The burning fawn.
Let's say that a forest is on fire. In it is a fawn who, just like any other animal, lived according to Nature. This fawn had no escape from the fire, and was burned alive. It suffered, just like any other living entity suffers.
Does God's omniscience have any coherent logical explanation for this occurrence of gratuitous pain and suffering?
It seems to me that, with such a simple example one can demolish the omnibenevolence of God in one strike.
The problem here is that it becomes, quite honestly, too simple to deny God's grace with such an evidential claim.
What is your response to the burning fawn scenario with respect to God?
Does God's omniscience have any coherent logical explanation for this occurrence of gratuitous pain and suffering?
It seems to me that, with such a simple example one can demolish the omnibenevolence of God in one strike.
The problem here is that it becomes, quite honestly, too simple to deny God's grace with such an evidential claim.
What is your response to the burning fawn scenario with respect to God?
Comments (165)
What do you mean by “too simple”? Sometimes things are done simply, such as the obvious logical contradiction of omnibenevolence and the horrible death of the fawn. How complex does it need to be to satisfy you?
Also, what is gods “grace”?
Exactly, the point here is that Occams razor has been applied to such a degree, that nothing simpler can be envisioned as evidential proof of a cold and distant God or a universe where there is none.
Does that make better sense?
Or, another way... If God's benevolence is so simple to deny with a burning fawn, then what does that say about notions of God himself?
With all due respect please don't take this as rhetorical questioning:
1. Why would you believe that God is omniscient?
2. Who (which theist philosopher) was it that assigned those attributes to God?
3. Is the Christian Bible a perfect book about God?
Is there a common theme there... (?).
1. Says Him?
2. Aquinas, I believe?
3. Supposedly, no other book renders Him with such esoterics and grandeur than the Bible.
The theme that follows from the example of the burning fawn, is that either God is too incomprehensible to even talk about or that our notions about Him are fundamentally flawed.
Ya?
See, you're better than you thought you were!!
We human's get all twisted up over these notions of God. I believe it's one of the greatest sins of pride.
If I can't get inside of your mind (or my own mind), how is it that we can get inside of God's...
Yes, but, the bigger point here isn't justifying suffering, which is a common response. But, if at every point of the continuum of God's love towards humanity is put to question and in this case the simplest of examples, then something is wrong with our relationship with Him, even as an abstraction.
Well not being omnibenevolent is not the same as being cold and distant. God could be mostly good but makes certain sacrifices for his plan or mysterious ways etc.
Yes, that is also a common response. But, what alternatives are we left with when presented with the most simple of evidential evidence towards denying the goodness of God?
No, that's not my point. Regardless of whatever I believe, if I can spot suffering in such a simple case, then so can anyone else?
Anyone who knows what suffering is?
I don't know what you are getting at.
I'll repeat the point of this thread in standard form.
A) God is omnibenevolent.
B) A fawn burns in the forest.
C) Any person can see that this was a case of gratuitous suffering, if not then why not?
...
D) Either God is not omnibenevolent or our conception of him is fundamentally flawed.
Sure, hence the metaphor relative to the tree of Life. As we read from the book of Ecclesiastes, as you say, it suggests there is indeed something wrong about this life's existence. Sad, but there is hope.
Perhaps the question there is what seemingly is appropriate to believe. In my opinion it's entirely appropriate to pick and choose which scripture has the most relevance. We can try to think reasonably by treating like cases likely and different cases differently.
What I'm saying is in the 21st century we need to give ourselves credit and be a bit more sophisticated about our interpretations of Christian apologetics.
But, the position is indefensible. So, what's the point of getting apologetic on this account?
I accept the notion of great mathematical prowess.
If there is a God thing.
God thing can predict the future from a cohesive view of the present.
"I know you will probably lead a good life'.
During vessel selection, God thing probably has a plethora of different vessels available for one and his/her 'moral rating'.
If the God thing can sense all beings and select thoughts, it can easily find a good vessel for who deserves heaven or hell.
Of course, the burning fawn example.
I'm in a good vessel, I may witness the worst torture - it's improbable. However if it does happen I think heaven will be increased in the next life.
I believe this universe is a low frequency hell. This means that, you might burn, and other things. There is a chance of that. By being here, we either deserved that chance, or we're on a special quest.
None...
Therefore, one can either plead ignorance or simply retire from entertaining any notions/premises of A,B,C - in regards to trying to justify the fawn's suffering.
If I understand the question correctly there would actually be no point or real import. Of course I'm biased because I'm a Christian existentialist. The Fundamentalist would likely interminably argue for the sake of arguing, which in turn helps no one.
I certainly don't mean to put the kibosh on your OP, but it does suggest that we all have to learn which questions are the best one's to ask ourselves and each other.
Well, if we simplify things, then a burning fawn makes no rational sense in any possible world or one where a God resides.
Let me try and use a mathematical analogy. Think of this as some epsilon-delta derivation of a point f(x) on the plane. x is the burning fawn, and no lower bound exists. Therefore, f(x) is the incoherence of/for which to maintain the goodness of God?
Maybe I'm confused. But, if we reduce the notion of the problem of evil to such a simple case (let's assume it's the simplest case imaginable), which leaves open room for doubting God, then doesn't that imply either/or two things, being that of which either God doesn't exist or we simply will never be able to understand Him?
Maybe the fact that it happened, then yes, we can all agree as to that. But, the ontological import is the same in any possible world, no?
Yet, we both understand the import of the burning fawn here.
Therefore, you also understand that anything is moot about God at this point, including yours.
Yes, the fawn burned. And since we're going to assume that this is hard evidence for the problem of evil with respect to God, in as simple a case possibly stipulated, then no reasons for the goodness of God can be provided, can they?
Sure that's one ethos. Another would be the mantra associated with the dangers of dichotomization. Life is not like engineering where it's either A or B. But rather, the phenomenon of living life is usually A and B.
And so we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Accordingly, the book of Ecclesiastes is arguably the first formalized version of Existentialism. And is part of the OT Wisdom Books and quite thought-provoking.
Off topic but worth noting.
Not that I assumed you would agree; but, if this is the simplest case possible to demonstrate the problem of evil, if any such exist, then you can see why I would assume this to be one where I would want to present it to the public, for sake of clarity?
OK
Quoting tim wood
Then you got the point? Since the point is indefensible by definition, then what are we left to do?
OK, so the point here is that God's actions are indefensible. So, then we plead ignorance or esoterics with regards to His character.
Otherwise, what should we abandon to make the situation less troublesome?
The universe wasn’t created for the fawn alone.
God's character?
That said, the fiery death of the hapless fawn and god's omnibenevolence make strange bedfellows. Is there any way we can reconcile the two? I can't think of any possible reason a good god would let a fawn burn to death.
However, notice that the problem here is a contradiction - a good god and the fawn's excruciating death. A contradiction is a logical problem and not a moral problem per se. I don't know how to best make this point but consider the situation that you're a sculptor and only possess a hammer as your tool. Your work will be shaped by the limits of your hammer and not the limits of the material you're working on: there are somethings your hammer will not allow you to do but that doesn't mean the material you're working on is itself limited in any way. Logic is like the hammer, limiting our appreciation of the material, here morality.
Is that always true?
Well, I know the main attribute being omni-everything. So, there's that.
In what sense?
Our sense of pain and suffering is supposed to alert us to threats to our life, but if an afterlife exists, there is nothing that can threaten our existence.
Yeah, that makes sense. I don't suppose there's an afterlife for the matter, or anyone or any being judging us after our stay on this rock.
I don't know. Contradictions are logically prohibited but notice that the key premise of morality, which I hope is your concern here, is a contradiction wherein an innately selfish being gets up and offers his comfortable seat to another in an act of altruism. When we start off on the wrong foot it's obvious that we'd get in trouble.
Think of it like this: every single living thing is god's offspring and like a good parent he shouldn't and wouldn't take sides in situations where interests of one party conflicts with the interests of another. God's child the poor fawn perishes in the fire but its body through decay will nourish maggots and bacteria, both also god's beloved creation. God's omnibenevolence stands
This seems more like trying to fit the characterization of God's omnibenevolence to the pertaining situation. One can always say, that God works in mysterious ways; but, that doesn't get us much afar, does it?
I don't know. Did it fit?
My response is that there is a problem. It doesn't disprove God's existence. But there is a problem. I would be opposed to any deity that could not somehow convince me that this was necessary. And I don't think that would be easy to do, convince me that is.
Not, really. The contradiction remains as stated. So, do we address the premises of the contradiction?
But, the point is that is this some kind of joke we play on ourselves if God's omnibenevolence can be negated with such a simple example?
Yes, well, what does that say about the mental gymnastics we play when presented with such things as God's omnibenevolence if we can come up with such examples as simple as this one?
Yes, I meant that sorry. Since this is an evidential claim, of a helpless fawn burning in a forest on fire, it seems that we're left with no recourse; but, to say that something is wrong with some of the attributes held by God.
You don't need to get inside someone's mind to clearly see that he or she is clearly wrong.
Your point is a non sequitur. As all the points you've brought up at any and all times in your life on this forum have been.
You hunt for the word "god" on these forums, and when you find it, you latch onto that topic, and frazzle everyone by a constant series of completely ignoring what the other party says. You just say your part, over and over again, and your part is actually fluff, empty, vacuous.
So go ahead, do your usual worst, 3017Amen.
Fire death is a risk much lesser than a car crash.
Two things here:
Life's content; (metaphor, the alchohol is enough)
Risk.
God might say, and I'm thinking of the abrahamic God, you deserved that risk. In which case the burning fawn is in a 'justifiable hell, but it might be suffering too much, and thus, will get insurance.
It's feasable.
Arriving late to the party...
I notice you’re assuming that the pain and suffering of the fawn is an ‘objective’ fact. To the fire, the fawn is fuel. To some trees in the forest, the fire is an opportunity to procreate.
What makes you think that what is ‘good’ according to you is the same as what is ‘good’ according to ‘God’? I think there is much in biblical writings alone to suggest that pain and suffering is NOT considered by ‘God’ to be inherently ‘bad’ or best avoided. Plus, the idea that ‘God’ attributes a value hierarchy to the universe, and places humans at the top, followed closely by cute, helpless deer, with plants and chemical processes far less valuable, sounds to me like human thought masquerading as ‘God’. It seems that you’re judging the ‘goodness of God’ by a limited perception of value structure.
Hi atheist!
I'm a little bit confused there between your sense of subjective truth viz right or wrong. And BTW, thanks for spreading the Love! To that end, maybe we should start with a simple question; if Love is right, do we want to be wrong?
Hahaha
BTW, come debate me on the Dumpertrumper Impeachment thread!
I don't see value in pain and suffering. This sort of ties back into one of my old threads, about the inherent worth of suffering, if there is any. I don't think God suffers along with the burning fawn, or does He? One might even be inclined to agree that God is quite cruel. Or if you care to address the issue raised here:
Quoting Wallows
Can one even ascertain the notion of gratuitous pain and suffering with respect to notions of God?
All I’m saying is that you don’t know anything about God’s intentions.
His intentions are irrelevant. They reveal themselves with the working of the world at hand.
If what you're saying amounts to, "God works in mysterious ways," then there isn't really much to talk about and we might as well sit in silence with regards to the topic, then?
Why do so many atheists want to debate fundamentalist beliefs about God? Atheist says that God has to be x, y, and z. There is something that is not x. Therefore, God doesn’t make sense.
This is children’s play.
You not expect more for your suffering? Others may, so going with others who do, that's a fine proposition; you will be credited, in another life.
Life has come out of nothing before, what's to stop it happening again?
Denying afterlife is not denying God. Afterlife is not God-exclusive. Obviously 'something' orders it, that something doesn't need to be like God.
You have claimed to have suffered. Do you hold a point even after I told you, hell associated with risk is feasable, because of your own weakness? Or are you just ignoring others?
I don't really know everything, hence the topic.
I seem to amiss with regard to notions about gratuitous pain and suffering. The burning of the fawn seems pointless or trite, or is there some purpose to this senseless suffering that it had to go through?
Sorry, not getting your point here. Are you saying that suffering is just, just because God made it a reality? Kinda stupid if you ask me.
You deserve that sort of quality.
Keen judgement by even a God.
He was smart in doing this. But it is enforced. So it's definitely not one man's doing. He's got to survive too.
One day someone will say there is no more God, but truly understand it.
Here's where I began to suspect he meant to opposite.
and then here I felt more confident.
Adn there he cleared it up, in the post just below this one.
All I'm saying can be distilled into the ethos, 'But, why God'? The concept of God as all-loving doesn't really mesh with the concept of a fawn dying through a fiery death.
If the fawn burning to death is considered a 'natural' death, then there's something to say about the world we reside in, in terms of a cruel God.
Remove all intent and purpose. Look at what's left.
Tough luck? Is that the appropriate response? Or that the world is a nasty place? Is that what you meant?
Parasites could be anywhere, but do not have to be and has laws of it's own somewhere else, and one of many who are kin to the greater energy in our universe. Other universes may have a purer energy spectrum.
Not really. Where there is no intent, purpose, or plan there is no needless suffering. It's just suffering. Causality. Needless suffering is meaningful. Causality is meaningless.
Fact: Bad shit happens to everyone. And yes, sometimes it’s no one’s fault.
If you are going to stipulate that there is a God (which I don’t believe you want to believe in but rather are looking to place the blame on someone for your pain), then isn’t it more comforting to assume that this stipulated God loves you and still has purpose for you than to assume that He doesn’t care? Perhaps God is priming you for your purpose. Are you up to the challenge?
So, there's no point to it then? I mean, if we can call it as "gratuitous suffering", then the presupposition is that it was in excess to some rationale. Yet, God remains silent, so what's the rationale here?
Can't say... I'm not a believer.
No idea man.
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
Well, I'm really concerned about the typical response to these questions. Being quietism, mysterium, and esoterics.
You’re not fooling me. With all atheists it starts out as personal. Only after finding reasons to hate God do they then rationalize that there is no God.
So, what's the rationale of "gratuitous suffering", then?
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
What's the challenge?
That's not true Noah. Some atheists... the militant ones... may hate God, whatever that means. Not all.
Well, the atheists who didn’t even start out hating God first before denying His existence are a rare breed. You are a rare breed. It seems to me that Wallows wants to blame something or someone.
I'm not an atheist. I'm agnostic on the matter in the sense that we cannot know anything about something that exists beyond space and time.
You'll much appriciate that a lot of what's classed as suffering doesn't include some pain.
I think the healing/harming of the time, is a good prospect, in relation to not getting through the ultimately good prospect, and getting through. A lot is to be discovered.
You obviously like to think, measure the value of thought, at least in some regard.
Perhaps our idea of suffering is faulty. This is what I hinted at in your last thread.
Suffering isn't factual. It's subjective.
If a god exists, there exists presumably an afterlife, and everything we regard as 'suffering' is nothing more than an overreaction to meaningless stimuli, because if god exists the soul is most likely immortal.
There's ways of approaching this type of thing with or without god, but since the thread seems to focus on the former, I stuck with that.
But I think one answer is, it is an inevitable aspect of physical existence. From a realist point of view as we evolved from simpler life-forms, what makes suffering so much more unbearable to us is that fact that we anticipate it and fret over it. (That's why a Roman philosopher said that if man were only an animal, then he would be the most miserable of them.) An animal might suffer physically, but it never feels sorry, as it has no self to feel sorry for (to put it bluntly). A flock of antelope will be split up by a lion, one of them will fall prey, the rest will bolt, but in half an hour they'll be grazing peacefully. Only humans can really have that feeling of the dread of it in anticipation of loss, and imagine how it could be some other way.
I think you could trace the lineage of that to having possessions and language which enables a sense of what is yours, and so what can be lost, and a way of conceiving of the meaning of loss and grief. In other words it is something which evolves with the human condition.
In ancient cultures, the ritual and gesture of sacrifice was fundamental - giving back to God or the gods what we have been given. It is a way of trying to assuage or appease the power that has created the world so as to gain favor or maintain the cosmic balance. I don't think modern culture has much sense of that, but maybe it will be imposed on us.
In any case, the religions teach that to 'rise above' suffering is not simply to be anaesthetized to it, but to realise a higher identity. That's associated with the 'myth of the fall', the notion that physical birth is a misfortune in the first place. Suffering isn't gratuitous, it goes with the territory. Hence in Buddhism for example the aim is to escape the cycle of birth and death (except in the case of the bodhisattva who is voluntarily born out of compassion.)
Arguably, it's a brute fact of life!
Sounds interesting. I do like the Hotel Manager Theodicy point. Care to elaborate on it?
Quoting Wayfarer
Compared to the past, yes, we have come a long way. The sentiment seems to point towards a future, where suffering is completely eliminated. So, I think it's a good thing that we get rid of suffering, as nobody likes to suffer or the majority of humans don't like seeing other people suffer.
Quoting Wayfarer
Notice, the previous point. Suffering is something everyone hates. The anti-natalists, think the world is so full of suffering as to not procreate. I'll let that sink in.
Quoting Wayfarer
That's really interesting. But, there's nothing that will supplant the stark reality that suffering seems to be part of the human condition.
Being stubborn is alright for the right matter. :halo:
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
Not sure, I'm quite satisfied with just a discussion, not to get my hopes too high.
Not sure it’s you who is on the right side of the matter. With my belief system, I know that I will suffer many, many times in my life and it doesn’t bother me too much because I have a higher purpose. With your belief system, you are in continuous agony and fear of suffering. Suffering owns you. You are not free.
What do you mean by that?
I understand.
Revelation 21 King James Version (KJV)
21 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.
I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free
Nikos Kazantzakis.
That touched me. But, the fawn still burned alive.
Why?
The fawns are always (always) burning, for no reason.
the bells ring for no reason
and we too
we will rejoice in the clank of chains
that we will sound within us with the bells
Tristan Tzara
Approximate Man
Oh, dear!
I think perhaps ‘God’ does ‘suffer with’ the fawn - just not in the way we expect or intuitively understand.
I get what you’re saying, but just because you don’t see value in pain and suffering, doesn’t mean there is no value in pain and suffering. There isn’t value from the fawn’s perspective. There isn’t from your perspective - indeed, from the perspective of much of humanity, there is no value in the pain and suffering of the fawn. I agree with you there.
I have tried to look at the notion of pain and suffering from a broader, universal perspective - and my philosophy tends towards a form of panpsychism, so the idea that all matter has some level of awareness (ie. relation to the world) is a key part of my thinking, as well as the notion that ‘God’ is the most objective relation to the universe and all existence that we can imagine.
The way I see it, pain is an awareness that the system requires more energy, effort or attention allocated to a particular area of its existence than it has predicted, in order to manage change. Pain from exercise, for instance, has value in that it informs the system that additional energy, effort or attention is required here in order to manage change to the structure of the system, including change to predictions of change. When energy resources are limited, the capacity to manage this change is limited.
Pain is not necessarily ‘cruelty’. It’s information about our relation to reality, to which we attribute value or potential according to a collated response of the system. Where the ‘system’ is the present observable or measurable organism, that response or internal affect from pain is more often than not going to be negative. Where the ‘system’ is the relative life or potential of the organism as it changes and interacts across time, then some pain is more valuable than others, long-term. Where the ‘system’ is the community, nation or humanity as a species, reaching beyond a singular lifetime, then the pain of a person or animal might serve the value structures of the system (think punishment or nutrition, for instance) - and our efforts to minimise the extent of this pain or loss of life where we have enough information to do so becomes an important factor.
This is where the notion of God’s supposed omniscience comes into play. An omniscient, all-powerful God as a being would appear to be culpable, for sure. We judge that if someone has sufficient information and capacity to reduce the potential for pain or loss of life in a situation, they are morally obligated to act. But to isolate a fawn in a forest fire is to ignore the rest of the information contributing to that situation - including decisions the fawn and its parents made prior to the incident, the events leading up to the fire, etc - most of which you may not be aware of. It’s also possible that the fawn’s mother had been recently hit by a car, or that the fire had been deliberately lit by an arsonist or a carelessly tossed cigarette. With this information, is God cruel or are we simply ignorant of our own capacity to minimise pain and suffering?
But you see value in the faun. Do you think there can be a faun that does not grow old and die, or dies young? Is not the fragility of the faun, the vulnerability, that gives it value? An eternal indestructible mechanical non-suffering faun would not have the same value. No one would care about it.
Shall we then turn every living thing to stone, so there shall be no more suffering? That, I believe, is the devil's kindness.
Hi! Quite a lengthy post. I'm not sure where to begin. I suppose my point is the simplicity used to deny any notions that suffering is justified in regard to the burning fawn.
Quoting Possibility
Yes, I like panpsychism quite a lot. I think, the issue is that at what point is suffering apparent to a living entity. Like, the hard question restated in regards to consciousness. Not sure if that's clear.
Quoting Possibility
Well, I view a deity who instills the sense of cruelty towards his own creation, whilst devoid of experiencing it himself, as somewhat abnormal from a human perspective.
Quoting Possibility
Yes, so we are in agreement about the utility of pain from a moral perspective. Is there any to begin with? If it's promised that heaven is a place where nobody suffers, then why not just create a universe where everyone is guaranteed access to heaven regardless of their moral "worth"?
Quoting Possibility
These are all rationalizations, don't you think?
So, you're basically saying that suffering and pain has its own value? Relative to what, and why should anyone care about the relativity here?
No. I'm saying that to value something is to be vulnerable to suffering. To value nothing is to be indifferent to suffering. Only a sado-masochist values suffering, but only the dead do not suffer.
I don't know what this really means. If I have no conception of pain, then whoopitty-do, does that mean that my struggles are inferior to another being that experiences pain? Don't we all learn the same?
Quoting unenlightened
I never thought the thread would digress to some form of Stoical nihilism; but, I can see a happier world where there is no pain and suffering. If pain and suffering are so important, then does God experience it too?
Quoting Wallows
One doesn't need a concept. The fawn suffers. You and I see the fawn, or just imagine the fawn and we suffer vicariously, and that depends on a conception, the fawn lives the pain directly. I see from your writing that you care about a fawn suffering as a stand-in for all the countless billions of innocents that suffer. And the mere understanding that that suffering exists causes you to suffer.
So I think this is the condition of life, that there cannot be a life of caring without suffering, and there cannot be life without death. Now if you want to talk of God, the Christian tradition is that the Creator of all this life has taken that suffering upon himself voluntarily, to demonstrate if you like that life is worth the price.
Now if your suffering is great or your view of suffering in fawns or holocaust victims or whatever is great, I cannot from my comfortable privileged position presume to tell you you are wrong. I go a bit crazy with the occasional toothache. But without some penalty, gambling wouldn't be gambling, and life wouldn't be life. You know the simplest childish thing - climbing a tree - would be nothing even interesting without the real fear of falling and being hurt.
Quoting unenlightened
See the issue here, already?
OK, let me connect the dots.
If none of us can speak for God, and S/He exists as an abstraction since S/He remains silent, then is there anything more we can do to make God correspond to our everyday pitiful human existence?
And, if the concept (God) is so easy to destroy, with the simple example of a burning fawn, and the very human concept of "gratuitous" suffering, then what's the point of entertaining these mentally ill and mental gymnastics?
Yup, but you may not like what i have to say about it. Wallows.
Yeah, not a very happy thought. Although, who knows what the big entity, up above, thinks about it too.
For God, nothing. For the fawn, perhaps you can do something I like to call 'minimising the pain'. 'God' is a term I find necessary to philosophy, and unnecessary to life. Fawns manage without God, and I could manage this thread without god if you had not brought the thing up.
Quoting Wallows
But this is unnecessarily feeble. When God has lost patience with His creation, you will/will-not know about it in no uncertain terms. By definition. Imagine the world on fire.
That's pretty deep. What does that say about philosophy, I wonder?
Quoting unenlightened
So, you have gratuitous suffering and then the moral concept of pain or anxiety arising due to this. How does one minimize the anxiety of the notion that God exists?
Quoting unenlightened
As childish as this may seem or depressed, what's the point of showing and telling here?
I'm not a believer in such things. I'm much more a believer of recognizing our own part, our own role, and thus our own power to realize what's within our reach, and working from the principle of being helpful in each and every situation, as well as finding contentment purely in the fact that we're doing our best.
Personally, I find that your habits of thought are self-perpetuating. That's fine, I suppose, if you like where you are. If not, I suggest taking a different path by being courageous enough to deliberately and intentionally develop different more productive(new) habits of thought.
This, of course, requires someone else to show you and/or lead the way, so to speak.
A burning faun is what happens when the woods catch fire. A burning thought life is what happens when one doesn't recognize the power that they have to put out the fire in one's own mind.
Do something else.
Gratuitous? What do you mean by that? Undeserved, yes, and in any particular instance accidental (or not), but in general, (the possibility of) suffering is the necessary condition of life, and particularly the necessary condition of having value. Caring is taking pains That is my thesis.
But, that just talks about definitions. The bigger issue is that the concept can be entertained at all, don't you think?
In panpsychism, the priority of the human perspective is in question. If all matter has some capacity to interact in relation to an awareness of pain, then why is our perception of pain (ie. suffering, morally ‘evil’) the only one that matters?
Quoting Wallows
This is not how I view ‘God’. The way I see it, ‘cruelty’ is a disregard for the pain and suffering of others, which is either ignorance (a lack of awareness), isolation (a failure to connect) or exclusion (a refusal to collaborate). Your presumption that ‘God’ behaves in this way towards any element of creation is based on your own limited perspective of the situation, and your assumption that there is no more to know about this situation than what you already know.
‘God’’s perspective is not the same as the human perspective. If you want to genuinely understand what ‘God’ is doing here, then you need to imagine a perspective that is aware, connected and collaborating with the potential and possibilities of ALL matter since its ‘creation’. That means getting past our limited anthropocentric perspective of value. For me, ‘God’ is not so much a deity as a concept that enables us to extend our understanding of the universe beyond our own experience.
Quoting Wallows
Yes, but this moral perspective is a limited one, manufactured by a limited understanding of ‘God’ and reality. This ‘promise of heaven’ and our access to it is a man-made conceptualisation intended to increase the perceived value of existence beyond organic life for those who fail to perceive the value of determining and initiating action towards increasing awareness, connection and collaboration in an unfolding universe that is so much more than organic existence.
The way I see it, the extent to which the world we live in continues to increase awareness, connection to and collaboration with who we are beyond our organic or material life, corresponds to the extent to which we access this ‘eternal life’ promised to us. That’s it - no ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’, no St Peter checking if your name’s on the list, no adding up brownie points. That, I believe, is the example of Jesus and Buddha and Einstein and Elvis, etc.
So the abrahamic God is technically false.
The word God is our way of communicating the concept of a thing that is more than our pointer.
Should the fawn have not burned and lived a perfect life in a pristine utopian forest, and should have every one of God's creatures have done the same, would you then conclude God is omnibenevolent?
If so, you're suggesting the ultimate good is in living the hedonistic life and are ignoring the suggestion there might be more to this creation than the moment. I'm not telling you you're wrong, only that if you wish to adopt the theist's worldview of the all good God, you're going to also have to buy into his view there is greater purpose to the world than your day to day struggles and successes.
Maybe suffering is God's favorite condiment (the ketchup of creation).
Maybe God is feeling it all and that it continues is testament to his will that it is all worth it.
Notice the unusual myown fixation in this thread on the word "gratuitous"?
I don't think so.
Quoting Nils Loc
Maybe's aside, doesn't that make God a masochist?
Why a fawn? Why not a cockroach, a hyena, a warthog, a snake, a crocodile?
The concept of gratuitous suffering is rendered more aptly with a fawn or dog or cat than a cockroach???
If there is a God, then "He" cannot be, according to our own definitions, both omnibenevolent and omnipotent/omniscient. Talk of God moving in mysterious ways is nothing but the obfuscation that comes with refusing to admit there is a contradiction or paradox there.
The simple solution to this conundrum is to stop thinking of God as either omnibenevolent or omniscient/ omnipotent or else to simply stop thinking of God at all.
Just wishing? That ain't good enough to be benevolent.
And what's wrong with that?
Evil ruins good work - tones stuff down - survives through some alternative.
Were you expecting the same simulation for all? Were you expecting no grouping of people?
No risk? Toned down existence?
Good solution.
Come again?
Oh, like living with p-zombies?
:up:
But your use of the term "gratuitous" is an injection of your judgment upon the acts of God, which is only to say you've inserted your non-theistic worldview into a theistic question, which is "what is evil?" So, sure, if you start with the given that the fawn's pain is just pain for no good reason (which I assume your use of the term "gratuitous" means to you), then you've established that God is not all good by logical necessity.
However, if you start from the theistic view that God is all good, then you cannot declare any event as truly evil if it occurs as the result of God's creation, but you are left at deciphering the mystery of how the fawn's suffering is an event that results in a higher good than had the fawn not so suffered. You may think an attempt to explain away evil, even in in most striking forms, is absurd, but such is the challenge to those who take these theistic concepts seriously.
If you continue to see this world's events as all there is to reality, then I do think you are left with the conclusion that there is evil. But, if you adopt a view that there is a higher purpose you cannot understand that transcends this world as we know it, then the fawn's suffering cannot be so clearly understood as evil.
Perhaps all it took was knowledge.
Agreed. The three ‘omnis’ refer to absolute values of knowledge, potential and will - not action. It is the successful application of all three that boggles the mind when we consider how one would act. If I knew everything there was to know about creating a possible universe, had the capacity to do anything, and genuinely intended to do well by the universe as a whole, do I really think my relation to the universe would be more accurate? And is it just about this moment we’re in right now, or this fawn, or humanity, or is it about an entire universe coming eventually to maximum awareness, connection and collaboration? Given what humans can know about the universe, our capacity to interact and our supposed intention to do well by all, how do we evaluate our own actions towards the universe in this context? How can we more accurately relate to the universe in applying the knowledge, potential and will that we have available, or better yet seek to increase that knowledge, potential and will such that we can more accurately relate than we are currently?
These seem to me more productive queries than positing a purely ‘logical’ (ie. value) relation between these absolute values of knowledge, potential and will.
I kind of ran through your response, and think there's some merit to the idea. But, it strikes me ass odd to believe that you can't figure out the characteristics of a being by the things s/he creates.
Perhaps everything is everything else, and perhaps nothing is everything else. - how can you argue against such a statement? It asserts nothing, it is untouchable. Therefore it is not philosophy but dreamery, mere fantasizing about possibilities without giving it any sort of real merit.
One of the characteristics is the ability to create. If you can not figure out any of the characteristics, because they are hidden from you, then creation is NOT guaranteed to be a character trait; therefore you can't be sure that creation is a sign or an effect from which you can reverse-engineer.
I understand that the italicized part is a basic given for argument's sake, which the debaters must accept as an axiomatic truth for the duration and purposes of this argument topic only.
1. How burned is it?
2. Is it still edible?
"A creation cannot know its creator"
ergo: No amount of discussion about the creator will ever produce any knowledge of the creator so such conversations are totally void of truth and are no more than gossip.
Hi Shawn,
I hope I am correct in assuming when you ask for a coherent logical explanation for the fawn scenario that you are looking for a solution to the logical problem of evil, and not a solution to the evidential problem of evil. The difference is that a solution to the logical problem of evil has to be logically possible one, and a solution to the evidential problem of evil has to be a reasonable one. I cannot give a reasonable solution to the evidential problem of evil, but I will try to offer a logically possible one to the logical problem of evil the fawn scenario presents.
I think your argument could look something like this:
1. If an omniscient, omnibenevolent and perfectly good God existed, then intense pain or suffering should not be possible (or at least God should be able to prevent it).
2. The fawn scenario is a possible example of intense pain and suffering.
3. Therefore, an omniscient, omnibenevolent and perfectly good God does not exist.
However, if God created free will for human beings, then it seems as though Premise 1 is not necessarily true. If human beings are given free will, then that means that in at least one circumstance (even if it’s on a nearby possible world) every human being will bring about moral evil. And if this is true and like we said, God is perfectly good, then it was not in God’s power to create moral goodness without creating moral evil. What follows is that, if it was not in God’s power to create moral goodness without creating moral evil, then it is possible for an omniscient, omnibenevolent and perfectly good God to exist.
A couple things that need clarification. First, it seems as though free will is good in itself, but unfortunately acquires the potential to bring about evil when human beings receive this gift and thus gain liberty to choose moral goodness or moral evil. It seems as though the only other alternative given God’s perfect goodness would have been to create equally perfect and equally good beings which would be unable to bring about moral evil. On the other hand, it seems as though a person who has the option to bring about both moral goodness and evil but still chooses goodness deserves more merit compared to the one who lacks the option to choose evil altogether. Secondly, what I mean to say when I assert that it was not in God’s power to create moral goodness without creating moral evil is not that God was unable to create such thing, but rather that the decision was passed on to human beings along with the gift of free will.