(December 12, 2024 at 1:28 pm)TheWhiteMarten Wrote: Presumably to continue and allow his creation to have free will, perhaps the third best gift ever given to man.
Is it, though? In the universe created by your god, exercising free will leads to much suffering during our lifetimes, and eternal suffering for a great many people afterwards. Had he designed us to be incapable of sin, every one of us would enjoy an eternity by his side in heaven.
In this context, what is the value of being able to choose? What good is it to have been capable of sin? Wouldn't we be better off with just the one choice?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
