That’s just a flowery way of saying “I’m going to evade the question”.
Y’all do realize, right, that the argument from evil is actually an argument for dystheism, not atheism, right? I admit a certain level of sympathy for this. If I believed the Christian Mythos were true, then depending on its degree of truth I’d either have to be a Gnostic or a straight-up Satanist.
As for the Aztec thing, yes, humans love blood. Yes, every religion has been into human sacrifice, but in all the histories we know of, only the Aztecs would actually go to war with other kingdoms for no reason other than to get more sacrificial victims. Their rulers also put themselves through grisly tortures for one reason or another. BLOODTHIRSTY DEMON GODS, man. Rock on!
Which is why I go with theological noncognitivism.
If you ever figure out how to cure that, you will have solved one of the mysteries of the ages.
Yes, I’ve been educated in the classics and I’m familiar with the “dilemma.”
I do not think, however, that it is a dilemma. I have no problem with admitting that the omnibenevolence of the LORD is tautological - i.e. necessarily true.
I’m perfectly fine with accepting the consequences of the second part of the “dilemma.”
Then you know that you either have whim-based morality with god, or you have no need for god for morality.
That would fly in the face of reality.
I would not call it a “whim based” I would call it an acceptance based morality of the LORD and His divinity. I am not interested in running away from what is and I understand I have no place to question the morality set forth by a LORD that represents all moral truth.
And how is that?
I and every other non-apologist philosopher would. It means that morality is a subjective dynamic based upon whatever god says. The recent attempt of claiming that it is part of “god’s nature” is just so much running from the issue.
IOW: might makes right, which is no different from the statist belief.
If god is omnibenevolent, then clearly no suffering should happen. But it does. And you can’t attempt to re-define omnibenevolent to include suffering because that’s dishonest.
Because the happiest people, the best and most wonderful people, are those who never suffer? Because a person, even in some theoretical ideal circumstance, will be perfectly happy all the time? You know what’s best, eh? Thbbbt.
omnibenevolence requires that no suffering happen, yes. Glad you agree.
Oh wait–you were actually trying some crap apologist technique of trying to re-define omnibenevolent, weren’t you? How dishonest.
Well at least I was flowery, eh? Seriously though, in order to answer that question, I have to know if we are using the same definition of moral, which is almost certainly not the case, since I believe our morality stems from God, not vice versa. I should probably have put a semicolon or period in there.
That doesn’t seem subjective at all… Talk about redefining things!
Subjective is something that applies on an individual basis. God applies objectively.
No, not at all. It is not might, it is the definition of morality. There is no fight involved and this is what you fail to understand. That God makes morality is not an issue of, “because He said so,” it’s just an issueof what is.
A. God allows for free choice and is mostly laissez-faire about human activites on this Earth. He is not responsible for your actions and it is why you will be held accountable for them.
B. Benevolent means whatever the LORD says is moral. If the LORD commanded every child be murdered in the most gruesome of ways - though of course He would not do this - then it would be moral and thus benevolent.
I do not question the LORD because I know it is not my place. The LORD is above me and if He commanded me to do something that you would truly consider terrible, I would not hesitate. I am willing to give my life to God’s will.
So, you would rather not exist than exist? Every human suffers; it is part of being human. The desire to be without suffering is the desire to be other than human, thus to not be yourself. Would you have truly come to be the person you are today without suffering? If you like the way you shaped up (I don’t see why YOU would, but still) than you should be grateful for the suffering that helped make you so.
That’s just a stalling tactic.
Of course it does. Talk about redefining things!
And yet it’s subjective from god’s view, because it’s whatever god wants. Ergo, subjective.
Talk about redefining things!
Sure is. Whatever god says is right because god is mighty. That’s the reason behind it. That you are deluding yourself into believing otherwise isn’t my problem.
Not possible with the christian god. At least the calvinists have this one right: free will is impossible with the christian god.
Talk about redefining terms!
Yet the bible says god did.
Funny: a lot of statists say that same thing about the state. Further, you would murder if god says so? That indicts YOU as the immoral one.
That’s nicely irrelevant. Did you have something that addressed my point about omnibenevolence? No? Ok then.
You really don’t understand pre-destination do you?
To my understanding, Divine command theory goes like this:
If God were to say you should murder, murder would be moral and logically ethical.
However God has not said it is okay to murder, hence, any logical justification for murder does not exist.
You’re argument seems to suggest you think the Christian God is simply a guy with subjective whims, instead of an entity encasing all objectivity, existance, and truth.
Knight of Bowow, seriously, dude, you need to stop with the selective quoting and constant abraisiveness. You’re making Niccolo look calm and friendly, for God’s sake. Geez.
Rather, I do.
Which then means that whatever god says is moral is moral. Hence: subjective dynamic based upon the whim of god, i.e. might makes right. Further, anyone who actually would murder because god says it’s ok is clearly suffering from severe problems.
If you’re speaking from a judeo-christian perspective, you’re wrong. Many times in the bible god commanded murders.