Penn (of Penn & Teller) and I believe

[Skeptical Greg]

OK, I see it now. My bad.

Nevertheless I disagree with his assessment. One can make a cogent argument for belief in God achieving the same result.

Well yes, but one man's cogent is another man's nonsense..


Lets look at it this way.. I think part of the following is what Penn was alluding to.


Traditional ( Christian ) religious beliefs, rationalize natural disasters and their attendant suffering as being God's will, part of his plan if you will..


If this were actually true, then getting rid of God ( figuratively speaking ) should eliminate some of this suffering..

If you don't believe this, then you can't really say God was responsible in the first place..

If God is responsible, we are subject to his whims.. He might decide to cut us some slack or he might not..

If God doesn't exist, at least we will be spared the suffering that God intentionally caused..


I know there is a lot of tap dancing around the idea that God causes suffering as opposed to ' letting it happen ', you know , free will and all that..

But anyone who differentiates between causing suffering and allowing it to happen, when it is within their power to stop it, is seriously deluding themself..

We don't allow such behaviour from anyone else, why do you suppose we tolerate it from our Gods?

 

[David Swidler]

Well yes, but one man's cogent is another man's nonsense.

Lets look at it this way.. I think part of the following is what Penn was alluding to.


Traditional ( Christian ) religious beliefs, rationalize natural disasters and their attendant suffering as being God's will, part of his plan if you will.

If this were actually true, then getting rid of God ( figuratively speaking ) should eliminate some of this suffering.

If you don't believe this, then you can't really say God was responsible in the first place..

If God is responsible, we are subject to his whims.. He might decide to cut us some slack or he might not..

If God doesn't exist, at least we will be spared the suffering that God intentionally caused..


I know there is a lot of tap dancing around the idea that God causes suffering as opposed to ' letting it happen ', you know , free will and all that..

Oh, I wouldn't say it's tap dancing. It's a logical consequence of such a belief system. For existence to have meaning - one of the goals of belief - then human actions must have real consequences. There has to be real suffering, or we might as well be playing some game. Going with the Western idea of an omnipotent, benevolent God, such a God would have to "restrain himself" from preventing all suffering, undermining the larger goal of the "greater good," which is making human existence meaningful (this thread is hardly the place to explore that; feel free to start a new thread).

But anyone who differentiates between causing suffering and allowing it to happen, when it is within their power to stop it, is seriously deluding themself.

See above.

We don't allow such behaviour from anyone else, why do you suppose we tolerate it from our Gods?

The question falls away under the approach I mentioned above. Seriously, if you'd like to take this to a new thread, I'll join you. As I said before, I find much of religion distasteful, but I wouldn't argue that it's a negative per se.


As you said, one man's cogent argument is a nother man's nonsense. I just don't find Penn's approach in the OP quote all that convincing. It's just not a serious challenge to theistic belief.