternative I presented. Ergo I can ignore your argument, since it does not move the needle either way.


Uncharitably: You're just hand-waving rather than engaging with the response.

Creatures that never existed never had free will which could be interfered with.

I think you have misunderstood - the creatures whose free will is interfered with in your model are those who, once created, choose freely to have children - where those children themselves would choose evil. The potential parents. They try to have children, but some mysterious thing (Whatevermangod) prevents them from doing so. Since there is no evil in this world, it can't be that they have infertility issues, or miscarry, or have an illness that prevents them from becoming parents - it's only that Whatevermangod sees that the potential child would be evil, and stops it from being born.

IOW you've created a world where the rules of nature act inconsistently (sometimes people can have children, sometimes they can't).

[Tassman]

God has a purpose for the wicked, though:

"What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?" (Ro 9:22–24)

And I believe we may hope that everyone will repent:

" Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." (Ro 11:30–32)

So for God to show mercy, there has to be a need for mercy. And if there was nothing for people to overcome, what would there be to reward?

You make God needing to show mercy sound like a good thing. But, disobedience and evil under any circumstances is surely not good, especially just so as God can show what a super-loving deity he is. He set humankind up for failure solely for the purpose of forgiving it. It's manipulative, he didn’t have to do it this way.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

The logical problem of evil was solved years ago.

No it wasn't. The existence and prevalence of "evil" [i.e. suffering] has been addressed on numerous occasions over the millennia and various philosophical and religious explanations have been proffered. However, the issue has never been “solved”.

God simply has a good reason for allowing evil temporarily.

That is merely an opinion that offers a degree of comfort to those who believe it when they assess the sheer amount of suffering that exists [and has existed] in the world.

All of human existence in a fallen world is like a bad dream compared to the eternity in a new Universe for His adopted children. Strangers not allowed. Wild goats can fend for themselves.

That is theological speculation premised on the panacea of eschatological redemption.

[JimL]

You make God needing to show mercy sound like a good thing. But, disobedience and evil under any circumstances is surely not good, especially just so as God can show what a super-loving deity he is. He set humankind up for failure solely for the purpose of forgiving it. It's manipulative, he didn’t have to do it this way.

God didn't. I undertand, you know that.