What do you need so much Free Will for?

[HansMustermann]

Ok, here's the problem I'm having, and I'll start by clarifying the propositions, as best as I understand them. Feel free to correct me.

P1: A lot of suffering and injustice in the world is supposedly explained by God somehow needing to give people complete free will. I suppose so he can see whether the Nazis would choose to gas a few million Jews, he needs to give them enough free will that they can do that.

And God pretty much can't do much about it, or he'd be limiting your free will. Basically that if your daughter is in the car with the next Ted Bundy, God can't stop him or make him suddenly not want to kill her after all, because that would infringe on Ted Bundy's free will.

(At this point I'll skip over the patent contradiction with all the claims that some prayer worked, or God helped some anyway, which boil down to infringing on someone's free will anyway. E.g., anyone who believes that praying to Jesus before a job interview helped them get a job, effectively believes that Jesus messed with the employer's free will. Or equivalently, messed with the data that they used to make a decision, although giving you data that would change your choice is also apparently something God can't do. E.g., it's why God doesn't show himself.)

At any rate, remember this premise: God has to give you full free will, and if you couldn't sin, and even commit the most horrible crimes, then you wouldn't have free will.

P2: As I quoted in my "So how do you know you're saved?" thread, he first Epistle of John -- which, by the way, is the same John who wrote the Gospel of John, so it seems to me like anyone who grants him divine inspiration for the gospel should kinda take him seriously -- states in chapter 3, verses 8 to 10:

8. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
9. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.
10. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.​

Again, "born of God" meaning the same as what was translated as "born again" in the same guy's gospel.

But at any rate, it says that if you were properly "saved" once, if that being "born again" actually worked, then that's it. For the rest of your days, you can't sin any more. If you CAN, then you're still one of Satan's guys.

And it's been confirmed to me in the aforementioned thread that a bunch of churches DO read it that way: if you were properly saved, then you can't sin any more.

Okaaayy....

So the question is: how the heck does one reconcile P1 and P2?

Do thousands and in fact millions of Christians get their free will removed, and that's not a problem for God?

Or -- as is usually explained, and not just for living people, but also for why people don't start beating the crap out of each other in Heaven -- no, dude, you still have full free will, he just makes you not want to sin any more? Well, that seems to me like it's just making P1 a load of stupid nonsense. Because it just says that someone can still have (enough) free will, even if they're prevented from doing evil stuff, or even from wanting to do evil stuff. So then why doesn't God do it for everyone in the first place?

If Joe Random Fundie can still count as having free will even though God is preventing him from not just doing evil stuff, but even thinking bad thoughts (those are sins too, remember?), or wanting to do evil stuff, etc... then why couldn't Cain still count as having free will even if God were to stop him from killing Abel? Why wouldn't Ted Bundy count as still having free will, even if God were to prevent him from torturing and murdering those dozens of young women?

 

[tsig]

Ok, here's the problem I'm having, and I'll start by clarifying the propositions, as best as I understand them. Feel free to correct me.

P1: A lot of suffering and injustice in the world is supposedly explained by God somehow needing to give people complete free will. I suppose so he can see whether the Nazis would choose to gas a few million Jews, he needs to give them enough free will that they can do that.

And God pretty much can't do much about it, or he'd be limiting your free will. Basically that if your daughter is in the car with the next Ted Bundy, God can't stop him or make him suddenly not want to kill her after all, because that would infringe on Ted Bundy's free will.

(At this point I'll skip over the patent contradiction with all the claims that some prayer worked, or God helped some anyway, which boil down to infringing on someone's free will anyway. E.g., anyone who believes that praying to Jesus before a job interview helped them get a job, effectively believes that Jesus messed with the employer's free will. Or equivalently, messed with the data that they used to make a decision, although giving you data that would change your choice is also apparently something God can't do. E.g., it's why God doesn't show himself.)

At any rate, remember this premise: God has to give you full free will, and if you couldn't sin, and even commit the most horrible crimes, then you wouldn't have free will.

P2: As I quoted in my "So how do you know you're saved?" thread, he first Epistle of John -- which, by the way, is the same John who wrote the Gospel of John, so it seems to me like anyone who grants him divine inspiration for the gospel should kinda take him seriously -- states in chapter 3, verses 8 to 10:

8. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
9. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.
10. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.​

Again, "born of God" meaning the same as what was translated as "born again" in the same guy's gospel.

But at any rate, it says that if you were properly "saved" once, if that being "born again" actually worked, then that's it. For the rest of your days, you can't sin any more. If you CAN, then you're still one of Satan's guys.

And it's been confirmed to me in the aforementioned thread that a bunch of churches DO read it that way: if you were properly saved, then you can't sin any more.

Okaaayy....

So the question is: how the heck does one reconcile P1 and P2?

Do thousands and in fact millions of Christians get their free will removed, and that's not a problem for God?

Or -- as is usually explained, and not just for living people, but also for why people don't start beating the crap out of each other in Heaven -- no, dude, you still have full free will, he just makes you not want to sin any more? Well, that seems to me like it's just making P1 a load of stupid nonsense. Because it just says that someone can still have (enough) free will, even if they're prevented from doing evil stuff, or even from wanting to do evil stuff. So then why doesn't God do it for everyone in the first place?

If Joe Random Fundie can still count as having free will even though God is preventing him from not just doing evil stuff, but even thinking bad thoughts (those are sins too, remember?), or wanting to do evil stuff, etc... then why couldn't Cain still count as having free will even if God were to stop him from killing Abel? Why wouldn't Ted Bundy count as still having free will, even if God were to prevent him from torturing and murdering those dozens of young women?

Seems to me that the only thing god wants us to do with free will is to renounce it. We only have free will to be able to freely love god (he's not into bondage) but when we do choose to love god then we surrender our free will into god's will.


Underlying most religions is a deep and abiding hate for humanity.

 

[Beerina]

Also God's control mechanisms, promise of Heaven or threat of Hell, are perfectly mundane coercion mechanisms that rely on anything but free will.

 

[HansMustermann]

@Tsig:
Well, even that's not entirely true.

The most trivial objection is basically this: imagine I came with a gun and said, basically, "bend over and gimme some loving or I'm shooting you in the stomach." Would that count as anything near choosing it of your own free will? I can't see how God's "or I'm burning you alive for all eternity" counts as free will, then. Or as someone else put it, God gives humans about as much free will as a mugger gives his victim in a dark alley.

But IMHO an even bigger problem is that then it doesn't actually solve the problem of evil, or of suffering. If all that ultimately counts is whether you accept Jesus or not, and that's really all that free will counts for, then logically you don't need more free will than necessary to make that choice. If I put your brain in a jar on the body of a remotely controlled robot, and you had absolutely no choice over its actions at all, just the fact that you can choose to accept or not accept Jesus in your mind, would be enough to damn or save you. And, hey, you just agreed that that's the only choice Jesus seems interested in.

I mean then logically everything else, every choice other than accepting or not accepting Jesus, is irrelevant. Your choice to do good or bad deeds is about as relevant there, as a cosmonaut's breakfast has on whether the space shuttle launches successfully.

So then why DOES God need to give people the free will to commit torture, rape, murder, genocide, etc? If not only those choices have no actual consequences (you can't get any worse than going to hell, nor better than going to heaven), but they're not even the choices God is interested in, then why allow them?

 

[Roger Ramjets]

First off, God didn't stop Hitler or Ted Bundy to preserve their free will. They had already firmly rejected God the moment they decided to do evil, so He could have eliminated them at that point and it wouldn't have violated their free will. No, God had other reasons for letting them do their stuff. We don't know what those reasons were, but we do know that history would have unfolded differently if Hitler had settled down to an unremarkable career as a painter, and the lives of Ted Bundy's victims would have been quite different if he had met with an 'accident' before 1969. If they had lived, one of their descendants might have been the next 'Hitler' in WWIII (the NUCLEAR War to End All Wars).

Only God knows what plan He has for us, and since it's a perfect plan we can be pretty sure that any meddling would have messed it up. Those millions of people had to die in order to ensure that the future works out just right. That may sound cruel, but perhaps God had the chance to prevent nuclear war and save billions of lives. Or the end game might be millions of years away, and trillions of lives are at stake. We just don't know. But God does, and He probably had to run the numbers a gazillion times to get the best solution.

But what about all those people who died? They had unusually short and brutal lives, but an eternity in Heaven will more than make up for it. It's only sad for those who didn't see the light in time, and so are going to Hell (a reminder to get your Jesus on now, since you never know when your number will come up).

BTW praying for things doesn't work. It even says so in the bible. The only prayer that works is asking God to help you believe in Him. Expecting God to stop what He's doing and break physical laws just to give you something you don't deserve is selfish and arrogant, as well as stupid. God is not some magical genie that grants wishes!

Secondly, there is no incompatibility with what John said. 'Of the devil' does not mean that the devil is controlling your thoughts, only that you have chosen the way of Evil instead of Good. That is a rejection of God, so you now 'belong' to the devil. That's not to say that you can't turn around though - we are all sinners in God's eyes, so He is not surprised to see us stumble. The important thing is avoid consciously rejecting God after promising to accept Him, because then it's even harder to sincerely repent (and God will know if you are not sincere!).

Just being physically baptized or going through some 'born again' ritual does not cut it. To really be 'born again', you have to fully accept Jesus into your heart - which means following God's laws without fail. When you start doesn't matter (so long as you're not dead yet). But the more you sin, the harder it will be. I guess you could figure that sinning right up to a few minutes before you die is the best strategy, as it should be easy to stay good for those last few minutes. But what if you get it wrong? What if you discover that you can't be sincere? What if your lifetime of sinning causes an evil thought to sneak into your mind at the last second? Instant fail - go to Hell!

It's possible that when Hitler was huddled in that bunker waiting to die he saw the light, was truly sorry for all the sins he committed, and accepted Jesus into his heart. If he did so then he would rightly be ensured a place in Heaven (since all his past sins would be washed away at that moment). However, I very much doubt that he would have managed to pull it off. No, better to spend your whole life trying to be good all the time, then after a lifetime of practice you might just get there without much effort.

Now you might think John's idea that "No one who is born of God will continue to sin" cannot be correct, but you don't become 'born of God' until you truly accept Jesus into your heart (and therefore stop sinning). As John says "The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them". And once you get to that state, is it really that hard to keep it up? Let's see what's involved. John says that we should love one another, and give to others in need. Jesus said "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" and "Love your neighbor as yourself'". Loving God just means following His laws, and that's mostly the Golden Rule. What's so hard about that?

Bottom line

Free Will allows you to love God (be good) or reject Him (sin). Loving God simply means keeping His laws. If you keep His laws then you are Saved and Jesus wipes out all your past sins. If you sin again then you have rejected God, and are back to square one with all your sins (+1).

Some Christian sects teach that just going through some ritual will make you 'born again' and inoculate you against future sins - it won't. A lot of 'Christians' are in for big shock when they die!

 

[Bikewer]

Since there are over 2000 Christian sects (likely many more... Little "storefront" outfits) one can only wonder which one is right......


Or any....

 

[tsig]

First off, God didn't stop Hitler or Ted Bundy to preserve their free will. They had already firmly rejected God the moment they decided to do evil, so He could have eliminated them at that point and it wouldn't have violated their free will. No, God had other reasons for letting them do their stuff. We don't know what those reasons were, but we do know that history would have unfolded differently if Hitler had settled down to an unremarkable career as a painter, and the lives of Ted Bundy's victims would have been quite different if he had met with an 'accident' before 1969. If they had lived, one of their descendants might have been the next 'Hitler' in WWIII (the NUCLEAR War to End All Wars).

Only God knows what plan He has for us, and s. ince it's a perfect plan we can be pretty sure that any meddling would have messed it up. Those millions of people had to die in order to ensure that the future works out just rightThat may sound cruel, but perhaps God had the chance to prevent nuclear war and save billions of lives. Or the end game might be millions of years away, and trillions of lives are at stake. We just don't know. But God does, and He probably had to run the numbers a gazillion times to get the best solution.

But what about all those people who died? They had unusually short and brutal lives, but an eternity in Heaven will more than make up for it. It's only sad for those who didn't see the light in time, and so are going to Hell (a reminder to get your Jesus on now, since you never know when your number will come up).

BTW praying for things doesn't work. It even says so in the bible. The only prayer that works is asking God to help you believe in Him. Expecting God to stop what He's doing and break physical laws just to give you something you don't deserve is selfish and arrogant, as well as stupid. God is not some magical genie that grants wishes!

Secondly, there is no incompatibility with what John said. 'Of the devil' does not mean that the devil is controlling your thoughts, only that you have chosen the way of Evil instead of Good. That is a rejection of God, so you now 'belong' to the devil. That's not to say that you can't turn around though - we are all sinners in God's eyes, so He is not surprised to see us stumble. The important thing is avoid consciously rejecting God after promising to accept Him, because then it's even harder to sincerely repent (and God will know if you are not sincere!).

Just being physically baptized or going through some 'born again' ritual does not cut it. To really be 'born again', you have to fully accept Jesus into your heart - which means following God's laws without fail. When you start doesn't matter (so long as you're not dead yet). But the more you sin, the harder it will be. I guess you could figure that sinning right up to a few minutes before you die is the best strategy, as it should be easy to stay good for those last few minutes. But what if you get it wrong? What if you discover that you can't be sincere? What if your lifetime of sinning causes an evil thought to sneak into your mind at the last second? Instant fail - go to Hell!

It's possible that when Hitler was huddled in that bunker waiting to die he saw the light, was truly sorry for all the sins he committed, and accepted Jesus into his heart. If he did so then he would rightly be ensured a place in Heaven (since all his past sins would be washed away at that moment). However, I very much doubt that he would have managed to pull it off. No, better to spend your whole life trying to be good all the time, then after a lifetime of practice you might just get there without much effort.

Now you might think John's idea that "No one who is born of God will continue to sin" cannot be correct, but you don't become 'born of God' until you truly accept Jesus into your heart (and therefore stop sinning). As John says "The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them". And once you get to that state, is it really that hard to keep it up? Let's see what's involved. John says that we should love one another, and give to others in need. Jesus said "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" and "Love your neighbor as yourself'". Loving God just means following His laws, and that's mostly the Golden Rule. What's so hard about that?

Bottom line

Free Will allows you to love God (be good) or reject Him (sin). Loving God simply means keeping His laws. If you keep His laws then you are Saved and Jesus wipes out all your past sins. If you sin again then you have rejected God, and are back to square one with all your sins (+1).

Some Christian sects teach that just going through some ritual will make you 'born again' and inoculate you against future sins - it won't. A lot of 'Christians' are in for big shock when they die!

GWIMW

except for you, you have it all figured out.

 

[tsig]

Since there are over 2000 Christian sects (likely many more... Little "storefront" outfits) one can only wonder which one is right......


Or any....

I always liked the one my uncle Joe started, the Free Will and Free Love Baptist
Assembly. You were free to love anyone who was Baptized into the Lord. His was truly a life changing Ministry unfortunately cut short by legal action and being shot dead by an irate husband.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

If I put your brain in a jar on the body of a remotely controlled robot, and you had absolutely no choice over its actions at all, just the fact that you can choose to accept or not accept Jesus in your mind, would be enough to damn or save you. And, hey, you just agreed that that's the only choice Jesus seems interested in.

That's true, but you have to understand what 'accepting Jesus' actually means. You have to follow His commands (ie. not sin) and you use your free will to do this. Without free will, you have no choice and are intrinsically good or evil. Which do you think is fairer, having the choice to be good, or being stuck with what you are? (add in the fact that nobody starts out all good)

I mean then logically everything else, every choice other than accepting or not accepting Jesus, is irrelevant. Your choice to do good or bad deeds is about as relevant there, as a cosmonaut's breakfast has on whether the space shuttle launches successfully.

not just deeds, but also thoughts can be good or bad. Therefore as long as you are conscious you have a chance (start by forgiving the guy who put your brain in the jar).

So then why DOES God need to give people the free will to commit torture, rape, murder, genocide, etc? If not only those choices have no actual consequences (you can't get any worse than going to hell, nor better than going to heaven), but they're not even the choices God is interested in, then why allow them?

Choices do have consequences, but in the end you either pass or fail. Like going for a driver's license, or a job - you either get it or you don't. And if you think that you can get away with torture/rape/murder/genocide etc. and then repent on your deathbed, just remember that it has to be sincere, and that means not doing it just because you're afraid of going to Hell!

Perhaps you wanted a graded system where a little evil (say, just one rape and murder) gets you an uncomfortably warm spot on the shores of Hell, while genocide guarantees you the Full Monty in the Lake of Fire? For a start you would have to work out some kind of scoring system. Who gets it worse, Charles Manson (who never actually killed anybody, but commanded other people to do it) or George W Bush (who did the same, but was responsible for a lot more deaths)? Then you have to keep changing the grades as people discover ways to commit greater levels of evil.

And what about Heaven. Should just managing to avoid being evil (like most of us) get you a small low-lying cloud and a harp, while being really good (like Bill gates) gets you 12 virgins and a seat next to God Himself?. I can imagine a lot of infighting between souls who think they should have gotten a better deal.

A simple pass-fail system would be simpler and easier for us to understand, and probably fairer as well. It means that anybody can redeem themselves if they put their mind to it, even if they have a 'checkered' past. In Heaven they get permanently upgraded to 100% good, while the failures go straight into the Lake of Fire to be consumed.

Anyway it doesn't matter how we think it should be, coz that's the way it is

 

[tsig]

@Tsig:
Well, even that's not entirely true.

The most trivial objection is basically this: imagine I came with a gun and said, basically, "bend over and gimme some loving or I'm shooting you in the stomach." Would that count as anything near choosing it of your own free will? I can't see how God's "or I'm burning you alive for all eternity" counts as free will, then. Or as someone else put it, God gives humans about as much free will as a mugger gives his victim in a dark alley.

But IMHO an even bigger problem is that then it doesn't actually solve the problem of evil, or of suffering. If all that ultimately counts is whether you accept Jesus or not, and that's really all that free will counts for, then logically you don't need more free will than necessary to make that choice. If I put your brain in a jar on the body of a remotely controlled robot, and you had absolutely no choice over its actions at all, just the fact that you can choose to accept or not accept Jesus in your mind, would be enough to damn or save you. And, hey, you just agreed that that's the only choice Jesus seems interested in.

I mean then logically everything else, every choice other than accepting or not accepting Jesus, is irrelevant. Your choice to do good or bad deeds is about as relevant there, as a cosmonaut's breakfast has on whether the space shuttle launches successfully.

So then why DOES God need to give people the free will to commit torture, rape, murder, genocide, etc? If not only those choices have no actual consequences (you can't get any worse than going to hell, nor better than going to heaven), but they're not even the choices God is interested in, then why allow them?

True, god gives you free will then promises you everlasting agony if you don't choose him/her and that's the only choice that matters, as RR has pointed out if Hitler accepted Jesus in that microsecond between pulling the trigger and dying then he goes to heaven while the someone else who's done nothing but good can have a microsecond of doubt and be consigned to hell. The answer I have always got to this problem is that it could never happen which is no answer at all.

 

[HansMustermann]

That's true, but you have to understand what 'accepting Jesus' actually means. You have to follow His commands (ie. not sin) and you use your free will to do this. Without free will, you have no choice and are intrinsically good or evil. Which do you think is fairer, having the choice to be good, or being stuck with what you are? (add in the fact that nobody starts out all good)

Yes, that's all good and fine, but that's not what John says. Anyone who is really born again, "he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God." And the reason given isn't some form of "oh, he'll control himself because he doesn't want to piss off Jesus." The reason, according to the apostle John is, "because God’s seed remains in him." (I guess God doesn't believe in using a condom or pulling out)

Seems to me like he says that that seed would prevent people from sinning. Which is pretty incompatible with the free will excuse, really.

Plus, even without that seed explanation, it seems to me like John's whole argument is impossible to accept, and doubly so with that degree of certitude, if people are in fact able at any point to freely choose between doing good and doing evil.

 

[IanS]

Without free will, you have no choice and are intrinsically good or evil. Which do you think is fairer, having the choice to be good, or being stuck with what you are? (add in the fact that nobody starts out all good)

I didn't read your other sentences, but I don’t think the above is true, is it?

It's not a factual certainty that any particular individual will always be good or always be evil. People do various things in their lives. You might think some of those things are evil. And you might think other things they do are good. The same person might do something you regard as evil, but then ever after change their ways and do no evil ever again (or vice versa). That may or may not be the result of their free will and conscious decisions.

Further still, what you regard as "good" or "evil" may quite often be rather different from what someone else regards as "evil" (not withstanding the fact that most people would regard what Al Queda did on 9/11 as evil ... but if you talk to enough Muslims, even in the UK, you pretty soon find that quite a sizable number actually think that 9/11 and 7/7 etc. were not evil at all ... I could have chosen Hitler for that example, but 9/11 and radical Islam probably brings the point home more firmly for most people today).

 

[Halfcentaur]

You'd think a god who placed so much value on free will would have forbidden slavery.

 

[HansMustermann]

It's not a factual certainty that any particular individual will always be good or always be evil. People do various things in their lives. You might think some of those things are evil. And you might think other things they do are good. The same person might do something you regard as evil, but then ever after change their ways and do no evil ever again (or vice versa). That may or may not be the result of their free will and conscious decisions.

You've pretty much summed up why I don't believe one can hold John's view that once someone was really "born again", they won't sin any more, unless one also believes there is something actually preventing them from doing it. (And incidentally, John seems to say the same thing: there is some god seed preventing them.)

Because indeed, otherwise, if you just take a random person, no matter what they believe in or what ideology they subscribe to, given enough opportunities to choose to do something good or something bad, eventually they'll take the "wrong" choice. Even if by sheer mistake, since people aren't perfect and infallible (and, after all, even Christianity itself has that as a basic tenet), sooner or later they're bound to do something wrong or reason wrong.

Especially when one includes thought crimes, as Jesus himself does, that increases the number of opportunities to "sin" so much that it becomes almost a statistical certainty that they'll sin, if it's left just up to them. At the very least, sooner or later someone will look at a guy or girl with lust in their heart.

Which really brings me to my OP dilemma of how can one fit John's view with the premise of God being constrained by having to give people absolute and complete free will.

 

[slingblade]

BTW praying for things doesn't work. It even says so in the bible. The only prayer that works is asking God to help you believe in Him. Expecting God to stop what He's doing and break physical laws just to give you something you don't deserve is selfish and arrogant, as well as stupid. God is not some magical genie that grants wishes!

You just called Jesus a LIAR and made him cry. How does that feel?

Yeah, I know you will dispute me. I'll cite ALL the relevant verses for you when you do.

And after I do, if you continue to insist on your position, then you'll be the liar. And lying's a sin. Lying about Jesus is the Unforgivable Sin, as you are disputing the Holy Spirit which lives in Jesus.


Dude, you are so going to Hell.

 

[12AX7]

Only God knows what plan He has for us, and since it's a perfect plan we can be pretty sure that any meddling would have messed it up.

So we screwed up God's 'perfect plan' when we intervened in WWII to stop atrocities?



I love the fundie 'perfect plan' argument. That they themselves don't see the idiocy of it is amazing.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

One question for the apologists: if we must have for example rape in order for humans to have free will... what about the countless things we cannot do?

If I must have the ability to rape, where is my ability to read minds, walk through walls, fly, use echolocation, or teleport? Or even simplistic stuff like falling asleep/waking up at will, controlling my own heart beat, erasing memories or traumas, instantly memorize everything we read without having to cram, or lighting fires by snapping our fingers?

Free will apologists love to dodge the problem of evil by rambling on about how we have to be able to do anything or we wouldn't have free will. Well... there are countless things we cannot do, so then by your own definition, we do not have free will in the first place.

Only God knows what plan He has for us, and since it's a perfect plan we can be pretty sure that any meddling would have messed it up. Those millions of people had to die in order to ensure that the future works out just right. That may sound cruel, but perhaps God had the chance to prevent nuclear war and save billions of lives. Or the end game might be millions of years away, and trillions of lives are at stake. We just don't know. But God does, and He probably had to run the numbers a gazillion times to get the best solution.

Seriously, I love you guys. You rant on about how God allows suffering and death and rape and warfare for some nefarious utilitarian purpose... and you end your ramblings with... a smiley face.

Seriously. I love you. I don't *********** get you guys.

I love the fundie 'perfect plan' argument.

Yeah, I outright love a worldview where some sick, twisted God allows a Holocaust to happen because it fits some hidden "master plan" that is perfect to Him, but which He is unwilling to share, and then sends his marionettes straight to Hell for their service.

Beautiful.

Who gets it worse, Charles Manson (who never actually killed anybody, but commanded other people to do it) or George W Bush (who did the same, but was responsible for a lot more deaths)? Then you have to keep changing the grades as people discover ways to commit greater levels of evil.

Oh, so it's wrong when humans do it. Gotcha.

 

[Craig B]

You'd think a god who placed so much value on free will would have forbidden slavery.

And you'd think the person who wrote these words

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

wouldn't have owned hundreds of slaves, but he did.

 

[slingblade]

And you'd think the person who wrote these words wouldn't have owned hundreds of slaves, but he did.

Jefferson was a god? Jefferson was omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent?
Jefferson should be held to the same standard humans tend to have for their gods?

This is fascinating. As is the equivocation fallacy being employed.

 

[tsig]

And you'd think the person who wrote these words wouldn't have owned hundreds of slaves, but he did.

TJ isn't JC.

ETA ninjaed!!