Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Problem of Evil (2015)

plato.stanford.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 84 posts

Re: The Problem of Evil (2015)

#51

Post by exo-pla-net »

deertick1 wrote: post #45

Just wanted to chime in here with a book suggestion : "The Problem if Pain" by C.S. Lewis. Tackles this problem from a christian apologista perspective. Its about as intellectual an analysis as you are going to get on this subject matter. I personally don't agree with 100% of it, but Lewis always presents arguments I never would have considered otherwise. Worth a read. Also, listening to scientists and engineers disc…

The linked article presents the theistic counterarguments to The Problem of Evil, such as those espoused by C.S. Lewis.

Here is an example of what C.S. Lewis has to say in his book: "If the universe is so bad… how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator? Men are fools, perhaps, but hardly so foolish as that."

Perhaps I am a small-minded engineer, but that seems like an incredibly weak argument. The linked article, on the other hand, presents the best of the counter-arguments; I don't think C.S. Lewis adds anything of value.

Re: The Problem of Evil (2015)

#52

Post by Animats »

tovej wrote: post #7
breuleux wrote: post #5

It seems kind of presumptuous to think that God's conception of morality would bear any similarity with ours. Presumably God created what It considers to be the perfect world and therefore everything that happens in it is good according to God's own definition of goodness, including torturing babies (if and when it happens -- and when it doesn't happen, then it is good that it doesn't). Perhaps God never had any inte…

If we limit god to any god worth worshiping, i.e. one that prescribes a set of morals on their followers and answers the prayers of those who follow the god's morals, you would expect that the god has the same set of morals as their followers. Unless the god is playing games with their creation, maybe studying them to see how they would respond. But even then, this would tell us something about the nature of a god. T…

If we limit god to any god worth worshiping

Which is the underlying problem here. That article is about the Abrahamic model of a god, even though it doesn't say so. Omnipotent and perfect - that's the Abrahamic model, underlying Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions.

The Graeco-Roman pantheon was a better fit with reality - a group of morally mediocre gods with their own agendas, mostly indifferent to what the mortals were up to. The transition to the Abrahamic religions resulted in a lot of cruft - devils, angels, prophets, etc. A legacy code problem, in other words.

Re: The Problem of Evil (2015)

#53

Post by breuleux »

exo-pla-net wrote: post #47
breuleux wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's necessarily as sinister as that. Perhaps God is simply an engineer who loves designing systems that straddle the line between order and chaos and believes that the laws of physics are supremely perfect and anything that proceeds from these laws is good. Perhaps they find the process of evolution breathtaking beautiful, and the cruelty of natural selection is lost on them. Perhaps they can't underst…

You'd have to impose a lot of conditions on such a god to make it not nightmarish. Without a god, we control our own destiny. A lot of things are currently awful, but with enough human ingenuity, we can overcome them. On the other hand, if our fate is determined by a god driven by its own motives, we have lost control of our destinies to something that evidently doesn't care about us. We would be ants on the back of…

I mean, a god might say that any destiny you choose is good, because it would proceed from the laws of physics, but you could still choose what it is.

Personally I don't think it's worth caring about, just like it isn't worth thinking about how our universe might be a bubble in a greater universe that's just about to pop and destroy us all in an instant ;)

Re: The Problem of Evil (2015)

#54

Post by heythereguy »

pmoriarty wrote: post #38
heythereguy wrote: post #27

This is how I see it. I’m actually open to a creator of our simulation or our reality simply because it’s the best explanation we have right now. Existence coming out of nothing is ridiculous. We really have no clue how we even got here. Maybe our existence could be proven scientifically down the line, but right now creation is actually the most feasible to my mind, strange enough. So with that the problem of evil co…

"Existence coming out of nothing is ridiculous. We really have no clue how we even got here. Maybe our existence could be proven scientifically down the line, but right now creation is actually the most feasible to my mind, strange enough." But if God created the world then what created God? If you're ok with the answer that God always existed, why wouldn't you be ok with the universe always existing (thereby having…

To me a "being" with power able to create reality is different than physical matter just always existing.

I'm not saying it's right, it's just more convincing than saying that matter has always been here that doesn't make any sense at all. Example: Something coming from nothing. Everything has a primary mover.

The only way to reconcile it to me is there is some supreme thing that can transcend our time and physics and everything else.

Re: The Problem of Evil (2015)

#55

Post by tablespoon »

liberalbias998 wrote: post #42
tablespoon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Give us a universe where all the beings are powered by an infinite source of energy so they don't need to chase, catch, kill and eat each other. > Problem solved; would have expected God could figure this out. Why not go further? A universe that's entirely static populated by entities frozen in some joyous state has no evil. Hell, a universe that doesn't exist doesn't have evil either. It's often pretty easy to opt…

I agree; what I am trying to say; is there is no excuse for God. People have spent centuries making excuses most of them much smarter people than me. In a 21st century context it seems apparent that Gods possible excuses for creating a universe that mandates suffering are running out.

> I agree; what I am trying to say; is there is no excuse for God. People have spent centuries making excuses most of them much smarter people than me. In a 21st century context it seems apparent that Gods possible excuses for creating a universe that mandates suffering are running out.

I mean, an obvious "excuse" is that he's not optimizing for the one single quality you chose (absolutely minimized suffering).

Re: The Problem of Evil (2015)

#56

Post by tablespoon »

breuleux wrote: post #5

It seems kind of presumptuous to think that God's conception of morality would bear any similarity with ours. Presumably God created what It considers to be the perfect world and therefore everything that happens in it is good according to God's own definition of goodness, including torturing babies (if and when it happens -- and when it doesn't happen, then it is good that it doesn't). Perhaps God never had any inte…

> It seems kind of presumptuous to think that God's conception of morality would bear any similarity with ours. Presumably God created what It considers to be the perfect world and therefore everything that happens in it is good according to God's own definition of goodness, including torturing babies (if and when it happens -- and when it doesn't happen, then it is good that it doesn't).

Or, to be a little pantheist about it, the world is literally God pondering a possible world (but, being God, pondering something makes it real in a sense); and that God literally experiences all the suffering present in it.

Re: The Problem of Evil (2015)

#57

Post by pmoriarty »

breuleux wrote: post #31
exo-pla-net wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, a deity could believe that children dying from painful diseases is righteous and good: perhaps it finds it entertaining, and it believes the greatest good is its own amusement. That's a good argument for atheism. Because if such a god is real, we're in a waking nightmare we'd best bury our collective heads about, for our psychological wellbeing.

I don't think it's necessarily as sinister as that. Perhaps God is simply an engineer who loves designing systems that straddle the line between order and chaos and believes that the laws of physics are supremely perfect and anything that proceeds from these laws is good. Perhaps they find the process of evolution breathtaking beautiful, and the cruelty of natural selection is lost on them. Perhaps they can't underst…

Another attempt to let God off the hook is to say that God is omniscient in the sense that God knows everything that happens in the universe at the present time, but not what will happen in the future because God has created the universe such that there is non-determinancy in it.. God winds up the universe as it were (ie. creates the "laws" of physics, starts up the Big Bang, etc) and lets it run, without knowledge of the ultimate outcome or even everything in the next moment.

Then, in some theologies, God withdraws.

One could question what kind of God is one that would let the universe run like this and not interfere to, say, save the innocent from harm? Or what kind of God would withdraw from the world? There's a lot of theological hand-wrining about such questions.

Another attempt is that of the Gnostics, who thought that the ultimate, perfect God did not create the world. Instead there were a great number of intermediate beings or gods that emanated from the ultimate God, each lesser and more imperfect than the last, and it was the lowest and most imperfect of these (the demiurge) which created the world, in ignorance, madness, or stupidity. Thus the blame for suffering is shifted on to this ignorant/mad/stupid god instead of the ultimate, perfect God.

Despite such efforts, of course, there remains the question why any imperfection would or even could come from the ultimate, perfect God in the first place.

Re: The Problem of Evil (2015)

#58

Post by breuleux »

heythereguy wrote: post #54
pmoriarty wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Existence coming out of nothing is ridiculous. We really have no clue how we even got here. Maybe our existence could be proven scientifically down the line, but right now creation is actually the most feasible to my mind, strange enough." But if God created the world then what created God? If you're ok with the answer that God always existed, why wouldn't you be ok with the universe always existing (thereby having…

To me a "being" with power able to create reality is different than physical matter just always existing. I'm not saying it's right, it's just more convincing than saying that matter has always been here that doesn't make any sense at all. Example: Something coming from nothing. Everything has a primary mover. The only way to reconcile it to me is there is some supreme thing that can transcend our time and physics an…

In Greek cosmogony (well, one version of it) there is one supreme being called Chaos from which everything else proceeded. If you think of it simply as a being of pure creative energy that created the laws of physics at random (and possibly infinitely many other random universes we have no access to), would that fit the bill?

It's little more than a reification of "just because" as an actual being, but I mean, why not.

Re: The Problem of Evil (2015)

#59

Post by pmoriarty »

heythereguy wrote: post #54
pmoriarty wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Existence coming out of nothing is ridiculous. We really have no clue how we even got here. Maybe our existence could be proven scientifically down the line, but right now creation is actually the most feasible to my mind, strange enough." But if God created the world then what created God? If you're ok with the answer that God always existed, why wouldn't you be ok with the universe always existing (thereby having…

To me a "being" with power able to create reality is different than physical matter just always existing. I'm not saying it's right, it's just more convincing than saying that matter has always been here that doesn't make any sense at all. Example: Something coming from nothing. Everything has a primary mover. The only way to reconcile it to me is there is some supreme thing that can transcend our time and physics an…

"To me a "being" with power able to create reality is different than physical matter just always existing. I'm not saying it's right, it's just more convincing than saying that matter has always been here.."

Why is it more convincing to you? They seem equally preposterous to me.

What difference does it make if one is physical and the other not? Saying that one or the other of them always existed seems equivalent to me.

Re: The Problem of Evil (2015)

#60

Post by pmoriarty »

tablespoon wrote: post #55
liberalbias998 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree; what I am trying to say; is there is no excuse for God. People have spent centuries making excuses most of them much smarter people than me. In a 21st century context it seems apparent that Gods possible excuses for creating a universe that mandates suffering are running out.

> I agree; what I am trying to say; is there is no excuse for God. People have spent centuries making excuses most of them much smarter people than me. In a 21st century context it seems apparent that Gods possible excuses for creating a universe that mandates suffering are running out. I mean, an obvious "excuse" is that he's not optimizing for the one single quality you chose (absolutely minimized suffering).

"he's not optimizing for the one single quality you chose (absolutely minimized suffering)"

God doesn't have to choose any quality over any other.

An omnipotent god could make a universe perfect in every way... but the universe is not perfect in every way. Why not?

Post reply on HN