Knowing everything and allowing evil

[Godscreated]

---

Your mistake is believing anyone is good compared to the perfect God. God is omniscient and understands what good is. Evil = sin so to speak, it is those who sin and are not believers in Christ who will spend eternity in hell. Sin = not doing the will of God, I do not know how anyone can possibly be perfect enough to do God's will every day. Forgiveness is the key, forgiveness comes through Christ. Everyone sins, it's those who accept Christ who attain forgiveness, those who do not accept Christ do not receive forgiveness and thus hell is their eternal destination.

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There is nothing perfect about the God that is described in the Bible.

The first thing the God does is confess to being a jealous God. He's already imperfect right there. Then he's also a vengeful God. Far from perfect.

Why does on lose perfection by being jealous as God describes it, He says He is jealous because He loves everyone, yet so many turn their love to other gods (statues, money,self and ect.), God is the one who gave all life yet is rejected for selfish reasons.

Moreover, there would be absolutely nothing "perfect" about a God who can't forgive people unless they are willing to nail his son to a pole.

In fact, do you realize that by accepting Jesus as your "savior" you are indeed condoning having Jesus nailed to a pole to pay for your sins.

In fact, accepting that Jesus was crucified to pay for your sins would be no different from God handing you a hammer and spikes and pointing to Jesus and the Cross and saying, "Unless you are willing to nail my son to a pole to pay for your sins I won't grant you admission into my perfect heaven."

That's basically what these fables require of you.

Your understanding of the sacrifice of Christ is not correct, man did not sacrifice Christ, God the Father did, man murdered Christ, man had no intention of sacrificing Him all they wanted was to shut Him up, He was ruining the cozy life of the priest. Only the Father could have sacrificed Christ His Son, the Father was the one who was suffering because of Christ's sacrifice, man became the beneficiary of the sacrifice God made.

You are correct in one thing, not just me and all Christians are guilty of the crucifixion of Christ, you and the rest of the nonbelievers are equally guilty. The difference here is that those who admit to that guilt and ask Christ into their lives are forgiven, those who do not are not forgiven, it's true all of mankind is guilty of the murder of Christ. It's one thing that deeply hurts me knowing I'm responsible for the death Christ had to suffer. Yes, my name was on one of those nails, just as all Christian names were there, they however were washed away as the blood poured over them, the names that remain are the nonbelievers, who have not nor ever will accept His sacrifice and redemption.

Besides, what would be the point in an eternal hell of suffering that no one could ever escape from or be pardoned from?

Clearly it's not going to do any good for the people who are suffering. They most certainly aren't being taught a "lesson" because its eternal. What's the point in an eternal lesson that never ends? It would be utterly pointless.

The point is punishment for those who will never accept Christ, even after they are in hell they will continue to reject Christ and blame Him for their eternal situation.
Your analogy is wrong even from a human stand point, we incarcerate those who commit crimes and are not redeemable ie. unfit for society, and they remain there till they die. Just as we are not trying to teach a lesson to these, God is not trying to teach a lesson to those who choose hell. Remember you choose hell, hell is not given to you for any other reason than you choose that eternal fate over Christ and the heaven that He promises.

Therefore the only other possible reason that this God could have devised such a wicked scheme is because he actually enjoys knowing that people are suffering eternally. Otherwise why bother doing it at all?

If it doesn't do the people who are suffering any good, and it serves God no useful purpose then what would be the point to it?

It's clearly a man-made fable intended to scare people into obeying a religious scam.

There simply can be no other explanation. No genuinely all-wise (supposedly benevolent) being could possibly have set up such an asinine and utterly useless situation.

There would certainly be nothing "perfect" about such a demonic God.

The scriptures which are of God says this, "God's will is that no man suffer hell," He knows how bad it will be for those who choose not to accept the sacrifice He made for man, man through God's love has an escape, if he will only accept it. Look at it like this, if one were to fall into a deep pit, and the only possible escape would be for someone to throw down a rope, life line, and all one needs to do is trust the person on the other end will pull them out, if the one trapped holds on all the way out of the pit. Would you refuse the rope.
I know you will probably will not try to understand this, hell does serve a (actually many) purpose, this one in particular is called justice for all.

The very fact that any human being falls for this absurd religious scam is beyond me. We've dismissed the Greek Gods as being nothing more than pure mythology for far lesser reasons.

It's really quite simple. No supposedly "perfect" God could be as screwed up as these religious myths demand.

I don't know about you, but such a God would be far beneath me in terms of compassion and love.

Even if I were to sentence some to eternal punishment and suffering whilst I was in an emotional fit of rage, it wouldn't be very long before I regained my composure and forgave them and withdrew the sentence.

You're right the Greek, Roman, and ect. gods have been dismissed because there were reasons to, we could see them, they were made of stone, wood or what ever and did nothing, absolutely nothing. On the other hand the God of creation is unseen and in the hearts of those who believe has done many great things. The nonbeliever can not see the works of an unseen God unless they were to open their hearts. This is just one reason God can not be dismissed, being unseen, for this reason and others He remains unseen until one comes to belief in Him.
God does not have fits of emotional rage when one goes to hell, and you can not prove your statement He does. On the other hand I can refer to scriptures and they show He takes no delight in any who enter hell.

To think that a supposedly "perfect and benevolent" God could sentence people to eternal suffering and punishment (and in some cases for having done nothing more than merely not believing in him) is simply ludicrous.

With all due respect it would be utterly stupid beyond any rationale.

Moreover, think about this,...

The GOOD NEWS that Jesus supposedly brought is that MOST PEOPLE are going to hell!

That's right.

Jesus is said to have taught:

Matt.7

[13] Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
[14] Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

There is one reason people will be in hell, unforgiven sin, every person has the choice to receive forgiveness, if they do not take on the choice then they will spend eternity in hell as promised. God does not necessarily send you to hell, He does of necessity give you your choice of hell. Again you will probably refuse to try and understand that God's justice is for all and this is why hell is necessary.
As for the verses you've given, Christ is telling the future, He wants people to understand that to choose Him means a life that is not going to be easy. So my friend the message Christ brought is this, you do not have to choose hell, choose the sacrifice I made for you, and receive forgiveness and enter my kingdom. A hope and promise of wonderful love.

Well if only few make it into the Kingdom of God, then clearly the vast majority of souls that this God creates are sent to this eternal hell.

This would be a loser God. A God who loses the vast majority of souls that he creates.

In other words he would be an extremely inefficient creator of souls.

That my friend would be far from being "perfect".

Face it. The religion is nothing more than an outrageous scare-tactic scam created and maintained by mortal men.

There's no way it could be about any genuine divine being. It's simply far too ignorant.

If only a few choose the Kingdom of God and the rest choose an eternal hell that is not God's fault. God sacrificed His son so that everyone who chooses so can have eternal life in His heaven.
God gives you the right to think this way, He is allowing you to choose your own path, now if it leads to eternal hell or eternal life, well that choice remains in your hands, He will never force you to choose. God is perfect, his justice is perfect and He is perfectly willing to accept you and anyone else into His kingdom as long as you believe in the sacrifice Christ made for us all, those who choose will have their names washed from those nails that held Christ to the cross.
I face the realization of the perfect God who has given us the perfect escape from an eternal hell, Jesus Christ.




[/quote]

[Abracadabra]

If you're an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good being, why even create the universe? Why not just create Heaven with all the good souls to kiss your ass forever, and just forget about making the earth, all the evil people, and this ridiculous "test" system to determine where you end up for eternity? Especially since God is supposedly planning on destroying the entire universe some day anyway. It just doesn't make sense at all. That's what a more efficient, and truly all-good god would do and not worry about all the evil people.

I know, I know, God created Hell as a place to send Satan after he rebelled, but if I was all-knowing I wouldn't have created Satan in the first place, or else made him be all good like all the other angels.

[BEGIN UTTER STUPIDITY]

Well, not only that Mr. Doubting Thomas, but according to the Christians this supposedly "All-GOOD", just and fair God is going to condemn nice people like you to that eternal hell fire and punish you just for doubting that the utterly insane male-chauvinistic Hebrews speak for this God.

Shame on YOU!

How dare you doubt that an all-wise, all-intelligent, all-powerful, all-benevolent God would curse a serpent, remove it's arms and legs, and make it crawl on it's belly for the rest of it's days and eat dirt!

How dare you question such an action as being an all-wise solution to the problem. You are clearly a very evil person who needs to be eternally punished with no chance of parole. That'll teach you to never to doubt that the writings of a culture of ancient male-chauvinist pigs is the "Word of God"!

Of course, the 'lesson' you will learn from your sentence of eternal-imprisonment and torture won't ever do you, or anyone else, any good because there's no parole board where you'll be going.

Your doubting of God's wisdom is simply too evil and dangerous to ever allow you to roam free ever again. You might be foolish enough to actually allow a woman to speak her mind!

You could be threat in this God's heaven where women are not allowed to speak out without the express written permission of their husbands.

You're just too Evil Mr. Doubting Thomas. You'll have to go to the all-consuming hell fire. Sorry.

NO DOUBTING ALLOWED IN HEAVEN!

[/END UTTER STUPIDITY]

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

But if you are open to the possibility that this higher being may actually be an intimate part of your very own consciousness, (or vice versa) then we might actually make some progress.

'May' as in 'possible'? I'm a skeptic,of course I concede the possibility. At present I'm unable to believe it to be the case.I will gladly change my mind as soon on as I see some proof.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000


As promised,I checked your claim about quantum fields being based on metaphysics.. I did so because I have only high school physics and do not claim to understand quantum physics..

I post a couple of replies I got from posting your claim on two other forums, from people who,unlike me have a bit of physics.

I thought a quantum field was a tool to describe the infinite number of possible degrees of freedom any quantum mechanical system contains, and to describe interactions within that quantum mechanical system. Saying a quantum field exists is akin to saying e=mc2 exists, it is just a tool for understanding nature, and as such is a representation. It helps us to make predictions about quantum mechanical interactions, and try to understand them. Obviously the quantum mechanical world is thought to "exist", otherwise we couldn't make observations and predictions.

The NAG is sort of correct, but not for the reasons he thinks. He's talking about two different things.

Quantum fields exist, can be measured, and can be described mathematically with great precision. They are the foundation on which physics is built.

Humans cannot conceptualize the quantum world. Our concepts are therefore rather metaphysical in nature, because that is the best we can do. It is not the quantum field which is metaphysical, it is our concepts which are (sort of).

Just because our conceptualization is somewhat metaphysical, it does not mean that quantum fields don't exist, nor does it mean that the question of the existence of a god, (an entirely metaphysical concept) is a legitimate science question.

[Abracadabra]

Your understanding of the sacrifice of Christ is not correct, man did not sacrifice Christ, God the Father did, man murdered Christ, man had no intention of sacrificing Him all they wanted was to shut Him up, He was ruining the cozy life of the priest. Only the Father could have sacrificed Christ His Son, the Father was the one who was suffering because of Christ's sacrifice, man became the beneficiary of the sacrifice God made.

I'm sorry Godschild your responses are far to absurd to waste my time on.

Of course the "sacrifice" of Christ would have been God's going. But that actually makes matters far worse!

This means that this was God's PLANNED solution to his problems.

What kind of a supposedly all-wise couldn't come up with a better plan to save humanity than to have mortal men nail his son to a pole?

In fact, if it was God's planned solution to the problem from the get-go (which it would have had to have been) then mankind didn't even have any choice in the matter. They would have no choice but to nail Jesus to the pole just as this God had planned. That would have all been determined even before Jesus was born of a virgin.

It makes absolutely no sense at all that this was "God's Plan".

Moreover, who would God have been sacrificing his son to?

What was the whole deal with blood sacrifices in the first place? They started out early in the New Testament as something men needed to do to appease God in order to atone their sins. So now we have this God appeasing himself by having men nail his son to a pole?

That's sicker than sick!

The religion is so utterly foolish that it can't be made to make sense no matter how hard you try.

Judaism and Islam are stupid enough. Christianity its beyond stupid. It's utterly insane.

It truly isn't even worth talking about as a possible candidate for the behavior of a supposedly all-wise being. It's simply far too stupid.

It makes no sense that a God would "Sacrifice His Own Son" unto himself just so he can forgive people of their sins.

To be perfectly honest with you, IMHO, this religion is so utterly stupid that the greatest mystery associated with it is the mystery of how any sentient human being can be gullible enough to believe it.

[Welsh cake]

He is allowing you to choose your own path, now if it leads to eternal hell or eternal life

You get neither child. Everyone will die without exception. Every man is equal in death. We enter oblivion. Accept it.

[Abracadabra]

But if you are open to the possibility that this higher being may actually be an intimate part of your very own consciousness, (or vice versa) then we might actually make some progress.

'May' as in 'possible'? I'm a skeptic,of course I concede the possibility. At present I'm unable to believe it to be the case.I will gladly change my mind as soon on as is see some proof.

Well, for whatever it's worth, the quote you posted above was my response to Rhythm who was actually inquiring about what it might take to consider my spiritual views.

It's not my intent to try to convince anyone of my spiritual views if they are not interested. I have absolutely nothing against people who chose to believe that all of reality is of a secular nature. That's cool with me.

What I object to is when people try to imply that I'm stupid for having any spiritual beliefs at all. Or if they try to claim that science has completely ruled out any possible spiritual essence to reality. That simply isn't true and I'm not about to stand by and allow people to misrepresent science like that even.

As promised,I checked your claim about quantum fields being based on metaphysics.. I did so because I have only high school physics and do not claim to understand quantum physics..

I post a couple of replies I got from posting your claim on two other forums, from people who,unlike me have a bit of physics.

I'm both impressed and honored that you would give my views respect enough to actually follow up on that. Thank you for that respect.

I thought a quantum field was a tool to describe the infinite number of possible degrees of freedom any quantum mechanical system contains, and to describe interactions within that quantum mechanical system. Saying a quantum field exists is akin to saying e=mc2 exists, it is just a tool for understanding nature, and as such is a representation. It helps us to make predictions about quantum mechanical interactions, and try to understand them. Obviously the quantum mechanical world is thought to "exist", otherwise we couldn't make observations and predictions.

I agree with this gentleman completely on both counts.

Yes, from a pure mathematical perspective "quantum fields" are indeed nothing more than an abstract mathematical tool. I'm in total agreement with that on a mathematical level.

However, as this gentleman also acknowledges, from the standpoint of physics, physicists really have no choice but to "believe" that these fields do have some sort of real "existence". After all, in physics we talking about actual events that come out of these fields that we can measure and observe. Thus we have compelling reasons to believe that they have some "reality" of their own.

Yet, at the very same time, these "quantum fields" are completely undetectable in and of themselves. The only reason we have for believing that they exist is because detectable particles keep popping into existence from them.

Moreover, and far more importantly, these otherwise undetectable "quantum fields" apparently have specific and precise properties that "belong" to them. In other words, we only see certain kinds of particles popping into and out of existence. This implies that these otherwise undetectable fields must "contain" information. Otherwise, they couldn't have the properties that we abstractly assign to them and observe when they are excited.

Therefore, my "conclusion" in all of this is that apparently "information" can indeed exist in "fields" which are, for all intents and purposes, totally undetectable in a physical sense when not excited (i.e. when they aren't being excited they basically have the property of being "metaphysical" fields.

Does this prove that all metaphysical ideas must then also exist?

Of course not, but IMHO, surely it's sufficient grounds to justify a belief that other metaphysical concepts may also be possible.

The NAG is sort of correct, but not for the reasons he thinks. He's talking about two different things.

Quantum fields exist, can be measured, and can be described mathematically with great precision. They are the foundation on which physics is built.

Humans cannot conceptualize the quantum world. Our concepts are therefore rather metaphysical in nature, because that is the best we can do. It is not the quantum field which is metaphysical, it is our concepts which are (sort of).

Just because our conceptualization is somewhat metaphysical, it does not mean that quantum fields don't exist, nor does it mean that the question of the existence of a god, (an entirely metaphysical concept) is a legitimate science question.

Well, this gentleman seems to take a similar stance to the last, and I have no real problem with anything that he's saying here either.

To begin I never claimed that the question of the existence of God is a legitimate science question. It may or may not be. It's kind of like String Theory in that sense. If someone can ever come up with a concept of "God" that can be observational determined via scientific experiment then it would certainly become a question of science. I'm not offering any such possible experiment or prediction that could be tested by our current scientific methods. Thus I am not even suggesting that God is a legitimate science question.

I'm sure that I had never proposed anything along those lines.

My only position is that "My own personal spiritual concepts and ideas on spirituality cannot be ruled out by current scientific inquiry" And therefore they remain within the realm of plausibility.

That's all I'm saying.

I'm not trying to "prove'" to anyone that God exists. (don't take my signature line too seriously, it's really just an artistic display of my own spiritual beliefs in the plausibility of spirituality, not meant to be ramming the idea down anyone's throat)

I fully respect secular atheists who believe that reality is entire a random chance purely secular event. That's certainly a plausible situation as well.

However, I think it's pretty ignorant of them to treat me like as if I'm a complete nut case just because I'm drawn to other plausible conclusions.

All I ask is for mutual respect. I'm not asking anyone to believe like me. I'm not claiming that some angry God will hate them if they fail to believe in him.

I'm just a person who believes that a spiritual reality is just as plausible as a secular reality. And I confess that intuitively I'm convinced that it is spiritual. Logically I can't prove it to you, or even to myself. But I have never claimed to be able to do that.

But don't try to tell me that science has fully determined that a spiritual reality has been completely ruled out as being utterly impossible and implausible.

That's simple not true. And I'm not about to stand by silently whilst people make such outrageous unscientific claims and claim that it has scientific merit. That's just not the case at all.

Science has not proven that the universe is purely secular and cannot be spiritual. That's simply not true. It's false information. being spread by secular atheists as if its some sort of scientific "fact".

That's just a false impression of what science can actually tell us at this current time. It's basically a lie to put it bluntly. Yet some secular atheists are 'teaching' people to believe it as if it's a 'scientific fact'.

And that's what I object to.

Science has not confirmed or proven that secular atheism is the only possible explanation for reality. That's simply hogwash.

[RW_9]

The problem of evil has reared its beautiful head for centuries, and christian apologists have yet to respond with sufficient replies. Some have actually tried to lay out a theological system explaining it all, which is far better than most, but it always degrades into absurdism and the nonsensical. There really is no purpose in discussing the problem of evil and omniscience until apologists can start responding with new explanations. The only way that the problem of evil, from a rational standpoint, can even come close to being handled is by those christians who do not believe in the omnipotence or omniscience of their god. It all still falls short, of course, but at least then the discussion gets interesting. All of the traditional apologetics regarding the subject have fallen short of even the simplest questions from centuries ago.

[Abracadabra]

If only a few choose the Kingdom of God and the rest choose an eternal hell that is not God's fault. God sacrificed His son so that everyone who chooses so can have eternal life in His heaven.
God gives you the right to think this way, He is allowing you to choose your own path, now if it leads to eternal hell or eternal life, well that choice remains in your hands, He will never force you to choose. God is perfect, his justice is perfect and He is perfectly willing to accept you and anyone else into His kingdom as long as you believe in the sacrifice Christ made for us all, those who choose will have their names washed from those nails that held Christ to the cross.
I face the realization of the perfect God who has given us the perfect escape from an eternal hell, Jesus Christ.

You're just offering more proof of why the religion must necessarily be false.

To simply not believe that a bunch of ancient ignorant male-chauvinistic pigs speak for an all-wise God, cannot in any possible justifiable or righteous way constitute a FREE WILL CHOICE to chose eternal damnation over a supposed eternal life in paradise.

So you've just proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that the religion can't possible be true. Because according to you (and these fables too), to not believe that Jesus was "The Christ" is sufficient grounds to be sent to hell.

Yet to not believe in these fables would not in anyway constitute a FREE WILL KNOWING CHOICE to chose eternal damnation.

Therefore, you've proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that this religion is necessarily false and can only be the superstitious ramblings of idiots.

[tackattack]

As far as your rationale; for any people to earn hell or heaven, they would have to be able to freely choose between good and evil.

I choose neither. Good and his neighbour Evil are two noisy annoying children who can't get along, while all I want is peace and quiet somewhere else alone.

Knowledge of what evil is, but choosing what is God's will would then be what earns your ticket to the pearly gates.

And what if I don't want your candy man's golden ticket to his chocolate factory? I automatically get sent to hell? That's not a choice.

I believe it is a choice, you've chosen it in your previous post. You would have absolute solitude forever than submit to an objectively absolute good God. But I digress, it isn't about the carrot, it's about the road we travel.

---

Thus evil is not necessary to allow free-will if God knows everything

.


Free will is not possible if your deity is omniscient.

While we are on free will: Christians say if we love and obey God to heaven. BUT if we do not, and break his rules we go to hell. A psychologist would call that "an approach-avoid conflict" I call it coercion.There is no real choice. What is the point of free will if those are your choices? The dichotomy is cruel.God plays with a stacked deck.

'Evil' is a moral value, not an objective reality and not absolute.

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I agree that from our perspective we use good and evil as a subjective moral value. That's because it comes from our subjective experience and perspective. If there is an absolute value for good and evil outside of the realm of personal perspective wouldn't that be valuable?

I understand that it's a grandiose claim that no one here would ever accept. But as a mental exercise, if the universe could be perceived from outside itself that would be objective correct? It would be an axiom. If that perspective had a consciousness and was morally good, wouldn't that make it the axiom of good. Unless you can share that objective perspective that would make you then less good. As a Christian, I realize I fall short of that standard and use it too better my subjective value for good. Does that make sense, I haven't really slept today?

[Welsh cake]

I believe it is a choice, you've chosen it in your previous post. You would have absolute solitude forever than submit to an objectively absolute good God.

You can bend over backwards to the bastard who wished he never created you during Noah's time. I'd rather be alone than suffer such an abusive being if it exists.

But I digress, it isn't about the carrot, it's about the road we travel.

Then you must ask yourself, is this trip really necessary?