Argument from evil, restated

[Praetorian]

Posting from a phone sure is annoying when there are multiple things to respond to.

First, GC, why does God nees to be respected by his creation? That's a non-sequitur, but it still doesn't make any sense. God doesn't need our approval, and if he wanted it, he still didn't need to sit idly by and let the world unfold like it did. I'd contest that the world we see around us is far more likely to occur if there is no god, rather than a loving one who needs to earn the respect of the things he created by doing nothing to help them.

In your analogy, can Dr. Manhattan raise the woman and her child into eternal bliss?

Sure, but only if she believes he can .

Dr. Manhattan is sort of the god character in that story, but the point is, withholding action when you could have prevented something makes you complicit with it. He didn't have to kill the comedian either, he could turn the bullets into vapor, which the comedian tells him.

This is unreasonable when you are powerless to do anything about a situation, but if you're all-powerful, you can do all the things to stop it.

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My whole point is, you shouldn't have to go in these circles in the first place. If there really was an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing god, these problems would never exist. None of the arguments I've made would apply to a god who has human limitations, which Yahweh certainly seems to, but that's certainly not how he's portrayed and I doubt that's what you believe.

There you go again, contradicting yourself in a single paragraph. If the god of the Bible is not portrayed as " all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing," then why do you argue as if he is portrayed that way?

Uh...that's my whole argument. If he is those things, then he must do certain things. If you don't believe he is those things, then he is limited. AFAIK, no Christian doctrine ever said God was limited. Except the whole chariots of iron bit.