Better reasons to quit Christianity

[spockrates]

Lion IRC Wrote: I resolve the so-called omnipotence/omniscience paradox easily enough by accepting that God equally has the ability to know and not to know.

Logic is not your strong suit, is it.


I resolve it by referring it to Epicurus,who wrote.

Epicurus on God and Evil

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?"
- Epicurus

How do you think Epicurus defined omnipotence?

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I suppose an apt illustration would be a rat in a maze. The maze might be the limits God places on the life of someone--where he is born, who his parents are, what intelligence he has, what wealth he obtains. The outcome (a dead end or an exit from the maze and a tasty cheese treat) would be up to the rat. The rat cannot choose the maze, or the treat at the end, but she can choose the direction she will take and whether she ends up at a dead end, or with the reward at the exit.

This analogy is faulty because the researchers we are talking about didn't create the rat to a precise genetic T from which they knew every action it would take, ever. They didn't choose to make a different rat, meaning choice was involved on their part and not the rats, effectively making all the rat's choices for it throughout it's life. I suppose the researchers would have to make an artificial environment as well, so it's not a perfect analogy, but I think you'll see the point.
If they chose the rat's every action throughout it's entire life and it's environment, knowing they were doing so all the time, then we would have an analogy.

Well, they could have chosen a different rat. Maybe a rat doped up on crack cocaine, or a rat given high doses of vitamin B12, which is in popular energy drinks like Red Bull. But are you saying that every behavior of a human being is (like every behavior of a rat) predetermined by one's genetics alone? For example, whether I choose to become an atheist, or remain a Christian--do my genes predetermine this outcome?