I made a thread about this when I first joined but the entire thread was immediately derailed by a certain member of the forum who was banned shortly after partly because of that. The thread never got back on topic because of that so I'm giving it a second try because I really thought the argument was interesting and I would like to see some discussion on it.
Some of you may have read this before, but it's new to me. Dean Stretton wrote this argument that attempts to prove the non-existence of God by using problems that middle knowledge creates that theists probably never foresaw. Basically, if God has middle knowledge, then there's no reason for a free person to not stop another person's suffering because it ultimately all works out for good in the end. Said person is morally justified in allowing the evil then. He argues that even the most rational theist would not allow all suffering even if they knew all suffering would be worked out for good, so they are not morally justified in allowing any evil to occur, and from that he says that no theists knows God exists. After this, he argues that basically that God does not exist because no theists really knows God exist (it's more sophisticated than that in the article). My summary is very simplistic so don't critique my summary and expect to be critiquing the argument itself.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/d...n/mae.html
What do you think of it?
Some of you may have read this before, but it's new to me. Dean Stretton wrote this argument that attempts to prove the non-existence of God by using problems that middle knowledge creates that theists probably never foresaw. Basically, if God has middle knowledge, then there's no reason for a free person to not stop another person's suffering because it ultimately all works out for good in the end. Said person is morally justified in allowing the evil then. He argues that even the most rational theist would not allow all suffering even if they knew all suffering would be worked out for good, so they are not morally justified in allowing any evil to occur, and from that he says that no theists knows God exists. After this, he argues that basically that God does not exist because no theists really knows God exist (it's more sophisticated than that in the article). My summary is very simplistic so don't critique my summary and expect to be critiquing the argument itself.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/d...n/mae.html
What do you think of it?
My ignore list
"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
