MAD thread -- A Question For Atheists

[_Doctor Steuss]

Small, inconsequential (and most likely irrational) pet-peeve:

“Pre-existence” is a misnomer.

Can you elaborate? You know I'm not familiar with a lot of these terms.

I wouldn't worry too much about not being "familiar with a lot of these terms." LDS get it wrong a lot too (in the CES manual "The Life and Teachings of Jesus & His Apostles" it uses "pre-existence," as well as McConkie in his DNTC, Joseph Fielding Smith in The Way to Perfection, and the "Doctrines of the Gospel" student manual... amongst many others).

"Pre-mortal existence" would be more accurate. In Mormonism there was never a time of "pre-existence." Everything has always existed, in one form or another (for example, we existed as “intelligences” then as “spirits,” and now as humans, and some day [potentially] “gods”).

[_EAllusion]

You can grant that part of his argument. Suppose it were true that the existence of personal freedom requires evils to exist. Since personal freedom is an overriding good, God must therefore allow evils to exist. Ok. But does this mean the level of evil we see must exist? If one less person was ravaged by a hurricane, the goodness of personal freedom would be lost?

Further, it's not as though atheists aren't doing anything to allieviate evil. It's just that they lack the tremendous powers and knowledge alleged of their diety, and therefore cannot help in the way their deity could.

Finally, even if that's all they were, the existence of do-nothing atheists says nothing about the existence of atheists, as atheists aren't defined by doing something to alleviate evil. God, by virtue of the alleged trait of ultimate benevolence, is.

[_beastie]

"Pre-mortal existence" would be more accurate. In Mormonism there was never a time of "pre-existence." Everything has always existed, in one form or another (for example, we existed as “intelligences” then as “spirits,” and now as humans, and some day [potentially] “gods”).

Hey now, you're being unduly picky. Mormons use the term preexistence far more than pre-mortal existence.

[_EAllusion]

So God's agency is limited from helping trapped miners because our agency could potentially be infringed by viewing such a miracle?

Oh yeah, it's modeled after the "prime directive" of Star Trek: no advanced civilization may give technological aid to a pre-warp drive civilization, as this would interfere with their natural development (or destruction). This rule helps maintain dramatic tension and avoids short-circuiting the various plots with predictable deux ex machina. No wonder Stargazer's explanation sounds more like a literary device than a principle of divine ethics.

But finding car keys is okay -- it's the magical amount of intervention.

Riiiight.

I've made this point many times in conversations like this. It's a curious balance they propose. On the one hand, God intervening to stop suffering would damage will and destroy a justifying good. On the other hand, God intervenes a sufficient amount to allow for various miracles proposed by their faith and evidentiary knowledge of his existence that does not destroy the justifying good. There is a curious ad hoc balance that in of itself is a case against what they are proposing. What damages personal freedom and what leaves it intact is seems picked out of convienance rather than any understandable framework.

This is a great post,

"I think that the case against theism can be made even more compelling here. Believers always retreat to the claim that God is inherently "ineffable". We can't understand his motives, and we can't judge God by his own standards. So the existence of evil may not be explainable in human terms, but it certainly doesn't rule out the existence of benevolent God. Nonbelievers can only retort that evil is to be expected in a godless universe, but it remains a mystery in the theistic universe. So theism requires greater mental effort. So what?

On the other hand, theists also argue that we can understand God, and we know this because humans are allegedly made in "his own image". That explains the obvious anthropomorphism in our perceptions of the behavior of deities. (Non-theists see it the other way round--that God is made in our image.) When you juxtapose God's humanity (which entitles you to label him "benevolent") with his ineffability (which absolves him of "blame" that humans with power over evil would incur), you end up with a glaring inconsistency. God is partially ineffable and partially "effable". God is conveniently ineffable, in the same way that God conveniently "explains" all the gaps in our knowledge about the universe."

http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread ... 898&page=8

It can be modified slightly to the form of a variety of arguments theists make.

[_beastie]

I've made this point many times in conversations like this. It's a curious balance they propose. On the one hand, God intervening to stop suffering would damage will and destroy a justifying good. On the other hand, God intervenes a sufficient amount to allow for various miracles proposed by their faith and evidentiary knowledge of his existence that does not destroy the justifying good. There is a curious ad hoc balance that in of itself is a case against what they are proposing. What damages personal freedom and what leaves it intact is seems picked out of convienance rather than any understandable framework.

Over the years I've pondered religion and God have inexorably drawn me to one conclusion: none of it makes one d*mn bit of sense.

[_Moniker]

I'm going to start the cult of beastie.

Will you help me find my car keys, please?

[_beastie]

I'm going to start the cult of beastie.

Will you help me find my car keys, please?

Send me your ten percent and I'll think about it. ;)

[_ludwigm]

I'm going to start the cult of beastie.
Will you help me find my car keys, please?

Send me your ten percent and I'll think about it. ;)

It was worded minutely.

"I'll think about it" instead of "I'll do it".

The conditions:
1. You send the ten percent.
2. You become worthy.
3. Worthiness will be defined later.

[_Doctor Steuss]

"Pre-mortal existence" would be more accurate. In Mormonism there was never a time of "pre-existence." Everything has always existed, in one form or another (for example, we existed as “intelligences” then as “spirits,” and now as humans, and some day [potentially] “gods”).

Hey now, you're being unduly picky.

Which I blame on my having gone back onto Geodon recently.

Mormons use the term preexistence far more than pre-mortal existence.

Which I blame predominately on BRM and JFS.