RE: Perfect, Best of Possible, or Better than Nothing: Which criterion?
May 16, 2015 at 8:51 am
(This post was last modified: May 16, 2015 at 9:49 am by Hatshepsut.
Edit Reason: subject-verb agreement at end with "aren't"
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(May 15, 2015 at 6:19 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: Kirk is a human, with finite capabilities. God is supposedly omnipotent, and if God were in Kirk's situation, God could save the woman's life and then God could simply persuade Roosevelt to enter the war when it pleases God to do so (or could just wipe out Hitler himself, which would be effortless for an omnipotent being).
[Concerning] ... the idea that there is another world called "heaven" that is better than this one. If this is the best of all possible worlds, heaven is logically impossible.
I don't like the whole "omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent" thing either. It comes from the Middle Ages as thinkers newly possessed of more powerful logical tools began pushing these tools to the limit, without regard to the various complexities, contradictions, and paradoxes that can result. The truth is, we cannot conceive of an omniscient & onmipotent being, or give any meaningful statements about what such a being might or might not do. So, the Star Trek ditty is a bit silly. However, it's also unreasonable to presume that a god would just wipe away all the things we don't like and leave us with a bliss of our own fancy.
The concept of deity as Sugar Daddy is childish. There's little reason to think that deity should operate that way, or even that everything which is "good" is also pleasing and painless. This kind of emotionalism is also engaged in by fundamentalist church groups, and appeared in kid's books I used to read in Lutheran school where God just "fixes" everything as it happens. I remember reading a thing about how "they had miracles in bible days but we don't have them now" because "we can go to the supermarket" for our needs and they couldn't. I was only 7 then and didn't realize how stupid that idea is.
I agree with you that if a heaven exists, then the position that we live in the best possible world becomes much harder to defend. The only counter I'm aware of is that heaven is a reward which has to be earned. Many people who accept the notion of a "benevolent" world do accept the existence of merit in such a world. Bliss and reward aren't just handed to everyone unconditionally. Indeed, if they were, the rewards would become meaningless. (That's a criticism applied to grade inflation where everyone gets an A.)
