Summations Only

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. 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. 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. 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. 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? 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. You'd still be able to without evil.

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]

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.

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. 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]

Then no, he wouldn't be responsible. But he wouldn't be all-powerful, either. If you're comfortable with that, I guess that's fine. I don't see what the point of such a God would be.But he'd really have to be unable, not just bound by some rules or something. He'd literally have to lack the power to stop evil in the world. The only God that is consistent with the evidence is one that is either immoral or powerless. Are you comfortable putting all your faith in that God?

Actually, by definition, that's exactly what it was. What else would you call somebody who didn't know the difference between good and evil? Hey, I'm just using the power to distinguish between good and evil. You know, the power the Bible says I have, the power God says is just like his:

quote:

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Genesis 3:22:
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil

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Well, if you don't like God, try not believing in him. It's not like God is going to do anything about it. He's apparently either powerless or totally uninterested. If he even exists, that is. No, he's accomplice to that too, because he didn't have to put the tree there. He's God, remember? He knew what was going to happen, and he could have done something about it. If that's what brought sin into the world, that's at least partly his fault, too. You know, not everything is about judgement. Also, we're talking about something that doesn't even exist. Would it be in our power to punish God? Well, God must want something that we have, right? Or why else would an evil God have created us? Whatever it is, we can just not give it to him. There's plenty of situations where our choice is restricted for the greater good. They're called "laws." I notice that nobody ever accuses Congress of trying to restrict our free will. Sure, we are. But the choices are infinite, even if you take away evil. Every choice has ultimately one outcome. But there's infinite potential each time, even if you just count the good" choices.

That's not what you appeared to be doing. What appeared to be happening was that Yaro was pointing out how your position lead to a ridiculous conclusion. You responded by pointing out that, under what Yaro believes, he'd never come to that conclusion.Can't you see that's a ridiculous way to argue? It's like you're making Yaro's points for him. It's like if I told you "if you keep driving so fast, you'll drive right off a cliff" and you countered with "Oh yeah? Well, with the way you drive we wouldn't ever drive off a cliff."It's like you tried to prove him wrong by totally agreeing with everything he said. Suicide as a debate tactic. It's funny to watch, I'll tell you that.

It's called "sarcasm." Maybe you've heard of it. (Self-referential sarcasm!

What does it matter what atheists believe? We're talking about what theists believe.You aren't trying to change the subject, are you?[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 01-27-2004]

But they're also going to be equal in power to God. That is to say that if the devil personifies the opposite of God, the devil must also personify evil power in equal measure to the good power of God.Which would basically make him the God of evil, making Christians polytheists.

That's the definition of opposite. Two vectors are opposing when they're equal in magnitude but opposing in direction. Opposites have equal absolute value, in other words. 2 and -2 are opposites. 1 and -5 are not. Now you're just making stuff up. How do you propose we measure these quantities? On Planet Roboto, maybe. On Planet Earth they're both flavors. They're not opposite. You have to add vanila to make chocolate. How could they be opposites if one of them contains the other? Look, I really don't feel the need to argue with somebody who can't be bothered to use sense. Opposites means that things are opposites! What the hell else would it mean?This is the problem with talking about theology. There's absolutely no difference between talking about God and just making things up. If you're going to redefine words wholesale, then I guess God can have whatever contradictory qualities you want him to. It's just that you won't be able to communicate absolutely anything about God to anybody.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 01-29-2004]