Hmmmmm. A really interesting idea here, but the analogy is pretty faulty once you consider a few things.
You are asserting that:

P1) We have an aversion to people who:
a) Excessively seek power (somewhat related to omnipotence)
b) Show excessive amounts of affection (somewhat related to omnibenevolence)
c) Act like they have an excess of knowledge (somewhat related to omniscience)
P2) God is Omnipotent, Omnibenevolent, and Omniscient, and thus similar to these three kinds of people.
C1) We should have an aversion to God (by Analogy)

Arguments from analogy are always tough, as the conclusion never follows exactly from the premises. I did a bit of guess work to make this as clear as I could and I think it represents your main concern well: If people like (a), (b), and (c) are not liked, then a God who possesses these characteristics maximally should certainly be despised.
I think its clear that the P2 is the problem here, as there is a significant difference between the omni-abilities of God and some dictator, schmooze, or know-it-all. Primarily, the theist would assert that God is good and actually possesses these attributes, while the people you describe do not come remotely close to omnipotence, omnibenevolence, or omniscience. Person (a) seeks power and does whatever necessary to obtain it, which likely includes some evil. Sentimentality is very different from benevolence, so person (b) isn’t analogous with God’s love at all. Lastly, we typically dislike know-it-alls like person (c) because we know that it is impossible for them to know everything. They claim to know everything, but when proven wrong, they do not admit that they are wrong, and that it what makes us dislike them. Surely if you met someone who actually knew everything, was actually maximally good, and actually able to do whatever they wanted, you would be amazed by this person. You would not attribute this being the same shortcomings of persons (a), (b), and (c), because this being is what these people are attempting, and failing, to be.

`Hi Robbiefrost,
It doesn’t seem like you are advocating for a specific side here, but some of the questions you have raised are interesting. So, I’ll do my best to respond to one of the situations you proposed.
P1) Purgatory exists and is a place where the soul is refined before entering heaven.
P2) If purgatory exists and God is omnipotent, then he desires to, and can, refine souls after death.
P3) If he desires to, and can, refine souls after death, then he could/would do this immediately after death.
P4) Purgatory, as most popularly understood, is not an immediate process after death

Some kind of contradiction arises if all of these premises are true, and that seems like the question you are raising. And if that is true, I’d like to challenge one of them to see if there really is a problem here.

Premise 3 seems like the one to flesh out a response to if I want to defend purgatory as a process rather than a moment. I think it is reasonable to assume that if God does not instantaneously refine our souls this side of death, it is unlikely that he will do it on the other side. It seems like this Free Will thing really, really matters to God. In order for Purgatory to do its thing and it not be a robot factory that wipes your mind and gives you the one that God thinks you should have, it seems like God has to allow you to take up the challenge yourself. I guess I see this as more plausible than the other scenario because it reflects how people change in this life: God chooses not to force our hands, nor make transformation a quick process, because we fail to really change with these methods of instruction. It also would line up with some of the theodicies made in response to the problem of evil, specifically soul- and saint-making. If purgatory exists, it may just be the continuation of process. If this is the case, we might find that Hell too exists, as people may continually choose to refrain from the refining process after death as they did before. But eternity is a loooooong time, so who really knows.

Too, the very notion of value understood in your terms doesn't make sense. To think higher and lower values are essential for value to be meaningful sounds very much like saying slavery must exist and that misogyny and that racism must exist to give meaning to value. That doesn't sound right to me. — TheMadFool

My entire quote was,
"You have made several points elsewhere on this post to say that certain morally bad things, like racism and slavery, “must exist to give meaning to value” if we are claim to that not all of God’s creatures are equal." or as you said, to think higher and lower values are essential to the meaning of value

Hey TheMadFool, hope you are well. I appreciate the post about the problem of natural evil, as I find it fairly difficult to reconcile with the omnibenevolence of God in a traditional sense.
You posit that:
P1) An omnibenevolent God does not “play favorites” with creation
P2) What we believe to be “Natural Evil” to humans may be a “Natural good” for other organisms (like bacteria and parasites)
P3) God permits these “Natural Evils” because they are not evil for all and he chooses to not intervene
C) The problem of natural evil is no problem at all

I agree with you that the Free Will defense doesn’t help us here, but I see some problems with the argument above.

I guess I’d start by questioning P1, the idea of equality amongst all creation might seem like a good thing to ascribe to God, but I feel as though it might not be true in reality. If God views each creature with rigid equality, then does God “value” any of them at all? Does value not implicitly convey some sense of “greater” or “lesser” ergo comparison amongst created things. In most religions I know of there are serious assertions that humans are not equal in value to other animals, and that certain animals are not equal in value to inanimate objects. (Think about realms of reincarnation in some of the Asian religions or the Abrahamic religions’ emphasis on the Imago Dei.) I think that this comparative value is a great thing and that by being “higher” up on this value list we actually have a responsibility to look after the life “lower” in value to us. If we afford the same rights and privileges to plants, mosquitoes, flesh-eating bacteria, and these things come into conflict with one another, are we really to do nothing and allow the eradication of a species because it benefits another? Are our hands really tied, Or is there a middle ground, found through parsing out the reason and logic for certain decisions, that helps both survive? I also think that this “inequality in value” has its limits.

You have made several points elsewhere on this post to say that certain morally bad things, like racism and slavery, “must exist to give meaning to value” if we are claim that not all of God’s creatures are equal. Which, I think is actually kind of spot on, but maybe not for the reason that you mean. We can recognize that racism is a belief about value itself, that some races are more valuable than the other, and then make a value assessment of said belief to determine that it is worse than non-racism. Racism exists and we can say it’s bad, yay!

Hi Batsushi,

I think we can both agree that chronic pain sucks and that this argument from back pain is somewhat a personal repackaging of the problem of evil as “the problem of suffering”
I do not know whether the back pain you face is self-inflicted or the result of a disease, disorder, but for the argument’s sake I’ll say that you suffer from this pain as an innocent victim, and you very well might.
As you put it,

P1) If God is omni-loving, omniscient (you said “omnipotent” but that is the same as omni-powerful, so I changed it a bit), omni-powerful being, then he would:
a) Not want you to have back pain,
b) Have the knowledge of how to stop your back pain
c) Have the ability to stop your back pain
And your back pain would not exist.
P2) Your back pain exists
C) God is not omni-loving, omniscient, or omnipotent

I certainly trust you in your making of P2, so it seems like P1 is what I have to deal with. The typical response to the evidential argument for the problem of evil is theodicies. These defenses would challenge the first premise, not by denying any of the omni-abilities of God, but by asserting that God wants something more than not wanting you to have back pain. Some theists appeal to a greater good scenario where we suffer so that greater goods (physical and spiritual) may come about. Imagine that your back pain is studied by scientists and they discover a cure for all back pain everywhere, but only because you had to suffer first. Or a scenario where your back, working the way it does, prevents you from being paralyzed from the waist down. However, this kind of body requires the nociceptors present to function (a good thing) and they can go on the fritz (a bad thing) and cause severe back pain when affected by disease/disorder. These would be much greater goods than their alternatives, right?
But the kind of suffering we see in the world, and you see in your back pain, doesn’t seem to match up with this kind of greater good, especially when we don’t see them in our lifetime, so we are back to square one.
So, some theists try to just propose an answer to the logical problem of evil, by asserting that the free will God desire’s his creatures to have permits evil/suffering in the world. This breaks down the contradiction present in the problem of evil, but it doesn’t seem super satisfying does it?

As a Christian theist, I find that the only answer I have to this dissatisfaction we feel that maintains these attributes of God is what I call a cruciform response to the problem of Evil. Essentially, God would be unknowable (and potentially not omni-benevolent) if he possesses all of these attributes and evil still exists, unless, he too suffers. However, this is not the place for discussions of theological matters, but philosophical ones. So I’ll stop there.

So, you would not forgive climate change deniers, their existence does not prove the inadequacy of the argument for climate change. You say "the evidence makes the best case for it". Yet this is often the position of the theist and atheist. You have not answered what the "evidence makes the best case for" and instead simply relied on this notion of "inconclusiveness". — Judaka

You are right about the first part here. I haven't offered my own beliefs on the topic, not because I seek to defend agnosticism and the "inconclusiveness" of it all, but because I am not trying to elaborate on the specific arguments in favor of theism/atheism and then deduce how much evidence is in favor of each side. That is done aplenty on other posts and by far more capable people than I. The original purpose of my post was to explore a common ground in which both parties might see the "reasonableness" of the other side, and the responses are sharpening up what I might mean by "reasonable." I think this reasonableness is good thing, and might land us in the realm of "friendly atheism" and "friendly theism"

If I said I conversed with a fairy, would you be uncertain because you could neither prove or disprove the claim or would you ask for proof? In this circumstance, you would likely not even adopt a stance of non-belief but actually you would actively reject the plausibility of my claim. I think here, basically, there are billions of people who do believe I conversed with a fairy and so you hesitate and that's fair but does that logic really hold up upon closer examination? — Judaka

Do you think that this fairy convo is just a repackaging of the "teapot" argument? I don't know if the fairy is necessarily analogous with the God that theists argue for, because of all the major effects/implications that the existence of a God would have when compared to the fairy you mention. I also don't know if the two decisions you offer (be uncertain and ask for proof) are mutually exclusive. But if you disagree let me know.

Similarily for political or moral issues, you just won't take a stance because a debate has two sides? That is silly, surely you can agree? — Judaka

That is a pretty silly thing to do, because all debates have sides and we typically pick one whether or not we think we do. But i don't think that I am suggesting that. Continuing with this political/moral framework, I see that the debate has two sides, and each side cites different pieces of evidence (sometimes overlapping evidence) to make a case for their platform. Both sides came to their conclusions in a reasonable way, and the reason why we pick a side is because certain arguments hold greater weight/value in our decision making process.

It seems to me that this is where you're going to get the most disagreement. There are a set of very contentious issues such as global warming where the science is absolutely clear and yet by your definition of inconclusive - it's actually unclear whether there's global warming or not. Since many people still believe it's a hoax, the arguments in favour of global warming existing must be inconclusive? We can't judge the veracity of an argument based on how many people remain unconvinced by it. — Judaka

Hey Judaka,

That’s a good point, I definitely don’t think a climate change denier should be off the hook because of “inconclusiveness”. the reasonableness of an argument does not rest solely on the resulting amount of people convinced, so you are totally right to point that out.

I am trying to think of a way in which it could be a combination of this and some of the other factors of reasonableness mentioned by other commenters. It is overwhelmingly important that the validity of the argument be first in this process, but when both sides make good cases and defend themselves well, is there room for anything else?

Maybe the difference between the issue of climate change and this one is the metaphysical nature of these claims/beliefs. I agree that the science shows global warming, and the evidence makes the best case for it. With theism/atheism, it’s a little more up in the air (to me at least, I think many would disagree with me on this). This may lead us to a discussion of evidentialism, but in all honesty, I am still fairly confused about the arguments for and against it and what they mean for all sorts of other issues.

Maybe a better parallel to my argument in terms of contentious topics is the state of political parties in the US right now. Surely both the left and the right have valid, reasonable beliefs about what will help the country the most, but they in large part still disagree. They site some of the same evidence as reasoning for their beliefs, and reject the other sides claims as a “unreasonable” conclusion of the evidence in front of them.

Thanks for taking the time to work through this with me!

*also Not trying to defend Trump or any specific political stance by bringing this up, just think it might fit*

Hi Gnomon,

For example, Theists tend to feel that a supernatural deity is necessary to explain the very existence of our temporal conditional world. Atheists, though, seem to be un-bothered by the open question of bare existence. — Gnomon

What if it’s not a matter of feeling that a God is necessary, but that alternative theories about existence don't seem to be satisfactory for theists. It’s the same thing for atheists, they see the universe as the result of natural causes and don’t see the claims of theists about a God being necessary as satisfactory.

Yet in both perspectives, eternal existence of something (God or Multiverse) is, perhaps subconsciously, taken for granted --- as an unproven Axiom. That timeless unconditional fundamental power-to-be is what I call BEING. It's a logical necessity that any reasoning about ultimate questions must build upon. So, how about essential BEING as a starting point for reasoning about otherwise open-ended philosophical questions? :smile: — Gnomon

This is really well stated, thank you for being so straightforward and helpful! I agree, and I hope the most others would too!

Hi Tim! Yeah i think I didn’t make it clear what I meant with valid and non-conclusive. In my response to Dingo I think I clarified what I meant a little more.

Atheism itself is not a belief. Atheism is a reasoned and principled reaction to unproven claims of others. — tim wood

Hmm, I hear this all the time but I don’t know if I agree that atheism is “not on any position regarding God” as you say. How atheism is actualized and defended, it seems to actually be a metaphysical claim/belief that “there is no God” not just a denial of other claims. I think this is what Flew talks about as positive and negative atheism. I know that Flew is a major figure on non-belief atheism, but who else would you recommend to read to get a better picture?

Hey Dingo,

What do you mean by “non-conclusive“? — DingoJones

Thanks for catching this, I think I meant to say, “ If a belief has valid arguments defending it, though they are non-conclusive, then it is reasonable to hold said belief“

I used non-conclusive in a judicial sense, where the arguments are valid (if the premises are true, the conclusion can’t be false) but they do not necessarily sway the “jury” one way or the other. The resulting back and forth of counter-examples and counter-counter-examples make the premises a war zone of no-this and no-that. Which is not a bad thing, and a necessary part of the discourse. The main arguments for Theism that I see for this are FTA and some combination of the Cosmological arguments. For atheism, the problem of evil and hiddenness are top of the list for me.

I would say that whether something is reasonable isnt based on what it concludes but rather the reasoning itself.
One could be and atheist for poor reasons, and accurately be called unreasonable even though they reached the right conclusion (atheism). Likewise with theism if you think theism is true, one could have poor reasons and be right by accident.
Its not the conclusion that can be measured by reason, its the process that can be measured by reason. — DingoJones

Hmm this is a great point, probably need to rework my thoughts with this in mind. I think that both sides are reasonable in the way that they come to their conclusion, both use proper reasons. But if you affirm (like I said in my initial post) that P2 is wrong because there is no valid argument for Theism/atheism, then the conclusion wouldn’t follow anyways. Thank you for your insights!!

Hi Jjnan1,

I think that my primary concern with this argument is premise 1, and that the FTA makes claims about the existence of life in the universe rather than about the existence of the universe itself. I think that some defendants of FTA mention the necessary states for the beginning of the universe according to Big Bang theory, but my understanding is that FTA focuses on the states/parameters in which life exists in the universe, and then infers that these parameters are not just the result of chance but of a “mind” that designed it to be so. I do think that you make a great point to question whether the FTA truly leads to the existence of a God that theists typically believe in, or just a super-being with a super-mind. This is where I think Theists get in trouble for jumping to the conclusion of a personal God, rather than examining if the FTA conclusion supposes that.

Against P1, the FTA asserts that the properties present at the conception of the universe (particularly the strength of gravity) have allowed for the universe to continue existing after its beginning without immediately collapsing in on itself or expanding at too rapid a rate. This “property x” is not the reason that the universe came to exist, but a parameter in which the universe can continue to exist and life (like us) can exist and observe such a parameter. Another issue with the argument could arise from Premises 2 & 3 if we don’t do something about P1. I am trying to think of a way in which the two “coulds” in P2 make sense. P2 says that because there is a chance that the universe could of not existed, then God could have failed to bring it about. Is it true that “if the universe could not have existed, then God could have failed to achieve his purposes?” I don’t think it follows that God’s ability (success or failure) follows the potential existence of the universe. I’d suggest rather that God’s ability/decision to create or not create is the deciding factor in the possibility of the universe. If God is the necessary being that God is described to be, and the universe is contingent, wouldn’t the universe’s existence or nonexistence be a result of God’s purposes either way?

I also do not agree further that God is not omnipotent or omniscient because God could have failed to achieve his purposes (P3). This seems like a kind of omnipotence or omniscience that is too rigid to be appropriately defended, and I can see how God could have the potential to fail, but does not because of his maximal goodness/knowledge, and thus still possesses these omni-traits.

“The standard argument, used by apologists in countless books and all over the internet, for Christianity is that the alleged resurrection of Jesus makes the most sense out of the historical record. My argument against this is:

Every culture, civilization, and religion in history has reports of miracles. In India in particular, there are many resurrection claims.

So if we place the accounts of Jesus's resurrection next to all the other reported miracles, it looks a lot less impressive.

So we are free to believe what we want.

I also wanted to point out that Christians have no way of knowing if Luke, Mark, and even Paul were real Apostles and could write Scripture. So there is a hole in the Bible”

-------------------------------And in another quote responding to StreetlightX--------------------------------------------

“I'm talking about the Gospels. They have much historical detail, so they have historical value. The question is about the resurrection. My argument is that although they have four well written accounts, someone can compile a record of 100 other alleged resurrections that each, individually, might not have much authority, but taken together presents a case that resurrection happens outside Christianity.

Then I ask the Christians: are we really unreasonable to say that resurrection just don't happen so the records are flawed? Are we not within our rights then to reject the Gospels?”

- Gregory


I want to make sure that I have a good understanding of your argument here, because I am unsure how you get to the conclusion you make based on your premises:

1) If a miracle is merely one claim in a multitude of miraculous claims, then it is “less impressive” (*and potentially less likely to be true*)

2) Many Cultures/Civilizations/Religions have reports of miracles, including a numerous amount of “resurrection” claims & Jesus’ resurrection is one of these many claims

C1) the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are “less impressive”

3) If Jesus’s Resurrection is less “impressive”, then “we are free to believe what we want” about these claims

C2) See C1 --- We are free to believe any, or reject all, of these claims

**I assume (and if I am wrong. please correct me and I will be glad to rework my response), that by suggesting a miraculous claim is “less impressive” because there are many miraculous claims made throughout the world, you are alluding to a judgement about whether or not it is true and whether or not any miraculous claim is true. I inferred this because of your answer in the second quote **

While I do think that the Resurrection presents an interesting case for belief in Christianity, I agree that the argument you proposed entails some kind of, “freedom to believe whatever you want” about the multiplicity of miraculous claims. However, I certainly don’t believe that this leads us to subsequently, “reject the Gospels” and consider all miracles as false. I think that this is one of Hume’s arguments about miracles (that even if miracles are possible, we shouldn’t believe them because there are so many and they, or their religions, contradict). Certainly, if there are a multitude of these “resurrections,” one would have to consider the evidence for each and then appropriately decide whether or not each claim is as valid as the next. That is how you would determine if it is fair to accept/reject any other theory.

Just because a miracle is possible, it does not mean that all miracles are then more likely to be true; or probable. Say for example that you are fishing in a body of water. You might assume that it’s impossible you’ll catch anything if the body of water you choose is the pool in your backyard and you didn’t put any fish in it. But, if you were to catch something there (a miracle), you wouldn’t then believe that all pools have a higher probability of having fish in them, you’d probably believe that something specific happened in your pool.

It is a matter of possibility, and the probability is something to be deduced later. I think that the defense of miracles, specifically the Resurrection, rests on the acceptance that they are possible, but highly improbable, events, but that after considering the evidence and alternative theories, one can reasonably conclude that a miraculous event is the best option. This same framework should be applied to any miracle claim, and often is to dismiss claims where: no one else witnessed it or it was not attested by other sources. It seems that this argument really only emphasizes the need for investigating these claims carefully, not to dismiss them. Let me know what you think!