Hostage to fear

[Randy Carson]

Let's recap the game so far...I'm in bold; you're in blue.

The Four-Question Approach to Thinking About Theodicy

Question #1:

Would you like to see laws prohibiting a person from choosing to have or obtain an abortion, prohibiting premarital sex, or prohibiting homosexual behavior?

And no.  If there is any more of a position to take here, it will be to the credit of humanism and not religion.

So, your answer is NO. Okay...that's fine.

Question #2:

Would you agree that it's a good thing that you have freedom to make moral choices regarding abortion or premarital sex, etc.?

If you're demanding that your subjective questions end in objective answers;

1. Yes, it is a good thing.
2 (alternative). Yes, it would be bad.

Again, if these conditions exist, they depend wholly on humanistic systems and the people (no deity required) that make them possible. Both answers neither require your god as the source of our morality or justify why such morality exists.

Randy, if you are going to read the next line in your script from the presuppositional argument, please read it here. Do not save it for the innocent children that bare your genetic signature, despite being disadvantage by the poison you have (no doubt) instilled in your off-spring, who deserve much, much better.

Okay. Again, these are not trick questions...and we're almost home.

Question #3:

If it's a good thing to have moral choices, would you agree that requires not only that we have complete freedom but also the possibility of choosing either good or evil? In other words, wouldn’t our freedom be severely restricted if we could only choose good?

Your question is nonsense because "good" is not objective, assuming the noun form which you have proposed. But, I'll do my best to answer.

It is knowledge and special empathy combined that allow one to 'choose good'. Your question posits that good is objective. I wholly reject your ignorant presupposition regarding the philosophy of goodness.

Therefore... your question is not only fallacious to begin with, but malformed at best.

Try again, Randy.

So, to sum up:

1. You do not want restrictions placed on what moral choices you can and cannot make.
2. You agree that it is a good thing that you have the freedom to make these moral choices.
3. You say that knowledge and special empathy enable you to "choose good". However, you have not yet addressed the question of whether the freedom to make those moral choices requires that you are free to choose either good or evil.

So, let's try again: does freedom to choose entail any sort of limitation or restriction by definition? Are you truly free if you cannot actually choose from a full range of possibilities whether good or evil?

The answer ought to be pretty straightforward given your response to question #1...you do NOT want restrictions on the choices you make...therefore, it seems that you value freedom that comes from your ability to choose to do good or to do evil.