Tom Lee and I have been chatting again, this time he presents an argument about the problem of evil, and makes a case for the whole "argument from evil"[1] being an unsound argument. Particularly, his argument is here, and I highly recommend taking a look. I won’t be directly quoting it, but I’ll do my best to be fair in my interpretation.
That said, Tom, if you feel I’m being unfair in my characterization of your argument, feel free to respond. I’ll add notes to this post indicating your disagreement, and respond to them in turn, in a different font or something. I will not delete anything I write here, so that in the future, I will not (if I were of the nature to do so) be able to deny having said it. I want this to be a fair and logical discussion, with no author/commenters bias. I say this here principally as a disclaimer, and so that in the future, no one will think otherwise. I respect your civility (I’ve had lots of uncivil commenters in the past), and as such I want to encourage it by being as fair as possible to you.
Okay, now for the fun part.
* Factual Errors
First, just some factual errors. Hitler wasn’t an atheist. It’s a common mistake, since many ascribe that the use of social darwinism (a pseudoscience, I might add) requires atheistic beliefs, because only atheists could be so evil/whatever (so the usual gambit goes). However, as we can plainly see in here that Hitler spoke positively of Christian beliefs, and even referred to the Christian God as "His Lord and Savior" — now, this does not mean Hitler was Christian, but I don’t know of any atheists who would do that. Further, I’m not trying to imply that Hitler was the kind of Christian you or any other modern Christian is (for the most part, the KKK often claims they are Christians). In reality, I think that Hitler had a perverse notion of Christianity in which the Nation was the direct manifestation of God. However, I do my best to leave the Nazi’s out of discussion. As I do with Stalin, and Torquemada, and the myriad other piss-poor examples of human beings from history. These people had messed up beliefs, poor systems of ethics (Stalin was not the kind of atheist I am, his system of ethics and his beliefs were vastly different from mine and most atheists today).
Further, Darwin did not imply that the "weak" should die — at least not in the sense you mean it. Darwin observed a fact. Those creatures who are not as capable at survival tend not to survive. This notion that Darwin advocated running around and murdering the weak is ridiculous. Babies are weak, and incapable of surviving on their own, the assertion that Darwin says the weak should die would imply that Darwin thinks we should go around murdering babies! But this is a gross misunderstanding of the theory. Evolution, particularly, natural selection, is just an observation of a fact, not a mandate. Furthermore, the notion of "weakness" is dependent on the environment. That is, I have poor eyesight, so in a long range marksmanship test, I am "weak" — I am thus likely to lose the test. However, I am very good at mathematics. The same person who may have bested me on the marksmanship test is now the "weak" one, and will likely lose if presented with a complicated math problem. Thus, this notion of Social Darwinism (which is what we’re talking about) is bunk on it’s face. The idea that we should actively "select" the "strongest" is stupid — we have, nor does there exist, any notion of fitness which is good for all environments. Hilter did not apply social darwinism, he applied genocide, and tried to justify it using psuedoscientific jargon. Darwin’s ideas weren’t the inspiration for the Holocaust, they were just abused to become a justification for it. A piss-poor one at that (though, I think there is no justification for the mass slaughter of 6 million jews and 5 million other minorities).
Still further, Darwin didn’t "complain that keeping unhealthy people alive in hospitals and asylums must be detrimental to the human race", nor did he conclude "We must, therefore, bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind." At least, not in any of the books by Darwin which I’ve read, If you have a source, please provide it. Those things sound more like propaganda provided by Goebbels than any scientific observation by Darwin.
* The Argument Proper
Moving on, we’re actually moving back to talk about the substance of your argument, beyond the factual errors, let’s consider the first portion first, namely your discussion of — to sum up — "How evil requires an absolute standard"
First point, you make the assertion that the existence of evil requires a absolute standard, I disagree. If you’ll pardon a little math lingo, I can define any arbitrary standard I care for to the set of all human actions, and call it an ethical code (eg, something that delineates good from evil). More or less, I assert that I can arbitrarily ascribe an action to be good or evil dependent on nothing more than random chance. Is it a "good" ethos? Well, it is in the sense that it’s as valid as any other, but it does not appeal to our intuition of what is "right" and "wrong" morally, and there’s the rub. Humans have a sense of "morality" a notion which is more emotional than logical, there is an intrinsic "rightness" to some actions and a "wrongness" to others. However, where you see God, I see evolution and altruism. I argue that morality is principally genetic in nature. Namely, that as populations of creatures grew, it became evident that sometimes the sacrifice of an older member of the group (in some way, whether sacrifice means death, or other ill-effect to the ability of that creature to propagate it’s genetics) to protect a younger member was genetically "worthwhile" as the next generation would thus have more opportunity to propagate the genes of the species as a whole. Thus creatures with strong altruistic tendencies tend to spread their genes more, thus there become more genes which cause altruistic tendencies [2], thus there are more creatures who are altruistic, and so on. As mentioned in [2], this set of basic instinctual acts — protect the young, defend the tribe, don’t kill other tribemembers etc — become cultural mores, which in turn evolve into things like "Stealing someone’s car is immoral" etc. That is, I argue that a system or morals evolves based on ones culture.
But this implies that morals can vary across cultures — and sure enough, they do. If you examine the morals of aboriginal people of the various regions of the world, you find that some cultures treat Honor Killings as a moral necessity. Are these practices ethically sound? Well, it depends on who you ask. If you ask me, I think they’re horrific. If you ask someone with a different ethos and set of mores, you may find otherwise. That is to say, I don’t disagree that we judged, say, the defendants at the Nuremburg trials absolutely, but it was only absolute within the framework of western ethics and morality.
What’s more, Morals change over time. At one point, it was considered immoral to marry someone of another race, that is no longer the case. It was similarly considered morally acceptable to own slaves, persecute Protestants, etc. None of these things are considered valid anymore. If morals were granted by God and are immutable and absolute, how can it be that morals have changed so much over time?
In general, the existence of evil is determined by ones culture, but every culture has some definition of evil, so consider an omnibenevolent God in any culture, the existence of evil in that culture — I argue — is contradictory with the notion of an omnibenevolent god within that culture. So really, this is an error on my part, I should have specified that the definitions of evil and omnibenevolence are indexed by culture, but I still hold that the overall argument holds within a specified culture, and I was simply arguing from "our" particular culture. Thus, evil does not require an objective standard universally, but rather a objective standard within the particular culture where the argument takes place.
Thus, I argue, the atheistic argument is not invalid, in fact it is quite valid, given appropriate specification — I was implicitly arguing from a particular cultural definition of "good" and "evil". This is somewhat ethnocentrist of me, and so I should have been more careful, however the argument is sufficiently parametric to function in any context, after noticing that the good/evil question is not absolute. I leave you then with the following question, which I dearly love to ask, a kind of thought experiment.
Consider if your particular god (so that we remain polymorphic over all gods, I don’t specify which one, just assume it is "absolutist" in his or her moral code) ordered you to murder all shorter than 5′ 6”, without prejudice or hesitation. This was written in no uncertain terms in a book you believe to be perfect and infallible. Is it therefore "right" to simply slaughter all of those people? Is is morally sound to do so? I argue it is not, that murder (at least in our ethos and with our set of mores) is wrong regardless of the particular deity who advocates it.
This thought hearkens back to the "Lawgiver" fallacy, that is:
- Every law has a lawgiver
- There exist natural laws
- Thus there must be a lawgiver for natural laws.
However, this is an equivocation fallacy, natural laws and civil laws are not the same thing. Similarly here, evil, more specifically good, is being equated with following the absolute laws provided by some deity, which in turn assumes that moral codes can only come from a deity.
So, in summary, Tom, I disagree with your argument, however, I think you also misunderstood my argument. You end your comment with "Thus, the theist does not have to defend his position" etc. (that’s paraphrased, by the way) — but my argument doesn’t attack your god, or any god. If you observe my axioms as I laid them out in the beginning of the "Deconstructing God" series, I argued that the only gods I could address would have to obey the following rules (paraphrase):
- Everything obeys the rules of a consistent logic.
- There is no logic that is both complete and consistent
- There is no unexplainable phenomenon, no inherently impossible feat within the universe.
- Any entity must obey the Self-Consistency Principle
These rules are completely inapplicable to the God most Christians worship (I assume you’re Christian based on the content of your comments, please correct me if I’m wrong), who generally is assumed to exist outside of the realm of so-called "human" logic. What I’m saying, effectively, is that there is no way you can possibly convince me that this particular kind of God exists — that is, one that exists outside of logic — without demonstrating my axioms to be incorrect, which — I’ll be honest, I don’t think is possible, I’ve tried very hard to do just that! I just felt that there might be a little hostility / resentment in those last lines, so I wanted to assure you that I could not care less about disproving your particular deity. I just like asking questions, the whole series was mostly an intellectual exercise.
Alright, I’ve procrastinated enough, I have English homework to do, and then I get to work on Topology and Abstract Algebra, so I really want to get through the English homework… 
/Joe
[1] As he puts it, which I think is not a bad bit of terminology, modulo the implicit association with fallacies, which I think is not particularly strong.
[2] Though, I would argue that altruism spreads more on the level of meme (eg, evolution of ideas, rather than genes proper. The term is due to Richard Dawkins), there is (in my opinion) some level of genetic basis to "jumpstart" the notion.
I will contunue What I have about but I what this stated first.
First before I go on Yes I’m an , but I a paticular kind of Christian, I’m LDS. Second let me tell you just what I beleive God to be. Unlike what I put above, which I found, this I put together myself.
What I personally believe God is.
*Some of this is unique to my church.
His love and goodness is all encompassing, and is only limited by his wisdom. But he is also a god of justice, and cannot tolerate evil to be in his presence even though we are his children (*literally, and that is that he is the actual father of our spirit). But he also gives us plenty of chances, like *those that have died without knowing him being given the chance to accept (work for those who have died, the Atonement, and *That if a little child die they do going straight to heaven/Celestial Kingdom, I am very passionate about that last part I do not like how some religons say children need to be baptized.
His knowledge and wisdom are beyond our understanding; he knows the past, the present, and the future, and in many ways these are the same thing to him. Nothing is hidden from him, and he sees all possible paths, and knows everything will work out as he has planned.
He is the beginning and ending of all things, his power knows no bounds and has few restraints.
He is eternal, and *has a body of flesh and bone, he is not a spirit.
He is Omnipresent, but this is usually only shown by the spirit (Holy Ghost/ Spirit of God he/it *being a separate being) that bears witness of him and the fact nothing can be hidden from him, because he himself has rarely shown his presentence to anyone on this world, he has though, Moses.
God is a god of order and structure; he has no wish to do anything that is against his basic nature, he cannot lie, but he can and does at times hold back his knowledge, biggest example being if someone tries to explain something and it goes over that persons head or they misunderstand what is being said.
God is an Infinite (never ending or dying) Being, so since we are only finite (we do come to an end and also die) beings how can we truly understand every reason for everything that happens on this world. To God a 1000 years to us is only one day to him
There is a force(Satan) who wants us to be miserable, commit evil, be selfish, it is said that (an example is in the Book of Job) God has allow this force a degree of power to tempt man and cause misery. But instead of destroying mankind it has grown, because you see like a diamond made from pressure and heat, tribulation and difficult times can make us better, and stronger. God has given us agency to choose good or evil, to be selfish or selfless, to help those in need or to hoard all we have, will we rise above that which is most basic and most barbaric/selfish, or be better and greater, to learn everything we can and grow as much as we can. I cannot answer all questions on evil but neither can you judge what a god should and should not do to combat evil, for the fact we do not know everything or know what life holds. You are making an assumption, we cannot assume to know everything about God, or his work.
Lastly evil in the truest sense is because a person does not have the Spirit of God, like darkness is only the absence of light, and cold is only the absence of heat. Without a belief in God or gods there is technically no evil, because God is the author of ethics, without him the term evil would have no substance we could do whatever we want and call it a part of our nature, and a part of life. One could say “We must take what we want”; “It’s kill or be killed”; “Only the strong shall survive”; and the list can go on.
Comment by Thomaslee — October 15, 2009 @ 11:57 am
Sorry about the mistakes first paragraph, I didn’t look over before I commented.
Comment by Thomaslee — October 15, 2009 @ 11:59 am
Okay, so you’re a mormon, with standard issue zoroastrian-inspired beliefs. As I mentioned, my proofs don’t apply if you don’t accept the arguments. But I do want to disagree with you on one point (again, arguing from my set of axioms).
Ethics, by definition, is the application of logic to determine “right” actions from “wrong” ones- that is, an ethically good action is one which follows from a set of axioms which define good actions, and a bad action similar. There is no need for God here, it’s purely logical.
Morals, on the other hand, are principally instinctual/emotional, these don’t _need_ to come from a diety, but they _can_ come from a deity. They are the set of things which we feel are intuitively “good” or “bad” — they tend to be more absolute than ethical standards, and in some sense generally inform ethics by way of providing some insight to what is axiomatically ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in ethics, but generally, they are separate from ethics.
My point of disagreement is thus, God may be _one source_ of _morality_, but he is not the only one, and has absolutely nothing to do with ethics. Furthermore, each of your examples are somewhat absurd. Sure, we _could_ say those things, but we could say those things whether or not god was involved. The Catholic Church did as much wrt Protestants during the Dark Ages. Furthermore, we could say _fantastic_ things, like “We should be good to one another, regardless of race, creed, color or sexual preference” or “We shouldn’t assert that people of another race are somehow less worthy that we.”
In any case, your beliefs are your own, but as I always encourage, challenge them. The Bible says “Iron sharpeneth Iron”, I’m happy to play the role of second-iron, and I think that challenging what we know is the most important thing we can do.
Comment by jfredett — October 15, 2009 @ 12:18 pm
Ok now that is understood, I will go on with trying to break down the Problem will Evil.
I will have to break this up into a few parts.
Answering the Second Premise: evil is incompatible with God
In the second objection, the atheist is asked, how do you know that evil is incompatible with God? After all, it’s possible that God has a reason for allowing evil?
Just as a doctor amputates a limb for a reason (often because it is diseased), it is possible that God has a reason for allowing evil in this world. Note that we use the words “it is possible”. This touches on one misconception of the theist’s objection.
This misconception is that the atheist might accept that there is an unknown reason or justifying good, but only if the theist can prove that a reason exists in the first place. Another way of saying this is that the theist, using the second objection, is assuming that a reason exists. But he cannot just assume this. He must provide proof for his assumption. It follows that the ultimate onus of proof is on the theist.
This is a misunderstanding of the theist’s response. The theist need not provide proof for the claim that there is a reason because this is not his claim. The theist, in responding to the argument from evil by objecting to premise 2, (ie. the existence of evil is incompatible with the existence of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient God.) is not trying to prove that the conclusion is false (though it is obvious that the theist believes it is). The conclusion must be shown to be false by other arguments (eg, design, moral, historical, cosmological, etc.).
The theist is arguing that premise 1 is false so the conclusion does not have to be true. Because of this, the argument from evil cannot be used to prove that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God does not exist. In other words, the theist is arguing that the argument from evil is of no value because there is no inconsistency between God’s attributes and evil. Proving that there is a reason is effectively asking whether God exists or not. That is a different question altogether.
So the theist is not claiming that a reason exists, but rather that a reason possibly exists. Since it is possible that God has a reason, premise 2 is false.
This reason must be connected with good. For:
Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.
God would not allow evil to exist and corrupt His people without a justifying good. Of course, such good must outweigh the evil, and the evil must be necessary to achieve the good.
Here we hit upon another misconception about the theist’s objection. Some would say that claiming it is possible that God has a reason implies that God is not omnipotent. They argue that an omnipotent being could surely find a way to bring about this good without permitting evil.
However, it must be remembered that omnipotence means the power to do things which are logically possible. For example, no power can make a logical contradiction, such as a square circle.
So it is still possible that God has a reason (justifying good) for allowing this evil. For it may be logically impossible to achieve the good without the evil.
In response to the theist’s claim (ie. it is possible God has a reason) atheists often say that this accounts only for some of the evil. Indeed, there are cases where outweighing good needs an evil (eg. heroism, sympathy, generosity). But the atheist will insist that there are some evil situations in which there is no reason.
“Do you see any point in a small child being stricken with disease; a sincere man, who has a family, suddenly dying in a car crash; or millions of innocent unborn babies being murdered in the abortion centers?” the atheist will ask the theist.
We will name such examples which the atheist uses as specific evils, since the atheist specifies an evil by its kind, amount or distribution. So what he is arguing is this:
There are specific evils which are not necessary for achieving good, or the good could have been achieved without them.
An omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient God would prevent such specific evils.
Therefore, such a being does not exist.
This argument is valid. Hence, if the premises are accepted, the conclusion must be true.
But the point here is the atheist has still failed to prove his point. For it is still possible that God has a reason for allowing these specific evils. Therefore, premise 1 is false.
In addition, it needs to be said that the atheist has no way of explaining evil and nothing to offer those experiencing specific evils. The atheist’s position is no more plausible than he alleges the theist’s position to be.
In order to support the claim, ‘it is possible that God has a reason’, theists have responded in many ways.
One response is that God is so far above His creation and thus it is possible that there may be a reason which is not known. Hence, the theist need not give a reason or justifying good.
The atheist can also object by logical analogy and can argue that when a person allows an evil to happen which could have been prevented, such as leaving a child to drown, we would blame that person even if he claims to have a good reason.
But such an analogy is incorrect because there is a category difference. That is, God is not the same as a human being. God is the creator and thus has the right to take the life He has created, while His creatures have the duty to preserve life. The creator also has the power to resurrect the dead (a fact overlooked by many atheists).
Many theists have stressed the limited knowledge of humans and conclude that it is possible that God has a reason which we would not understand. Our ability to understand God’s ways is less than a stone-age man’s ability to understand why a doctor is not evil when he must amputate a gangrenous limb.
Some atheists attack this by claiming that since God is omnipotent, He would have infinite explaining power.[12] However, this is to misunderstand omnipotence. For it is logically impossible for God to explain his infinite ways to finite beings. There is no such thing as infinite explaining power because it takes two for the explanatory process. Just as a man without ears cannot hear sound, finite beings without infinite intelligence cannot understand infinitely complex reasons. They simply lack the necessary apparatus.
Another point is that even if God could explain the existence of evil to us, it does not mean He must do so. Can an atheist prove that the creator is morally obliged to justify Himself to His creatures?
Comment by Thomaslee — October 15, 2009 @ 12:37 pm
Okay, so- I’m working on a response - but I think that I’m going to, every few posts or so, push this discussion to a new post, so that we don’t have _massive_ threads which are hard to read lying around. If you have no objection, I’ll do that for the next (eg, not the response to this comment, but the one after) response.
I’ll be back with my response in a little bit, I have meetings for the next few hours.
Comment by jfredett — October 15, 2009 @ 12:43 pm
That is fine by me, and I was woundering is there a way for me to change my password, because the one I have now is impossible to remember and I have to go to my Email just to get into Humbuggery?
Comment by Thomaslee — October 15, 2009 @ 2:35 pm
I think you can go to the right-sidebar under the ‘meta’ header, there should be an “admin” or “account” link — that should be where the change pass option is.
Comment by jfredett — October 15, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
This is a interesting, fairly common response to the problem of evil, one which I generally find is argued against by simply denying the premise — eg, that omnibenevolence is abhorrent to the notion, that an omnibenevolent god wouldn’t be omnibenevolent if this were the case. I dislike this response, for numerous and basically irrelevant reasons, thats not to say that I don’t have a counterargument though.
Consider, by way of contradiction, that you are correct, and some omnibenevolent god (let’s name him, all this abstraction is annoying, we’ll call him “Jim”) is selectively omnibenevolent, in the sense that Jim will allow some evil in the event it leads to a greater good. Your argument is that this is a possibility, and thus shows the false dichomty of omnibenevolence and evil. You also object to having to support this with proof, simply saying that “I believe it, thus it (for me) does not need to be proved.” Which is true, but somewhat pointless, given that the discussion is not about apologetics, but rather logic. That is, making an assertion about the nature of God in this forum means making a logical assertion, one which _must_ be supported by evidence or proof (or both). That is to say, yes, from the point of view of a theist, the question is moot — the assumption is that God is omnibenevolent and thus proof is pointless, but that isn’t the premise here. The premise is the set of axioms laid out in the initial posts in that series. So it’s six-of-one, half-a-dozen of the other, but in this setting, I’d argue this needs more proof than you give.
Thus, your next point is also moot — yes, a theist can argue this, but the context _is not theistic!_ As I mentioned in the OP, this is an intellectual exercise _solely based on the axioms_.
I disagree that constructing a reason => existence. I could be “conditionally omnibenevolent” — in that, I could always aim to do an ethically good thing unless that thing would lead to poor consequences, but I am certainly not a god. Furthermore, consider what the unstated major premise of conditional omnibenevolence is. Namely, that god is omniscient. As I showed before — by the axioms laid out — true omniscience is impossible — it implies a solution to the Halting problem and a contradiction of Goedel’s Incompleteness Theorem. Thus since JIm _cannot_ be omniscient, at best he can be “pseudoconditionally omnibenevolent”, in the sense that since he _cannot_ know the consequences of every action, he can only go on what he _thinks_ is the best course of action, although he may be significantly smarter than you or I, he is still, fundamentally, guessing. But this is no different than us! All of us (ideally) aim to be ethically sound, and act in the situations where we think the greatest good can be achieved.
Skipping down a ways, I like the reminder than omnipotence is limited by logic, since I agree with you, discourse about this topic would be boring. Thus I’ll move on.
Concerning the notion that God does not need to explain the existence of evil to us, I never said he had to. The beauty of my axiomatic arguments is that they put limits on the powers of deity without requiring any interaction on the part of the deity.
Furthermore, the notion of infinite/finite dichotomy is (and I’ve always thought this) fundamentally ridiculous. Theists make an assumption that God is infinite, and that humans are finite, and never the twain shall meet. But why must this be the case? As I showed in my original series, the punchline is that god is just an advanced version of us — surely if that is the case, than his infiniteness is not so infinite after all. Furthermore, we have a language for dealing with things which are infinite, we call that language mathematics. The result is simply, I reject this premise entirely. It’s entirely made up, a convenient way to avoid a logical snafu that occurs from this kind of argument.
So I suppose in summary, in some sense you are correct, omnibenevolence does not (necessarily) induce nonexistence, but rather it implies that any god is (as the conclusion of my original series states) not much more than a smarter, more capable version of us — that is, nothing more than something we can reasonably attain. Again, I must stress, this is from the set of axioms that were given in the beginning of the series. In some sense, I have given every theist a way out- you can simply reject the premises — the real challenge will be to those theists who find that axiom set is valid, but have a different idea of god than what is derived as necessary from those axioms.
Comment by jfredett — October 19, 2009 @ 10:37 pm
First in math aren’t some things seemingly infinite? An example of which could be Pi or π. Let’s say god isn’t “Omni” in any of these areas, and say his Power, Intelligence/Wisdom (For the fact the Wisdom is essential to many of my “personal” arguments), the idea of Divine Simplicity, to be in a position To Be Everywhere, the idea of Necessary existence, and last but not least his Goodness and Love. Like Pi could these traits go beyond anything we could possibly understand in are current position, even if they aren’t infinite?
Comment by Thomaslee — October 20, 2009 @ 11:26 am
Pi is not infinite, it’s irrational, and transcendental, we understand it pretty well. However, I think your goal is to say, “Maybe they God isn’t infinite, he’s just ‘a lot bigger’ than us” — I use “a lot bigger” to extend the metaphor, not in a literal physical sense. My argument is precisely that- that God — if he exists — is _just_ ‘a lot bigger’, and fundamentally finite. If god exists — and I don’t think that he does, but that’s for other reasons — then fundamentally he’s nothing we _couldn’t become ourselves_, except that it might take us a very long time.
Comment by jfredett — October 20, 2009 @ 12:34 pm
Also, let me apologize for the long delay for my last comment, I’ve been dealing with getting my GREs and stuff scheduled, so it’s been a hectic week.
Comment by jfredett — October 20, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
First, and maybe I was taught wrong in school or things have changed, but the last time I checked about two years ago mathematicians haven’t found an end to Pi yet, for the fact no computer has gotten far enough (that it breaks down or stops calculating). That Pi is like in the millions number-wise as far as we have gotten, and “seemingly” infinite, even if it isn’t. Second, that’s why I used it as an example, for the fact God “might” not be infinite, but that he would still be way beyond anything we know or completely understand. Three, the reason I said not infinite was because you seem to have a great dislike for “Omni” words, so I changed it to “almost” or “just under” infinite, but still beyond what we could judge completely.
Now before we go any farther may I ask what, “and I don’t think that he does, but that’s for other reasons” means; for this reason. You spoke earlier that you have meet people who have an idea in their head, and refuse to listen. My goal isn’t to convert but to have you at least consider that you might be wrong and that god might exist, but to continue this discussion I would like to better understand your position.
Comment by Thomaslee — October 21, 2009 @ 7:46 pm
Well, so my position is particularly that I don’t see a need for a deity. That is, I don’t see anything inherently inexplicable or confusing that would require a deity in place of something simpler. However, I find the question of how a deity would have to work, given some set of consistent axioms (like the ones I laid out, or some other set), what properties could he have. The way I have been arguing this case is by saying “The world follows these axioms, thus assuming only these axioms form a basis for all things we can prove about deities. What follows from those axioms?” The idea is not that the world _must_ follow these axioms, that’s a separate issue, but if we assume those axioms are valid, then certain things follow.
As far as the infinitude of pi, you’re definition is “correct” but only in a very particular sense. When a mathematician talks about infinity, he talks about an ethereal thing. Infinity is not simply “unending” or- moreover, something that we simply “haven’t found an ending for” Consider the set {1,2,3,4,5,…}. Is this set infinite? How do we know? What if it ends after 100 numbers? 100^100? Similarly, consider the set of all ratio’s of numbers, is it a “bigger” set then the set of all whole numbers? Furthermore, what does it mean to be “Just under” or “Almost” infinite? Is there a precise definition? This is why my axioms don’t touch on infinity, instead we leave infinity out. We instead argue that any being must abide by logic (The first two axioms deal with this), infinity doesn’t come into the issue except as a consequence of the fact that any god must abide by the axioms about infinity inferred by logic. The issue I have with infinity/finiteness is that the entire notion is _outside the scope of the axioms_, thus it is an invalid logical notion. That is to say, we have no precise definition, thus we _cannot even talk about it_ in any logical, coherent way.
I guess I can sum up my position as “radically logical” or “exclusively axiomatic”, I _will only ever_ argue from the axioms, if some notion is _independent_ of those axioms (like the infinite/finite notion, etc), then I _must_ reject it, since I have no language to talk about it. I could add more axioms, to deal with these notions, but this would require proving that no subset of those axioms are inconsistent (more so showing the whole set is inconsistent suffices), and with three axioms (really, 2 axioms, “Logic works” and “Everything abides by logic”) it’s easy to show no inconsistencies arise. With more axioms (and definitions, and etc), this becomes more difficult. However, adding consistent axioms preserves the theorems derived from the original set. So, no matter what axioms you add to the list, no axiom can contradict a previous theorem, which means anything I prove about a deity (based on my axioms, which codify part of my view of the world) is “untouchable” in the mathematical sense.
I hope that that makes sense.
Let me say that if God is “way beyond anything we know or completely understand” but fundamentally finite (which is what you argue) then we actually agree, the only difference is that I think “way beyond” isn’t so “way beyond” and is in fact not so far off. In essence, I’m saying I’m an optimist.
Comment by jfredett — October 21, 2009 @ 8:21 pm
I agree with you on your last point (which I have the feeling you already know this if you know anything about the LDS church), but what I don’t agree with is the notion that God is even possible weak. I believe we can become like God, but that is not something as easy as you are trying to make it. I believe this life is a test, like the end a year test at a collage, but you can’t us any of you notes and maybe you memory isn’t the best. Lastly we have only one source of help, and that the professor of the class, and he will only give you help if you follow his instructions carefully. If we pass it will prove to the professor that we can handle the responsibility that we will be given, and will give us our “MD”.
Now lets increase the difficultly even more, there are now 10 different distractions and you stop working on it, or you decide that you understand the test better then the teacher, that you do the test your way.
Now I under this set up would never work in a real collage, but what I’m trying to say is that we can’t think we know better than God, yes I believe it is attainable, but we don’t need to make God lesser then he is just to do that. We can become gods, but only if we keep our eyes on God, and follow his directions exactly, which can’t happen if we don’t believe he exists. Without God, or in other words the teacher, we will fail the test.
On a different note, I think it’s safe to say that neither of us will get very far at convincing the other, yes? You use your knowledge and “your” logic to understand that God doesn’t exist, but I have personally seen and experienced God’s presences. I have seen, felt, and heard things that can’t all be proven by logic and science, I look at things positively for the fact that I don’t focus on the “Evil” of this world but the Good. There is so much good if only you look for it, the news (a prime example) tells the world everything the is bad happening, but rarely the good, the world’s people as a whole are pessimistic. I have seen miracles, God is combating evil, but he is doing it though us. The evils of this world are to a large extent become of our own selfishness and pride, past and present. Natural disasters do not count, because we can not control nature, but we do need to respect it, and adapt to it, but I believe it is “not” an evil.
The wonders of this world can prove God exists, but only if we look for the good, “with an open mind and heart”, can we find god.
That’s the difference between you and me, I am Passionate, you are Knowledgeable, I have Experienced, and you have Learned. We “know” what we know in life because of the different paths we have taken, and as such have come to different conclusions. I think God and Science can co-exist, I believe in Natural Selection, but not Mutation. I agree with only part of Evolution. I like the Idea of Perry Marshal’s “New Theory of Evolution”.
Comment by Thomaslee — October 22, 2009 @ 11:46 am
Well, I’m not exactly apathetic (as opposed to passionate) or inexperienced. I was a fundamentalist christian for 16 years of my life, for at least 8 of them as a sentient enough being to understand what was going on. I understand what you mean by “Experiencing God’s Presence” (I’m paraphrasing a bit), the difference is I wasn’t content with the explanation that it was “just some act of God”, and instead sought the deeper truth. At first I assumed it would be some deeper, religious truth, but when I looked hard enough, the magic _trick_ became clear. It was perhaps an unlikely sequence of events, at least on my local scale, but in reality it was just a sequence of normal interactions that led to a result which affected me, for good or ill.
I agree, I don’t either of us will convince one another. I dislike the use of the quotes around “my” logic. I just use normal logic. I would agree that I started with axioms that codify “my” view of the world, but the logic is the logic.
In any case, I think (or at least like to think) that I have experienced enough to know what the “other side” offers. I like to think I’m an optimist, but I’m an optimist about _my_ actions, and _humanities_ actions generally. I think people are basically neutral. Capable of great good or bad. Maybe there is evil in this world, but it’s not God’s responsibility (if he exists) to clean up after his messy children. On the contrary (and this was my view when I was a Christian as well (fundamentalist Baptist, as I mentioned)), I think it’s the kid’s responsibility to clean his own damn room. I’ve seen miracles too- but there miracles of compassion from _people_, people helping other people for no reason. The wonders of the world may prove to you that God exists, but to me, they just show that the world follows rules.
You say God fights evil through us, I just say we fight ‘evil’ _because it is a good thing to do_. I don’t need to invoke God to get (in my opinion) an equally satisfying answer, which is why I don’t.
I’m passionate too, Tom, just about different things. I’m passionate about knowledge, about understanding, about helping people — even those who don’t deserve it, or can’t ask for it. I’m experienced too, Tom, just in a different way and with different things. That’s the beauty of life! We _change_ and thus all things follow.
Perhaps you do not believe in mutation, I encourage you to ask — “Why don’t kids look _exactly_ like a 50/50 mix of their parents?” I’ll give you the accepted scientific answer, mutation! This is the same problem as saying Evolution is “just a theory”, it assumes that we could be wrong about our direct observation of the genome. Direct observations of easy to see events (like, say, a star exploding, a cell splitting, etc. Not, for instance, the inside of a black hole, a string (a la String Theory), etc) are basically never wrong (unless the scientist(s) observing them do something impossibly stupid, but this is mitigated by the sheer number of observations). Things _do_ mutate, and not all of them are bad — a change of color in your eyes from your parents, the growing lack of wisdom teeth in humans, the slow, steady elimination of old, poor traits. All of those are examples of mutation and natural selection. I’ll admit, I haven’t read about this New Theory of Evolution in detail, but I generally have a problem with a theory which attempts to replace something that needs no replacement.
Like you said, we’re never going to convince each other, but it _is_ interesting to see what another person believes. There is no greater thing than understanding someone different from you. In a country like ours, where many are xenophobic — hateful of anyone different from them — talks like ours go a long, but short way to curing that societal disease. We may only be one pair of people, but I like to think that your new, better understanding of _my_ beliefs (which are not entirely dissimilar from other non-theistic belief systems out there) lead you to be less fearful (if you ever were) of people like me (in the sense of the xenophobic fear, not the “oh my god look out a monster!” fear), and similarly your beliefs for me. We all, I think, suffer from an accidental distrust of those different, the only way to fix that distrust is to confront it.
Comment by jfredett — October 22, 2009 @ 12:40 pm
Here is the rest of the argument that I had started with before. But first, I would also like to thank you for these discussions, for the fact the you are at the very least helping me come up with a better defense, for making sure that my arguments are factully correct, and logical. You have helped me to see what are good arguments, and what are bad arguments.
It must be remembered that one can completely disprove a belief by showing that it entails a logical contradiction. Hence, we will reach a decision by such an argument. But other beliefs do not involve logical assertions. In such cases 100% proof is difficult, but we can say the counter argument is sound beyond reasonable doubt. In other words, we have rational grounds for believing its truth.
But can the atheist argue that we should accept the premise that there is pointless evil (premise 1) on rational grounds? William Rowe is an atheist who uses such an argument.[15] He describes the suffering of a fawn burnt in a forest fire and asserts that it is not reasonable to believe that there is a reason/justifying good.
Suppose in some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire. In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering. So far as we can see, the fawn’s intense suffering is pointless. For there does not appear to be a greater good such that the prevention of the fawn’s suffering would require either the loss of that good or the occurrence of an evil equally bad or worse. Nor does there seem to be any equally bad or worse evil so connected to the fawn’ s suffering that it would have had to occur had the fawn’s suffering been prevented. (emphasis in original).
He admits that the atheist is not omniscient and thus cannot know or prove that there is no reason. But in light of experience and knowledge the atheist can claim there is rational support to believe that there is no reason and hence that there is pointless evil.
But what constitutes rational support in this case? We do not have knowledge or experience in the field of omnipotence, omniscience, or omnibenevolence. Thus to speak of rational support beyond reasonable doubt in this case is absurd.
So far, the two theistic responses examined show that the theist is not under any obligation to give a reason or justifying good for specific evils.
Answering the Conclusion: therefore, God doesn’t exist
The third way of countering the argument from evil is by providing a possible reason. Note that again we use the word “possible”. This is because theists when giving a reason cannot be sure it is the actual reason for God allowing evil, for God is infinitely great. He knows all, and so the only claim that can be made is that the reason given is a possible one.
The most famous possible reason is the “free will defense”. That is, the free will of creatures may be a justifying good.
‘Free will’ means that a creature is “free with respect to an action.” Morally good actions must be done freely, otherwise they are not really moral actions at all. Rather, they are like the actions of a robot. However, if by definition, the creatures truly have free choice, they must also be free to choose evil. True love is impossible without the possibility of hatred. Programming a computer to flash ‘I love you’ on the screen is clearly not an example of love.
Specific evils are the major objections to the free will defense. One attack is that it is better not to have free will because it leads to so much suffering. But such an argument is subjective. There is no basis by which we can compare a world without freedom to a world with freedom. Because of this, there are no objective grounds to test the hypothesis that a world without freedom is better than a world with it.
Another objection is that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God could have created a better world (without all this intense suffering) containing free creatures. There are many possible worlds. Surely God could have just actualized the one in which creatures freely choose good.
However, this argument is a misunderstanding of free will. Free will is given to God’s creatures. Hence, the creatures determine the possible world, not God. If any interference by God (eg. setting things up differently or creating us with dispositions) to make creatures freely choose good is a contradiction in terms. The efficient cause of evil lies with the moral decisions of creatures, not God.
Some maintain that God could regularly intervene to make a better world. But such intervention defeats the purpose of free will. Is a murderer really free to kill if every time he tries, God stops him? Many atheists do not realize how offensive theistic intervention would be to them. How would they like it if God intervened every time blasphemy was thought, uttered, or written.
Animal suffering is yet another objection. The objection is that free will does not explain why animals, which do not suffer make moral choices, suffer.
But it can be argued that animal suffering results from the free will of humans. That is, they are victims (even humans have been victims without making a wrong moral choice).
The theist can also claim that other forms of animal suffering exist for different reasons other than human free will. For example, it could be claimed that some animal suffering is necessary (eg. pain after touching fire) as a danger warning. So the theist does have possible reasons at his disposal which show that animal suffering is not as pointless as the atheist makes it out to be.
Many atheists claim that free will does only part of the job, for it fails to explain the physical evil which does not arise out of free will (eg. earthquakes). Of course, some physical evil results from human free will (eg. a careless man can blind himself)[22] but obviously others do not.
Plantinga uses the free will of Satan and other supernatural beings as a possible explanation for such evil. This could also be extended to animal suffering.
Many other reasons for physical evil can also be given. For example, it could be claimed that physical evil acts as a moral warning. It shows the consequences of sin on the human race. Another consequence of one person’s privation is that it makes others more appreciative of their good fortune. Hellen Keller (who thanked God for her handicaps) wrote that it would be a blessing if everyone could be struck blind and deaf for a day to make them appreciate the gifts of sight and hearing.
There is yet another theistic response which can be used. It can be used in isolation or with the other defenses against the attacks based on specific evils leveled at the free will defense. The theist can argue that the actualization of this world is the best way to ill achieve the best possible world.
Comment by Thomaslee — October 22, 2009 @ 3:13 pm
Here is something I found that was interesting, and I think it has a place in our argument.
God is Logic.
These are the virtues attributed to “GOD”:
All knowing
All powerful,
Omnipresent,
Eternal.
These are the attributes of Logic:
It determines what the facts will be. It maintains that each fact in reality must be consistent with every other fact in reality; nothing that exists can prove that anything else that exists in fact does not exist. Therefore, the present must be consistent with the past in that everything that exists today has developed in a logical order from its constituents that have existed in the past. And likewise, the future is predestined to develop from the facts in the present. So in the sense that Logic determines what all the facts in reality will be, Logic is All powerful.
And if in theory all the facts can be deduced from those in the present, then Logic knows all things.
The rules of logical consistency exist at any and all points in reality whether it be here or the farthest galaxy simply because Reality is defined as the complete set of all consistent facts that can be derived from logical principles. So Logic in this sense is Omnipresent.
And of course, the rules of logical consistency will remain the same for all time. For we know that the facts in the future must be consistent with the facts of the past. So in this sense Logic is Eternal.
So, I reason that if two concepts share ALL the same attributes, then they are the same thing. The burden on those who object is now to show that there are attributes that one has but not the other. I can’t think of any.
Thus, I say that God is Logic. What else could He be - some being who is constructed of more fundamental parts - some intellect that has developed over a vast period of time? These cannot claim to have always been Eternal, nor Omnipresent, nor All powerful, nor all knowing, which are required attributes for a claim of being “GOD”.
And if God is Logic Itself, then you cannot argue that God does not exist. For you would only prove by the effort of making your argument that you are relying on the principles of Logic which you presuppose exists. Or more formally, if it is not true that there is something that will prove that logic does not determine the facts, then it must be true that all thing do prove that logic does determine the facts. This follows the logic of eq.41
Another argument is as follows:
The constraints of Logic determine what the facts will be. And the ancients attributed God as that which controls everything in the universe. So I conclude that they both must be the same concept. For since any given fact cannot be both true and false, then Logic and God must agree on absolutely everything that exists. They are one.
Comment by Thomaslee — October 27, 2009 @ 4:53 pm
> It determines what the facts will be. It maintains that each fact in
> reality must be consistent with every other fact in reality; nothing that
> exists can prove that anything else that exists in fact does not exist.
> Therefore, the present must be consistent with the past in that everything
> that exists today has developed in a logical order from its constituents
> that have existed in the past. And likewise, the future is predestined to
> develop from the facts in the present. So in the sense that Logic
> determines what all the facts in reality will be, Logic is All powerful.
This is a blithe misunderstanding of logic. Logic must be consistent only internally. That is, the axioms of logic cannot contradict each other. The assertion is that Logic must be consistent with _every fact in reality_ is incorrect, it must only be consistent with itself. My set of axioms seek to describe reality, but they do not describe all of it. However, what they do describe, they describe perfectly. That is, assuming my axioms are correct (which, as I mentioned, you are not required to do), then anything proven from them will be provable in any consistent extension. But according to the Axiom of Incompleteness, it is impossible for any consistent logical system (like mine) to prove every theorem. Thus Logic is not “all knowing” in that sense. Nor is it “all powerful” by the same token. A logical system (and thus logic itself) is only as powerful as the veracity and consistency of it’s axioms.
The assertion of omnipresence begs the question, “Are the rules of logic consistent at every point in time and space?” Consider the following thought experiment, the world is a figment of your imagination, everything you see before you is a millisecond firing of your neurons while you dream. The rules of logic are thus a figment of your imagination, and in a moment you will wake up and remember none of this. There is nothing _preventing_ such a world from existing, the notion is roughly called “Solipsism” and it’s a wholly (from my point of view) irrefutable, if somewhat silly, idea. The assertion says — without evidence or justification — that logic works everywhere. Maybe it just works in our section of the universe? Or in our single universe out of the multiverse?
Even if it is the case that logic is “present in all times and places” this assumes a sort of Platonic notion of a logical “Ideal” — Logic is not a thing, it is a system of deduction, governed by rules, which are merely descriptions of an abstract idea. It is not a _thing_ it does not _exist_ in any kind of literal sense. This is like saying the number “3″ exists separately from ourselves. I disagree with this, “3″ does _not_ exist when we aren’t thinking about it. “3″ is a description of a particular state, we could have equally well called the state which we describe with “2″ with the symbol “3″ — it’s just a description. These things don’t exist, thus they cannot be omnipresent. By the same token, Logic cannot be eternal, because it doesn’t exist.
Thus Logic doesn’t fufill any of the attributes, thus Logic _is not_ equivalent to God.
Further, consider the question “This statement is a lie”, it is both true and false simultaneously, one could also argue it is neither true nor false. Further, if Logic and God must agree on everything, then which logic are we talking about? Is it linear logic? Fuzzy logic? Classical? What order of logic is it? Is it primitive, first order, second, nth? Is it equivalent to ZF? ZFC? Logic here is an undefined foil to a argument which is simply ill-formed.
Comment by jfredett — October 27, 2009 @ 5:52 pm
Ha, Ha, Ha, I know you would have a way of countering this, I just wanted to see what you would say. I said it was interesting, but not that it was a good case so keep that in mind. I will now continue on Omniscient God, also I just wonted you to know I still wont your counter of the Problem with Evil.
Comment by Thomaslee — October 27, 2009 @ 6:24 pm
Soon, my friend, soon I will find time…
Comment by jfredett — October 27, 2009 @ 6:26 pm
I have a question, could you consider Logic your god?
Comment by Thomaslee — November 3, 2009 @ 3:50 pm
You’ll have to forgive me, I’m down with some kind of bug this week which has been limiting my productivity. I think this question is straightforward enough for me to tackle it in my diminished state.
No, I do not consider logic my god. Let me explain.
Logic is a tool, a system that tells me when something is true or false, given some assumptions about how True and False things must behave (particularly how they combine). The reason I trust logic is the same reason I trust the floor of my house, it’s been demonstrated to be useful. The floor does it’s job, it is a tool for preventing me from falling through the second and first stories the 20-some feet to the ground. The floor _works_, so does logic. Consider deductive reasoning. If I read your comments, I can deduce (somewhat easily) that you are a male and a mormon (and thus I can deduce you are a Theist). I deduce this because your Name is “Thomas” which is statistically shown to be a male name. I deduce that you are a mormon because _you said you were_. thus, the evidence provided indicates those things. If that evidence is shown to be wrong, then my deductions were wrong, thus I must rededuce. For instance, what if your name isn’t “Thomas Lee”, but rather “Thom Aslee” — Thom is a common asiatic _female_ name, I had a friend who went by it, the reason I deduce you are male is because it is a _simpler assumption_ viz, Occam’s Razor.
Logic is a tool for understanding how things work, so is religion. Religion provides a framework which explains things by attributing what can be explained to a logical explanation (most Theists don’t continue to attribute the motion of the wind to Angels) and what can’t be to acts of God (this is a big generalization, but I have to generalize to talk about the whole subject. Please take the preceding with a grain of salt). My rejection of religion is then a rejection of the general notion presented in the latter half, not the former. I still explain the explainable with Logic, Mathematics, etc. The difference is that the unexplainable — to me — simply remains that. Here are some things I can’t explain.
Abiogensis
There are many theories of abiogenesis, the issue is that we can’t directly observe which one caused life to form. One theory is the primordial soup, another is the meteor-carrying-life, another is the “God” hypothesis (eg, that something “bigger” than us (at the time) sparked life into existence) — none of these claims are falsifiable, therefore none of them are explainable, thus I _reject all of them_. I don’t know how life started, I can only observe that it did start, and that based on geological, paleontological, and other evidence, it started small, and evolved. Fortunately, the “problem” of Abiogenesis isn’t much of a problem, because honestly, who the hell cares how life started? Does it solve any problems? Not really, no major questions (and by that, I mean scientific, not philosophical) really require a reliable solution. It may be interesting to speculate about Abiogenesis, but fundamentally it’s pointless.
The causation of the Big Bang
There is similar debate about what “caused” the Big bang, I have a theory (which is basically the one presented by Brian Greene in “Fabric of the Cosmos”), that since the origin of the universe is also the origin of time proper, then the notion of causality is also indicated by the big bang, and thus the question is meaningless. Again, there is no debate (scientifically) about the veracity of the B.B. theory, but the exact details are under some debate, I don’t have a good answer for this, and what separates me from a Theist (moreso a Religionist), is that _I admit_ that I don’t know.
Hopefully that makes sense, Like I said, I’m pretty sick this week (and a fair portion of last week), so everything’s slowed down for me. Hopefully I’ll get that other reply to you soon.
The punchline is, No, Logic is not my God. Specifically, I don’t (as I mentioned in comment #18) find it has any of the “Omni” properties. Nor do I worship it, nor do I treat it as anything other than a (very) useful tool for understanding things which can be understood. Fundamentally, I believe everything is (penultimately) understandable. but particularly, not all of it is understandable now, or understandable to me (or both). Thus Logic is _only_ a tool, and not a deity.
Comment by jfredett — November 3, 2009 @ 4:15 pm
What I had meant by asking that I believe God is the highest Law, so do you believe Logic is the highest Law, putting post #18 aside.
Comment by Thomaslee — November 3, 2009 @ 4:31 pm
I don’t know what you mean by “Highest Law” — further, I don’t think any valid definition exists. Highest law, law of what? If you mean there is that nothing can “violate” it — then I think it’s obviously not- by Goedel Incompleteness, no logic with sufficient capability to represent arithmetic (which is ‘most’ (in some sense) of all logics) is complete and consistent. So either there are things which are true but we cannot deduce or there are things which are false which we can.
So, I guess my answer is, “You haven’t really asked a question”, because the core of your question presupposes the existence of some valid notion of a “Higher Law”, but no such definition (in my opinion) can exist.
Comment by jfredett — November 3, 2009 @ 4:58 pm
How about this, if you have a question or if you are uncertain about something, do you go to logic “first”.
Also I feel sorry for the bug you have, I know what it feels like.
Comment by Thomaslee — November 3, 2009 @ 7:02 pm
Well, of course I do, but so does everyone!
You go to the tool that you feel is most appropriate, the thing that is most likely to explain the question, to make this distinction, you need logic! For instance, as I mentioned, religion _simply adds an axiom_ to logic, namely that something endowed with all the properties that makes god, “God” exists. So that — when something is logically explicable, they explain it with logic, when something isn’t, they ascribe to it a proof based on the added axiom. Even in a complete system, there exist logical, consistent proofs. The _system_ is complete and inconsistent, not the individual theorems.
For instance, take this syllogism
All men are mortal
Socrates is a Man
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
This is simple modus ponens, we state that, “For all x, Man(x) => Mortal(x)” and “Man(Socrates)” then by modus ponens we have “Mortal(Socrates)”
but what if I add another assumption — another axiom — “For all P, Q, x, y. P(x) => Q(y)”. That is, for any predicate P, and any other predicate Q, if, for all x, x satisfies P, then for all y, y satisfies Q. That is, if I have one tautology in my language, then everything is a tautology (tautology, for reference, is a statement which is always true. Like Modus ponens, if it’s inputs are true, then it’s conclusions are true, unequivocably). So since I have Modus Ponens in my language, then any other predicate is a tautology. “A and ~A” is a predicate, therefore it is a tautology, it’s proof is my third axiom. This is obviously a contradiction, so my system is inconsistent (but complete).
But what about our earlier proof? Is it wrong now that we’ve added this proof of bottom? The reason I worded things the way I did was to highlight that the added assumption need not be an obvious contradiction, it can be more subtle. The short answer is no, our proof is still consistent, and the theorem still holds, the only problem is that now it’s negation holds as well, so Socrates is both mortal and immortal, Dogs are Cats and not Cats at the same time.
The so yes, the first thing I run to when I try to solve a problem is rationality and reason, but only because they have shown themselves to be _useful_ for the task. If there were some task for which logic was not the best answer, then I wouldn’t use it. In fact, I can give an example.
Among the arguments against universal health care is the Economic argument. This argument typically comes from Libertarians, particularly Austrian Economics-touting Libertarians. The argument is not germane to the subject, suffice that their particular theory of economics shows that it is poor economics to have UHC. I’ve no argument either way on the economic argument, except for one facet. In economics, often one cites a kind of “Axiom of Emotionlessness”, that is, arguing economic theory should not include _moral_ or _ethical_ (which they call “emotional” arguments), but rather only cold hard fact. While I generally support the avoidance of emotional arguments (in the sense that, one should not make an argument from anger or hatred, eg. “It was okay to kill that black guy cause I really really hated him” is obviously an invalid form of argument), I am not so quick to dismiss moral obligations as part of economic theory. Namely, I believe — quite irrationally — that we have a moral imperative to take care of our fellow man. That we should help him when he’s sick, feed him if he’s hungry, help him get a job if he’s poor — I’m not talking about a handout, but rather a system in which those who are capable, willing and successful help those who are willing but unsuccessful, or incapable but willing, etc. For instance, in this country we believe that seniors — who may be willing, but incapable of providing for themselves — should be taken care of. We give them money via Social Security, Medicare, etc to help them survive. Similarly, we think that children should be taken care of, we also take care of the poor and downtrodden with welfare and homeless shelters. Are these things ideal? I don’t think anyone is under the delusion that being homeless is a good existence, much less ideal, but the fact is that we feel a moral imperative to help them, and so we do.
Economists reject this as an emotional argument. They are completely correct, it is an emotional argument. There is no logical reason for me to want to take care of my fellow man — there is a scientific reason to help members of my closer family, eg, evolutionary altruism, but no such thing exists when I am giving money to help a stranger. Rather, I _feel_ it, in my soul — for lack of a better term — that I should help those who can’t help themselves. It’s an emotion, not a theorem of logic or axiom of mathematics, it’s a feeling that it is morally right to do so.
So I guess the short answer is yes and no, Logic is often the first tool I try to apply, but only because it is most often the most useful tool for the job. There are times when I apply other tools — my gut instinct, my emotions, etc.
I hope that makes sense.
Comment by jfredett — November 3, 2009 @ 7:29 pm
Jfredett do you have your counter of the Problem with Evil yet.
Comment by Thomaslee — December 31, 2009 @ 11:01 am