Summations Only

ringo writes:Do you ignore the Loch Ness monster? Leprechauns? The Tooth Fairy?

Answer your own question: Is the lack of evidence for them any reason to not believe in them?

what's the difference between the loch Ness monster, leprechauns, the Tooth Fairy and God?

bear in mind that I know a lot more about the fictional Christian God than I know about leprechauns. We don't have many leprechaun missionaries trying to convince us to believe.

Don't kid yourself that a lot of chatter about your belief validates your belief.

ringo writes:You may believe that one fictional character exists and others do not but that doesn't make your belief different from an atheist who believes in the Loch Ness monster.

You're trying to claim that if a lot of people believe it, it must be true (valid). That's nonsense.

ringo writes:You seem to be squeamish about the reality of your God. He "must" be good; He "can't" be evil or have anything to do with evil. Yet He's supposedly the Creator of "all seen and unseen".By your math, evil isn't part of "all seen and unseen". Huh?

Either God created evil or He didn't create everything. Whether He does something "directly" or not is irrelevant. He pulled the trigger so you can't blame the bullet.

You're missing the point of the analogy. If He created the evil, He's responsible for the consequences.

Stile writes:If "Free Will" means 'ability to hurt other people' then yeah... I don't think you can remove evil and have evil at the same time.But:If "Free Will" means something more like "ability to be the authority on choosing whatever you want from the available options..." Then it opens up a bit more of a discussion on what the "limits" actually are, and which ones may be acceptable or not (that seems off-topic here, though).

Stile in 2009 writes:I was wondering if you could help explain something to me. I am not versed at all in psychology, or sociology.Basically, my thoughts are along the lines of "since I freely choose simple things, why am I unable to freely choose larger things?"I understand how things like environment and genes work together to shape us, and how certain things may not be in our control.But what about those things that are in our control?I mean, simply, I think I have "free-choice" to wear white socks or black socks each day. Or free-choice to snap my fingers 4 times or maybe stop at 5 times just because I want to.How can you say such things are not evidence of us having free-choice?
Can you actually link environmental/genetic factors into my sock-colour choice? Or such factors into my "stopping to snap my fingers" choice?What about when we come to an age where we can choose our environment (friends, living location, career...)? If our environment has control over us, be we choose our environment... doesn't that mean we end up with control over us again?How is that not "free-choice"?Maybe my lack of education in this area is making me miss something basic. But, well, my ability of free-choice seems rather obvious to me. Where do you think this is wrong?

Tangle, 2017 version writes:Obviously - well to me at least - this is a totally specious argument because we are simply another organism competing to survive - competing against each other as well as our environment so harm is inbuilt by biology. Evolution completely explains why we ae the way we are.Freewill is a purely religious concept so you have to ask, why couldn't god have created a world without harm? Of course the answer is that he did but the Fall did for all that. To introduce the concept of evil, God had to also introduce the evil itself in the form of a talking snake representing a previously fallen angel.It's a very, very strange and silly idea isn't it?

Phat writes:Some things cannot be proven or disproven through evidence alone.

ringo writes:Without evidence, they can not be "proven" at all.

Tangle writes:Freewill is a purely religious concept so you have to ask, why couldn't God have created the world without harm?