Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

I didn’t intend to write a Part III for this topic, but it seems I have started a bit of a trend. Five days after I published Part I, the New Yorker publishes this article about the Problem of Evil (PoE)! I had no idea that their writers read my blog!

Okay, the article is a review of a book (Bart Ehrman’s God’s Problem) on the subject and it’s more likely that the PoE was on their minds for the same reasons it was on mine - the recent natural disasters in Myanmar and China that killed about 200,000 people. Regardless, James Wood wrote a great article on the topic. For those of you who prefer more of a narrative style to my philosophically-centered writing, I recommend giving it a read. Here’s an excerpt:

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Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

This is Part II of my post on The Problem of Evil (PoE). The first post garnered quite a response! The responses generated three separate rebuttals to the PoE (theodicies). I’m sure there are more. If you have your own reason for why the PoE is wrong, let me know! I’m always up for a challenge. Thanks to Snurp, Scott, and sawaz for contributing!

This second part explains why the PoE has significant personal interest to me. It’s what caused me to lose my religion. Before even being exposed to this argument against the existence of God, I thought up a simplified version of it in my teens. At the time, I was a Republican-loving, Christian fundamentalists. What’s odd is that the idea came to me as a result of this tasty little piece of Christian fundamentalist propaganda showed to me by the youth pastor at the Baptist Church that I was attending at the time. It’s a film aimed at scaring the shit out of Christian teens via that tried-and-true religious motivator: guilt.

I probably forget many of the details, but the following is how I remember my experience of the film. The basic idea was that four teens die in a car accident only to find themselves in a dramatized Christian afterlife. The four eventually find themselves in a line in front of a receptionist at a computer terminal. One of the four is ’saved’. During the wait, the other three have plenty of time to poor the guilt on the fourth for not sharing the “Good News” (as if they haven’t heard it before). They watch as each person walks up to the receptionist. The receptionist then takes their name, types it into a computer, which then brings up their personal info as well as their ‘reservation’ status. Those with reservations step off to the right (how politically symbolic) into the light. Those without reservations are directed to a scary elevator on the left that only goes ‘down’. The ’saved’ teen watches with mounting guilt as his three friends enter the elevator before his reservation is confirmed.

The film ends with a shot of the computer screen listing name after name color coded according to their reservation status, which, if it isn’t obvious by now, indicates whether or not that person is ’saved’ or not. The name is in red is the person is unsaved, and green if saved. If you pay close attention, approximately one-in-four names is green, the same ratio as the group of teens had, hmm. This coincidence is confirmed as the names blur and a statistic is placed on the screen claiming that only one-in-four humans on the entire planet are saved. This was one of the biggest shocks of my life.

I know the film’s purpose was to motivate us teens into evangelizing. “Don’t end up guilt ridden, like the main character”, was the message, “You never know how much time you have”. It had a very different impact on me. I thought most people were saved. I immediately asked my self how God, who is all-powerful and loving, could do this to his creations? Three in four suffer eternal torture? Where’s the justice? Where is God’s love? Where is His mercy? Where is His justice? Why doesn’t God have a higher ‘win’ ratio?

I didn’t lose my faith immediately. It took time. Those question and related ones slowly undermined my world view. Eventually, those questions, combined with some deep, personal suffering experienced in my late teens and early twenties, and exposure to the multitude of other word views did my belief in Christianity in.

I now imagine my name switching from green to red on that fictional, 1980s style computer monitor and laugh.

Note: This was an article I originally wrote for ReligiousFreaks.com back in October of ‘06. Unfortunately, the site has fallen into disrepair and risks disappearing altogether. As such, and with inspiration from a recent Spitball Politics post, I wanted a permanent home for the article, so I am copying an edited version of it here. Note that some of the links are no longer valid due to the age of the article.

The Christian States of America?

There has been much debate across the web over whether the United States is a Christian nation or a secular nation. The debates can be categorized into three distinct questions: Is America currently a Christian nation? Was America founded as a Christian nation? And finally, should America be(come) a Christian nation? On the extreme sides of this debate are fundamentalists and atheists. Fundamentalists who desire a ‘Christian America’ often are of the opinion that the nation was founded as a Christian nation but an encroaching anti-Christian sentiment has made it a secular nation in need of reformation. On the other hand, atheists who believe America should be secular are of the opinion that America was founded as secular and has been growing increasingly Christian in recent times. Both sides feel they need to save the country from the other group. Which group is right about which questions and to what extent? This article attempts to detangle the noise surrounding this debate and argues that the nation was founded as, is still, and should remain secular.

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Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

Epicurus asked this question some time in the third or fourth century B.C.E. It’s one of the oldest expressions of The Problem of Evil (PoE). The PoE is probably the most compelling argument against the existence of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity and has been a thorn in the side of religious thinkers for millennia. The attempt to refute the PoE is called a theodicy.

Here’s one formal version of the argument, according to The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
3. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
4. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
5. Evil exists.
6. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn’t know when evil exists, or doesn’t have the desire to eliminate all evil.
7. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

What I’m interested in is the following question:

What is your theodicy, if you have one? How do you refute the argument or do you accept the conclusion?

I’m interested in debate here, so expect to be challenged.

In Part II, I will write about why this argument has significant personal interest to me.

—————-

UPDATE:I received multiple counter-arguments to my post about the Problem of Evil (PoE). Instead of very long comments addressing each counter-argument, I’ve decided to dedicate a separate post for each. That way, we can keep the various debates more organized. As I complete these posts, I will link them here.

The Denial of Evil Theodicy
The Spiritual/Personal Growth Theodicy
The Freewill Theodicy

Gas prices are now much higher in America. We all know this. Some of us saw it coming (though I thought it would happen a lot sooner) and planned for it. We purchased smaller, fuel efficient cars, car pooled, and moved closer to where we work and/or go to school. We may have even taken public transportation now and then. Others, well, they continued living in the suburbs and continued driving their two SUVs 40+ miles to and from work.

You know the type. They insist that they ‘need’ an oversized vehicle to transport their kids to and from school and extra curricular activities. Not that their kids couldn’t walk the mile and half twice a day (yet they wonder why their kids are getting so fat). Despite this claim you usually see the driver alone in their tax-subsidized suburban tanks. You usually see them most often when they are right in front of you, blocking 90% of your visibility. That’s when you can’t help but notice that, more often than not, somewhere on the backs of these eye-sores, there is a little metal stylized fish.

That’s right, the owners of these monsters are often Christians. I couldn’t find any hard statistics to confirm this anecdotally formed opinion, but it stands to reason considering two commonly accepted facts. 1. Liberals are more likely to drive smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles. 2. Christians are more likely to be conservatives. Thus Christians are more less likely to drive smaller automobiles. Regardless, the point of this rant post is to highlight some hypocrisies of the Christian SUV/minvan driver, and how that hypocrisy has reached new heights recently.

How is ownership of a large, fuel-inefficient vehicle hypocritical for the Christian? Greed. First of all, SUVs are tax-subsidized, meaning that people rich enough to buy a large vehicle save money at the cost of everyone else, including those who cannot afford such a vehicle. Second, they produce more pollution. Harming everyone via the environment is not excused by the convenience of having a large vehicle. Third, SUVs are more safe for the owner (presuming they opt for the non-flipping kind), but less safe for everyone else. Fourth, they create a disproportionate amount of road damage for which everyone’s taxes must be used. And Finally, they create a high demand for gasoline which has pushed prices up for everyone. Continue reading…

The above image is created and licensed by She’s Not Ther.

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Taking inspiration from this Onion story and this recent comment by Diacanu, I present to you A Letter from an IF Proponent:

We Need to Hear From Public School Science Teachers

My name is David Brainsfull and I’ve been a member of CUAI for over 20 years. Over the past few months I’ve been allied with The Florida Bad-Policy Council in trying to undermine the new Florida State Department of Education Science Standards. The Florida Family Bad-Policy Council (FFBPC) is a hate based anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-homosexual (can’t be overstated) uneducational advocacy group that is associated with Dr. James Dipson and Fucup the Family.

The Florida Department of Education has written new science standards that will require Florida science teachers to present gravity as a proven fact. There are no provisions included in the standards that will allow for the critical analysis of the theory of gravity. Thus many of us that object to the “science” used to present gravity as a fact have no recourse but to teach the lie of gravity as though it is a proven fact.

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The above comic is created and licensed by Cectic.com.

The above comment was from Cectic.com. If you don’t get it, you really need to read this account of a run-in between an evolutionary biologist and the creators of a creationist propaganda film.

On a side note, that Cectic.com site looks pretty good. I’ll have to feature more of their stuff here in the future.

I found this comic on Virus Comix by way of Dawkins.net. It’s rather large, so I won’t put in this post. You’ll just have to click the link. I could explain it first, but I don’t want to risk ruining the humor. Instead, I let the author describe it in his own words.

So this one’s kind of big, and it’s got the end of the world, and pigeons, and cars, and pointless dialogue, and horses, and riskily esoteric celebrity cameos, and and weapons tied in knots, and flowers, and butterflies, and onions for 13 cents/kg. Good deal? I dunno.

A state legislator in Oklahoma has just learned a lesson about the new media. Sally Kern (R, of course) thought she was speaking to an audience of 50, but her speech was recorded and then distributed via the internet. You can see a video of her talk here. If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, here are some choice quotes:

“The homosexual agenda is destroying this nation.”

“I honestly think [homosexuality is] the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat.”

“I’m not anti-, I’m not gay-bashing but according to God’s word that is not the right kind of lifestyle.”

“The very fact that I’m talking to you like this here today puts me in jeopardy.”

Damn straight, Mrs. Kern. Your political career just crashed and burned. And, of course, her hateful talk is based on what she learned from “God’s word”. Religion is just about the only place where such blatant stupidity can ever gain popular support. Even amongst her fellow Christians, she has been condemned!

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe she, or anyone, should be forbidden from saying such things. I believe strongly in the freedom of speech. But saying certain things should result in severe social consequences. Anti-homosexual speech should create as strong a negative reaction as a racial slur does. Thankfully, as reaction to this story seems to indicate, our society seems to be heading in that direction.

I learned of this story by way of my Human Rights Campaign action alert that I received via email. I became a member of this group last month precisely because idiots like representative Kern still hold power. I encourage my readers to do the same. I will also provide a link to their website on my sidebar as well.

Over the course of my time contributing to ReligiousFreaks.com, I got to know a fellow blogger, Scott. You can learn more about him on his own blog, Spiritual Tramp. We decided that it would be interesting to enter into a debate on the abortion issue. He was kind enough to host the debate and to allow me to repost it on my blog as well. After quite a while, I finally took the time to do so.

We chose to begin my limiting the scope of the debate to the morality of abortion, and not the legality. We each began by independently writing an opening piece describing our position on the issue. From there, we took turns responding to each other’s arguments. You can find our debate here. This post is where readers can comment on this debate. Considering the emotions attached to this issue, please keep the conversation civil. Blatant attempts at flaming will be removed.