I, replied (the text underneath the quote, of course), which in retrospect is more or less an attack on philosophy as a subject in general.
Or captain scarlet plot development.
Really, the point on this topic is neither of our blocks of text but if you believe philosophy is a legitimate, academic subject?
Heres the blocks!
QUOTE
Right, I need to get my thoughts in order so that I can philosophically bitch-slap the people in my class, so I thought I'd publish them, like you do.
Ok, so general gist of the whole thing, I'm an atheist and quite good at arguing it.
So in Philosophy we stumbled upon the problem of evil (it's part of our syllabus). There is this logical problem of evil, or 'the inconsistent triangle'. Basically, evil exists (or does it? more on that later), no one is disputing that (or are they?), however the presence of evil PROVES god cannot be omnipotent (all-powerful) AND omnibenevolent (all-loving), because an all-loving, all-powerful god would not want us to suffer. Therefore we have to eliminate one of the points of the triangle because they cannot all be true at once. Now the Christians and general theists in the world start to produce a Theodicy to deal with the problem. Now they generally seem to go for one or the other. The Theists that don't belong to a religion tend to try and eliminate the omnipotent or benevolent, which is just plain stupid because you shouldn't make a do-it-yourself god just because the one you thought of originally doesn't seem to work, that just shows you're not sticking to your beliefs, which shows you don't believe them.
The Christians (and I'm sure other 'set' religions would be the same) have to stick by what they said originally, because otherwise they'd loose the definition of their religion. Therefore they swap the triangle with a square and throw free will in there. They say that because god loves us he gave us free will so that we are not all robots and we have the choice to choose to do bad (bit of a fuck up from god then there, so much for a 'perfect' being, Jeeez). Now, I'm not going to go into Augustine's or Iranaeus' theories but feel free to look them up. But now on to my beliefs *rubs hands together evilly* NOW I think we should just eliminate the triangle all together (bear with me all the people who just exclaimed "But hold on there Sonny-Jim, evil cannot possible NOT exist, surely?!") <---- too many punctuation marks! Moving on, I (obviously) think God doesn't exist, so the omnipotent and omnibenevolent God can immediately be illiminated, Huzzah! However this leaves us with, the tiny, little, problematic, problem of evil (told you I'd get to it). Now evil isn't a problem, if I can go ahead and prove it doesn't exist, and is in fact subjective. Now, at this point you probably asking yourselves (or not, I don't know how philosophical you are) how does one go about disproving evil? I'll tell you how. Right, to ease you in to the theory that single handedly pissed off an entire philosophy class, let's begin with an analogy (what fun!) So, I'm sure you're all aware of Anti-Semites, most famous of all, Adolf Hilter. Now I'm sure most (if not all) of you think that Hitler (and the general Anti-Semite movement) is wrong, bad and even that elusive evil (and any other negative adjective you wish to attach to it). And at this point I'd like to clarify, I do not agree with the Anti-Semite movement, nor do, by disproving evil, condone the the slaughter of Jews or any form of racism. Anyway back to the analogy. Hitler thought by slaughtering 6 million Jews that he was producing 'the final solution'and 'fixing' the world. What he thought, is that he was doing good, and that by saving Jews, we were 'evil'. Now flip those, We think Hitler is evil, and that we were doing good (do you see yet where I'm going with this?). Evil cannot 'exist' as a definite thing because what we classify as evil is subjective to the person and depends on our perspective, therefore we cannot count the presence of 'evil' in a philosophical debate, as a result of this, I have eliminated the triangle all together (problem solved!).
Righto moving on to our second issue of this evening, disproving tragedies (hehe this one really got them going today). If the world were to be suddenly destroyed and all life ceased to exist, would it be a tragedy? HARK! Is that a loud, resounding YES! I hear? (Well if it isn't, thats what I got from my Philosophy class). Well I argue no (wow bet you didn't see that one coming- Note: This theory relies on world without a God or afterlife, which should suit all the atheists out there). Anyway, basically death is only a tragedy if there's someone to feel sad about/for the deceased, dead people can't suffer or be sad they are dead after all. I mean if right now you dropped dead (going out happy because of my amazing Philosophy) then you wouldn't even be AWARE that you were dead (do you see why this relies on no afterlife?), and if no one else was around to feel sad about your passing, then it's not sad. Ok new analogy, a hypothetical bum in a hypothetical sewer, dies a hypothetical death. He has no family, no friends, not a single person is aware of his existence, nor are they aware of him after he dies (his remains never get discovered). Is his death sad? (remembering in this hypothetical situation, you aren't aware of the bum at all). The answer is no, even though you probably don't like it.
From this, the only logical conclusion we can make is to be anti-realists about morality (evil) and tragedies.
Anti-realism for those of you who don't know is the belief that some things would cease to exist is we weren't here to perceive them.
Ok, so general gist of the whole thing, I'm an atheist and quite good at arguing it.
So in Philosophy we stumbled upon the problem of evil (it's part of our syllabus). There is this logical problem of evil, or 'the inconsistent triangle'. Basically, evil exists (or does it? more on that later), no one is disputing that (or are they?), however the presence of evil PROVES god cannot be omnipotent (all-powerful) AND omnibenevolent (all-loving), because an all-loving, all-powerful god would not want us to suffer. Therefore we have to eliminate one of the points of the triangle because they cannot all be true at once. Now the Christians and general theists in the world start to produce a Theodicy to deal with the problem. Now they generally seem to go for one or the other. The Theists that don't belong to a religion tend to try and eliminate the omnipotent or benevolent, which is just plain stupid because you shouldn't make a do-it-yourself god just because the one you thought of originally doesn't seem to work, that just shows you're not sticking to your beliefs, which shows you don't believe them.
The Christians (and I'm sure other 'set' religions would be the same) have to stick by what they said originally, because otherwise they'd loose the definition of their religion. Therefore they swap the triangle with a square and throw free will in there. They say that because god loves us he gave us free will so that we are not all robots and we have the choice to choose to do bad (bit of a fuck up from god then there, so much for a 'perfect' being, Jeeez). Now, I'm not going to go into Augustine's or Iranaeus' theories but feel free to look them up. But now on to my beliefs *rubs hands together evilly* NOW I think we should just eliminate the triangle all together (bear with me all the people who just exclaimed "But hold on there Sonny-Jim, evil cannot possible NOT exist, surely?!") <---- too many punctuation marks! Moving on, I (obviously) think God doesn't exist, so the omnipotent and omnibenevolent God can immediately be illiminated, Huzzah! However this leaves us with, the tiny, little, problematic, problem of evil (told you I'd get to it). Now evil isn't a problem, if I can go ahead and prove it doesn't exist, and is in fact subjective. Now, at this point you probably asking yourselves (or not, I don't know how philosophical you are) how does one go about disproving evil? I'll tell you how. Right, to ease you in to the theory that single handedly pissed off an entire philosophy class, let's begin with an analogy (what fun!) So, I'm sure you're all aware of Anti-Semites, most famous of all, Adolf Hilter. Now I'm sure most (if not all) of you think that Hitler (and the general Anti-Semite movement) is wrong, bad and even that elusive evil (and any other negative adjective you wish to attach to it). And at this point I'd like to clarify, I do not agree with the Anti-Semite movement, nor do, by disproving evil, condone the the slaughter of Jews or any form of racism. Anyway back to the analogy. Hitler thought by slaughtering 6 million Jews that he was producing 'the final solution'and 'fixing' the world. What he thought, is that he was doing good, and that by saving Jews, we were 'evil'. Now flip those, We think Hitler is evil, and that we were doing good (do you see yet where I'm going with this?). Evil cannot 'exist' as a definite thing because what we classify as evil is subjective to the person and depends on our perspective, therefore we cannot count the presence of 'evil' in a philosophical debate, as a result of this, I have eliminated the triangle all together (problem solved!).
Righto moving on to our second issue of this evening, disproving tragedies (hehe this one really got them going today). If the world were to be suddenly destroyed and all life ceased to exist, would it be a tragedy? HARK! Is that a loud, resounding YES! I hear? (Well if it isn't, thats what I got from my Philosophy class). Well I argue no (wow bet you didn't see that one coming- Note: This theory relies on world without a God or afterlife, which should suit all the atheists out there). Anyway, basically death is only a tragedy if there's someone to feel sad about/for the deceased, dead people can't suffer or be sad they are dead after all. I mean if right now you dropped dead (going out happy because of my amazing Philosophy) then you wouldn't even be AWARE that you were dead (do you see why this relies on no afterlife?), and if no one else was around to feel sad about your passing, then it's not sad. Ok new analogy, a hypothetical bum in a hypothetical sewer, dies a hypothetical death. He has no family, no friends, not a single person is aware of his existence, nor are they aware of him after he dies (his remains never get discovered). Is his death sad? (remembering in this hypothetical situation, you aren't aware of the bum at all). The answer is no, even though you probably don't like it.
From this, the only logical conclusion we can make is to be anti-realists about morality (evil) and tragedies.
Anti-realism for those of you who don't know is the belief that some things would cease to exist is we weren't here to perceive them.
I.
Have various problems with philosophy as a academic subject in general; I will not bore the (non-existent) generic reader with all of these, as through the application of simple common sense I’m sure you can guess what allot of them are.
However, as I try to pros-pone doing work for another hour I will indulge you with a few, running ripe within this text.
And I may even bring the sexy back.
You’re welcome.
First and foremost; it strikes me as shamelessly pretentious (Says the design student to the philosophy student, sipping red wine with one hand and breathlessly masturbating with the other to his own brilliance).
That’s applies to philosophy in general.
I nothing wrong with elements of that, there should be.
However it seems philosophy is based on a solid foundation of it.
Which leaves me with a rather nauseous when it comes to reading half baked theories, which I view in the same light as I view.
Well.
The best example I can give is. Yes. Captain scarlet.
Why watch captain scarlet?
He was indestructible.
Whatever predicament he gets himself in to, he’ll be fine! There was no secret identity to reveal, no threatened loved ones (Seriously, no kids?).
You sit down to watch the episode knowing everything was going to work out just dandy.
I know that, in saying that every children’s show falls in to this category, hell most shows do, fall stop. But with scarlet, even the vague degrees of peril was lacking.
How does the problematic theatrics relate?
Uhum.
I actually can’t remember, something came up and I’m forced to end this message post haste.
So I’ll just say:
-These are more GENERAL points than directly linked.-
1.
Add some paragraphs, solid text is hard to digest and wile granted, it would have worked well on paper, facbooks lines a rather short and makes my eyes cry mountain dew. (Not a problem on this forum of course)
2.
Personally I would have gone with the “Good cannot exist without evil” theory (I know there’s a few, some better than others).
3 (And very important).
Being an atheist is exceedingly dull when it comes to philosophical discussions; it seems there’s no challenge what so ever is involved, simply shoehorning cynicism within every orifice of a discussion does not strike me as a particularly high debating talent, given its what many of us do on a general day to day basis.
Or at least that’s my opinion.
What tends to get me throwing plates however is not only the simplicity of atheist’s argument but the aura of smugness, and self righteousness that follows.
Simply put. It’s rather easy being a sarcastic, cynical bastard.
It’s much harder to defend the constantly weakening ties of an already flimsy and whimsical faith.
Sadly I find myself falling in-between. Which leaves me at a loss. Thankfully.
It doesn’t bother me. As I chose other doss subjects that involved dark rooms and moving images.
Chris.
