Robby,
My understanding is that sin and evil are impossible in Heaven.

All babies (not just suffering ones) go to Heaven.

I will do you one better- all with mental capacities under the age of accountability go to Heaven.

Your last question about why the test (here on earth)?
I do not know for sure, but-
It could be that God wants no more failures like Lucifer and his followers pulled off and fell from His place on high.
Or / and, He intends to show you and me in black and white the tally at the end of the line.
No one will be able to say "I didn't do it".
Every mouth will be silent.

And I want to answer one more you haven't asked:
What about all those who went to Heaven without being tested?

They will be here during the Millennium when Satan and his minions will have been stuffed in the pit for that duration of time.
They will have been quite un-tempted by the devil for a thousand years.

Which is why the Bible says that Satan must be released for a short season at the end of the thousand years.
To Tempt all those who will dwell on the earth at that time.
Only at the end of the Millennial Restoration of All things does this occur.

-sigh- Okay, I'll just run through the Problem of Heaven and why theistic responses to it here have been silly:

The general outline of the argument can be put better, but I'll just slap this together:

Quote:1) If there is to be moral goodness, there must be existent, exercisable free will that allows for the possibility of choosing to do evil.

2) Sin is evil.

3) God is in heaven, and God cannot be in the presence of sin.

4) People in heaven cannot sin.

5) Therefore, heaven is a place without moral goodness because there is no possibility of evil.

The argument above seems to be a valid usage of modus tollens (iff A, then B; not B; therefore not A). Now, the problem is that if the theist says that people in heaven COULD choose to sin if they wanted, but they simply don't want to, they reach an impasse: Why didn't God just start creation with people in heaven who have libertarian free will and could choose to do evil, but simply don't want to? This causes the theist to loose the Free Will Defense as a response to the Logical Problem of Evil.

(April 12, 2014 at 10:05 pm)professor Wrote: Robby,
My understanding is that sin and evil are impossible in Heaven.

So why can't it just be like that here, then? You already admit it's possible for God to create as reality where people don't sin and are happy. Any suffering is unnecessary, other than because God wants it.

(April 12, 2014 at 10:05 pm)professor Wrote: All babies (not just suffering ones) go to Heaven.

I will do you one better- all with mental capacities under the age of accountability go to Heaven.

So, it's not necessary for us to suffer on earth before we can enjoy heaven. Again, any suffering is unnecessary, other than because God wants it.

(April 12, 2014 at 10:05 pm)professor Wrote: Your last question about why the test (here on earth)?
I do not know for sure, but-
It could be that God wants no more failures like Lucifer and his followers pulled off and fell from His place on high.
Or / and, He intends to show you and me in black and white the tally at the end of the line.
No one will be able to say "I didn't do it".
Every mouth will be silent.

And I want to answer one more you haven't asked:
What about all those who went to Heaven without being tested?

They will be here during the Millennium when Satan and his minions will have been stuffed in the pit for that duration of time.
They will have been quite un-tempted by the devil for a thousand years.

Which is why the Bible says that Satan must be released for a short season at the end of the thousand years.
To Tempt all those who will dwell on the earth at that time.
Only at the end of the Millennial Restoration of All things does this occur.

So basically, God wants us to suffer for undisclosed reasons, despite the fact that you've twice admitted he can realize a paradigm where we don't suffer. Your argument is basically "it doesn't make any sense, but I believe it, anyway."

Based on your reasoning, we only suffer because God wants us to suffer. There is no external reason for it; he just wants us to suffer.

OK Robby, have it your way, I give up.
You didn't grow up in Catholicism did you?
They have huge fixation on suffering also. It's part of their lying system.

(April 13, 2014 at 8:36 am)professor Wrote: OK Robby, have it your way, I give up.
You didn't grow up in Catholicism did you?
They have huge fixation on suffering also. It's part of their lying system.

You give up but you think the same way you thought before. What do you give up exactly?

(April 12, 2014 at 10:05 pm)professor Wrote: Your last question about why the test (here on earth)?
I do not know for sure, but-
It could be that God wants no more failures like Lucifer and his followers pulled off and fell from His place on high.

And your omniscient god doesn't already know the outcomes of this?

Quote:Or / and, He intends to show you and me in black and white the tally at the end of the line.
No one will be able to say "I didn't do it".
Every mouth will be silent.

So when does god go under the same judgment for criminal negligence in letting billions of people fall to such suffering without need? That's only fair, right?

I think professor realized that we have free will within boundaries. We can choose, but we can't choose to teleport, or to be werewolves—those things are impossible. Hence you could have a heaven where people do have some choice, but not the choice to do harm.

Why did God give us the option of harm to see whether we should go to the place where we can't harm? That doesn't make sense.

(April 13, 2014 at 8:36 am)professor Wrote: OK Robby, have it your way, I give up.

What are you giving up? Answering my questions?

(April 13, 2014 at 8:36 am)professor Wrote: You didn't grow up in Catholicism did you?
They have huge fixation on suffering also. It's part of their lying system.

Lutheran. It's like Catholicism, but with a lot of the guilt stripped out.

(April 12, 2014 at 10:05 pm)professor Wrote: They will be here during the Millennium when Satan and his minions will have been stuffed in the pit for that duration of time.
They will have been quite un-tempted by the devil for a thousand years.

This implies that without demons to tempt us, humanity would be free of sin. God could have saved everyone all of this suffering (and whatever suffering is to come, for those who are sent to hell) by removing Satan right at the start, before he could poison humanity with temptation.

Or perhaps setting Satan loose on humanity was the plan? See how many humans would cross some arbitrary threshold that Jesus' death could not redeem (based on what must be some very complicated rules and formulas) and then pull the plug on the experiment and congratulate the winners.

This stuff really starts to come apart at the seams anytime you just read it as it is written and think about it for a bit.

One Christian told me, in a nutshell, that Satan is actually God's dark side.

The exact words were something like, "Satan is an aspect of the creator that is to be overcome."