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One atheist’s idea on how to prevent evil

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Many people don't live their life by the advice, teachings, rules of their own grandparents or parents. Why should they live their life by what those that existed 1000's of years ago thought?
I don't think they should... That is why I am a Baha'i.
What Baha'u'llah revealed in the 19th century is suited to the modern age we live in.
 

We Never Know

No Slack
You are letting them choose either or, not giving them a choice to choose what you know they will. You'd have to remove the hamburgers as an option, and tell them, without any options present, they are free to choose steak because you know that's what they'll choose.

How's does a god only give one choice? To my knowledge you can choose to believe or not believe. IOW words choose the steak or hamburger.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
If god knows what we'll choose, then we aren't making a choice. We can only act in a way that god knows we will.
No, that is not true.
What God knows is entirely separate from what we choose.
Just because God knows what we will choose in no way means that God causes us to choose it.

Yes, we have to do what God knows we will do simply because what God knows we will do is identical with what we will do. But there is no causation between what we do and what God knows we will do.
 

LightofTruth

Well-Known Member
That is essentially what I believe.

Question.—In verse 22 of chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians it is written: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” What is the meaning of these words?
Answer.—Know that there are two natures in man: the physical nature and the spiritual nature. The physical nature is inherited from Adam, and the spiritual nature is inherited from the Reality of the Word of God, which is the spirituality of Christ. The physical nature is born of Adam, but the spiritual nature is born from the bounty of the Holy Spirit. The first is the source of all imperfection; the second is the source of all perfection.

The Christ sacrificed Himself so that men might be freed from the imperfections of the physical nature and might become possessed of the virtues of the spiritual nature. This spiritual nature, which came into existence through the bounty of the Divine Reality, is the union of all perfections and appears through the breath of the Holy Spirit. It is the divine perfections; it is light, spirituality, guidance, exaltation, high aspiration, justice, love, grace, kindness to all, philanthropy, the essence of life. It is the reflection of the splendor of the Sun of R
eality.
Some Answered Questions, p. 118
I would disagree that man has two natures. Adam's sin has condemned all to the grave. Only those IN Christ can be set free from death.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Ah. So you choose to follow a new system. How is it better or truer in your opinion?
Here is a quote explaining why the Baha'i Faith more suitable for this new age than the older religions. There are many more quotes like this.

God is the All-Knowing Physician.

“The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.

We can well perceive how the whole human race is encompassed with great, with incalculable afflictions. We see it languishing on its bed of sickness, sore-tried and disillusioned. They that are intoxicated by self-conceit have interposed themselves between it and the Divine and infallible Physician. Witness how they have entangled all men, themselves included, in the mesh of their devices. They can neither discover the cause of the disease, nor have they any knowledge of the remedy. They have conceived the straight to be crooked, and have imagined their friend an enemy.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 213
 

We Never Know

No Slack
Here is a quote explaining why the Baha'i Faith more suitable for this new age than the older religions. There are many more quotes like this.

God is the All-Knowing Physician.

“The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.

We can well perceive how the whole human race is encompassed with great, with incalculable afflictions. We see it languishing on its bed of sickness, sore-tried and disillusioned. They that are intoxicated by self-conceit have interposed themselves between it and the Divine and infallible Physician. Witness how they have entangled all men, themselves included, in the mesh of their devices. They can neither discover the cause of the disease, nor have they any knowledge of the remedy. They have conceived the straight to be crooked, and have imagined their friend an enemy.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 213

Didn't a god create the diseases, the afflictions, the sickness, the delusions? IOW didn't a god create all that is bad and evil?
 

We Never Know

No Slack
You are letting them choose either or, not giving them a choice to choose what you know they will. You'd have to remove the hamburgers as an option, and tell them, without any options present, they are free to choose steak because you know that's what they'll choose.

Per a god, you are given the choice to believe or not believe. Even if he knows the choice you will make, you have different choices instead of being forced with only one choice.
That's the way I understand it.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
I would disagree that man has two natures. Adam's sin has condemned all to the grave. Only those IN Christ can be set free from death.
That is essentially what that quote was saying. Only those IN Christ can we be set free from death.
Do you mean set free from spiritual death?
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Do you mean God would have made us all good with no ability to do anything bad?
In that case we would just be robots with no free will to choose.
While i find this discussion a wee bit silly on the part of the atheist in your OP, you have nonetheless made a mistake here. Substitute in another choice which is impossible to choose to see the mistake:

"Did you mean God would have made us with no ability to choose to grow wings?Then we would just be robots with no freewill to choose."

Put simply, because our choices are limited does not mean we lack freewill.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Free will is already illusory with an omnipotent, omnipresent god. Because you cannot choose against the absolute knowledge of your path your creator (intentionally or unintentionally) set you upon. What you were going to 'choose' was already determined long before you existed. You are simply going through the motions pre-ordained.
I would argue that it is omniscience that contradicts freewill. But your point was there nonetheless.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
No, that is not true. God had not preordained everything that will happen in our lives. Some things are pre-ordained but we cannot know what those are so there is no point thinking about that.

Just because God is omniscient and knows what we will choose does not mean God causes us to choose. We create our own destiny by our free will choices and actions that follow. Free will has constraints but we are still free to make choices.

The alternative to free will is that we are pawns in God's game. God does not want pawns, that is why He gave us free will.
If god knows everything before it happens, EVERYTHING must be pre-ordained. To say something isn't would be the same as saying god doesn't know something, which would contradict the omniscience. If there are no behaviors or thoughts you can have without god knowing you will have them long before your born, then there are no real choices you can make. They were already made. Regardless of what some people say god wants, it still makes no sense that free will exists with omniscience.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Didn't a god create the diseases, the afflictions, the sickness, the delusions? IOW didn't a god create all that is bad and evil?
Those things are not evil, they are just part of the material world.
Evil is the moral choices people make and the actions that ensue from them.
 
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