Originally posted by Gondwanaland
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If you think this is the area where you tell everyone you are sorry for eating their lunch out of the fridge, it probably isn't the place for you
This forum is open discussion between atheists and all theists to defend and debate their views on religion or non-religion. Please respect that this is a Christian-owned forum and refrain from gratuitous blasphemy. VERY wide leeway is given in range of expression and allowable behavior as compared to other areas of the forum, and moderation is not overly involved unless necessary. Please keep this in mind. Atheists who wish to interact with theists in a way that does not seek to undermine theistic faith may participate in the World Religions Department. Non-debate question and answers and mild and less confrontational discussions can take place in General Theistics.
Forum Rules: Here
This forum is open discussion between atheists and all theists to defend and debate their views on religion or non-religion. Please respect that this is a Christian-owned forum and refrain from gratuitous blasphemy. VERY wide leeway is given in range of expression and allowable behavior as compared to other areas of the forum, and moderation is not overly involved unless necessary. Please keep this in mind. Atheists who wish to interact with theists in a way that does not seek to undermine theistic faith may participate in the World Religions Department. Non-debate question and answers and mild and less confrontational discussions can take place in General Theistics.
Forum Rules: Here
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Christianity, Atheism, and the Problem of Evil
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I'm always still in trouble again
"You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
"Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
"Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman
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Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
I'll put in a request for a split.
Just as a by the way, Gondwanaland's thread isn't updating the new posts in the index.
And
What did that train hit?Last edited by tabibito; 07-25-2021, 08:53 AM.1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
.⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
Scripture before Tradition:
but that won't prevent others from
taking it upon themselves to deprive you
of the right to call yourself Christian.
⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
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Originally posted by tabibito View Post
Will the off-topic posts be relocated, or deleted?
Just as a by the way, Gondwanaland's thread isn't updating the new posts in the index.
And
What did that train hit?
The indexing updates is an ongoing problem. Not too long ago, in one particularly active thread it was still linking to a post a day old and nearly a hundred posts back!
The accident was in Spain and IIRC was blamed on going too fast around a turn.
I'm always still in trouble again
"You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
"Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
"Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman
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Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post
Simple example:
Well, lets say a mugging and murder would happen in 15 minutes. It could be stopped by merely delaying the victim. So, their car has a dead battery, delaying them.
Or, perhaps it's that the mugger and murderer would have decided to not do the mugging if only the streetlights in the area were brighter or working. That would be a simple thing for God to fix, without violating the mugger's free will.
That's the thing as an all-knowing God, he knows the exact sequence of "natural" events that would lead someone to freely choose (or not to choose) X. He has the power to enact that exact sequence of events.
He's like that scene in endgame where Dr. Strange looks at over 14,000,000 possible futures, and sees one winning outcome, then takes the one action he needs to do to set that timeline in motion.Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by seer View Post
It seems to me that God would have to be constantly interfering on every level on your model. And again, suffering will end and who knows what lessons will be learned through this temporal situation. The love and forgiveness and justice of God displayed in a concrete way through the passion of Christ. Or our ability to love and forgive being tested and forged through a sinful milieu. Real significance to our acts. There may be many reasons why God allows a season of pain. The bottom line, as a Christian, I trust that He knows what He is doing. Of course if atheism is true there ultimately can be no redeeming quality in suffering... Just the pitiless indifference from an amoral universe.
However, that complaint is like complaining that to keep a house from falling down, the contractor has to do be constantly interfering with the house (shoring up falling walls, supporting the ceiling, etc.) where if he had built the house properly at the beginning, those problems wouldn't manifest in such a way as to need constant intervention.
I'll give you a biblical example of this problem, right from the beginning.
The Tree of Knowledge.
God could build the garden however he wanted. He had absolute power to plant and design the shape of it as he wanted.
God knew he did not want Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree.
God knew that they would.
God knew that he would then punish them with suffering for that action, and he knew that suffering would enter the world on a greater scale because of it.
God knew he would have to flood the entire world, killing off all the population except for Noah's family and the pairs of creatures, including children and newborns because of the evil that would enter the world.
A God who wanted that suffering to not happen could easily have placed the tree in a place/area that would be inaccessible to Adam/Eve. Sheer cliff, behind a wall, etc.
There's no violation of free will with this.
The Tower of Babel shows that god can take action to prevent Man from "doing something" without affecting their free will.
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Originally posted by Dimbulb View PostCommonly the Problem of Suffering is formulated in such a way to focus on environmentally-caused suffering that God doesn't mitigate, rather than on the direct actions of free-willed beings, in order that 'free will' not provide any obvious logical defense.Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
Than a fool in the eyes of God
From "Fools Gold" by Petra
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Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post
Maybe, maybe not. After all, God is all-knowing and all-powerful. My example is one in which suffering already exists in the world, and god would therefore have to constantly interfere to keep suffering out. But, that's merely an example of what he COULD do.
However, that complaint is like complaining that to keep a house from falling down, the contractor has to do be constantly interfering with the house (shoring up falling walls, supporting the ceiling, etc.) where if he had built the house properly at the beginning, those problems wouldn't manifest in such a way as to need constant intervention.
I'll give you a biblical example of this problem, right from the beginning.
The Tree of Knowledge.
God could build the garden however he wanted. He had absolute power to plant and design the shape of it as he wanted.
God knew he did not want Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree.
God knew that they would.
God knew that he would then punish them with suffering for that action, and he knew that suffering would enter the world on a greater scale because of it.
God knew he would have to flood the entire world, killing off all the population except for Noah's family and the pairs of creatures, including children and newborns because of the evil that would enter the world.
A God who wanted that suffering to not happen could easily have placed the tree in a place/area that would be inaccessible to Adam/Eve. Sheer cliff, behind a wall, etc.
There's no violation of free will with this.
The Tower of Babel shows that god can take action to prevent Man from "doing something" without affecting their free will.Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post
Maybe, maybe not. After all, God is all-knowing and all-powerful. My example is one in which suffering already exists in the world, and god would therefore have to constantly interfere to keep suffering out. But, that's merely an example of what he COULD do.
However, that complaint is like complaining that to keep a house from falling down, the contractor has to do be constantly interfering with the house (shoring up falling walls, supporting the ceiling, etc.) where if he had built the house properly at the beginning, those problems wouldn't manifest in such a way as to need constant intervention.
I'll give you a biblical example of this problem, right from the beginning.
The Tree of Knowledge.
God could build the garden however he wanted. He had absolute power to plant and design the shape of it as he wanted.
God knew he did not want Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree.
God knew that they would.
God knew that he would then punish them with suffering for that action, and he knew that suffering would enter the world on a greater scale because of it.
God knew he would have to flood the entire world, killing off all the population except for Noah's family and the pairs of creatures, including children and newborns because of the evil that would enter the world.
A God who wanted that suffering to not happen could easily have placed the tree in a place/area that would be inaccessible to Adam/Eve. Sheer cliff, behind a wall, etc.
There's no violation of free will with this.
The Tower of Babel shows that god can take action to prevent Man from "doing something" without affecting their free will.
Earlier you described a world where God prevented people from doing evil by shaping reality in such a way that they would make a different choice, such as a mugger choosing not to commit a crime because a certain street light was functioning. My question is, would that person ever have any hope of redemption if the only reason he didn't do evil is because circumstances outside of his control prevented it?Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
Than a fool in the eyes of God
From "Fools Gold" by Petra
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Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
You're rather missing the point about the tree. It wasn't the tree in and of itself, it was Adam and Eve having the ability to defy God if they so chose. Certainly God could have made the tree inaccessible, at which point it would have represented no real choice at all, but there were still other ways they could have sinned, and the only way to prevent it would have been to eliminate their freewill.
Earlier you described a world where God prevented people from doing evil by shaping reality in such a way that they would make a different choice, such as a mugger choosing not to commit a crime because a certain street light was functioning. My question is, would that person ever have any hope of redemption if the only reason he didn't do evil is because circumstances outside of his control prevented it?
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Seer, those were EXCELLENT points in your #19 reply. We can trust that God is the hero of this entire drama since creation, and will finally be acknowledged as such by all when "every knee shall bow".
For CivilDiscourse, YES, redemption would still be necessary if someone's evil acts were restricted from happening, simply because the very nature of the individual who was restrained from committing evil still needs to have his evil nature redeemed also (that being his predisposition to commit evil, if given the opportunity.) In due time, God will ultimately fix the root cause of the problem by exterminating the origin of human evil from this planet altogether. Until then, God is giving a continual display to us over the millennia of what results when free will is given and runs amok, as it inevitably does in any created being who is given the option of good or evil. Ideally in heaven, even the option of choosing evil will be removed.
Free will is a double-edged sword which can become our worst enemy - not the sacred cow it is usually assumed to be.
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Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View PostSo, you are placing limits on Gods power?
Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View PostWould he need redemption?
For instance, suppose a person becomes so angry at someone that he wishes to break the other's nose. Suppose he succeeds and sees the pain and suffering he caused which compels him to have a change of heart, forgive the person for whatever grievance he committed, offer to pay his medical bills, and vow to refrain from ever again lashing out in anger. His original intent was evil, but it caused him to grow morally for the better.
Now let's imagine a different universe where he swings at his antagonist's face, but God creates a supernatural force field that stops the hit from landing. He swings again and again with the same result, becoming increasingly frustrated and cursing his antagonist in his heart. Eventually he realizes the futility of his actions and walks away seething with bitterness and hatred. In this scenario, while he was stopped from harming another, he is considerably worse off than he was before.Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
Than a fool in the eyes of God
From "Fools Gold" by Petra
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Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post
Would he need redemption?
Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post
I generally see the problem of suffering as a calling out the paradox of the three omni-s of God, while suffering still exists in the world.
I.e. God is supposedly all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good.
The fact that suffering exists in the world (natural or man made) is proof that one of the three characteristics must be wrong..
An All knowing God would know how to stop the suffering without violating free will..
An all powerful God would be able to stop the suffering (likely without it ever starting)
An all good God would want to stop suffering in the world.
Suffering exists. This means God either cannot stop it, does not know how, or does not want to."It ain't necessarily so
The things that you're liable
To read in the Bible
It ain't necessarily so."
Sportin' Life
Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin
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Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
You're rather missing the point about the tree. It wasn't the tree in and of itself, it was Adam and Eve having the ability to defy God if they so chose. Certainly God could have made the tree inaccessible, at which point it would have represented no real choice at all, but there were still other ways they could have sinned, and the only way to prevent it would have been to eliminate their freewill.
Earlier you described a world where God prevented people from doing evil by shaping reality in such a way that they would make a different choice, such as a mugger choosing not to commit a crime because a certain street light was functioning. My question is, would that person ever have any hope of redemption if the only reason he didn't do evil is because circumstances outside of his control prevented it?"It ain't necessarily so
The things that you're liable
To read in the Bible
It ain't necessarily so."
Sportin' Life
Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin
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Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
CivilDiscourse is right. If this deity is believed to omniscient it already knew that Eve would be tempted and both she and Adam would eat the fruit and that as a result of those actions humans would endure the Fall and all the misery resulting from that.Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
Than a fool in the eyes of God
From "Fools Gold" by Petra
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