Hello, I am new to the forum, it's been a while since I've been in a theological discussion (after being banned off 'reasonable faith' for making someone butthurt by using sarcasm on someone who literally thought the devil was causing all the atheists to behave as they do), and I also don't believe in... Thor, Apolo, Krishna, Zeus, you get the point.
But people seems to get alittle rustled when I pick on the Judeo christian god, like it's special god (aka, special pleading), then ask me to justify my disbelief. I often point out that the problem of evil is a good reason to not believe, but an even more often apologetic's sentence is thrown out: "God has morally sufficient reasons to permit evil".
I don't know about any of you, but I think this answer is truly a cop out. It's a rephrase of "god works in mysterious ways". And the 'mysteriousness' is the fact we can never know the mind of god, and he 'probably' has good reasons why he gives babies aids, and aborts even more children every day. They argue that "you'd have to be omniscient to say if god doesn't have morally sufficient reasons. If we changed on thing about the current system of the Earth, we wouldn't be able to tell if the overall suffering decreased or increased overall!". This is basically an appeal to mystery and the unknown, and the response itself is adhoc (I won't explain that here, but Richard Carrier used Bayes theorem on god, which actually made an all good god statistically impossible when theists gave that excuse, an evil god is much more probably, talking in the millions of times more probable).
To win this is actually very simple, I can get us to agnosticism in a few seconds, here is what my reply would be:
You'd have to be omniscient to know if god DOES have morally sufficient reasons! The question of whether god has morally sufficient reasons is UNKNOWN, so therefore you are unjustified in proposing a god. Also, as the proposer of this god, you have failed to meet the burden of proof. It is not me who has to prove god has insufficient reasons, but for you to prove god does have sufficient reasons. You've just proposed an unknown filler "god has x", we don't know what 'x' is. This is simply ad hoc excuse making for Jesus.
But I want to go further than that, and shoulder the burden. So, we need to evaluate the sentence: "Is there unnecessary suffering in the world?" all I have to do is provide ONE example, and if there is unnecessary suffering, god cannot logically exist, as it is a contradiction.
I think the answer is pretty obvious to everyone: Yes! There is unnecessary suffering. Lets give one example: Malaria. So, does malaria have to exist? No. If we removed it tomorrow, would overall people be in a state of less suffering? Yes. So it logically follows that because malaria exists, god cannot logically exist, as he has the power to personally intervene, but does not.
The only way theists can now hold their positions is by maintaining: "Removing malaria would not decrease suffering, as we can never the know the large scale consequences of stopping one thing in a large system" which is about logically inconsistent as "Jonny removing his hand from a hot stove will not decrease his pain, as we can never know the large scale consequences of stopping one small thing in a large system". It's pretty obvious that if you remove something that causes suffering, it will reduce suffering, well generally.
Sure, Jonny could take his hand off the stove and accidentally fall in a lake of Parana's, but generally, if less people had their hands on stoves (and god knows why the hell they'd do that) there will be overall less pain. Arguing otherwise is nonsensical. So that leads to the conclusion: God has no morally sufficient reasons for permitting suffering/evil, as this evil is ultimately pointless and causes overall more suffering, which is completely needless and obviously leads to no ultimate good.
Atheists: Winning the argument since 33 AD.
But people seems to get alittle rustled when I pick on the Judeo christian god, like it's special god (aka, special pleading), then ask me to justify my disbelief. I often point out that the problem of evil is a good reason to not believe, but an even more often apologetic's sentence is thrown out: "God has morally sufficient reasons to permit evil".
I don't know about any of you, but I think this answer is truly a cop out. It's a rephrase of "god works in mysterious ways". And the 'mysteriousness' is the fact we can never know the mind of god, and he 'probably' has good reasons why he gives babies aids, and aborts even more children every day. They argue that "you'd have to be omniscient to say if god doesn't have morally sufficient reasons. If we changed on thing about the current system of the Earth, we wouldn't be able to tell if the overall suffering decreased or increased overall!". This is basically an appeal to mystery and the unknown, and the response itself is adhoc (I won't explain that here, but Richard Carrier used Bayes theorem on god, which actually made an all good god statistically impossible when theists gave that excuse, an evil god is much more probably, talking in the millions of times more probable).
To win this is actually very simple, I can get us to agnosticism in a few seconds, here is what my reply would be:
You'd have to be omniscient to know if god DOES have morally sufficient reasons! The question of whether god has morally sufficient reasons is UNKNOWN, so therefore you are unjustified in proposing a god. Also, as the proposer of this god, you have failed to meet the burden of proof. It is not me who has to prove god has insufficient reasons, but for you to prove god does have sufficient reasons. You've just proposed an unknown filler "god has x", we don't know what 'x' is. This is simply ad hoc excuse making for Jesus.
But I want to go further than that, and shoulder the burden. So, we need to evaluate the sentence: "Is there unnecessary suffering in the world?" all I have to do is provide ONE example, and if there is unnecessary suffering, god cannot logically exist, as it is a contradiction.
I think the answer is pretty obvious to everyone: Yes! There is unnecessary suffering. Lets give one example: Malaria. So, does malaria have to exist? No. If we removed it tomorrow, would overall people be in a state of less suffering? Yes. So it logically follows that because malaria exists, god cannot logically exist, as he has the power to personally intervene, but does not.
The only way theists can now hold their positions is by maintaining: "Removing malaria would not decrease suffering, as we can never the know the large scale consequences of stopping one thing in a large system" which is about logically inconsistent as "Jonny removing his hand from a hot stove will not decrease his pain, as we can never know the large scale consequences of stopping one small thing in a large system". It's pretty obvious that if you remove something that causes suffering, it will reduce suffering, well generally.
Sure, Jonny could take his hand off the stove and accidentally fall in a lake of Parana's, but generally, if less people had their hands on stoves (and god knows why the hell they'd do that) there will be overall less pain. Arguing otherwise is nonsensical. So that leads to the conclusion: God has no morally sufficient reasons for permitting suffering/evil, as this evil is ultimately pointless and causes overall more suffering, which is completely needless and obviously leads to no ultimate good.
Quote:Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? -Epicurus
Atheists: Winning the argument since 33 AD.
