Week 4
Recapping last week.
- If you take organization to mean ‘a pattern’, then there are lots of examples in nature.
- If you take organization to mean ‘a house rising from a pile of bricks’, then we’ve not seen it yet.
I find the need to be VERY specific about terms quite tedious.
You non-theists seem to find arguments from ambiguity compelling.
It’s my fault, I know.
My question was too vague.
I was trying to ask about organized systems rising from chaos, apparently without an intelligent being acting on them. Something like a tree being hit by lightning and shattering into a neat stack of lumber. Or a volcanic eruption spewing out lawn mower engines.
The vagueness left the door open for answers like, “Snowflakes form symmetrical shapes”.
Which is absolutely correct.
But pretty much misses the point of the question.
Again…my fault.
With respect to snowflakes, I should have asked:
Are there any instances where snow fall has brought about the spontaneous occurrence of snowmen?
So I’ll try to be more specific with my questions.
Of course, there will ALWAYS be room for misunderstanding (intentional or not).
The point of these posts is to give non-theists a forum for explaining their beliefs.
(Please don’t freak-out about the term ‘belief’…
…give me credit for not saying, ‘faith’.)
If answering a question requires a lot of semantic squirming…
…I hope you’ll take a moment to direct some of your relentless skepticism toward your own position.
We’re starting to get a little ‘philosophical’ now…
Here’s my next question:
Is there such a thing as ‘evil’? If so, what is it?
6 Responses
First off, I will just say that asking for an example of nature creating objects that humans have created is pretty much impossible. Of course we are never going to find magma forming a complex car engine or something like that, however there is a big difference between a car engine or a man-made structure and a natural structure like earth or the universe.
Now to answer the question at hand:
“Is there such a thing as ‘evil’? If so, what is it?”
I do not think that evil exists as a universal ‘property’, whether material or not. Evil is often defined as “profoundly immoral and malevolent”, and therefor evil is subjected to a being’s mind or ideas. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, and with this example who is ‘evil’? I think that evil is a term used to describe something that someone does not approve of, it is not universal or set in stone.
The atheist position would dictate that evil doesn’t exist objectively. I applaud your consistency. Thanks for responding.
I’m genuinely curious. What is your response to stories like this? http://buff.ly/1gdhA0n
It is evil in our sense, and would likely be called ‘evil’ by most, if not all humans, but I don’t think that we are such an important species that we get to decide what’s universally wrong and evil.
Is it correct that your view is that ‘good’ doesn’t exist either?
Not as a universal ‘property’. It is the same as evil, as in it only exists within the minds of intelligent beings. Some beings would call something good whereas others would call it evil.