My first debate with John Loftus on the Problem of Evil can be watched below. John and I decided to make it available several months ago, but, unfortunately, neither of us had a clue how to do it. John did his homework, however, and is now an expert on Google Video. (Note: Due to some technical difficulties on the evening of the debate, the sound quality isn't very good. So be prepared to crank up the volume and listen closely.)
I'm looking forward to feedback. (And wouldn't anyone like to see a debate titled, "Loftus vs. Wood III: Why an Atheist Became a Christian, and a Christian Became an Atheist"?
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
For John's comments on the debate, see "Comments on the Loftus-Wood Debate on the Problem of Evil."
For my comments on the debate, see "The Will to Disbelieve: A Critical Review of the Loftus-Wood Debate."
Click here to listen to a Podcast of my second debate with John Loftus, on "The Debate Hour."
For a review of the second debate, see Mary Jo Sharp's "Loftus-Wood Round Two: Another Failed Argument from Evil."
The Venus de Milo
Like Venus, the world is quite beautiful, but full of problems.
Blog Archive
Theist Sites (Dealing with the Problem of Evil)
Non-Theist Sites (Dealing with the Problem of Evil)
Suggested Reading
- Candide (Voltaire)
- Night (Elie Wiesel)
- The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)
- The Rape of Nanking (Iris Chang)
- Till We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis)
About Me
- David Wood
- The Bronx, New York, United States
- I'm currently working on my PhD in philosophy. My focus is the Problem of Evil.
50 comments:
Well, I'm no expert about Google Video. It was very time consuming to learn how to do it though.
BTW and FYI: I don't consider our interview with Reggie a debate, but rather an extended discussion. You offered an interesting/unique perspective that I was interested in hearing, and that's a compliment. Besides, Reggie didn't offer me equal time toward the end.
But Hmmm. A another debate? Interesting. Could our strained friendship survive that? I value your friendship more than winning a debate (not saying you don't). And I still consider you a friend, or at least, I want to consider you a friend.
--Why an Atheist Became a Christian, and a Christian Became an Atheist
That would be good but when are you going to debate an actual atheist rather than a closet-Christian like Loftus, who goes around preaching holier-than-thou Christian morality, and is too afraid to even attempt to back it up with what would be an embarrassing argument:
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=38695370&postID=5746925464878140967
You can't keep debating these strawmen. Gee whiz, it's not fair to atheists.
The link got cut off, so see the comments here:
http://www.problemofevil.org/2007/06/hitchens-wilson-debate.html
You should be aware that John Loftus manipulates the debate on his blog. He deletes anything he doesn't like.
He has deleted all of these on different threads, for example:
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der Scheinende said...
--"suffering and evil in this world"
Matthew, it's very poor argument against god as I noted, but let's ask you: why do you think human suffering in our world is even a problem?
Ad what exactly do you mean by "evil"?
(I'm assuming that lopping heads off of chickens and such isn't a concern.)
10:51 PM, July 24, 2007
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der Scheinende said...
--What's your definition of 'pain and suffering'?
Loftus' moral preaching about suffering is obviously Christian, but he'll be along to delete this post like others because he doesn't like that being pointed out.
He also seems to delete posts if you point out that his entire argument is very poor because the suffering of some puny animal on a rock in space can in no way impinge upon the enigmatic idea of an absolute god, and because it is foolish to pretend that little ole temporal you can comprehend god and judge it.
10:28 PM, July 24, 2007
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der Scheinende said...
Why are you deleting all posts that point out your bad arguments and Christian preaching, Loftus?
I thought you were a "philosopher"???
10:12 PM, July 24, 2007
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der Scheinende said...
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-- Comment deleted
This post has been removed by the blog administrator.
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Hilarious, a "philosopher" deleting arguments! Point out what poor arguments John Loftus makes and he deletes your posts.
When I responded with this, the "philosopher" deleted it again:
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Which part exactly was not civil so I can rephrase it for you?
Pointing out that the suffering of some puny animal on a rock in space can in no way impinge upon the enigmatic idea of an absolute god, and that when you say "I look at this world and ask" you are foolishly pretending that little ole temporal you can comprehend god?
Or pointing out that you're a closet-Christian continually preaching Christian values?
I guess neither is good for the whole "atheist" shpiel and book sales, huh?
10:11 PM, July 24, 2007
Here's my assessment.
der Scheinende is Frank Walton and he is banned from DC.
John W. Loftus is a girlie-man and he loves to band people under false pretenses.
der Scheinende is not me, stupid. How many imposters have I had in my life before? And how many times have you accused them of being me only to take it back (without apologizing, of course)?
Hugs and kisses,
Frank
Well, here's another post Loftus deleted on this topic. Funny that I have to go to a Christian blog to get open debate and freedom of expression ;-)
By my post times, any elementary logician might have figured out already that I live in Asia - unless "Frank Walton" works in an all-night laundromat.
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Uhh, who the heck is Frank Walton and what does it have to do with deleting all my posts pointing out your poor arguments or lack of atheism??? Certainly isn't me.
I just did a search of your blog for his name and you say:
"Christian apologists. I have in mind people like Robert Turkel, Frank Walton, Jonathan Sarfati, and others who seem, to me, to be confrontational and hostile towards nonbelievers and skeptics."
Anyone reading my posts can see that I'm obviously no Christian and in fact that I'm pointing out that you are still preaching Christian values and are not atheist yourself, even though claiming to be.
Go here to the bottom and read for yourself:
http://www.problemofevil.org/2007/06/hitchens-wilson-debate.html#comment-8984528586307933247
2:08 AM, July 26, 2007
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And further to the point of open debate, Loftus deleted these as well:
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And here are my posts you've deleted so far, which are clearly not apologies for Christianity, but knocking the superficiality of your atheism.
If you keep deleting them, it means you don't want to be called out; even if they were bad arguments, surely a philosopher doesn't think hiding them is the best way to argue???
[...]
2:13 AM, July 26, 2007
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der Scheinende said...
By the way, Mr. Loftus, I'm reposting all the posts you delete on other blogs you comment on but don't control to let people reading your posts know you manipulating debate here and delete anything that makes you look bad.
I have not been uncivil in any posts, but merely pointed out flaws in your approach and questioned your atheism because of the Christian morality you preach while avoiding the basic question of how it is actually atheist. You yourself have offered to answer but then never do.
4:04 AM, July 25, 2007
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Unless someone is swearing or posting 20 comments to abuse the debate, I see no reason for a philosopher - as opposed to a lowly book hawker - to manipulate debate and delete posts arguing against his position.
Do you?
Links never seem to show up well on these posts, but I'm linking above to my post near the bottom of that thread which starts:
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der Scheinende said...
---predicating one thing about another thing does not make sense unless you already assume a Christian worldview.
That, I'm afraid, is bordering on insane. You didn't even bother to invent your little god until a few years ago. Every animal including us has managed to make it around quite ably without him.
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And I'm supposed to be a Christian apologist???
Strange that that post is OK on Mr. Wood's Christian blog but questioning Loftus' atheism on his gets you deleted. Even we atheists, in all fairness, must thank Christianity for many things.
This is completely random and unrelated, but (since you mentioned him) I once played Jonathan Sarfati in chess. He won. Now for the interesting part. He was playing eight of us in chess at the same time, on eight different chess boards, and he was blindfolded the entire time. Someone was calling out our moves to him, and he would call his moves back. The games took about three hours, and he never messed up.
In a previous post, I said that I think that amazing abilities give us a glimpse of life prior to the Fall.
Well, I have no idea who he is either, Loftus the Deleter mentioned him.
--"I think that amazing abilities give us a glimpse of life prior to the Fall."
Even though I'm supposed to be a Christian apologist named "Frank Walton" who stays up every night to post in the AM, I think that insight is very obviously superficial and a case of "finding" something exactly where you hid it yourself.
It would be great if you could find a real atheist and philosopher who cares for honest debate there and get beyond the whole inane "something bad happened thus god can't exist" silliness.
Wow, googling for "john loftus atheist" to find out what his problem is, I came up with this site that shows that he make a fake blog to discredit someone he disagreed with, then tried to cover it all up:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=97534
Is this true?
der scheinende,
The "Comments" section is not for random comments about John Loftus. It's for thoughts about the topic at hand.
Going against Jonathan Sarfati in chess? Whoa! I heard he was a genius at chess. I'm not surprised he's beat many people at the game.
It's one thing to be good at chess. It's something else to be able to keep track of eight players on eight chess boards without seeing them. That's just plain creepy.
--The "Comments" section is not for random comments about John Loftus.
Understood, just posted it here because he deletes my posts (and others apparently) and doing that and making fake blogs seriously calls into question his credibility as someone worthy of debate - the subject of this thread.
Numbers 31 describes the murder of tens of thousands of captured children for revenge purposes.
Deut 3 discusses the genocide of 60 cities to clear the land for God's people.
Both are immoral by any moral standard short of Hitler.
I believe in God, I don't believe He wants us to take moral instruction from Voices people hear in their heads. Today that is disease of the brain. They didn't know about diseases back then.
David, if you want another resource that is very good for problem of evil, try "The Third Peacock" by Robert Farrar Capon
David Wood said...The "Comments" section is not for random comments about John Loftus. It's for thoughts about the topic at hand.
I've been waiting for months to see you enforce what you said. I mean really, if this is your policy then why leave all of the off topic comments here by Frank Walton?
Loftus the Deleter returns, now demanding others censor his critics like he does on his blog. Amazing.
You clearly are not an atheist going by the moralistic arguments you continually make, but how can you call yourself a philosopher of any sort? You're an embarrassing partisan. As an atheist, I have to say this Christian blog is like a refuge compared to your treatment of discussion.
You need to stop trying to win arguments by destroying those who disagree with you and seriously contemplate the true nature of philosophy because you show no love of wisdom. Go away and sit on a beach and read the Gay Science over and over again until you learn to appreciate the question mark.
John,
I have to agree with der Scheinende in that I'm not a comment deleter.
If I get in the habit of deleting comments I don't like, I might end up going overboard and deleting not only comments that are critical of you, but comments that are critical of me as well. But I just couldn't live with myself knowing that I was censoring criticism of my views, personality, misdeeds, etc.
Now here's what I find amazing, John. In spite of all the insults you've tossed at me, I went ahead and stuck up for you. I said that people shouldn't be posting random attacks against you. And what was your response? "David, you should delete negative comments about me, just as I do on my blog."
Wow. Just . . . wow.
David, I think our comment policy is very reasonable. Since newpaper editors use the same standards there is no censorship at all. That's just stupid to say so.
And because of Blog terrorists like Frank Walton we no longer allow anonymous comments too.
Do you think after all of these off topic comments anyone will actually bother to comment on our debate? They will have to first read through all of this shit.
But do as thou wilt.
Now you're swearing on other people's blogs while linking to a policy that requests civility?
>>This blog is open to comments by anyone interested provided: (1) the comments are civil in tone, (2) they speak to the issues discussed, and (3) they are not spam-like sermons, or book length comments.
All of my posts that you deleted above met the criteria. You deleted them it seems because I argued that you are not really atheist because still preaching morality derived from Christianity.
The comments here are almost all about your censorship, Mr. Loftus. They wouldn't exist, and you wouldn't have all these battles to worry about, if you didn't censor and manipulate debate.
Just make your arguments, allow others to make theirs, follow a comment policy fairly and let everyone think about the discussion for themselves. As a very last resort, it's a good exercise in objectivity to edit out very carefully any overt rudeness (e.g., Mr. Walton's silly girlie-man comments) while allowing an opponent's points and adding a note to debate nicely. Far better than deleting.
Also, these comments are on-topic because the thread is about debating you.
Normally I would never comment so often on a thread, or repost items, so my apologies to the blog for that, but it is a very odd situation when a "philosopher" tries to silence opposing views.
And that is my last comment.
Sorry, I'm already going to break my pledge. I thought I would test Mr. Loftus's sincerity and comment policy last night and posted on his thread entitled "Ex-Christians and the Church of Christ."
I posted this:
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der Scheinende said...
I don't think many people at all truly lose their Christian foundations, but merely the overt and obviously absurd beliefs. For example, I've pointed out a few times that Mr. Loftus himself preaches morality based upon Christian notions of "Evil" and Christian mythology of equal and infinitely valued souls.
3:48 PM, September 27, 2007
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This morning it was deleted.
Today he has a timely thread about his comment policy being the same as elsewhere so I just posted on it asking him why he deleted the above post. Got a screenshot of this one. Afterwards it was deleted as well.
Screenshot before deleted:
http://i22.tinypic.com/dgh1s7.jpg
der Scheinende is banned from DC no matter what he writes. The moral lesson is not to get banned in the first place. I've adopted Daylight Atheism's comment policy.
David, it's only ignorance to think you can have a respectful decent discussion of our debate without the enforcement of a comment policy when there are blog terrorists like Frank Walton out there who go by so many names it's hard to keep track. Trust me. Your non-policy discourages intelligent people to comment. Why should they?
But do as thou wilt.
I guess I have to reply here, don't I?
>>I think our comment policy is very reasonable. Since newpaper editors use the same standards there is no censorship at all.
Clearly you follow no standard comment policy at all and, as you have admitted, simply censor any critic you want "no matter what he writes."
I, for one, obviously didn't violate any comment policy, as you implicitly admit. As you stated above, I was censored merely because you thought maybe I was some guy named "Frank Walton." Or so you say. It is OBVIOUS to anyone that I am not him - just look at my post times (I live in Asia) and the content of my posts.
>>ignorance
>>stupid
>>shit
This is the language you use to encourage civil philosophical debate?
Blogs such as this one remain interesting to read because differing views are voiced civilly, not censored so as to give the very temporary and meretricious appearance of the home team's having "won" another argument.
With all due respect, you don't appear to be a very reasonable person, Mr. Loftus.
John,
You say that my policy discourages intelligent people from commenting. It's interesting to note, however, that the only problem I've had so far is due to you. (And be honest, John. You delete quite a bit more than your policy claims.)
Note also that I'm only having a problem now because you started complaining. Der Scheinende posted some comments about you, and I requested that he stop. And he did. No problems after that. (Policy works just fine, eh?) Then you entered the blog and complained that I'm not deleting old negative comments about you. You then started an argument, and now you're using the argument (which you started) as evidence that I should adopt your policy.
And you call Frank Walton a blog terrorist?
Quit coming to my blog causing confusion (and then complaining about the confusion you've caused). I've specifically avoided posting over the past few months to let some of the old tensions die down, and all you do is try to cause trouble. Grow up.
I'm entitled to a defence, I hope.
>>I did not ban der Scheinende simply because I believe he is Walton, which I still maintain.
You clearly stated at the top of this thread, plain and simple, "der Scheinende is Frank Walton and he is banned from DC." No other reason given.
And as a logician, how do you explain my post times? Do you really want to maintain that some guy name Walton is waking up in the middle of the night to post things contrary to his own beliefs just to befuddle you?
>>He was banned for abusive posts which, unfortunately, I failed to save as examples.
Now you are really telling tales. I posted above the EXACT posts you first deleted, and they are clearly not abusive at all. I don't swear or use abusive language like you have on here. Not my style.
I have only posted here because the thread is about debating Mr. Loftus. I think Mr. Loftus has shown himself to be highly disingenuous (to the point of asking people to trust him about others making fake posts when he himself actually set up an entire fake blog to attack someone's character).
Moreover, as I posted at the beginning of the thread, Mr. Loftus is clearly shown to not be an atheist at all when his moral preaching is even lightly examined (which seems to have been my real offense). I would like to see Mr. Woods debate a real atheist, that's all, not waste time on superficial arguments about suffering. As I posted before, the suffering of some animal on a little rock in space can in no way impinge upon the enigmatic idea of god, even if religious books and proponents contradict themselves on the matter. An atheist wastes his time (and ours) trying to prove otherwise.
One main argument that David Wood makes is that since I think naturalism is true even though I cannot sufficiently explain complexity in the universe, I shouldn't fault him for not being able to explain why God purportedly commanded genocide or allows so much suffering.
Is there parity here? I think not, for many reasons I share on my blog every week. I'm not the one who must also justify miracles, theories about incarnation and the Trinity. Nor am I asked to justify the atonement, or the five stages of gospel canonization via uninspired people leading to the claim the NT is inspired (oral, various compositions, four gospels, transmission, and canonization), and so forth and so forth. But he does! He must do this BEFORE getting to the problem of the Amlekites. He shouldn't even come to that problem because there are so many previous stoppers to his belief. But if these previous stoppers don't stop him dead in his tracks, he is faced with an inspired book which allows slavery, human sacrifice, and commands genocide, witch and honor killings.
>>I'm not the one who must also justify miracles, theories about incarnation and the Trinity.
I don't see that any Christian must justify them, or possibly could. They must have faith in their god, nothing more.
>>he is faced with an inspired book
The Bible is not the Koran.
>>which allows slavery, human sacrifice, and commands genocide, witch and honor killings.
And what exactly is wrong with those actions according to your so-called "atheist" morality? Are you once again denouncing actions based on the Christian mythology of equal and infinitely valued souls?
If you mean instead that they're perfectly fine actions but not terribly Christian, then Mr. Woods has already answered that objection: only his god knows why he wills as he does in this lesser realm. A perfectly coherent response.
John,
I'm not sure why you don't get this point, considering we've been over it numerous times. I'm not saying (as you suggest) that since you can't explain complexity, I don't need to explain suffering. Rather, I'm accusing you of changing both your methodology and your level of skepticism depending on whether you're examining an argument for theism or an argument for atheism. That is, you go to an argument for theism, and your skepticism is at it's highest level. Then you examine an argument for atheism, and your skepticism level suddenly drops to nil. You're being inconsistent, plain and simple.
Now for a brief defense of my point.
The argument from evil goes something like this. If God exists, there wouldn’t be any pointless suffering. But there’s lots of suffering that seems pointless. So God probably doesn’t exist. But notice what the atheist is claiming. There’s probably no point to at least some suffering. It’s possible that there’s a point, but it’s really unlikely. So God probably doesn’t exist. The atheist is saying that we shouldn’t believe in something that’s improbable. But what happens when atheists are confronted by, say, the design argument? The theist argues, “Look, it’s really improbable that life formed on its own, or that the universe just happened to turn out just right for life. So life and the world probably have a designer.” And the atheist responds, “Yes, it may be improbable, but I’m going to believe it anyway.” And that’s inconsistent. The atheist tells the theist, “Hey, it’s improbable that there’s a reason for all this suffering, so reject God.” Then he turns around and says, “Of course it’s improbable that life formed on its own. But it’s okay to go against the probabilities.”
There’s a double standard here. And I would say that even if a theist has no explanation for suffering, he’s no worse off that the atheist who has no explanation for the origin of the universe, for the complexity of life, for the resurrection, etc. Now if the theist actually has some reasons why God would allow suffering, and if it can be shown that there are some problems with the argument from evil, then it seems the theist is on much better ground than the atheist, at least as far as arguments are concerned.
Which part of this is unclear, John?
DW: I'm not saying (as you suggest) that since you can't explain complexity, I don't need to explain suffering.
I never said you said that.
DW: Rather, I'm accusing you of changing both your methodology and your level of skepticism depending on whether you're examining an argument for theism or an argument for atheism. You're being inconsistent, plain and simple.
Not so. I believe in the presumption of skepticism. Skepticism (or soft agnosticism, “I don’t know”) is the default position.
DW: Now for a brief defense of my point. The atheist is saying that we shouldn’t believe in something that’s improbable. But what happens when atheists are confronted by, say, the design argument? And the atheist responds, “Yes, it may be improbable, but I’m going to believe it anyway.”
David, when we assess whole worldviews we do so just like a jury does so with the whole case, and your whole case falls to the ground many times. The design argument is a Kuhnian anomaly that when placed against unintelligent design and the rest of my case it does not tip the scales in favor of your worldview. You should know this.
And I would say that even if a theist has no explanation for suffering, he’s no worse off that the atheist who has no explanation for the origin of the universe, for the complexity of life, for the resurrection, etc.
And that is exactly the point I addressed in my very last post here.
David, let me explain the difference between us.
You said...And I would say that even if a theist has no explanation for suffering, he’s no worse off that the atheist who has no explanation for the origin of the universe, for the complexity of life, for the resurrection, etc.
Christians and I reject all other religions. I simply reject their Christian religion with the same confidence they have when rejecting all other religions. The rejection of a religious viewpoint is the easy part. We all do it. And we're all confident when doing so. The hard part after the rejection is to affirm a religious viewpoint. That's where a person must argue that he has the correct one. And from what I see, Christians are just as confident that they are right as that the others are wrong, unlike me. I think the default position is soft-agnosticism, which simply says, "I don't know." That's right, I don't know what to believe after rejecting all religious viewpoints. I could even happily concede that there is a God, a deist god, a philosopher's god. But such a distant god is no different than none at all. Think about it. That's why I've chosen to be an atheist, since it makes no difference to me even if a god does exist. But I could be wrong, and I admit it.
Christians on the other hand seem absolutely confident that they are correct in what they affirm, and that's a huge difference between us. Given the proliferation of religious viewpoints separated by geographical location around the globe, the fact that believers have a strong tendency to rationally support what they were taught to believe (before they had the knowledge or capability to properly evaluate it), along with the lack of compelling evidence to convince people who are outsiders to the Christian faith, mine is the reasonable viewpoint to affirm, that's all.
Wow! So you're actually an agnostic, and have admitted that, for all you know, there may be a God, and that some religion may be true. But you've decided to be an atheist, even though agnosticism is your real position. And this, according to you, is the "reasonable viewpoint to affirm"?
Let's turn the tables, then. Suppose a Christian said to you, "I don't know what's true. There may be a God, or maybe not. I'm an agnostic. But I've decided to be a Christian. Hey, why not?"
Now, based on what you've said, you couldn't have any real objections to such a position. But suppose the Christian took things a bit further and added, "And since I've decided to be a Christian (even though I'm not really sure), I'm going to go ahead and believe that Christianity is the absolute truth, and that all other systems are false. If I'm going to be a Christian, I might as well go all the way."
Here again, you could have no logically consistent objection. The person begins by saying that he doesn't know what is true (as you have done), and then proceeds to pick a system to believe (just as you have done).
This would be just as reasonable a viewpoint as your own.
P.S. You never actually responded to my previous criticism, where I showed that you are being inconsistent. Would you care to take a crack at it, without changing the subject?
David, do you find me to mischaracterize what you say? You may disagree with me or say "we've gone over this before," but do I mischaracterize what you say?
Just curious.
I think you do every single time you respond to me, that's all. So I want to know if the feeling is mutual. Perhaps you can also provide several examples where I did this.
You simply must utilize the principle of charity when responding to an opponent. You know what that is, but you do not do this.
Anyway, moving off the default position of soft-agnosticism to atheism is a small step when compared to moving up the ladder to a full-blown Christian world-view. For you to move from soft-agnosticism to a Christian God is like trying to fly a plane to the moon.
Cheers.
David, in case you missed it, I did respond to your charge of inconsistency earlier.
Let me quote:
Is there parity here? I think not, for many reasons I share on my blog every week. I'm not the one who must also justify miracles, theories about incarnation and the Trinity. Nor am I asked to justify the atonement, or the five stages of gospel canonization via uninspired people leading to the claim the NT is inspired (oral, various compositions, four gospels, transmission, and canonization), and so forth and so forth.
John,
You said that you may be wrong about your atheism, and that soft agnosticism is the best position. You also said that you've chosen to be an atheist (i.e. you're not there because the evidence compels you, but because you've made a choice). That says a lot about your atheism.
You condemn Christians for being confident that they are right. I must say, however, that it's quite difficult to think we're wrong when we've got a resurrection from the dead.
I'm wondering, though, whether you condemn, say, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris for their confidence. If not, then you're being inconsistent once again.
And this brings us to the matter of your constant inconsistency. It's funny that I've brought this up over and over again, and yet you've never been able to answer it. I called you out for not answering the objection, and you responded by saying that you had already answered it. But let me be clear here. I didn't say that you didn't type something in response. I said that you didn't answer the objection. And there's a huge difference, John, between typing something and actually answering an objection.
Let's review.
JOHN (When examining the Problem of Evil): Look at all the suffering in the world! It's improbable that there could be reasons for all of it. Hence, it's improbable that God exists. Reject God!
JOHN (When examining the Design Argument): Yes, of course it's improbable that life and the fine-tuning of the universe could occur without an intelligence, but to hell with the probabilities! It's okay to go against the probabilities!
DAVID: John, you're being inconsistent. When you examine the Problem of Evil, you say that we must go with what seems most probable on this issue, and that we're irrational if we don't. But when you examine the Design Argument, you don't seem to care about probabilities any more. Why the switch?
JOHN: We're not talking about the Design Argument! Quit trying to distract people from the Problem of Evil!
DAVID: But my main concern is methodology. You're not being consistent in how you handle arguments, which shows that you're not examining them objectively. Instead, you're clinging to whatever arguments you like, and throwing out arguments you don't like, not on the basis of reasoning, but on the basis of what makes you feel good.
JOHN: Well, Christianity has all sorts of other problems.
DAVID: That may be true, but please answer the objection. Why do you change your methodology depending on the argument you're examining? When you examine arguments for Christianity, you look for any excuse to reject the argument, no matter how flawed your excuse may be. But when you examine arguments for atheism, you don't care how ridiculous the argument is. You will simply stomp your foot and say that it's a great argument. So why won't you answer this objection?
JOHN: I did answer! I said that Christianity has lots of other problems!
DAVID: How does that answer the objection I raised? Now all you're saying is "I don't care about being consistent in my methodology, so quit bringing this up." But why should anyone care about your objections against Christianity, when you won't answer objections to your own position.
I have to say, John, that I'm amazed that atheism seems to compel it's adherents to throw logic out the window.
>>it's quite difficult to think we're wrong when we've got a resurrection from the dead
I don't understand this comment at all. You must know you have no such thing. You know you have an old book in which a few sect members merely claim someone from their sect rose from the dead, but nothing more.
>>And the atheist responds, “Yes, it may be improbable
I don't any atheist thinks "natural" design problematic so I don't understand the bias towards intelligent design. We have no way of judging the world to be intelligently designed at all because we are trapped within it and cannot compare it to some unknowable god-like "intelligent" world. We won't think it too intelligently designed even in human terms when our species disappears again shortly.
As to your main point, do you think there is no difference between denial of a active god behind the scenes and acceptance of one? John is saying their is much more involved in accepting one and thus a higher burden of proof (particularly the Christian god which drags along many seeming absurdities), hence no inconsistency in his testing of the two sides.
Der Scheinende said: "You must know you have no such thing. You know you have an old book in which a few sect members merely claim someone from their sect rose from the dead, but nothing more."
You might want to study the issue before you make comments like this. I converted from atheism to Christianity because of the evidence for the resurrection.
Der Scheinende said: "John is saying their is much more involved in accepting one and thus a higher burden of proof (particularly the Christian god which drags along many seeming absurdities), hence no inconsistency in his testing of the two sides."
I am amazed that atheists seem to have no concept of methodological consistency. The issue here isn't burden of proof in establishing one position over another. The issue is whether atheists apply the same standards to one argument that they apply to others. And here they are clearly being inconsistent, as I have shown.
To put it differently, an atheist could be consistent in evaluating arguments and yet still hold that theism requires more evidence. An atheist could say, for instance, "Well, since I allow myself to go without an explanation for cosmological fine-tuning or biological complexity, I shouldn't require theists to have full explanations for every ounce of evil in the world. I still reject theism, because I don't think there's enough evidence. But I can't consistently use the Argument from Evil that I've been using, because I would have to apply different standards to different arguments."
Something like that would be far more respectable than the constant method-switching I see from atheists.
David, the comparison I'm making is between two positions. On the one hand there is a full blown Christianity called evangelicalism. On the other hand is the position that we don't know the answers to metaphysical questions (soft-agnosticism...not that we cannot know, only that we don't know). I'm claiming that soft-agnosticism is more probable given the range of issues that must be defended from an evangelical viewpoint, the amount of suffering in this world, and the degree of religious diversity we find as well.
Soft-agnosticism is the default position. But this doesn't mean we must stay in default mode. It's just, well, the default position. Everyone should begin there.
I further argue you have a long long road to travel before you can affirm evangelicalism, which must posit the brute fact of a supreme being who never had a beginning, who will never cease to exist, who always existed as three persons, and never learned any new truths. I also affrim that one major reason we don't know the answers we seek is because this universe has no explanation apart from the fact that it just exists, a simpler brute fact (according to Ockam's razor). That's a meta-explanation I think is more reasonable and explains why this universe appears to be absurd on the surface.
Sam Harris argues we really must be honest about this. No one knows why we exist. But you not only think you have the answer, you seem supremely confident in your answer. I am just baffled at the confidence you have in what you affirm. Harris is merely confident you are wrong, just like you are confident Muslims are wrong. We are all confident in what we reject, you included. But when it comes to putting forth an alternative hypothesis intelligent skeptics and non-believers are all agnostics to some degree. This is where I part company with Dawkins.
>>because of the evidence for the resurrection
All of which comes back to some sect members making wild claims about a fellow sect member. I can come up with the same degree of "evidence" for my mother's body going missing after she passes away, including sightings, and you can then donate time and money to my church - just as one Jewish sect marketed itself :-)
>>no concept of methodological consistency
I don't see any methodological issue at all in what I asked. Not sure what particular method you want to apply but I agree in using one only and simply asked if you agree that affirming a Christian god requires more proof than not affirming it because of the claims it makes.
I'm not making an argument about evil, which is pointless. I'm also not asking about proving atheism true, which is never going to happen. All world-views and judgments about the value of life are unprovable and merely semiotic clues about us and our bodies, nothing more.
hey david, I have a personal question about some arguments. I would post them on here but I don't want to fool with all the back and forth. Can you tell me a way I can contact you via email or something? Thanks.
I have a question for David Wood:
If free will entails that we can choose to do bad things (as a defense of problem of evil) then that means in heaven, our free will is jeopardized because we can only do good things. How can you reconcile free will and heaven?
I am also a Christian BTW. I just don't know how can we possibly have free will in heaven if we cannot think of evil thoughts and do evil deeds.
I added this site to my apologetic search engine: www.apologiasearch.com - just thought I'd let you know.
Keep up the good work!
Michael
Interesting discussion. My thoughts are as follow.
In part three, around minute 14, Mr. Loftus says that he simply wants Mr. Wood to explain, on Wood's own worldview, why there is such much grotesque suffering in the world. He doesn't need to account for something so complex as the idea of "evil" (yet), he merely wants to know why an objective feature of reality is the way it is, given Wood's Christian worldview.
Even though I disagree with the epistemological and metaphysical assumptions behind that challenge, even granted them for the sake of discussion, there are problems.
First, the simplest answer that meets Loftus' criterion of providing an account for the existence of "so much" suffering, and is consistent with the biblical account of God, is that suffering (of whatever kind or degree) exists because God has a telic purpose for it which is consistent with His own moral character. Without a more complex notion like "evil" (or "bad", or whatever name you wish to attach to negative value judgments), the challenge goes "thus far, but no farther."
So that brings us to the second point. Mr. Loftus *is* using "suffering" as a value-laden term. He is evaluating it by levels. So what? Yeah--but not quantitative levels--*qualitative* levels. It's not that a cat tearing apart a bird causes "so much more" suffering than something else (that is, in terms of something like the number of neural pain "signals" processed or something--in fact, a quick death like that may "hurt" less than say, dieing of thirst; a very old person and newborn both die peacefully in their sleep, but the infant's death is "tragic" while the elderly person simply "lived a nice, full life"). No it's not quantity that distinguishes here. It's something about the quality of the situation that causes him to valuate it on a different level from just "unpleasant" or "unfortunate" and value it as "bad"--i.e., that which should not be (notice the ethical imperative hidden in there).
If Loftus simply sticks to his first tact and denies that his use of "suffering" is value-laden, he has an answer as to why there is suffering (of any sort or amount), and Christianity has won the debate already, right here. Nothing is inherently problematic with saying that volitional being does something (or ceases from doing something) for a reason. In fact, that's a major feature that distinguishes volitional and non-volitional beings.
But Mr. Loftus seems willing to go further than this--he appears to want to have standards of "fairness" or "truth" (e.g., "What did [innocent, helpless animals] do wrong [to deserve to suffer]?"--note the contradiction of terms used to rhetorically imply a negative value judgment and negative valuation of injustice)--and indeed, to raise any objection against a volitional being acting for a reason, he must introduce a system of moral standards and judgments, that will allow for the value-laden use of suffering--allow for the valuation of that reason for which the volitional being acts. These moral obligations might be along the lines of "a rational being *should* only act on reasons which are logically true and justified" or "a caring being *should* only act on reasons which tend to minimize all form and degree of suffering", "a just being *should* only act on reasons that result in consequences for all beings which are proportional to their actions" (and that is just to say that it is "evil" ("bad", &c) to fail to meet such obligations).
Only with such prescriptive standards in hand could Loftus attempt a move from the fact of suffering to some argument for doubting the existence or attributes of the Christian God. But at that point, the Christian is certainly within his rights to ask Mr. Loftus to account for the possibility of such a system of standards and judgments, given his own worldview. If it merely arises by convention or chance, then I'm not obligated to hold it. If holds that value judgments are not inherently different from imaginings or hallucinations, then I'm not obligated to hold it. In cases such as those, it has no logical necessity: it just happens to be the way it is, or happens to be how Americans look at things, or happens to be the epiphenomenal twinklings of molecules bumping together, &c, which makes it non-sense (it logically says I'm obligated (prescriptive) to behave in certain ways, and metalogically says people just happen to behave that way (descriptive).
However, if Mr. Loftus' ethical system really is normative and not merely descriptive, how is that possible on his worldview? According to his view, why is it absolutely wrong to whip a slave woman (or for that matter, to own a slave woman in the first place)? Mr. Loftus may, theoretically, be able to come up with a prescriptive ethical system on his worldview (I don't believe it's possible, but again, just for discussion). That's fine. But until he does, Christians are justified in saying that his challenge has been met: God ordains suffering in the world because of his over-arching telic purpose for the world which is consistent with His own holy moral character. The ball is in Mr. Loftus' court now.
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