Why "mysterious ways" don't matter.

[Anomalocaris]

As I was watching this cool Sam Harris video:

this cool Sam Harris video

a thought occurred to me as he was discussing the double standard of christians waving away the problem of evil and suffering by appealing to god's mysterious intentions: it's not only that this excuse is unconvincing, it's also completely irrelevant. It's just a deflection to avoid talking about the real issue, because motives aren't the sole determining factor when deciding moral issues.

An insane psychopath randomly murders eight people and refuses to speak once caught: his motivations for the acts he's committed are, to the outside observer, just as inscrutable and mysterious as god's. Is he allowed to go free? Are no charges brought against him? Does the judge simply shrug and dismiss the case: "Oh, his ways are mysterious, we cannot possibly judge them!"? No. The fucker is rightly judged by the effects of his actions and thrown in prison, or at least psychiatric care.

Conversely, a man driving his car on his way to volunteer at the puppy orphanage swerves to help an old lady cross the street, and hits and kills a man in the process. This is a scenario for which the actors motivations are entirely known and, indeed, benevolent, and yet he would still be charged with manslaughter for his inattention.

Now consider a man with good intentions who didn't cause a death and, for some reason when he's in court, steadfastly refuses to comment on what was going on. He remains utterly silent, even as the evidence comes in and it becomes more and more clear, to the outside observer, that this man committed the crime. Is his silence an excuse? Good intentions or not, would you consider this a get out of jail free card for him? And could you fault the jury for using the incomplete information at their disposal to find the man guilty?

Motive may be considered as a part of a moral determination, but it's not the be all and end all that christians pretend it to be where god is concerned. Appealing to some vague, speculative ur-motivation that you just think the actor has isn't just completely irrelevant, it's also entirely ineffective even within the premises of the argument.

There is a fundamental assumption behind these points: for the purposes of men, men are as competent to judge god as god.

This is warranted if you take the point of view that god has not demonstrated his existence, much less any superior competence. Therefore the best competence must be taken to be the only competence demonstrated to exist, which is that of men.

But if one does not embrace the basis that god has not demonstrated existence or competence, then your argument would seem somewhat circular.

[SteveII]

Lack of respect aside, let's stick to protestants because Catholics are different enough to be viewed separately. You are all implying that since protestant Christians can get a couple of dozen theological differences out of a Bible that contains 750,000+ words, there can be no truth? That does not make logical sense. There can logically be a true position on every point and no one be right on every one of the thousands of points.

There are basics that are the very definition of Christianity and therefore non-negotiable. Most division come from adherence to a systematic theology developed by an often historic theologian (Calvin, Wesley, Luther, etc.). The difference often deal with things that do not affect everyday life but the traditions are set and the denominations were formed.

Bringing up past bad deeds in the name of Christianity is also a poor logical argument. To make it a good argument, you would have to:
1. Assume all motives for all actions were purely religious,
2. Show that those responsible had a correct understanding of the Bible and its precepts and
3. Always acted in accordance with these precepts.

[The Grand Nudger]

The differences do seem to be (and to have been) affecting "everyday life" buddy.........I'm not sure how anyone could make that claim with a straight face.
1. I need to assume no such thing.
2. I need to show no such thing
3. They need not have acted in any such manner.

They need only self identify, and they have - without fail.........with pride and zeal...no less. I'd be willing to waive a few of them away as crackpots with you (hell, I'd probably waive you away as a crackpot so that shouldn't be surprising), but my generosity has limits. If christianity's current (or future) deeds were any more honorable or less deplorable than it's past "mis-steps" I'd be handing out more breaks. They aren't, so I'm not.

[Welsh cake]

Saying god moves in mysterious ways is like saying Godzilla moves in mysterious ways.

He'll stomp right through your town, and crush your neighbor's apartment out of existence, killing all the occupants present. Yet you survive unscathed, and live to tell the tale.

Godzilla has no plan to spare you, he was just walking through. You don't matter to the big guy. Your life is insignificant. Your neighbor was in his way. You were not. That's why you lived.

The theists' god doesn't give a micro-shit about them. Hence why we have deists. They recognize that fact at least.

[Chad32]

Lack of respect aside, let's stick to protestants because Catholics are different enough to be viewed separately. You are all implying that since protestant Christians can get a couple of dozen theological differences out of a Bible that contains 750,000+ words, there can be no truth? That does not make logical sense. There can logically be a true position on every point and no one be right on every one of the thousands of points.

There are basics that are the very definition of Christianity and therefore non-negotiable. Most division come from adherence to a systematic theology developed by an often historic theologian (Calvin, Wesley, Luther, etc.). The difference often deal with things that do not affect everyday life but the traditions are set and the denominations were formed.

Bringing up past bad deeds in the name of Christianity is also a poor logical argument. To make it a good argument, you would have to:
1. Assume all motives for all actions were purely religious,
2. Show that those responsible had a correct understanding of the Bible and its precepts and
3. Always acted in accordance with these precepts.

If my dad tells me and my sister to do something, and later we disagree about what exactly he said, we don't spend our whole lives debating or even attacking each other over what he said. We go back to him, and he clears everything up. That's what happens when someone is actually talking to you, and setting things straight. That's the point I'm trying to get across that the fact that there are so many different groups, worshiping the same guy, leads me to believe that he either isn't there, or he can't figure out how to talk to us. That is, of course, not even including Judaism and Islam, who both worship Yahweh as well. They just don't think as highly of Jesus as Christianity does.

[Minimalist]

Lack of respect aside

Absolutely not. Respect needs to be earned. It can also be lost.

Religion lost all claim to respect long ago.

[Clueless Morgan]

We are not in a good position to assess the probability of whether God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing evils that occur. As an example, under Chaos theory, large systems are sensitive to the smallest fluctuation. A butterfly flapping its wings might produce a hurricane 10,000 miles away. The same applies to any single event in human history. From a perspective only available to God, there is no way to see how allowing any event OR intervening in any event will affect other events.

Do you not believe that God is omniscient then? An omniscient god would be able to know the outcome of any large system regardless of how complex it is. It would be able to see that the bird my neighbor's cat just killed was the mother of the three eggs in the nest up the tree that will now starve to death because they have no mother, and those three birds were the pivotal three birds that would determine whether the worm population stayed in check or multiplied out of control to the point where there became a worm overload in the biological systems of the Pacific Northwest giving those who sell fish bait a dirth of product causing the price of bait worms to plummet due to over abundence and more and more people take up the hobby of fishing leading to massive over fishing of Oregon's rivers causing the price of Northwest salmon to skyrocket causing local fish restaurants to experience drops in their best selling menu items because it's too expensive causing some of them to fold and contributing to the bad economy of the United States and keeping people nervous about spending money because they just lost their jobs as line cook at McGrath's Fish House, meaning they'll have to go on welfare until they can find another position at another restaurant but the economy is so slow to recover that jobs are hard to find and republicans are demanding welfare reform that will dump this line cook out on the streets because he no longer has the funds to keep his apartment and he falls into a life of crime in order to support himself and just put food in his mouth...

An omniscient god would be able to see that. It doesn't matter how complicated the system, it would still see all of that.

[SteveII]

@Chad32

The Bible claims to contain all the revelation we need for Christian Life and carries with it the weight needed to be the primary source of our information about God, how we should live, and where we are going. Even if God spoke to someone at a later date (to clear up a few things), it would not carry the same weight--in fact, there are prohibitions to adding and subtracting from the Bible.

Again, I don't think that the denominational-ism of protestant Christianity is a good argument--you would have to be a theologian to really care about most of the differences. If you are talking about Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, then they have diverged from using the Bible as a foundation for their theology and built their own system of beliefs that have some similarities yet major differences to protestant Christianity. You correctly characterized Jews and Muslims.

So, do I think that protestant Christianity has got it right? Yes, I believe they are the closest to believing in the full revelation of God (the Bible, Christ's birth, teachings, death, and resurrection, and the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit). You can attack that premise all you want, but you can't use the facts that there are other positions out there as a defeater for that premise.

[Chad32]

Maybe there would be more weight to Jesus' teachings if he was the one that actually wrote the book, instead of waiting ten years after he died to talk to Paul. Or maybe if he wasn't born in a feeding trough in a backwater illiterate hole between Greece, Rome, and Egypt. We have more proof of the existence of Caesar than Jesus.

The bible is all we have to go on and it just doesn't stand very well to scrutiny.

I'm not even sure why we need something like the bible. He's supposed to be everywhere at once. Just do something so we can end the debate over whether he exists any more than any other deity people have ever worshiped.

[Minimalist]

The Bible claims to contain all the revelation we need for Christian Life and carries with it the weight needed to be the primary source of our information about God, how we should live, and where we are going.

Xtians can't even agree on what books go in the bible.