When William Lane Craig makes perfect sense (potentially)

[Carl-Richard]

"It was actually a tremendous blessing to these children for them to be killed and go to heaven and be with God."

If by "heaven" we mean becoming one with Source again in the blissful ground of being, then it's indeed a tremendous blessing. What's arguably or at least partially not a blessing is the process leading up to that point (their life and finally their demise), although that too could be seen as a blessing (the blessing of life and probably less so death, but even that too in its own way).

Edited yesterday at 01:03 AM by Carl-Richard

[r0ckyreed]

I wonder if he would say the same about suicide. 

[UnbornTao]

The mind is a terrible thing in how it can be used.

See how one can completely make up worlds to inhabit.

Edited Thursday at 12:21 PM by UnbornTao

[Leo Gura]

10 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

"It was actually a tremendous blessing to these children for them to be killed and go to heaven and be with God."

Just as long as he applies that logic to his own family.

Gotta watch those double standards.

Edited Thursday at 09:18 AM by Leo Gura

[El Zapato]

11 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

"It was actually a tremendous blessing to these children for them to be killed and go to heaven and be with God."

If by "heaven" we mean becoming one with Source again in the blissful ground of being, then it's indeed a tremendous blessing. What's arguably or at least partially not a blessing is the process leading up to that point (their life and finally their demise), although that too could be seen as a blessing (the blessing of life and probably less so death, but even that too in its own way).

To paraphrase:  Jesus!  Most of the Old Testament thumpers have never heard of Jesus and love fascism at their core.  They have to be reincarnated souls from a B.C. millennium (probably why the aforementioned study was classified).  By definition, disposition, and declaration, they are not Christian.

There are philosophical considerations that could ameliorate such statements but I seriously doubt that guy ever had an intellectual thought.

Edited Thursday at 10:07 AM by El Zapato

[Nilsi]

18 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

"It was actually a tremendous blessing to these children for them to be killed and go to heaven and be with God."

If by "heaven" we mean becoming one with Source again in the blissful ground of being, then it's indeed a tremendous blessing. What's arguably or at least partially not a blessing is the process leading up to that point (their life and finally their demise), although that too could be seen as a blessing (the blessing of life and probably less so death, but even that too in its own way).

So, what, "life" and "heaven" are mutually exclusive now? If that's the case, why not cut to the chase and launch the nukes already? Why waste time slogging through this compromised state of existence when we could all just skip ahead to the "blissful ground of being"?

[UnbornTao]

Also notice, although we don't grasp this (but we talk about it), the truth or condition of being is what's true now, so there's nowhere to go.

Edited 13 hours ago by UnbornTao

[zurew]

WLC argument doesnt make that much sense if you start to deconstruct things.

Under his view God is all good and omnipotent, and by omnipotent some philosophers usually mean that God can do anything that doesnt entail a contradiciton (I believe this is how WLC use the word omnipotent). Now, the question comes up - could God create a world where there is no suffering and where there is no need to play horrific survival games? If the answer is yes, then he needs to bite the bullet that God cant have the following two properties simultaneously (all good and omnipotent) , unless he is using such a definition for "all good", that goes againt all our moral intuitions.So under this, the Christian God is either omnipotent but not all morally good or it is all good, but it is not omnipotent. Christians usually don't like to bite this bullet.

If the answer is no (meaning that it is actually necessary to create a world ,where there is suffering) then I would like to see the argument that shows the entailed contradicition. There is also a question about heaven (where usually the claim is that there is no suffering and evil).

 

 

If he wants to play a wordgame where being all good is compatible with there being a world where there is as much torture , suffering, rape and other atrocious acts as in this world, then sure he can say that, but then he will need to bite other bullets. So for example, under this view you need to say that the holocaust, ww1, ww2, all other wars, all torture, all rape and all other evil acts were necessary (to maximize good) and even though God could have stopped those events from happening, he had to let them happen. This is usually backed up by saying some things about free will (that creating moral agents that can choose to do bad things is morally overall better than creating a world where there is no evil at all) , but I don't think those arguments make sense.

Firstly, free will is compatible with there being no evil at all (you still have the ability to choose, but you only choose from a set of good things). But even if we go with a definition where the ability to do evil is necessary , the argument still doesnt make much sense. Using our normal moral intuitions we wouldn't ever say that we ought to value a moral agent's ability to do evil things over stopping those things from happening. Note that we arent talking about flawed and powerless humans stopping things from happening, we are talking about an all knowing and omnipotent God , who can stop all evil from happening at any given moment with 0 struggle. Imagine watching your family members getting tortured and raped and God saying, "well it would be  immoral  for me to stop the torturer".

Some other questions come up -

1) what about respecting the free will of the victims? If God values free will over everything, then how come he let one bad actor to kill and do things that go against multiple other moral agents wants? 

2) What about kids who die before they are even born? Where is the ability for them to choose things or to do things? Some unborn kids get a free way ticket to heaven and others are given a life full of suffering and an almost a guaranteed path to hell? It seems like that WLC's God doesn't really care that much about free will at all and that his God likes to give other people such a life where they are almost guaranteed to go to hell (give them a set of life experiences and give them a preference structure and moral intuitions that all  go against God's morals).

 

 

There are some other interesting things under WLC view of Christianity:  If he would be honest and would have normal moral intuitions, he would conclude, that given that his view is true - It is immoral to have children, because  there is a non-zero chance that your kid will go to hell forever, so why gamble with that ?(even if you hardcore indoctrinate your kid, its not guaranteed that he/she wont change their view later). The other is that if you do have children , then there is an argument to be made that you are morally obligated or at the very least, it would be considered  virtuous for you to kill your loved ones (given the assumption that they  at that particular moment  meet all the necessary requirements to go to heaven). Basically you sacrifice your ability to go to heaven in order to guarantee all your loved ones to go there.

Also to directly respond to the short, WLC sounds very psychopathic when he frames an unnecessary mass slaughter as a charitable thing . God has the ability to teleport all those people out of existence or to instantly kill them in a way where they don't experience any pain or suffering at all, but WLC's God didn't do any of that.

 

There are ways to reconcile these objections, but for that his view would need to change or he can go ahead and bite all the heavy bullets and maintain his view.

There can be more said about the problem of evil and about all the different pathways how it can be cashed out , but I already overshoot on length, no more rambling.

Edited 13 hours ago by zurew