Do you believe in God?

[SalmanBH]

Remove religion from the Middle East and a whole host of problems should go away, or at least be mitigated. You couldn't convince people to blow themselves up in order to get into paradise because heathens have your holy land anymore.

In India, the caste system is destroyed and people have a better chance at leading happy lives.

There wouldn't be any damage to culture. Keep all the food, the customs, the songs. You could even keep Bibles and what not, they'd just be stories like Greek myths are today.

Alright, I was personally offended by the comment you said about people blowing themselves up in the Middle East. Do not believe what TV shows you. I am from the Middle East and I believe in Islam, and I can tell you that the extremely tiny minority that believes that all non-believers should be killed DOES exist, but from what I read in your comment, you were suggesting that there's a bombing every week. That might be the case in Iraq, Pakistan or Afghanistan (Pakistan and Afghanistan are not parts of the Middle East), but their problems were caused by crazy radicals that have brainwashed them into thinking that they should be believe in these types of things.

Also, if you were to remove religion from the Middle East, a whole host of problems would start to appear, as most of our traditions and manners are based on Islam. Theft, rape, inflicting self damage, treason, adultery, corruption are all punishable with severe verdicts in Saudi Arabia, but in most other Arab countries, you would find that punishments are less harsh and more similar to punishments given by the US.

Other than that, we are normal people, we go to school/work, we come home to visit our families, we celebrate holidays, we carry out our hobbies. We are NOT crazy terrorists looking to kill all the infidels of the world.

Please, I am kindly asking you to do more research about Islam before you blindly follow what Television has shown you.

 

[SuperCobraJet]

So in other words, it's God fault for planting a forbidden tree, and then making said tree enticing.

Even if it's figurative, there is still a problem. A perfect god created imperfect beings (and the source of the downfall of his original plan) and was unable to correct these mistakes.

They were perfect beings, but with free will choice to decide what courses they would take.

To the contrary, he has provided a complete correction to counter the mistake, and offers it for free to anyone who wants it.

The Bible itself admits that God is not perfect which makes Christianity a contradiction.

Where does it make this admission?

 

[Exorcet]

Please, I am kindly asking you to do more research about Islam before you blindly follow what Television has shown you.

Your post was way off. No where did I say that a bomb goes off every week. I didn't even mention Islam. However, we all know that a lot of the terrorism going on there is prodded along by promises of bliss and a sense of religion duty.

Punishments for crimes could be exactly the same as they are now, they just wouldn't be based on religion.

They were perfect beings, but with free will choice to decide what courses they would take.

They couldn't be perfect if they chose not to obey. Free will doesn't change things. They could have had free will while still having the intelligence or knowledge or even instinct to avoid the tree. If God didn't want them to do something, he should have given them the ability to avoid doing it, without fail, for all time.

God could have even personally come down and pushed them away from the tree every time they got close, it wouldn't remove free will. They could still do whatever they wanted elsewhere. A parent doesn't remove their child's free will by keeping the child's hands from the burning stove.

To the contrary, he has provided a complete correction to counter the mistake, and offers it for free to anyone who wants it.

What is the correction? No one is living in the Garden of Eden and we all original sin that we're not responsible for. To get back to God we have to sit around here and wait to die. We can't even speed up the processes because suicide is a sin.

It's a huge detour around a problem that wasn't fixed. A better solution would have been for God to just snap his fingers and made it so no one ate any apples.

Where does it make this admission?

In the creation story.

Supposedly perfect God makes imperfect creations that resist his plans and he does nothing to fix it. Either he wanted people to suffer or he was not powerful enough to undo everything that had happened.

 

[BobK]

(Ps 65:2, Ac 15:17)
(Ps 119:145, Lamentations 3:41)
(1John 3:22, Psalms 10:17, Pr 15:8, 1Peter 3:12)
(Lu 11:5-10; 18:1-7)
(Matthew 7:9-11, James 1:5, 17)
(Luke 18:7; 1Peter 5:6; 2Peter 3:9)
Related scriptures: John 14:6, 1John 5:14, 1Pet. 3:12, 1John 3:22, Acts 10:34,35, Matthew 7:21-23
Related scriptures: (Gen. 8:21; Rom. 5:12 John 12:31 1John 5:19 Revelation 12:9 Gen. 2:15-17)
Matthew 24:3-14, 21, 34, 36-39 2Timothy 3:1-5 2 Peter 3:11-13. Also compare: Matthew 6:9, 10 1Thessalonians 5:1-3, 6

Acts 24:15: .... Compare (Genesis 18:25)
John 5:28, 29
John 11:25-27.
Romans 6:23
Acts 17:30, 31
1 Corinthians 15:21

You know, it's really funny how the theists will quote the Bible (at length, sometimes) to illustrate a point they're trying to make, but when a non-theist does the same they're told "Oh, that part doesn't apply any more".

Is there some sort of master list of what still applies and what doesn't any more? Do all Christian sects agree on this list? Why not?


On the subject of original sin, I cannot fathom how I can be held accountable for something that someone did (or may have done) 6,000 years ago.

 

[homeforsummer]

On the subject of original sin, I cannot fathom how I can be held accountable for something that someone did (or may have done) 6,000 years ago.

Not to mention how God clearly isn't that fussed about anything that humankind did for the few hundred thousand years previous to that.

 

[Dennisch]

Not to mention how God clearly isn't that fussed about anything that humankind did for the few hundred thousand years previous to that.

According to bible "scientists", the earth and everything on it is just 7000 year old.... Roughly.

 

[SuperCobraJet]

They couldn't be perfect if they chose not to obey. Free will doesn't change things. They could have had free will while still having the intelligence or knowledge or even instinct to avoid the tree. If God didn't want them to do something, he should have given them the ability to avoid doing it, without fail, for all time.

They were perfect human beings, not perfect Gods.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you view it, free will(choice)does change things, ortherwise it can't be true free will.
Free will choice came with the Dominion that was given, bestowing a tremendous empowerment on man.

They already had the intellegence and knowledge, not to make the choice they did.

Referring to your last statement, that would not be "Free Will Choice".

God could have even personally come down and pushed them away from the tree every time they got close, it wouldn't remove free will. They could still do whatever they wanted elsewhere. A parent doesn't remove their child's free will by keeping the child's hands from the burning stove.

If God did that, he would be infringing on their "free will choice".
As far as the child's hands the the parent is usurping the free will choice, for the child's well being of course, but you can't continue to do that forever.

What is the correction? No one is living in the Garden of Eden and we all original sin that we're not responsible for. To get back to God we have to sit around here and wait to die. We can't even speed up the processes because suicide is a sin.

The correction is Jesus.
However, if you will notice, it is up to the individual's free will choice to accept it or not.
Apparently God's pretty big on "free will choice".

You can get back to God while you are here, but I have to admit, it is somewhat of a bummer not to be able to skip on to the next stage.
Its still possible, you maybe raptured out.

It's a huge detour around a problem that wasn't fixed. A better solution would have been for God to just snap his fingers and made it so no one ate any apples.

There goes "free will choice" again.
Generally speaking, acting as a Tyrant and Lording yourself over people's lives is not a great way to "win friends and influence people".

In the creation story

Supposedly perfect God makes imperfect creations that resist his plans and he does nothing to fix it. Either he wanted people to suffer or he was not powerful enough to undo everything that had happened.

The power isn't the problem, it's preserving the "free will choice' in the process.
Thats why he could not undo it, only work as you said, to correct it.

 

[XoravaX]

What are you basing this on? This sounds more like someone invading those countries while religion is popular and then demanding that religion be suppressed completely, rather than religion being abandoned by the people willingly.

Remove religion from the Middle East and a whole host of problems should go away, or at least be mitigated. You couldn't convince people to blow themselves up in order to get into paradise because heathens have your holy land anymore.

In India, the caste system is destroyed and people have a better chance at leading happy lives.

There wouldn't be any damage to culture. Keep all the food, the customs, the songs. You could even keep Bibles and what not, they'd just be stories like Greek myths are today.

Removing religion from third-world and/or authoritarian countries would cause problems with stability, as religion in poor and/or highly controlled societies is used to control the people, keep the stability and the leaders' position (aka the status quo). If the leaders' position is compromised, it will cause problems no matter what, civil war being the worst case scenario.

Religion isn't the only reason that causes problems in the Middle East. There are more ways than just religion to keep people blowing up themselves (just look at hate towards the targets' nation, kind of ultranationalism, for example). This wouldn't solve anything in the Middle East, as it's not their hate towards Christianity or any other religion, but moreso willingness to keep foreign influence out.

In India, the caste system doesn't rely just on the religion, that's just used to give reasoning for such a system, the real cause is the greed for power and money by the leading class. Those given the better positions will go far to defend it and keep it as it is (it's pretty naive to think people would give up their "natural" positions in the society for good).

How many Greek temples are still there? How many people still follow the ancient Greek traditions? Now, the over thousand-year-old churches, ancient, ingenious pieces of architecture, who would pay for their upkeep? Who would do that for the other religious buildings like synagogues, mosques or monasteries? Do you think people would go pouring their money to keep them up? A lot of these buildings would be destroyed because of neglect, only a few of them would be saved. Who would sing the psalms? Who would make the foods that aren't delicious enough? Who would keep the tradition? These all are integral parts of culture, and all would be gone forever.

Also, are you implying everyone would really give up their religion for good, willingly? As far as I'm concerned, people aren't. Freedom of thought/opinion (which includes the freedom of religion) is what the democracy is based on, and forcing people to abandon their beliefs and religious traditions would be more like a shot in the head of democracy and freedom.

 

[Exorcet]

They were perfect human beings, not perfect Gods.

So perfect that they disobeyed perfection? A perfect human would not make mistakes. How else could it be perfect?

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you view it, free will(choice)does change things, ortherwise it can't be true free will.
Free will choice came with the Dominion that was given, bestowing a tremendous empowerment on man.

They already had the intellegence and knowledge, not to make the choice they did.

They couldn't have had the necessary intelligence or knowledge. If that was the case, the fall of man is akin to a perfectly sane and happy person ending his or her own life. Or like someone who has felt the pain that comes from touching a burning pot touching again.

Referring to your last statement, that would not be "Free Will Choice".

Not in the slightest. They would have all the free will in the world to choose whatever they wanted. However, they would have the intelligence and knowledge to avoid unwise decisions, and they could never be tricked or confused into harming themselves.

If God did that, he would be infringing on their "free will choice".
As far as the child's hands the the parent is usurping the free will choice, for the child's well being of course, but you can't continue to do that forever.

Now admittedly, the case where God directly intervenes is different from creating perfect humans that don't do wrong, but if God stopping people from harming themselves is so bad, why isn't stopping a kid from inflicting self harm a bad thing? Further, why does everyone accept God trampling on humans deciding who they are? You're born in a certain place, at a certain time, with a certain set of genes. You don't get to choose anything, God doesn't let you.

Secondly, you can very easily hold the child's hand forever. I don't see a reason why it would have to stop. Also, while you do interfere with the choice to touch the pot, you do not remove the child's free will. The child can still pick between blue and green if asked what his/her favorite color is, can still choose friends, still pick what they want to be when they grow up, etc.

If God stopped Adam from eating the apple, free will would still exist.

The correction is Jesus.

But that's not a correction. The plan changed. There was no need for Jesus until the expulsion from Eden, and an all powerful God should have been able to fix anything from the instant that things went wrong. Instead it took XXXX years for the detour to show up.

However, if you will notice, it is up to the individual's free will choice to accept it or not.
Apparently God's pretty big on "free will choice".

So big that no one can choose who they are, or demonstrate their own free will regarding the tree of knowledge. Instead of testing everyone individually, God only allowed two people to choose for everyone.

Also, God apparently ignores the flaws of his creations when assessing their free will decisions.

There goes "free will choice" again.

It remains, as I said, God's mistake was making humans susceptible to being tricked. Had he made them perfect, there would not have been a problem. Heck, he could have just "cured" Adam and Eve after eating the apples.

Generally speaking, acting as a Tyrant and Lording yourself over people's lives is not a great way to "win friends and influence people".

Which is why some don't think highly of the guy who plants a tree that he knows will temp his creations, blames them for screwing up even though it's his fault, and then threatens to send them to hell if they don't follow arbitrary rules.

The power isn't the problem, it's preserving the "free will choice' in the process.
Thats why he could not undo it, only work as you said, to correct it.

If there is a could not, he's not all powerful. There was something he couldn't do. And I've listed multiple ways around the issue without removing free will. I'm not even a god.

Removing religion from third-world and/or authoritarian countries would cause problems with stability, as religion in poor and/or highly controlled societies is used to control the people, keep the stability and the leaders' position (aka the status quo). If the leaders' position is compromised, it will cause problems no matter what, civil war being the worst case scenario.

If religion is keeping people in power, all the more reason to remove it. No one should be controlling people. Instead, people should focus on a building a better world. I don't see how anything quoted above makes a case for keeping religion in the world.

Religion isn't the only reason that causes problems in the Middle East.

Of course, agreed.

There are more ways than just religion to keep people blowing up themselves (just look at hate towards the targets' nation, kind of ultranationalism, for example). This wouldn't solve anything in the Middle East, as it's not their hate towards Christianity or any other religion, but moreso willingness to keep foreign influence out.

Religion provides a highly convenient method of getting people to do things that don't make any sense. If people believe in things that do not follow logic or evidence, then they'll possibly do anything. That's pretty dangerous.

I completely agree that there could still be conflict in the Middle East, religion or not. If for some reason, people took some one else's land, those people might very well fight back. They probably should fight back. What should not happen is brainwashing that makes people think that infinite bloodshed is worth control over the land. Yes, that's something you see from extremists rather than mainstream religion, but removing religion removes the extremists, and mainstream religion (and religion in general) isn't all that important. Law, morals, stability can come from many other things and it's better if they do.

In India, the caste system doesn't rely just on the religion, that's just used to give reasoning for such a system

It shouldn't be justified. People believe that the castes are real. That is ridiculous. It means that they dare not live a sensible life out of fear that they'll be punished for living out of their place.

the real cause is the greed for power and money by the leading class. Those given the better positions will go far to defend it and keep it as it is (it's pretty naive to think people would give up their "natural" positions in the society for good).

Remove religion and people have much less reason to tolerate this non sense.

How many Greek temples are still there? How many people still follow the ancient Greek traditions? Now, the over thousand-year-old churches, ancient, ingenious pieces of architecture, who would pay for their upkeep?

Greece is still Greece, just add a few thousand years. Thing change, just like religions have. Culture changes. How many Americans wear powered wigs and spell Massachusetts with f's? It's not like those things were outlawed. How many Christians still burn astronomers at the stake?

Who would maintain the churches if religion was gone? Whoever wanted to. Sort of like how Greek temples are maintained.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon

Who would do that for the other religious buildings like synagogues, mosques or monasteries? Do you think people would go pouring their money to keep them up? A lot of these buildings would be destroyed because of neglect, only a few of them would be saved. Who would sing the psalms? Who would make the foods that aren't delicious enough? Who would keep the tradition? These all are integral parts of culture, and all would be gone forever.

I don't see why. I don't see why at all.

Also, are you implying everyone would really give up their religion for good, willingly?

With education and less tip toeing around religion, maybe. Though you seem to misunderstand the discussion. This isn't about convincing people to give up religion, it's about what religion contributes to society, which is basically nothing.

My post was not about getting people to give up religion, but a what-if, if people were to give it up. Achieving a world without religion at this point would be very difficult, but that does not change what the potential benefits would be.

Freedom of thought/opinion (which includes the freedom of religion) is what the democracy is based on, and forcing people to abandon their beliefs and religious traditions would be more like a shot in the head of democracy and freedom.

That's almost off topic. Freedom of religion is extremely fundamental and I don't see where it's argued against anywhere in this thread. However, it does not mean that religion makes sense in any way, and it also doesn't solve the problems that religions bring.

 

[Thinker]

why i believe in god ?
We don't have to see an artist to recognize a painting, correct?
So, if we see paintings without seeing artists painting them, in the same way, we can believe that God created everything without having to see Him (or touch, or hear, etc.).

 

[MarcoM]

But we do know that people (artists) create the paintings, don't we?

I am going for Maybe. I cannot proof there is a god, but neither can I tell there is no god.

 

[XoravaX]

If religion is keeping people in power, all the more reason to remove it. No one should be controlling people. Instead, people should focus on a building a better world. I don't see how anything quoted above makes a case for keeping religion in the world.

Everyone has their own view of what is a better world, there is no common "better world". Of course there is something that is better on a national level for example, something that would benefit a nation as a whole, but there are people who are willing to go for their own good rather than common, greater good. Those people who don't care for the others are the problem here; it's naive to think religion is the real cause for any of the problems often associated with it. Really, it's in the human nature.

For example, Marx's socialism is what he saw as what would be a better world. Hitler believed his views would result in a better world. There just isn't a consensus of what is a better world, for some it will include religion, for some not.

Religion provides a highly convenient method of getting people to do things that don't make any sense. If people believe in things that do not follow logic or evidence, then they'll possibly do anything. That's pretty dangerous.

Well, to those who take religion for science the real science might make less sense (ie. mix religion with science). Actually, science doesn't yet make complete sense either, as there are too many questions unanswered.

I completely agree that there could still be conflict in the Middle East, religion or not. If for some reason, people took some one else's land, those people might very well fight back. They probably should fight back. What should not happen is brainwashing that makes people think that infinite bloodshed is worth control over the land. Yes, that's something you see from extremists rather than mainstream religion, but removing religion removes the extremists, and mainstream religion (and religion in general) isn't all that important. Law, morals, stability can come from many other things and it's better if they do.

Removing religion doesn't remove really anything (except the associated culture). No ethics, no laws, but neither extremism nor tyranny.

Oh, and I would consider "infinite bloodshed" a viable action to protect my country from a foreign invasion. That's why there are armed forces at the beginning, as who would like to be ruled by others (as by another nation)? I could never tolerate occupation by another nation, and would fight to death (well, not suicide bomb the invaders though) in an attempt to drive them away; there is no future in an occupied land.

It shouldn't be justified. People believe that the castes are real. That is ridiculous. It means that they dare not live a sensible life out of fear that they'll be punished for living out of their place.


Remove religion and people have much less reason to tolerate this non sense.

Of course people would have less reason to tolerate it, but how would the oppressed get up if the leaders don't want them to? That'll lead to bloodshed you so much are trying to preserve the world from, if the oppressed start taking desperate actions to overthrow the leaders.

Greece is still Greece, just add a few thousand years. Thing change, just like religions have. Culture changes. How many Americans wear powered wigs and spell Massachusetts with f's? It's not like those things were outlawed. How many Christians still burn astronomers at the stake?

Yeah, things do change, but not necessarily for the better. Blind belief to liberalism, or "change", is just as one-eyed as is being ultra-conservative.

Who would maintain the churches if religion was gone? Whoever wanted to. Sort of like how Greek temples are maintained.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon

Uhh, really? Like that neglect causes them to crumble to ruins (thousands of them have been destroyed, the most of them that is)? Athens' Parthenon is just one temple, it's like a single church building survived mostly ruined, while the others would be destroyed.

With education and less tip toeing around religion, maybe. Though you seem to misunderstand the discussion. This isn't about convincing people to give up religion, it's about what religion contributes to society, which is basically nothing.

My post was not about getting people to give up religion, but a what-if, if people were to give it up. Achieving a world without religion at this point would be very difficult, but that does not change what the potential benefits would be.

Eh, actually you begun this particular discussion by quoting to my reply of what would be caused by removing religion (which is related to both how is it possible to be reached and what religion contributes to the society). The old church buildings, you surely can't say they aren't impressive, and they contributed to the construction methods a lot.

Abandoning all traditions isn't quite like changing the spelling of a word or a change in fashion. If you don't have anything (traditions) to base the people on, they don't feel that they belong to anywhere and the unity of them will be lost.

Also, what-if discussions lead to absolutely nothing, because no-one can take all the required aspects to account. If religion is used to maintain stability through a caste system, removing it will cause instability, as the leaders (who lead through such ways) don't want to give up their positions easily, while the people who realised that they were oppressed want better treatment which, if the leaders don't want to give up will lead to extremism and finally to a civil war. You haven't taken anything of this into consideration (really it's naive to believe all authoritarian leaders/systems or dictators would give up their positions if abusing religion to control people can no longer be done).

That's almost off topic. Freedom of religion is extremely fundamental and I don't see where it's argued against anywhere in this thread. However, it does not mean that religion makes sense in any way, and it also doesn't solve the problems that religions bring.

There just can't be a religion-less world unless forced. Hell, there are even people who revived the old Celtic religion with the druids and such.
People will always have religions, as science can't really answer the question of "For what reason anything exists?"

---

Oh, and those who bash a religion (be it Christianity or Islam or Judaism or whatever) or its followers, please keep in mind that it's really close to racism, especially that you can't prove its main view (existence of God/a god/gods) wrong with your arguments (it can't be proven true either, but it's a belief ffs). It's like people started bashing a nationality of some sort, based on assumptions.
Opinions of God's existence is what this thread is about, not "why religion is ridiculous".

 

[SuperCobraJet]

So perfect that they disobeyed perfection? A perfect human would not make mistakes. How else could it be perfect?

If infallibility is part of your perfect requirement, then that is true.
The problem is, with infallibility, there is no true "free will choice".
That is the weak point, but I'm not sure it's an imperfection.
It certainly can appear to be, at least in some respects.

They couldn't have had the necessary intelligence or knowledge. If that was the case, the fall of man is akin to a perfectly sane and happy person ending his or her own life. Or like someone who has felt the pain that comes from touching a burning pot touching again.

They had it but they didn't use it.
I don't think it's that simple.

Not in the slightest. They would have all the free will in the world to choose whatever they wanted. However, they would have the intelligence and knowledge to avoid unwise decisions, and they could never be tricked or confused into harming themselves.

While all that sounds good, if it was all about intelligence and knowledge, then we wouldn't be in the fix we are in.

Now admittedly, the case where God directly intervenes is different from creating perfect humans that don't do wrong, but if God stopping people from harming themselves is so bad, why isn't stopping a kid from inflicting self harm a bad thing?

Its not a bad thing.
However, as I mentioned earlier, we were given "Dominion", which means we get rule and reign through "free will choice".
In that circumstance, God is limited in his intervention.

Further, why does everyone accept God trampling on humans deciding who they are? You're born in a certain place, at a certain time, with a certain set of genes. You don't get to choose anything, God doesn't let you..

Quite frankly, we don't have any choice on that count.
Athough, it is somewhat contradictory, with your earlier statement about the sane person committing suicide.

Secondly, you can very easily hold the child's hand forever. I don't see a reason why it would have to stop. Also, while you do interfere with the choice to touch the pot, you do not remove the child's free will.

To the contrary, you most certainly are removing their free will.

The child can still pick between blue and green if asked what his/her favorite color is, can still choose friends, still pick what they want to be when they grow up, etc..

Well I don't know, blue or green could be harmful, maybe should intervene and make them pick red.
"Choosing friends", now that can definitely be a problem, better intervene on that one.
OMG you want to be a lawyer, a docter is a much better choice for you.

See what I mean.
You are advocating "limited will choice", not "free will choice".

If God stopped Adam from eating the apple, free will would still exist.

Sorry, but no, it would not.

But that's not a correction. The plan changed. There was no need for Jesus until the expulsion from Eden, and an all powerful God should have been able to fix anything from the instant that things went wrong. Instead it took XXXX years for the detour to show up.

Not necessarily.
God is all powerful, but he is not without restraint and control.
As for the correction, it did take X number of years, but it was executed exactly as he planned.

So big that no one can choose who they are, or demonstrate their own free will regarding the tree of knowledge. Instead of testing everyone individually, God only allowed two people to choose for everyone.

Yes that is true.
That is the way he chose to do it.

However, he still tests everyone individually, but it is from the resulting altered perspective.

Also, God apparently ignores the flaws of his creations when assessing their free will decisions.

Since the flaw came at the high price and responsibility of free will choice, I'm not sure you can legitimately make that charge.
Likewise playing the blame game doesn't alter the circumstances.

It remains, as I said, God's mistake was making humans susceptible to being tricked. Had he made them perfect, there would not have been a problem. Heck, he could have just "cured" Adam and Eve after eating the apples.

Which is why some don't think highly of the guy who plants a tree that he knows will temp his creations, blames them for screwing up even though it's his fault, and then threatens to send them to hell if they don't follow arbitrary rules.

I think you are missing the bigger principle here.
There has to be balanced potential in the choice, otherwise there is little significance to the test, or importance and value in choosing rightly.

To demonstrate my point, I would like you to consider the following analogy:

There are two married men.
One is marooned on a desert island for 6 months with a dozen 80 year old nuns.
The other is marooned on a desert island for 6 months with a dozen young beauty queens.
They both remained faithful to their wives throughout this term.

Which man's faithfulness would you say was the weightier and more valuable.

If we can see that, I think God probably can.

 

[Exorcet]

Everyone has their own view of what is a better world, there is no common "better world". Of course there is something that is better on a national level for example, something that would benefit a nation as a whole, but there are people who are willing to go for their own good rather than common, greater good. Those people who don't care for the others are the problem here; it's naive to think religion is the real cause for any of the problems often associated with it. Really, it's in the human nature.

A complete definition for a better world is probably hard to come up with, but there are some parts that could very well have universal appeal. Respecting rights of all people equally and acting logically are possibly two such things.

Well, to those who take religion for science the real science might make less sense (ie. mix religion with science). Actually, science doesn't yet make complete sense either, as there are too many questions unanswered.

Science does make sense, it takes into account what isn't know. "I don't know" is the best answer that one can give when someone doesn't know. Religion takes a different approach and assumes an answer without caring if it's correct or not.

Removing religion doesn't remove really anything (except the associated culture). No ethics, no laws, but neither extremism nor tyranny.

You are correct to say that extremism and tyranny can exist without religion, but religion is a useful tool for both. Removing religion won't solve all problems, but it could mitigate some problems.

Oh, and I would consider "infinite bloodshed" a viable action to protect my country from a foreign invasion.

Then killing anyone who isn't trying to return the land to you is reasonable and worthwhile? Negotiation should not be attempted? Payment or some other reparation is unacceptable? No consideration should be given as to why the land was taken in the first place (such as aggression by the original owner)?

I don't think I can agree. War can very easily be justified. Wanton killing, not so much.

That's why there are armed forces at the beginning, as who would like to be ruled by others (as by another nation)? I could never tolerate occupation by another nation, and would fight to death (well, not suicide bomb the invaders though) in an attempt to drive them away; there is no future in an occupied land.

That's all fine. What's not is convincing people that some tiny plot of dirt may be more important than their economy, happiness, and well being.

Of course people would have less reason to tolerate it, but how would the oppressed get up if the leaders don't want them to? That'll lead to bloodshed you so much are trying to preserve the world from, if the oppressed start taking desperate actions to overthrow the leaders.

War is one such way. Another could be disobedience. Unless those leaders happen to be the vast majority, they would be powerless to enforce laws that no one cared to follow.

Yeah, things do change, but not necessarily for the better. Blind belief to liberalism, or "change", is just as one-eyed as is being ultra-conservative.

Then, no one should blindly follow change or blindly follow conservatism. Removing religion isn't the reason for the loss of Greek temples. It was the fall of Greece as a world power and the influence of Christianity and other religions that caused the temples to be abandoned. The conservation of what is left isn't for religion purposes. It's because people like the buildings and want them to stay around.

Removing religion doesn't mean all churches will suddenly be hit by wrecking balls.

Uhh, really? Like that neglect causes them to crumble to ruins (thousands of them have been destroyed, the most of them that is)? Athens' Parthenon is just one temple, it's like a single church building survived mostly ruined, while the others would be destroyed.

What I just wrote above applies here. Things changed in Greece, and even before external religions moved in, temple building apparently slowed. Other religions were probably highly disapproving of Greek temples since they worshiped "fake gods" and were part of a "fake religion", so when they moved in, it's no surprise that things fell into disrepair.

Fast-forward to today and after all these years, and basically no trace of ancient Greece religion surviving as an active type of worship and you have people who want to restore and maintain temples.

If religion vanished, churches, temples, mosques, etc wouldn't automatically go away, let alone the culture of many different places.

Eh, actually you begun this particular discussion by quoting to my reply of what would be caused by removing religion (which is related to both how is it possible to be reached and what religion contributes to the society). The old church buildings, you surely can't say they aren't impressive, and they contributed to the construction methods a lot.

In that first post of mine, I made the distinction between forcing people to give up religion and having people come to realizing that religion is not needed. You replied to another post that said we could be moral without religion. That post didn't seem to imply hostile take over of religious lands.

Either way, I'm still saying that religion doesn't really contribute anything. Yes, it is intertwined deeply with many societies, and that makes it hard to remove. However, whatever functions it does serve can be filled by other things, and the culture does not have to change at all if religion were removed. You could still visit a church, celebrate Easter, baptize your kids, give up meat during Lent, and cook Christmas goose. You just wouldn't be doing it for any reason other than your own enjoyment.

Also, what-if discussions lead to absolutely nothing, because no-one can take all the required aspects to account. If religion is used to maintain stability through a caste system, removing it will cause instability, as the leaders (who lead through such ways) don't want to give up their positions easily, while the people who realised that they were oppressed want better treatment which, if the leaders don't want to give up will lead to extremism and finally to a civil war. You haven't taken anything of this into consideration (really it's naive to believe all authoritarian leaders/systems or dictators would give up their positions if abusing religion to control people can no longer be done).

I've taken all of that into consideration. You're not understanding. You keep going back to trying to get people to give up religion, right now, today. I'm trying to show that we don't need religion and giving an idea of what the world we be like without it. Giving up religion only means giving up religion. There's no reason to think that a civil war must break out because people have no religion. Just like there is no reason to think that all religious architecture must be lost, all that all culture will dissolve.

There just can't be a religion-less world unless forced.

Why not? What if everyone just stopped believing?

People will always have religions

That's an unknown.

as science can't really answer the question of "For what reason anything exists?"

Neither can religion.

Opinions of God's existence is what this thread is about, not "why religion is ridiculous".

People may believe or not believe in God(s) because of religions, so religious discussion seems reasonable to me.

Gods may very well exist, I've said it many times. However, specific gods are usually tied to stories that makes their existence doubtful. Great example is the Christian God.

If infallibility is part of your perfect requirement, then that is true.
The problem is, with infallibility, there is no true "free will choice".
That is the weak point, but I'm not sure it's an imperfection.
It certainly can appear to be, at least in some respectas.



They had it but they didn't use it.
I don't think it's that simple.



While all that sounds good, if it was all about intelligence and knowledge, then we wouldn't be in the fix we are in.

I've been ninja'd. Quick reply.

If infallibility removes free will, then God and the Pope are robots. And Jesus. And what happens in heaven? Everyone is a robot or do we make mistakes and it's exactly like Earth?

If they had it but didn't use it, they were imperfect.

It's not so easy to wave it off as it was put in the last sentence. The creation myth can't even be verified. And it differs from the Viking account (among many other accounts) and carving out the skull of a giant to create the Earth.

 

[SuperCobraJet]

I've been ninja'd. Quick reply.

If infallibility removes free will, then God and the Pope are robots. And Jesus.

That's a good point and I thought you may respond with it.

In our case, it apparently is unestablishable without the free will choice stage being involved,
but in the next stage thats precisely what you will recieve.
A incorruptable new body and life.

How all that works on that level I'm not sure.

With God, Jesus and heaven, they have the ability to make choices
but do so based on the established relationship factor that we are still in the process of choosing and establishing.
In other words they are in a "can but won't level", while we are still somewhere in a "can and maybe will or won't level" .
Thats the only way I can explain it.
Jesus lived in a physical body, and was tempted in all respects just as we are.
Therefore he obviously could have chosen to sin, but remained faithful even unto death.

At any rate, it is a difficult question to ponder.

If they had it but didn't use it, they were imperfect.

Not necessarily.
I believe it is possible to be perfect but also have the ability to make yourself imperfect.
If the ability is never exercised, then you remain perfect.
This is illustrated in God's reference to Satan:

Ezekiel 28:15 (King James Version)
Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

Again Jesus did the opposite by not exercising this ability, and maintained his perfection.

It's not so easy to wave it off as it was put in the last sentence.

I disagree.
I believe it is directly applicable to your complaint.

 

[homeforsummer]

why i believe in god ?
We don't have to see an artist to recognize a painting, correct?
So, if we see paintings without seeing artists painting them, in the same way, we can believe that God created everything without having to see Him (or touch, or hear, etc.).

By that logic, believing in God is more like studying and witnessing someone doing the painting, and knowing when, how and where it was painted, but still assuming there's a higher being behind the artist's movements, because seeing the painter doesn't explain why a book said the painting was done by somebody else.

 

[RalliArt/////]

Why bother praying at all, other than to acknowledge God and Jesus, if He appears to have everything planned ahead with a certain time table?

Part of doing God’s will is to “Persevere in prayer.” (Romans 12:12) Do you think God would look favourably on someone who didn’t pray to him?

(Psalm 37:34) "Hope in God and keep his way, and he will exalt you to take possession of the earth. When the wicked ones are cut off, you will see it.”

(Romans 2:13) "For the hearers of law are not the ones righteous before God, but the doers of law will be declared righteous."

(1 Thessalonians 5:17) "Pray incessantly."

(Philippians 4:6) "Do not be anxious over anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication along with thanksgiving let YOUR petitions be made known to God."

(1 Peter 4:7) "But the end of all things has drawn close. Be sound in mind, therefore, and be vigilant with a view to prayers."

(Hebrews 13:18) "Carry on prayer for us, for we trust we have an honest conscience, as we wish to conduct ourselves honestly in all things."

You say that sometimes an answer to prayer has to await God's timetable. Why sometimes? When is one's prayer so important that is does not have to await His time table.

It’s really up to God to judge the importance of one’s prayer and how long he takes to answer it, if at all. The bible doesn’t talk about specific circumstances. However prayer shouldn’t always be about something we want. We should reach a degree of appreciation, or repentance that we are not likely to feel otherwise. (2 Peter 3:9 Ps. 105:1 Ps 136:1)

Isn't that just bad planning on God's side?

(Genesis 18:25) “…Is the Judge of all the earth not going to do what is right?”
(Hebrews 11:6) “Moreover, without faith it is impossible to please him well, for he that approaches God must believe that he is and that he becomes the rewarder of those earnestly seeking him.”

 

[dylansan]

Considering all the talk about it, free will is clearly a very important part of this discussion.

And I still hold that free will is entirely an illusion, until someone can demonstrate otherwise.

After all, every choice you or anyone makes can be entirely represented by the interaction of chemicals in your brain. We may not fully understand how all of these interactions work but we know that's what they do. As a result, choices are just the actions produced by a brain after receiving stimuli from the senses as inputs.

What that means is that whenever you make a decision, it's really just the result of all the inputs you've received during your lifetime, and though it feels like a conscious decision, there was never any real choice in the matter. You were going to do whatever you chose to do anyway, as it's simply the laws of physics. And because we have memory, we can compare new inputs to old ones, and sometimes take actions that are the opposite of decisions we made earlier. We can change our minds, which feels so much like a choice, like we're going against our "instincts" or denying something inside us, but it isn't. It's just the same brain making another calculation that's equally beyond your control.

Now yes, there's all this stuff about quantum mechanics which tells us the laws of physics are unpredictable. The brain might not make the same decision under the same exact conditions on two different occasions. However, the only way this could actually allow free will is if we somehow consciously controlled the quantum events in the matter in our brain to manipulate our choices, but even then, we would have to already have free will in order for those decisions to be free.

I would argue that, not only does free will not exist, it is impossible for it to exist. Even if our decisions were governed by something else not bound by our physics, they would still behave according to whatever physics they follow. Anything that reacts to an input through an output, even a God, has no free will. It could make it's decision through entirely random chance (if that were possible) and it would still not be a choice, just a result.

So what it all boils down to is, Adam and Eve had no free will. They could not have. Their brains simply reacted to the stimuli given to them, and made a decision accordingly. The brains were designed by God. The stimuli were designed by God. And yet Adam and Eve (and all their descendents? What the heck?) are the ones God blames.

If anyone is to blame in this scenario, it is God. But only if he has free will. Otherwise, he is just making the choices he is programmed to make like anyone else and isn't to blame either. That would be a really interesting scenario, actually, but the ramifications are probably to big to get into.

Either way, humans, as they and the universe are supposedly designed, cannot be blamed for any actions they may make. And especially, they cannot be blamed for the decisions of others, but I don't know why people think that makes sense.

The idea that no one can be blamed seems like it would have a huge impact on society and law enforcement, but really, the law is there to protect, not to blame. Even if someone commits a crime without free will, it is still acceptable to lock them up to keep them from violating the rights of others. The best solution, if we could make it more successful, is rehabilitation. Unfortunately, we currently are not very good at rehabilitating criminals, and it's mostly impossible to actually tell if it has worked without letting them free and finding out that way, which is of course, not really much of an option.

However, God should have no problem with rehabilitation. If he really understood what was going on he should not want to punish them, but simply help them understand human rights and not want to violate them. That way he wouldn't have to send anyone to be tortured, he could just wait until they become better people and let them continue living normally. Or any other myriad options an omnipotent god should have. Because a God that gives up on people and thinks there are people for which there is "no help," people who can only be punished for eternity, does not sound like the same God that created the entire universe and humanity in the first place.

Sorry for the long post. I wasn't planning on it, but as you can see I've been thinking about this a lot. I managed to string some related ideas together into pretty much the entire reason I think God is incompatible with reality, or at least a huge jerk if he is compatible.

 

[Exorcet]

Its not a bad thing.
However, as I mentioned earlier, we were given "Dominion", which means we get rule and reign through "free will choice".
In that circumstance, God is limited in his intervention.

Intervention would be fairly limited if all God did was guard the tree.

Quite frankly, we don't have any choice on that count.
Athough, it is somewhat contradictory, with your earlier statement about the sane person committing suicide.

I know we don't have a choice on that. That's the point. Why not allow free will where it makes the most sense and restrict it where it doesn't instead of the other way around?

How is what I said contradictory?

To the contrary, you most certainly are removing their free will.



Well I don't know, blue or green could be harmful, maybe should intervene and make them pick red.
"Choosing friends", now that can definitely be a problem, better intervene on that one.
OMG you want to be a lawyer, a docter is a much better choice for you.

The colors, or friends, or job have nothing to do with the pot. Stopping the child from touching the pot leaves them with free will to choose whatever they want in the other cases. Just as if God chose to stop people from eating apples, free will would still exist.

Sorry, but no, it would not.

Imagine Adam goes to eat an apple. God stops him. Adam then sees in front of him a sports car and a rock with a stick. He decides to go drive the sports car. How is there no free will?

Not necessarily.
God is all powerful, but he is not without restraint and control.
As for the correction, it did take X number of years, but it was executed exactly as he planned.

But the problem is, the original plan was to have everyone in Eden. That clearly did not happen. How could God be perfect yet be unable to keep his plans together? It is a complete contradiction.

Yes that is true.
That is the way he chose to do it.

What he did doesn't make sense.

However, he still tests everyone individually, but it is from the resulting altered perspective.

But we're already punished for no reason.

Since the flaw came at the high price and responsibility of free will choice,

It didn't. Free will and perfect humans are 100% compatible.

Likewise playing the blame game doesn't alter the circumstances.

You're right, but if God is at fault, clearly he's not perfect.

I think you are missing the bigger principle here.
There has to be balanced potential in the choice, otherwise there is little significance to the test, or importance and value in choosing rightly.

Why must there even be a test? There was, as far as the Bible explains, zero reason to have that tree of knowledge in Eden. It's quite literally like building self destruct mechanisms into the engines of jet airliners.

To demonstrate my point, I would like you to consider the following analogy:

There are two married men.
One is marooned on a desert island for 6 months with a dozen 80 year old nuns.
The other is marooned on a desert island for 6 months with a dozen young beauty queens.
They both remained faithful to their wives throughout this term.

Which man's faithfulness would you say was the weightier and more valuable.

If we can see that, I think God probably can.

And if God set up this test, why wouldn't you blame him if something goes wrong?

Also consider that one of those people could give-in to one situation, but not in the other. In other words, the example doesn't show much of anything. Especially if one observing happens to know everything from the start.

That's a good point and I thought you may respond with it.

In our case, it apparently is unestablishable without the free will choice stage being involved,
but in the next stage thats precisely what you will recieve.
A incorruptable new body and life.

How all that works on that level I'm not sure.

With God, Jesus and heaven, they have the ability to make choices
but do so based on the established relationship factor that we are still in the process of choosing and establishing.
In other words they are in a "can but won't level", while we are still somewhere in a "can and maybe will or won't level" .
Thats the only way I can explain it.
Jesus lived in a physical body, and was tempted in all respects just as we are.
Therefore he obviously could have chosen to sin, but remained faithful even unto death.

At any rate, it is a difficult question to ponder.

Jesus/God as described above is exactly the same as the type of human I suggested originally. Basically, perfection and free will are compatible.

I believe it is possible to be perfect but also have the ability to make yourself imperfect.

That's a contradiction.

Again Jesus did the opposite by not exercising this ability, and maintained his perfection.

As a perfect Adam would have done. Adam, with the knowledge and intelligence to avoid the tree, would have had all the ability to do what Adam of the Bible did. He'd just choose not to.

Considering all the talk about it, free will is clearly a very important part of this discussion.

And I still hold that free will is entirely an illusion, until someone can demonstrate otherwise.

That's the next thing to consider.

For the record, I'm assuming for the sake of discussion that free will is real. God is certainly to blame in that case.

 

[Denur]

Why bother praying at all, other than to acknowledge God and Jesus, if He appears to have everything planned ahead with a certain time table?

Part of doing God’s will is to “Persevere in prayer.” (Romans 12:12) Do you think God would look favourably on someone who didn’t pray to him?
(Psalm 37:34) "Hope in God and keep his way, and he will exalt you to take possession of the earth. When the wicked ones are cut off, you will see it.”
(Romans 2:13) "For the hearers of law are not the ones righteous before God, but the doers of law will be declared righteous."
(1 Thessalonians 5:17) "Pray incessantly."
(Philippians 4:6) "Do not be anxious over anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication along with thanksgiving let YOUR petitions be made known to God."
(1 Peter 4:7) "But the end of all things has drawn close. Be sound in mind, therefore, and be vigilant with a view to prayers."
(Hebrews 13:18) "Carry on prayer for us, for we trust we have an honest conscience, as we wish to conduct ourselves honestly in all things."

I think you missed the part in bold in my original text. So, if I get it right, one has to pray as much as possible, thanking god for all the good stuff, saying how great he is (mirror mirror on the wall) and while at it, do a wish. You quote Peter (4:7 "But the end of all things has drawn close. Be sound in mind, therefore, and be vigilant with a view to prayers." ), but all that he says is to keep it up, the praying to the lord, because The End is near. It says nothing about a prayer for something (other than being saved) will be heard in due time.

You say that sometimes an answer to prayer has to await God's timetable. Why sometimes? When is one's prayer so important that is does not have to await His time table.

It’s really up to God to judge the importance of one’s prayer and how long he takes to answer it, if at all. The bible doesn’t talk about specific circumstances. However prayer shouldn’t always be about something we want. We should reach a degree of appreciation, or repentance that we are not likely to feel otherwise. (2 Peter 3:9 Ps. 105:1 Ps 136:1)

With all these biblical quotes, I feel like I've ended up in an episode of Startrek TNG (Darmok) where the aliens speak in a metaphorical language. A language even the universal translator cannot handle. When you get to the important bit however, you fail to provide a relevant quote from the bible.

May I assume that He is all-knowing and all-powerful? Because if that is the case, than He has always known what is going to happen, what you are going to pray for and whether or not events will unfold favourably to the prayer. If God is not omniscient or omnipotent than chances are that He will not even be able to answer your prayer, even if He wanted to. What I have learned so far from the Bible, is that He doesn't give a damn about what you want, but He likes hearing how great He is ("Allahu Akbar" comes to mind).

 

[XoravaX]

A complete definition for a better world is probably hard to come up with, but there are some parts that could very well have universal appeal. Respecting rights of all people equally and acting logically are possibly two such things.

Indeed, but there is a problem that those who want the best for their nation makes the situation unfair for those who get exploited in a way as well-being of a single nation often detracts from the well-being of another nation(s). Then again, if the whole world is developed equally it's more inefficient than nations competing against each other.

Science does make sense, it takes into account what isn't know. "I don't know" is the best answer that one can give when someone doesn't know. Religion takes a different approach and assumes an answer without caring if it's correct or not.

Well, that's a way to view it. I'm content with science's blank spots, but not all people are. But then that comes to the thing that religion shouldn't be mixed with science in the beginning, so I see your point.

You are correct to say that extremism and tyranny can exist without religion, but religion is a useful tool for both. Removing religion won't solve all problems, but it could mitigate some problems.

Of course it could, but for some it also acts as a moral guard, as fear for God, which might be more powerful than earthly authorities.

Then killing anyone who isn't trying to return the land to you is reasonable and worthwhile? Negotiation should not be attempted? Payment or some other reparation is unacceptable? No consideration should be given as to why the land was taken in the first place (such as aggression by the original owner)?

I don't think I can agree. War can very easily be justified. Wanton killing, not so much.

Remember that also in war killing civilians and targeting civilian targets is a proven tactic - and it's not done by the "bad guys" only. The Allies bombed several German cities with the only intent of avenging the bombings of Britain by killing civilians.
Also, keep in mind than in democracies the common public is ultimately responsible for the decisions of the government because they voted .

War is one such way. Another could be disobedience. Unless those leaders happen to be the vast majority, they would be powerless to enforce laws that no one cared to follow.

Disobedience could be a way, but if the leading class(es) are strong enough they can turn the system into something from Orwell's 1984, like what North Korea is.

Then, no one should blindly follow change or blindly follow conservatism. Removing religion isn't the reason for the loss of Greek temples. It was the fall of Greece as a world power and the influence of Christianity and other religions that caused the temples to be abandoned. The conservation of what is left isn't for religion purposes. It's because people like the buildings and want them to stay around.

Removing religion doesn't mean all churches will suddenly be hit by wrecking balls.

Maybe.

What I just wrote above applies here. Things changed in Greece, and even before external religions moved in, temple building apparently slowed. Other religions were probably highly disapproving of Greek temples since they worshiped "fake gods" and were part of a "fake religion", so when they moved in, it's no surprise that things fell into disrepair.

Fast-forward to today and after all these years, and basically no trace of ancient Greece religion surviving as an active type of worship and you have people who want to restore and maintain temples.

If religion vanished, churches, temples, mosques, etc wouldn't automatically go away, let alone the culture of many different places.

I agree with you in that the culture wouldn't immediately go away, but it would die faster than it would with the respective religion(s) gone.

Either way, I'm still saying that religion doesn't really contribute anything. Yes, it is intertwined deeply with many societies, and that makes it hard to remove. However, whatever functions it does serve can be filled by other things, and the culture does not have to change at all if religion were removed. You could still visit a church, celebrate Easter, baptize your kids, give up meat during Lent, and cook Christmas goose. You just wouldn't be doing it for any reason other than your own enjoyment.

Now I see what you mean. Like that "religion", the teachings and such would be kept inside the religious communities and it wouldn't be brought to politics and science, for example, nor being preached and almost forced to those who wouldn't want to believe in it? I full-heartedly support that, separation of religion from everything apart from culture and traditions is something that should be done everywhere. Also, that taken into account there would be only a few problems compared to that total abolishment of everything religion and religious, to which my arguments and counter-arguments were placed against.

 

[SuperCobraJet]

I know we don't have a choice on that. That's the point. Why not allow free will where it makes the most sense and restrict it where it doesn't instead of the other way around?

I don't know, you will have to take it up with God.
Its his plan.
But I can tell you if he did it that way, there is a good reason for it.
I believe some of them we've touched on in this discussion.

How is what I said contradictory?

Even though you didn't have any choice in being here or the circumstances, you still recognize the value of life. So its not all bad.
Thats what I meant.
Also, it doesn't matter anyway, because you are here and you will have to play the cards you were dealt, so to speak.

The colors, or friends, or job have nothing to do with the pot. Stopping the child from touching the pot leaves them with free will to choose whatever they want in the other cases. Just as if God chose to stop people from eating apples, free will would still exist.

No it would not.
I don't understand why you can't see that.
Let me put it this way;
once any limitation is placed on it, its no longer "free will choice", but "limited will choice".
Once again as well, if you are given "Dominion" over something you have to have "free will choice" to exercise it.
If there is a override on your choice then someone else is exercising "Dominion", not you.

But the problem is, the original plan was to have everyone in Eden. That clearly did not happen. How could God be perfect yet be unable to keep his plans together? It is a complete contradiction.

I'm not so sure about that.
I don't think you realize, we are the plan.
Ephesians 1:4

Amplified Bible (AMP)

4 Even as [in His love] He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love.

It doesn't appear as if the plan is that far off.

But we're already punished for no reason..

There is a reason, but its mainly guilt by unavoidable association.

You're right, but if God is at fault, clearly he's not perfect..

Thats a pretty bold accusation coming from one who is imperfect, toward one who is perfect.

Why must there even be a test? There was, as far as the Bible explains, zero reason to have that tree of knowledge in Eden. It's quite literally like building self destruct mechanisms into the engines of jet airliners..

There is no way that I know of, to test a relationship and establish true
value other than on a "free will choice" basis.

And if God set up this test, why wouldn't you blame him if something goes wrong?.

He's not taking the test.
He declares he is always faithful.

Also consider that one of those people could give-in to one situation, but not in the other. In other words, the example doesn't show much of anything. Especially if one observing happens to know everything from the start..

I beg to differ, it shows quite a lot, particularly in the second example.

Jesus/God as described above is exactly the same as the type of human I suggested originally. Basically, perfection and free will are compatible..

We're compatible, but unestablished.

That's a contradiction..

No its not.
It is possiblle as pointed out, to be perfect and still possess the ability to imperfect yourself.
If you do not exercise the ability, you will remain perfect.

As a perfect Adam would have done. Adam, with the knowledge and intelligence to avoid the tree, would have had all the ability to do what Adam of the Bible did. He'd just choose not to..

As I said earlier, apparently part of the plan is to individually establish that first.
That way no one can say, you created me without a choice to decide if I want in on this or not.
They already had the intelligence and knowledge, which provided plenty of motivation, to choose not to.

For the record, I'm assuming for the sake of discussion that free will is real. God is certainly to blame in that case.

It's as real as everything else around you.
One can't blame God for the choices they make.


I'd appreciate it, if you could limit your replies to 3 or 4 things at a time.
It takes too long to answer all this, on a, as time permits basis.

 

[PR1VATEJ0KER]

Sorry for the long post. I wasn't planning on it, but as you can see I've been thinking about this a lot. I managed to string some related ideas together into pretty much the entire reason I think God is incompatible with reality, or at least a huge jerk if he is compatible.

Sam Harris? Is that you?



I'd also like to point out Adam and Eve had just two children.
Then managed to populate the earth

 

[dylansan]

I don't know, you will have to take it up with God.
Its his plan.
But I can tell you if he did it that way, there is a good reason for it.
I believe some of them we've touched on in this discussion.

I don't see how you can continue to assert that the logical inconsistencies in your God are not actually flaws with your only evidence being your assertion that he is not flawed. That is not evidence, it is circular reasoning, and it does not support your point in any way.

No one has any reason to believe you when you say "there is a good reason for it" because we all know you have no basis to support such a claim. You believe it but it is not necessarily true and therefore it may not be true. Therefore it does not refute anything.

No it would not.
I don't understand why you can't see that.
Let me put it this way;
once any limitation is placed on it, its no longer "free will choice", but "limited will choice".

By this definition free will does not exist, because we are limited all the time by the decisions of others and our environment. Even if you only mean it as strictly as someone forcing someone to do something, that happens all the time. People are forced to obey the law by the police, with threat of force if they do not.

Maybe you just mean physically moving the child's hand from the pot, but then any time someone pushes us or moves any part of our body they are also removing our free will.

Once again as well, if you are given "Dominion" over something you have to have "free will choice" to exercise it.
If there is a override on your choice then someone else is exercising "Dominion", not you.

What kinds of things do people have dominion over, thus having free will? Certainly not my body, as there are many things I can choose to do that I can't actually do because they are overridden. Flying, for example. But that's limited by the laws of physics (wouldn't that be God limiting me then?). Even just the decision to rob a bank at gunpoint could be overridden by someone shooting me first, which would stop me from carrying out the action I intended to perform?

I'm not so sure about that.
I don't think you realize, we are the plan.
Ephesians 1:4

Amplified Bible (AMP)

4 Even as [in His love] He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love.

It doesn't appear as if the plan is that far off.

Except for the blameless part? But we'll get to that later.

More importantly, how do you know what his plan is and whether or not it is actually being fulfilled? The fact that we exist does not make us chosen or holy, any more than any other existent object or creature.

There is a reason, but its mainly guilt by unavoidable association.

*There's a reason this doesn't work in law, and it's because it's completely stupid.

Blame does not work like that.

Something bad happens. It happened as a direct result of the actions of certain people.

Blame the people whose actions caused the event. You could blame just the one person who specifically did the action, or theoretically blame every in the past that could have influenced the actions of that one person. It makes most sense to blame people who knowingly cause something morally wrong, something that violates the rights of others.

But even ignoring all that, in no sense is it reasonable to blame someone in the present for something that happened in the past. There is no possible element of blame, because it is impossible for that person's actions to have effected that event, especially not knowingly.

And guilt follows from blame, not the other way around. People are not at fault because they are guilty, they are guilty because they are at fault. People who are not at fault are not to blame. Simple.

But even then, if you really want to claim that somehow blame can be transferred by simple association, what association is more unavoidable than the one between God and humanity? He created us, after all, right? If blame does not transfer to Him then your reasoning is simply inconsistent. Which it already was.

You're trying to redefine the words 'blame' and 'guilt' to mean things they don't mean. Unless you can show that your concepts for blame and guilt should hold up in court, I fail to see how you can apply them to anything else and expect them to be just as meaningful, especially with regards to the apparent punishment we get for having them.*

Thats a pretty bold accusation coming from one who is imperfect, toward one who is perfect.

And it's bold for someone who admits to being imperfect to claim to know that something is perfect, implying that you also know exactly what being perfect entails, something you have failed to define many times already.

There is no way that I know of, to test a relationship and establish true
value other than on a "free will choice" basis.

You still haven't explained why God needed to test his own creation anyway. Either he knew what they would do or he didn't. which is it?

He's not taking the test.

*He is not taking his own test, but we can test him by our own standards. Let me explain the situation through a hypothetical.

Imagine a separate universe, completely apart from God or any thing like that. An alternate reality if you will.

There is an imperfect but very powerful entity in this universe. He creates people. He then gives them a book which says he is perfect (even though he is not).

Explain how, specifically, a given person could determine which of those two universes they resided in? What test could they perform that would determine if their creator was indeed perfect or actually imperfect?

If there is no valid test, then it is impossible to know if there is a perfect creator. Simple as that.*

He declares he is always faithful.

So what.

We're compatible, but unestablished.

I feel like you're intentionally using the most vague wording you possibly can. Unestablished? As in, God just didn't feel like making everyone that way? Or what?

No its not.
It is possiblle as pointed out, to be perfect and still possess the ability to imperfect yourself.
If you do not exercise the ability, you will remain perfect.

If you have to refrain from using the ability to remain perfect, and you have to remain perfect, then you don't actually have the ability.
It is impossible for him to remain perfect forever and have the ability to stop being perfect, as those are logically conflicting ideas.

As I said earlier, apparently part of the plan is to individually establish that first.
That way no one can say, you created me without a choice to decide if I want in on this or not.
They already had the intelligence and knowledge, which provided plenty of motivation, to choose not to.

Then what motivation, exactly, caused them to choose to?

And oh yeah, there's still no free will, so any circumstances which caused them to make that decision would have been created directly by god. Therefore it's his fault (assuming he has free will).

It's as real as everything else around you.
One can't blame God for the choices they make.

*And there's the flaw. There is no free will. So yes, we can. Even when we make a decision that's the opposite of what we thought we would make, it was still the decision we were going to make all along, because that's the decision that would be calculated by our brains from that set of inputs no matter what. It just so happens that those calculations include something that make us think our normal decision would be something else.

So whoever is responsible for the exact circuitry of my brain is directly responsible for any choice I make with it.*

I'd appreciate it, if you could limit your replies to 3 or 4 things at a time.
It takes too long to answer all this, on a, as time permits basis.

If you don't have time to answer all these, please respond to the ones I've marked with a red asterik. Those really need to be answered.

But I suggest you drop any of the topics you're not willing to defend, at least until you are ready, as I am not going to continue to refute them only for you to ignore those refutations. I would really expect you to respond to all the main points here at some point or another if you think your reasoning is valid.

 

[TJC_69]

It's hard to believe that in this day and age of modern society that we still cling to the security blanket of an imaginary presence ( Man made perhaps fits better ? ) , to explain us , our reason to exist and the laws we should follow . The beauty of life is that you don't know isn't it ? Makes it kinda exciting to be alive in my opinion .

My new girlfriend is a christian , just like her mother , and i've been told that in front of her I should never mention that i'm an atheist . I mean , what the hell is that all about ?? That's not exactly tolerant of people's non beliefs is it ?!

Gotta love blind faith .... It's so rational 👍

 

[kk20]

Gotta love blind faith .... It's so rational 👍

Haha yeah thats the key. 'blind faith'. People that are born into the religion as opposed to choosing.....

 

[SuperCobraJet]

But I suggest you drop any of the topics you're not willing to defend, at least until you are ready, as I am not going to continue to refute them only for you to ignore those refutations. I would really expect you to respond to all the main points here at some point or another if you think your reasoning is valid.

You apparently didn't believe my request on this either.
It's not a question of defending, but of time.

Below are the ones I've had time to consider.

I don't see how you can continue to assert that the logical inconsistencies in your God are not actually flaws with your only evidence being your assertion that he is not flawed. That is not evidence, it is circular reasoning, and it does not support your point in any way.

It's not my assertion, it's his.
However I do accept it.

Are they logical inconsistencies or do they just appear that way from your perspective.
Clearly if his assertions are true, then it has to be examined from a more expanded perspective.

No one has any reason to believe you when you say "there is a good reason for it" because we all know you have no basis to support such a claim.You believe it but it is not necessarily true and therefore it may not be true.

For you, obviously so, but you alone do not encompass the whole of no one.
Likewise it may be true.

Therefore it does not refute anything.By this definition free will does not exist, because we are limited all the time by the decisions of others and our environment. Even if you only mean it as strictly as someone forcing someone to do something, that happens all the time. People are forced to obey the law by the police, with threat of force if they do not..

It goes without saying, we are dimensionally limited.
The free will choice is exercised within one's sphere of influence and jurisdiction.
This does not discount its exsistence within those boundaries.

Not exactly.
The Police only force you to do something in the event you disobey it.
You are still at liberty to disobey the law if you wish.
It's done all day long, all over the world.
Certainly their influence helps create a spirit of cooperation.
These institutions are extensions of man's "Free will choice" instituted for the good of all men, and so on.

Maybe you just mean physically moving the child's hand from the pot, but then any time someone pushes us or moves any part of our body they are also removing our free will.What kinds of things do people have dominion over, thus having free will? Certainly not my body, as there are many things I can choose to do that I can't actually do because they are overridden. Flying, for example. But that's limited by the laws of physics (wouldn't that be God limiting me then?). Even just the decision to rob a bank at gunpoint could be overridden by someone shooting me first, which would stop me from carrying out the action I intended to perform?Except for the blameless part? But we'll get to that later.

Already covered all this.

*There's a reason this doesn't work in law, and it's because it's completely stupid.

Blame does not work like that.
Something bad happens. It happened as a direct result of the actions of certain people.

Blame the people whose actions caused the event. You could blame just the one person who specifically did the action, or theoretically blame every in the past that could have influenced the actions of that one person. It makes most sense to blame people who knowingly cause something morally wrong, something that violates the rights of others.

But even ignoring all that, in no sense is it reasonable to blame someone in the present for something that happened in the past. There is no possible element of blame, because it is impossible for that person's actions to have effected that event, especially not knowingly..

I see your point here completely and I agree it is a good and logical one.
However are you actually considering the seriousness of the situation.
This was a true delimma of epic proportions.
A taking the entire human race hostage situation.
There are equally critical aspects of "Dominion" and "Free will choice " involved in this as well.

I believe it was not an easy decision for God either.

However if Ephesians 1:4 is true, then he continued with the plan, instituting and providing a full pardon in due time to all parties concerned.

In fact in the time of Noah, God was so distraught he had decided to wipe it all out, and start over.
Instead he wiped it all out, except Noah and the animals to continue the plan.
Otherwise we would not be having this discussion.
IMO you are advocating the logical placement of blame in exchange for your own exsistence.

BTW, Ultimately Satan is the one to blame and he will get his in due time as well.

And guilt follows from blame, not the other way around. People are not at fault because they are guilty, they are guilty because they are at fault. People who are not at fault are not to blame. Simple..

Again, I agree that we fell prey to guilt by unavoidable association.
See above.

But even then, if you really want to claim that somehow blame can be transferred by simple association, what association is more unavoidable than the one between God and humanity? He created us, after all, right? If blame does not transfer to Him then your reasoning is simply inconsistent. Which it already was..

See above

It is impossible for him to remain perfect forever and have the ability to stop being perfect, as those are logically conflicting ideas.Then what motivation, exactly, caused them to choose to?.

And oh yeah, there's still no free will, so any circumstances which caused them to make that decision would have been created directly by god. Therefore it's his fault (assuming he has free will).*And there's the flaw. There is no free will. So yes, we can. Even when we make a decision that's the opposite of what we thought we would make, it was still the decision we were going to make all along, because that's the decision that would be calculated by our brains from that set of inputs no matter what. It just so happens that those calculations include something that make us think our normal decision would be something else.

So whoever is responsible for the exact circuitry of my brain is directly responsible for any choice I make with it.*If you don't have time to answer all these, please respond to the ones I've marked with a red asterik. Those really need to be answered..

Not necessarily.
Your conclusion is entirely assumptive and excludes the possibility of a workable schematic for "free will choice".
It is also incorrectly assumptive in that your brain is the only dimension involved in our decision making.

 

[TJC_69]

Haha yeah thats the key. 'blind faith'. People that are born into the religion as opposed to choosing.....

Think you're onto something there mate

SuperCobraJet
It's not my assertion, it's his....

Interesting thought regarding the concept of God and it's origins .... If we lived in a female only society , or one whereby women back in ancient times were the dominant sex , do you not logically think that your God would be female ?

 

[Denur]

It is also incorrectly assumptive in that your brain is the only dimension involved in our decision making.

What else is involved?

 

[TheDrummingKING]

Your gut!

No, but I'm interested too.