Religion

[Nice]

@Dogfood (and at everyone else interested)

You chose the third possibility (see the quote by Epicurus above) and tried to explain why evil exists. In your answer you mentioned free will.

Able and willing, evil comes from our own free will because if God was to smite OR restrict everything that is not "good" then what would we be? machines that could not do anything unless the guy up there moves the strings or "pushes the button".

I will prove that free will and God being omniscient (all-knowing) are contradictory.

1. A being with free will, given two options A and B, can freely choose between A and B.
   
2. God is omniscient (all-knowing).
   
3. God knows I will choose A.
   
4. God cannot be wrong, since an omniscient being cannot have false knowledge.
   
5. From 3 and 4, I will choose A and cannot choose B
   
6. Therefore I do not choose freely. Free will is an illusion.
   

Contradiction!

Therefore omniscience and free will cannot co-exist.

But God does not dictate which option the person will choose, he just knows what decision that person will make.

A very plain example:

Dogs have free will, yes? Sounds a bit silly but a dog without its master will choose on its own on how to behave. Now imagine there's a hungry stray dog, if someone was to put a delicious, juicy piece of meat near the dog, is the dog not going to come and eat it? I know what the dog is going to do, it's obvious, it's how the dogs behave.

maybe a bit silly example but what I'm trying to say is according to my definitions -- Free will means that someone does whatever he pleases and reacts to a situation however he chooses to.

But despite that, we are very predictable to the point that just a regular human might know what someone will choose/react/do. I dont know the english expression because i'm foreign but I watched a show on discovery about someone that studies human behaviour (dont know how people like him are called) But anyways, he managed to figure out what colour someone might pick, what number yet he is no God.

and getting back to your example:

God knows that you will choose A instead of B because:

He has knowledge about how your brain works, about everything you did in the past and just plainly said - He knows you like his own pocket so therefore he knows your reaction just as I know how the dog will react to that meat.


EDIT:

Aldigi
1. I do not follow creationism, trust me, the christianity you have there in America *cough* westboro baptist church *cough* and the likes are being laughed at by any decent christian that can be found in America and by just whole Europe in general.


1 You didnt provide a single contradiction. Bible is not the book of rules, it's a guideline. He designed us to suffer? Suffering is a side effect of breaking the things that bible recommends to you. Lets see what the bible says: Respect your friends, family so that you may live long, dont steal, dont kill, dont hurt anyone, be forgiving and dont give in to greed. If everyone followed those "guides" would there be some sort of suffering? Think about it.

2. If you'd really hate to spend your eternity living under some "authoritian guy" well that's exactly what Hell is for. Before you call me cruel and start throwing stones at me, move back and check my previous post of definition of hell. It's a place of emptiness and no God so that even those that dont want anything to do with him get to be happy in the end. Who says that you must spend all the time praising him? you're completely over exaggarating, it is RECOMMENDED that you visit the church atleast once a week, a church which is 40 minutes long...Yes.. Truly your whole life thrown away.

3. again "We only exist to praise and worship god, because he compulsively needs praise." who on earth told you that? God is not called merciful for the reason you provided, he's called merciful because he decided to "forgive" everyone when Jesus was crucified. You're quoting old testament my friend, ask a Jew about that matter. Catholics dont follow whatever teaching is there.

aaand once again, those "nasty" people will be tortured in just 1 way and that is to live in an empty, godless place.

Stahp listening to westboro