Death, suffering, and religion - Fallacy

[DreadNiK]

Obviously, since not all suffer, suffering cannot be a necessity for someone to make it to heaven.

Erm. I fail to see the logic in that.



Also, suffering is hard to define, so let's not try. It isn't really necessary for the sake of the topic. There's also the problem of infants being able to experience heaven. How does age/experience work in heaven, since our minds are clearly at least partly a product of experience.

But ignoring all that, I still think the problem of evil is a fallacious argument against the existence of god. You could consider this life as some sort of test. It is easy enough to be moral given a priveledged background, but those born into suffering may find it harder. Of course, it wouldn't be a fair test since no one gets told the rules by god, only by other people, and who do you believe?

Man, I'm starting to realise how hard it is to defend my original proposition given all the illogic of religion, but I still stand by it. If god/heaven/whatever existed, death and suffering would not be the ultimate evil for a person. Dieing unredeemed, i.e. going to hell/not going to heaven would be. That would make capital punishment the ultimate evil.

Anyway...I stand against religion, but I also stand against poor arguments.

 

[Beerina]

Only in a world with "no purpose," does suffering not make any sense. Neither should anything else for that matter.

Why should an innocent baby suffer because some other being, even a god, decide to have a purpose?

There's an old saying about being on a burning airplane. If the person ahead of you stops to get their bag out of the overhead, shove them aside. While they may have something in that bag worth risking their life over, I know damned sure they don't have anything worth risking my life over.

I know damned sure there's nothing so vitally important in God's purpose that I, to say nothing of a baby, should have to suffer through even the mild suffering I've had in life so far, to say nothing of those who've actually had long periods of pain, terror, and suffering. God can take his mysterious ways and mysterious plans and shove them up his infinitely fat @$$.

 

[Beerina]

Completely insigificant. A nice appeal to emotion, there, but I think you're missing the point (well, I shouldn't speak for the original poster). Let's consider "a baby who died a horrible prolonged death due to cancer or some such disease." Say he was five years old when he died. Then compare it to an eternity of heaven. Of course, you can't do math with "eternity," so let's consider, say, a billion years. So he's spent, what--.0000007 percent of his existance in pain? Now let's consider this same baby after 10^1000000000000000000000000 years in heaven. So the baby's now spent how much of it's existance in pain? What percentage of its life has been spent suffering? You'll have to do the calculations, if you want them; my calculator can't handle numbers that small.

...how much of its existance has it spent suffering after ((10^1000000000000000000000000)^10000000000000000000000000000000)^10000000000000000000000000000 years in heaven?

(Edit: I've actually spent a while wondering how well people think the problem of evil stands up when considered in this context, so if we could avoid having this thread devolve into another Iacchus slap-fight, that would be great)

That's actually the same argument as to why even Hitler or Stalin should not truly spend all eternity in Hell. Even at one billion years of punishment per nanosecond of pain and terror they've caused, per person, well, a few heptillion years in Hell and they've paid their debt. See also: spreading out 72 virgins over eternity

 

[Beerina]

And, if it were simply a matter of a person not wanting to change? What would be the point of throwing him in with a bunch of folks who are capable of illustrating that they can get along? Where would be the heaven in it for them? This in my opinion, is the only reason why a distinction needs to be made between the two.

If the person does not want to change, why torture them until they do? Why not just let them be? Why even throw them in with murderers and torturers? Why not let them live on "Cloud 8" or "Cloud 2" with similar people, not with murders and torturers, not with devils, just with their own "live and let live" types?

Mark Twain made wonderful, viscious fun of this, when he pointed out how, in the Old Testament, God was a murderous bastard who approved of rapes and ordered the executions of babies. But once someone died, that was it. Eternal rest. Then God got religion. Eternal death was not enough. No, he had to change his mind and resurrect everybody, and make it even worse than death -- eternal punishment.

An infinitely loving God is supposed to be doing this, anyway. Yes, Dawkins, God is the most vile fictional character of all time, and in fact just misses being the worst theoretically possible vile character by a fraction of an inch, in that he merely tortures the vast majority of everyone who ever existed for all eternity, rather than everyone.

 

[Dogdoctor]

Completely insigificant. A nice appeal to emotion, there, but I think you're missing the point (well, I shouldn't speak for the original poster). Let's consider "a baby who died a horrible prolonged death due to cancer or some such disease." Say he was five years old when he died. Then compare it to an eternity of heaven. Of course, you can't do math with "eternity," so let's consider, say, a billion years. So he's spent, what--.0000007 percent of his existance in pain? Now let's consider this same baby after 10^1000000000000000000000000 years in heaven. So the baby's now spent how much of it's existance in pain? What percentage of its life has been spent suffering? You'll have to do the calculations, if you want them; my calculator can't handle numbers that small.

...how much of its existance has it spent suffering after ((10^1000000000000000000000000)^10000000000000000000000000000000)^10000000000000000000000000000 years in heaven?

(Edit: I've actually spent a while wondering how well people think the problem of evil stands up when considered in this context, so if we could avoid having this thread devolve into another Iacchus slap-fight, that would be great)

Completely insignificant is zero suffering. Some suffering is significant. If God is truly all powerful and all knowing there would be zero suffering unless god is mean.
Edited to add: If no suffering is significant because it is diluted by eternity then also killing one person or a hundred or a million would also be insignificant because in an eternal life it is such a small number that it is unimportant.

 

[jjramsey]

There are two ways to use evil as an argument against God's existence.

One is to argue that the presence of evil is trivially explained by a godless, indifferent universe, but is at the very least a counterintuitive phenomenon if there is an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God. Unless there are other strong considerations to the contrary, Occam's Razor thus favor atheism. This is, IMHO, a straightforward and valid argument, though like all probablistic arguments, it is defeasible.

Another way is to argue that it is logically inconsistent for an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God to allow evil. This is a philosophical issue that is far from settled. Defining "evil" may be easy, since in the context of discussing the argument from evil, it is usually used as a synonym for suffering, but defining "good" and what is the "maximal good" is far more problematic, so figuring out whether an omnibenevolent God would have reason to prefer a universe with suffering to one with none is a dog of a problem, as is figuring out whether it is logically impossible to acheive this "maximal good" without suffering. As an argument against God's existence, it is at best difficult and at worst intractible.

 

[Dogdoctor]

yes...... if god wants us to believe then he should make it so we do instead of making look like he doesn't exist. So my conclusion is god doesn't want us to believe or there is no god. (if I understood all your words then this would follow from what you said however I am linguistically challenged)

 

[bruto]

It seems to me that if you're going to count the problem of suffering as irrelevant, that's fine, but along with it, then, you have to figure that God (we're assuming for this discussion that there is a God of some sort) does not involve himself with it. No sin-motivated tsunamis and prayed-for cures either. If God involves himself with this stuff, then he is involved, and is taking an interest, and obviously enough, does count it as significant. He can neither inflict nor alleviate suffering in particular situations and then be said not to have responsibility for it. It's easy to figure that life on earth is so fleeting and trivial that suffering here is nothing in comparison to eternity, but then you can't turn around and have god micromanaging the world.

If we are to consider suffering maningless, then we must also assume that God does too, and that means, simply put, that God does not care. If there is an omnibenevolent God he's leaving us alone. If you try to figure out how any God might administer the universe, that might well be the wisest, most benevolent possible choice anyway.

 

[Iacchus]

I know damned sure there's nothing so vitally important in God's purpose that I, to say nothing of a baby, should have to suffer through even the mild suffering I've had in life so far, to say nothing of those who've actually had long periods of pain, terror, and suffering. God can take his mysterious ways and mysterious plans and shove them up his infinitely fat @$$.

There is no ultimate meaning this Universe (at least according to some folks), so why do you continue to pass judgment on it?

 

[Mercutio]

There is no ultimate meaning this Universe (at least according to some folks), so why do you continue to pass judgment on it?

Did you even read the post you quoted? Why is it that you seem to think that, in the absence of a god, we all cease to care about ourselves, our families, our friends, our fellow human beings?

If it takes your believing in a god for you to care about other people, then I am glad you do. I also pity you for having such little regard for your fellow humans.

 

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

That argument would thash the "salvific act" argument. Is the amount of suffering is not relevant compared to an eternity in heaven, then there was no sacrifice in jebuz death at all.

 

[Beleth]

For the simple reason that IF the religion was correct (ignoring all the other paradoxes, impossibilities and illogicalities), then death and suffering in this life is totally meaningless given the infinite afterlife.

I would argue that if death and suffering in this life is totally meaningless, then everything else in this life could also be shown to be equally meaningless, which means that the concept of reward or punishment is baseless.

If one's death is meaningless, then the cause of one's death is also meaningless, If the cause of one's death just so happens to be torture at the hands of someone else, then there is no reason to punish that torturer.

 

[Beleth]

And, if it were simply a matter of a person not wanting to change?

Can you seriously imagine a human who wouldn't want to change after spending, say, a week in a lake of fire, much less a couple billion years? I can't.

 

[Iacchus]

Can you seriously imagine a human who wouldn't want to change after spending, say, a week in a lake of fire, much less a couple billion years? I can't.

And if the fire were merely a by-product of all those who lust in hell, the answer to that would most definitely be yes.

 

[Iacchus]

Did you even read the post you quoted? Why is it that you seem to think that, in the absence of a god, we all cease to care about ourselves, our families, our friends, our fellow human beings?

If it takes your believing in a god for you to care about other people, then I am glad you do. I also pity you for having such little regard for your fellow humans.

I just find the whole thing, when explained in your terms, to be terribly ironic, that's all. Obviously, people are capable of such things. Oh, and if there was no such thing as good or bad, in the strictest sense, it would be impossible for me to play the part of the fool.

 

[Beerina]

Did you even read the post you quoted? Why is it that you seem to think that, in the absence of a god, we all cease to care about ourselves, our families, our friends, our fellow human beings?

If it takes your believing in a god for you to care about other people, then I am glad you do. I also pity you for having such little regard for your fellow humans.

I recall in my 9th grade confirmation class learning about the 7 levels of morality or ethics or something. The lowest levels were doing the right thing because of fear of punishment or for a reward. Higher levels were doing it because it was inherently the right thing to do. No gods necessary.

 

[Beerina]

And if the fire were merely a by-product of all those who lust in hell, the answer to that would most definitely be yes.

Normally I leave Iacchus harassment to other folks, but dude, are you on drugs? People in Hell who are lusting (for sex, presumably gay sex or animal sex ala South Park, since that is even eviler than straight, non-marital sex) cause, through some mystical means (created by God) the creation of a lake of molten silica compounds?

I ask simply, is a god who does such things deserving of worship? If we are made in god's image, then if that has any meaning at all it is that we posess the ability to judge a situation morally, then we can definitely answer that question: No

 

[Iacchus]

Greed, as well as hatred are forms of lust ... in my opinion.

 

[bruto]

And if the fire were merely a by-product of all those who lust in hell, the answer to that would most definitely be yes.

Iacchus, I'm confused about what is referring to what here. Are you talking about people who would continue to lust while in the lake of fire? Are you actually saying that people who lust now would prefer hell? Are you saying that the fire in hell is caused by people who are lusting before they get there? I don't quite get what you're after. I'll probably regret the effort of finding out what you actually are after, but I'll try it anyway.

 

[Beleth]

And if the fire were merely a by-product of all those who lust in hell, the answer to that would most definitely be yes.

So the composition of the lake determines whether someone wants to stay in it or not?

Why would a lustful person want to stay in a lake of fire? A lake of wriggling naked coeds maybe, but fire?