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Free Will vs Divine Won't - How God Favours Evil
March 29, 2012 at 12:14 am
(March 28, 2012 at 11:44 pm)C Rod Wrote: Isn't it all special pleading and begging the question?
Heaven was corrupted, the #1 angel Lucifer with his consciousness and will corrupted and took a third of the angels with him.
Corruption comes with the right of choice.
A good question is if you created a sentient entity does that created being ever have the right to be greater than the one that created it?
Clearly Satan is a great deal smarter than god. He managed to fuck up gods divine plan with ease and god still hasn't been able to fix it.
If you're not supposed to ride faster than your guardian angel can fly then mine had better get a bloody SR-71.
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RE: Free Will vs Divine Won't - How God Favours Evil
March 29, 2012 at 3:20 am
No matter how much you defend god, it still comes back to the point of creation, where god failed to foresee that his creation will turn out to be faulty and evil. Thus the premise of god being perfect fails.
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RE: Free Will vs Divine Won't - How God Favours Evil
March 29, 2012 at 8:19 am
C Rod Wrote:Heaven was corrupted, the #1 angel Lucifer with his consciousness and will corrupted and took a third of the angels with him.
Are you trying to defend god by using the very first instance when he sat idle as evil prevailed? If Lucifer corrupted the world, god should have been able to forsee the consequences of Lucifer's actions. Therefore, god could see all of the rape and murder that would result, yet he still stood by doing nothing.
Your god appears to be incompetent or a fairy tale.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
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RE: Free Will vs Divine Won't - How God Favours Evil
March 29, 2012 at 11:20 pm
(March 29, 2012 at 8:19 am)Faith No More Wrote: C Rod Wrote:Heaven was corrupted, the #1 angel Lucifer with his consciousness and will corrupted and took a third of the angels with him.
Are you trying to defend god by using the very first instance when he sat idle as evil prevailed? If Lucifer corrupted the world, god should have been able to forsee the consequences of Lucifer's actions. Therefore, god could see all of the rape and murder that would result, yet he still stood by doing nothing.
Your god appears to be incompetent or a fairy tale.
I stand with choice and the freedom to exercise said choice to the extent of one's will. God takes that away from everyone or gives us the ability to do only good then i think we cease to by ourselves and even cease to be conscious.
"Its not what your looking at that matters, its what you see." -Henry David Thoreau
♪Oh, I get lost in my mind Lost, I get lost I get Lost in my mind Lost in my Mind Yes, I get lost in my mind Lost, I get lost I get lost I get lost Oh, I get♪ -The Head and the Heart
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RE: Free Will vs Divine Won't - How God Favours Evil
March 29, 2012 at 11:34 pm
(This post was last modified: March 29, 2012 at 11:39 pm by mediamogul.)
(March 29, 2012 at 11:20 pm)C Rod Wrote: (March 29, 2012 at 8:19 am)Faith No More Wrote: C Rod Wrote:Heaven was corrupted, the #1 angel Lucifer with his consciousness and will corrupted and took a third of the angels with him.
Are you trying to defend god by using the very first instance when he sat idle as evil prevailed? If Lucifer corrupted the world, god should have been able to forsee the consequences of Lucifer's actions. Therefore, god could see all of the rape and murder that would result, yet he still stood by doing nothing.
Your god appears to be incompetent or a fairy tale.
I stand with choice and the freedom to exercise said choice to the extent of one's will. God takes that away from everyone or gives us the ability to do only good then i think we cease to by ourselves and even cease to be conscious.
This doesn't really answer the essence of the "why did god allow heaven to be corrupted" argumet and raises another question for me. If people are not bound by their nature, biology, and upbringing then why do some choose good and some choose "evil"? It seems to me as though free will doesn't explain much in the way of why people choose the way that they do. It seems to me that people exist with certain things that effect their supposed free will and cause them to act in a certain way. On another note we are back to saying god couldn't do something, create a situation in which free will exists and where people on choose good. Why even set up the choice in the first place? Why create the rules so that choice is important? Also, to play devil's advocate (sorry, corny I know), Lucifer chose out of independence, a desire for self-determination, courage, and intelligence. Well it's all mythology so I guess I can interpret it any way I choose.
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." -Friedrich Nietzsche
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RE: Free Will vs Divine Won't - How God Favours Evil
March 29, 2012 at 11:51 pm
(This post was last modified: March 29, 2012 at 11:52 pm by C Rod.)
(March 29, 2012 at 12:06 am)Rhythm Wrote: Which then begs the question, these angels, incredibly powerful, very wise and intelligent, endowed with free will and full witness to his "glory"....decided that your god was a piece of shit? And then, of course, this leads to the strange situation that now, we frail human beings, not so wise and only moderately intelligent, similarly equipped with freewill and having never witnessed his glory at all seem to be reaching the same conclusion.
The question is why? Why did they do it, why do you do it?
Quote:Sounds like gods 0 for 2 on this count buddy. "Great" my ass, clearly isn't cut out for his job.
Since when is "great" decided by "right" btw? Do you have no "right" to be "greater" than your parents? I think that they would probably hope that you would be.
Did my parents create the ability to create me or did they just use it? And maybe "great" wasn't the right word to use. Its more a potter and the clay analogy. Just because were aware and can say we don't like something to our creator doesn't mean we have the right or power to, his power surpasses us.
"Its not what your looking at that matters, its what you see." -Henry David Thoreau
♪Oh, I get lost in my mind Lost, I get lost I get Lost in my mind Lost in my Mind Yes, I get lost in my mind Lost, I get lost I get lost I get lost Oh, I get♪ -The Head and the Heart
"You are wise, witty and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading this sort of stuff.”- Frank Crane
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RE: Free Will vs Divine Won't - How God Favours Evil
March 30, 2012 at 12:50 am
(This post was last modified: March 30, 2012 at 1:01 am by The Grand Nudger.)
It's easy to do better than someone who isn't doing anything at all. I think the promethean element of the fall of lucifer is probably lost on you, so I;m really not sure where this conversation could possibly go between us? See, I love this narrative and I could talk your ear off about it (did you know that almost every culture has such a narrative), but I'm not so smitten with a fairy tale that I would stand here and try to convince others (or myself) that it has anything to do with a god, or demons, or a magical war etc.
This isn't exactly a big glaring mystery for those who are interested. It's only a mystery for those who manufacture it as such. You see I'd be having a conversation about how we have a tendency to establish authority for our spiritual concepts in the same manner that we go about establishing authority for ourselves (a damning indictment, but again only if you're actually interested), or how these narratives have been refined to be effective from a great many angles (beyond simply establishing authority this narrative can also speak to our seemingly collective anxiety and antipathy towards authority)...but you'd be asking me why I don't like your invisible friend. One can imagine how dissatisfying this would be for both parties, yes?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Free Will vs Divine Won't - How God Favours Evil
March 30, 2012 at 3:30 am
Apologists William Lane Craig & Alvin Plantinga try to argue that God allows evil because it results in a greater good (more people being Saved). But presumably not all evils result in a greater good (for instance if I blew up the sun then no extra souls would be saved than if I hadn't). So god - who has acted before - will act if in the long-term the greater good is served. Otherwise, he will let millions suffer (many of whom will never know of or convert to Christianity).
All very well. But then I wonders: why should I be good? If I do a bad thing and it is allowed, surely then it must result in a greater good? Surely we should all just do as we feel and let Yahweh sort it all out? This god, the one that Craig says (to paraphrase CS Lewis) "is not a tame lion", is not cuddly but calculating. And their apologetics basically undermines any basis of morality.
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RE: Free Will vs Divine Won't - How God Favours Evil
March 30, 2012 at 7:30 am
C Rod Wrote:I stand with choice and the freedom to exercise said choice to the extent of one's will. God takes that away from everyone or gives us the ability to do only good then i think we cease to by ourselves and even cease to be conscious.
You do realize that saying this is essentially making the argument that if kids have to be raped and people murdered, that is an acceptable price to pay so you can have the freedom of choice, do you not?
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
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RE: Free Will vs Divine Won't - How God Favours Evil
March 30, 2012 at 11:16 am
It's said that for evil to flourish all good men have to do is nothing. Apparently God is doing nothing to stem the tide of evil, which means he is not an all-good god.
Christian apologetics is the art of rolling a dog turd in sugar and selling it as a donut.
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