Plantinga's "Free Will" defense contradicts Christianity

[John 6IX Breezy]

I never told the forum the flood wasn't because of sin. That's an overgeneralization made by Ranjr.

[The Grand Nudger]

LOL< okay.

It's always been hilarious to me how often the lot of you christian apologists talk shit about each others beliefs in the context of some atheist repeating them amongst you - and then pretend that you don't disagree and consider each other damned heretics.

Between three christians. Yourself, Comfort, and Platinga, we have at least four opinions. It makes absolutely no sense for any of you to bitch about what atheists are saying or asking as though it weren't an internal dispute between christians who seek to externalize their own conflicts as others misunderstandings.

We don't misunderstand you, and none of these things are our own position on some silly god (we don't even believe in your silly god). You have poorly developed beliefs that stand in contrast and contradiction to each others. We get our information..from you.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Christians are allowed to disagree with each other. Currently, however, I only disagree Ranjr.

[The Grand Nudger]

We have a christian who took issue with something that -you- said..but both of you are cravenly dumping your own sectarian disagreement on someone else.

You can either confront the disagreements, that you're allowed to have..or you can continue with this nonsense. Itself, a meta-display of exactly the dynamic referenced in the thread title. Does Platingas free will defense contradict christianity? For every christian that's responded so far..yes, Platingas defense contradicts their christianity. Does your view of natural and moral evil contradict Comforts view of natural and moral evil? Yes. Just as both of your views on natural and moral evil , in contradiction with each other, are in contradiction to Platinga's.

Shoot the messenger all you like, your beliefs are still in contradiction.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Given there's no contradiction between what I said and the flood, I only disagree with Ranjr.

[Ranjr]

5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
7 So the LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground ..."  RSV

But you say " not because of sin". Now you could have looked this up yourself and easily discovered you are wrong.. Why would someone not bother to do that? Would I be far off in suggesting that getting your facts right is far less important then sending yet another smug and sarcastic post? Makes you feel good about yourself doesn't it.?

Thanks for making my point.  With a smug scolding no less.  Well done.

---

Remember when god made that perfect place on earth for the first two people?  That was ossum.  He gave them a choice to see if they were worthy, as if he didn't already know what choice they would make.  It's like giving an 8 year old a wiffle bat and saying, "now don't hit your brother with this."

[The Grand Nudger]

In platingas formulation, a persons ability to choose to hit someone with a bat is more important than that other guy not getting hit with a bat. Similarly, in mere reality, it was more important for god to prevent me from jumping to the moon than it was to prevent me from skullfucking my neighbor. God may know that person a is going to crush person b's skull with a real bat, but it would be even worse if god didn't give person a the bat and the choice to use it.

We live in a soul forge, and god is trying to burn out transworld depravity. Person b's skull is a necessary casualty of person a's soul-improvement. The insistence being that there is no other possible way to actualize this desired state of affairs. God is not capable of fixing this, even if..were he capable, he would have a moral duty to do so.

It's really no different than the way that we ameliorate responsibility when a person fails to prevent some bad thing. If you could help, and you don't..you're a dick. If you can't help, not helping doesn't make you a dick.

[ColdComfort]

I think you answered it yourself.

And indeed, that's why we still have prominent Christian voices blaming gays, atheists, non-Christians on earthquakes, floods, fires, and whatnot.

I think most people would understand the verses to be saying two things. The first is don't think calamities fall on people because they're sinners (and that none have fallen on you because you're a saint). The second is to not assume that because this is the case that sin will go unpunished, so repent. In short, bad things happen to good people, and that's not an excuse to be bad.

5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
7 So the LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground ..."  RSV

But you say " not because of sin". Now you could have looked this up yourself and easily discovered you are wrong.. Why would someone not bother to do that? Would I be far off in suggesting that getting your facts right is far less important then sending yet another smug and sarcastic post? Makes you feel good about yourself doesn't it.?

Thanks for making my point.  With a smug scolding no less.  Well done.

Sorry. But you don't have a point. Not in this post anyway. You said God flooded the world for fun and not for the sins of humanity. That is wrong. Plain and simply wrong. 

---

Remember when god made that perfect place on earth for the first two people?  That was ossum.  He gave them a choice to see if they were worthy, as if he didn't already know what choice they would make.  It's like giving an 8 year old a wiffle bat and saying, "now don't hit your brother with this."

[The Grand Nudger]

Platingas formulation runs into problems with this notion as well, though it's not his focus. If the world that god destroyed was, as he insists it must be, the best possible world, then god would have committed a grave act of moral failure in destroying it.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

---

Remember when god made that perfect place on earth for the first two people?  That was ossum.  He gave them a choice to see if they were worthy, as if he didn't already know what choice they would make.  It's like giving an 8 year old a wiffle bat and saying, "now don't hit your brother with this."

It’d be more like saying ‘now don’t hit your brother with this’ but saying it in Mandarin. Since Adam and Eve could not possibly have known that disobeying God was wrong until they ate the fruit that gave them that knowledge, the injunction would have been so much gibberish.

It wasn’t so much ‘original sin’ as it was ‘original set up.’ The entire Christian notions of grace, free will, and predestination are based on a confidence trick.


Boru