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Created By: modusponens on: April 4, 2008
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For Starters
I'll post one to start. Sometimes I struggle with God demanding worship. This makes me doubt God's greatness. Why would God, if he is so great, need us to praise Him all the time? So, constructing this into an argument: (1) If God demands worship, then God is not great. (2) God demands worship. (3) Therefore, God is not great. This is a valid deductive argument, if the premises are true, the conclusion has to be true. So the argument passes the first test (of the two tests we covered in class). Are the premises true? (2) Certianly is, at least according to the Bible. One would have to reject much of the Bible to reject (2). What about (1)? How plausible is that? I guess I'm thinking in the back of my mind that truly great people don't blow their own horn, and they don't demand that others do so. In fact, if it were any other person, it would make me sick to here them command me to praise them, regardless of how powerful they are. So a being who demands worship is petty and narcissistic. However, there are reasons to doubt (1). What if, for some reason, praising God was, in itself, good for those who do the praising? Then God's demand would be for something that benefits us. Perhaps that's what explains why, when others demand praise, we cringe, for praising them has no intrinsic benefit (perhaps it could benefit us if they threaten to kill us if we don't). Another point, those human beings who have demanded worship were generally despots. But to assume that because in the past human beings who have demanded praise were despots doesn't imply that every being that demands praise is a despot. Finally, I'm assuming that there is no being that deserves the praise that God asks for. But it follows from our concept of who God is that God deserves praise. A being wouldn't be God if he weren't worthy of praise. And we should give what is due -- if a being is worthy of praise, we should give praise. So for these reasons (1) seems doubtful. Thus the argument doesn't work. My doubt seems unfounded. |
Re: For Starters
Well done analysis, dwu!
Well done analysis, dwu! The reconstruction of the problem of suffering helps clarify what the argument is.
(1) If God allows suffering, then God is not always good.
(2) God does allow suffering.
(3) Therefore, God is not good all the time.
It's a valid deductive argument, if the premises are true, the conclusion follows. So it passes the first test. So it all depends on the premises. (2) is hard to deny by any sane person. So it's all on (1).
You mentioned reasons to doubt (1) centered on the free-will defense. But, as you noticed, this defense doesn't (at least in its usual formulations) answer the problem of natural evil, that is, evil that doesn't seem to be the result of any free agent's choice. This is definitely an objection we need to consider.
The reply to it is pretty long, so I think I'll save it for the last meeting (next week). But Swinburne wrote quite a bit about it in The Existence of God; in a nutshell he argued that significant moral choice depends on an objective physical world that follows predictable laws, and that these laws can't be altered every time they will cause suffering (which they inevitably will), if God were to prevent every instance of suffering, then nature wouldn't be something that operates according to regular laws. So God allows them to carry out their course most of the time, only interfering on occasion. Thus, for God to eliminate suffering He'd have to eliminate significant moral choices. I'll have more to say on it next week.
I doubt I did this right
1. Because of the way I act, people tend not to like me. Therefore it causes me to doubt
my decision making and actions
2. Premises: I doubt my actions and decisions
3. Conclusion: Because people hate me.
Arguments
a) Whenever I would talk to people, sometimes they would get annoyed and tell
me to go away.
b) I forced myself to be more likeable and sometimes it worked, but sometimes I was not
being genuinely myself, so people started to see through me.
c) Although I believe I’ve changed. I doubt that both I really have and that church has
reverted me to that shy person I really didn’t want to be anymore.
Hmm Natedogg33,I don't think
Hmm Natedogg33,
I don't think people dislike you. I like you :). I think what might be happening is that you are expecting people to dislike you, so you notice things that confirm this more than things that don't. I'd say, though it's a guess, is that what your mind is arguing is:
(1) People pull away from me, or tell me to go away.
(2) Therefore, people don't like me.
I'd challenge this argument on two points. First, are they really pulling away, more so than they do to other people? Here's something I've noticed in mingling situations (though I'm definitely not a social person), people have about a 10 minute limit in their mingling per person (I've actually read this somewhere as well). This goes regardless of how much a person likes another. Sometimes I disengage from conversations, not because I dislike the person, for often I like the person very much, but because I'm tired, or there's someone else I should speak to, etc. So I don't think (2) follows from (1).
I wonder if (1) is true in the first place. Are you noticing the aversions more than the affirmations? I'll bet $2 that you are.
Once you are convinced that people don't like you, you then try to find an explanation.
(1') Lack of confidence has been associated with low popularity.
(2') Therefore, my lack of confidence is a good explanation for my low popularity.
This argument assumes, of course, that you are not liked, which probably isn't true.
But people do tend to distance themselves from the needy and desperate, especially when dating is involved. I'm terrible in this area, but the advice I offer to both of us is that we need to lower our neediness. Part of this involves trusting God to get us through the withdrawals associated with not expecting happiness in that special someone.
Hope this helps.