polytheism vs monotheism

Originally posted by red g jacks
not true. you would only have to remove the ability for evil thoughts to arise. the thinker can still have the ability to think; evil thoughts simply wouldn't exist.

That wouldn't be true free will. We would basically be programmed robots. You might as well have God program in that we all believe in Him and Worship Him too. That isn't the creation He wanted.

Originally posted by red g jacks
we can make any choice we are capable of making, based on which actions/thoughts are available to us.

Yes.

Originally posted by red g jacks
well in all honesty i think we both know why there are natural disasters.. i just don't see why they would be necessary in a perfect creation since they cause death and suffering. it seems that whatever purpose they serve to the environment could have been achieved by god without causing death and suffering, and whatever hypothetical mystical purpose you are implying the deaths must serve could have likewise been achieved by god without causing death and suffering. that is why i labeled it as 'needless.'

But that's a label you have given it. You can say that "I see it as needless", but that's as far as you can logically go. Who knows what reasons might be behind God's actions? We can speculate about it with our limited understanding all we want, but we are far from being able to call it unnecessary evil.

Originally posted by red g jacks
i just don't understand why it doesn't apply to specific religions who's deity plays the same basic role.

Because specific religions may or may not hold specific support that out-ways Occams Razor. For example.

Say you have a broken window and are trying to figure out how many balls broke it. Between one or three. If all you know is that it is broken, and by a ball or balls, Occams Razor might favor the one ball theory, since there is no reason to suspect that any more than one ball did it.

Now say you have eye witness testimony from a kid across the street who just so happened to be the one who broke the window with the balls, telling you he did it with three balls. Does Occams Razor still tell you to hold to the one ball theory? No.

In the same way, specific religions such as Christianity are not on completely equal footing support wise with other religions. As such, Occams Razor no longer applies in that sense.

Originally posted by TacDavey
When did I say that? Again, God does not temp us. The simple option of performing an evil deed can, in itself, be a temptation. And Satan contributes as well.

God did not create Satan to perform evil. Satan, like us, originally had free will. Thus, he had the ability to perform evil, and he did.

But by creating Satan, he allowed temptation to come into humanity. This was not his original plan as the bible clearly states. What was his original plan? It was to create Eden as a paradise with no sin at all. So clearly God didn't think that an all-good world is impossible. Are you saying you know more than God?

Originally posted by TacDavey
No.

Originally posted by TacDavey
When did I say that? Again, God does not temp us. The simple option of performing an evil deed can, in itself, be a temptation. And Satan contributes as well.

God did not create Satan to perform evil. Satan, like us, originally had free will. Thus, he had the ability to perform evil, and he did.

No.

Why? There would be the possibility of evil, perhaps.

It's simple logic. If, using free will, I killed someone who did not want to die, I would be doing something bad to that person, at least from his point of view. You cannot have free will without good and bad. God did, in a sense, create good and evil when He gave us free will.

And absolutely none of those things are logically contradictory. Super natural perhaps, but not logically contradictory.

Superior doesn't seem the right word, but, as I said, God cannot make something that cannot logically exist. He can't, for instance, create something that is standing and not standing at the same time.

I do not think so. I have already explained a number of times why a "lack of evil" is not logically possible. As for a substitute, this also makes no sense. Evil is just a word we invented to describe a very real thing. That thing, regardless of what we call it, is the same. And that thing, which we call evil, must logically exist with free will. There is no substitute. It must logically exist.

You seem to be confused as to what free will is. It is not the ability to feel every feeling/desire/necessity and it is not the ability to perform any action free of outside influence. It is simply the ability to make our own choices. We teach our children the values that we want them to hold as they grow up. This fact will undoubtedly influence their actions later in life. But it is not true to say we have taken away their free will.

Actually, there IS a logical problem with there being more than one God, but I don't think that was your point.

In response to the question. No. Free will is NOT the ability to do anything. So not having the ability to perform every single conceivable action does not, in any way shape or form, infringe on free will.

I don't see how this is true at all. Explain the logic behind this to me.

Evil does not only manifest itself in actions, however. Thoughts, interactions, etc can also be evil. To completely remove evil from the equation, you would have to remove the ability to even think.

Free will exists without limitless actions/abilities. We can make any choice we want.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The only way things like natural disasters can be considered unnecessary evil is if they occur for absolutely no other reason except to cause the needless pain and suffering of innocent people. Which is a claim that you cannot back up.

More complex than what? It all depends on what you're comparing it to. Christianity is a specific religion, and as I explained before, does not fit into the Occam's Razor example I gave, which was aimed at polytheism and monotheism as ideas, not specific religions.

aah how i miss these long winding pointless debates with people who THINK they understand logic and reason. from the top then.

it ISNT simple logic. and you havent replied to what i asked.
THIS is logic= good v ¬good (arity=2, good=/=¬good) hence two degrees of freedom. basically you can have good vs neutrality and that would be FREE will because you would be free to choose whichever one you wished. what you are doing is making god subservient to the very logic that he is supposed to have created. if he is omnipotent, he could have created something else instead of evil or infact only good vs nothing.

actually they are all logically contradictory(but it seems that you have a very loose grasp on the subject of logic) creation ex nihilo vilates causality. eternal existance violates probable cause. trinity violates unity{and no, none of the three in one or one in three or ANY other historical or philosophical explanation that christians have given has EVER been satisfactory in the subject of philosophy and logic to explain this silliness). virgins giving birth violates physical causality.

it does seem like the right word seeing as he cant VIOLATE logic if he so pleases in the case being discussed(i.e. standing^not standing,, or,, good v not evil)

no youve said it, and given irrelevant and refuted examples. lets not call it evil lets call it "B". god already had good and he already had neutrality. thats enough for free will to act even if evil isnt in the equation. in such a world, people would do good or do nothing, but it would be THEIR CHOICE. hence free will.

im NOT confused about free will 😆 . i have a fairly decent understanding of the concepts involved. your first sentence is a contradiction in itself . if it is neither the ability to feel or do everything that is possible to do{sumthing you explicitly denied a while ago by saying that god would be taking AWAY our free will if he took away the our ablity to do evil, so a dual contradiction}, nor is it the ability to do what WE want rather than what others make us think we want{i.e. manipulation}, then what IS free will?{seeing as without either of those things, we ARENT making our own choices).

actually there ISNT. theres only a logical problem with their being more than one OMNIPOTENT god. but seeing as your god cant even take away evil whil keeping good than hes not as omnipotent as he seems s he, so there isnt any problem with their being more than two of him. and OFCOURSE it does, you admitted it yourself, if god took away our ability to do evil he would be limiting OUR FREE WILL. those are your words. not only are you contradicting your own argument, but your jumping from one stance to another simply to not answer mine. putting it simpy "is it true that limiting the options that our available for our WILL to act on limits FREE will or is it NOT true?" see the probem is if you say its true then you would be directly contradicting the statement to which this is a reply(and hence conceding to my point to which u replied in the afformentioned statement). but if you say it ISNT true than you would be contradicting the previous statement you made that god would be taking away our free will by taking away the concieveable act of evil and hence conceding to my previous point. so i guess your wrong either way.

without desires, you have no WILL that is unique to yourself. i.e. you do NOTHING because you have no personal oppinions or inclnations or passions or beleifs. and without evil you have{in your words not mine} taken away the only other conceveable thing that one CAN do in a world lacking all other conceiveable things. i.e. no free will. infact no will at all.

heres a piece of advice. reply and COUNTERARGUE my points rather than denying them and stating your own contrary OPPINION. heres another piece of advice, use RELEVANT examples rather than going of on gradients and stating something that has no significance in counterarguing my point. finally, it would be in everyone's interest if you stopped saying "its simple logic" and rather, EXPLAINED the logic that you refer to. dont turn into a JIA is what im saying.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
THIS is logic= good v ¬good (arity=2, good=/=¬good) hence two degrees of freedom.

I don't think that is true

df = N-1

but I don't think that between groups df is what you are looking for

Originally posted by King Kandy
Like you said, the simple option is a temptation. So by offering that option, God IS tempting us. You just said it right there.

God is not actively tempting us. The temptation comes as a necessary result of free will. So I suppose in a weird way you could think of it as God tempting us, but it's really more of God granting us something great with some unfortunate side effects.

Originally posted by King Kandy
But by creating Satan, he allowed temptation to come into humanity. This was not his original plan as the bible clearly states. What was his original plan? It was to create Eden as a paradise with no sin at all. So clearly God didn't think that an all-good world is impossible. Are you saying you know more than God?

Satan chose to allow temptation into the world using the free will God gave him. And no, I don't know more than God. I use what limited abilities I possess to attempt to learn as much as I can. Eden didn't last long, did it? Allow for the possibility of evil and someone somewhere at some time is going to do it. Just a matter of time. Like I said, we don't start off evil, but free will almost guarantees it's going to come up at one point or another.

Originally posted by King Kandy
But animals kill things that don't want to die all the time. And you said that by definition that is evil.

You cannot apply the same laws to animals that you do to humans. They aren't close to the same thing.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
aah how i miss these long winding pointless debates with people who THINK they understand logic and reason. from the top then.

I have been nothing but respectful to you so far, I don't think it's too much to ask that you do the same. There is no need to be rude. You may end the debate any time you wish.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
it ISNT simple logic. and you havent replied to what i asked.
THIS is logic= good v ¬good (arity=2, good=/=¬good) hence two degrees of freedom. basically you can have good vs neutrality and that would be FREE will because you would be free to choose whichever one you wished. what you are doing is making god subservient to the very logic that he is supposed to have created. if he is omnipotent, he could have created something else instead of evil or infact only good vs nothing.

I did answer that question. Good vs neutrality does not make logical sense. I'll give the example again. If you kill someone that doesn't want to die you are doing bad, at least from that persons point of view. If you have thinking, feeling creatures like humans, you are going to have good and bad, it's unavoidable. There is no good or nothing. It might sound good as an idea, but it does not have any place in a logically working world.

You also said that God could "substitute" evil for something else. Can you go into this in more detail? What do you mean by this? What other thing could replace evil? Evil is not a physical thing that can be switched out and passed around or thrown away. Evil is a choice or action. As long as that action/choice can be made, you would have evil. Taking away that choice infringes on free will.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
actually they are all logically contradictory(but it seems that you have a very loose grasp on the subject of logic)

No, they are not. You seem to be mixing up "super natural" with "logically contradictory." Two very different things.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
creation ex nihilo vilates causality.

God was the cause of the universe. No violation there.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
eternal existance violates probable cause.

In what way? Eternal means it has no cause. Only things that begin to exist require causes. Eternal beings did not begin to exist.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
trinity violates unity{and no, none of the three in one or one in three or ANY other historical or philosophical explanation that christians have given has EVER been satisfactory in the subject of philosophy and logic to explain this silliness).

I disagree. The fact that you have been unsatisfied with the answers given does not mean they are unsatisfactory or untrue.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
virgins giving birth violates physical causality.

It does not. As with the origins of the universe, the child in this case was caused by God.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
it does seem like the right word seeing as he cant VIOLATE logic if he so pleases in the case being discussed(i.e. standing^not standing,, or,, good v not evil)

That doesn't mean logic is superior, it simply means it has to be taken into account with God's actions. The fact that I cant break a wall does not make the wall "superior" to me.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
no youve said it, and given irrelevant and refuted examples. lets not call it evil lets call it "B". god already had good and he already had neutrality. thats enough for free will to act even if evil isnt in the equation. in such a world, people would do good or do nothing, but it would be THEIR CHOICE. hence free will.

Wrong. It is not free will. You need to be able to make every choice for true free will. Removing someone's ability to make any choice whatsoever is infringing on their free will. They have some choices, sure. But that isn't enough for true free will.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
im NOT confused about free will 😆 . i have a fairly decent understanding of the concepts involved.

You seemed to suggest that the inability to perform actions or be gods somehow infringed on free will. Since this is not the case, I assumed your definition of free will must be incorrect.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
your first sentence is a contradiction in itself . if it is neither the ability to feel or do everything that is possible to do{sumthing you explicitly denied a while ago by saying that god would be taking AWAY our free will if he took away the our ablity to do evil, so a dual contradiction}, nor is it the ability to do what WE want rather than what others make us think we want{i.e. manipulation}, then what IS free will?{seeing as without either of those things, we ARENT making our own choices).

You are mistaken. I said free will is not the ability to perform every action. For example, the fact that we can't fly with our arms does not mean we don't have free will. There is a difference between choices and actions. Free will demands we be in full control of our choices not actions.

Manipulation is also not infringing on free will. You are persuading someone to do something, but it is still their choice to do it.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
actually there ISNT. theres only a logical problem with their being more than one OMNIPOTENT god.

You can't have more than one all powerful being, yes. Is that not what you meant?

Originally posted by leonheartmm
but seeing as your god cant even take away evil whil keeping good than hes not as omnipotent as he seems s he, so there isnt any problem with their being more than two of him.

God can do anything within the realm of logic. He is still all powerful. Asking Him to make a logical contradiction is like asking Him to make a Shmangomorph.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
and OFCOURSE it does, you admitted it yourself, if god took away our ability to do evil he would be limiting OUR FREE WILL. those are your words. not only are you contradicting your own argument, but your jumping from one stance to another simply to not answer mine.

In what way? You are still confusing choices with actions. As I have said they are two different things. God can take away the ability to perform actions without infringing on free will. Taking away evil would be removing a choice. Which is what is important to free will.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
putting it simpy "is it true that limiting the options that our available for our WILL to act on limits FREE will or is it NOT true?"

Removing choices limits free will. Removing the ability to perform actions does not. You are lumping actions and choices together. They are not the same.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
see the probem is if you say its true then you would be directly contradicting the statement to which this is a reply(and hence conceding to my point to which u replied in the afformentioned statement). but if you say it ISNT true than you would be contradicting the previous statement you made that god would be taking away our free will by taking away the concieveable act of evil and hence conceding to my previous point. so i guess your wrong either way.

Once more. Actions and choices are different. Taking away the choice to perform evil is taking away free will. Denying the ability to perform an action is not. I never said that God removing our ability to perform an action would be infringing on free will.

cont...

Originally posted by leonheartmm
without desires, you have no WILL that is unique to yourself. i.e. you do NOTHING because you have no personal oppinions or inclnations or passions or beleifs. and without evil you have{in your words not mine} taken away the only other conceveable thing that one CAN do in a world lacking all other conceiveable things. i.e. no free will. infact no will at all.

I don't know what you mean here. Okay, without desires you would be basically a robot. I suppose I would agree with that. I don't see how it is relevant to the discussion. The last bit of the paragraph is completely lost on me. If you take away evil you take away the only conceivable thing? What does that mean? Can you explain this a little better?

Originally posted by leonheartmm
heres a piece of advice. reply and COUNTERARGUE my points rather than denying them and stating your own contrary OPPINION. heres another piece of advice, use RELEVANT examples rather than going of on gradients and stating something that has no significance in counterarguing my point. finally, it would be in everyone's interest if you stopped saying "its simple logic" and rather, EXPLAINED the logic that you refer to. dont turn into a JIA is what im saying.

I believe I have been doing just that. When did I refuse to defend points? When did I bring in irrelevant information?

Originally posted by TacDavey
God is not actively tempting us. The temptation comes as a necessary result of free will. So I suppose in a weird way you could think of it as God tempting us, but it's really more of God granting us something great with some unfortunate side effects.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Satan chose to allow temptation into the world using the free will God gave him. And no, I don't know more than God. I use what limited abilities I possess to attempt to learn as much as I can. Eden didn't last long, did it? Allow for the possibility of evil and someone somewhere at some time is going to do it. Just a matter of time. Like I said, we don't start off evil, but free will almost guarantees it's going to come up at one point or another.

Why doesn't God simply stop Satan from tempting, if his end goal is a heaven without any evil?

Originally posted by TacDavey
You cannot apply the same laws to animals that you do to humans. They aren't close to the same thing.

Originally posted by inimalist
I don't think that is true

df = N-1

but I don't think that between groups df is what you are looking for

no i was referring to the arity of the connectivity. i didnt want to put in ^ not(relegion^not relegion)

you can use ^Elim. basically all this talk of BASIC logic was annoying me, as if it were a self evident fact that good requires evil or watever.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
no i was referring to the arity of the connectivity. i didnt want to put in ^ not(relegion^not relegion)

you can use ^Elim. basically all this talk of BASIC logic was annoying me, as if it were a self evident fact that good requires evil or watever.

df must work differently in logic than it does in statistics then

taceydavy you didnt heed my advice. i told you to counterargue my points rather than RESTATE your own oppinions in different words. i have repeatedly pointed out the flaws and contradictions in your arguments that show that your not even serious about your own convictions seeing as you say one thing and then say another thing(both without evidence or rationalisation) each mutually exclusive to the the other to try and simply DISAGREE with me in every statement. i even showed you how assuming either limiting feasible phenomenon or not limitied pheasable phenomenon both leads o your conclusion being false and yet you havent replied.

infact you deconstructed statements and paragraphs that made sense as a whole and went on DISAGREEING with each component as if it were a refutation of my whole argument.

you say your being respectful and add in "confused" "misunderstood" etc at rapid intervals and reiterate "BASIC LOGIC" again and again as if it were sumthing that entirely eluded me. infact you go on to say that my assumptions about violation of free will are CLEARLY wrong{clear to whom?} while giving no evidence to the contrary and go on to say that YOU conclude that my conception of free will is obviously wrong{again no counterargument}, on top of claiming that the historical or philosophical justification for the trinity are adequate even if i dont think so(adequate by whos standard? just yours and the relegious communities?). are these RESPECTFUL tactics?

infact, one might ask, what are your qualifications in the subject of philosophy or logic? judging from the display of ignorance , id say none. i dont think your at a place to even try and argue such matters if your understading of the god debate or theological issues is this weak.

and just another point about your argument, do you understand the difference between basic validity and ontological validity? because ontologically god CAN make good without evil in the same world that he COULDNT make a man both sitting and standing up or a square circle.

i see the JIA phenomenon is still going strong here after all these years.

Originally posted by inimalist
df must work differently in logic than it does in statistics then

im not sure. lemme try and explain. in tarski world atleast the degrees of freedom are two. however, if you take the non atomic disjunction as a WHOLE then yes your right, the df=1.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
im not sure. lemme try and explain. in tarski world atleast the degrees of freedom are two. however, if you take the non atomic disjunction as a WHOLE then yes your right, the df=1.

I'm not a logician, that means nothing to me

lol. ok here goes. lets substitute good by a and not good by b

"a v b" can only be true if a{is true}, or if b(is true) or if both.

now we take the BOTH being true and make it impossible (since in the world we are talking about, they can not both exist at the same time in relation to the same thing), so not(a ^ b). and we also say that
"not(A v B)" is false(since in this world you cant have a situation where you nither doing nothin nor doing good, it has to be one or the other).so the possible atomic truths that we are left with is.

a=1

b=2

i.e. two possibilities that are allowable in this world, i.e. two degrees of freedom.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
lol. ok here goes. lets substitute good by a and not good by b

"a v b" can only be true if a{is true}, or if b(is true) or if both.

now we take the BOTH being true and make it impossible (since in the world we are talking about, they can not both exist at the same time in relation to the same thing), so not(a ^ b). and we also say that
"not(A v B)" is false(since in this world you cant have a situation where you nither doing nothin nor doing good, it has to be one or the other).so the possible atomic truths that we are left with is.

a=1

b=2

i.e. two possibilities that are allowable in this world, i.e. two degrees of freedom.

ok, so it is kind of the same, however, it is applied in a different way when you analyze data

you have to remove 1 df from your total number of things (in this case two), based on how many comparisons there are, because, in theory, one part of the comparison is not allowed to vary, and must represent the mean you are comparing the other things to

EDIT: say I have 3 groups with 10 people in each, my N (number of things) is 30. if I want to compare individuals within the groups to eachother, I would have df = 30 - 3, because 3 of the things have to be represented as the means within each group that people are being compared to. to reference what you are saying above, we would have to set them as a value representing the average a, b or (in this case) c, so that we can say whether these other values are different. If I wanted to compare group to group, df = 3 - 1, because one of the groups has to be the mean.

you never change data scores, it is just the way you have to do things to analyze data properly. So, even though the within group df = 27, you are still comparing 30 scores.

Originally posted by TacDavey
That wouldn't be true free will. We would basically be programmed robots. You might as well have God program in that we all believe in Him and Worship Him too. That isn't the creation He wanted.

the robot idea is funny cause when you consider a creator specifically designed our cognitive capabilities and bestowed us with the ability to 'make choices' in the first place, along with the natural inclination to prefer certain choices over others, i don't see how the robot analogy doesn't already apply.

so how exactly would we be any more like programmed robots than we already are? we would have the ability to make our own choices, evil just wouldn't ever occur to us because it wouldn't exist.

i find that last sentence particularly odd. why wouldn't benevolent god want a creation that was devoid of evil? is free will merely the ability to choose to do evil, and if so how is free will a good thing at all?

But that's a label [B]you have given it. You can say that "I see it as needless", but that's as far as you can logically go. Who knows what reasons might be behind God's actions? We can speculate about it with our limited understanding all we want, but we are far from being able to call it unnecessary evil. [/b]

Because specific religions may or may not hold specific support that out-ways Occams Razor. For example.

Say you have a broken window and are trying to figure out how many balls broke it. Between one or three. If all you know is that it is broken, and by a ball or balls, Occams Razor might favor the one ball theory, since there is no reason to suspect that any more than one ball did it.

Now say you have eye witness testimony from a kid across the street who just so happened to be the one who broke the window with the balls, telling you he did it with three balls. Does Occams Razor still tell you to hold to the one ball theory? No.

In the same way, specific religions such as Christianity are not on completely equal footing support wise with other religions. As such, Occams Razor no longer applies in that sense.

Originally posted by King Kandy
But temptation isn't necessary. You already said that in heaven, there would be no temptation. So obviously it isn't impossible.

Hmmm. I suppose it isn't necessarily impossible to have a world with no temptation. But a combination of free will, satan etc provide our world with it.

Originally posted by King Kandy
So you are saying that free will guarantees that evil will occur? Then why would God give people free will knowing it will guarantee some end up in hell? That's really bad parenting.

No it isn't. God understands that free will is the greatest gift you can give to a creation, even if some will use it poorly. He would much rather have us free, than mindless robots.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Why doesn't God simply stop Satan from tempting, if his end goal is a heaven without any evil?

I think it comes down to the same reason He doesn't show up on earth and let everyone know He exists. He doesn't want to actively dictate how we live our lives or what choices we make.

Originally posted by King Kandy
But God created the differences. So it is very relevant to ask why he would create them with different standards.

Because they are not like us. They were made to support the ecosystem and provide a number of other ways to make the world a more interesting and enjoyable place to live. We were made specifically to have free will and the ability to choose good or evil.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
taceydavy you didnt heed my advice. i told you to counterargue my points rather than RESTATE your own oppinions in different words. i have repeatedly pointed out the flaws and contradictions in your arguments that show that your not even serious about your own convictions seeing as you say one thing and then say another thing(both without evidence or rationalisation) each mutually exclusive to the the other to try and simply DISAGREE with me in every statement. i even showed you how assuming either limiting feasible phenomenon or not limitied pheasable phenomenon both leads o your conclusion being false and yet you havent replied.

You are mistaken. I went through your post piece by piece pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. I suggest you quote my points specifically so that you can point out where I am making these mistakes and force me to acknowledge my error, if there was one, instead of simply claiming that I didn't respond to your points.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
infact you deconstructed statements and paragraphs that made sense as a whole and went on DISAGREEING with each component as if it were a refutation of my whole argument.

I quoted specific parts of your post that I was responding to so that it would be easier to see exactly what I was talking about. That way, you know what part of your post I was addressing, rather than quoting the whole thing and replying to it all at once. In that case, it may be difficult to know what I was replying to.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
you say your being respectful and add in "confused" "misunderstood" etc at rapid intervals and reiterate "BASIC LOGIC" again and again as if it were sumthing that entirely eluded me. infact you go on to say that my assumptions about violation of free will are CLEARLY wrong{clear to whom?} while giving no evidence to the contrary and go on to say that YOU conclude that my conception of free will is obviously wrong{again no counterargument}, on top of claiming that the historical or philosophical justification for the trinity are adequate even if i dont think so(adequate by whos standard? just yours and the relegious communities?). are these RESPECTFUL tactics?

Yes, they are. I never once called you stupid, or insulted your intelligence in any way. You, on the other hand, have decided to put aside the debate topics and attack me personally.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
infact, one might ask, what are your qualifications in the subject of philosophy or logic? judging from the display of ignorance , id say none. i dont think your at a place to even try and argue such matters if your understading of the god debate or theological issues is this weak.

Qualifications? What does that have to do with anything? I suggest you stop focusing on attacking me, and stick to the debate topic. My arguments are logical or they aren't regardless of my "qualifications".

Originally posted by leonheartmm
and just another point about your argument, do you understand the difference between basic validity and ontological validity? because ontologically god CAN make good without evil in the same world that he COULDNT make a man both sitting and standing up or a square circle.

Really? Back that up. Provide the argument that supports that statement. And then explain to me how it fits in with free will. How is killing children anything less than evil?

Originally posted by red g jacks
the robot idea is funny cause when you consider a creator specifically designed our cognitive capabilities and bestowed us with the ability to 'make choices' in the first place, along with the natural inclination to prefer certain choices over others, i don't see how the robot analogy doesn't already apply.

Really? I see a major difference between us and robots. We are creations, that's true. But that is far from being pre-programmed machines that cannot make decisions for themselves.

Originally posted by red g jacks
so how exactly would we be any more like programmed robots than we already are? we would have the ability to make our own choices, evil just wouldn't ever occur to us because it wouldn't exist.

"Evil" must exist logically when you have free will. With free will, I can choose to kill another person who does not want to die. Is this not evil? Yet denying me the ability to choose to do this would be denying me my free will. As long as free will exists, I MUST have the potential to kill another person who doesn't want to die. And I simply don't see how this action can be considered anything other than evil.

Originally posted by red g jacks
i find that last sentence particularly odd. why wouldn't benevolent god want a creation that was devoid of evil? is free will merely the ability to choose to do evil, and if so how is free will a good thing at all?

How is free will a good thing? Because it grants people the right to choose their own path. I, and I'm sure the vast majority of people, consider this to be the greatest gift someone can give to a creation. Evil is bad, but it is worth it for free will.

Originally posted by red g jacks
it doesn't matter what reasons he might have. anything that is accomplished through death and destruction could be achieved by god without that death and destruction, since he's.. ya know... GOD.

It might be possible, and it might not. There are untold amounts a variables that need to be considered that we are likely not able to comprehend. Even though it might be possible for one result to be obtained a different way, it might not be what God considers best. Again, you would have to make the claim that natural disasters are there for the sole purpose of causing pain and suffering to innocent people. Which is not a claim you can logically support.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Really? I see a major difference between us and robots. We are creations, that's true. But that is far from being pre-programmed machines that cannot make decisions for themselves.

"Evil" must exist logically when you have free will. With free will, I can choose to kill another person who does not want to die. Is this not evil? Yet denying me the ability to choose to do this would be denying me my free will. As long as free will exists, I MUST have the potential to kill another person who doesn't want to die. And I simply don't see how this action can be considered anything other than evil.

How is free will a good thing? Because it grants people the right to choose their own path. I, and I'm sure the vast majority of people, consider this to be the greatest gift someone can give to a creation. Evil is bad, but it is worth it for free will.

It might be possible, and it might not. There are untold amounts a variables that need to be considered that we are likely not able to comprehend. Even though it might be possible for one result to be obtained a different way, it might not be what God considers best. Again, you would have to make the claim that natural disasters are there for the sole purpose of causing pain and suffering to innocent people. Which is not a claim you can logically support.

Originally posted by TacDavey
When did I say that? Again, God does not temp us. The simple option of performing an evil deed can, in itself, be a temptation. And Satan contributes as well.

God did not create Satan to perform evil. Satan, like us, originally had free will. Thus, he had the ability to perform evil, and he did.

No.

Why? There would be the possibility of evil, perhaps.

It's simple logic. If, using free will, I killed someone who did not want to die, I would be doing something bad to that person, at least from his point of view. You cannot have free will without good and bad. God did, in a sense, create good and evil when He gave us free will.

And absolutely none of those things are logically contradictory. Super natural perhaps, but not logically contradictory.

Superior doesn't seem the right word, but, as I said, God cannot make something that cannot logically exist. He can't, for instance, create something that is standing and not standing at the same time.

I do not think so. I have already explained a number of times why a "lack of evil" is not logically possible. As for a substitute, this also makes no sense. Evil is just a word we invented to describe a very real thing. That thing, regardless of what we call it, is the same. And that thing, which we call evil, must logically exist with free will. There is no substitute. It must logically exist.

You seem to be confused as to what free will is. It is not the ability to feel every feeling/desire/necessity and it is not the ability to perform any action free of outside influence. It is simply the ability to make our own choices. We teach our children the values that we want them to hold as they grow up. This fact will undoubtedly influence their actions later in life. But it is not true to say we have taken away their free will.

Actually, there IS a logical problem with there being more than one God, but I don't think that was your point.

In response to the question. No. Free will is NOT the ability to do anything. So not having the ability to perform every single conceivable action does not, in any way shape or form, infringe on free will.

I don't see how this is true at all. Explain the logic behind this to me.

Evil does not only manifest itself in actions, however. Thoughts, interactions, etc can also be evil. To completely remove evil from the equation, you would have to remove the ability to even think.

Free will exists without limitless actions/abilities. We can make any choice we want.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The only way things like natural disasters can be considered unnecessary evil is if they occur for absolutely no other reason except to cause the needless pain and suffering of innocent people. Which is a claim that you cannot back up.

More complex than what? It all depends on what you're comparing it to. Christianity is a specific religion, and as I explained before, does not fit into the Occam's Razor example I gave, which was aimed at polytheism and monotheism as ideas, not specific religions.

tacey davy i find it hilarious that you completely forgot to reply to the part where i showed you that assuming either truth about free will, you end up not only wrong but self contradictory.

your debating tactic seems to be to NOT debate but restate your oppinions Ad nauseam and then conveniently forget to quote essential parts of the counterargument, hoping it would be lost in the length of the nonsense you are spewing.

the REASON why i asked you about your qualification are because your argument is NOT logical for one. for another i asked you if you understood the difference between logically valid and ontologically valid arguments. to which you childishly replied

"Really? Back that up. Provide the argument that supports that statement. And then explain to me how it fits in with free will. How is killing children anything less than evil?"

demonstrating in the coarse that you havent a clue about the subject. infact i dont think you have much understanding at all concerning logic or the topic of it. for someone who is so adamant in stating and restating that their argument is logical, you would be expected to atleast understand the basic concepts in the subject of logic but you clearly dont. infact, your understanding of LOGIC seems to be that of the most basic layman whose mind has been filled with the lies of relegiosity.

if you really want me to show you {even though ive seen enough of your types on here to know that your too narrow minded to understand or care} then here goes.

standing is an identity claim that refers to one element in a set and one element alone. you therefore, ontologically can not make an identity claim about something that is refuted by another premise. your second premise is NOT standing. and standing=/=not standing. hence this isnt a well formed formula and hence invalid.

the question of (good or evil)and NOTboth(good and evil) is not an ontological claim at all simply because you can have a world in which you subtract evil from the equation and have good or neutrality. since the initial allowed premises in our world are either do good or do evil or do nothing but no combination of the three. which leaves three options. in the world i am describing there are two option, which still alow WILL two degrees of freedom, making it free.

and please dont take the moral highground. you have been overtly insulting my intelligence throughout or discussion.

now make up your mind does taking away potential option for will{i.e. same sex couples producing offspring, us becoming gods, etc} limiti our free will{in which case god already limits it by taking away the afformentioned and infinit other potential options, and heaven also ends up limiting free will}, or does it NOT limit free will{in which case you would have to concede that you can have a world without evil in which we still have free will}.

you cant have both.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Hmmm. I suppose it isn't necessarily impossible to have a world with no temptation. But a combination of free will, satan etc provide our world with it.

Originally posted by TacDavey
No it isn't. God understands that free will is the greatest gift you can give to a creation, even if some will use it poorly. He would much rather have us free, than mindless robots.

Originally posted by TacDavey
I think it comes down to the same reason He doesn't show up on earth and let everyone know He exists. He doesn't want to actively dictate how we live our lives or what choices we make.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Because they are not like us. They were made to support the ecosystem and provide a number of other ways to make the world a more interesting and enjoyable place to live. We were made specifically to have free will and the ability to choose good or evil.

I asked you why God created animals different from man, and you said "because they are different". This is a basic failure in linear thinking.

Originally posted by red g jacks
we could still make our own decisions in either scenario. the only difference would be which actions/thoughts are available for us to choose. it's really that simple. you could still 'choose your own path' so to speak, there simply wouldn't be a path that leads to evil. to say that this is an impossibility seems to impose limits on the creative prowess that god is supposed to possess. the very notion that there are negative side effects to the greatest gift in a perfect creation is a thoroughly ridiculous idea.

That isn't true free will, though. Otherwise, He could have allowed us the choices between worshiping Him in a church and Worshiping Him outside and closed all other choices. We can still choose the choices that are given us, yet I would hardly consider that free will. True free will is allowing us the complete freedom to choose whatever wer want without any interference from Him.

Originally posted by red g jacks
i don't have to make the claim that they're there for the sole purpose of hurting people, because that is not necessary for the death and pain they cause to be considered 'needless'. as i have pointed out, theres no limit to what god can do and so i can say with 100% certainty that there is nothing good that could come from the suffering and death that could not have been achieved by god without those side affects. the only claim that is left standing in your argument is that avoiding that pain and death while achieving the same goal might not be what god considers best, and in which case it becomes legitimate to consider those events 'evil.'

Then we'll have to disagree. If you honestly believe that it is logically valid to make that claim then there isn't much I can say besides, with all do respect, you're wrong. The very best you can logically say is "I see no reason for God to allow natural disasters." Which is simply not enough to claim it is evil. You say that God could achieve the same effect He desired without natural disasters. This is also a claim you are in no position to make. We are dealing with your limited perception of the world vs an all powerful God. Is it really hard to think that there might be variables that God, who rules over the entire universe, has to consider that you might not know about or have thought of?

Again, "I see no reason for natural disasters" is as far as you can logically go.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
tacey davy i find it hilarious that you completely forgot to reply to the part where i showed you that assuming either truth about free will, you end up not only wrong but self contradictory.

your debating tactic seems to be to NOT debate but restate your oppinions Ad nauseam and then conveniently forget to quote essential parts of the counterargument, hoping it would be lost in the length of the nonsense you are spewing.

the REASON why i asked you about your qualification are because your argument is NOT logical for one. for another i asked you if you understood the difference between logically valid and ontologically valid arguments. to which you childishly replied

"Really? Back that up. Provide the argument that supports that statement. And then explain to me how it fits in with free will. How is killing children anything less than evil?"

demonstrating in the coarse that you havent a clue about the subject. infact i dont think you have much understanding at all concerning logic or the topic of it. for someone who is so adamant in stating and restating that their argument is logical, you would be expected to atleast understand the basic concepts in the subject of logic but you clearly dont. infact, your understanding of LOGIC seems to be that of the most basic layman whose mind has been filled with the lies of relegiosity.

Leonheart, this is getting out of hand. If you truly find this debate distasteful enough to the point where you are simply insulting me you should just end it. There is no need for this hostility. I have been respectful to you so far, if you cannot show me the same level of decency, then I see no reason to continue this conversation with you. I see no reason to try and have a rational debate with someone who's posts consist of petty jabs and insults. It's a waist of my time and yours, and it does absolutely nothing to further our knowledge of the current issue. If my points are not logical, then all you need do is show that they aren't. The rest is unnecessary. If you insist upon attacking me instead of my arguments then I will end this debate.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
if you really want me to show you {even though ive seen enough of your types on here to know that your too narrow minded to understand or care} then here goes.

standing is an identity claim that refers to one element in a set and one element alone. you therefore, ontologically can not make an identity claim about something that is refuted by another premise. your second premise is NOT standing. and standing=/=not standing. hence this isnt a well formed formula and hence invalid.

the question of (good or evil)and NOTboth(good and evil) is not an ontological claim at all simply because you can have a world in which you subtract evil from the equation and have good or neutrality. since the initial allowed premises in our world are either do good or do evil or do nothing but no combination of the three. which leaves three options. in the world i am describing there are two option, which still alow WILL two degrees of freedom, making it free.

You're "good or neutral" world does not allow for true free will. In it, I would be unable to make a negative choice, isn't that right? And removing my ability to make that choice is infringing on my free will.

You seem to think that dictating what choices we have to make, and then letting us "freely" choose between the limited amount that has been made for us is free will. I do not consider this free will at all.

Either that, or you are saying that we can still make negative choices, only these choices would not be considered negative.

So which is it? Are you saying we should not be allowed to make negative choices? Or are you saying the "negative" choices would no longer be considered negative?

Originally posted by leonheartmm
and please dont take the moral highground. you have been overtly insulting my intelligence throughout or discussion.

I'm sorry you feel that way. It was never my intent to insult your intelligence.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
now make up your mind does taking away potential option for will{i.e. same sex couples producing offspring, us becoming gods, etc} limiti our free will{in which case god already limits it by taking away the afformentioned and infinit other potential options, and heaven also ends up limiting free will}, or does it NOT limit free will{in which case you would have to concede that you can have a world without evil in which we still have free will}.

I don't know what you mean by "potential option for will." I consider actions and choices to be two separate things. You seem to be lumping both of them together, correct me if I'm wrong.

So I suppose that means I choose the second option. I just don't see why that means a world with free will and no potential for evil is possible. Explain to me why that logically follows given the second option. cont...