My approach to religious debates aims at making the conversations as effective as possible.
What does it mean to have an 'effective' debate or conversation?
At minimum, an effective debate has to have actually engaged the real thoughts and beliefs of the participants. In what I've witnessed, most religious arguments fail at achieving even at this meager goal.
Beyond a minimal 'meeting of the minds' -- an effective debate will involve real challenges to the real thoughts of the participants.
And, of course, the most effective argument or debate concludes with one side convincing the other of something they had not accepted before.
I have encountered many people who think that any kind of religious debate or conversation is a waste of time.
As I said before, I aim to make religious conversations between people as effective as possible. I am not expecting my ideas to become dogma -- it is almost certain that I have not formulated the perfect recipe that yields the most effective conversations possible -- and so I welcome suggestions, challenges, and improvements on all aspects of my approach.
Over the years, I have had hundreds of conversations with pleasant people from every faith -- the ideas that I share come from my dissecting these conversations and thinking about what worked, and why; what didn't work, and why.
Let me give you an example. Imagine two people, one a committed Christian, the other a committed atheist secular humanist. Let's start with a plausible broadside from the secular humanist.
Atheist: "Why does God allow suffering?"
I have come to think that there are several reasons why this question is phrased terribly. First of all, the atheist is asking the Christian to explain God's behavior. All other considerations aside, if every other piece of the ensuing argument completely destroys every possible reason that the Christian can think of for God allowing suffering there is a huge retreat still available. Namely, the 'why should I know why God does that' 0r some other variation.
Rule 1: Do not let your argument hinge on asking a Christian to explain something he could conceivably say, "I don't know" as a legitimate answer to an argument.
So, how do you tweak the question to ask essentially the same thing, but to close the "I don't know" loophole? Ask the slightly improved question:
Atheist: "Why do you worship a God that allows suffering?"
It's still not great, but notice that answering, 'why should I know why I do that' is not a legitimate answer to the question. You may still hear that answer, but even the Christian will feel uncomfortable about such a lame answer.
In watching other people debate or talk, it's much easier, of course, to be critical of a missed opportunity or a wrong step.
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This is an interesting article, but I feel like I've been left at a bit of a cliffhanger.
How would you continue to modify that sentence? What would be an effective further edit?
Question two assumes the truth of question one, or “assumes facts not in evidence”.
It’s just like the question “When did you stop beating your wife” – the question itself makes assumptions which may or may not be true, but have been *assumed* to be true without evidence.
In other words, if you ask “Why do you worship a God that allows suffering?” you’ve already assumed an answer to the first question – which is really what you want to know.
Anyone with training in logic will notice the error, although some won’t and you’ll win the argument even with a huge logical error, but you won’t get an answer to your real question.
The second question has two facts needed:
1. That the Christian worships God.
2. That suffering exists.
As I mentioned in the entry, this question is not a perfect formulation, but I don't think the question fails for the reasons you think it does. In fact, I don't think there are any serious assumptions being assumed as a basis for the question. A Christian may deny that there is suffering — but that is directly contrasting the question, nothing is assumed there. Or, a Christian could claim to not worship God — which would be odd, but also, directly contrasting the question.
If the question still does assume one of the two facts, which of the two facts do you think a Christian would deny?
"Why do you worship a God that allows suffering?"
You missed the third assumption GOD ALLOWS SUFFERING – right in your question. You're trying to re-formulate the question to avoid an answer you don't like – "I don't know", but your second question assumes facts without evidence.
The Christian would likely agree with both #1 and #2 from your reply, but then you're back to the original question – WHY does God allow suffering? The reason you'll win the argument is they'll likely miss the logical error of the assumption in the question.
Wouldn't it be better to go back to the original question – that's the real issue, isn't it? Instead of *one* question, the reformulated question makes three assumptions (all of which could be debatable) – shouldn't a debate be as concise as possible?
You're honestly claiming that "God allows suffering" is an assumption without merit? Most Christians say that God is powerful enough to do anything.
Look, God is either powerful enough to stop all suffering in the world, or He is not.
If He is powerful enough AND there is suffering in the world, then God allows suffering.
If God does not allow suffering, then either He is not powerful enough or there is not suffering in the world.
Since you think this assumption is false/worthy of correction, you must think that God does not allow suffering? And it appears that you admit the existence of suffering. Ok, then God is not powerful enough to stop the suffering in the world.
Fine. I change my question: "Why do you worship a God who is so limited in power that He cannot stop the suffering of the world?"
No you see the third assupmtion, as you put it, is not an assumption. Because the evidence is that suffering occurs we all see it everyday…if we allow for a minute the thought that a god may exist, this is an assumption, then this god in not intervening to bring a halt to suffering is in his/her very nature allowing that suffering to continue. Thus it is not an assumption it is an evident fact that suffering exists and as your god does not do anything about it, your god is allowing the suffering to occur.
If (1) God exists, which is believed by the Christian who worships God, and (2) Suffering exists, then it necessarily follows that God allows such suffering to exist. If God did not allow suffering to exist, then (2) would be false. Since (2) is not false, then God allows it to exist (whether He has any choice is a different matter).
Therefore, it is not an additional assumption to the two already given. Rather, it is a conclusion that necessarily follows from them.
Actually, as someone who does have training in logic, I'm struggling to remain "conversational" in response to what I perceive — perhaps wrongly — as a very snotty comment from "D Yeager".
In the hypothetical religious discussion above, it is extremely unlikely that the atheist secular humanist is asking, "Why does God allow suffering?" in an effort to really answer that question. Rather, the atheist is using it as a rhetorical device to force the theist to think about the Problem of Evil. The relationship you pose to the question, "When did you stop beating your wife?", is a disanalogy. While it is indeed, strictly speaking, an unargued conclusion to propose that God allows suffering, the argument is fairly stock and straightforward, and most people engaging in a religious discussion have heard it before. If they haven't, it can be easily fleshed out. This is the way conversation works. People very, very rarely highlight all the steps to their conclusion in a formal logical proof when talking about their beliefs, or anything else for that matter.
To be quite honest, the only "huge logical error" I noticed is your glaring assumption that no one who poses a question this way (or at least, the author of this blog post) has any training in logic. That's, at best, reflective of your total misunderstanding of at least one side of the discussion here, and at worst, just a thinly veiled ad hominem attack from someone who's only been on the other side oh-so-many times. But hey, what do I expect? This isn't about conversation with you, or honestly modifying the beliefs of others, is it? It's about who "[wi]ll win the argument", which is nothing more than a quasi-logical pissing contest, which in turn is exactly what I think this post is partly trying to avert.
@palintropos –
It’s not *my* position to “just win the argument’ – if winning is the only goal, that’s a different tactic (you can win without discussion and get discussion without winning). If you’re trained in logic you know it’s quite possible to win a debate, but lose the possibility of open discussion and exchange of ideas. Thus the question becomes – *why* are you asking? To get an answer for yourself? To win the debate? To start discussion? To attack beliefs? Or something else?
If the goal is conversation, and specifically the problem of Evil, Question one will do that better, because it avoids the logical problem of question two, which likely many people won’t notice, but won’t know how to handle either – Q1 is simpler and more direct question, and when dealing with diverse hot-button topics like religion/atheism, do we agree the more direct the better?
Likely similar to yourself, I’ve run across mainly two different types of people – those that want an open discussion and exchange of ideas, and those with ad-hominem attacks and “winning” without regards to discussion, but enjoy calling names and so forth. So without passing judgment on any motives or reasons, which path do you want?
If the goal is to win the debate, I’d use question two as it’s likely to “trip” people similarly to the “when did you stop beating your wife situation”. You’ll win, but that’s it. If someone does understand the logic, you’ll arrive at question one anyway, as it’s the root of the issue – the problem of evil.
If the goal is discussion, I’d use question one, as it’s more direct.
The root of the issue is does God allow suffering? Why or why not?
That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.
@ConverseAtheist –
> You’re honestly claiming that “God allows suffering” is an assumption without merit?
Wait a minute – you’ve moved from discussing the logical structure of the argument and how to best create discussion to the argument itself.
It’s not whether the assumption has merit – the question of God and evil *is* the question – rather the problem comes as you’ve assumed it when talking to someone who likely won’t share your assumption – that’s a receipe for miscommunication between two people; I’ve assumed based on your article you’re trying to avoid that. That’s it.
If you’re tying to have open discussion, you should qualify your assumptions, which is why Q1 is better – it cuts to the heart of the issue in the most direct manner possible, without side issues not necessarily relating to the problem of evil.
> “Why do you worship a God who is so limited in power that He cannot stop the suffering of the world?”
Same problems arise (God is limited, he can’t/won’t stop suffering,etc). My *only* point so far is if you want to discuss, don’t make assumptions the other party won’t likely agree with – get to the heart of the discussion. If you want to discuss God and evil, do it. If you want to get an answer to the power of God, get it.
I’m not making any judgments on the *merits* of your issue.
Is the root of the issue God and Evil, or not? If it is, don’t bother with side issues, if it’s not and you really want to discuss the power of God, do that.
Since Christians and atheists have such differing experiences and beliefs, is it not better to keep it as simple and direct as possible?
"you've assumed it when talking to someone who likely won't share your assumption – that's a receipe for miscommunication between two people"
I understand your point, and I agree entirely in one sense — if I am assuming something that the person I'm talking with does not also assume — that's a recipe for miscommunication.
However, I am flatly disagreeing with your assessment that most Christians do not agree with the statement: God allows suffering.
Mostly because they believe that 1. God has the power to stop suffering , and 2. that suffering exists.
Those two statements lead to "God allows suffering" in a relatively straightforward fashion.
Now, people who worship God tend to think of justifications that God has or might have for allowing suffering — some higher good, free will, etc., but you are the first person that I've come across that has tried to deny that "God allows suffering" — or to claim that it is not widely held that He does.
However I think you would find that with the differing opinions of your audience the religious party would be more likely to think about answering the question 2 whether the assumption is what they agree with or not, they would then have to justify their position on why they worship a god that allows suffering and why their god allows/does not allow suffering. It is a thinking question which promotes the responding party to first think about their view in relation to why god allows/does not allow suffering, and then to justify why they worship this deity who is unable to prevent suffering.
Howdy, folks. Thought I'd let you all know that I put this to good use earlier today, and I'd like to share my results, found on my blog:
http://lostprophyt.blogspot.com/2009/10/simple-qu…
The results are pretty predictable: He did everything BUT answer the question. Enjoy, and discuss!
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