On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:13:29 -0800, Darren New wrote:
> Joel Yliluoma wrote:
> > and this makes me believe that God's reasoning abilities
> > are significantly higher than that of any of us.
>
> I'm curious what part of the bible makes you think that.

Hmm. Let's just say that I don't think an idiot could design
an universe like this :)


>> If I understand correctly, you are referring to the "tree of good and evil"
>> and interpreting that the tree gave the human powers of understanding good
>> and evil equalling that of God.
>
> Yes. Or, at least, that I have knowledge of the difference between good 
> and evil, so when I see evil, I am not particularly wrong about whether 
> it's really good.
>
> Or are you telling me that starving babies in Africa isn't a bad thing? 
> Cancer is really good in disguise? Lynching blacks is really *good* for 
> them? This is "the best of all possible worlds" argument - since evil 
> exists, and God isn't evil, then it must be the case that the amount of 
> evil in the world is the minimum amount it's possible to have.

The thing about arguments like that, is that they are often quite
shortsighted.
I mean no offense and don't try to imply anything, but stupid people
make that kind of arguments all the time. Also politicians who try
to influence stupid people.

For example, opposition to technology that allows the government to
censor internet sites is easily blamed by claiming that the opponents
are defending pedophiles and all the ugly stuff found in the Internet.
Such arguments are completely oblivious to the actual reasons of the
opposition, such as the fact that such censorship doesn't help preventing
the actual problem, and that it brings a lot of other problems with it.
Attempts to justify those facts will fall to deaf ears and be countered
with the blanket claim "so you support child pornography".

This is just an example. The point is, valid reasons may often exist
beyond the immediate and obvious interpretations, even if you don't
see them.

-- 
Joel Yliluoma - http://iki.fi/bisqwit/

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