HELLO! First thing first, you and your blog are amazing, it feels like a diamond among some rocks. Also you seem like a very smart, knowledgeable, rational and ELOQUENT (how do you do that) person. Anyway, even though I'm an atheist like you, there's something that turns me off about your reasoning. You've used many times (if I'm correct) this argument: "If God is good and omnipotent, then why does he let bad things happen, why there is so much despair and cruelty here?"
More or less, you've talked about this, and i don't really agree with this reasoning. That's because, in my opinion, with or without God, wickedness is always gonna exist, and the same goes for goodness. I mean, how can we know what is good without its opposite/counterpart, without knowing beforehand what is wrong? And vice versa. And HOW could they possibly exist without their counterpart?? If you know the feeling of satiety, it's because you also know what it feels like when you are starving; the same goes for sleep, you know you're sleepy because you also know what it feels like when you're fresh.
You can't know or understand something without its opposite, in my humble opinion. So, using this argument to prove that God is bad, or not omnipotent or just a stupid little fantasy...i don't know, it feels wrong to me, because I think it's fallacious. That's why, when explaining why i don't believe in god, i use other arguments and facts.
"Light, without darkness, is blinding, while darkness, without light, is a black hole. You need both of them equally."
But maybe my argument is the fallacious one, in fact, I'd like to know your opinion on this matter, if you don't mind. I'm pretty young, so there's still a lot that I don't understand. Thanks in advance and sorry for my English, it's not my mother tongue
Hi, thanks for your question.
The argument I'm using that you're referring to is based on Epicurus' version of the Problem of Evil:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
Believe it or not (heh), believers invented an entire... uh... "field" of apologetics around this.
theodicy | THēˈädəsē |
noun (plural theodicies)
the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil.
Anything to avoid recognizing their superstitions are false, I guess.
By definition, the argument only works, and is intended, WITH a god. It's not intended WITHOUT god, because it's about the nature of a proposed god, rather than the nature of good and evil, right and wrong.
It's also intended for those who espouse the "omni" attributes of their god: omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing) and omnibenevolent (all-loving). It isn't intended, and doesn't work for gods such as the Greek pantheon who are unapologetically flawed, indulgent and don't care, messing with humans for their own politics, and having sex with each other. Because you can immediately answer this: Zeus isn't omnibenevolent or omnipotent, and never claims to be.
This is mostly a problem for Abrahamism, as they have defined a monotheistic god who is omni. The bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, gives its god these attributes: the Old Testament being derived from the Hebrew Bible; the New Testament creating Xianity; and Islam the events of the prequels with some retcons.
In no particular order, let's look at a few points.
Theists believe that when they die they will be judged by their god and, being that they, by happy coincidence, believe in the correct god, will be rewarded with residency in heaven, which is a paradise realm of eternal goodness.
If god can create heaven as all-good without the existence of evil as its counterpart, then god could not, would not or did not know to create our realm the same way.
There aren't many ways to rescue this. Heaven does not exist makes sense, but is untenable to believers. Just as unsatisfactory to them is evil existing in heaven, although this would be supported by Satan's purported rebellion. We can also leverage the old theist canard that "evil is caused by free will." If there's no evil in heaven, is this because there is no free will? Revelation 7:15 seems to say so, as heaven's residents will spend eternity, "night and day", at the foot of the throne of god, feeding its unquenchable narcissism with endless praise and worship.
Or, if heaven is as described by believers, then their god chose not to create our realm as an evil-free paradise (not-omnibenevolent), could not create it without evil (not-omnipotent), or didn't know he should (not-omniscient).
Since it is a creator god, it is responsible for the existence of evil, not humans. It created our world in a particular way, with particular properties.
It is therefore unreasonable to punish humans for its evil's continued existence. Why hold humans responsible for what god didn't know, or couldn't or wouldn't do?
Isaiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
Remaining with the creator aspect for a moment, if we describe good and evil as opposites/counterparts, then it must be because this god created this universe in this way and/or us to perceive it this way.
Could this god have created this universe or us in some other way so that this was not the case, that we could conceive of them independently?
Believers often claim that knowledge of (their) god is "engraved on EVERY human heart," and that non-believers and those of other religions are in denial or misinterpreting what they (purportedly) know to be true about the existence of some particular god. If that was true (it's not), then it could also instil an instinctual knowledge of good and evil without experiencing it, as well as an instinctual aversion to evil. This would not constitute a violation of free will any more than an instinctual aversion to fire, an instinctual aversion to being eaten, or an instinctual attraction to sweet things constitutes a violation of free will.
If it couldn't, it's not omnipotent. If it could, it's not omnibenevolent/willing.
And HOW could they possibly exist without their counterpart??
This is up to the god to solve, not us. Who are we to imagine that an all-powerful, all-knowing god couldn't figure this out? When we point out contradictions in either the bible or in the very definition of their god - such as that they claim their god to be both just and merciful - they say things like "do you think god is limited by the natural laws of the universe?"
Believers often say things like how the laws of physics were designed by god. Well, this must necessarily mean that good and evil function the way they do in this realm because that's how this god chose them to function.
I also have a bit of a problem with this analogy.
"Light, without darkness, is blinding, while darkness, without light, is a black hole. You need both of them equally."
Darkness is the absence of light: zero light. While poetically darkness is cast as synonymous with bad or evil - "the darkness in her heart" - darkness is neutral. A black hole is a field of immense gravity, and it’s dark as a result of the immensity of that gravitational field. It’s not a black hole because it’s dark, it’s dark because it’s a black hole. You can have just dark without having a black hole. Anyone can turn off the lights without worrying about spaghettification.
Things can be neutral or indifferent, without being good or evil. Indeed, I would argue that most things that occur, that people do, are neutral. Even things that have an adverse or advantageous effect are neutral, as their effect was unknown at the time.
This is one of the problems with the conception of Karma.
how can we know what is good without its opposite/counterpart, without knowing beforehand what is wrong?
If burning down someone's house ie evil, is not burning down someone's house good? For every house I walk past and don't burn down, am I that good a person? No, it's neutral. Just don't do that.
It's sufficient to know that we wouldn't like our own houses burned down, without having to conceive a polar opposite. I'm not sure what that would be. Building someone an extra house? Burning my own house down?
If you know the feeling of satiety, it's because you also know what it feels like when you are starving
I don't agree with this either.
starve | stärv |
verb [no object]
1 (of a person or animal) suffer severely or die from hunger: she left her animals to starve | seven million starved to death | (as adjective starving) : the world's starving children.
I've never been starving, beyond the mere hyperbole of claiming so. And yet, I can be hungry. Because I can understand my body is telling me it's time to eat again. This is the natural, normal cycle of my body.
Yasmine Mohammed talks about her experience within the Muslim community she grew up in:
"When 9/11 happened, everybody was rejoicing. And you'll hear the same - if you ask anybody who was in a Muslim-majority, you know, in Pakistan or in Egypt or in Saudi Arabia - there was rejoicing going on all over the world. [..] Islam's goal is to make the whole planet slaves of Allah. That's the purpose of it. That's what jihad is all about. So, when that goal is reached, it makes Muslims happy."
To the fundamentalist Muslims, this was good. To others, it was evil. And I realize this crosses religious boundaries, in the sense of Muslim-Allah being different from Xian-god.
So another example might be the recognition of marriage equality. To the fundamentalist Xians, it was evil. To the moderate, progressive Xians, it was good. Good and evil are subjective.
And we can know them in comparison to neutrality, rather than in comparison to the opposite.
Which is why I also have a problem with
"You need both of them equally."
Why, other than the creator god's fiat, would good and evil need to be experienced equally? Why would we "need" to have a Holocaust or a Katrina or a 9/11 to appreciate "good"?
And what exactly is the equally "good" counterpart to the Holocaust? I can't think of anything that is "equally" good as the Holocaust was evil. Aside from the Nazis thinking it was good. Maybe the moon landing? Did we really need to have millions of Jews die to appreciate a moon landing? Couldn't we appreciate one moon landing in comparison to zero moon landings? Could fewer Jews have died? What's the threshold here?
This then goes back to the Problem of Evil. If they must be "equal" - although I don't see this actually being the case - it can only be the creator god's unwillingness/malevolence which makes this necessary. It designed a world where every good thing must be countered by an equally bad thing, and vice versa.
This is also self-defeating. The more good we put into the world, the more evil will manifest to "balance" it out. Why put good into the world at all then? Constructing such a world is absurd. We know enough about our history to not want evil, and to veer towards good. But you're saying that this will simply magnify the evil.
Doesn't it also justify doing evil, since good will manifest to balance it out? Isn't doing evil in effect doing good-by-proxy?
Moreover, they're certainly not experienced equally. There are people who suffer unimaginably at the hands of others - parents, teachers, priests, etc - throughout their entire lives, and the "good" they experience might be fleeting or even trivial to most other people. And there are people who live charmed lives, never really experiencing anything or anyone hostile to their success or even existence.
Let's return to the light metaphor. Go into a room, any room, and turn on the brightest light. Look around the room. Unless it is completely unfurnished, there are places where shadow still manifests. Now turn off the light. Are they illuminated now? There are some regions in this room that are never illuminated.
This must, necessarily, be the inability or unwillingness of the god. A god who "designed the room" so to speak. A god who the believers pray to and imagine answers their prayers, and/or who has a plan.
It's also important to remember that people also suffer not because of evil, but because of circumstances. While it can be "good" to alleviate that pain, it's not "evil" that causes it in the first place.... unless it is the evil of the god.
Hurricanes, eye worms, baby cancer, miscarriages, drought and many other things are not inherently evil in a godless world. They're unfortunate, but they're a part of nature, because we're a part of nature, not separate from it. Just as the predator killing an animal to feed, or failing in its hunt and starving - neither of these are evil acts.
But if you have a creator god, then you have an entity that created these things. It not only made the sunsets and a baby's smile, but also the worm that eats a child's eye from the inside out, blinding it while it suffers in agony. Or supplying an unwanted divine abortion. Or destroying the trailer parks of its most devoted followers in the USA's Bible Belt.
Either god is unable or unwilling to stop these things. Or sent them in the first place. Under a divine creator, the unfortunate indifference of nature becomes the impotence and/or malevolence of a god. Some believers will insist that god inflicts these to bring you closer to him. This is a good definition of abuse.
One of the secondary points of the Problem of Evil is that for believers to thank their god for the good things in their life, they must also blame their god for the bad/evil things. As well as for the inaction of a purportedly all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing god. If good and evil are intertwined and inseparable, then the blame cannot fall to something else - Satan, human free will, etc.
One must also remember the theist's viewpoint: their god is good, good is god, their god is the embodiment, the very definition of good (see previous re: Muslims and 9/11).
In the world of the believer, evil being the absence of good is therefore the same as evil being the absence of god. This is why we get so much crap from them about morality. For non-believers to say they don't believe in god is to say that they don't believe in good. To know god is to know good. To seek good you must seek god. How do you find god? By looking for good - baby smiles, sunsets, love, etc. Platitude after platitude about how god is inherently good, and good cannot exist without god. If you are doing good, then you’re doing god’s work, god’s working through you, even if you don’t believe, etc, etc, etc, blah, blah blah. There’s easily a dozen more worthless, inane religious cliches I could vomit up here.
[ Insert arguments about objective morality, the Euthyphro Dilemma and Divine Command Theory here. I'm not going to delve into this, as it's relevant but tangential, but you know the drill. ]
This is one of the reasons this argument doesn't work right in godless conceptions of right and wrong, good and evil. Without a god, we can figure out concepts of right and wrong from first principles, but believers conceive of right and wrong as, essentially, an entity: their particular god.
For example, the Garden of Eden myth. Getting a believer to actually acknowledge that Adam & Eve couldn't know whether eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was good or evil without having the Knowledge of Good and Evil is next to impossible. They disobeyed god is all that they need. Well, how could they know that disobeying god was wrong without the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Because god said so. Because god = good = god.
With this reformulated as evil is the absence of god, this becomes even more interesting.
If god is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, why would it withdraw its presence from where it was needed, or even begged, such as a child being raped by a pedophile priest? It's not just that the priest did evil, it's that god was not present. Or worse, was present and watched silently.
You heard that all the time from believers after a school shooting: it was because god was removed from schools. Why is god's presence subject to human legislation? If it's not, then is god unwilling to stop the shooting, unable to, or not know it should?
"You either have a god who sends child rapists to rape children or you have a god who simply watches and says: 'When you're done I'm going to punish you.'
If I could stop a person from raping a child, I would. That's the difference between me and your god."
-- Tracie Harris
Yet again, one way or another, the evil exists because god couldn't or wouldn't stop it.
I realize this is a bit disjointed and all over the place, but right now I don't know how to wrap it up any neater than just leaving it at this.
I'm hoping some part of this has been useful.
