Aw shucks. I guess mine were, too. (Man, I hope we don't have to go another 600 replies.)
I'm rather curious about this notion that a dead organism is "functioning". ;)
Let's say the corpse of the organism is decomposing in the soil across the street over there providing nutrients in the soil. Is that not a 'function'?
The wicked person who lives a long happy life and the moral person who steps in front of a bus and dies instantly can both be said to be functioning "normally" in the non-random, personal, theistic scheme. God's will, right?
Yes. The concepts of "normal funtioning" and dysfunction in your example only make sense in terms of a personal, theistic scheme. In the atheistic scheme it is not even coherent to describe a person as wicked, much less view the problem of evil as a problem, or to see it as a problem that the moral person gets hit by a bus. The problem of evil is only a problem to theists.
As far as I can tell, there's no purpose at all.
I've said exactly that on the supposition that evolution were true, but ask Jedi Girl.
Cordially,
A rather passive sort of function, I suppose. It would also require a designer with a rather perverse sense of humor in order to suppose that worm food was our main intended function ;)
Yes. The concepts of "normal funtioning" and dysfunction in your example only make sense in terms of a personal, theistic scheme.
Not really. As I said before, dysfunction is as much a matter of definition as anything else. Once the concepts of adaptive versus maladaptive behaviors is fleshed out, functional versus dysfunctional behaviors will follow in short order.
In the atheistic scheme it is not even coherent to describe a person as wicked, much less view the problem of evil as a problem, or to see it as a problem that the moral person gets hit by a bus.
In the sense that "wicked" has a formal definition and a colloquial meaning, it's not particularly incoherent for the non-believer to employ those terms in conversation. You don't have a monopoly on vocabulary, I think ;)
As far as it being a problem when good people die in senseless accidents, it happens. I don't demand an "explanation", as I'm perfectly willing to accept that there may be none.
The problem of evil is only a problem to theists.
As much as it amuses me to think otherwise, people will still do bad things even if theism died out tomorrow, although I know that's not what you meant.
I can bootstrap a pretty good working definition of evil also, I think. As much as you want to propose that a system not based on claims of universal morality would have no response to an Eichmann, I must point out that the real Eichmann rose to power with the tacit complicity of an entire population, in a world where it is generally accepted that morality exists external to ourselves. What good are claims to universal truth if nobody pays attention? What good are claims to universal truth if nobody believes them or cares about them?
In the end, the real Eichmann did what he did in a world based on universal morality. Six million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis, and where was universal truth to save them?