Side Comments on Why Evolution Does Not Make The Problem Of Evil Worse

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How was what you quoted I said above “overreaching” @Dan_Eastwood? How does Rope’s article make it clear that he is making claims about animal suffering in this world rather than in some philosophers’/theologians’ hypothetical world?

I never claimed that he was. However, unless you are claiming the existence of a mystical sensus divinitatis, that atheists lack, this claim is in any case irrelevant to my quoted point.

A “recurring question” about the real world or some philosophers’/theologians’ hypothetical world?

No Dan. :rage:

What I was seeking was …

clarity!

If you had been paying any attention to my writing on this forum over the years, rather than reflexively running interference for Rope on this thread, you might have noticed this is a major issue with me.

I was looking for the structure of his arguments, and how they were based upon actual suffering (if they aren’t then I don’t see why anyone, atheist or theist, should care about his conclusions).

I could discern little of either from Rope’s article, and his discussion on this ofrum has been, to say the least, unhelpful.

Rope directed me to Nagasawa’s article, then carefully avoided addressing the absurd purported “inconsistency” that is at its core.

He has made absurd statements, like that people need to “to stop themselves from thinking about” remote animal suffering.

He has repeatedly made argumentum ad populem fallacies.

Yes, I found quite a bit that was problematical in Rope’s article – e.g. conflating “reasons” with “rights”, a large amount of speculative arguments that do not appear to support the definitive “Does Not” in the articles title, etc – but my main issue with the article is not that it is “wrong” but that it is irrelevant:

Why Evolution Does Not Make the Problem of Evil Worse in Middle Earth

Why would Rope’s purely hypothetical world have any more “meaning” to theists Dan? Are you claiming that theists are detached from reality?

I would say we’ve had some rather frustrating and unproductive discussion. From comments I’ve seen on this thread I’m not the only one – both atheists (e.g. @Roy) and at least one theist (@Mercer e.g. here) seem to have not too dissimilar opinions.

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If it’s obviously false, you should have no problem explaining why it’s false.

Make sure you account for what was actually written, including:

  1. The cited definition for “horrendous suffering”, which includes “the enormous suffering caused by the “kill or be killed” law of predation in the animal kingdom.”;
  2. The request for an estimate of “the percentage of sentient animals which experience this form of suffering”;
  3. The comment “if a significant percentage of sentient animals experience horrendous suffering,”;
  4. The comment that "I’d be inclined to say that 1% is certainly a significant percentage, but I personally wouldn’t say that 1 in a million is"

I think those statements lead to a clear implication that the percentage of sentient animals that experience predation or starvation might not be significant, and so less than 1% - because without that implication, there is no need for the conditionals, and no need to ask for estimates.

I realise that there are a few escape clauses from this conclusion. Vjtorley might not have known that the cited definition of “horrendous suffering” included predation, and assumed it only referred to widespread natural events such as volcanic eruptions, wildfires. tsunamis etc. He might, by limiting his claims to “sentient” animals, only be referring to the most intelligent species - humans, cetaceans, some primates, maybe some corvids.[1] This would largely (but not entirely) avoid having to deal with predation, but as I noted above, even in humans far more than 1% of the population experience horrendous suffering[2]. He might have been asking about the % of animals experiencing horrendous suffering at any given time, rather than at any point during their lifetime - but he referred to “a significant percentage of sentient animals”, not a significant percentage of animals’ lives. And anyway, many (most?) prey animals are under continuous threat of predation.

So, sfmatheson, how am I “obviously” wrong?

  • Is the implication that “horrendous suffering” may affect less than 1% of animals not really there?
  • Does horrendous suffering not include predation/starvation?
  • Does it not include plagues/wars?
  • Is vjtorley referring to the % of an individual’s lifetime, rather than the % of individuals?
  • Does “sentient animals” not include cod? Or antelopes?
  • Have I seriously underestimated the % of antelopes etc that get killed and eaten?
  • Or something else?

If I am “obviously” wrong, I’d like to know where, so that I can correct myself. But perhaps it’s not obvious. Perhaps I’m not the one who is wrong.

[Mod edit - 2 tags removed]

  1. Cf. the mirror test as an indication of sentience. ↩︎

  2. The definitions of horrendous suffering include both pandemics and war. The black death pandemic killed about 20% of the human population, and affected far more. Other plague epidemics (Justinian, modern were less widespread, but still affected far more than 1% of the population. WWII resulted in the death of ~3% of the human population and adversely affected far more than that. WWI and the Taiping rebellion were nearly as bad, as were the Manchu conquests and the Sino-Japanese wars. Adding in all the smaller events, most people who lived before the modern era experienced at least one war or pandemic during their lifetime even if they didn’t succumb to the ~20% infant mortality. But again, maybe vjtorley didn’t realise that “horrific suffering” included wars and pandemics. ↩︎

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Pardon my laziness for not quoting more extensively. You’ve made some good points, but now it appears that you merely have an axe to grind. Enough. Rope said he was done, so let him be done.

IMO, you have crossed the line into pedantry, which only detracts from the fair points you have made. I’m running interference for you.

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This is an embarrassingly lame projection onto someone else’s words, unjustified by what they wrote. None of the rest of your text is worth a response.

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The fact that @Rope has now cut and run twice from subjects he apparently felt were worth writing a book and an article on speaks volumes about his sincerity, effort, and/or competence.

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Dan – it was not your failure to quote me “more extensively” that I was complaining about, but your complete failure to justify your accusation – hence why I continued on:

Does @Mercer likewise have an “axe to grind” Dan?

If so, then it clearly can’t be an atheist axe.

No Dan. Rope made no serious attempt to address my points, so I see no reason why his absence should halt the process. I will continue working through my thoughts on this issue (which I am still doing) until either (i) I’m satisfied with the results or (ii) somebody can demonstrate to me that my thinking is erroneous.

[Addendum: as these two posts, [1][2], have allowed me to work through my thoughts to my satisfaction, I am now happy to let this be “done”. Thank you.]

@Mercer’s point above is also worth noting.

Flinging unsubstantiated accusations at me does nothing to help.

@Tim peruses @Dan_Eastwood’s pattern of conversation on the parent thread.

:point_up_2: :laughing:

So you were also “running interference for” @Rumraket, @John_Harshman and @Roy?

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“Embarrasingly lame” is as useless as “obviously false” for showing me where I went wrong. Especially since you have ignored both the statements I laid out that led to my conclusion, and the possible problems I said there might be with it.

Your responses are indistinguishable from those of some-one who has no actual rebuttal, but is merely tone-policing.

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