by little_Socrates 102 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Who told you that the world should be free from suffering?
Do you find any value in suffering?
Do you think it is possible to experience all the beauty and goodness and pleasure the world offers without also experiencing the bad? Isn't good only good because we know what bad is? If there was only good would it really be "good"?
If you where God and could eliminate suffering what would the world look like? Or conversely if there was a loving God what should we expect the world to look like?
I'll take a crack at this while I do not profess that I am atheist...yet. I find the hardest part for me to swallow is a believer saying they prayed to God to help them decide what job to take, find their car keys, get a promotion, while there are literally MILLIONS of people who starve to death while praying to God for help. There is no rational and loving explanation to say that indeed God helped someone do something so meaningless as get promoted, while allowing someone to die.
I will give an example of our CO talking about the power of prayer. In the 90s a little girl prayed out loud when she was about to be killed in the genocide in Rwanda. After her prayer they let her and her family go. He was pointing out how the power of prayer caused Jehovah to save their lives. So I looked up and noticed in JW literature, over 400 witnesses were killed in the same time period in Rwanda. I am sure everyone of them was praying to Jehovah, and their prayers went unanswered. So why did Jehovah decide not to spare them?
I believe most of your questions are irrelevant to an atheist since you are asking them to pretend to believe in something that they say they do not believe in.
Its interesting that when a animal dies we don't much care unless it's a pet. We also never entertain the idea of a cow going to heaven or an afterlife. It's perfectly exceptable that all other life forms just die and that's it. No resurrection for Fido or Duke but if we entertain this idea that we as humans have no other hope, then we're looked at as being crazy or something.
As for one of your questions, if the world was perfect and no suffering people would not appreciate what they have. Just like kids give them lots of stuff and they take it all for granted.
Personally I have never suggested that the world should be free of suffering. Neither have I made a simplistic case that any suffering proves there is no god. That would be facile.
You seem to be attacking a strawman.
However - if there is an omnipotent god then the precise degree of suffering in the world is the one that he decided is the optimum one to suit his purpose.
Christian theism further asserts that everything god does is a perfectly loving.
The onus is on theists to explain how - for example - wiping out 250 000 men, women and children in a Tsunami is a loving act. Or, how is childhood cancer an expression of god's love? How about .... (add your personal nightmare here)
I think you are about to take temporary retreat in deism - am I right?
I am just trying to understand the atheist argument on suffering. It seems they like to hammer on certain preconceived ideas that theists bring to the table. I am just trying to turn it around and see if I can get atheists to defend and explain their positions. Usually theists are the ones that always have to defend themselves :)
Cofty as an atheist do you find any value in suffering? If you could arrange your life to avoid all suffering would you? Now I understand suffering that we may willing let into our life's isn't to the severity you guys are probably talking about, but it is more a question of severity than type.
If some suffering is useful and valuable, where do you draw the line to what is just pure evil?
The only people that ever told me that the world should be without suffering had a religious agenda to sell.
Personally I don't get caught up in trying to categorize things as good or bad, they just are. I accept that the world is what it is and I can't change most of it. This frees me up to focus on the things I can change, and to do what good I can without getting bogged down with things that don't matter.
I also couldn't speculate much on what a perfect suffering free world might look like. Our universe is intrinsically disorderly, and a permanent state of stable perfection is unimaginable in the context of the universe that we live in.
It's also difficult to speculate on what id do were I God, since I expect omniscience would give me a bit of a different perspective on things.
Edit:
Theists SHOULD be the ones defending themselves, because they're the ones making outrageous claims without evidence. They also seem to be incapable of providing a description of god(s) that is both internally consistent and matches with observable reality.
It seems they like to hammer on certain preconceived ideas that theists bring to the table. I am just trying to turn it around and see if I can get atheists to defend and explain their positions. Usually theists are the ones that always have to defend themselves
I have yet to read a single response from any theist about suffering that was consistent with other things theists claim to believe.
Suffering is not a philosophical problem for atheists.
I see you ignored the content of my reply.
If some suffering is useful and valuable, where do you draw the line to what is just pure evil?
Who says "suffering is useful and valuable"?
Would you agree that drowning 250 000 people in one morning is crossing the line?
I see you ignored the content of my reply.
Not really... but let me put it a different way. You are coming with a preconceived notion that suffering is evil. I don't accept that. I want you to prove it.
So If you could have given the victims of the tsunami a chance as the wave was hitting to have never been born so that they wouldn't have had to experience that horrible death... do think they would have chosen to have not existed? Didn't at least the vast majority of the victims over the course of their life's experience much greater joy/love/fulfillment/pleasure than they did evil on that day? We all have to die what makes it evil how they died?
You are coming with a preconceived notion that suffering is evil
I don't understand what you mean. I tend to avoid the word evil. It is part of black-and-white thinking.
Have you ever knowingly chosen suffering? Why do you think suffering is "useful and valuable"?
The choice isn't between never existing or drowning in a tsunami. The tsunami was only inevitable in a godless universe. If the god of christian theism exists then you have to explain why he drowned 250 000 people that day and in what way it was an act of perfect love.
