Nicholai

This is how I know you're probably a child/teenager and not worth talking to. Not only do you not know the traditional theistic arguments, constantly insult those you talk to, and use frankly outdated and almost laughably worthless age-old rhetoric, but you spend more time specifically searching Google to prove yourself right than actually learning. To be honest you seem to know nothing on the topic and spend most of your time telling others they don't. As a teenager I had a fragile ego as well, so it's forgivable.

I'm an autodidact. I read, you know, that thing one does with the paper and the words? Russell's various essays, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, a lot of the postmodern writings that you see commonly now days from Derrida and Foucault. To be totally honest it became abundantly clear you didn't know what the cosmological argument was when you linked it in the wrong for back to me as if to patronize me. tbh I kind of felt pity for you. So I didn't trust you here and messed around with the website itself and I found a few neat things. http://philpapers.org/s/foodFood blows AFE out of the water philosophically. Wow, that's neat. Let's look at religion next! http://philpapers.org/s/religionOh, only 14? Yeah, looks like religion is less relevant than the AFE. Whoops? Next, let's be silly and type in http://philpapers.org/s/clownso, basically, clowns are nearly 3 times as relevant as religion. The amount of papers published on the topic are far less than you think. If you understand how to use boolean operators and quatation marks, there are only 636 that mention the problem of evil and even less (177) that mention argument form evil. The amount of papers written historically on a subject does mean it's modern. If anything it means that it's an old topic that people still reference as a callback to days when it was relevant. So I gave you the benefit of the doubt and read the article. Did you read the article? It doesn't seem like it. There's nothing at all in there that could be a refutation of command theory. There's a bit that tries to seperate what you would call "God's good" with the general definition, trying to make theists admit that god isn't good. Doesn't seem to resolve the objection of command theory, though. Despite being the most reasonable thing you have posted yet, there's still a theistic retort to this... All they need to say is some silly crap about how "moral law is dictated in the bible" and then ignore the fact that the bible is riddled with immorality, atrocious commands from an evil god, etc. "Kill my firstborn?" they ask, "You mean, smother them with love?" Clearly I'm not prepared to defend the bible, but believe me when I say that people find ways to justify to themselves the usefulness of the bible as a moral code. The bible was supposed to be a divinely inspired set of books. If god was inspiring them to write all this truth, then why mess up so much by calling bats birds, calling the mustard seed the smallest seed, or insisting that insects crawl on all fours?

No no, I mean, divine command theory is one way to provide a moral reality for a tri-omni god to allow suffering. From the interweb. All one has to do is say that God fundamentally divines moral good and moral evil and that his commands are fundamentally good no matter what to resolve the issue. You can't prove there is no moral reason for God to allow evil to exist since there already exists a reason. Then again, it only works insofar as one is willing to concede their own morality.

I've spent years on this topic... I don't know everything, but I know 5 years worth. I know enough that when I hear someone tell me thousands of philosophers with PhDs take it seriously red flags pop up left and right. Are you ready to substantiate that? I kind of have the feeling you're insecure about your position and want to pretend away the discussion. Also, you linked to the cosmological argument FOR the existence of God. I specified the Kalam variation because the logical procession I ctrl c/v'd uses one of the tenets of the traditional argument to disprove it. I know you're just looking up and linking things I'm saying from the same site because of this, lol. There's the divine command theory that leads to moral relativism and it answers the problem of evil/suffering absolutely at the cost of humans being able to know what morality is. There's also the idea that all suffering is a test and that those who didn't have a chance (those who died too early to understand, etc) will not be judged. This boils the argument down to whether or not it's moral for a God to test you, which most theists will accept. The problem of evil is so old and so run-down philosophically that they re-branded it to the problem of evil/suffering, or the problem of suffering, a long time ago. It's not really what people use when debating the topic unless they expressly know that the person they are speaking with accepts the tri-omni God idea.

I didn't say it was naive and wrong, I said it was naive to use it and think it would mean anything and wrong to assume that it's even a slightly good argument against the existence of a god. How about the basic cosmological argument against god? A quick Google and you get an argument applicable to every creator god. 1.) The universe is an infinite or beginningless series of physical causes and effects. 2.) An infinite series cannot have a creator or an initial uncaused cause. 3.) Therefore, the universe cannot have a creator or initial uncaused cause. 4.) Therefore, there cannot be a god. Based on the popular Kalam argument it uses it's tenets and ideas to attack the idea of something existing eternally/infinitely/before the universe.

Might have been silly, but clearly it was necessary.

That's one website... again, you said all theists, then had to scurry back to "well most of them, idk". Stay in the kiddie pool w/ the AFE, you will only be perpetually looked down upon. Understand that you can't tell other people what they believe. You don't need to have perfect morality to judge other's moral actions. Remember than time you stole a cookie from the jar at home? Yea, now you aren't allowed to have opinions on the morality of the gulags. A deity than condemns millions to die of starvation, dehydration, disease, and genetic deformities as babies, young children, etc, is an immoral god. Whether this can be internally justified by your religion is one thing, but the reality remains that a god who would sit on the sidelines and watch this is a despicable creature.

I can understand if you have never spoken to a theist in your life why you might think that Stanford is the word of god (teehee), but that's not how it works. You proved yourself wrong here when you quoted "traditioinal" theism and the idea that theists "largely agree". That's everyone, then? I'm glad you can post several links to the same site, but that not only doesn't prove your assertion that "every western theist believes in the tri-omni god" but shows how broad your proof really extends on the topic. There are even posted refutations based on a tri-omni god...

Haha, what? Ok, you don't have to respond, because after that I question whether or not your conversations with theists last more than 5 minutes. btw every atheist hates puppies, source: I am an atheist that hates puppies, so all atheists must hate puppies too, clearly. I actually lol'd when you said Stanford dictates what everyone believes. Need to submit an article that says we cured cancer and solved world hunger too. "And it was done."

I tried to snatch it from the video and edit it so it's just the crit gif, but it looks like I lack the patience. Sorry D:

Telling people how they perceive their god is something you can't do. Sure, you can say that according to Stanford they should think that, but in the end what your saying (that western theist is definitely reliant on the idea of an absolute, maximally great god) means nothing. How many people do you think will hold they view of a maximally great god rather than simply adapting for the discrepancy? What I'm saying is that an argument that people can easily make excuses for and adapt to isn't useful in discourse. Are you ready and willing to tell people that your definition of the god they believe in is more accurate than their own, and because of your definition their god can't exist? That's best case not useful in passing discussion as it will cause angry displays, worst case a conversation stopper. In an academic setting you would just be laughed at. Have you ever sat down and talked to people at your college (or a college) that major in religious studies how they account for the AFE? The Ontological arg., the teleological arg., etc? If they accept the internet-popularized arguments, like Slick's transcendental argument for God? The AFE is a stepping stone, and as far as the conversations I have had with people it's never convinced anyone of anything, just kind of pissed them off. Ask Snowey is he's convinced at all by the AFE, or if he even accepted a maximally good, morally perfect God in the first place?

It means the problem of evil is a juvenile and somewhat naive argument that only pertains to some forms of some gods. It's kind of the baby's-first-anti-theological argument, because it's an argument that's easily deflected. That's what I was getting at with my post to you; it's an argument that is very easy to adjust your worldview for, and that's all that the person being presented with an argument needs to do, in the end.

Disagreeing with theories like atomic theory and evolutionary theory is kind of not reasonable at all...

Religion always polarizes and receives a ton of attention no matter where it's discussed. This is by far, head-and-shoulders above, not even the the same league civility compared to where this topic is discussed elsewhere.

Both are common arguments, both are perceived to solve the problem by the people using them. Whether they are reasonable or not has absolutely no bearing at all.