Biff the unclean

Paul you have painted yourself into a corner. If “evil” is a necessary in order to have good “according to the current laws of the universe” then you have to ask the question ‘who set up such horrible laws?’
If I set up my house hold rules that every now and then I’d give everyone a cookie, then I could be considered to be ‘good.’ If I added the rule that, to enhance their enjoyment of these cookies, every now and then I would punch someone in the nose, all the more to enjoy those chocolate chips then I would lose my ‘good’ rating.
Who is it that is tying your God’s hands? Is He the one who set forth the laws of the universe?
Is there no love and freewill in heaven or is heaven filled with evil?

Paul Brand

The God who can't make squared circles.

I agree.

Logic.


Let me put it this way. Free will and lack of evil are compatible. Free will and the lack of the potential to choose evil are incompatible.

So, in heaven, if free will exists, then there is the potential to choose what is evil. Perhaps there does exist evil in heaven. I don't have first hand experience of that.

Another point of consideration is that people in heaven want Christ as ruler. I would gather there would be less temptation to sin, and with less temptation to sin, there would be less sin. People have to choose whether they desire such an environment.

Biff the unclean

So you are saying that God is bound by logic which is dictated by the laws of the universe. Which means that there are no such things as miracles.
Logic dictated by the laws of the universe that this God set in place. This omniscient God who knew ahead of time what this would mean.

Because of all the ways that God could have set up the laws of the universe He chose that which required evil. So you cannot call Him ‘good.’

Then you cannot call God ‘good.’

So these people abandon their freewill. Odd that it is important only if it is abandoned.
Please read the blurbs above between Murray and myself. Where in the bible do you find God approving of freewill? Do you pray “my will be done” or “Thy will be done”?

Paul Brand

Perhaps I need to be more precise (since you brought up miracles). Existence in general (not just our universe) is limited by logic. Miracles are events that happen when our local universe is influenced by something outside the local universe. They are supernatural in the sense that they are generally alien to our universe, but I would consider miracles to be natural with a more macro perspective.

Is logic derived from laws, or the other way around? Do you think it is in the realm of possibility that squared circles could exist in another hypothetical universe? Do you think God (given He exists) could create squared circles?

I don't follow.

Did I claim they would abandon free will? I claimed they freely chose to have Christ as ruler. That's not an abandonment of free will in any sense.

I didn't read much of it. You claimed something about God hardening Pharoah's heart.

http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksea...&qs_version=31

You will notice that before Pharoah's heart was hardened by God, Pharoah hardened his own heart (Exodus 8:15, 8:32). And then later after God hardened Pharoah's heart, Pharoah hardened his own heart again (Exodus 9:34).

Biff the unclean

Then you no longer have the excuse that God is bound by outside forces which require Him to include evil as a kingpin to make good possible. So now you have a God who is evil because He wants to be and is not as a victim of circumstances. That removes any justification for the presence of evil.

It is derived from the laws of nature.
Why not? Since He is the creator then His creation is as He made it. If He made it with squared circles as a possibility then squared circles there would be.

When you freely choose to be ruled by another’s will instead of your own then you have abandoned your freewill

I never said a word about Pharaoh. Are you having computer problems? The posters names should be clearly marked at the beginning of each blurb.
Please read them to keep from repeating what has already been discussed.

Gawen

So that you may know what people need to do to get into heaven, here's a fairly inclusive list. Now you may make an informed judgment on the criteria and the people who may or may not do these things.
• Abandon all your Earthly ambitions.
• Forsake your Earthly family and give your loyalty to God and your fellow believers.
• Sell everything you own and use the money to do good works.
• Avoid receiving any Earthly reward for your good works.
• Follow the Mosaic Law, both the letter and the spirit of it.
• Abstain from all sin, inside and out;
• Abstain from covetousness
• Abstain from anger
• Abstain from lust.
• Abstain from adultery.
• Do WHATEVER YOU NEED TO DO to abstain from lust.
• Practice strict nonviolent pacifism.
• Do not resist evil.
• Do not strike back.
• Do good to those who hate you.
• Practice mercy and forgiveness and peacemaking.
• Do not judge others; Judgment Day will come soon enough.
• Seek to purify your own character, strive to "be perfect, even as your father in Heaven is perfect."
• Over-fulfill the Law seeking to follow the spirit of it as well as the letter.
• Practice forgiveness, mercy, reconciliation, and peacemaking.
• Kill those that do not believe.
• Abstain from swearing false oaths.

Gawen

There are no miracles in the realm of science. No scholarly journal today would consider an author rational if he or she were to sprinkle reports of miracles throughout a treatise.

Vanity, delusion, greed, zealotry and ignorance have led to numerous ‘pious fraud’ supporting a holy and/or meritorious cause with gross embellishments and outright lies about witnessing miraculous events. If miracles were true, as a result, everything we perceive could be completely unrelated to what it appears to be. My backyard fence could be a guardian angel and likewise, I could have rolled my son into the ground thinking he was sod roll. Such a world would be unreasonable and unworthy of God and our own intelligence. If the senses can't be trusted in one case, they can't be trusted in any. To believe in transubstantiation/miracles is to abandon the basis of all knowledge: sense experience.

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of it, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. There must be a uniform experience against every miraculous event; otherwise the event would not merit that appellation.

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony is of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact, which it endeavors to establish (Hume).

Substances are always true to their natures and there are no exceptions. They have no caprices, no prejudices that can vary or control their action. They are "the same yesterday, today, and forever." In this constancy, the intelligent man has absolute confidence. It is useless to tell him that there was a time when fire would not consume wood or water would not flow with the direction of gravity. The laws of nature have not been established by occasional or frequent experiences of a similar kind, but of uniform experience.

According to the creeds based upon the Bible, Jesus rose from the dead, descended into hell, and ascended bodily into heaven. According to the gospels he stilled the storm, walked on the water and told Peter to do so and to find money in a fish's mouth and catch a large amount of fish. These and other miracles connected Jesus with God and were part of his theology. Every fair-minded person should re-read the gospels and refresh his memory regarding the theology of Jesus. Then a decision must be reached as to the correctness of the views expressed. Either, conditions on earth were different in the first century from those of today, or Jesus was mistaken in his conception of nature, God, heaven, hell, angels, devils and himself.

Biff the unclean

What about Sidney Harris?

Gawen

Which one:
* Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986), the journalist.
* Sidney Harris (cartoonist), the science cartoonist.
* Sydney Harris (AMC), the All My Children character.
* Sidney Harris (Honorverse), a fictional character in the Honorverse.
* Sir Sidney Harris, President of the British Board of Film Classification from 1948 to 1960.

Biff the unclean

The cartoonist of course, with his famous "suddenly a miracle happens" cartoon