Hostage to fear

[Randy Carson]

I'm sure that you make the declaration, but I do not agree that you are correct. On what basis are you able to make this judgment? Doesn't it come down to this:

If I were God, I would do things differently.
God would agree with me if he existed.
Things are not different.
Therefore, God does not exist.

But the reality is:

If you were God, you would do things differently.
Things are not different.
Therefore, you are not God.

And that's about all that we can say about that.

God did not create us with this fallen nature or "to have" it. However, he gave us free will which necessitates the potential that we will do evil. You cannot really love if you cannot really hate. However, it was man who CHOSE to actualize the potential for evil. Not God.

Right. Because in your short-term view (and 10 years is but the blink of an eye), God should take away our suffering and pain. But this is because you cannot see the long view that God sees. You are simply not in a position to know how the suffering we experience in this life prepares us for what lies ahead.

Sola scriptura and the absolute right to private judgment. These are the errors that led to the 50,000 denominations of which you speak. But this is not how Jesus established His true Church which is founded upon Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church.

Oh, and you made no effort to interact with my fine tuning of evidence comments.

Fine tuning is not an argument.  Surely you're already aware of the destruction of that argument scientifically.  The same math meant to answer critiques of the theist position in the arena of cosmology are the exact same arguments for the existence of anything through "irreducible complexity".  This is elementary.  And this is not meant to be insulting, but this isn't something even in the ballpark for the things I'm arguing from.  I talk about theodicy, which has no clear answer in theism, and you're bringing up the argument for the existence of a god.

Yes, I'm aware of the fact that WE are discussing theodicy.

And I was not speaking of the Argument for Fine Tuning which demonstrates the existence of God. I was arguing for the Fine Tuning of the Evidence which is a phrase I coined a few days ago (for fun) to explain how God uses JUST ENOUGH evidence to enable you to find him without using so much evidence that you are coerced. Since each person is different, it is my contention that God uses varying amounts of evidence for each person based upon their individual needs. Thus, He "fine tunes" the evidence to the right balance for YOU, and Jenny A, and robvalue, and so forth.

Oh, and you made no effort to counteract my argument from scripture regarding the evidence that my "kind" knows the difference between good and evil, and, therefore has the ability to declare your god evil.

Your kind is humankind, and your mind is finitemind. You simply are not in a position to be able to judge whether the infinite God has sufficient reasons for allowing suffering. Sorry, mate, but your arms are too short to box with God.

Sorry, mate, but once again, I'm finding myself back at the position of really wanting to see your position as coming from an educated one (in theology, cosmology, etc).  But the more I talk to you, the more I see you don't even grasp the best of your position's apologetics.  I could come up with better arguments than you have so far regarding theodicy.  

So far, I have simply presented the logical explanation that the existence of suffering is not incompatible with the existence of a loving God. Until you see this, we are kinda stuck. So, here it is all clinical and stuff:

The Intellectual or Logical Problem of Evil

Those who argue the logical problem of evil are attempting to show that God is a contradiction. Typically, the argument follows a form such as:

P1. God must be all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good.
P2. An all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good being could eliminate evil.
P3. Evil exists.
C.  Therefore, God does not exist.

However, for this argument to work, it must also prove an implicit fourth premise:

P4. God can have no good reason to allow evil to exist

Theist Response:

If God has morally sufficient reasons to allow even one act of evil, then the argument falls apart, because this would show that God and the existence of evil are not logically contradictory. God might allow evil in view of His overriding goals for mankind, such as the goal of giving human beings free will.

If God had made us like robots which did evil things, then God would be responsible for those evils since as robots, we would simply do as we were designed. However, we are not robots; we have free will, and we can choose to do good or evil. Consequently, God is not responsible for our choices.

Agnostic scholar Paul Draper acknowledges that “theists face no serious logical problem of evil” while J.L. Mackie, a staunch defender of the problem of evil argument reluctantly admits “We can concede that the problem of evil does not, after all, show that the central doctrines of theism are logically inconsistent with one another.”

You've still not answered me on the issue of the euthyphro dilemma.  The bear illustration cannot be the best thing you could have come up with.  I refuse to believe you're on an atheist forum ignorant of the most convincing arguments against mine from a theist's point of view... and refusing to use them.

You are correct in saying that the bear analogy was not great...at least in response to the Euthyphro Dilemma. But then, I was not using the bear analogy in order to respond to that, was I? The purpose of that analogy was simply to show that we cannot know God's mind regarding the suffering we experience any more than the bear can know the hunter's reasons for acting.

Now, to Euthyphro: boy, I'd love to claim credit for solving that dilemma, but that I cannot do. Here is how the dilemma is avoided entirely by the Christian:

[As you know,] the general strategy used to defeat a dilemma is to show that it's a false one. There are not two options, but three.

The Christian rejects the first option, that morality is an arbitrary function of God's power. And he rejects the second option, that God is responsible to a higher law. There is no Law over God.

The third option is that an objective standard exists (this avoids the first horn of the dilemma). However, the standard is not external to God, but internal (avoiding the second horn). Morality is grounded in the immutable character of God, who is perfectly good. His commands are not whims, but rooted in His holiness.

Could God simply decree that torturing babies was moral? "No," the Christian answers, "God would never do that." It's not a matter of command. It's a matter of character.

So the Christian answer avoids the dilemma entirely. Morality is not anterior to God - logically prior to Him - as Bertrand Russell suggests, but rooted in His nature. As Scott Rae puts it, "Morality is not grounded ultimately in God's commands, but in His character, which then expresses itself in His commands." In other words, whatever a good God commands will always be good. [Source.]

In another thread, I gave Nestor 2-3 links to articles in which Christians dismantled the Euthyphro Dilemma. If this is something that has caused you to question your faith in Christ, perhaps you would benefit from reading them, also:

The Euthyphro Dilemma
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/euthyphro-dilemma

And this podcast:

The Euthyphro Dilemma Once Again
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-euthy...once-again

And a 30-minute YouTube video:

[video=dailymotion]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBvi_auKkaI[/video]

I'm sorry to be insulting (and so honest)... but you're either ignorant or believe your arguments are better than those that were authored 1600 years ago by the most convincing sources that I've even brought to you... the early church fathers.  You've not once quoted their understanding of scripture and you claim to be catholic.  I am really beginning to question your catholicism if you've not read the Saints or the fathers.  Come to think of it... you've only ever quoted the catechism, and not its sources.

I simply did not feel the need to quote the ECF's when I have been asking questions about your experiences as well as making a few opening points regarding the Problem of Pain. I have hundreds of quotes from the ECF's on a wide variety of topics stored on my hard drive. When appropriate, I will copypasta them...you can count on it.