tommyc

This is a flawed analogy surely, as if God were omnipotent there is no problem where he is forced into a situation where he has no option but to allow something evil to happen. If he's all powerful, how could that ever happen?

If your answer is "free will", then does that mean that God is powerless to change what people do and think? Im guessing he isn't powerless if he's omnipotent, but why would he interfere with some peoples' lives and not others?

Jack the Bodiless

The solution to this problem is simple. I would use my magical powers to disable the bomb before tackling the man. Ain't omnipotence wonderful?

I am continually amused by the fact that even Christians don't actually believe that God is omnipotent. They may claim that they believe this, but deep down on a subconscious level, they are simply unable to accept the implications of such a claim.

Hence the never-ending stream of lame analogies based on what a non-omnipotent being would do in a variety of situations.

Gary Welsh

Is it just me, or does this exact same argument seem to come up over and over again, ad infinitum? No progress ever seems to get made, as long as apologist "bots" like Ed continue to obdurately refuse to "get" certain points. So, they get repeatedly pointed out. And repeatedly ignored. The thread eventually dies...

... And a new one starts. Ed -- or someone like him -- gives the same argument, about how the "worldview of atheism" cannot "account" for such things as the existence of the universe, morality, laws of logic, chipped ham, wisdom teeth, etc.

I guess the reason Ed -- and apologists like him -- keep using this argument, is because it keeps drawing rebuttals. And maybe they think the amount of declamation it receives is, in an inverse way, a kind of endorsement of it.

That's the problem with people these days... They think any attention is good attention. It's not.

Jack the Bodiless

Ed is particularly good at the "not getting it" ploy.

For instance:
The implication here is that Christians DO have a "rational basis" for condemning Hitler. Among the many, many points that Ed isn't addressing is this supposed RATIONAL Christian basis for condemning Hitler.

There doesn't appear to be a Biblical basis for condemning Hitler, because he simply did to the Jews what they did to the Amalekites (and in God's name, too).

But even if we ignore the nasty stuff in the Bible and just use "Jesus wouldn't like it": why is this a RATIONAL reason not to do it?

Why, exactly, should any Christian care whether Jesus likes it or not? How is it RATIONAL to care?

Because they want to go to Heaven? What is the RATIONAL reason for going to Heaven?

Sooner or later, they must acknowledge an EMOTIONAL reason: they WANT something.

Metaphysical naturalism is superior to Christianity because it provides an entirely rational foundation for the existence of such emotions: they stem from survival mechanisms favored by natural selection.

The closest Christianity ever gets to a rational explanation of these emotions is the "imago Dei", or "image of God": we have these emotions because God has them, and we are "made in God's image".

There is no explanation of why God has these emotions, or why he chose to build them into us. Furthermore, this collides headlong with the "free will" argument. If God built behavior-constraining emotions into us, there goes "free will". So why didn't he do a better job of programming inmibitions on violence into us, given that he's already scrapped free will anyhow?

Jack the Bodiless

Let's see if Ed can answer a simple four-word question:

WHY IS GOD GOOD?

If this question has no rational answer, then there is no rational basis for morality in the Christian worldview.

Starboy

Tell me about it.

The basis of the rationality of Eds moraity is that god exists. It doesn't matter what the morals edicts of god actually are, the existence of god creates an absolute frame of reference from which all judgements are made. Since in an atheist world view god does not exist, in his opinion, that automatically precludes any atheist worldview from being rational. An excellent example of the slippery slope that occurs when accepting supernatural over natural explanations is allowed.

It is freaky. Who says that the thought processes of the first century are not alive and kicking in the twenty first century. People like Ed give credence to the slippery slope theory of supernatural religion. Give people justification to accept supernatural over natural explanations and they start using that as an acceptable argument for everything, morals included.

Starboy

scumble

Guys, Ed just isn't very intelligent. He's out of his depth here - unable to actually participate in the discussion. He's actually a pretty poor representer of Christian argument in any case - I don't think he even understands Christian theology.

Starboy

Who does? To understand that you would have to understand the mind of god. That is my point. Who in this day and age would even try to understand the mind of god. It is a fools errand, and Ed is the fool.

Starboy

Ed

Yes, you did and yes he did. They did not exist as your personal walking stick until you did so. But I was primarily referring to things such as personal relationships, personal communication, and possibly at some time in the future Artificial intelligence.

Ok, give an empirical example of where the impersonal produced the personal. Status of argument: UNDEFEATED.

End of part I of my response.

Bree

Hey, Ed doesn't make much sense to me, either - but he's not likely to come back and engage in conversation when people are being mean.