In about 300 B.C., Epicurus eloquently summed up the problem of the existence of evil. It has come to be known as the Riddle of Epicurus or the Epicurean paradox. It was translated by David Hume in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion:
If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to
Then He is not omnipotent.If He is able, but not willing
Then He is malevolent.If He is both able and willing
Then whence cometh evil?If He is neither able nor willing
Then why call Him God?
All very thought provoking comments, especially from you, Mark. I appreciate that you take the time to understand my argument, and to offer your own points and counter-points.
I absolutely agree with your assertion that, essentially, the concept of god is a human creation that exists primarily in the mind. I also have the same problem with religion that you have outlined. I feel that is the main problem of humanity in general, religion or no: division. People with ill intentions will always seek to disrupt peace, at whatever cost. And those people use whatever vehicle they can to accomplish this, religion included.
I think, though, that the ultimate concept of God is more profound than that. I tend to be a magnificent idealist, and perhaps that is my folly. I realize that humans have very little understanding of the universe and of time itself. We can conjecture as best we can about the cause of existence, but I still think we are missing quite a bit. Richard Dawkins was right when he claimed that religious people always seek to use God as the necessary filler to the gaps in our knowledge. It is not right, of course, to simply explain away all of what we don't know by using the excuse of God. However I do think that humans come closer and closer everyday to understanding a more perfect unity with each other and the "divine" (which, to me, is simply perhaps the evolutionary model to which we aspire: everlasting life, perfect peace, eradication of suffering, complete knowledge of the universe, etc.)
And I would not claim that atheists perceive meaninglessness in the universe. I simply think that an atheist's perception of the sacred is very different from that of a theist. To me, atheism is still a "religion" (or at the very least a philosophical belief system which follows man, though not all, of the characteristics of a religion), though it follows a very different mold from the other religions of the world. Where religious people claim the universe is the conception of one or many gods, atheists claim it is created of its own accord. Simply there, simply done, and all the gamut of life and experiences that has filled the universe since its inception is the cause of intricately interacting subatomic particles which dance magnificently together to create a wonderful cosmos and a planet full of thinking, feeling, loving beings as ourselves.
If one does not see the miraculous manifestation of a religious art in that interpretation, then they are without human ability to perceive the beauty of the creation of which we are a part.
The only problem I have with your previous comments, Karl, is the way you framed the whole Protection thing. We aren't talking about people who consult their women, because if they did and the woman said no, I don't want to live that way, the men would judge her fallen from righteousness and treat her any damn way they wish anyway.
Which leads to the question, how do you know they have it wrong and you don't? The convolutions which are the body of holy writ leave it up to us, ultimately, to decide what is or is not what god wants us to do, so why is your interpretation superior to theirs?
And if that's the case, then we have this: I hold as a moral maxim that people should be treated as ends in themselves and according the same dignity across the board, regardless of gender. Which means treating women "differently" is inherently wrong because it calls into question their status as individuals and as people. So if it is not possible to determine what is actual holy writ in this instance, I am left with the only option, which is to say that if you find something in holy writ to support the subjugation of women, then your holy writ is meaningless to me and I will defy it.
(And Paul said enough about "womans place" to allow for interpretations that women are second class citizens. If you then say that Paul was wrong, then you do effectively pull the rug out from under many centuries of theology. Which is fine with me, btw, because I think Paul was a seriously sick puppy who was looking for some kind of release.)
Which is what I have meant all along when I've said that we today can make better moral determinations than the provincial patriachs of the Bible. They were the ones who took the idea of god and custom tailored it to fit their culture. In much the same way many Muslims treat the Koran and probably the reason it was written as it was.
Now, this just occurred to me. I've often been asked what I would consider proof that god exists or that the stories in the Bible are true. Here's a good one.
How come there is no commandment against slavery? I mean how hard would that be?
"Thou shalt hold no man or woman in bondage as servants, for I the Lord thy God created all people and no one among you has privilege to own another."
Instead we get servitude codified into the ten commandments, which for my money negates the whole set. We hold it today, here among ourselves, that slavery is a categorical evil, yet there it is, tacitly and implicitly validated as okay throughout the Bible. Had that commandment shown up in the set I for one would be hard put to argue with it. I might anyway, but its absence kind of guarantees I don't buy the whole god thing, at least as recorded in Scripture. It would have run counter to ALL cultural norms of the day and demonstrated a profoundly radical and, dare I say, divine attitude toward the worth of people. Instead, it just conforms to tribal custom.
ThinkingMan,
You're good. You are good. I have to go ponder all this. Get back to you later.
Mark,
As far a slavery or servitude goes, the Bible states that it exists, but it doesn't give any ongoing justification for it.
People misunderstand what the Bible calls the harsh facts of slavery for how other biased, "evil" humans prefer to think of it.
The Bible actually calls for slavery or forced servitude to normally never exceed a 7 year period.
The Bible explicitly says that slaves, wives and the children of slaves are never the actual property of another person, i.e. the slave owners/masters.
Slaves in essence owe a debt or are working off a payment or punishment like community service. This debt or punishment should have a limit for how long it can be held over another person's head and their family as well.
It's like this, somebody gets somebody else upset with them for either personal or economic reasons. Its then a matter of how does one extract the pound of flesh.
Ongoing generational slavery is much more than a pound of flesh.
A person is convicted of a crime or some evil that ends up placing them on the wrong side of right living thus creating for those who made the laws the need for a consequence, judgement or penalty.
Slavery is little else than a human or humans forcing their will upon others simply because some collective group has chosen this form of judgement or penalty for the supposed evil deeds of either a single person or a group of persons.
Ongoing slavery is the moral equivalent of generational war when it comes to trying to fix blame for an ancestors evil deeds upon their children. This is flatly condemned in the Bible in many places.
Moses condemns in Dueteronomy what ended up happening to Canaan in Genesis. Thus we know that Noah's offspring were not inspired by God in their ongoing intention to keep Canaan on the slave list for as long as they darn well wanted to.
Canaan was told in essence that as things stood he was the pound of flesh for his father Ham's misdeed. This should in no wise have been on for an extended time onto Canaan unless Canaan was somehow implicitly involved in his Father's evil. It flatly should never have been carried on to Canaan's children at all.
Even if Canaan had been present with Ham, the only way a minor child could be blamed for what the parent did was if Ham somehow offered Canaan as a means to decide whose "back" was going to do the work to pay off the debt.
I doubt seriously that Noah chose Canaan at random for the pronouncement of the consequences for the "evil" Ham had done.
As usual however, weak evil minds tended to look at what was in it for themselves and thus Shem and Japeth and their children had no problem keeping Canaan and family under their control.
Ongoing slavery is condemned in the Bible, those who look for reasons to extend it beyond seven years will not find any inerrant thou shalts supporting it.
The inerrant thou shalts for slavery are for when it must cease if it happens to be the way a debt or punishment is being worked out or paid off.
Wittgenstein said it best.
"Don't get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one."
later debaters
As always, Anon offers wise words.
Thanks Anon!
😉
Karl,
'
Where is it condemned? Not approving of a certain form of it is hardly the same as making a statement on its morality. Besides, I think you missed my point. Completely.
ThinkingMan writes:—"To me, atheism is still a “religion” (or at the very least a philosophical belief system which follows man, though not all, of the characteristics of a religion), though it follows a very different mold from the other religions of the world. Where religious people claim the universe is the conception of one or many gods, atheists claim it is created of its own accord."
We may be using the Religion in different ways. I don't think it's possible to have a religion without a positive belief in a deity, although I can certainly see a way to construe one based on the obsessive insistence that there isn't one—the concept of a god would still be a core attribute, wouldn't it?
For myself I don't think about the being or nonbeing of a god until someone brings the topic up. (When I was formulating my—as Karl would put it—world view, I thought about it all the time, but since then it's sort of "been there, done that, what's next?")
This post– -http://dangerousintersection.org/2009/01/07/science-and-religion-differences/—is not quite on the same topic, but close enough to illustrate my thinking on the subject.
I grant you, anyone can turn anything into a religion, but that doesn't make the thing itself a religion.
Hi Karl,
I've really been enjoying your comments on this site! They are very funny! I love good satire*, and I think the persona you've created of a confused "fundamentalist religious nut" is spot on–really well crafted. It seems so "real" that I suspect some other bloggers on this site, who you've baited into responding to many of your comments, may have been duped into actually believing that the "backwoods bible thumper" and conspiracy theorist character you developed is sincere, and not just a literary tool. Which is really a high compliment of your work, putting you in the same camp with Mark Twain, J. Swift, Hunter S. Thompson, and Aleister Crowley.
I especially enjoy your stories about Canaan and his dad Ham, and when you wrote about Noah getting drunk. Your latest bit about how slavery is 'OK' with God, as long as it doesn't last more than seven years, was priceless. Keep up the good work!
(* you are writing satire….aren't you?)
Karl reminds me of Stephen Colbert playing a conservative.
How can you condemn something that use to be one of the few ways to keep some people from being complete con artists?
The way slavery has been used by evil men is often pure evil itself, but there are so many forms of slavery in one form or another that trying to condemn slavery outright is like blaming people for keeping track of records of wrongs.
To me, the best parable Jesus told was the one about the unforgiving servant who was forgiven a huge debt he couldn't possibly have paid back, but then this same ungrateful servant terrorizes someone else who owes him a very small amount. This is just like people who can't face in themselves what they are afraid of from their society.
For nearly as long as there has been recorded history, people who got into legal trouble or debt up to their eye balls often had no other recourse, short of some form of a debtors’ prison (slavery), escaping to a foreign land, death by suicide or death by execution.
Today we file bankruptcy to prevent losing the shirts off of our backs because there never is a pretty way to extract the pound of flesh required to settle up many situations once a person has lost their ability to earn a living.
Declaring "Bankruptcy" is a fairly modern term for being unwilling to be responsible for one's foolish and stupid decisions in life. Moral bankruptcy has come to mean having no understanding that anything is really improper or more evil than anything else in life.
The Bible holds up the standard of forgiveness in both the Old and New Testament despite what most people are led to believe. The seventh year, and the forty-nine year (Jubilee) were meant to be the times for wiping the slates clean.
Wouldn't it be great to try and get modern banks and nations to consider this as a way out of the insanity in personal, housing, corporate, and national debts, where nearly everyone owes somebody else, but no one has a clue how to be fair in settling the matter.
What is condemned in the Bible is essentially "kidnapping" or trafficking in human lives, as though they were commodities. Many slaves in the past were traded like Joseph was in Genesis by some other group that supposedly got something in return for the transaction. This is outright unjustified by the conflict between people, but even in the end God can use this for good.
How often does a model of forgiveness need to be pointed to before people understand what it means?
Most people think they understand personal responsibility when it comes to their rights. It's too bad that some people really don't understand personal responsibility for forgiveness as well.
What most people normally don't like about Jesus' moral teachings is that he calls us all to be servants of each other, knowing full well that there will be others who have no intention of returning such an attitude.
Sorry Mike, I have no such persona as you have imagined.
Call it the sick delusion of someone who cares about more than their just their own rights and opinions.
I believe that the post to which you directed me is absolutely right. Science cannot be considered as a religion, as it deals with conclusions data and records garnered from the natural world.
But I didn't say Science, did I?
I said Atheism.
I do not believe that a positive belief in a deity is necessary for a religious philosophy. I think it is sufficient to believe anything with enough conviction.
http://mw4.m-w.com/dictionary/religion:
Definition # 4:
"a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith."
Granted, atheists purport that all of their philosophical ideals are based on clearly verifiable scientific data. However, with science one is not offered with a positive or negative proof of God, and thus any person can say they use science as a means to bolster their own philosophical claims (though some simply may be stretching more than others in this task).
So, I agree with your claims, and fully enjoyed reading that thoughtful post. However I did have some thoughts concerning your own definition of religion. You claim religion must follow certain principles simply because those are the principles that the main religions of current society follow. Though, they are not necessary. Disorganization and lack of belief can be construed similarly as belief in nothing. Its still a philosophical belief system. And though atheism is by its very nature attempting to stand as the very antithesis religious ideology, it does so at the expense of being called a religion also.
Karl,
The owning of one person by another is simply not supportable on any moral grounds. You've completely lost me on this one and in so doing have pretty much validated my entire view of Scripture. It's as if you seem to think that if it's in there, justified, it must under some circumstances be okay.
No. It's never okay. We've parted company on this one. If anyone doesn't "get it" I suspect it's you.
ThinkingMan writes:—"But I didn’t say Science, did I?
I said Atheism."
Well, yes, and I admitted that, but I thought some of the material in that still pertained, if a bit tangentially.
As to religion and philosophical systems, I agree, they are (often) entangled, having at least some of the same concerns. But I still see sufficient distinction that, for me, for something to be a religion, a deity has to be in there somewhere.
Mark,
The Bible does not say that servitude/slavery equals "ownership." Only evil people whose focus is on differing views of civil rights, fairness and equality come to associate servitude/slavery with either temporary or permanent ongoing ownership.
Show me historically how slavery/servitude in one form or another always had the harsh meaning of "owning" another person?
The Old and New Testament both use the terms for slave and servant almost interchangeably. I view it this way, the more improper the treatment of a servant, the more that the concept of slave "ownership" comes into reality. The same thing happens in many Arabic cultures regarding married women; some have fewer rights than some of the male servants. Is either of them slaves? Well that all comes down to fine matters of definition between servant and slave as I see it.
You seem to not want to consider that entire legal codes were established in many cultures from the times of the Egyptians and Acadians up to the present to "regulate" servitude so that it didn't turn into the worst kinds of evil one could imagine.
I am not defending slavery as something God or the scriptures ever encouraged, I'm describing how real people dealt with the harsh realities of owing either your livelihood or debts to perhaps the wrong kinds of people. The wrong kinds of people would be those who considered you their property. As I see it, this of course de-humanizes people and is not God's ideal in any manner shape or form.
Karl writes:—"Show me historically how slavery/servitude in one form or another always had the harsh meaning of “owning” another person?"
You're kidding, right? Slaves taken by conquest was the norm for thousands of years. Rome was the first polity to establish the idea that slaves could potentially buy their own freedom, but for all intents and purposes slavery was for life.
You've done some interesting twists on things before this one, but this takes the cake. As for the Hebrews, the commandment on coveting I believe includes the terms "manservant" and "maidservant" and lumps these in with all the rest of the list as—wait for it—property.
You're ducking my point. An all seeing, all powerful entity handing down holy law would be in a position to understand and disseminate a higher moral ground, but instead just went along with the culture. That is the problem with using Scripture to demonstrate the existence of such a being—there's nothing that shocks and astonishes by virtue of it being truly revolutionary in comparison to local standards. And this one is a biggie and you're playing word games with it.
"God" is Karl's hand-puppet. If only he could figure this out.
Can we agree that manservants and maidservants were seen as part of a persons economic/social status however those who considered them as simply property had a bias and an evil streak that they refused to acknowledge? When did the sons and daughters stop being just "property?" They certainly also "belonged" to the neighbor as well.
Do you agree that the basic husband dominated Arabic manner of living today was the most common cultural setting for much of the Old Testament?
Because this cultural setting existed and the authors of scripture wrote from within it, does that make the God of creation directly responsible for it?
You seem to be back to the same line of reasoning – "if people are like such and such (evil) how could a God exist who is not also evil.
Or do you simply believe that "basically good" people treated other human beings with contempt and disdain?
When a person is seen as the head of a household that makes them more legally responsible for the actions of the entire group, but it doesn't make them his or her property. This is what I mean by people taking their own human ideas and understandings and associating them directly with God himself.
Mark and Erich,
"The existence of a personal choice to serve one another has been carried to the extreme by sinful self-centered people as their having a right to be served for perpetuity."
Why isn't that found in the Bible? I think it should be.
Your interpretation of scripture provides you with something worth disbelieving God about. I would however point out that this only means to me that you have something to believe about human nature in general.
That doesn't make God the author of any and every kind of evil that the selfish mind of men and women can come up with.
The Bible contains laws and principles to "regulate" those who were commonly given the legal responsibility in some manner or another for other people.
What does the law suggest we do for trustees who violate the trust placed in them? Should there be trustees that can then do as they will with what they've been entrusted?
The Bible holds forth ideals of release from slavery and serving one another in many ways and on many occasions. I'm really at a loss to understand why historical accounts of changing cultures point in your mind to a fickle God with nothing better to do than tell someone they were the personal property of another human being.
Can we both agree that the cultures in which the Bible was written were very imperfect? Can we then also agree that those interpreting what was written would likely also read into these matters their own customs and self-centered ideas about slavery?
It sure happened historically in the U.S. and it still does happen in many places across the globe.
Wouldn't it just be wiser to agree that slavery where people are dehumanized is just wrong and stop blaming someone's sacred book for authorizing it.
You will find no arguments from me that this evil must be eradicated. What you won't find from me is a throwing out of my desire to understand God better because someone believes they can somehow discredit God because of the foibles of those that claim to believe in the same God.
Its obvious that many people's ideas and beliefs about who this God is can be very different. Does that mean we are to cease to try to know Him better?
You go ahead and call your moral sense of right and wrong important to you. I'll go ahead and call my understanding of the moral nature of God which helps me determine right from wrong to be important to me.
Karl,
I can agree with pretty much all of that, but everything you've written simply supports the conclusion that it was all manmade, without any authentic divinity involved.
All I said, vis a vis potential proofs of such a god as you seem to believe in, is that a statement from him, as part of the law he supposedly handed down on Sinai, that chattel-bondage/slavery is wrong would go a huge distance to support the contention that there is a god such as you describe. It would stick out. Scholars would be forced to credit it as more than human tinkering with local codes. It would be hard to explain. And it would be consistent with a moral program that saw every individual as a so-called "child of god" and important in and of itself. All you're doing is describing the local decor and showing how it influenced what was written.
I am very aware that history shows a persistence of slavery in one form or another, even unto the present day. It is based ultimately on a denigration of individual worth. Jesus suggested such denigration is a mistake at best.
You're struggling to make this play like it's not god's fault—and since I don't believe in this god, I agree with you as far as it goes—but you're ignoring my point, which is that at a time (supposedly) when this god was having conversations with "his" people, a simple statement on the morality of this practice—which would likely have been ignored in practice—would have been a good way to confound people like me and advance a moral program that has waited 3500 years to begin to manifest and only by virtue of good people bravely challenging custom.
No such thing was written. Lots of other enigmatic things were recorded, but not that one.
And if such a thing were said by this god and completely left out of the Pentateuch and the rest, it establishes pretty clearly that, with regards to testimony about deities, the Bible is worthless, since the writers were going to put in it whatever the hell they decided to regardless, rendering it historically interesting but hardly authoritative.
So, I think I'm done with this one. You might draw a few more responses out of me—because I can't help scratching certain itches—but all you're doing is making excuses. Interesting excuses, but mainly for human behavior.
God exists in the minds of men. The obvious evidence of this is a completely inconsistent God across peoples and cultures, and the undeniable convenience of God aligning itself with believers actions and prejudices. Why is this such a hard concept for people? When you say "get to know God", you mean, "get to know myself". When you say, "what God wants for me", you mean, "what I want for myself". One cannot escape themselves, you are you, you cannot communicate with God telepathically. If you legitimately hear the voice of God, there is a scientific term for that, it's called schizophrenia.
The context of the Ten Commandments (including the tenth) was that God had just finished delivering the Hebrews from a several hundred year period of bondage to the Egyptians.
If he was so set on encouraging slavery, why did he allow them to experience so wonderful a time in forced labor camps?
God exists in the minds of people. Indeed. But I think far too many simplify the point tremendously. You say that conceptions of God vary across cultures, that is indeed true, but ultimately you will find a very many consistencies and similarities among the basic tenants of many of the major religions, if you read deep enough into them.
An understanding of the divine (or humanity's ability to fabricate such claims) is a trait inherent in all men and women, apparently. There is something to this, I am sure of it.
Humans have very limited sight. I have said it countless times and I will say it again: I cannot possibly imagine that we know very much about anything, especially about "God."
And Mark, for you that might be the case. I don't. I think a non-deity is just as sufficient as a deity. There is still a system of belief from which an atheist must garner meaning. Even if the definition of it for them is: meaning is mine own. Its still close enough.
It is hard to defend the Bible historically. It is hard to defend the views of those who had written the Bible and its relevance to today. Ultimately it should be read as a tribal manuscript for the people of the tribes of Israel, and the subsequently as instructions for the followers of Christ. It is not irrelevant because that is the interpretation of some men who legitimately feel they had a spiritual connection with the divine.
The same goes for other holy books. I would suggest stringently that everyone read copies of the Mahabharata, the Vedas, the Qur'ran, and even older or new Holy books and try to find some similarities.
Clearly you will see the author's biases in all of them. But with an open mind and willing heart you will absorb the more important messages, I think. That is Human Kind's capacity for goodness. For "godness" right there.
Evil is not a something that is there, rather something that isn't. Evil is the human name given to the absence of God in something. The absence of good. So it isn't that god cannot stop evil, its that people choose to push god out of their lives and thus he is no longer completely present within them, and we call that evil. Of course this is all just my belief, my point of view. I am not trying to push my ideas on to anyone, I am just sharing my view on things.
One more try…
Karl writes:—"If he was so set on encouraging slavery, why did he allow them to experience so wonderful a time in forced labor camps?"
I didn't say he "promoted" it. I said he didn't make a statement against it. This is not a shy god, this Yahweh—he thought nothing of slaughtering people who simply ignored his presence or made fun of his prophets. A simple, clear, declarative statement that slavery is against HIS law…is not to be found. So I can assume the people who came up with him in the first assumed he wouldn't have any trouble with it.
This will be my last try to clearly state why there is not a statement written in the Old Testament or New Testament stating "You shalt not purchase or permit the existence of servants/slaves which in essence would mean "You shall clearly tell others that do permit this for one reason or another that they are evil."
Consider the entire relationship of employers and employees.
Consider the very idea that criminals are often put into prison.
Consider that Jesus himself came to be the servant of all.
Consider that someone who wished to be of assistance to you while you were in the hospital could be arrested by your neighbor for helping you.
This would only leave the government to fend for people that fell on hard times.
Nearly every economy is based on "have" and "have not" principles. When one is seen as going into a debt to have what they did not have before, this establishes a servant and potential slave relationship depite how "evil" it could eventually turn out.
Joseph's brothers as they saw it had a younger "brat" for a brother and they want to get him out of their lives. They used economics to get rid of their physical problem, but only found themselves slaves to their own lies and deceipt.
There was no physical reason why they still had their problem, that was only a moral dilemma, which they were in bondage to. When we act against our own better judgement, we put ourselves into bondage as well.
You can't do away with economic realities unless you have no physical existence. Likewise Jesus called on his followers to owe no man anything except for a debt of love.