Kevin Wampler wrote:
> "Of course, one of the consequences of this is then that we are also to
o 
> cognitively limited to understand what’s right and wrong"
> 
> This, unfortunately, doesn't follow from the point I'm making.  What 
> would follow is that we're too cognitively limited to understand what's
 
> right and wrong for *God*, but it's perfectly consistent to believe tha
t 
> doesn't at all preclude us from understand what's right and wrong for 
> humans.

I think the idea that there are different kinds of good and evil is at od
ds 
with the concept that doing what God wants is good. You're still using th
e 
"god moves in mysterious ways" argument, that we cannot understand what 
"good" is. You're just modifying it by saying "we can understand human go
od, 
but not god good." For most christians and muslims, I think the idea that
 
god's goodness is inferior to human goodness is bogus. The idea that ther
e 
are things that humans can do that's good that God would think is evil or
 
vice versa doesn't fly. Perhaps he didn't state that explicitly.

But as soon as you start putting in relativistic goodness rather than 
absolute goodness, where something that's good for me is bad for you, the
n 
the whole "do what God says" justification goes out the window.

> Now, I realize that this may come across as "well maybe God wanted us t
o 
> get polio", but that's not the view I'm talking about.  Rather it's the
 
> view that God's decisions would be made at a scale so much larger than 

> ours that there might well be reasons (possibly beyond our 
> comprehension) which make a universe which allows such things a "good" 

> thing.  One might even say this would be expected considering the 
> immeasurably vast scale on which God would be making decisions.

Sure. That's the "free will" argument. God allows evil because disallowin
g 
people being evil to each other would reduce their "free will" to commit 
evil.

I don't think you're going to find many full-blown step-by-step explanati
ons 
on the topic, because it has already been beaten to death for the last 30
00 
years.

> What this particular line of reasoning *would* entail, however, is that
 
> the concept of good as it applies to God sure doesn't seem to involve 
> minimizing our earthly suffering as it's primary factor

I think that's what he's talking about in the second half. If by definiti
on 
God is good, and goodness doesn't involve minimizing suffering, then bein
g 
tortured and killed is good.

>> Otherwise, I'm not seeing what you're trying to say. Maybe I'm just 
>> dense today.
> 
> I suppose I'd say that my point is that one could take the view that ou
r 
> earthly suffering simply isn't the primary factor in the decisions made
 
> by God, and that this doesn't preclude that there may be many ways in 
> which such a God could be "good".

Well, the christian God is supposed to be a personal god. The Islamic god
 is 
in control of every aspect of life, as I understand it.

This certainly works if God is either not omnipotent or doesn't really ca
re 
about people. But then you wind up with gods like Zeus.

> His argument, on the other hand, seems to be implicitly using the 
> assumption that God is chose how to make the universe with the reductio
n 
> of earthly human suffering as the primary moral factor. 

I don't think so. His assumption is "God is good and omnipotent" plus "ev
il 
exists". So you're either saying "human suffering isn't evil" or "God isn
't 
omnipotent enough to make a world with less evil than it now contains."

If you start with the assumption that God's idea of "good" doesn't match 

ours, then you're ignoring the "God is good" assumption, which of course 
has 
to read as an absolute. Otherwise you have no moral standing to tell peop
le 
what God wants them to do.

Anyway, what I thought you were saying is along the lines of "it's good t
o 
discover the secrets of how atoms work", and "it's evil to use that to bl
ow 
up cities". Just because the holocaust happened doesn't mean it's inheren
tly 
evil to create a world in which the holocaust can happen.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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