The Problem of Evil for the Atheist

Thanks for replying, BD.
This debate doesn’t get to assume that God already exists. if we do that, the conversation is already over. The issue is whether evil makes it improbable that God exists. I’ve shown that it does. You don’t undo that by saying, “but elsewhere I believe that God has been shown to exist”.
You show that you assume already what we are debating when you say “When man was given choice and he chose not to follow God he brought the entire world out of how it should be. “. This seems false. We do have “choices”, but God does not exist, so this statement is false.
Also, is any of what you just said there pertinent to our discussion? It seems not.
“the world is not perfect”. Agreed. There are murders, etc. This is why there probably isn’t a perfect world.
“… because man has fallen and brought the world out of perfection and out of what God intended.” Humans do mean things (“are fallen”) but none of that has anything to do with God (which doesn’t exist).
You link a video about God and space and Heaven. If I get the time, I will watch it. For now, if you think it makes points relevant to our discussion, state those points.
As to Logical Form: my arguments are already in that state, minus the clear indicator of Ps and Cs. (Such things are also indicated by words like “Thus”, which I used throughout my response above).
So, nothing about my failure to say P1 before my first premise (line) seems to have caused any problem for my actual argument that I made. If it helps, you can go back and assume that line 1 is P1, and line 2 is P2, and the last line (the one I indicated with “thus”) is the Conclusion.
I’m not sure you understand the difference between Inductive and Deductive Logic (I suppose I should tell you that I’ve been teaching Logic for 20 years). This is indicated when you aren’t familiar with the LPOE/EPOE distinction. And it is indicated when you give an example in Logical form using “must” in the conclusion. Deductive arguments claim that the conclusion necessarily (“must”) follows. I’m making Inductive arguments, claiming that the conclusion probably follows.
Your example:
P1: The world would be more perfect if there were less rapes and murders
P2: A omnibenovolent and omnipowerful god would make the most perfect world
C: Therefore, an omnibenovolent and omnipowerful god must not exist.
is an example of a Deductive argument. This is typically referred to the as the LPOE: The Logical (Deductive) Problem of Evil. It claims to show that God necessary does not exist. I already granted that this argument fails. I then claimed that God probably doesn’t exist, given those 2 premises. That’s an example of the EPOE (the Evidential, or Probabilistic Problem of Evil). This argument succeeds. The 2 premises makes the conclusion likely.
So all your concerns about “validity” are irrelevant here, since I’m only defending an inductive argument.
The good news is that we then can evaluate those premises in the EPOE argument. You agree that P2 is true. You then challenge P1 (sort of).
P1: The world would be more perfect (better) if there were fewer rapes.
So your claim is that’s false (!). Pretty amazing stuff. Regardless, the prima facie evidence is that rape is an imperfection (rather than a perfection). So thus far, you haven’t shown that P1 is false.
You say “But I see wiggle room in P1.”. And there is! Murder might be part of perfection! (such in the case of killing Bin Laden). That’s why the LPOE will always fail. But such “wiggle room” and “might’s” don’t affect the EPOE.
You then say, (without using any logical Form, mind you), “If as Christianity believes there is a heaven and hell then someones death is not the most evil thing in the world but someone ending up in heaven is.”
You then say ” That being said people having cancer may help some to realize that life is not eternal and they should explore and understand what is going to happen in the afterlife. So one child with cancer may result in many people going to heaven. It may seem like a stretch but I’ve seen where someone having cancer has actually brought them to the Lord, which is a greator good then them living through cancer.”
“may”, “may” “may”. You are right! Such things might exist, and might happen. These possibilities are enough to refute the LPOE! But they do nothing about the EPOE. To refute that, you have to show that (virtually) all evils are really not evil, but for the greater good. While letting a child struggle to learn to ride a bike is probably for the greater good, letting your child be raped is probably not.
You then say “(FT was saying) “that bad cannot exist without good”. But murder can exist without hugs, and hugs can exist without murder. Thus FT is wrong. What he seems to want to say is that, in our world, there are both things. But nothing about such a truth changes the fact that the POE shows that God probably doesn’t exist.
You then respond to my A2 argument, not using Logical Form: my point is that if I respond to FT’s argument without using logical form, and your respond to my arguments without using logical form, you can’t then criticize my doing it without being inconsistent.
As to A2: You say, “I disagree that there are many meanings of ‘good’.”. Well, read a dictionary, and you will find that there are indeed many meanings of that word. It’s a word that is used by many different people in many different ways. I am talking about the meaning of words. Hopefully you don’t think I was talking about the meaning of objects, although if you meant the meaning of properties, even words like “strength” (and the property of “strength” can and often does have different meanings to different people.)
That 2+2 always equals 4 is not analogous to “good” always means “well-behaved” (or whatever you put in that spot). “good” can and often does mean many things to many people. While you can says someone speaks inaccurately (is wrong) in saying 2+2 = 5, you can’t say someone always speaks inaccurately in saying “good” means (to them) “handsome”, “thoughtful”, etc.
Cutting through all this: if someone said “rape was kind and did no harm”, they would be wrong, if they meant what you and I probably mean by all those terms. But saying rape is “good” could mean lots of things, such as “rape increases the number of people on the planet at Time X”, and that might even be true, depending on the time and place in which it was asserted. All I’m looking for here is to make sure that we agree on the meanings of the terms we are discussing. “good” is pretty over-used, so when you use it, it would help if you told me what meaning of that word you were using.

A3: to say that God is God is a tautology. There is no God, and no standard that we know that god uses in any context. We do know what a perfect being, using OUR understanding/standard of perfection (like being all loving, and not all rape-y), would do.
Nothing shows that a perfect being (God) exists, and uses himself (huh?) as the standard for anything.
I’m not just saying there is no perfect being. I’ve also shown such a being to be improbable. (see the many arguments above that I’ve made.
A4: You imply, but seem to refuse to say, that I am technically right: you don’t need the sunshine for the shadows. I then move on to say that yes, you need something like light/a light source to get shadows, usually. No, I don’t see any point FT makes here that helps prove anything about morality or God. If you see such a point, make the argument.
A6: you say “You’re (sic) argument once again ignores the greater good that could be achieved by someone having cancer as both Turek and I point out by saying many other people may be saved from hell because of those kids with cancer and therefore it causes more good than bad.” “could” and “may”. I agree! The LPOE fails! But none of this affects the EPOE, which is what I’ve been arguing. This confusion would explain a lot of why you think my argument fails, b/c you thought I was making the LPOE, a deductive argument, against God. I was not. As a result, all of your comments of “but maybe not” are irrelevant to my EPOE.

A7-8: You say, “You’ve simply inserted a wrong equal of good and bad here. “. That’s a strange phrase. What does it mean?
You then say, “Certainly hugs are not on the same weight of good as murder is of weight of good.”. Yes, hugs and murder are not the same in terms of lovingness/kindness. (I never said otherwise).

Here’s your “syllogism”:
1. Murder is ending life. (that’s usually true: but not, if you are a Christian!)
2. Ending life is the opposite of creating life (sort of: The Logical opposite of ending life is NOT ending life).
3. If no life was created (good) then murder could not exist (bad).
4. Therefore, the bad (Murder) requires the existence of the good (creation).
You seem to be trying to say that for A to murder/take away the life of B, that requires there B be alive at one point. That’s true. Nothing about that is relevant to refuting the POE argument I’ve given, proving God, disproving Atheism, etc. That there must be life in order for there to be a murder (the taking of a life) does nothing to show that a perfect being probably wouldn’t stop murders if it could.
A9-11:You say, “Turek’s point is that morality itself comes from God.” But this is false. (Feel free to prove otherwise). You admit that this hasn’t been proven when you say, ” He didn’t explain that thuroughly there.”. In reality, the things we know of: people, harmful actions, loving actions, etc, have nothing (that we know of) to do with God/a perfect being.
You then switch gears (for the first time, good for you) by asking some questions (which is a poor thing to do if you are arguing/making points/trying to refute what I’m saying). Greg Koukl (famous Christian Apologist) says that I should say to you, what’s the point you are trying to make with your questions? (and then I should be silent). So, I will ask you, what’s the relevance of your questions, but I will also try to answer them (Sorry GK).
You ask, ” By what foundation are you able to say that cancer is bad if God does not exist?”. This seems to be like saying, if God does not exist, you can’t say that dogs exist, or that anyone has violated the speed limit, etc. All such assertions are false. Nothing changes about our reality even though God does not exist. As to cancer:
Cancer exists
It is “bad”: it does harm, it is often unwanted, it usually shortens life, etc. None of those truths require God. They only require a meaning to those terms (which you probably are familiar with), and scientific/experiential evidence for them (which we have, even without God).
So I can say “cancer is bad”, and it can be true, even without God, if I mean “cancer shortens life and is unwanted by X”, if our non-godly scientific evidence shows that to be the case, which it often/usually does.
You say, ” If God does not exist then we are all the results of evolution.”. This doesn’t follow. But it seems also true that “if God does exist, then we are also the result of evolution”. Nothing here seems relevant to anything I’ve said above.
You then say, “Cancer is simply weeding out the week (sic) to move evolution along.” You wrongly use the word “simply”. Cancer is still much more than simply weeding out the “weak”: it is also (usually) unwanted by most people, and harmful, and painful, etc.
You then say, “Why would that be evil?”. If you mean, “why would one’s life being shortened be something one wished or tried to avoid”, the answer is, “because/if a being prefers to life longer, enjoys the movies, seeing her grandkids, etc”.
So there are perfectly good, non Godly answers to these questions, assuming these questions are meaningfully put, like I interpreted above.
If you mean something else by “evil”, then you will have to say what that is, and then you may as well answer your own question as to whether cancer has that property. I’ve shown that cancer usually has the property of being “unwanted” and of “shortening one’s life”. I’m not claiming that “evil” means anything significantly different than those sorts of things.
Yes, I can know that cancer exists. Yes, I can know that cancer shortens life and is unwanted. Whether or not I can justify/explain why cancer shortens one’s life is irrelevant to anything I’ve said above. Science of course has explained much about why cancer shortens one’s life.
I’ve not said, nor is any atheist required to say/believe, that “cancer is simply a good mechanism of evolution killing off the weak. Yes, cancer is a mechanism that does kill off some weak people. Nothing about that is relevant here.
I think you mean to say, but some people might find “shorten one’s (or another’s) life” to be “good”/valuable/desired. That’s true. Nothing about that changes the fact that a loving person, prima facie, would stop killing, and a mean person would not (or would be less likely to, etc.)
A12: You say, “You here throw out love as an ultimate good.” Where did I say that? What I do say is that we are discussing the likelihood of an all loving being. I never said “love is an ultimate good”. But if God is all loving, and that means what it probably means to you and I (not punching people in the face, prima facie, etc), then allowing rapes is probably not what an all loving being would do.
“why should anyone accept that?” I think you mean: what forces anyone else to regard “love” as their ultimate good? To that the answer is: nothing. Nor did I say that something did.
You then say, “as an athiest you have no foundation to ground that.” The “that” seems to refer to my preference for love. I can ground many things, like why I bought that car: to get from point A to point B. But no one can ground all things. Thus even though it is true that I might not be able to “ground” (which you should explain) why I value some things (like “love”) more than others, nothing about this helps prove that God exists.
You say: “If another athiest (sic) says selfishness is the greatest trait and trumps love everytime you have nothing to justify it.”. First, the atheist who says this needs to explain what “greatest” means. If the atheist means “selfishness is the most important thing/the thing I most value”, then yes that is possible. But if they claim “selfishness is the greatest trait at making friends”, then the scientific facts may prove them wrong. Again, none of this proves God, nor disproves anything I’ve said above.
You say, “While the theist points to a loving God”. False, there is no God pointed to. This is ironic given that, for most theists, God is not a “thing” that can be “pointed” to, as God is supposedly “immaterial”. Regardless, the theist hasn’t proven that God exists, so it is not true that any theists have pointed to God. What you might say is that theists point to the Bible. That’s often true.
Theists might say that selfishness is not better than love. They might even be right! But the problem here, as above, is that you have failed to explain any meaningful sense of “better”. Again, if theists claim, “selfishness is not better than loving behavior at getting yourself invited to a birthday party”, that might be often true. But things aren’t just “better” full stop. They are “better” at certain things, at certain times, etc: Conventional medicine is usually “better” at healing people of their cancer than are voodoo dances, etc.

I agree though: if X believes that “punches others is better at making friends than is hugging”, they are wrong, and their belief itself doesn’t change that fact.
A14: The LPOE and the EPOE: explained above. Yes, good (well being, happiness, joy, etc.) might come from a cancer baby, and God might exist. But probably not.
You say, “a God might exist. Which is really all I need.” It seems clear that you are only addressing the LPOE, for you need much more (actual evidence, not just possibilities) to overcome the EPOE.
You say “You can argue that it’s unlikely but I would say that is other things that prove that God exists.”. It is unlikely that all rapes serve a greater good. It is possible, but not likely, as far as we know. You don’t give any evidence to show otherwise.
A15: “I simply disagree with the fact we would change things.”. When loving people find out that their relatives are sick, they try to do things like find them cures, give them comfort, etc. When loving people see someone in danger, they do things like try to stop the danger, etc. So all loving people would probably do things differently. Loving people try to stop rapes. Your position is that all rapes are probable for the greater good (and thus no perfect being would stop them/change things). This is false, according to the evidence we have. Rapes look like things loving people would try to stop.
” If we knew the things that God does we would realize that there are good things that come from the things that we see as evil.” God doesn’t exist, and thus we don’t know anything that God knows. There are sometimes good things that come from evil, and sometimes not. There are also sometimes evil things that come from good, and sometimes not. It’s a mixed bag. It is not all perfect, probably. Nor is it all imperfect/completely bad/evil/unwanted/hurtful, etc.
If your neighbor broke your son’s leg, you should call it evil: unwanted, mean, hurtful, etc. Yes, it might be the case that he broke it so that a million cancer babies would be saved (for the greater good), but probably not. Until we know that latter outcome is probable, we would be right to say that the neighbor is “unloving”.
If a neighbor breaks your son’s leg it would still be unloving, even if amazingly the next day, that act saved your son’s life. (This is the Ravi Z example). But if you knew that breaking your son’s leg would save your son’s life, that would not be unloving: it would be loving: for the greater good. Some acts are like that. And MANY are not! So the problem of evil persists. The POE doesn’t claim that no actions are for the greater good. It claims that many are not, as far as we know. And that claim is accurate.
You then say, “This is how God sees. We don’t see how good can come from cancer but he sees more than we do.”. This is false. God doesn’t exist. We don’t know that God exists and “sees” that all rapes are actually for the greater good. That’s possible, but not probable.
A16: You say, “This isn’t a perfect world.” Exactly! that’s why there probably isn’t a perfect being.
You say, “Cancer isn’t here because God meant it to be here.”. That’s right! Because God doesn’t exist! Cancer is here for other (biological, environmental) reasons.
“God makes good from the evil”. There is no (good, probable) evidence of this. Nor is there good evidence that God has good (loving) reasons for letting all these rapes happen.
I hope this clears up everything! I’ve shown God, a perfect in all ways being, probably doesn’t exist, given the many hurtful, undesired, things there are in the world, like rape and murder. Luckily, there are many loving people (and organizations) who exist who try to stop such things. God just isn’t one of them. Unfortunately, humans are not all powerful (nor always all loving), and thus much evil (harm, etc.) exists.