Theodicy

[_EAllusion]

Stem -

Your theodicy is relatively common among lay people, but not among religious philosophers of religion. Hopefully I can explain why.

You're conceptualizing the problem incorrectly. Think of it this way. If God is all-good, then God would not commit one malevolent act. Not one. Allowing pointless suffering to exist is malevolent. Therefore, God would not do that. Not once. If you argue that God does do that, but makes up for it with lots of good things, it still hasn't changed the fact that God has committed some malevolent acts and therefore an all-good God does not exist. Therefore, this fails as a theodicy.

Make sense?

You need to attack the problem by arguing there's a point to suffering that justifies it or by arguing that we can't infer pointless suffering exists. That's what quality theologians try to do (and fail, in my opinion). There are other kinds of arguments - that one cannot have good and evil without God existing, that allowing pointless suffering isn't necessarily a bad thing, etc. but those are epically problematic.

[_just me]

That's a fairly easy one when it comes to old testament stuff. There never was a world wide flood. Gilgamesh anyone? And when Israel killed a bunch of people I think they just blamed it on God. The Old Testament is full of great STORIES. I rarely read anything in the Old Testament as literal.

My two cents.

Big UP!

Lamanite

OK. I am not able to work that into a believing LDS mindset, but I now see why you are more focused on #4.
I also always believed that people agreed to come down to their circumstances and stuff like that.

[_Lamanite]

OK. I am not able to work that into a believing LDS mindset, but I now see why you are more focused on #4.
I also always believed that people agreed to come down to their circumstances and stuff like that.

Chapel Mormons believe in a world wide flood, not me. It's a story. It never happened. The geological record disproves a world wide flood with certainty.

Who believes in a parted Red Sea? Who believes that a fish ate Jonah and then regurgitated him as a survivor? Who believes that a talking donkey saved his idiot rider?

Not me. Great stories with wonderful morals. But scripture does not always equal Literal!


Big UP!

Lamanite

[_Lamanite]

I also always believed that people agreed to come down to their circumstances and stuff like that.

When my step brother was a young boy he snuck a can of soup from the cupboard. Because of this his Mom stabbed him in the ear repeatedly with a high heel shoe until he became deaf. After that she held his body against an old wall heater until his skin burned off and it left a waffle pattern all over his body. Once my other step brother went to the neighbors begging for food and water. He was given nothing. He became so thirsty he drank gasoline and almost died.

My step brothers and sisters were so severely beaten and starved of both food and love that they were never quite normal.

All my brothers are in State and Federal Prisons. They never did adapt.

I can't say that I believe an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omni benevolent God couldn't come up with anything better for them than what I described above.

Big UP!

Lamanite

[_just me]

OK. I am not able to work that into a believing LDS mindset, but I now see why you are more focused on #4.
I also always believed that people agreed to come down to their circumstances and stuff like that.

Chapel Mormons believe in a world wide flood, not me. It's a story. It never happened. The geological record disproves a world wide flood with certainty.

Who believes in a parted Red Sea? Who believes that a fish ate Jonah and then regurgitated him as a survivor? Who believes that a talking donkey saved his idiot rider?

Not me. Great stories with wonderful morals. But scripture does not always equal Literal!


Big UP!

Lamanite

Right. It's too bad that the Church lesson manual for adults actually goes in depth into the size of Noah's ark.

[_just me]

I also always believed that people agreed to come down to their circumstances and stuff like that.

When my step brother was a young boy he snuck a can of soup from the cupboard. Because of this his Mom stabbed him in the ear repeatedly with a high heel shoe until he became deaf. After that she held his body against an old wall heater until his skin burned off and it left a waffle pattern all over his body. Once my other step brother went to the neighbors begging for food and water. He was given nothing. He became so thirsty he drank gasoline and almost died.

My step brothers and sisters were so severely beaten and starved of both food and love that they were never quite normal.

All my brothers are in State and Federal Prisons. They never did adapt.

I can't say that I believe an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omni benevolent God couldn't come up with anything better for them than what I described above.

Big UP!

Lamanite

Yeah, the Plan sucks. At least that is what I realize now that I have given it some critical thought. That is ****ing jacked up.

The whole idea of everything will work out in the end leaves something to be desired.

[_harmony]

A few thoughts:

1. All scripture was written by men, not God. All of it is some random man's interpretation of his own experience. Just because something is canonized or accepted by a religious group doesn't mean it actually came from God. Thus personally, I don't believe that which doesn't resonate with my own experience (your mileage may vary). Just because early Mormon prophets tried to explain that which they observed in terms of God-said doesn't mean God actually said any of it.

2. I'm not sure the few years that separates children from adults is all that meaningful in the sense of eternity. I mean, this 35 years or 57 years or 82 years (lifespan depending on the century and the particular culture) are pretty much meaningless in the sense of 10 billion+ years of eternity (or whatever the popular estimate of eternity is supposed to be).

3. It's only been in the last couple of centuries that children were valued at all; for generations, children were valued only based on their economic value, not in terms of intrinsic value simply because they were younger than adults. And the age of adulthood has never been static; it changes based on culture and physical maturity.

4. Judging God's worthiness based on our 21st century standard of what our culture deems important is as ethnocentric as any other culture in any other century attempting the same thing. And we have no more claim to "rightness" than any other group that ever existed.

[_stemelbow]

Stem -

Your theodicy is relatively common among lay people, but not among religious philosophers of religion. Hopefully I can explain why.

You're conceptualizing the problem incorrectly. Think of it this way. If God is all-good, then God would not commit one malevolent act. Not one. Allowing pointless suffering to exist is malevolent. Therefore, God would not do that. Not once. If you argue that God does do that, but makes up for it with lots of good things, it still hasn't changed the fact that God has committed some malevolent acts and therefore an all-good God does not exist. Therefore, this fails as a theodicy.

Make sense?

It makes sense. But if God does not do any malevolent act and yet malevolent acts occur, then we're left determining whether the premises make sense, right?

You need to attack the problem by arguing there's a point to suffering that justifies it or by arguing that we can't infer pointless suffering exists.

But if suffering happens sans God, then there can be suffering with no point to it.

That's what quality theologians try to do (and fail, in my opinion). There are other kinds of arguments - that one cannot have good and evil without God existing, that allowing pointless suffering isn't necessarily a bad thing, etc. but those are epically problematic.

From my understanding theologians, typically, fail too. For them it all goes back to conceiving of God as being He who made every tiny little molecule out of nothing. If that is truly God, then suffering has to be because of Him, rather than in spite of Him.

[_Buffalo]

That's a fairly easy one when it comes to old testament stuff. There never was a world wide flood. Gilgamesh anyone? And when Israel killed a bunch of people I think they just blamed it on God. The Old Testament is full of great STORIES. I rarely read anything in the Old Testament as literal.

My two cents.

Big UP!

Lamanite

You're right of course. Except the Book of Mormon seems to take a lot of those ridiculous stories at face value - D&C too.

[_EAllusion]

But if suffering happens sans God, then there can be suffering with no point to it.

Right. The argument is just that pointless suffering does not exist in a world where God (defined in a particular way) does. So if pointless suffering exists, that's compatible with a world without God. Pointless suffering isn't surprising in a universe that doesn't care about you.