Evil Points to God

[AquinasForGod]

Question for Debate: Can evil point to God?

My argument that evil points to God. You can read it here in the original formating - https://www.freelymeditate.com/single-p ... proves-god

POI wanted me to present this argument, so I did. He also wanted me to show that atheists would be unreasonable to reject it, which I do not do as that is silly. However, you can see in the argument that the consequences of rejecting evil points to God are dire.

Typically, we see arguments against God from evil, but I think evil can actually be evidence for God rather than against. Evil makes more sense under the theistic view than under naturalism.

We have this strong inclination that certain acts are utterly wrong, such as rape, murder, child molestation. This inclination is so strong that it just seems objectively true that raping a child is wrong. To pretend this is subjective doesn't feel right.

If it is objective, then we need an explanation for how it is an objective truth that raping children is wrong. Theism has a good explanation for this. God is the good and ground for all good and evil is the absence of that good. Evil then is the absence of the good comes in degrees, and raping children is so far from the good that we all sense how wrong it is.

But under naturalism, you will have to argue for evolution like Cosmic Skeptic (Alex O'Connor does). Evolution he says gives us a "feeling" that human flourishing is good. That is the ground for why we feel it is wrong, but he admits that it cannot be a grounding for it actually being wrong.

So under naturalism, it is not a fact. It is not a true statement that raping children is wrong. It is a feeling. It is subjective. And even he admits that he hates that. But that is a consequence of the naturalist's view. Raping children is not objectively wrong.

Raping children is wrong is not True.

That is quite the consequence of naturalism. Okay, but there are atheistic views that are not natural views that might account for morals. This would be similar to platonic forms, but in this case, morals are just a thing that exists in the world. They just do. No explanation as to why they exist. They just do.

So perhaps if you cannot swallow the consequence of naturalism that raping children is not in fact wrong but just your subjective feelings, you can take solace in the idea that morals just exist without explanation. You can retain your atheism and believe rape is actually wrong.

But if you believe in God, then God grounds objective morals. He grounds all morality. And there is an explanation for why morals exist.

If evil did not exist in the world, I couldn't make the moral argument for God, so evil points to God, unless of course, you can live with yourself by choosing one of the alternative views.

Here is the argument without explanations.


1 We have a strong inclination that evil is in the world, such as how utterly wrong raping children is.
2 In order for us to believe this inclination is false will take a lot of evidence.
3 The theists' explanation shows our inclination is correct. Raping children is wrong.
4 The theists' explanation grounds objective morals.
5 There are other views.
6 Naturalism doesn't ground objective morals.
7 Under naturalism, rape cannot be shown to be wrong. It is a subjective view.
8 Naturalism doesn't satisfy our inclination that rape is in fact wrong. (from 1, 6, 7)
9 There is an atheistic view of objective morals.
10 The atheistic view says that objective morals just exist in the world as platonic forms do. It offers no explanation.
11 A view without an explanation is not as good of evidence as a view with an explanation.
12 The atheistic view doesn't satisfy our inclination.
13 The theist's view satisfies our strong inclination that evil is in the world,
14 The other views do not.
15 Therefore, If we wish to feel justified in our strong inclination that evil exists like rape is actually wrong, we should accept the theists' view, unless there is another view that better justifies our inclination.

[POI]

.

From your linked page, "Evil Proves God

My title is exaggerated. This is an argument for the existence of God from evil.

Typically, we see arguments against God from evil, but I think evil can actually be evidence for God rather than against. Evil makes more sense under the theistic view than under naturalism. "

I can easily see torture as being evil, but how about snitching a cigarette from your mother's purse? Evil or not? Which brings up the question, Is all wrong evil or is there some kind of qualification or definition by which it can be identified and applied?

.

Well, I see theism as unreasonable... The Bible mentions 'do not lie.' Hence, it would be reasonable to conclude that 'god' thinks it is 'evil' too. So picking up where you left off, I wonder what excuse(s) AFG has for the following....?

I lie to a kidnapping terrorist, to save him from murdering a hostage. Is one 'evil' ever warranted, or deemed okay or lesser than another 'evil'? Well, I do not see this Bible-God issuing such caveats for presented 'evil'.?.? Hence, this would make the one who lied, to save a hostage's life, just as 'evil' as the hostage taker who murders or kidnaps

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to POI in post #10]

Just like Difflugia said... "Theists also need a worldview that explains why God bothered to wire us so that puppies and kittens are objectively cute."

But we wouldn't. Atheists that are philosophers know that God grounds morals. That is all we need. The following is a true statement.

Rape is wrong.

The evidence is the fact that even you know it is wrong, but your worldview doesn't permit you to admit it so you wish to argue that it is not necessarily a true statement. We theists have a world view to ground morals, so we cannot accept the evidence.

Here is one way in which God grounds morals. God is all knowing, so he knows every possible case for humans. He knows every possible action that maximizes their goodness or takes away from it, so God knows objectively what is good or bad for us. God is how we exist. Being our existence imparts to all men some sense God's objective knowledge of right and wrong.

the naturalist is stuck with saying we evolved to have a sense that human flourishing is good and so they cannot claim there are objective morals. They are left rejecting how much they know rape is wrong.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to POI in post #11]

I lie to a kidnapping terrorist, to save him from murdering a hostage. Is one 'evil' ever warranted, or deemed okay or lesser than another 'evil'? Well, I do not see this Bible-God issuing such caveats for presented 'evil'.?.? Hence, this would make the one who lied, to save a hostage's life, just as 'evil' as the hostage taker who murders or kidnaps

We mention necessary evils. This is when no matter what choice you make, you will make an evil choice, when even doing nothing is an evil choice. We must try to choose what we think is the lessor evil, to the best of our ability.

As far as lying goes, there is a case in the bible where Rahab's lie was not counted against her. She was justified by her faith, which included lying.

James 2:25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

[AquinasForGod]

I want to point out that there is a cost to our beliefs. For example, look at this simple argument.

1. There are objective moral obligations.
2. God provides the best explanation of the existence of moral obligations.
3. Probably, God exists.

To reject the conclusion comes at a cost. Some philosophers are willing to pay that cost.

The cost here is to reject that there are objective moral obligations, which means you cannot assign a truth value to any moral statement like

Rape is wrong.

The cost you pay is that you CANNOT claim that is true. You can claim it is indeed wrong to rape.

And then we have another that is similar.

1. Human persons have a special kind of intrinsic value that we call dignity.
2. The only (or best) explanation of the fact that humans possess dignity is that they are created by a supremely good God in God’s own image.
3. Probably there is a supremely good God.

The cost you pay here is to reject that humans have intrinsic value.

Us theists are not willing to pay this cost.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #8]

That is cool that you think it makes sense that your knowing rape is wrong is subjective.

YOu cannot make a truth claim that rape is wrong.

That doesn't work for me.

Which world would you rather live in, one where everybody thought it was wrong to rape...well, anyone really, don't just Think of the Children...or one where it was the opinion of the king and everyone had to do what he said? What is more 'subjective' that one being's opinion? As Poi..was it? said above it is what it is. Our moral behavior or even behaviour seems so terribly important to us and it is, to us. But you are living in a dream world if you think the universe cares about us or our children. It is a concern for us and better that we know why rather than be told that the invisible monster will get us if we don't do it. It's high time we stopped telling ourselves fairy stories, even if men with doctorates in fairyology argue about how many could dance on the head of a pin.

Let me put this to you. Harm to a human is wrong. We know why, as objectively as it can be. We do not want wrong done to us, so reasonably we don't want wrong done to those we care about. Reason and greater understanding has us extend this Golden Rule to all humans. Evolved instinct + the best human reasoning. That is as objective as you are going to get.

So fine, you pretend there is a big invisible humans who says it's wrong and that is more than opinion, it is its' nature. Aside that this is just anthropomorphising the humans evolved mindset and awarding it spurious Authority, and not even considering the evils of Biblegod, so eloquently set out in the Bible, suppose God changed His mind and ordered evils again? Is evil wrong because it is wrong whether God says to do it or not, or is it wrong just because He says so? There's the dilemma about your 'objectivity' again and is why I reckon human opinion based, as I say, on an evolved survival instinct enhanced with the highest in human reasoning, is better than your god with this spurious claim of innate goodness. Because if Good is just what God orders his followers to do, you are in trouble.

response to possible 'cue' "Cover - up".

[Clownboat]

Rape is wrong.

Except when it is accepted.
History of rape culture and how African customs promote it
https://face2faceafrica.com/article/his ... promote-it

Meet the tribe that drinks semen to turn boys into men
https://www.pulse.ng/lifestyle/food-tra ... en/533m7bv

The cost you pay is that you CANNOT claim that is true. You can claim it is indeed wrong to rape.

It is not a true claim that world wide, rape is wrong. I have paid nothing to acknowledge this.

And then we have another that is similar.

1. Human persons have a special kind of intrinsic value that we call dignity.
2. The only (or best) explanation of the fact that humans possess dignity is that they are created by a supremely good God in God’s own image.

You seriously cannot fathom a mechanism or reason as to why humans assign value to other humans or as to why such a thing would benefit societies and be an encouraged trait?
Nothing? Seriously? Has to be a god behind it?
Don't be too heavenly to not be of any earthly good now.

The cost you pay here is to reject that humans have intrinsic value.

Societies have determined that humans have intrinsic value and I do not reject this, therefore, there is no cost as you claim. No gods involved either it seems.

Us theists are not willing to pay this cost.

It seems that you are not willing to imagine a scenario that doesn't insert your preferred god concept as the cause.
Societies, not the gods have determined right from wrong and in some cases rape is promoted. The gods are just a useful tool that societies use (from detering rape to taking the land of your neighbors) which explains quite nicely why humans have been inventing gods for 10's of thousands of years.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to Clownboat in post #16]

Rape is wrong even when it is accepted. We all know this, but you have a consequence of your views that you cannot claim rape is wrong, so you have to ignore what you know inside.

It is not a true claim that world wide, rape is wrong. I have paid nothing to acknowledge this.

You are paying the exact price I said you would have to, which is to claim rape is not wrong.

You seriously cannot fathom a mechanism or reason as to why humans assign value to other humans or as to why such a thing would benefit societies and be an encouraged trait?
Nothing? Seriously? Has to be a god behind it?
Don't be too heavenly to not be of any earthly good now.

So you agree that you must reject that humans have "intrinsic" value.

Societies have determined that humans have intrinsic value and I do not reject this, therefore, there is no cost as you claim. No gods involved either it seems.

So do humans have actual intrinsic value or perceived intrinsic value only?

It seems that you are not willing to imagine a scenario that doesn't insert your preferred god concept as the cause.
Societies, not the gods have determined right from wrong and in some cases rape is promoted. The gods are just a useful tool that societies use (from detering rape to taking the land of your neighbors) which explains quite nicely why humans have been inventing gods for 10's of thousands of years.

I am not sure you are aware that all you are saying is Rape being wrong is subjective and thus you cannot make a truth claim about rape being wrong. That is precisely the cost we theists are not willing to pay because we know rape is wrong. We can make a truth claim.

Also, you are saying the same about if humans have intrinsic value. Intrinsic means it is part of the thing itself. For a human to have intrinsic value means to be human is to have value. It cannot be extrinsic which is what you are saying. If society determines the value a human has, then humans DO NOT have intrinsic value. That is a price we theists are not willing to pay. We know every human as intrinsic value. Every human has value in themselves.

[POI]

But we wouldn't. Atheists that are philosophers know that God grounds morals. That is all we need. The following is a true statement.

Rape is wrong.

You did not bother to address Difflugia's statement. Puppies and kittens are cute. Is a god necessary to ground this statement? ...Because you know they are cute?

Further, as I told someone in another thread, it would be like needing to 'ground' <objective economics>. Maybe we need to invent the cartoon character, on the Monopoly box, to 'ground' economics.

Further still, if rape is wrong, then I guess YHWH is out. One can easily make a logical case that God is, indeed, a-okay with rape, in the Bible.

And again, your gut reaction to something is not what 'grounds' a moral, even if God gave you this 'gut feeling'. I'll touch on this one later...

The evidence is the fact that even you know it is wrong, but your worldview doesn't permit you to admit it so you wish to argue that it is not necessarily a true statement. We theists have a world view to ground morals, so we cannot accept the evidence.

It's as if you have not watched the video. Did you? It's only 4 minutes in total.

Consequentialism alone is enough to "ground" me 'knowing' it's wrong. Maybe she had a dad with a shotgun, maybe she has 5 brothers. Maybe she has a husband.

Or how about possessing empathy.... (not in the video BTW)... You know, a characteristic not exclusive to humans Some animals possess this trait as well. I would know she would not like it, and may feel sorry for her.

Here is one way in which God grounds morals. God is all knowing, so he knows every possible case for humans. He knows every possible action that maximizes their goodness or takes away from it, so God knows objectively what is good or bad for us. God is how we exist. Being our existence imparts to all men some sense God's objective knowledge of right and wrong.

Again, there is a reason I posted the video. I was hoping I did not have to narrate. But apparently, that was an epic fail, on my part...

Your argument is to demonstrate that 'evil points to god'. You don't get to use god in your argument. Mentioning god in your argument is circular. You need to demonstrate how evil points to god. Your explanation above presumes god already exists, and you are now explaining his characteristics. Tisk tisk, this is circular.

the naturalist is stuck with saying we evolved to have a sense that human flourishing is good and so they cannot claim there are objective morals. They are left rejecting how much they know rape is wrong.

I cannot ground many things, like economics, how high is too high, what is beauty, at what point is abortion in a pregnancy 'murder', etc.... Deal with it.... Inventing an invisible agency does not solve the issue anyways. All this would demonstrate, is that we abide by what this invisible agency implants into us. This makes what we 'know', no more or less 'objective' regardless. It just means we now feel what this invisible agency feels. And if this is the case, then we do not need to be told, in a Bible-book, what is right/wrong. And further, we would not ever disagree with anything said in this Bible-book. But you know you do; especially with some things written in the OT --- as you have demonstrated in other exchanges.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to POI in post #18]

You did not bother to address Difflugia's statement. Puppies and kittens are cute. Is a god necessary to ground this statement? ...Because you know they are cute?

This shows me that you are missing the whole point of the argument. This is precise what we theists are not willing to believe. We are not willing to believe that rape being wrong is at all similar to our subjective view that a puppy or kitten is cute. The fact you make this comparison only shows how deeply invested you are in believing horrible evils like raping children or torturing people slowly to death are not actually evil. They are just human behaviors that we might dislike. That is way too high an intellectual price to pay, and it is just clearly wrong.

Further, as I told someone in another thread, it would be like needing to 'ground' <objective economics>. Maybe we need to invent the cartoon character, on the Monopoly box, to 'ground' economics.

Same reasoning as above, but this comparison is even worse.

Further still, if rape is wrong, then I guess YHWH is out. One can easily make a logical case that God is, indeed, a-okay with rape, in the Bible.

You mean by not understanding a law of the Jews?

It's as if you have not watched the video. Did you? It's only 4 minutes in total.

I do not see a point unless you mention something from the video that is an interesting point that I would like more info about.

Consequentialism alone is enough to "ground" me 'knowing' it's wrong. Maybe she had a dad with a shotgun, maybe she has 5 brothers. Maybe she has a husband.

It is not. Consequentialism doesn't show how rape is wrong is a true statement. Under naturalism, there is not consequence to rape if you do it in secret, and hide your identity, such that you cannot get caught.

Or how about possessing empathy.... (not in the video BTW)... You know, a characteristic not exclusive to humans Some animals possess this trait as well. I would know she would not like it, and may feel sorry for her.

Not all people have empathy, thus psychopaths. And even if everyone had empathy, it wouldn't make it true that rape is wrong. It would only make it true that we don't like being raped and feel sorry for others that endure it.

Your argument is to demonstrate that 'evil points to god'. You don't get to use god in your argument. Mentioning god in your argument is circular. You need to demonstrate how evil points to god. Your explanation above presumes god already exists, and you are now explaining his characteristics. Tisk tisk, this is circular.

Yet it is not circular. My argument shows that there is more than one view for evil. One of those views is a theistic view, which I ague is the best view that justifies are sense of knowing rape is wrong, for example. Most people already know how theism grounds morals, but I offered a way it does just in case some here did not know how theism ground morals.

How theism grounds morals is not part of my argument, though. Naturalism has ways to explain evil subjectively. You giving examples how it does so is not circular reasoning. It is only showing what naturalism has to offer.

The argument is to consider what the different views have to offer and see which view best justified our sense of rape being wrong.

I cannot ground many things, like economics, how high is too high, what is beauty, at what point is abortion in a pregnancy 'murder', etc.... Deal with it..

I did deal with it, thus this thread.

Inventing an invisible agency does not solve the issue anyways. All this would demonstrate, is that we abide by what this invisible agency implants into us. This makes what we 'know', no more or less 'objective' regardless. It just means we now feel what this invisible agency feels.

I showed how what God knows must be objective because he knows everything. You cannot get more objective than that. God impresses upon us this sense of truth, thus why we have morals.

And if this is the case, then we do not need to be told, in a Bible-book, what is right/wrong.

People become numb to God by their own choices, which is why you are able to compare the truth of rape being wrong to the truth of a puppy being cute. It is good that Jesus reminds humans how to behave.

But you know you do; especially with some things written in the OT --- as you have demonstrated in other exchanges.

The OT is the OT for a reason. It is an old covenant with the Jews. Our covenant is with Christ. Do you have issues with much of anything Christ commanded?

[POI]

[Replying to POI in post #11]

I lie to a kidnapping terrorist, to save him from murdering a hostage. Is one 'evil' ever warranted, or deemed okay or lesser than another 'evil'? Well, I do not see this Bible-God issuing such caveats for presented 'evil'.?.? Hence, this would make the one who lied, to save a hostage's life, just as 'evil' as the hostage taker who murders or kidnaps

We mention necessary evils. This is when no matter what choice you make, you will make an evil choice, when even doing nothing is an evil choice. We must try to choose what we think is the lessor evil, to the best of our ability.

As far as lying goes, there is a case in the bible where Rahab's lie was not counted against her. She was justified by her faith, which included lying.

James 2:25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

Some devout Christians likely think all lies are bad. Why? Because we know 'lying is bad". It's one of the 10 Commandments apparently. It's a BIG one apparently. This means there would be no acceptable reason to lie. Does this make them "evil", for 'knowing' not to lie, even though it may have saved another? They may justify this "knowing", by saying... "Well, if it's in that person's will to die this way, then I'm not going to commit a MAJOR sin to try and stop it. We all die at god's will anyways. If this hostage dies, god willed it..."

You see how easy that is... You can interject all kinds of rationals for your invisible god.