Because god is shy.

(September 21, 2014 at 1:55 am)Rhythm Wrote: Because god is shy.

Which is weird because in the OT you couldn't go for a shit in the bushes without tripping over the bastard.

Now... Nowhere to be seen.

I'll just go with #1. Hell maybe I live across the street from god. Makes about as much sense as anything else I've heard.

(September 21, 2014 at 1:32 am)CapnAwesome Wrote: I don't understand most people's hard-on for the problem of evil. If I were a Theist it would be easy "God isn't omnibenevolent' Done. It doesn't really do anything at all against Theism in general.

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(September 21, 2014 at 1:15 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: Note that I put it third on the list and even offered possible evasions, though I don't see the other arguments as being quite as easily dismissed.

Then why include it at all? Your list should be 3 good arguments and one that sucks. I really think the best is number 2. Why in the world would God be hidden. I've yet to hear an explanation that even close to satisfies myself for an answer to that.

Because it's still a rather strong argument against the majority of gods people actually care about.

(September 21, 2014 at 2:01 am)Zen Badger Wrote: Which is weird because in the OT you couldn't go for a shit in the bushes without tripping over the bastard.

Now... Nowhere to be seen.

One can see the evolution of God in the Bible where we go from a God who walks with Adam in the garden and has regular meetings with and talks to people, who performs miracles on request and gives a lot of signs and wonders; to a more distant and hidden God who no longer meets or talks with anyone and doesn't really performs any miracles.

As time has passed, God just keeps moving farther and farther away till we get to now where there is no evidence whatsoever of his existence. While in the OT an argument over whose God was real was easily settled by making an offering to both gods, so that the real God would respond, today we get Cosmological and Design arguments by the likes of WLC.

There is no argument about a god, because there was never a god, its really that simple.

(September 21, 2014 at 1:32 am)CapnAwesome Wrote: I don't understand most people's hard-on for the problem of evil. If I were a Theist it would be easy "God isn't omnibenevolent' Done. It doesn't really do anything at all against Theism in general.

That's what some of them do, but it doesn't work. If this world is the creation of a god who knows all and can do anything, then there are no such things as accidents. All suffering, cruelty and evil in the world exists explicitly because that god desires to see suffering, cruelty and evil. Either it's there because the god is actively making it happen, or because it arranged things specifically for it to happen, already knowing it would.

The closest thing there is to an actual counter to the Problem of Evil is to assert that God can't be evil because ultimate might makes ultimate right.

(September 21, 2014 at 2:11 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(September 21, 2014 at 1:32 am)CapnAwesome Wrote: I don't understand most people's hard-on for the problem of evil. If I were a Theist it would be easy "God isn't omnibenevolent' Done. It doesn't really do anything at all against Theism in general.

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Then why include it at all? Your list should be 3 good arguments and one that sucks. I really think the best is number 2. Why in the world would God be hidden. I've yet to hear an explanation that even close to satisfies myself for an answer to that.

Because it's still a rather strong argument against the majority of gods people actually care about.

That really only applys in the west. Sometimes I feel like a broken record on these forums when I have to remind people that the western world, where people believe in an omni-benevolent Christian God, is the minority of the world. Even lots of western Christians believe in a wrathful God in case of conservative Christians or believe in a more deistic style God in case of the more liberal Christians. I'd have a hard time being convinced (although I'm always open to evidence) that omnibenevolence is a trait that even a majority of western Christians believe in.

That being said Muslims believe that God is all just but most certainly don't believe that God is all good. I had a whole thread and discussion with Rayaan about this ages ago. That's a massive part of the population.

Also if you stripped away what people believe and just took the argument on face value without considering the audience is does nothing against Theism itself. It just is an argument against omnibenevolence.

Personally, I'd say #4 is all you need. At the end of the day, you don't need to reject an undefined number of god claims; you can simply ignore them until someone brings something worth considering to the table.

The problem with #3 is both that

• The problem of evil doesn't disprove gods. It just raises uncomfortable questions to people who naively believe in things like omnipotence.
  
• Arguments about God's moral character never convince apologists. All the conversation does is show you how far they're willing to stretch things to maintain their particular version of theodicy.
  

1. God is love.
2. Love is not jealous.
3. The lord your God is a jealous God.
Q.E.D.