A complex case against intelligent design

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I choose to believe that the omni-God exists.

And there is the major difference between the faith-based thinker and the reason and evidence based thinker. With faith, one can choose to believe whatever he wishes, or its polar opposite. How can that possibly be a path to truth? It's guessing.

The reason and evidence based thinker doesn't choose what he will believe. He evaluates the existing evidence and tries to extract general truths from them, whatever those might turn out to be. If one consults the universe for evidence, he finds none in support of a tri-omni god or creator. Believing that such a thing exists anyway is unjustified. And so, having no reason to believe, I don't.

without omniscience to evaluate every possible effect and ramification of those proposals, we cannot say for sure if they are improvements or not.

Disagree. Perhaps you cannot say, but most of the rest of us can. I don't need omniscience to say that world without wheels was made better by their invention.

Only those things which are not a part of the universe that exists can be proposed as possible improvements to it

Not so. We can recombine existing elements within the universe and make improvements.

We know that this is not the best-of-all-possible-worlds because we can make it better, and we don't need to be omniscient to know that we have done so. The best-of-all-possible-worlds cannot be made better.

Yes, I kind of remember correcting you on it before. I guess it didn't sink in then, either.

Correcting me? Sink in?

I rejected your faith-based position then as I do now. You have no persuasive power when your argument begins with an unshared, faith-based premise. You'll have to come up with evidence for your beliefs for them to be believed by those that require evidence for belief. People aren't interested in what others believe as much as what they know and can demonstrate.

Yes, all beliefs are taken on faith.

Perhaps by you, but others turn to other methods for determining what is true about the world.

Some beliefs are based in reason and experience, and have proven useful at predicting and at times controlling outcomes. For example, I learned when I first moved to my present location that if I walk five blocks south and three blocks west from my front door, I will arrive at the pier. That is not a belief based in faith. It can and has been tested. And it's a superior epistemology to faith. By faith, I could believe that I should go two blocks north and four blocks east to get to the pier, and end up even further from it.

Where's the faith there? These are simply brute facts derived from observing external reality,and confirmed by their efficacy in achieving their desired outcome - getting from home to the pier.

Here's my take. The measure of the truth or falsity of a proposition lies in its capacity to generate expected results. If an idea is true, it can be used in the real world to generate predictable outcomes. If it fails to do that, it is useless and should be discarded.

I'm saying that IF the omni-God exists, then there is no doubt--we are logically constrained to conclude that this IS the best of all possible universes.

I can agree with that conditional if-then statement, but it's not relevant to deciding how the world actually is. It is also the case that if no such god exists, there is no reason to believe that this is the best of all possible worlds, but that seems to have been overlooked by you. You have chosen to believe one of these and reject the other on faith, a logical error.

And we can easily decide between the two empirically. Can we make the world better? If so, we have our answer. And yes, we are quite capable of determining if our interventions are making the world better or not.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

"Fixes" that exist in the universe now or which will exist in the future are still a part of this, the best of all possible universes.

The best of all possible universes needs no fixes, since it cannot cannot be improved upon.

As we've already established, beliefs are taken on faith.

No, you have merely asserted that. I disagree - unless you are using a different definition of faith such as justified belief. My "faith" that my car will start the next time I turn it over is based in experience (evidence), and is unrelated to the unsupported, unjusitified belief that a tri-omni god exists, which as you say, is something that you have chosen to believe, and is not based in empiricism.

These are radically different ways of deciding what is true about the world, two ways whose traditions have had very different track records. Only one has produced anything useful. Faith gave us creationism, alchemy, and astrology - all sterile and useless. Scientific empiricism changed these into evolutionary science, chemistry, and astronomy, which have improved the human condition.

I believe the omni-God exists; you have faith that He does not.

This is also incorrect. I don't think by faith. I need an empirical reason before I believe. Lacking that, I don't believe.

Let's say you're watching a movie that's full of all kinds of tension and angst and it makes you feel sad and angry and uncomfortable for the first part of it, but then in the second part, things all work themselves out and everyone lives happily ever after and you walk out of the theater feeling inspired and refreshed. Did the movie "get better" halfway through, or is the movie the same movie when you went into the theater that it is when you came out of the theater?

Both. How many times have you said, "I'm giving this movie just five more minutes to get better"

Eyeglasses did not exist for a long time. At the present time they do exist.

And when eyeglasses were invented, the world got better. In the best of all possible worlds, eyeglasses would never be necessary. This is not the best of all possible worlds, which is why many strive and succeed at making it a better one.

Don't be ridiculous. Of course I care about verifiable reality. I think, therefore I am. That is the extent of verifiable reality; I exist. Beyond that, we choose what we will accept on faith.

This is a nihilistic, solipsitic position that basically says only one self-evident fact about one's own existence can be known, and the rest is guessing (faith). You claim to care about verifiable reality, but then claim that it doesn't exist apart from that single thought.

I have chosen to blindly accept (because there is no other basis for choosing) that the omni-God exists. Because I have chosen to believe that, I am logically constrained to conclude that it's not possible for there to be any flaws in the universe (humans included).

Yes, but your conclusion is no more sound than the premise it is based on, and flies in the face of the evidence.

You are, of course, free to have your own opinion, but at least try to make it a reasonable one.

I'm not the faith-based thinker here. Let's see if you can come up with a reasonable argument. So far, we just have your faith-based beliefs.

 

[rrobs]

Truth about what?




Like what? Christianity? The Christian Bible?
One of the main things about the Christian bible is that everyone has their own view of its meaning. There are no two people who see Christianity in the exact same light. Doesn't seem like a good yardstick for truth, does it?

Uh oh! We're doomed.

Actually, there is a subtle difference. Nature, by nature, i.e. QM , is fundamentally relative. The scriptures are different in that they are the truth which is absolute. Now, as usual, belief is optional in that as much as belief in anything else. So I'm just telling you what the book clearly says about itself, it says it is the truth. That is why I buy into it. That property is simply not found in nature.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

God made Adam perfect but he sinned. So his descendants are not perfect. Death has a grip on everyone now. Along with his buddy decay.

And the animals? They sinned too? Or are perfectly designed? Or were collateral damage?

 

[Bear Wild]

Uh oh! We're doomed.

Actually, there is a subtle difference. Nature, by nature, i.e. QM , is fundamentally relative. The scriptures are different in that they are the truth which is absolute. Now, as usual, belief is optional in that as much as belief in anything else. So I'm just telling you what the book clearly says about itself, it says it is the truth. That is why I buy into it. That property is simply not found in nature.

The scriptures are anything but absolute. Written by men after the events with different interpretations, based on unprovable events often altered for different agendas. Nature is consistent and ultimate. You can think because of natural processes. You ability to see, feel, hear and taste is all through natural processes. The brain operates through natural processes. The fact you chose to accept a what the book clearly says is a natural process. Everything you can learn from is within the natural world including the ability to believe in things there is no proof of. You can believe in any god or goddess you want but that does not make them the real. Everything we truly know is within the natural world.

 

[Bear Wild]

I could answer your question from a scriptural view if you want. But please don't ask unless your are sincerely looking for an answer in the scriptures as it would involve a fair amount of time for me to answer your question as well as to digest the answer on your part. If your mind is already made up I won't waste either of our time.

As if your mind is not already made up.

 

[Bear Wild]

Non-sequitur.

The existence of the omni-God does not preclude the Garden of Eden parable from being interpreted metaphorically, and a metaphorical interpretation of the Garden of Eden parable does not preclude the existence of the omni-God.

I can indeed have it both ways--and I do.

Except there is no proof for the Omni-god.

 

[Bear Wild]

While I do believe that evolution is the mechanism of creation, I think this argument fails for the same reason as the arguments that God is not benevolent because there are so many bad things in the world.

An omnibenevolent God would WANT to create the best of all possible universes. An omniscient God would know HOW to create the best of all possible universes. And an omnipotent God would have the POWER to create the best of all possible universes. Therefore, if an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God exists, then we are forced to conclude that we live in the best of all possible universes.

Anything that we think could be "better" is just a manifestation of our own profoundly limited (in time and space) perspective, as it would require something like omniscience on our own part to say definitively that the chain of events resulting from ANY change in the universe as it is would make the universe better overall.

We really don't know if the human body is as perfect as it can possibly be for this time and place or not, so assuming that it is not is an unwarranted assumption.

The human body is not perfect. It is an amazing creation of evolution but clearly not perfect. There is so much variation in humans to show there is no perfection just differences with advantages in different environments just like all life.

 

[Bear Wild]

God made Adam perfect but he sinned. So his descendants are not perfect. Death has a grip on everyone now. Along with his buddy decay.

Man made Adam perfect in a myth and used this myth to explain why we die. Adam is a teaching point not a real person.

 

[Bear Wild]

I assume this is a post to debunk God having created man. That's fine, but you should perhaps note a few details in the book of Genesis. I am not offering this as a "proof" of creation. I merely wish to give you the opportunity to see exactly what the book (scriptures) itself says on the matter. Belief, of course, is optional.

Gen 1:31 says that everything God made was "good." When we think of that word we tend to think of goodness in a moral sense, but that is not at all what the ancient Hebrew would have thought. It is the Hebrew word "tov" and a much better translation would have been "functional." Likewise when we read the word "evil" we think of a guy with horns, another moral value. The Hebrew word used for "evil" is "ra" and it is better translated as dysfunctional.

So when God first made people all was functional. Everything worked right. There would have been no disease or even death. All their food was provided by simple eating from the garden God made for them. Couldn't have gotten any better than that. God did everything just right.

All the shortcomings you mentioned happened later, namely after they disobeyed God and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, at which time it says their eyes were opened and they knew good and evil (Gen 3:1-7). Apparently before they ate of the tree their eyes were closed and they did not know good and evil, functional and dysfunctional. Exactly what their prior reality was, is hard to imagine. I believe before they ate, their source of information came from something other than the 5 sense which is how we all relate to the world. The senses can be easily tricked into thinking the wrong thing, hence things became a little functional mixed with a healthy dose of dysfunctional. Before they ate, I believe they got all their information directly from God who was always functional, but that is another story.

In any case Gen 3:18-19 says that after they ate everything went haywire. That is when all the shortcomings you mentioned came to be.

God gave man free will. He did not create robots. He was totally transparent when He told them not to eat and what would happen if they did. He told them they would surely die (Gen 2:17), hardly functional. But, having free will, they believed the devil instead of God. Gen 3:4-5 is the lie he told them. As good as they had it, they wanted more, they wanted to be like God Himself. It backfired in a major way.

Bottom line, God did not create people with all the flaws you mentioned. He created them completely functional and they made themselves dysfunctional.

Anyway, there is a little info straight from the scriptures. Given the subject matter you posted, I think it is relevant to have some understanding of what they themselves say as opposed to tradition which is where most people's knowledge of the Bible comes from.

Yes humans made themselves dysfunctional in believing in a book written by humans designed with myths then try to make into actual factual events instead of learning from the real world which actually exists. Yes that is dysfunctional.

 

[Axe Elf]

Omni-gods cannot exist within Reality as we currently understand it.

That is correct. There can be no more than one omni-God. Only one being can be all-powerful, so plural omnigods are logically excluded.

For starters? OmniMax beings 100% eliminate Free Will.

If Free Will is removed, then all the Evil we observe daily, was Designed, and Deliberate.

I'm going to limit you to one error at a time, and assume that you meant "The OmniMax being," since as you just asserted, more than one such being cannot exist within Reality as we currently understand it.

The main error you're committing here is that you seem to be presenting this information as if it was news to Xians--like some kind of "gotcha" argument you got from an Atheism 101 class. If I were you, I'd ask for my money back.

You see, any Xian who has read his Bible already understands this. The Bible is literally littered with dozens of scriptures explaining how and why God is in control of everything, how and why we don't have free will, and how and why God is responsible for everything in creation--good and evil, pleasure and pain, up and down, black and white, and so on.

Meaning this OmniMax being was/is Maliciously EVIL.

But that's unlikely, as we are Still Here-- such a capriciously Evil beast would have wiped us out long, long ago. Moreover? There is simply too much Good in the world, and Humans are making too much Progress (elimination of disease, etc) for an Evil beast to be OmniMax.

Well, you kind of found your own rejection of that conclusion, but the conclusion that most Xians reach, instead of that God is maliciously evil (and it is related to the reasons you gave), is that it's better to have a two-sided coin than no coin at all. In other words, goodness can't exist except in contrast to evil, so it's better to have good than to not have good--even if that means that we have to have evil too. It's better to have both good and evil than to not have good at all.

And once we've learned what good is (by its contrast to evil) in this one almost infinitesimally small moment of physical life, then we can understand and appreciate the complete lack of evil for the rest of eternity in the spiritual presence of God.

But hey, however we got there, at least we both agree that God cannot be maliciously evil.

Thus? No such beings as you claim, actually exist.

The only possible "god" is one of 100% indifference, or one that is seriously limited in scope.

Either one of those is still possible, given what we Know So Far.

Don't forget the omni-God; we haven't been able to rule Him out yet.

 

[Axe Elf]

So what? I can "create" even more species, using a pair of dice and a simple computer program. Big deal.

Really? Go ahead... create 950,000 species of insects--and be sure that they are all perfectly suited for their existence at this time on this planet, so that they don't overpopulate, or eat too much of the planet's vegetation to support other life, or impinge too much upon other life forms, or carry too many diseases, or well, you get the picture. Go ahead, improve on bugs. I'll wait.

Humans? Are about the worst possible design you can make-- if, as your premise desperately needs to be true, humans are allegedly the best of all possible designs.

I lied, I won't wait. I'll trust that you see the error of your claim without axually having to make the attempt.

Moving on...

Humans are no more perfect nor less perfect than anything else that exists in the universe. I don't know where you got the idea that my premise is that humans are designed better than anything else. My premise is that (good grief, am I REALLY having to say this again?) if the omni-God exists, then we are logically constrained to conclude that we live in the best of all possible universes.

Clearly, the list of (often fatal) flaws in the human species is without reasonable limit.

A first year engineering student, could improve on the "design" without much effort.

You seem completely incapable of grasping the concept that any change whatsoever in the universe as it exists will have consequences--the vast majority of which are probably not only unknown but unable to BE known to any being that is not omniscient.

It is simply not possible to assert with any certainty whatsoever that any given change to the universe as it exists will absolutely, positively result in a better universe.

One of my favorite quotes from a TV show ever came from Kristen Chenowith's character Olive in "Pushing Daisies": "Wouldn't it just rock and roll if loving someone meant that they had to love you back? But that would be a different universe, and something else would probably suck."

If you flap a butterfly's wings that weren't supposed to flap, you could create a typhoon halfway across the world that wasn't supposed to happen. That's why we have all these movies and stories about people who go back and change the past--they think for the better--only to find out that when they return to their own time, things are worse than they were to start with. We just cannot say that any change is a beneficial one in the long run.

Not only is it simple to prove? I can list any number of superior designs for Humanity, without really trying. Just for starters? Eyes-- re-engineer the lens in the eyeball for constant replacement throughout the life of the individual. Moreover? Include a feedback circuit, that corrects poorly focused images. Add in conscious control of the focus mechanism too-- the ability to override the subconscious focus mechanism.

I could list improvements for literally hours-- proving what you, in your lack of creative thinking, claim is "impossible".

And yet, here you are, persisting in your error of trying to say that some changes would absolutely, positively be beneficial. I'm not claiming that it's impossible for you to propose changes that you THINK would be beneficial; I'm explaining why it is impossible to know conclusively that those changes axually WOULD BE beneficial.

Absolutely false. For starters? An OmniMax being such as you describe? Doesn't actually exist...

You say it doesn't, I say it does, and neither of us are able to prove our claim. Fortunately enough, the existence of the omni-God is completely irrelevant to my assertion, which, as we should all know by now, goes like this:

If the omni-God exists, then we are logically constrained to conclude that we live in the best of all possible universes.

 

[Axe Elf]

And there is the major difference between the faith-based thinker and the reason and evidence based thinker. With faith, one can choose to believe whatever he wishes, or its polar opposite. How can that possibly be a path to truth? It's guessing.

The reason and evidence based thinker doesn't choose what he will believe. He evaluates the existing evidence and tries to extract general truths from them, whatever those might turn out to be. If one consults the universe for evidence, he finds none in support of a tri-omni god or creator. Believing that such a thing exists anyway is unjustified. And so, having no reason to believe, I don't.

Disagree. Perhaps you cannot say, but most of the rest of us can. I don't need omniscience to say that world without wheels was made better by their invention.

Not so. We can recombine existing elements within the universe and make improvements.

We know that this is not the best-of-all-possible-worlds because we can make it better, and we don't need to be omniscient to know that we have done so. The best-of-all-possible-worlds cannot be made better.

Correcting me? Sink in?

I rejected your faith-based position then as I do now. You have no persuasive power when your argument begins with an unshared, faith-based premise. You'll have to come up with evidence for your beliefs for them to be believed by those that require evidence for belief. People aren't interested in what others believe as much as what they know and can demonstrate.

Perhaps by you, but others turn to other methods for determining what is true about the world.

Some beliefs are based in reason and experience, and have proven useful at predicting and at times controlling outcomes. For example, I learned when I first moved to my present location that if I walk five blocks south and three blocks west from my front door, I will arrive at the pier. That is not a belief based in faith. It can and has been tested. And it's a superior epistemology to faith. By faith, I could believe that I should go two blocks north and four blocks east to get to the pier, and end up even further from it.

Where's the faith there? These are simply brute facts derived from observing external reality,and confirmed by their efficacy in achieving their desired outcome - getting from home to the pier.

Here's my take. The measure of the truth or falsity of a proposition lies in its capacity to generate expected results. If an idea is true, it can be used in the real world to generate predictable outcomes. If it fails to do that, it is useless and should be discarded.

I can agree with that conditional if-then statement, but it's not relevant to deciding how the world actually is. It is also the case that if no such god exists, there is no reason to believe that this is the best of all possible worlds, but that seems to have been overlooked by you. You have chosen to believe one of these and reject the other on faith, a logical error.

And we can easily decide between the two empirically. Can we make the world better? If so, we have our answer. And yes, we are quite capable of determining if our interventions are making the world better or not.

The best of all possible universes needs no fixes, since it cannot cannot be improved upon.

No, you have merely asserted that. I disagree - unless you are using a different definition of faith such as justified belief. My "faith" that my car will start the next time I turn it over is based in experience (evidence), and is unrelated to the unsupported, unjusitified belief that a tri-omni god exists, which as you say, is something that you have chosen to believe, and is not based in empiricism.

These are radically different ways of deciding what is true about the world, two ways whose traditions have had very different track records. Only one has produced anything useful. Faith gave us creationism, alchemy, and astrology - all sterile and useless. Scientific empiricism changed these into evolutionary science, chemistry, and astronomy, which have improved the human condition.

This is also incorrect. I don't think by faith. I need an empirical reason before I believe. Lacking that, I don't believe.

Both. How many times have you said, "I'm giving this movie just five more minutes to get better"

And when eyeglasses were invented, the world got better. In the best of all possible worlds, eyeglasses would never be necessary. This is not the best of all possible worlds, which is why many strive and succeed at making it a better one.

This is a nihilistic, solipsitic position that basically says only one self-evident fact about one's own existence can be known, and the rest is guessing (faith). You claim to care about verifiable reality, but then claim that it doesn't exist apart from that single thought.

Yes, but your conclusion is no more sound than the premise it is based on, and flies in the face of the evidence.

I'm not the faith-based thinker here. Let's see if you can come up with a reasonable argument. So far, we just have your faith-based beliefs.

I think we're done. I could continue to try to educate you on what my assertion ("if the omni-God exists, then we are logically constrained to conclude that we live in the best of all possible universes") axually means, and even some of the epistemological details that you seem to be struggling with (like how all facts are based in faith), and you could continue to flounder about with objections to concepts that are unrelated to anything I'm axually trying to get across to you--or at best are beside the point--but we've been through it so many times (not just in this thread, but in others) that I really don't see the benefit to engaging in it again.

Those who can benefit from this lesson already have, and those who have not probably never will.

Have a good one...

 

[Axe Elf]

Except there is no proof for the Omni-god.

Absolutely correct, and utterly unrelated to anything that I've said in this thread.

 

[Axe Elf]

The human body is not perfect. It is an amazing creation of evolution but clearly not perfect. There is so much variation in humans to show there is no perfection just differences with advantages in different environments just like all life.

It is precisely because of such variations (among other things), that human beings are the best that they can possibly be at this momentpoint in spacetime (just like all life--and everything else that exists).

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

That is correct. There can be no more than one omni-God. Only one being can be all-powerful, so plural omnigods are logically excluded..

Citation needed. You make an unfounded claim, and don't even try to defend it, other than "is not".

Sorry. I don't buy your "is not".

I'm going to limit you to one error at a time, and assume that you meant "The OmniMax being," since as you just asserted, more than one such being cannot exist within Reality as we currently understand it..

Citation needed. I'm not taking YOUR word for it-- you have already admitted you do not use reason as a basis for your world view. You use irrational faith. You, stating "is so" or "is not" does not constitute valid reasoning.

The main error you're committing here is that you seem to be presenting this information as if it was news to Xians--like some kind of "gotcha" argument you got from an Atheism 101 class. If I were you, I'd ask for my money back..

It is an accurate "gotcha". Your word-salad (as follows) does not eliminate the "gotcha".

This Problem Of Pure Evil God-->> any being responsible for Infinite Evil (hell) is also Infinitely Evil.

This absolutely contradicts "Omni Benevolent" claim, and also contradicts "Good" claims as well.

Thus the entire claim of Christianity is false.

You see, any Xian who has read his Bible already understands this. The Bible is literally littered with dozens of scriptures explaining how and why God is in control of everything, how and why we don't have free will, and how and why God is responsible for everything in creation--good and evil, pleasure and pain, up and down, black and white, and so on..

I have read the entire bible. Why do you think I utterly reject it as IMMORAL?

The bible's god is a malicious monster-- at best.

Which proves it doesn't exist-- there is simply too much good, too much progress towards Better World for such a beast-god to be even a little real.

Well, you kind of found your own rejection of that conclusion, but the conclusion that most Xians reach, instead of that God is maliciously evil (and it is related to the reasons you gave), is that it's better to have a two-sided coin than no coin at all. In other words, goodness can't exist except in contrast to evil, so it's better to have good than to not have good--even if that means that we have to have evil too. It's better to have both good and evil than to not have good at all..

Citation needed. You have failed-- utterly-- to even show a single argument that the bible's god is NOT an utter monster. A complete moral failure, in fact.

The BS argument that "you can't have good without evil" is beyond stupid.

I can easily imagine a society where nobody EVER gets murdered. It's a Good Place To Live. There is no requirement for the occasional murder to balance this basic goodness.

That argument is utterly without merit.

And once we've learned what good is (by its contrast to evil) in this one almost infinitesimally small moment of physical life, then we can understand and appreciate the complete lack of evil for the rest of eternity in the spiritual presence of God..

You just destroyed your earlier "we can't have good without evil" argument in one fell swoop.

If this is the BEST POSSIBLE universe? And it REQUIRES evil to balance the good? It then becomes IMPOSSIBLE for your "afterlife" to even exist in the first place!

ooops! You blew it, here.

But hey, however we got there, at least we both agree that God cannot be maliciously evil..

I agreed to no such thing: The bible's god is an absolute, malicious, capricious monster. One of the worst inventions by humans, ever.

The petty evil of Voldemort in Harry Potter pales in comparison to the malicious evil of the bible.

Don't forget the omni-God; we haven't been able to rule Him out yet.

Oh, I did that already. You just ignored my post, as is the habit of theists.

Anything bringing their FAITH into question is simply ignored.

Or worse: you cry "is not" while humming and holding your fingers deep in your ears, so as to avoid any possibility of a contrary thought.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

That is correct. There can be no more than one omni-God. Only one being can be all-powerful, so plural omnigods are logically excluded..

Citation needed. You make an unfounded claim, and don't even try to defend it, other than "is not".

Sorry. I don't buy your "is not".

I'm going to limit you to one error at a time, and assume that you meant "The OmniMax being," since as you just asserted, more than one such being cannot exist within Reality as we currently understand it..

Citation needed. I'm not taking YOUR word for it-- you have already admitted you do not use reason as a basis for your world view. You use irrational faith. You, stating "is so" or "is not" does not constitute valid reasoning.

The main error you're committing here is that you seem to be presenting this information as if it was news to Xians--like some kind of "gotcha" argument you got from an Atheism 101 class. If I were you, I'd ask for my money back..

It is an accurate "gotcha". Your word-salad (as follows) does not eliminate the "gotcha".

This Problem Of Pure Evil God-->> any being responsible for Infinite Evil (hell) is also Infinitely Evil.

This absolutely contradicts "Omni Benevolent" claim, and also contradicts "Good" claims as well.

Thus the entire claim of Christianity is false.

You see, any Xian who has read his Bible already understands this. The Bible is literally littered with dozens of scriptures explaining how and why God is in control of everything, how and why we don't have free will, and how and why God is responsible for everything in creation--good and evil, pleasure and pain, up and down, black and white, and so on..

I have read the entire bible. Why do you think I utterly reject it as IMMORAL?

The bible's god is a malicious monster-- at best.

Which proves it doesn't exist-- there is simply too much good, too much progress towards Better World for such a beast-god to be even a little real.

Well, you kind of found your own rejection of that conclusion, but the conclusion that most Xians reach, instead of that God is maliciously evil (and it is related to the reasons you gave), is that it's better to have a two-sided coin than no coin at all. In other words, goodness can't exist except in contrast to evil, so it's better to have good than to not have good--even if that means that we have to have evil too. It's better to have both good and evil than to not have good at all..

Citation needed. You have failed-- utterly-- to even show a single argument that the bible's god is NOT an utter monster. A complete moral failure, in fact.

The BS argument that "you can't have good without evil" is beyond stupid.

I can easily imagine a society where nobody EVER gets murdered. It's a Good Place To Live. There is no requirement for the occasional murder to balance this basic goodness.

That argument is utterly without merit.

And once we've learned what good is (by its contrast to evil) in this one almost infinitesimally small moment of physical life, then we can understand and appreciate the complete lack of evil for the rest of eternity in the spiritual presence of God..

You just destroyed your earlier "we can't have good without evil" argument in one fell swoop.

If this is the BEST POSSIBLE universe? And it REQUIRES evil to balance the good? It then becomes IMPOSSIBLE for your "afterlife" to even exist in the first place!

ooops! You blew it, here.

But hey, however we got there, at least we both agree that God cannot be maliciously evil..

I agreed to no such thing: The bible's god is an absolute, malicious, capricious monster. One of the worst inventions by humans, ever.

The petty evil of Voldemort in Harry Potter pales in comparison to the malicious evil of the bible.

Don't forget the omni-God; we haven't been able to rule Him out yet.

Oh, I did that already. You just ignored my post, as is the habit of theists.

Anything bringing their FAITH into question is simply ignored.

Or worse: you cry "is not" while humming and holding your fingers deep in your ears, so as to avoid any possibility of a contrary thought.

 

[Bear Wild]

Absolutely correct, and utterly unrelated to anything that I've said in this thread.

Sorry saw the quote in your post. Thought you had wrote it.

 

[Bear Wild]

It is precisely because of such variations (among other things), that human beings are the best that they can possibly be at this momentpoint in spacetime (just like all life--and everything else that exists).

Variation is the natural process of evolution not perfection. Human behavior has become destructive on the very environment that supports it thus killing of the very world that sustains human life. Is that what you see as perfection? Seems if humans were so perfect we would recognize how to treat the very world that supports us. But then again humans are not perfect. They can be better at this moment point in spacetime. But perfect is an illusion and life is not perfect.

 

[Bear Wild]

I think we're done. I could continue to try to educate you on what my assertion ("if the omni-God exists, then we are logically constrained to conclude that we live in the best of all possible universes") axually means, and even some of the epistemological details that you seem to be struggling with (like how all facts are based in faith), and you could continue to flounder about with objections to concepts that are unrelated to anything I'm axually trying to get across to you--or at best are beside the point--but we've been through it so many times (not just in this thread, but in others) that I really don't see the benefit to engaging in it again.

Those who can benefit from this lesson already have, and those who have not probably never will.

Have a good one...

What a sad attitude. You don't agree with me so you are wrong and I am tied of trying to defend what does not make sense anyway but I believe, therefor it is.