What fallacy is this?

musicgold · Post by **musicgold** » March 5th, 2020, 2:17 pm

Hi,
I am trying to determine the logical fallacy committed by B in the following argument. I think it is circular reasoning but I am not sure. Or is B using God's will as a justification to another problem potentially arising from God's will?

A: How could a fair God create such an unjust world?

B: This world is not the final world. This world is like an examination hall, and God is testing us to see who is good and who is evil, and that's why it is not a fair world. God gives here everyone a separate test. Finally, after the day of judgement, God admits only good people to his eternal, beautiful, and just world.

Terrapin Station · Post by **Terrapin Station** » March 5th, 2020, 5:22 pm

I wouldn't say it's a fallacy. It's not really presenting an argument. Fallacies are only relevant to arguments, and arguments need at least loosely and/or at least implicity to have premises and a conclusion that supposedly follows from the premises. This doesn't. It's just painting a picture of something the person believes is the case.

Scott Mayers · Post by **Scott Mayers** » March 5th, 2020, 6:24 pm

musicgold wrote: ↑March 5th, 2020, 2:17 pm Hi,
I am trying to determine the logical fallacy committed by B in the following argument. I think it is circular reasoning but I am not sure. Or is B using God's will as a justification to another problem potentially arising from God's will?

A: How could a fair God create such an unjust world?

B: This world is not the final world. This world is like an examination hall, and God is testing us to see who is good and who is evil, and that's why it is not a fair world. God gives here everyone a separate test. Finally, after the day of judgement, God admits only good people to his eternal, beautiful, and just world.

This is the "problem of evil" question.

If such a being was only ALL-good, and everything but itself is created by him/it is all of Totality, then "evil" is its own creation.

If you point these out to this person and then, given their response above, ask why God would create a being with a 'choice' to be both good and evil by his own creation but then discriminate against those who actually use their power of 'choice' to choose against its own ideal?

"Fallacies" don't need a label but are just common patterns that many people collected over time. Most are conditional for being inductive. When you asked the above question, you left this person with an escape for not being completely exhaustive of all worlds including God's ownersip of them all. So you need to be sure how you ask the question in a way that is more universal to the religious person's meaning of 'good' and 'evil'. To most, 'God' IS ONLY 'Good' and where the term "God" comes from. You have to ask him where 'evil' came from distinct from this original 'superior' being if it is NOT of it.

Since we cannot link here, look up "Problem of Evil" in a search engine.

phenomenal_graffiti · Post by **phenomenal_graffiti** » March 5th, 2020, 7:39 pm

The Problem of Evil in regard to an all-good God is based on the belief that God---as the Bible implies---created everything with absolutely nothing left out, including evil.

The conundrum, if one believes or accepts this for sake of argument lies in the question of how an all-good God could deliberately create evil.

The simple answer is that logically, an all-good God would never deliberately create or allow evil to exist for any reason, even for the sake of free will.

Therefore, if:

1. God exists

2. Is all-good such that He would not deliberately create evil for any reason

3. Is all-good such that He would not deliberately create evil for any reason yet at the same time did create everything without exception, including evil...

The seeming logical contradiction is solved by positing that God creates by imagining things into existence (using his own first-person subjective experience as the substance of everything and every person that shall ever exist) and that evil exists because it is non-deliberately created by God when God is in a state of non-lucid dreaming.

Evil cannot exist when God is awake, thus the current world and every evil act that shall ever exists occurs because God is currently non-lucidly dreaming.

Post by **LuckyR** » March 6th, 2020, 2:05 am

musicgold wrote: ↑March 5th, 2020, 2:17 pm Hi,
I am trying to determine the logical fallacy committed by B in the following argument. I think it is circular reasoning but I am not sure. Or is B using God's will as a justification to another problem potentially arising from God's will?

A: How could a fair God create such an unjust world?

B: This world is not the final world. This world is like an examination hall, and God is testing us to see who is good and who is evil, and that's why it is not a fair world. God gives here everyone a separate test. Finally, after the day of judgement, God admits only good people to his eternal, beautiful, and just world.

B sounds like a middle school level rationalization attempt to reconcile the way things are and the way some Iron Age religions suppose they should be. Technically possible but such an inelegant and clunky "solution".

musicgold · Post by **musicgold** » March 6th, 2020, 11:13 am

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑March 5th, 2020, 5:22 pm I wouldn't say it's a fallacy. It's not really presenting an argument. Fallacies are only relevant to arguments, and arguments need at least loosely and/or at least implicity to have premises and a conclusion that supposedly follows from the premises. This doesn't. It's just painting a picture of something the person believes is the case.

Can we not arrange B's statement into the following argument?

Premise 1: God wants to admit only good people to his ultimate fair world.
Premise 2: God tests people to judge their character.
Premise 3: God uses this world as an examination hall to test people for their qualities
and therefore,
Conclusion: this world was not created to before fair to everyone.

Having restated the argument like this, this seems like a valid argument. The premises however are unproven so this is not a sound argument.

Terrapin Station · Post by **Terrapin Station** » March 6th, 2020, 2:39 pm

musicgold wrote: ↑March 6th, 2020, 11:13 am
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑March 5th, 2020, 5:22 pm I wouldn't say it's a fallacy. It's not really presenting an argument. Fallacies are only relevant to arguments, and arguments need at least loosely and/or at least implicity to have premises and a conclusion that supposedly follows from the premises. This doesn't. It's just painting a picture of something the person believes is the case.
Can we not arrange B's statement into the following argument?

Premise 1: God wants to admit only good people to his ultimate fair world.
Premise 2: God tests people to judge their character.
Premise 3: God uses this world as an examination hall to test people for their qualities
and therefore,
Conclusion: this world was not created to before fair to everyone.

Having restated the argument like this, this seems like a valid argument. The premises however are unproven so this is not a sound argument.

Yeah I suppose that would work (though I'd want to confirm it with the guy who would have said the text in the first post). And I agree that it wouldn't be fallacious in that case.

Pandora · Post by **Pandora** » March 7th, 2020, 1:29 pm

It seems to be an attempt of objecting the existence of injustice by the way of ascribing the fact of observing the world as unjust (unfair) to the people who are naturally unjust. It’s said ‘God admits only good people to his eternal, beautiful, and just world’ which might possibly imply ‘Good people are in the just world, bad – in the unjust. So the question like ‘How could a fair God create such an unjust world?’ is due to your being unjust’. In other words, it has something to do with argument ad hominem since the key objection of subject B given to subject A is linked with the indirect way of indicating the deficiency of subject A

Present awareness · Post by **Present awareness** » March 8th, 2020, 12:33 am

The fallacy is to assume that one may have good, without evil. How would one know something is good, without evil to compare it to? It’s like asking, why isn’t there just light, without dark? All opposites create each other.

phenomenal_graffiti · Post by **phenomenal_graffiti** » March 8th, 2020, 1:00 am

I don't buy the duality thing. What exists, exists; what doesn't doesn't or doesn't any more. It's logically and metaphysically possible for good to exist without evil, not needing (or in the Judeo-Christian case, remembering) evil to know what is good in a world in which consciousness cannot assume the form of evil.

Scott Mayers · Post by **Scott Mayers** » March 8th, 2020, 3:54 am

Present awareness wrote: ↑March 8th, 2020, 12:33 am The fallacy is to assume that one may have good, without evil. How would one know something is good, without evil to compare it to? It’s like asking, why isn’t there just light, without dark? All opposites create each other.

I agree to the duality of the values. But the fallacy may not related directly to the wording in the given argument of the OP. The question should have been to ask how an originator/creator assumed ONLY 'good' could create a reality that includes 'evil'. The respondent to the OP was not challenged with this question and so his answer is not necessarily a fallacy.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote: ↑March 8th, 2020, 1:00 am I don't buy the duality thing. What exists, exists; what doesn't doesn't or doesn't any more. It's logically and metaphysically possible for good to exist without evil, not needing (or in the Judeo-Christian case, remembering) evil to know what is good in a world in which consciousness cannot assume the form of evil.

It may be more reasonable to assume an origin in 'evil' if only one value existed. Then what is 'good' is an improvement upon it. But it definitely could not be all-good. However, the duality still has to be the case because these values are about behaviors between at least two people and represents their relative benefits to cooperate, a construct of political expedience. Moral values don't exist independent of interpersonal behaviors between two or more conscious beings.

Post by **Sy Borg** » March 8th, 2020, 4:42 am

I have no fallacy name, but the OP's proposition becomes more clear when our existential situation is contextualised.

The star-producing era of the known universe is expected to continue for another trillion years. That makes our current universe a toddler in terms of its lifespan.

Is it fair for toddlers to be so clumsy, uncoordinated and uneducated, and therefore unable to achieve what they want to achieve? Or is it just a matter of them all having no choice but to tolerate chaos until they have matured enough to gain more control over their lives?

detail · Post by **detail** » March 8th, 2020, 12:47 pm

Would you ever think that this universe could be just an extended and very complex x-box or play-station game if something like a god would be existent ? Don't you think that fairnes an political correctness as well as a non-sadistic sexuality ever played a role in a x-box or play-station game?

Newme · Post by **Newme** » March 11th, 2020, 3:37 pm

musicgold wrote: ↑March 5th, 2020, 2:17 pm Hi,
I am trying to determine the logical fallacy committed by B in the following argument. I think it is circular reasoning but I am not sure. Or is B using God's will as a justification to another problem potentially arising from God's will?

A: How could a fair God create such an unjust world?

B: This world is not the final world. This world is like an examination hall, and God is testing us to see who is good and who is evil, and that's why it is not a fair world. God gives here everyone a separate test. Finally, after the day of judgement, God admits only good people to his eternal, beautiful, and just world.

When God is involved, it’s difficult to determine logic because of the various ways God is defined, especially subjectively. Both A & B could be considered illogical.

Both A & B:
*Begging the question/Jumping to Conclusions - assuming God is a certain way (fair) & that this world is unfair.
*Ad Pupulum/Bandwagon - assuming because many believe a certain thing about God and the world, they are true. (Also *Appeal to Authority)

B:
*Moving the goal posts - this world is what we daily deal with, not another.
*False Dilemma/Either-Or Fallacy - good and evil are often intermixed.
*Appeal to Ignorance - since we don’t know about after death and other worlds, they assume it to be true.

h_k_s · Post by **h_k_s** » March 12th, 2020, 11:07 pm

musicgold wrote: ↑March 5th, 2020, 2:17 pm Hi,
I am trying to determine the logical fallacy committed by B in the following argument. I think it is circular reasoning but I am not sure. Or is B using God's will as a justification to another problem potentially arising from God's will?

A: How could a fair God create such an unjust world?

B: This world is not the final world. This world is like an examination hall, and God is testing us to see who is good and who is evil, and that's why it is not a fair world. God gives here everyone a separate test. Finally, after the day of judgement, God admits only good people to his eternal, beautiful, and just world.

It's just atheist rhetoric.

The fallacy is in it being an emotional argument.