The title of this diary is taken from an article by William Rowe, "The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism" which is alas not open sourced as far as I can tell.
In any case, in this article Rowe defends the argument from evil against the existence of God and in the process distinguishes two different kinds of atheist and theist.
An unfriendly atheist is someone who believes that God does not exist and that no one has rational grounds for thinking that God exists.
A friendly atheist is just as much an atheist as an unfriendly one, but allows that is possible for someone else to be rationally justified in believing that God exists
The same sorts of distinctions apply to theism. An unfriendly theist would be one who thinks that it is irrational to believe that there is no God, a friendly theist would be one who thinks that while she has good grounds for thinking God exists, someone else may have good grounds (that is be rational) in denying that there is a God.
I am a friendly theist.
The dicussion of atheim and theism (especialy, in the US, Christianity), is bogged down with what are to my mind irrelevant issues. So we find the following sorts of arguments (apologies in advance for the appearance of parody)
(1) Evolution is true
(2) If Evolution is true, there is no God
(3) therefore, there is no God
(1) Some Christians believe homosexuality is a sin
(2) Christians believe that there is a God
(3) Homosexuality is not a sin
Therefore there is no God
(1) Some people who believe in God do stupid or cruel or evil things
(2) They do these things because of their religius beliefs
(3) These beliefs include the the belief that there is a God
Therefore, there is no God
Just laying these arguments out shows how silly they are. But this is not to say that there are no good arguments for atheism. By Good I don't mean that I accept the conclusion (I am a theist, after all!) but good in the sense that they are serious, and anyone who thinks God does exists should take them seriously.
So we have the argument from evil which in one of its better versions goes like this (footnote Rowe here):
(1)The traditional concept of God is of a being that is all powerful and all good
(2) An all good being would want to eliminate all evil unless that evils is required for a greater good (or to prevent a worse evil)
(3) An all powerful being would be able to prevent such evil
(4) But there is evil that is not required to prevent a greater evil or in order that there be a greater good
Therefore there is no God
This argument is good because the premises seem true, and assuming I actually laid it out correctly it is logically valid.
What makes this version of the argument better than some others is that it allows that there are some evils that might be necessary for a greater good--so if free will is a good, and if free will requires that people have a morally significant choice, then it follows that some evils such that an omnibenevolent and omnipotent deity would allow.
The crucial issue is whether all evils are of this sort--and it seems like they are not. Rowe gives the example of a fawn burning to death in a forest fire. Great suffering there--but as far as we can tell it is totally pointless. not required for free will, or character development or just about anything we can think of.
of course we can multiply examples like this. The problem of evil is not that evil exists, but that there is so much of it that appears to be totally pointless.
The conclusion of the argument can be avoided if we hold that God is not all powerful or all good. So proponents of process theism who hold that God is immanent in the world and limited to persuasive as opposed to compulsive power have a fairly easy "out" with respect to this argument.
Likewise if one thought that whatever deity exists was not entirely good, or half good, or if one thought that there were two gods a good one and a bad one battling it out (as in Zoroastrianism), this argument would not be effective
But traditional monotheists, Jews, Muslims, and Christians, are often unwilling to make these sorts of modifications in the concept of deity.
The argument is also, in a way, probablistic. For we cannot say that we know with absolute certaintly that a fawn burning to death is not somehow necessary for a greater good or to prevent a worse evil. The most we can say is it seems that way (indeed, we cannot say we know that fawns feel pain, or even that they exist with ABSOLUTE certainty.. but I digress).
So a person who has good reason to think God exists may very well allow that the argument presents evidence against God's existence, but not become an atheist on that score. For example, some people have very vivid and life changing religious experiences. Such a person (alas I am not one!) may have evidence for the existence of God which is so strong that it outweighs the also quite strong evidence of evil against the existence of God.
Personally I am inclined to think that the existence of a world of suffering, a world that in some ways appears quite godless, is required for the world to be one that is taken seriously. But I could be wrong about this and I am not going to argue for it now. My point in bringing up the argument from evil is not to answer it but to give an example of how a person can be rational and an atheist and thus explain why I am a friendly theist.
I think we should all be either friendly theists or friendly atheists (or agnostics of course). The issue of God's existence or lack thereof is so complex and difficult its very hard for me to see how anyone can be so confident in atheism or theism that they believe that anyone who disagrees is either making a mistake in logic, engaged inself-deception, or just ignorant.
So much for friendly theism. Why should you, dear atheist readers, be friendly atheists?
Well, I already gave the example of religious experience. I think that one can argue that religious experience does not provide good evidence, but such an argument will be controversial and its hardly obviously true. A person who has a vivid religious experience and believes in God on that score is not irrational or foolish, even if he or she is wrong.
Suppose someone believes in God because of the Bible or some other religious text. Is such a person being irrational? We can all think of biblical passages that are obviously false if taken literally. I think the story of Adam and Eve is a wonderful fable, but its not history. but creationism is a red herring--if we are concerned with God as source of the universe, it matters little what the specific biological machinations are on the planet earth.
But suppose someone believe on the basis of the account of the ressurection in the New Testament? Is such a person irrational to do so?
I suppose if you thought that belief in miracles is irrational then the answer would be yes. But I wonder how many people who have assumed this is so have an actual argument for it. There is a famous argument by Hume on this score in the Enquiry but needless to say reasonable people disagree about whether Hume is right or wrong.
Again it seems that the issue is a complex one, with no easy answer. As with any other question having to do with the ultimate nature of reality, the question of God is not reducible to soundbites or facile arguments based on some quasi positivisitic account of what counts as rational.
The point of this diary is not to argue for or against the existence of God but to argue for the less exciting thesis that whether God exists or not is a real issue and a lot more complex and difficult than is dreamt of by either fundamentalist proselytizers or their atheist counterparts (Dawkins et al)