(May 7, 2015 at 3:47 pm)dahrling Wrote:(May 7, 2015 at 3:29 pm)RobbyPants Wrote: I like RPGs (the games, although rocket launchers are cool, too), and one thing I've learned to pay attention to in them is iterative probability. In these games, each challenge you face has a non-zero chance of killing your character. Of course, even if this chance is pretty small, it means that the more challenges you face, the more likely it is your character dies. This is just a fundamental truth of statistics. You cannot get around that without reducing the chance to precisely zero. Otherwise, you have to hope it's low enough that you survive the campaign, hope you get lucky, or be blindly ignorant of how these things work.
Now, apply that to the Garden of Eden.
Genesis posits a physical place where Adam and Eve can hang around doing, presumably anything they want, so long as they don't eat from one tree. Now, I cannot fathom any reason why God needed to put that tree there in the first place. Some may say that God needed to test humanity (why?). Now, if that's the case, the only reason for a test is if there's a chance for failure. If humanity was supposed to stay in the garden, as time went on, the likelihood that someone would eat form that tree would approach near certainty. That's just how these things work.
What did God think was going to happen!?
I mean obviously, this is just one more point showing the absurdity of the myth, but how do apologists reconcile this? They blame free will for all of mankind's faults and refuse to make God culpable for making faulty humans. This situation was engineered by someone who wanted humans to fail or by someone who is woefully inept. That's it. There's no magical third option.
What I used to believe is that god didn't stop any of this from happening because he had a greater plan which we could not fully understand (jesus had to come and redeem us, then there'd be the rapture, the apocalypse, the 1000 year kingdom, the final judgment, and finally heaven and hell).
Yes, god knew people would be damned to hell but he created the world in order to save a few who he would pick to spend eternity with him. (thereby extinguishing the concept of "free will")
Obviously, in this case god isn't really loving and good - we basically mean nothing to him, we're just pawns in his game.
Christians believe we're meaningless as a species, they think that by admitting to this (concept of "humility") as well as by asking for forgiveness we can have our names written in the "book of life" and spend eternity with god.
What I can't grasp is why god would want us to join him in heaven anyway. What does he get out of it?
I mean, the story itself is a simple carrot and stick. "If you do what we say (which typically involves surrendering your will and possessions), you'll be rewarded with eternal paradise later. Fail to comply, and it's eternal torture." But why would god even need or want to set that up? What does he gain by admitting people into heaven? Aside from a bunch of obedient slaves, of course.
"I was thirsty for everything, but blood wasn't my style" - Live, "Voodoo Lady"