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... but then God surely can't be omnibenevolent!? (But perhaps that doctrine's been abandoned?) I'm just pointing out the contradictions in "classic" Christian

... but then God surely can't be omnibenevolent!? (But perhaps that doctrine's been abandoned?) I'm just pointing out the contradictions in "classic" Christianity. Regardless of all that, unless we somehow come up with a coherent and agreed-upon definition of God, I don't suspect anyone's mind will be changed by logical argument. And, thus, I defeat my own argument. EDIT: I mean, it was Epicurus (~2000 years ago!) who first put this argument forward and I don't think anyone's ever come up with a good answer, so I'm forced to think that the problem is either a) coming up with a satisfactory definition of God, or b) belief in God is not determined by rational reasoning.

gnaritas 10y ago
> b) belief in God is not determined by rational reasoning. There are no rational arguments for a belief in God, so this is the answer. All belief in any gods is irrational by nature.
- lomnakkus 10y ago
  I think I might agree if you changed "belief" to "faith"[1]. "Belief" can be informed by evidence (flawed or not), but "faith" is explicit belief-without-evidence. The latter -- I agree -- is a terrible idea, but presumably some of the people who have a "belief" in a higher being have some sort of evidence[2]. That doesn't mean that I would automatically dismiss them, but I would argue that they perhaps haven't learned enough about how to critically evaluate evidence. EDIT: A mildly interesting observation: There's one kind of evidence that believers use that's actually routinely accepted in a court of law, namely Eyewitness Testimony (e.g. "I saw the Virin Mary!" in the religious context). More interestingly, Eyewitness Testimony has been shown to be incredibly unreliable for finding out what really happened. [1] The distinction is somewhat technical, but it's a Big Deal(TM) in Philosophy. [2] Though, it's probably not the sort of evidence that's accepted by anyone else. (Revelation, that kind of thing.)
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    > but presumably some of the people who have a "belief" in a higher being have some sort of evidence[2] As you've noted, their evidence isn't the kind worth considering and is thus not good evidence and thus is not rational to conclude a belief with. I stand by my statement, there is not a rational reason to believe in any gods of any sort. That doesn't mean people don't believe, or don't claim they have evidence, it merely means their beliefs/evidence is not rational and is easily picked apart by actual rational thinking. There aren't any arguments for gods that aren't just bad arguments that presuppose God.
    - benjohnson 10y ago
      As a Christian, I would agree - God's revelation stands in opposition to human rationality. Examples: He demands that we love our enemies. Give away our possessions. Have faith where there is absolutely no hope in anything after our minds disintegrate after death. The Bible addresses this: "We are fools for Christ [...] We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored!" 1 Corinthians 4:10
      - lomnakkus 10y ago
        > As a Christian, I would agree - God's revelation stands in opposition to human rationality. But then... how do you know anything if you can just "faith it!" instead? I mean, if I could choose to just believe things "because" then that's obviously a lot easier (cognitively) than reasoning my way through it[1], but it's not very satisfactory, philosophically. [1] Obviously that process could still lead to a lot of wrong, so it's not perfect. The point is that it's adaptive.
        benjohnson 10y ago
        I agree! Fundamentally you can't know God's revelation to us. To be a Christian is to be filled with tremendous doubt and to always engaged in a deep struggle with faith. The flip side is that our rational thoughts always lead to the conclusion that we have meaningless existence: Either we die, or our universe collapses, or we change into something new. Sincere shows us we march to a death so complete that we don't even know we're dead. The alternative Christian viewpoint - the crazy bible story about whales, arks, weird laws and a jewish man who claims to be God and yet dies - starts to sound like hope to some people.
montecarl 10y ago
I'm not a Christian, but I've thought about this from time to time. God could be omnibenevolent, but just not on terms that humans can understand. Humans only know about what happens during life and do not understand what happens after death. There is a pretty cool short story The Egg that relates to this. I won't ruin it by trying to describe it myself. You can read it here: http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
- lomnakkus 10y ago
  > I'm not a Christian, but I've thought about this from time to time. God could be omnibenevolent, but just not on terms that humans can understand I thought that was the whole mandate? I mean, if $DEITY didn't have our best (human-centered) interests at heart, then was does $DEITY actually do? (EDIT: I'm not being argumentative for the sake of it. I just really don't understand the reasoning behind this and how anyone can accept the reasoning.)

gnaritas 10y ago

> b) belief in God is not determined by rational reasoning. There are no rational arguments for a belief in God, so this is the answer. All belief in any gods is irrational by nature.

lomnakkus 10y ago
I think I might agree if you changed "belief" to "faith"[1]. "Belief" can be informed by evidence (flawed or not), but "faith" is explicit belief-without-evidence. The latter -- I agree -- is a terrible idea, but presumably some of the people who have a "belief" in a higher being have some sort of evidence[2]. That doesn't mean that I would automatically dismiss them, but I would argue that they perhaps haven't learned enough about how to critically evaluate evidence. EDIT: A mildly interesting observation: There's one kind of evidence that believers use that's actually routinely accepted in a court of law, namely Eyewitness Testimony (e.g. "I saw the Virin Mary!" in the religious context). More interestingly, Eyewitness Testimony has been shown to be incredibly unreliable for finding out what really happened. [1] The distinction is somewhat technical, but it's a Big Deal(TM) in Philosophy. [2] Though, it's probably not the sort of evidence that's accepted by anyone else. (Revelation, that kind of thing.)
- gnaritas 10y ago
  > but presumably some of the people who have a "belief" in a higher being have some sort of evidence[2] As you've noted, their evidence isn't the kind worth considering and is thus not good evidence and thus is not rational to conclude a belief with. I stand by my statement, there is not a rational reason to believe in any gods of any sort. That doesn't mean people don't believe, or don't claim they have evidence, it merely means their beliefs/evidence is not rational and is easily picked apart by actual rational thinking. There aren't any arguments for gods that aren't just bad arguments that presuppose God.
  - benjohnson 10y ago
    As a Christian, I would agree - God's revelation stands in opposition to human rationality. Examples: He demands that we love our enemies. Give away our possessions. Have faith where there is absolutely no hope in anything after our minds disintegrate after death. The Bible addresses this: "We are fools for Christ [...] We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored!" 1 Corinthians 4:10
    - lomnakkus 10y ago
      > As a Christian, I would agree - God's revelation stands in opposition to human rationality. But then... how do you know anything if you can just "faith it!" instead? I mean, if I could choose to just believe things "because" then that's obviously a lot easier (cognitively) than reasoning my way through it[1], but it's not very satisfactory, philosophically. [1] Obviously that process could still lead to a lot of wrong, so it's not perfect. The point is that it's adaptive.
      - benjohnson 10y ago
        I agree! Fundamentally you can't know God's revelation to us. To be a Christian is to be filled with tremendous doubt and to always engaged in a deep struggle with faith. The flip side is that our rational thoughts always lead to the conclusion that we have meaningless existence: Either we die, or our universe collapses, or we change into something new. Sincere shows us we march to a death so complete that we don't even know we're dead. The alternative Christian viewpoint - the crazy bible story about whales, arks, weird laws and a jewish man who claims to be God and yet dies - starts to sound like hope to some people.

montecarl 10y ago

I'm not a Christian, but I've thought about this from time to time. God could be omnibenevolent, but just not on terms that humans can understand. Humans only know about what happens during life and do not understand what happens after death. There is a pretty cool short story The Egg that relates to this. I won't ruin it by trying to describe it myself. You can read it here: http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

lomnakkus 10y ago
> I'm not a Christian, but I've thought about this from time to time. God could be omnibenevolent, but just not on terms that humans can understand I thought that was the whole mandate? I mean, if $DEITY didn't have our best (human-centered) interests at heart, then was does $DEITY actually do? (EDIT: I'm not being argumentative for the sake of it. I just really don't understand the reasoning behind this and how anyone can accept the reasoning.)