I was wondering whilst watching a video that Zumby posted in a current thread, what part people may think that the Just World Fallacy plays in helping Theists to explain the problem of evil to themselves. The speaker didn't call it that but it seemed to me that he was describing it.

The Just World Fallacy is a well known cognitive bias that we're all guilty of at some point or other but it struck me that it might play a role in allowing some people to escape the seeming contradiction in the Problem of Evil. Yes, something bad happened to that person/those people, but in some way they must have deserved what god did to them, or what god allowed to happen to them.

Do we simply allow ourselves to believe that, because of the way our brains have evolved to allow us to function, rather than accept the possibility that it could also happen to us if it were truly a random and uncontrollable event? Does it cause a redoubling of efforts by those who believe it in an effort to avoid it happening to them (perhaps through increased frequency of prayer). What if the belief in a vengeful god (a common thread in many world religions historically) is simply the Just World Fallacy in play.

almost by definition Christians do this, but calling it a fallacy sort of begs the question of whether or not such a power actually exists, since it assumes that it doesn't. Or, well, in any event the fact that such is an assumption in the Christian world view seems well understood to me. That's why we talk about faith.

Although technically one could argue that Christianity does not promise to restore moral order in this universe so much as "in the world to come", but it amounts to more or less the same thing I suppose.

In terms of the problem of evil in this particular world though, Christianity, especially in the life and teaching of Jesus kind of assumes that evil and injustice actually win out over good in this world and this life, and the Christian response is to "turn the other cheek" and to "pray for those who spitefully use you" and to "take up your cross daily".

Outside of the context of religion it's a well known psychological bias. We all do it when hear about terrible things happening to people. We find out someone we know died at age 43, did they smoke? Were they overweight or living an unhealthy lifestyle? We look for reasons why it can't happen to us because bad things have to happen to bad people.

I'm just wondering if it plays a role in escaping the problem of evil in the religious context. When god allows someone age 43 to die of cancer, or in a terrible accident, then he must have had a good reason. In other words, it's a perfectly natural human bahaviour that has an effect in a religious context. Perhaps it even partially explains how evil has always been part of religions.

Maybe.

Perhaps that's what Christians do as a response to evil but I don't think it's the same thing as explaining to themselves why it happens.

Mariyln Mccord Adams [a prominent philosopher in philosophy of religion]

gave [what seems to be the best solution] to the problem of evil in her paper

Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God

http://comp.uark.edu/~senor/evil5.pdf

Cliffs


http://comp.uark.edu/~senor/evil5.pdf

I wish!

I'm not really addressing the problem of evil in it's entirety here, only how it relates (or not) to the Just World hypothesis.

Don't we all

I don't think it does, tbh, though Leibniz gives his solution to it, as the world ew live in [or the actual world] is the best of all possible worlds [in regard to the existence of evil].

Also I didn't read the how it relates part

Western thought and of course Eastern thought (Hindu especially) one has to deal with karma. Karma is not a tit for tat but a Love borne way to improve one;s humaneness from life to life.

Caveat, all is not karma as the placing of the individual within a temperate zone or tropical zone, though it still is important for the progression of the individual soul. doesn't speak to karma . Again, all is not karma.

The fact that there are some or many in the West or in Great Britain who carry this attitude, in particular, can only lead me to consider the idea of a memory, not consciously evolved as of yet, this memory of previous karmic manifestations. I've considered this but the details, I am unsure of. In the future the individual man will attain the ability to have a memory of past lives which is humbling.

Seeing this, the devotional acceptance of one's sufferings in life is a virtue not to be gainsaid nor underestimated.

Think "Dynamic", ever in motion or if not, read Heraclitus.

Like the 'strife is justice' and the bow metaphor of Heraclitus?

Well, I really should have a precise knowledge of an author/philosopher if I were to reference him. I spoke to Heraclitus in the sense that if one says "it is the best of all worlds" does one consider "movement" or "time" in the equation, so to speak.

Karma is a reality in the same or better sense of the tree in one's yard and moving off the idea of one and only one life is freeing and ennobling. The individual man(in all walks of life) has the ability to bring his thoughts into movement as he is certainly able to plan his future state. this is the nature of reincarnation and karma.

I try not to deal with metaphors, no offense intended, and I probably shouldn't have referenced him. It is interesting that he brought forth the "merging of opposites" as did in his own way the philosopher Hegel and in ancient Chinese conceptions we have the merging of Yin and Yang.

If these opposites are abstracted they cease to have meaning; we might as well say +1 +-1 = 0. I'll stop , peace.

I'll add this; the ancient Greek spoke of earth, water, air and fire or warmth. This is dismissed by modern theoretical materialism as the concept of a backward age. when he spoke of "earth" he spoke to anything solid not the earth as we see it as an orb flying within space. He saw "water' as liquid or fluid and so melted iron would be considered "water" or what we call "fluid'. correspondingly "air" is our gaseous state and "fire" or warmth is an entity in and of itself. We, in the present times consider 'fire" or warmth as a state of being with no individuality such as earth, water and air.

To the ancients "fire or warmth" is that out of which air is born. When air is born he saw this as "smoke" for out of warmth air and light are born. Light is not the light of the moderns and in fact is not particulate or whatever the modern physicist conjures but in the birth of air the higher realm is light. to them "light' is non material and is everywhere but non physical. the color we see or the streaming of light from the sun is no more than the interaction of supersensible light within the air or the color of a rock is the colored response of its manifestation within our sense bound world. Goethe: "color is the deeds and sufferings of light". We do not see light with our senses but the manifestations of light within our sense bound realities.

Likewise, going downward, water or fluid is "born of air" as "earth is born of water". When water is born of air then we have a higher realm "cosmic forming" or what is known as "chemical ether" and likewise in the movement to "earth" opposite, so to speak is the "life ether" (not the ether of 19th century physics).

The higher realms are not opposites in the sense of abstracted mathematical opposites but the workings of the world of a supersensible realities.

Clear as " " right and in this I would see Heraclitus within this platform of supersensible reality, a qualitative presentation which still has a mathematical creativity involved, a creativity of world realities.

Has this got anything to do with a known cognitive bias? I think you're missing my point.

known cognitive baises are questions you ought to ask psychologist... in all seriousness you asked if the vengeful God belief is just the just world fallacy in play, to which the answer is simply, no. B/c the just world fallacy is attained to beliefs of what comes around goes around....people who believe in a vengeful God [almost everyone I know anyway] believe that there is some sort of ultimate consequence after life and that we have to do our best to live in a world filled with evil.

I remember going through explaining the problem with the problem of evil in great detail about three years ago. I don't think I have the same patience anymore. Ah, I might get around to it.

Anyway...

Is a volcano evil by erupting and vaporizing thousands of people in the village just beside it?

Yes, but evil is more than that, it seems that evil is anything bad that happens to a person as well horrendous evils are evils that make the life of a person bad to the point that it would seem they are better off not living at all.

You missed the point.

Evil is a morally bad action by a rational, moral agent towards another rational, moral agent. God is not a rational, moral agent.

So when God makes it such that your life is to end at the age of 40 from a very painful cancer, that's not God deciding to commit some evil upon you. God isn't a person.

I think you're missing the point...the evil is cancer and God is removing it from you at death and of course God isn't a person God is an entity of some sort and it was through Jesus and his death on the cross that he was able to participte in evil, God doesn't have emotions but he through the divine suffering he was able to [in a sense] feel evil. It seems necessary that God is a suffering God. God allows our suffering in part at least because God must suffer and our suffering too provides common ground, b/c when God created us, he did so in his own image.

Are you implying that you have to be a person to be a rational moral agent?

that was the impression I got, but I totally just ignored it tbh.

Evil is the "good" performed "out of time"...

Evil is the suppression or coercive activity of one ego upon another ego.

...wait, what? could you explain that into more detail?

OK, but you asked for it.

Every religious has somehow heard the story of Lucifer, the fallen angel and his minions. In one perspective Lucifer is a great angel who also develops as does every angelic being in the spiritual cosmos. As Man develops from life to life there is a corresponding development of these very higher beings.

but the story is that some angelic beings fall back and are not able to complete their development within their own particular 'angel time" much like a student who is held back as he is unable to keep up with his companions.

These "backward angels" or Luciferic beings will in some manner enter into the beings of men who are in their normal development. they then actually impede the progress of man but at the same time, in a way, aid him in his further development by producing these hindrances. these hindrances are actually what the Lucifer beings need for their further progression or angelic development. all of the cosmic beings are in movement or development.

If Lucifer hadn't hav come on the scene then mankind would have developed according as the "good gods" or good angelic beings have planned but he would have become an automaton without sense of self or Mankind would not have an ego which is developed via the hindrances of Lucifer.

Have to be clear in that there is actually an "Ego" which is sometimes called the "higher self" or in Socrates's case his "Daimon". Man is known as a spirit/soul being inhabiting a physical body. The spiritual part of man is his "Ego' or that which is of the highest levels of spirit land. Man is body, soul and spirit.

To blaspheme against the spiritual in man is a great evil and I think this is mentioned in the New Testament in some form, thus to coerce the "Ego" in this sense speaks to evil. its mor expansive but I'm getting tired.

Also the "good out of time" speaks to beliefs which are promulgated and in a sense enforced. these considerations then act as impediments to the resurrection of Man.

Speaking to the above mentioned Lucifer, prior to Golgotha the individual man was ensconced within his nation(using this as an example) and this was considered appropriate by the "good gods". Each man was contained within his clan, nation, etc..and this was good, not for the nation itself but for the improvement of man. The Germanic tribes lived within their ancestry as did the Israelites in that "I and Abraham are one"It was real , more like breathing our air. To deny heritage was tantamount to gasping for air, it was an atavistic clairvoyant experience.

And so during these times throughout the world the "evil" of Lucifer attempted to break men out of their particular nations into individuality.

Fast forward and with the advent of Golgotha manners have reversed if not changed. Mother against daughter in law; Father against son, etc..The old is being overcome and Lucifer has changed his stance and attempts to maintain the individual man within his nation thus advocating a generic human, not individualized as the Christ Being is bringing forth in the hearts of men this individuality in freedom and Love.

The Good out of Time; the individual nations as the good in the past transformed for the recreation of the human soul., Lucifer in contradiction.

As an aside the Synod of 869 A.D., in its presentations, stated there man did not have a spiritual body but only physical body and soul. From this the idea of Spirit was lost and to the point that modern poobahs deny the soul and of course this takes effect in some but not all. Dennett states that the soul of the ancients was the nervous system but they didn't understand this; crass materialism within the halls of our higher institutions of learning.

I guess I'm still lost, which Dennett is this from? I've only read elbow room and freedom evolves? But what I'm getting that you're saying is that the our evil is the hindrance of our soul [bc of the acts of lucifer?]. My understanding of the problem of evil is this:

If an all-powerful and perfectly good god exists, then evil does not.
There is evil in the world.
Therefore, an all-powerful and perfectly good god does not exist.

I try not to speak to the "G-" word but it should be known that there are higher angels involved with the recreation of man who have anxiety that Man will not that next state of consciousness or that of an angelic being as noted in the Revelation of John. It does become complicated, not simple, and I'd refer you to "Theosophy" written by Rudolph Steiner in which the bodies of Man are elucidated. this is Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science.

Also I watched a presentation referred by a reader of this forum in which Dennett made the statement as he had a discussion with Dawkins, Hitchens and the other guy whose name I cant bring up, ah;Sam Harris, fatigue. Ia it u=tube? I am on the whole computer ignorant.

by the way Dennet, because of this picture show, for want of a better word, sticks in my craw() nor have i read any of his works aside of seeing him on u-tube compliments of RGT forum presenters.

http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/