We continue considering the various comments made by Oleg Dei who is the founder, president and publisher of the Science Club of Long Island. While the club claims to be about science, it is an anti-Christian support group and, apparently, Dei’s job description also includes, as he puts it, “I eat stupid dumb*** Christians for lunch!” (expletive removed).
His comments came about due to the essay Science Club of Long Island (which was originally posted at the blog Atheism is Dead which is one of the website True Freethinker’s predecessors).
To the post, Richard Dawkins Exhibiting Neo-Paganism-Atheism, Childhood Rejection of God, Self-Professed Erudition, etc. Oleg Dei made another page long comment beginning with the statement:
It is time to completely disprove your God and after that Christ the Fraud.
Christians are fond of saying that God is all powerful and all knowing as well as benevolent and just. Let us say if there was evil on Earth, then either God couldn’t stop it, which would put a limit on his powers or malevolent because he chose not to stop it. But Christians would say that is impossible God is all powerful and all good. But there is evil on Earth, which by the Christian definition disproves your God.
Note that the claim is that he will “completely disprove your God” (he gets to attempting to completely disprove Christ at the end of his comment as so we will come to that, eventually).
Let us grand this point, “Christians are fond of saying that God is all powerful and all knowing as well as benevolent and just.”
Next, he presents us with a logical fallacy—a false dichotomy. This means that he is attempting to restrict us by offering us only two options both of which, conveniently, conclude in his point being validated. Before offering a response one should always consider the question. In this case, the question, the statement, the argument is fallacious. How so?
Here is the false dichotomy: if there was evil on Earth, then:
1) either God couldn’t stop it, which would put a limit on his powers or
2) malevolent because he chose not to stop it.
The sentence, “But Christians would say that is impossible God is all powerful and all good” is indiscernible and so let us get to his conclusion, “But there is evil on Earth, which by the Christian definition disproves your God.” Is this so? No? Why not?
The question is why these choices and why solely these two choices? The manner in which to break up the weal horn of the false dichotomy dilemma is to consider a third way. Thus, let us restate the issue as if there was evil on Earth, then:
1) either God couldn’t stop it, which would put a limit on his powers or
2) malevolent because he chose not to stop it or
3) God is all powerful and benevolent and has His own schedule, acts on His own timing, knows the best way and time in which to act and will do so when He sees fit.
The “problem of evil” has, at least, two facets: one is extremely easy with which to deal and one is virtually insurmountable. These two facets are 1) the logical / philosophical / theological problem of evil and the other is 2) the emotional problem of evil.
1) Dealt with by simply noting that if God has a reason to allow evil (which He does allow, for a time) then the problem dissolves. This does not even mean that we can know the reason(s), agree or approve of the reason(s) but that there is one, or more.
For example, every loving parent knows that there are times when one most certainly could prevent their children from experiencing pain and suffering, but purposefully choose not to interfere and to literally stand by and do nothing. This is the right, good, moral and ethical thing to do in cases such as when our babies must have their foot stabbed by a needle in order to have blood sugar levels tested.
2) The emotional distress caused by evil, pain and suffering is that upon which the atheists plays. They take advantage of hurting people in order to make polemical points. They play on the emotions of those in distress.
The reason that the emotional problem of evil is virtually insurmountable is that emotions are real sensations. When someone is experiencing a real emotional feeling, attempting to respond via logic / philosophy is not effective. Why not? For the very reason that an emotion is something that they can literally feel whist logic / philosophy comes across as ethereal. What is an abstract concept in the face of a real sensation?
And, of course, when someone is hurting the action to take is not to philosophize but to comfort. When someone is dying of thirst, you do not simply explain to them that water consists of H2O—you give them a drink.
Now, note that Oleg Dei makes reference to “evil” without defining the term. A definition of “evil” would assume a standard. Yet, a standard would assume a law / code. A law / code assumes a law / code giver. And a law / code giver is what we call God.
In short, he cannot define “evil” without an absolute standard and he cannot provide an absolute standard without appealing to God. Thus, the problem of evil does not disprove God’s existence but proves it—we all have God’s law / code within us.
But why assume an absolute standard? Why not that which nature / evolution has hard wired into us or that which humans agree upon? The video attached to this article is of a debate between an atheist and this Messianic Jew on the issue of morality where these issues are discussed in some detail (find the complete video at this link).
As an activist Darwinian-atheistic-evolutionist, Oleg Dei likely subscribes to, at least, one of these options (if there are others, please do state it in the comments section as a false dichotomy is to be avoided).
If we appeal to nature / evolution, then we note that nature has neither mind nor volition and does not care about right, wrong, good, evil or even true or false—nature / evolution one care about survival (employing the concept of care anthropomorphically). We can survive by ascertaining empirical facts or by being utterly deluded and it matters not.
Furthermore, by appealing to nature / evolution we logically conclude that since morality / ethics evolve then what was once moral / ethical is no more and visa versa. This means that Oleg Dei cannot condemn any past action as what he now considers immoral / unethical used to be moral / ethical. He may not even be able to condemn any action of today for, how does he know if even at the very moment that he is condemning it nature / evolution is not changing moral to immoral / ethical to unethical and visa versa. This is the constant shift from zeitgeist to poltergeist.
When it comes to morality / ethics being based on human opinion, upon that which humans agree the issue is the same: we used to agree upon that which we now disagree. Thus, we are back to nature / evolution. Moreover, this means mob rules: in Nazi Germany the majority asserted that the extermination of undesirable personages was right, good, moral / ethics and so it was. Then the Allied Forces struggled with the Nazis and survived as the fittest. Thereafter, the extermination of undesirable personages was wrong, bad, immoral / unethical.
In fact, the Allied Forces’ actions were based upon Judeo-Christian principles. The Nazis presented a brilliant (in a worldly sense) defense at the Nuremberg trials: they stated that they were agents of the state and that the state ordered them to carry out certain action and so they did. However, the reply was not that the Allied Forces had survived as the fittest in the struggle for existence but that there was yet a higher law, God’s law—that is why the Nazis were wrong and evil even though they were just following orders.
In other words, the problem of evil is a logical / philosophical / theological sham. Yet, as long as atheists pose the problem of evil, they too must be forces to deal with it for if it is a problem, it is a problem for all.
But what does the atheist do with it. Essentially, they can say, “What evil?” You see, atheism make evil even worst by guaranteeing that it is indeed for nothing, there is no reason, no higher purpose and it cannot be redeemed.
Yet, stating that on atheism evil is indeed for nothing, etc. is not accurate at all. On atheism evil, for example that which is brought about by human agency, is beneficial. The evil doer enjoy the evil which they perpetrate and short of being caught by the judicious system de jour (and this assumes that such a system disagrees with him after all, within Nazi Germans the judicious system de jour protected evil) they simply get away with it: no judgment and no justice.
Likewise, on atheism evil is good. This is because in the struggle to survive as the fittest—the only thing about which nature / evolution cares—evil merely rids us of the less fit and so all past evil played a beneficial role in our evolution. For examples of atheists making the claim that, for example, rape was evolutionarily beneficial—see:
Thus, Oleg Dei is creating more problems for himself by sawing off the branch upon which he is sitting and building his worldview’s own casket with it. He claimed to disprove God’s existence and yet, God remains unscathed while Oleg successfully discredited himself, atheism and evolutionary morality / ethics. The fact of evil, pain and suffering in the world is one of the very best reasons for rejecting atheism.
For more on the problem of evil see:
Was “the Problem of Evil” Solved Before it was Ever Proposed?
Fundamentalist Theologian Asks: “Why Won't God Heal Amputees?” and “Why Does God Hate Amputees”?
Atheists Fulfill Scripture: “Why Won't God Heal Amputees?” / “Why Does God Hate Amputees”?
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