Why isn't my belief as good as your opinion?
My opinion is based on observable evidence and established logic, and I'm not presenting anything as unquestionable in the face of alternative evidence. Your belief is based on established religion that you can't change or question.
So, why do you think it is logically inconsistent for a God who is all-powerful and all-knowing to have certain attributes such as Good, Loving, Gracious, Merciful, Just, Righteous, Forgiving, Patient, which humans also have?
It's mainly the existing outside time that is key with most of them. You said yourself that how God operates isn't understandable to us, so attributing the labels that are defined in exclusively human terms doesn't seem compatible. However you think this God operates, I'd suggest you need entirely new terms for it.
What I said is based upon my religious beliefs, it is not an assertion. It cannot be proven that humans have a soul that functions as I said.
It theoretically could be if such a thing exists and has direct physical impact on us. Again, any limitation is with our fundamental abilities.
As I said, even if we have no soul we would still have a brain which causes us to choose and act on our choices.
You seem to be switching on this. You've said that we must have a soul to be able to make moral choices but you're also saying we could make choices even if we didn't have a soul. If the distinction is meant to be the "moral" aspect, you'd need to focus on and explain that.
No, faith and reason are not contradictory, not if the faith is a reason-based faith.
No, a literal definition of faith (as a general concept, not specifically yours) is beliefs without logical reason. That doesn't mean you have
no reason at all, only that there is a gap in that reason to your definitive conclusions. We're all guilty of that kind of thing to an extent (because there is so much in day-to-day life that we can't know for certain but need to act on all the same), but religion tends to codify and solidify that.
My beliefs are not beyond the scope of logical understanding. If you think my beliefs are illogical you will have to explain why they are illogical.
Well not really. If you say you're presenting logical statements, it is on you to demonstrate that logic. I would suggest that it doesn't help you when you're starting with specific predetermined beliefs due to your religion and are thus trying to retroactively fit logic to them.
Cause-and-effect does not automatically imply predeterminism because nobody knows if the effect is established or decided in advance.
Yes, but cause-and-effect
plus an all-knowing being does. Again, if there are two random numbers being added together, the result could be any number but if someone (anyone) knows for certain what the two numbers are, there will only ever be one result of the sum. If the causes are known, the effect is also known.
Why would the way that the all the justice systems function all over the world be irrelevant to humans?
I said it's irrelevant to our discussion. The fact that we based so much on our understanding of how the universe works doesn't mean that understanding is actually correct or that it isn't a valid practical simplification of a much more complex reality.
That's true. Science can be applied to anything that can be observed in the physical reality, including the world in which we live.
However, science cannot be applied to what cannot be observed, such as God or a spiritual world.
You don't need to add the complication of "physical reality". It is simply just "that which can be observed". So why couldn't God or "a spiritual world" be observed (and note, that observation isn't necessarily limited to humans)? Aren't there loads of people who claim to have observed some element of the divine or spiritual, including some of the prophets and teachers who formed the basis of your own religion?
I said that religion describes and pertains to spiritual reality, which is what lies beyond the physical reality
Your religion does, as do several others (though mostly related ones). Not all religions do and it certainly isn't fundamental to the definition of religion. You are only really talking about your beliefs, not religion as a concept.
Religion is not a fact because it cannot be proven true, but that does not mean it is not reality.
Religion is defined as a structured set of beliefs and practices. The individual beliefs can be proven true (as much as anything can be) and they can certainly be proven false. After all, a lot of different religious beliefs are directly contradictory (occasionally ones from the same religion).
Morality does not apply to God because God is not a person and God does not have behavior.
And yet you were just saying that God could be (and I think you believe is) "
Good, Loving, Gracious, Merciful, Just, Righteous, Forgiving, Patient". How do those things not involve behaviour? This is the fundamental contradiction we're talking about here. You define your god as being this amazing being totally beyond the scope of our understanding yet
at the same time a practical ruler setting down laws and interacting with people. How can you have both at the same time?
God has complete power and control over everything, but that does not mean that God always chooses to exercise that power.
Choosing not to do something you could is still exerting control. If you steer your car in to a pedestrian, you are obviously responsible, but if your car is rolling downhill towards a pedestrian and you choose not to break or steer away, you are equally responsible.
Natural disasters, accidents, injuries, and diseases and things we do not plan and carry out, but rather they happen to us, are our fate, and God is responsible for those.
But God would have created all of the causes of those things knowing exactly how they would pan out. He could have created things in literally any other way and led to anything between subtly and significantly different outcomes. With an all-powerful and all-knowing God, literally
everything that happens did so because he knowingly made it happen. No concept of "free will" changes that, since this God would have created "free will" fully knowing what the consequences of it would be.
I don't know whether you missed it earlier, but note that I am distinguishing
practical responsibility and
moral responsibility here. I'm just saying everything happens because God made it happen, I'm not (yet) taking about any moral judgement on any of those things.
