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If you presume yourself to know more than God or to be equal to God, then I suppose you may be justified in accusing God of being evil.
As for me, I'm not God and don't presume to be in any position to second guess what God chooses to allow and not allow.
God often uses evil in order to accomplish God's own ultimate good.
You no doubt will not like this answer. However, if one is honest, they will also consider the answer that atheism gives for the problem of the existence of evil. I suspect that there is no known "ism" or religion that will give you the sort of answer you appear to be looking for.
I suppose in the what this comes down to, in the context if this thread is, are we atheists or doubters, at least, persuaded that the problem of evil is fully explained to our satisfaction?
Nope it is not. That the theist just shrugs (they must have shoulders like Football forwards by now) and says 'God knows what he is doing' is not going to persuade the atheist nor, I suspect, the doubter. And doubt is the catalyst of the deconverter.
9598174]I suppose in the what this comes down to, in the context if th[/font]is thread is, are we atheists or doubters, at least, persuaded that the problem of evil is fully explained to our satisfaction?
Nope it is not. That the theist just shrugs (they must have shoulders like Football forwards by now) and says 'God knows what he is doing' is not going to persuade the atheist nor, I suspect, the doubter. And doubt is the catalyst of the deconverter.
and as such produced in a clearly traceabe mental / intellectual "factory" as opposed to mere willpower that's much more difficult to locate.
My point is that the rock is mindless...its a rock...the rock does not care.
we can look at a rock being busted up in a fall off a cliff and say, "Oh that's too bad"
But the rock does not care.
in the same way we can watch a storm or flood kill people and say, "Oh that's too bad" but although we might care a great deal, the storm does not care at all...
God could have made us like rocks
God could have made us like the mindless storm.
But God made us in His own image...so we care.
we love.
we feel pain
The flood may not have cared at all because, as you observe, it is a flood devoid of thought. However, God summoned it and used it as a tool to instill some fear.
Quote: "Free will" is only true if our choices are also free. But free from what? Why, free from being forced upon us against our will, or free from being caused by anyone or anything except our OWN will. And so, yes, man can think, process data, make choices, change his choices, etc. But none of these activities are free from internal or externalCAUSES.
This leaves a glaring problem: why does an external cause, e.g. an evil person hurting an innocent person against her will, occur at all? In other words, we have no free will according to your quote.
Exactly my point and the Ray dude's point that wrote the piece that I quoted from. We have no free will. It's a myth.
Now Im sure there are many who would 2nd guess the Lord and his gift of free will to people. But that is like the pot questioning the potter.
But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? Rom 9:20-21. No free will there! I wondered why you brought up the "potter".
Human free will works within God's plans like this...
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You are on a ship, you have complete freedom to walk around the ship and do whatever you want to enjoy you stay on the ship.
But you are not that Captain of the ship and nothing you can do will change that fact.
The ship only goes where the Captain says.
So while you have 100% complete freedom to walk around and enjoy your life with freewill , you always have to keep in mind that your freewill is always subject to the freewill of the Captain.
Yeah, but you still aren't that free. It isn't freedom of choice or will when the options are A) join this team or B) die and spend eternity in a lake of fire. You still aren't free if there is something you can't do. What if you don't want to be on this ship? What if you don't want to join the team? The only freedom of choice is from a list assigned to you from someone else. It's like saying you're free to wear whatever color you choose so long as it's black or red. You really are limited to only black and red. just the same, you are only limited to whatever you can do on the ship. And you're essentially only limited to "live my way" or die. That isn't freedom.
Nope it is not. That the theist just shrugs (they must have shoulders like Football forwards by now) and says 'God knows what he is doing' is not going to persuade the atheist nor, I suspect, the doubter. And doubt is the catalyst of the deconverter.
We all have doubts and we all have faith - faith that God exists or faith that God does not exist.
Atheists are not immune to dogmatism. Those who choose not to be persuaded will never be persuaded.
Yeah, but you still aren't that free. It isn't freedom of choice or will when the options are A) join this team or B) die and spend eternity in a lake of fire. You still aren't free if there is something you can't do. What if you don't want to be on this ship? What if you don't want to join the team? The only freedom of choice is from a list assigned to you from someone else. It's like saying you're free to wear whatever color you choose so long as it's black or red. You really are limited to only black and red. just the same, you are only limited to whatever you can do on the ship. And you're essentially only limited to "live my way" or die. That isn't freedom.
You mix freedom to act with freedom from consequence. Gravity exists . . . nothing we can do about it here on earth. It is one of God's "laws" . . . there are many. You are free to violate the law of gravity and walk off the roof of a thirty story building . . . but not free to escape the consequences. There are myriad views about the "laws" that have not been scientifically established and there are similar views about the consequences associated with violations of them. NONE of that removes your free will . . . only what you are willing to risk in violating them (since there is no scientific proof of their existence.)
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You are so rarefied, you should have your own Shrine.
It's a myth.
