“The Problem of Evil” in atheism and in Islam

[Creed of Heresy]

I'm surprised anyone here is dignifying this half-baked schlock with any kind of consideration or reply.

I didn't read it, because I saw all the warning signs early on of someone who is completely incompetent and lacking any semblance of understanding the topic he's blithering and babbling on about. Why did anybody else here read it? Why does anybody else here care?

The guy's a moron. You might as well be trying to argue about global economics with a high school freshman.

[paulpablo]

You cannot use bad actions of some Muslims as a proof to show Islam is a false religion. You cannot blame your constitution for the evil, which people are spreading by breaking the laws.

Show me where I said that what I was trying to prove was that Islam is a false religion.

Show me where I was trying to say Islam was responsible for evil.

You're arguing against a point I wasn't making, (the strawman fallacy)
I was arguing against your point that there are so many Muslims in the world so it must be true (argumentum ad pupulum fallacy).

So to bring it back to what the argument was actually about, you said this

Prove that about 2 billion Muslims around the world are following a deceiver and Quran is nothing more than a concoction. Whole humanity (including me) would be thankful to you.

What I said was that I doubt two billion Muslims are following Muhammad,
THEN I actually gave a list of contradictory things I know different Muslims believe in to show how they don't all believe in the same things, even though on paper they are all Muslims.

[Tonus]

1. If God exist He would not allow excessive unnecessary suffering

If there is anything that can demonstrate the issue, it's that you seem to think that there is a necessary and proper amount of suffering that would somehow qualify as 'good.' In other words, you need to present suffering as some sort of virtue in order to argue against the problem of evil. Otherwise you'd be arguing that evil is necessary in some way.

This need to fit god into a container that he is ill-suited for leads to the creation and worship of beings who are unfit to be worshiped.

[paulpablo]

Is it not true that Soviet Union and china had seen most powerful dictators in the entire human history but still communism failed? Why (according to you) an average military dictator (Prophet Mohammad) got spectacular success whereas most powerful dictators in the modern atheist regimes failed drastically? Read Quran with an open mind and you will have the answers to these questions.

You forgot to say "Peace be upon him" After saying prophet Muhammad.

You're swapping the word atheist with communist in that last part.

Muhammads empire at the time of his death hadn't spread that far at the time of his death, it wasn't even all of Arabia. It's only the cult that spread after his death, and fractured sects of Islam which spread afterwards.

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Let us take this idea into a different perspective. When a scientist discover a new scientific fact, initially that knowledge remain strictly with him. Then (if willing) that scientist (one-man) passes that knowledge to his close colleagues. Those colleagues then spread that knowledge in other organizations and the spread of that knowledge continuous until it becomes common in schools and universities for everyone else. Is not it the way in which science developed? Do you think any scientist has the capacity to reveal new scientific fact simultaneously in all languages of the world?

No, the spread of scientific theory doesn't work like that.

You just described how heresay, rumors and superstition are spread.

In science if one man discovers something he tells other people about it then they test it for themselves/ look over the evidence and so on to see how accurate the claims are, they don't just start spreading the message instantly.

No I do not think any scientist has the capability to instantly spread the knowledge of anything simultaneously in all languages of the world, but scientists don't claim to have the capability of god, or claim to be spreading gods message divinely that they received from an angel.

What I'm actually trying to illustrate to you is this.

Science is man made, scientists don't claim to get their info from god, you can observe that science is man made, it's message spreads like a man made message.

Religions claim to be god made, no reliable observations can be done to say they are god made, they usually rely on ancient heresay and superstitions, and the message still spreads like a man made message, usually in one language and it gets corrupted over time and god doesn't bother to correct anyone about the mistakes they made he just leaves one book in one language with multiple interpretations.

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Can a super computer running a super AI software has the power of free will. Can that super computer know what are feelings and emotions? Functioning of human physical body is not subject to the principles of that physical body. Natural human body like Nature itself is devoid of Free Will. All human actions are subject to the human free will. In other words human will is the cause of all human actions.

If you constrain all human actions to the functioning of brain then by definition of Natural Selection people should live emotionless mechanical life. In fact, this behaviour we can observe in many low life forms, which are no more than living machines performing fixed mechanical tasks.

The human brain is more complex than a supercomputer running super AI software, this results in emotions.

Have you not noticed that the more complex the brain in the creature the less mechanical and more emotional it is? Maybe with some exceptions such as people with autism.

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“It is He Who gives Life and Death; and when He decides upon an affair, He says to it, "Be", and it is.”
Al Mu'min (40)
-Verse 68-

These verses are clear enough that God is not bound by anything. “Be” only shows His Will and it is not a constraint in any sense. In fact, the command “Be!” shows the zenith of God’s Free Will.

Have you ever ponder from where God got all elements and that dust to create Adam and everything in the physical universe? Do you know what Ex-Nihilo is? Creation Ex-Nihilo is the power of God, which is hidden, in this small word “Be!”

Gods in creation stories have to have constraints otherwise the fairy tale wouldn't be long enough and it would be a bad story.

The story would just be "God made everything instantly".
Instead it has to involve dust, periods of time, some sort of magic word god says, thrones over water, stages.

The god in islam seems to have constrained himself to having to say the words be to create things, and to not create everything instantly but do it in periods of time, and also to create things out of dust or water, rather than just saying the words be and for them to instantly appear.

[paulpablo]

Something, which is blind, unconscious, that has no purpose and no mind, that does not plan and which has no vison, no foresight, and no sight at all is by no means has the capacity to produce anything that exhibits sequence, harmony, and order. Such thing is only capable of producing a chaos, disorder, confusion, and anarchy. The idea that unconscious, blind, unguided Natural Selection is capable of producing Sentient beings is ridiculous. Human behaviour is a clear contradiction to the meaning of Natural selection.

You're off in the realms of fantasy again talking about natural selection as if it was a blind god, some sort of entity that isn't as good as your god because your god does have vision and a purpose.

Natural selection is not a physical thing or entity, it's a scientific explanation. It's why their are flightless birds on isolated islands with no predators for example. There's often no point to it or purpose, the birds breed and become flightless because they have no natural predators to fly away from and flying uses a lot of energy, but then humans come to the island and kill them all.
If there was a conscious guiding entity guiding these things it would say to the birds "Hey don't stop flying, there's still predators out there!"

[Harris]

Sorry, that's as far as I could get!

Have you ever given a thought why slipping on ice is a problem in Canada but not in Uganda?

Let's make this multiple choice:
a) Imperial pigs
b) divine retribution
c) different climates
d) the will of God

Hint: when in doubt, pick _____.

I was expecting that kind of response.

With the wealth of abundant natural resources that Africa has, malaria should not be a problem but it is. Have you ever given a thought why malaria is not a problem in the secular west but it is a problem in Africa?

I don't have time to make a full reply to everything right now but Harris, I could PROBABLY list you about 100,00 movements that were/are false, stupid, insane, dangerous that at least some educated people of the secular west are involved in.

Educated people in the western secular world came to the cult of scientology, mormonism, the nation of Islam, the cult of hailes comet (was it called the gate of heaven or something?"

So to answer your question, thousands of people in the secular west, who are also well educated, follow totally insane ideologies, that's why it's not such a big deal that some educated people in the west are coming to Islam, some sects of Islam are less insane than others.

In today’s world if some well trained and well-educated scientist, philosopher, artist, etc. comes to Islam then it is not because he/she loves fantasy or fairy tales but because Islam shows him/her vibrant logical truths. You can easily find interviews of these people on google and see yourself what they are saying about why they accept Islam as their religion.

Why did people follow Jim Jones? Why did people follow Marshal Applewhite? Why did Germans get convinced by one man that they were the master race and God's chosen people?

Because it is very easy for humans, especially disenfranchised youth to be hooked on a utopia. Sell someone an absurdity it is very easy to lead them off a cliff.

People experience anticipatory joy. In other words, anticipation of a desired outcome makes them feel good. However, Oftentimes, the things they chase do not bring them what they want and in this hidden a danger. People are terrible at predicting what will or will not make them happy and they often overestimate the amount of happiness something will bring them. Just like a cat who will chase its toy but lose interest as soon as it catches the toy, people sometimes do too. Their anticipatory joy itself deceives them. They fall prey to habituation or the negativity bias.

When people do not find the joy they were expecting, they move on to the next chase…sometimes ad infinitum. The chase is like that of a dehydrated man running after a fata morgana - the mirage of an oasis in the desert. In some cases, the chase runs their lives or it ends up in some deadly characteristics such as Greed and gluttony.

People such as Jones and Marshal play on people’s anticipatory joy by telling them that they will be happier if they follow certain activities. For example, Jones' greatest asset was his ability to determine what listeners wanted to hear and give it to them in simple language that appealed to them on an almost instinctual level. People such as Jones develop false desires in people by boosting up their hopes for something better than they hold.

Islam shows the practical ways to balance anticipatory joy by giving realistic facts about the end goal that may not bring you the unbounded pleasure you imagine. For example, recent research shows that some of the deepest feelings of fulfilment do not actually come from buying, purchasing, acquiring or succeeding at all, but that they actually come from giving.

If the debtor is in a difficulty, grant him time Till it is easy for him to repay. But if ye remit it by way of charity, that is best for you if ye only knew.
Al Baqarah (2)
-Verse 280-

Twice will they be given their reward, for that they have persevered, that they avert Evil with Good, and that they spend (in charity) out of what We have given them.
Al Qashash (28)
-Verse 54-

I only read the beginning, so I will only address that part. What is a "venue of atheism" or an "environment of atheism" and what does atheism have to do with "The Problem of Evil"?

I also wonder what atheism has to do with “The Problem of Evil?” Yet, people like Dr Russell frequently use it to disprove the existence of God.

Of course it is. We have already watched RNA develop, replicate and mutate under laboratory conditions. We are keeping records of everything we observe today. Now granted we cannot observe evolution that has already passed, but we have enough information to establish how it progressed. It may take some time to verify present day evolutions, but it will be done.

Sure! Genes can replicate and mutate and that is the main cause of diverse looks of the same species. However, there is no scientific evidence that one type of species can develop into another by means of “increase in information content over evolution.” Replication and mutation do not increase the information in the genome. If someone is saying that “information content increase over evolution,” then he is fooling you.

What I said was that I doubt two billion Muslims are following Muhammad,
THEN I actually gave a list of contradictory things I know different Muslims believe in to show how they don't all believe in the same things, even though on paper they are all Muslims.

Whether I have explained you badly or you have understood poorly. I said there always are people who showed their dissatisfaction to some common law. Such people normally bring unusual contradictions for the purpose of "deception" whether deliberate or reckless by words or conduct as to fact or as to law, including a deception as to the present intentions of the person using the deception or any other person. They normally contradict in order to derive a personal gain. If small number of people deny some common law then that denial would not free them from their legal obligations. In normal situations, this sort of denial is not taken as justification to prove that the law is false.

So if there are such Muslims who do not want to follow Islam it is because they follow their desires in place of Islamic laws. That refusal does not makes any difference to the actual Islamic Laws.

If there is anything that can demonstrate the issue, it's that you seem to think that there is a necessary and proper amount of suffering that would somehow qualify as 'good.' In other words, you need to present suffering as some sort of virtue in order to argue against the problem of evil. Otherwise you'd be arguing that evil is necessary in some way.

Unjustifiable pain and suffering are evil and if pain and suffering are justified then they are no more evil. For example cutting of leg due to threat of gangrene spread is a justifiable suffering therefore this loss of leg (suffering) is not considered as evil.

Dr Russell has argued for the unjustified evil.

This need to fit god into a container that he is ill-suited for leads to the creation and worship of beings who are unfit to be worshiped.

God is not in need of any of our worships. On the contrary, we are in need to worship Him because our existence depends on His will.

You forgot to say "Peace be upon him" After saying prophet Muhammad.

Thank you for reminding me about that. Indeed, there is no counter example to the perfection of Prophet Mohammad and all Jewish Prophets.

You're swapping the word atheist with communist in that last part.

Muhammads empire at the time of his death hadn't spread that far at the time of his death, it wasn't even all of Arabia. It's only the cult that spread after his death, and fractured sects of Islam which spread afterwards.

Prophet Mohammad died around 1,400 years ago but Islam is continuously spreading around the world with success even today. After the deaths of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao the spread of communism and atheism falls drastically. So what happens to communism and atheism?

No, the spread of scientific theory doesn't work like that.

You just described how heresay, rumors and superstition are spread.

In science if one man discovers something he tells other people about it then they test it for themselves/ look over the evidence and so on to see how accurate the claims are, they don't just start spreading the message instantly.

I think I have used the words science and scientist not poet and novelist. Is there any need to tell people how scientists work?

No I do not think any scientist has the capability to instantly spread the knowledge of anything simultaneously in all languages of the world, but scientists don't claim to have the capability of god, or claim to be spreading gods message divinely that they received from an angel.

What I'm actually trying to illustrate to you is this.

Science is man made, scientists don't claim to get their info from god, you can observe that science is man made, it's message spreads like a man made message.

If you prove that human intellect is man made by the use of which man is making science then I have no trouble in accepting that science is manmade.

Religions claim to be god made, no reliable observations can be done to say they are god made, they usually rely on ancient heresay and superstitions, and the message still spreads like a man made message, usually in one language and it gets corrupted over time and god doesn't bother to correct anyone about the mistakes they made he just leaves one book in one language with multiple interpretations.

You are exaggerating the scenario here. According to Quran Allah has sent His message by means of His massagers to every race of human beings. Whenever people had corrupted the message, God had send another messenger and so this process went on until the arrival of Prophet Mohammad because this time God Himself has took the responsibility to protect His commandments “Quran” from any human corruption.

We have, without doubt, sent down the Message (Quran); and We will assuredly guard it (from corruption).
Al Hijr (15)
-Verse 9-

Indeed Quran had not been corrupted in last 1,400 years. This verse has predicted the safety of Quran for all times. There were many attempts to corrupt Quran but all such attempts had faced miserable failure. Even today, many people are putting their utmost efforts to change Quran but failure after failure is the outcome of those efforts.

If somehow, all copies of Quran get lost then in a matter of only few hours Muslims would reprint Quran with the help of millions of people who have Quran in their memories (word by word and dot by dot without any discrepancies).

Previously people had successfully used their intellect to corrupt all previous scriptures because of their wishful thinking and lustful desires. Now the same human intellect is guarding Quran against any corruption. Such an intellectual shield cannot be designed and managed by any human. Quran is a living miracle.

The human brain is more complex than a supercomputer running super AI software, this results in emotions.

Have you not noticed that the more complex the brain in the creature the less mechanical and more emotional it is? Maybe with some exceptions such as people with autism.

Few philosophers nowadays would maintain the bald thesis that the mind is identical to the brain, but it is a view that one hears among the laity.

The brain is a physical thing with a definite mass, weight, location, size, shape. One can inject dyes into several of its sub regions. One can insert electrodes into it. One can remove and discard parts of it. One can add parts. I can literally give you a piece of my brain. (And you hope I won't.) But can I literally give you a piece of my mind? Does my mind have a weight in grams? Is it divisible? Do my thoughts have a location or a volume? if one thought has a second as its object, as when I reflect, is the second thought located above the second? How far above? Can we intelligibly speak of the voltage drop across a thought? By removing piece of mind, do thoughts and cognition drop as well.

So it is clear that the mind cannot be identical to the brain. If that identity held, then every brain state would be mental, which is obviously false. But what is wrong with holding the converse, namely, that every mental state is a brain state?

If every mental state is a brain state, then every belief is a brain state. But beliefs have properties that brain states cannot have. One is the property of being either true or false; another is intentionality. So no belief is a brain state.

Gods in creation stories have to have constraints otherwise the fairy tale wouldn't be long enough and it would be a bad story.

The story would just be "God made everything instantly". Instead it has to involve dust, periods of time, some sort of magic word god says, thrones over water, stages.

The god in islam seems to have constrained himself to having to say the words be to create things, and to not create everything instantly but do it in periods of time, and also to create things out of dust or water, rather than just saying the words be and for them to instantly appear.

“God is outside time and space” is a common concept in many religions. Think about if God is outside time and space then what is the meaning of time for God. Because people’s actions are controlled by an inevitable factor of aging and they have natural procedural urges, which should be fulfilled in timely manner therefore time is the requisite for all human endeavours.

God is free from all human urges and from the restrictions of time, space, and aging. God’s domain lies beyond human understandings. To make God’s actions understandable for the human intellect, God has used the examples what humans can understand. “Be!” is the action of God which is time for His creation. “Be” is instantaneous in the domain of God. To give human an understanding of this instantaneous event God has defined the process of His creation activities in a procedural manner.

God has created everything ex-nihilo is similar to your idea that God has created everything instantly and out of nothing. Creation ex-nihilo is part of “Be.”

You're off in the realms of fantasy again talking about natural selection as if it was a blind god, some sort of entity that isn't as good as your god because your god does have vision and a purpose.

Natural selection is not a physical thing or entity, it's a scientific explanation. It's why their are flightless birds on isolated islands with no predators for example. There's often no point to it or purpose, the birds breed and become flightless because they have no natural predators to fly away from and flying uses a lot of energy, but then humans come to the island and kill them all.
If there was a conscious guiding entity guiding these things it would say to the birds "Hey don't stop flying, there's still predators out there!"

Tell me what Natural Selection is and how it is selecting what it is selecting. What are the scientific procedures involved in Natural Selection.

Now I am sorry that I am giving you such questions knowingly that you do not have a biological background but your explanations are not giving me any options than to ask you these questions.

You are right on spot in saying that Natural Selection is some kind of blind god. The reason behind this assumption is that there no scientifically discernible explanation for Natural Selection.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Sure! Genes can replicate and mutate and that is the main cause of diverse looks of the same species. However, there is no scientific evidence that one type of species can develop into another by means of “increase in information content over evolution.” Replication and mutation do not increase the information in the genome. If someone is saying that “information content increase over evolution,” then he is fooling you.

This is factually incorrect. Transcription errors can insert additional base pairs, which is another way of saying -- you guessed it! -- additional information.

[robvalue]

Time to read some proper scientific material and not apologetic psuedo science nonsense.

[paulpablo]

In today’s world if some well trained and well-educated scientist, philosopher, artist, etc. comes to Islam then it is not because he/she loves fantasy or fairy tales but because Islam shows him/her vibrant logical truths. You can easily find interviews of these people on google and see yourself what they are saying about why they accept Islam as their religion.

Yes and the point I'm maintaining is that there are literally hundreds if not thousands of strange illogical cults that still manage to attract well educated people.

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Whether I have explained you badly or you have understood poorly. I said there always are people who showed their dissatisfaction to some common law. Such people normally bring unusual contradictions for the purpose of "deception" whether deliberate or reckless by words or conduct as to fact or as to law, including a deception as to the present intentions of the person using the deception or any other person. They normally contradict in order to derive a personal gain. If small number of people deny some common law then that denial would not free them from their legal obligations. In normal situations, this sort of denial is not taken as justification to prove that the law is false.

So if there are such Muslims who do not want to follow Islam it is because they follow their desires in place of Islamic laws. That refusal does not makes any difference to the actual Islamic Laws.

You are understanding me poorly, not the other way around.
IN THIS POINT I AM NOT TRYING TO CRITICIZE ISLAMIC LAWS OR ANYTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM.
I'm criticizing you when you make an appeal to numbers by saying that there are so many billion Muslims in the world and I'd be going against them by saying there is no God.
My point is that yes my beliefs go against theirs, but in a billion Muslims there are vastly different opinions about what being a Muslim is, so while on paper they will all be classified in as the same thing, the reality is they are not all one big unified group.

[Chas]

I also wonder what atheism has to do with “The Problem of Evil?” Yet, people like Dr Russell frequently use it to disprove the existence of God.

Then you neither understand The Problem of Evil nor the argument.

Sure! Genes can replicate and mutate and that is the main cause of diverse looks of the same species. However, there is no scientific evidence that one type of species can develop into another by means of “increase in information content over evolution.” Replication and mutation do not increase the information in the genome. If someone is saying that “information content increase over evolution,” then he is fooling you.

Mutation is a change to the existing information - that is new information.

You are fooling yourself.

God is not in need of any of our worships. On the contrary, we are in need to worship Him because our existence depends on His will.

First demonstrate God's existence, then show how you know its attributes so well.

Prophet Mohammad died around 1,400 years ago but Islam is continuously spreading around the world with success even today. After the deaths of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao the spread of communism and atheism falls drastically. So what happens to communism and atheism?

Except for the fact that there are increasing numbers of atheists. So, there's that.

If you prove that human intellect is man made by the use of which man is making science then I have no trouble in accepting that science is manmade.

That was incoherent. Human intellect evolved.

Few philosophers nowadays would maintain the bald thesis that the mind is identical to the brain, but it is a view that one hears among the laity.

I don't much give a rat's ass what a non-scientific philosopher says about that. No one says the mind is identical to the brain - that's your straw man.
There is no evidence that the mind is anywhere but in the brain.

So it is clear that the mind cannot be identical to the brain. If that identity held, then every brain state would be mental, which is obviously false. But what is wrong with holding the converse, namely, that every mental state is a brain state?

If every mental state is a brain state, then every belief is a brain state. But beliefs have properties that brain states cannot have. One is the property of being either true or false; another is intentionality. So no belief is a brain state.

Straw man. Unsupported assertions.

Tell me what Natural Selection is and how it is selecting what it is selecting. What are the scientific procedures involved in Natural Selection.

Natural selection was Darwin's term for the mindless algorithm of differential reproductive success. There is no entity doing any selecting.

Now I am sorry that I am giving you such questions knowingly that you do not have a biological background but your explanations are not giving me any options than to ask you these questions.

You have no clear understanding of evolution, so you are in no position to judge.

You are right on spot in saying that Natural Selection is some kind of blind god. The reason behind this assumption is that there no scientifically discernible explanation for Natural Selection.

See above where I describe precisely what it is.