(August 13, 2010 at 6:10 pm)Captain Scarlet Wrote: (August 13, 2010 at 5:45 pm)chasm Wrote: He doesn't exist. End of story.
I agree chasm, but not everyone does and this forum helps us debate reasons for unbelief. We cannot dismiss gods without giving our reasoning a bit of rigour.
Well, we can so long as we know of no convincing evidence for God's existence.
I know of no evidence for God's existence, that's enough for me to disbelieve.
If, I can't think of any arguments to argue against "God gave you free will" or any other similar bullshit argument that assumes God's existence in the first place: that still doesn't make my disbelief unreasonable at all. Because these arguments are about God not for God: They assume his existence in the first place. So I don't need to refute them to reasonably disbelieve.
I'm not saying I can't offer an argument though.
God supposedly gave people free will, so this supposedly excuses the horrible stuff that goes on, because we supposedly are to blame being rebellious.
Now, first of all I've read that if the Genesis story is not to be taken literally, then this means there was no Adam and Eve, they're just a metaphor, so Original Sin just means that it is in human nature to be "bad" so we need to ask Jesus for forgiveness who died for us, so we can be "good".
Ok, so if you define moral as "Those who have accepted Jesus" then sure, that's moral - by definition I mean. But I certainly myself don't think that's moral. What the fuck is moral about accepting someone else to be responsible for you if you're a fully grown mature adult without a learning disorder that should be able to make their own decisions?
Anyway, let's accept the absurd premise that if we accept Jesus we are therefore good. Belief isn't a matter of policy with or without Free Will anyway..... not all things can be voluntary with or without free will of course, there are still many involuntary things, we already know this. So since this is the case, even with Free Will it's not anyone's fault for disbelieving in God, because it's not down to a matter of choice, it's down to being unconvinced (unconvinced by the bullshit concept(s) that is "God" most likely). So the part that really matters isn't voluntary anyway even with Free Will.
After all, our actions are at least often motivated by our beliefs too... and since beliefs aren't chosen freely then that gives even less freedom on matters like this, those who "Accept Jesus" are then motivated in some way by their (un-"chosen") belief if they truly believe it. They can try to keep it to themselves but it will still affect them in some way however small, at least internally surely.
And anyway, you've got to define "Free Will" first. If we define "Free will" is that if anyone makes an action they "Could have done otherwise" at that exact same moment and God people gave people this, well, if we assume this is true (for sake of argument) then sure, everyone has Free Will, including those who don't accept "God". Now as I said, some things are still involuntary as we already know that is the case with or without Free Will. But now let's make another big absurd assumption anyway: Let's assume that people have Free Will in the matter of whether to accept Jesus or not.
So now, somehow it would still be down to the people to accept God or not. The thing is, this still doesn't excuse the fact that God either can't be bothered/is incapable of helping matters or really demonstrating his existence to us with that supposedly genius omniscient brain of his or he's too much of an asshole to offer any help despite it costs him nothing....
But yes, going back as I said, this is all assuming that it is somehow "Moral" to "accept Jesus" or "God". So the main point to me is with or without Free Will, and with or without Free Will to accept God, there's nothing wrong with not accepting God. I personally have my morals set higher than throwing my moral responsibility itself away to a higher being that I know of no evidence for the existence of whatsoever.
