From: Terry Donaghe (tdonaghe@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Aug 26 1998 - 09:00:29 MDT
Perhaps this is old hat to everyone here. Maybe not.
When I was in an intro to philosophy class in Mississippi, the class
was full of Bible Belt Believers most of whom were fundamentalists.
They took the bible literaly and were consumed in their faith. What
they were doing in a philosophy class, I'm not sure. I guess they
thought it would be an "easy A".
Anyway, the professor brought half the class to tears with the
following (heavily paraphrased):
Let's assume God to be the following:
Omnipotent - all powerful
Omnibenevolent - all good, incapable of evil
Omniscient - all knowing
(The class agrees)
This argument also assumes the existence of good and bad, which I'm
not too sure about.
Now let's picture a baby and a three year old all alone in the middle
of a dark forrest. Suddenly a wolf leaps out of the shadows and eats
the infant. The three year old screams and runs away. Can we blame
the three year old? Of course not, there was nothing he could do. He
was powerless.
Now, assume the same situation, but this time instead of a three year
old, it's a 16 year old boy. Again the wolf leaps out and eats the
baby. The 16 year old was terrified and frozen in his tracks. Should
we get mad at the 16 year old? Probably not, but couldn't he have at
least picked up a stick and tried to scare off the wolf? Maybe, but I
think most people would give him the benifit of the doubt.
Now, this time replace the boy with a very strong grown man who knows
all about wolves. This man is armed with a high powered rifle and
several pistols. He's been attacked by wolves before and has
succesfuly fought them all off. He's a bad ass. Again, the wolf
jumps out and eats the baby right in front of this heavily armed man -
he had time to shoot, but did nothing. Should we blame him? Hell
yes! He could and should have saved the baby. We might even say his
indecision was "bad."
Now, replace the man with our all powerful, all good, all knowing God.
The baby gets eaten and God does nothing. Should we blame him? He
saw the wolf coming and knew what he was going to do and could,
according to our definition, stop it. Our "God" is also all good, so
how can he let this happen? Obviously there is something wrong with
our definition of God. Or perhaps with good. If God isn't all good
or all powerful or all knowing, is he worthy of our mindless worship?
I certainly don't claim to be a philosopher or even particularly
clever, but this argument was probably the single most important thing
that led me away from my irrational beliefs and "faith."
I present it here just as my $0.02 worth in the ongoing discussion.
==
----------------------
Terry Donaghe
Pancritical Rationalist
Transhumanist
Extropian
Libertarian
"Live free forever or die, dammit!"
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