God is good and evil

How does evil increase free will? If somebody murders me, how does that do anything but eliminate all the freedom to choose I would have had if I had lived?How does the murder's one choice (to pull the trigger) outweigh all the choices I would have gotten to make?The existence of evil doesn't preserve or increase free will. Evil reduces free will. There's still an infinite number of ways to do the right thing. God doesn't have to control all of our actions to prevent evil - he just has to prevent evil actions.

Which is exactly what evil does, especially murder. It prevents all future actions of the victim. No. If parental control is so bad, why do parents use it? If it's so good that parents should use it, why doesn't God?God is a shitty parent.

WTF?I was talking about murder, not shin-kicking. You still haven't refuted the fact that evil - at least some kinds - reduce choice, and no evil increases choice. Observation. Good parents don't put their children in situations of danger or harm.Of course, I'm mostly kidding. The real reason that God allows bad things to happen is because God doesn't actually exist.

Yes. But the fact that shin-kicking doesn't drastically reduce choice has nothing to do with the fact that true evil does reduce choice.And remember, shin-kicking does eliminate one choice for the victim - the choice to not be kicked in the shins. Nonetheless, they're still choices. And the kicker has taken away one crucial choice from the kickee - the choice to not be kicked in the shins. Nonesense. School administrators and teachers exist in part to ensure minimal risk to children, by supervision.Now, of course, parents, being only human, recognize that there's a limit where their imperfect efforts to shield their child from harm actually do more harm than good. But it is the principle desire of parents to shield their child from as much harm as possible.But a perfect, all-powerful, benevolent God doesn't have that limit. He's perfectly able to shield someone from harm without harming them in the process. Unless you think there's something God can't do? Well, not exactly - I'm not making a positive claim. I'm simply observing that all evidence presented for the claim "God exists" has been, so far, insufficient. In the face of the lack of evidence for God, disbelief in God is the only rational conclusion.

*Sigh*Yes, we covered this. Remember my point isn't that restricting evil doesn't decrease choice. My point is that allowing evil reduces more choices in total than restricting it would. Namely, you lose all the choices the victims would have had.Now, why does a few choices of evildoers outwiegh the greater amount of choices of victims? If God wanted to maximize choice, he'd prevent murder, at least. Oh, you know, the ones with the metal detectors, the ones with school nurses, the ones that weren't built on top of toxic waste dumps, the ones with crossing guards - the ones with an infrastructure designed to maximize child safety within human limits.I didn't say they were perfect. But that's not to say they don't try at all. Who needs to learn to walk when God can just make you walk? Who needs an immune system in a world without colds?The point is, God could be taking a lot better care of us, especially if he actually exists. I mean, how much choice did the Holocaust bring into the world? How did the September 11th hijackers maximize choice in the world, especially for those 3,000 people? "Free will" and "choice" are just cop-outs for people who don't want to face the truth that if God exists, he's the ultimate deadbeat dad.

This made me laugh. Thank you. I love made-up figures. Actually depending on your belief, too - can you do evil in Heaven? If not, people in heaven don't have free will, according to your argument. Perhaps true.Consider this, though - don't you think an all-powerful God could preserve the choice of evil without allowing the consequence of evil? You can choose to pull the trigger, but does the gun have to fire? Your choice is already made so how could a convinient misfire rob you of choice? We would in a world without evil and suffering. I would have thought that was obvious, frankly. Personally, no. But don't you think a benevolent, concerned God would give us the choice?Ever play a game like Everquest? There's areas where you can come to harm, and areas where you are safe from harm, like towns. If video game designers can balance the need for adventure and testing (which I agree is important), you're telling me God can't? But we both agree that God could take them away any time he pleased, which in my book, makes him responsible. No. But he never said he could. He never claimed to have infinite wisdom and surpassing power. Moreover, nobody else claimed that he had those things, and nobody tried to tell me that it would all be easier if I just opened my heart and let my all-powerful, all-knowing Dad in. And nobody ever insinutated that I was an evil, hell-bound sinner for not holding the same belief about dad as them.The point is, the stakes are higher for God, because more is claimed about God than my dad. And because so much more is claimed, God falls all the farther short.All I'm arguing is that God doesn't live up to what is claimed about him (not the least of which is his failure to actually exist. ) All you seem to be arguing is that I have no right to point that out, and moreover, neither of us want God to live up to his claims. Weird argument, if you ask me. God can do anything, right? You're telling me that he couldn't make humans that had that strength automatically?

That was rather the point. What, a week-old guy with the mind of a child and his equally ignorant wife get to make the decision for every human being afterwards? How is that fair? When did I get to choose? Do you think you could maybe keep your issues to yourself and just answer the questions? Thanks. I never said I played Everquest, you know. Yeah, great for you, but we're not just talking about bullies on the playground. We're talking about the full spectrum of human evil - rape, murder, torture. You're telling me that if you were being raped and murdered by a stranger your dad's response would be "suck it up, son, it'll build character?" There's a line where having someone learn ot stand on their own two feet turns into reprehensible abandonment. Exactly what life lesson am I supposed to learn when God lets me get murdered? Right, but the only reason we're arguing that point is because you raised it to counter my claim that God is an abusive parent. Remember? Never played it.

There's 6 billion people on Earth. On average they all have the same number of choices in their lives. Call than number "n".Murder doesn't happen: Total choice = 6,000,000,000 * n.Murder happens: Total choice = 5,999,999,999 * n.The second number is less than the first. Ergo, murder reduces choice because it eliminates one lifetime's worth of choice. The fact that you can rattle off ten or twenty choices that the murder presents people with doesn't outwiegh the fact that an entire human lifetime's worth of choice has been eliminated.What's more evil? Freedom or slavery? Slavery is the reduction of choice, and it's clearly the evilist of the two. Evil reduces choice. Unless you think it's evil to free slaves?

When I was a Christian, I think it's safe to assume that I was one of those children that you refer to. When I talk about my experiences with God you can assume that I'm referring to those experiences I believed I had as a Christian.For purposes of argument, I'm fine expecting God to act like a parent only to Christians. But if you believe that God gives special treatment in this world to those who cleave to his chruch then you're in for considerable disappointment.Why doesn't God look out for Christians, at least? Christians are no more or less likely to experience bad things than anybody else. I would expect good things to happen to Christians and bad things to happen to everybody else, not bad things happening to everybody.

I was as certain at the time that I was saved as you are that you're saved, now. So if it's possible to not believe in God and still be saved, that's what I must be.You know, unless you think I'm going to let you get away with the "True Scotsman" fallacy. So what you're saying is that God doesn't answer prayer, because it wouldn't matter anyway if he did.Moreover I find it very interesting that it's only this life, which you characterize as insignificant, in which one is forced to make the decision that determines their fate for eternity. That's rather like asking a person to choose their college, career, and spouse on their 1st birthday. Yes. It's clearly a rationalization by the Bible authors to explain why the chosen people are allowed by God to suffer so, and what their response should be. In other words, God is God, so anything he does must be right, including things that if humans did them, would be wrong. What kind of moral authority is above morality? Only immoral ones.I guess "like it or lump it" isn't sufficent justification for God's bad behavior, especially since the Bible tells me that I have the same sense of right and wrong that he does.

The way you characterized the insignificance of this life as the reason that God doesn't do more to ameliorate the suffering of Christians. Do you think you know now what you'll know in the hereafter? Or wouldn't it be safe to say that, according to your beliefs, the difference between what you know now and what you'll know then is as great, if not greater, than the difference between what you know now and what you knew at age 1? (That was the point of my analogy, which you seem to have missed.) Right. It's called "the logical consequence of your arguments." Since you refuse to consider them when you come up with your arguments, I have to do it for you. Here's a hint - if the logical consequence of your argument is ridiculous, then your argument is wrong. If you disagree, then it's incumbent upon you to show me how my conclusion is not a logical consequence of your argument - simply stating that it isn't is insufficient. *sigh* The same thing I've been saying all this time - he refuses to take action to prevent suffering when he's got the knowledge and power to do so. By any reasonable or legal standard that represents immoral negligence.

You're right, I should have checked.But if you're not stepping up to defend him, then why did you reply? I don't see what the numbers have to do with it. Just because Christians think they're making an informed decision doesn't mean they are. Somebody with the wisdom, power, and knowledge to do it perfectly and easily? I don't think that's hypocritical in the least. And I observe that when folks keep track, it turns out God does nothing at all.

People trained to avoid personal confirmation biases who run prayer studies. It's no good to just keep track of how many of your own prayers God answers. You have to keep track of how many other people's aren't being answered. If we both pray to win the same coin toss, only one of us can win (for sake of argument, you). The fact that your prayer was answered is not statistically significant when you factor in my unanswered prayer - we conclude therefore that praying obviously didn't affect the outcome of the toss.

No, there's not. There's times when people have healed sometime around when they were praying.But if the presence or absence of prayer has no meaningful statistical effect on who gets healed or not, then there's no reason to assume that whether or not they prayed had anything to do with it. It would convince me. An irrefutable weight of evidence that showed a statistically significant effect of prayer - and not just of positive thinking - would convince me that prayer worked.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 04-20-2004]

On the other hand, you would have had a quarter to use a pay phone. But presume that the opposite does happen - I fall in a deep hole and are seriously injured because I won the coin toss. I've got the cell phone and there is no pay phone.I'm screwed because I won the coin toss. Is that supposed to be the answer to a prayer? How do you know that your example is the more likely of the two?We can play the hypothetical game all day, but the simple observed fact is, praying doesn't change the statistical outcome of anything, so there's no reason to suggest that prayer has any effect whatsoever (that positive thinking also doesn't have.) Eh. It was ok, but as an argument, it sucks. The only reason you would have to consider your example more likely than the opposite would be if you already assume God answers prayers. And even if the opposite thing happened, I'm more or less sure that you'd find some way to characterize that as an answered prayer. If there's no situation you would accept as an unanswered prayer, then the whole prayer idea becomes unfalsifiable.