Pain is an indicator that something is not going right, and it is a sign of how all of reality will always treat you. Ignatius could have easily googled an indicator that would advise him not to pour hot grease on his hand and yet hd was careless enough to do it, he'll be advised to be more careful for a long time by that still-present pain. You could have probably studied how to avoid frozen shoulder by eating right and exercising but instead the intensity of that pain will remind you to take better care of yourself.
But ultimately pain is an indicator that we are material beings and are going to die. The warning is there to help us to repent before we reach that point and it is too late. You can say that is not how you think God would treat us if He loved us but it seems like an effective way to help us avoid the everlasting pain of hell, unless that is what you want.

Yes, there are a great many problems with the idea that pain is good because it warns you that something is wrong. As you say, pain often continues long after its value as a warning no longer exists. And of course, for most of history, the warning that you had appendicitis, or a heart attack, or an impacted wisdom tooth, or cancer, was of little or no value, since the medical knowledge to deal with such problems was nonexistent.

Also, as I pointed out some time ago, I witnessed people recovering from knee injuries in physical therapy who basically had to endure as much pain as possible to have their tendons (or whatever) stretched back to normal ranges. One of the most intensely painful experiences I ever experienced was having a cortisone shot in my shoulder. If I had taken the pain as a warning and pulled away, the the healing process would not have been initiated. (Before my doctor administered the shot, he said, "Now, this is not going to be one of the ten most pleasant experiences of your life.")

Pain is far more severe than it "needs" to be to serve as a warning function, but it is ideally suited for use by skilled torturers.

Consider what would happen if you never failed to get what you wanted.

Conventional wisdom has it that I would quickly go out of my mind with boredom. Maybe I would and maybe I wouldn’t, but in neither case can I see how it would have any effect on my self-awareness. You seem to think there is an obvious connection, but it is not obvious to me. You’re going to have to spell it out.

How is "reality didn't work as I expected" different form "that person's words did not work as I expected"? 9I mean for you to pick out relevant differences.

The difference that seems relevant to me lies in the primary purpose of each activity. The purpose of a scientific experiment is usually to test a hypothesis or theory. The purpose of linguistic activity is communication, which is the transmission of data from the mind of one person to the mind of another person. The purpose of an experiment is served whether or not the outcome is consistent with expectation. The purpose of communication is not served if the received data differ from the sent data.

If you go watch kids learning how to do something, they are not so embarrassed by failure.

DS: A counterexample from my own childhood came immediately to mind. I’d say it depends on the kid and the situation.

Which is the exception and which is the rule? And which way ought it be? Again, full-on pedantic mode is often not helpful.

I have not studied the phenomenon enough to have a useful answer, because it never crossed my mind that I might someday meet someone who believed that children were “not so embarrassed” by failure. If that actually is what you believe, then I don’t have the kind of evidence it would take to prove the contrary.

I challenge you to imagine up an alternative world that is compelling to us and yet does not have this property.

I don’t care whether a world without failure is possible or whether any of us would like to live in it if it were. Miscommunication is not a good thing. Can I prove that? I’m not going to bother trying, and you may use that refusal for any purpose to which you care to put it.

The one arguing against a dominant position has a greater responsibility. I know it doesn't seem fair, but it's how society works. It's how science works.

Fairness has nothing to do with it. Yes, that is how science works, and for a good reason. Most new ideas are wrong, and they are especially likely to be wrong when they dispute a well established consensus.

Mythicists have a lot of computer and internet technology they could leverage to their advantage.

And some have so leveraged it. Just about every scrap of evidence relevant to an understanding of Christianity’s origins is readily accessible to anyone who knows how to use a search engine.

Perhaps I take atheists too seriously when they say they form their beliefs only based on the empirical evidence?

If you’re just taking their word for it, I’d say you’re being naïve.

I'm torn on whether I ought to just take them at their word and poke & prod them when I see hypocrisy (including unintentional hypocrisy), or whether I should disbelieve their word and then treat them according to how I actually think they behave & believe. I am inclined to think that the former is more respectful.

I couldn’t quite parse all of that, but I think I perceived a missing of the point. When someone tells me that they believe some absurdity because “Hey, man, I’m just following the evidence wherever it goes,” I could not care less how consistent they are in their conformity to that standard. I’m just going to say, “Fine. Show me your evidence, and show me how it leads to where you say it goes.” Their hypocrisy, even if they are unarguably guilty of it, is irrelevant to the issue of whether their evidence does prove whatever they say it proves.

But do we see any sort of differential superiority—even a slight one?

I really don’t know, and I really don’t care. Perhaps, being as human as the next guy, I would care a great deal if I were convinced that the evidence was unequivocally on the atheist side, but I’m not even close to being convinced of anything like that. And, personal feelings aside, I know good and well that it would not make a bit of difference. Christianity either is or is not supported by the available evidence, and whichever is the case will be the case no matter whether Christians as a group or atheists as a group are better at conforming their beliefs to the evidence.

Christians must hold that there are normative implications of believing that empirical fact. That is, the must transgress the fact/value dichotomy in the deepest of ways.

If that is how you understand Jesus’ teaching, I’m in no position to tell you that it’s a misunderstanding. My not being a Christian, though, puts me in a perfect position to say I don’t believe it even if it was his teaching.

Did the Pharisees believe they were mere actors, though?

The gospel authors clamed that Jesus said they did, if I am correctly informed about the normal usage of hupokrites by first-century speakers of koine Greek.

I had a bad grease burn a few months ago. (I spilled hot bacon grease directly on my hand.) It occurs to me that the initial pain would have been enough for me to know to wash the grease off ASAP. However, my hand burned for the rest of the day and into the next. I'm not sure what purpose that extra pain served.

Also, you can have a burn so bad that it kills the pain receptors, so you don't feel pain anymore. I'm not sure how that fits into the "pain is good" paradigm.

How do you reconcile your first and last sentence? It seems like your are saying the opposite thing in the two sentences.

Let us get too the meat here.

>It is to a certain extent a subjective disposition, and by that I mean we all interpret and emphasis certain facts in a non-objective manner. Let's say we are talking about the PSR.
I find arguments for the PSR to be interesting and I understand why people are inclined to accept the PSR. At the same time, I don't find the arguments compelling and think the arguments against the PSR are stronger. You could disagree and we could both be acting rationally.

I reply:Except often part of my disagreement is with a point you brought up that I do find either incoherent or irrational & I often say why I think that. But I don't get an answer to it. If you can't answer fine but why challenge the position?

(BTW I read some of the past criticism of the PSR & the fallacies of equivocation are rampant. Feser said you can have epistemological brute facts but that metaphysical ones where incoherent & he made the case. But most of what I read conflated epistemological brute facts with metaphysical ones. It is a mess.)

>I am more than happy to tell you what I think about a particular premise, and I accept that you will have a counter-argument, but you often seem to expect me to write a lengthy comment on everything that I disagree with when I am just trying to focus on one or two points.

I reply: I don't see where I demand lengthy answers? I would settle for an answer on one or two points.....if only you would give them. As long as it's good and if it is not I will tell you why.

>I don't think that you are being irrational in believing in classical theism or that you are being incoherent, but I still think that you are wrong.

I reply: Why make this personal? Your attempted answers I might find irrational & incoherent for reasons I've given.

>Maybe I am being ambiguous,

Yep! I often think you are. Don't take it personally.

> but that is only because I don't want to type an answer to everything you bring up. I would completely reject the idea of it being feelings based. It is based on the acceptance or rejection of various premises.

I reply: Then shift the argument to the premises and give your reasons for them.

>See this is this the problem. You think you have the answer.

I reply: Of course! I reject any personal dogma you might have that I don't or can't have an answer. If the answer is wrong I need to know why?

> To answer your question: proofs of there only being one first cause instead of multiple first causes (that I have seen) have always made a logical error. If you have a proof of this that we can examine, I would be more than happy too.

I reply: Iggy you claim to have read Feser(& you know I have) then you must know I hold the first way. Why can't you just tell me what is wrong with the first way? Why beat around the bush. I am Agnostic toward the Kalam CA like him. So if your polemics are aimed at the later they are non-starters for me. I don't need to believe the Universe had to have a formal beginning to require a first cause. Does your unstated "logical problem" take into account accidental causal series (which can go back in time forever) vs essential causal series which logically must end in a single terminus to something metaphysically ultimate?

>So here is a disagreement that you and I would have about first cause God. I would say that philosopher God's actions are necessary. A necessary beings actions must also be necessary.

I reply: Maybe "a being's" (which is somehow necessary) actions would be necessary? Not sure about "Necessary Being Itself" except trivially. If (Classic)God wills X then He must do X by necessary(& there is no real distinction between His willing and doing) but nothing external to God can compel Him to will X and there is no passive potency in God made actual if He wills X & no composite mechanism in God moving His will to X. We might say God wills X as it flows from His divine intellect but they are only logically distinct not really distinct. So that is neither a composite mechanism nor passive potency moving his will. At best one might say because God is His Own Will God has to by necessity Will something but there is no necessity in God making that something X other then choosing from all eternity to will it. God could will other-then-X. If X is not necessary then it cannot compel God to will it but nothing prevents God from willing it not by necessity but gratuitously.

So I don't see how you can say God must by necessity create much less create any particular world? Good luck with that thought. BTW so we don't waste our time. If you discover a Theistic Personalist divinity must create by necessity I might agree (or not) but I also won't care since I am already an Atheist toward that "god".

>What exactly is the difference between imagining and conceiving?

Feser did mention this in the TLS. Maybe a re-read is in order? Anyway to quote his SCHOLASTIC METAPHYISCS where he cites Anscombie. "what Hume evidently has in mind is something like imagining a rabbit appearing, without imagining at the same time there being a parent rabbit around. But to imagine such a thing – that is to say, to form mental images of the sort in question – is simply not the same thing as to conceive something – that is to say, to grasp the abstracted, intelligible essence of a thing and determine what is possible for it given that essence.....strictly intellectual activity, which involves the grasp of concepts, is just irreducibly different from imagination, which involves the mere entertaining of mental images or phantasms. Concepts are abstract and universal in their reference, while mental images are concrete and particular. For instance, your concept triangle applies to every single triangle without exception, whereas a mental image of a triangle is always going to be specifically of an acute, obtuse, or right triangle, of a black, blue, or red triangle, and so forth. Concepts can also be determinate and unambiguous in a way no mental image can be."END

There is more but you will have to do your own research.

>Take a look at Mackie's formulation of the PoE. Can you tell me which premise requires that God is a moral agent?

I reply:Mackie says "If something is wholly good, it always eliminates as much evil as it can." Really? So Plato's Form of the Good would always eliminate evil? Any Platonist would laugh at that claim. Plato never made that claim. I might be drinking a wholly good draft of root beer. It may as a root beer be flawless in it's taste but are you saying it is not a good root beer because it didn't stop the holocaust?
( Mackie says God is "a being" who is wholly good. Well I and every Classic Theist says God is NOT "a being" at all. Go classic or go home).

The statement makes no sense unless one is postulating a wholly good moral being or wholly good moral action. God is wholly metaphysically and ontologically good but not morally good (except in the sense He is the source of the moral law or the Moral Law Itself).

Also by way of negative proof. Mackie is answering Theodicies made by Theistic philosophers, all too the man explicitly say God is morally perfect.
Especially Plantingia whom Davies quotes as saying that explicitly & Davies takes shots at the Free Will Argument in agreement with Mackie.

So there you are......

>I don't mind reading. I've already read summaries of Davies arguments.

I reply: Get some of the books too since he already addresses much of this and shows rather clearly all modern Theodicies presuppose a morally good God. A God who is a moral agent. Some anthropomorphic thing. I'll pass on such a "god".

>I would rather discuss actual philosophical issues than argue with you about whether interpretations are emotional and if everyone that disagrees with you is an irrational fundy atheist.

Fine but that doesn't mean I am going to find your argument rational.

I hold Philosopher Nick Tharakas anti-theodicy view.

It has always seemed striking to me that intense pleasure can be sustained only for only a very short period of time, but intense pain can last hours, days, weeks, and even years. There is such a thing as intractable pain but there is nothing comparable in terms of pleasure.

I always remember Rita Rudner saying: "I want to have children, but my friends scare me. One of my friends told me she was in labor for 36 hours. I don't even want to do anything that feels good for 36 hours."

It doesn’t have to be painful but there has to be an indicator of some sort. You can’t freely move without it or you might walk through fire or into walls. Your rational soul cannot guide you to avoid a pressure ulcer from endless hours of pleasure in front of your tv. So if it’s not painful what else would get your attention?