Comments on: A World in Shadow III

By: jeromy

jeromy — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:30:56 +0000

lpetrich, your post gave me a good chuckle. I would like to add that Christians can also work this into their busy rationalization schedule. Why, just think of all the good they can do through adultery. And just think about it! They can even teach god a lesson, by worshiping some graven idols, thusly helping god learn some patience, tolerance, and maybe a few more positive character traits that he ain't exactly displaying to the general public. Can't stop laughing. Somebody slap me on the back!

By: Alex Weaver

Alex Weaver — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 11:32:28 +0000

Right. A loving parent allows their children to learn from mistakes that the children "can walk away from," so to speak (and which will not result in others being unable to "walk away" either). Similarly, a loving god (assuming the existence of viruses could be reconciled with the existence of such) might well let a person get a cold as a partial result of not bothering to put a sweater on before going out in 50-degree weather (assuming the role of being cold in depressing the immune system is really as central in causing viral colds as conventional wisdom makes it out to be), despite being able to prevent it. A loving god would not allow a person to die of breast cancer (or allow breast cancer to exist).

By: Ebonmuse

Ebonmuse — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 01:38:41 +0000

I usually use an argument from my essay "One More Burning Bush" to respond to that argument:

Imagine that you were a loving and devoted parent with a house near a busy highway, and you told your young child not to go out into the road because he could be hit by a car and seriously hurt or even killed. But one day, several weeks after you gave this warning, you happened to glance out the window and saw your child running toward the street and its oncoming traffic. What would you do? Would you shrug your shoulders and say, "Oh well, I warned him about the danger, it's his choice"? Of course not! You would run out and snatch him back, away from the danger - any parent would. Are we then to believe that God, who is infinitely more loving than any human parent, in an equivalent situation chooses to do nothing? Such an interpretation casts serious doubt on the claim of his goodness, to say the least. Yet theists do not object to this behavior; few even seem to recognize that there is any incongruity.

By: frank

frank — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 19:48:02 +0000

Ebon,
You already know the standard apologetic response to this: free will. This person exercised her free will and thus she suffered for it. Glory to god and jebus in the highest. We have free will!

By: Kyle M. Terrizzi

Kyle M. Terrizzi — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 16:30:02 +0000

by far the best blog i've found since i started my own a few days ago. i'll drop in often. thanks so much.

By: bassmanpete

bassmanpete — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 10:59:01 +0000

I saw the reference to All Possible Worlds but couldn't find it (quickly) on the site so I Googled "All Possible Worlds" and it returned EXACTLY 666,000 entries. I was going to say to everyone here "Try it yourself" but before doing this I tried it again and it returned 667,000 entries. It's probably changed again now!

But considering that my first search returned that particular number, is this a sign from God that even looking at the Daylight Atheism site is evil? or is it a sign from The Devil that atheism is part of his plan? I'm confused; I need some person with more intelligence than I have to tell me what I should think :)

By: Christopher

Christopher — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 06:55:26 +0000

Response to Infophile:

Sadly, what you say is true: most Christians look at the death and decayof our bodies as the beginning of some glorious transfiguration of our spirits as they ascend to the father. What a load of shit!

Those Christians that actually go through this kind of pain, on the other hand, tend to adopt radically different perspectives. Perhaps this is because it's much easier to rationalize pain away when you're not the one going through it...

By: SM

SM — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 02:29:03 +0000

Jeff, I've read and enjoyed that essay along with many of the others on Ebon Musings' website. Still, as part of a stand-alone essay, the second-last paragraph of the above post could be improved. Perhaps I am just being pedantic though!

By: TK

TK — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 23:40:26 +0000

Approach #1 to the problem of evil: Starting from the Front End, i.e., the traditional God exists. This does not square with the biological and moral world in which we actually live. Therefore, let us engage in all kinds of acrobatics and contortions, such as "suffering is actually good" or "why do bad things happen to good people" or " I concede, we can't fathom God's ultimate plan" etc etc etc.

Or, we can start from the Back End: To wit, looking at the world we actually live in, does it imply the existence or nonexistence of that traditional God? Voila, problem of evil solved. There is no problem if there is no god. I've sometimes fantasized interviewing every worshipper who left the National Cathedral "interfaith service" shortly after 9-11 with just two questions: 1) Would you have prevented 9-11 if you had the means and opportunity? and 2) If "yes" , then just who the hell are you praying to?

By: Jeff T.

Jeff T. — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 22:46:41 +0000

To SM:
Ebon has a very detailed essay on that very topic on his Ebon Musings website. It is the first one listed: All Possible Worlds. It is Ebon's logical thought pattern that that is presented in this essay that I prefer over Richard Dawkin's deductions in The God Delusion when it comes to 'proof' that God does not exist.