scombrid

QUOTE]Originally posted by Radorth
I'm afraid you're begging the key questions as well. There I presented a hypothetical question intended to elicit a discussion about whether we all could call God "good" even if the earth had flaws. You seem to want to have a detailed discussion about what's wrong with what I believe, or whether I should be shunned as a heretic.

I further asked, several times, exactly what good it would do an all-powerful God to fix all of its flaws, pointed out that Jesus did stop a storm, and invited you to argue God was not "good" because he is arbitrary or he doesn't work enough miracles. That's a good argument, if you can show what good they would do him in achieving his ultimate goals. I also asked how "omnimax" God would have to be, and what he would have to do for you in order to secure your happy and willing obedience.


Rad [/QUOTE]

I beg no question. I simply recognized your hypothetical as being antithetical to the Christian concept of god. I don't really care what specific belief you harbor. Either your hypothetical lesser god or the Christian god is unjust in their coercive technique for compelling worship. Why isn’t god more upfront with his intentions? Why are his followers left to speculate as to whom in the congregation angered god when he burns down their church with a bolt from the heavens?

You assert that god doesn’t act because it wouldn’t change us skeptics anyway. If he refuses to act because he knows the outcome, then we are condemned from the start and aren’t making a choice. Why the extra step that is this life? By yours and LWFs model, this life is the deciding factor for where we ultimately end up for eternity. However, if we are both pre-hardened and refused evidence by god for being in the hardened state, then how should we be expected to make a choice that we can’t make because god knows we won’t change and refuses to show us miracles unless it will change our character which won’t change anyway because that’s why Radorth says we haven’t seen any miracles?

How do you know that a clear demonstration of power wouldn’t change us?

Llyricist

Dang scombrid, I just came back from chores to post that very thing (on edit: okay that same idea ), not to mention point out how this directly contradicts his previous "loving father allowing daughter to make mistakes and learn from them" analogy.

Llyricist

Sorry I could not let this stand. Radorth's point is absolutely off topic here. So what if the PoE doesn't refute a non-Omnimax god, I DID concede this. However, the OP of this thread involved the existence of the Christian Omnimax God, so Radorth is arguing from left field and isn't contributing one wit to the topic at hand. He is only attempting to derail this thread into an area that IS being discussed elsewhere on this board. And I was trying my best not to "feed the troll" by playing his derailing game. So the point is Radorth had NOTHING to contribute to THIS thread.

Radorth

Which point did you have in mind? I made several which you missed apparently.

You might have said something sooner. The thread talks about all kinds of stuff, but the fact is I am speaking to the point, if not directly, while refusing to go in circles on your little enclosed track. You did notice I came in when the discussion had been around the same track a few times? At least I showed it doesn't make much difference whether he is "omnimax" as you define it, as long as he is good. I never said he wasn't all powerful anyway, so get over it.

Anyway, on to a less pedantic commentator, re Scombrid

Well, he only knows the outcome

Well, #1, I don't see why he would have any reason to do anything for one who is predestined for hell, so I guess I'm not sure of your point. I'm not strong on predestination of indivduals anyway and think anyone can be saved who doesn't grin while watching torture and murder videos. But again, maybe Uday could be saved.

#2. Why can't God refuse to bail someone out of a problem, if he knows they will more likely turn around if he does not do anything overt? What if he decides to let them beat their heads against the wall until they learn for themselves?

In fact this is the exact testimony of most Christians I know. He doesn't do anything for them, no matter how hard they pray, until they get right. To do anything else seems unloving to me and to them. As my old pastor wisely said "If you don't like your circumstances, check up on your heart."

No you don't. And you won't as long as you just throw up your hands and make no distinctions, particularly in the examples set by Christ and Muhammed.

You just said that one is not doing his bidding, then you say they should get in anyway because they appear to you to be wholeheartedly willing, and it's God's fault if they are ignorant.

Is that your argument? Not bad, except that as I have always said, ignorance is forgivable while leading people to do evil is not. We all know where to go and hear a sermon on murdering and terrorizing infidels, and it ain't my church. We all know why you choose to live amongst Christians instead of Muslims, but hey, if you are so cynical as to argue the 9/11 highjackers should jut as well be be saved as any believer, I guess I'll just give up here.

Rad

Llyricist

ALL of them, starting with your non-omnimax god right on down to what it would take to convince me.

When exactly did you show this?? As you saw in my reply, to that point, I DON"T consider the god in the OT good by any means.

And the whole point of the PoE argument is that god can't be all-powerful AND all good, and if he isn't all good, how can you worship him and obey him with your "heart" in it? and if he isn't all powerful, it leaves room for something more powerful and more worthy of worship. All mental gymnastics and masturbation aside, this is how it shakes out.

Well then he can't be ALL good. How do you worship such a god with all your heart and not out of fear?

Well it's just that the moderators don't like off topic conversations and I choose to go along with them since it's their house

Llyricist

yep, any Christian Identity church (as well as many other Christian churches) and they have biblical scripture backing them up too. And we have no way of KNOWING that they are the ones that have it wrong, even IF they attack the indifels, they may be right and the infidels deserved it because they did NOT choose the right path. OR whetherthey are the ones that freely chose to do an evil act by not getting it right or whether they were ALL wrong. Remember scombrid and I are both referring to LWF's paradigm here that evil=turning away from god, and we have complete "moral freedom of choice". That is, how do we know attacking infidels is an evil act? It is specifically commanded in some scripture. I realize it is contradicted in other scripture which is why there is such a problem.

scombrid

If he knows the outcome and acting on that knowledge refuses to show us hardened skeptics the way, then we are predestined to hell, even those of us who wish no harms on fellow humans and lack the sadistic streak of warped despots. The existence of any predestination ruins freewill.

Learn what? How to live this life to the max (not just hedonistic pleasure either but greatest general happiness)? From earthly experience we only learn how to deal with the problems of this world. This does nothing for that most important decision.

Once most people I know "get right" nothing in their life changes except their perception of their life. To the outside observer their life marches on as usual but the person that has "gotten right" attributes everything to god. I know one guy that wanted to attribute my knee injury to god telling me that he no longer wanted me powerlifting. Initially I was pretty depressed because I had put a lot of work into building my legs and all was for naught since the knee problems are permanent. His way of dealing with such dissappointment was to tell me that god must have other plans for me. Conformation for him was when I began excelling at kayak racing because I changed my training focus. However, god can't intervene in my life if I'm not right with him and I'm quite certain that my change in training focus is just due to the fact that I refused to let permenant knee damage prevent me from excelling at something. However, the believer was just as certain that god was responsible for my knee problems as he was sure that god got him fired from his job and forced a new career path.


Where do you get your definition of evil that compels you to choose Christ? If Muhammed was right then his wacky followers are right and not making us infidels (you and me both to them) is a form of evil. As it is Christ had a humanist streak. Had you grown up in another culture with less humanistic values, the distinctions you make would likely be different. Do I generally hate fundamentalist Islam, yep. Would I condemn the adherents to that doctrine to eternal torture because they believe they're doing god's bidding? nope. If they were shown that god's bidding was not Jihad and they continued Jihad anyway, then I might be willing to condemn them.


When some dumbass flies a plane into a building, takes up serpents, or refuses to show her face for a drivers liscence photo I'm not being unreasonable in the assumption that if god revealed his will to them, they'd do it. If they aren't doing god's will, it's because it hasn't been shown to them. I didn't say that their willingness should automatically buy them a ticket to heaven but the least god could do, be he omnimax or of some lesser power is show the willing the way. Why let them do harm to the rest of creation through ignorance? It wouldn't subvert their will to show them the way either since it's apparent that their will is whatever they believe is his. Why not save them and the rest of us a heap of hurt with the simple act that doesn't violate free will?

There are several possibilities regarding the hyjackers:

1. If the 9/11 highjackers knew God's will and deliberately subverted it by flying a plane into a building then they've done a great wrong.

2. If they truly sought to do God's bidding, and he allowed them to do what they did anyway, then god allowed great evil to occur in a situation where stopping the evil act would not have subverted the will of the terrorists. They did not desire to do evil. They desired to do what god wanted yet he remained silent.

3. If they knew god's will, and god's will was to fly the plane into a building then they did his bidding are in heaven and we're batting for the wrong team.

Dr Rick

But it isn't just "accessible;" it happens. If the universe was one where evil was merely accessible rather than real, the PoE would fail. Such a universe could logically exist: it could be one where people who "will" evil get what they want by experiences that do not hurt other people. If someone wants to harm someone, the wonderful, all-loving, all-knowing, all powerful, to whom free-will is so important, god puts the person into a place where the evil and its affects are experienced, lets the bad stuff happen, and then puts him back, or keeps him there until he writes 500 billion times or so on the blackboard, "I will not kill babies," or adjusts the universe in such a way that the person who wills it gets the affects and no one but the guilty party suffers, or some other variation that is more just than letting bad people "free-will" infanticide and torture upon little babies and their mommies.

A better universe run by an extant, just, omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent god could exist where evil is accessible only to those that will it when they will it; no more buried-alive or machetied babies. Someone wants to do that, fine: let him be transformed into both the victim and the perpetrator, or maybe draft one of those nasty fallen angels to do the dirty deeds, let the free-willer experience the horror, and, once the lesson is learned, bring him back to tell us about what a bad idea it was that he had, and what a swell guy god is to let him learn and live.

Hello, Veronique ( I hope I finally got it right this time). Of course you can break-in, anytime.

On the contrary; an extant omni-god could define evil for us much better than we can do for ourselves, could teach us much better than we can teach ourselves, and could have made us much better than we are ourselves.

The person that I am, if I was made by a god, is the person made by that god. My shortcomings are of his making; if I lack the ability to recognize evil without being able to perpetrate it, that's his fault. And if, despite his best efforts, I still need to learn from evil, there are possible ways to let me learn without giving me, you, or anyone else the ability to slice open pregnant womens' bellies just because I don't like their tribe or something.

Our universe is not the best possible one; if there was an omni-god, it would be.

In a just cosmos, those deviant choices wouldn't hurt those that didn't make them

And it seems an extant god is at his worse; unwilling, uncaring, or unable to make things right. Had a god made the universe, and done it right, you and I wouldn't be haplessly chasing around and trying to fix the failures.

Any way we can, I suppose, but not in a way that makes others suffer for the bad choices someone else makes.

Dr Rick

You're fallaciously mixing terms. There's no reason to assume that a slave doesn't have free will even though slavery limits the freedom to act upon free will.

Slavery limits freedom, not free will. A god could make us all slaves and still allow free will.

You can, huh?

Then do it, but do it in a way that adresses the PoE and not some weaker strawman: Prove an omnipotent, omnibenovolent, and omniscient (all three; that is the PoE. Not one or two, but all three) "...god can allow evil without being unloving..." for whatever reason you choose to defend.

BTW, there is a logical argument that can be made along these lines that does what you propose, but it's not "the free will defense ;" try the free-will defense if you like, but it's been done ad nauseum and it doesn't work. There are a multitude of web sites that demolish the free will defense; argue it, and I'll just cut n' paste from one of them.

The refutation of the deductive PoE is a bit more imaginative (that's why the deductive PoE held for centuries before a decent refutation was formulated), but it does work, imo, and it doesn't involve any fallacious nonsense about "paradoxical things."

If you do it right, you'll relatively deflate the deductive PoE, and we'll be left with the far more interesting and complex inductive or existential PoE to discuss.

Please consider skipping the "victory dance" routine: If you had evidently kicked someone's "butt" or "logically shown" anything, you wouldn't have to make the claim that you had because it would be evident. Making a claim about something that should be self-evident doesn't make it self-evident, and it doesn't reflect too well on you, either.

Llyricist

That's LWF's style, when ya chase his goal posts to the point that he has to contradict himself, he makes a bunch of impressive (he thinks) sounding bald assertions and declares victory