[Serious] Fallacies & Strategies

[GUBU]

There's a difference from being wrong in-fact, and mounting an argument from ignorance...though I suppose the terms in plain english probably lend themselves well to that conflation.    

Perfectly fair, and another good comparison.  States of belief are facts of a subject, just as their tastes in ice cream are facts of a subject.  Rationalizations or justifications for those states of belief or taste are overwhelmingly ex post facto - and both can and have and do have far reaching consequences. I knew vanilla was the best flavor of icecream before I could articulate why...and some chocolate loving filth will be around shortly to explain why I'm wrong in-fact.  Further, they'll explain, vanilla accelerated the deforestation of madagascar.  Long hair, don't care, still the best flavor of ice cream.  

IDK about these requirements for understanding.  I'm not a surgeon, and I understand why surgeons sometimes intentionally severe arteries and cut open chests.  Even if it were true, despite that observation...that you might need to be a god to understand a god (which probably holds some weight)... I don't think that people with moral disagreements are looking to understand a god, but a moral agent - and we're moral agents...so...surgeon to surgeon, right?  Ultimately, though, the idea that any moral disagreement with gods -must- be an argument from ignorance is an implicit admission that there doesn't appear to be any good reason for many states of affairs.  This defense of a gods alleged existence comes at the cost of it's moral warrant - which is going to be the final word in what and whether a person could cosign or worship - as that's referent to yet another set of facts of a subject.  What they can personally stomach.  You can probably imagine some world with a bad god you wouldn't worship.  You don't believe that this is that world - but...for example, you might not be thrilled to find it was zues or wotan or the dagda or kali running the show, eh?.  

If gods could be bad, and were bad, would it mean they couldn't exist?  Well, no, that's a bad argument..i agree... but not on any point of fact.  It's the structure.  A bad existent god is still an existent god.

I'm inclined to agree that post hoc justifications are common when it comes to religious beliefs. But we know that people can change their religion or give up on it, or become deists, etc. There is clearly room for objective evaluation of facts to make an informed decision. But I don't see how that's comparable to icecream flavors.. one prefers the flavor that tastes well for them, and the story stops here.. because it involves immediate senses, namely the taste. Religious belief is much more complicated, and it's usually the basis for the individual's entire worldview.

Now about the possibility of there being a deity which is not benevolent .. First, I don't see why anyone would be interested in this possibility, let's assume there is a perfectly sound.and valid argument for the existence of a supreme malevolent entity, so what? How would that have any bearing on how anyone lives their life?
Secondly, no one ever proved that there is unnecessary evil in this world, ever. Consider Rowe's famous example of a fawn trapped under a giant tree trunk, in the middle of wildfire, the fawn slowly agonizes to death for several days, while vultures are feeding on its living flesh. Now clearly, the suffering of the pawn seems unnecessary for everybody. In stone cold rigor, however, it doesn't follow its suffering is really unnecessary. We know we're not omniscient -a trivial fact that is always worth mentioning. So nothing justifies the move : apparently unnecessary => unnecessary, no matter how much one feels sorry for the fawn. It's worth mentioning that there is inherently an upper bound for suffering in this world, too much pain numbs the senses and death also means the absence of pain. Is death evil? No, because death is a negative concept.

So what does that mean? It simply means we have no reason to postulate malevolent entities. We do have good reasons in favor of benevolence, however. The emergence of ife in its most rudimentary form isn't something a malevolent entity would do, let alone the emergence of conscious agents with free will, capable of experiencing pleasure and achieve various forms of welfare.

So you've no interest in the abrahamic god and deny its existence. Then why do you expend so much energy defending it?