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Author | Topic: What if Jesus and Satan were real? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1792 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
So, according to you, even if you thought there was a God, He didn't create evil anyway. We only brought it upon ourselves. I should point out that's hardly a response. At issue is not what Yaro believes but what he thinks you believe, i.e. that God is all-powerful and good. It doesn't matter what Yaro thinks. What matters is whether or not the world we observe is consistent with the idea of a moral, omnipotent God.
First of all, we don't even know that God USED his ability to see into the future. That hardly absolves God of culpability. Consider: You as a human have a reasonable ability to make guesses about the future. Now, lets say that you leave a loaded gun near a child, who injures themselves. The fact that you may not have bothered to think ahead about what might have happened is not a defense - in fact it makes your crime worse. God has the ability to see ahead and the ability to prevent suffering. He's morally negligent if he decides not to use those powers.
Secondly, even if he DID look ahead and see that it was going to happen, that does not mean the blames on Him, or that our actions don't determine our future. Try that in a criminal case, sometime. You'll discover that if you have the ability to prevent a crime and don't, you become an accomplice. By his inaction, God becomes an accomplice to every evil act.
For example, God cannot lie, and God is love. Love protects. Love doesn't throw it's hands in the air and give up. Love doesn't sell you the shovel you use to dig your own grave. If God is love then he's ten times as negligent.
Therefore, if that's your statement, you have to be ready to admit that God intentionally chose this system, because it was possible, and it already is the best system. That's faulty reasoning. You conclude this is the best possible world because you assume God must be good. But you have no basis for that belief other than what you believe to be God's own words. On the other hand, an evil God would claim Himself good, and this couldvery well be the world of an evil God. How would you tell the difference?
If evil wasn't so prevalent in the world today, you'd be saying, "Wow, I couldn't have done it any better myself. Everyone follows God's laws, and evil isn't even a problem. Circular reasoning. Of course if evil didn't exist we'd hardly complain about it. Nonetheless, evil exists. The question is why a moral God with the power to do something about it allows evil to persist. "Free will" doesn't cut it. There's an infinite number of ways to do the right thing. Evil is not required for free will.
I have the right to make my own decisions, You'd still be able to without evil.
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Phat Member Posts: 18716 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.2 |
Well,Guys...Im home from work so the post continues....as to evil, another good post that I read said this:
This is then the lesson we must learn. Satan--an angel created by God--was given the free will to choose whether or not he would obey God. He disobeyed, and that disobedience was evil.Satan made himself evil by choosing to do evil.In the same way, humans may choose to do right or wrong, and through their choices, evil flourishes.So. . . it was choice that caused Satan to be evil, not an act of Creation. That was good, I thought. What is evil, by definition? Rebellion, use of power to harm or control, deceit, provocation,etc etc. Did God create the action or the potential outcome?Back on TOPIC: IF JESUS AND SATAN ARE REAL, how would people respond? Would the attempt to understand supernatural reality be an intellectual pretzel in futility? As to one of the themes of the Bible, the way to overcome evil is not through trying to be good. It ism, rather, through trusting and loving God. There is no way around that one, so Yaro if you really wanna rant on God, ask Him why He insists that we love Him as our only solution towards all of our eternal problems. ![]()
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Gilgamesh Inactive Member |
I could not do justice to Yaro's poignant prose, but I see things have developed thus:
1. Good and Evil are just made up subjective assessments. Yaro demonstrated the arbitrary nature of such assessments with a few examples. I don't believe you addressed this issue. Given the arbitray subjective nature of "Evil", it's existence is far from "necessary". 2. Entertaining your idea, that Good and Evil (and God) exist, Yaro states correctly that God could have made a world without Evil (like the Garden of Eden example). But he hasn't. That's not real nice. 3. You say that Good and Evil have to exist otherwise we couldn't make choices. This is nonsense. We could choose between really good things in a world that had no evil. Free will is independent of these Good and Evil concepts you are laboring over. (Once again Yaro emphasises the fact that Good and Evil are subjective and arbitrary). 4. Finally Yaro points out that if God has the ability to know everything that is going to happen (whether he exercises this ability or not: see Crashfrogs post above) then we don't actually have free will, so the whole Good and Evil choice thing is nonsense anyway. See the last paragraphs of Yaro's post 41. It's pretty clear: you have talked yourself into a deadend.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1792 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Finally Yaro points out that if God has the ability to know everything that is going to happen (whether he exercises this ability or not: see Crashfrogs post above) then we don't actually have free will I don't know that that has to be the case. From our perspective, there's no difference volition-wise between there being no pre-destination and there being a pre-destination that we're not aware of. Even with a God who knows the future, we have as much free will as without such a God - so long as He keeps his foreknowledge to Himself. All of our choices are just as real to us either way. I mean, regardless of whether or not the future is fixed, we know that the past is, and we hardly think that reduces our free will, right? Personally I'm much more concerned about losing even the appearance of free will by being the victim of a murder who chose to kill. Why does his single act of free will trump all the free will I would have used in the life that was taken from me? [This message has been edited by crashfrog, 01-27-2004]
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roboto85 Inactive Member |
Wow crashfrog, you hit the nail on the head with that one. I am quite surprized. If only Yaro had gotten it that easily...
[This message has been edited by roboto85, 01-27-2004]
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roboto85 Inactive Member |
Sure, why don't you just both jump on the Atheist bandwagon. I believe Yaro is the one who has talked himself to a dead-end. And plus, he has God's infinite possibilities on his side to boot. While I accept this as fact, I realize that there are limitations and guidelines God uses that need to be taken into consideration.
I don't even think you understand what your talking about Gilgamesh... First of all, let me as you a couple questions. Do you even believe evil exists in our world? Secondly, do you believe that the potential to do wrong needs to exist in our world.
Given the arbitray subjective nature of "Evil", it's existence is far from "necessary". Ok, maybe I didn't touch on this point. I don't really know how this point has much to do with anything anyway. But I'll go with it. Given the fact that we really don't know what's evil and what's not, we have basically invented what's right and what is wrong. Therefore, we don't necessarily have to have evil because we could have just said everything was good? So what does humans deciding whether or not killing someone for no reason is a good thing, have to do with God's creation of the ability to take any given course? If this is your argument, then you're stating that humans created evil, not God. Well thats a whole nother deal, and I now realize you were mixing this in with this whole debate and making it more difficult. I must say, this whole thing is confusing me. The whole debate really is circular. We're arguing about something we already agree upon. But we do agree, but then we don't really agree, since everybody's just playing along.
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Gilgamesh Inactive Member |
You have identified why it is difficult to discuss the issue of free will with Christians. They are horrified by the prospect that free will might merely be illusionary. Our entire court system would also collapse without the supposition of free will.
That doesn't mean that it is real. It is nevertherless fundamental to all of us to belive we have free will. If things are pre determined, our free will is illusionary. If we are merely complex bags of chemical soup (which I agree), free will is also illusionary. Either way the Christians are sunk: you may think you have a choice, but you actually don't. Roboto85, Crashfrogs post does not actually help your case at all.
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Gilgamesh Inactive Member |
Sorry your fazzled roboto85, my post above probably wont help either.
I'll conclude by just responding to the question you put directly to me: Do you even believe evil exists in our world? Secondly, do you believe that the potential to do wrong needs to exist in our world. We humans identify something that we believe is evil. An objective evil does not exist. The universe is impartial to our plight. See Yaro's examples about earthquakes and disease. The is no objective morality: only what we humans (theist or non-theist) decide is right and wrong. Biblical morality is the same. The potential to "do wrong", or evil does not NEED to exist in our world. As Yaro said, good and evil are purely arbitray human assessments. Still, speculating on a world without our subjective assessment of evil would be just great. Why didn't God make that? Actually, on second thoughts, don't answer that... we'll be bakc where we started.
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Yaro Member (Idle past 6821 days) Posts: 1797 Joined: |
Wow crashfrog, you hit the nail on the head with that one. I am quite surprized. If only Yaro had gotten it that easily...
Huh? How is this different from what I said? I said free will was an illusion, like a movie. The characters in the movie hav free will, yet you know how the movie is gonna end. So really, free will only exists from their perspective. My point was clear, free will dosn't really exist from gods perspective. Read my post before last.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1792 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Which one? I made a couple points in two different posts. And I seem to recall coming down on Yaro's side, mostly, not yours. (I differ with him on the subject of free will, which I think is not relevant to the discussion of evil.)
Remember that you can reply to specific posts using the "reply" button directly below that post. That makes it a little easier to know what you're responding to.
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roboto85 Inactive Member |
Sure it does, to some extent atleast. It confirms one of my arguments that regardless of whether or not God knows the future, we are still in control of our own lives. As he said, simply looking back on the past, doesn't mean that people have no control over their present actions. And simply looking ahead in the future, doesn't mean people have no say in their actions. It just means that person can see the actions you took that led you into that position.
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roboto85 Inactive Member |
Yeah I normally do. I was referring to the free will deal.
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roboto85 Inactive Member |
You're really looking at things from a relative standpoint, while I am looking at things from a more definite standpoint. I think, whether we like it or not, their is going to be things considered "wrong" in the world. Like killing someone. Therefore, the potential to do evil or wrong, HAS to be there. See where I'm coming from?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1792 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
It confirms one of my arguments that regardless of whether or not God knows the future, we are still in control of our own lives. Err, no. See, to us, there's no difference between real free will and illusory free will, because we don't have foreknowledge. God does have foreknowledge, by definition. He can tell the difference between real free will and illusory free will. If he has foreknowledge, we don't have free will to Him. We pretend that we have free will, but we really don't. We all have to act like we do, but God doesn't. His foreknowledge makes him culpable for our evil deeds, because He could have stopped them but didn't. If God existed, and was in my power to indict, I'd put him on trial before Hitler.
It just means that person can see the actions you took that led you into that position. And it means that if that person doesn't take action to stop you, he's an accomplice to your deeds. [This message has been edited by crashfrog, 01-27-2004]
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roboto85 Inactive Member |
He can tell the difference between real free will and illusory free will. If he has foreknowledge, we don't have free will to Him. Ok, what if He just had foreknowledge and not the ability to do something about it. Would that still mean to Him, we are not in control of our own actions?
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