What if I told you no one is going to hell?

No, I haven't. That was a response to your article (and your defense of the article). I was just noting that the reasoning in the article isn't very good. My position is not that suffering means there is no god. I just think "mass suffering is totally compatible with a loving and benevolent god because reasons" is silly.

 

Actually I disagree. This could be explained as simply as knowing if you put out a treat for a cat and the cat takes it. You know the cat would take it, knowing their evolutionary instincts to feed, but that choice is still clearly his/hers.

I guess you again missed my point about being omnibenevolent. And in some ways your response of "no intentions/inclanations" is partly true. The process of mankind was not to prove his greatness, but to create. And even knowing that man would sin has no relevance on his choice to create.

 

Yes, but we didn't create the cat. If we created the cat with an instinct to grab any food in front of it, then we did intervene in the cat's choices by creating that instinct.

 

That is purely your opinion and doesn't have much merit in this debate.

 

But that "instinct" isn't the choice, it is the "desire". I think this is why I believe you aren't understanding the true nature of "free will". The cat could easily "not eat the treat", even if he or she was starving.

 

If opinions have no merit in this debate, then none of the posts in this thread have any merit. There are no "facts" about god, religion or spirituality. Only interpretations and opinions. In fact, your opening post in this thread was purely opinion and conjecture. Why did you create a thread with no merit, magnifier?

 

No my post is in response of "I think it's silly" being a reason why it can't be used. So if I think evolution is silly, we can strike it from our debate as well? That would be one hell of a snowball effect that will go the wrong direction.

 

You can't have it both ways. You claim that if god created humans to not want to do evil by instinct, that would be intervening and kill free will. But if god creates humans to be sinner by instinct, that's just "desire" and has nothing to do with free will.

If desires can be implanted with no cost to free will (as you assert with the cat example), then god could have created humans with the desire to only do good, with no cost to free will.

 

I think it's silly for the reasons I gave in a previous post. I didn't just say it was silly and leave it at that. I was simply pointing out that I never argued that suffering means no god. I was arguing against an article's reasoning I found non-compelling (if that wording offends you less).

 

But as I explained earlier, that our observations of what we see is what we know. And knowing that humanity does sin, it would be more logical that sinning is "in our nature". The desire to sin is present, our choice is to choose to sin or not to. That is our free will.

To assume that a universe without sin "desires" is compatible is purely speculative.

 

If a creator god exists, "our natures" were given to us by that god. Our natures could have been anything it chose. Why not give us the desire to not sin and then let us make choices?

 

What if "our human nature" and "desire not to sin" are not compatible? We are using observations of what we know. And since you and I aren't God, I could safely say that the other possibility may not be a choice at all. At least for humanity.

 

What if they are compatible? At this point, there's not a lot to discuss...anything could be a possibility. To me, it's reasonable to think that if god has the power to create our nature to desire sinning, god has the power to create our natures to desire not sinning. If that's not a reasonable assumption to you, we'll have to agree to disagree, because neither of us is going to be able to find out from the source (or show that god doesn't exist).

 

Show me any observation that would support this theory?

 

Show you an observation that god had the power to give us different natures? God doesn't offer itself up to being studied.

 

As you said earlier "This isn't about God existing", and in this debate you and I are both assuming there is the Christian God.

So just look around and you can see different nature all around us. From the lion to the squid. All have different nature

 

Doesn't that seem a little unsatisfying, though? I could mention the more superficial point that if god were "perfect," then it wouldn't be narcissistic, but really this better leads into what I find unsatisfying about the very concept of god. If god is an unfathomably intelligent, wise, powerful being (in fact, the usual concept of god is so vast that it's even silly to use terms like intelligence, wisdom and power to describe it), why would it need or want anything? Why would it need glory? Or worship? Or entertainment? Or anything. Concepts of god are generally of unfathomable "everythingness"...and then given very human attributes and desires. What would a human want? Probably stuff like glory and worship and entertainment and power. Isn't it...unsatisfying to think that a being that encompasses everything wants those things or anything?

I keep using the word "unsatisfying," because I've tried to reconcile god concepts with this idea of what it wants. I can't imagine what it could possibly want. I agree that I shouldn't be able to fathom the mind of god, but the claims of many religions of what it wants are extremely fathomable...they're what very imperfect humans would want. That seems very strange. Doesn't it? How do you reconcile that?

 

Well since you, I or ptldPlaytypus aren't God, then we can't assume to know what a perfect creation would actually need or want.

He did make us in "His own image". The difference is we have part of God in us, but not enough to understand how to obtain greatness without sin.

As the great Rolling Stones sing "You can't always get what you want!"