NOTE: This is not an anti religion post, simply a philosophical and age old debate.
Ok, so very very basically, here is an issue with the typical Christian view of God, a view shared by other religions, aside, however.
God is all good God is all powerful (omnipotent) God is all knowing
If God is all good, then why does he make evil things happen? Why does he create murderers and tsunamis?
Some say God creates us with the choice to do good and bad that we may have free will.
So, in this case God creates us without knowing if we'll choose to be good or bad people, or even if we will believe in him/her.
So God doesn't know if we're going to be good or bad, so God is not all knowing.
BUT - Imagine we still want to hold that he his all knowing, i.e he knows everything about everything. This means God creates us knowing that we're going to be good or bad people, this means that he condemns those he creates bad to a life of sin and ultimately hell, so he can't be all Good.
BUT - if we want to still hold that he is all good, then there must be another reason murderers and tsunamis exist, but what? Maybe God created the world, and is not powerful enough to intervene. Then God is no longer all-powerful. Either that or he is powerful enough to intervene, and simply doesn't want to, in which case he is not all good. What do you think about all this?
Then this violates the All Knowing + All Powerful + All Loving claim. Such a God would not intentionally create creatures with inborn problems and allow such evils to exist.
But then you could interpret our definition of "good" differently from god's interpretation since we are not perfect. ^^
But why would he create something perfect. Doesn't being perfect mean you always choose the right thing. So you can't choose the wrong thing, and then you have no free will.
But then you could interpret our definition of "good" differently from god's interpretation since we are not perfect. ^^
So God's definition of "Good" is all the crap in the world right now?
But why would he create something perfect
Imagine yourself as a parent. Would you want your kid to be mentally retarded, physically deformed, have a genetic disease and constant illness, or would you want the very best for it?
Doesn't being perfect mean you always choose the right thing.
You're mixing perfect and free will. Perfect would mean that our bodies are as efficient as can be and that we would never get sick and would regenerate lost limbs. Free will is just the choice to choose our own path.
So God's definition of "Good" is all the crap in the world right now?
I'm now pushing the limits of god's definition of good, but what is all this "crap" is actualy progress?
You're mixing perfect and free will. Perfect would mean that our bodies are as efficient as can be and that we would never get sick and would regenerate lost limbs. Free will is just the choice to choose our own path.
I think what he is saying is what I said before, that if you always choose the good choice, then the good choice will always be picked and the bad choice will no longer be an option, which limits your free will.
I take you to Adam and Eve. They were "erfect" and ended up screwing themselves with the free will they were given. Then that perfection was taken away from them. So perfect does not mean no free will. It just means we can determine right from wrong and don't get sick. We can still make our own choices. Regeneration is not perfection. If we were perfect, we would not lose that limb in the first place. ^^
So then we wouldn't be compleatly perfect, only physically? There would still be wars, and bullies, and clinical depression?
That would be the free will dealy. Which is still kind of strange that God wouldn't actively intervene to stop it.
that if you always choose the good choice
How do you know the good choice? Do you know for sure that if you weren't on Armorgames right now you would be out doing something and meet the person who you would like best in the world? Being "Perfect" isn't omnipotent. It isn't omniscient either. It simply means that there are no flaws with, in this case, the body, as according to religion we have free will.
What is you took out god being "good" since he can't really have good applyed to him since he also made evil,
Then we rule out the sort of God we are suppose to be debating about in the first place.
how would that be in the least bit interesting?
We would likely have to apply different standard of what we regard as interesting in such a case.
Everyone would then become perfectly predictable and I think that would quite honestly rule out their option of "free choice" since you know that they were created to make certain choices since they were created "erfect".
The choice would still be available even if not taken. If someone couldn't personally find it in them to say kill another person and was faced with the option to kill or not and doesn't, does this mean they have no free choice in this matter or does it mean they made the choice not to kill?
So what if god didn't want a perfectly predictable world (for the humans, not him since he is all knowing) and instead wanted to make it interesting by not making everyone imedietly choose the "right" choice (reason why I said "right" is how would everyone immedietly know that choice is right, if no one one took the wrong choice? Also if they did know what was the right choice, then wouldn't they have to also be all knowing and no longer have the aspect that I think makes us human, the ability to come into a world with almost no knowledge and absorb what is going on around us to form what should and shouldn't be done) and instead having them figure out what is right and wrong on their own?
Then it wouldn't be our fault for being flawed in the first place.
Can't you also say that evolution WAS how he created people? Maybe he wanted to work his way up to create something worth while.
Evolution works through naturalistic processes. Just as we rule out God creating storms we can just as easily do this with evolution.
Once we have done this with enough things we then can question what if anything God has done, but that for another discussion.
Urghhh...has no one read my comment on the first page about Good and Bad being just perceptions? Furthermore, even if such a God exists, who are we mortals to judge for Him what IS good or bad?
If God was omniscient, he would know they would eat the fruit because a snake tempted them.
If God was all loving, why the hell did he place that tree in there in the first place? Let's not get into that Adam and Eve had NO concept of Good or Evil, how would they know what a lie is?
He put the tree there so they HAD the option to go off the good path.
That's bull****. Seriously. They were innocent as can be. They didn't know it was wrong. Sure God told them not to eat it (Interfering with free will much?) But then something else told them it was okay. They didn't know it was wrong. They had no idea what a lie is.
It's like putting a grenade in front of a two year old and saying, "Don't pull this out and squeeze this" and then walking away. The two year old has no idea what a grenade is or what will happen. Now imagine Sadistic older brother comes along and says that Daddy told him it was okay to do that.
He put the tree there so they HAD the option to go off the good path. And if he stopped them, he would be taking away their free will.
I am assuming the God we have here is omniscient, omnipotent, all knowing and has a Divine Plan. Which means that everything that occurs has done so according to His designs. Hence they had NO free will at all because He knows what is going to happen. Does that clear Kasic's point up?
