(May 1, 2014 at 11:36 am)MindForgedManacle Wrote:

(May 1, 2014 at 12:56 am)Coffee Jesus Wrote: I think the argument only requires that a better world be possible, and not necessarily a perfect or ideal one.

Although there is a potential counterargument. If there is no limit to how good the world could be, then a better world will always be possible, no matter how good the world is.

Depends on what you mean by "better".

I'm sure there are many things in life that we can unanimously agree we wouldn't miss if they were gone.

(May 1, 2014 at 12:26 pm)Chad32 Wrote:

(May 1, 2014 at 11:36 am)MindForgedManacle Wrote: Depends on what you mean by "better".

I'm sure there are many things in life that we can unanimously agree we wouldn't miss if they were gone.

A follow-up question may be whether subtracting certain things from the "programming" of reality would have other repercussions, but this assumes the creation's every event has to make sense in terms of some basic laws, which it shouldn't if the creator is omnipotent. An omnipotent creator could add a magical barrier that encapsulate anyone who's about to rape, even if it's an exception to the general laws of physics. But hey, some hip theists seem to think God is the Big Bang.

(May 1, 2014 at 11:36 am)MindForgedManacle Wrote: Depends on what you mean by "better".

Or "perfect." Or "heaven." Or any other term that might give us a common place to start from instead of grasping at the breeze.

One of the most basic motives that drives humans, just like it drives almost every life form, is selfishness. Ambition. Religious teachings seem designed to combat selfishness, the same as many pithy sayings and phrases and moral fables. Heaven could simply be populated by human souls who have had their selfishness and ambition excised.

With any luck, those humans would lack the necessary means to ask god why he didn't simply remove those two destructive motives from humans in the first place and save everyone the trouble.

(May 1, 2014 at 9:31 am)RobbyPants Wrote: Heaven. At least, most adherents say that it's supposed to be perfect

Regardless of what most Christians believe, let’s see what the Bible says…

“I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, "Behold, God's dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain*, any more. The first things have passed away." - Revelation 21:2-4

First, the Greek word translated into English as “pain” literally means “toil” and not physical discomfort. To me that means that the blessed (citizens of Heaven) will have useful things to do that they love doing. In my earlier posts I made clear that even the blessed can inadvertently cause pain, but that is mitigated by the Lord’s restorative abundance.

(May 1, 2014 at 9:31 am)RobbyPants Wrote: Or, to sum it up

• He is not able
  
• He is not willing
  

He is willing but not able. He cannot make a square circle either.

(May 1, 2014 at 12:58 am)Esquilax Wrote: Does anyone else find it odd that Chad accused me of moving the goalposts, and yet he's the one taking the argument away from the problem of evil so he can start talking about perfect worlds?

Isn’t the problem of evil all about why the world isn’t free from pain and suffering, i.e. some kind of perfect world. Besides you brought it up by claiming that Heaven somehow violated freewill.

(April 30, 2014 at 11:23 pm)Esquilax Wrote: I'm not discussing a perfect world, just the fact that god could easily make marked improvements to the one that we currently live in, and that the christian standard response to this, that it would violate free will, is nonsensical…I don't think a perfect world, for every person, at all times, is possible without violating free will because some people are psychopaths who would find the suffering of others to be a part of their perfect world. But one who had the powers of a god could make a markedly better world without violating free will, certainly.

That’s just your opinion and an unsupported one at that. How can you say that this isn’t already the best of all possible worlds and that the improvements you think are possible are not precluded by other considerations? One such consideration that I raised, and which you have not addressed, is whether true love is possible without the freedom to choose who you love and how much you love them.

(April 30, 2014 at 11:23 pm)Esquilax Wrote: …there's a difference between "suffering" and "human produced suffering," the latter of which being what the problem of evil seeks to address, and the free will argument seeks to excuse.

The problem of evil has always included natural evils, but if you wish to discuss only moral evils that’s fine. It’s your thread.

In the weakest sense, free will is taken to mean that you can act as you decide without external influence. Thus a compatablist can say that you have free will in the sense that you are the author of your choices and with the understanding that your internal natural has already been fixed by and previous physical processes. A hard determinist makes a less generous claim but has basically the same result. Both assume physical monism.

Most Christians do not assume physical monism and usually, like me, advocate some type of dualism. We put the physical world, including our physical bodies, in the category of external influences. Those who follow only the impulses of the natural body are considered “slaves to sin”, because they allow an sensual influences to override their consciences. To be totally free of external influences, choices must occur outside of, yet still influence, the stream of efficient causes-and-effects. As such most modern Christians (other than those vile Presbyterians ) have a tacitly existentialist view about human nature. You do not have a fixed nature that leads to specific choices; but rather, the choices you make define your nature.

This idea is further developed in Process theology. To choose is a creative act. At any moment, even under the most restrictive circumstances, people still have unlimited choice. For example, someone alone in a desert can walk in any direction, sit in a variety of postures, sing any song, pray, pluck his eyebrows, draw in the sand, pick a scab, compose a poem…etc. The list is endless. The power to create choices is not an ability given to people; but rather, the space God makes for humanity’s creative participation through His own self-limiting, or kenosis. Thus God can continue to create good exclusively even if humans pervert their own creative capacity.

(May 1, 2014 at 1:30 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain*, any more.

Chad, here is a question for ya (again):

If god removes part of your being (flaws) and sadness and pain and if he removes "evil" and sex and all those other "sinful" things we do (which is inseparable of what and who we are IMO) does that mean that those who go to heaven will not have the same soul they used to have and therefore be another person (similar but still another) ?

How you christians deal with the fact that after you die you will become the stripped version of who you used to be ?

I understand that ya all think it's gonna make you all "better", that's not the point

(May 1, 2014 at 1:30 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: In my earlier posts I made clear that even the blessed can inadvertently cause pain, but that is mitigated by the Lord’s restorative abundance.
...
He is willing but not able. He cannot make a square circle either.

...yet he doesn't do that here on earth. Apparently, an important part of free will and "justice" (to which God is beholden, by your own admission) is that we have to be able to rape each other here to either show God we love him or to earn our place in heaven.

He's capable of wiping away our tears, and yet, he doesn't.

I feel you're all over-thinking and adding to the issue of free will. I don't see what's so hard about it. Whether evil exists or not, God gave us the freedom to make our own decisions. We can make whatever choices we please. What's so hard to understand about that?

Besides the whole debate over whether or not he's real, there's also a debate over whether he's worth worshiping if he was real. For the purpose of debate, we'll say he is real. Now are you really ok with everything that goes on in the bible? Killing someone for something another person did? Slavery? Thought crime? All that crap? The problem of evil is just one thing people debate about when it comes to how god is portrayed. If you want to claim he's omnipotent and omnipresent, there are things many people think a person with that power should be able to do that isn't being done, and they have a problem with that.

The thing that is hard to understand is why a modern audience would even want to be associated with the individual portrayed in the bible, even if he was real. I know you'd rather all of us just jump on the bandwagon, but some of us are really bothered by some details written about this deity of yours.

(May 1, 2014 at 3:09 pm)RobbyPants Wrote: ...yet he doesn't do that here on earth.

He's capable of wiping away our tears, and yet, he doesn't.

Yes he does

Heaven simply is not the huge problem that you guys make it out to be. Let’s start with my earlier statement. Your nature does not determine your choices; but rather, your choices define your nature. The more choices you make the more fixed your nature becomes, for good or ill. Anyone can see that long-standing habits are harder to break than the first few tries. For example, people can quit smoking and never return to the habit, but long-time smokers find it more difficult than those who just started. By the time you reach the afterlife, your habits have gained enough momentum that you can continue becoming more of what you already are unto eternity. You gain more and more freedom because you are no longer chained to the obsessions and compulsions of the flesh. The more you are free from sin the more liberty you have and become more human not less. The opposite is true for the wicked. They fail to overcome temptation and become more and more entrenched in their inclination to do evil and indulge the falsities that justify their evil desires. They are the ones that deny and slowly lose their humanity, i.e. the second death.