Jan 26, 2008

The Problem of Evil

This last July I had the honors of a live videotaped debate between myself and atheist-turned Christian apologist David Wood on "The Problem of Evil". So, you probably have the gist of all of this already. Here, I present the problem of evil as an objection to the existence of God; or, at least, that if God does in fact exist, why evil is even permitted in the first place:

Introduction

David Wood's Rebuttal

Rebuttal Exchange

Conclusion

Now I don't mean to be egocentric here, but the fact of the matter is that I had Wood absolutely speechless inevitably winning the debate. I don't want to give out all of the arguments that I used against his case, but I will leave you with a brief summary just to get the general idea. Once again, I am not inclined to SHOW ANYTHING, but I am willing to for information's sake.

Predation argument - Anyone who seriously thinks on the 'Creator' concept has to question at some point why "God" allows predation to exist. Think about it for just a minute: Wouldn't the world be better if we were all vegetarians? As I present in the debate, if the world were comprised of vegetarians and herbivores, there would be more peace and stability between each and every one of us. So if Christians are going to make the stand that an omnibolevelent god created the universe and our planet Earth, then they'll need to come forth with an argument that successfully rebuts mine. I'll be sitting by and waiting for the chance to come, if it ever does.

Hypothetical argument - Overall what about the general creation of God's supposed "handiwork"? If God created a paradise such as the Garden of Eden, clearly he wanted to have a heavenly oasis on Earth. And if God's creation was intenteded to be of the "perfect" stature, then why did God even waste his time creating all of the diverse species and living organisms that we now see today? Why did God create all of those plants, animals, and insects? Why not just leave it with Adam and Eve by themselves? Why did God create hunger and a digestive system (talk about gross)?

Now I know that some Christians will object by saying "Well, we need animals for compassion!" But that's just it! If God wanted to create a perfect heavenly oasis on Earth, it would be redundant and unneccessary for him to create animals or to create us humans with needs like social dependency. If I were God, I would have the world completely and 100% fool-proof. Everything that was designed would be in top working order: Humans would be the sole dominance of the Earth not needing to depend on others for comfort, there would be no need for the digestive system or obesity. If my humanly finite brain can come up with better hypothetical circumstances than what God supposeldy created (being our reality), then what does that say about God's intelligence? If God is all-knowing, then he's a moron for creating such an imperfect reality.

History/Titanic - Let's consider all of the genocide and major natural disasters that have occured within our historical timeline. Why would a god of omnibolevelence permit the suffering and death of all of those disasters and occurances? Maybe we should be asking ourselves, "Why did God allow the Titanic to sink?" Well, why did God allow the Titanic to sink? Does anybody know or have any knowledge as to what reason a omnibolevelent god might have for allowing the world's largest ship in recorded history to sink in the middle of the freezing Atlantic killing all of those Irish peasants? Well, hmmm?

Obviously to anyone who watches the debate with both of their eyes wide open, would see my opponent David Wood had a difficult time answering these arguments, which suggests that there are no successful rebuttals or refutations of what I have brought to the table. I do not seek to try to put pressure and difficulty on the Christian's capacity to rebut my arguments using logical reasoning. In fact, I present simple arguments so that it should be very possible if not indeed simple to answer my arguments. Yet there are still many of my arguments that have been left unanswered by Christians. I guess in the long-run Christianity just can't be intellectually defended. Good thing I'm an apostate. ;)

In other news, it seems that I have a YouTube imposter of me trying to sell something on "eBay". Chances are this is the doing of Frank Walton, as not only has he impersonated me before on multiple occasions, I don't even have a connection with the eBay Corporation. Better luck next time, Frank, and when you decide to hire a professional impersonator of me, make sure that you get my first name right: It's "John" not "Josh", idiot. Sheesh.

2 comments:

Frank Walton said...

Sorry Josh... I mean John.

Anonymous said...

John wipes the floor again - and that argument about why god didn't make us all white really clinched the debate for me...I mean, wouldn't the world be so much better if we were all John Loftus clones?