God doesn't exist.

Thanks Dookieman! Is atheism the default position? Simply, no. It seems that if there is a default position at all, it would be agnosticism, not atheism - a withdrawal of judgement rather than an outright rejection of existence. The underlying claim is that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. But why should we assume that? By what line of reasoning does it follow? Indeed, it seems that the only way in which we should do that is if we should expect more evidence for a claim - which is true in the case of the entities Pro listed - Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny etc. - perhaps we should see eyewitnesses on Christmas Eve, or a huge 6 foot rabbit hopping around on Easter day. Either way, we should expect more evidence and only then can we safely reject their existing status if there is a lack of evidence. But it just isn't the same with God. An entity which is transcendent, and by definition out of mankind's reach should not leave traces of (a posteriori) empirical existence"(and even this isn't the case, I am providing evidence anyway, so it is all irrelevant to the debate!) Pro also states that an Evil and an amoral God are just as likely but I beg to differ: I do not see how a maximally great being could be anything other than morally perfect. To be morally perfect is a perfection and thus God, if exists, will have moral perfection. I see no way around this. 'Problem' of Suffering Surprisingly enough, I am going to use both skeptical theism and the free will defence. I'll outline the defences and then respond to Pro's contentions. Free-Will First, for a simple free-will defence. It should be noted that a 'defence' is a story concerning the coexistence of God and evil that, given the existence of God, might be true for all we know. This is sufficient for a de jure case against the problem of evil and refutes the claim that God and evil are incompatible. So what sort of defence shall I use? I'll propose something like this. At the beginning of mankind's history (this could be the culmination of evolution), humans were at a beatific state with God: given the blessings of reasoned thought, language, and of course free-will, the cumulation was a preternatural state of existence. In this heavenly union, there was no evil. They could prevent it if they wished, and they were immune to suffering and pain. But in enough time these humans, with their freedom, decided (for whatever reason) that they were dissatisfied with this union. As a result, they fell from this"preternatural state. They could no longer prevent evil if they wished, and they were no longer immune to pain and suffering. Evil entered the world. But, God could not prevent this. For, to rob mankind of their free-will is in violation of His all-good nature, and free-will is a greater good for it leads to reconciliation and reunion. Thus, God can be all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good, and suffering, evil and pain still exist. This is contrary to Premise 1 of Pro's argument. What about Pro's contention? Well, he states that God could have made us both free and morally perfect. But is this freedom in any real sense? Freedom seems to entail a modal ability to do more than one given option. But if one is morally perfect, then one does not have the modal property of choice; this is because it is a de re modal property of an entity. Thus, you cannot, if you have moral perfection, choose anything other than the morally perfect option and as a result, do not have freedom. One cannot chose the morally defective option. This is not freedom in any sense of the word. Moreover, it seems that in order to assert this, one must in turn assume"compatibilism. This is a huge assumption to make and must be defended before asserting anything like "God could have given us both free will and moral perfection", for it assumes that free-will and determinism are compatible. But there is absolutely no reason to assume that: indeed, we have good reason to reject it [1]." Skeptical Theism Essentially, this raises the question of 'do we have a representative sample of all the goods and evils there are?' Obviously not: we are limited beings with limited knowledge and capacities. But it then follows that we can't make any judgements on evil or suffering Take the following statements: 1.) We have no good reason for thinking that the possible goods and evils we know of are representative of the possible goods and evils there are [due to our limited capacities] 2.) We have no good reason for thinking that the entailment relations we know of, between possible goods and the permission of possible evils, are representative of the entailment relations there are between possible goods and the permission of possible evils. [follows from 1.)] 3.) We have no good reason for thinking that the total moral value or disvalue we perceive in certain complex states of affairs accurately reflects the total moral value or disvalue they really have. [follows from 2.)] In other words, due to our limited knowledge, we can't make any sort of claim concerning entailment relations between goods and evils (the moral relationship between some good and some evil). This means that we cannot make any claim concerning whether some evil is morally justified through some good or not. For all we know, it is. Consequently, it is simply wrong to assume that because we see various examples of prima facie suffering and evil, we are justified in admitting the existence of suffering and evil. We are of a limited capacity, and to make any sort of judgment is unjustified. What about Pro's contention? He says that God is omnipotent, and so could instantiated goods without the evils. Though this isn't directly related to sceptical theism, it is relatively enough. Firstly, it completely misses the point. The issue is not whether God *would* have done x in relation to evil, the issue is whether God and evil *could* coexist, given God's nature and the existence of evil. And if evil exists only to make way for a greater good, then it is morally justified." It seems that the underlying assumption is that to be omnipotent entails exercising omnipotence at all times. But what reason do we have to assume that? For all we know, there may be several undesirable consequences of this: namely, a 'spoiling' of the human race, and a complete disintegration of epistemic distance." Moreover, it may be logically impossible for the good to come about sans the evil. Let us take an example: I perform a good action of giving half my monthly earnings to a homeless man. This could never have happened without the evil of the man being homeless. So it seems that Pro's contention fails. A dilemma based on ethics I will now give an argument based on ethics. Pro can either, when he speaks of 'evil', refer to either moral objectivism or moral relativism. Either way, the argument from evil fails. Moral Objectivism It seems that the only means by which the problem of evil can have any force is if it posits some sort of moral universalism or objectivism, where evil is an objective reality. For evil must exist in a concrete form if Premise 2 is to be supported. But, if one posits objective morality, then one must in turn posit God: for all theories of objective morality imply the falsehood of atheism. So unless Pro gives a solution to this issue, then the argument is counter-intuitive, for far from negating God, it implicitly affirms God's existence! And in the line of reasoning used, Pro lists several evils as if to affirm moral objectivism and so affirming God's existence! Moral Relativism Alternatively, Pro could posit a moral relativism. But this makes the problem of evil trivially easy to refute. Premise 2 is refuted simply because evil doesn't exist - it is simply relativistic, and what might be suffering to one person might be pleasure to another. So, Pro must affirm either moral objectivism or moral relativism. There is no other option. But, either way, the problem of evil fails: in the former, God's existence is implied and in the latter, the problem of evil is a category mistake. Omnipotence Here, Pro presents somewhat of a strawman. He states: "Theists define God"s omnipotence as the ability to do all that is logically possible". However, I do not. I take a Prussian view of omnipotence, which states that omnipotence is"perfect freedom of the will and perfect efficacy of the will. [2] Or, one could take a restricted view of omnipotence, that an omnipotent Brit can do all that is logically possible for itself to do. Either way, these two widely accepted views of omnipotence escape Pro's criticism. Conclusion Pro has given three lines of reasoning as to why we should not believe in the existence of God. But, I have shown how each fails." Sources: [1] https://bearspace.baylor.edu... [2] http://writings.kennypearce.net...