the problem of evil

is not a problem for atheists unless one doesn’t understand what the problem is.

So first, as a public service announcement, I will share the problem in brief. More complex formulations of the argument have been made and anyone interested can look at the works of Hume, Platinga, Swinburne, and Rowe among others. But for now, we will refer to Epicurus formulation of the problem, thus

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 willing and able? then whence cometh evil?

is he neither unwilling and not able? then why call him god?

It can be seen immediately that this is a problem for a certain species of gods. These are those gods whose followers claim are omnipotent and omniscient. If one believes in a god without omni properties, then the problem of evil is lessened or even eliminated. It is therefore absurd to claim that the atheist has a problem of evil.

The author of this post, starts by making absurd premises, arguing

so that if creatures are not able to err and so do evil, they cannot act, and so are not actual

and i am going to sit here and wait for an example of evil committed by a sloth. And even before that first paragraph is complete, we are told

Thus if God was going to create anything whatsoever, he had no option in logic but to open the way to error, evil, sin, and death.

which immediately presents a contradiction. There is no logical contradiction involved in the sentence; to create a being that doesn’t err. In fact, the theist undermines their case because they without blinking an eye posit the existence of angels that cannot err and a heaven peopled with beings that can’t err. So which is it?

The apologist’s next step is a strawman. We are told

If there is no God, then there is no such thing as evil

which wasn’t the contention. The question is how can we reconcile the evil that we see with the existence of an all loving and powerful god? If we agree there is no god, as there is no evidence for any, then we are left with evil and a question of how to respond to it. And even from the examples the theist gives thinking he stumped the atheist, it is men and women who have acted to end, or reduce the evil being perpetrated. It is through the action of men that the slave trade ended- at least in theory-; it is through the actions of men that the second world war ended. I am willing to be shown evidence that a god intervened in either of the two examples I have given.

And what I said at the beginning of this post is clearly evident. Here, we have a theist with access to the internet but is afraid to do any thinking. He writes

There can be only “problems.” On atheism, there is no Problem of Evil, because there is no evil. Thus there is nothing whatever to which an atheist might object, on grounds transcendent to or therefore more suasive than those of his own private and nowise privileged preferences.

Which is a strawman. On atheism, there is no problem of evil not because there is no evil, but because an all loving and powerful god doesn’t exist– at least no evidence exists for such a god. So we are left with evil bit no god. And what we do from here is what matters. Do we sit by and watch as pastors feed their flock bleach as treatment for covid or do we as reasonable people stop such atrocities?

Or am i missing something?

if your religion has you defending absurdities

It is probably time for a new religion.

Here we have a fellow who purports to answer tough questions from believing teens but not before he throws an accusation against atheists. So what’s the question?

God’s ordering the Jews to kill every living thing in certain cities (Deuteronomy 20:16-18): Is the above a correct understanding of scripture? If so, how was it right for them to kill the children that must have lived in a city so large?

Any rational person would say no, it wasn’t right. But not our apologist. First he compares this to WW2 or bombing of the ISIS, two events all right thinking people have condemned. But that is not all. He or she claims to be doing a root cause analysis arguing that this all began with the curse of Noah upon his grandchildren, shortly defending slavery to arguing these people believed in wicked gods so it doesn’t matter if they were all killed, defends the great land grab by Abraham’s descendants (that is still a cause of strife in the middle East) as the final justification for the murder of children. If you find nothing wrong with this, you can’t be helped.

Mike Ruel on the other hand is a comedian. He tells us there is internal and external evidence why the bible is true. I will not even consider what he calls evidence. If the bible is a miracle(inspired, dictated by a deity), no evidence is needed nor can any be adduced. If it is not a miracle, the absurdities found within its pages that are contrary to reason disqualify it from being true. Remember, Hume on miracles has not been answered.

And finally, this can be filed under bad arguments for theism. The author starts from some atheists have argued in favour of determinism to free will is incompatible with atheism and therefore god. This is poor argumentation. Whether atheism is true or false is not tied to whether determinism is true or false. The only question that is important for the atheist is, is there a god? All other questions are up for grabs.

i know many christians come to this blog

for information and today we have other news for you. many of you have been wondering why 2000 years later, Jesus has not yet to come back while scripture says he was due 1900 years give or take 40 years. the answer has been here all along, to repeat the song don’t cry for me Argentina

And the reason is lack of fare. If you can’t take my word for it, I am sure those of you of evangelical bend will most definitely believe this pastor who says

I honestly believe this — the reason why Jesus hasn’t come is because people are not giving the way God told them to give

So please, start donating in millions. We want to be done with this Jesus transportation problem asap.

a schism i am not sure many of you know of

Unless you are a Mormon or former member of CLDS, you wouldn’t know who Phil Davies, Snuffer, Young or Joseph Smith are. So for a quick history lesson, Joseph Smith is the founder, Young took over after Smith’s death and Snuffer and Davies are among the many leaders of breakaway churches. What is interesting in these schisms can be found in this article and how they tie up to QAnon conspiracy. I think we can say America is the gift that keeps on giving. There is never a dull day from the Uneducated States of America where there is separation of church and state and a National prayer day designated by Congress.

Jesus was not a christian and other news

I know you know all this and more, but I thought you might need to know that we don’t know whether the Jesus of the bible walked this earth.

So for your Monday reading, why not this

we bring you good news from the Vatican

If you have been in the pursuit of holiness and found yourself restricted by many rules or conditions, we have good news for you. And this news comes to you from St. Paul’s ambassador or the guy with the direct link to Peter, pope Francis.

Redemption, for those seeking it, comes from god. And to receive it, you need faith in the gospel message. And in case you are Jewish and still confused, the Pope ain’t making this up. He says pick your battles with St. Paul, not him.

Now you have got the message, you cannot claim ignorance when you find yourself in hell. I told you already.

Is there a god

On my friend Ark’s blog there is a discussion or is it a narrative on where the burden lies in the god debate. And I generally agree with him. However, I think, and our late friend *my atheist life* would agree, we can say there is no god and the burden of proof doesn’t switch to us. Why so, you might ask, first, no coherent definition of a god has been provided that would demonstrate such a being(s) would exist. There are contradictory attributes of alleged gods that such beings are unlikely to exist. Whether such beings are necessary and in what manner of existence they are to exist have not been demonstrated. And attempts have been made to do this.

I know my empiricist friends wouldn’t commit themselves to such a statement arguing, among other reasons, new evidence may convince us otherwise. That is all fair. But until this evidence is adduced, we have nothing to go on with and as the good priest Jean Messlier wrote, to believe in God(s) is to believe in a chimera with no parallel in experience.

But I could be wrong

If you are Jewish, you need Christ

And before you come crucifying (no pun intended) me pick it up with the pope.

Maybe the pope was misquoted [(is he a politician?) since that’s the line our politicians use even when quoted verbatim] when he said

The Law, however, does not give life, it does not offer the fulfillment of the promise because it is not capable of being able to fulfill it. The Law is a journey, a journey that leads toward an encounter… Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfillment in Christ

Popeye

We are hoping to hear the pope’s response soon after he consults with Peter. Stay tuned brothers and sisters not in the law 🙂

The definitive list of those (lost) who are hell bound

Who ends up in Hell?

Many fundamentalist ‘Christians’ maintain that Hell is reserved for people who are immoral. Helpfully, they are able to narrow this down into a few specific types of people:

• People who voted for Clinton, Obama, Biden, or any democratic president in history
• Liberals
• Communists
• Liars (unless they are also elected Republicans)
• Thieves
• Murderers
• People who are violent
• People who question my constitutional right to bear arms under the second amendment
• People who question my right to invade other countries so that we can find and remove their weapons from them
• People who don’t live in the United States of America
• Atheists
• Agnostics
• Catholics (according to protestants)
• Protestants (according to Catholics)
• Hypocrites
• Pagans
• Muslims
• Critics of Israel
• Jews
• Hitler
• People who believe that a vaccine is more effective than prayer
• People who believe in evolution
• People who believe the earth is more than six thousand years old
• Christians who don’t take the Bible literally
• People who disagree with my interpretation of an ancient Jewish manuscript written in a completely different time, culture, and context to my own
• Christians who don’t own and read the King James Version of the Bible
• Christians who go to a different church than me
• Christians who believe in free will
• People who have not asked Jesus into their heart of their own free will
• People who have never heard about Jesus
• People who believe that people who have never heard about Jesus will end up in heaven
• People who don’t believe in Hell
• Fornicators
• Masturbators
• Goats
• Gymnasts
• People who dance
• People who engage in pre-marital hand-holding
• Women who speak in church
• Women who wear pants
• Women who cause men to sin by wearing dresses that are too short
• Men who wear dresses
• Women who think they are men
• Men who think they are women
• Women who support men who think they are women
• Men who support women who think are men
• Men who like men
• Women who like women
• Men and women who affirm and support men who like men and women who like women
• Adulterers (unless they are men)
• Rapists (unless the rapist and their victim are married)
• Drunkards
• People who like rock music
• People with tattoos
• People who have read any of the Harry Potter books
• People who watch horror movies
• People who enjoy life
• Witches
• Fortune tellers (unless you call it a prophetic word from the Lord)]
• People who gossip (unless it’s to collect prayer requests)
• People who are greedy
• People who are absurdly rich (unless they are a televangelist)
• People who walk away from the evangelical church after three and a half decades
• Dead people
• People who see dead people
• Cats
• You

Hey, it’s because I love you that I am warning you that you’re going to end up in Hell if you don’t repent and start believing exactly the same things I do. In fact, you’re pretty darn lucky that I am so enlightened and can show you the error of your ways.

Don’t you feel better now that you’ve heard the ‘Good News’ of the Gospel?

I sure do!

In fact, I’m sure glad that I have faithfully administered my Christian duty by warning you about Hell.

Hallelujah

Source document

Maybe it is time for a new schism

I am one of those people who, whenever I can, read anything interesting that comes my way especially when I am relaxing after a long evening run, where long is anything more than 5km.

There has been a bit of pushback since popeye Francis released an encyclical that prohibits saying the Latin Mass unless with authority of the bishop. And some people feel that without that rite, their being catholic is very watered down or something close to that.

The author of this article says exactly that. For example, he writes

For Catholics, how we pray shapes what we believe. The old ritual physically aims us toward an altar and tabernacle. In that way it points us to the cross and to heaven as the ultimate horizon of man’s existence. By doing so, it shows that God graciously loves us and redeems us despite our sins. And the proof is in the culture this ritual produces. Think of Mozart’s great rendition of faith in the Eucharist: “Ave Verum Corpus” (Hail True Body).

Michael Brendan Dougherty

In opposition to this, he writes, the new mass

The new ritual points us toward a bare table, and it consistently posits the unity of humankind as the ultimate horizon of our existence. In the new Mass, God owes man salvation, because of the innate dignity of humanity. Where there was faith, now presumption. Where there was love, now mere affirmation, which is indistinguishable from indifference. It inspires weightless ditties like “Gather Us In.” Let’s sing about us!

M B Dougherty

And maybe it is time for a new schism. You know like how it happened in the beginning.

NB. That article maybe behind a paywall.