Tyler Durden

Those things you listed are not evil by definition. They just are, like rocks. Rocks are not evil – it’s how they’re interpreted and/or used that acquires the distinction between good and evil.

Of course, just as I predicted, like clockwork you say what causes suffering is open to interpretation. Thank you for following the script like an obedient apologist. But I am not talking about an inert, single piece of matter like a rock, but a destructive force of nature that is inimical to anybody’s existence. It is trivially true that interpretation is subjective, dependent upon the values of the beholder, but pain and destruction are not. It is not due to one’s subjective whims that he suffers from the relentlessness of disease or any other natural disaster.

If you deny that natural disasters are evil, then you are altering language to suit your religious convictions. So, how would you interpret human suffering caused by natural disasters? Is it good? If there are no natural evils, then all suffering is restricted only to human free choice because you will be forced at every turn to avoid attributing God the responsibility of evil or suffering. The apologist characteristically denies the practical definition of ‘natural evil’ in order to preserve his uncritical belief in a mythological figure. Correct?

The empirical validation of the term “natural evil” is when a causal agent directly brings about suffering. Incurable diseases, predatory animals, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, meteors, supernovae explosions, any other candidate of catastrophic natural phenomena that decreases the quality of life is evil. Anything evil is what harms the quality of my life. Before you sink in the quagmire of linguistic gymnastics, I want to hear your answer to this: what kind of additional benefit can natural evil confer that a moral evil does in the stipulation of establishing interpersonal moral virtues such as forgiveness and tolerance?

Perhaps you will run back to your library and look up a number of theodicies, study them for a month, settle on Leibniz’s account and work up a response. Let me save you the trouble and play angel’s advocate: what causes excessive suffering (natural disasters) is for the greater good. The suffering subject’s pain has a morally sufficient reason. There is a greater good, whatever that is, or potentially greater evil is prevented by each instances of human or animal suffering. I could reverse this with the postulation that God is a malicious being whose sole purpose is to torture and deceive his constituents at every turn. The preponderance of suffering and evil in the world/universe validates the postulation of a Schopenhauerian God much better than any dishonest theodicy can. Assuming you do endorse the design argument, then the existence of human suffering in the world is sufficient evidence to rule out the possibility of moral character the theistic religions habitually attribute to the designer. Therefore, natural evil is irreconcilable with the existence of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient God.

I do not think it stands to reason at all. I think He DID want us to freely choose. Freely choose Him. To do so would allow us to remain happy robots, which might have been great – who knows? In the beginning, God did prevent evil – it was Man who chose evil and thus earned the condition of sin in the world.

Wrong. God decided what was evil, conditioned the rules of the universe, and rigged the game. God did not prevent evil – he was capable of preventing it, since he was omnipotent – but he wanted to test man’s freedom of will and failed massively. So how is that man’s fault when he was created with the faculty of free will? Either God knew what would happen, brought it about anyway, causing 6000 years of misery and failure, or he was being incompetent. A programmer who programs an army of robots with the element of random rebellion is responsible of his creation, not the robots themselves. Now, a God of infinite power and wisdom would never have created a woefully deficient and inadequate creature.

Granted we do not know how it would be to exist as robots, we cannot know whether it would be inferior to this existence or not. Perhaps it is not inferior. See previous green statement.

That is a wonderful argument from ignorance. Then you have no idea whether life in bondage would be superior to one with freedom of choice, and thus you contradict your first assertion. Who can keep up with such Clintonian waffling?

I believe sometimes we act like robots, but that does not make us exist as robots.

I don’t understand: either we act like ones, but we do not exist as a robot? Then how can you even infer that we do not exist as robots from the fact that we act like them? First you say that God does not want robots, but Adam and Eve weren’t sinners until they disobeyed God. Before sinning they were bound to God, programmed to be dutiful robots. Now you are confused on whether being a robot is inferior to possessing free will. Moreover, the love that is freely given is superior to love acquired by default or mandated w/o option – I agree. However, that is not the case with your tyrannical God – you’re going to either love him and go to heaven or go to hell and suffer for eternity. A love freely given? Please.

True. God is capable of creating a better universe (I think that someday for Christians He will/has – Heaven) but at the same time, by His grace we have all that we need to flourish now in what He’s provided.

What a colossal waste of time and energy. If you can think of a better universe, then you are smarter than your supposedly omniscient God. After all, this is the same God that supposedly stopped the sun in its orbit with no cataclysmic effects from such an unnatural act. So, how can you accept this asinine intervention for a piddling event (warfare) which is a display of unimaginable authority over creation, and at the same time he could not figure out how to create a secure, more hospitable planet, or provide suitable protection against cataclysmic events?

If we are indeed masters of the world today, why are there still things that you call “evil”? Why are we trashing our planet? Why can’t/aren’t we making the world a better place for (all) humanity on our own? If we are indeed masters, and if it’s best for humans that evil not exist, why does it still abound?

Ah, it’s a work in progress, the same reason why you are in engineering, to build a better tomorrow for your fellow human beings. There are natural disasters, but due to our instinct of self-preservation and a wealth of cognitive functions we continue to try eliminating them by analyzing the natural phenomena to understand and anticipate such events in the future, reducing their destructiveness. We are transforming this world to suit our needs with the advent of technology. No thanks to the opium of religion we are better prepared to deal with the adversity of natural disasters. Otherwise you would have your church fathers pointing at the hurtling 300 mile long meteor and saying that God has sent his giant kill rock to show us his love.

Let’s go talk to Dr. T about accumulation of errors and see how far approximation gets us. If everything is relative to everything else (i.e., there is no absolute), then we could logically rationalize anything at all. In fact, you and I both have dark hair and dark eyes. We both have 2 arms and 2 legs. We both love to dance. We’re both not rabbits. We’re pretty similar overall. We must be the same person. Or, 1 is pretty close to 2, you know, but 3 is pretty close to 2 also. 4 is only a little bigger than 3 ... pretty soon 1 = infinity.
One example from nature that is right on the top of my head is the Kelvin scale. If there are no absolutes, what happens below 0 K?

This argument is still bad because you think if absolute knowledge is not possible, then everything must be relative. This is a typical fallacy you find in the newspapers - the black and white fallacy – that it is either A or B, and if it is not A, then B is the only option. We get through life with a number of presuppositions we take for granted, and those presuppositions are not absolute. We assume the future will resemble the past before we even perform any actions in order to truly function. But that does not mean we should throw everything out, the baby with the bathwater. Knowledge is neither necessarily relative nor absolute; it is a matter of approximation.

This makes perfect sense to me except for the whole incompetent part. I think it displays supreme mastery to create a universe that consistently points towards the Creator every time, whether it be through Darwin or not. I say again, God has given us everything we need already. The other 99 percent is irrelevant in terms of what we need. Besides, (Rom 1:20) “For the invisible things [things that cannot be perceived by the senses] of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse”

You continue to import so much unexamined teleological assumptions and quoting the scripture out of context will not help your case. God did not give us everything we need already; otherwise there would be no history and no progress. He allegedly kicked us out of paradise, because he did not have the foresight to abstain from creating man with free will. We had to struggle through thousands of years of ignorance and warfare and countless problems to reach where we are today. The other 99 percent of the uninhabitable universe actually limits our options, and is very relevant to what we need. How would you know what are our needs that avoid begging the question of Christian apologetics? There is a limited amount of resources, provided the rate of evolutionary technology does not fall behind our consumption rate, and that directly impacts our needs. Any assertion to the design argument is also an assertion that the designer lacks the moral precepts the theistic religions are notorious for.

To me, refuting an argument for its identity or age alone is not a valid reason. Indeed, aren’t we supposed to build on what greater minds than ours have already achieved?

No. we are supposed to abstain from idolizing great men because that does not lead to progress. We should learn from their contributions and get over them to new ones. A quick look at the history of logic demonstrates that the human nature of deifying Aristotle has led to a complete halt in the field of logic for over two thousand years, all the way up till the 19th century. I agree that simply saying an argument is old is not a refutation, but I am saying far more than that.

Once again, illness is not evil. It is a condition of the physical world, sort of behaving the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: from order of health and physical life to disorder of systems not functioning and physical death. Physical conditions are not what matters here – the only thing that matters is the spiritual condition of being with or without God.

You are being disingenuous. Illness causes suffering, and what causes humans to suffer is ___. Please try to fill in the blank with a modicum of sincerity.

It is both a lack of good and an active force. I say it is an active force because I believe spiritual beings work to forward the purposes of evil – ask any real follower of Satan (or any survivor of satanic ritual abuse).

Ah, if I understand Satanists correctly they adopt the theistic description of evil as good and keep on calling it evil. Your modern day hedonists who thinks his iconoclastic behavior is sufficient to overcome Christianity.

However, evil cannot withstand God just as darkness and light cannot exist in the same time and place together. If there is a light in a room, the darkness ceases to exist, just as in the presence of God, evil cannot abide.

I guess that means the presence of god is insufficient to rid of the world/universe of evil. You haven’t answered my question – is evil a substance or is it a lack of a substance? You can’t have both, unless inconsistency is a requirement of theistic belief.

Your use of the word “Christians” here is inaccurate to me. I’m sure you know that Christian means Christ-like, so another word for “Christians” could be “followers of Christ”. True followers of Christ are not the “worst people in the world” who label themselves as “Christians” inaccurately. True followers of Christ try to be like Him – the best person in the world. I agree that membership in a religion has nothing to do with how people turn out. In some ways, I do believe religion is a crutch that some people get so used to using that they never learn how to walk with God on their own. I don’t think Jesus ever intended us to start religions. The whole idea was not to GO to church, but for His people to BE the Church (as a body).

Yet another fallacious argument and this time it is of the No true Scotsman species. There are two difficulties within the no true Scotsman argument: you assume that Christianity is inherently and automatically opposed to the actions the followers of the Church have committed in the past, which is begging the question, and two, that a Christian who does do this things can really be a Christian is equivocation through an ad hoc redefinition of the term Christian. Of course you would object to what constitutes as a true Christian, and I would not dispute this myself, but these people called themselves Christians. They were sincere in their belief in their religion, which was historical Christianity. Thus, the religion of Christianity has led to quite a number of atrocities in the name of Christ. So, like Gandhi once said: “Christianity is the best religion. I would have become a Christian myself but I have not found one true Christian.” He also said the greatest enemy of Christianity was Christians.

I don’t think that free will is the derivation of sin. Sin is the condition of being separated from God. All the bad behaviors are just symptoms of this problem. Originally, there was God, and there was not God from which to choose. Satan and Man obviously did not Choose God. Sin came about through free will, not because of free will. I agree that the ability to sin requires a free will, not a tempter. I agree that some suffering has nothing to do with whether one accepts God or not. As equals, we humans live here on Earth having to deal with the consequences of others’ actions. Yes, some don’t live here very long (like aborted babies, etc.) and I believe that people like these and others who are still innocent (have done their best to follow what’s right in their hearts but were never presented with God) when they die are redeemed by Jesus’ death and will be saved. We cannot help or control what another person does, but we can decide how we as spiritual beings will deal with what’s before us. That to me is the practical application of this spiritual issue.

I agree, you cannot help what another person does, and you can decide for yourself without the need of a medium. The practical application of this spiritual issue is silence. Kierkegaard remains the only theologian who had a clue.

This argument is not an accurate reflection of what has transpired. If, and only if, the children and the father enter into a contract does the father have license. First of all, that is not the type of contract (promise of punishment) that God offered Man at first. God offered the promise of eternal reward and benefit. There is a distinct difference. When Man broke that contract, the rewards and benefits no longer applied. The new contract, or covenant, is another type of promise of reward and benefit offer. The rewards and benefits are made available through true belief and acceptance of Jesus’ sacrifice.

Where did God offer the promise of eternal reward and benefit in the Book of Genesis? Are you importing your beliefs in that largely allegorical work? That doesn’t answer the Disneyland argument – which is an analogy of God permitting evil taking place on his watch, and then deliver on his promise. This argument destroys the eschatological claims of Christianity by reducing such high faulting theological aspirations to the level of a father and his children, and holding both parties (the father and God) to the same ethical principles.

So what’s the problem with that? If you live every day like it may be your last (making sure you take care of your top priorities), you might find over the course of your life-span that you’ve had a great life. After all, today just may be the last day we ever know.

This doesn’t even address what I said in the least. Since John had his visions of revelation, Christians thought that Jesus was coming back during their lifetimes. 2000 years, we’re still waiting. Perhaps Augustine was correct in his interpretation of the Book of Revelation, that it is a metaphor for the Church, not a literal 2nd coming.

I have no problem with doing away with means of defining God. Within the realm of my human experience, it is impossible for me to completely define something that is larger. That is why He is God. I can only describe what I know using what’s available to me. Spatial locations and temporal positions are only relevant to us. If God is bigger than our human experience, then He must not be able to be contained in something created within human experience. If we understood God, then He wouldn’t be God. This is a reason for me that God cannot be a product of Man because if He was, everyone would understand God. I have a question – what are your views on love? It has no spatial or temporal properties (manifestations, yes, but not properties), but cannot be a product of the reasoning faculties because it is so unreasonable. Is love an illusion?

You are wrong on a number of things. Within the realm of your human experience, your faculty of reason allows you the ability to infer from the immediate presence of something to something transcendent, something beyond. You can start from your experience of a benevolent act of another person and use reason to infer that the perfect act of benevolence is possible. The great philosopher Immanuel Kant already explicated the faculty of reason; how it was a desire of the unconditioned condition, and pushed our thinking beyond the bound of sense or experience.

It is true that our knowledge is limited by our empirical faculties, which means you can describe things that are within the range of your experience. Yet if you decide to define God out of our understanding, then you self-destruct your positive beliefs of God as well. The captain has gone down with the ship of theology! Negative theology has had its currency in the medieval age. Pseudo-Dionysus is a good place to start. But the problem with negative theology is that it presupposed that we already know something about the entity we are describing negatively. So, affirmative theology must be true in order to allow negative theology to be true. If affirmative theology is impossible, then negative theology is also impossible. As such, there is no logical way to define God. As something ‘ineffable,’ God is nothing. Therefore, there is no God.

Your questions about Love are a red herring. Please stick to the topic at hand.

See previous green statement. A God Who Is independent of anything finite at all is God – the MOST meaningful and significant being ever.

Wrong. Giving god a characteristic automatically entails a limitation or a restriction. Moreover, in this case, the divine attributes contradict one another (problem of creating a rock so heavy he cannot move it). If God is truly an infinite being then God is nothing more than the Aristotelian figurehead, the unmovable mover. A perfect, infinite being would not possess the desire to create anything either. A god who is truly independent of anything finite would be utterly meaningless, the highest concept as the ultimate strand of vanishing reality.

Yes. Ever-present/present everywhere. The thing is, He is present everywhere to our point of view (space/time/reality). So it’s true.

I’m not concerned about whether it is true or not, because I could destroy your assertions with empirical principles. But I am more concerned with whether you are cognizant of your inconsistency. First you say evil exists in a separate realm from God and then attribute God ‘omnipresence.’ Which is it? You can’t have both. Theistic reasoning is notorious for its logical inconsistency.


Another way of (accurately) posing those sentences is:
God is omnipresent to us.
God is omniscient to us.
God is omnibenevolent to us.
[and yet]
Evil exists separate of God but independent of our perspective.

Your last sentence indicates that evil is independent of our perspective, as well as God. Then there would be an unanimous consensus on what evil is, a science of ethics. Why don’t you add the qualifier substantive or privation to differentiate which evil you are talking about? Since I already berated on your inconsistency with the attribute of omnipresence and evil earlier, I’ll just note this repeated mistake. I am not sure whether you understand the phrase “analytically incompatible.” Like I wrote earlier, you have to introduce an “unwieldy metaphysical explanation of reality” to deal with the analytically incompatible sentences. The introduction of irrelevant qualifiers like “to us” does not change the original bare boned sentences.

Let me ask you this: why do people get physically ill from stress? Mental/emotional stress has no physical cause, but can cause physical reactions. This says to me that mental/emotional/spiritual and physical conditions are separate.

We have to thank theism for the ugliest metaphysics of all time, dualism. The mental and emotional stresses are essentially chemical and bioelectrical in origin. So, the physical condition is a different interpretation of the mental/spiritual/emotional, and can account for these manifestations in the natural world.

Why can it be beautiful weather outside but you have a crappy day mentally/emotionally/spiritually?

There could be a physical cause to the personal disposition, or an event in the past that caused the current mood of the person, amongst other things.

Why would it be wrong or inaccurate to divide the mind/spirit and the body?

History of philosophy and science, chico. It leads to awkward metaphysics and cumbersome artifices invented to deal with dual substances. Descartes was a genius in inventing a novel correlation between subjective philosophy and mechanistic sciences. However, he failed in his task to reconcile between two fundamentally different substances, and nobody else has ever solved his problems ever since.

You lost me on that last sentence. What is human that is being repressed? To me, having Christian morals does cut down on what I’ll call for lack of a better phrase “animal instincts”, but how human is that?

Then you are saying that the pleasures of the earth are not human.

How do you know that the mind is not, in fact, superior to the body?

The mind does not exist independently of the body. Therefore, the body is required in order to have an epiphenomena, something “emergent” of physical matter.

What about all this “mind over body” stuff where people can drive their bodies beyond what should be physically possible?

Easy. The body and the mind are not two disparate items in a collection of ontological substances, but rather a manifestation of a single substance. The mind over body stuff is a cultural phenomenon that carries the Cartesian stigma of dividing the body from the mind. It is possible to push the limits of the body beyond the norms, but this involves a lot of physical attributes.

Why is strength of will/mind so much more powerful than strength of body? After all, it is your mind that controls your body anyway.

Actually my mind is a surface mask of the unconscious/subconscious that really runs things, and that depends on my brain. The will is dependent on a number of factors that takes place in my consciousness – memories, habits, subjective values, disposition, etcetera.

I believe that the body is in fact inferior to the mind/spirit.

You may believe in whatever you wish, but if you are trying to transcend your private realm with language, then you had best come prepared with non-subjective remarks like evidential reasoning to convince your skeptical audience.

Evil did exist long before Man, but the world was originally created without evil. Evil entered the world with Satan, but did not take dominion until Man Chose evil over God.

Wrong. Man chose knowledge of good and evil over God’s commandment of staying an idiot.

Perhaps not hereditary sin in genetic terms, then, but as I mentioned before: we live with the consequences of not only our actions, but also the actions of others.

But not God, surely.

And what exactly is Lamarckian about it? I thought Lamark (sp?) was the guy who said that if you exercise your biceps and they grow really big that your children will naturally have big biceps. That’s not what I’m saying.

You misunderstood. Lamarck thought you inherited traits from your parents, irrespective of the genetic data they actually have. So I was making an analogy between Lamarck’s account of evolution and Original Sin.

Everyone starts out on equal footing before God, regardless of genes and regardless of others’ actions.

Wrong. We’re all sinners before God, guilty and cursed only because of what Adam did. Since Adam disobeyed God, we are also responsible for his action. Or are we? If we aren’t then why are we born in this state of sin?

I would not say that imperfection is of God’s choice. I would say that He provided us the opportunity to choose Him OR imperfection.

I don’t recall making that choice. Thus my analogy of the Lamarckian account of original sin, which can be easily refuted.

Inherent in the concept of divine foreknowledge is the prefix “fore-“ which connotes pre-existent knowledge or knowledge that exists in a time before the present time. This is somewhat accurate from our point of view, but then again, God is outside of time, so He’s bigger than anything we can build with time (we cannot contain Him to having knowledge before or after any certain point that we define).

The phrase ‘outside of time’ is meaningless, because it is the absence of causality. In every possible experience, temporality is presupposed. So the phrase ‘outside of time’ is meaningless, because it is not a possible, intelligible experience. If a supernatural being like God is to act in the material realm, he has to act according to its laws, like the law of causality, and time enters the fray. It would also be ridiculous to posit a supernatural being to be outside of time because it means God is outside of change. By moving God out of the realm of intelligibility and knowledge, you have moved your brand of theism to incoherent agnosticism with this phrase.

He Knows “now” (to us) everything He knew before “now” (to us) and will know later “than now” (to us), independent of when we come into the picture and make our Choices. It is true that God knows who will choose Him and who will not, but knowledge here does not confer responsibility because the actual Choice is our and ours alone to make. God does not overrule or disregard our Choices.

Yes, and since God has the attribute of foreknowledge before he created us, he is responsible for what turned out. God knew exactly what I was going to do, whether I would become a Christian or an unbeliever. At the instant of creation God knew every detail what has taken place and will take place in the universe. He knew exactly what would happen to every single element, entity, what causes which event, all these trivia was available to his knowledge when he created the universe. So god is responsible for the universe, how it turned out. So, everything that has happened and will happen must necessarily happen. Your counter argument, while plausibly reasonable, is flawed. Let’s say I invent a time machine and traveled forward in time to one month later. I observe your actions and jot everything down in a book and then travel back to today. I give the book to you, making you swear not to open it until one month later. Then you read it and yuou will realize I had prior knowledge of all your actions. However, this is the crux of your argument – I did not remove your free will because I simply observed you. Yet, I did not set in motion all the events that led up to your actions, from the creation of the universe. This is the problem of divine foreknowledge and free will. I cannot surprise this omniscient entity with anything I do. So, I cannot have the ability to choose freely. This God, who is infinitely powerful, everywhere at once, knows everything there is to know, is not limited to any physical laws of nature, and knows exactly what I will do tomorrow in school, whatever that is.

Paul’s (not Saul’s) entire life after Damascus was testament to Jesus. They are consistent.

With a close reading of the New Testament, and a judicious removal of the horseblinders of Christian dogma I respectfully disagree. Paul was a dysangel while Jesus was an evangel. I can go on in depth, but i am running out of energy.

It’s not a confession of skepticism, it’s a profession of faith in Someone larger than myself that He is the One who is truly in control. For me (or anyone) to be able to understand all the mysteries of God completely is to be equal with God, and that is impossible. I cannot define or even fully describe or explain God because the part can never be greater than the whole.
I believe in my account above any other for several reasons. One is similar to why I study Wing Chun Kung Fu. Wing Chun is a complete system. It entails everything I need to know about martial arts. It is a master key able to unlock any martial arts problem. I have not completed the system, so I am still imperfect in my knowledge and execution of the art. Similarly, this account of God offers everything I need to know about Him, life, and the world. Another reason is that it works for me. Since I started taking my walk with God seriously, my life has blossomed into greater fullness than I could have imagined. The past three years are phenomenal testament to this compared to the three years before that. The past three years I have had the privilege to live with brothers in my faith and they have encouraged me and taught me and shared fellowship with me. Since moving in with them I have become a better, more full human being. I can give you specific examples later if you want. The three years before that I lived in the residence halls (once as a freshman, then twice as an RA). During those years I did not have a strong base of friends in my faith, and my personal, emotional, and spiritual growth was very stunted. What do you believe in, and does it work for you (meaning are you a better person for believing and following it)?

I believe in myself. I am happy for you finding yourself, on becoming a full human being, but I do not think there are shortcuts to where one is.

And if so, better by what standards if there is no absolute? Without God’s benchmark, I believe there is no such thing as morality. For people who have never been “exposed to God” who still act morally: Rom 2:14-15 “The Gentiles do not have the Law; but whenever they do by instinct what the Law commands, they are their own law, even though they do not have the Law. Their conduct shows that what the Law commands is written in their hearts. Their consciences also show that this is true, since their thoughts sometimes accuse them and sometimes defend them.”

That is a crock of bullshit.

If that’s the case, then why are we here?

Evolution.

Are we some sort of accident?

Yes, due to the extinction of the Dinosaurs 65 million years ago, the mammals gained prominence, and here we are.

If so, why not skip all the unpleasantries and just kill yourself?

Because there are pleasantries in between those unpleasantries that are worth looking forward to. However, on a metaphysical plane of understanding, the entire sum of history is this: man invented God in order not to kill himself. Since I do not want to kill myself I must become my final arbitrator, and become God.

You’ll just end up dead in the end either way if that’s what you believe.

I take an epicurean approach to death- when death is, I am not. When I am, death is not. So there is nothing to fear.

Good experiences may be worth living for, but if they pass away with your life, why not just avoid all the unpleasantness that comes with them?

I can strive to enrich the quality of my life here on earth and not worry about currying favor from a tyrannical God in order to qualify for the otherworld.

If reincarnation is your thing, then what happens when the universe experiences heat death (the eventual absence of any temperature difference)?

Not my problem, because I won’t be around.

And how did it start?

Read Stephen Hawking’s book “a brief history of time.”

I believe our Creator is bigger than us, the creations (obviously), so there again is no way we can completely understand or explain God. That’s fine with me – I have everything I need to know and grow.

If there is no way we can completely understand or explain God, then your incomplete understanding should not be taken seriously. Why should I take your word for it? Maybe someone else has a better understanding of God, say those graduates from Fuller Seminary.

Okay, I’m curious as to the “true meaning” of my beliefs according to you.

Your beliefs are the projection of the fundamental nature of man – to be both free and complete.

It doesn’t make sense to me that a child begotten by parents who were created would understand the original Creator. To me, that’s almost like saying that an AI spawned by AI’s would understand the programmer.

It’s called evolution. A program that has a self-correcting, mutating mechanism will soon overtake its inventor.

When I made the statement about the baby, it was under the condition that the baby never grows up. Are you saying that when we “grow up” we become like God? When does that happen? Do you belong to the church of latter-day saints? I believe we’ll never “grow up” and be like God. If we did, then why don’t we know about it? Where’s your empirical evidence that leads you to believe that we’ll “grow up” to be like God?

No I was talking about a literal baby and his or her literal parents. Nothing like your theological speculations, smile.

It doesn’t hurt my case. Again, it works for me. I am a better person (closer to God – that’s my comparison) for believing what I do.

You did not answer my question. I wasn’t trying to hurt your case- far better skeptics than I have already blazed the path and done a great job of reforming Christianity to a shallow caricature of its former self.

Indeed, these discussions have helped me grow. I am happy to find that I’m still growing closer to God by finding Him to be self-consistent.

i'm covering old ground with our discussions, because you are merely using traditional Christian apologetics and theodicy i have heard before thousands of times and refuted tens of thousands of times. “Convictions, not lies, are the enemy of truth.”

You said foreknowledge again. Your analogy is inaccurate at the points of the element of random behavior and the illusion of choice. I believe God truly gave us actual free choice, so the responsibility lies on us. True, God knew what would transpire, but again, knowledge does not equal responsibility. As for the ENGR 195 ethics part of it, what God did with His knowledge to fix the problem was offer His Son Jesus to bail us out of the breach of contract we earned.

Wrong. Knowledge does entail responsibility when we are talking about a God who knew everything before creation, and was responsible for our creation. You can’t get around this creation part and keep on denying that God has any responsibility for what was already necessary in his foreknowledge to take place.