At 9/14/10 09:28 PM, Gario wrote: What if God did exist, was omnipotent and removed all evil from the planet? What would happen then?

Wouldn't that sorta be like... heaven on earth?

Actually... can I try to call this one?

The argument that evil has to exist? Perhaps?

At 9/14/10 09:28 PM, Gario wrote:

What if God did exist, was omnipotent and removed all evil from the planet? What would happen then?

So....what happens if you remove all evil? What's evil?
Is a lion evil?
Are viruses that kill people evil? Is death evil? Is pain evil?
Is being angry evil? Is laughing at someone failing evil? In which case, you'd have to remove all instances of people making mistakes... or all instance of people laughing about it...?

A world without evil isn't a world humans are designed to live in and understand. It's like if we lived in 4 dimensions or in a place without time. It doesn't make sense to humans, we can't even imagine it. If we lived in that world, we wouldn't be humans.

At 9/14/10 10:52 PM, Bacchanalian wrote:

At 9/14/10 09:28 PM, Gario wrote: What if God did exist, was omnipotent and removed all evil from the planet? What would happen then?

Wouldn't that sorta be like... heaven on earth?

Yup. There wouldn't be any point for God to be there, would there? No one would need Him... and certainly, we all know that even if we did know for a fact that He existed, Occam's Razor would eliminate Him from everyone's lives.

The argument that evil has to exist? Perhaps?

Almost. More accurately, without evil, there's no point for physical creation, from a Christian point of view. So to assume God is malevolent based on the fact that evil exists is, in fact, an error that shows that one doesn't understand the supposed purpose of God in creating the physical universe, in the first place.

At 9/14/10 11:09 PM, poxpower wrote:
So....what happens if you remove all evil? What's evil?
Is a lion evil?
Are viruses that kill people evil? Is death evil? Is pain evil?
Is being angry evil? Is laughing at someone failing evil? In which case, you'd have to remove all instances of people making mistakes... or all instance of people laughing about it...?

A world without evil isn't a world humans are designed to live in and understand. It's like if we lived in 4 dimensions or in a place without time. It doesn't make sense to humans, we can't even imagine it. If we lived in that world, we wouldn't be humans.

Mmm... good point, although since the OP of the question is indeed talking about God in the Christian sense, we should be defining 'evil' in that sense, as well, right? We'll keep things in context, that way.

'Evil' (or 'Sin', to be more accurate) is defined as something that turns people away from God, according to Christians. If it's not defined like that then the original question does nothing to attack Christianity ('Evil' is too vague and different to too many people), so it'd be pointless to discuss, wouldn't it?

At 9/15/10 12:55 AM, Gario wrote:

If it's not defined like that then the original question does nothing to attack Christianity ('Evil' is too vague and different to too many people), so it'd be pointless to discuss, wouldn't it?

Epicurus lived 300 years before the birth of Jesus so he wasn't talking about Christianity.
His idea is as old as religions themselves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_
evil

Christianity has a very very vague and ill-defined concept of what's evil and what isn't. In fact it barely has any, it's more about doing what God wants, no matter what. If God asks you to kill your son, you do it and that's good because God said so.

Ultimately their system revolves around God being all-powerful, therefore always right MORALLY. When God decided to flood the earth and save only Noah and his family, that was good. Why? Because God did it. If God does it, then it's good, because he's God.

It's pretty retarded.

At 9/15/10 12:55 AM, Gario wrote: Yup. There wouldn't be any point for God to be there, would there? No one would need Him...

Um... so? Complete your thought please.

and certainly, we all know that even if we did know for a fact that He existed, Occam's Razor would eliminate Him from everyone's lives.

If God is a known fact, then his existance is of such a nature that Occam's Razor does not dismiss it.

Almost. More accurately, without evil, there's no point for physical creation, from a Christian point of view. So to assume God is malevolent based on the fact that evil exists is, in fact, an error that shows that one doesn't understand the supposed purpose of God in creating the physical universe, in the first place.

Yeah well, you're also deviating from the presumptions in the riddle by supplying a God with limited authority.

At 9/15/10 01:23 AM, poxpower wrote:

At 9/15/10 12:55 AM, Gario wrote:

If it's not defined like that then the original question does nothing to attack Christianity ('Evil' is too vague and different to too many people), so it'd be pointless to discuss, wouldn't it?

Epicurus lived 300 years before the birth of Jesus so he wasn't talking about Christianity.
His idea is as old as religions themselves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_
evil

The OP was comparing this to Christianity (and Islam, but I know little of their religion), in particular. Whether or not the riddle originally was designed to be shouldn't be a concern, unless you just want to stop the discussion in it's tracks. You can't address the problem of evil in a religiously neutral context, since the very idea of 'evil' is religious, at it's core.

Christianity has a very very vague and ill-defined concept of what's evil and what isn't.

Wait, I thought their system revolved around...

:Ultimately their system revolves around God being all-powerful, therefore always right MORALLY.

...then why'd you claim it's vague? It has it's system worked out pretty thoroughly...

:When God decided to flood the earth and save only Noah and his family, that was good. Why? Because God did it. If God does it, then it's good, because he's God.

...Oh, right. Actually, if you assumed the principles of Christianity to be true (like any Christian would) then you'd say it makes perfect logical sense. If you don't then it makes no sense at all. If you're going to argue that it makes no sense then you need to assume the mindset of a Christian - otherwise you're going to be preaching to a choir, which is a waste of text.

:It's pretty retarded.

'Nonsensical' is a more accurate term - 'retarded' implies either someone afflicted with Down Syndrome or something that is particularly slow... and those both imply that you think the thing actually exists, which I'm pretty sure you don't, right?

You could spend the time to attack the system (which simply boils down to that annoying question of God's existence, which is an ad nauseum argument) or you could, for the sake of argument, define a term in the particular context of a religion, so a discussion will continue.

At 9/15/10 01:42 AM, Bacchanalian wrote:

At 9/15/10 12:55 AM, Gario wrote: Yup. There wouldn't be any point for God to be there, would there? No one would need Him...

Um... so? Complete your thought please.

If you believed in the Christian God, ask yourself what He would have created life for. The reason that Christianity provides is simply because He wanted to be willingly loved. Nothing more than that.

If everything was perfect then people would not need God to be happy. I understand that many people think they don't need God to be happy, anyway, but in the world's current state many, many people still use Him as a source of refuge. If the world was already 'Heaven on Earth' then no one would need God to placate them, so He'd be forgotten and left behind.

Thus, there would be no point for God to ever intercede, so no one would spend the time to worship Him, which ultimately unravels the entire reason He (supposedly) created everything in the first place.

and certainly, we all know that even if we did know for a fact that He existed, Occam's Razor would eliminate Him from everyone's lives.

If God is a known fact, then his existance is of such a nature that Occam's Razor does not dismiss it.

Ah, you miss the purpose of the razor, in this instance. People could know of something's existence, but if it does nothing to make your life any better would people include worshiping Him into their lives? Remember, they already have everything they desire without any chance of punishment. People would remove any form of worship, appreciation, etc. from their lives because they know it does nothing to increase or decrease their happiness.

The 'razor' would cut God out of everyone's lives, not cut His existence out of everyone's minds.

Almost. More accurately, without evil, there's no point for physical creation, from a Christian point of view. So to assume God is malevolent based on the fact that evil exists is, in fact, an error that shows that one doesn't understand the supposed purpose of God in creating the physical universe, in the first place.

Yeah well, you're also deviating from the presumptions in the riddle by supplying a God with limited authority.

No, I'm not. Technically, if you assume that God tells the truth then He sets His own boundaries (unless he's a liar, but for the sake of discussion we can assume He's not, eh?), and those are safe to 'limit' His actions by. He won't do something that breaks His own contracts. Does that mean He can't? No. It means He sees it as hurtful to His purpose and thus He won't do it.

If you assume that God will do anything then you'll cut millenia of theological discussion from under itself that's been 'limiting' the Christian God in this very same manner. There's a difference between not wanting to perform an action (won't) and not being able to perform an action (can't) that is sometimes lost in the mix.

At 9/15/10 11:06 AM, Gario wrote:

At 9/15/10 01:23 AM, poxpower wrote:

At 9/15/10 12:55 AM, Gario wrote:

Christianity has a very very vague and ill-defined concept of what's evil and what isn't.

Wait, I thought their system revolved around...

Ultimately their system revolves around God being all-powerful, therefore always right MORALLY.

...then why'd you claim it's vague? It has it's system worked out pretty thoroughly...

That is called Divine Command Theory and tons of Christians reject it. There is no clear consensus for what good and evil is within Christianity because Christians disagree.

When God decided to flood the earth and save only Noah and his family, that was good. Why? Because God did it. If God does it, then it's good, because he's God.

...Oh, right. Actually, if you assumed the principles of Christianity to be true (like any Christian would) then you'd say it makes perfect logical sense. If you don't then it makes no sense at all. If you're going to argue that it makes no sense then you need to assume the mindset of a Christian - otherwise you're going to be preaching to a choir, which is a waste of text.

Great to know that to be a Christian I would need to start thinking that some specific types of genocide is morally good.

You could spend the time to attack the system (which simply boils down to that annoying question of God's existence, which is an ad nauseum argument) or you could, for the sake of argument, define a term in the particular context of a religion, so a discussion will continue.

What if I believed in God, but didn't accept that his word was the definition of morally good? What if I believed in God but rejected him as evil? How would that fit into your definitions, or do you claim it's impossible?

At 9/15/10 01:42 AM, Bacchanalian wrote:

At 9/15/10 12:55 AM, Gario wrote:

If you believed in the Christian God, ask yourself what He would have created life for. The reason that Christianity provides is simply because He wanted to be willingly loved. Nothing more than that.

And he is going to kill and torture those who don't willingly love him! It's like a criminal saying "your life or your money". It's not a real choice. What he really means is "give me your money or I will take your life". He isn't actually walking up to you and presenting you with two choices for you to consider and choose from.

If everything was perfect then people would not need God to be happy. I understand that many people think they don't need God to be happy, anyway, but in the world's current state many, many people still use Him as a source of refuge. If the world was already 'Heaven on Earth' then no one would need God to placate them, so He'd be forgotten and left behind.

Aw, poor God. No wonder we all have to suffer and die, otherwise God would be forgotten and left behind.

But why exactly wouldn't this problem apply in heaven too? Or is heaven full of suffering and problems too?

Thus, there would be no point for God to ever intercede, so no one would spend the time to worship Him, which ultimately unravels the entire reason He (supposedly) created everything in the first place.

God sounds like a dick.

Ah, you miss the purpose of the razor, in this instance. People could know of something's existence, but if it does nothing to make your life any better would people include worshiping Him into their lives? Remember, they already have everything they desire without any chance of punishment. People would remove any form of worship, appreciation, etc. from their lives because they know it does nothing to increase or decrease their happiness.

How about say, God coming down here to live among us? Or wait, how about God communicating to us when we sleep instead of though dreams? There are a ton of ways for God to stay relevant without purposeful setting us in danger so he can come in like a hero and save us.

Yeah well, you're also deviating from the presumptions in the riddle by supplying a God with limited authority.

No, I'm not. Technically, if you assume that God tells the truth then He sets His own boundaries (unless he's a liar, but for the sake of discussion we can assume He's not, eh?), and those are safe to 'limit' His actions by. He won't do something that breaks His own contracts. Does that mean He can't? No. It means He sees it as hurtful to His purpose and thus He won't do it.

But the problem is that the type of God you are talking about is also the one who defines what it means to "hurt" his creation. He could just as well have said that free will is evil and that by intervening he is doing good.

You are limiting God's authority by subjecting him to these standards that are above him without even realizing it yourself. Either things like "accepting God by your own free will" is a good thing because God said it is a good thing (incase he could have said that there existing absolutely nothing but him is a good thing) or it's a good thing independent of God, making God not a supreme being but merely a powerful being, since there are things higher than him.

If you assume that God will do anything then you'll cut millenia of theological discussion from under itself that's been 'limiting' the Christian God in this very same manner. There's a difference between not wanting to perform an action (won't) and not being able to perform an action (can't) that is sometimes lost in the mix.

God sets what is good and evil.
God sets the limits.
God obeys the limits.
We ask why God doesn't break the limit.
You say that it's because God needs to stay within the limits to do what's good.
You miss the point that God could just have everything ever be good, including breaking limits.

At 9/15/10 11:06 AM, Gario wrote:

...then why'd you claim it's vague? It has it's system worked out pretty thoroughly...

Because it's impossible to apply to us.
All it says is "what God asks, you do" and all we have to know what God said is a book which we KNOW FOR A FACT was edited heavily by people and contains contradictions.

And it's plain to see that Christians don't follow the vast majority of the rules in the Bible or the teachings of Jesus. For instance, Jesus said several times that rich people have trouble going to heaven and they should give away all their money to the poor because it will help them out and Armageddon is coming soon anyway so no one needs to plan for the future.

Not to mention that there's no way to ever verify is someone talked to God. I can claim to have talked to God and go murder a bunch of people and pretty much no Christian will agree with what I did but when they read a story about a guy who hears God going around murdering Egyptians or members of his family, then it's A-Ok!
See how insane this is? They have no basis for verifying when God demands something ( i.e. when he gives people free passes from his ambiguous laws ) and yet that's what their ENTIRE moral system is based on.

In Christianity, morals aren't absolute. Morality is meaningless as it changes whenever God wants. Yet they claim he is the source of Absolute morality.

It's as stupid as saying God is the absolute truth of science and then having him say a different number for the amount of protons in the nucleus of a Gold atom every couple years. But every time, he's ABSOLUTELY IRREVOCABLY RIGHT!!!

In short; Christianity is a failed attempt at creating a simple black and white morality.

At 9/15/10 11:06 AM, Gario wrote: If you believed [...] so He'd be forgotten and left behind.

But, that argument sorta kinda defeats the purpose of Heaven.

Also, by your arugment, God is malevolent, in order to coerce love - love which by your argument is not particularly charitable.

Ah, you miss the purpose of the razor, in this instance. People could know of something's existence, but if it does nothing to make your life any better would people include worshiping Him into their lives?

If you're going to redefine occam's razor, then have the decency to not refer to it as Occam's Razor. Words mean things and I'm no mind reader.

No, I'm not. Technically, if you assume that God tells the truth then He sets His own boundaries [...]

Ok. Then you're deviating from the presumptions in the riddle by supplying a God that created evil.

Finally, a discussion worth talking about in here. Getting many responses and I have little time, so let's see if I can systematically address them.

At 9/15/10 11:28 AM, Drakim wrote: That is called Divine Command Theory and tons of Christians reject it. There is no clear consensus for what good and evil is within Christianity because Christians disagree.

I understand what Divine Command Theory is and it's implications. It's all very fine that people reject it or whatnot. However, the largest church in the world accepts it (e.g. Roman Catholic - no denying they are the largest) and decided to formalize their decision to boot, so I'll go with them.

Read paragraph 385 - 421 for the full description, but essentially they accept it, despite it's flaws. I'd love to discuss this in detail some other time, but right now I'm focused on the riddle, so I don't really want to split my attention, yet.

Before we get into the whole 'Christians don't agree on it's definition' realize that Christians don't agree on any single topic, so frankly you'll find Christian arguments against any and every belief that you can find, from creation to the definition of evil to even the divinity of Jesus.

Short answer: Flawed, perhaps, but that's how it's defined by the largest of them so I'm sticking to it, for the sake of this discussion.

When God decided to flood the earth and save only Noah and his family, that was good. Why? Because God did it. If God does it, then it's good, because he's God.

You got it. Hey, it's not my definition, here - I'm using the most accepted one.

Great to know that to be a Christian I would need to start thinking that some specific types of genocide is morally good.

Again, I'm using the most common definition. It has it's difficulties, and again I'll be more than happy to discuss that whole thing later. Not right now, though.

What if I believed in God, but didn't accept that his word was the definition of morally good? What if I believed in God but rejected him as evil? How would that fit into your definitions, or do you claim it's impossible?

Then you don't believe in the Christian God, by definition. Nothing wrong with that... unless, of course, you're trying to discuss something in terms of the Christian God, in which case you'd be creating a red herring, wouldn't you? Logically speaking, that's considered a bad thing.

And he is going to kill and torture those who don't willingly love him! It's like a criminal saying "your life or your money". It's not a real choice. What he really means is "give me your money or I will take your life". He isn't actually walking up to you and presenting you with two choices for you to consider and choose from.

You're talking about 'Hell', I presume? Again, another topic that's very interesting, but it has little to do with the riddle, itself. I'll give you my short answer now and expand on it later, if you'd like.

Short answer: Hell is not a punishment - it is a place without God. Thus, if you say you don't want God then logically speaking you will send yourself to 'Hell'. Christians say it's a very bad place to be because there is no God there. It's not a 'punishment' in the same sense that you are tortured for eternity, but because the Christian God is so good that you beat yourself up for not choosing Him for all eternity.

Again, that's as much detail as I'll go, since it has little to do with the topic I want to talk about.

Aw, poor God. No wonder we all have to suffer and die, otherwise God would be forgotten and left behind.

Indeed.

But why exactly wouldn't this problem apply in heaven too? Or is heaven full of suffering and problems too?

No. Heaven is simply a place that people chose to be. You really don't make any more decisions in Heaven, so there's no reason for any suffering to be there. Don't get the wrong idea, you don't make any decisions anymore in Hell, either - after you die, essentially you are not in control anymore.

I don't have the details on it, though. It's something I should look into later.

Thus, there would be no point for God to ever intercede, so no one would spend the time to worship Him, which ultimately unravels the entire reason He (supposedly) created everything in the first place.

God sounds like a dick.

If you wanted to make a machine that functioned in such a way where 'A' happened, and saw that it wouldn't happen unless there was something 'B' that was included, would you include it or not? If you didn't and saw that nothing worked, then you would be a moron for not implementing 'B' in the first place when you knew it needed to be there.

So, in one case God is a 'dick', and in the other case He is a 'moron'. Sounds like He didn't have much choice, there, eh?

How about say, God coming down here to live among us? Or wait, how about God communicating to us when we sleep instead of though dreams? There are a ton of ways for God to stay relevant without purposeful setting us in danger so he can come in like a hero and save us.

Who would worship Him, even if He did that? There is no reason to - life would move on in the exact same manner whether or not you worshiped Him, so why would people bother? He would be removed no matter what.

Supposedly, He wants people to come to Him for their needs. If there's no reason to do that, then they won't.

But the problem is that the type of God you are talking about is also the one who defines what it means to "hurt" his creation. He could just as well have said that free will is evil and that by intervening he is doing good.

He could have, but He didn't. That's a red herring argument.

You are limiting God's authority by subjecting him to these standards that are above him without even realizing it yourself. Either things like "accepting God by your own free will" is a good thing because God said it is a good thing (incase he could have said that there existing absolutely nothing but him is a good thing) or it's a good thing independent of God, making God not a supreme being but merely a powerful being, since there are things higher than him.

Here's a question for you. If it was a 'good thing' (DCT-wise) for people to love and worship God freely, why would God force people to do so (or reveal Himself so it's impossible to refuse)? By definition, if God wanted people to freely worship Him then he can't make them do so in any way, shape or form, or else He's not allowing them to do so freely (which is what He wants).

He could, I guess, but then He wouldn't get what He wanted. Why would something perform an action that completely defeats what it ultimately wants, even if it could? That's the distinction I'm making, here, and you seem to not understand.

:God sets what is good and evil.
God sets the limits.
God obeys the limits.
We ask why God doesn't break the limit.
You say that it's because God needs to stay within the limits to do what's good.
You miss the point that God could just have everything ever be good, including breaking limits

Supposedly, if we're still going with the DCT thing, then God never 'set' good and evil. He supposedly is good, right? It's all a retroactive application from there - from Christian's observation, God never broke a covenant, so honesty is seen as 'good'. God claimed that He is love, so that's 'good', and since He has proven to be honest, He won't lie about it. There's more, here, but I don't have the space to type.

In DCT, if God is, then it's good, and if He isn't, then it's considered bad. If God is perfect (that's an assumption we're making, right?) then He won't change Himself (nor could He and remain 'perfect', by definition). Of course once that assumption is removed then DCT falls apart quickly, but hey - if you're going to argue 'Christian' then you pretty much have to play by their rules, or else you'll fall into the classic 'I gots Faith!' argument designed to close non-Christian discussion, and there's not much you can do about it.

Getting to the other posts soon...

At 9/16/10 07:01 PM, Gario wrote: Sounds like He didn't have much choice, there, eh?

"He won't do something that breaks His own contracts. Does that mean He can't? No. It means He sees it as hurtful to His purpose and thus He won't do it."

Hey, Gario, I'm making a topic about DCT. Hope to see you there!

why do you guys (christians, muslims, etc.) believe in god?
because your parents said you so?

At 9/17/10 11:32 AM, LeroyJ wrote: This is something that's been bothering me for a while. If evolution is indeed correct, then we all evolved from primates, small mammals, and at the beginning of the chain, microorganisms. Of course, since life cannot simply arise out of nothing or no organic material (Failed theory of Spontaneous Generation), there is also the study of abiogenesis, but I'm not going to get into that in full.

The theory is that these microorganisms just simply came to be, evolving out of chemicals, amino acids, etc. that are necessary for life. If that were true, could we not create life ourselves by replicating the process? Be it as it may, it may take a substantial amount of time to replicate the process, if it could be done. Thoughts?

There are experiments like this around if you use google a little. This one is famous for instance.

At 9/17/10 10:25 AM, Prometheus13 wrote: why do you guys (christians, muslims, etc.) believe in god?
because your parents said you so?

Your ignorance is showing.

At 9/17/10 12:41 PM, CacheHelper wrote:

At 9/17/10 10:25 AM, Prometheus13 wrote: why do you guys (christians, muslims, etc.) believe in god?
because your parents said you so?

Your ignorance is showing.

why dear why?
i know you cant deal sentences that long.

At 9/17/10 10:25 AM, Prometheus13 wrote: why do you guys (christians, muslims, etc.) believe in god?
because your parents said you so?

I know quite a few Christians who's parents are atheist. I also have friends who are atheist because they think they're literally too good for a god.

You happen to be striking me as that type of person.
If there is a god, there is no way you're better than him.

At 9/17/10 01:27 PM, akmeteor wrote: If there is a god, there is no way you're better than him.

But it does spark a line of discussion to why people believe in a deity.

At 9/17/10 01:27 PM, akmeteor wrote: If there is a god, there is no way you're better than him.

but there is not :)

At 9/17/10 01:07 PM, Prometheus13 wrote: why dear why?

Do you seriously think that athiests are the only people to ever question the existance of God? To imply that religious people are only religious because they're not smart enough to realize the options is just stupid.

Simply put, you're an idiot.

At 9/17/10 03:40 PM, CacheHelper wrote: Simply put, you're an idiot.

hey hey hey, wait a second, what happened to that free-mind stuff? unavailable to non-christians?

At 9/17/10 03:25 PM, Prometheus13 wrote:

At 9/17/10 01:27 PM, akmeteor wrote: If there is a god, there is no way you're better than him.

but there is not :)

Prove it. Simply prove it, and I will accept the fact that you are the greatest human being to ever walk the face of this Earth.

If not, you are simply another "Fad atheist" who thinks it's cool to question their own beliefs.

At 9/17/10 04:30 PM, akmeteor wrote:

At 9/17/10 03:25 PM, Prometheus13 wrote:

At 9/17/10 01:27 PM, akmeteor wrote: If there is a god, there is no way you're better than him.

but there is not :)

Prove it. Simply prove it, and I will accept the fact that you are the greatest human being to ever walk the face of this Earth.

If not, you are simply another "Fad atheist" who thinks it's cool to question their own beliefs.

okay, im now saying "if there is a god, then kill me now"

well, nothing happened.

At 9/17/10 04:30 PM, akmeteor wrote: who thinks it's cool to question their own beliefs.

You know who else thinks its cool to question their own beliefs?
Scientists.

You know, the people who created all the technology you use 50 times per day.

At 9/17/10 10:25 AM, Prometheus13 wrote: why do you guys (christians, muslims, etc.) believe in god?
because your parents said you so?

False dilemma.

At 9/17/10 01:07 PM, Prometheus13 wrote: why dear why?
i know you cant deal sentences that long.

Deflection.

At 9/17/10 04:17 PM, Prometheus13 wrote: hey hey hey, wait a second, what happened to that free-mind stuff? unavailable to non-christians?

Deflection.

At 9/17/10 04:47 PM, Prometheus13 wrote: okay, im now saying "if there is a god, then kill me now"

well, nothing happened.

False dilemma.

***

At 9/17/10 04:30 PM, akmeteor wrote: Prove it.

Proving a negative/ Negative evidence.

***

What I find most sad about this is... there are currently three theists that I count here, and two of them are involved only to the extent that they're exploiting a troll to vent their frustration with atheists. Akmeteor, Cache, you can join in on the actual discussion any time you want, if it was an invitation you're waiting for. Promethues is trolling.

How do you solve the one arguement where if God knows everything, and made the universe, wouldn't he have determined how the world would play out and we not have any free will in the matter?

At 9/17/10 09:18 PM, Aesopian wrote: How do you solve the one arguement where if God knows everything, and made the universe, wouldn't he have determined how the world would play out and we not have any free will in the matter?

You ignore it, like all logical problems with the existence of God.

I suppose that is the cornerstone to religion. But I'd still appreciate even a half-assed solution.

At 9/17/10 09:23 PM, Aesopian wrote: I suppose that is the cornerstone to religion. But I'd still appreciate even a half-assed solution.

Maybe God looked the other way when he started the big bang?