The Problem of Evil

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
81

[quote]pat36 wrote:
The problem evangelical christians have is that they think that creationism and evolution are mutually exclusive and they are not. Why is it imposible to believe that evolution exists and God made it that way? Or God created man as a part of the evolutionary structure? The evidence for evolution is strong, to discount it is obsurd. I am assuming these normally smart people are fitting creationism stories in with flawed logic is because they want to get to heaven and thier pastors told them they had to or they will got to hell.These people would also likely argue that Jesus turned water into grape juice.
The other thing many people haven’t figured out is that the bible is not a book of fact, it is a book of truth. It’s philosophy book. It does not require that everything in bible actually happened. It for illustrating truth. If facts support the truth, it is used, if not, a good story or parable will do the trick. The Old Testament in is way to problomatic. I do not see a way for those facts to be varifiable, but the lessons learned are good lessons.[/quote]

The evidence for evolution is not strong and is in fact flawed. How do you explain that when Mt. St. Helen’s erupted there were rock structures formed that were described as millions of years old by scientists who did not know where they came from, and who had no explaination when confronted with the truth of their origin.

Again, don’t just believe the hype by the secular humanists who are infiltrating all of our education systems. Just because you say something is true doesn’t mean it is. Even Darwin doubted evolution at the end of his life.

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[quote]Grey Area wrote:
rocksolid: answersingenesis.com is possibly the worst example I can think of to convince people that creationism is true and evolution doesn’t occur. Sites such as that completely misunderstand the scientific method and are deliberately ignorant.

[/quote]

I used that site pretty well in the melding Evolution and Creationsim thread. It seemed to be show that there are still problems with Evolution, and I am happy with that. I doubt all of them don’t understand the scientific method. Some of them are even scientist. So I would not say they don’t understand the method, just interpret the data differently. I would recommend before this thread changes subjects that this just be picked back up in the melding Creation and Evolution thread.

[quote]
The Case for Christ was lent to me by a Christian friend who said that it was very good. However, the arguments it presents are riddled with logical flaws. To be honest, this book made me start to doubt the validity of religious studies qualifications. Some of the people in the book had some very esteemed qualifications but still gave arguments that were completely nonsensical. [/quote]

I agree that book sucks.
Here is a critique for it.

I think he has changed the article after debating JP Holding.

He is a defense for it from JP Holding.

http://tektonics.org/caf/caf00.html

I would go with things from Norman Geisler. Everyone quotes him, everyone knows him.

Books like evidence that demands a verdict are good for lay people, but for serious answers you really have to do your own research.

83

[quote]Elkhntr1 wrote:
If it makes you feel good and gives you meaning in life and it doesn’t interfere with other peoples lives or rights then more power to you!

Haney, ones religious beliefs can be carried out without affecting another person. The political front has a direct affect on our lives. As with the current war whether you are for it or against.[/quote]

Well some of us believe your spiritual life has a direct result on others lives too.

I was actually just agreeing with you that people argue sometimes just because it is in their nature.

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I would ask for the thread topics sake that all Evolution/Creationist talks please go to the other thread that has been open for over a month now.

It is

Melding Evolution with Creationism.

There you can find many of the groud work for your topic already laid.

It keeps things easier on those follow the topic.

85

[quote]Vegita wrote:
haney…
"Well the bad answer first.
Because it was His will.

Now the good answer.
My belief was He Loved us enough that He created us even though He knew we would kill Him"

really? does god love us more than he loves a tiger? more than a mosquito? Isn’t one of gods aspects that he loves all things unconditionally? or at least jesus’s thing? so then how can he love one thing more or enough that he would give us free will and not others. Free will could be a myth or the only reality and none of us will ever know. Or possibly we will never know… possibly we will. Logically your answers don’t provide any proof of anything other than the fact that you wish to believe one story over another because you were raised that way. I would be much more impressed with a christian who had converted from being a muslim or jew or other religion at least then they would have made a decision that wasn’t spoon fed them throughout thier childhood.

ha end of rant. [/quote]

Well first off I have made my own choice to follow what I believe. I have sought my own answers. I would appreciate it if you would not try to guess that I was denied a choice. My parents raised me to be a thinker, and to have my own opinion. I did things based on my own choices. My parents are not even as informed on most of these issues as I am.

Well I am glad you would be impressed with a Jew who would convert. I would like to direct your attention to the New Testament. It is full of Jewish people who converted.

How come birds can fly and a zebra can’t? I guess that means God didn’t love zebra’s at all! Free will does not constitute love. Free will is just an attribute that we have and they don’t.
You are making a crazy claim, that because they were not made in His image He doesn’t love them.

I will just give it to you straight out of the good book, and you can see the answer that Jesus gives.

Matt 6
25Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

I really like that last part. Jesus seems to think we are better than them.
Sounds like someone is wrong about what Jesus thought???

You can say I am being illogical, and I am just grasping, but you have yet to prove it wrong. If you want to tackle the book of stories issue you can pick up where others have left of at in the Iconolost Athiest thread.

I would save the personal attacks, since you are having a hard enough time getting what Jesus said correct.

86

I’ll continue with another quote:

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former”
– Albert Einstein

Fine. I’ll agree: there are holes in the evolution theory. And dating methods [sic] are not 100% reliable. And there are severely incompetent scientists out there.

Heck, even Einstein was wrong in many occasions. The Universe is NOT infinite, we know that now. But he was humble enough to doubt himself when he couldn’t prove things beyond a reasonable doubt.

Does that automatically mean there is a God? No.

There are holes in the creationist theory too. There is stupid and incompetent people everywhere, of every faith. Einstein didn’t say that only atheists were infinitely stupid. And, by the way, different faiths differ wildly between their theories about creationism. So even if there was a God and creationism is in fact a more “accurate” theory, which one would you pick?

Now, I’ll readily admit that creationism is actually easier to fathom and less complex than evolution. For example, it’s much easier to attribute to God’s existence the fact that there’s a bunch of matter in the Universe that we cannot account for (“Of course, that’s Heaven and Hell, we cannot see them but they are there!”). Or that there’s more matter than anti-matter (“Because God made it that way”!). See, it’s easy to believe in Creationism. And a lot of scientists who hold the Occam’s razor principle to heart will tell you that means it’s probably the “real” one.

It’s actually ironic that the same principle that challenged the Catholic Church so many times (the “theory” that the Earth was not the center of the Universe came about on the wings of Occam’s Razor) is now being used by Creationists.

Problem is that I don’t buy it: simply because I attribute the perceived complexity of the Universe not to the fact that a God created it but because we haven’t figured it out yet. Assuming we ever will. Because we’re stupid, really, we are.

And why do I believe that, since I myself just said that Creationism is actually easier to swallow?

Because I chose to. And I’m so certain of my beliefs that I do not need to seek approval and hence do not need to justify them. Neither does any true Christian. Or Muslim, or Hindu, or…

I respect your faith - because if that makes you a stronger person, believing in God will only do you good - and will not try to convert you to being an atheist. And I expect you to return the favor.

87

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
If the dog does piss on his grave, George ain’t gonna be alive to care. Why such a hater, Mr. Chen?

Ohhh… Nevermind. You’re one of THEM.

[/quote]

Why is it a pagan like George can be sarcastic about God, but I can’t be sarcastic. Hate George, he is already dead. I have no reason to hate him. And isn’t that the point Loth, he is already non-existant, so how could I hate him?

As far as the dog pissing on his grave, I think he would have wanted it that way.

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Uh… Mr.C, when did George Carlin die? Last I heard he was going into rehab last month.

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Wow Loth you’re right. I thought for sure I read something about him dying last year. Maybe it was that he almost died or something.

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hspder: Occam’s razor can be used to show that there is no God. I can’t see how it could feasibly be used to show that God exists. Instead of saying “we don’t know how our universe works”, we say “we don’t know how our universe works. Also, God made it. We can’t explain this one, either”.

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[quote]Grey Area wrote:
hspder: Occam’s razor can be used to show that there is no God. I can’t see how it could feasibly be used to show that God exists. Instead of saying “we don’t know how our universe works”, we say “we don’t know how our universe works. Also, God made it. We can’t explain this one, either”.[/quote]

Actually, within the confines of “Occum’s razor”, it would be more like, “the universe began” vs. “the universe began because God created it”. As you can see, it is useless in showing anything worthwhile as far as something this unquantifiable.

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[quote]haney wrote:
Elkhntr1 wrote:
If it makes you feel good and gives you meaning in life and it doesn’t interfere with other peoples lives or rights then more power to you!

Haney, ones religious beliefs can be carried out without affecting another person. The political front has a direct affect on our lives. As with the current war whether you are for it or against.

Well some of us believe your spiritual life has a direct result on others lives too.

I was actually just agreeing with you that people argue sometimes just because it is in their nature.
[/quote]

Yes Haney, I realized that after I posted. I agree with you. We have different views on this topic, but you seem like a decent fellow to me.

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Haney… the problem with the bible is that it says so many contradictory things… you can say … no the bible says this… and be correct but it also says other things. Things that don’t support your argument. You know this to be true, and i don’t have the time the patientce or the desire to prove this to anyone. I have seen it first hand in religion class when i was younger and asked our teacher about things I noticed. He had no real answers only smarmy well maybe you don’t understand fully yet type answers. So quoting the bible when I am referring to an excercise in logic is like fighting a fire with a can of gas. So god created everything… but created us in his image? And loves us more than anything else so he gave us free will? you mean free will to choose him or not isn’t that right… that is basically the only free will the bible deals with, do I have free will to jump off a 10 story building and fall to the ground and live? of course not. Nor do I have free will to grow a third arm out of my back to wipe my ass with. Is the universe shaped like a man? how the hell does god look like a man? Why does he have arms and legs and a head? does he walk anywhere? does he need to scratch his balls? These are illogical things that no book can explain away. I really could care less what you believe… we went over this in the other thread i believe, but you cannot cite the bible as proof of anything to prove others who don’t believe in it wrong. thats like saying thet you have a purple dragon on your shoulder that no one can see hear feel or smell, yet he is there because YOU are looking at him and the dragon says he is there.

Again… I am not attacking your views or beliefs, you can BELIEVE anthing you want and live your life accordingly, just don’t call it logic or proof, because that it is not.

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[quote]Vegita wrote:
So god created everything… but created us in his image? And loves us more than anything else so he gave us free will? you mean free will to choose him or not isn’t that right… that is basically the only free will the bible deals with, do I have free will to jump off a 10 story building and fall to the ground and live? of course not. Nor do I have free will to grow a third arm out of my back to wipe my ass with. [/quote]

So, you are pissed because God didn’t give you the ability to break the laws of physics in this universe and have super powers?

[quote]
Is the universe shaped like a man? how the hell does god look like a man? Why does he have arms and legs and a head? does he walk anywhere? does he need to scratch his balls? These are illogical things that no book can explain away.[/quote]

Well, it says “in his image”. Only the most simple thought would need this to mean we physically look just like him. You are pissed because it isn’t simple enough? I could care less about continuing this argument any further than it has already been dragged to, but it seems you are pissed because, when you were a kid, some teacher gave you the wrong impression. I am still stuck on your concept of free will. It seems as if you really think that this should go beyond the choice of right or wrong and extend into you becoming some sort of demi-God with magic powers. I’m sorry that didn’t work out for you. Maybe they still have some of those Spiderman costumes left over from Halloween.

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Prof X: actually, I have the exact same problem with “free will” that Vegita has. I’ve heard it argued before that things like not surviving huge falls off cliffs doesn’t count as free will because it’s a physical law. However, God created the universe and all of its laws! Why not just create it in such a way that it is physically impossible for us to hate others/do evil? There can still be options available to us, just not ones that God doesn’t approve us. I don’t think that his issue with free will is a naive one at all.

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Prof. X,
I share a very similar view. See my post a little way back there. If they can’t control God by imposing their own ideas of what It should be, they reject the idea of God outright. I chalk it up to a lack of acceptance.

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I only quoted the Bible because you impled something that Jesus didn’t think, or say.

I have been able to get passed the so called errors that you choose to not cite. With a little research. You could try doing the same. There are plenty of people on here who were able to do the same thing.

The whole point of this discussion was what how can the Christian God be ???

So I think I can cite the Bible to prove others wrong. The whole point is what the Bible says about the God I believe. Not, is ther right and wrong, and who is this God? RSU was pretty clear on who and what He was asking.

Asking us to leave the Bible out of this discussion is like asking a math student to leave his study book at home.

If he would of asked is there evil than that would be different.

I also share prof X view on in God’s image.

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[quote]Grey Area wrote:
Prof X: actually, I have the exact same problem with “free will” that Vegita has. I’ve heard it argued before that things like not surviving huge falls off cliffs doesn’t count as free will because it’s a physical law. However, God created the universe and all of its laws! Why not just create it in such a way that it is physically impossible for us to hate others/do evil? There can still be options available to us, just not ones that God doesn’t approve us. I don’t think that his issue with free will is a naive one at all. [/quote]

It is naive when you discount that whole “Garden of Eden” thing.

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How so? Man sinned in the garden of eden, so clearly had the ability to sin at the time. If we weren’t able to sin then there wouldn’t have been a problem.

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[quote]Grey Area wrote:
How so? Man sinned in the garden of eden, so clearly had the ability to sin at the time. If we weren’t able to sin then there wouldn’t have been a problem. [/quote]

Ah, so let me get this straight, the only time you have a problem with free will is when it doesn’t work out to your advantage? You wanted God to create you without the ability to choose to follow his word or go against it, but then you also wanted him to create us with the ability to break the laws of physics. If you would look up from yourself long enough to allow some of that “religious stuff” to sink in, you would realize that you wish to be an angel. He already has those. We were meant to be a different animal.