Evolution And The Traditional Notion Of An All-Loving God Are Incompatible

In his response to my objections to his argument, Pro has only handed me classic fallacies and sought to attribute outrageous claims to me that are irrelevant to my case against him. If he cannot present a non-fallacious EAAG, then he must concede the debate. THE ARGUMENT(P1) Required Evolution requires suffering. (P1A) Incidental (Confusing Actuality With Necessity) Pro says that "to anyone who understands evolution, suffering is self-evident." I agree, but that"s not what we"re debating. Pro"s claim is that evolution actually "requires" (his word, not mine) suffering. But he still has given zero reason to believe that this is so, and his own words betray him. He says that "genetic mutations can sometimes harm and cause birth defects"" Notice the words "can" and "sometimes" That is exactly my point, they can harm, they sometimes harm, but that does not mean that are necessitated to harm. And he continues in saying "and that logically leads to suffering too." Suffering can occur from a defect, but obviously it is not logically entailed. My friend has a defect in his toe. It"s annoying to look at, but it is benign and he does not suffer from it. Pro is confusing the actual with the necessary. We call them by two different names for a reason. They are not the same thing. Just because evolution is cruel sometimes does not mean it has to be. Pro"s wording has now changed from "suffering" to "death" and "extinction". I agree that evolution involves death and distinction, but why must that require suffering? (P1B) False Dichotomy Pro says "Now if all this happens naturally, its one thing, but if God intentionally set it up this way, he must be capable of indifference"" but these two options are not mutually exclusive. God could have started evolution going and set it up to ensure the existence of humanity, and then let nature take its course, which is what most theists believe anyway. (P3.1) Evidence Con needs to provide evidence for his claim that things without souls can go to Heaven. (P3.1A) Shifting the Burden/Straw Man My burden is not to provide evidence that God exist, that Heaven exists, that souls exist, or that anything goes to Heaven. My burden is purely to show that evolution and God are compatible, that it is possible that Neanderthals had souls and that it is possible that things without souls go to Heaven. Pro has the burden of proof. He is making the positive argument. I am only making a negative argument. I am only rebutting. I am not making a case for God"s existence. Pro says I am arguing that animals, plants, and rocks go to Heaven. I never said that. I only said it was possible, which is all I need to show in order to prove that the traditional concept of God is possible aside evolution. (1,2) Let"s reverse things for a minute to see if it will help Pro understand: If a theist was arguing that religious experience prove God"s existence, he would need to provide evidence for this claim, because he is making the positive argument, but the atheist would only have to show that it is possible that such experiences have natural explanations. He would not have to provide evidence of naturalistic explanations to show that the theist"s argument fails. I"m sorry that Pro does not understand that he has the burden, not me. And I did not say that soul-less things and objects to Heaven, I only said it was possible. (P3.1B) Slippery Slope/Straw Man Pro draws the inference that if soul-less things go to Heaven, then cockroaches go to Heaven. But a) I only talked about the possibility, not the actuality, and b) even if some soul-less things go to Heaven, it does not follow that all soul-less things go to Heaven. A loving God would reasonably allow beautiful things and keep the junk out. The cockroach in Heaven scenario is a theatrical distraction that does not follow from my argument and has nothing to do with it. (3) Pro also brings up animals struggling to survive against each other. I have no clue why he is assuming that evolution would still apply in the afterlife. (P3.2) Compensation Compensation Does Not Entail Justification. If I torture Con and then give him money, does that justify my torture? (P3.2A) Bogus AnalogyI agree that this act is not justified, but this has nothing to do with God. We have no evidence of God torturing anybody. All our experience tells us that suffering is caused by humans and nature. (P4) Evidence? Where is Con's evidence that Neanderthals had souls? (P4A) Burden Shift Again, Pro has shifted the burden. Read my response above. Pro says that only humans have souls. I agree, but then what is the justification for saying that Neanderthals were not humans. My World Book Encyclopedia refers to them as "primitive human beings". (4) Pro asks if rocks and feces have souls. I do not see how they could, and this in no way is implied by the possibility that Neandethals may have had souls. (P5.1) Utilitarianism (P5.1A) Straw Man Nice try, but I never said that animals were God's end or that they were equal to humans. I believe animals are used as instruments to bring about humans. I only said that they might not only be instruments. God might compensate them in their own way. I don't have to invent my own theologies. Pro is doing a good job of inventing them for me. (P5.2) Omniscience If God does not know the future, then God is not omniscient and Con is already conceding my point. (P5.2A) Misinterpreting My Stance I already explained that, under the traditional concept of God, which is what we agreed to, omnisciecne does not entail knowing what is logically impossible to know, and that might include the future. Hence knowledge of the future might not fall under the traditional concept of God. I have not conceded anything. Indeed, if God knew everything about the future, it would seem to conflict with our free will, and the traditional understanding of God is that he gave us free will. Also, it is a false dichotomy to assume that God either knows everything or nothing about the future. He might know key things like what it would require to ensure that humans come into existence, but not know random, accidental, or free willed things. So God might have known that humans would evolve but did not know that evolution would incidentally involve suffering. >>> Still no objection to premise 2. My issue with premise number 6 was not with the statement itself but with Pro"s elaboration below in which he again asserted that evolution requires suffering. As I explained before, his argument confuses the actual with the necessary. <<< CONCLUSION Pro needs to support all his premises if he wants his argument to be successful. He has completely failed to support most of them. His defense of the first premise rests on him confusing the actual with the necessary. On the other two issues, rather than defending his claim, he shifts the burden onto me and ask me to defend my non-claim. That"s not how it works. Its his argument, not mine. I am only providing a rebuttal showing compatibility. He also overstates my claims as stating actualities when they only state possibilities and he applies a slippery slope fallacy to take my views to unnecessary and unrealistic extremes. He turned my objection to his utilitarian argument into a straw man, and his contention that I have already conceded his argument by rejecting his definition of omniscience fails since my definition is completely consistent with the traditional notion of God and because I have the option of choosing between two extremes. Nothing is conceded and none of God"s greatness is given up. Pro"s responses consisted entirely of fallacies. He has failed to demonstrate why his argument is sound. His premises contain very questionable assumptions for which he has no defense and he repeatedly misrepresents my objections to them. He can"t defend his own claims so he seeks to attack imaginary ones that he attributes to me. His argument still remains unsound. sources in comments, could not fit