The Problem of Evil (Philosphy thread)

[Jenisi]

Another insomnia filled night so I'm trying to be productive and work on a Philsophy paper, and I chose a particular article (The problem of evil) By BC Johnson. I'm not sure where I want to go with it yet..

Here is the jist of the article if you want to read and enjoy philosophy type thinking.

God and the Problem of Evil

Johnson argues in this chapter that it is unlikely that God (if indeed God exists) is all good. He proceeds by describing the problem of evil, explaining common theistic responses to the problem, and refuting those responses. To illustrate the problem of evil, he asks us to consider the case of an infant caught in a burning building who, unable to escape, suffers greatly while burning to death. Now, any person who had the power to prevent this but did not do so would not be a good person. Similarly, Johnson argues, we ought not consider God good if God could have prevented the child's suffering unless there is some excuse that would justify inaction.

One common excuse offered for God's inaction in such cases is that the baby might go to heaven; Johnson points out that this is irrelevant as to the baby's suffering, absent some argument that suffering is necessary to go to heaven. Another argument is that God does not prevent suffering which allows for more good in the long run. But this, Johnson points out, forces us to conclude that any action that results in suffering will be overall best just in case God allows it to happen. Moreover, it does not explain God's inaction at all, but merely states that there will be such a reason. That is, the suffering is evidence offered against the belief that God is good; countering that evidence by asserting the truth of the claim against which the evidence is offered is question begging. Another common excuse is that God granted humans free will, and that therefore if a human causes a child to suffer it is the human's fault alone. But, Johnson notes, one can be at fault for not having intervened in events that are caused by another person; presumably God's omissions can be faulty in this way as well.

Johnson also discounts a group of arguments according to which humans are better off if God does not intervene. One such argument says that humans would grow dependent on God were God to intervene often; this argument, however, would apply to the small group of people who regularly provide emergency aid. If we grow dependent on doctors, firefighters, and so forth, and if such dependence is bad enough to warrant God's non-intervention, it seems that these people ought to stop providing aid. But clearly the shouldn't. Similarly, the claim that God's non-intervention has the benefit of increasing "moral urgency" would also prevent human intervention. Further, it would seem to follow that God thinks that a certain amount of moral urgency justifies allowing a great deal of suffering to occur. Thus, if human efforts to reduce suffering were successful enough, God would have to intervene and cause more suffering to occur in order to increase moral urgency, and it may well be that God is doing so right now. The excuses that suffering builds human virtue and deflates the human ego are susceptible to the same arguments, Johnson argues. In sum, then, because none of the arguments typically offered for God's inaction in the face of human suffering are persuasive, Johnson claims that it is unlikely that God is all good.

There are a few ways I could go with this, such as the fact that evil doesn't exist. Just as darkness doesn't really exist and is just the absence of light.. Just as cold doesn't really exist, etc. This is a popular argument proposed by Albert Einstein. There is obviously a creator of some sort, because nothing cannot create something. If evil does exsist, is it possible that an all good god can allow it and still be good? Balance can only answer this question to some extent, and to just "trust" god doesn't make the argument logical.

[Bobmuhthol]

The fact that you brought up logic in a philosophy/religion discussion is illogical.

[Methais]

Howcome nobody in that argument blamed it on Satan?

[TheEschaton]

Mr. Johnson is obviously not that well read.

There are many theologies of suffering (especially in the Catholic tradition), arising in the postmodern, post-Holocaust tradition, which address this question, and come up with an answer that says suffering is redemptive. If you believe in the Fall of Man, then there exists a need for a redemptive fire (no pun intended to the analogy) to cleanse oneself (cf Dante's Purgatorio, last canto).

Furthermore, his argument presupposes God thinks and acts on the same level as human beings do. That's a rather arrogant assumption to make. There can be nothing beyong human thought? Human thought runs counter to the idea of mystery, of contradiction, of paradox - yet these things exist, and, in essence, are the language of God, a language no theologian thinks they can understand.

It does seem arbitrary that every human being has to suffer for a wrong they didn't commit - but original sin is the sin that we all "commit".

Secondly, Mr. Johnson has not apparently read his Dostoevsky. His argument is, almost word for word, the argument Ivan/the Grand Inquisitor makes to Alyoshka/Jesus in The Brothers Karamazov: if the Kingdom of God is based on the tears of one "innocent" child, how can that be anything but cruel and arbitrary, says Ivan in Rebellion. Likewise, how can God be considered to love humankind without intervening in their lives, asks the Grand Inquisitor of Jesus, and if He chooses not to interfere, how dare Jesus come back again when the Church has become God in the lives of the people, leading them to salvation?

In the book, Jesus does not say anything; He does not refute the Grand Inquisitor, nor does he expand on what he says. The answer is a kiss, which burns in the heart and soul of the Grand Inquisitor for all eternity, compelling him to let Jesus go.

In summary, I'd quote Khalil G'ibran: "The cup which holds your joy, is carved by the depth of your sorrow."

-TheE-

[Jazuela]

I'll add that the suffering of one child, might well teach compassion in many other people. In this one concept, you find the "good" of God's "plan" rather than the evil of forcing a child to suffer through inaction. It's the whole yin-yang thing: you can't appreciate the light if you've never lived in darkness, you can't revel in the joy of sound if you have never experienced silence (and vice versa, heh).

I don't necessarily buy into all of that, but it's one idea that I've seen bandied about that makes sense as coming from the perspective of religious doctrine.

[Sean of the Thread]

The fact that you brought up logic in a philosophy/religion discussion is illogical.

Evil spock agrees.


http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b236/Japgross/Spock-bad-biker-dude.jpg

[TheEschaton]

Oh, by the way, God's plan is usually considered communal. Much of our critique of the "God is good yet evil and suffering exists OMFG!!!!111" arises from our rather individualistic, capitialistic, essentially greedy notions that the individual is the most important thing. All organized religions disagree, especially Christianity. The individual is important inasmuch as (s)he is part of a larger, more important whole.

If the individual was most supreme, nothing would be right or wrong, immoral or moral, values would have no meaning, and so on, so forth. The very idea of good and evil depends on a communal determination that there is some conceptualization of these words, and that an individual can go against them, not that there's an individualistic determination of what is good an evil in one's own life, which doesn't apply to anyone else.

-TheE-

[Landrion]

Mr. Johnson is obviously not that well read.
Furthermore, his argument presupposes God thinks and acts on the same level as human beings do. That's a rather arrogant assumption to make. There can be nothing beyond human thought? Human thought runs counter to the idea of mystery, of contradiction, of paradox - yet these things exist, and, in essence, are the language of God, a language no theologian thinks they can understand.
-TheE-

QFT.

Its hard to understand "God's" perspective even if you beleive in one. While burning to death seems like a big deal to me in the here and now, perhaps in the afterlife Id look on it with no more concern or memory than an infant's circumcision.

Good post TheE

[Artha]

The fact that you brought up logic in a philosophy/religion discussion is illogical.
There's a whole field of philosophy dedicated to logically proving the existance of God or a God-like being.

[TheEschaton]

cf Thomas Aquinas.

[Jenisi]

There's a whole field of philosophy dedicated to logically proving the existance of God or a God-like being.

Read some Rene Descartes, the "I think therefore I am" guy. I'll post some quotes at a later date.

As far as us not understanding gods plan, that is entirely reasonable. But to deny logic or absoulte truths seems rather belittling to the human race and "gods plan" having no defined details. Either evil exsists or it doesn't, god exists or it does, and god is either all good or he is not.

Some stolen arguments from Wikipedia

One example among many of a formulation of the problem of evil presented by Epicurus may be schematized as follows (this form of the argument is called 'the inconsistent triad'):
If God exists, then there is no evil in the world.
There is evil in the world.
Therefore, God does not exist.
This argument is of the logically valid form modus tollens (denying the consequent). In this case, P is "God exists" and Q is "there is no evil in the world". Other logical forms of arguments articulating the problem follow. The problem with this is that it assumes that God is somehow unable to exist with evil, but most religious texts on the description of God and evil say otherwise, one example is the Book of Job.
Logical problem of evil
God exists. (premise)
God is omnipotent. (premise — or true by definition of the word 'God')
God is all-benevolent. (premise — or true by definition)
All-benevolent beings are opposed to all evil. (premise — or true by definition)
All-benevolent beings who can eliminate evil will do so immediately when they become aware of it. (premise)
God is opposed to all evil. (conclusion from 3 and 4)
God can eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 2)
Whatever the end result of suffering is, God can bring it about by ways that do not include suffering. (conclusion from 2)
God has no reason not to eliminate evil. (conclusion from 7.1)
God has no reason not to act immediately. (conclusion from 5)
God will eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 6, 7.2 and 7.3)
Evil exists, has existed, and probably will always exist. (premise)
Items 8 and 9 are contradictory; therefore, one or more of the premises is false: either God does not exist, or he is not both omnipotent and all-benevolent or there is a reason why He does not act immediately.
Evidential problem of evil
Gratuitous evils exist.
Gratuitous evils are incompatible with the existence of a god (omnipotent, omniscient, all-good).
Therefore, no god exists.
Argument from evil natural laws
A god is omnipotent, omniscient, and all-benevolent.
If a god exists, then there exist no instances of an ultimately evil natural law.
The laws of predation are ultimately evil.
There are instances of the laws of predation.
Therefore, no god exists.
Moral argument from evil
The most rational theists know (i.e. roughly speaking, have a justified, true belief) that God exists.
If a god exists, then there is objective justification for every actual instance of evil (even if no-one intervenes to prevent that evil).
For any possible world W, if a god exists in W, then every instance of evil in W is objectively justified.
If a god exists, then there is an objective justification for every actual instance of evil, (including those evils where there is a witness).
Some members of the class of most rational theists (as defined above) are theists who know (2).
Some of the most rational theists (namely, those who know 2) know that there is objective justification for any actual instance of evil, justification that will occur even if no onlooker intervenes to stop or prevent that evil.
If human person P knows that there is objective justification for evil E, and that this justification will occur even if P does not intervene to stop or prevent E, then P is morally justified in allowing E to occur.
Some of the most rational theists (namely, those who know 2) are morally justified in allowing any actual evil to occur. (from 4 and 5)
If the most rational theists know that a god exists, then some of those theists (namely, those who know 2) are morally justified in allowing any evil to occur. (from 1 to 6)
Even the most rational theists (including those who know 2) are not morally justified in allowing just any evil to occur.
Even the most rational theists do not know that a god exists. (from 7 and 8)
If the most rational theists do not know that a god exists, then no theist knows that a god exists.
No theist knows that a god exists. (from 9 and 10)
For any given theist, that theist's belief that a god exists is either false or unjustified.
If a god exists, then some theists are justified in believing that a god exists.
If a god exists, then no theist has a false belief that a god exists.
If a god exists, then some theists know (i.e., have a justified, true belief) that God exists. (from 13 and 14)
It is not the case that some theists know (i.e., have a justified and true belief) that a god exists. (from 12)
No god exists. (from 15 and 16)
Inductive argument from evil
All evil in the kinds of created entities are the result of the fallibility of one or more of its creators. (Premise)
The universe is a created entity. (Premise)
The universe contains evil. (Premise)
Evil is the result of the actions of a fallible creator(s) or is not the result of any creator(s). (From 1, 2 and 3 by predictive inference)
If god created the universe, then he is fallible. (From 4)
Therefore, god did not create the universe, is imperfect, or does not exist. (From 5)
Argument from the biological role of pain and pleasure
Consider the following observations:
Moral agents experiencing pain or pleasure we know to be biologically useful.
Sentient beings that are not moral agents experiencing pain or pleasure that we know to be biologically useful.
Sentient beings experiencing pain or pleasure that we do not know to be biologically useful.
The observations in 1 are more probably the result of natural law than a god.
Therefore, probably no god

[Artha]

Read some Rene Descartes, the "I think therefore I am" guy. I'll post some quotes at a later date.
Heh, I'm also taking Phil 101...and as we're going over the exact same thing right now, I'm guessing you are too?

My favorite pro-God argument is Cosmological Fine-Tuning.

Prime Principle of Confirmation: Suppose we have some data, D, and some competing explanations of that data, E1 and E2. If D is more probably given E1 than it is given E2, then D counts as evidence in favor of E1 over E2.

Data: The laws of nature are delicately balanced to be life permitting.

Atheistic, Single-Cosmos Explanation: There is one cosmos; it was not created by any being such as God, it is an inexplicable fact that this cosmos came into existance with its conditions and laws.

Theistic Design Explanation: The cosmos was created intentionally by God to have its life-permitting initial conditions, fundamental laws of nature and parameters.

The argument itself goes like

1.) Cosmis fine-tuning is more probably give the Theistic Design Explanation than it is given the Atheistic Single-Cosmos Explanation.

2.) The PPoC is true.

So,

3.) Cosmic fine-tuning counts as evidence in favor of the Theistic Design Explanation over the Atheistic Single-Cosmos explanation.

[TheEschaton]

There are many problems with all this. Let's start:


Read some Rene Descartes, the "I think therefore I am" guy. I'll post some quotes at a later date.

Descartes said the only definitive thing that could be proven was that the self exists. Everything else was inconclusive - this doesn't mean God doesn't exist


As far as us not understanding gods plan, that is entirely reasonable. But to deny logic or absoulte truths seems rather belittling to the human race and "gods plan" having no defined details. Either evil exsists or it doesn't, god exists or it does, and god is either all good or he is not.


Why is it a denial of logic? In fact, like I said before, God's worldview is probably far more vast than ours (even if it is logically finite, and God is logically finite to the extent of the Universe, God's viewpoint is still so large as to make our viewpoint almost non-existent). If evil exists in our world view, does it exist in God's? If God's viewpoint, or plan, or vision, is of the entire universe, does the presence of evil somewhere, in its most "minute" form, negate the goodness of God's entire plan? Is our "evil" even evil in God's viewpoint? If you want to argue logically about evil, you can only do so from our perspective. To then say because we've logically concluded there is evil (according to our perspective), there must be evil in God's perspective is illogical.



Some stolen arguments from Wikipedia

One example among many of a formulation of the problem of evil presented by Epicurus may be schematized as follows (this form of the argument is called 'the inconsistent triad'):
If God exists, then there is no evil in the world.
There is evil in the world.
Therefore, God does not exist.
This argument is of the logically valid form modus tollens (denying the consequent). In this case, P is "God exists" and Q is "there is no evil in the world". Other logical forms of arguments articulating the problem follow. The problem with this is that it assumes that God is somehow unable to exist with evil, but most religious texts on the description of God and evil say otherwise, one example is the Book of Job.


Your first proposition is inaccurate, in that it should be "If God exists, then there is no evil in Creation in its entirety." And then, again, "There is evil in the world" does not negate the consequent.



Logical problem of evil
God exists. (premise)
God is omnipotent. (premise — or true by definition of the word 'God')
God is all-benevolent. (premise — or true by definition)
All-benevolent beings are opposed to all evil. (premise — or true by definition)
All-benevolent beings who can eliminate evil will do so immediately when they become aware of it. (premise)
God is opposed to all evil. (conclusion from 3 and 4)
God can eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 2)
Whatever the end result of suffering is, God can bring it about by ways that do not include suffering. (conclusion from 2)
God has no reason not to eliminate evil. (conclusion from 7.1)
God has no reason not to act immediately. (conclusion from 5)
God will eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 6, 7.2 and 7.3)
Evil exists, has existed, and probably will always exist. (premise)
Items 8 and 9 are contradictory; therefore, one or more of the premises is false: either God does not exist, or he is not both omnipotent and all-benevolent or there is a reason why He does not act immediately.


The bolded statements are problematic. In re the 1st: What if there is only one way to bring about a thing, and it includes so-called evil in our eyes? Is it still evil? Is there supposedly some other way? One good example is the Fall. In our objective standard, the Fall was a bad thing. This suddenly makes God's warning against the Fruit of the Forbidden Tree evil, and it makes God's gift of Free Will evil. God could of prevented the Fall by not giving us Free Will, not making the tree, or not warning us against it, and tempting us. However - and this is important - all these things allow for the chance to turn towards God - to love. Love is the ultimate good. Without free choice, we cannot love. Without the tree, we could not love. Without the deliberate disobedience of the warning, we could not love. Are these things still evil if they created the capacity to love? This also brings about the troubling (to most Christians) idea that the serpent/Satan is not evil either - it is part of God creating in us the capacity to Love. All so-called "evil" in the world gives us the opportunity for redemption and true love. With no "evil" there is no ability to love or be loved by God.

The second, third, and fourth bolded statements then fall away. There is no absolute evil - there is only absolute good. Think of it as a game of horseshoes: there is an absolute best you can do (getting the horseshoe around the post), everything else is a measure of how far away from the post you landed - someone can always land further away. However, the human experience of loving the game of horseshoes would never occur without the need to try, and try again. If we all shot perfectly every time, would it even be a worthwhile endeavour?


Evidential problem of evil
Gratuitous evils exist.
Gratuitous evils are incompatible with the existence of a god (omnipotent, omniscient, all-good).
Therefore, no god exists.


Again, "incompatible"? By whose standard? Our objective human one? I'm not anywhere near God, yet I can still find good in most evil, even gratuitous evils.


Argument from evil natural laws
A god is omnipotent, omniscient, and all-benevolent.
If a god exists, then there exist no instances of an ultimately evil natural law.
The laws of predation are ultimately evil.
There are instances of the laws of predation.
Therefore, no god exists.


Exactly right, except the laws of predation are not "ultimately evil". Even such logically minded people such as scientists could show how predation is necessary and good for achieving equilibrium and balance.


Moral argument from evil
The most rational theists know (i.e. roughly speaking, have a justified, true belief) that God exists.
If a god exists, then there is objective justification for every actual instance of evil (even if no-one intervenes to prevent that evil).
For any possible world W, if a god exists in W, then every instance of evil in W is objectively justified.
If a god exists, then there is an objective justification for every actual instance of evil, (including those evils where there is a witness).
Some members of the class of most rational theists (as defined above) are theists who know (2).
Some of the most rational theists (namely, those who know 2) know that there is objective justification for any actual instance of evil, justification that will occur even if no onlooker intervenes to stop or prevent that evil.
If human person P knows that there is objective justification for evil E, and that this justification will occur even if P does not intervene to stop or prevent E, then P is morally justified in allowing E to occur.
Some of the most rational theists (namely, those who know 2) are morally justified in allowing any actual evil to occur. (from 4 and 5)
If the most rational theists know that a god exists, then some of those theists (namely, those who know 2) are morally justified in allowing any evil to occur. (from 1 to 6)
Even the most rational theists (including those who know 2) are not morally justified in allowing just any evil to occur.
Even the most rational theists do not know that a god exists. (from 7 and 8)
If the most rational theists do not know that a god exists, then no theist knows that a god exists.
No theist knows that a god exists. (from 9 and 10)
For any given theist, that theist's belief that a god exists is either false or unjustified.
If a god exists, then some theists are justified in believing that a god exists.
If a god exists, then no theist has a false belief that a god exists.
If a god exists, then some theists know (i.e., have a justified, true belief) that God exists. (from 13 and 14)
It is not the case that some theists know (i.e., have a justified and true belief) that a god exists. (from 12)
No god exists. (from 15 and 16)


What the fuck? This makes no sense. Where did the bolded statement come from? Convienantly, it's the crux of the matter - it says "rational" theists "cannot" allow evil to occur. While moral obligation is to make right choice, moral obligation is NOT to force others into certain behaviors. I can choose not to kill, I cannot force someone not to kill (that is immoral, to take away free will). However, to save a person from being killed does not "counteract" the evil of someone who has chosen to kill. IOW, I cannot force anyone to do anything, I can simply act as good as I possibly can be. As a "rational theist" I MUST allow evil to exist simply because I cannot morally force someone's choice, but I also don't have to choose to ignore the occurence of someone's evil choice. Do you see the distinction?


Inductive argument from evil
All evil in the kinds of created entities are the result of the fallibility of one or more of its creators. (Premise)
The universe is a created entity. (Premise)
The universe contains evil. (Premise)
Evil is the result of the actions of a fallible creator(s) or is not the result of any creator(s). (From 1, 2 and 3 by predictive inference)
If god created the universe, then he is fallible. (From 4)
Therefore, god did not create the universe, is imperfect, or does not exist. (From 5)

Your very first premise is faulty. If I set fire to a building and kill everyone is it, is fire inherently faulty and flawed for burning? No, the evil is my action. A naturally occuring fire which burns down a building and kills everyone cannot be construed as evil, but rather unfortunate.

Then, I suppose you could say that humans are "flawed", and by being flawed, they indicate a flaw in the Creation, and thus in the Creator. I would again point to the fact that all human "evil" comes from free will, which also gives us the capacity to love.


Argument from the biological role of pain and pleasure
Consider the following observations:
Moral agents experiencing pain or pleasure we know to be biologically useful.
Sentient beings that are not moral agents experiencing pain or pleasure that we know to be biologically useful.
Sentient beings experiencing pain or pleasure that we do not know to be biologically useful.
The observations in 1 are more probably the result of natural law than a god.
Therefore, probably no god

These arguments aren't even complete sentences. Furthermore, who creates natural law? Just because all sentient beings can experience pain/pleasure, it means pain/pleasure are natural law principles? How does that negate God? In fact, it only reinforces the idea that God is good, and all God created is good. Our reaction to pain/pleasure, or our choices to inflict pain/pleasure, or our choices to gain pain/pleasure, are what separate us from amoral sentients - that is what God created, but again, it all boils down to Free Will.

Fuck, that was a long ass waste of my time.

-TheE-

[Warriorbird]

"God is dead and no one cares. If there's a hell I'll see you there..."
-Trent Reznor

[Danical]

cf Thomas Aquinas.

And just about every medieval philosopher.

[Sean of the Thread]

"No stop signs, speed limit
Nobody's gonna slow me down
Like a wheel, gonna spin it
Nobody's gonna mess me round
Hey Satan, payin' my dues
Playing in a rocking band
Hey Momma, look at me
I'm on my way to the promised land"

[Skeeter]

Jesus loves me
this I know
cause the bible tells me so.

[Miss X]

God, all the reasons why I hated Phil 101 just came flooding back. I'm so glad those days are over. The best thing to do is write a bullshit essay full of content you don't understand or believe in but that explains what your professor wants you to explain. I got a First in Philosophy and I don't think I read more than 2 books the entire year. I just regurged my lecture notes without thinking.

[Stanley Burrell]

You could make the antithesis that Johnson's deciphering the actions of God would be heresy via the crux of baring false idols/God complex. You could pretty much Catholic church-style null everything from that point onward (or debate the religious cobra clutch implications for many, many paragraphs, etc.)

Support argument should be egotistical and presumptuous, focusing mainly on the whole cognition over animals heirarchy and God's image notion and free will overriding fate, thus man's superiority to interpret and question. N'kick dirt on Singer's work, i.e.

Shit yo, I miss philosophy lectures :(

[TheEschaton]

If philosophy and theology then inherently has to be egotistical and unable to think from any other perspective, can they ever hope to understand anything but the human experience?

What ability does a Heidegger-ian Dasein have to think in God-sense, or God-thought? How can Dasein take off the glasses of his own perspective to see things as their archetypal truth?

There, I just Catholic-Church null-setted your arguments, using a secular German philosopher. :P

-TheE-

[Stanley Burrell]

If philosophy and theology then inherently has to be egotistical and unable to think from any other perspective, can they ever hope to understand anything but the human experience?

What ability does a Heidegger-ian Dasein have to think in God-sense, or God-thought? How can Dasein take off the glasses of his own perspective to see things as their archetypal truth?

There, I just Catholic-Church null-setted your arguments, using a secular German philosopher. :P

-TheE-

Yeah. This is like, what basically made me write twelveteenhundred page papers, heh. You create the existence of knowing and inherent 100% truth valuing that shiznod by Simon du Bois-ing it all up in this perceived piece.

[Latrinsorm]

The very idea of good and evil depends on a communal determination that there is some conceptualization of these wordsMr. Alok has apparently not read his Kant. :D
Without free choice, we cannot love.What you miss is that what "we" are is not necessary. God could have made us so that we could love and be free (and be aware of both these things) without any suffering of any kind. How? See point four.
Are these things still evil if they created the capacity to love?So God is a utilitarian? By which I mean: the ends justify the means? Hardly!
Even such logically minded people such as scientists could show how predation is necessary and good for achieving equilibrium and balance.Tut tut, sir! God cares not for your bonds of necessity, and "good for" is a functional good (i.e. morally irrelevant).

A far more interesting perspective is to consider God as an extemporal being: a being that does not experience linear time (not because he cannot, for God can do anything, of course). The universe looks very different when it all occurs in an instant, I would imagine.

Theological wranglings cannot produce a satisfactory answer to this problem, all things considered. All that can be said is God is mysterious (beyond our comprehensions).

[TheEschaton]

Fuck Kant. :P


I intensely dislike Kant.


I didn't mean to make God sound utilitarian, but I think I was trying to get at the idea that evil means in our perspective is simply that, just our perspective.

-TheE-

[Kranar]

I never really understood why God has to be all good/moral/benevolent/etc...

The only reason I can think of would be because 'religion' says so.

In my opinion, creation of the universe, or of anything for that matter, does not make any characterization whatsoever about the creator, be it good or bad, moral or immoral. If God exists, then God created the universe, and that is all we can possibly know with respect to the definition of God. Inferring anything more only makes sense if debating God in the context of a religion, but religious discussions tend be illogical and rooted in dogma anyways, you either buy it or you don't.

[Kranar]

God, all the reasons why I hated Phil 101 just came flooding back. I'm so glad those days are over. The best thing to do is write a bullshit essay full of content you don't understand or believe in but that explains what your professor wants you to explain. I got a First in Philosophy and I don't think I read more than 2 books the entire year. I just regurged my lecture notes without thinking.


Then you wasted a good opportunity to learn and expose yourself to a variety of ideas and to present some of your own. Of course you're not alone and many students do it thinking it's so great they got a good mark by writing out BS and that somehow their special because of it, when in reality all they did was waste their time and money and miss out.

In the long run... whatever grade you get by some professor at a university will mean next to nothing. The point of academia isn't a number.

I say this harshly only because a huge peeve of mine is seeing students blow their university studies away thinking all that matters is getting a piece of paper so they can spend their life working 9-5 to pay off the mortgage.

Of course perhaps what I said doesn't in any way apply to you, but it applies to many enough in university that it has degraded the quality of education and the intelligence of those who attend it.

[Stanley Burrell]

Then you wasted a good opportunity to learn and expose yourself to a variety of ideas and to present some of your own. Of course you're not alone and many students do it thinking it's so great they got a good mark by writing out BS and that somehow their special because of it, when in reality all they did was waste their time and money and miss out.

In the long run... whatever grade you get by some professor at a university will mean next to nothing. The point of academia isn't a number.

I say this harshly only because a huge peeve of mine is seeing students blow their university studies away thinking all that matters is getting a piece of paper so they can spend their life working 9-5 to pay off the mortgage.

Of course perhaps what I said doesn't in any way apply to you, but it applies to many enough in university that it has degraded the quality of education and the intelligence of those who attend it.

This is basically where I agree a heck of a lot with, i.e., Canada's extra high school year and a handful of European university minimaxing studies.

We used to have a "technical" non-mainstream-worship-the-degree after high school selective program back in the day, from what I've heard, but it usually just attracted felons working in carshops from what I've also heard. At least it was dressed up to look like that (mind-expanding parachute facade, not the Mike the Mechanic pyramid scheme) from what I've also, also heard.

[Kranar]

My favorite pro-God argument is Cosmological Fine-Tuning.


Knowing you're in computer science, you definitely need to check out Godel's Ontological Argument for the existence of God. It's a formal and mathematic proof for the existence of God.

Kurt Godel is best known for his Incompleteness Theorem which proved that regardless of how powerful a system of logic or mathematics one comes up with, there will always be statements that are true, but can not be proven to be true. This theorem crushed the vision that all mathematicians had prior that one day they would discover some ultimate way of doing logic or mathematics that could either prove or disprove every single statement presented to it. Godel was a mathematician at heart, not associated with religion but he presented this proof as a way of establishing that discussion of God can be done rigorously and that mathematics/logic does provide the neccessary tools for such a discussion. It is not meant to show that without a doubt God exists and if you don't believe in him you go to hell. Godel did believe in God, but he also recognized that proving his existence is not neccessary for one to hold such a belief and that even if somehow someone managed to prove that God does exist (as he feels he has with this argument), one is still entitled to deny his existence.

You can read about the ontological proof and an explanation of it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_ontological_proof

With a reposting of the actual proof itself as follows (using a modal logic):

http://gsplayers.com/kranar/Godelproof.gif


The first set of lines are the axioms which define what it means to have the qualities that one associates with God (ignoring religious qualities like being moral and righteous/Jesus and good etc... , focusing on the creator/supreme being aspect). The actual definition of God is given on line 4 (DF1), it defines this 'God predicate' which states that an object x has the property of being God if for all properties that are associated with God, x posesses those properties, keep in mind, x may possess other properties as well which is left undefined in this proof. And then from there it goes on to show that given that these properties can be defined, the last line (Th 4) concludes that there must exist some value for x, some object that possesses all of these properties, in essense illustrating that there exists something which can lay claim to being God.

Of course, as is interesting to notice, there could exist many, this proof only states that atleast one such entity must exist. Others have tried to extend the proof to illustrate that only one 'God' exists, but doing so is considerably more difficult, and there is a certain elegence and awe to this 12 line proof that just isn't found when you look at the more complex proofs.

[Valthissa]

fun to come to the PC and see a thread which mentions Kant, Godel, the problem of evil....

If you're of college age and interested in Godel (one of my all time favorite mathematicians), read Godel, Escher, & Bach by Hofstadter. Even if you're not of college age and have any interest in Turing problems, incompleteness, infinite regressions, etc. the book is enjoyable.

C/Valth

[Stanley Burrell]

It's weird that he's using inductive reasoning to, well, deduce.

I'm with Descartes on Leibniz's Law too. Or at least using both induction and deduction in no specific order to argue against the monotheistic portion of absolute value denotion of a variable or variables in contrast to indiscernibles.

I think I'll read up more on this.

[Stanley Burrell]

fun to come to the PC and see a thread which mentions Kant, Godel, the problem of evil....

If you're of college age and interested in Godel (one of my all time favorite mathematicians), read Godel, Escher, & Bach by Hofstadter. Even if you're not of college age and have any interest in Turing problems, incompleteness, infinite regressions, etc. the book is enjoyable.

C/Valth

They occur at precisely the same rate that monkeys can write the works of Shakespeare :D:

http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?t=21204

[Kranar]

Godel, Escher, & Bach by Hofstadter.


A great book by all accounts. If you enjoyed it I highly recommend his other books. I just finished reading Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern which is a collection of articles he wrote for the Scientific American over the course of 10 years along with additional background info and commentary. And there's also The Mind's I which he co-authored and is a great series of stories and essays on paradoxes and twists involving human consciousness.

It's interesting to contrast Hofstadter's view with that of Penrose, a mathematician and physicist, who wrote an antithesis of sorts called The Emperor's New Mind. I find myself agreeing more with Penrose but the debate rages on and is truly inspiring.

It's always great when mathematics, computer science, philosophy, physics, biology and virtually every train of thought collide and converge together to discuss an issue so fundamental to understanding who we are as a species. What is God, does one exist, where did one come from, and what is one's relationship to us.

[Valthissa]

[quote=Kranar;573635]AMetamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern which is a collection of articles he wrote for the Scientific American over the course of 10 years along with additional background info and commentary.

quote]

His predecessor at Scientific American, Martin Gardner, had a profound influence on me as a child. I don't think I would have a degree in mathematics if it weren't for his column, Mathematical Games (funny since Gardner is a philosopher).

Metamagical Themas is an anagram of Mathematical Games intended by Hofstadter as a tribute to Gardner.




This thread is now depressing me in that I don't read even a fraction of what I did 25 years ago.

C/Valth

[Latrinsorm]

I didn't mean to make God sound utilitarian, but I think I was trying to get at the idea that evil means in our perspective is simply that, just our perspective.Which is the whole point, actually. It feels pretty crappy to lose your child in a housefire, to put it lightly. Regardless of where it stands on the absolute moral scale, God could so construct the world that it had not occurred.
In my opinion, creation of the universe, or of anything for that matter, does not make any characterization whatsoever about the creator, be it good or bad, moral or immoral. If God exists, then God created the universe, and that is all we can possibly know with respect to the definition of God. Inferring anything more only makes sense if debating God in the context of a religion, but religious discussions tend be illogical and rooted in dogma anyways, you either buy it or you don't.Descartes, for instance, agrees with all of your premises but uses the principle of sufficient reason to demonstrate that God must be infinite and perfect, hence all-good and all-loving and whatnot. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that line of reasoning. (I also really like the idea of Descartes and Hofstadter being in the same thread.)

[Kranar]

I fail to understand how the principle of sufficient reason leads to the conclusion of a perfect and infinite God. I am familiar with the principle but an explanation of how one arrives at this conclusion would be appreciated.

Granted, I am not arguing that God is imperfect or finite. My issue with the premise of this thread is the notion that in order to make a logical argument either in favour or against the existence of God, one must consider things like evil or morality. I believe in God, but I do not have much belief in religion. I am led to think that debates on the existence of God that discuss whether God is good and benevolent often have more to do with believing in a religion such as Christianity than they do with believing in God alone.

To me, the question of whether God exists or not has more to do with whether it is logically possible for the universe to have come out of nothing and nowhere, to have somehow miraculously self organized in the way that it has.

Think of it this way... you're walking in a forest in some far out remote area of the Earth and you're admiring nature for the trees and the animals and all that Mother Nature has... then you come across some curious looking black box with lights and buttons on it. Surely you don't look at that box and think of it as being just another one of nature's creations.

While technically possible, it is HIGHLY unlikely that somehow enough atoms in the universe just happened to randomly assemble themselves to form this interesting looking blackbox sitting in the forest. The probability of that happening is absurd and virtually irrational. You are far more likely to believe that this box is the creation of some human being, an intelligent form of life that happened to leave this box behind.

Similarly, on the grand scale of things, you can think of us, as human beings journeying throughout the universe instead of a forest, with the laws of physics playing the role of the blackbox. Noticing a certain harmony to how the universe works, realizing structure and pattern hidden throughout complex structures as small as atoms or DNA, to as large as galaxies and clusters of galaxies. If this universe randomly assembled itself, the probability of its occurance by mere chance is equally as absurd as a blackbox with lights and buttons randomly self-assembling itself in a forest.

As one studies the mysteries of the universe, on the one hand it can tempting the believe that science explains God away. But in my opinion it just shows the incredible genious and intelligence that went into the creation of the universe and reinforces my belief that the universe is not some random accident.

[Latrinsorm]

I fail to understand how the principle of sufficient reason leads to the conclusion of a perfect and infinite God. I am familiar with the principle but an explanation of how one arrives at this conclusion would be appreciated.I'd be glad to! Descartes reckons that none of us are infinitely powerful. However, we have this idea of infinite perfection(!). No thing comes from nowhere, that's the whole point of the PoSR. Thus, something sufficiently (infinitely) powerful and perfect must have brought about this idea of God, and that infinite perfection is God. If God was not infinitely good(!), that would be one perfection he didn't have, thus he wouldn't be God and someone else would be.
The probability of that happening is absurd and virtually irrational.This prompts the question "how many chances did we have at the universe spontaneously coming together?", don't you think? If we're going to be talking about probability and all. If we only had one, it sure sounds like a created thing. If we had an infinite number, not so much.

[Kranar]

I'd be glad to! Descartes reckons that none of us are infinitely powerful. However, we have this idea of infinite perfection(!). No thing comes from nowhere, that's the whole point of the PoSR. Thus, something sufficiently (infinitely) powerful and perfect must have brought about this idea of God, and that infinite perfection is God. If God was not infinitely good(!), that would be one perfection he didn't have, thus he wouldn't be God and someone else would be.


The principle of sufficient reason is hardly powerful enough to dictate what the sufficient reason is that something has come about. All it states is that if something does exist, there is some reason for its existence. Using the principle to try and draw conclusions as to what that reason is, is not proper use of the principle, in my opinion.

One could be deceived into believing that God exists. You can certainly imagine some very brutal mind control experiment where you make a child believe in the existence of some incredibly powerful God, regardless of whether or not a God truly exists. In fact, I certainly believe that it's possible for someone to think that God exists or even an entire collective of people to believe in God purely as a result of manipulation or for reasons that have little to do with the actual existence of God itself.

The fact that we have an idea of infinite perfection is not neccessarily the result of the existence of God. Just in the same way that I have the notion of some perfect unicorn, that does not entail that there must exist some perfect unicorn that provides me with sufficient reason to believe in it. I think there are plenty of reasons enough why some people believe in God. I personally question a lot of the reasons that people come to believe in God, although I certainly respect them.

[Faent]

Clearly, if God exists, then he/she/it is immoral as all get out. Since a being that is immoral as all get out is not worthy of worship, if God exists, then he/she/it is not worthy of worship.

The first sentence requires defense. If I know a baby is being raped by my next door neighbor, if I can (easily enough) do something about it, then I have a moral obligation to do something about it. I might, for example, pick up the phone and dial the local precinct. Or I might unsling my double-barrelled pistol-grip shotguns and waltz over there in high Matrix-style. But since it is relatively easy for me to do something about it, and I am, ex hypothesi, capable of doing something about it, I clearly have a moral obligation to do something about it.

Similarly, if God exists, he/she/it has a moral obligation to do something about it. But God does not do anything about it. Assuming God knows about it and can do something about it, it follows that either God does not exist, or God is not moral. In any case, of course, God should not be worshipped.

Four Bad Classic Responses:

(1) If God did something, he would violate our freedom.

Negative. Calling the local precinct violates no one's freedom. God could at least do that.

(2) God has good reasons for letting the baby be raped.

Always? What are those, pray tell? Come on, you know you're making that shit up. Nobody has ever suggested plausible reasons. You have no clue what such a reason might be, and you're content appealing to your ignorance in defense of baby-raping? Sick. Why don't you also take it on faith that your neighbor has a good reason for raping the little baby?

(3) You can't accuse God of immorality. He/she/it is the standard of morality and cannot, almost by definition, ever act immorally.

Sorry. Google the Euthypro Dilemma. God is not the arbiter of morality. He/she/it could not have made [raping little babies for no other reason than to get off] morally permissible. Neither could God have made [taking no actions it is in your power to take when little babies are being raped right in front of you] morally permissible. It's sick, and you know it.

(4) God has to allow suffering. Some babies have to be raped in order for [....]

Well, if so, God certainly does not have to allow as much suffering as there is. There is, quite obviously, a bit too much suffering (both human inflicted and natural, e.g., tsunamis, hurricanes, etc...). So one can grant the point that it's better for humans to experience a bit of suffering than no suffering while still maintaing that, pretty obviously, God is permitting too much suffering. Every little baby that has ever been raped was such that God had a good reason for not intervening and saving its asshole from Daddy? Puhlease. If you think that, you're just sick.

Ruminate on that. =)

[Artha]

I like Leibnitz's idea that there's a necessary amount of evil, and God is like some celestial mathematician, balancing everything out so that we have the maximum good and the minimum evil.

[Latrinsorm]

The principle of sufficient reason is hardly powerful enough to dictate what the sufficient reason is that something has come about. All it states is that if something does exist, there is some reason for its existence. Using the principle to try and draw conclusions as to what that reason is, is not proper use of the principle, in my opinion.Mm, I guess the indefinite article or a possessive is appropriate, then. Descartes' principle of sufficient reason says that for any effect there must be a sufficiently powerful cause to bring it about. I don't think I buy it, and apparently neither do you, but he sure did.
One could be deceived into believing that God exists. You can certainly imagine some very brutal mind control experiment where you make a child believe in the existence of some incredibly powerful God, regardless of whether or not a God truly exists.I can, but Descartes would disagree.
Just in the same way that I have the notion of some perfect unicorn, that does not entail that there must exist some perfect unicorn that provides me with sufficient reason to believe in it.Ah, but a unicorn is not an infinite concept. As a finite being, you are perfectly(!) capable of conceiving of finite things.
God is not the arbiter of morality.This is actually a really interesting debate in Christianity from about 700 years ago. Suffice it to say that there's this fellow named William of Ockham who holds that God can in fact will what is good and evil to flip-flop (or rotate or turn into bunnies) whenever he feels like.

The relevant point, though, is that you have left out an indefensible but unassailable response: God is unknowable by humans: God's ways are not humanity's ways (if I will be allowed some gender-friendly editing). I would like to know why as well, but I recognize that some things are simply unknowable for us. I also recognize that it's irrelevant whether God exists or not just as it's irrelevant whether Nietzsche existed or not, but that's not really the point of this thread.
God is like some celestial mathematician, balancing everything out so that we have the maximum good and the minimum evil.I'm sure J.S. Mill would love that.

[Faent]

>>Ah, but a unicorn is not an infinite concept. As a finite being, you are perfectly(!) capable of conceiving of finite things.

I am not aware of a version of the ontological argument which depends upon the relevant concept being "infinite", whatever that means. As stated, you've got a category mistake in here that needs to be fixed.

>>Suffice it to say that there's this fellow named William of Ockham who holds that God can in fact will what is good and evil to flip-flop (or rotate or turn into bunnies) whenever he feels like.

Which is, of course, idiotic. Descartes held the same view. Few propositions in philosophy command near universal assent, but that this view is absurd is one of them.

>>The relevant point, though, is that you have left out an indefensible but unassailable response: God is unknowable by humans: God's ways are not humanity's ways.

It doesn't matter what God's ways are. If those ways include doing nothing about some particularly heinous and unnecessary evils when he/she/it can do something, then God is immoral. While not all of the demands of morality are apparent to every ordinary human being with a properly functioning cognitive establishment, the particular demand I mentioned [the moral requirement to intervene as far as possible/reasonable to prevent the little baby from being raped just for fun] is apparent to all. God is subject to the dictates of morality just like any other agent (and much like he/she/it is subject to the laws of math or logic). You don't get to let babies be raped because you're special and you have special ways (unless "special" means "retarded").

This is roughly tantamount to claiming that God has a reason for letting the little baby be brutally molested. But *asserting* that God must has a reason you know not what is unacceptable. You can't even begin to offer a plausible candidate for such a reason (because there aren't any). Similarly, you're just throwing your hands up in the air and making some noises about "God's ways" and "differences". Admittedly, the theist can't do any better than this, so maybe they have to rest content with it. But let's call it for what it is: sloppy hand-waving, uncashable promissory note writing, and pleas of hopeless, helpless woeful ignorance. Looks to me like God is a rapist by association, and the best response the theist can give is "His prima facie rapist-ways are not our ways, and so not ultima facie rapist ways (but I don't know why not!)" No good. And frankly, quite morally offensive. Those who so easily excuse persons who permit the rape of little babies frighten me greatly.

[Tsa`ah]

Ah, but a unicorn is not an infinite concept. As a finite being, you are perfectly(!) capable of conceiving of finite things.

And we come to the hole that flaws this line of logic every time it comes up.

A majority of these debates use a singular (Christian) concept of god as the central line and leave out non-christian monotheist concepts and completely distance themselves from polytheist concepts.

To the original point that Thomas makes ...

Thomas may be more read than many think, or it just may be dumb luck on his part by inferring a notion that has been around since the 10th century BCE.

I don't know how likely it is that Thomas may have done some reading into Kabbalah, but it is the Kabbalist notion that God is in fact imperfect and neither benevolent or malevolent.

The biggest problem with Johnson's premise is that he omits free will ... something granted to us by God (if you buy into theology). Free will is not a singular thing, rather it has impact on everyone and everything ... thus there is a price to be paid for free will to an extent.

An infant going suffering in a house fire before death is a product of free will. Not the will of the child or the will of god, but the will (to an extent) of the parents and humanity in general.

One could argue that God could have intervened in a number of ways ... making the child an orphan to be adopted by more attentive parents, stopping the fire, preventing man from discovering fire or electricity, all the way to scooping the child up in his hands and taking it out of harm's way.

Yet of all the things god could have done, nonintervention has been the MO since biblical times.

At best, if you want to argue the existence of a perfect god, God is a powerful neutral.

[Latrinsorm]

I am not aware of a version of the ontological argument which depends upon the relevant concept being "infinite", whatever that means.Descartes's's, for one.
Which is, of course, idiotic. Descartes held the same view. Few propositions in philosophy command near universal assent, but that this view is absurd is one of them.That's very Aquinian of you. :D
It doesn't matter what God's ways are.Doesn't it feel a little pretentious to say we know absolutely everything about anything, and further that we can't possibly be wrong, and further that what we know applies to anything that could possibly exist, however alien to us?
God is subject to the dictates of morality just like any other agent (and much like he/she/it is subject to the laws of math or logic).If I was Hasdai Crescas, I'd be happy to agree with you. (I'd be really interested in a sociological assessment of the general differences between Jewish folks and Christian folks on omnipotence, if anyone knows a guy.)
Those who so easily excuse persons who permit the rape of little babies frighten me greatly.We're not talking about persons, we're talking about God.

It's not at all unusual for finite and infinite things to behave differently, as a cursory examination of math and physics shows. Briefly:
There is no finite a for which a + b = a, where b is any nonzero finite number (such as 2, g64, etc.).
infinity + b, however, always = infinity, even if b was the g64th term in Graham's series.

[Bartlett]

The existence of evil in the world, despite the existence of God is really not much of an issue. All of God’s creation, as described in Genesis, was good. Before sin entered the world, there was no death and suffering. Even animals at the time would not have been killing each other; predation was not an issue for any species. ( Genesis 1:30. and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so.)

The idea that good cannot exist without evil is thus rendered faulty, since evil was not in the world upon man’s creation. Someone mentioned an absolute good, with evil being measured as a deviation from that standard, which I find to be more correct. God also did not need evil to be in the world to show that His creation loved Him. We show love for God through obidience, and until sin entered the world, man was obedient and found no shame in front of God. In order to be disobedient, however, there needs to be a way to accomplish this.


16. The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17. but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.’

This was the first commandment. Man, at this point, had no knowledge of evil. All he knew was obedience to God, which = good. Did man recognize obedience as good? In our human mind, we usually need a contrast to recognize what is there (light/dark) If it were always light, we would just accept the state of being light as a fact, and probably not recognize it as anything. As such, for man, not knowing any evil, he probably didn’t recognize good, until sin entered the world, thus the tree of the knowledge of both good and evil. God already knew what evil was, and it was not his desire for man to fall into sin, but the option was there (you can’t be deemed obedient if it is impossible to disobey.)


Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned

This is a confirmation verse from the New Testament that sin did in fact enter the world through Adam, and also that death was the due penalty for sin. In Romans 1:30, men are called inventors of evil. Even still to this day, the human race is coming up with ways to do evil. The “curse” on mankind is a result of sin. Sin brings seperation from God which brings death, suffering, and all other manner of badness you can come up with. If you say, “I am going to jump off the Empire State Building,” and I tell you that you will die, your splatting on the ground and dying is not my fault. It is a simple law of the world in which we live.

In Genesis 2:17, God doesn’t say if you eat it I will kill you. I understand the literal translation of “you will surely die” to say, “dying, you will surely die.” God gives the idea of what the consequence is if the act is committed, just like I can tell you the consequence of jumping from the empire state building.

As for all the horrible things that occur, like children being burnt to death and such, I cannot much understand it. I do know that God’s will is not being done on earth by our own choice, and bad things happen. A favorite quote that comes to mind is “There is a God, and I am not He. The way that I think things ought to be has no bearing on the way things actually are.” You can try to logically, and rationally explain God’s mind with human justification, but you will fail, and the attempt to do so is actually very similar to what got us in trouble in the first place. He created the universe, not the other way around. Bound to the laws of this earth, we will not be able to explain God. Much like some uber-power math theorem, most people, myself included, would have no idea how the conclusions were drawn or even if they are correct, I would have to assume they are since the ones who understand it agree. I could disagree because I don’t understand, but that doesn’t make it not true.

In my Chrstian faith, I have Three persons who testify to the accuracy of the Bible, The Father, who is in heaven, Christ who came to earth, was crucified and resurrected, and the Holy Spirit who now dwells among us. The three embodiments are of one Spirit who created this earth and everything in it. We can choose to believe or disbelieve, agree or disagree, but our disagreement and disbelief, doesn’t affect the truth of the matter.

[Back]

The real problem is trying to humanize nature.

Good and evil really have no place in nature.

Its a human construct.

Now, the question becomes this: If humans have evolved, and have been able to crystalize their thoughts into physicality, is the concept of good and evil a part of the evolutionary cycle? And, does humanity have that power?

[Faent]

>>I am not aware of a version of the ontological argument which depends upon the relevant concept being "infinite", whatever that means.

>>Descartes's's, for one.

Descartes' (please, "Descartes's" is just ugly) presents two versions of the ontological argument. They both involve the "idea of God" or the notion of a "supremely perfect being". You will have to do a lot of work if you want to claim that the notion of a "supremely perfect being" is an infinite concept and thus suitable material for the ontological argument while the concept of a supremely perfect unicorn or supremely perfect island is not an infinite concept and thus not so suited. Also, please define your terms. What is an "infinite concept"? I will help you get started. Perhaps you mean something like the concept *of* something that possesses each member of the maximal set of positive compossible attributes to the highest possible degree?

>>Doesn't it feel a little pretentious to say we know absolutely everything about anything, and further that we can't possibly be wrong, and further that what we know applies to anything that could possibly exist, however alien to us?

I haven't said anything like that. You're moving far too fast. My argument required only the following propositions: i) that we know some things about some things, ii) that the mere possibility of being wrong is not always (if it is ever) sufficient to undermine rational belief or defeat justification, and iii) that what we know applies to at least some things that are alien to us.

>>We're not talking about persons, we're talking about God.

I use "person" in the philosophical sense. Agents are persons. Martians are persons. Angels and demons are persons. E.T. is a person. God (at least, the Christian version) is a person. Persons are the kind of things that have beliefs (or something like them), that act (often for the sake of reasons), that can have or set goals or ends or aims, and so on...

>>It's not at all unusual for finite and infinite things to behave differently

::blinks:: Was the force of this metaphor supposed to depend upon you use of the word "behave"? Numbers have properties and stand in relations. Infinite ordinals and cardinals stand in some different relations and have some different properties than the counting numbers. This is the sense in which they "behave" differently from the counting numbers. Nobody denies that God has properties that other finite beings lack. From this it does not follow that God and other (finite) beings have no properties in common. Nor does it follow that we can not know, of some properties, that God and other finite beings have those properties in common.