(April 16, 2014 at 4:59 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: There was a thread about the Problem of Heaven in the Christianity section, so I'd thought I'd bring up a related counter-apologetic here: The Problem of Divine Freedom.This is a fun subject but in a way rather pointless to discuss if you're an atheist. Some pointless things are entertaining, however.
Quote:1) For an agent to be morally good, that agent must possess libertarian free will and thus the capacity to do evil. [Plantinga's Free Will Defense]
2) God is an agent, yet cannot do evil. [Common theological position/Divine Command Theory]
3) Therefore God does not have libertarian free will or moral goodness.
Now one response I anticipate is the claim that God could do evil, but he simply chooses not to do it. Despite being in contradiction with Divine Command theory, this makes it mysterious as to why God created beings who had the ability to do evil, and whom inevitably do so. After all, it's logically possible for God to have actualized the possible world where agents with libertarian free will never do evil.
I am quite convinced that god is a fictional character. The idea of god exists, but not God himself. The problem that especially christianity is facing is that the more humanity progresses, the less credible the christian god seems. God simply does not make sense. There are too many holes in the story.
Now there is a thing authors call 'suspension of disbelief'. This is a method that is used so that a fiction is believable within its own framework. It can be a completely absurd fictional world or idea that is presented, but it has to be consistent. The christian god is not consistent. He has a lot of double standards, he is clearly not good all the time, and so on. If god is so good and omipotent, loves humanity etcetera, then why is he so cruel sometimes? Why does he allow so much heinous crap to go on? These are questions that even small children ask from time to time. Christianity simply lacks answers that are truly believable, so in order to make people christians you must use dogma, dishonest indoctrination, fear and so on. If you are not subjected to this, you will not become a christian. I am living proof of this.
I think the Gnostic idea of a distant god and a demiurge creator who is not always good and perfect is much more believable than the christian god.