protocol paper 1

Protocol paper #1

Recall: In "The problem of evil," James Rachels and Stuart Rachels provider some important point: 1) Pain is not body’s warning system needed, because newborn babies did not deserve inexorable pain; 2) Even If we need evil to appreciate the good, but it is does not explain why there is such an extraordinary amount of evil in this world; 3) The doctrine of original sin was absurd. According to authors, it would be come to a conclusion that a newborn baby did deserve terrible disease. 4) The idea that Free Will Defense is in apparent contradiction to the natural evil in the world. 5) Based on the idea that a world without suffering would be void of the virtues necessary for good moral development. It does not explain the reason that God allowed the Holocaust or isolated cases of extreme cruelty to happen. 6) The theory of moral development does not explain the reason why animals suffering.

Summary: In the chapter, "The problem of evil," James Rachles and Stuart Rachles arise the problem of evil by Job’s story. Although logical problem of evil are distinguished evidentiary problem of evil, both of them are play a key role religious belief. The Authors were not focus on used the problem of evil to prove or disprove God’ existence. But they elaborated on the response to various ideas about how to reconcile God with evil. According to authors, none of them were successful.

Quotes: “A mother who asks why God allows her baby to have this disease can hardly be answered by pointing out that pain is part of the baby’s warning system. What needs explaining is why the baby’s system is bing attacked in such a cruel way.” I am so deeply touched by this sentence. Nobody can imagine how painful the mother is. Nevertheless, let’s see this tragedy in a larger perspective. If the world we lived is a prefect world without disease, earthquake and all of misery. The enormous increase of population will consume all of the resources on earth. By that time, how we can survive on the earth. Someone might say this argument is begs the question. Because we can bring the problem of population growth under control. Then who can make sure that the process of birth control would not create other misfortune.
“Countless animals suffered terribly in the millions of years that preceded the emergence of homo sapiens, and none of the ideas we have been considering address their suffering.” This is a very strong support to the idea that evil is necessary for the development of moral character. It prove that, in the natural, there is no difference between human and animal. Viewed from other perspective, moral value is relative and man-made. So I totally agree with the author’s conclusion that evil is not necessary for human to develop moral character.

Questions: How does Rachles equate evil with pain? Even if pain is not necessary as part of the body’s warning. We could not conclude that pain is evil philosophical thinking. How is he judge that there is so much evil in the world? Can he provides a exact number to us? How does he know that human being don’t really need AIDS, muscular dystrophy, etc. From individual’s standpoint, disease is certainly very cruel, but how we know that would not good for entire human being?

Connect: I can connect this reading to my own life because the attitude of my life. With the popularization and ripeness of the internet, the whole society has entered an era of information explosion. In daily life, we are easy to contact with a plenty of information. Many of us unconsciously follow the general trend without careful consideration. In my opinion, it would make people become more and more narrow-minded. We should not judge anything before logical thinking. Especially in the academic life, I should take full account of all options before I arrive at a conclusion. I can connect this chapter to the attitude of Russell presented in the “The value of philosophy,” - The main value of philosophy is that it enlarges our thoughts and helps us avoid being caught in narrowness as human beings.

Comment: Before I read the text, I thought that “The problem of evil” must too profound for me to comprehend. The fact is that, the chain of logic is very attractive and interesting. I do like this chapter. Not only it teach me what is the problem of evil. But also it show me that we can thinking a problem by so many different line of thought. Furthermore, perhaps we can not yet reached a clear answer after that deep consideration. I would have liked also for these idea that tried for centuries to reconcile the existence of God with the amount of suffering in the world. Although these argument have flaw to justify the existence of God, their practical thought is the common heritage of human beings.