theodicy

Note to others:

Yes, he has “explained” what “Regularity Theory” holds to be true here.

Now let him move on from theory to practice. What experiments can he set up, what practical experiences has he had, that would allow him to demonstrate – beyond a world of words and definitional logic – the existential relationship between Mary and her moral responsibility in aborting Jane, or God and the role He plays down here on Earth when the discussion shifts to theodicy.

Nobody and I mean nobody philosophizes about theodicy like the beloved Biggie, the Great. :evilfun:

:banana-angel: :banana-blonde: :banana-blonde: :banana-dreads: :banana-dreads: :banana-fingers: :banana-fingers: :banana-gotpics: :banana-guitar: :banana-jumprope: :banana-linedance: :banana-ninja: :banana-rainbow: :banana-rock: :banana-skier: :banana-stoner: :banana-tux: :banana-wrench: :banana-wrench: :banana-parachute: :banana-dreads: :banana-angel:

Note to God:

Explain this you sadistic bastard!! [-o<

Otherwise known as Theidiocy

Problem of Evil (Responses)
From the lumen website

Of course what is the rape and murder of one individual by another compared to such things as the “Final Solution”…or any of a number of other historical accounts of actual genocide. Most of which were justified on moral grounds. Either sacred or secular.

It doesn’t have to be clear. In fact, the more obscure His motivation and intention is here the more it reinforces the belief that the whole point of making a distinction between God and mere mortals lies in this gap itself. As long as we can believe in turn that, in the end, God is loving, just and merciful, and that we are on the road to salvation, we can leave all that stuff to the ecclesiastics. Like moral objectivists of a secular persuasion leaving all that technical stuff to the epistemologists.

And on and and on and on with these intellectual/spiritual contraptions in which everything is shuffled around in a world of words. The bottom line however is that given one or another context in which human beings suffering you need to square your own belief in God with that suffering itself. Pick an argument from the ones above or make up your own. All that matters ultimately is that you can live with it.

And it’s not like this God has ever actually been shown to exist “in reality”.

Problem of Evil (Responses)
From the lumen website

Now we’re talking.

Natural evil? How can anything related to “natural disasters” be construed as evil unless one construes the God that brought into existence the planet that creates and then sustains them as evil? Sure, when “human action” is involved you can rationalize ways to keep God out of it. We brought it on ourselves. Even though many, many, many of the victims of “human evil” derived from free will are completely innocent.

It’s “acts of God” that I come back to time and again when those who defend God speak of His mysterious ways. Why? Because that’s all there is to fall back on. These terrible natural disasters – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_disaster – claim the lives of tens of thousands year in and year out. Or for things live the covid-19 virus, hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Or for medical afflictions like cancer, millions and millions.

And that’s before we get to those calamities that are described as “extinction events”.

So, how do some rationalize nature on a rampage?

Take your pick:

That’s the beauty of having a belief in God that is derived largely from faith. With no actual God around to provide “the final answer”, you just have to think up one that makes sense to you. Or be indoctrinated by others to accept their explanation.

Then this part:

Same thing. What do you think is true “in your head” about this given that no one seems able to actually demonstrate that what they think is true is in fact true. Everyone here is basically in the same more or less blind faith boat. You can’t prove that your explanation is the optimal assessment but then neither can they.

This post is as a result of an exchange between myself and FreeSpirit1983 here: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=198062

Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Nature of Evil
From the Thomistic Philosophy website

First, of course, in describing natural disasters as evil, we have to go back to the entity who created the planetary components that made them possible in the first place: God.

Then we can delve into the man-made rationalizations for why God might have done this. The first and the foremost being His “mysterious ways”. All of these terrible, horrific, ghastly catastrophes – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_n … death_toll – are somehow a part of a loving, just and merciful God’s righteous plan. And what can we mere mortals possibly even begin to grasp about that?

On the other hand, there are those who do in fact think deeply about these “acts of God” and suggest an alternative explanation. That while God is indeed loving, just and merciful, He is not omnipotent. He set into motion all that He created – including planet Earth – but it all got out of control. He is just as appalled by these disasters as we are. But for reasons even He does not understand, it’s now “beyond His control”.

Though even in regard to the “terrible, horrific, ghastly” events down through the ages that were clearly as a result of human involvement, an omnipotent God could have intervened and prevented them.

Yes, that’s the conclusion I have come to myself. But even here it is necessary to first make the assumption that “a God, the God my God” does in fact exist. Which, aside from theodicy, brings into focus these factors:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious/spiritual path
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed…but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual’s belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths

Subjects for other threads.

No Good… no privation of it. No fracture. No fragment. No mark to miss.

Try again.

:laughing:

No, seriously.

Really? Truly? Referentially?

Why so serious?

Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Nature of Evil
From the Thomistic Philosophy website

Right, a privation. Though for some here the first order of business will be to define it. What, technically, does “privation” mean such that when we finally do get around to discussing it in regard theodicy, we’re all on the same page “philosophically”.

So let’s start with the dictionary:

[b]"Privation: noun: a state in which things that are essential for human well-being such as food and warmth are scarce or lacking.

formal: the loss or absence of a quality or attribute that is normally present."[/b]

Okay, in regard to…

“…the endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events…making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages.”

…how is evil as a privation to be understood? The privations above are derived from God. Either formally or otherwise. What quality or attribute of God that is there in the good times is lost or absent in the bad times?

As “general description spiritual contraptions” go, this “explanation” is to be expected. Now connect the dots between it and your own “loving, just and merciful” God.

From PN: forum.philosophynow.org/viewtop … 11&t=35269

Well, there is theodicy/PoE as a philosophical or theological conundrum, and then the part that revolves around the actual suffering of flesh and blood men, women and children throughout human history.

This part:

“…the endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events…making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages.”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_n … death_toll
nhsinform.scot/illnesses-an … ons/a-to-z

That taking us around to this:

Then taking some around to Harold Kushner.

Harold Kushner… Google-search

Kushner’s books include the huge bestsellers When Bad Things Happen To Good People and When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough

Next up, the sequels… When Good Things Happen To Bad People, and, When All You’ve Ever Wanted Is Enough

Do things for people not because of who they are or what they do in return, but because of who you are

Who am I? Who are you? Who is anyone?

You don’t have to be perfect to be loved, nor should you expect people you love to be perfect

So much for perfectionism then… :icon-rolleyes:

It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names

Cue, the less fractured and fragmented, Iambiguous… who is he!? who is he!? What’s in a name anyway, but an allegory/an allusion, to whom a person may or may not be… for what’s in a name, but a keepsake, that alludes to a thing

How Good Do We Have to Be: Harold S Kushner? Acceptance and forgiveness can change our relationships with the most important people in our lives and help us meet the bold and rewarding challenge of being human

Then don’t do anything that requires acceptance and forgiveness in the first place then, innit… said the foresighted to the non/the wise to the not

Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Nature of Evil
From the Thomistic Philosophy website

Yes, this is my own main focus. The terrible suffering endured by millions not as a result of their own transgressions or the “inhumanity of man” but simply as a result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of being born with one or another horrific medical condition, of getting infected with some deadly disease simply because they touched a doorknob teeming with this or that deadly microbe.

In other words, something that, if it came about as a result of human behavior – someone blowing up a dam precipitating a devastating flood, killing hundreds – we would label evil but if God constructs planet Earth out of tectonic plates and an earthquake destroys the dam killing hundreds, it’s rationalized as instead just a manifestation of God’s will. And thus not evil.

Or something along the lines of this…

Nature in a nutshell. At times a ghastly and gruesome slaughterhouse of predator and prey. But who calls that evil? On the other hand, how does it fit into the conviction that God is “loving, just and merciful”? It’s not like the creatures being hunted down, killed and eaten are guilty of original sin. Why the way nature is and not one considerably more tranquil and benevolent.

Of course: God’s will.

Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Nature of Evil
From the Thomistic Philosophy website

Again…

[b]"Privation: noun: a state in which things that are essential for human well-being such as food and warmth are scarce or lacking.

formal: the loss or absence of a quality or attribute that is normally present."[/b]

Is it any wonder then that, along with Aristotle, Aquinas was one of Ayn Rand’s favorite “great minds” from the past.

Reason. Clearly as fundamental to her “well-being” as food and water. And to do evil is to act irrationally. Only the “goods” that are “due” are always as she construes them. The classic moral objectivist.

Only for Aquinas a “due good” must revolve around God. And just as for Rand, who insisted it was ever and always her Reason, for Aquinas it was ever and always his God.

The rest of course is history. Just different Reasons and different Gods.

And who needs a context here, right? As long as you have access to the right Reason or the right God, just make the “set of circumstances” all about them. That’s why objectivism basically works the same for both the religious and the humanist zealots.

And that’s why I am such a threat to both. I dare to suggest that in the absence of substantive evidence demonstrating religiously the existence of a God, the God or, philosophically, a Goodness, the Goodness, it largely comes down to the subjective, existential parameters of dasein.

Unless of course I’m wrong. So, by all means, explain that to me.

Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Nature of Evil
From the Thomistic Philosophy website

Ayn Rand was drawn to Aquinas because he too followed “reason’s judgment about what is the true or appropriate good.”

jonathanturley.org/2012/05/05/t … -ayn-rand/

She simply insisted that her own ontological and teleological conclusions were rooted secularly in philosophy rather than theologically in God. But make no mistake about it: both paths shared in common the need to make morality objective. The need, in other words, to have a particular font [God/Rand] that others can fall back on as the One True Path.

Evil from the perspective of Aquinas/God or from the perspective of Rand/Philosophy.

The starting point either way being Reason itself?

Freedom. You are free to live your life through the Christian God or through Objectivism. For Christians that freedom revolved around the congregation…flocks of sheep…while for Objectivists it revolved around, well, flocks of sheep. After all, if you dared to reject Rand’s own conclusions, you were “excommunicated” from the tribe…the “Collective”. You became evil personified.

Evil was whatever she said it was. Rape it would seem is immoral because it is not rational. Unless, of course, the woman is a Dominique Francon and the man is a Howard Roark.

Objectivism is simple.

If anything is bothering anyone, existence isn’t working.

The problem is that the sheer magnitude and vastness of that problem overwhelms people.

Even you iambiguous.

So you shut down and keep posting like a robot.

You realize your limitations. You can’t think. You can’t create. You can’t add. You can’t use inference.

I’d say that it scares you how incompetent you are when objective reality is so simple.

Look, I have patiently [and, sure, at times, polemically] attempted to explain to you why I believe that you are afflicted with a “condition” – clinical or otherwise – that prompts you to assert things that are often way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way “out there”.

Unless, of course, you can demonstrate that, among other things, you have in fact spoken to God, the Devil, Mr. Death and Buddha.

Just for starters.

Either that or [again] ecmandu is just this “online” character that you invented in order to entertain yourself. For whatever reason.

And, if so, I would certainly not suggest that that is evil.

Well, given your motivation and intention rooted existentially, subjectively in dasein. :sunglasses:

Interesting how you approached my post.

I stated that objective morality is rooted in anyone being bothered by anything.

Knowing you can’t approach or defeat the topic, you brought up 4 failed beings who failed.

Ah, of course: proving my point.

Or are you just channeling Meno here?

Waiting patiently for the next pinhead post from her? :sunglasses: