Answer to the Problem of Evil

[psionl0]

That's the thing.
We *could* do better.Our morality now is better than that of the supposedly morally superior god.
If that is not a sign that the various holy texts are anything but holy, then what is?

Could we?

War, poverty, hunger, disease, crime, injustice etc seem to be just as prevalent as they have always been and I see little evidence that any real solutions are on the way.

Some of us might have more time to chew the fat on various issues than in the past but that doesn't make us more moral than our ancestors.

 

[Thor 2]

Could we?

War, poverty, hunger, disease, crime, injustice etc seem to be just as prevalent as they have always been and I see little evidence that any real solutions are on the way.

Some of us might have more time to chew the fat on various issues than in the past but that doesn't make us more moral than our ancestors.

Any witches been burnt at the stake in your parts lately?

We do seem to have a handle on how to tackle diseases these days.

 

[jrhowell]

Our morality now is better than that of the supposedly morally superior god.

It feels that way to us. But I don’t think that morality is something that can be measured objectively.

 

[psionl0]

Any witches been burnt at the stake in your parts lately?

I don't live in Afghanistan so that is not a problem I see personally. Unfortunately, the cruel mistreatment of people who's opinions or morals are "incorrect" is still a common place occurrence in many parts of the world.

We do seem to have a handle on how to tackle diseases these days.

But how many people have access to these treatments?

 

[GDon]

It doesn't. You are attempting to make a circular definition of free will.

It's certainly not circular. "Will" comes from the physical activities within the brain, as does consciousness and self-awareness. Our will is "free" if it is not constrained by anything outside the brain.

My only assumption is that "will" is something that can be generated by the brain. That is a reasonable assumption, even if not provable at this time.

Free will is a God given ability to defy your biological programming. It may or may not exist but if it exists, it is not a part of our biological make up.

Even in a non-deterministic universe? Can God set up physical processes so that our brain is an engine to generate free-will decisions?

 

[lomiller]

In my view, "will" doesn't make much sense if the decisions are made at random.

Chaotic systems are modeled and random and often look random from the outside, but they are not random they don't produce the same output every time due to tiny seemingly insignificant differences in input. The brain is too complex to perfectly replicate the conditions that lead to a decision, so coming to a different decision is still entirely plausible.

 

[psionl0]

Even in a non-deterministic universe? Can God set up physical processes so that our brain is an engine to generate free-will decisions?

The brain is a neural network. It responds to stimuli and stimuli history (with perhaps some random quantum factors randomizing the responses). If you want to employ the "god of the gaps" explanation, then those quantum factors might indeed be a "free will" component.

However, attempts to explain God with science don't usually work well. This already contrasts with your theory that "in a deterministic universe people will be biologically programmed to have free-will" since there are no "gaps" to insert a free will in.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Could we?

War, poverty, hunger, disease, crime, injustice etc seem to be just as prevalent as they have always been and I see little evidence that any real solutions are on the way.

Some of us might have more time to chew the fat on various issues than in the past but that doesn't make us more moral than our ancestors.

Assuming the powers of a god, yes we could.
I'm not saying we are perfect, but we'd dp better than the abrahamic god.

 

[Tassman]

The brain is a neural network. It responds to stimuli and stimuli history (with perhaps some random quantum factors randomizing the responses). If you want to employ the "god of the gaps" explanation, then those quantum factors might indeed be a "free will" component.

However, attempts to explain God with science don't usually work well. This already contrasts with your theory that "in a deterministic universe people will be biologically programmed to have free-will" since there are no "gaps" to insert a free will in.

There is no free-will as such - merely the illusion of free-will. We are shaped by natural selection over millions of years of evolution. And we are programmed by genes and environmental pressures, to take our decisions either deterministically or randomly – but not freely.

 

[xjx388]

Free will, in any case, isn’t really a good solution to the Problem of Evil. For a lot of the reasons expounded upon here.

For me, the Problem of Evil is a major reason why I started questioning my Catholic upbringing. I think it’s a major factor for many people leaving religion and becoming atheists. Once you start questioning along those lines, it’s hard not to look back at the God of the Bible and start seeing their actions as extremely morally questionable.

That’s a tough nut to crack, really. How can you reconcile an omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent God with what we see around us every day? You simply can’t, in my opinion.

It just makes no sense as to why such a triple-O god would set things up like this. If he is all-knowing, then he knew his creation would cause his creations suffering. If he is all-powerful, he could end suffering right now, but doesn’t. Those two observations kill the idea of an all-loving god.

Just as I find a purely deterministic universe intellectually unsatisfactory, I find the standard “God works in mysterious ways/God has a plan for us,” platitudes deeply unsatisfactory. The idea of a reward after you die just isn’t comforting to me. I’m alive right now.

It makes more sense to me that the Problem of Evil is simply a part of living in a world where humans are deeply flawed animals. There is no “good” and “evil.” There is just human behavior with all the joy and sorrow that brings. I want to make the life I have as joyful as possible and try to learn from my sorrow. As such, I think I’ve solved the Problem of Evil for myself: try to make my life and those around me as joyful as possible.

 

[psionl0]

There is no free-will as such - merely the illusion of free-will. We are shaped by natural selection over millions of years of evolution. And we are programmed by genes and environmental pressures, to take our decisions either deterministically or randomly – but not freely.

Like I said previously, God given free will is a supernatural concept. In a deterministic universe there is no free will.

 

[GDon]

There is no free-will as such - merely the illusion of free-will.

The issue I have with that is that: what constitutes free-will, then? We don't say "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is the illusion of a duck". It might be true, but we have to have an idea of what free-will is in order to understand when something is an illusion of it.

We are shaped by natural selection over millions of years of evolution. And we are programmed by genes and environmental pressures, to take our decisions either deterministically or randomly – but not freely.

You'll need to describe the difference between "illusion of free-will" and "free-will" in order to make sense of that. We seem to have free-will, and we acknowledge the impact of genes and environmental pressures. So are you able to describe what the illusion looks like?

 

[GDon]

The brain is a neural network. It responds to stimuli and stimuli history (with perhaps some random quantum factors randomizing the responses). If you want to employ the "god of the gaps" explanation, then those quantum factors might indeed be a "free will" component.

If there are randomized responses, then there is no free-will.

No need for "god of the gaps", just "brain is a neural network that we don't understand" is enough. At worst, that is an unproven assumption. But it is akin to ideas around self-awareness and consciousness, which don't rely on "god of the gaps" types of responses.

 

[psionl0]

If there are randomized responses, then there is no free-will.

But if we are just responding to external stimuli then there is no free-will either.

 

[porch]

Well, we respond to internal stimuli, too, eg, memories. Without stimuli, there wouldn't be anything to respond to. Is that what free will is, taking action that doesn't correspond to anything?

 

[GDon]

But if we are just responding to external stimuli then there is no free-will either.

How we respond constitutes "will". Whether our responses are constrained or not determines whether there is "free will". I would argue that self-awareness, consciousness and will are all biological activities within the brain. Will becomes "free will" if there are no constraints coming from outside of the brain.

 

[Tassman]

The issue I have with that is that: what constitutes free-will, then? We don't say "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is the illusion of a duck". It might be true, but we have to have an idea of what free-will is in order to understand when something is an illusion of it.

The “idea” of free-will is that we are agents capable of libertarian free-will choices when in actuality we are governed by genetic programming, subconscious memories and environmental pressures.

You'll need to describe the difference between "illusion of free-will" and "free-will" in order to make sense of that. We seem to have free-will, and we acknowledge the impact of genes and environmental pressures. So are you able to describe what the illusion looks like?

The” illusion” is as described above.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

War, poverty, hunger, disease, crime, injustice etc seem to be just as prevalent as they have always been and I see little evidence that any real solutions are on the way.

Not true. Whilst 'injustice' might be a little more difficult to define and measure, the first 5 things you list are declining, and have been for centuries.
This is a good place to start, if you want a more realistic and less gloomy world view:
https://www.gapminder.org/

I appreciate that positivity and evidence-based posts are no longer de rigeur on this forum, so I am resigned to the inevitability of a hostile response from other members, and/or deletion of this post by the mods. Have at it.

 

[psionl0]

Well, we respond to internal stimuli, too, eg, memories. Without stimuli, there wouldn't be anything to respond to. Is that what free will is, taking action that doesn't correspond to anything?

Memories are created from external stimuli also. So far, you are not describing anything other than a computer. Given a specific state, the output will always be the same.

Free will is a religious concept which suggests that somebody can exceed their programming and make alternative decisions.

 

[xjx388]

I think there is a lot merit to the idea of Free Will as simply the ability to make a choice without that choice being controlled by some external agent/entity/whatever.

We are not programmed. We are not controlled. We might be influenced by other people, events, results of previous decisions, genetics, brain disorders, good memories, bad memories -you get the point: every variable that leads to every choice we make.

But this doesn’t preclude some aspect of determinism. I do believe that you could predict every choice a human makes, with a high degree of accuracy, if only you knew all the variables that influence the making of that choice. But still no one (person, computer, hitherto unknown variable analyzer) could ever predict with 100% precision, for example, that I was going to type this sentence in exactly the way that I have. Or this: gralaca trebonit sedroglivan. I don’t care how many variables one has access to, that last bit is entirely unpredictable. I didn’t even know I was gonna do it until I spontaneously decided to and I have certainly never typed those sequences of meaningless letters before and probably no human (or monkey for that matter) ever has. I just don’t see any kind of way to predict with that kind of precision. And if you can’t ever theoretically predict what a person is going to do next, then there must be some degree of free will.

To bring this back around to the topic, we cannot predict and we will never be able to predict human behavior or every “evil” event with precision. If we could, we would be duty bound, according to the morals of most people, to try to stop “evil” events before they occur. A tornado is going to destroy homes and kill people? We’d go try and get those people out of there. Some rando is going to shoot up a school? We’d try to stop him before he got there. We may now be all-knowing, but we are not all-powerful: we may not be able to save everyone, but we would at least try. Or not; some may decide we shouldn’t waste the resources or tread on precious freedoms to prevent all the bad things (unless they are happening to ME!) and just let “nature take its course” because we are certainly not maximally or universally benevolent.

But God supposedly knows every bad thing that is going to happen, has the power to stop those bad things and is maximally benevolent and the source of all “good” -“evil” should not exist in this world if those three things are true about God.

Evil exists; therefore, there is no God as described in, at the very least, the Abrahmic religions.