Bible Humper

Hi Gemma, you followed the link from the other thread? The crucial test of the idea is in my third post.

Though I challenge the idea that free will to believe or not is the end all and be all of benevolent gifts, specifically the nitty gritty details such as not designing our brains to not respond to commands to harm children, making it appear to be an evolutionary feature that protects the young from aberrant adults, I'll let it slide for the time being and focus on what it means for the claims of your religion to assert that the deity's priority is to preserve our free will to believe or not.

Take your time and muscle through my third post, anyone who wants to see where this discussion came from, <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=47&t=001361" target="_blank">hop over here</a>.

Edit: Oops, third post I meant, not second.

[ November 19, 2002: Message edited by: Bible Humper ]</p>

-RRH-

But for them to be comparable to those two arguments, they can't be very convincing, can they?

That said, the problem of evil seems an obvious counterpart.

Biff the unclean

I've always liked "put up or shut up."
That's the argument from honesty. Christians claim to know who God is, what he looks like, his likes and dislikes, his plans, his hobbies, what he likes to do on his day off...etc etc. And yet they have no way of knowing the things they claim to know. A small request for proof goes a long way (I know when I was an RC that small request brought me all the way to Atheism)

Mike Rosoft

As for the free will excuse:

A policeman is looking at a thief attacking and robbing his victim, saying: I am not going to stop the thief. Such an action would violate his free will.

Does that make sense?


Mike Rosoft

brighid

Man cannot have free will to choose if extortion is used to induce a belief, or to maintain that belief – such as threat of eternal torture in Hell. Something is not free if conditions are attached to it. If I am free to believe or disbelieve why must I be punished for disbelieving. That doesn’t seem very “free” to me. Furthermore, why does an all powerful, perfect deity NEED man’s belief and adoration?

If God is truly as the Christian dogma defines Him: without blemish, incapable of evil, infinitely loving, merciful and compassionate why would He eternally (you know FOREVER) TORTURE any human being, especially for nothing more then failing to believe what men say about the nature of this allegedly “mysterious and unknowable” God? That seems a bit contradictory and out of character for a being defined as infinitely good and incapable of evil. It is this definition (as well as many other definitions) that the atheist says is just absolute bunk and therefore leads one to believe that THIS (or these) Gods simply don’t exist.

Perhaps there is an infinitely loving, merciful, compassionate, perfect Creator of all that is that is keenly interested in the souls of mankind. If this being does exists I am not afraid to disbelieve in it, for IF it is truly all those things it will judge me (and all others) based on the totality of my existence and it will value honest disbelief over a belief not truly held. If this God values cognitive dissonance then this God is not perfect or infinitely anything, except perhaps petulant and immature and therefore NOT deserving of worship.

Brighid

Echo

I certainly hope not! I would be ashamed to think our arguments were comparable to Pascal's wager or (shudder) the Liar, lord, lunatic argument.

simian

I am actually waiting for the next time I hear "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic" statement. I will rather loudly ask why they don't include the option of "Legend" and point out there are probably other options as well, if people just engage their brains.

Simian

Jayjay

My favourite argument, though perhaps not for the most noble or intellectually honest reasons, is

"Say, Jesus must really like killing babies... he murdered the first born children of egypt to show off, didn't he?"

This either provokes fundies to some inane explanation why God didn't have any choice ("heh, so why did he kill cattle too?") under the circumstances, or that my judging god makes baby Jesus cry (boo hoo), or simply shuts them up.

Bible Humper

Hmm, I hope that we didn't scare Ku Bop away with our blitzkrieg!

Any other theists care to take a stab at some of these? Starting new threads would probably be best.

Ku Bop

I haven't forgotten. I will hopefully reply this afternoon (11/22).

Thanks for your input.

Ku Bop