I'm a little bothered by the problem of evil, but I don't see it as irrefutable evidence against benign theism. The arguments I've heard generally go one of two ways:
(1) I can't imagine a good reason for allowing such evil, and so there cannot (or is very unlikely to be) a sufficient reason. My problem with this is that it makes a strong assumption about the intelligence of the person making the objection, and as we know people can be pretty unintelligent.
or...
(2) There's can be no good reason for this much evil in the world. My problem with this is that no human really knows how much good and evil are in the world, or how much of one gives rise to the other or is necessary in order to achieve the other, etc. Also, it's not always so clear what we mean by evil - humans don't always agree on that.
A lot of the arguments around this seem to make the inference that just because someone can't imagine a way that X eail
From what I've seen, most of the contradictions I've perceived have been weekend by any of several reasons:
I'm arguing against something that no formal Christian doctrine espouses. I.e., you'll be with your first love in heaven.
I'm arguing against something that some denominations believe, but not others. I.e., that the sacramental bread is literally Jesus's body. I don't know whether or not the Catholics et al have a solid case for this, but it seems goofy and to be a non-essential doctrine so I don't worry about it.
The English translation of the Bible gives me a different impression than the original Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew contained. I.e., some subtle but relevant meaning was lost in translation. So my issue was with a straw-man.
I understood a passage differently before learning about the historical / political / cultural context.
Logical errors on my part. For example, I couldn't reconcile the notions that Christians were supposed to be influenced by the Holy Spirit, but in practice it looked like they were influenced by just reading and obeying a book. This seemed like nearly a flat-out contradiction, until someone pointed out the theory of direct and indirect agency to me.
I'm not saying there are no true logical defeaters for Christianity, it's just that I've learned some humility regarding my conclusions on the matter.
That being said, the doctrine of the trinity seems very dubious to me. As though the authors of the New Testament were going through basically incoherent logical gymnastics in order to show that they weren't espousing polytheism.
I agree that a need for meaning or servitude (which is maybe a form of need for meaning) might be the best explanation for religions. I'm just undecided if they're the best explanation or not. YYMV, obviously.
I dunno... pretty much every tough-minded Christian ever?
You'll be very hard pressed to pose a question which Christian theologians haven't come to grips with over the past 1900 years. You may challenge their premises, but you're very unlikely to identify an internal inconsistency for which no resolution has been proposed.
There are plenty of people who have poor justification for even their accurate beliefs, including for mathematics and physics. It would be a mistake to dismiss sampling theory just because someone on Fox News made a dumb statistical inference. If you really want to know the truth about a religion, you'll need to dig deeper than just knocking down persons who pose poor arguments for it.
In U.S and, increasingly elsewhere, patents are a threat to any would-be innovator, whether in high-school, or at a university lab, or in private industry.
If DARPA really wants to enable innovation, it should pay for each high school to have a team of 20 patent lawyers.
I forgot to mention lawsuits against file sharers. Whenever I even contemplated file sharing, I thought about how easy it would be for ISP's and websites to log my actions and tie copyright infringement to my computer/house.
Again, all the basic dynamics are in place for getting sued, but lots of people for some reason ignored them.
I'm learning that when the fundamental dynamics of something seem wrong, you should usually go with your gut regardless of what the crowd does.
With a little thought, it's easy to spot problems that the mainstream media, and public at large, are simply ignoring. Perhaps they take cues from each others' lack of concern?
housing bubble - Easy to see the debt:income ratios for buying a house were becoming impossible to manage. I didn't understand bond markets and CDO's at the time, but I could tell something was going to give before long.
government deficit spending
higher-education cost bubble
Facebook's access to "private" data, with fundamental financial incentives to share it with 3rd parties.
I agree on a lot of your points. I haven't really noticed the pro-fanboy modding. But I have noticed some really crazy down-modding that suggested bias, malice, or thoughtlessness on the part of the moderator. And this seems to have been on the upswing over the last 12-18 months. The current meta-modding system is apparently insufficient.
I'm growing increasingly convinced that in many situations, code only requires a minimal amount of documentation.
Code under development changes rapidly, so most of that documentation would never get used. And lots of code is best explained by the code itself plus small, local comments, rather than by separate, copious documentation. And then there's the fact that software often gets discarded before anyone would need to make the kinds of modifications that required extensive documentation.
It seems like sometimes, people who call for extensive documentation do so from the intuition that it's a diligent, long-term-smart strategy. I think the picture is muddier than that.
Let me explain what I meant. Many liberals seems to be strongly influenced by sympathy for every member of society. I think this is the impetus for some U.S. public schools having eliminated "tracking", in which students are assigned into groups of like-performing individuals. What the GP seemed to be arguing for was, essentially, "tracking" (in the educational sense). That's why I expected it was anathema to many or most liberals.
... doesn't it make more sense to concentrate on finding the good students and giving them opportunities (scholarships, etc.), and on bumping the above-average ones over that threshold into excellence, than to continue vain attempts to improve the average?
What you're saying is anathema to the majority of liberals in the U.S.
I've come a cross a very good counter-example. The best programmer I've ever encountered, after nearly 20 years in the business, is a guy who barely gives a crap about the job. For whatever reason he's extremely productive. It's probably some combination of good work habits and strong intelligence and good education (bachelors from MIT in Comp Sci.)
I fail to see how Jews are any different from Muslims.
I think you're confusing a fraction of Israel's 10% Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, with the broader community of Jews. As far as I know, the behavior to which you're referring is abhorred by a majority of Israeli Jews.
The courts appear to have decided that threats from alleged terrorists trump the threat of tyranny by the executive branch. That's why State Secrets doctrine so often wins, and that's why the courts have protected the NSA from judicial scrutiny in general.
I fear that with the eternal War on Terror, they've confused which threat is greater.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a little bothered by the problem of evil, but I don't see it as irrefutable evidence against benign theism. The arguments I've heard generally go one of two ways:
(1) I can't imagine a good reason for allowing such evil, and so there cannot (or is very unlikely to be) a sufficient reason. My problem with this is that it makes a strong assumption about the intelligence of the person making the objection, and as we know people can be pretty unintelligent.
or...
(2) There's can be no good reason for this much evil in the world. My problem with this is that no human really knows how much good and evil are in the world, or how much of one gives rise to the other or is necessary in order to achieve the other, etc. Also, it's not always so clear what we mean by evil - humans don't always agree on that.
A lot of the arguments around this seem to make the inference that just because someone can't imagine a way that X eail
From what I've seen, most of the contradictions I've perceived have been weekend by any of several reasons:
I'm not saying there are no true logical defeaters for Christianity, it's just that I've learned some humility regarding my conclusions on the matter.
That being said, the doctrine of the trinity seems very dubious to me. As though the authors of the New Testament were going through basically incoherent logical gymnastics in order to show that they weren't espousing polytheism.
I agree that a need for meaning or servitude (which is maybe a form of need for meaning) might be the best explanation for religions. I'm just undecided if they're the best explanation or not. YYMV, obviously.
Dig.
I dunno... pretty much every tough-minded Christian ever?
You'll be very hard pressed to pose a question which Christian theologians haven't come to grips with over the past 1900 years. You may challenge their premises, but you're very unlikely to identify an internal inconsistency for which no resolution has been proposed.
There are plenty of people who have poor justification for even their accurate beliefs, including for mathematics and physics. It would be a mistake to dismiss sampling theory just because someone on Fox News made a dumb statistical inference. If you really want to know the truth about a religion, you'll need to dig deeper than just knocking down persons who pose poor arguments for it.
In U.S and, increasingly elsewhere, patents are a threat to any would-be innovator, whether in high-school, or at a university lab, or in private industry.
If DARPA really wants to enable innovation, it should pay for each high school to have a team of 20 patent lawyers.
I thought calling someone "anti-Jewish-Semitic-Hebrew-Israeli" was just being redundant! Excuse me, I need to go make some apologies...
I forgot to mention lawsuits against file sharers. Whenever I even contemplated file sharing, I thought about how easy it would be for ISP's and websites to log my actions and tie copyright infringement to my computer/house.
Again, all the basic dynamics are in place for getting sued, but lots of people for some reason ignored them.
I'm learning that when the fundamental dynamics of something seem wrong, you should usually go with your gut regardless of what the crowd does.
With a little thought, it's easy to spot problems that the mainstream media, and public at large, are simply ignoring. Perhaps they take cues from each others' lack of concern?
I agree on a lot of your points. I haven't really noticed the pro-fanboy modding. But I have noticed some really crazy down-modding that suggested bias, malice, or thoughtlessness on the part of the moderator. And this seems to have been on the upswing over the last 12-18 months. The current meta-modding system is apparently insufficient.
I'm growing increasingly convinced that in many situations, code only requires a minimal amount of documentation.
Code under development changes rapidly, so most of that documentation would never get used. And lots of code is best explained by the code itself plus small, local comments, rather than by separate, copious documentation. And then there's the fact that software often gets discarded before anyone would need to make the kinds of modifications that required extensive documentation.
It seems like sometimes, people who call for extensive documentation do so from the intuition that it's a diligent, long-term-smart strategy. I think the picture is muddier than that.
Are those details really relevant? The vice of corruption is something I expect of nearly all Congressmen regardless of party or home state.
The Congress shall rapidly remedy it, in employers' favor. What, are you against campaign financers job creators?
No offense intended, but generally speaking a sizable portion of the group will be paid below average. Perhaps you're just part of that group?
According to the inflation rate calculator I used, the consumer price index (one measure of inflation) has increased 5.08% from 2008 to 2011.
So, on average, IT pro's are effectively paid about 5% less than in 2008.
Let me explain what I meant. Many liberals seems to be strongly influenced by sympathy for every member of society. I think this is the impetus for some U.S. public schools having eliminated "tracking", in which students are assigned into groups of like-performing individuals. What the GP seemed to be arguing for was, essentially, "tracking" (in the educational sense). That's why I expected it was anathema to many or most liberals.
... doesn't it make more sense to concentrate on finding the good students and giving them opportunities (scholarships, etc.), and on bumping the above-average ones over that threshold into excellence, than to continue vain attempts to improve the average?
What you're saying is anathema to the majority of liberals in the U.S.
You want to foster innovation? Make it so a company doesn't have to spend zillions on lawyers to deal with trolls.
You're overstating the problem. For 100 gold I can hire a fighter and a cleric. Problem solved.
I've come a cross a very good counter-example. The best programmer I've ever encountered, after nearly 20 years in the business, is a guy who barely gives a crap about the job. For whatever reason he's extremely productive. It's probably some combination of good work habits and strong intelligence and good education (bachelors from MIT in Comp Sci.)
Don't forget that Israeli Jews commonly spit on young girls who aren't dressed "modestly" and call them whores as they walk to school.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/12/american-girl-8-is-target-of-ultra-orthodox-jews-in-israel/1?csp=obinsite
I fail to see how Jews are any different from Muslims.
I think you're confusing a fraction of Israel's 10% Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, with the broader community of Jews. As far as I know, the behavior to which you're referring is abhorred by a majority of Israeli Jews.
The courts appear to have decided that threats from alleged terrorists trump the threat of tyranny by the executive branch. That's why State Secrets doctrine so often wins, and that's why the courts have protected the NSA from judicial scrutiny in general.
I fear that with the eternal War on Terror, they've confused which threat is greater.
That ain't nothin', sweat-cheeks.
And now the parent post is marked "Troll" as well. I'd forgotten that Slashdot is sometimes not a place for serious discussion.
Interesting that the parent post was modded "Troll", when the posts above it were not.
It makes me wish moderators needed to provide valid defenses of their moderation choices.
All good points. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into.
Agreed. Atheists can be very stubborn in their beliefs.
Oh, wait, did you mean...