If there was really a God, bad things wouldn't happen.

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Adifferentname,

Ofcourse what you are showing is typical natural human behaviour. You didn't get it from a stranger. Adam actually was the first human who did this, Genesis 3:12, The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.

Adam here said that God made that woman, blaming God for her being here and giving Adam the apple. Same thing you are doing right here. Eveluate the claims you make.

What, I don't understand however is the reason why you think that if someone already knows the choices you will make ,this somehow undermines your free will? That he already knows the choices you make doesn't mean he determined the choices you make. Atleast for me. Can you explain to me please?

I use scripture as a strong foundation for my claims, from this strong foundation I build my home. I don't rely on my own insight. If I don't use scripture to back myself up I can make the most beautifull looking tower but with the least of wind that thing will come crashing down. And if it makes me look like some narrow minded fool to humans, so be it. Because humans have let me down everytime, but God doesn't let me down.

As for the reason I posted in the first place. The motive for my action is because I care for you and the reason I care for you is because God cares for you. And if you don't believe that, it would make me sad. I don't care for winning discussion, because a discussion is won by not even starting one in the first place.

Talking of free will, as an example:

"Do this action only, or face death."

That isn't free will, that's forcing someone to do that action.


As for what I mean by "bad", I think most people here have got it. What I meant was that the idea of good and evil is a human concept. Predators rip each other apart in order to feed. Humans find sneakily all sorts of ways to get what they want, as do animals, including torture of other animals and humans, in order to survive and get to the top. We're only animals, at the end of the day. Other animals with our strength in the same position as humans, would do the same or worse in wrecking the Earth. Our morals say those things are bad, but they're part of everything and the way animals instinctively know how to survive. It's a human concept that we should improve ourselves or be better than that.

And if none of those bad things happened: wars, rapes, murders, taking advantage of other people and animals etc...then there would need to be a new definition of "bad". Humans create that definition, and morals vary everywhere.

...The idea that bad things wouldn't happen if there was a God, that for one thing is us making a huge assumption that this intelligence thinks like a human with the same morals. On the massive, massive scale of things, the universe, possibly parallel universes...what would we as a human race matter to an almighty creator? Like we kid ourselves with the above that humans are mostly evil and destructive to the world, the ones at the top are evil etc... some of us are "good" and try to be what real men *should* be - that's entirely made up by humans. The idea of being better than that and improving ourselves not to be bad, is invented by humans.

I hope the above was clear.

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Last edited by Yo El on 31 Dec 2016, 11:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have already chosen life over death, but I am still free to change my mind at any time and choose death, if I wish. I do understand how illogical or maybe even how foolish it might be or might at least seem to do so since the consequences might be undesirable, yet the choice is still mine to make...and I am not in any way meaning to be argumentative or to find fault here. Where I think the "confusion", as such, and with no disrespect intended, enters the picture is when the idea or perception of "free will" does not include the power or ability to affect, alter or "create" (the key issue here in relation to) the consequence or outcome of a given choice.


Being a mammal does not make me a mere animal having no choice but to eat other animals in order to survive. So, our choice between life or death as individuals and actually for all of mankind requires some type of "moral law" or whatever: It is good to give bread to my neighbor; it is bad/wrong to eat my neighbor; all animals have a right to be eaten.


Exactly, and our presuming to judge God changes nothing.


This might result in my being tarred and feathered, but I would say there is no greater blessing in life as we presently know it than the knowledge He makes available of His being worthy of our adoration.

I agree if God interfered with the choice Adam and Eve made, it would be undermining someones free will to choose. It's actually good that God made it so that we became mortal after we ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Else we would be seperated from him for eternity like Lucifer.

Says who...and I am asking a question, not arguing! Has God said that is/was "good" or is that not merely a human construct or perception that can actually work against "love your neighbor"? Many people call pizza or ice cream "good", but such things can actually clog arteries and kill.

In the west theists, agnostics, and atheists all seem to share the same assumption that if there's an all-powerful universal deity that he scape-goated his only Son in late antiquity in the middle-east, in Jerusalem under Roman law, and if it doesn't look like the whole Jesus thing was quite how the bible told it then there's no universal deity and this is all random chance. It's terribly ignorant as a dichotomy but it seems to still rivet most people, particularly the true believer on either extreme and the people in the most luke-warm middle who'd rather get teeth pulled at the dentist than have to think about the sorts of questions you brought up.

Sadder still, the huge 'don't know don't care' group seems to encompass a majority of people who don't either have a disability, an addiction, or something to push their lives off course. If a person is doing relatively well with few upsets they'll be rivited to the philosophic and religious equivalent, and most often the musical equivalent as well, of Today's Top 40 all the way down. They do seem to worship a diety, ie. the Center of the Bellcurve - Conformity, and they all fight as hard as they can to see who can get a little closer to the center of the bellcurve than the next person. It seems to take some kind of tragedy or deep intellectual loneliness for people to be willing to touch this stuff.

Says who...and I am asking a question, not arguing! Has God said that is/was "good" or is that not merely a human construct or perception that can actually work against "love your neighbor"? Many people call pizza or ice cream "good", but such things can actually clog arteries and kill.[/quote]

No, the only thing I'm saying if God didn't make it so that we became mortal after we ate the foribdden fruit is because else we would be seperated from Him for eternity. As for my words of choice, I think 'better' would be a better word for what I'm trying to explain. However I do not see how this is a construct of perception that can actually work against "love your neighbor". Can you further expand on this?

Wait a second, you are right. Thanks for the correction, scripture never tells such thing. Must be a doctrine that came to be somewhere along the way.

Yes, and/but that does not mean there is anything wrong with believing that. Rather, it is just that doctrine is never convincing or even partially persuasive when trying to address objections to matters of "God". Consider:


Meet others at their points of actual need or desire by answering questions while letting discussions such as this "trim the fat" so we can share actual experience and knowledge gained rather than merely quoting things heard from the pulpit.

I was explaining to smudge why such a broken dichotomy of worldview remains so popular - ie. the dipole of either the bible is the perfect historical word of God or, opposite, Dennett and Dawkins are right about everything. It wasn't meant to be an outreach comment.

I understand, and I was meaning (at least partly) to offer a PPR survival tip to newbie Yo El!

Seems I have a lot to learn then, this is a good thing. From a human standpoint

I see.

If I were to add something here on an ecumenical note:

I think most of the frustration that pantheists, pagans, wiccans, Hermetics, or anyone else tend to feel about the Abrahamic religions is the strong sense - based on experience, and with some of us many reads through the bible - that we're all praying to the same God in different ways, just that certain public doctrines and dogmas are interpreted in such a manner as to cleave nature in arbitrary ways and create us vs. them narratives that are by and large built on misinformation.

No. But if a girl chooses not to love me and doesn't want to marry me I don't punish and kill her.

If I had a child sand they left me and didn't want me I would send them to eternal torment.

If I adopt a pet and it doesn't love me I still take care of it and fed it, or send it somewhere it would be happier.



What about cycle cell anemia? Poisonous snakes? Natural disasters?

The fact that evil exists clearly proves one of the following:

1. God is powerless to prevent Evil
2. God is malicious and dislikes us.
3. God does not exist.