Free will vs Omniscience

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God not because they don't believe He exists, but rather because they believe that He is cruel and evil, demanding obedience to his tyrannical project.

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That isn’t me. I’m quite prepared to accept that if there is a God, he isn’t the monster that - for instance - the Calvinists depict. I’m more likely to reject the depiction.

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It was my understanding that though God is aware of these traits, all of them being present in a rebellious nature, God does not "have them" in that God does not use them or need them.

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Yet the Bible depicts God feeling violent emotion. The evil intent is said to be necessary for even building a house. Even if you deny the necessity the first point stands.

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God is simply aware of evil. He allowed that "spirits" possibility in order to provide a fully free-willed decision process to those beings of His creation who did not fully trust Him and wanted to *know* more. Confusing?

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More evasive than anything, you don’t explain which if the differing views of the evil intent you endorse (if any) or answer my earlier points.

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The better world is already made and only awaits those who trust the authority and realize that a better world cannot exist for them through their own autonomy

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In other words we’re down to the evil intent only being necessary because God wanted it to be. Which sabotages that part of the argument quite nicely.

Whats your point? I know you are in the library and cant listen to the podcast but there is a transcript which I copied.
TranscriptAnd yes I know this point of view is an apologetic one, but consider the idea in terms of a Parent and Child. The transcript explains the scenario raised.

I'll admit that the argument is scattered and can be challenged on many levels. The Jewish view challenges the Christian view. Could it be that on a personal level God is always fair and relational, considering your own motives and challenging you to question yourself. On a national level or even a global level, however...God can be quite autocratic. Or do you reject this notion also? Quite frankly I think that God allows the people--all of them--an opportunity to get to know Him and themselves through prayer and communion. If the people individually reject this offer, they will be judged collectively. We will be judged collectively anyway, but the believers will suffer along with the masses yet live to see another day (or even another reality)

My point has nothing to do with the podcast. It has to do with what I quoted you saying. God can not be "simply aware" of evil if He is the creator of all things seen and unseen.Edited by ringo, : Pselling.

Why not? God created the possibility of evil expressiveness. The possibility became actualized through free choice---again allowed by God. Thus God is aware of an evil entity that is walking, talking, perhaps flying actualized evil. God is aware of what He allowed to manifest. God Himself is not manifesting the evil inclinations.

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Could it be that on a personal level God is always fair and relational, considering your own motives and challenging you to question yourself. On a national level or even a global level, however...God can be quite autocratic

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There are all sorts of possibilities but I have no way to know if any are true. So far as I can tell, there is no God and certainly no sign of any attempt at a relationship with me.

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Quite frankly I think that God allows the people--all of them--an opportunity to get to know Him and themselves through prayer and communion.

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That is not very good at all. Let’s have the relationship before to indoctrination.

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If the people individually reject this offer, they will be judged collectively. We will be judged collectively anyway, but the believers will suffer along with the masses yet live to see another day (or even another reality)

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It’s not really an offer. Some people say such things - but there is no way to know if it is true or not. And it looks pretty suspicious to me.

I don't see us as characters in a book written by some all-knowing author. There has been some speculation into whether or not we live in a "computer simulation" created by someone or something else, but the question of how to determine if that is the case is a knotty problem, if it is even solvable at all!But those who postulate an all-knowing, all-powerful deity that created our universe have set us up as a fully written story from the beginning. If I plant a tree, I don't know for certain what will happen, how tall it will grow, what day it will drop its fruit, etc. But if I write a story about a tree, I have full control and there is no possibility of surprise. If god is all-knowing and all-powerful then our universe is like the second tree. Not really a tree at all, is it?

So long as we're all making shit up, it's pretty obvious that the god of the OT is a fabrication based on their ugly and violent cultures of all powerful kings and short brutal lives.A god capable of creating everything in the known and unknown universe really isn't going to be either evil or petty, that just a silly human construct - we're all quite safe.

No. He created all things seen and unseen. That's your description, not mine. God CREATED evil, by your description, not mine. So He just stands around watching evil happen, without lifting a finger to stop it. That is evil.And you think "free will" is an excuse for that? We don't let our children do bad things just because we don't dare to violate their "free will". Why would God do it?

No argument there. I always frame it as that God created the possibility of evil, actualized by 1/3 of the angelic hosts and later presented to humans as an alternative to obedience. Because the initial choice was given to fully mature spirit beings known as angels. Angels were not Gods "children".Granted God allowed humans...essentially His "children" to be given the option. So lets discuss whether or not that was evil...to offer the option.

1. Aren't the Sons of God in Genesis 6:2 usually considered to be angels?
2. What has that got to do with humans?

As Tangle would say...."as long as we are making shit up"... And in that sense we are all either rewriting the book, describing what we get from the books, or arguing over the meaning of what was written...both in the book and in cultural dogma springing from the books.I know that I will be accused of being just another low down, scheming apologist, but I really dont care. We all are entitled to believe whatever we want. So...to address your topic: This is the first point of contention. Was(or were ) the stories written as "the living Word" from the very beginning? In some ways, I say yes. I believe that Jesus created the angels.I believe that He gave them free will and that 1/3 of them took Him up on it and fought to establish their own "club". I don't believe, however, that the KJV OT was simply handed to humans as a fully written account. I believe that early goat herders and questioning humans gazing at the stars were given an impression...an abstract impression...as to the fact that there were gods and later that there was essentially One Creator. They wrote the stories as they felt the stories to be best described. They were obviously inspired through some source, and I dont believe this source to be solely their own imaginations. Are you metaphorically referring to the two tress in the Garden? If so, many question why God would allow a tree that He admonished A&E not to eat of. To me, that tree symbolized the same offer that God (or Jesus) had given the angelic hosts.Its like a parent talking to their children saying "don't smoke cigarettes like Uncle Bob does." ringo may argue that even allowing Uncle Bob in the house near the kids is a bad move, but others would argue that exposing the children slowly to the real world is better than home schooled isolation. At any rate, being God, God knew the outcomes. That is why I argue that Jesus is really Plan A even though He is said to be the 2nd Adam. Nope. Essentially, the knowledge of good & evil was going to become part of the lesson one way or another.

I believe so. Lets investigate this more thoroughly, as I see your point.
concerning the origin of the word "Sons"... Thus the angels were not sons in the human sense...is what I get out of it. They were more along the line of stewards or subjects. Only three basically had names that we were given...those being the three arch angels. Michael, Gabrial, and Lucifer. According to popular mythos, Lucifer became jealous of the humans because they were like the new puppy in the "family" and God loved them and doted on them more than on Lucifer (or any other Angel, basically)I mean, feel free to attack the credentials of me or any apologist. Stories can be and are interpreted. I happen to think that this interpretation is plausible. Its also symbolic. 2/3 of angels remain with God. 2/3 of Arch Angels remain loyal to God. 1/3 of the sum total of angels rebel. 1 out of the 3 Arch Angels rebelled. Which allowed for free will as well as the actualization of evil.

Perhaps the dilemma for the First Couple was to eat of the fruit and gain the knowledge but be tossed out of the Garden . . .or. . . stay in the Garden but have nothing to talk about.Seriously, though, I wasn't talking about the "story" of the scriptures or the "tree" in the Garden at all. I was instead using them as images for something created or written or planted by an intelligent being.The problem for believers in a deity is that if that deity is all-knowing and all-powerful then there cannot be "choice". If a human has a child then, even though the child has been "made" by the parents those parents will not know what the child may do when given a choice. If a human runs a very simple computer program (say, to add two numbers) the human will know what the result is. It may require a bit of work with pencil and paper for the human to figure out what the result should be and there is always the possiblity of hackers or power surges or yadda yadda yadda messing up the computer's result, but in no sense does the computer have "choice"!Since the deity is (allegedly) all-knowing and all-powerful, we are in the position of the programmed computer, not the child, and have no free will.

Not sure I follow.How did I become a believer?