GOD vs SCIENCE

Could you guys do what you do so well ...pick prod and demoralize this students argument?
Or, does he have one?

Thanks ;)

GOD vs SCIENCE
A professor begins his school year with a lecture to the students, 'Let me explain the problem science has with religion.' The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand.

'You're a Christian, aren't you, son?

'Yes sir,' the student says.

'So you believe in God?'

'Absolutely.'

'Is God good?'

'Sure! God's good.'

'Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?'

'Yes.'

'Are you good or evil?'

'The Bible says I'm evil.'

The professor grins knowingly.

'Aha! The Bible!' He considers for a moment. 'Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? Would you try?'

'Yes sir, I would.'

'So you're good.'

'I wouldn't say that.'

'But why not say that? You'd help a sick and maimed person if you could. Most of us would if we could. But God doesn't.'

The student does not answer, so the professor continues.

'He doesn't, does He? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?'

The student remains silent.

'No, you can't, can you?' the professor says.

He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax.

'Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?'

'Errr yes,' the student says.

'Is Satan good?'

The student doesn't hesitate on this one. 'No.'

'Then where does Satan come from?'

The student falters. 'From God'

'That's right. God made Satan, didn't he? Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Evil's everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything, correct?'

'Yes.'

'So who created evil?'

The professor continued,

'If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil.'

Again, the student has no answer.

'Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things, do they exist in this world?'

The student squirms on his feet.

'Yes.'

'So who created them?'

The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his question.

'Who created them?'

There is still no answer. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace in front of the classroom. The class is

mesmerized.

'Tell me,'

he continues onto another student.

'Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?'

The student's voice betrays him and cracks.

'Yes, professor, I do.'

The old man stops pacing.

'Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?'

'No sir. I've never seen Him.'

'Then tell us if you've ever heard your Jesus?'

'No, sir, I have not.'

'Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus? Have you ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or God for that matter?'

'No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't.'

'Yet you still believe in him?'

'Yes.'

'According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?'

'Nothing,'

the student replies.

'I only have my faith. '

'Yes, faith,' the professor repeats. 'And that is the problem science has with God. There is no evidence, only faith.'

The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of his own.

'Professor, is there such thing as heat?'

'Yes,' the professor replies. 'There's heat.'

'And is there such a thing as cold?'

'Yes, son, there's cold too.'

'No sir, there isn't.'

The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested.

The room suddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain.

'You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, unlimited heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat, but we don't have anything called 'cold'. We can hit up to 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that.. There is no such thing as cold, otherwise we would be able to go colder than the lowest
-458 degrees.' 'Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-458 F) is the total absence of heat. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.'

Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom, sounding like a hammer.

'What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?'

'Yes,' the professor replies without hesitation. 'What is night if it isn't darkness?'

'You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light, but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it?

That's the meaning we use to define the word.'

'In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?'

The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This will be a good semester.

'So what point are you making, young man?'

'Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with, and so your conclusion must also be flawed.'

The professor's face cannot hide his surprise this time.

'Flawed? Can you explain how?'

'You are working on the premise of duality,' the student explains. 'You argue that there is life and then there's death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it.' 'Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?'

'If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do.'

'Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?'

The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes where the argument is going. A very good semester, indeed.

'Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a preacher?'

The class is in uproar. The student remains silent until the commotion has subsided.

'To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, let me give you an example of what I mean.'

The student looks around the room.

'Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?'

The class breaks out into laughter.

'Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain, felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable,
demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, with all due respect, sir.' 'So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lectures, sir?'

Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his face unreadable.

Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers.

'I guess you'll have to take them on faith.'

'Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in fact, faith exists with life,'

the student continues.

'Now, sir, is there such a thing as evil?'

Now uncertain, the professor responds,

'Of course, there is. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.'

To this the student replied,

'Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light.'

The professor sat down

Out of topic, but I always get this stuff on chain emails. It sucks having to email people back asking to stop it.

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Originally Posted by Howie

'Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light.'

The professor sat down

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I live in the abscence of god...does that make me evil?

"Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one."

That the mechanics of something is not fully understood does not mean there is no rational reason to believe in that phenomenon. The point that's attempting to be made here is that we "believe in our own thoughts based on faith" which is nonsense. To suggest that no one has perceived a thought only demonstrates the thoughtlessness of the argument. I'm sure you could come up with a few experiments that pretty clearly suggest you're capable of thought (there's an idea). Thus the thought has been measured.

"Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God."

God is everywhere and everything. That's what they like to say, anyway. There can be no lack of god if he's "everywhere". Besides, as an all powerful being he has little excuse for allowing himself to be absent.

"To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it."

Semantic maneuvering to set himself up to basically say "Well, yeah, bad things exist except they don't really because something doesn't exist if its defined as the absence of something." But just because something has a negative definition (such as the darkness or cold examples) isn't to say it "doesn't exist". "Cold" has very clear manifestations that we rely on every day. To keep our food cold, for example. The relevant bit here is not that "cold is the absence of heat" but rather the manifestations of the absence of heat regarding how they affect our lives. Even if we accept that there is this mysterious quantity called "god" and that some people "lack god", the fact remains that the manifestations of the condition of "lacking god" (ie "evil") certainly exist and occur all the time. And who's to blame for that? The clueless dirt sculptures or the omniscient one who planned it all? I'll say it again: as an all powerful being he has little excuse for allowing himself to be absent.

"Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?"

I don't know what class the professor is teaching, but I should hope he would no better than to say yes to this.

The rest is more or less a reiteration and basically relies on the argument that science states that if it hasn't been directly perceived by the speaker, it doesn't exist. Of course that totally ignores things like deduction, inference and all that good stuff.

Nevermind the fact that the whole "cocky atheist professor versus the humble, polite underdog Christian kid" thing is totally cliché. Too long-winded, boring, fails its point. However, it is punctuated properly and organized in a readable fashion, which is worth one star. In total, I give it 1/5 stars.

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Originally Posted by Kromoh

Out of topic, but I always get this stuff on chain emails. It sucks having to email people back asking to stop it.

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Yes, precisely why I would like to respond in another fashion than just "stop it." ;)

Mark75 - You never fail to disappoint. It was too long winded and sorry for that. I'm quite sure most of you get the basis of the argument long before he was done.
I like your premise - The absence of god.
Haha - I was curious to know if anyone would pick up on the "monkey comment." I suppose that would take us off coarse though. But as a the professor, I think I would have had to address that point.

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Originally Posted by Howie

Mark75 - You never fail to disappoint. It was too long winded and sorry for that. I'm quite sure most of you get the basis of the argument long before he was done.

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You've nothing to apologize for, that'd be the fault of the author. But yeah, it was pretty easy to see where he was going with it (you know, especially after having read this a couple hundred times before.) :x

You mean the "humans evolved from monkeys"? LUL. If I was the professor, I would have said "No, I don't.". But bah, it's not like arguing over a stupid email is gonna change people's beliefs. There are so many flaws, even on the professor's part, that it's not a quick think to refute.

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'Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart

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What the "student" is assuming, is that without God, one is incapable of being a decent person. In actuality, "Evil" is simply a matter of perception. And even if "Evil" wasn't subjected to perception, it is perfectly possible to be what is considered "good" (again, subject to perception).

I myself do not believe in God, and yet, I am not what your average American considers "Evil". Quite the contrary.

The rest of the students argument, is merely making the suggestion that there are no negatives, but merely "Absences".

The line about Evolution having never been observed, is wrong. It has never been observed on the scale of "Monkey --> Human", but it HAS been observed on smaller scales in Insects and Bacteria. Large Scale Evolution is something that would take place over the course of multiple lifetimes.It would be almost impossible to witness Evolution on the Scale people want to see, in 1 life. It would have to be observed over the course of hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

The student's arguments are flawed. No one has perceived the professor's brain, but he is obviously thinking and speaking so he clearly has one. Perceiving directly is only one way of proving the existence of something, you can also show the effects the thing has.

Following the student's logic, there are is power station generating electricity for my computer because I have not seen, heard, tasted, touched, or smelled it.

professor says: why does god allow evil things to happen?

student says: because the words 'good' and 'evil' both describe the same thing, in the same way that the words 'heat' and 'cold' describe the same thing.

conclusion: therefore the statement "god is good" is essentially saying "god is both good and evil"

I think the semantic problem is on the student's part. Scientifically speaking, there's no thing as heat and cold, but there is hot and cold. It's a simple way of characterizing something, of categorizing it. If something has more heat than the referential, it is hot; if it doesn't, it is cold. It really *does* end up into a dualistic perception, made by the human mind. There's no thing as "good" or "evil" - it's just a way humans find to categorize things.

But just try to explain that to the ones sending the email. It'd be like explaining communism to a pig. A dead one.

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Originally Posted by Kromoh

But just try to explain that to the ones sending the email. It'd be like explaining communism to a pig. A dead one.

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Spam Filters. I have 90% of what people send me filtered into Spam thanks to messages like this one circulating around. Sad thing is, rarely do I ever find something that was mistakenly sent to spam. Most of the time, when its sent to spam, its legitimate spam in my opinion.

God, Jesus, and Satan. Oh boy. It's nice to see that every time there's a God argument, it's always about a specific portrayal and never about the concept. Why does the hypothetical professor ask the student if God is good or not? Isn't that irrelevant? Being "good" or "evil" does not reduce one's potential to exist.

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as an all powerful being he has little excuse for allowing himself to be absent.

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I think you mean "inactive". It's possible to be present for the sake of observation and nothing else.

The arguments on both sides are flawed.

The very foundation of what they argue about is flawed.

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Originally Posted by Invader

God, Jesus, and Satan. Oh boy. It's nice to see that every time there's a God argument, it's always about a specific portrayal and never about the concept. Why does the hypothetical professor ask the student if God is good or not? Isn't that irrelevant? Being "good" or "evil" does not reduce one's potential to exist.



I think you mean "inactive". It's possible to be present for the sake of observation and nothing else.

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You're talking about something else. The god we're talking about is one that supposedly is "good" and exists everywhere. If that offends you, you are invited to leave the thread.

both arguments were flawed if you asked me

the student should have left his argument that the teachers arguments were dualistic, which would limit God to a very narrow minded definition

the argument of hot and cold are good ones, because hot and cold are subjective to an individual. and so is 'good' and 'evil'

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Originally Posted by Mark75

You're talking about something else. The god we're talking about is one that supposedly is "good" and exists everywhere. If that offends you, you are invited to leave the thread.

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Hm? It doesn't offend me at all. I thought you meant to say "he has little excuse for allowing himself to be inactive". If we're talking about an omnipotent being it goes without saying that the being is not "absent", right? I only thought your meaning did not match the words you used, unless I misunderstood what you were saying.

Hot and cold are (relative) terms given to describe temperature conditions and how they relate to other such conditions. Cold is not the absence of heat, it is the term used to describe a low or declining temperature.

Darkness is the term to describe low or a lack of light. Therefore, like cold, it is a term used to describe something. When light decreases, it is described as becoming darker. Much more efficient than saying: "It is becoming less lit."

Both of these arguments are semantic.

As stated by someone else, evolution has been observed. We can observe evolution in small things like insects and bacteria and relate the findings to the evidence of our evolution. As such, the evidence of human evolution is as accurate as it can be. People's beliefs are what obstruct it from being accepted.

While no one in the room would have interacted with the professor's brain, they could. They could open the man's head and see his brain. It's not faith that he has a brain, it's logic that informs you that he requires a brain to function properly and if investigated you would find that he indeed does have a brain.

Evil is not relative to god. Actions/events and their repercussions are evaluated and deemed good or evil based on what is generally considered good or evil. This carries into the question of whether or not god(s)/jesus/etc are necessary for morality. I've seen a debate on this subject and I don't mean to sound biased, but the support for a supernatural entity being necessary for morality is fairly thin. If someone wants me to elaborate, I will, but I'm not sure if it's relevant here.

Note: Whether or not the professor's arguments are flawed is irrelevant, because Howie was asking about the student, not the professor.

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Originally Posted by Vampyre

Hot and cold are (relative) terms given to describe temperature conditions and how they relate to other such conditions. Cold is not the absence of heat, it is the term used to describe a low or declining temperature.

Darkness is the term to describe low or a lack of light. Therefore, like cold, it is a term used to describe something. When light decreases, it is described as becoming darker. Much more efficient than saying: "It is becoming less lit."

Both of these arguments are semantic.

As stated by someone else, evolution has been observed. We can observe evolution in small things like insects and bacteria and relate the findings to the evidence of our evolution. As such, the evidence of human evolution is as accurate as it can be. People's beliefs are what obstruct it from being accepted.

While no one in the room would have interacted with the professor's brain, they could. They could open the man's head and see his brain. It's not faith that he has a brain, it's logic that informs you that he requires a brain to function properly and if investigated you would find that he indeed does have a brain.

Evil is not relative to god. Actions/events and their repercussions are evaluated and deemed good or evil based on what is generally considered good or evil. This carries into the question of whether or not god(s)/jesus/etc are necessary for morality. I've seen a debate on this subject and I don't mean to sound biased, but the support for a supernatural entity being necessary for morality is fairly thin. If someone wants me to elaborate, I will, but I'm not sure if it's relevant here.

Note: Whether or not the professor's arguments are flawed is irrelevant, because Howie was asking about the student, not the professor.

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Just thought you should realize that "lack" means absence of. You are contradicting yourself. Cold is the absence of heat. To be more scientific, "Cold" is the absence of "x" amount of heat. It was taken for granted you would assume that.

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Originally Posted by Invader

If we're talking about an omnipotent being it goes without saying that the being is not "absent", right?

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Yeah. That was part of my point. "There can be no lack of god if he's 'everywhere'" The rest I was just continuing on assuming that even if he was somehow "absent" from certain places that this was not a valid argument. I was only using the terms of the argument provided. Of course I don't agree they really make much sense.

There's also one where the professor disproves God to his students by smashing chalk by dropping it on the floor. One day at the beginning of the semester one of his new students, who is a Christian, challenges him. The professor states that if there is a God he will intervene and prevent the chalk from smashing. He drops the chalk and it doesn't smash. The End.

These stories are a dime a dozen and don't seem to differ very much in development, character personalities, or theme.

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Originally Posted by Black_Eagle

There's also one where the professor disproves God to his students by smashing chalk by dropping it on the floor. One day at the beginning of the semester one of his new students, who is a Christian, challenges him. The professor states that if there is a God he will intervene and prevent the chalk from smashing. He drops the chalk and it doesn't smash. The End.

These stories are a dime a dozen and don't seem to differ very much in development, character personalities, or theme.

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These "stories" are just that though, stories. Depending on the person telling them, they can either Prove, or Disprove someones stance. If I wanted to make a story to challenge the existence of God, it would come out in favor of him not existing.

None of these stories can really be taken as "arguments", because each one is carefully crafted by the teller to be in favor of their position. They're fun to debate sometimes, but ultimately, pointless.

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Originally Posted by Dreams4free

Just thought you should realize that "lack" means absence of. You are contradicting yourself. Cold is the absence of heat. To be more scientific, "Cold" is the absence of "x" amount of heat. It was taken for granted you would assume that.

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Cold exists, even if you would only define it as a lack of heat. Darkness also exists, even if you only define it as the absence of light.

How is this contradictory? It's all just semantics anyway, so what does it even matter?

The student's arguments suggest that there is no such thing as cold, but that's the equivalent of saying there's no such thing as weakness, because it's actually just a lack of strength. Or there's no such thing as colour, it's just your eye's interpretation of light. Bullshit semantics are bullshit.

If I really wanted, I could go philosophical and claim that it's possible for darkness to get darker, but our eyes aren't able to perceive it. Then it'd be more than bullshit semantics.

EDIT: That's not even the main point anyway. The main point is about evil being the absence of god. Which, as I said, just leads into the discussion of morality requiring god.

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Originally Posted by Vampyre

Which, as I said, just leads into the discussion of morality requiring god.

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Which it doesn't. Morality can exist without God, as can Immoral actions. But what is Moral and what isn't, is a matter of perspective and opinion.

I like how you put the rest of yours though:

Semantics. And thats all it really is when you think about it.

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Originally Posted by Kastro187420

Which it doesn't. Morality can exist without God, as can Immoral actions. But what is Moral and what isn't, is a matter of perspective and opinion.

I like how you put the rest of yours though:

Semantics. And thats all it really is when you think about it.

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I agree with that. I didn't mean to sound like I think morality requires god; I'm rather convinced that it doesn't. I suppose I should've put a "whether" in there to clarify.

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Originally Posted by Vampyre

I agree with that. I didn't mean to sound like I think morality requires god; I'm rather convinced that it doesn't. I suppose I should've put a "whether" in there to clarify.

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Oh no, I understood what you meant.. I think the way I replied just made it seem like I had interpreted it wrong. But yeah, I understood what your post meant.

From the debate I attended about this, the only argument that was proposed to support the religious viewpoint is this: in order for morality to exist, there needs to be an ultimate form of judgment to hold you accountable for your actions.

Everything else the pastor said was extensions of that logic or preaching/rambling.

I asked him "how do you not see our criminal justice system as holding people accountable?" To which he said nothing more than: "Because you can still get away with immoral actions."

If I had a chance, I would've asked: "But even if you get away with it, there will still always be ways of being held accountable. For example, OJ simpson was acquitted of murder, but his public reputation was ruined and his career shaken. Is that not him being held accountable; even if it's not exactly the way you would normally expect someone to be held accountable for such actions? How can you judge to say whether or not it is? Aren't you employing your own individual morals and ideas in such judgment? And that's assuming he did it and got away with it, which he quite possibly did not."

Perhaps someone here has a response to this.

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Originally Posted by Vampyre

From the debate I attended about this, the only argument that was proposed to support the religious viewpoint is this: in order for morality to exist, there needs to be an ultimate form of judgment to hold you accountable for your actions.

Everything else the pastor said was extensions of that logic or preaching/rambling.

I asked him "how do you not see our criminal justice system as holding people accountable?" To which he said nothing more than: "Because you can still get away with immoral actions."

If I had a chance, I would've asked: "But even if you get away with it, there will still always be ways of being held accountable. For example, OJ simpson was acquitted of murder, but his public reputation was ruined and his career shaken. Is that not him being held accountable; even if it's not exactly the way you would normally expect someone to be held accountable for such actions? How can you judge to say whether or not it is? Aren't you employing your own individual morals and ideas in such judgment? And that's assuming he did it and got away with it, which he quite possibly did not."

Perhaps someone here has a response to this.

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So, apparently, people that use the argument that ultimate judgment is needed to have morals do not feel guilt? I know that the main force holding me to my standards is knowing I feel good when doing things that I view as good and I feel guilty when I do something I view as bad.

Fathers daughter dies from diabetes because he prayed instead of seeking medical attention

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32141869...me_and_courts/

~

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Originally Posted by O'nus

Fathers daughter dies from diabetes because he prayed instead of seeking medical attention

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32141869...me_and_courts/

~

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Your link is broken

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Originally Posted by Vampyre

As stated by someone else, evolution has been observed. We can observe evolution in small things like insects and bacteria and relate the findings to the evidence of our evolution. As such, the evidence of human evolution is as accurate as it can be. People's beliefs are what obstruct it from being accepted.

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There are sevaral variations of Evolution that is currently observable, Micro evolution being one, however the evolution you are referring to has not been obseved.

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Originally Posted by Ne-yo

There are sevaral variations of Evolution that is currently observable, Micro evolution being one, however the evolution you are referring to has not been obseved.

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Heeeeeeeeere we go again.

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Originally Posted by Ne-yo

There are sevaral variations of Evolution that is currently observable, Micro evolution being one, however the evolution you are referring to has not been obseved.

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That's correct, it hasn't. However, like I said, we can analyze research conducted on small-scale evolution and compare it to the evidence of human evolution. For example, we can see how the fossils of an evolving species changed and compare it to how the fossils of humans have changed.


EDIT: Perhaps you misunderstand what I mean by saying it's "as accurate as it can be." What I mean by that is: without actually observing and documenting human evolution (since that's impossible; can't travel back in time) we have made every effort to prove it in other ways.

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Originally Posted by Ne-yo

There are sevaral variations of Evolution that is currently observable, Micro evolution being one, however the evolution you are referring to has not been obseved.

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You realize that the separation between microevolution and macroevolution is essentially a way for creationists to say "Evolution has been observed? NUH-UH, doesn't count 'cause it was a single-celled organism :3." The only difference between the two types is time and generations.

Wikipedia agrees:

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Misuse

The term 'microevolution' has recently become popular among the anti-evolution movement, and in particular among young Earth creationists. The claim that microevolution is qualitatively different from macroevolution is fallacious, as the main difference between the two processes is that one occurs within a few generations, whilst the other is seen to occur over thousands of years (ie. a quantitative difference).[3] Essentially they describe the same process.

The attempt to differentiate between microevolution and macroevolution is considered to have no scientific basis by any mainstream scientific organization, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[4]

[edit] See also

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Originally Posted by Mark75

Heeeeeeeeere we go again.

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Yup! :goodjob2:

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Originally Posted by Vampyre

That's correct, it hasn't. However, like I said, we can analyze research conducted on small-scale evolution and compare it to the evidence of human evolution. For example, we can see how the fossils of an evolving species changed and compare it to how the fossils of humans have changed.


EDIT: Perhaps you misunderstand what I mean by saying it's "as accurate as it can be." What I mean by that is: without actually observing and documenting human evolution (since that's impossible; can't travel back in time) we have made every effort to prove it in other ways.

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I didn’t misunderstand what you mean at all. I was just thrown by this statement:

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Originally Posted by Vamprye

As stated by someone else, evolution has been observed.

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I can attest that yes, there have been great strides to fill the gaps. However don’t get me wrong I’m in no way saying macroevolution is not observed it’s just not observed the way “you” think it’s observed. I know that given enough time, the process of evolution will eventually lead to the development of groups of “related species” i.e. new genra. However to ascribe to macroevolution as the theoretical evolution of all arthropods coming from some ancient ancestral species is creating the gamblers fallacy. This scale of evolution has NEVER taken place.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Black_Eagle

You realize that the separation between microevolution and macroevolution is essentially a way for creationists to say "Evolution has been observed? NUH-UH, doesn't count 'cause it was a single-celled organism :3." The only difference between the two types is time and generations.

Wikipedia agrees:

---

I never said the other doesn’t happen. Just as I told Vamprye it doesn’t happen the way you are proposing it to happen. You’re using macroevolution to propose an evolutionary relationship between organisms that are vastly different, and in fact make the claim that the process is responsible for the common decent of all organisms on Earth. Now make no mistake about it, the central problem happens to be this in your version. You have absolutely no direct empirical evidence in the existence of clear-cut intermediates that evolution on a major scale had ever occurred and that any of the major divisions of nature had been crossed gradually through a sequence of transitional forms whether it be time or a timeframe of generations is a factor or not. Major pieces of the puzzle are still missing and unless proved otherwise that’s just the way it is.

Making the claim that macroevolution is simply an extrapolation of microevolution causes the term to have two distinct meanings. Even most atheist can’t come to a full agreement on the true definition of macroevolution especially with regards to speciation rather it should be considered a part of macro or microevolution. I’ve seen atheist describe macroevolution as the process that produces large-scale functional and structural changes and then subsequently as being virtually indistinguishable from microevolution.

On another note, Wikipedia is inaccurate I’m not a young earth creationist.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vampyre

Your link is broken

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Fixed: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32141869...me_and_courts/

~

Neyo, the only reason that scientists believe that there are such evolutionary relationships is because of evidence in the first place. That is to say, fossil records.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

I can attest that yes, there have been great strides to fill the gaps. However don’t get me wrong I’m in no way saying macroevolution is not observed it’s just not observed the way “you” think it’s observed. I know that given enough time, the process of evolution will eventually lead to the development of groups of “related species” i.e. new genra. However to ascribe to macroevolution as the theoretical evolution of all arthropods coming from some ancient ancestral species is creating the gamblers fallacy. This scale of evolution has NEVER taken place.
[/COLOR]

---

See Polyp and genetic mapping to see how this above quote is incorrect.

~

What I don't understand is why someone needs a chain letter to prove to themsleves what they believe or disbelieve. Personally I believe in the Christian faith. I am a Christian, I grew up in a Baptist church. I don't need cute little stories like this for me to feel good about what I believe in and certainly nothing any of you say can even come close to cracking my faith.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by davej

What I don't understand is why someone needs a chain letter to prove to themsleves what they believe or disbelieve. Personally I believe in the Christian faith. I am a Christian, I grew up in a Baptist church. I don't need cute little stories like this for me to feel good about what I believe in and certainly nothing any of you say can even come close to cracking my faith.

---

How did you come to have such faith?
Isn't the Bible nothing but a compilation of cute little stories?

We are all conditioned to believe one thing or another. It is our own story that we tell ourselves that make us believe one thing or the other.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Howie

'Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light.'

---

My questions for the student:

1. Why does God allow for the absence of himself if the results are so awful?
2. Why does God allow the absence of himself to be so awful?
3. Could God make it where the present results of his absence no longer exist... without there being a problem with doing that?

I'm not sure we need this thread, Howie.

anything titled "GOD VS SCIENCE" is sort of destined for an enormous whirlwind of shit. And a whirlwind we have seen many many times here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Carôusoul

I'm not sure we need this thread, Howie.

anything titled "GOD VS SCIENCE" is sort of destined for an enormous whirlwind of shit. And a whirlwind we have seen many many times here.

---

Title and the material within are two different things. You just don't like the material. If I were in your position I probably wouldn't like it either. However, I like it and it stays.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ne-yo

Title and the material within are two different things. You just don't like the material. If I were in your position I probably wouldn't like it either. However, I like it and it stays.

---

I don't mind the material.

It's just another "let's poke fun at fundamentalism and creationism" thread. Which is all very well, but it's kind of been done to death.

Making fun of fundamentalism NEVER gets old. I laugh every time I think about that guy who said to me in total seriousness that if humans evolved from gorillas then gorillas would have all of the same races as humans. :laugh:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Carôusoul

I don't mind the material.

It's just another "let's poke fun at fundamentalism and creationism" thread. Which is all very well, but it's kind of been done to death.

---

Yup.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by O'nus

Fathers daughter dies from diabetes because he prayed instead of seeking medical attention

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32141869...me_and_courts/

~

---

How comical would it be if the prayer that prevented one from going to the
hospital actually kept that person from experiencing a preventable medical error
that would have otherwise ended up being the cause of death? What does the
death toll created by medical errors actually look like? My searches are giving
me numbers that go from 90,000 to 200,000+ annually in the United States
alone. That's quite a bit of death caused by the medical industry, if those
numbers are accurate at all.

Well both argument were silly in that original post. Both had a ton of things wrong in them that made no sense. Though I am not going to waste my time on all the problems, with the two.

What I do want to comment on however, is people who wonder why god allows for an absence of himself, which causes evil to appear. It is because god created free will. With free will comes the ability of people to reject him. He is every where, but people still need to accept him into their life. Because he gave people this ability though, it causes many problems. Even people who accept him, still faces the problems created by the others. Though in heaven only the believers will be there, and so the evil will be removed. Personally I believe that anyone who lives a good life falls under this and not necessary people of a specific religion but that's another topic.

Anyway, this all makes sense if you think about it. God wishes for people to love him and so he gives them free will to accept or reject him. The alternative is making everyone your slave.

Sure god could enslave all of man kind and all the problems in the world would end, but what kind of life is that? What kind of god would enslave man kind? What kind of god would create people to be his toys and puppets?

The price for freedom might be steep at times but it is far better than the alternative. Perhaps that is why people see god as a father and not as a mother. He guides people to become adults and be good. He doesn't coddle and protect them.

This is your immortal soul we are talking about. Do you want to live the protected life of a pet where you are never harmed? Or do you want to live a real life, as a free thinking adult?

Well its to bad, god in his infinite wisdom didn't give you a choice in that. He said that he doesn't want pets. He created man in his image and gave them freedom. What you do with your life is your own. You are free to find your own path to live your own life. You may even reject god should it be your wish. Freedom is a far greater gift than protection.

Alric, you talk as though there are rules God has to work within. If he is infinitely powerful, he is not bound by any rules. He could create whatever benefits with a complete absence of problems. He could make square circles and make 2 + 2 = 5. He could make suffering nonexistent without there being a problem with doing that. Could he not? If not, then how is he infinitely powerful?

Also, belief is not a choice. It is not like I believe in God but reject him. It just really seems like he doesn't exist. That is not my choice. It is just how things really seem to me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alric

Though in heaven only the believers will be there, and so the evil will be removed. Personally I believe that anyone who lives a good life falls under this and not necessary people of a specific religion but that's another topic.

---

Do you become a slave in Heaven?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Invader

How comical would it be if the prayer that prevented one from going to the
hospital actually kept that person from experiencing a preventable medical error
that would have otherwise ended up being the cause of death? What does the
death toll created by medical errors actually look like? My searches are giving
me numbers that go from 90,000 to 200,000+ annually in the United States
alone. That's quite a bit of death caused by the medical industry, if those
numbers are accurate at all.

---

Hardly comparable to the amount of saved. In a world where humans are relied upon to save other humans, you must give room for the fact that humans do make mistakes and that we are not infallible. Given that, using this argument to dismantle health science is a sophomoric approach to devalue the immense contributions that health science has developed. Let us not ignore the significant differences in those saved from the medieval times to present time. Let us not forget the amount of bacteria control we have now compared to the earlier years. Also, let us not forget the amount of preventable illnesses, vaccines, and general hygiene that have improved because of health science. To try and attack the health industry based on the inevitable margin of error is to show a complete disrespect for the significant and immensity of the health science industry.

~

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by O'nus

Hardly comparable to the amount of saved. In a world where humans are relied upon to save other humans, you must give room for the fact that humans do make mistakes and that we are not infallible. Given that, using this argument to dismantle health science is a sophomoric approach to devalue the immense contributions that health science has developed. Let us not ignore the significant differences in those saved from the medieval times to present time. Let us not forget the amount of bacteria control we have now compared to the earlier years. Also, let us not forget the amount of preventable illnesses, vaccines, and general hygiene that have improved because of health science. To try and attack the health industry based on the inevitable margin of error is to show a complete disrespect for the significant and immensity of the health science industry.

~

---

There are just more people praying now because there are more people.

I think Invader was just bringing up an interesting idea and not truly arguing against medicine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

There are just more people praying now because there are more people.

I think Invader was just bringing up an interesting idea and not truly arguing against medicine.

---

Point made.

~

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vampyre

If I had a chance, I would've asked: "But even if you get away with it, there will still always be ways of being held accountable. For example, OJ simpson was acquitted of murder, but his public reputation was ruined and his career shaken. Is that not him being held accountable; even if it's not exactly the way you would normally expect someone to be held accountable for such actions? How can you judge to say whether or not it is? Aren't you employing your own individual morals and ideas in such judgment? And that's assuming he did it and got away with it, which he quite possibly did not."

Perhaps someone here has a response to this.

---

Yes, go read Dostoevsky's _Crime and Punishment_. It's all internal in that book!

As for O.J., he's currently residing in a prison in Nevada for another case; this is from Wikepedia:

In September 2007, Simpson was arrested[3] in Las Vegas, Nevada and charged with numerous felonies, including robbery with a deadly weapon, burglary with a firearm, assault with a deadly weapon, first-degree kidnapping with use of a deadly weapon, coercion with use of a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and conspiracy to commit a crime.[4] A jury found Simpson guilty of all charges on October 3, 2008;[5][6] and he was sentenced on December 5 to at least nine years in prison.[7] He is currently serving his sentence at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nevada.[8]

Then, of course, many of us believe in Karma, which is expressed by most religions in one way or another. In modern vernacular, it's stated, "What goes around comes around." For Jesus, it's "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." For Wiccans, it's "What you put out, good or bad, returns to you threefold." Karma is basically a Divine Justice System, and whether we ever see the justice happen or not, it does.

And frankly, I find it highly observable in little ways in every day life. My best example is when I was doing craft shows regularly, a lot of vendors would try to pass along helpful tips for how to avoid paying taxes, or they would talk about how they were selling imports at a show that required only personally handcrafted items. Those same vendors would be the ones complaining bitterly about shoplifters and bad checks. If you think Karma doesn't exist, be more observant! Not all Karma waits until some future lifetime to play out. I remember on teenaged friend of my son's who'd complain about having something of his stolen, but then he was known to rob people to get money for drugs. So.... see... Karma.

I also believe God/dess is observable in action to an individual, but God/dess doesn't do it in ways that allow easily for transfer of belief, because God/dess wishes each person to seek Hir out for themselves when they're ready. I have tons of personal evidence that God/dess exists and is active in my life. I share it, by telling people about my dreams and experiences, but really, I am also aware that you will need your own experiences before you will really believe me. That's just the way God/dess works. When we're ready to look at life around us a bit more like a dream, and see the amazing synchronicities that start happening around us, and look for the *meaning* in dreams and life, then we will see God/dess more clearly, experience by experience, and these experiences build a faith that is anything but blind.

My understanding on why evil is allowed is that Earth is a school where our main job is to learn good from evil. How can we do that for ourselves, by experience, which is the best teacher, without evil being part of the picture.

The original article on this thread reminds me of a local tv show on Sundays with a preacher named Cliff Knechtle who spends his show talking with a group of college students, only it's sort of reversed from the story, in that he's taking the Fundamentalist Christian side, while the college kids are the skeptics. It's sort of fun to watch, after George Stephanopoulos on ABC. I get the giggles sometimes, because Cliff is related in my mind to Tarot's FOOL card, and Knecht, I'm quite sure, means NIGHT, like German nacht. Sometimes, it's fun to interpret names of public figures!

I'm not a Fundamentalist. I'm a Gnostic Christian. So I can pick on fundamentalism, which I rather detest in all flavors. It's way too literal minded.

Interesting thread, really!

Hi Alric,

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alric

What I do want to comment on however, is people who wonder why god allows for an absence of himself, which causes evil to appear. It is because god created free will. With free will comes the ability of people to reject him. He is every where, but people still need to accept him into their life. Because he gave people this ability though, it causes many problems. Even people who accept him, still faces the problems created by the others. Though in heaven only the believers will be there, and so the evil will be removed. Personally I believe that anyone who lives a good life falls under this and not necessary people of a specific religion but that's another topic.

---

I think that it is also necessary to understand that free will brings responsibility. The main part of Karmic Law is that actions have consequences, either good or bad, depending on the actions. So, while I may have free will to go rob a bank, I must also expect to receive the consequences of such action. I also think, though, that if I really have worked at developing a positive Karma, then I can also expect a certain amount of protection from other people's negative actions, even while here on the Earth plane, though it may sometimes take God/dess's timing to play out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alric

Anyway, this all makes sense if you think about it. God wishes for people to love him and so he gives them free will to accept or reject him. The alternative is making everyone your slave.

Sure god could enslave all of man kind and all the problems in the world would end, but what kind of life is that? What kind of god would enslave man kind? What kind of god would create people to be his toys and puppets?

---

Yes, I think "Pinocchio" or the futuristic version in "A. I. Artificial Intelligence" does a nice job of portraying the journey from puppet to real boy, and that our early upbringing really leaves us programmed by family, school, church, society. We reach a point where we have to break out of that programming and get real! When it was my time to do that, I woke up startled one night, to hear a voice say, "God is lonely without you!" I actually cried, and realized I had to get back to my seeking to understand. And that was around the time my dreams really opened up and a new awareness took hold.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alric

The price for freedom might be steep at times but it is far better than the alternative. Perhaps that is why people see god as a father and not as a mother. He guides people to become adults and be good. He doesn't coddle and protect them.

---

I prefer God/dess, btw, because I am very aware of all of ours right brain/feminine and left brain/masculine makeup because it shows up in dreams so much... if we're created in God's image, then God/dess has both masculine and feminine aspects as well. The physical dichotomy into two genders is another teaching element here, helping us ultimately to understand the workings of our own minds, but really, in our minds and spirits, we are each both masculine and feminine. As a Gnostic, I refer to the feminine aspect as Sophia (Wisdom), and Sophia is a very strong feminine figure.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alric

This is your immortal soul we are talking about. Do you want to live the protected life of a pet where you are never harmed? Or do you want to live a real life, as a free thinking adult?

Well its to bad, god in his infinite wisdom didn't give you a choice in that. He said that he doesn't want pets. He created man in his image and gave them freedom. What you do with your life is your own. You are free to find your own path to live your own life. You may even reject god should it be your wish. Freedom is a far greater gift than protection.

---

I actually find God/dess loves my pets and created them too, and is the Life Force within them too, but you're right, humans aren't intended to be puppets or pets. We would not, most of us, be happy for long if we were put into that position, would we?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Alric, you talk as though there are rules God has to work within. If he is infinitely powerful, he is not bound by any rules. He could create whatever benefits with a complete absence of problems. He could make square circles and make 2 + 2 = 5. He could make suffering nonexistent without there being a problem with doing that. Could he not? If not, then how is he infinitely powerful?

Also, belief is not a choice. It is not like I believe in God but reject him. It just really seems like he doesn't exist. That is not my choice. It is just how things really seem to me.

---

I think that God/dess is bound by the rules that God/dess sets up when creating something, by Hir own choice. I don't think the goal is to confuse and muddle the creation.

Also God/dess is also infinitely rational, and could not make 2 + 2 = 5. Hold up two fingers on each hand. How could you count them to five?

God/dess is also infinitely compassionate. How many people do you know who seem determined to suffer? I know many! And I used to be that way a lot. Sometimes, I get in a blue funk, and I still am! Until we change our minds, and decide to focus our attention in a more positive direction, there is nothing God/dess can do to take away the suffering. But when it comes to externally-caused suffering, which happens from all sorts of causes, then I also think we have to understand what lessons a given situation has for us. In the case of suffering, often the lesson is one of compassion.

I think my brother died of a cocaine overdose at age 25 during a remission from bone cancer *because* God/dess is compassionate. He was so caught up in drugs and so scared of the cancer and would likely have had it return, that I think he was allowed to kill himself because of God/dess's compassion and the fact that he had messed up too badly to complete his lessons for this lifetime. Sometimes, things are beyond our scope of easy understanding is all. He's fine, you know, comes and visits in my dreamtime. He tells me about getting help there, learning new things. He will do better when he is reincarnated because he was allowed to mess up this time. And he had lessons too, for everyone who loved him, through his dying.

I agree that belief is not a choice, but I think the open-mindedness that allows for belief to come is a choice. Even during the time when I was mad at God for not being easy to understand and not doing what I thought God should do, I was an agnostic, not an atheist. I left room to be shown something different than what I believed, and I came to realize it was really a fundamentalist evangelical oriented church system I was mad at, not God.

God/dess is not easy. God/dess is not required to be. Rather God/dess requires us to grow into understanding, rational, compassionate human beings. It takes time, many lifetimes in my opinion, how ever many are needed.

Just because god can do anything, doesn't mean he wants to do everything. He could set up a scenario, where you may accept or reject him and still be with him either way, but then that isn't real freedom is it? He wanted to give us real freedom and real choices, not fake ones, where we live as his slaves and think we are free.

Suffering and pain, is a consequence of freedom. He gave us earth and allowed us to do as we please with it. The damage we do to our self is our own fault. He could end it all, but then we will never truly be free.

You are not a slave in heaven, and once there you can leave at any time. I would never follow a god, where I would be a slave to him. Of course willingly being a servant, isn't the same as being a slave.

Faith and belief is a choice. Its entirely up to you, if you wish to believe or not believe. Though perhaps I should explain what I believe faith to be. Faith isn't just saying you believe there is a god, but its living the way god wishes for us to.

Accepting god, isn't about declaring you believe in him but living as good person. Which is why I believe a truly good person will go to heaven regardless of his religion. Religion is a path to god, but if you take another path you can still reach him.

So its not about deciding to believe in god or not. Its about deciding if you will be a good person or not. It is up to you, if you wish to live as a good person and live to the standards set by god, or if you wish to live a corrupt and evil life. By living a good life you are accepting god into you. By not living a good life you are rejecting him.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IrisRavenstar

I think that God/dess is bound by the rules that God/dess sets up when creating something, by Hir own choice.

---

Why would he make himself bound by rules? Also, he is supposed to have made the rules. Couldn't he have made them in a way that there are no problems?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IrisRavenstar

Also God/dess is also infinitely rational, and could not make 2 + 2 = 5. Hold up two fingers on each hand. How could you count them to five?

---

Then the God you are talking about is not infinitely powerful. There are things he cannot do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IrisRavenstar

I think my brother died of a cocaine overdose at age 25 during a remission from bone cancer *because* God/dess is compassionate. He was so caught up in drugs and so scared of the cancer and would likely have had it return, that I think he was allowed to kill himself because of God/dess's compassion and the fact that he had messed up too badly to complete his lessons for this lifetime.

---

That really sucks. I am sorry to hear about that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IrisRavenstar

I agree that belief is not a choice, but I think the open-mindedness that allows for belief to come is a choice.

---

That's a good point. I agree. Refusing to think about an idea is a choice.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alric

Just because god can do anything, doesn't mean he wants to do everything. He could set up a scenario, where you may accept or reject him and still be with him either way, but then that isn't real freedom is it?

---

Could he make it where it is? That dilemma does not even have to exist any way. We don't have the option of flying by our own power or walking through walls, so why have the option of "rejecting" God?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alric

Suffering and pain, is a consequence of freedom.

---

Does it have to be... under an all powerful God? If God is all powerful, suffering never needed to be created.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alric

Faith and belief is a choice. Its entirely up to you, if you wish to believe or not believe. Though perhaps I should explain what I believe faith to be. Faith isn't just saying you believe there is a god, but its living the way god wishes for us to.

---

Behavior and belief are two very different things, even though they are causally connected.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alric

So its not about deciding to believe in god or not. Its about deciding if you will be a good person or not. It is up to you, if you wish to live as a good person and live to the standards set by god, or if you wish to live a corrupt and evil life. By living a good life you are accepting god into you. By not living a good life you are rejecting him.

---

I hope you're right about that. I can handle that challenge.

Perhaps god already created a being that had free will and lived with him where there was no suffering. Perhaps that what angels are. Though he wanted to created humans as well as so he did. It could be that he was not happy with the angels, and so he wanted to create beings with even more free will and the ability to choose and so he created us.

If you want to get into theoretical stuff though, how about this. Imagine an infinite line that stretches forever in two directions. The furthest point to the left is where god no longer exist and the furthest point to the right is where all things are at once god. At any given time god can live any where on this line, or live at them all at once. That makes sense right?

If he is all powerful he can exist in any state. Before time began, perhaps god was infinitely to the left where even he did not exist, the universe was nothing and completely empty. And when you are in heaven you are very far to the right where he is nearly every where.

You assume that an infinitely powerful being will always be at a single point, at the furthest point to the right. However it is a line that stretches on for infinity. There is no single point at the end, it continues forever.

So how is god limited by what he can do, while not being limited at all? Because he is living on the infinite line, where he can both do everything and where he can do nothing. We simply find our self in one point of time, in one spot in the universe, out an infinite amount of time and places we can be. We can not even see the line. Though perhaps we are standing on a tiny point on that line.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Invader

How comical would it be if the prayer that prevented one from going to the
hospital actually kept that person from experiencing a preventable medical error
that would have otherwise ended up being the cause of death? What does the
death toll created by medical errors actually look like? My searches are giving
me numbers that go from 90,000 to 200,000+ annually in the United States
alone. That's quite a bit of death caused by the medical industry, if those
numbers are accurate at all.

---

He could have at least gotten the girl diagnosed so that he could make an informed decision even if we think it was a stupid one (and ultimately ended up being so).

How is it really freedom when we are punished for our choices by God? Our freedom is the same as a Slave's. We can choose to believe in God, and follow his rules, or we can be screwed. Just like a Slave can choose to follow his "master", or he can too can be screwed. While we are not physically bound to 1 set of actions, we are still bound by fear and punishment.

Its like walking up to someone, pointing a gun at them and saying "Ok, you have 2 choices, either do this, or let me kill you. Its up to you what you want to do though.". How much freedom is that really?

True freedom would be the ability to believe or disbelieve, and still get into heaven. If heaven is truly without Evil, then God could simply strip away the evil from within us before passing us into heaven right? Let humans live their life how they want, without fear.

The freedom we do have, is merely an illusion if you believe in what the Bible teaches.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kastro187420

How is it really freedom when we are punished for our choices by God? Our freedom is the same as a Slave's. We can choose to believe in God, and follow his rules, or we can be screwed. Just like a Slave can choose to follow his "master", or he can too can be screwed. While we are not physically bound to 1 set of actions, we are still bound by fear and punishment.

Its like walking up to someone, pointing a gun at them and saying "Ok, you have 2 choices, either do this, or let me kill you. Its up to you what you want to do though.". How much freedom is that really?

True freedom would be the ability to believe or disbelieve, and still get into heaven. If heaven is truly without Evil, then God could simply strip away the evil from within us before passing us into heaven right? Let humans live their life how they want, without fear.

The freedom we do have, is merely an illusion if you believe in what the Bible teaches.

---

Right on. Also, who is God to make such decisions about all of us? Was there an election?

Hit it tim minchin

If anyone can show me one example in the history of the world of a single
Psychic who has been able to prove under reasonable experimental conditions that they are able to read minds

And if anyone can show me one example in the history of the world of a single
Astrologer who has been able to prove under reasonable experimental conditions that they can predict future events by interpreting celestial signs

And if anyone can show me one example in the history of the world of a single
Homeopathic practitioner who has been able to prove under reasonable experimental conditions that solutions made up of infinitely tiny particles of good stuff dissolved repeatedly into relatively huge quantities of water have a consistently higher medicinal value than a similarly administered placebo

And if anyone can show me one example in the history of the world of a single
Spiritual or religious person who has been able to prove either logically or empirically the existence of a higher power that has any consciousness or interest in the human race or ability to punish or reward humans for there moral choices or that there is any reason - other than fear - to believe in any version of an afterlife

I will give you my piano
One of my legs
And my wife

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kastro187420

How is it really freedom when we are punished for our choices by God? Our freedom is the same as a Slave's. We can choose to believe in God, and follow his rules, or we can be screwed. Just like a Slave can choose to follow his "master", or he can too can be screwed. While we are not physically bound to 1 set of actions, we are still bound by fear and punishment.

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Despite what happens often in the bible, god never comes down and smites people. So there really is no punishment. If you choose not to go to heaven and because of that you wander into hell, well that was your own call.

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Originally Posted by Kastro187420

True freedom would be the ability to believe or disbelieve, and still get into heaven. If heaven is truly without Evil, then God could simply strip away the evil from within us before passing us into heaven right? Let humans live their life how they want, without fear.

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No its not. If you decide to be evil how can god strip away the evil, without also removing your free will? It is what you want and do remove it would be against your wishes.

What you are describing is people trying to avoid the consequences and responsibility of their actions. If you choose to be good you get into heaven, if you don't then you don't. Denying you isn't punishing you. It is simply giving you what you wanted.

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Originally Posted by Alric

If you decide to be evil how can god strip away the evil, without also removing your free will?

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With his infinite power.

If the consequences of free will are that zillions of people burn forever, then free will was a bad idea. Eternal bliss without free will beats the ever living shit out of free will with the possibility of eternal torture. Nobody would ever experience perpetual nirvana and go, "But... dammit! I don't have free will!" Free will is nothing compared to Heaven. In the grand scheme of eternal torture versus eternal bliss, free will is an irrelevant factor. Screw free will if what's at stake is so enormous.

Besides, as I keep saying, an infinitely powerful being could give free will and the possibilities of all of its benefits without the possibility of suffering. Otherwise the being is not infinitely powerful.

I don't believe in free will any way. I am a strict determinist. Everything is bound to happen a certain way through the laws of physics. There are no uncaused events, and the future is as set in stone as the past.

If you want to take everything literally, though not everything in the bible is literal is it? Perhaps the people who are thrown in hell simply cease to exist, their souls destroyed forever. Which is what a lot of people who do not believe in religion, thinks happen anyway. That they have no soul and they simply fade from existence.

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Originally Posted by Alric

If you want to take everything literally, though not everything in the bible is literal is it? Perhaps the people who are thrown in hell simply cease to exist, their souls destroyed forever. Which is what a lot of people who do not believe in religion, thinks happen anyway. That they have no soul and they simply fade from existence.

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Then still... screw free will. Eternal bliss completely whips free will followed by eternal nonexistence. Why is free will put on such a pedestal when we are talking about eternal bliss? Free will is nothing compared to eternal bliss. It doesn't even matter when put in that light.

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Originally Posted by Alric

Despite what happens often in the bible, god never comes down and smites people. So there really is no punishment. If you choose not to go to heaven and because of that you wander into hell, well that was your own call.

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So then its as I said, our free will is nothing more than an illusion. The freedom to choose is lost if we must choose based on fear. As I said, its no more of a choice than a gun-toting maniac threatening to kill you if you don't do as he says.

True free will, would be obtained by the ability to choose without our choices constrained by fear.

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No its not. If you decide to be evil how can god strip away the evil, without also removing your free will? It is what you want and do remove it would be against your wishes.

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The ability to live your life as you see fit, facing only the consequences of society, is what free will is. Stripping away the evil of a person at the time of their death, could just be another one of God's mechanism's of how death works.. if god was all powerful.

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What you are describing is people trying to avoid the consequences and responsibility of their actions. If you choose to be good you get into heaven, if you don't then you don't. Denying you isn't punishing you. It is simply giving you what you wanted.

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Denying you IS punishing you though. As I explained above, being forced to make your choices based upon the threat of eternal damnation, is not free will. If we truly had free will, we wouldn't have the threat of "hell" lingering over us to sway our actions.

If "Hell" is truly a choice, then it would not be used as a punishment. If "Heaven" was a choice, it would be used as an enticement. As it stands, neither are choices. It is not free will if you are punished for your choice.

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Originally Posted by mrdeano

Hit it tim minchin

If anyone can show me one example in the history of the world of a single
Psychic who has been able to prove under reasonable experimental conditions that they are able to read minds

And if anyone can show me one example in the history of the world of a single
Astrologer who has been able to prove under reasonable experimental conditions that they can predict future events by interpreting celestial signs

And if anyone can show me one example in the history of the world of a single
Homeopathic practitioner who has been able to prove under reasonable experimental conditions that solutions made up of infinitely tiny particles of good stuff dissolved repeatedly into relatively huge quantities of water have a consistently higher medicinal value than a similarly administered placebo

And if anyone can show me one example in the history of the world of a single
Spiritual or religious person who has been able to prove either logically or empirically the existence of a higher power that has any consciousness or interest in the human race or ability to punish or reward humans for there moral choices or that there is any reason - other than fear - to believe in any version of an afterlife

I will give you my piano
One of my legs
And my wife

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Hi mrdeano,

You could try reading _The Truth About Medium_ by Gary E. Schwartz... he does a ton of double and triple blind tests on psychic mediums. He's a parapsychologist at the University of Arizona. I'm sure there are others doing similar things.

But truth be told, I don't think it's meant to be "proven" beyond an individual's own experience. I asked my spirit guide, Leslie, a couple of times what would happen if I submitted myself for scientific testing. One time his response was, "I'm shy." The other time he said, "I'm not a performing monkey!" Psychics are under no obligation to prove themselves to anyone but themselves, really. Especially those of us who don't believe in doing it professionally.

I know that as a psychically open person (and I believe that all humans are potentially psychic, though not all will open up psychically in this lifetime), I've had some rather amazing experiences, but as I said in another post, they are not experiences of a kind that are easily transferred or proven to another person. For example, on mind-reading, I had the weirdest experience one night when I went to work at our branch library which is a mile down the hill. I usually worked at the main library for our town, about five miles away, and only rarely at the branch. That night, when I went in, there was a coworker I'd never met before, as she was excused from staff meetings due to having another town job during the day. By the end of the evening I was extremely glad it was only a four hour shift, because the entire time I was there, I heard every word this woman was going to say in my head just prior to her opening her mouth and actually saying it. It about freaked me out! I had to struggle to keep a straight face, because I didn't want to frighten her, but it was just so strange. Now, I did not hear anything private or personal about her; I heard only the thoughts she was framing in her mind to speak to me anyway, and I think it was my guide's way of giving me a demonstration of what mind-reading would be like. I knew only what she was about to project towards me with her voice anyway, you see? But I heard it telepathically before she said it. No secrets. Nothing personal.

Other times, it's been the weird synchronicities that convince me of the reality that there's more going on that meets the eye. Like, one day, I had dressed to go the grocery store in jeans and a shirt that reminded me of some of the sixties India cotton shirts so popular with hippies. I added some beads, and thought wow, don't I look like an overaged hippie now! I was laughing, remembering living in San Francisco in the sixties, and went out and got in my car, thinking how much more comfortable my Caravan is than our old VW bus, many of which were painted all psychedelic at the time, and drove around the block, when to my amazement, there was a big delivery van coming towards me that said "FLOWER POWER" in huge letters over the top. This, of course, was a hippie mantra in the sixties. I looked at the side of the van, and it was a florists' delivery truck. But I live in this tiny little village area, and had never seen that van in the neighborhood before, and have never seen it since. It was not any florist I know of at all! I think it was God/dess's way of acknowledging my outfit and my memories and saying "Hi, I'm here!" It was truly cool, whatever it was. Now if that were the only occasion, I might chalk it up to coincidence, but this kind of thing happens to me all the time!

Homeopathics work well for me for emotional stresses. I use some of the Bach flower remedies. I can't speak to how or why, really, though I understand it has more to do with energy than biology. It's not like drugs where you need a certain dosage. I just know they do work for me. I like a writer named Chris Bohjalian, who tends to latch on to New Age ideas such as homeopathy, and turn them into really good novels. One was on homeopathy. He's got the kind of mind that examines every side of an issue and then paints it into a story with very vividly drawn characters. He's done others on water dowsing, midwifery, transgender surgery, animal rights and gun control, and others I can't think of at present. I like to read him because he is so good at lookng at every idea about the topic of the current book. His books are generally set in his home state of Vermont.

As for proving the existence of a Higher Power, well, again, it's experienced by individuals who see that certain things can't be explained any other way, really. It's like you start seeing you're communicating with someone who is not visible or tangible, except through the things they do. Like, oh, being worried and stewing and fretting too much, getting stressed out to the max, and three days in a row, in three different directions from my house, running into, actually parked exactly opposite, the same car with an out-of-state license plate, a vanity plate, that said, "RELAX." What is the likelihood that I'd go out three days in a row, and see this same out of state car parked in totally different places, right across from me, right at the time I decided to go out, and the message on the license plate would be so relevant? Who could orchestrate something like that? Who would have the capability? Do you see the dilemma? To me the answer is pretty obvious.

I can go on and on like this, you see, but I can't prove it to you. I can only share my experiences. You have to prove it to yourself, or let God/dess prove it to you. All I can do is hope that in sharing what I KNOW to be true, it might open a mind or two enough to allow those persons to see something in a new way.

It's a good thing I have no need of a piano, a third leg, or a wife. ;)

Just a couple of general responses to things I've been reading...

I don't believe in Hell... I believe it was a corruption of original beliefs in reincarnation. I wrote about that on another thread just a day or two ago.

I don't believe God/dess punishes people. I believe this world was set up with a Law of Cause and Effect, which some term Karma. This is a law of natural consequences for behaviors. It's not like someone is whipping me every time I mess up. But if I choose to steal, I can expect to be stolen from, if I am not first arrested and thrown in jail. Actions lead to consequences. If I do something good for someone, the consequences will be good as well. I see it around me all the time. I believe in it.

I'm tired, so that's it for now!

Dream well everyone!

Eternal bliss is not better than free will. That is like giving someone the option to be stoned all the time and be happy and taken care of, or have the person go out and live a real life on their own. While some people would jump at the chance to be stoned out of their mind without any cares in the world and live like that for their entire life, I would gladly take the stress and responsibility of living my life on my own.

There is no way I would ever be happy in any kind of blissful state, if there was no freedom involved in it.

As for fear, there is none. Any kind of fear, is self imposed. Look all around you, there are millions of people who do not fear going to hell, or don't even believe in it. Good people normally don't fear hell, they are good because they want to be good. Most bad people really do not fear hell either. If they did they wouldn't act bad would they?

So I would say its fairly rare for a person to be so scared of hell that it changes their behavior in the long term.

Sorry for wading in but blissful implies contentment and happiness. Saying the equivilent of "I won't be happy being completely content and happy if..." doesn't really work.

Ill leave now.

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Originally Posted by RooJ

Sorry for wading in but blissful implies contentment and happiness. Saying the equivilent of "I won't be happy being completely content and happy if..." doesn't really work.

Ill leave now.

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That is like you saying, I wouldn't mind if I got a lobotomy. It sure might be true, after it has happened, but its not what I want now and you are a very different person if something like that happens.

If you are stoned literally all the time in this world, you are most likely going to live a dysfunctional life. You will probably not work much and take care of yourself like you should, and that will lead to being unhappy. It would be a problem. But if you could stay in a state of overwhelming bliss for eternity, then what's the problem? Bliss = happiness (like Rooj said). That is the ultimate ideal. Free will means about as much to me as a spec of mud in somebody's yard in China if I can have eternal bliss. And again, I am a determinist and don't even believe in free will in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

I think Invader was just bringing up an interesting idea and not truly arguing against medicine.

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That's correct.

I can't really see the point of free will. It's a dream.

You could weigh up the pros and cons of each decision you make, and decide the best based on reason. So you're not really free, since the best choice was always the best, and always the one you would choose, before you even started the reasoning process.
Or you could go "eeny meeny miny mo" and just pick one, for no reason. You're still not truly free, since you're just picking things at random, and basically shirking any responsibility to make choices yourself. You may as well roll dice.

You're still not truly free, even if you assume the choice to use reason or not was down to some "free will" that actually existed. I just don't see the point to be honest.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

My questions for the student:

1. Why does God allow for the absence of himself if the results are so awful?
2. Why does God allow the absence of himself to be so awful?
3. Could God make it where the present results of his absence no longer exist... without there being a problem with doing that?

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Ah, the ever-persistent "If God really existed, bad things wouldn't happen in the world" argument. Let me just say that if I were God, I wouldn't intervene in the affairs of mortal men, either.

Death, disease, natural disasters, murderers, rapists...these and many things more are all things that make the world a terrible place to live in. But riddle me this, Batman: If you were God, would you take all of that away and give mortals a pampered life, only so that when they die, they also get to live a pampered afterlife in heaven?

Or would you make mortals work for their admission to paradise by giving them obstacles to overcome in their mortal lives? Perhaps that's just my capitalistic idea of "you get what you work for" speaking, but I really don't think that people who've never had to undergo any hardships in life really deserve to go to heaven.

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Originally Posted by Alric

That is like you saying, I wouldn't mind if I got a lobotomy. It sure might be true, after it has happened, but its not what I want now and you are a very different person if something like that happens.

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No, you can't compare gods work to a barbaric and mostly abandoned invasive medical procedure, its a poor analogy. Its instead like me saying I wouldn't mind feeling eternally joyful, happy and content with an overwhelming exuberance for life.

Really doesn't sound that bad to me.

One of the reasons I'm neither a Buddhist nor a New Ager, is that I don't believe in a blissed out state of nirvana, or in being a water droplet, losing my identity and my ego (which is the part of me that mediates between inner and outer realities, and is necessary to avoid psychosis), and returning to some sea of unconsciousness.

That all kind of ignores the point in my being here at all, imo, and in my being pushed so hard all the time to GROW and to individuate into a whole being, doesn't it? And believe me, I recognize that I AM pushed! I don't get to slack off, really.

(Which is not to say that I don't like Buddhist practices... it's just their theology that confuses and doesn't resonate well with me.)

I don't see the place where I go AFTER I graduate from Earth School as some artificially blissful environment, or some state akin to drugged out bliss. I would hate that... I don't take drugs because I hate the feeling.

What I do see it as is a more stable place where people are all adults, all intelligent, all having mastered certain personality traits, like self-control and other "fruits of the Spirit" listed in Galatians 5 in the Bible, all self-responsible, caring, loving people. Other than that, I think it will be very much like this world, but without the death, disease, disaster and other dastardly d's. I think we'll still have work to do, and games to play, and wild discussions, and if we're so inclined, we can also offer our services as spirit guides to help along others who are still in Earth School, especially those we love and care about; some people who are close to graduating also do this in order to finish out their karmic lessons, as is the case with my guide Leslie.

The point, really, is that LIFE goes on. Either here, or in what Wiccans call the land of Summer, which sounds to me like summer vacation from school, i.e. a temporary place in between lifetimes here, or on what my guide Leslie terms the OTHER Other Side... which some call Heaven, which we have to graduate from Earth School to get to. It isn't just you either go to Heaven or a non-existent Hell. First graders don't get to graduate from High School, essentially. We graduate when we're ready to be full-fledged real adults, when we've learned all the lessons that make up our minimum graduation requirements. Until then, the worst that can happen to you is coming back to the Earth plane for another go around.

I believe this whole-heartedly, and everything I experience spiritually upholds and builds on it. I can't NOT believe it, you see? It's just what IS, as far as I can see... and it's not bad!

Sure I can. Eternal bliss without freedom or free will, would be like hell. Okay, you can say that bliss is happiness and I would be forced to enjoy it if I liked it or not, and that might be true. However it would be the death of your soul. If you lost all freedom and free will, a very important part of you would be dead. So you better believe I will compare it to a lobotomy. Because you may be happy but its a fake dead sort of happy, where you are really not there at all.

To me the worst thing that can happen is that you have no soul and you cease to exist when you die, then you go to heaven but lose your free will and freedom, you lose all your memories and reincarnate, you go to hell, you go to any where at all with your memories and personality in tact, you go to heaven with everything in tact, in that order.

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Originally Posted by Lëzen

Ah, the ever-persistent "If God really existed, bad things wouldn't happen in the world" argument. Let me just say that if I were God, I wouldn't intervene in the affairs of mortal men, either.

Death, disease, natural disasters, murderers, rapists...these and many things more are all things that make the world a terrible place to live in. But riddle me this, Batman: If you were God, would you take all of that away and give mortals a pampered life, only so that when they die, they also get to live a pampered afterlife in heaven?

Or would you make mortals work for their admission to paradise by giving them obstacles to overcome in their mortal lives? Perhaps that's just my capitalistic idea of "you get what you work for" speaking, but I really don't think that people who've never had to undergo any hardships in life really deserve to go to heaven.

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That would make sense... if the Earth was a fair place, if fortune was equally divided. That's not the case, however. Some enjoy health and wealth, while others suffer from disease and famine, not fair at all.

Also, supposedly god is eternally omnipotent, he didn't have to work at all to attain his god-like status as ruler of all existence. To then force (some of) us to work and suffer, all for just well being and peace of mind (heaven), it's extremely hypocritical of him. He's a douche.

And no 'normal' person chooses to become a rapist or a murderer. That result comes dictated by outside factors (DNA, upbringing, special circumstances derived of chance, etc), so in the end God is still guilty of all the suffering such people bring forth.

Upbringing isn't an outside factor, and people can still make their own choices in life. The problem is that everyone lives on earth together, and when given the freedom to do what you wish, some people harm others.

If you get raped its not an act of god, its an act of man. If someone builds their home in an earthquake area and it collapses, that isn't an act of god that is the act of the man who decided to live there. If a company dumps chemicals into a river, and you get cancer, that isn't gods doing, that is the company who did it.

Most things that cause people to get hurt or suffer is due to things humans did or decided. Though if you get hit by a falling meteorite or something, that might be an exception.

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Originally Posted by Alric

Sure I can. Eternal bliss without freedom or free will, would be like hell. Okay, you can say that bliss is happiness and I would be forced to enjoy it if I liked it or not, and that might be true. However it would be the death of your soul. If you lost all freedom and free will, a very important part of you would be dead. So you better believe I will compare it to a lobotomy. Because you may be happy but its a fake dead sort of happy, where you are really not there at all.

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Theres nothing fake about it, In a world of eternal bliss and happiness there's no reason why you can't feel more alive than ever, with or without freewill. Freewill's debatable at the best of times, there's no reason to assume you'd feel any different or make different decisions. If you can give me an example of a decision that defies causality that I couldnt make without freewill I'd love to hear it.

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Originally Posted by Alric

Upbringing isn't an outside factor, and people can still make their own choices in life. The problem is that everyone lives on earth together, and when given the freedom to do what you wish, some people harm others.

If you get raped its not an act of god, its an act of man. If someone builds their home in an earthquake area and it collapses, that isn't an act of god that is the act of the man who decided to live there. If a company dumps chemicals into a river, and you get cancer, that isn't gods doing, that is the company who did it.

Most things that cause people to get hurt or suffer is due to things humans did or decided. Though if you get hit by a falling meteorite or something, that might be an exception.

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First of all, "choice" doesn't exist outside of determinism.

And your examples are completely inconsistent. The man who had his house built in a dangerous area (I assume) was aware of the danger. The raped person however didn't choose to be raped in any way, there's nothing the victim could have done to save him/herself. The same goes for the person that got cancer from the dumpage, the victim didn't do anything bad, the company did the dumpage, yet god still allowed the innocent person to get cancer.


If you knowingly allow a serial killer to enter a room full of children and he kills them all, you're responsible.

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Originally Posted by Lëzen

Ah, the ever-persistent "If God really existed, bad things wouldn't happen in the world" argument. Let me just say that if I were God, I wouldn't intervene in the affairs of mortal men, either.

Death, disease, natural disasters, murderers, rapists...these and many things more are all things that make the world a terrible place to live in. But riddle me this, Batman: If you were God, would you take all of that away and give mortals a pampered life, only so that when they die, they also get to live a pampered afterlife in heaven?

Or would you make mortals work for their admission to paradise by giving them obstacles to overcome in their mortal lives? Perhaps that's just my capitalistic idea of "you get what you work for" speaking, but I really don't think that people who've never had to undergo any hardships in life really deserve to go to heaven.

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I'm a capitalist too, but that is because we have rules we have to work within. Does God? Not if he is omnipotent. If I could make everbody blissful for eternity, I would do it right now. Also, God supposedly created the laws of the universe, so mud slides and hurricanes are circumstances he is responsible for. In my universe, those things would exist only for entertainment and would never ever hurt anybody. Am I more caring than God?

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Originally Posted by IrisRavenstar

That all kind of ignores the point in my being here at all, imo, and in my being pushed so hard all the time to GROW and to individuate into a whole being, doesn't it? And believe me, I recognize that I AM pushed! I don't get to slack off, really.

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The universe is set up so that our growth is necessary. Why did God make it that way when we could just be at the pinnacle of existence immediately? If there is a problem with that, how about "poof"... problem gone? If you say there is a problem with that too, then "poof"... problem gone. God could make zero problems if he is infinitely powerful. Couldn't he?

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Originally Posted by Alric

Sure I can. Eternal bliss without freedom or free will, would be like hell. Okay, you can say that bliss is happiness and I would be forced to enjoy it if I liked it or not, and that might be true. However it would be the death of your soul. If you lost all freedom and free will, a very important part of you would be dead. So you better believe I will compare it to a lobotomy. Because you may be happy but its a fake dead sort of happy, where you are really not there at all.

To me the worst thing that can happen is that you have no soul and you cease to exist when you die, then you go to heaven but lose your free will and freedom, you lose all your memories and reincarnate, you go to hell, you go to any where at all with your memories and personality in tact, you go to heaven with everything in tact, in that order.

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I disagree with that, but I will ask you this about your belief... Could God make it where what you said is not true?

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Originally Posted by Scatterbrain

If you knowingly allow a serial killer to enter a room full of children and he kills them all, you're responsible.

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Yep. If you created the serial killer and the scientific laws that you knew would lead to his actions, you are even more responsible.

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Originally Posted by Alric

Upbringing isn't an outside factor

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How is upbringing not an outside factor? Do we get to choose our parents or circumstance of birth?

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Originally Posted by Lëzen

Ah, the ever-persistent "If God really existed, bad things wouldn't happen in the world" argument. Let me just say that if I were God, I wouldn't intervene in the affairs of mortal men, either.

Death, disease, natural disasters, murderers, rapists...these and many things more are all things that make the world a terrible place to live in. But riddle me this, Batman: If you were God, would you take all of that away and give mortals a pampered life, only so that when they die, they also get to live a pampered afterlife in heaven?

Or would you make mortals work for their admission to paradise by giving them obstacles to overcome in their mortal lives? Perhaps that's just my capitalistic idea of "you get what you work for" speaking, but I really don't think that people who've never had to undergo any hardships in life really deserve to go to heaven.

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If I were god, I wouldn't intervene either, but I also wouldn't create those circumstances that torture millions of people every day. I wouldn't have people born into disease and famine, nor born into a life where they would be born, suffer for a year or 2, and then die.

Just because you don't intervene, doesn't mean that people have to live crap lives. If everything that started, is God's doing, then ultimately, God is to blame for disease and such. For instance, when God first created man, why didn't he make it so that man is immune to disease? Why didn't he make it so that we could go much longer without food and water? Why didn't he allow us to survive in more extreme conditions?

This is also where your theory of "You get what you work for" falls apart in this context. Consider all the young kids and babies, who really have no control over those things. If a kid is born into famine and disease, and dies after 2 years, are they anymore eligible for heaven than if a kid is born into a rich family, is well taken care of, and suffers no problems, but still dies after 2 years?


But more than that, isn't this all just theatrics on part of God? Let us consider for a moment:

If God is all powerful, and knows everything there was, is, and will be, from the beginning to the end of time, why do we have all these theatrics? Why not just skip all the pain and suffering for people, and just put them into heaven? If you already know someone is going to suffer for the next 10 years of their life, and then die and get into heaven, why not just skip all the pointless suffering, and let them in to begin with?

In the end, it comes down to the fact that for God, our suffering is no more than simple entertainment for him since he already knows the outcome of everything.

Would it be a better thing for him to have never made humans at all? The basic argument that god should never allow the possibility of humans to do wrong, is and argument for us never having free will at all. If you have free will, then you can choose to do the wrong thing, and the wrong thing will harm others.

You can't give someone freedom, without giving them the possibility to to choose the right, or the wrong thing. They go hand in hand.

If no matter what you do, the result is always the same. Then you really do not have any options at all.

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Originally Posted by Alric

Would it be a better thing for him to have never made humans at all? The basic argument that god should never allow the possibility of humans to do wrong, is and argument for us never having free will at all. If you have free will, then you can choose to do the wrong thing, and the wrong thing will harm others.

You can't give someone freedom, without giving them the possibility to to choose the right, or the wrong thing. They go hand in hand.

If no matter what you do, the result is always the same. Then you really do not have any options at all.

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People's abilities to choose to do right or wrong means nothing when there are things out there beyond their control. Consider Disease for instance. Who created a majority of these diseases? Who made it so that we humans are prone to catching them? Now ask yourself, Why?

The ability to choose right and wrong go hand in hand with freedom, but there are many many things beyond our ability to choose, that help shape our choices.

Where we live, and our current state of health for instance, are 2 such factors. If I was born to a dirt-poor family who was living in their car, I would probably grow up with the mentality of "Survival", which means I would probably be prone to committing petty crimes of theft and such to survive until I can get myself into a better position.

In the eyes of society, that is "wrong", which brings us to the cliche of:

"I'd rather be a thief and alive than honest and dead."

How do you rationalize people's pain and suffering that they must endure when its beyond their control or ability to choose?

That isn't true, there is a meaning. No matter what happens around you, you can still choose for yourself if you are going to do the right thing, or the wrong thing.

If you think about it, there is no difference between walking down the street and being shot by a mugger, or being born to a poor family. If you get shot by the mugger its his actions that caused you harmed. If you are born poor it was someones fault you are poor. Either your parents, or their parents, or the person that put them in a bad position that they were in.

The fact that you were even born, was the direct outcome of someones choose(even if they put them self into a position to have a child on accident). Most bad things are a consequence of someones action. You could even say if we had modern medicine, no pollution in the world, and everyone was well feed and taken care of(from sharing resources), there would probably be a lot less Disease in the world(probably by a large scale).

You can't always control where you are at, or what is going on. However you can always choose how you react to any problem you face. That is what free will is about. You deciding how you will react to something.

i like most hispanics was born with faith in god.

though im not an over obsessed faith, i do believe in him.

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Originally Posted by Alric

Would it be a better thing for him to have never made humans at all? The basic argument that god should never allow the possibility of humans to do wrong, is and argument for us never having free will at all. If you have free will, then you can choose to do the wrong thing, and the wrong thing will harm others.

You can't give someone freedom, without giving them the possibility to to choose the right, or the wrong thing. They go hand in hand.

If no matter what you do, the result is always the same. Then you really do not have any options at all.

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You keep talking about what something infinitely powerful cannot do. Do you see the contradiction in that?

You say we have "free will", yet there are tons of things we cannot do. Can you float out of your chair? Can you run 200 miles per hour? Can you turn into a frog? There is so much we cannot do. Why can't causing suffering be one of them?

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

You keep talking about what something infinitely powerful cannot do. Do you see the contradiction in that?

You say we have "free will", yet there are tons of things we cannot do. Can you float out of your chair? Can you run 200 miles per hour? Can you turn into a frog? There is so much we cannot do. Why can't causing suffering be one of them?

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I've never thought of free will as literal as this before. I guess that's technically right, but when most people say it, they don't mean that.

They are talking about the ability to choose. You have choices every second of the day, and anyone mentally normal has the ability to choose one side or the other... or to do one thing or the other... blah, rambling.

You are just being silly, and there is no contradiction there. Having free will has nothing to do with having special magical powers or anything of the sort.

Free will is about the freedom to decide how you are going to act. Are you going to help the person, or you do not help them. Do you accept god, or do you not.

Saying you really don't free will because you can't 'choose' to rip a hole into the fabric of reality and created a black hole, is silly.

As for the infinitely powerful stuff, how about we use some logic here? You keep asking, why can't god do something that is illogical and makes no sense. That is like saying if god is all powerful he can eat his own face, and if he can't then he really isn't god. Not only does it make no sense what so ever, it is an entirely moot point and doesn't prove anything.

Alric and Michael, I am not saying free will is the same thing as infinite power. I am saying that I don't agree with the argument that God would be denying us free will by not giving us the option of suffering or causing suffering. We can't do lots of stuff, so why would it suddenly be a denial of free will if we couldn't suffer or cause suffering? Alric, tell me that before you talk about "silly". My disagreement with the existence of free will has to do with the fact that no event could ever be uncaused. If you choose something, which you can do, you choose it because neurophysics directed you to do so. There is no free will in the sense that somehow physics stops and "you" just randomly decide something for no reason. There is a reason for everything, even your decisions.

I think that if I was to meet the god of abraham and the whole bible turned out to be true to the word, I would laugh in his face and tell him that he could have done it all by writing down a few (one?) pretty equations and letting everything else sort itself out. He could have just gone and gotten high for a few tens of billions of years and everything would have worked out just the same. chump.

You can't have free will, if there are such limits placed on you. By definition, if you are not allowed to decided for yourself, you are no longer free.

The stuff you are saying we can not do, are not things we can do because of lack of free will. They are physical limitations. What you want are mental limitations which are totally different.

Lets take flying. You can not jump off a building and fly like a bird, because physically you have no wings. You can however build a plane and fly, glue wings to your arms and fly, or simply jump off the building and flaps your wings and try to fly. There is no mental limit on there, saying you can not fly. You just can't do it physically, yet humans have came with ways to overcome a ton of different physical limitations.

What you are proposing, is that our freedom is limited. Such a thing would be like, humans are not allowed think about flying. No human can ever invent or come up with anything to help them fly, because its simply impossible for them to grasp the concept of it.

Something like that would be a huge restriction on our freedom. Saying that humans can never even think of anything is wrong, because the concept of wrong is beyond our grasp, is saying we really have no freewill at all. You are simply removing all our choices so that the only thing left is to always do the right thing.

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Originally Posted by Alric

You can't have free will, if there are such limits placed on you. By definition, if you are not allowed to decided for yourself, you are no longer free.

The stuff you are saying we can not do, are not things we can do because of lack of free will. They are physical limitations. What you want are mental limitations which are totally different.

Lets take flying. You can not jump off a building and fly like a bird, because physically you have no wings. You can however build a plane and fly, glue wings to your arms and fly, or simply jump off the building and flaps your wings and try to fly. There is no mental limit on there, saying you can not fly. You just can't do it physically, yet humans have came with ways to overcome a ton of different physical limitations.

What you are proposing, is that our freedom is limited. Such a thing would be like, humans are not allowed think about flying. No human can ever invent or come up with anything to help them fly, because its simply impossible for them to grasp the concept of it.

Something like that would be a huge restriction on our freedom. Saying that humans can never even think of anything is wrong, because the concept of wrong is beyond our grasp, is saying we really have no freewill at all.

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Does God have the power to change that?

Alric, what is infinite power?

define the function s(x) = 1/x if x > 1 and s(x) = x if x < 1

now p = mv where p is momentum, m is mass and v is velocity. let p = s(m)s(v) in cases where m is going to hurt someone. We could fire uzis at eachother like paintpalls. So UM is more compassionate than god and I'm a better mathematician. I stand by my previous statement

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Originally Posted by Alric

You can't have free will, if there are such limits placed on you. By definition, if you are not allowed to decided for yourself, you are no longer free.

The stuff you are saying we can not do, are not things we can do because of lack of free will. They are physical limitations. What you want are mental limitations which are totally different.

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One of the problems i have with freewill is that of addictions.
My uncle for instance was well aware that his addiction to alcohol was slowly killing him, causing his family great stress and generally ruining his life. He hated alcohol for it, but he was unable to beat his physical and mental dependence on drink which eventually killed him.
I wonder if addictions would be such a huge problem if decisions were finalised external to the body and free from the causality of the universe.

Another example is brain tumors, its well known that brain tumors can affect behaviour greatly, infact ill link to one of the most famous cases:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...le-tumor_x.htm

If true freewill exists, then surely it doesnt depend on brain physiology and health, how free can freewill be if its directly wired into brain function i wonder.

If freewill can be directly affected by the physical structure and processes in the brain.. and that structure aswell as chemical changes in our bodies are beyond our control, then quite simply true freewill doesnt exist. Another example:

http://esciencenews.com/articles/200...eoples.choices

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Originally Posted by esciencenews.com

The activity in one brain structure can predict people's preferences, according to new research in the March 25 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The study shows that even when people rate options similarly, they will choose the one that causes more activation in the caudate nucleus, a brain region involved in anticipating reward. The study also shows that after a decision is made, caudate nucleus activity increases for the selected option and decreases for the rejected one. The findings help to explain a classic finding in psychology.

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Please explain how true freewill can exist in a world where changes in the brain can radically change a persons behaviour, often negatively and sometimes to the extent where they hurt people they love... And remember, if you tie freewill to brain structure in any way it can only go to show that freewill is dependent on the physical and therefore not truly free.

I could make the claim that god can not create a singorthicalgram. Which would be true, since I just made the word up and no such thing exist. Its only a word with no meaning, and thus god can not create it.

God can do everything that is logical and possible to do. Your question is, can god make it possible for us to have free will, while not giving us free will. Obviously not, the question doesn't make any sense.

If your only argument is that god infinitely powerful and thus should be able to do things that make no logical sense, then that isn't a very good argument at all. This is supposed to be a god and science thread at all, and that isn't even remotely science.

The addiction part is easy. You can choose to avoid addiction by never taking the drug or alcohol to begin with. You could make the argument that the more you get addicted to something, the more you lose your free will, but that is the consequence of putting yourself into that position. Losing your free will, doesn't show you never had it to begin with. It simply shows that you are losing it.

Having free will doesn't stop others from harming you either. You can decided not to step out of a window, but if someone throws you out of the window, you are going out if you like it or not.

We are talking about the ability to choose, not the ability to get what you want. Nor the ability to escape the choices of others.

Just because something is beyond your control, doesn't mean you lack free will. There are many things that can effect your free will. The simple thing would be like peer pressure. Someone puts peer pressure on you, trying to get you to do something. Just like how people can convince you of things, drugs and chemicals can as well.

Free will isn't the immunity to all outside forces. Especially in cases were you put yourself at risk of being harmed.

Why not just use the most extreme example? If someone shots you in the brain, you die. When you die you lose all free will you had. You can not choose or do anything, you are dead. So of course your brain is an important part of it. The question becomes, did you have free will before you died, and do you have it after? Well the first is that you did have free will and you made many choices in your life. The second, well it depends on if there really is an after life or not.

nice sidestep of my proposal of a change of the laws of physics to let us be immune from the violence of others and have free will. There would be no logical problem with that. We could have free will and freedom from violence. My inability to hurt someone would then be on the same footing as my inability to fly.

EDIT: And didn't god create the laws of logic?

Oh boy...

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Originally Posted by Alric

I could make the claim that god can not create a singorthicalgram. Which would be true, since I just made the word up and no such thing exist. Its only a word with no meaning, and thus god can not create it.

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Irrelevant, nobody said god should be able to create a word which has no meaning. It was specifically said that god should be able to make the world in such a way that it would be impossible to cause pain to others.

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God can do everything that is logical and possible to do. Your question is, can god make it possible for us to have free will, while not giving us free will. Obviously not, the question doesn't make any sense.

If your only argument is that god infinitely powerful and thus should be able to do things that make no logical sense, then that isn't a very good argument at all. This is supposed to be a god and science thread at all, and that isn't even remotely science.

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Once again, free will isn't some magic thing that allows us to make certain decisions for no reason. We make choices based on our life experience, personality and knowledge, all outside factors. "Free will" isn't separate from determinism.

And logic isn't a magic constant exterior to the Universe. Logic is dependant on the laws of the Universe: If I jump out through the window, it's logical to think that I'll fall because we know the force of gravity exists.

If god created the Universe, then he too created logic. To say he can't do illogical things is to say he isn't omnipotent.

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Having free will doesn't stop others from harming you either. You can decided not to step out of a window, but if someone throws you out of the window, you are going out if you like it or not.

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And who's to blame for that? God.

The individual who pushed the other out the window is guilty, as much guilty as a human can be. In the end he is a victim of a chain of circumstances that led him to that unavoidable path of murdering someone, and those circumstances were set in motion by god, the psycho.

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Originally Posted by Alric

The addiction part is easy. You can choose to avoid addiction by never taking the drug or alcohol to begin with. You could make the argument that the more you get addicted to something, the more you lose your free will, but that is the consequence of putting yourself into that position. Losing your free will, doesn't show you never had it to begin with. It simply shows that you are losing it.

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No, if behaviour and choices are directly affected by the brain and we have no say in brain development and little in brain health then true free will doesnt exist. You cant simply say we choose not to have freewill.. we either have it or we dont.. the very fact that alcohol can impair our ability to choose shows that our ability to choose is directly connected to brain physiology and thus not free from causality.

also please tell me how we can "lose" freewill, how does alcohol affect our souls ability to choose (or however you think freewill works)?

Lastly nobody chooses to get a brain tumor so i say again:

Please explain how true freewill can exist in a world where changes in the brain can radically change a persons behaviour, often negatively and sometimes to the extent where they hurt people they love... And remember, if you tie freewill to brain structure in any way it can only go to show that freewill is dependent on the physical and therefore not truly free.

Im not interested in other peoples controls over us

The problem with that Rooj, is that we actually have a great deal of control over our brain's health and development. The foods we eat effect its health and we have a great deal over the development of our mind by how we learn.

When you say pick up a book and you read through it and you learn something, it actually creates connections in the brain. Your assumption is that the brain is an outside force, when it is not. Its a apart of us. The idea that the brain is controlling you and not your free will, is a little silly. Since the brain makes a big part of who you are.

Brain cancer, likely doesn't magically occur by itself. Its probably caused by some environmental factor. Like how smoking increases the chances of getting lung cancer, there are probably things that likely increase the chance of getting a brain tumor. They don't really know, so its hard to say how you could avoid it, if you can.

The point being that most of the problems that happen, are due to your choices. If you do drugs, and you become addicted to them, it is your own fault. It was your choice to take them, and have them mess with your mind.

You can not blame the drugs or alcohol when you are the one who caused it, it was your actions and your choices that lead you to abandon your family and hurt the people you loved. Saying the drugs made you do it, is simply avoiding the responsibility. In cases where you had no choice, often its the result of other people's choices. To say that god created a bad thing, you would have to say that the cause of it, was not because of anything a human has ever done in the entire history of earth. Which is a very difficult thing, to even begin to try and figure out.

And PhilosopherStoned, that isn't exactly true. It might be possible to say, create humans with body made of energy or something so that they can not be harmed physically. But what about harming each other mentally. Even if a person never touches another person you can still really hurt people by being cruel and teasing them, making fun of them. I can lie to a girls father and tell him she a whore and he could disown her which would be devistating. Even if you remove the possiblity for that as well, then you just keep limiting more and more, until there is simply no free will left.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

EDIT: And didn't god create the laws of logic?

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And can't he change them?

As we both keep suggesting, free will is not supposed to involve every possibility imaginable. There are things we cannot do, and hurting others could be one of them without breaking the laws of logic as they are. The possibility of getting hit by a hurricane, mud slide, or disease could also be taken out of the picture without the current laws of logic being broken.

As usual, we're being driven in circles here. I'm out.

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Originally Posted by Alric

When you say pick up a book and you read through it and you learn something, it actually creates connections in the brain. Your assumption is that the brain is an outside force, when it is not. Its a apart of us. The idea that the brain is controlling you and not your free will, is a little silly. Since the brain makes a big part of who you are.

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The idea that the brain is responsible for the actions of humans is far from silly, infact ive just posted evidence for it:
The activity in one brain structure can predict people's preferences, according to new research in the March 25 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The study shows that even when people rate options similarly, they will choose the one that causes more activation in the caudate nucleus, a brain region involved in anticipating reward. The study also shows that after a decision is made, caudate nucleus activity increases for the selected option and decreases for the rejected one. The findings help to explain a classic finding in psychology.

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Brain cancer, likely doesn't magically occur by itself. Its probably caused by some environmental factor. Like how smoking increases the chances of getting lung cancer, there are probably things that likely increase the chance of getting a brain tumor. They don't really know, so its hard to say how you could avoid it, if you can.

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You're missing the point, im not arguing about the cause of brain tumors, im arguing that if a brain tumor can effect freewill, then freewill is effected by physical factors, and thus not free...

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The point being that most of the problems that happen, are due to your choices. If you do drugs, and you become addicted to them, it is your own fault. It was your choice to take them, and have them mess with your mind.

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Again this is missing the point, its not about how you got addicted, its the fact that behavioural changes can occur in the first place. A free system beyond causality wouldnt be effected by physical changes in the brain, choices would remain free.

I believe you missed a key question:
Can you tell me how its possible for an entity, with the ability to freely make choices beyond causality, to "lose" freewill through changes in the physical brain... without also showing that freewill is actually directly linked to the brain and thus has a basis in the physical (and therefore causality).

You missed the point of what I was just saying. There is no reason to say that a physical brain does not have free will. The study says that most people will pick what they believe to be the most rewarding choice. How does that prove or disprove anything regarding free will? That is simply common sense, that people normally decide what is the greatest reward.

It's obvious that people are effected by events around them, but that does not mean that their free will isn't added into their thought at some point.

is free will really that complicated guys? seriously, it just means that god doesnt take hold of it.

http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ncaused+events

I think one thing Universal Mind was trying to say is, if God is all powerful, he could change how things work, and still allow us free will. For instance, right now, we are physically limited in what we can and cannot do. This is due to the laws of physics which, if you believe in God, he created. So if he could dictate the initial laws of physics, and not limit our "free will", then why can't he change those laws, and still allow us free will?

God could for example, make it physically impossible for us to harm one another, or physically impossible for us to get disease, or starve to death, while still allowing free will to happen. Right now, we accept our limitations as "free will" because we've always lived like this. Just because what is possible is changed, doesn't mean we no longer have free will. We still have free will, but its within a new set of laws.

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Originally Posted by Kastro187420

I think one thing Universal Mind was trying to say is, if God is all powerful, he could change how things work, and still allow us free will. For instance, right now, we are physically limited in what we can and cannot do. This is due to the laws of physics which, if you believe in God, he created. So if he could dictate the initial laws of physics, and not limit our "free will", then why can't he change those laws, and still allow us free will?

God could for example, make it physically impossible for us to harm one another, or physically impossible for us to get disease, or starve to death, while still allowing free will to happen. Right now, we accept our limitations as "free will" because we've always lived like this. Just because what is possible is changed, doesn't mean we no longer have free will. We still have free will, but its within a new set of laws.

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Exactly! Thank you.

If you go by the bible and what the religion teaches though. God did create man in a place where there was no sin, and there was no harm. Man created them himself when he rebelled against god.

So to answer the question. He did, but because you have free will and can choose any action man found a way to create the harmful things on his own.

you knew that sooner or later somebody was gonna bring that piece of shit excuse for a holy text into this discussion...

I'm out. I'm sure I won't be missed. Try reading something real sometime. "In the Buddhas words" is a great book. Doesn't have all the fairy tales and shit though. Just a fairly logical explanation of suffering and where it comes from and how to minimize it in your life. Good stuff.

The point is all the talk is about removing possibilities from reality, to limit reality. If god wanted free will, there is no reason he would ever remove all the possibilities for choosing wrong. If there is any chance of someone to do something wrong, then someone can be hurt. Even if its not physically.

If everything is always right, and nothing is ever wrong then you live in a perfect world where everything is always right.

It would be a stagnate world without creativity or nothing new. Why would god ever create such a thing?

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Originally Posted by Alric

If you go by the bible and what the religion teaches though. God did create man in a place where there was no sin, and there was no harm. Man created them himself when he rebelled against god.

So to answer the question. He did, but because you have free will and can choose any action man found a way to create the harmful things on his own.

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Creating Harmful things, and using them to do harm are 2 different things. Man created guns, but God could've just as easily made it a "law" that bullets simply bounce off of us too.

In fact, I would put forth that god WANTED us to create sin. If he knows everything there is to know, future included, then he would've already known what was going to happen before he did it, and yet he did it anyway.

The problem is that everything in the world has the possibility of harming you. We couldn't have anything physical at all. Because the systems that allow you to breath, get energy from food, allow you to walk, and the matter that makes you up to make you exist can all cause harmful things.

If all matter simply bounced off of each other to avoid harming each other, the world would pretty much cease to exist. Which is why I keep saying that such things are silly.

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Originally Posted by Alric

The problem is that everything in the world has the possibility of harming you. We couldn't have anything physical at all. Because the systems that allow you to breath, get energy from food, allow you to walk, and the matter that makes you up to make you exist can all cause harmful things.

If all matter simply bounced off of each other to avoid harming each other, the world would pretty much cease to exist. Which is why I keep saying that such things are silly.

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It only seems silly because we've lived this way since the beginning of time. If we lived the way we've been suggesting, we wouldn't think its silly at all. In fact, we would think that THIS way of living is silly.

The point I'm making is, if God is all powerful, he can twist and bend the rules and laws of physics to make them do whatever he wants, even if we don't understand WHY something happens the way it does.

We still have severe limitations on what we can and can't do, and yet we still believe we have free will. That would be no different if things changed. We would still have limitations, but we would still have the choice of deciding what we want to do.

In such a proposed reality, we could TRY to do "evil", but nothing would come of it. Much like we can TRY to walk through walls, but it doesn't happen.

Evil doesn't HAVE to exist, it just can exist. It only exists because God allows it. God could just as easily remove it, and we'd still have all the same freedoms we do now.

You keep saying that, but there is no reason to believe that it would be possible. You are talking about removing all the fundamental rules of our entire reality. If you were to do such a thing, then there is no possible way to know what would happen. There would be a good chance that there would be no such thing as free will in a world like that.

As I said before. God can do all things that are possible. If something isn't possible, and does not exist it can not be done. This isn't a limit on his power, you are simply making an illogical statement that has no biases in reality.

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Originally Posted by Alric

You keep saying that, but there is no reason to believe that it would be possible. You are talking about removing all the fundamental rules of our entire reality. If you were to do such a thing, then there is no possible way to know what would happen. There would be a good chance that there would be no such thing as free will in a world like that.

As I said before. God can do all things that are possible. If something isn't possible, and does not exist it can not be done. This isn't a limit on his power, you are simply making an illogical statement that has no biases in reality.

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Logic? Reality? Did God not create everything, including that Logic and Reality? Why exactly is it illogical to believe that the very person who created this reality and logic, can also change it?

More than that, if God is all knowing, and knows what happens from the beginning to end of time, then HE would know what would happen if he was to change it.

Your statements that God can't do something, completely contradict the idea of God.

No it doesn't for two reason. The first is that god doesn't actually have to be infinitely powerful, only the thing that created the universe. Which you keep arguing is two totally different things. It makes the entire thing moot, when you realize even if you are right, it has little meaning. A creature that created the universe we live in would be a god. Secondly you are not really putting up an argument for the limits of his power. You are simply using word play, to make an illogical statement seem like an argument, when in reality it is not.

Besides all you are really trying to argue is that god allows the possibility of evil. He created a world were evil is possible and he knew it would happen but didn't stop it. Even if you were right, that still doesn't mean he created evil does it? Simply put, even if you are right he did not create evil. He just allowed it to continue. Which isn't an evil act, as the reason he allows it to continue is because he doesn't want to end the good side of things.

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Originally Posted by Alric

No it doesn't for two reason. The first is that god doesn't actually have to be infinitely powerful, only the thing that created the universe. Which you keep arguing is two totally different things. It makes the entire thing moot, when you realize even if you are right, it has little meaning. A creature that created the universe we live in would be a god. Secondly you are not really putting up an argument for the limits of his power. You are simply using word play, to make an illogical statement seem like an argument, when in reality it is not.

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Wait, I'm confused here. Are you saying that there is something even MORE powerful than God, and that THAT is responsible for creating the universe and God?

I'm not sure how you figure I'm using word play though. I'm giving you a perfectly reasonable argument as to how its possible for God to get rid of evil, and still allow free will. And secondly, we're talking about Logic.. in a debate about God? Logic and God don't really go together. But more than that, if we are assuming that God is all powerful (as stated in the Bible), then God can operate outside the laws of physics and what WE understand to be "logical".

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Besides all you are really trying to argue is that god allows the possibility of evil. He created a world were evil is possible and he knew it would happen but didn't stop it. Even if you were right, that still doesn't mean he created evil does it? Simply put, even if you are right he did not create evil. He just allowed it to continue. Which isn't an evil act, as the reason he allows it to continue is because he doesn't want to end the good side of things.

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Right now, you're grasping for straws, looking for some way to make your point valid. You are now trying to assume that God wasn't the one responsible for creating the universe, and you are trying to suggest that God, the person who knowingly allowed everything to play out, isn't responsible for evil.

That'd be like saying that if you walk down the street and see a girl being raped, and you have all the power of the world at your fingertips, and you just let it continue, that you aren't responsible for it continuing.

If you don't consider that an evil act, then you got some issues.

If God Created the possibility of Evil, seen that it would happen, and allowed it to continue, then he is just as evil.

Ahh interesting Alric, so you don't believe freewill requires a soul?

edit: and for the record I don't believe the brain is impervious to the laws of nature, so until I see evidence to the contrary I can't agree the brain is capable of freewill.My argument was against the soul being responsible for decisions which I assumed you believed after you said the end of freewill would mean the death of the soul.

This addition was brought to my attention.
A lot of reading and again a lot of nonsense (read at on your own accord

But just because:

The Christian points towards his elderly, crumbling tutor. "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain... felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain?"

No one appears to have done so.

The Christian shakes his head sadly. "It appears no-one here has had any sensory perception of the professor's brain whatsoever. Well, according to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says the professor has no brain."

The class is in chaos. The Christian sits... Because that is what a chair is for.

The professor, amused at the student's antics, asks the student whether he's ever read anything about science.

"No," says the student. "I only know what I've heard in church."

"That explains your ignorance about what science is, young man," says the professor. "Empirical knowledge of something does not always entail direct observation. We can observe the effects of something and know that it must exist. Electrons have not been observed, but they can create an observable trail that can be observed, so we can know they exist."

"Oh," said the Christian.

"No one has observed my heart, but we can hear it beating. We also know from empirical knowledge of people that no one can live without a heart, real or manufactured, or at least not without being also hooked up to some medical equipment. So we can know that I have a heart even though we have not seen it."

"Oh, I see. That makes sense," said the Christian student.

"Similarly, we can know that I have a brain. I wouldn't be able to talk, walk, and so on unless I had one, would I?" said the professor.

"I guess not."

"In fact, if I had no brain I couldn't do anything at all. Except maybe become a televangelist!"

The class broke up with laughter. Even the Christian laughed.

"Evolution is known to be true because of evidence," continued the professor. "It is the best explanation for the fossil record. Even prominent creationists admit that the transition from reptiles to mammals is well documented in the fossil record. A creationist debate panel, including Michael Behe and Philip Johnson, conceded this on a televised debate on PBS. It was on Buckley's "Firing Line" show. Did you see it?"

The Christian student cleared his throat and said in a low voice, "My mom won't let me watch educational TV. She thinks it will weaken my faith."

The professor shook his head sadly. "Knowledge does have a way of doing that," he said. "But in any case, evolution is also the best explanation for phenomena that have been observed."

The Christian student sputters, "You--you mean we HAVE seen it?"

"Of course. Evolution has occured within recent times, and it continues to occur. Birds and insects not native to Hawaii were introduced just a couple of centuries ago and have evolved to take better advantage of the different flora. So this evolution has taken place within recorded history. Recent history. Did you know that?"

"Uh, no."

"Viruses other diseases evolve to become resistant to medicine. This is not only observed but it is a major problem that science must confront every day. Mosquitos in the tunnels of London's underground have evolved to become separate species because of their isolation from other groups of mosquitos. But enough about evolution. That doesn't have anything to do with our issue, evil, does it?"

"Well..."

"What does it have to do with our issue?" asked the professor.

"Well, if you don't believe in god, then you must believe we came from apes."

The professor laughed. "Evolutionists don't believe that people came from apes or even monkeys. They believe that humans and apes had a common ancestor."

"Wow!" said the Christian. "That's not what they told me at church."

"I'm sure. They can't refute evolution so they have to spread misinformation about it. But don't you know that many Christians believe that god made humans by evolution?"

"I didn't know that."

"In fact, of the four people who debated the evolution side on PBS, on William F. Buckley's 'Firing Line,' which I just mentioned, two of them were theists. One of them is a reverend, in fact."

"Really?"

"Really. Many denominations of Christianity embrace evolution. Catholicism, the largest denomination of Christianity, is compatible with evolution. So evolution is not relevant here, is it?"

"I guess not."

"Even if it were true that you have to be an atheist to believe evolution, which is not the case, and even if it were the case that evolution was unsupported by evidence, which is also not the case, this would not explain evil at all, would it. It is irrelevant."

"I see that now," said the Christian. "I don't even know why I brought it up. I guess I thought it was an example of how you believe something without evidence."

"Well," said the professor. "As you can see, it is not. There is plenty of evidence for evolution. And even if there were no evidence, this has no bearing on the issue of evil. As we proceed through the philosophy course, you will see how to use your reasoning ability to separate important issues from irrelevant ones."

"I'm guess learning already," said the student, looking at the floor.

"But back to the problem of evil," said the professor. "You stated that evil is the absence of good. How does that solve the problem of evil?"

The student said lifelessly: "If evil is the absence of good, then god did not create evil." It was evident that this was something the student had learned by rote and had often repeated.

The professor shrugged his shoulders. "Okay, let's suppose for the moment that this is true. This still does not explain evil. If a tidal wave wipes out a whole town, and 100,000 people die, is that evil?"

"There is the absence of good," said the student.

"But so what? The problem is why god did not prevent the disaster. If god is all-powerful he can prevent it, and if he is all-knowing he knows that it is about to happen. So whether he created the tidal wave is not relevant. What we want to know is why he did not do anything to stop it."

The student looked confused. "But why should he prevent it? It's not his fault."

"If a human being had the power to prevent a tidal wave wiping out a town, and this person intentionally failed to stop it, we would not say that the person is good. Even if the person said, 'It's not my fault,' we would be appalled that someone could stand by and do nothing as thousands die. So if god does not prevent natural disasters, and he is able to do so, we should not say that god is good by the same reasoning. In fact, we would probably say that god is evil."

The Christian student thought for a moment. "I guess I'd have to agree."

"So redefining evil as the absence of good does nothing to solve the problem of evil," said the professor. "At best it shows that god did not create it, but this does not explain why god does not prevent it."

The Christian student shook a finger at the professor. "But that's according to our human standards. What if god has a higher morality? We can't judge him by our standards."

The professor laughed. "Then you just lost your case. If you admit that god does not fit our definition of good, then we should not call him good. Case closed."

"I don't understand," said the student, wrinkling his brow.

"If I go outside and see a vehicle with four tires, a metal body, a steering wheel, a motor and so on, and it fits the definition of a car, is it a car?" "Of course it is," said the Christian student. "That's what a car is."

"But what if someone says that on some other definition it could be considered an airplane. Does that mean it's not a car?"

"No," said the student. "It still fits the definition of a car. That's what we mean by saying that it's a car. It doesn't fit the definition of an airplane, so we shouldn't call it that."

"Exactly," said the professor. "If it fits the definition, then that's what it is. If god fits the definition of good, then he is good. If he does not, then he is not. If you admit that he does not fit our definition of good, then he is not good. It does no good to say that he could be 'good' in some other definition. If we want to know whether he is good by our definition, you have answered that question. God is not good."

"I don't believe it!" said the Christian student. "A few minutes ago I would have laughed at the suggestion that god is not good, but now I actually agree. God doesn't fit the definition of good, so he's not good."

"There you go," said the professor.

"But wait a minute," said the student. "God could still be good in some other definition even if we don't call him good. Despite what we think, god could still have his own morality that says he's good. Even if we couldn't call him good, that doesn't mean that he isn't good on some definition. He could have his own definition anyway."

"Oh, you would not want to push the view that god might be good in some other definition," said the professor.

"Why not?" "Well, if he has definitions of things that are radically different from our own, he might have a different definition of lots of other things. He might have his own definitions of such things as eternal reward, or eternal life. Your supposed eternal life in heaven might just be a year, or it could be a thousand years of torture. God could just say he has a definition of reward that includes excruciating torture as part of the definition."

"That's right!" said the Christian, jumping up. His eyes were wide open. "If god can redefine any word, then anything goes. God could send all believers to what we call hell and say that it is heaven. He could give us ten days in heaven and say that that's his definition of eternity!"

"Now you're thinking!" said the professor, pointing a finger at the student. "This is what a philosophy class is supposed to do for students."

The Christian student continued. "God could promise us eternal life and then not give it to us and say that's his definition of keeping a promise!"

"Yes, yes," said the professor.

"I can't believe I used to fall for this Christianity stuff. It's so indefensible," said the student, shaking his head. "Just a few moment's thought and all the arguments that my church gave me in Sunday school just collapse."

"So it would seem," said the professor.

"I'm going to go to my church tonight and give the pastor a piece of my mind. They never tell me about important stuff like this. And they sure didn't tell me the truth about evolution!"

The student, who stood up as a Christian, now sat down as an atheist. And he started using his brain--because that's what it's for. The other students in the class sat there, stunned, for a few moments. They knew they had witnessed the changing of a person's life, the redirection of a young mind from falsehood and religious dogma to the honest pursuit of truth.

The students looked at each other and then began applauding. This soon gave way to cheering. The professor took a bow, laughing. When the students calmed down he continued his lecture, and class attendance was high for the rest of the semester.

That is not what I said. I said that god created the universe. If a being is responsible for creating the universe than they would be god. A being could have created the universe without 'having infinite power' he would just be infinitely more powerful than we can comprehend.

There is a problem with your example. See when you say he didn't stop the rapist you forgot something. In order to stop the rapist he would have to make the person who was raped cease to exist. In fact, everyone would cease to exist. In your theory of an ideal world were no one could ever harm anyone physically or mentally, our entire reality would cease to exist.

If you knew someone was going to rape a girl, would you stop him? If you knew someone was going to rape a girl would you erase all of mankind from existence to stop it? Obviously when you take the entire concept as a whole into account, its far better to create billions of good things and allow flawed things into existence.

Besides I am willing to bet the vast majority of people in the world would rather suffer through life than to no longer exist.

As for a soul, no I do not. I don't see why you necessarily need a soul to have free will. If you believe in reincarnation and things like that, then you might believe that the soul influences your life through your mind. Though in the case of Christians, they generally believe when you are born your soul is a blank slate. It knows nothing. As you live your life, you take actions that give you experience and you learn things.

The way I see it as you grow and experience things your soul grows as well. Your soul is your psyche and your consciousness. There doesn't have to be a god, or even an after life to have free will. It could even be possible that you have a soul, but when you die it fades away.

The basic question religion tries to answer is, what happens to your soul when you die? Does it disappear, does it go to an afterlife, was it never really there? Who knows.

The fact that people do things that are not in the best interest of their survival or for the survival of the species, in my opinion shows that there is more going on, than a simple flow of everyone reacting to actions that happen long ago. Which is a sign of free will.

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Besides I am willing to bet the vast majority of people in the world would rather suffer through life than to no longer exist.

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How exactly do you believe that for someone to stop 1 act of evil, they would have to erase all of mankind? Its no different than if a Cop happened upon the scene and stopped the rape. The cop didn't erase all of mankind to stop the rape, so why would God?

If he wanted to prevent it from ever having happened, again, Police Offers do this on a daily basis without erasing mankind.

I'm not quite sure where you pulled that logic from, but its flawed in many ways.

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Originally Posted by Kastro187420

How exactly do you believe that for someone to stop 1 act of evil, they would have to erase all of mankind? Its no different than if a Cop happened upon the scene and stopped the rape. The cop didn't erase all of mankind to stop the rape, so why would God?

If he wanted to prevent it from ever having happened, again, Police Offers do this on a daily basis without erasing mankind.

I'm not quite sure where you pulled that logic from, but its flawed in many ways.

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Because we are not talking about one situation. We are talking about every single situation that has, or ever will happen. And not just rape but of every problem that could happen, from not having anything to eat for lunch, or stepping on a paper clip.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

you knew that sooner or later somebody was gonna bring that piece of shit excuse for a holy text into this discussion...

I'm out. I'm sure I won't be missed. Try reading something real sometime. "In the Buddhas words" is a great book. Doesn't have all the fairy tales and shit though. Just a fairly logical explanation of suffering and where it comes from and how to minimize it in your life. Good stuff.

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Philosopher, the bible is written in alchemist language. Taking it at face value is like interpreting a sexual innuendo literally! If you know what I mean...:D

Just because religious fundamentalist take it literally you are going to LOWER yourself to THEIR STANDARDS??

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Originally Posted by Alric

Because we are not talking about one situation. We are talking about every single situation that has, or ever will happen. And not just rape but of every problem that could happen, from not having anything to eat for lunch, or stepping on a paper clip.

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If you assume that God alters the events from the beginning of time, then yes, things will change. However, it is possible for him to alter what happens from here on out, making it impossible to do anything bad, without effecting anything that has happened in the past, thus, nothing is erased from Man Kind.