One reaction I often get to questions based on the Problem
of Evil and similar inconsistencies about God is, "Who do you think you
are to think that you could understand God?! Humans are less than ants compared to
Him! It's arrogant and presumptuous of you to think you could understand why
God does what He does, and arrogant and presumptuous to reject God because you
don't understand Him!"
This is an instance of mistaking about-the-system questions
for within-the-system questions.
Within-the-system, "why would God want
sacrifices," or, "why would God write a book that looks like it was
written by multiple authors," or, "why does God allow evil in the
world" look like arrogant, presumptuous questions. Once you assume there's
a Being Who's as much greater than humans as we're greater than ants, you're
right. Who are we to think we could understand God!
But these aren't within-the-system questions. They're
about-the-system questions. Starting from the position that we don't know if
there is or isn't a God, these questions make good sense. You want me to accept
that God exists? What are the attributes of this God?
You say God wants sacrifices. Sure, it's possible that an
omnipotent and omniscient non-anthropomorphic Being wants sacrifices for
inscrutable reasons, but the more straightforward explanation is that humans,
who want things, invented this God and attributed to Him their own types of
desires.
You say that God wrote the Torah, Sure, it's possible that
an omnipotent omniscient Being could write a book that looks as if it were
written by multiple authors, but the more straightforward explanation is that
it's exactly what it looks like.
You say that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and
omnibenevolent. Sure, there could be some explanation we can't understand for
why there's evil in the world, but straightforward reasoning shows that a
tri-omni God and the existence of evil in the world are mutually exclusive.
If one assumes the questions are being asked from
within-the-system, which assumes God exists and has certain attributes, then
the argument is invalid. From within-the-system, it looks like the questions
are trying to dismantle belief in God by appealing to the supposed absurdity of
this or that attribute. "X doesn't
make sense to me, therefore it's not true." "It doesn't make sense
that God would want sacrifices, therefore God isn't real." That's an
argument from incredulity, a logical fallacy, and is bad reasoning.
But that's not how the questions are being asked. It's not,
"X doesn't make
sense to me, therefore it's not true."
It's,
"W'ere trying to determine if there is X. Y is an
attribute claimed for X. Y may be caused by A, which is consistent with X being
false, or B, which is consistent with X being true. A seems more likely than
B."
We don't know if God exists. An attribute claimed for God is
that He wants sacrifices It may be that A. God has this attribute because
people, who have desires, invented God and projected their own experience onto
Him, or B. That even though it seems odd that an omnipotent omniscient Being
wants sacrifices, God wants them for inscrutable reasons. A is the more
straightforward answer, so claiming that God wants sacrifices goes on the
"humans probably invented God" side of the scale.
And so on.
Nice post. You should continue writing that book you're working on I'd like to see it. You can get e-books published under a pseudonym.
ReplyDeleteI'm about halfway through the book on the Kuzari. I just finished chapter 8 (of 21). Writing is time-consuming.
DeleteI'm still debating whether to publish under my real name or a pseudonym. Or to include both, since I've been using the same pseudonym for over a decade now.
In your book Apikorsis A resonable doubt I'd include a section on disgruntled BT's and on how dangerous certainty is. See here:http://web.archive.org/web/20120610043301/http://jewishjournal.com/socialjusticerav/item/dishonest_kiruv_the_building_of_responsible_jewish_outreach_movements/ (the original link was taken down thankfully it was archived.
DeleteAlso please check your email more often.
ReplyDeleteI tried such an approach in one of my Kuzari posts for the national chain. See http://altercockerjewishatheist.blogspot.com/2018/04/kuzari-part-18-unbroken-chain-hints-for.html ACJA
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBut it wold be an ad-hoc explanation. ACJA
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"within-the-system" - I think when some people question something like the Torah sacrifice system they are arguing even if G-d exists, can this Torah really be from G-d ? For example, assume G-d can not inform of us of a lie. And assume we have good reasons there is a lie in the Torah. Can't we make a plausible argument the Torah is not from G-d ?
ReplyDeleteWell the whole "God put fake fossils to to test our emunah" argument refutes Judaism
DeleteIt'd go as follows
1.if God exists then he's tri-omniscent
2.Deception is a form of imperfection and God wouldn't lie(Bamidbar 23:19)
3.If anything contradicts what God ostensibly told us then God is either not omniscient,omnipotent (able to change nature to fit what he told us) or both
This comment has been removed by the author.
Delete@Anonymous - thanks.
Delete@Altercocker why did you make your blog private? I enjoyed it
Delete@Anoymous it should be public now. But links between posts need to be fixed.
Delete@Anonymous can you explain tne problem.
DeleteThe issue was that the blog was suddenly privatized without explanation.
Delete@anonymous There was an accident. Everything should be there. Let me know if you still have problems. Thanks.
DeleteIt's OK now thanks
DeleteJust curious why so many of your comments are deleted?
@Alter cocker jewish atheist
ReplyDeleteAny chance you could make a post on it? It's a pet-peeve of mine.
@Anonymous - I hear you. The gist of your Idea I think is implicit in things such as the problems with the Flood, and the bogus Creation Stories of Genesis. How can a divine text have errors, since we are taught the Torah is true and G-d' words. The fossil record fall into such a category. An answer I once heard - fossils are from a prior creation - can't recall source and details. The Idea of cycles of creation may have been picked up from other cultures. Another response is G-d is not lying - he really put them in there. How is that deception ? You are only fooling yourself. See how the game is played ?
DeleteWell that kabbalistic stuff also makes God seem incapable of basic cleaning.Plus whyd he make the life forms look transitional then?
DeleteAlso @Alter Cocker Jewish Atheist I'm curious why you don't take comments anymore?
Delete@ Anonymous "Plus whyd he make the life forms look transitional then?" G-d works in mysterious ways. Also G-d is not lying - he really put them in there. How is that deception ? You are only fooling yourself.
DeleteNot sure about taking comments.
@Alter Cocker Jewish Atheist It is deception and is akin to God "stopping the sun for idolaters"(Sanhedrin 90a)
DeleteAnyway you should at least have some polls to get a sense of you're audience now and then.
@Anonymous OOPs - The 'proof' do not assume G-d exists ? If so seems like a decent proof. But if the Proof assumes G-d gave the Torah it raises a difficult question for the religious. Need to check the Talmud tract when get a chance.
DeleteSimilar dynamic even between members of parts of the Orthodox community.
ReplyDelete"How dare you question the gedolim!?"
"You're assuming that I accept the concept of gedolim, and that I accept the vague communal consensus that these particular men fit the bill"
"What, you think you're greater than the gedolim?"
THIS. Yes. Exactly.
DeleteAlso @G*3 please clean up your blog list remove dead blogs add new ones
ReplyDeleteI find this post quite confusing. I logic could be more rigorous. It seems to me that what you have here is a case of Bayes theorem but just not set out mathematically. This could be fully formalised mathematically (just leaving spaces to plug in prior probabilities) as follows.
ReplyDeleteUsing your case where you state “We’re trying to determine if there is X. Y is an attribute claimed for X. Y may be caused by A, which is consistent with X being false, or B, which is consistent with X being true. A seems more likely than B.” this can be rewritten as:
P(G│Y)=P(Y│G)*P(G)/(P(Y)
=P(Y│G)*P(G)/[P(Y│G)*P(G)+P(Y│G’)*P(G’)]
Where: P(X) is the probability of X, │ means “given the assumption that the following holds true”, G means “the existence of (your preferred flavour of) Gd”, Y is the “attribute” you are looking at (e.g. the problem of Evil etc.) and ‘ means “not” (e.g. P(G’) is the probability of (your flavour of) Gd not existing).
All probabilities to the right of the “=” are priors, and the one to the left is the (updated) posterior.
Now that may all seem a little over-formalised, but I think it adequately shows two things:
1 – in order to use this kind of logic, you need a prior estimate for P(Y│G). This is your “within the system” question, i.e. given an assumption that Gd exists, what is the probability that we would see Y. So you can’t get away from asking the “within the system” question (either directly or via some other mechanism, which would be a reworking of that same question) if you want to ask the “about they system” question.
2 – It shows a (technical) inaccuracy in your post. You state “Y may be caused by A, which is consistent with X being false, or B, which is consistent with X being true. A seems more likely than B”. This “translates into: “Either Y│G or Y│G’. Y│G’ seems more likely than Y│G”. But that is not enough to answer the question you are really trying to answer which is P(G│Y). You could easily have P(Y│G)<P(Y│G’) but still have a high P(G│Y). That depends on your prior for P(G). As an example, plug in:
P(Y│G) =0.1
P(G)=0.99
P(Y│G’)=0.95
P(G’)= 1-P(G) = 0.01
You end up with P(G│Y) = 0.91, or 91% probability of Gd, despite Y and despite “A” ( i.e. P(Y│G’)) being way more likely than “B” (i.e. P(Y│G)).
So the real difference between “within the system” and “outside the system” is the prior for P(G), with the special case of a prior of P(G)=1 giving a system that is totally robust against any question against it (as there can be no Y where P(Y│G) = 0 by definition as Gd is robust against any such attacks since he is defined as unknowable).
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteWhat's with you writing and deleting comments?
Delete@Anonymos sorry about that. I'll try to be more careful before posting.
DeleteI think you're right. "Within-the-system" and "about-the-system" could be rephrased as "With high priors the system is true" and "not high priors the system is true."
DeleteRevive the wisdom of the blogospheres please
ReplyDeleteDo a Hashkafa with a heretic on Messilat Yesharim
ReplyDeleteI believe the taivos canard does have some basis in reality (I know people who I'm pretty sure are like that). The mistake is in applying universality.
ReplyDelete@Yit... I wonder about that. Suppose one is a true believer and he/she wants to eat shrimp - is that a reason to become a heretic ? There are shrimp substitutes. Just about any taivos can be dealt with without becoming a heretic. I suspect the vast bulk are heretics because they realized the religion is bogus.
Delete@altercocker I know some myself and more than a few.
Delete