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truth15ful
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16 Jul 2013, 9:10 pm

adifferentname wrote:
neither good nor evil exist except in terms of human definition.

Precisely.
We as humans choose what we consider to be good and evil, and God does as well. But if we disagree about what is good and evil, who is in the position to make the better/more educated decision?
God created the world, which means He knows everything about it, as well as the purpose for everything He made, even the most evil things by our standards. Humans are simply moving parts in the grand mechanism that is our universe, rarely having more that a century of knowledge into the past and unable to look even a second into the future. And as for the purpose of creation, we have been seeking it for thousands of years and still cannot agree on a conclusion. It is clear that God has a better idea of good and evil than we do.
Now on to the question about Genesis:
Genesis 2:17 wrote:
but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.

After God said that, and after they ate from the tree anyway, God explained to them in no uncertain terms that everything was about to change. It would be difficult to grow things in the ground now, there would be pain in childbirth, and even their own minds would be corrupted with a lust for power over their partner. To people who have lived in a perfect world, perhaps this would be worse than any other physical death. Know also that the specific word God used for "surely die" was מוֹת תָּמוּת, basically two variations of the same word. Some people have said that this could mean something like "dying you will die" or "you will be dying" instead of "you will surely die." I wish I knew Hebrew enough to answer this question better, but unfortunately I don't.

P.S. Thank you all very much for listening to what I have to say and not just responding with something like "tl;dr but you're wrong anyway." :) I hope I've set the record straight on some things for you.



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16 Jul 2013, 11:59 pm

My main problem with christianity is the whole holy scapegoat thing. How is punishing the wrong person 'justice' in any sense of the word? What kind of law-maker would be satisfied with that?



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17 Jul 2013, 12:46 am

truth15ful wrote:
adifferentname wrote:
neither good nor evil exist except in terms of human definition.

Precisely.


I'd like to point out, before I go any further, that this example of quote-mining completely invalidates everything else you wrote - yet I'll respond out of courtesy.

Quote:
We as humans choose what we consider to be good and evil, and God does as well. But if we disagree about what is good and evil, who is in the position to make the better/more educated decision?

God created the world, which means He knows everything about it, as well as the purpose for everything He made, even the most evil things by our standards. Humans are simply moving parts in the grand mechanism that is our universe, rarely having more that a century of knowledge into the past and unable to look even a second into the future. And as for the purpose of creation, we have been seeking it for thousands of years and still cannot agree on a conclusion. It is clear that God has a better idea of good and evil than we do.


Your understanding of good and evil seems to revolve around the need to speak on behalf of a fictional character, hence undermining anything you might have to say on the subject. Unless you can establish proof of this character's existence, you do yourself a disservice by speaking in absolute terms regarding his or her knowledge of anything.

Good and evil are insubstantial human conceits that have no meaning except to the individual. In that regard, we are all equally poised to choose what definition we give to good and evil, based on the ethics and morality of society and our own peer groups, parents and forebears. We created the concepts of good and evil as a tool to aid in the creation of stable societies, with rules of behaviour that help preserve our position as the dominant species on Earth.

Your assertion that "God created the world" is another example of the anachronistic nature of all theist cults, and is also a good example of a problem I personally have with Christianity (as well as many other groups).

There is an arrogance about the irreversibly indoctrinated that leads them to make 'statements of fact' about 'God' that are in fact mere beliefs. If I were to do the same with (random example) leprechauns, you would pay my words no heed except, perhaps, as a reason to pick up the phone and call the nearest asylum. I'm going to edit that last quote just a little now, to show how it comes across from my perspective.

Quote:
We as humans choose what we consider to be good and evil, and THE LEPRECHAUNS do as well. But if we disagree about what is good and evil, who is in the position to make the better/more educated decision?

A RAINBOW COLOURED UNICORN created the world, which means THE LEPRECHAUNS know everything about it, as well as the purpose for everything THEIR FRIENDS, THE PIXIES made, even the most evil things by our standards. Humans are simply moving parts in the grand mechanism that is our universe, rarely having more that a century of knowledge into the past and unable to look even a second into the future. And as for the purpose of creation, we have been seeking it for thousands of years and still cannot agree on a conclusion. It is clear that ALL THE SMALL FOLK have a better idea of good and evil than we do.


I hope this demonstrates my point without offending.

Quote:
Now on to the question about Genesis:
Genesis 2:17 wrote:
but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.


After God said that, and after they ate from the tree anyway, God explained to them in no uncertain terms that everything was about to change. It would be difficult to grow things in the ground now, there would be pain in childbirth, and even their own minds would be corrupted with a lust for power over their partner. To people who have lived in a perfect world, perhaps this would be worse than any other physical death. Know also that the specific word God used for "surely die" was מוֹת תָּמוּת, basically two variations of the same word. Some people have said that this could mean something like "dying you will die" or "you will be dying" instead of "you will surely die." I wish I knew Hebrew enough to answer this question better, but unfortunately I don't.


But if we read Genesis in its entirety, especially in the context of the rest of the Bible, it becomes abundantly clear that Adam and Eve were stitched up by God from the very outset. As an omniscient being, the character 'God' would clearly be aware of where things were going. He deliberately created a pair of gullible beings who had no understanding of the concepts of 'right' or 'wrong', and who he knew would be so naive and uneducated as to follow any guidance given to them - even such guidance as offered by a snake with a suspicious ability to communicate vocally.

Either the snake is God, and every heinous act that he indulged in throughout the rest of the Bible (including genocide) are the petulant tantrums of a malicious child-like mind, or Genesis is a metaphor for beginnings - a philosophical observation on the dawning of enlightenment in the minds of human beings.

Needless to say, I tend towards the latter.

Quote:
P.S. Thank you all very much for listening to what I have to say and not just responding with something like "tl;dr but you're wrong anyway." :) I hope I've set the record straight on some things for you.


Honestly, "tl'dr but you're wrong anyway." is the default option for many non-theists due to the fact that, no matter how well-reasoned the argument, or how tenuous the belief, grossly indoctrinated theists will never be persuaded by anyone but themselves that their belief system is built upon very uncertain foundations. This is the key 'problem with Christianity' in the modern world.



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17 Jul 2013, 2:46 am

truth15ful wrote:
adifferentname wrote:
neither good nor evil exist except in terms of human definition.

Precisely.
We as humans choose what we consider to be good and evil, and God does as well. But if we disagree about what is good and evil, who is in the position to make the better/more educated decision?
...
It is clear that God has a better idea of good and evil than we do.

Since we have no idea what does 'good' and 'evil' mean, 'God has a better idea of good and evil' is just meaningless nonsense.



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17 Jul 2013, 5:16 am

adifferentname wrote:
MCalavera wrote:
truth15ful wrote:
2) It is a fallacy to say that God must not have the best intentions for us because there is evil in the world. This would be like saying that He must have the best intentions for us because there is good in the world; we can't focus on one and ignore the other. There is at least one reason to believe God wants the best for us: If He didn't, He wouldn't have created us in the first place.


I don't see how it is a fallacy. Disregarding the extreme likelihood that "good" and "evil" are both a matter of human opinion, if there is evil in the world, then one cannot say that God (assuming he exists) must therefore have the best intentions for us, as a world without evil is logically better than a world with evil.

If you believe that evil exists, then God does not have the best intentions for us.

If you believe that good exists, then it still doesn't mean that God has the best intentions for us because of the idea that evil still exists alongside good.


Just like 'God', neither good nor evil exist except in terms of human definition.


Yes, but you have to learn to play by the opponent's rules when debating Christian apologists.

Look what happened when you tried to argue strictly from a secular perspective.



FabianV
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17 Jul 2013, 7:14 am

Going to dissect this as exhaustively as I can:
1. Empirically there, as far as we know, has never been a phenomenon or object etc., that has necessitated supernatural explanation- ergo, no concrete empirical evidence for the existence of a deity exists that we know of.
2. It's called faith for a reason- It's all about believing it hard enough to make it true, because the truth is you can't observe god answering your prayers or anything like that.
The arguments:
1. The teleological/design argument:
The argument persists today, although natural selection has made the designer in Paley's argument unnecessary as far as explaining complexity in life is concerned. Often the argument is extended to the universe as a whole, either arguing that the mathematical constants are 'fine-tuned' to allow the existence of life and/or that the current state of the universe shows elements of design. The problem with both of these is that the universe is actually overwhelmingly chaotic and hostile to life.
The something that we have is an exception to the norm: indeed, our own planet is a mere mote of dust in comparison to even our own solar system, which is one amongst a galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars, which is one amongst billions of galaxies. The earth will become scorched and inhospitable to life within the next 1.5 billion years or so, the much larger andromeda galaxy is due to merge with our own in about 3.75 billion years, and the sun is due to expand and probably consume our planet in 5 billion years or so, before becoming a dying ember known as a white dwarf. Eventually the universe will peter out into nothingness due to its increasing entropy, if the universe is in fact stable and doesn't spontaneously destroy itself eons from now. Seems like an unfathomable amount of unnecessary excess if the universe was made with us in mind, surely? It's especially troublesome if the designer you believe in happens to be benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent, because the nature of the universe suggests said deity is lacking in one of those 3 traits.

2. The cosmological/first cause argument:
The basic gist of this argument is deterministic- That everything is necessarily caused by something else that preceded it. Assuming the premise to be true, the argument goes, it can be concluded that everything can be traced back to a first cause (or 'prime mover') from which everything else arose- Aristotle is the originator of the argument (though Thomas Aquinas later put the argument forward as one of his five 'proofs').
There are two problems with this. One is specific to theists in that, taking the argument for the existence of a first cause to be sound, nothing else can be inferred about the nature of said cause- it does not follow that it is a being of some kind, that it takes a special interest in humankind, or that it issues commandments or condemns extramarital sex, tells you what you're not allowed to eat, etc.
The other problem is with the argument itself. If everything is caused by something else, and you trace this back to a first cause, then obviously the first cause isn't caused by anything else- hence, the premises of the argument are violated. There is also no reason why the first cause has to be there- why can't there be an infinite causal chain, simply because it's inconceivable to the human intellect?



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17 Jul 2013, 8:05 am

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG5U5h6DjOY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoKb5sxaPII[/youtube]

language sound familiar? words sound familiar?

Who is that ?

Jesus, Moses, OMG, If only you knew it, If only you knew it, If only you knew, what's go'in on; broke his neck....

'He' is Titanium
one cannot kill 'him'
with empty words.

Those two artists sound nothing like each other in forward. Those songs are completely unrelated. And it is technically impossible to make that happen on purpose.

If one can't see that reality one can't see.

Please, if you will offer a 'rational' explanation now.

I don't expect to hear a response.

The response is in the music.


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17 Jul 2013, 10:19 am

You're joking, right?



edcop100
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17 Jul 2013, 10:33 am

Definetely want to address 1) and 2). The way I interpret the Fall is that Adam and Eve for whatever reason wanted to go off exploring like the prodigal son. What they wanted to explore was not so much the land outside the Garden of Eden, but the responsibility to choose good vs evil despite the fact that God warned them that they would surely die (it is as if God knew we would tend to choose the latter!).

Christ assumed our sins and became like the prodigal son when he left his throne in heaven, came to earth in a humble manger, and returned home to heaven scourged with a cross. Christ had to do this cause humanity would fail on its own. We can return to the Father through him. (Read Henri Nouwen's "Return of the Prodigal Son" for expansion of this analogy).

You are correct in seeing a world filled with suffering and defects, a world filled with evil deeds, and a world filled with those who never know Christ. To his believers-those who are consciously aware of the choice between good and evil- God grants us the opportunity to help out those who are suffering or those who do not know him yet. We chose responsibility in the garden when we ate the fruit, now each of us have unique responsibilities/purposes/crosses to fulfill on this earth such that we can work together under Christ to battle evil and love our neighbors. Not an easy task!! !!

That is why Christianity is so challenging- there is nothing, nothing more challenging than to love and love fully ourselves, our neighbors, and God.



Awesomelyglorious wrote:
*shrug*

Ok:

1) Despite how God is proclaimed as perfect and morally perfect, the world that exists is a world full of suffering and defects, often suffering that seems to have no point, and it is a world where these imperfections seem to have existed for all time. A perfect God seems implausible in the light of our psychological problems, our back pains from our evolutionary history, and earthquakes. We are certainly on the line where these changes will have a significant impact on well-being.

2) Despite how God is said to seek the salvation of all people, only a particular set of people who grew up in Christian households and who were taught this from birth, tend to be believers, and the rest of the world is to largely be damned by many standard Christian theologies. The issue being that these sorts of outcomes don't align well with any notion that people in hell are to be considered to have a real opportunity to develop a saving faith. Even worse, many of these individuals do seem to be concerned about the truth of their beliefs, and still find themselves in disagreement with the Christian claims.

3) The eternal nature of hell doesn't seem reasonable in light of a finite time on earth and transgressions by finite beings.

4) Penal Substitution Theory, a dominant theory of how mankind's salvation came about distorts all notions of justice, by having an innocent party pay for the crimes of a guilty party, which both involves punishing the innocent, but disconnecting those with guilt from their actual crimes. Any analogy for this will look horrendously absurd, and even unjust. http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0027/0027_01.asp

5) The divisions in the Christian church do not tend to look like a unified body guided by any supernatural agency so much as a feuding group of people who have had nothing to check whether they were right or wrong, and so the errors accumulated. Even further, Christians themselves do not seem as if they have been supernaturally touched to be better people, y'know, guided by the Holy Spirit, so much as ordinary people caught up in a rather strange belief system.

6) The holy book, the Bible does appear to have many errors and questions, even has not been saved from error during the existence of the church. So, during large sections of history, the Bible has had erroneous texts placed in it, such as the Comma Johanneum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma_Johanneum Which in modern bibles, except the KJV, is no longer included because it's considered to be an invalid insertion. The problem being that if the Holy Bible is man's guide to God, the fact that it couldn't be preserved from error, by say the Holy Spirit, leads us to question about whether God is watching over this holy text to preserve it from error. Our recognition of even earlier errors, errors that do not appear to be invalid insertions lead us to doubt as well:

Mat 27:3-8 Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, (4) saying, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." They said, "What is that to us? See to it yourself." (5) And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. (6) But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, "It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money." (7) So they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. (8 ) Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.

Act 1:16-19 "Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. (17) For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry." (18 ) (Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. (19) And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

So between those two verses and accounts, we have variations in who bought the field(priests or Judas), the reason for the name of the field(bought with blood money vs person died there), and even how Judas died(hung himself vs falling headlong and bursting open). Even if some of these seem settleable, not all of them do. The problem is that this undermines the extent to which we should believe the text was guided by God, and especially even the extent to which we should believe in any of the miracles in that text. This isn't to say that memory is perfect, or anything else, but rather that any account's reliability partially depends on whether it is checked for errors well, and... the Bible clearly has errors thrown in there.

7) The reasons for the Fall and divine rebellion. So, often it is said that Adam's free will caused the fall, but if that's the case, couldn't God have seen that outcome and created a context where a free willed Adam and a free willed Eve could have lived their lives out perfectly in the garden without a Fall? Couldn't free will coexist with the inability to choose bad, like it must in God, in Christ, and in those who die and go up into heaven? And if you don't believe in a literal Fall, then how can you reconstruct the narrative?

8 ) How does the Bible line up with our scientific knowledge? So, our scientific knowledge gives us reason to doubt the existence of a real free will: http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawfaculty/637/ . Our scientific knowledge gives us reason to believe that mankind ever had a population bottleneck at Eden or Noah's Flood as the smallest genetic bottleneck in our history is much much larger. http://biologos.org/blog/does-genetics- ... mal-couple And thus because of that, the standard telling of both accounts must be incorrect. Our scientific knowledge also gives us a lot of reason to suspect that our claims of miracles are just false positives created by cognitive bias, and where any detailed research will likely dispel such claims, even such that it seems like we can understand the world purely in terms of naturalism. If all we need is naturalism to understand the world, then why shouldn't we reject Christian supernaturalism?

-------------------------

Is that a good start?



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17 Jul 2013, 12:29 pm

LKL wrote:
My main problem with christianity is the whole holy scapegoat thing. How is punishing the wrong person 'justice' in any sense of the word? What kind of law-maker would be satisfied with that?

Remember that Jesus chose to pay for our sins. He was not forced to do it against His will. Otherwise yes, it would be terribly unjust.
Adifferentname: I'm not trying to prove Christianity by supposing that my God is real. I know how nonsensical that would be. I'm just trying to set the record straight on what we believe. I talk about God like He is real because we believe it. The only time I was trying to prove God's existence was in my numerology argument with AG.
Now for a problem with Christianity I've heard multiple times on here: Christians themselves.
Of course I am just one Christian, so there's little I can do or say about evil things other Christians have done in the past. But Nambo put it best when he said:
Nambo wrote:
Main problem I have with "Christianity" as practiced, as that its not Christianity, its Pagan Sun Worship that used Jesus name and gives true Christianity a bad name as it sweeps the world with the bloody sword of conversion and colonialism.

People often cite the the Crusades as an inherently Christian evil, but what many people don't know is that the Roman Catholic Church's government at the time of the Crusades was about the most fake version of Christianity ever. It was descended from Roman polytheism, which descended from Greek mythology, Persian mythology, and ultimately Babylonian mythology and the worship of Tammuz. More on that here (sorry AG:)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=221sYyagu2I&feature=share&list=PLCED9C361662866BD[/youtube]
But at the lower levels of the church, where the non-governmental and non-military work was being done, there was most likely alot of sincere, albeit misguided, Christians. Christians in many places were the pioneers of hospitals, schools, and the end of things like infanticide and child abandonment.
By the way, there is definitely a distinction between real and fake Christianity, and there are people on both sides. This distinction lies in the Trinity - the real one, Father, Son, and Spirit, not the pagan one, with Father, Mother, and Son. Let me lay out the most basic and essential beliefs of Christianity.
1) God the Father. He created human beings and gave us a law explaining what was right and wrong. We did what was wrong. Actions have conequences.
2) God the Son. He took the consequences for Himself. He did it willingly, He did it once, and He did it for eternity.
Truth15ful wrote:
It would be just of him to leave us all in Hell; we would feel right at home there. But God gave us a chance to be spared from all of that. He didn't have to, but He did it because He had a purpose for us. He didn't want to just throw us away.

3) God the Spirit. He is what mitigates the effect of sin within us. Without Him, we would not accept the salvation we were given. He brings us closer to perfection. Sometimes a lot, sometimes hardly at all. After all, we're still sinful.



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17 Jul 2013, 1:25 pm

edcop100 wrote:
Definetely want to address 1) and 2). The way I interpret the Fall is that Adam and Eve for whatever reason wanted to go off exploring like the prodigal son. What they wanted to explore was not so much the land outside the Garden of Eden, but the responsibility to choose good vs evil despite the fact that God warned them that they would surely die (it is as if God knew we would tend to choose the latter!).

I'd like to point out that I already have pointed out that Adam and Eve could not be historical people. We have multiple lines of genetic evidence that would have had to be intentionally falsified for us to fail to recognize that all human beings came from the same 2 people, or just Noah and his family.

Quote:
Christ assumed our sins and became like the prodigal son when he left his throne in heaven, came to earth in a humble manger, and returned home to heaven scourged with a cross. Christ had to do this cause humanity would fail on its own. We can return to the Father through him. (Read Henri Nouwen's "Return of the Prodigal Son" for expansion of this analogy).

Which goes into point 4). Penal Substitution does not appear to work or make sense. LKL points out the same thing.

Quote:
You are correct in seeing a world filled with suffering and defects, a world filled with evil deeds, and a world filled with those who never know Christ. To his believers-those who are consciously aware of the choice between good and evil- God grants us the opportunity to help out those who are suffering or those who do not know him yet. We chose responsibility in the garden when we ate the fruit, now each of us have unique responsibilities/purposes/crosses to fulfill on this earth such that we can work together under Christ to battle evil and love our neighbors. Not an easy task!! !!

The use of "we" seems odd as nobody alive chose the fruit.



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17 Jul 2013, 2:37 pm

truth15ful wrote:
Hi everyone,
There are a lot of misconceptions about religion and especially about Christianity. I'd like to see if I can set the record straight. So this thread is for you guys to post any problems or objections to Christianity, and I'll try to answer them the best I can.


Problem #1: The Bible is a work of fiction. Any school of thought or institution that tries to ascribe to it any more credence than that I have a big problem with. Its deceptive, and tries to get people to live their lives according to a meaningless work of fiction

Problem #2: There are many Christians who, in one form or another, presume to speak for god. Unless god has appeared to them personally and told them so, no one can know what god wants, or what he thinks, or if he even exists.

Problem #3: Mass, mass inconsistencies between the way Christians behave and what the Bible says to behave. Love thy neighbor, but start wars all of the time? Love your fellow man, but hate gay people? Be charitable, but defund food stamps? Don't covet thy neighbor's wife, but its ok to covet the young children of your congregation?



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17 Jul 2013, 3:37 pm

FabianV wrote:
You're joking, right?


I'm just reporting what I see. I'm not suggesting it is proof of anything. It is something to stretch the boundaries of your mind. If you want to stretch them much further visit my katie mia revelation 66. Click on the Blog link below or Google search will work.

There is something out there. Labels can be a barrier if one is cynical of the positive or fears the negative. It is the roadblock to true will and enlightenment. If there is any hate in heart the path is almost impossible to follow.

I'm trying to help people find their imagination and light. As a very logic oriented individual it was extremely hard for me to do. However, I feel like if I could find it with a 195 on the Aspie Quiz, almost anyone here could too.

There is nothing wrong with the logical side of my mind; you can explore the first part of my blog to see I could easily pass for a research scientist.


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17 Jul 2013, 4:18 pm

MCalavera wrote:
truth15ful wrote:
2) It is a fallacy to say that God must not have the best intentions for us because there is evil in the world. This would be like saying that He must have the best intentions for us because there is good in the world; we can't focus on one and ignore the other. There is at least one reason to believe God wants the best for us: If He didn't, He wouldn't have created us in the first place.


I don't see how it is a fallacy. Disregarding the extreme likelihood that "good" and "evil" are both a matter of human opinion, if there is evil in the world, then one cannot say that God (assuming he exists) must therefore have the best intentions for us, as a world without evil is logically better than a world with evil.

If you believe that evil exists, then God does not have the best intentions for us.

If you believe that good exists, then it still doesn't mean that God has the best intentions for us because of the idea that evil still exists alongside good.


Imagine that a house has been built and one of the citizens commits suicide by jumping out of the window. Was the house built with malintent? No, but the option of carrying out said act was always there - it was not intended that one do it however.

I'd like you to explain to me why a world without evil is "logically" better than one with evil. I'm also curious when a world is good and when it is bad (purely in imagination for argument's sake). Your conclusions do not follow unless you build that long bridge, and seem very emotional in nature (not sure if I've told you this before as we interacted some time ago on some of the same topics, but this isn't the first time I feel this when I go through the steps outlined and proposed in your posts).

If you claim to develop the opposition's arguments (as if to reduce them ad absurdum), consider that many religious people see that God takes an active part in guiding them towards the good and away from the evil (by the way, I do not know if your definitions of 'good' and 'evil' have anything in common with any particular religious concepts of such), including but not limited to life lessons, sending the right people to show right examples and pointing to some informations, emotions and realisations. The new atheist "God created me to burn in hell in eternity (again, how does a new atheist understand the concept of eternity by being a new atheist and how insightful can a claim involving this concept could therefore be?) therefore there can be no God/one worth following" is a bit exaggerated, I find, and rather silly to my ears even.



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17 Jul 2013, 5:59 pm

MCalavera wrote:

Yes, but you have to learn to play by the opponent's rules when debating Christian apologists.

Look what happened when you tried to argue strictly from a secular perspective.


There is no debate here. That we still pander to the theist cults, rather than treating their members for their delusional beliefs, will forever remain the true mystery.



Bitoku
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17 Jul 2013, 6:10 pm

I'd like to address the question of how can there be evil in the world according to Christianity, because I've thought about this issue a lot. Here's my concludions...

God didn't create evil directly, he only gave us free will, which by definition gives us access to potentially do evil things.
Think about the non-human animal world. A male tiger will sometimes kill off the offspring of another tiger and then take over its territory. This would be considered excessively evil if a person does it. But if a tiger does it, we don't call it evil. The conclusion I see here is:
a) Humans have free will (and by free will I basically mean our ability to choose to act against our instinctual urges).
b) Other animals don't have free will.
c) Free will is required in order to do evil.
d) Therefore, humans can commit evil, but other animals cannot.

This establishes that evil basically comes along as a potential side effect from having free will. But we tend to consider free will itself a good thing to have, rather than bad or evil. From this we can say that God created free will in us (which is good), which in turn allowed for the possibility of us doing evil (which is bad).

This effectively breaks any direct link between God and evil... let's work out the final details here.
a) Every human has the potential to do evil, due to having free will.
b) God could theoretically also do evil, because God also has his own free will. But it just happens that God never actually does anything evil.
c) Evil done by a human's free will is caused by the human doing it, and is the responsibility of that human.
d) God would be responsible for any free will that he does, but as point (b) states, he never actually does evil.
e) God is not responsible for a human's act of evil, just as humans wouldn't be responsible if God did something evil. Each entity's free will causes its own effects independendly of any other entity's free will's effects.

Therefore, we can see now how people can be evil without leading to a causal chain resulting in God having done any evil, even if people were ultimately created by God.

For a sci-fi parallel example, consider in the Terminator series that Skynet acting evil does not necessarily lead to Skynet's creators being evil.