Atheism causes creationism

kylith

Newsite wrote: »

Sure do wonder who could have put those tectonic plates there, don't you?

What did the Japanese do to piss God off then? Were they too law abiding and polite? Perhaps he dislikes Pokemon.

marienbad

Newsite wrote: »

Genuine question Marienbad - What do you think would change in your life in terms of how you live it, if you came to believe in Christianity and God?

Not a jot Newsite. Now how about answering my question on free will and not shooting off on another tangent

Newsite

marienbad wrote: »

Not a jot Newsite. Now how about answering my question on free will and not shooting off on another tangent

I didn't really get it.

You have free will. You have a choice to seek God or ignore Him. If you want eternal life, it seems like you would choose the former. If you weren't too bothered about it, you might do the latter.

What else..?

Still a no then Newsite?

It's almost like you're trying to avoid a question you can't answer.

Newsite

King Mob wrote: »

Still a no then Newsite?

It's almost like you're trying to avoid a question you can't answer.

I don't really get why you're drawing parallels with free will and Sodom and Gomorrah? Free will is choice between good and evil, and Sodom and Gomorrah was punished for its iniquity?

Newsite

Newsite wrote: »

I don't really get why you're drawing parallels with free will and Sodom and Gomorrah? Free will is choice between good and evil, and Sodom and Gomorrah was punished for its iniquity?

Because you've been saying that god does not intervene because it interferes in free will.
But here he is, intervening and murdering people.
So how do you make sense of this in your head, if at all?

marienbad

Newsite wrote: »

I didn't really get it.

You have free will. You have a choice to seek God or ignore Him. If you want eternal life, it seems like you would choose the former. If you weren't too bothered about it, you might do the latter.

What else..?

How is it free will when God says do this or else ?

Newsite

marienbad wrote: »

How is it free will when God says do this or else ?

If it is either 'believe in God' or 'don't believe in Him', then there's a choice right?

And if there's a choice, then's there's free will!

If you had no choice, and no free will, then you could never be blamed for any action. Which is so obviously not the case.

Newsite

King Mob wrote: »

Because you've been saying that god does not intervene because it interferes in free will.
But here he is, intervening and murdering people.
So how do you make sense of this in your head, if at all?

No I think you're confusing the two things.

Free will is the choice to do good or evil. If God dictated what man did, then free will no longer exists, and man cannot be held accountable for what he does.

'Intervening' is in regards to executing judgment. That's all.

marienbad

Newsite wrote: »

I didn't really get it.

You have free will. You have a choice to seek God or ignore Him. If you want eternal life, it seems like you would choose the former. If you weren't too bothered about it, you might do the latter.

What else..?

Please answer the question Newsite, how is it free will if you are under duress ?

Newsite

marienbad wrote: »

Please answer the question Newsite, how is it free will if you are under duress ?

What?

When you have faith in God, you are about as far from 'under duress' as you could possibly be. On the contrary, you want to believe, and you want to learn more. You are grateful of the gift of faith and the promise of eternal life!

The outlook you have is that you are being forced to believe, or else. This would be the case if you were actually forced to believe. But as I said, this is not how it works. You have a choice.

Zombrex

Newsite wrote: »

Your posts get more and more emotive and personal all the time.

Yeah people saying Africa doesn't need rain does that to me.

Newsite wrote: »

And yet again you go for the personal, emotive reply, because it suits your agenda to go this way, rather than confront the awkward truth and deal with it head on (that the bulk of suffering is man's inhumanity to man, exerted by his free will and tolerated by God).

You seem to love the facts and rationality. So go that way, and admit that if humans truly wanted to end starvation we could do

No one is arguing that isn't the case. The issue is that if God truly wanted to end starvation he could. Thus he chooses not to. Thus he (if he exists) purposefully allows needless suffering.

You condemn mankind as evil for not stopping something it has the power to stop, yet you don't condemn your own god as evil for doing the exact same. You make up some nonsense about free will when there is no reason at all that stopping starvation would effect free will.

So how about you confront the awkward truth of your own religious beliefs.

Zombrex

Newsite wrote: »

No I think you're confusing the two things.

Free will is the choice to do good or evil. If God dictated what man did, then free will no longer exists, and man cannot be held accountable for what he does.

'Intervening' is in regards to executing judgment. That's all.

That is nonsense.

God already dictates what man can and cannot do. You cannot fly or walk through walls, you cannot live for days on ice cream nor can you life your car over your head, no matter how much you wish it could be the case.

We have free will to to choose between the options God has given us. God controls the options we have and the options we don't have.

God deciding to end world hunger would no more remove free will than God deciding we cannot fly into space removes free will.

What is it with Christian apologetics and these stupid stupid justifications.

J C

The answer is that responsibility comes with with free-will ... and you reap what you sow.

If I freely choose not to be Saved, I am therefore freely accepting the consequesnces ... of eternal damnation.

Equally, if I freely choose to murder someone, I must also accept the consequences of life imprisonment.

... and if I freely choose to love my God and my fellow man ... I will also receive the consequences of Salvation from God ... and love and respect from my fellow men and women.

Whatever we choose to do ... we have free-will ... but it comes with consequences.

Newsite

Zombrex wrote: »

Yeah people saying Africa doesn't need rain does that to me.

Kindly point out where I said that Africa doesn't need rain. I expect you to come back to me with a direct quote where I said that Africa doesn't need rain. If you fail to come back with a quote, we can collectively conclude that you were distorting my words, and position, and you may look silly.

Zombrex wrote: »

No one is arguing that isn't the case. The issue is that if God truly wanted to end starvation he could. Thus he chooses not to. Thus he (if he exists) purposefully allows needless suffering.

Suffering primarily caused by man. Amazed you can't or won't grasp that.

Zombrex wrote: »

You condemn mankind as evil for not stopping something it has the power to stop, yet you don't condemn your own god as evil for doing the exact same.

More twisting of my words. Show me where I condemned mankind as evil please with a quote. While you're looking for it, pick up the quote where I said that mankind is capable of great, amazing good.

Zombrex wrote: »

You make up some nonsense about free will when there is no reason at all that stopping starvation would effect free will.

So how about you confront the awkward truth of your own religious beliefs.

You accept we have free will? And you accept that mankind is primarily responsible for the state we are in? And that if this latter statement is true, then stopping starvation rests largely on impeding (and therefore effecting) free will.

Simple logic really.

Zombrex

Newsite wrote: »

You accept we have free will? And you accept that mankind is primarily responsible for the state we are in? And that if this latter statement is true, then stopping starvation rests largely on impeding (and therefore effecting) free will.

No it doesn't, as I already explained.

We only have free will with in the constraints God allows. You cannot fly, you cannot walk across water, you cannot lift a car.

Increasing those contrants to restrict or prevent suffering would still give us free will within the constrains God allows, which is what we always had.

Are you jus going to ignore this point because you can't face the awkward truth of your religion?

marienbad

J C wrote: »

The answer is that responsibility comes with with free-will ... and you reap what you sow.

If I freely choose not to be Saved, I am therefore freely accepting the consequesnces ... of eternal damnation.

Equally, if I freely choose to murder someone, I must also accept the consequences of life imprisonment.

... and if I freely choose to love my God and my fellow man ... I will also receive the consequences of Salvation from God ... and love and respect from my fellow men and women.

Whatever we choose to do ... we have free-will ... but it comes with consequences.

To JC and Newsite - Take the case of a terrorist organisation from the not too distant past. They hold a taxi-drivers family at gunpoint , load his cab with explosives and give him a choice, drive the cab to a designated target knowing people will die , refuse and his family will die.

Is he exercising free-will when he makes his choice ? And how is it different that the choice God gives.

Or if you prefer less dramatic examples any one of the tiger robberies in the last few years, are those bank and post officials exercising free will ?

Newsite

Zombrex wrote: »

No it doesn't, as I already explained.

We only have free will with in the constraints God allows. You cannot fly, you cannot walk across water, you cannot lift a car.

Increasing those contrants to restrict or prevent suffering would still give us free will within the constrains God allows, which is what we always had.

Are you jus going to ignore this point because you can't face the awkward truth of your religion?

What?!

What has not being able to fly go to do with anything?! What has not being able to lift a car got to do with Pol Pot's treatment of his people, for example?

Newsite

Newsite wrote: »

No I think you're confusing the two things.

Free will is the choice to do good or evil. If God dictated what man did, then free will no longer exists, and man cannot be held accountable for what he does.

'Intervening' is in regards to executing judgment. That's all.

Ok, so why didn't he execute his judgement on any of the corrupt evil "atheist" regimes you listed? Maybe before they killed more people than they did?

Or did Sodom and Gomorrah get up to stuff worse than murdering millions of people?

marienbad

King Mob wrote: »

Ok, so why didn't he execute his judgement on any of the corrupt evil "atheist" regimes you listed? Maybe before they killed more people than they did?

Or did Sodom and Gomorrah get up to stuff worse than murdering millions of people?

They obviously did , like fcuking people in the ass.

Newsite

King Mob wrote: »

Ok, so why didn't he execute his judgement on any of the corrupt evil "atheist" regimes you listed? Maybe before they killed more people than they did?

Or did Sodom and Gomorrah get up to stuff worse than murdering millions of people?

What happened to Hitler in the end? And to the Nazi regime?

Newsite

marienbad wrote: »

They obviously did , like fcuking people in the ass.

Wow, ladylike.

Sonics2k

Newsite wrote: »

What happened to Hitler in the end? And to the Nazi regime?

Are you saying it was thanks to God that Hitler was stopped?

How freaking delusional are you?

Newsite

Newsite wrote: »

What happened to Hitler in the end? And to the Nazi regime?

Well for one, they didn't explode in a torrent of fire sent down by god as Sodom and Gomorrah.
They were ended by even more Allied soldiers sacrificing their lives.

So aside from that being offensive idiocy, how come God never sent a glorious army to bring down the Soviet regime?

dmw07

Newsite wrote: »

What happened to Hitler in the end? And to the Nazi regime?

Hitler was reunited with his maker in the end. The one he prayed to, served as an alter boy and wrote open, expressive letters full of adoration to, in Mein Kampf. You can ask him that question directly in the future, you're more likely to bump into him than most people on this forum

Zombrex

Newsite wrote: »

What?!

What has not being able to fly go to do with anything?!

You cannot fly. You still have free will.
You cannot lift a car over your head. You still have free will.
You cannot walk on water. You still have free will.

So kindly explain why would God making it impossible for you to starve would remove your free will?

Newsite

Zombrex wrote: »

You cannot fly. You still have free will.
You cannot lift a car over your head. You still have free will.
You cannot walk on water. You still have free will.

So kindly explain why would God making it impossible for you to starve would remove your free will?

Again, what?

Pretty simple really - we have free will to do good or wrong. That free will can take the form of gathering riches and seizing power, as it relates to this discussion. If you believe there's a pressing reason for an African dictator to walk on water, sure haven't seen one yet!

The principal cause of starvation and other suffering is man's inhumanity to man - exerted through free will. Stopping African dictators from doing what they do (e.g. gathering riches and power to subjugate their people) would impede free will.

So as I said, simple.

Dades

Newsite wrote: »

Zombrex wrote: »

You condemn mankind as evil for not stopping something it has the power to stop, yet you don't condemn your own god as evil for doing the exact same. You make up some nonsense about free will when there is no reason at all that stopping starvation would effect free will.

More twisting of my words. Show me where I condemned mankind as evil please with a quote. While you're looking for it, pick up the quote where I said that mankind is capable of great, amazing good.

I'd just like to highlight this post as a clear of example of the side-stepping going on. You reference the first part of the post but clearly ignore the second crucial part (refusal to judge your own God) which you have been dodging for the last couple of days.

Newsite wrote: »

As for natural disasters, we can't say why they happen. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for the iniquity of its inhabitants. Whether this is the case for all natural disasters, only God can know.

AKA - the "God moves in mysterious ways" argument. If you dig deep enough this is the answer you will always get.

Why? Because nobody can reconcile the reality of the world with the preferred concept of God. You can throw out ideas like "free will" and "humans did it" but ultimately the logic doesn't add up. The world is too broken and the innocent suffer too much for no reason.

Newsite

Dades wrote: »

I'd just like to highlight this post as a clear of example of the side-stepping going on. You reference the first part of the post but clearly ignore the second crucial part (refusal to judge your own God) which you have been dodging for the last couple of days.

Au contraire, my friend. Zero side-stepping on my part. In fact, Zombrex was doing the side-stepping in relation to that post. That was his/her quote, where she claimed I had 'condemned mankind as evil'. I asked him/her to produce that quote where I did so, and highlighted that I had actually mentioned that man was capable of great, amazing good. And no quote was forthcoming, because it doesn't exist.

Also, how could you expect anyone who believes in God to pretend to judge Him? Who am I or you to judge our Maker? In addition, I've also said that when natural disasters happen, there's no reason to believe they aren't evidence of God's wrath, so that could be an explanation, if you want one.

Dades wrote: »

Why? Because nobody can reconcile the reality of the world with the preferred concept of God. You can throw out ideas like "free will" and "humans did it" but ultimately the logic doesn't add up. The world is too broken and the innocent suffer too much for no reason.

I'm surprised you're coming out with this again, because we've already gone over this ground, especially in regards to Mr. Pudding's posts? Clearly the world is as broken as it is as a result of man actions and inaction in his rebellion towards God. That is as clear as day. It's also important to note that no-one is 'innocent' - no-one is without sin.

Penn

Newsite wrote: »

I'm surprised you're coming out with this again, because we've already gone over this ground, especially in regards to Mr. Pudding's posts? Clearly the world is as broken as it is as a result of man actions and inaction in his rebellion towards God. That is as clear as day. It's also important to note that no-one is 'innocent' - no-one is without sin.

What about if an earthquake happened, and a 6 month old baby, who has been baptised by his Catholic parents, dies in the disaster? Innocent. No way shape or form can that child have a sin. No way did that child die as a result of his action or inaction in his rebellion towards God. So why did God kill that child?