I think it is safe to say from all of us here, sorry for your loss.

There is no magical fight between a super hero and super villain that lead to his health problems or death. Illness and death happen every day and will always eventually affect everyone. It makes sense that this happens from a scientific level. Bad is part of our natural world. That doesn't mean we want it affecting us, but merely a recognition that it does happen.

On the other hand, when postulating a super hero who has control and is all powerful who could, but doesn't stop things like this, is a sickening thought. What if a parent stuck their kid in a house full of asbestos, cockroaches, H1N1, broken glass all over the floor, and then blamed the kid for any harm that happened to it? Any sane person would have such a nut arrested for child endangerment.

Life on this planet is full of danger from the time we are born to the time we die. We can be born with genes that predespose us to  cripling desease. Babies are born with downs syndrome. We can be hit by a car. We can be robbed and murdered. We can catch a deadly bacteria. All sorts of things from crime to war or desease or accidents can get us at any moment.

BUT that is not to lose hope because we simply recognize life is not magic. You still  had good times in your life and with him. We all have ups and downs and we all lose people we love.

Thank you for sharing with us your courage and your rationality.

My parents, both devout Christians, reached a similar conclusion as they coped with the fact that my father had a rare, untreatable, fatal illness.  Our family had about five years' notice of his death so all of us had some time to think about these things.  My parents wondered, "Why us?"  The answer they finally came up with was, "Why not us?"  I'm proud of them for getting that despite their religion.

Many theists speak of their faith being a source of hope and courage in such situations.  I've known believers who have crumbled under the weight of tragedy.  You embody the fact that the courage is grown from the strength of the person involved, not from some childish belief in gods.

The stuff you posted without tearing up, Fortitude. What you say sounds right to me. My evangelist father took ten years to die after being bedridden with parkinsons disease and i listened to my mother rationalise it to him over and over. It must have helped him but one of the last complete sentences he ever said before he could no longer speak was: "Why is god punishing me?" I never forgot it.

I agree that the only way this hard world can be rationalised is without god. We are all just here. We have only each other. 

Hugs, eh.

Sorry to hear of your loss. From reading your post, I'd say you have heard a lot in defence of (a) God or Christianity in general.

I like the point you make about philosophy also, it is... heartfelt, for lack of a better word. I must say that it is hard for a philosopher as well, they are still human. Sometimes they can seem distant or removed but I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean no disrespect whatsoever.

You mentioned "humanity". I am a firm believer in humanity. Above and beyond anything else, we are all human - that is one of the only things you, I or anybody else actually have in common.

Personally, I believe that we have the potential, as humans, to cure any and all diseases we wish. What would that take? Time, to a degree. Patients, yes. Co-operation, money... and all talk of humanity ends after this point.

Being an atheist released you. For me, it is a case of "out of the frying pan and into the fire....", for if we stop blaming God, then who else is there but ourselves?

I didn't blame god.  Because any god incapable or unwilling to act on the situation was no god that I was interested in.  Once you stop giving credit to god for good things, expecting god to do something about the bad things, and blaming god for the sh1t that falls, all that's left is you.  You and your decisions.  You have no future.  You have today and it's decisions.  Each day is a gift (as hokey and trite as that sounds).  If I have a chance to reflect on my life before I do die, I want to be able to look back on a life that my children can be proud of.  And one that will contribute to their well-being.  Does that count as atheist morality?   

I have become accoustomed to speaking in riddles, and I apologise. I have my reasons.

No, I am not talking specific blame, but rather the proposition. My reasoning is as follows:

I assume this means taking responsibility for your actions, good and bad.

Exactly. But I think we could extend that definition a little further. We are responsible (take blame) for our decisions (actions) and omissions (inaction).

The emphasis I am putting on blame is actually with respect to the latter, and socially rather than individually. For example, we would all agree that if I beat an animal to death, I am resposible for that action. But we would be remiss to think that if I saw someone beating an animal to death (and was able to stop them) that I was not somehow responsible for the outcome.

In a sentence, the proposition would look something like this:

"If God does not exist (or does, it really is irrelevant to the point) then we are to take responsibility for our actions or inactions"

The real question is (if you grant that we are to take resposibility for our indecision) whether, we as humans, are responsible (i.e. to blame) for, say, not feeding the starving massess or curing cancer; by our inaction.

Because this is such an emotional topic for all involved, forums are not really the most ideal place to keep discussing ethics and meta-ethics. If you are interested, though, you are welcome to e-mail me. I, for one, am not sure that much good can come of continuing.

Once again, I am sorry for your loss, and I mean no disrespect.

I appreciate your passion, but a degree of delicacy and diligence is required - one which I fear that the Internet cannot convey with any certainty.

"Morality" was invented by humans as well, just like God (apparently *Smiley*). The term "Moral Humans" beggs the question, for it is morality in mild contention here.

I do not for one second think that there is even an "our side of the fence", as if someone can be an arbiter on the way people feel. There is no "us and them", only dialogue - and a lot of it.

As I have mentioned in other threads, no one wins a moral debate in my experience. Almost all of my training has been in this field. If it were solved, it would be a moot point. Relgating it to irrelevance diminishes one's understanding, without adressing the question.

EDIT: It takes me a while, but I think I understand what you mean:

If you put that into context with what I have said, then you answer your own question. Spelling it out a bit more:

If a certain disease were curable, and humans were able to cure it but did not, would there be someone to blame? Now if said cure were prohibitively expensive, does it not raise a sense of indignation within, given the amount of expenditure on efforts to kill off other humans? Since we are talking about our sense of humanity, is it not a sensible question to ask exactly what humanity is?

When you seriously look at it, is there no-one on this planet that is responsible for the aforementioned, blatant contradiction?

Keep in mind, these are questions, not statements. Ask yourself if an African gets the same treatment as an actor, then ask if that constitutes justice in the eyes of humanity or not. I really don't know.

False dichotomy.  Many things happen for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with any decisions made by any conscious being.  

A few years ago, my father died of a rare and untreatable disease I'd never heard of until he was diagnosed with it.  As I was first learning to deal with all that, I was angry but there was nobody on whom to focus that anger.  I found that frustrating.  I'd been an atheist for quite a while by then and I half-jokingly told people that I almost wished I could believe in God so that at least there'd be someone to blame.  

Perhaps that sort of response has something to do with why humans invented gods in the first place.  I'd hypothesize that, because we're a highly social species, we're used to things happening because of other individuals and so we rightly or wrongly tend to associate effects with causes that are conscious agents.  That is, when something happens, it's natural for us to feel as if somebody did it.  We find it easier to think that somebody did a bad thing than to think that a bad thing happened just because it happened.  I'm just guessing, though.

Hell yeah it's a trap.  Sometimes there is no "why", except for the "what" and "how" of the blind, naturalistic workings or the universe.

My way of dealing with it all was to dwell for a time on the fact that all of us are dying -- no exceptions, no escape.  Then, having accepted death as inevitable, to love and value life for as long as it is still available to me.

Ever heard of "How"?

But, more seriously, "why", as it relates to the death of a loved one, is, in my experience, usually not about the empirically testable reasons for the event but, rather, has to do with what place the event holds in some imaginary "divine plan".  For example, "Why did God allow this to happen?"  

In saying that there is no "why", I think most of us are saying that some things happen just because they happen and that there is no greater inherent meaning than that to such events.  When we say, "There is no why!", we're not saying that the event was uncaused but, rather, that it didn't happen for a purpose.  "Why", when it does not translate to "how", acts to block acceptance of the reality of the situation and, by blocking such acceptance, it hampers rather than assists the healing process.

My dad died prematurely because he had a rare disease for which there is no known treatment.  That is the rational "why".  The religious "why" is something that I find is not worth pursuing.  The "how" is interesting and it can be helpful in that it helps me understand and, eventually, accept the event.

 I think you're committing the logical fallacy of equivocation.  See my previous paragraph.

For me, the answer is that there is no good reason to think that any such critter exists or has ever existed.

I was actually addressing fortitude, but thats ok.

Possibly, but you would have trouble definitively proving that.

Well done. You have gone further than Bob ever would with this idea...

Yes, and this is my point. If we are asking "Why did God allow this to happen?" and this was the reason you stopped believing in God , then I would like to see how this is not assigning some form of blame, since that is the real contention I have with the OP:

Hence the question (directed at Fortitude):

Your answer, although unecessary, does not in fact address the question:

That addresses why you do not believe in God, but says nothing about why you stopped believing in God.

The equivocation charge is good, but I wonder if it is applicable in this context, as it is possibly the "Why" that led to the formulation that God does not exist, but I don't know for sure. That is why you would have trouble proving f/o equivocation definitively. What is your opinion on this?

To blobspence:

That is probably why I asked. I guess it's a wait-and-see scenario.

When I was very little, I bowled with the "bumpers" down on the lanes so I never made a gutter ball.  Eventually that got really old, I never bowled much above the 50's or 60's, and I started bowling without bumpers.  That got me up to about 120.  Finally I went all-out and bought my first "finger-tip" bowling ball -- the sort that in the proper hands can make all sorts of interesting hooks and physics-defying last minute jumps all over the place, which put my high game around 250.

When I was carrying a 120 average, bowling was easy.  Aim for the "pocket", hope for the ball goes straight.  It wasn't until I was using a finger-tip ball that I had to start visualizing where the oil on the lane was, and convert that into rotational speed, angle of release and expected curve across the lane that things got to be very hard, and my scores sometimes quite high.  If I visualized wrong, or if the skin of the ball was saturated in oil that I hadn't removed, my scores fell into the ditch and bowling life sucked.

Personally, I'm glad that "life without bumpers" exists.

No, no formal training in philosophy here.  I'm essentially a high school drop-out who likes to read.

I disagree.  I think the argument from evil, despite the various theodicies I've encountered, is a pretty good one.  I think that the existence of a wholly good and all-powerful God is incompatible with the existence of gratuitous evil (including evil in the sense of suffering and pain).

From my perspective, it's got nothing to do with responsibility.  Rather, it has to do with the contradiction between the supposed nature of God and the existence of evil.  For me, though, the existence of pain and evil isn't the reason I stopped believing.

Fair enough.

Perhaps you misunderstand what I'm saying (partly because I didn't explain myself very thoroughly, I suppose).  The primary reason that I don't believe in God today is that I find that there are no good reasons to think that such a being exists.  The reason I stopped believing in God is that I started exploring what I thought were good reasons to think that God exists and, finding none, I eventually stopped believing.  (I'm giving you several years of exploration in one sentence -- please don't think it was something I did quickly or lightly.) 

I think that what was also happening at the same time is that I shifted some of my values.  Where I had valued faith, I began to more strongly value reason and evidence.  I was becoming interested in rational skepticism (eg. the work of the likes of James Randi and Michael Shermer) and one probably had something to do with the other.

I'm back - been busy for a couple of days.  In case you didn't see this, this blurb is my introduction to the group, and it might clarify a bit. http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/18933

As I suggested in my introduction, I had lived with a lot of cognitive dissonance about god for many years.  Values I had did not match up with so much of either 'god's word' or 'god's body' - the church.  I defended my faith on the ammumption that while I may not understand it now, one day I would be satisfied with an explanation in heaven.

I am familiar with CS Lewis' argument about pain, suffering and the existence of god.  I skimmed his defense of god, denying that a god who exists is responsible to alleviate suffering.  I threw it in the pile with the other tripe that spent more literary effort defending god than giving me any helpful way of seeing my situation.  All this effort was spend defending god in the face of suffering.  I guess I decided god had enough defenders.  I would not be among them anymore.  My loyalty to that 'faith' was done.

Once I allowed myself to open my mind just a little and start reading things not on the 'approved reading list', I started my reason moving with a momentum that I was unable and unwilling to stop.  As I said, I gradually and painfully peeled away all the layers of assurances and trust.  I also They dulled and confusticated the pain of reality, but I needed to think clearly.  It was like finally getting clean of a drug and being able to view things as they really are.  I needed to be able to think clearly in order to make plans and decisions. 

I agree with this perspective on the 'why' question and also BobSpence's more philosophical and logical breakdown of the concept.  While inuition is not really a logical argument, my need to survive and function in the face of incredible horror and tragedy seemed to lead me to straighter paths of thinking than I had been used to.  I knew I did not have the extra emotional and physical energy to build up a defense for god at the same time as I was trying to hold my family together.  The 'why question' would have to fall to someone with the time amd emergy for such trivialities and arguments.  Now it is my turn to ask for your forgiveness in trivializing something that you value very highly.  I certainly mean no disrespect.

I understood very well how.  As well as it was possible for me to understand.  I read research papers about his type of cancer.  The 'how' was vitally important for me to understand his treatment options and outlook.  Since there were no lifestyle causes for his disease, there was nothing that could have been done to prevent it happening.  Any other 'why' question was irrelevant.

You don't want to hear that in my extremity, 'why' was irrelevant.  It's basically the 'no atheists in fox holes' assertion: that in our utmost extremity, the usefulness of 'faith' will be vindicated.  It was not vindicated.  

It was like an umbrella with no fabric.  You can tell me that I was less wet with my faith umbrella.  I tried to convince myself of the same thing.  Ultimately I threw it away.    

It appeared to me at the time (and still does), with my rather straightforward, untheological way of thinking, that such a god would have to be omniarbitrary in order to really fit the description. You would not have anyone question god's 'decisions' or suggest that their apparent arbitrariness is contradictory to his omnibenevelence. At least the greeks and romans had the courage to admit that their gods were arbitrary and capricious, which to them provided an explanation of undeserved suffering. They were polytheistic, so they could afford to have one or another god having PMS. There were still others to call on for help. The monotheistic religions place the blame squarely on humanity and on the 'fallen world' concept. 'God' is rubber and we are glue. Whatever bounces off of him sticks to us.

Once you assume God has any of these omni- attributes, and is infinite, etc, you open the way to all sorts of logical difficulties - like how can you possibly go against the will ( ie 'sin' ) of an omnipotent being? -  so it is all but impossible to draw logical conclusions about such an entity.

Such difficulties have been pointed out by philosophers down the centuries.

It makes it worse that the believers can't even logically demonstrate why even a creator being need have any of these attributes.

So you are right, the Greek gods make a lot more sense, if you must imagine someone having power over us all.

Probably a matter of those tribes in the Middle East wanting to believe their God was stronger than all other Gods, so omni- is as powerful as it gets.

The psychology of it all is so freaking childish...

Well there are certainly enough replies, but I'm not sure I can get to the bottom of all of them.

What I don't understand, Fort, is why you didn't read some more o those "forbidden" articles while you were a christian? Nothing prevents you from educating yourself (assuming you are free and not, say, in prison etc). Why did you have to give up God to open your mind?

I don't think you are being entirely accurate when you say "defending God". Strawman, is all I will say.

Hey, look, do whatever it takes to get you through. That is all anyone can expect, regardless of what is said. There are no right or wrong answers here, it is a subjective concept. You cannot prove "How is better than why", or vice versa. Thats just silly. Why works for me, how works for you.

I'm not sure what you mean here, but I'm not sure if I really need to either. I am not trivialising "How", or what when if etc.

It is one thing to know how a bird sings, and another to know why. Which one you place emphasis on is up to you. Personally, I prefer the latter - it is one thing to know how a man dies, and another to know why...

EDIT: Clarity.

So you think that a being who cares about us all, knows everything that is going on and has the power to do anything would logically allow us to suffer?

Once again you prove that theist "logic" is a bit different to what most of us would call logic.

My todler is at the top of a tall flight of stairs and is about to fall... I am within easy reach, but logically I should just let the kid fall.

So your argument seems to be that God exists and has these atributes and suffering exists so therefore it fits?

I would research, but I do not have the time to spend hours looking these things up, or in fact the time to visit this forum regularly.

I don't think preventing accidental suffering encroaches on autonomy, or on fact the prevention of disease (that God must have created in the first place, or preventing someone from willfully abusing an inocent child etc etc.

As I haven't read all of this literature and don't have the time (or interest, because I don't believe in god anyway), how about you quickly give me some good pointers?

It is a non sequitur. The argument is designed to bring out the contradiction between the attributes of God and the existence of evil. However, if you are familiar with this argument then you already know that it fails. That is the point. If you have a definitive response, I would like to see it.

As pointed out in this thread, I need not prove something exists before I discuss it's attributes, if that is what you mean. What I would have to do is prove the second half of the sentence, i.e. that suffering exists and it does not contradict God's nature.

Well, briefly, if someone was willfully abusing a child, you say that God is entitled to step in and stop that person. This idea assumes several things:

1. Man has a will

2. There is a distinction being made between action, omission and accident

3. Abuse is a bad thing, hereafter called "Evil"

4. God should intervene in evil situations.

Once again, briefly:

1. God can overide the will of man.

2. God's omnibenevolence and omnipotence dictates that he should prevent all evil.

3. By evil we just mean pretty much anything that would go against God's omnibenevolence.

4. Mankind's inclination is almost entirely against God's omnibenevolence

----

5. God should override the inclination of mankind.

I would like to see how this is not giving up our autonomy. I'm sure the argument will balloon out some, but the conclusion will remain the same.

Now all that is left is accidental suffering. I will avoid the traditional arument that "First Order Evi" (pain and suffering) enables "Greater Goods" (bravery, fortitude, benevolence etc); and refer back to the speculation above about humanity and ethics.

Take disease for example, the assumption is, it is random, accidental and unintended, placing its eradication squarely at the feet of God, for its elimination would not void our autonomy as it is not an act of will. However, what constitutes an act of will? If you extend actions beyond intention and into omission, then I believe humans could be responsible for (some) disease. If we intentionally avoid a cure or prevention for, say, AIDS/HIV+, then is it still God's responsibility to eradicate it? Consider how HIV is usually transmitted (via needles and/or through intercourse). This is not to say that everyone with AIDS deserves it (that is an over-application of the rule), but it makes the problem of disease more complex, especially when you consider how AIDS came to be in the first place.

Well I have said too much already, but I'll continue. The problem of Evil centers around what Mackie calls an "Inconsistent Triad":

1. God is omnipotent

2. God is omniscient

---

3. Evil exists 

The key to understanding the argument is not in the argument itself, rather the "quasi-logical" rules added to the argument to avoid the non-sequitur Bob pointed out. An example of a quasi-logical rule is:

2'. An omnipotent being is able to actualise any state of affairs that is not logically impossible.

Keep in mind these are examples, I don't want you getting my education for free

Now if you add 2'. to the argument, and in turn 4'., 5' and so on, one after the other, you realise that in fact, the triad is not inconsistent. IOW, it is consistent that God is omni-whatever and evil exists.

If you are truly interested, you will find the time to study it yourself. I find it mildly amusing that you strongly oppose the idea without even knowing what you are actually talking about. I wonder if you represent most Atheists here lol.

EDIT: Omitted antagonism.

Wow jumbo I don't know if you realize it but you just came off as incredibly ignorant.  How many of us do you think grew up without some kind of religious training?  I'm sure a lot of us know just as much about your God as you do, and even if nobody did ronin-dog is correct in saying he doesn't need to research it because "God can do anything" is a pretty easy concept to understand.  What the issue is here, as far as I can see, is the fact that while He is supposedly omnipotent, He fails to intervene when tragedy occurs. 

Your argument is (if I gather correctly) that if God were to intervene and prevent the "evil" that is to occur, this would somehow override the will of Man.  Well, YEAH.  If God cares so much about whomever the "evil" is being acted upon, then (because He can do anything) He is more than capable of overriding the "inclination" of the one doing the "evil" so that he/she may do no such thing. 

Actually I don't believe in God because there is no reason for me to believe.

I am arguing against omnibenevolent to show that that supposed facet of God is inconsistent with reality.

You are right that a parent shouldn't protect their child from every "ouwie". But if they had a chance to they would protect their child from rape, assault, disease, birth defect, cancer... and the child would be thankful for it.

What is with G-d? Do you have an objection to wirting God?

Replacing 'God' with "G-d" achieves nothing but draw attention to how many times you are referring to God - it just becomes an alternative spelling.

To actually believe in the magic of completely spelling out a name is really silly and primitive superstition.

The magic "works" -- whether or not G-d exists.

I know you're going to have a really hard time with me.  Free advice -- a lot of my arguments with Atheists are based on whether or not the argument works, regardless of G-d's existence.  If spelling it "G-d" is a functioning mechanism for me (and you can't argue against "for me" -- that's the Mind Reading Fallacy), it's not "magic".  So, when you prepare a response to me, feel free to also check your argument against how an Atheist would respond.

I noticed that as with many Atheists, you dodged the issue -- do you or don't you refer to your parents by their first name?  Do you allow your child(ren) to refer to you by yours?  Do you think that "respect" is an essential part of human existence, regardless of the existence of G-d?

Respect -- good idea, yes or no?