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And why should God create a perfect earth where skittles fall from the sky and every wish is granted?
Because that would be nice?
Because that would be loving?
Because it would be creative and beautiful?
Because we could all enjoy it together, alongside Him?
Because it would foster good will?
Because it would make people feel happy, which in turn would make them want to make others happy?
Because it would teach joy (yay, Skittles!), beauty (look at all the colors!), anticipation (I wonder when the Skittles are coming back?), inventiveness (maybe we should make baskets to collect the Skittles), cooperation (you stand over there and I'll stand over here and we'll catch a lot of Skittles without bumping into each other), sharing (I caught more Skittles than you, but there are always plenty so here, have some of mine) and so on.
Just a few reasons right off the top.
If you truly can't see why something all-powerful would create joy, cooperation and love WITHOUT hideous pain or even the potential for it, then that explains A LOT about why you chose a violent, grasping, withholding, punishing god in the first place.
Please explain to me how God can prevent suffering without violating free will. Want to gossip about your neighbor? Nope, according to your standard, God must force you to keep your mouth shut. Want to drive fast on the highway? Nope, God will change your brain to make it impossible to break such laws.
Why not? He can do anything.
Much of what god as conceived by you and others fumes about is that we are as he made us. In large measure if you boil it down, he objects that we have a will independent of his which strongly suggests that maybe he shouldn't have made us with an independent will or at least with the desire for different things than what he can tolerate. The usual explanation is that he was lonesome and made us for companionship, and then we hurt his feelings by being less than divine ... which begs the question of why he made us human then. This seems like a stunningly simply problem for god to not have created. If he can't stand humans, don't make them. If he wants copies of himself, make that instead.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Ok I will sacrifice God's ominpotence. There are some things God CAN NOT do. God can not lie. God can not sin. And there are some things to reality that just as not possible even if you are all powerful. Maintaining free will while forcing only positive outcomes just simply is not possible. But you seem to think God should be able to find a way if He is ominpotence. No, there just simply is not a way just like there is no way you could reach out into the night sky and grab the moon.
God is not interested in free will as evidenced by your claim that every aspect of any meaningful exercise of free will enrages him to the point of wanting to punish people infinitely and forever. Apparently god's concept of free will is that people will want what he wants them to want, namely that their will is in sync with his, which then isn't free will.
It therefore appears that your less than all-powerful god is unable to create beings with free will that conform to his will. Of course he couldn't do that; it's a contradiction in terms. God isn't interested in free will, he is interested in conformity to HIS will which inherently then is not free. Either your less than all-powerful god is a masochist who keeps creating beings who don't willingly act like puppets, or he's a needy, lonely being who dreams of being loved, not because of his character or the quality of his actions, but because he's entitled to it.
Seems like that hasn't worked out too well for him over thousands of years and there's no reason to think that's going to suddenly change.
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
Please explain to me how God can prevent suffering without violating free will. Want to gossip about your neighbor? Nope, according to your standard, God must force you to keep your mouth shut. Want to drive fast on the highway? Nope, God will change your brain to make it impossible to break such laws.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
Why not? He can do anything.
This.
I can take my child to the park, allow him to make his own choices ("free will") to play on anything there...anything at all. Indeed, we can start off the venture with HIM asking to go to a specific park (his own choice). He can make his own choices what to do next, and what not to do. He can choose when he wants the snack we brought, or he can choose just certain parts of it (the raisins but not the cookie), or he can refuse a snack entirely because he's just not hungry. He can choose whether or not to play with the other boys and girls. He can choose to sing. Dance. Go on the swing. Sit in my lap. He can start up games and ask the others to play. Or he can just sit and watch the beautiful clouds go by. Then when he's tired, he can tell me he wants a nap - he can choose it's time to go home, IOW.
He can do ALL of this while I MAKE SURE he doesn't get hurt.
Amazing, that. And I'm only a human, how much more should God be able to do as far as giving loads of choices without any of them leading to death, destruction or horror?
Does the above description sound like my son is a little robot with no ability to make decisions, someone who is forced to do only one thing in any given circumstance - the thing I personally chose? Does it sound like a child sadly stripped of all his free will so that he's just an empty shell robotically obeying some sort of program?
Nope. It sounds like (and is) a day of joy and experience, of interaction, cooperation, interesting new things to learn and do, and loads and loads and loads and loads of choices...all day long...
...without my child EVER needing to get cancer, be raped or have his parent suddenly die because "that's all part of free will" somehow.
I mean wowsers...go figure.
One irony that believers tend to deliberately not notice is that their OWN belief system says God CAN make an entirely happy place with zero pain, yet they won't be "robots". These believers call it heaven. Proof positive (according to their own belief) that God DOES NOT "need" to allow horror in order for people to "not be robots."
I can take my child to the park, allow him to make his own choices ("free will") to play on anything there...anything at all. Indeed, we can start off the venture with HIM asking to go to a specific park (his own choice). He can make his own choices what to do next, and what not to do. He can choose when he wants the snack we brought, or he can choose just certain parts of it (the raisins but not the cookie), or he can refuse a snack entirely because he's just not hungry. He can choose whether or not to play with the other boys and girls. He can choose to sing. Dance. Go on the swing. Sit in my lap. He can start up games and ask the others to play. Or he can just sit and watch the beautiful clouds go by. Then when he's tired, he can tell me he wants a nap - he can choose it's time to go home, IOW.
He can do ALL of this while I MAKE SURE he doesn't get hurt.
But you are asking God to ensure that we NEVER get hurt or experience anything negative. Such a scope would require tremendous interference with free will. Your analogy only works if you are making sure that your child NEVER gets hurt in any possible way. So basically you would keep him home tied up in bubble wrap with no free will and even that wouldn't be enough. A park holds all kinds of dangers even if you are watching over him. Even the drive to the park is dangerous.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerZ
Amazing, that. And I'm only a human, how much more should God be able to do as far as giving loads of choices without any of them leading to death, destruction or horror?
Much of that death, destruction and horror are a direct result of man's actions. So you are demanding that God direct us like puppets to only do moral acts. No free will.
But you are asking God to ensure that we NEVER get hurt or experience anything negative. Such a scope would require tremendous interference with free will. Your analogy only works if you are making sure that your child NEVER gets hurt in any possible way. So basically you would keep him home tied up in bubble wrap with no free will and even that wouldn't be enough.A park holds all kinds of dangers even if you are watching over him. Even the drive to the park is dangerous.
Really?
Because we can't imagine such a possibility, such a situation - free of dangers, yet full of choice - God can't either?
How is it possible that God HAS created a place that isn't fraught with dangers, where one DOESN'T require bubble tape in order to be safe, indeed, where danger just doesn't exist, YET there isn't "tremendous interference with free will"?
I believe you call this place heaven.
I'm pretty sure you believe God created it.
So...what you say about God not being able to accomplish such a thing is false even per your own teachings. PER YOUR OWN TEACHINGS He already has.
If He doesn't create it on earth it's not because it would be a huge problem for Him. It's not because He hasn't figured out a way to have people free of any dangers without turning them into robots. It's because He wants pain to be a huge part of human (and animal) life...period. Your God desires pain, blood, suffering and horror...by its very nature, not because it "has to" in order to "not interfere with free will".
Your own beliefs (specifically regarding heaven, to say nothing of the Garden of Eden) prove that.
How is it possible that God HAS created a place that isn't fraught with dangers, where one DOESN'T require bubble tape in order to be safe, indeed, where danger just doesn't exist, YET there isn't "tremendous interference with free will"?
I believe you call this place heaven.
I'm pretty sure you believe God created it.
So...what you say about God not being able to accomplish such a thing is false even per your own teachings. PER YOUR OWN TEACHINGS He already has.
If He doesn't create it on earth it's not because it would be a huge problem for Him. It's not because He hasn't figured out a way to have people free of any dangers without turning them into robots. It's because He wants pain to be a huge part of human (and animal) life...period. Your God desires pain, blood, suffering and horror...by its very nature, not because it "has to" in order to "not interfere with free will".
Your own beliefs (specifically regarding heaven, to say nothing of the Garden of Eden) prove that.
Maybe he doesn't believe heaven allows for free will?
Maybe he doesn't believe heaven allows for free will?
Oh, that's possible.
If so, then given the fact that the religious tend to think of "just being robots" without "free will" as some terrible cruel torture God could inflict, then I'd be surprised that any of them would want to get to heaven.
Robotically following an exact protocol for eternity without any input from oneself at all? Apparently, heaven is peopled by storm troopers...
Sin up, folks. Avoid an afterlife where you're just a robot without free will.
OTOH, given that most people say it's God who doesn't want to refuse people free will, then it would be odd to also believe that He created just that situation later (in heaven).
I'm kind of thinking it's one or the other...can't really have this both ways (lack of free will is terrible, intrusive and controlling, yet bliss and an ultimate goal).
Unless...
...unless it IS possible for God to allow free will without horrific suffering.
If it's possible in heaven that God made, then it's possible on earth that God made. If it's impossible on earth that God made, it is impossible in heaven that God made.
If so, then given the fact that the religious tend to think of "just being robots" without "free will" as some terrible cruel torture God could inflict, then I'd be surprised that any of them would want to get to heaven.
Sin up, folks. Avoid an afterlife where you're just a robot without free will.
I can take my child to the park, allow him to make his own choices ("free will") to play on anything there...anything at all. Indeed, we can start off the venture with HIM asking to go to a specific park (his own choice). He can make his own choices what to do next, and what not to do. He can choose when he wants the snack we brought, or he can choose just certain parts of it (the raisins but not the cookie), or he can refuse a snack entirely because he's just not hungry. He can choose whether or not to play with the other boys and girls. He can choose to sing. Dance. Go on the swing. Sit in my lap. He can start up games and ask the others to play. Or he can just sit and watch the beautiful clouds go by. Then when he's tired, he can tell me he wants a nap - he can choose it's time to go home, IOW.
He can do ALL of this while I MAKE SURE he doesn't get hurt.
Amazing, that. And I'm only a human, how much more should God be able to do as far as giving loads of choices without any of them leading to death, destruction or horror?
Does the above description sound like my son is a little robot with no ability to make decisions, someone who is forced to do only one thing in any given circumstance - the thing I personally chose? Does it sound like a child sadly stripped of all his free will so that he's just an empty shell robotically obeying some sort of program?
Nope. It sounds like (and is) a day of joy and experience, of interaction, cooperation, interesting new things to learn and do, and loads and loads and loads and loads of choices...all day long...
...without my child EVER needing to get cancer, be raped or have his parent suddenly die because "that's all part of free will" somehow.
I mean wowsers...go figure.
One irony that believers tend to deliberately not notice is that their OWN belief system says God CAN make an entirely happy place with zero pain, yet they won't be "robots". These believers call it heaven. Proof positive (according to their own belief) that God DOES NOT "need" to allow horror in order for people to "not be robots."
Excellent points all around.
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Avoid an afterlife where you're just a robot without free will. 
