Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)

Ciaran0

PDN wrote: »

As a one-off event, it would seem, from my less than omniscient standpoint, to be a good thing.

However, we need to consider that miracles, by their very nature, are rare events. If miracles occurred every day then the world would become a very much more unpredictable and confusing place. Remember that modern science developed, for the most part, because theists were convinced that God was a God of order who had arranged the universe to run according to regular patterns.

Why doesn't he just alter a weather system a little bit so there's a bit more rain where it's needed? It'd be a once off thing, wouldn't need to happen again. Shouldn't upset the scientists too much. If he really is as good as is claimed he'd be able to make the scientists the knew what was going on and not mess up the planet. I can imagine it surely he should be able for it.

ISAW

nickcave wrote: »

Not sure what this is implying - you'll have to expand on it. What do you see a non-theistic civilisation as being like?

We have had some historic examples of the "There is No god" societies

https://groups.google.com/group/alt.agnosticism/msg/e34e7fbb21091a39?hl=en&dmode=source

All kinds of creation stories and myths, have come and gone,
what distinguishes the worlds great religions is that they provide
sets of spiritual values which inspire create and sustain civilisation,
evolve it's social, scientific, mathematical, artistic, medical and
philosophical understandings and so we see, as a result of this long
slow transformation of humanity, the free, open, progressive,
scientific, tolerant, pluralist, intellectual, secular democracies
created by MAJORITY RELIGIOUS societies!

Not ONE of them produced by an atheist regime
...
Historically, atheism is a FAILED HYPOTHESIS, there is NO EVIDENCE
for it's efficacy whatsoever.. It is majority religious societies
which have produced every one of the decent democracies in which
even you atheist choose to live!
...
Most elected representatives are, like the population they
represent, imbued with spiritual values from the religions
they were brough up with.

The majority of the 10 commandments are embodied now in SECULAR LAW.

The president of the USA is sworn in ON A BIBLE..

Atheists blinker themselves to the FACTS so that their delusions
about their own importance are not shattered by REALITY:


... the largest Muslim nation is a secular democracy,
Indonesia, who have been far more successful in removing Islamofascist
terror than the West has been! Jemaah Islamiyah has been smashed!


Name ONE secular democracy that has been created by an ATHEIST state?

They have all been TYRANNIES.

All the secular states which even you atheists CHOOSE To LIVE IN,
are inspired, built and sustained by MAJORITY RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES.

When will you atheist parasites at least show a little GRATITUDE to
them?
...
Unfortunately all your comrades who believed that found the atheist
regimes cure FAR WORSE than the 'disease'. 70,000,000 people died in
the Union of Savage Slaughter and Repression, Mao's Great Leap Backwards
and Cultural Devolution .. far mor than ANY religion in history, and
those atheist tyrannies occurred in the 'modern' era,
when religious societies had evolved secular democracies and left the
medieval barbarism behind
"Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism."
-Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)

"We must combat religion"
-Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)

“Down with religion and long live atheism;
the dissemination of atheist views is our chief task!â€
- Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)

"Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism."
- Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)


"How can you make a revolution without firing squads?"
- Lenin

Ciaran0

ISAW wrote: »

We have had some historic examples of the "There is No god" societies

Are you all there?! Atheism isn't a way of running a country. It hasn't anything to do with communism or dictatorships. It is simply the rejection of the Idea that there is a god.

A = without
Theism = The belief in god through religion
Atheism = Without religion or god

It's very simple. You do know God doesn't run our countries?

recedite

ISAW wrote: »

In other words the laws of physics are "designed" to such a way so as to allow human beings to evolve.

Soul Winner wrote: »

The most basic constituents of life (amino acids) coming together in a structured and ordered way in order to make up the proteins that carry out all the many varied functions of the most basic cell. These guys aren't striving to survive. They have function and purpose and when they've completed their purpose

Anthropomorphic proteins with purpose, and the laws of physics tailor-made especially for our needs.
Some wacky science on display this evening!

PDN

Ciaran0 wrote: »

Why doesn't he just alter a weather system a little bit so there's a bit more rain where it's needed? It'd be a once off thing, wouldn't need to happen again. Shouldn't upset the scientists too much. If he really is as good as is claimed he'd be able to make the scientists the knew what was going on and not mess up the planet. I can imagine it surely he should be able for it.

And how do you know that He hasn't? How do you know that our continued existence as a species is not already a result of such an intervention?

And scientists do know how to avoid messing up the planet. But unfortunately those scientists aren't in the position to act upon their knowledge. Why? Because we as human beings, by our votes and our buying habits, have given power to those who don't care if they mess up the planet or not. Choices and consequences.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

It seems preferable to us - although that is far saying that it is actually better.

It is not relevant whether it is better or not, the question is can it happen and maintain humans with free will, or whether it would require us all to be robots.

PDN wrote: »

But you seem to have shifted ground here. Are you now agreeing that the real issue is the amount of suffering, not the actual existence of suffering?

The real issue is whether the universe has to be the way it is, including the suffering humans face, in order to allow us to have free will.

I say real issue but of course this has always been the issue despite the little rabbit holes you seem to rather go down.

PDN wrote: »

No, it is entirely reasonable that the amount of moral choices we can make are limited to some degree. For example, it would not be good for me to have the choice, by an act of my will, to condemn the entire human race (except me) to be grated and rolled in salt.

Nobody is arguing that we should have unlimited moral choices, nor do I think anyone would want that. But that is a very different thing to saying that we should therefore have no moral choices.

No one mentioned moral choices until you did. The question is of free will. If God removed suffering from the universe (ie made the universe in such a way that suffering was not possible given the natural laws of the universe) would this remove our free will and make us all mindless robots.

No is the answer. We would have the same situation we have no, free will to choose only between the options God makes physical available to us.

PDN wrote: »

My own thinking is that there is a moral/free will Goldilocks Zone that makes life worth living for humanity. We avoid the extremes of unfettered freedom (which would entail unfettered suffering) and of zero freedom (which would involve no suffering). Most of us, I think, would want to be somewhere in between the two. We want there to be limits on how much suffering we can inflict on others (or, more accurately, on how much suffering they can inflict upon us) and we still want the freedom to make moral choices - to love.

You are supposing a straw man notion of what I'm saying. The freedom to love could exist in a universe without suffering.

PDN wrote: »

That is a choice, but not a moral choice. It's a blue shirt/red shirt choice. You have removed any element of morality.

I've removed the ability to harm others. I've no problem removing this because the ability to harm others is not necessary in order to have free will, any more than the ability to teleport to the moon is necessary to have free will.

If you want to suppose that God has to provide this universe were we can cause suffering to others because he has to provide a universe where we can choose to immorally harm people if we want, you can. But that unconnected to free will.

PDN wrote: »

I think it may well be self-contradictory if you are supposing a universe where no action has any adverse consequence, even to the slightest degree.

Ok. You can keep asserting that but without a reason why that is the case we aren't going to get very far.

PDN wrote: »

I'm not shifting the goal posts. All along I've been talking about making moral choices.

What do you mean all along. You entered my discussion with TQE like 2 pages ago, and stated that I had not explained my position, I had just asserted it. And that discussion was on the issue of free will.

PDN wrote: »

I don't think any of us would really choose to live in a world where our only choices were of the red shirt/blue shirt variety.

Well first of all they wouldn't be our only choices (see straw man comment above).

Secondly I think many people would happily live in a universe where it was impossible for them to feel pain or to suffer. You suppose that they would lose all these nice things like happiness and love. There seems no reason to suppose this, and you certainly have not yet presented one.

PDN wrote: »

And it's a lot harder to kill your neighbour with a knife than it is to pick your nose.

That's why I pointed out that terms such as 'easy' are relative.

I would disagree with that actually, but it is some what ignoring the point. By hard I meant that God could have made it so that most people gave up before attempting it (see Chris Rock's sketch on making bullets $5,000 each to cut down on gun crime)

PDN wrote: »

That all depends on what tasks you are comparing it with. Again, that's what 'relative' means. Look it up in a dictionary if you don't believe me.

I think it is pretty well understood that some things are considered easy and some things are considered hard, and some things are considered very hard. You seem to be just obfuscating the point now. I suspect we are building up to a "Who are you to judge God" argument.

Zombrex

recedite wrote: »

Anthropomorphic proteins with purpose, and the laws of physics tailor-made especially for our needs.
Some wacky science on display this evening!

It is funny how the universe is fine tuned for life, yet simultaneously life is so unlikely it must have required divine intervention on the part of God.

PDN

Zombrex wrote: »

What do you mean all along. You entered my discussion with TQE like 2 pages ago, and stated that I had not explained my position, I had just asserted it. And that discussion was on the issue of free will.

That's fine, but I wonder why you're bothering trying to discuss it on a Christianity Forum then?

The 'Free Will Defence' as used by Christians in regards to the Existence of Evil has always been about the freewill to make meaningful moral choices.

If you want to prattle on about a free will that has no more moral significance than whether to wear different coloured shirts, then I seriously question whether another forum would not be more suitable. Because I fail to see what relevance that has to Christian beliefs - which is the point of this Forum. If you think that our preference to discuss issues that are actually relevant to Christianity are rabbit holes, then I think you're probably just wasting everyone's time.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

That's fine, but I wonder why you're bothering trying to discuss it on a Christianity Forum then?

The 'Free Will Defence' as used by Christians in regards to the Existence of Evil has always been about the freewill to make meaningful moral choices.

Not any of the ones I've encountered (it would be even more silly it if was). The argument has been that it would turn us all into robots who would just do as we are told but would have no free will to make choices.

In a universe with out the ability to cause suffering to each other (ie make an immoral action), we would still retain free will, we would still retain choice, we would still retain the ability to experience joy, love, happiness etc.

Thus the argument that God has to allow the ability to cause suffering in order to provide us a universe where we can experience all these things, is illogical.

PDN wrote: »

If you want to prattle on about a free will that has no more moral significance than whether to wear different coloured shirts, then I seriously question whether another forum would not be more suitable.

I've no idea what you think you mean by moral significance. Personal I'm very happy I have the option to choose what colored shirt I wear, but you appear to be suggesting that in such a world we would not experience any joy (perhaps you don't enjoy picking your own clothes).

There is of course no reason to suppose this. All the positive experiences of our existence would still exist in such a universe.

You would certainly, by definition, lose the ability to choose to be immoral since being immoral would be physically impossible. But aside from losing that ability this has no knock on consequences for anything else. It would not remove our free will, it would not remove our choice, it would not remove our experience of love or happiness.

So if you want to argue God can't do this because we would lose the ability to burn each other to death you can, but that is not the discussion I've had with any of the other Christians who unsurprisingly don't think burning people to death is a virtue that needs to be protected. They focus on the lose of free will, the lose of choice, the turning of us into robots who cannot choose or be happy. We would lose none of that.

PDN

Zombrex wrote: »

but that is not the discussion I've had with any of the other Christians who unsurprisingly don't think burning people to death is a virtue that needs to be protected.

No-one has claimed that burning people to death is a virtue that needs to be protected.

New name, same old Wicknight up to his usual tricks and misrepresentation.

Fanny Cradock

Zombrex wrote: »

It is funny how the universe is fine tuned for life, yet simultaneously life is so unlikely it must have required divine intervention on the part of God.

I don't find it amusing. It seems to me that you are conflating two different arguments. One argument is about various physical constants that allow for things like stars to form. The other argument, not held by all Christians I might add, is that life required some type of kick-start. The only time the two arguments intersect, at least as far as I can see, is that when life began the conditions on this particular ball of rock were such that it allowed life to flourish.

Zombrex wrote: »

So if you want to argue God can't do this because we would lose the ability to burn each other to death you can, but that is not the discussion I've had with any of the other Christians who unsurprisingly don't think burning people to death is a virtue that needs to be protected.

I'm nipping into this thread so perhaps I've missed it. Who suggested otherwise? I assume that if they did then they would either be ignored or condemned by all and sundry.

===

On anther note, one possible issue with the notion of free will is when we consider new creation. (Some people think of this as heaven but I'm talking about what happens after heaven. Its a concept found throughout the NT. Check it out.) If there is to be no more sin - which I will roughly define as rebellion against God - then do we loose part of our free will? In other words, if we are to say that free will depends in some way on the ability to choose good and evil then what of our free will in an existence that has destroyed evil?

PDN

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

On anther note, one possible issue with the notion of free will is when we consider new creation. (Some people think of this as heaven but I'm talking about what happens after heaven. Its a concept found throughout the NT. Check it out.) If there is to be no more sin - which I will roughly define as rebellion against God - then do we loose part of our free will? In other words, if we are to say that free will depends in some way on the ability to choose good and evil then what of our free will in an existence that has destroyed evil?

That's a very good point, and one which has been raised before. (Incidentally, the fact that it has been raised before, by atheists on this forum, indicates that they accept that the freewill debate is about the ability to make moral choices. No-one, I presume, thinks that after heaven, there is some kind of free-will problem caused by our having the power to choose which shirt to wear).

So, for those who actually want to discuss Christian beliefs, rather than shifting goalposts to score points against positions no-one actually believes in, here goes.

It is reasonable to assume that freewill also includes the freewill to take an action which will irrevocably change you for ever. For example, when I got married, my wife and I had a choice whether we wanted to have children or not. This (barring any potential fertility problems) was an issue of our free will. Once, however, we did the needful and my first daughter was born, then I was a father. I did not have the free will to stop being a father. Even if my daughter were to die, I would still be a father - albeit a grieving and bereaved father.

In the same way, a person has the freewill to view porn or not on their computer. If, however, they choose to install programmes on their computer to block such porn, then they can no longer do so. Is this an infringement of free will? No, of course not, because they themselves took the decision to voluntarily limit their own choices.

So it is reasonable to allow for the possibility that, in our eternal hope after the future resurrection, we are no longer able to sin - since that was a condition we willingly chose to embrace by following Chjrist of our own free will in this life.

Which leads to the question as to whether actual sin and suffering is essential for meaningful free will (moral choices, and the ability to love) to exist - or simply the possibility of sin and suffering? My own opinion is the latter. Theoretically our first parents could have chosen to obey God, and thus reject temptation. The possibility of doing otherwise (with all its potential consequences) would be sufficient to make theirs a free moral choice to become permanently holy people.

pug_

PDN wrote: »

The 'Free Will Defence' as used by Christians in regards to the Existence of Evil has always been about the freewill to make meaningful moral choices.

One thing I don't understand about free will and a christian god is if god is all knowing, doesn't that mean he knows every action you're going to take and every thought you're going to have before the universe was even created? If that is the belief then surely free will in the christian sense is just an illusion and if it's not the belief then god is not all knowing?

nickcave

ISAW wrote: »

We have had some historic examples of the "There is No god" societies

Nice diatribe you got there - frantic, fearful and crazed. It's also misguided in a lot of what it says.

mathematical, artistic, medical and
philosophical understandings and so we see, as a result of this long
slow transformation of humanity, the free, open, progressive,
scientific, tolerant, pluralist, intellectual, secular democracies
created by MAJORITY RELIGIOUS societies!

Scientific and social progress necessarily had to come from theistic societies - how can secularism rise from an already secular society? There were none in existence in the western world during the time of the Enlightenment, say.

People stopped hard-coding religious doctrine into state constitutions etc. as a result of the rise of secular humanism, and the decline of religious hegemony - often despite the real risk of death for many of its pioneers - for such crimes as heresy, blasphemy, and general opposition to church teachings.

Most elected representatives are, like the population they
represent, imbued with spiritual values from the religions
they were brought up with.

In varying degrees - some are simply born-and-raised Christians who run increasingly progressive democracies without religious influence. Most elected representatives in Europe are of this breed. But some are fundamentalist Christians who genuinely believe that the Earth is 5,000 years old - look at the current front-runner for the Republican primary nomination, Newt Gingrich.

I'll let you decide which of the two you'd prefer.

The majority of the 10 commandments are embodied now in SECULAR LAW.

The ones that are in agreement with humanist principles, yes. Being that the commandments were written by people (who at least were well-meaning), it only stands to reason why this would be so.

But the commandments are far from complete - rape, slavery, bigotry - many things which people have in secularism agreed to be immoral and punishable were missed by those who wrote the commandments. Different times, I guess.

The commandments are also not correct - just examine which hold to current standards of scrutiny to be immoral or criminal:

1. No other gods, graven images, etc. - No.

2. Lord's name in vain - No.

3. Remember the sabbath day - No.

4. Honor your father and mother - No.

5. You shall not kill - Yes.

6. You shall not commit adultery - No.

7. You shall not steal - Yes. Possibly the most important contribution of Christianity to society was getting this one right - the concept of possessions is fundamental to the existence of society, though not naturally immoral.

8. No false witness - No.

9. Do not covet you neigbour's wife - No. This is prehaps the most immoral of the commandments (the commandment itself, I mean). One of the principles which allows society to flourish is that at least our thoughts are our own. I can covet what I like - why would I want my thoughts to be regulated?

10. More coveting - No.

So on head count, that's 2 out of 10. It wouldn't matter even if there was a majority - there's just be more agreement with secular humanism. There clearly isn't, however.

And again, in the latter part of your post/quote, you've confused atheism with tyrannical regimes whose delusions put them at odds with religious doctrine as a first. Modern atheism really has nothing to do with the Soviet Revolution. It's no wonder you're so fearful of atheism if you've confused this.

Five Lenin quotes? Really?

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

No-one has claimed that burning people to death is a virtue that needs to be protected.

New name, same old Wicknight up to his usual tricks and misrepresentation.

And same old PDN trying to subtly re-shape the discussion on the fly to something that is easier to argue for.

We went from the notion that if God removed suffering then it would remove free will and turn us all in to robots to the idea that if God removed suffering it would remove the choice to carry out immoral actions that cause suffering. That was done very subtly and skillfully by you in order to make it seem that the consequences of the second argument hold for the first one.

The second argument is of course totally true, if God removes suffering he removes the choice to cause suffering (that is actually the point).

But my response to that is so what. Who here thinks the option to choose to cause suffering is a virtue that God needs protecting?

I don't think anyone, including you. It is just easier to logically argue that if God removes suffering he remove this choice (don't even dispute that), and we will just ignore the question of whether this matters at all to the actual discussion, we just want to win the argument with Zombrex and get him to go away and stop troubling your fellow Christians with these sort of questions.

You must realize you are doing this because every once and a while you drop in some what nonsensical comments about how all options would become the blue and red shirt variety and we would lose the ability to love and be happy, neither of which I believe are true and neither of which you seem all that interested in explaining.

So we do the usual dance around your smoke and mirror display and at the end of it you just come out saying that I have not supported my position and failed to convince you so the next time I present a post like I did to TQE you can do your Fixed Your Post nonsense again.

Zombrex

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I don't find it amusing. It seems to me that you are conflating two different arguments. One argument is about various physical constants that allow for things like stars to form. The other argument, not held by all Christians I might add, is that life required some type of kick-start. The only time the two arguments intersect, at least as far as I can see, is that when life began the conditions on this particular ball of rock were such that it allowed life to flourish.

Sorry I'm not following what you point is?

The amusing bit is that these two arguments, both used by Christians often the same Christians, are mutually exclusive.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I'm nipping into this thread so perhaps I've missed it. Who suggested otherwise? I assume that if they did then they would either be ignored or condemned by all and sundry.

PDN did. He stated that if God removes the ability to be immoral all decisions becomes the red/blue shirt variety, and no one wishes to live in such a universe. Unsurprisingly he is a little fuzzy on the details of why exactly.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

On anther note, one possible issue with the notion of free will is when we consider new creation. (Some people think of this as heaven but I'm talking about what happens after heaven. Its a concept found throughout the NT. Check it out.) If there is to be no more sin - which I will roughly define as rebellion against God - then do we loose part of our free will? In other words, if we are to say that free will depends in some way on the ability to choose good and evil then what of our free will in an existence that has destroyed evil?

Why would we say that free will depends in some way on the ability to choose between good and evil? This keeps being stated but not explained.

If we lived in a universe where the negative physical effects of evil actions were not possible we would still retain free will, we just wouldn't have these sets of choices. But then there are millions of things you do not have the choice to do right now because God has made it physically impossible, yet you retain free will because you simply choose between the things that God has made physically possible.

Which goes back to PDN's arguments, what is the virtue of allowing evil actions given that it isn't necessary to stop us losing all free will and turning into robots. As has been argued it is not necessary for choice, it is not necessary for will, it is not necessary for any of the positive aspects of life such as love and happiness.

Fanny Cradock

Zombrex wrote: »

PDN did. He stated that if God removes the ability to be immoral all decisions becomes the red/blue shirt variety, and no one wishes to live in such a universe. Unsurprisingly he is a little fuzzy on the details of why exactly.

Could you show me exactly who extolled the virtues of burning people to death? If nobody has made such an argument then there is little point in arguing against it.

Zombrex wrote: »

If we lived in a universe where the negative physical effects of evil actions were not possible we would still retain free will, we just wouldn't have these sets of choices. But then there are millions of things you do not have the choice to do right now because God has made it physically impossible, yet you retain free will because you simply choose between the things that God has made physically possible.

Which goes back to PDN's arguments, what is the virtue of allowing evil actions given that it isn't necessary to stop us losing all free will and turning into robots. As has been argued it is not necessary for choice, it is not necessary for will, it is not necessary for any of the positive aspects of life such as love and happiness.

Well to give an answer to that (either to agree or disagree with you) I would have to know what PDN's position is. I don't. It's a long thread.

Fanny Cradock

pug_ wrote: »

One thing I don't understand about free will and a christian god is if god is all knowing, doesn't that mean he knows every action you're going to take and every thought you're going to have before the universe was even created? If that is the belief then surely free will in the christian sense is just an illusion and if it's not the belief then god is not all knowing?

No, because God's foreknowledge is based upon our choices.

Incidentally, both God and Christian are proper nouns.

pug_

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

No, because God's foreknowledge is based upon our choices.

I don't understand that. So are you saying he knows the choices we're going to make before we make them or not?

Fanny Cradock

PDN wrote: »

Which leads to the question as to whether actual sin and suffering is essential for meaningful free will (moral choices, and the ability to love) to exist - or simply the possibility of sin and suffering? My own opinion is the latter. Theoretically our first parents could have chosen to obey God, and thus reject temptation. The possibility of doing otherwise (with all its potential consequences) would be sufficient to make theirs a free moral choice to become permanently holy people.

I've understood freewill in the next life to involve a reassignment of limitations and of freedoms. An infant, for example, is not free to make any number of complex cognitive decisions - be they moral decisions or whatever. They are also denied certain social freedoms based on their cognitive limitations. I can accept that it new creation something similar must happen and that we wouldn't (couldn't?) be sinful in the face of perfection. However, anyone making the argument that freewill entails the option of being sinful as well as holy must run into trouble when we aren't talking about this world. Do you agree?

Fanny Cradock

pug_ wrote: »

I don't understand that. So are you saying he knows the choices we're going to make before we make them or not?

I'm saying that God, who stands outside of time, knows what you are doing because his knowledge in this regard is based on your own free choices. If you decided to eat an apple then God knows you will eat an apple. However, if you actually decided to eat an orange instead of an apple then God knows this only because you made the choice. Classical theism has always understood - at least my understanding of it - that God's knowledge of our personal actions is in deference to our freewill, not the other way around.

beerbuddy

pug_ wrote: »

I don't understand that. So are you saying he knows the choices we're going to make before we make them or not?

yes but to understand this look into the multi universe theory it would take some time to explain.

PDN

pug_ wrote: »

I don't understand that. So are you saying he knows the choices we're going to make before we make them or not?

Try to forget Newton and think of Einstein instead.

I realise this is a simplification, but one commonly used. Time is not a Newtonian straight line running in one direction at a steady pace. In fact, as understood by Einstein, space/time is more like a loaf which, depending on various factors, you can slice through at various angles and see from one point of it to another.

So, try to forget notions such as 'before' or 'after', because they have little or no relevance when you are talking about an Eternal Being. God from His standpoint (irrespective of where that is in spacetime) sees your actions. Therefore His knowledge is a consequence of your actions, not vice versa.

Because you and I are very limited in our abilties to do stuff to move through spacetime (like travelling at the speed of light or faster) we see things as 'before' or 'after' - but those limitations do not apply to God.

PDN

Zombrex wrote: »

And same old PDN trying to subtly re-shape the discussion on the fly to something that is easier to argue for.

We went from the notion that if God removed suffering then it would remove free will and turn us all in to robots to the idea that if God removed suffering it would remove the choice to carry out immoral actions that cause suffering. That was done very subtly and skillfully by you in order to make it seem that the consequences of the second argument hold for the first one.

The second argument is of course totally true, if God removes suffering he removes the choice to cause suffering (that is actually the point).

But my response to that is so what. Who here thinks the option to choose to cause suffering is a virtue that God needs protecting?

I don't think anyone, including you. It is just easier to logically argue that if God removes suffering he remove this choice (don't even dispute that), and we will just ignore the question of whether this matters at all to the actual discussion, we just want to win the argument with Zombrex and get him to go away and stop troubling your fellow Christians with these sort of questions.

You must realize you are doing this because every once and a while you drop in some what nonsensical comments about how all options would become the blue and red shirt variety and we would lose the ability to love and be happy, neither of which I believe are true and neither of which you seem all that interested in explaining.

So we do the usual dance around your smoke and mirror display and at the end of it you just come out saying that I have not supported my position and failed to convince you so the next time I present a post like I did to TQE you can do your Fixed Your Post nonsense again.

Not at all.

It's hardly my fault that instead of engaging with actual Christian beliefs you choose to present parodies that you think will prove easier for you.

If you want to argue that we can make non-moral choices and be happy in a mythical universe without evil or suffering then go ahead, knock yourself out. But, again, I don't see why you want to do that in the Christianity Forum. You might as well argue about whether leprecauns exist, after all, that is equally irrelevant to Christian beliefs.

And, if that gets too boring for you, you can always resort to pretending that anyone here has extolled burning people to death as a virtue.

In the face of such honesty and irrefutable logic it's amazing that atheists aren't in the majority yet.

Fanny Cradock

beerbuddy wrote: »

yes but to understand this look into the multi universe theory it would take some time to explain.

I don't think that the multiverse (which hypothesis are you talking about, btw) has much to do with the metaphysical question surrounding God's foreknowledge.

recedite

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

The other argument, not held by all Christians I might add, is that life required some type of kick-start.

What about Adam & Eve? Do you deny the truth of Genesis?

PDN wrote: »

Therefore His knowledge is a consequence of your actions, not vice versa.
Because you and I are very limited in our abilties to do stuff to move through spacetime (like travelling at the speed of light or faster) we see things as 'before' or 'after' - but those limitations do not apply to God.

I like this analogy; ie God has seen this movie before. It does make him seem like a passive spectator though, as opposed to a main player.

Morbert

Soul Winner wrote: »

If we strip away the religiousness of theism then we are still left with a belief system, and as such it is just like atheism except both having different end points of belief. Theism: That there is a God and Atheism: That there is no God.

So after stripping away the religiousness from theism, which of these two belief systems is better supported by science today and why? Can we have evidence that there is no God? No, we can never have evidence that there is no God because if there really was no God then how could we have evidence for it?

But if there is a God then we can or could have evidence for His existence. Even if we currently had no evidence for His existence (and theists believe that we have good evidence, hence why a lot of them became theists in the first place) then it would still be the better belief system to go with because you'd at least have the hope of finding evidence to keep you going, whereas with atheism you will never be able to prove or have good evidence that there is no God, which means that you will never know nor have the hope of knowing that your belief system is right. You can only find out if its wrong. And the only way that you could find out that atheism is wrong is to find evidence for God. But if atheism is right you will never know. But as we oft say: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence." But with atheism you never will have evidence.

So I suppose it depends on whether you care if atheism is right or not. If you really did care then you'd look for evidence for God. Is there evidence for God? Depends on how you interpret the evidence doesn't it? If something screams Creator/Designer then the theist will latch onto it and say "See? There you go." All the atheist can do is say, no, that apparent design can be explained without invoking a supernatural creator. And off we go.

But if we admit that it has the appearance of design at least, then there is one of two explanations for that:

A) Due to a long process of evolution over many millions and billions of years the very simple has evolved into the very complex through a process of natural selection acting on random mutations, adaptation and environmental changes.

It actually is designed

Which explanation can be observed in the lab? None of them. Which explanation is more true to the principle of Occam's razor? That would be B. It looks designed because it is designed. But A has other problems. Even the simplest of living organisms we know are extremely complex at the cellular level and cannot be explained by blind forces.

So theism and especially Christian theism has a better footing in reality and the world we actually live in that atheism will ever have, and that's just based on science. We stripped away all the other stuff remember? If we went into that we'd be here all day. Christian theism is not even reliant on science to show that it is the better belief system over or types of theism. Christianity has historic, philosophic and moral arguments that can be added too. But I will leave it that for now.

Occam's razor is "All other things being equal, the simplest hypothesis is the best hypothesis.". People often forget about the first part of that sentence. We have evidence for A, in great abundance: 150 years of rigorous investigation into every detail of the claim. Occam's razor would therefore compel us to pick A over B.

Fanny Cradock

recedite wrote: »

What about Adam & Eve? Do you deny the truth of Genesis?

No, I don't believe so. What I reject is a particular interpretation of the Genesis creation account.

pug_

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I'm saying that God, who stands outside of time, knows what you are doing because his knowledge in this regard is based on your own free choices. If you decided to eat an apple then God knows you will eat an apple. However, if you actually decided to eat an orange instead of an apple then God knows this only because you made the choice. Classical theism has always understood - at least my understanding of it - that God's knowledge of our personal actions is in deference to our freewill, not the other way around.

I still don't get it. Either he knows everything and he knows you're going to eat an apple or an orange beforehand or not? It sounds like you're suggesting he might have an idea you're going to eat one or the other but he's not sure until you actually pick it up and take a bite? Or is it something similar to what I'm guessing beerbuddy was alluding to that anything that can happen does happen as suggested by quantum mechanics?

PDN wrote: »

Try to forget Newton and think of Einstein instead.

I realise this is a simplification, but one commonly used. Time is not a Newtonian straight line running in one direction at a steady pace. In fact, as understood by Einstein, space/time is more like a loaf which, depending on various factors, you can slice through at various angles and see from one point of it to another.

So, try to forget notions such as 'before' or 'after', because they have little or no relevance when you are talking about an Eternal Being. God from His standpoint (irrespective of where that is in spacetime) sees your actions. Therefore His knowledge is a consequence of your actions, not vice versa.

Because you and I are very limited in our abilties to do stuff to move through spacetime (like travelling at the speed of light or faster) we see things as 'before' or 'after' - but those limitations do not apply to God.

This I am familiar with, and I'm aware of the idea that all possible timelines are fixed, however I don't see how this fits in with the idea that humans actually have free will under a Christian God. If anything I see the opposite. If God is indeed all knowing, and timelines are indeed fixed, then there is no place for freewill for anyone; it's all predetermined and we're all along pretty much for the ride.

The implication for me is that the actions we take and decisions we make though new to us in our limited capacity and understanding are old news (or whatever the correct phrase is when you're observing from outside of time) to a God who created a universe knowing we were going to take them long before (again lack of outside time vocabulary but I'm sure you know what I mean) the first spark of the big bang.

Fanny Cradock

pug_ wrote: »

I still don't get it. Either he knows everything and he knows you're going to eat an apple or an orange beforehand or not? It sounds like you're suggesting he might have an idea you're going to eat one or the other but he's not sure until you actually pick it up and take a bite? Or is it something similar to what I'm guessing beerbuddy was alluding to that anything that can happen does happen as suggested by quantum mechanics?

I don't know who to simplify it further. You are the one making the decision to eat the apple, not God. Additionally, I've specifically rejected the idea that the multiverse (which hypothesis?) has any impact on this issue. If you do a search on the topic of freewill you then see the numerous previous debates we have had on it.