Secular amorality

John W. Loftus said:

“ Steve, you can switch the discussion to physicalism if you want to, but doing so doesn't answer the problem I stated from within your own perspective. This problem is one generated from within your own world-view.”

i) Yes, there is a problem of evil within my own worldview. The Book of Job is, indeed, a case in point.

However, the Book of Job doesn’t merely leave the reader with the problem of evil. Rather, it also presents a solution to the problem of evil in chapters 1-2.

That may be a local rather global answer, but since you have chosen to single out Job, then it’s internal solution answers you at your own level.

And there are other verses or books of the Bible which present a global theodicy—such as we find outlined in Romans.

ii) Now, you may take issue with the theodicy contained in Scripture, but as soon as you do so you are shifting from an internal critique to an external critique.

And once you switch over you will then have your own burden of proof to discharge.

iii) Furthermore, it would be pointless to attack the morality of Scripture on internal grounds alone unless you could also attack it on external grounds.

For if your worldview were amoral, why would you care about the merely hypothetical problem of evil in Scripture as well as the merely hypothetical solution?

“Ahhhhh. Here's a real moral problem for the Calvinist, and something that's not even remotely understandable from our perspective as I consider it.”

Speaking of which, you have just abandoned the internal critique. So you now need to justify your own perspective.

“Yes, and every one of them is convoluted and inconsistent and/or denies the human suffering that stares us in the face everyday.”

i) That’s not an argument. It’s only convincing to someone who already agrees with you.

ii) Suffering stares us in the face everyday, but whether suffering is evil is not something you are entitled to assume without benefit of further argument—especially from your secular outlook.

And even assuming that suffering is evil, you are not entitled to assume that suffering is gratuitous without benefit of further argument.

Is there such a thing as moral evil within a secular outlook? Or is all evil natural evil, and we only call it evil as a matter of convention?

And if it’s natural evil, then how can it be gratuitous? Does a secularist believe in natural gratuitous evil? If nature is all there is, then how could natural evil be gratuitous?

“If God wants to reach us, why not have several potentially understandable reasons for causing creaturely suffering, some of which are remotely understandable to some, while others are remotely understandable to others?”

If God wants to reach whom for what? Within Calvinism, God intends some people to be unbelievers.

Within Calvinism, God does not eliminate sin until the eschaton because sin is a means to a second-order good.

Certain theological errors, like the freewill defense, may be sinful beliefs, but sin, including sinful beliefs, are consistent with a supralapsarian theodicy.

“But who's talking about Hinduism or buddhism here?”

No one here. But if your objective is to persuade as many people as you can of the glorious truth of atheism, then you’ll have to do better than your personal assertion that there are no remotely acceptable or understandable solutions to the problem of evil. That’s not an argument.

“I can speak for myself, just as you do. Do you claim to speak for everyone when you write here, just because you write?”

If I were trying to make a case for my position I’d do more than post a logical syllogism that, even if it were formally valid (which it’s not, due to at least one missing premise), is fundamentally unsound since you’ve done nothing to establish the truth of either the major premises or the minor premise(s).