Today Mung claimed of TSZ that
I see mocking of Christianity, what I don’t see are arguments that Christianity is false.
As the regulars here (including Mung) know, this is bollocks. There have been many such arguments, and Mung has fled from a number of them.
I replied:
You see plenty of them [arguments against Christianity], but you’re in denial.
Want to test that hypothesis? Start a thread asking for arguments against Christianity. You’ll get an earful.
He got cold feet, so I am starting the thread for him. I’ll provide some arguments in the comments. Feel free to add your own or to cross-post or link to old OPs and comments, if you can’t be arsed to reinvent the wheel for Mung’s trollish sake.
Mung’s fellow Christians are welcome to come to his aid. He’ll need all the help he can get.
No, I did not get it wrong. That’s precisely what the argument does.
At this point I think it’s reasonable to question whether you even understand the argument you think you’re making.
Mung responds, and his response leaves no doubt: the strawmanizing was due to both dishonesty and stupidity on his part.
Mung, what do you suppose the word ‘temporarily’ is doing in the phrase you highlighted?
Idiot.
Since your argument is presumably different then from what can be found in published works, what is your argument?
I do think it hilarious that you’ve been reduced to quote-mining.
IF we temporarily set aside such positive reasons THEN what?
Yes, that’s my counter example. It is sufficient to show a problem in your premise 2, whether or not that’s what the flat earth society is assuming.
Your desperation is showing, Mung.
Mung,
You’re proving my point for me:
If defeating the evidential problem of evil were as easy as saying “Look, they’re saying we must ignore the evidence for God’s existence!”, then don’t you think it would have occurred to, say, Plantinga, or van Inwagen, to make that objection? Do you really think we would have needed to wait decades for a special-needs commenter named ‘Mung’ to point that out?
Mung quotes the IEP:
Trakakis is overlooking an obvious point. If God is omniscient, he knew the tsunami was coming. If he is omnipotent, he could have prevented it or warned the victims.
Instead, he did nothing, watching passively as hundreds of thousands of people perished.
If that doesn’t exhibit a “horrific moral quality or character”, then what does?
Would Trakakis be so cavalier if a human presided passively over the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people that he could have easily prevented?
Here it is again, in the conclusion section.
The Skeptical Theist Response.
meh
I don’t think so (remember, I don’t subscribe to their brand of crazy). My understanding is that they think that the north pole is the center of the flat Earth (although some disagree). Traveling west in this model consists of moving in a circle around the north pole.
I don’t know how they address the fact that people have been to the south pole. Still, I don’t think you can demonstrate that they’re wrong purely through logic. They reject a lot of evidence as the product of a world wide conspiracy, so that’s an exercise in frustration as well.
In any case, I’m more interested in your operational definitions in your most recent thread.
Mung,
You’re avoiding my question, for obvious reasons:
If defeating the evidential problem of evil were as easy as saying “Look, they’re saying we must ignore the evidence for God’s existence!”, then don’t you think it would have occurred to, say, Plantinga, or van Inwagen, to make that objection? Do you really think we would have needed to wait decades for a special-needs commenter named ‘Mung’ to point that out?
I didn’t respond within 30 seconds? The horror. The answer to your question is a simple one, which I shall shortly write up for you. But first I want to read VJT’s post.
ETA: Simple and obvious.
Mung,
Do you understand why the “skeptical theist response” fails?
Did you conveniently overlook the fact that Trakakis addresses it, concluding that
From the recent thread begun by VJT, keiths refers to this thread:
I’ve been mocking the keiths “omnigod” idea. He takes that as evidence that I have been defending his “omnigod” vision.
If I have been defending the idea that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent in this thread I’d sure like to know where I have said that God is any of those. I almost certainly have not said that God is “omnibenevolent” in this thread or any other here at TSZ.
Is keiths jumping to conclusions based on his mind-reading skills again?
William Rowe is a philosopher, as are Plantinga and Inwagen. In the spirit of philosophy they address the actual arguments rather than dismissing them out of hand. Me, I’m just “a special-needs commenter.”
See how simple and obvious that is keiths?
Now let’s look further to see if we can find anything at all logical in keiths’s claim.
From that fact that Plantinga and Inwagen take the evidential argument seriously, it cannot be concluded that the argument does not in fact ask us to set aside positive reasons for the existence of God.
… to see if we can find anything at logical in keiths’s claim. Nope. Just another logic flail.
Mung,
Now that an intelligent Christian interlocutor is available, you aren’t needed (if you ever were).
Feel free to go away. Play with Frankie, or whatever it is you do in the basement when the door is closed and your parents are upstairs.
You forgot to declare victory.
This thread will forever live in TSZ infamy!
I’ll carry on because I think it’s important to show how wrong keiths is (not that he’ll ever admit it).
As Plantinga notes, this shows how crucial it is to have all the relevant evidence before making a probability judgment.
…Plantinga argues, we might know on the basis of various evidences that God exists (or at least that the probability is very high). In that case, evil in our world may be evidence against God’s existence, but that wouldn’t amount to much in itself.
Those are basically the same arguments I’ve been making.
On the next page Feinberg diagrams the evidential argument and writes:
John S. Feinberg. The Many Faces of Evil.. p. 210.
Feinberg:
And what did keiths have to say when I asked him, repeatedly, about Bayes’ Theorem? Nothing. Silence. As if he had no idea why I’d even ask.
Continuing from Feinberg (discussing the use of Bayes’ Theorem):
That’s precisely the same thing I was saying. It’s the exact same objection I raised. I honestly don’t think keiths knows what he’s talking about.
Feinberg quotes Plantinga:
Plantinga obviously noticed the same flaw in the argument which I spotted. The argument fails to take into account evidence “in favor of theistic belief.” It’s flawed because it appeals only to instances of evil.
keiths is simply mistaken.
I pointed out above how keiths was misled by his skimming of the IEP article, and I shall take up that theme again in this post.
The article presents the argument as follows:
An Outline of Rowe’s Argument
Now it is plainly evident that the argument does in fact only consider the evidence from evil and that it does not take into consideration any positive evidence for the existence of God.
keiths was simply mistaken and his accusations against me turn out upon investigation to be clearly false.
Section 5, Further Responses to the Evidential Problem of Evil, also makes this clear.
keiths needs to explain why the theist would need to make such an argument if the evidence for God had already been taken into account in the evidential argument itself.
So the IEP article must be wrong, Plantinga must be wrong, Feinberg must be wrong, I must be wrong, fifth must be wrong, and only keiths is right.
I’m not buying it.
If you are moving in a circle it’s obvious you aren’t traveling due west.
All it takes is the law of non-contradiction “due west” is not “in a circle”.
peace
That is not nearly as obvious as you seem to think.
There is no “west” of the matter. 🙂
You need to think in terms of their coordinate system. On the flat Earth map, a compass will always point to the center so in traveling west you will go in a circle around that point.
Given that, your attempted disproof fails.
LoL! Why is that, Patrick? Do tell
What sort of magnetic field would a flat earth have. Just musing.
Whether or not defeating the evidential problem of evil is easy or not is rather beside the point. The point is that Plantinga (among others) makes that exact objection. The argument fails to take into account “the total body of evidence.”
Now if you want to back off your claim that you’re employing the evidential argument don’t let me stop you. But that is in fact one of it’s defects, as I said and as you denied. So you were wrong. Will you admit it?
And of course, keiths, being the standup guy that he is, can quote me on this.
For what I said was, “arguments that Christianity is false.”
So you took into account all the evidence for the existence of God?
I’ve spotted the keiths shell game. It’s typical.
Explain this, atheists:
https://oddshot.tv/s/GEPMcz
I…I’m at a loss for words. Her hand moved!
Maybe I should see if my hands could do more than hang limply at the ends of my arms while I use voice recognition hardware to “type.”
Glen Davidson