Proof there is no God

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Jack D Ripper
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Re: Proof there is no God

Post by Jack D Ripper »

Fellowmater wrote: October 13th, 2020, 9:27 am Reminds me of when a child coming of age begins to question his parents about Santa Claus:

“Mom, how does Santa make it around to all the children’s houses in one night?”

“Err..uhh…he has elves as helpers…time slows down for Santa on Christmas…Santas reindeer are magical…”

These things not only don’t make sense, but they are the exact sorts of things you’d EXPECT to hear from someone who is desperately trying to explain something that is not real.

That’s why I always thought the “The Lord works in mysterious ways” thing was the dumbest crap ever. Because they are admitting that it is a mystery to them why the Lord would do things which a benevolent being shouldn’t do.
Yes, it is exactly like that. When their BS nonsense is shown to be BS nonsense, they make up some other BS nonsense to try to cover up the previous BS nonsense. This continues over and over, as they refuse to give up, just like a parent who is determined to continue to lie to the children about Santa Claus.

So we have, with the problem of evil, a refusal of believers to ever give up, always making up more BS nonsense instead, trying to pretend that a contradictory claim isn't false.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence." - David Hume
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Re: Proof there is no God

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Jack D Ripper wrote: October 13th, 2020, 1:16 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: October 13th, 2020, 8:31 am...

If you want to argue that there are consensus moral stances and that God contingently does or necessarily must share the consensus moral stances (and that this has always been the thinking), so that we don't need to know God's moral dispositions in order to critique claims like omnibenevolence, then you'd need to actually present the argument that God contingently does or necessarily must share the consensus moral stances.
...
No, it does not matter what God thinks (which is a good thing, since a nonexistent being cannot think). What matters is, when people say "God is good", that would generally be understood in a certain way. If, later on, someone then tells us that they meant something completely different (as those do who say it is that God is good by God's standards, which are completely different and unrelated to our standards), then this shows dishonesty on their part, when they made the initial assertion. If they meant "God is good by God's standards", that is what they should have stated in the first place. Just saying "God is good" gives a completely different impression. It is a dishonest bait-and-switch tactic.

I should also add, the later claim that it is God's standards that matter is really just making up something new when the original claim has been shown to be false. It is an attempt at making one's false claims seem true after all. It is like other cases where someone who says something false, who is shown that it is false, who then pretends they really meant something else, which clearly isn't what was originally stated. It is a refusal to admit that one was wrong, and it is a completely disreputable way of arguing.

Of course, in the sales brochures used to try to sucker more people into their scam, they still keep to the original claim that God is good, proving conclusively that they are completely dishonest about what they are doing.
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Re: Proof there is no God

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Jack D Ripper wrote: October 13th, 2020, 1:16 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: October 13th, 2020, 8:31 am...

If you want to argue that there are consensus moral stances and that God contingently does or necessarily must share the consensus moral stances (and that this has always been the thinking), so that we don't need to know God's moral dispositions in order to critique claims like omnibenevolence, then you'd need to actually present the argument that God contingently does or necessarily must share the consensus moral stances.
...
No, it does not matter what God thinks (which is a good thing, since a nonexistent being cannot think). What matters is, when people say "God is good", that would generally be understood in a certain way. If, later on, someone then tells us that they meant something completely different (as those do who say it is that God is good by God's standards, which are completely different and unrelated to our standards), then this shows dishonesty on their part, when they made the initial assertion. If they meant "God is good by God's standards", that is what they should have stated in the first place. Just saying "God is good" gives a completely different impression. It is a dishonest bait-and-switch tactic.
So you'd parse it as "God is good" per some set of consensus moral stances? Aside from other issues in that case (one of those issues being that it's bothersome to those of us who have many moral stances that differ from norms), I'd want evidence that that's what most people who are making claims about omnibenevolence have in mind--that they're appealing to moral norms that humans have. The evidence of that would have to be a survey of people making omnibenevolence claims, where we'd need to be careful to not bias the answers one way or another. (For example, we couldn't ask people who were aware of this discussion, because it could easily bias them to answer one way or the other for reasons other than what they had in mind prior to being aware of this discussion.)
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Re: Proof there is no God

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Terrapin Station wrote: October 13th, 2020, 1:55 pm
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 13th, 2020, 1:16 pm

No, it does not matter what God thinks (which is a good thing, since a nonexistent being cannot think). What matters is, when people say "God is good", that would generally be understood in a certain way. If, later on, someone then tells us that they meant something completely different (as those do who say it is that God is good by God's standards, which are completely different and unrelated to our standards), then this shows dishonesty on their part, when they made the initial assertion. If they meant "God is good by God's standards", that is what they should have stated in the first place. Just saying "God is good" gives a completely different impression. It is a dishonest bait-and-switch tactic.
So you'd parse it as "God is good" per some set of consensus moral stances?

That would be the natural way to take it if it is stated without qualification. Think about other sentences with that term. Suppose someone tells you, "my next door neighbor is a good person." What would you normally take that to mean? Or, to alter it a bit, say someone tells you they just moved into a house, and they say that their next door neighbor is named "Bob", who they have not yet met, and they tell you, "everyone I've spoken to says Bob is a good person." Would you be supposing that that means that Bob is good according to Bob's standards? I am pretty sure that isn't what very many, if any, people would be thinking.

When people use a standard word, without qualifying it in some way, the natural way to take it would be in accordance with the normal meaning.

Terrapin Station wrote: October 13th, 2020, 1:55 pm
Aside from other issues in that case (one of those issues being that it's bothersome to those of us who have many moral stances that differ from norms), I'd want evidence that that's what most people who are making claims about omnibenevolence have in mind--that they're appealing to moral norms that humans have. The evidence of that would have to be a survey of people making omnibenevolence claims, where we'd need to be careful to not bias the answers one way or another. (For example, we couldn't ask people who were aware of this discussion, because it could easily bias them to answer one way or the other for reasons other than what they had in mind prior to being aware of this discussion.)
Well, that would require a survey and I don't know of one that has been done. However, from my own experience, it is pretty clear that they mean what is normally meant by the term, until they run into something like the problem of evil, and then they start to change things to try to avoid admitting that what they have been believing is impossible. And from speaking with others about this, they all seem to have the same experience that I do on this. Of course, this is only anecdotal evidence, which is far from what you are asking.

There is, however, some evidence that you can find that is in support of what I am saying. Look up "omnibenevolent" and "all-good" in your favorite, most trusted dictionary, and I am pretty sure that you are going to find that it is going to fit with what I am saying. No respectable dictionary is going to say that omnibenvllent means "approving of oneself".
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence." - David Hume
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Re: Proof there is no God

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Obviously, the last sentence in that previous post should read:

No respectable dictionary is going to say that "omnibenevolent" means "approving of oneself".
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Re: Proof there is no God

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One more thing: After they forget about the argument about the problem of evil, they pretty much always revert to the original use. So the BS about it being God's standards is generally a temporary position that is just used for the sake of trying to win an argument, not something that they hang onto. This also fits with them not changing their pamphlets to tell people that "God approves of God" to replace all instances of "God is all-good".

Of course, that would not be so effective for getting converts, because most people do not care if a being approves of itself or is good according to its own deviant standards. They care if the being is good in accordance with general ideas about what it is to be good. That is what it means until they are faced with an argument that shows that they are wrong, and then they pretend that it means something else to try to avoid the conclusion that their silly god does not exist.
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Re: Proof there is no God

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Jack D Ripper wrote: October 13th, 2020, 3:06 pm That would be the natural way to take it if it is stated without qualification. Think about other sentences with that term. Suppose someone tells you, "my next door neighbor is a good person." What would you normally take that to mean? Or, to alter it a bit, say someone tells you they just moved into a house, and they say that their next door neighbor is named "Bob", who they have not yet met, and they tell you, "everyone I've spoken to says Bob is a good person." Would you be supposing that that means that Bob is good according to Bob's standards? I am pretty sure that isn't what very many, if any, people would be thinking.
Folks obviously mean that per their personal assessment, the next door neighbor or Bob is a good person. They're not going to mean that per consensus assessments the next door neighbor or Bob is a good person, even though the consensus differs from their personal evaluation. It would be ridiculous for anyone to defer to other people in that way, and especially not where they're suggesting that they're deferring to an argumentum ad populum, which is what any endorsement of consensus is on such matters.
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Re: Proof there is no God

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Terrapin Station wrote: October 13th, 2020, 5:18 pm
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 13th, 2020, 3:06 pm That would be the natural way to take it if it is stated without qualification. Think about other sentences with that term. Suppose someone tells you, "my next door neighbor is a good person." What would you normally take that to mean? Or, to alter it a bit, say someone tells you they just moved into a house, and they say that their next door neighbor is named "Bob", who they have not yet met, and they tell you, "everyone I've spoken to says Bob is a good person." Would you be supposing that that means that Bob is good according to Bob's standards? I am pretty sure that isn't what very many, if any, people would be thinking.
Folks obviously mean that per their personal assessment, the next door neighbor or Bob is a good person. They're not going to mean that per consensus assessments the next door neighbor or Bob is a good person, even though the consensus differs from their personal evaluation. It would be ridiculous for anyone to defer to other people in that way, and especially not where they're suggesting that they're deferring to an argumentum ad populum, which is what any endorsement of consensus is on such matters.
When people talk of personal preferences, like preferring chocolate ice cream over vanilla ice cream, they do not generally reasonably expect agreement among most people. But when they say that they believe it is wrong to take a bunch of people who have not committed any crimes, and gas them in a manner that kills them, they do reasonably expect general agreement.

You write as if everyone were a subjectivist with regard to morals. Not everyone agrees with that, and even among those who do, there are many generally agreed upon matters, like the example above.

And doing that is not committing an argumentum ad populum. When I expect that most people do not believe that it is right to take a bunch of people who have not committed any crimes, and gas them in a manner that kills them, I am basing that on experience of dealing with people. The simple fact is, most of the people who I have spoken with on this type of thing agree. Furthermore, all of the reading I have done of other people doing research on this, or merely dealing with personal experience, also agree on this point.

You might as well tell me, that when I say person X is the most popular person, I am committing an argumentum ad populum. Of course, that is not the case at all, as what I am saying is that X is more popular than others, not that the person OUGHT to be more popular. Likewise, when I say that certain principles are generally accepted, that is a matter of fact. If I were to say that therefore they OUGHT to be generally accepted, then I would be committing a fallacy (unless I had something else to support that conclusion). But that is not what I am saying at all.
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Re: Proof there is no God

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Firstly let me start off by saying I am an atheist, and firmly believe that a God cannot belong to religion even if the being existed, yet I still believe religion regardless of accuracy is important. However, I would like to provide some reply for you to think about.

In your well-written statement, I saw you mentioned the topic of good and evil. I would like to bring the military into account here. Killing we can all agree I am sure is wrong in essence, but when done to protect others like in the military It can be good. You mention God would be obliged to stop evils such as murder and rape, but what if those evils exist for growth. Nothing good has come from merely existing, and without evil, there cannot be good. The two are dependent on the other.

Taking this into account you could argue that it would be evil to not allow the growth of both those affected by the evil and those who commit the evil. Furthermore, this would go so far to mean that God would be even obliged to allow these evils to exist. While the act of allowing these things would seem evil in themselves, the long-term reasons would be what defines them as being good. While an all-knowing God may already understand the outcome, the people this being created would not.

A rebuttal I see to this theory would be that this all-powerful being could simply transfer this knowledge into its creations, yet this would defeat the point of them knowing at all. This is in comparison to video-games, if a game gives you everything right from the back with no work, then what's the point? While it may seem fun messing around for a while the game quickly becomes meaningless. Whereas having to work for the rewards and hard-earned achievements will keep a determined player interested for much longer as it provides a sense of appreciation.

A less serious theory that's somewhat similar could be that maybe each of us is one of these all-powerful beings that have merely created some form of simulation or game that restricts knowledge and memory to provide relief from eternal boredom. You can only do everything for so much of eternity after all.

Hope this provides some interest,

-SilverRIng
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Re: Proof there is no God

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Jack D Ripper said: "The proof that no God exists is the problem of evil. (“Evil”, in this context, simply means anything that is bad.) If there were such a God, being omniscient, it would know about any evil, being omnipotent, it would be able to prevent all evil, and being omnibenevolent, it would have the inclination to prevent all evil. Consequently, it would prevent all evil. Since there is evil (i.e., bad things happen), there cannot be such a God."

What a trivial argument... Ergo, if we all spent our lives lying around happily stoned, it would prove that the god you described exists?

Actually, word is that the God in question did create a perfectly harmonious world, sans any form of evil, but he found that it's sentient residents considered it a fate worse than death to stay there for a prolonged period, they were literally driven mad by it's incessant ground-hog day placidness.

New flash: material evolution requires entropy, disharmony, pain and death. However, one may opt out of the game.
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Re: Proof there is no God

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Jack D Ripper wrote: October 13th, 2020, 9:05 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: October 13th, 2020, 5:18 pm
Folks obviously mean that per their personal assessment, the next door neighbor or Bob is a good person. They're not going to mean that per consensus assessments the next door neighbor or Bob is a good person, even though the consensus differs from their personal evaluation. It would be ridiculous for anyone to defer to other people in that way, and especially not where they're suggesting that they're deferring to an argumentum ad populum, which is what any endorsement of consensus is on such matters.
When people talk of personal preferences, like preferring chocolate ice cream over vanilla ice cream, they do not generally reasonably expect agreement among most people. But when they say that they believe it is wrong to take a bunch of people who have not committed any crimes, and gas them in a manner that kills them, they do reasonably expect general agreement.

You write as if everyone were a subjectivist with regard to morals. Not everyone agrees with that, and even among those who do, there are many generally agreed upon matters, like the example above.

And doing that is not committing an argumentum ad populum. When I expect that most people do not believe that it is right to take a bunch of people who have not committed any crimes, and gas them in a manner that kills them, I am basing that on experience of dealing with people. The simple fact is, most of the people who I have spoken with on this type of thing agree. Furthermore, all of the reading I have done of other people doing research on this, or merely dealing with personal experience, also agree on this point.

You might as well tell me, that when I say person X is the most popular person, I am committing an argumentum ad populum. Of course, that is not the case at all, as what I am saying is that X is more popular than others, not that the person OUGHT to be more popular. Likewise, when I say that certain principles are generally accepted, that is a matter of fact. If I were to say that therefore they OUGHT to be generally accepted, then I would be committing a fallacy (unless I had something else to support that conclusion). But that is not what I am saying at all.
First, you're overlooking something that I said: "They're not going to mean that per consensus assessments the next door neighbor or Bob is a good person, even though the consensus differs from their personal evaluation."

Now, the consensus might not differ from their person evaluation. But often it does.

This isn't a matter of the person having subjectivist versus objectivist views on the metaethics or the ontology of ethics. The above works just the same way regardless of their ontological views. If they're objectivists, they're going to give their personal evaluation which they believe they happen to have right per how the world independently is, where the consensus has it wrong. If they're subjectivists, they're going to think that they simply feel differently than other folks. In either case, they're giving their personal evaluation, NOT a consensus evaluation that they might disagree with.

The argumentum ad populum occurs when we say that we're deferring to the popular view in something like a criticism of omnibenevolence, because it's the popular view. (Remember the context of our comments.)

By the way, while not everyone is a subjectivist on metaethics, obviously, the subjectivists have right what the world is like. The objectivists are mistaken. There are no person/mind-independent moral stances.
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Re: Proof there is no God

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Felix wrote: October 14th, 2020, 3:50 am Jack D Ripper said: "The proof that no God exists is the problem of evil. (“Evil”, in this context, simply means anything that is bad.) If there were such a God, being omniscient, it would know about any evil, being omnipotent, it would be able to prevent all evil, and being omnibenevolent, it would have the inclination to prevent all evil. Consequently, it would prevent all evil. Since there is evil (i.e., bad things happen), there cannot be such a God."

What a trivial argument... Ergo, if we all spent our lives lying around happily stoned, it would prove that the god you described exists?

Actually, word is that the God in question did create a perfectly harmonious world, sans any form of evil, but he found that it's sentient residents considered it a fate worse than death to stay there for a prolonged period, they were literally driven mad by it's incessant ground-hog day placidness.

New flash: material evolution requires entropy, disharmony, pain and death. However, one may opt out of the game.
It's not Ripper's God. His argument is based on the standard God of the Christians.

You then follow up your bile with a strawman, as if the absence of evil would necessarily mean "a perfectly harmonious world". Your argument here is in fact trivial, since you create a false dilemma.
Fact is that there is a great deal of useless suffering with no benefit to "material evolution". In fact there is so much pain and death that seems to fall upon the good and evil indiscriminately that one can only conclude that if there is a god he/she/it is not the benevolent omniscient, omnipresent... ad nauseam entity. And actually not very bright to be so wasteful and capricious.
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Re: Proof there is no God

Post by Jack D Ripper »

SilverRing wrote: October 14th, 2020, 1:13 am Firstly let me start off by saying I am an atheist, and firmly believe that a God cannot belong to religion even if the being existed, yet I still believe religion regardless of accuracy is important. However, I would like to provide some reply for you to think about.

In your well-written statement, I saw you mentioned the topic of good and evil. I would like to bring the military into account here. Killing we can all agree I am sure is wrong in essence, but when done to protect others like in the military It can be good. You mention God would be obliged to stop evils such as murder and rape, but what if those evils exist for growth. Nothing good has come from merely existing, and without evil, there cannot be good. The two are dependent on the other.

Taking this into account you could argue that it would be evil to not allow the growth of both those affected by the evil and those who commit the evil. Furthermore, this would go so far to mean that God would be even obliged to allow these evils to exist. While the act of allowing these things would seem evil in themselves, the long-term reasons would be what defines them as being good. While an all-knowing God may already understand the outcome, the people this being created would not.

A rebuttal I see to this theory would be that this all-powerful being could simply transfer this knowledge into its creations, yet this would defeat the point of them knowing at all.

I disagree. Knowledge is valuable regardless of how one got it.

SilverRing wrote: October 14th, 2020, 1:13 am This is in comparison to video-games, if a game gives you everything right from the back with no work, then what's the point? ....

Your analogy is faulty because giving you the items does not give you the skills. In our hypothetical omnipotent God situation, God would be giving the gamer (to keep with your metaphor) the skills without bothering with requiring practice. Indeed, God could give the gamer better skills, perfect skills, that the gamer would never get from practicing. So what you have is a situation in which God chooses to use evil to get worse results than God could get without using evil. This makes God stupid as well as evil. Stupid because the results are worse, and evil because God is using evil that is not necessary.
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Re: Proof there is no God

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Felix wrote: October 14th, 2020, 3:50 am Jack D Ripper said: "The proof that no God exists is the problem of evil. (“Evil”, in this context, simply means anything that is bad.) If there were such a God, being omniscient, it would know about any evil, being omnipotent, it would be able to prevent all evil, and being omnibenevolent, it would have the inclination to prevent all evil. Consequently, it would prevent all evil. Since there is evil (i.e., bad things happen), there cannot be such a God."

What a trivial argument... Ergo, if we all spent our lives lying around happily stoned, it would prove that the god you described exists?

Who said anything about being stoned? There are alternatives other than being stoned.

Felix wrote: October 14th, 2020, 3:50 am
Actually, word is that the God in question did create a perfectly harmonious world, sans any form of evil, but he found that it's sentient residents considered it a fate worse than death to stay there for a prolonged period, they were literally driven mad by it's incessant ground-hog day placidness.
...

If that is the case, then God failed to make a perfect world. Apparently, your idea of God is an incompetent buffoon. Which, of course, is something other than the proposed idea in the opening post. The argument is only about that concept of God, not about any other concept of God.
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Re: Proof there is no God

Post by Jack D Ripper »

Terrapin Station wrote: October 14th, 2020, 9:39 am
Jack D Ripper wrote: October 13th, 2020, 9:05 pm

When people talk of personal preferences, like preferring chocolate ice cream over vanilla ice cream, they do not generally reasonably expect agreement among most people. But when they say that they believe it is wrong to take a bunch of people who have not committed any crimes, and gas them in a manner that kills them, they do reasonably expect general agreement.

You write as if everyone were a subjectivist with regard to morals. Not everyone agrees with that, and even among those who do, there are many generally agreed upon matters, like the example above.

And doing that is not committing an argumentum ad populum. When I expect that most people do not believe that it is right to take a bunch of people who have not committed any crimes, and gas them in a manner that kills them, I am basing that on experience of dealing with people. The simple fact is, most of the people who I have spoken with on this type of thing agree. Furthermore, all of the reading I have done of other people doing research on this, or merely dealing with personal experience, also agree on this point.

You might as well tell me, that when I say person X is the most popular person, I am committing an argumentum ad populum. Of course, that is not the case at all, as what I am saying is that X is more popular than others, not that the person OUGHT to be more popular. Likewise, when I say that certain principles are generally accepted, that is a matter of fact. If I were to say that therefore they OUGHT to be generally accepted, then I would be committing a fallacy (unless I had something else to support that conclusion). But that is not what I am saying at all.
First, you're overlooking something that I said: "They're not going to mean that per consensus assessments the next door neighbor or Bob is a good person, even though the consensus differs from their personal evaluation."

Now, the consensus might not differ from their person evaluation. But often it does.

This isn't a matter of the person having subjectivist versus objectivist views on the metaethics or the ontology of ethics. The above works just the same way regardless of their ontological views. If they're objectivists, they're going to give their personal evaluation which they believe they happen to have right per how the world independently is, where the consensus has it wrong. If they're subjectivists, they're going to think that they simply feel differently than other folks. In either case, they're giving their personal evaluation, NOT a consensus evaluation that they might disagree with.

The argumentum ad populum occurs when we say that we're deferring to the popular view in something like a criticism of omnibenevolence, because it's the popular view. (Remember the context of our comments.)

By the way, while not everyone is a subjectivist on metaethics, obviously, the subjectivists have right what the world is like. The objectivists are mistaken. There are no person/mind-independent moral stances.

After I was done with this site for the night, I regretted what I wrote almost immediately. Not because I thought it was wrong, but because it is unimportant to the task at hand. It does not matter, for the purposes of this discussion, what the correct view of ethics is. (And that would be better discussed in the ethics section of this site instead of the religion section of this site.)

What I should have stated is something like this:

You seem to be taking a straight up subjectivist approach to ethics. Thus, with:

1) S says, "X is good."

where "S" is something that can make an affirmation, like a human, an alien being like those seen on science fiction shows (if such a being were real), a talking dog like Mr. Peabody (from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle show, if he were real), an angel (If real), a god (if real), etc., and where X is anything that would make a meaningful sentence, like "freedom from pain", "torturing small children with flaming hot pincers", etc.

The straight subjectivist approach, based on 1 above, is to affirm:

2) S likes X.

And that is the full significance of 1, on the subjectivist interpretation.

Now, what that means is that, if that view is correct, the statement "X is good" within 1 is not really about X, but is about S. It is about what S likes. So that the true subject of what is being said is S, which is more clearly indicated with 2, because with 2 the grammatical subject is what the statement is about.


Now, how this relates to the opening post is that with the statement:

3) God is good.

That is supposed to be telling you something about God. But, on the subjectivist interpretation, it is not. It is telling you about whoever it is who says "God is good." In the opening post, the statement about God's goodness is supposed to be about God. If the idea of "goodness" as a property of a thing is wrong or incoherent, then the description in the opening post is wrong or incoherent. And if that is the case, then the God of the opening post simply does not exist, because nothing has that property of goodness that is being affirmed about God in that description.

So we don't even have to think about omnipotence or omniscience or about evil (which, of course, on the straight subjectivist interpretation, evil is also not a property of a thing, but a feeling about the thing, just like good). Because, on the subjectivist interpretation of "good", there is no God as described in the opening post because goodness is not a property of a thing.

If it is clearer, what is meant by "God is good" is:

4) God has a property [of goodness].


When religious people tell you that "God is good", haven't you gotten the impression that they mean to be saying something about God, rather than just saying that they like God? That God being good is a selling point of the religion, that is supposed to make you like God, too, because of this property of "goodness" that God allegedly has? This is quite different from someone telling you that they like chocolate ice cream more than vanilla ice cream, because that is not something that is supposed to make you prefer chocolate, though someone might want you to try it, thinking that your tastes may be similar. Sometimes, of course, someone jokingly says that it is wrong to eat vanilla ice cream and that it is only right and proper to eat chocolate ice cream, often as a way of trying to emphasize their love of chocolate ice cream.

But we need not pursue that here; the point is, the description in the opening post is supposed to be about God, certainly not about how I feel about God. If goodness isn't a property of a thing, then the description is inaccurate, which is to say, no such thing exists.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence." - David Hume
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