Confession of a former christian

God creates choice, and evil arises out of creating choice? So evil, defined as acting against God's will, arises from God's action in creating choice. So God, therefore, can act against God's will, but you say he can't, so it looks as though he's such a jumble of contradictions that he probably only exists in your imagination, and has been created, to some extent, in his creator's image.He probably believes in non-empirical evidence of his existence.

In a once-removed fashion. God doesn't will evil by his actions anymore than Ford by their actions will drunk drivers smashing into pedestrians.Creating the potential isn't willing the outcome

Unlike God, Ford couldn't be accused of inventing liquor, as well as bipedal apes with a genetic disposition to enjoy excessive consumption of it. The problem for your God, standing in our little EvC court accused of creating evil, is that you cannot be creator of humanity and all its environment without accepting responsibility for evil. The ape and his environment will determine the level of evil, and you wouldn't even have to be omniscient to figure that the combination cannot be evil free, meaning that whatever is responsible for the apparent free will of the ape is a creator of evil.But ultimately, for me, your God escapes the blame. There is no empirical evidence against him whatsoever, of course. And a rational court cannot accept your plea for this thing called "non-empirical evidence" which has a legal status like that of hearsay, or worse.So, he is free to go, and enjoy the pure liberty from everything that only true non-existence can offer. The defendant is more accurately viewed as a victim of someone's creation, not a possible perpetrator of creation related crimes. Consciously or subconsciously, you must know this.

God didn't invent bipedal apes as described. He made man, man made man fall - not God. And along with his fall came all manner of sin - excessive drinking being one of them. Man responsible for that. Not God. God is responsible for creating humanity with potential. As Ford is responsible for creating cars that can be used other than intended. God walks free from your court.The question now is, would you walk free from his?

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Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

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Looks like even God admits he creates evil, iano.So is the Bible not literally true, or does God create evil?Before you say that God must not have actually said this, here's the beginning of Isaiah 45:

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45:1 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;

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This is supposed to be what God said directly to Cyrus.God said that God creates evil.

Wow, it's incredible how people can rationalize things even in the face of contradicting evidence.

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I'm trying to see things your way, but I can't put my head that far up my ass.

Yes. But consider how might he create it?One way is to cease exerting influence upon evil men so as to restrain their evil. Evil can be said to be created by God in this way. But it is created by Gods inaction. God doing nothing at all results in evil.Is God somehow obligated to suppress mens evil at every point in time? I can't think of any reason why he is - so his not suppressing evil cannot be said to be evil. Gods willing to act (so as to suppress men's evil) and willing not to act ("create" evil) is good.As per definition of evil (evil = any act not in accordance with Gods will)

Where do you get these strange ideas from? As a child, I was always more entertained by Greek and Norse mythology than Jewish mythology. But, whatever your personal tastes, it should be easy to understand what is mythology. If there's lots of magic flying around, like you don't see in real life, then you're reading mythology. I'm trying to help you see the obvious. I don't visit the imaginary courts of other people's imaginary friends, but do keep me informed of the imaginary proceedings.

Reading with interest and reminded of a similar discussion some years ago....
(I've totally forgotten how to do the link thing)
http://EvC Forum: Free will: an illusion -->EvC Forum: Free will: an illusionIano's see-saw analogy brought it back to me,
as a taster here's the important bit of the OP (my bold)

Straight from the philosophical empiricists cathecism - not that there is empirical evidence that this is the case. Only the argument from absence-of-empirical-evidence = absence-altogether.You don't have to believe in God to see the potential holes in that defence.

Sorry, iano. A complete and total lack of objective evidence is evidence for a likelihood of absence.I can't prove, positively, that there is no invisible unicorn looking over your shoulder, or that your deity doesn't exist. It's impossible to prove a negative, except indirectly by positively proving a contradictory position.But there's no reason to believe they do exist. Your beliefs are exactly the same as any child who believes in unicorns and fairies. Have fun with your delusions - I stopped talking to imaginary friends a long time ago.

I require no "cathecism", or catechism iano. There is plenty of empirical evidence of the widespread human tendency to make up creation mythologies and religions. Surely you agree? You can't believe in them all? This doesn't mean that one of the many couldn't be true, but simple probability calculations mean that if you want to claim truth for one of them, the onus would be on you to present the evidence.Inevitably, surprise, surprise, with so much magic going on, it always seems that the evidence has to be "non-empirical" evidence. I remember a Palestinian (Muslim) once putting that argument to me for the imaginary friend that he could feel so strongly to exist. All the religions seem to suffer equally from this lack of empirical evidence, giving the impression to this observer that they're all human inventions.But I don't claim that I can conclusively prove this. And, I don't have a reason to doubt your word that you sense a reality that includes your God. As with the Palestinian, I don't think you're lying on that point at all.

What fun that was.. In itself, false.God knowing what will happen - by virtue of being present to observe it happening - doesn't prevent a free choice being that which determines what happens. If free choice chooses something else then that is what God would observe happening and by virtue of that, will know it "beforehand". God simply observing doesn't affect a free willed being ability to choose.Not that I believe we have free will, I might add.- It seems obvious to me that if we are in possession of all the relevant information then there is no/little choice left. Car A is burning oil, has no spare tyre and an oily thumbprint appears on the odemeter as the dial racks up the miles during the test drive. Car B (same make, model, year, price, etc.) is a gem. You are free to chose with or without the information. The information removes your freedom to choose.- I can't see how you could say that. God could be so attractive/repulsive/terrifying/magnetic that you would be compelled/propelled towards him or away from him. "Every knee will bow.." whether trembling in delight or horror.It is unreasonable to suppose that coming up against a being capable of what God is argued to be capable of would see you take such measured approach. Certainly the Bible dispels such notions. Moses, after limited exposure, came down from the mountain as if his head had been stuck in a bucket of uranium (I mean that cartoonly, not scientifically)- God presented Adam and Eve with a choice. It appears to have been a consequential choice as opposed to a moral one - but it was a choice for all that. They, unlike us, were in a position to exercise free will. They weren't predisposed in a direction like we are. Or at least they weren't at the point of choosing.As soon as they did choose they became like us, predisposed towards choosing in a particular direction: towards sin. Ironic that, in exercising free choice they, at one and the same time, lost the ability to choose freely. What they gained stole.

This is a major point of argument in Philosophical circles. I would disagree with you.Let's say you're born and God knows that when you turn 20, you'll turn left at a particular intersection. You go through your life and then, when you're 20, you come to the fateful intersection. You are presented with an apparant choice: turn left, turn right, or got forward. Now, knowing that God knew from the point you were born (and every point before and after) that you would go left what are the odds of choosing each direction? I'd say, regardless of how you might feel at the time, the odds are 0% for turning right, 0% for going forward, and 100% for turning left. Thus, regardless of whether you think you have a choice, the fact that God knew what "choice" you would make effectively removes the choice from your hands.As a note, I don't believe in God, but I, too, do not believe in free will. I think it's a necessary illusion, but an illusion nevertheless.

They could simply pretend that the bible doesn't say anything about homosexuality the same way they pretend it doesn't say anything about slavery