Free-will and Atheism

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The objections haven't been answered, they've been avoided or non sequitured. The only people who consider them answered are the same people doing the avoiding or non-sequituring. Drake's argument for instance is a great example of an argument that has not been refuted, neither has the original argument by Epicurus from 2300 years ago. Apologists have merely come up with ad hoc solutions (god works in mysterious ways, god is too great to know etc) or changed the definition of God, however, the Christian God must be a maximally great being but such a being cannot exist. That us unless God is "omniummune" to paradoxes and contradictions.

If God is omniscient, he would at the time of creation know everything that would ever happen in his creation, therefore there is no self-determination.

If God is not omniscient then there could be a degree of self-determination provided that it is consistent with the remainder of the description of said God.

Or, one can realize how completely absurd this is and just not pay any attention to this theism nonsense

The reason I became an atheist was/is simple: If God truly exists, then where is the proof?

My Christian parents would say that proof is in the beauty of nature or the complexity of the animal kingdom.

That we were put here on earth "for a reason," and not just by pure chance.

Assuming we were put here on earth for a reason, the question still remains: What is that reason?

Assuming I am standing on solid ground for a reason because my creator willed me to do something great baffles my mind.

Did he will me to have autism and suffer all throughout high school? Through elementary school? Through life?

I view myself as simply doing my part in whatever I choose to do my part in. Politics, business, etc.

We are not "chosen" to do anything. Should we not have the freewill to decide for ourselves how to live, as opposed to sitting in the church pew every Sunday being lectured to? And yet, many people the world over profess to being highly religious, as religion brings hope to an otherwise dark world. However, should we not be striving instead to change that dark world, to mold it into a brighter world, a better world? My part on this earth is writing. And through writing I seek to do something to help change the world.

God didn't say I had to do what I want to do. I willed it. I rose to the occasion despite all trials before me. I steeled myself during hard times, softened myself during easier times, to ultimately do something besides sit in church all day.

Goodness gracious, I sound like a philosopher!

The point is to choose your own path, and to take advantage of everything you've got at your disposal in order to live a happy life.

Do we really need God?

Ok, but what you're essentially doing here is opposing a subjective human opinion on the nature of God. You merely dislike what God has done. You haven't determined whether God might have had a good reason to do various things. You might be assuming that the children didn't know better. If that is true, then they aren't being punished for their actions, but rather suffering because of their parents since their parents SHOULD have taught them better and apparently didn't. For all we know, the parents might even have done the same thing and the children learned the behavior from them. Ultimately it is the parents who are being punished, not innocent children in the hopes that the whole community will repent. (If it were the children being punished--and they WERE in the wrong and it is appropriate to punish them--then they'd have had some kind of warning and lingering discipline such as plague, etc. that would call them to correct their behavior). According to OT parenting wisdom derived from law and wisdom literature, parents are called to discipline their children through any necessary means precisely so their children will NOT face judgment. The lesson here is that if parents don't discipline their children, then God will--and remember that the penalty for sin is death.

My take on that incident is that the children were old enough to know better, mostly likely teenagers and young adults who rightly could have been held accountable for their own actions. Since Israel and Judah were originally set apart to be a theocracy under Yahweh's rule, offenses against Yahweh's priests and prophets are not disproportionately punished by death. If there is no one to punish the unrepentant under the law, then God alone is left to punish those who do evil. Now, granted the teenager/young adult interpretation of children in this instance is my interpretation based on what I believe to be the best likelihood when compared with other scriptures. I could be wrong on the age of the kids, but the underlying principles are no different when applied to any age.


No. God often forgives and relents from severe punishment. Moses knew better in the wilderness and was held to a higher standard above reproach than others in Israel, yet his disobedience on what might seem a trivial matter resulted in his death in the wilderness instead of in Canaan. Being who he was, God certainly could have killed him.


But they aren't mutually exclusive.


Why should it be any other way?


According to YOU, though. I'm not trying to be condescending or confrontational, btw... I'm only trying to point out that this judgment you have against God only runs in one direction.


All sin separates man from God. What Jesus offers is a means of reconciliation. It doesn't free anyone from temporal circumstances, but it does offer hope since ultimately what is most important is everyone has a chance no matter how awful they've been in life.


Well, this is, again, from a purely human perspective. You should note that OT application of lex talionis is remarkably similar to justice in contemporary western society and also remarkably merciful in comparison to other ancient systems. Of particular interest is sectarian differences in interpretation. The prevailing view was the Pharisaic one which resembled modern approaches to repaying an equivalent for an injury to a person or his property, while the Sadducee interpretation was much strictly literal in "eye-for-an-eye." Torah plainly lays the foundation in support of the Pharisees, and Jesus once even remarked that the Sadducees don't know scripture.


Nope. The question is "in who does the believer place his faith?" You don't have to memorize one single verse of scripture to get this one right. All you have to do is believe that your sins are atoned for in the person of Jesus and that Jesus has the power to rescue from sin. Probably the most difficult part is admitting that you are a sinner in need of God's grace, but getting from that point to the next is fairly easy. Now...if you need evidence for Jesus being the Son of God and the rightful sacrifice for the atonement of all, you'll want to read the Bible and make up your own mind from the testimony of those who experienced Jesus firsthand. But "how good" you are or "how much you love God" will always be insufficient for salvation. I'm always amazed that there are people, even some believers themselves, who misunderstand the path to salvation.


That all inherit a sinful nature and are destined for eternal separation from God is just a commentary on the realities of a creation that has fallen from grace. That a Way is provided by which mankind CAN become reconciled with God if he chooses to be reconciled speaks volumes for God's mercy and patience.

Seriously? The Epicurean argument is long dead. We can safely put that one to rest. Any counterargument that shows that the existence of sin or evil and God are compatible is a hammer that drives more nails into the Epicurean coffin.

Y'know, Angel, I'd had a lot of respect for the position you've been arguing from right up until you just tried to justify killing a bunch of people for verbally mocking a prophet. I'm out of this thread, and I'm done.

The Epicurean argument holds as it always has done. If God is perfectly Good, then evil does not exist, seeing as "perfectly good" is synonymous with "absolutely good". You cannot show that evil/sin is compatible with God unless you depart from the descriptions of God that actually makes he/she/it God or create conditionals such as "Any act done by God is by definition good".

Not dead at all, despite numerous attempts. It would indeed be dead if any such counterargument had been successfully made, but none has. Any "success" so far has been by shifting definitions, otherwise known as cheating.



Hallelujah!

The Epicurean argument does NOT hold. All a responder has to do is invoke theodicy and the Epicurean argument dies. This is nothing new for a believer. The Epicurean argument is just another "problem of evil" argument, and they are all dealt with once someone points out God's justice. Really, justice tempered with mercy is symbolized in the OT by the ark of the covenant by having the mercy seat placed OVER the law.

But...even simpler than that...all judgements I've seen lately against God are entirely one-sided--that is, ONLY taken from the perspective of mankind. The Bible holds that it is mankind that is sinful by nature. The hidden assumption is that man's judgments are superior to God's judgments. If you ask me, this is the first step towards sin in the Garden of Eden in which mankind takes the fruit of the tree of death in an attempt to improve on creation and rise above God, never minding the fact that any attempt to improve on perfection is to introduce a flaw AND express dissatisfaction with what God has already done. No argument that places the judgements of a fallen creature over those of the Creator will succeed.

What I find interesting is that the way in which the arguments are presented effectively blame God for all the ills of the world--ills originating from the hearts and minds of mankind. It's fascinating because of the Biblical principle that God is ultimately responsible for all of creation--whether the deed is directly committed by God or the deed is committed by man under God's purview. Though God is not obligated to take the blame, the death of Jesus on the cross does represent God's willingness to take the blame anyway. "Blaming God" is no longer necessary, but unfortunately it will continue for as long as a fallen creation cannot accept where the blame truly lies.

I would say my definition of God is fairly consistent, but I will also admit that my interests in theology are more the "Everyday Joe" kinds of interest and that I'm particularly weak in areas of philosophy. It's when areas of philosophy and Christian theology intersect such as with "problem of evil" arguments that I really start paying attention.

I think the accusation of shifting definitions being cheating is somewhat unjust, though. I do see your point. However, if you accuse a Christian of not thinking or intellectual dishonesty, point out the holes in the arguments, and the Christian has a deeper understanding of who and what God is and accordingly adjusts his position, would that not be evidence that the Christian is honestly trying? Maybe not for the sake of one failed argument, but perhaps for future arguments?

Many Christians believe in "progressive revelation," and there is Biblical evidence to back that up. The OT concept of "Sheol" evolved from "the grave" or "the pit" to an overarching realm of the dead analogous to the Greek "Hades" to a distinct paradise on one side and a distinct place of eternal banishment on the other by the time you get to the NT. The prophet Isaiah referred to Torah and a new covenant as one superseding the other, suggesting that a number of Torah mandates were never meant to be "set in stone" mandates. The Catholic church and the Orthodox church basically owned Christianity for over a thousand years until a few theologians and lay people found the courage to oppose it--and even the Catholic church had to revise its own practices to reflect the reality of its loss of control over the faithful and its fall from political power. Even the SBC (my denomination) has had to come to grips with its roots in promoting black slavery, poor civil rights record in the mid-1900s, and the present-day so-called "worship wars" (present in most non-Pentecostal denominations, incidentally) representing shifting attitudes towards relevance vs. reverence. We don't always get it right, and we are aware of that. So does it not make sense that we should adjust definitions as we come to a better understanding?

OR is it that the other side would prefer we stay ignorant? It would appear that the other side is holding us to a higher standard than they hold themselves.

So, in other words one redefines "omni-benevolent" to "Just and merciful" I think that's essentially what Thom referred to as cheating. It's not a matter of "blaming" God, its a matter of telling believers "Here is what your doctrine says about your god, here is what we observe in the world, therefore your god does not exist." You can't blame something that doesn't exist for something.

Theodicy fails because if God is omniscient there is no such thing as free will. It's what happens when one tries to find a solution which works with one of the statements in the problem of evil, yet then falls to another one. If God can prevent all evil, knows all evil, yet does not prevent evil, then why call him god?

Funny, don't you remember? He became mortal so we could KILL him. That would moral accountability, wouldn't it?

Well, ok, in what sense is God all-loving? If we're talking about all-loving in the sense that God loves all people He made in His image, then sure. But God is not all-loving in relation to the behaviors that creation may often exhibit. To use a familiar cliche, God hates the sin, not the sinner. To say whether God is omni-benevolent will depend upon which sense one uses the term--but, of course, merely "saying" what God is or isn't cannot change the actual reality of God. The matter of telling believers your reason for God not existing on certain observations doesn't negate God. I'm aware that if God doesn't exist, He can't carry any blame; however the argument here is "If God exists..." and not "if God doesn't exist." Even the Epicurean argument is not necessarily a disproof of God but more of a commentary on why anyone would want anything to do with God given the problem of evil. In effect, what we're saying here is "if God exists, He's an evil jerk." It is a systematic blame game and little more than that.

Theodicy is not really all that concerned with free-will, so I'm not sure what your point is here. The biggest challenge to your idea here is that while God is omniscient and while created order MUST ultimately be deterministically conformed to God's will--such as when Joseph said "What you intended for evil, God intended it for good..."--it doesn't follow that man is also omniscient. If mankind was all-knowing just as God is all-knowing, then he would not have a will of his own. Just because God knows the future does not mean that man does, and because man does not know the future he cannot be excused from making choices whether for good or for evil. And because God is perfect and man is not, man cannot be excused from making the wrong choices.

Whether man is free or not--and even the Bible informs us that we are either servants of God or slaves to sin--we at least get to choose which master we serve. On that note:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdnlGCEsyR8&list=UUbTr-Rk5QlcZKiEus3_iJ5w&index=8&feature=plcp[/youtube]

You've line up a lot of words but they only make sense to someone who already believes. Not particularly compelling.



Okay.

Ever heard of a calendar? Stupid dinosaur...you made me laugh though dinosaur so I will not eat you.