Is the Tide Turning on Religious Belief?

[Mister D]

I've never seen so much twisting and turning. Now they're arguing over nouns, adjectives and verbs to escape.

[Dr. Who]

You're just substituting words to say the exact same thing and evil is a concept. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be a descriptive word or a word at all. Words convey concepts and ideas.

So where are we now? Evil does exist except not in a "religious sense" (whatever that means)?

This place, I swear.

When it's used as a secular adjective, it is not meant to describe anything more than something that is morally reprehensible - not actions potentially influenced by the forces of darkness or someone possessed by an evil spirit. I think that's been explained repeatedly. Evil used as a noun is typically loaded with the biblical notion of evil i.e. a supernatural force. That would be evil as a concept and one that is rejected by atheists, since atheists do not believe in supernatural entities. That said, people will also use the word evil in a tongue-in-cheek fashion to imply that someone is devious or manipulative.

Suffice it to say, if an atheist is asking a believer why God permits evil to exist, they are most likely referring to the biblical forces of darkness.

[Dr. Who]

I've never seen so much twisting and turning. Now they're arguing over nouns, adjectives and verbs to escape.

See post 220.

[Dr. Who]

His question was, who is arguing that evil is a supernatural force. The answer of course is no one.

That is not true.

"Regardless I won't hold my breathe waiting for you with your free pass to account for the existence of evil."

Note the context in which word is being used. The meaning of evil in that particular context implies a supernatural force. The debate then shifted to whether or not evil exists, to which the atheist response is that it does not.

[Chris]

There is no conflict.

It's no different than you claiming you're an atheist, which means God doesn't exist in your mind, yet you use the term, God, on a near-daily basis.

We are discussing within the framework of the issue.

You asked a pointed question about evil, and I answered it. At the beginning of that answer, I explained that I do use the term because it's easy for most to identify with. But still, as a malevolent force of its own, it doesn't exist.

If you ask a child what he wants Santa to bring him, does that mean you believe in Santa?

Come on...

Right but like @Cletus, not believing God exists or not exist, in my case agnostic not knowing if He does or does, I, too, opine about God. I don't deny His existence and then talk about Him as if He does.

[Chris]

Nobody can prove anything about something that doesn't exist, can they?

Is arguing about nothing actually arguing?

This would be a great opportunity to try out the higher consciousness of not-knowing.

Begging the question is fallacious.

In Logic, "begging the question" is the act of beginning one's argument with an unproven assumption - not suggesting that a question should be asked next, or that it's being "begged for", which is the way so many people in the media and in public life have begun erroneously using it.

Incidentally, if anyone in this thread has been "begging the question" from the very beginning, in the traditional sense of that term, it certainly hasn't been the atheists.

Yes, I know what it means. Do I really need to spell out jes's begging?

In "Nobody can prove anything about something that doesn't exist, can they?" he begs the question of God's existence in his very begging for a proof.

In "Is arguing about nothing actually arguing?" he begs the question of nothing--again God being nothing--when he asks about arguing it.

In "This would be a great opportunity to try out the higher consciousness of not-knowing," well, honesty I have no idea what he's blathering about.

[Chris]

His question was, who is arguing that evil is a supernatural force. The answer of course is no one.

Well, actually someone did:

The point is, it is normally only employed as a noun by those who believe that supernatural forces direct the actions of human beings. Subtract the supernatural forces, and each of us is solely, ultimately responsible for the bad things we do, and "The Devil made me do it" doesn't cut it.

And when I pointed out Christians don't believe that his annoyed response was he said nothing about Christians--an image of Hogan's Hero's Sgt Schultz comes to mind!

[Chris]

That is not true.

"Regardless I won't hold my breathe waiting for you with your free pass to account for the existence of evil."

Note the context in which word is being used. The meaning of evil in that particular context implies a supernatural force. The debate then shifted to whether or not evil exists, to which the atheist response is that it does not.

In the context of this thread, in particular FK's asking about the evil of raping a child, @Cletus had a couple more, I offered several ranging from Hilter to abortion, no supernatural force was implied, in fact in reply to Wolf I demonstrated with quotes from a couple Christians on it that we all think of it in terms of self-responsibility, more generally the moral responsibility of people who do these things.

I think people are taking some expression of it as metaphor literally. Supernatural dark forces are those forces within man--pride, greed, selfishness, etc--that lead him to commit morally reprehensible actions.

When I was a tot and my grandfather when we visited told us don't go down in the cellar the boogeyman will get you even then I didn't think he meant it literally but to indicate it was dangerous down there.

[Mister D]

When it's used as a secular adjective, it is not meant to describe anything more than something that is morally reprehensible - not actions potentially influenced by the forces of darkness or someone possessed by an evil spirit. I think that's been explained repeatedly. Evil used as a noun is typically loaded with the biblical notion of evil i.e. a supernatural force. That would be evil as a concept and one that is rejected by atheists, since atheists do not believe in supernatural entities. That said, people will also use the word evil in a tongue-in-cheek fashion to imply that someone is devious or manipulative.

Suffice it to say, if an atheist is asking a believer why God permits evil to exist, they are most likely referring to the biblical forces of darkness.

Regardless of how it is used, it refers to nothing real. Do you not understand that? No one, either in post #220 or elsewhere, is referring to supernatural forces of darkness. They are referring to the reality of right and wrong, good and evil as we all use those terms on a daily basis. No one asked you to explain the existence of supernatural forces. Why would anyone ask an atheist such a question!? You were asked to account for moral facts the existence of which you clearly and explicitly acknowledge.

Let's a take a look at an earlier comment.

The truth is that while Hitler was objectively vile and immoral, his defeat also involved a great deal of objectively vile and immoral behavior and no one can know how long Hitler would have remained in power absent the world's intervention. His own people may have removed him from power within the same time frame as WWII. The Soviets may have taken him out. That is the problem with such greater good arguments - they are based on very limited knowledge.

One day, morality is opinion. The next day, it's not. Your inconsistency in this respect is exasperating. You have two options.

1. You simply don't account for moral facts. What we call morality is just a bunch of rules society made up and we obey through a combination of indoctrination and fear. That's a perfectly acceptable answer.

2. Some acts are genuinely evil, wrong, immoral etc. I can account for that by (insert answer here).

Please pick one and stick with it. Encourage your little sister to do as well.

[Dr. Who]

In the context of this thread, in particular FK's asking about the evil of raping a child, @Cletus had a couple more, I offered several ranging from Hilter to abortion, no supernatural force was implied, in fact in reply to Wolf I demonstrated with quotes from a couple Christians on it that we all think of it in terms of self-responsibility, more generally the moral responsibility of people who do these things.

I think people are taking some expression of it as metaphor literally. Supernatural dark forces are those forces within man--pride, greed, selfishness, etc--that lead him to commit morally reprehensible actions.

When I was a tot and my grandfather when we visited told us don't go down in the cellar the boogeyman will get you even then I didn't think he meant it literally but to indicate it was dangerous down there.

Then you add the words "metaphorically speaking" to your sentence because from a biblical perspective, supernatural dark forces exist independently of man. For example, Ephesians 6:12:

"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places".