Evolutionism vs creationism

[Silfir]

God designed us and is therefore responsible for our actions in a way that your parents are not.

No. Part of what he did when he "designed us" (read: set the events into motion that would eventually lead to our existence) was he gave us free will. That means we are responsible for our own actions, in this existence.

I am tempted to say: stop making assumptions about heaven.

Good thing you didn't, because fazisi isn't making any. He's stating what he believes. The person who seemed to be fully convinced there must be free will in heaven wasn't fazisi.

Ok, so you believe that it's possible for people in heaven to have a free will but for all eternity consistently choose not to sin. If such people exist, then why didn't God create only such people and put them in heaven?

Because he thought the other way was more interesting? Where would the fun be in creating "perfect" beings? For all we know he did that for billions of years before he decided to set the big bang into motion or whatever he did. For all we know, we know nothing.

I find it hard to swallow that an omnipotent being designs creatures with a free will and then is surprised when it turns out they make the "wrong" choices.

Where does it say he is surprised?



As for the issue of gender: I reserve a special kind of loathing for gender-neutral pronouns such as "zhe" and "hir", and writing "he or she" every single time makes the whole thing even more unwieldy than it needs to be. So I go for "he".

[JellySlayer]

Because he thought the other way was more interesting? Where would the fun be in creating "perfect" beings? For all we know he did that for billions of years before he decided to set the big bang into motion or whatever he did. For all we know, we know nothing.

I guess this kind of gets to the heart of the matter:

If we have no reliable knowledge of who God is or what His motivations for creating us are,
If we have no reliable knowledge of whether or not there are a heaven or a hell, how to get there, and whether it is worth going to either,
If we have no reliable knowledge to suggest that any god, let alone this particular God even exists...

Then why should we believe in Him? Why should we believe He exists? Why should we act in ways that might please Him, rather than in ways that will please ourselves, or please others that we care about? Wouldn't it be more sensible to adopt a posture of disbelief in lieu of better evidence?

[Silfir]

Why indeed! Welcome to agnostic atheism.

[JellySlayer]

Why indeed! Welcome to agnostic atheism.

There's something profoundly amusing about a group of atheists arguing over the existence of God, even occasionally using scripture as a resource

[garyd]

Wrong. in order for man to rebel against God the temptaion to do so must exist heaven is without temptation.

I've yet to understand why atheists among others almost always seem to make the erroneous assumption that heaven, hell, and earth are of necessity operating under the same physical laws whem in fact various textual clues within the Bible pretty much preclude the possibility.

How is it inconvenient for babies and those who die a little less young, grobble? Salvation in any case isn't a function of what you or I do but of whether God, for his own purposes, wrote your name in the book og life before he ever said let there be light. There are from a salvation point of vies two and only two classes of people in the world:

Those whom God created to demonstrate his justice and those whom God created to demonstrate his mercy.

[Epythic]

JellySlayer, your logic falls apart when people claim that they "just know god exists" (or alternatively that "the sciences" inability to disprove the existence of god is proof enough that he exists). You can't really argue with them because they are immune to logic.

Oh and from the Simpsons:

Bart: Wow, cool, God is so in your face!
Homer: Yeah, He's my favorite fictional character.

[grobblewobble]

How is it inconvenient for babies and those who die a little less young, grobble? Salvation in any case isn't a function of what you or I do but of whether God, for his own purposes, wrote your name in the book og life before he ever said let there be light. There are from a salvation point of vies two and only two classes of people in the world:

Those whom God created to demonstrate his justice and those whom God created to demonstrate his mercy.

So whether you end up in heaven or in hell is not even based on what you do? God created some people with the purpose of showing his "justice" by torturing them "for his own purposes"?

If you sincerely believe that I am lost for words, sorry. I think I'll side with the devil if you are right. Or the catwoman.

[gut]

> Why should we believe He exists?

we here

[fazisi]

Ok, so you believe that it's possible for people in heaven to have a free will but for all eternity consistently choose not to sin. If such people exist, then why didn't God create only such people and put them in heaven?

I believe human kind will return to our natural state of action as Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden before they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We will still have this knowledge from our time spent on earth but we will be reunited with God in a way that we never have been since gaining this knowledge. When we are back in the presence of God in this way, we will naturally act--freely choose--in ways that are good.

I've yet to understand why atheists among others almost always seem to make the erroneous assumption that heaven, hell, and earth are of necessity operating under the same physical laws whem in fact various textual clues within the Bible pretty much preclude the possibility.

Because the human mind only operates in an act of comparison. Most basic of this is the comparison of actual things, concepts, ideas, actions, or whatever to symbols or words. If the human mind cannot comprehend heaven, hell or earth, it just draws the closest assumption possible that it can rationalize. This isn't a fault of atheists alone but arguably the source of all human religion.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Done making assumptions about heaven yet?

He's not making assumptions about heaven, he's making an exhaustive case analysis. "Heaven is either A or not A. If it is A, then so-and-so. If it is not A, then it can be B or not B. If it is B..." In my opinion his reasoning is sound.

So humans started doing evil things and God was a little upset.

Why? He is supposed to be omniscient, so He already knew they would do that. So why be upset then?

In fact, omniscience negates free will. If there is an omniscient being who knows that I'm going to move my right arm in ten seconds, then I don't have much choice about moving my arm or not, right?

So I think it is contradictory to defend at the same time that God is omniscient and that God gave us free will, like most Christianity does.

Now, God is a good person so instead of just locking the door to his awesome pad (heaven), he sent out his son Jesus to give people a chance to get into it. I would presume letting his kid get killed by his own creation in an attempt "to avoid having to throw his own creations into hell" would be considered "trying very hard".

Then why did He send Jesus only to a particular place on Earth where He would influence a small part of humanity? Didn't the Chinese deserve to get that chance to go to Heaven just like the Romans? How about the Africans, the pre-Columbian Americans, etc.?

If God is omnipotent, one would think that the fair thing to do would be sending messengers everywhere to give everyone a fair chance. Even today, people born in many parts of the world don't have access to the Christian doctrine at all, while other people do, that seems quite unfair.