God's creation/Ignore God

[pieisgood]

I'm in a debate with a theist. Something that came up I wanted to adress here.

First, Adam and Eve. I brought up the issue of "why isn't the world perfect if there is a God?" The response I got was that we live in a fallen world. Adam and Eve chose to sin and so God cast humans into a bad world as punishment. I responded by asking why God made a race that would Sin immediatly. She said that God gave us free will, and Adam and Eve excersized it poorly. I replied by saying taht if God gave us individual free will, then why are we being punished for Adam and Eve's actions when we have free will, too? I have not recieved a reply yet. Just wanted comments on that logic. Does that mean that we really don't have free will if there's a God? How does that work?

The other thing: The robot issue. She said that we got free will, because otherwise we would just be robots. The thing is, if most Theists believe that, then why do they listen to God's word? Why would God give a race free will, then turn around and tell them what to do? It seems like the way around this is that Theists should ignore God's word whether they believe in him or not.
comments?

thanks,
-pie

[Griffey]

That whole free will thing has seriously been a thorn in my side for as long as I can remember...can't get past it...drives me freaking crazy...

I think the idea of being punished for your ancestor's mistakes or crimes is ludicrous. (OT, Working on a paper about that btw.) That would be rather like jailing someone's child for a crime their parent committed. I'm sure no one would stand for that if it happened in real life! It makes no sense, except for an extremely vengeful, cruel individual...

From what I know about Christianity I think the whole deal with "free will" and "following God" is to distinguish those who are really followers of God from those who aren't...you have to CHOOSE to be saved. It makes you somehow more virtuous (in that you had the choice to turn away from God but didn't).

STILL a thorn in my side. If everything is God's will, it certainly isn't ours, now, is it?

[Acriku]

I see what you mean pie, and I agree. It is illogical to argue that God gave us all a free will of our own, and then created the numerous amount of commandments and rules to go by to avoid eternal punishment in Hell.

[nonny]

God gave us a choice to believe in him, yet punishes us if we don't. How hypocritical huh? So i don't think God can really accept not being choosen, plus the fact that he always forgives us no matter what we do. Is that really ever going to lead to a "perfect world" there is no such ting as perfect. This is all hypothetical and just what i have observed.

[tamara]

Well just because some concepts of God don't make sense, I hope you don't throw out the baby with the bath water...

As for the story of Adam and Eve... I think it's plain that something went awry in our evolution, and the story is an echo of that. The Kabbalists think that we fell from God and are trying to get back. The Christians think that when the first humans made a mistake, all of creation unraveled... I think that we did move on in our evolution before we were ready, so to speak... we moved on to awareness and choice before we had the wisdom and goodness to carry it off.

As for the logic... there are plenty of problems with it. Not that the people who hold the beliefs much care...! For example, if God made humans fallible (which is undeniable) and then made the world in such a way that it would unravel as soon as the first error was made... well then God is responsible for the state of the fallen world, not the humans. (And I am not even getting into the who Calvinist stuff about God knowing all this beforehand!)

Then there is free will. If God wants us to have free will, then why is everything framed in "either you do A, or I will smack you"? A dysfunctional parent if I ever saw one...

Good point about the robots. Some Christians want to argue on one hand that God does not want us to be robots, yet also argue that the only free decision we should make is to believe in Jesus, and after that we should just shuffle our feet and say, massa, whatever you say, yes, massa. No more free will, just obedience.

Besides, the bible says that children are not to be punished for their father's sins. It's somewhere in the prophets. Good quote to use.

If everything is God's will, it certainly isn't ours, now, is it?

Well, some cagy types will argue that while God knows all that will happen, humans are still free to decide. Kinda like this: you fly into the future, and while you are in tomorrow, you see your neighbor at 11 am cut a tree. You return to today, and while you know exactly what will happen tomorrow at 11, your knowledge does not in any way take away from your neighbor's free will to cut or not to cut.

[pieisgood]

Thanks, good responses everybody.

Tamara: The last paragraph about the neighbor cutting down a tree isn't quiiiite accurate. If you were to see the neighbor do that, then I suppose the logic works. But the thing is, if you were to look ahead in time to a neighbor you created, then wouldn't you just change the neighbor's mindset into the same neighbor with better intentions?

Other then that, I agree with pretty much everything else people have said.

-pie

[Supremor]

hate to sound like i'm supporting the theists here, but Pie, your representation of free will. Either your theist friend didn't properly understand the argument of free will(called the free will defence or FWD), or you misunderstood him.

The FWD, relies on the idea that in order to achieve perfection, it is neccessary for us to have free will. Without free will, we are unable to make a 'good' decision, since every decision would be right, there wold be no need to have a wrong decision and so all decisions would be 'good' and the term 'good' would lose all meaning.

Other points include, the fact that although belief in heaven and hell was integral to the early bible, very few christians actually believe that they exist, or that evil is caused by one's ancestors doing.

You are all right in saying that Pie's friend's statement is deeply hypcritical, but this lies more in the wording of his statement, than the actual concept of free will. It has been shown many a time that it is extremely difficult to defeat the FWD, and this is partly because the argument uses logic very well. However, if you read Kant, then you will see that the real problems with the argument lie, not in the logic or premises. But in the way the logic is used to produce a certain end.

That's my devil's-advocate bit done for the week then!

[Yaw]

I'm going to sort of end up on Supremor's side here. The most important thing to remember is that the bible is myth rather than fact. This means that the stories are interpretable in many different ways (what would be called "Midrash" in Judaism), and are meant to be interpreted in this way.

As pieisgood said, the Garden of Eden story makes little sense from a literal perspective. From a metaphoric perspective, it can perhaps be applied as an allegory -- like Adam and Eve we are born innocent, but when we obtain knowledge (the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge) we lose our innocence (leaving the garden) permanently, and earn new responsibilities for ourselves. This kind of subtlety seems to be encouraged in Judaism, and isn't very pronounced in Christianity. To continue, Lurianic Kabbalah postulates that the universe was created as the result of rebuilding a structural error in converting energy to matter. R. Issac Luria stated that the original process shattered, allowing evil to enter the world. Then the process was rebuilt differently -- and as a result of evil's existence could be built in such a way as to be successful. Having good and evil means that free will exists to choose between the two. This interpretation seems to invert the robot question -- good and evil are seen to exist as a condition for existence in general, hence God can be seen as offering moral guidance, as opposed to telling people what to do. (There are also interpretations in Judaism that allow for a growing, imperfect-but-learning God.)

Supremor

Other points include, the fact that although belief in heaven and hell was integral to the early bible, very few christians actually believe that they exist, or that evil is caused by one's ancestors doing.

Actually, it wasn't. The original Jewish interpretation of "afterlife" is either a holding place for everyone followed by resurrection for those who were good in the "World to Come", or reincarnation (depending on the source). Heaven and Hell seem to be concepts grafted on later; I have seen arguments that the references to them in the Christian bible are mistranslations of what is actually there to reflect later beliefs. Heaven and Hell seem to have migrated over from Zoroastrianism, probably through the Manichean sect (of which St. Augustine was a disciple in his early years).

At any rate, this probably doesn't help pieisgood out too much. The person he is debating seems insistent on literalism. If someone really thinks the menu paper tastes good, you probably won't be able to convince them that the dishes referred to in the menu are worth ordering.

[kronus]

If you are given a choice you still have free will in making your decision. God is not telling us what to do just what will happen if we don't do what he says.
It is impossible to love in such a situation. You would indeed be a robot without any true feelings. You cannot love out of fear. The whole thing seems unworkable to me.

[pieisgood]

The whole "Adam and Eve" thing is just what got me thinking about it. But, like Kronus said, If God gave you free will so what you do is unpredictable, then why does he want you to do a certain something? He could work that part into his creation and have the rest that He doesn't care about be free will, like whether you want bologna or ham on your sandwich.

The FWD: This claims you need imperfection to have perfection. So why does imperfection have to rest in humans? Perhaps they could have created some imperfect non-human animals that would make humans perfect, if we really are God's favorite species.

-pie

[dragonfly]

Christianity has many flaws of logic as do many religions primarily because human beings are not perfect, we are individual and express our understanding from our own viewpoint therefore even holy inspiration(if it exists) is distorted or corrupted.

When I was a small child (about 8 years old) my morning news at school (show and tell) was that my uncle had a trout farm. By the end of the day I had kids running up to me begging me to show them where my dad kept his crocodiles!....If this simple information could be so altered in the space of several hours in a small community imagine how distorted more complex communications would become over centuries and through enormous populations?

(It is worth keeping in mind that theism does not automatically mean Christian )

[kronus]

God wants you to chose to love him. All else is what he wants you to do to satify his nature. With the information given, I don't see how anyone can chose to love God.
I missed the meaning of the FWD. What does it pertain to? Why do you have to be perfect to have free will?

[Mistwalker]

Ask them if they believe god knows our future actions. If they says yes, then they have made a logical contradiction. If god knows what we will do, we only have one course of action with no other possibilities.

[livinitup]

wow a very intersting set of posts, i would like to just point out a few things about a few that i felt were wrong:

tamara

Besides, the bible says that children are not to be punished for their father's sins. It's somewhere in the prophets. Good quote to use.

That is quite wrong, infact it says you can be punished for up to, i think, 4 generations after ward. I dont have time to find the verse now but i will later on.

YAW
The most important thing to remember is that the bible is myth rather than fact.

This is historically in accurate. Wether or not you believe the bible for its spiritual influence does not matter. However historically it matches up with historians of the time...for instance Josephous. (He was a jewish historian who lived around 100 AD, no he did not believe in Jesus however provides good insight into a part of his life, as well as showing historical correctness to the bible.

DRAGONFLY

When I was a small child (about 8 years old) my morning news at school (show and tell) was that my uncle had a trout farm. By the end of the day I had kids running up to me begging me to show them where my dad kept his crocodiles!....If this simple information could be so altered in the space of several hours in a small community imagine how distorted more complex communications would become over centuries and through enormous populations?

Wow good story, however there are several important things to look at here. First the 8 years old, now between scribes and 8 year olds hummm which do you think would be more accurate? The problem with the 8 year old is they are gonna do what ever they can to make themselves look cool, "hey my friend Jimmy has a bunch of 8 foot long butterflys that he allows only me to see because im his friend..." kids are gonna make stuff up. Now as far as the scribes, yes it was a long time between then and now, however you must not forget the bible just did not come out as the bible, the books inside were written and collected at different times. None of the people that wrote them thought oh wow im gonna put this into a larger book (the bible) and become famous. As far as it getting copied down and reprinted. The scribes job was to accurately copy stuff, not to mention story telling was a large part of the community back then. If a story teller got something wrong it was not uncommon for the community to correct him.

My suggestion is this go pick up the book "The Case for Christ" read it, the author Lee Strobel was an atheist when he first started out to disprove Christianity, He asks all kinds of questions to different historians and philosophers who are deeply accredited and acknoledged in their fields, Their views are widly accepted. Read it and in the least it will give you a better arguement so you dont sound dumb when you start a debate with a theist. well as far as Christianity goes.

Thats all

[nonny]

livinitup said:

This is historically in accurate. Wether or not you believe the bible for its spiritual influence does not matter. However historically it matches up with historians of the time...for instance Josephous. (He was a jewish historian who lived around 100 AD, no he did not believe in Jesus however provides good insight into a part of his life, as well as showing historical correctness to the bible.

Actually that is untrue. MY dad just so happens to be a historian and the bible has never been historically accurate. A prime example would be how the protrade the crusifiction it was complately against what they actually did. Only thiest historians care more about prooving the bible right then they do about looking at it with an un-baised opinion. So sorry but I know for a fact it is not historically accurate.