Best of all possible worlds and atheism

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Actually, I am probably more anti-theist than anti-religious. I don't mind religious structures, but I do mind supernatural explanation. I just go after the big guys, finding the other notions to be smaller issues and less relevant in the location I live in.

Does that make sense?

And well, the big issue is that once we start moving away from the traditional conception of God, the supernatural agents stop being arguable using the kinds of methods I use against God, and instead really need to be addressed with Occam's razor more than most other qualities. These kinds of entities are usually more compatible with perceived reality, even if they aren't to be regarded as existing.

Now I feel it is worth that I explain my position and also explore how totally dishonest AG has been in this discussion.

The difference between the logical and evidential arguments.

The logical argument from evil seeks to show that God and evil are logically incompatible and that one cannot exist with the other. Now, thaks to Alvin Plantinga's work on the subject, the logical problem of evil is essentially considered solved, by the majority of modern philosophers. His work shows that there was no logical incompatibility. My own modal arguement did the same by stating through it's premesis that all God would need is a sufficient reason. AG has claimed this is begging the question. It is not, since the discussion involves the link between God and evil, mentioning God is warranted. We will return to his claim about begging the question again.

The evidential argument states that God is compatible with evil, but unlikely due to the amount of evil. Now this is a much more powerful arguement and is still very much alive within comtemorary philosophy. However there are good defenses, such as the hiddenness of God, the inability for a best possible world, where everyone is happy, to include the ultimate good within a salvation plan and also a reference to God through other arguments like the cosmological or ontological. All of these arguements are sound refutations, in the end it becomes a subjective choice between the two. The reason the evidential argument is frowned upon by contemporary atheist is that it gives warrant to Christian theism, since there still is remaining justification.

Where it all went wrong

The OP by AG is essentially an attempt to dress up an evidential claim as a logical one. I once watched a student try this in a class room, the result was a universal giggle at the student in question. This is due to the nature of the evidential arguement, it cannot be a logical arguement of total incompatiblism. By it's nature it allows both an invitation to impose outside arguments from cosmology and from skeptical theism upon the evidence offered insuport. So claiming logical inconsistancy is totally insupportable. The student failed to realized that by making an evidential argument his own argument was providing the logical warrant to the theist position, he was then claiming a logical incompatibity. The argument is self-refuting, if this is it's claim.

Now AG having made the exact same mistake, then proceeded to argue a logical contradiction. When I pointed out it was not logically contradictory, he cited evidential arguements. When I used evidential responses, he cited logical arguements. The resut was no interaction with the subject matter. He was literally, arguing in circles; while attempting to claim that which is not supported within his arguement. By dressing his evidential arguement up as a logical one, he is trying to have his cake and eat it to. When I pointed all of this out to him, ge just continued to do it. His claims about begging the question would be correct under an evidentualist argument (under certain circumstances). However he is also claiming it is a logical incompatility. In order to address this logical aspect, a logical arguement is needed, hence it is not begging the question. This is when it became blatantly dishonest.

Hence I require a private retraction.

Also, for the record, a consiquentialists is not the same a utilitarian arguement. Consiquesntialists claim much less warrant than the latter. Hence they are not the same thing.

logic and evidence are not mutually exclusive. Evidence can disprove an argument that seems logical (ie, prompt the search for a logical flaw that was previously unnoticed) and, likewise, can be used to support one seemingly logical claim against another seemingly logical claim.

While the existence of any god from Thor to Jehova cannot be disproven by logic or evidence any more than Russel's Teapot can be disproven, there are very strong arguments against them and the arguments for are always ultimately about faith: The 'hiddenness of God,' for example. Thus, your claim that "All of these arguements are sound refutations..." is merely a matter of opinion.

Neither logic nor evidence is any use without agreement on premises and ground rules. Without, with the best intentions in the world antler-locked wapiti is the most you can achieve.

@LKL

Within the evidentualist argument the logical compatibility is not under question, only the level of evil is. The argument grants that God and some evil are logically compatible but that the level of evil dramatically reduces the likelihood of there being a God. The argument is both logical and probabilistic in relation to the level of evil, not in relation to basic compatibility as AG claims.

As to my claims relating to sound refutation, sure, I already said that it comes down to a subjective choice about the probability (hence why most contemporary atheists shy away from using it, St. Thomas Aquinas also did not approve of using probabilistic arguments, since they leave the other side a way out). The refutations are sound arguments against a view of total incompatibility.

If this is the best of all possible worlds, I would dislike living in the worst of all possible worlds.

ruveyn

This whole argument fails for the same reason as the ontological argument for god. Namely, how do you define a perfect being? How do you measure the goodness of any universe? How do you know a maximally good universe exist (as opposed to a maximal integer)?

Umm..... no it really isn't. Lots of atheists still use various forms of evidentialist arguments.


No, the OP by AG is essentially that AG saw an argument on a blog, found it interesting, and analyzed it finding that the assumption he found least plausible, and one that he believed many other people would find implausible was assumption 1. That's not dressing up an evidential claim as a logical one.

That being said, you have not contested the logical soundness of this argument, which I am arguably implicitly making here:
1) An omnipotent being can actualize any possible world.
2) A perfectly good being always chooses the best outcome from among its choices.
3) This is not the best of all possible worlds.
4) Therefore this world is not made by God.
5) If God exists, then he is the maker of this world.
6) Therefore God does not exist.

What you challenged is the premises. Do I have to argue that my premises are logically necessary in order to hold that the prior argument is logically valid? No. I just have to believe that each of my premises is significantly better than its opposite, and I can still hold that the argument is a legitimate way to look at things. There is no way that I can verify each of my premises or each of any premise to be true, all I can do is side with better premises as opposed to worse premises and show how consistency with them leads to a particular conclusion.


Technically, I made a logical argument that was substantiated by evidential premises. I supported it with both other logical arguments, which I treated as fallible, but sufficient to hold that my original argument worked, along with evidential arguments.


Technically, if two arguments are both logically valid and they conflict, then this still does not show which argument is wrong.


I don't care about "strict logical compatibility" in most cases, but rather I care about compelling arguments. If one finds the intuitions behind an argument compelling, then the logical argument is a good one as far as I am concerned.


No, I really haven't argued a logical contradiction. Here's what you are holding as a logical contradiction. You hold that I am saying that God and suffering are incompatible. You also hold that I am saying that God and some suffering are compatible. I've mostly been arguing that this is just not the best possible world and that any human being can deep down recognize this, both because of previously accepted logical possibilities, and also because of the evidence. I am not strongly committed on the relationship between God and suffering.


I don't make a distinction even close to similar to yours on the matter. I defended the plausibility of the idea that this is not the best of all possible worlds. I don't have to show that every step is 100% true in order to use a premise as a premise in an argument. I don't think we can know 100% true without verification anyway, and I am not really big on the idea that we can absolutely verify anything.


Um.... your logical argument is presupposing something that my argument was concluding to be false. It is begging the question to hold your argument as a counter-argument.





Oy, I *know* this. I already REFERENCED this. The issue is that the unknowability of outcomes problem is a consequentialist problem shared between all consequentialists, including utilitarians. Even further, most consequentialists are utilitarian, making my substitution relatively legitimate.

You say

Technically, I made a logical argument that was substantiated by evidential premises. I supported it with both other logical arguments, which I treated as fallible, but sufficient to hold that my original argument worked, along with evidential arguments.

Response

Hence the self refutation that I pointed out. Evidential arguments entail that there is a logical compatibility. So making the logical argument from an evidential position is self refuting. One could make an evidential argument with a logical argument component but then it would be subject to the free will defense, but you did not do this anyway.

91, you are being ridiculous. The only evidentialist arguments used were in support of specific premises. There is no need to arrive at a premise through apriori means in a logical argument. Logic is merely a process of getting from premises to conclusions; the only sane way of obtaining premises would be to examine the evidence for whether the premise is correct.

Yes exactly. Time and time again people focus too much on the format and not on the content, which is why I have come to find the word "logic" repulsive. I could argue the world is flat and it would be logically correct, but the premise would be ridiculous since we have something called satellites nowadays. Holy this thread is making my head spin with all these long winded posts about the format...

Oddly enough, you've used "logic" to arrive at this conclusion!

But my logic would've been useless without a valid premise, which was my point

I just stumbled onto this thread after responding to AG's poll. I have to chuckle somewhat. It's good to see that someone can give even AG a hard time!

This is what I wanted to respond to:
1) An omnipotent being can actualize any possible world.
A problem I have with this is that, while true, the underlying assumption seems to be that just because an omnipotent being CAN, it doesn't mean that this is what actually happens. Any possible world can refer to any possible world, including this one.

2) A perfectly good being always chooses the best outcome from among its choices.
OK, but this isn't necessarily so. What if that best outcome includes free will? Then the best outcome is the outcome in which a created being can choose a different, even inferior, outcome.

3) This is not the best of all possible worlds.
Agreed.

4) Therefore this world is not made by God.
Also agreed.

5) If God exists, then he is the maker of this world.
Not necessarily. Again, if we introduce a creature possessing the ability (if you don't believe in free will, you can call it something else) to choose to live in a flawed world, making the choice puts the responsibility for all further natural and social consequences on the one who made the choice. God can still exist even if the existence we know is flawed.

6) Therefore God does not exist.
Whether God logically does or does not exist cannot be best explained by the foregoing argument.

True. And that's the irony: You dislike logic but cannot escape it.

Rho, the issue is not "escaping logic." It is that logic is necessary but not sufficient. You have to get your premises from somewhere in order to provide reasonable inputs to a logical argument. Logic is only the framework for ordering and structuring an argument; the content can (and should) be based on empirical/evidential observations.

Not really; 91's arguments here are just garbage. AG seems to be frustrated with 91 for his dishonesty and deliberate obtuseness.