The 21st Century Monad Solution to the Problem of Evil

This is not the actual world!

Genius lyrics:

I admit I lost my faith
When I felt the shake from a Lisbon quake
And I could not believe
This is how things ought to be
So I wondered from place to place
But the evils of the human race
They made themselves apparent
That they were inherent

My life felt like someone else’s dream
And that’s when it came to me, and I could see

This is not the actual world

Yeah we’re in world 223
And a world like this must in some sense be
For God’s not choosing it to be praiseworthy
And what else could explain
This seeming random distribution of pleasure and pain?
On the just and the unjust alike
Falls the same rain

This theodicy it might seem odd
But it helped me make my peace with God, and now I see

This is not the actual world


You're welcome.

5 comments:

Scott said...

I think I read a paper in which someone actually made this argument. I don't remember who it was or where the paper was published. But I swear I've seen this argument in print.

exapologist said...

Ha! Please let me know if you remember the name of the paper or author.

Best,
EA

Scott said...

The author is Ken Gemes. The paper is 'The Problem of Evil and its Solution'.

exapologist said...

Excellent. Thanks, Scott!

Rayndeon said...

Well... here's the link if anyone is interested: http://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/733/1/K_Gemes_Evil.pdf

I had difficulty believing that the author was able to write that with a straight face. Perhaps this is the philosophical equivalent of "trolling" your audience?

I read a book review about Colin McGinn's book on Disgust. The epithet can be aptly recruited here: "[In philosophy of religion] there is shit and then there is bullshit. [This paper] belongs to the latter category."

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