stamenflicker said:
Six,
You are welcome to disagree, but I would venture a bet that in this world without "suffering," then "suffering" would be equated with owning 5 televisions and not 7, and in this world the exact same arguments would be leveled against god, with you saying god could have created a world where people those suffering had six televisions instead of five... it's pointless because suffering is always contextualized. And in this world, you and I would still be having the very same conversation.
I do indeed disagree, and point out that you are effectively defining suffering to be omnipresent in any world that does not have complete equality - probably any world that contains sentient beings would not qualify, as you define suffering to encompass envy even in the slightest degree. The logical outcome to your suppositions would be not that suffering was necessary to omnibenevolence, but rather than omnibenevolence was impossible in a world with sentient beings (or at least a world that contained any dynamic qualities; it is perhaps possible to have sentient beings in such a static world, but I cannot envisage how).
Well, I don't really understand the argument. In Christian theology, suffering will one day be redeemed and eliminated... so are you asking whether or not the process toward this "redemption" is "worth it?" Clearly you would be of the mindset that it was not worth it, whereas I don't have enough information to know whether or not it was.
Actually taken to the logical extreme your argument tends to deduce that either no such afterlife exists (since even in heaven, by your definition, I'd be suffering because your harp was bigger than mine), or else that the afterlife exists of everyone being framed in some sort of metaphysical statue where they no longer experience any emotions at all. Logically, if it is possible to eliminate suffering in one place, it is possible to eliminate it in another. Therefore it is illogical to suppose that an omnibenevolent entity would create two realities, one which encompassed suffering and the other which did not.
(Granted that your argument does not encompass an afterlife; however, you mention Christian theology, and I am merely continuing this thread).
Certainly. Whereas yours is akin to what I would describe as envy rather than suffering. But YMMV.
First of all, I'd point out that a large percentage of human suffering rests squarely on humans-- not all of it granted, but much of it. We currently have enough food to feed everyone, why don't we? Because we have an economy based on supply and demand, which BTW is a bigger Invisible Pink Unicorn than god.... and with much more serious consequences. So who do we think we are to blame god when we ourselves can't get it right?
Err... I don't see where you're going with this. According to the myth in question, god created us with the foresight that we would do exactly what we have done. He had choices; he could have set things up so that (to continue your example) nobody was hungry. But he didn't. In a world where the creator is all-powerful and all-knowing, anything humans do is preordained and cannot be other than as it was foreseen. Changing the initial conditions would have made all the difference - yet this was not done. The only possible conclusion is that such a being, if he exists at all, is missing at least one of the "omnis". Either he doesn't care that people were going to set up an economy that would inevitably lead some people to starve, he couldn't create a world which avoided such a situation, or he didn't forsee that such a situation would occur.
It's the pot calling the kettle black.
In a world with an omnipotent, omniscient creator, humanity can never be the pot in this argument. We can only work within the existing constraints; he supposedly set up those constraints.
Of what benefit would it be for a omnipotent, over even an omnibenevolent god to rescue us from ourselves when in fact we demonstrate a refusal to rescue ourselves?
As above - this is his fault, not ours. He knew that we would demonstrate this refusal, and did it anyway.
As for what benefit it is - well, assuming you are an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being, I cannot see any benefit to creating a subject species. Possibly creating universes is some sort of hobby; it would, however, be an exceptionally boring one because he would already know everything that could possibly happen before even starting up the big bang. That's really a different issue.
Second, the assumption is that this life is the end all / be all and therefore everything we experience here is of ultimate weight in measuring what should or shouldn't be done. That's a fine assumption and a logical one, however being a person of faith it is not my assumption, and I reject it.
Therein lies the problem. If the next life is free of suffering, then why can't this one be similarly free of suffering? In effect he already had a prototype to work from.
Still, these are all arguments way out of line with what my statement was orginally, that being that suffering is a logical necessity for omni-benevolence.
However they lead to the conclusion that the next life will similarly contain suffering as well.
