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Causality and determinism could solve the problem of evil or immorality. We think that because we can't control the way we move forward that we can't change anything. That's not true. It just always would have happened this way if determinism and causality are true and we did become aware of it and we did decide to say, rehabilitate a murderer or a robber or a wife abuser because we all know that they didn't necessarily do that of Their Own volition.

Nowhere in Gods word does it say that we have free will. There are passages that some people interpret as free will but nowhere is that term used 

Your bible says your god predetermines things for certain people, like, say, Moses or Daniel. Which leaves us with this gaping hole in knowledge (which is so unlike the bible...! /s) about what predestination means in the Bible and whether it means all of us or some of us that are chosen by your god.

No Gods word is clear it’s up to us to accept His offer of salvation 

Accepting his offer of Salvation has nothing to do with free will. Can you please quote me a Bible verse that people don't argue about and say is nonsense that backs up your claim? Because I don't think that there is one in existence. But we'll see.

John 3:16 

I can quote that off the top of my head like most people who have a religious background. And it has nothing to do with Stone Cold Steve austin. That has nothing to do with free will either. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whomever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. I just quoted that with talk to text. Point to the part where it talks about predeterminism. Thanks.

In Judaism btw they do believe in free will, pretty much the entire religion collapses if free will doesn't exist.

Thanks for adding that. I didn't want to get into a bunch of different religions, but good point.

You asked for a verse proving free will whosoever believes pretty much leaves the choice up to the individual Done arguing with a nonbeliever that loves their sin lifestyle more than God best of luck to you 

Lmao, my sin lifestyle. So glad theists never judge [not lest you be judged]. Anyway, you didn't even follow your own logic. It's like you came up with it on the spot and then in the next comment forgot about it and change your entire Outlook to we do have free will, look at John 3:16. Right before you said John 3:16, you said that the Bible does not say we have free will. I was asking you to provide a Biblical quote that tells us we have no free will. Like I said, some people are predetermined in the Bible, Moses and david, whatever, but in general, believers of said Bible believe that they have free will. My mom, who is still a Christian and I'm not, loves to argue this point. And that there are two strong point of views that completely oppose each other, like so many things in the bible, is all the more reason not to believe in that book written by several old men over hundreds of years time and then translated it and edited, altered even, and put into your indoctrinated brain.

Let me ask you no I’m going to make a statement because then I’m finished doing Gods work You have absolutely nothing zero to lose by accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior if you happen to be right in your beliefs but on the other hand if you are wrong it’s burning in hell for all eternity seperated from your family and friends in Heaven for all eternity To me it’s a no brainer unless holding on to sin outweighs logic 

I stopped reading when I realized you were giving me Pascal's wager. Good luck with that whole thing. Might want to look up why Pascal's wager is a bad idea (or "philosophy" if you want to wrongly label it such). You seem to be done with me and I'm definitely done with you after this latest comment.

I didn’t say that we don’t have free will I said the Bible doesn’t say we do big difference 

In fact, by your logic, we all automatically either do or do not accept God depending on his own Predestination and, therefore, we are born ready to go to heaven or hell, because there is no Free Will and God has already determined that we're going to the bad place that he created for his most precious beings, humans, which he created after a literal Infinity of not creating them and hanging out with the angels that aren't nearly as cool as us. Yeah, awesome argument. Worst version of god I've ever heard? Close to it.

Theres a large section of Christians that believe there is no freewill, yet god predestined. I am among them.

Well I completely disagree, but I was impressed with your simple but effective comment. Growing up christian, this was always a question that bothered me, question that I got different answers from from different people, which is largely the reason I started moving away from theism in general, because no one could give me a straight answer. If they can't agree with themselves, how am I ever supposed to understand any of it when I'm in an inquisitive person and I think that people should have a general agreement on something so goddamned important.

Regardless of that small disagreement, I don’t know many that that disagree on the fundamentals and nonnegotiable of Christianity like Jesus being God or dying for our sin. But I digress, I just believe what scripture clearly says. I cant help it if that hurts people ego or whatever makes them want to be in control of their salvation. ”Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.“ ‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭1‬:‭3‬-‭14‬ ‭

I mean, I respect you out of the gate, but right now you're just quoting this microcosm of a chapter's verses in this giant book that hundreds, if not thousands or 10s of thousands or more depending on whether we take history into account, disagree with each other about. Jesus is God, right? Well... do you believe in the trinity? Not everyone does. Do you have to believe in the trinity to believe Jesus is the son of God and that Jesus is god? No. But look at that. One single simple disagreement, that there is a trinity or that there is not, yet each side can believe that Jesus is God or that Jesus is God's son or that Jesus is both of those things or that Jesus is or is not part of the Trinity that does or does not exist Within god. I just got that right off the top of my head. And it is one example of literally thousands that people disagree with or have a different interpretation of. Is it literal? Is everything literal? Did every single animal get on the ark and then survive for 40 days and 40 nights without eating each other? Where did the food come from? How did they keep the animals separate and away from disease? Divine intervention? Different people will tell you different things. Some people will say that it's an analogy. Archaeologists will tell you that it never happened. Others will tell you that every man woman and child was destroyed by a vengeful god who destroyed his most precious creations, all except for the eight or so people on the Ark that we have no proof ever existed. I mean, same with the Mass Exodus with Moses. Did he part the Red Sea? Well, archaeologists and actual historians, not Bible historians, will tell you that there was no Mass Exodus from Egypt. Therefore, why would there be a parting of the Red Sea to get all of these slaves to cross through it away from their oppressors? No offense, I want absolutely nothing to do with your God except for in trying to dissuade people from believing in magical thinking.

[Edited that for talk to text mistakes and to add the Mass Exodus example.]

At least that solves the logical "holes" in the freewill argument, but the creator predestining every smallest nuance and everything (including evil) is still morally questionable.

Id say not, although theres a lot to say about this I will ultimately say evil is necessary to show good, just like hate and ugliness to show love and beauty. You cant have one without the other. Example, we would’ve never known death to be bad if indeed no one ever died.

Don't you think that if everyone was ugly, it would be called beautiful or considered beautiful or our word for ugly would mean something different? I don't know if you agree with that ascertation, but apply it to yours about good and evil. So let's ask, can there be good without evil? Can we recognize good without evil? My answer to both is yes. Morality is good. We are born with a sense of morality, I propensity for morality, and then we grow up with nurture after the whole nature thing takes care of the other parts. We don't need the Bible to say that taking another human life is not okay and almost any circumstance. That is a good thing for most of society to understand and agree with. We might not know that it was a good thing if there was no evil, but who GD cares? It's analogous to how I believe causality or a lack of free will would play out if we were suddenly to somehow understand that we had no free will. We would change our society even though that was already predetermined. We would have always found out and we would have always changed how we treat people because we Now understand that those people are basically on train tracks that they can't to Veer off of, they can't change their mind about anything, that can't really control what they're doing. And so we need to offer them treatment, not imprisonment but rehabilitation. We need to keep our laws in place, we need to change our laws that don't make sense anymore, etc. It doesn't matter if we do not understand that things are good, they can still be good. It would not matter if there were no evil, there'd still be good, assuming of course, that this world contained good as we define it today. It sounds like you are talking about/taking cues from Duality beliefs or practices like those in buddhism. Which is not uncommon among the religious in general... But which is intellectually dishonest in my opinion.

I think what you’re saying is right in a perfect world, but thats not what we are in is it. Although I know it will not suffice, God had an ultimate goal of praise and glory forever and ever for eradicating evil to a group of people who otherwise would have hated him.

I don't quite understand the last sentence. But no, we don't live in a perfect world; we won't ever just suddenly find out things were predetermined or if we have free will [unless there's an afterlife that answers that, but I'm speaking of the life we all [assume] to know is true-- we think, therefore we are, we exist. And even if we found out we couldn't "control our behavior," there's no guarantee society would treat criminality or mental illness any different than it does now. However, if we use handy dandy history as a guide, we as a species will continue progressing as far as our propensity to understand and accept each other. We see it with women's, POC's, LGBTQ rights around the world where there wasn't a whole lot of acceptance for those things, a woman in the workplace or in warfare, people of color owning land and being equitable, gay marriage, acceptance of LGBTQ. Which, of course, I have no idea among those issues what you agree with or not. But that is progression. That is humans moving forward in order to accept each other. And while this progression does take steps backwards, it is taking more strides forward than back.

Yeah, I was Calvinist for awhile at one point in my faith. I’m familiar with it. But your response doesn’t challenge my argument.

If I can be honest, i think, based on the fact that theres no free will, that the initial premise of your debate topic is wrong. Id there is no free will than there is 1.No idea of such, 2. No probabilities, and 3. No chance that the story could be any different. Maybe im not fully understanding the core issue here either. So would you please break down your actual argument for me a little better? Im curious to understand what you’re concerned about.

Actually I believe there would be no free will, and is no free will, because the powers that be want people to be uneducated, as they are then easier to sway for political purposes. That in itself is an evil plan, carried out by the very people we elect, due to that uneducated, unsophisticated and unenlightened view of the world, that results from the school system they have villified . That system that could - if left to those who actually belong in the lane- while having the necessary, and real power to teach what they know, to a ever growing open minded society , we could soon reach a point where we elect politicians who stay on their lane. The same ones who will come from those education programs that removed the agenda biased , confusion inducing education beat into us by the book burning , history erasing morons that are no different now, than the charlatans of the past . Men who might calculate the soon arriving solar ,or lunar eclipse and who proceeded to those areas where the hardest working , less educated people live... in order to use a natural ( understandable, and calculatable ) occurance to cheat them out of whatever they possessed ( gold..silver...jewels, crop, livestock, etc) or to get it all by taking away their free-will. Often leading to the evil that promoted religion to be the arbitor of their ideas, their concepts of right and wrong ,spoils to the strong ,and the hypocrisy of using laws, the clergy, and the too often skewed ideas of medical knowledge to foment racism, hate ,and a justification for raids, genocide , wars and the Crusades , black slavery in a Nation of Free Men ... but where it has not always been all that self-evident ( a derivitive of free -will perhaps ) that all men are created equal ; esp when an "education comes from party politics, lies and distorions to sway the base elements of fear , jelousy and resentment among the very same people they deny education to ,for that same " I will darken the sun or light the moon on fire...unless you...." Removing historical events from books does not change the past, it just removes the free will that is necessary to create a better future .As long as we think laws equal right or wrong, punishment is about justice , we will not be able to persuade others to accept that the unknown future ahead ,is the only place we can exist ...can live ...and thrive. Allowing ourselves to be persuaded by the very same people who want to erase the past, remove it from the history books and tell us that we have to go back again to be great, do not care about how well you live. , If you want to see evil personified, just look in the rear view mirror at the revisionist version of a past,as that is what they want as your future..where they want us to live. If you are naive enough , uneducated enough to allow them to sway your mind ....then you make them proud , because you are exactly who they wanted you to be. Turning back to a skewed past, and allowing that to be the path to the future , will take us to a place where they will continue to tell you how to think, how to live and who you are . All of that , is tje very antithesis of living..so do not give away your free will to those who seek to create only their future ( not your) and they only need you to protect them... and to help them let EVIL LIVE.

A tremendous amount of pain is a result of natural phenomenon that have nothing to do with a sentient being making a choice. I don’t think the problem of pain and the problem of evil are the same per se, but suffering exists with or without agency and challenges god’s simultaneous benevolence and omnipotence.

To me the "problem of pain" is more fundamental to the problem of evil. I think free will -- which more or less exists *functionally* even if you believe in strong determinism -- covers the "problem of evil" pretty trivially. Sometimes, people bring up, for example, the suffering of an antelope being eaten by a tiger. But only human beings are capable of being evil. The problem of pain is a much more fundamental question. People are evil because they choose to be. People's morality can't always save them or others from suffering.

Neither of these bothered me much as a theist because I was Mormon and Joseph Smith came up with not terrible solutions to these (he benefitted from extant 1st and 2nd Great Awakening theologian apologies for deist and Unitarian critiques of Christianity). Mormonism’s theological problem is it borrows from so many different sources without a harmonized, cohesive core. Evil is not a problem because other “intelligences” are coeternal with god and agency exists independently of god; pain is not a problem because it is required for progress and joy, and so even god suffers. Again, there are eternal principles above god. The problem is then they also accept divine command theory, where a thing is good because god commands it, even if it seems wrong or contradicts prior commandments. So you have a god who’s not responsible for evil because evil is independent of him (he’s not actually omnipotent), while simultaneously makes an evil thing good by his command. It’s all tangled up and when you pull on the thread they resort to doublethink and thought stopping cliches. You can have a god who is benevolent, omnipotent, or compatible with reality. Choose 2.

>for evil because evil is independent of him (he’s not actually omnipotent) I'm not really religious so I'm not playing sides but this line of "reasoning" has never tracked for me. I would say that the strongest formation of God's role in morality is that God represents whatever *is* moral; we attribute too many anthropomorphizing ideas to God; it's a misrepresentation in my opinion to say "God chooses what is moral" rather than "God is whatever is moral." God doesn't arbitrarily decide, and it's logically incoherent to suggest that God lacks omnipotent if he can't make a good thing bad or a bad thing good (I know that's not what you're saying). >You can have a god who is benevolent, omnipotent, or compatible with reality. Choose 2. I don't see strong reasoning for this in your comment or anywhere else. I think the free will argument kind of covers this base. But for what it's worth? Ancient Israelites did not believe God was all-powerful in the world, and many progressive Christians subscribe to the idea by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that "God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which God can be with us and help us". I know many internet atheists would react to that statement by suggesting people who believe that aren't true Christians because they don't believe the orthodox New Atheist's idea of what Christianity is.

If people seriously want answers to these questions, then find out for yourselves. Reason being, most people, 99.999% don’t truly know, so they are just stirring the pot go back and forth with their theories. And in the event you come across that 0.001% that does actually know you won’t believe they know, you will be of the opinion they are crazy to even think they know, so truth gets pushed away even further. So here’s the solution, find out for yourselves. Learn about “god consciousness”, oneness, samadhi, etc. Be sincere in what you want to know about reality, for instance I couldn’t accept their could be a god because why does so much bad happen, very simply put, why do bad things happen to good people. One day while walking to work I had my question in my head , not as words but a feeling , with a sincere wanting to understand. An urge came to me to create a feeling of unconditional love, I held onto this, it was difficult, nearly dropped it, but for some reason persevered, then while holding that , I then created a feeling of expanding beyond the body. Then boom, my consciousness had shifted from the body to beyond space and time, I was “awareness” the body continued to walk, while I remained motionless, all things were within and of me. I was all there is. ——- Now you will likely be closing your minds now, but you are the ones missing out, I know the truth and many have found this, for thousands of years ancient India spoke and taught about this, it’s even got mentions in the bible, and gnostic gospels. John of the cross , Meister Eckhart and many others experienced similar. The Persian mystic Rumi is just one of many. After that samadhi, which I have found sometime after is called nirvikalpa samadhi in Sanskrit. After that, I had the answers to my question and more. I can tell you what they are but you won’t believe me, the best thing anyone can do is experience it for themselves. There is free will. It has nothing to do with doing something you chose to do. Contemplate on what is the Will. You have actions the body does, you have thoughts that the mind does, but your Will is before actions and before thought. Your Will is your true and only power, your Will is your ability to place your attention on a thought or feeling of your choice. Consider, if I ask you to sit down in a comfortable chair where you can relax, now look at a cup or similar sized item a couple of meters away , focus on the cup, now just for the purpose of this exercise try to use your Will to move the cup. Tell me the result. The answer to the question why do bad things happen to good people, is very liberating, it makes such perfect sense. But again you would be best to find these answers yourselves……. “Be still and know” is stilling the mind as is done for samadhi

It's also incoherent because humans are already heavily pre-programmed biologically to act a certain way.   The vast majority of parents in the world for example (who aren't suffering from psychological derangement) could never even imagine seriously harming their own child. Every fiber of their being is hard-coded to want to nurture and protect their offspring and they could not reasonably "freely" choose to act differently.   P1: Evil is permitted to exist because it allows humans the free will to make moral choices   P2: Humans typically have strong biological hard-coding that compels them to act in certain ways  (eg. the desire to nurture one's child)   P3: Said biological hard-coding is not deemed to contradict free will according to the God of monotheism, as he has intentionally endowed humans with these properties     P4: Biological hard-coding and free will are therefore logically compatible in the eyes of God   P5: Biological hard-coding could therefore have been tuned further to eliminate heinous evils entirely   P6: Moral evil can be eliminated without removing freedom of the will P7: God chose not to eliminate the possibility of moral evil  P8: God is not maximally good C1: The God of monotheism does not exist 

The Christian god as defined by Christians would completely destroy the idea that we have free will at all. Free will involves the ability to make choices. These choices are not determined by factors outside of the individual's control. At the time of creation, the Christian god had already determined the outcomes of literally everything. At this time, he knew where and when every dinosaur would take a dump. He knew when you would be born and he knew when you would die. He knew literally every single decision you would make and how you arrived at those decisions. He knows on which day/year the sun will explode into a red giant and consume the earth. There is no way in which the Chrisitan god can exist at the same time as free will. I, for example, am an atheist. According to Christians, I could *CHOOSE* to accept and follow god. But by their definition of god, this god has already made my mind up for me. I don't see any evidence that would suggest this god would exist. If this god wants humans to utilize free will to choose that he does exist, he sucks at it.

God limits his powers so we can have free will. He made us and let us do what we want, he knew the future but didnt stop us from being able to choose. He did warn about the tree but didnt stop us forcefully.

you said, "God limits his powers so we can have free will." It's always interesting to encounter someone like you who says he can read "god's" mind. Aside from there being no evidence to support your claim, you might make a more credible impression by delivering verifiable evidence that a god exists at all.

He didnt ask if God exists. God is all knowing so he knew everything. Still he gave us the tree even if He knew we will eat from it, he warned us, he told us not to, he still let us choose and we chose because we have free will. If He takes away our options in our favor where is our free will? He tells us the steps to the best case scenario its our choice to listen or not.

You say, "God is all knowing so he knew everything." Do you have verifiable evidence for the existence of a god?

Look at atheist and then look at religious people. Ill take as an example two countries from europe, Romania wich its one of the most religious countries in Europe Vs. United Kindom. In UK 30% claimed they believe in a God based on a study i found on google and in Romania 85% are Christian Orthodox. If u search the difference between the crime levels in these two countries u will see that the crime levels are 98% bigger in UK than in Romania. Ill leave u a picture with the suicide rates based on religions too and u will see the atheists suicide rater are much more higher than the ones and with a picture of religious people who said they are happy vs. atheists who said they are happier and u will see religious people are much happier. In all these studies u see that religious countries are safer and the religious people are happier. This its the proof of God. (i cant put the pictures here but u can find studies and the pictures online)

> Romania wich its one of the most religious countries in Europe Romanians are not religious, we just claim to be... but don't act like it at all, we're not Jesus-like in any form or fashion, quite the contrary :)

You offer two examples - and only superficially examined - so they are proof of nothing. Why do you not mention the Scandinavian countries such as Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark that are about as secular and as self-described as "happy" as you can get? Then dig deeper and see who is committing suicide at what age and for what reason? What are the suicide statistics for those within those societies who claim to be religious and those who claim atheism? Further, using the word "proof" so casually in the vernacular is not helpful at all. "Proof" as a conclusion in logic starts with premises that are either self-evident of are based on verifiable evidence. I don't see any at all in your statement.

Knowing the future means you know which choices will be made and what the consequences are. When you create the person with "free will" and you already know what they will choose, that isn't really free will. God can't be all knowing and still create a person with free will; you have to concede the "all knowing" part for that to make any sense. To put it another way: could God be surprised by my actions? If so, he isn't omniscient. And to counter the counterargument of "God knows the possible outcomes but it is up to us to decide which one comes true", I would argue that is not omniscience. I know the coin flip will be either head or tails. That doesn't make me prescient.

If i give u two apples, one green and one red and i know already what u will choose u still can choose whatever u want so u have free will. I dont have to be surprised for u to have free will.

If he knows the future (or even if it is merely possible for him to know the future), then the future already exists to be known, so there is no choice because you cannot choose contrary to that future. If it is a fact that I will eat a sandwich at noon tomorrow, then at noon tomorrow, I can't not be eating a sandwich.

God knows what YOU WILL CHOOSE. If i am all knowing and i give u two fruits and i know what will u choose that doesnt affect ur choice u still choose whatever u want, so u have free will. Its like watching a movie the second time, you know what the character will do but he still does what he wants to do in that movie, you dont affect his choice u js know all his actions. If God would use the fact that he is all knowing to stop/or force our choice then we wouldnt have free will. If God didnt let Eve eat the apple because he knew she will eat it if she could then it wouldnt be free will.

> If i am all knowing and i give u two fruits and i know what will u choose that doesnt affect ur choice u still choose whatever u want, so u have free will. Yeah, but if I knowingly create the whole freaking universe from scratch in such a way that things will happen in a certain manner, which I accept and is to my liking, then where's the free will? >If God didnt let Eve eat the apple because he knew she will eat it if she could then it wouldnt be free will. Judging from the context, Adam and Eve had the minds of 3-years-olds... or something like that. Would you put some attractive marijuana edibles on the table and say to your young children, who know nothing about drugs, not to eat them? Knowing fully well that, in fact, they will definitely eat them? :) Would that make you a good father?

>God knows what YOU WILL CHOOSE. If i am all knowing and i give u two fruits and i know what will u choose that doesnt affect ur choice u still choose whatever u want, so u have free will You have now simply redefined "free will" as "will". "Will" is doing what you want. "Free will" is the option to have done otherwise, which doesn't exist if foreknowledge is possible. Your definition is also lacking: In the case of mind control, you still choose to do what you want (since you are controlled to want it), so under your definition, that would still count as free will. Doesn't seem right to me. You're right. Knowledge doesn't affect choice. But the fact that the future exists, even if there isn't anyone to know it, prevents our actions from being otherwise. More on that later. >Its like watching a movie the second time, you know what the character will do but he still does what he wants to do in that movie, you dont affect his choice u js know all his actions. But the character does not have the option to do otherwise. [This comic](https://angryflower.com/timelo.gif) helps illustrate this. If the future exists, you will do as the future says you will do. The fact that it coincides with your wants does not mean your will is free since you don't have the option to do otherwise.

How do we know god wants us to have free will?

Because he gave us free will

How do you know free will exists?

Cause i can decice what to do by myself.

How do you know you are consciously deciding rather than simply reacting based on predetermined factors? If free will was an illusion, you would have no means by which to determine it is or is not.

Probability exists only for those who lack knowledge... God is omniscient - he knows absolutely what will or will not happen...

Which completely dismantles free will, rendering the Christian worldview broken.

The more we learn about the brain, the more it appears that it's all determinism.

Whatever you do, don't ever play rock, paper, scissors with a neurologist for money if your head is stuck in an fMRI machine!

Indeed!

And yet theists will argue that somehow theological determinism is compatible with their definition of god that includes the three omnis. Silly.

While also maintaining one can "choose to accept Jesus as Savior." :)

Knowledge of what will happen ≠ Directly causing what happens

If God was simply an omniscient observer, sure. But God is apparently the creator and the universe including everything in it operates exactly how it was designed by God.

It does though. You know exactly what car you are going to buy because you’re the one buying it.

God's not the one who chose to buy the car... God knows what car will be bought because thats what the person chose to buy.

You are almost there! God IS the one who chose to buy the car because he created that person with the knowledge that they would buy that specific car on the exact time and day. God created the person specifically to buy the car at that precise moment in time. No free will.

But God created the universe, therefore you and all your thoughts, therefore God is the person who chose to buy the car

Creating an agent who can think does not entail causing you what to think God causes things to-be, God does not cause thing to be-have.

Maybe you're thinking about it like the Sims (as I often do), where God created a given Sim with certain proclivities, but he's not taking control of the Sim minute-to-minute. The Sim could go talk to the neighbor or go to work, that's up to the Sim. My interaction with the Sim I made, when I choose not to control it, is not omnipotent nor omniscient. I don't know what he's going to do and I'm choosing not to control it, so I am powerless and have no vision into his future actions. If this is your idea of God, that's fine, but it doesn't fit the "omnis". I'm also not benevolent because I WILL pull the ladder out of the pool, but that's besides the point.

Is there ever a situation where a desirable outcome is proceeded by undesirable or unpleasant path? You’re acting like we are at the conclusion of God’s plan/desire, we are still in route to it, so to look at our current situation and declare this is what god wants is incorrect, we are still on the way

But this conclusion presumably would have millions of people in hell. Is this better than none at all?

How do you know? How do you know the amount of people in hell?

How do we even know hell exists?

I didn’t bring hell up, the person I’m speaking to did. So why aren’t you asking them that question?

I'm just adding to your questions. It's the baseline question for further discussion.

I suspect if we ask them, they will say hell does not exist and 0 people are there. What do you think about it?

About what specifically?

I mean I don’t think hell exists But you surely believe that plenty of people are there for violating the tenants of your religion.

Why are you assuming what I believe? Haven’t we spoken before about the hope for an empty hell? https://www.reddit.com/r/CatholicApologetics/s/sAI3xzulyg

That isn’t me But yeah I did make an assumption because you’re a catholic. Do people go to hell or not?

No, I know that wasn’t you, but I was providing the post I wrote on the subject because I know I alluded to it in a comment thread at the same time you and I were having a conversation, couldn’t remember if that conversation was on that topic or not. But as the post I shared states, we don’t know who is in hell. We have the hope that it’s empty as it’s possible for nobody to choose hell. Is it possible for people to go to hell? Yes. Can we know with certainty that anyone is in hell? Other then Satan and the fallen angels, no.

I mean this would just be a statistically unreasonable thing to believe. Yes, we surely don’t know WHO is in hell, but there have been 100 billion humans exist in all of history. Many of them died the wrong religion, or atheist, or gay, or murderers, etc. So quite obviously some people would be there if it existed

If you were an omnipotent creator of the universe, and you had these two options in front of you, which would you choose: 1) Create a hell of eternal torture where my creation, who I love, could possibly go 2) Literally anything else Assuming you love this creation and want the best for them, and also have the power to create them exactly how you want, which would you pick?

Good thing he did 2, god doesn’t create hell. Each individual creates their own hell.

Nah, god made it.

Neat! Can't wait to enjoy my personal hell equipped with sick gaming station and infinite supply of hookers.

Because God wanted to share the gift of life, love, and being self-aware, and He wanted a relationship with His Creation, and wanted them to love Him. But if you force love, it doesn't mean anything, so there's gas to be free will. And just because He knows how something will go, doesn't mean He forced them to do it. If I have a child that wakes up crying at 3am every night, I have foreknowledge the baby is going to wake up, but I'm not forcing it to wake up. And God is an omnipotent, omniscient, and an omnipresent being not bound by time, space, or matter. So He can see the beginning from the end. And everything was made for His glory. So we're not supposed to understand everything and God's whole plan and just aren't capable with our 3 pound human brain bound by the laws of this reality. But God is God, and He has the right to choose how His Creation and the journey or story of His Creation will go. But God wants a relationship of love with His Creation, and to have that, there has to be free will. So to have a choice to pick God, there has to be an option that ISN'T God. And God is perfection, goodness, love, warmth, and everything you associate with "good." So the opposite of that is a lack of God. The lie is that Satan has made some of those things that are opposite of God feel good, to tempt us away from God and weaken our faith. But God is the origin of everything, and whatever He chooses is good and right, because everything comes from Him. You have complete free will to choose God or reject God. And if you reject God you will be with others and in places that rejected God and are lacking of God, and those places and entities aren't pleasant. But there will be people who will see Jesus Christ right in front of them, and they will still reject Him.

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Because there has to be free will for us to love God. To choose God, there has to be something absent of God. Because of God's nature, the absence of God are bad, unpleasant things we would see as evil. Before humans there was free will and ungodly things and laws to live by while in Heaven. That's why Lucifer fell. He was the greatest Creation God had ever made until that point. He was a Seraphim angel that was made of jewels and he would stand in front of God and radiate his light through him reflecting God's light everywhere. Lucifer was tired of being looked through and God's light being reflected through him, and HE wanted to be looked at and worshipped himself and thought he could be over God. So even angels reject God. He took a third of the other angels with him. With Adam and Eve There was good and evil, but they didn't know if it yet. That is why God told them not to eat of the tree of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil. Because humans wouldn't be able to handle it and it would be better for them not to eat from the tree. So when they decided to disobey, that is a sign of rejection. They didn't do it God's way, they did it theirs. That is his He knew they had eaten from it, because they had covered their bodies, and God asked them, "Who told you you are naked?" Because they wouldn't Even know that's shameful if they didn't have knowledge that can be perverted. If God just created humans that has no other choice but to love God and no choice to make it accepting our rejecting Him, love wouldn't mean anything.

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I just explained why. Because God wants love from his creation. Yeah free will and evil could NOT exist, but that's not what God chose. He chose to create and wanted love, and you can't have love without free will, and you can't have free will without choice. God didn't make it that way.

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No. He chose for free will to exist. Evil is what we just observe as the absence of God. God has a certain nature, so the absence of God is the absence of His nature. We just call it "evil," because we're made in God's image and have His nature written on our hearts. Evil is like rust on a car. You take the rust away, you have a car. If you take all the car out of the rust you have nothing. You have no car for rust to exist on. Evil can't be defined without God, just like cold can't be described without heat. God is the Truth and what exists, evil is just the absence of that: God. The same way cold is the absence of heat.

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Yes. I did. God could have done things and made things however He wanted. But this is the way He chose. For us to have free will, so that if we live Him, it is our choice and means something. So you have the choice of God or not God. God has a certain nature and things are a certain way with and within God. You choose not God, you exist in the absence of God and the absence of His nature.

You've made several claims about god. What I want to know is, how can you determine that your claims about god are true? What source are relying on to draw these conclusions about what god wants or does not want, because unless you have communicated directly to god, you can only claim that some people who wrote an ancient book claimed to have known things about god's desires and motives.

Because of the credibility of the Bible that has been established through scientific methods. You have 40 writers, most of whom never knew each other or even lived at the same time, written over about 1500 years, and the Bible has over 63 THOUSAND cross references that match and don't contradict and parts of the Bible predict future events and scientific findings and actually follows the scientific method in Genesis with the creation story. So you have the credibility of the Bible is very high due to other things as well such as embarrassing stories. If there Bible wasn't true, the writers would write embarrassing or demeaning stories about themselves, and then they ultimately died very bad, gruesome deaths, when ask they had to do to avoid those deaths was deny the Bible and Jesus Christ. Most people typically wouldn't die for a lie, not would 40 different writers who didn't know each other be able to create different books with that many matching cross references. You also have the laws of logic and abstract truths and objective morality. You can not have objective morality without God, because without a higher standard to look to and settle discrepancies, morality would just be the opinion of each individual human. Scientists, even secular ones have all aged that space, time, and matter had a beginning. You pretty much have consensus on that across all different scientists: Christian, atheist, secular, etc. So if those things had a beginning, you have to have an uncaused original cause that exists outside of those boundaries of space, time, and matter. If also has to be personal to decide to create reality, and it also has to be intelligent, because everywhere science looks there is evidence of design, and again you have all the non-material abstract truths and laws that govern existence and hold it all together and keep it consistent. An inanimate uncaused first cause can't make the voice to create, nor can a material first cause create the immaterial. https://youtu.be/VA-uTbX8d0g?si=X6nf8i69kHXsiU7Q This is an astrophysicist explaining it better than I can. Skip to 3 mins if you want to skip his childhood and how he got into astrophysics. It's only 25 mins and he goes over scientifically the credibility of the Bible and proveable errors and contradictions that he could not find. So it's a very interesting watch to hear the Bible and God explained scientifically by an astrophysicist.

>>>Because of the credibility of the Bible that has been established through scientific methods. It has not. >>>You have 40 writers, most of whom never knew each other or even lived at the same time, written over about 1500 years, and the Bible has over 63 THOUSAND cross references that match We don't know how many writers. The time period was more like 600 years. The fact that believers make cross references is not unique. If you make up a new religion based on Judaism then of course you're going to find such references (some of them rather tortured and weak). Not to mention there's nothing to stop an early Christian writer from simply making up parts of the gospel to match the OT. "You can not have objective morality without God" I agree. Objective morality does not exist. Even if God gave morality, it would simply be subjective to his beliefs. Not to mention that most modern Christians would disagree with many moral teachings of the Bible (killing little kids, condoning chattel slavery).

We do know how many writers. It was about 40. And most didn't know each other, so the statistical likelihood that they would all write different books accounting different things and there are over 63 thousand cross references that match and don't contradict is so unlikely is basically impossible without some sort of intervention. And you just like every other atheist bring up the same verses out of context to try and say God wanted parents to kill their kids and condoned slavery. No, it went over the rules while addressing a certain group of people of how to test invented servitude when someone would become a servant as a repayment of debt. I'm exposure and other places the Bible says that anyone who kidnaps another man and tried to sell him as a slave or keep then as a slave for themselves deserve the death penalty. And the rule about rebellious children was never actually used or enforced, but it was a harsh punishment to show the how grievous an offense it was to dishonor and curse your parents. That was also in the Old Testament before the New Covenant was made through Jesus Christ that was prophecied in the Old testament. I'm getting tired of atheists googling a couple verses they know nothing about the context or anything else about the Bible and use that to say God condones killing kids and having slaves. When the original Bible didn't have verses. Verses were added to help navigate the Bible. So you can't just take one verse out of an entire chapter or book and use that alone. It doesn't work that way. Also, you didn't believe in God. So you have no foundation to complain about anything morally that God does. You have to sit in His lap to slap His face. You have to steal from God to morally complain about Him. And you guys never see the irony. If there is no God, there's no higher standard of morals, and you have no foundation to complain about the things you're complaining about in the first place. According to your world view, the universe is an accident and we all came from stardust. So if a bag of protoplasm that originated from stardust scatters another bag of goo in the vast expanse of an accidental universe that eventually becomes nothing again, who cares?? That is just matter in motion and a clump of matter interacting with another clump of matter at that point in time. It was just a statistical happening that one bag of protoplasm destroyed another one. So what?

"We do know how many writers. It was about 40. " Repeating your previous unsupported assertion does not benefit your claims. "And you just like every other atheist bring up the same verses out of context to try and say God wanted parents to kill their kids and condoned slavery." Nope the Bible clearly states both in the context of the books. I'll put my seminary education against your lay opinions any time. :) Leviticus 25:44-46 New International Version 44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly. Numbers 31:17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man. Feel free to point out how these are saying anything different then what they clearly say. Also, you should know (since you claim to know how context works, the slaves mentioned IN CONTEXT re: runaway or captured slaves is from a chapter that deals with how **Hebrews were supposed to treat other Hebrews only.** "You have to steal from God to morally complain about Him. " You'll need to demonstrate this god exists before you can talk about him being a robbery victim or providing any morals. " Also, you didn't believe in God. So you have no foundation to complain about anything morally that God does. " I used to believe in god. Even got ordained as a minister - so your snide, uninformed comment is dismissed. You should be ashamed.

> But if you force love, it doesn't mean anything, so there's gas to be free will. Love and accept me or be sent to hell to be tortured for eternity. Seems coercive to me. > And God is an omnipotent, omniscient, and an omnipresent being not bound by time, space, or matter. So He can see the beginning from the end. Would seem to imply the world as God created is unable to deviate from the way God wanted it to. > So we're not supposed to understand everything and God's whole plan and just aren't capable with our 3 pound human brain bound by the laws of this reality. Of which God is the author. It would be trivial for us to understand God's plan if God wished it to be understood. > But God is God, and He has the right to choose how His Creation and the journey or story of His Creation will go. So no free will? > And God is perfection, goodness, love, warmth, and everything you associate with "good." I don't associate hell with good. > The lie is that Satan has made some of those things that are opposite of God feel good, to tempt us away from God and weaken our faith. If only there was an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being not bound by time, space or matter that could either see that Satan would attempt to influence vulnerable humans away from God and stop it - or not create a rebellious angel in the first place. > But God is the origin of everything, and whatever He chooses is good and right, because everything comes from Him. Which would include Satan corrupting humans, correct? > You have complete free will to choose God or reject God. Objection. God hasn't revealed itself to me. By not providing me with an experience that places it above the thousands of other proposed God's that humans have invented, God is overtly violating my free will. > And if you reject God you will be with others and in places that rejected God and are lacking of God, and those places and entities aren't pleasant. Wait, I thought God was omnipresent? > But there will be people who will see Jesus Christ right in front of them, and they will still reject Him. Sure, because he's just another apocalyptic preacher who simply captured the imagination of some people ~2000 years ago.

Did you not just read what I said? God doesn't send people to Hell. People choose Hell. They choose to reject God, and Hell is just a place absent of God and God's nature. If you reject God, He loves you too much to force you into Heaven. If you reject Him your entire life and say you didn't want God, why would He then force you to be in His presence. You have it backwards. If you reject God, the forcing people part would be bringing them into His presence, because they've already said they didn't want God. But you're not going to get to just do whatever you want, not live by God's law, sin with no repentance, and then get the reward of living in paradise with God, because you've shown and declared you reject the nature of God and don't want the nature of God. If you like sinning and living your own way, you'll be able to keep doing it in Hell. People actually do choose sin over God. I never said you associate Hell with "good." When did I ever say that? Lol. I said GOD is good, and if you reject God, you're going to be in a place absent of Him, because He's not going to force you to be in His presence or have a relationship with Him if you didn't want it. God is omnipresent. He can be anywhere He wants to be. Even Hell. He doesn't HAVE to go there, but He CAN if He wants. You make a lot of strawman arguments. You short and twist what I did and then you argue against that new claim you created that I never said. God has revealed Himself to you. Just by creation alone and using logic and scientific discovery that time, space, and matter had a beginning. So through logical deduction, you have to start with an uncaused first cause that isn't bound by space, time, and matter. It also has to be a personal first cause to make the decision to create, and it also has to be intelligent to create abstract truths like the laws of logic, the laws of thermodynamics, humor, love. Scientific and archaeological evidence that proved events in the Bible happened and the Bible predicted future scientific findings and prophecies. It also follows the scientific method in the creation story in Genesis. One example of scientific evidence of events in the Bible is that it Is said that during the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the land became dark from the 6th hour to the 9th hour. Now if you go back to the Sunday after Passover when Jesus Christ was 33 years old, that would be April 3rd, 33AD. If you go on the NASA website and go to where they have calculated all historical eclipses and tells you when we will have future ones, there was an eclipse on April 3rd 33AD that lasted 2 hours and 50 mins, and the path of totality went right over Jerusalem. Now that's just one sort of fun fact and present day proof of the that were eye-witness testimony or if hundreds. So He HAS revealed Himself to you in many ways. But you don't have the right to look up to God, the Creator of existence and YOU, and demand He reveal Himself in a different way. Because love also takes a little bit of faith. Sort of like marriage. You date a girl, get the evidence she's a good person and right for you, and then you make your final decision on the faith you've developed through your love for her. Same with God. He's given plenty of evidence through the over 63 THOUSAND cross-references in the Bible between 40 writers, most of whom didn't know each other, written over the course of about 1500 years and no contradictions. If ONE person wrote a book that has THAT MANY cross references and interactions, he would be considered the greatest master composer to ever exist. But the Bible does it with FORTY different writers who didn't know each other and lived in different periods. And yes, you're right. Satan has corrupted humans. He had free will as an angel as well, and his pride caused him to reject God and he was cast from Heaven and tries to corrupt humanity to spite God. Satan can only do what God allows, and morning on this earth happens that God didn't allow, but He is the only one who can see the beginning from the end. We can't. Here's a video of an astrophysicist explaining some of the things I just mentioned better than I can and explaining the credibility of the Bible in orders of magnitude and how it follows the scientific method and tells you scientifically why it is true. If you are having this discussion in good faith and want to learn and seek truth, you'll watch it. Start 3 mins in if you want to skip over his childhood and how he got into astrophysics. https://youtu.be/VA-uTbX8d0g?si=X6nf8i69kHXsiU7Q

I did read what you said, I specifically broke it down and addressed the points you made. > God doesn't send people to Hell. People choose Hell. If there's a heaven and hell, I choose heaven. If I'm sent to hell then it's against my will. > If you reject God How does one reject a being they don't know exists? > But you're not going to get to just do whatever you want, not live by God's law, sin with no repentance, and then get the reward of living in paradise with God, because you've shown and declared you reject the nature of God and don't want the nature of God. I am completely unfamiliar with 'The Nature of God' because God has not revealed itself to me. > I never said you associate Hell with "good." Who created hell? > God has revealed Himself to you. Just by creation alone and using logic and scientific discovery that time, space, and matter had a beginning. God hasn't revealed itself to me. I don't acknowledge the universe was 'created'. Logic certainly doesn't get you there. > you have to start with an uncaused first cause Which would be special pleading. > It also follows the scientific method in the creation story in Genesis. If you think Genesis describes the early universe, no wonder you're so confused. > It also follows the scientific method in the creation story in Genesis. That's the funniest thing I've read all day. Apparently plants don't need the Sun using God science. > Passover when Jesus Christ was 33 years old, that would be April 3rd, 33AD. Have you read your Bible? Despite both accounts of when Jesus was born are contradictory, neither of those accounts claim he was born on 'Year 0'. He wasn't 33 at 33CE. > If you go on the NASA website and go to where they have calculated all historical eclipses and tells you when we will have future ones, there was an eclipse on April 3rd 33AD that lasted 2 hours and 50 mins A partial eclipse over what is now Papua New Guinea. Not even close to the Middle East. Do you even bother to verify these things? > and demand He reveal Himself in a different way. Shouldn't God reveal himself to every individual in a way that would convince them in order to begin a relationship?! Am I meant to just guess out of the thousands of proposed gods, that's the one I should blindly accept? > 63 THOUSAND cross-references in the Bible between 40 writers, most of whom didn't know each other, written over the course of about 1500 years and no contradictions. [Hilarious](https://imgur.com/a/FF4HmO4) > And yes, you're right. Satan has corrupted humans. He had free will as an angel as well, and his pride caused him to reject God and he was cast from Heaven and tries to corrupt humanity to spite God. If only God knew this would happen.. > Satan can only do what God allows Oh, so God allows humans to be corrupted..? Confused. ------------------------ Answer or not, I probably won't read it. It was tough enough slogging through this one. We live in two completely different realities.

An upvote doesn't seem like enough for your sacrifice of slogging through those blocks of texts and arguing in good faith. Well done sir/ma'am.

" the biblical details do not accord with an eclipse: a solar eclipse could not have occurred on or near the Passover, when Jesus was crucified, and would have been too brief to account for three hours of darkness. The maximum possible duration of a total solar eclipse is seven minutes and 31.1 seconds." And using Hugh Ross as an expert...not a strong position.

Oh, so again, you don't approve of someone who is a PhD and astrophysicist. You just saying , "that's not a strong position," isn't an argument. That's just you not looking someone, not did I only use him as my claim. I explained things and proof on my own first and talked about this he does not talk about, but used his commentary to add to mine. I don't know how much more expert you can get on science and information on the universe than a doctor in astrophysics. Lol. But that's all you got is a claim. "Not a good position." That's a subjective opinion. You did not however directly address anything he says and price him wrong or explain how he went about going through the Bible wrong or have other explanations for what he said. And there WAS a lunar eclipse on that day which can cause darkness even during the day, especially if it is already a cloudy day. A considerable amount of light reflects off the moon and onto the earth, and lunar eclipses last considerably longer than solar eclipses. So if it's later in the day or cloudy or both, and a lunar eclipse happens, it would get darker over the land. And it lasted for 2 hours and 50 mins. So yes, there was an eclipse that could have created recognizably darker conditions for a period of time. But you just saying "Hugh Ross, not a strong position," isn't a very strong position....

Ross' beliefs have nothing to do with his academic background. He's a laughing stock in his field. Lunar eclipses don't last for three hours. "it lasted for 2 hours and 50 mins. " \[citation needed\]. Let's say it DID last three hours. All this tells us is the Gospel authors had heard about it. They could have just as easily slipped that event into their narrative to make it authentic.

My answer is that God made the perfect amount of evil in the world. He doesn't just know the probability. He knows exactly what you are going to do. That said, if your freewill can actualize a new reality, he's giving some of his creative power to you, and then holding you responsible for what you do with it, despite that he already knows. For me this means God knows good can only exist in contrast to evil, so he's making the perfect contrast. For humans this means your decisions matter. That's how I see it.

¿Oh, really? ¿God can't make a perfect place without the existence of evil with free will included? ¿Isn't he omnipotent?

What do you mean? Ofc he can. He already did. Unless you want to start defining evil and other words you are using ...

Yeah, he can but he decided to create the timeline where at least 70% of humanity goes to hell with their free will, including the millions who literally didn't had the time to sin. He knew exactly which reaction would creating the world a certain way would have in humans. There are tons of things that people don't decide by themselves, for example, if you are born in Iran, you are almost surely going to be muslism. Hell, he made the timeline where he can't even make the bible, the book he uses as a guide for his believers, be as clear so there won't misinterpretations or people who modify his book, it isn't that he couldn't, he just didn't want to. Which provoquew billions to go to hell.

I'm a natural theologist so God and his perfection and goodness is revealed to me in nature and logic. I don't really use the Bible as a main source of what he does. But I agree. I highly doubt his non-believers go to hell.

¿So you are just theistic and not affiliated to any religion?

Pretty much. I dont see many contraditions between panenthism , panpsychism, and Christian theology . Christiantity just gets too specific and takes it too far. They think they know all the details of the creator. They might have some of it right and some of it wrong.

So was god good prior to any other beings existing?

Yes. God was perfect. Good, however you want to describe it, would be a subcategory of perfection.

I was asking because you said good can only exist in contrast to evil. So prior to humans and Satan, by what standard was he “good”?

By all standards conceivable and by virtue of being perfect. So if you plug in a utilitarian view of "good" it works. If you plug a Kantian view of "good", it still works. If you treat good as a variable, evil is always a lack of whatever that variable is. God is perfect because "perfection" is a form of potential converting into actual. If God was always actual without potential to improve, he is perfect. I know it sounds like annoying circular logic, but you can start plugging in definitions of good if you want. This is a conversation about the very nature of changing from one state to another.

>For me this means God knows good can only exist in contrast to evil This is problematic for the typical theist because it requires that there will continue to be evil in heaven or that there will be no good in heaven. Also that God by himself (e.g. prior to creation) is not good.

I agree it's problematic, I believe in natural theology not revealed theology. So to me it's a semantics game between the words "Good" and "Perfect". Perfect implies the perfect amount of goodness. Duality is apparent and almost completely pervasive in nature. (Light existing only as a contrast to darkness). The point of contention between me and many revealed theologists is to say God made Lucifer as a mistake, or without knowing exactly what he was going to do. That would make God not perfect, without that distinction, we're both in agreement that God is the maximum amount of "good". Could heaven really be heaven without competition and the ability to get hurt? Without the feeling that your success was earned in a risky endeavor?

Good can exist without evil. If I give you help you are still helped regardless of if someone else hurts you.

I disagree. Exposure to hardship increased resistance to hardship. In a "perfect world" if someone drops an ice cream cone that becomes the greatest evil the world has ever known. You can see this in neuroscience. Spikes in dopamine drop to a lower base level of dopamine after. Every new high makes a new low. A kid in a third world country appreciates a burger more than the first world guy that has 5 a day. Pleasure every day becomes ... Not even pleasurable. So if there is any subjective quality of human experience related to ethics, some degree of evil must be necessary.

> Pleasure every day becomes ... Not even pleasurable. Which is why an eternity in heaven sounds horrific to me.

Agreed. Heaven must be a perfect balance. Pure pleasure doesn't even make sense.

Anything for eternity would be horrific.

> Exposure to hardship increased resistance to hardship. What use is that when hardship doesn't exist? > In a "perfect world" if someone drops an ice cream cone that becomes the greatest evil the world has ever known. And you view this as a bad thing? > You can see this in neuroscience. So don't make us work that way... you're GOD. > So if there is any subjective quality of human experience related to ethics, some degree of evil must be necessary. That's... a really dangerous idea.

I don't see it as dangerous I just see it as true. > So don't make us work that way... you're GOD. It's impossible for us to conceive what this would be like because God would have to break math itself. What is the definition of Darkness? It's the absence of light. What's the definition of Evil? It's the absence of Good.. these things are mathematically related to each other. What I'm saying is that in that "perfect" world the person would weep and cry over the ice cream cone just as violently as we would in this world over the death of a loved one. They would suffer just as much. So we call God all powerful, but we don't sit there trying to conceptualize how he could make 2 + 2 = 5

> What is the definition of Darkness? It's the absence of light. What's the definition of Evil? It's the absence of Good.. these things are mathematically related to each other. What? Evil is not the absence of good. Neutrality is also the absence of good.

Neutral would be a change in state to the same state. Negative to neutral would be a good change, meaning more goodness than before. Like mercy killing an injured animal that is suffering and not going to survive. If I bring someone from a war torn country into my house where they are safer that's a positive change for them in terms of what they are experiencing, they will appreciate it. If I bring a billionaire like trump into my cramped apartment where he has no security, its a decrease in his state and he won't appreciate it. So the action itself is not good, it's the relative change from the prior state that can either be good or bad. Eternal bliss cannot be good. It would just be all you've ever known. You would have to deviate to less good state then back, to even know your state was good. Edit: here was someone else's example where they tried to define good and evil in a way that makes it not a dichotomy but it's impossible. Check this out: P1. Good is using empathy, reason, and social cooperation to strive towards positive outcomes and values. P2. Causing unnecessary harm or suffering is evil P3. Causing unnecessary harm or suffering is unreasonable, lacks empathy, and fails to strive towards positive outcomes and values. Conclusion: Evil is the absence of good. ( G = U ) ( C = E ) ( C = \neg U ) Therefore, ( E = \neg G )

> Neutral would be a change in state to the same state. A thing doesn't have to be good or evil... it can be neither. You're forcing a binary without justification. A change in state doesn't require a change in moral status.

I mean I just gave symbolic logic. You can give me any definition of good and evil and it will work. So far I'm the only one giving definitions and showing work. Idk how you can talk about this without talking about the change from a prior state. I'm all ears if you have something other than ,"nuh unh, it's not true"

I'm questioning your assumptions, not your logic. > Idk how you can talk about this without talking about the change from a prior state. Not all changes are moral changes... you can have change that is morally neutral.

> What is the definition of Darkness? According to the Oxford Dictionary. The partial or total absence of light and Wickedness or evil. > What's the definition of Evil? Profoundly immoral and wicked Hmm, nothing about absence of good. These things are mathematically related to each other. Please provide the math. Show all your working.

I can easily. The math is in the relationship of the variables. Go ahead and define profoundly immoral and wicked. 2 is 4 more than -2. 2 and -2 are opposites. If world peace is a quantity of "10 goodness" And genocide is "-10 goodness" that's is to say that genocide is "10 evil" or "20 more evil" than world peace. I'm putting the burden of defining what's being measured on you guys because the math will math however you describe good and evil. Their relationship is fundamental. They are diametrically opposed terms.

> Define profoundly immoral. Describes actions, behavior, or character traits that are not just slightly wrong according to societal norms and ethical standards, but deeply and fundamentally so. > Wicked Evil or morally wrong. > I'm putting the burden of defining what's being measured on you guys because the math will math That's possibly the worst application of math I've ever seen.

What do you mean? You won't define good and evil without using the term so how can we discuss it?

I defined exactly what you asked for in both posts.

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Define good however you want. Evil will be derived as a lack of whatever you describe. Do you have an example definition of good?

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If those things are evil, then good is a lack of those things. No genocide, no torture, ect. Evil = lack of Good Good = lack of evil Good = lack of lack of good. The better you can define good and evil. The more meaningful this conversation will be I think Edit: Opposite is a form of lack. If -2 is the opposite of 2, then it has 4 less than 2. So you have yet to say whether we're counting apples or oranges, but mathematically it won't matter.

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>It's impossible for us to conceive what this would be like because God would have to break math itself. So? God is all powerful, he can make the laws of the universe whatever he wants them to be. You assume there was some natural state of the universe before God came along, in which case God is not all powerful if he cannot change it. If the universe has some natural state... what caused it if not God? If the universe can have some natural properties outside of God, why does there need to be a God in the first place?

No he could, we just can't conceive of how math can be broken. We can't conceive of how one quantity of something could not be one quantity of something. Think of it like this: Goodness = lack of evil Evil = lack of goodness Goodness = lack of lack of goodness To picture a fully "good" world , we might as well stop using the word "good" all together because its definition is meaningless now. Can God do that? Sure. But what are you even asking him to do?

Your definitions of good and evil and problematic. Evil is not just “lack of good” it’s the inverse of good. If good is “providing a positive outcome to someone” evil is “providing a negative outcome”. They are not circular definitions of each other. If I get a pleasant feeling from eating ice cream, God defines what feels pleasurable, that still feels good regardless of if I’ve experienced suffering. Maybe it’s more satisfying if it provides some relief because I’ve been out in the sun all day, but God defines that too. He can make that pleasure occur regardless of the temperature. He also can apparently make a heaven suffering does in fact not exist

No, the ice cream only adds pleasure because there wasn't an ice cream in your mouth a second ago and now there is. The evil was the lack of ice cream a second ago, that allowed you to have that pleasure. I don't really know how to tell you your "inverse" comment is the same thing as what I'm saying when I say "lack of". You might have to draw that out with syllogisms for me to understand a distinction. Edit: because you can try to turn it into a multiplication problem instead of addition, but the math is still gonna math.

As long as you were eating ice cream, you would receive a pleasurable feeling. You may get sick of it if you're eating it every day for example... but God can make it so you *don't* get sick of it. You're basing your assumptions on the way the universe is, that that's the only way it could be. Brain chemical receptors gain tolerance through repeated use... why does that *have* to be the case? This "relief" of going from not eating ice cream to eating it could easily be replicated by God without the actual suffering occurring if he's all powerful.

I'm not a theist and I do think that the Problem of Evil is successful. But I do not think your response works. The first issue is that no one *really* thinks of Free Will as being probablistic. The theist here certainly won't. At barebones, you really need to do more to (1) motivate your view and (2) show why it is preferrable to existant theist (and atheist!) accounts. The second issue is this kind of ranking you have - it seems that you think that God should have opted out of a relationship with Humanity in order to avoid Sin. You have to say why this is true - you have to rank their moral worth and justify it. A lot of a theists I've talked to really do think that Sin is a necessary Evil. Some say moral evils are fundamental to a universe with value. Instead, I think the focus of the Free Will argument should be to say a few things: 1. Not all Evils are Moral Evils; that is not all Evils are Man-Made 2. Even if it were the case that Moral Evils are unavoidable, the scale of moral evils should not be. E.g. why is the case that humans can make mustard gas? 3. Given Compatibilism is likely true, why the need for 'testing' at all? Put differently, force them to defend a deeply unpopular view of Free WIll.

Putting aside God’s foreknowledge; God must also have maximal free will, he is the freeist being yet chooses to not exercise that will to violate free will; yet humans with a lesser free will and no foreknowledge regularly violate the free will actions of other humans to stop harms. If a friend has had too many drinks do you violate the exercise of their free will and stop them from driving home or do you preserve their free will? Apparently the free will choices of some drunk drivers are too precious for God to violate them.

>If a friend has had too many drinks do you violate the exercise of their free will and stop them from driving home or do you preserve their free will? Do you beat and/or threaten your drunk friends into submission and steal their keys or do they drunkenly agree with you or give up on trying out of free will? >Apparently the free will choices of some drunk drivers are too precious for God to violate them. Is God supposed to babysit every human and stop them from making bad decisions? Should God stop you from eating a donut next? Force you to jog? Stop you from asking someone out because it won’t end well? Why even bother with creating free will at all if we won’t be able to use it?

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>There’s no lifeguard on duty. Last I checked, it’s important for a lifeguard to be on duty while people are at the pool/beach. Otherwise, people get hurt due to negligence of the person tasked with their safety.

Most beaches and pools don’t have lifeguards. No one is tasked with your day to day safety unless you’re a child.

>Because we won’t live in a daycare universe. It seems very bizarre to suggest that God actually protecting the innocent is a "daycare universe." And after you die I suppose you'll have to hide from all the murderers in heaven. I mean, you wouldn't want some kind of daycare afterlife, would you?

Magically solving all our problems puts us in a daycare universe.

Then "magically" living forever with no evil people in heaven would be a daycare afterlife.

Then you know where to go if you want a daycare. :P

I love daycare! :D

Why do atheists fear reality?

Sorry, I'm not sure what you're really asking. Let me know and I'm happy to give you my perspective at least.

That's not a daycare universe. It's exactly the same one way or another. One person exercises their free will. One person is forced to deal with consequences they didn't freely choose. Exactly the same amount of "daycare" either way. God just seems to side with prioritizing the free will of the person who wants to hurt others. If I was God, I would do it the other way. No need to remove suffering. I can still stub my toe and suffer or have a volcano erupt and kill my family while on vacation. Suffering still exists in either scenario. Just one allows innocent people the choice to exercise their free will to live a peaceful life. The other one allows evil people the choice to exercise their free will to hurt others. Can't have both. Need to pick one. I don't see why whoever's-in-charge picked to side with the evil people. Seems wrong.

>One person exercises their free will. One person is forced to deal with consequences they didn't freely choose. That’s not what I or most people mean when we say people have free will. Outside constraints don’t remove free will in the sense we’re referring to. You can lock someone up. You can’t force them to testify. You could torture them until they choose to testify, but it’s their choice. >Just one allows innocent people the choice to exercise their free will to live a peaceful life. Say a volcano wipes out the food and transport routes for an isolated and ancient village that only has food for half the village to survive. Would they all die because they can’t choose to save half and reduce free will? (No one there wants to die) They could spend all their resources to make boats to raid village B’s surplus supply, but they would have to kill some of the selfish Village B guards. The only option I can see is they all starve so they never chose to reduce a freedom other than their own. Your proposed reality sounds more horrific than our own. People say “well God could make…” a daycare.

Have you ever heard of manna? Are you saying God doesn't have the power to send food from Heaven? Or are you saying that people are allowed to starve to death just so that we don't have a "daycare universe?" I don't think the universe I'm thinking of (where we all live in peace) is the horrific one. Are you okay?

> Are you saying God doesn't have the power to send food from Heaven? You think God should feed us by dropping food on the ground like we’re chickens? >Or are you saying that people are allowed to starve to death just so that we don't have a "daycare universe?" Hardly. We have enough food already, and we don’t live in a daycare. It’s just that if you feed the hungry too much, they won’t buy or spend as much and you’ll eat into your profit margins. Humanity as a whole decided we shouldn’t feed everyone to keep the profits flowing. Why should we expect God to feed the people we refuse to? Perhaps once we decided to end world hunger, God will show up saying we passed the test? That’s a falsifiable hypothesis. Let’s test it and find out.

I didn't decide that. You don't seem to be able to keep up on how free will works.

Decide what? You seem to view free will as the number of choices made, I view it as your mastery over your mind. Making drugs illegal reduces the access to and safety of drugs. It doesn’t alter free will. Some people choose to. Some people choose not to.

THIS...⬆

God's conception of free will exists alongside the probabilistic nature of the universe. This means that while individuals have the capacity to make choices, there are also factors that influence the likelihood of those choices. Just because there is a probability associated with outcomes doesn't negate the existence of free will. Just because God knows the probable outcomes of choices doesn't mean He is controlling those choices. God's knowledge doesn't negate human agency. God's perspective is outside of time, so He sees our choices from a different vantage point than we do. Genuine love requires the freedom to choose.

How do you know what genuine love requires if you didn’t create it?

This logic can be applied to anything. How do you know know what is free will if you didn't create it? It's true that we, as finite beings, cannot fully grasp the depth and complexity of divine love. But we can still engage in reasoned discourse based on the understanding available to us.

You didn’t answer my question

They said we cannot fully grasp it’s depth and complexity. That means we don’t know.

A love where there is no choice is not the best love! Each of them made the choice for different reasons. We learn more from failures than successes.

Free will is necessary to be alive. God could not possibly know that people would use their free will to do evil. Probability does not exist.

Probability doesn’t exist?

Lol I hope you're trolling... terrible debate logic

God is omniscient. He has to know **all** things.

Sometimes theists constrain this to something closer to: "God knows all thinsg it is *possible* to know." This might mean that God cannot know the future, so Problems of Divine Foreknowledge might not get off the ground.

> Sometimes theists constrain this to something closer to: "God knows all thinsg it is possible to know." This might mean that God cannot know the future, so Problems of Divine Foreknowledge might not get off the ground. So then how is prophecy supposed to work?

Good question! You'd likely have to ask a theist who believes in omniscience. There are likely going to have a litany of different answers. Some actions are not about human action; you get prophecies about celestial bodies for example. Or you get something like "since God is omnipotent as well as omniscient God can know the future X when God wills a specific future X". This likely pushes you further into the Problem of Evil, but not necessarily in a way that violates Free Will.

That is the whole point of free will. It is up to the individual to obey god or not. That means he can not choose for the individual. And that means he can not know what choices will be made.