NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm not sure I understand your arguement. Why does the tree giving knowledge of good and evil mean free will did not exist?

By itself, it doesn't.

But the traditional Christian theodicy explains that wickedness exists in the world because without it, there would be no such thing as free will.

But if the Tree granted knowledge of good and evil, then there could be no such thing as wickedness before the fruit was eaten. (How can someone be wicked if he/she does not know the difference between good and evil?) By the Christian's logic then, if there was no wickedness, there was no free will.

In order to claim that there was free will prior to the Tree, one must give up one of these other claims. Either the Tree did not provide knowledge of good and evil, as the Bible says, or wickedness is not a necessary part of free will.

The real question for me would be does heaven/hell exist? Only if there was a heaven or a hell would I consider Christianity. If there was no eternal reward or punishment in the afterlife then I wouldn't join.

I refer thee to the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy and the bit on proving god exists proves that it doesn't exist.


So good!

of course I would convert. I believe in truth.

Some guys long time ago proved that gravity exists, I believe it. Later some proved that humans have evolved from animals, while I don't like, I believe it. I respect the truth that smarter people than me has uncovered. If somebody proves that god exists, I will certainly believe it.

of course I would convert. I believe in truth.

Some guys long time ago proved that gravity exists, I believe it. Later some proved that humans have evolved from animals, while I don't like, I believe it. I respect the truth that smarter people than me has uncovered. If somebody proves that god exists, I will certainly believe it.

Well, but that's really only half the question. So you would believe "that he exists." The rest of it is: would you also convert to Christianity and worship this God whose existence has been so "proven"? There is a difference between "belief that" and "belief in."

Many of us, on moral grounds, choose not to.

i'm with you on that one..... assuming that g_d does exist, i think that we might like to check with him [conventional use: does not imply a divine gender] about all the rules that people claiming to act in his name have seen fit to invent. i think we can just go with the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you and be done with it. none of this "no eating tasty animals : bacon & shellfish" "no mixed fabrics," and "beards for all men". let alone the sexually repressive crap foisted on the world by that misogynist Paul and in some interesting translations of the Pentateuch from hebrew to greek to latin to english. [try running that through the google translation program, and see where it gets you.]

so i'd say that if the xtian god exists, and we can verify the message, i might have to give belief a second try. of course, if g-d DOES exist, and was srious about all those rules, then i'm done for as it is.... unless he's catholic. in which case, i hope to have a deathbed conversion.



Well is the experiment just proving that a singular, masculine, omniscient, omnipowerful omnipresent God, as purported by Christianity, exists,
or
is it an experiment that proves that not only does God exist, but that He has all the rules, beliefs and opinions that Christianity attaches to him?

Because if it's the former, then no I wouldn't convert because the likelihood would still be that the Christian moral code is utter bull.

If the second one, I'm not sure. My personal morality is contrary to traditional Christian morality, so for me to convert would be violating my closest held beliefs, and it would despite my intentions probably be a false and unworthy conversion anyways, as it would be very very hard if not impossible to discard 18 years of beliefs and my own personal moral compass. But then again it's hard to argue with God. I honestly don't know.

I don't think I need to reject either becuase if they thought they would die from eating of the tree. They should not have done it in the first place you don't need the Knowledge of good and evil to realize ceasing to exist is bad.

Let's be clear: if you don't know the difference between "good" and "not good" (evil, wicked, bad, etc), then you CANNOT KNOW THAT DYING IS BAD. How could they?

Also, ceasing to exist ISN'T bad, inherently. There are many situations in which it is good or neutral. Expecting humans who don't even understand rudamentary moral classifications to be able to understand the full ramifications of their own deaths is...well, let's just say that I don't think an all-powerful diety would be that silly.

In order to claim that there was free will prior to the Tree, one must give up one of these other claims. Either the Tree did not provide knowledge of good and evil, as the Bible says, or wickedness is not a necessary part of free will.
Exactly. I'm not sure why so many people seem to be having trouble with this point.

That was the issue for me, although I'm an amoralist (I don't beleive in absolute right & wrong) I think and act according to a subjective morrality which is important to me, I can't see how the God of the bible in anyway conforms to my idea of virtue, thus I do not like him(!), however even if God was the embodyment of all I hold as virtue, worship does not seem an appropriate response. Respect, certainly, and I would try and learn from him(!) but not worship, religion, not Christianity.

however even if God was the embodyment of all I hold as virtue, worship does not seem an appropriate response. Respect, certainly, and I would try and learn from him(!) but not worship, religion, not Christianity.

Right. Hence my insistence that any God that demands worship certainly doesn't deserve it.

My understanding is that according to Christians, a monk who spends his entire life in quiet contemplation of how great God is would be more worthy of heaven than an atheist who cures cancer.

To me, something about that just seems fucked up.

An atheist who searches (and finds) a cure for cancer so that he may become rich and famous, and then uses the money he has gained in selfish ways, yes, could be less worty of heaven than the above monk. So would be someone who claims to be christian, but acts as above, againts what christians are supposed to do (the love thy neighbour part)

in the end, judgment is up to God, who knows both the actions and the reasons; we can have ideas and give suggestions, but not judge, since we see only part of the actions

And science is backed by evidence that is testable and proven. It isn't arbitrary. Only a fundamentalist would say nonsense like that.

the evidence of science is testable, but up to the limits of measure errors, that modern science believe to be not only a matter of improvable instruments, but ingrained deep in the theoretical structure.

We can have theories that describe the world as well as we need, but we can't be sure that they are "Right".

Take classical mechanics: it allows us to build impressive buildings, cars, aeroplanes, etc., but we know that it gets wrong at certain speeds and sizes. Then we have various relativistic theories that work in more generic cases, but still show their limits. We may be able one day to get the "Right" theory, but still we won't be able to prove that it is the one, only we won't be able to find the counterexample.

Eleutherie, don't confuse science, the approach, with science, the boddy of knowladge, any true scientist will accept that any 'facts' are not definate, and may be improved or indeed compleatly refuted. This does not in any way constitute an arguement for religion in general, or for Christianity in particular.

I am still left with the problems, I can not see a reason to beleive in the divine, although I can se the utility of such ideas, but to the point of this thread, I can not see how the existence of a God makes worship a virtuous act.

An atheist who searches (and finds) a cure for cancer so that he may become rich and famous, and then uses the money he has gained in selfish ways, yes, could be less worty of heaven than the above monk. So would be someone who claims to be christian, but acts as above, againts what christians are supposed to do (the love thy neighbour part)

in the end, judgment is up to God, who knows both the actions and the reasons; we can have ideas and give suggestions, but not judge, since we see only part of the actions

I think the objection being made was to the idea that being an atheist (or non-Christian) AUTOMATICALLY disqualifies a person, while being a "good" Christian automatically entitles one to paradise. Obviously there are atheists who are jackasses, just as there are jackasses of every religious orientation, and I don't think anybody is asking that jackasses be given Heaven-passes.


the evidence of science is testable, but up to the limits of measure errors, that modern science believe to be not only a matter of improvable instruments, but ingrained deep in the theoretical structure.

We can have theories that describe the world as well as we need, but we can't be sure that they are "Right".

Take classical mechanics: it allows us to build impressive buildings, cars, aeroplanes, etc., but we know that it gets wrong at certain speeds and sizes. Then we have various relativistic theories that work in more generic cases, but still show their limits. We may be able one day to get the "Right" theory, but still we won't be able to prove that it is the one, only we won't be able to find the counterexample.
Sure, science isn't infallible. No real scientist will claim that it is. But it's hella better than the alternative.

Which method would you prefer your doctor use: applying known methods and well-supported theories to reach a solid diagnosis and path of treatment, or reading a book written several thousand years ago, concluding that pixies have caused your rash, and advising you to pray on it until the rash goes away? Would you like your surgeon to rely on prayer to ensure that your surgery goes well, or would you prefer that he study the best possible techniques that empirical science has provided us? Sure, the empiricist-doctors may end up being wrong, or they may be unable to cure you, or something beyond their control may go wrong, but does that mean you are willing to rely on "faith healing" instead?

Would you prefer that construction companies use unstable techniques but then rely on the gods to keep your house from falling in, under the assumption that the gods are good and wouldn't let a house fall on a wicked person? Would you like a house painter to count on God to fill in the spots he missed? Would it be better for a plumber to rely on supernatural forces to unclog your pipes?

I don't allow my plumber to foist off his job on "God." He doesn't get to tell me that he doesn't know what's clogging my pipes, and that his methods are limited by his human fallibility so he's just going to assume that God created the clog and be satisfied with that answer. Concluding that "God did it" is a cop out that I won't tolerate from somebody mucking about with my drains...why would I allow my doctor or my teachers or the scientists investigating the nature of my universe to indulge in such cowardly tactics?

in the end, judgment is up to God, who knows both the actions and the reasons; we can have ideas and give suggestions, but not judge, since we see only part of the actions

Okay... but if it all comes down to "No one can know the will of God", then why should I believe myself to be better off following the word of the Bible? Why should I worship him if I can't even be sure that's what he wants?

Assuming that God wants us to be "good", the whole "we can't know the will of God" argument boils down to this: be "good". And since we can't know exactly what God thinks is good -- the Bible is just "ideas and suggestions" -- shouldn't we use our reason to figure it out?

And if reason tells me to reject an unjust God, shouldn't I do that?

Indeed, might I not reason that if the God I see "proven" is unjust, then there is every reason to believe that the real God is still hiding in the background, and this impostor is just a test for me?

Shouldn't my real faith be to ethics itself?

I don't believe there is a God... but if there were -- and he were GOOD -- I would have to believe that he would respect this position.

As I see it, if I encounter a God who is not GOOD, then either a) he is not God; or b) he may be God, but I cannot ethically obey him.

And to claim that "God is good by definition, anything he says is automatically good" is to say that you would not recognize God if you found him. Any booming voice from the sky with sufficient fireworks could convince you that he was God... and you would wind up blindly obeying.

And to claim that "God is good by definition, anything he says is automatically good" is to say that you would not recognize God if you found him. Any booming voice from the sky with sufficient fireworks could convince you that he was God... and you would wind up blindly obeying.
Plus, it begs the question: What if God told you to go drown a bunch of puppies? If God is good by definition, would that make puppy-drowning good as well, and would you feel fine and dandy about drowning puppies at His command? Now, replace "puppies" with "infants." Same question.

Atheist: "What makes an action good?"
Christian: "God wills it."
Atheist: "But why does God will it?"
Christian: "Because it is good."

That would be the sensible answer, of course, revealing the begged question and directing the discussion to the deity-independent sources of goodness.

Of course, what we're getting in this discussion is more like this:

Atheist: "But why does God will it?"
Christian: "He just does."

This certainly does nothing to dissuade my opinion that the God of Christian myth is nothing more than an arbitrary tyrant too full of himself to care about what is really best for his creations.

Ah, but if this were Mario, the powerful entity ruling the Mushroom Kingdom would be... King Koopa!

In that case, I too would want to rescue the Princess... and I would be more than happy to dunk God in the lava to do it. ;)

Right, and what you wouldn't do is have Mario standing around bowing to the Nintendo Corporation for creating him, while his time ran out. But yes, the Old Testament god is much more like King Koopa, threatening to throw fire and brimstone (and hammers) at us.

With a different character answering the "booming voice", this dialogue could be from the beginning of New Kingdom times in Egypt, when the god of the slaves ordered them to kill all the first born of the Egyptians.


The problem here is that some people seem to think that God's sentencing need not conform to the dictates of rational ethics. Thus, if God says all crimes are equivalent, they are.

This is completely absurd.

Suppose a man is walking along, and suddenly a booming voice from the heavens talks to him. (Add a burning bush, pillar of flame, glistening stairway, or other special effects as you like.)

Booming Voice: "I am the Lord thy God!! Obey me!!"
Man: "Whoa!! Umm... all right. What do you want me to do?"
Voice: "You must go to the nearest orphanage and slaughter every child that you find. Eviscerate them and burn their entrails while they yet live."
Man: "Umm... That's pretty awful. Why must I do this thing?"
Voice: "Do not question why!! I am God, and I say it must be done! That is enough."
Man: "Well, I'm afraid I just can't do that. It isn't right."
Voice: "It is right if I say it is! Now go! Do my bidding!"
Man: "Give me a reason."
Voice: "You would not understand."
Man: "Well, then I have to pass. In fact, I'm beginning to think you're not God at all. God would not demand such injustice for no rational reason."
Voice: "You will be damned forever if you do not obey me!!"
Man: "Then I'll be damned. But I'm not going to compromise my own ethics without a reason."

Of course, that's what the ethically minded man would do. If it were a religious man, along the model presented by Christian posters to this discussion, it would go more like this:

Voice: "I am the Lord thy God!! Go to the nearest orphanage and slaughter every child you meet!!"
Man: "Whoa!! God!! You're talking to me, personally? Well, I'll do anything!! Sure thing!! ... Should I use an axe, or just bite into their little bellies with my teeth and fingernails?"

Suppose, for a moment, that some enterprising scientist devised a reproducible experiment to show the existance of the Christian God. And, to the great surprise of many, the experiment's results turn out positive. Also suppose for a moment that the Gods of other religions have been proven not to exist.

Would you, in this case, convert to Christianity?

Let's reverse it: If it could be conclusively proven that God does NOT exist, would I become an atheist? Of course, it's silly to follow something that you know for sure isn't true!

Having said that, I'm remaining a Christian, because I know for sure that God DOES exist, so any other course of action would be foolish.

Ah, but "Eostre" was a pagan goddess of Spring! So we would still have her, and her eggs and bunnies... and without all that depressing crucifiction and death!!

Let's not forget we still have Yule, the pre-Christmas winter celebration that was Christianized to help convert the Europeans.

The real question for me would be does heaven/hell exist? Only if there was a heaven or a hell would I consider Christianity. If there was no eternal reward or punishment in the afterlife then I wouldn't join.

The whole idea of it is malevolent. One should do good because it's who that person is, not because of the promise of a reward. And one should reject evil because it's against one's nature, not because they're afraid of hell. And if one is a truly evil person, well then it's in my nature to try and stop you.

But the heaven/hell idea is very insulting. It's like giving a bisquit to a dog for obeying, or a spanking should he pee on the carpet. I think we're better than that. People have the capacity to do good for good's sake, because people have goodness and divinity within them. "Every man and every woman is a star." - Aleister Crowley

The whole idea of it is malevolent. One should do good because it's who that person is, not because of the promise of a reward. And one should reject evil because it's against one's nature, not because they're afraid of hell. And if one is a truly evil person, well then it's in my nature to try and stop you.

But the heaven/hell idea is very insulting. It's like giving a bisquit to a dog for obeying, or a spanking should he pee on the carpet. I think we're better than that. People have the capacity to do good for good's sake, because people have goodness and divinity within them. "Every man and every woman is a star." - Aleister Crowley
Right on. I don't trust anybody who is just behaving themselves to get a cookie or avoid a spanking.

Or the revelation of simple truth.

the revelation of simple truth?
is that kind of like the revelation that the sun revolves around the earth?
or the one that says blue-eyed blondes are superior beings?
or is it the one that says that winning the tour de france five times after being diagnosed with almost as many different types of cancer is impossible?
or is it the one that says that, given a lack of information and pheomena we cannot assimilate into out current world-view, the human mind devises intelligent, causal beings (not unlike ourselves, funnily enough) whose jobs it is to govern said things-we-cannot-understand? like any number of pagan-and-otherwise deities, demons and semi-divine creatures who've been a part of the human collective unconscious since we first became aware of an 'i'?
is it kind of like that?
i'm not into calling others idiots. despite not believing in this so-called 'Christian God', or any other of the myriad beings i've already alluded to, i try to practice the advice a pretty swell HUMAN apparently gave out a few thousand years ago (and if he wasn't human, or actually didn't exist, or WHATEVER...), which is to 'love thy neighbour as thyself'.
so if there're idiots on this forum, they're equally the name callers as the name callees. which speaks volumes for the sense of self-worth of the seemingly 'righteous' amongst us.
besides which, the deity of which this thread began speaking is (to my admittedly heathen, un-saved, or whatever denuciatory adjective is in vogue these days, mind) only known through a text that, written by mortal men, is subject to the same errors that seemingly creep into anything we humans have our grubby little hands in.
so i don't believe in this or any other god. there is no 'hole in my life' that should be filled with the light of God, or god (surely there are pedantics amongst those posting). and given incontrovertible evidence to the contrary... i guess it would be hard NOT to believe. but converting to christianity?
besides which, isn't the whole point of worshipping a god doing so WITHOUT incontrovertible evidence? kinda like an act of FAITH?

and in deference to the continued evolution of the thread...
re: the tree

traditionally, i think the idea is that the tree provided the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil. but, posessing free will (as humans were gifted upon creation), adam and eve posessed the ABILITY to do evil, even if they somehow did not. until adam ate from the apple (or eve gave it to him: i'll leave it to minds better than mine to debate the blame side of that event, and where the true evil lies). so somehow, we're given two creatures who, though posessing the ability to do ill, seemingly did not until they knew what it was.
hence, to my admittedly inferior intellect:
either god prevented evil from occurring;
or he set some bizarre divine moral blank upon the world, under which THERE WAS NO EVIL. all things were good, since they were as god made them. which seems somehow WRONG, since the big guy was so pissed off about the whole tree/apple incident.
and on that subject: was the act of lucifer not an evil, or at least malicious one? precluding the knowledge-attainment of the brand new children of god? so where does that leave us?
me? with a big f**king headache.

By itself, it doesn't.

But the traditional Christian theodicy explains that wickedness exists in the world because without it, there would be no such thing as free will.

But if the Tree granted knowledge of good and evil, then there could be no such thing as wickedness before the fruit was eaten. (How can someone be wicked if he/she does not know the difference between good and evil?) By the Christian's logic then, if there was no wickedness, there was no free will.

In order to claim that there was free will prior to the Tree, one must give up one of these other claims. Either the Tree did not provide knowledge of good and evil, as the Bible says, or wickedness is not a necessary part of free will.

Thats absurd. Saying that a lack of knowledge of something is a logical proof to its non existance is absurd. By that logic we can say that photons only came into existance very recently and thus human beings have been groping around in the dark for the last several centuries.

Free will does not mean the ability to do absolutely anything at all. Me having free will does not mean I can defy gravity. Adam and Eve had free will but what they lacked was an understanding of morality, that does not detract from there free will, in the same way that my lack of understanding of quantum entanglement does not detract from my free will. God did not give them the burden of understanding, only of obedience.

God did not give them the burden of understanding, only of obedience. Obedience seems an onerous charge when, to many of us the will of god is not clear.
Thats absurd. Saying that a lack of knowledge of something is a logical proof to its non existance is absurd. By that logic we can say that photons only came into existance very recently and thus human beings have been groping around in the dark for the last several centuries. In the finest tradition of debate you are putting up a straw man to speak for those that doubt you. Saying that the tree gave knowladge of good and evil allows these things to have existed before, what it does not allow is for Adam and Eve to know of them. Told not to eat the fruit by God, and to do so by the serpant, they had no means of judging whose istruction was the better. There lack morality does contrast somewhat with Gods condemnation...

Thats absurd. Saying that a lack of knowledge of something is a logical proof to its non existance is absurd. By that logic we can say that photons only came into existance very recently and thus human beings have been groping around in the dark for the last several centuries.

Free will does not mean the ability to do absolutely anything at all. Me having free will does not mean I can defy gravity. Adam and Eve had free will but what they lacked was an understanding of morality, that does not detract from there free will, in the same way that my lack of understanding of quantum entanglement does not detract from my free will. God did not give them the burden of understanding, only of obedience.

I agree. A parent may tell a two year old not to touch the stove burner. The child has no knowledge of what will happen if he touches it, only that his parent said not to do it. If he obeys, he is spared the pain but if he decides his will takes precidence over the parent's, he gets burned. Once he gets burned, he gets the knowledge but the blister is already welling up and the pain is there.

If he does he's a total arsehole, and I refuse to worship arseholes.

which speaks volumes for the sense of self-worth of the seemingly 'righteous' amongst us..... ......there is no 'hole in my life' that should be filled with the light of God And speaking for myself, I am one who has pathalogicaly low self worth, I do feel the gaping whole atheism left in my life, giving up on god is not easy, I think some of the religious should give the likes of me more credit, this is a principled stand, not an easy way out.

I agree. A parent may tell a two year old not to touch the stove burner. The child has no knowledge of what will happen if he touches it, only that his parent said not to do it. If he obeys, he is spared the pain but if he decides his will takes precidence over the parent's, he gets burned. Once he gets burned, he gets the knowledge but the blister is already welling up and the pain is there.
And, thus, a loving parent will place a hot stove in the middle of the child's playroom, cover it with balloons and pretty colors, set a magic elf next to it which will try to entice the child to touch the stove, and then walk away. After the child burns itself, the parent will kick the child out of the house and refuse to ever allow it back in.

Atheist: "What makes an action good?"
Christian: "God wills it."
Atheist: "But why does God will it?"
Christian: "Because it is good."


But the same circular logic is found in situations not involving God

P1: Why is it good to be unselfish
P2: Because it benefits society
P1: But isnt society just other people
P2: Essentially yes
P1: And when you say unselfish it means to consider others needs before your own
P2: Yes
P1: Thus isnt doing something for the benefit of society mean putting others before yourself
P2: Yes
P1: So you can be said that you should be unselfish because you should be unselfish

And, thus, a loving parent will place a hot stove in the middle of the child's playroom, cover it with balloons and pretty colors, set a magic elf next to it which will try to entice the child to touch the stove, and then walk away.

So what would you have him do? Keep them locked in Eden with no way of ever getting out? A prision is still a prision even if its very nice. Free will needs a choice to function. There is no point in having free will in a situation where you cant make any choices and have to do the things set in front of you. Without a serpent, the only reason they would obey God is because they knew no diffrent, not because they loved him. And I dont see how God made the tree any more attractive and entising to lure them to it. It says it was "pleasing to the eye" but I doubt no more so than any other of the plants.

Mikheilistan, I agree: that is why I am an amoralist, anything I define as good is essentialy something I find pleasing, that is why I say that good has only colloquial meaning, there is no absolute meaning to the word.

You, however you duck the issue entirely, because a person who has argued against you has been logically inconcistant, it does not hold that all arguements against you are logically inconcistant!

Where Adam & Eve immortal before the fall?

But the same circular logic is found in situations not involving God

P1: Why is it good to be unselfish
P2: Because it benefits society
P1: But isnt society just other people
P2: Essentially yes
P1: And when you say unselfish it means to consider others needs before your own
P2: Yes
P1: Thus isnt doing something for the benefit of society mean putting others before yourself
P2: Yes
P1: So you can be said that you should be unselfish because you should be unselfish

Ironically, that was a tactic used by Socrates many many times. Which many scholars believe the character of Jesus to be slightly biased by the likeness to Socrates.

So what would you have him do? Keep them locked in Eden with no way of ever getting out?
Yeah, you're right, I imagine they were probably clammoring pretty hard to get out of paradise. Which is why the Christian religion is all about getting back into paradise, there to remain for all eternity.

Not to mention the new and wonderful glaring logical error you have now introduced. It works like this:

Mikheilistan: Staying locked in the Garden forever would have been horrible! You wouldn't want God to have done that, would you?

Well, but GOD wanted to do just that! That's why He got mad at Adam and Eve; His plan was to keep them in the Garden, and they mucked up that plan, so He was ticked. He even ended up letting his only child get murdered so there would be a way to get humans BACK into paradise!

So either 1) staying in the garden would have been wonderful, because God wants only the best for us, or 2) staying in the garden would have been a prison, and God clearly does not have our best interests in mind.

Alternatively, if God put the Tree in the Garden because He wanted people to get cast out of paradise, then His punishing humanity for doing precisely what He intended them to do is remarkable unjust. He could have just not put us in the "prison" to begin with, or given us the knowledge to leave on our own if we wanted to do so, but instead He deceived and then unfairly punished us. What a nice guy.


A prision is still a prision even if its very nice.

So you obviously don't want to go to Heaven, then? Because you'll never be able to leave, you see, once you are there. Of course, you won't WANT to leave, any more than Adam and Eve wanted to leave the Garden, but it's still a prison...


Free will needs a choice to function. There is no point in having free will in a situation where you cant make any choices and have to do the things set in front of you.

So Adam and Eve had no free will, then? Then why did God punish them for eating the apple? And if they did have free will, then why would it be bad to have free will while also living in the Perfect Garden?


Without a serpent, the only reason they would obey God is because they knew no diffrent, not because they loved him.

So you only love your wife if there's another woman tempting you to cheat? You only love your kids if there are other kids jockying for your affection?


And I dont see how God made the tree any more attractive and entising to lure them to it. It says it was "pleasing to the eye" but I doubt no more so than any other of the plants.
If it was just another tree, why would they mention it was "pleasing to the eye"? If everything was pleasing to the eye, why would they make specific note of the pleasingness of one particular thing?

And even if it was ordinary, does that really change the analogy? Do you install dangerous appliances in your child's bedroom, so that he will learn not to play with them? Do you feel that using drab-coloured appliances is somehow less objectionable than if you used colourful appliances for the same purpose?

If we go back to Gnostic ideals(which is still technically Christian by the way, even if it is mostly extinct), then it could be said that the snake was actually a savior who gave us the gift of knowledge, thereby giving us the ability to save ourselves from the "evil" god of the old testament.

Just something hypothetical I thought I should mention. Even though I don't believe any of this myself I do thank that supposed snake for giving me the power of free thought.

my my my this thread keeps gettin better an better lmao

fisrt we have the christians defending the religion which is fair play and unfortunatly if im reading correctly this is how it goes so far....
*cues the starwars music an scrolling logo's*

the story thus far from the almighty...
in a small planet not so far away...
god the big person without gender after being knakred from building the ... well everything decided to make man to amuse himself unfortunatly man became bored so god made woman for him to play with man and woman played for some time in gods garden untill one of gods buttmonkeys decieds to inform them of a cunning game of scrumping gods apples!! it involved woman taking the apple an her trmpting adam to eat it...(sorry folks apple or naked woman ??? had to put that lmao!!) they eat the apple an god decideds to bugger em for stealing...
part 2...
after a few thousand years god sends down his son to rectify a few probs on earth (he made his son by messing with mary... which is wird becouse he breaks one of his own commandments...lol) anyway jesus goes around kicking bum in church faits throwing round stuff an generaly doing things others didnt like eg: turning all ppl into alcoholics with the water to wine trick when they just wanted a cool glass of water!
the decendents of adam an eve then decide sod it kill the bugger ut he knew it was gonna happen anyway cuz god told him so (so forthought of ones own death before the event hmm.. isnt that suicide my bad if not...) jesus forgives us all an dissapers ...

i may be ignorant of may churchy things but i do know some things i find this thread a great laugh an also ispireing and im glad to seesome sensible points of veiw which if there is a god id love to sit an listen to his point of veiw now that would be a great thread too lol unfortunatly he might get peved an strike a few peeps down in the procces ... but hang on isnt that murder? ohh sod it god may choose to do it so its all good.... (sodam he made exelent salt for fish n chips there dindt he ?)

i said it once i follow only my own path but i will live by what is morlay right not becouse a book asid to do it or a spiritual light guiding me just becouse i belive why the hell should i peve u off if u havent done anything to me ....that an the fact i dispise anyone forcing anything on anyone including religion so thanks peeps for a great thread

*runs out of brainfart gas*

And, thus, a loving parent will place a hot stove in the middle of the child's playroom, cover it with balloons and pretty colors, set a magic elf next to it which will try to entice the child to touch the stove, and then walk away. After the child burns itself, the parent will kick the child out of the house and refuse to ever allow it back in.

The balloons and pretty colors are a bit of an overstatement, but that seems to be the case. Unlike the illustration, God is more than the Parent. He is also the Creator. As the creation, we are subject to the creator's will. If he wants to put the stove there, its really his business. I don't have all the answers, but my limited understanding of the situation is God gave us the free will to love him or not. He created a paradise and dropped Adam and Eve off there. He could have removed the possibility of sin and had little robot people that submitted to his will by a lack of alternative choices. Or he could allow sin to be a component of our experience and let us decide whether to submit to his will or not. I believe a creation that chooses to honor the creator is more satisfying to the creator. Also, while the burning stove may seem cruel, perhaps there is a benefit as well. Adam and Eve lived in Paradise. They knew no other existence until eating the fruit. How good is perfection when that is all you know? Maybe seeing success after knowing failure provides perspective otherwise unavailable.

The balloons and pretty colors are a bit of an overstatement, but that seems to be the case. Unlike the illustration, God is more than the Parent. He is also the Creator. As the creation, we are subject to the creator's will. If he wants to put the stove there, its really his business. I don't have all the answers, but my limited understanding of the situation is God gave us the free will to love him or not. He created a paradise and dropped Adam and Eve off there. He could have removed the possibility of sin and had little robot people that submitted to his will by a lack of alternative choices. Or he could allow sin to be a component of our experience and let us decide whether to submit to his will or not. I believe a creation that chooses to honor the creator is more satisfying to the creator. Also, while the burning stove may seem cruel, perhaps there is a benefit as well. Adam and Eve lived in Paradise. They knew no other existence until eating the fruit. How good is perfection when that is all you know? Maybe seeing success after knowing failure provides perspective otherwise unavailable.

This is one of the notions that I think is at the core of the problem with Christianity: the idea that we must have the potential for evil in order to do good, or that we must be tempted to be evil in order to be virtuous.

I'm not even remotely tempted to kill another person. I am not remotely tempted to rape another person. The majority of evil in the world holds no appeal for me whatsoever. Does that make me incapable of doing good? HELL NO. I probably spend more time helping other people than the average person does. Is my free will reduced at all by my lack of temptation to do evil? I don't think so.

I don't see any reason why God could not give all people a similar sense of morality. Why would He allow there to be people who are strongly tempted to murder or rape, when He could just as easily make it so that such things hold no allure for us? Humans are not tempted by the idea of having their fingernails pulled out slowly, one by one, yet we still are free creatures with the ability to choose our actions; why could God not have given us a similar aversion to harming OTHER people?

The idea that humans would become robots without the ability to do evil to each other is, frankly, stupid. A quadrapalegic is pretty much incapable of directly harming another person, so does that mean he lacks free will? Does he have less moral worth than a fully-abled person, since the fully-abled person is capable of significantly more evil?

Also, remember that the vast majority of what makes us individuals, and the vast majority of our choices, have absolutely nothing to do with good and evil. My friends and I hold pretty much identical opinions on the subject of doing evil, but that doesn't mean we are identical. My friends and I are equally incapable of committing a rape, but that doesn't make us robots. We make millions of choices every day that determine who we are, and I can't honestly even remember the last time one of my choices involved choosing between "good" and "evil." They're just choices, individual and personal, and it is making THOSE choices that keeps us from being identical automitons. We all are identically unable to fly by flapping our arms, but that doesn't make us robot; why would we suddenly become robots if we lacked the ability to murder another human being?

Yeah, you're right, I imagine they were probably clammoring pretty hard to get out of paradise. Which is why the Christian religion is all about getting back into paradise, there to remain for all eternity.

Not to mention the new and wonderful glaring logical error you have now introduced. It works like this:

Mikheilistan: Staying locked in the Garden forever would have been horrible! You wouldn't want God to have done that, would you?

Well, but GOD wanted to do just that! That's why He got mad at Adam and Eve; His plan was to keep them in the Garden, and they mucked up that plan, so He was ticked. He even ended up letting his only child get murdered so there would be a way to get humans BACK into paradise!

So either 1) staying in the garden would have been wonderful, because God wants only the best for us, or 2) staying in the garden would have been a prison, and God clearly does not have our best interests in mind.

Alternatively, if God put the Tree in the Garden because He wanted people to get cast out of paradise, then His punishing humanity for doing precisely what He intended them to do is remarkable unjust. He could have just not put us in the "prison" to begin with, or given us the knowledge to leave on our own if we wanted to do so, but instead He deceived and then unfairly punished us. What a nice guy.


Staying in the Garden would have been wonderful BUT you have missed the point of what I was saying. The Garden was there with a way out. Now God left the way out open to them at all times. God wanted them to stay in the garden and be in the kind of relationship with them there which was extremely personal, as in way more than we can know now. But he would not force them to. Why? Because he wanted them to love him. By its very nature love cannot be forced.


So you obviously don't want to go to Heaven, then? Because you'll never be able to leave, you see, once you are there. Of course, you won't WANT to leave, any more than Adam and Eve wanted to leave the Garden, but it's still a prison...

You cant even begin to speculate properly on the nature of heaven, but if you must be so pedantic, then its like a marriage. A mariage is a prision in so far as you are commited to one partner alone. However you choose that state because you love that partner.


So Adam and Eve had no free will, then? Then why did God punish them for eating the apple? And if they did have free will, then why would it be bad to have free will while also living in the Perfect Garden?

Of course they had free will. They could choose to eat or not eat the fruit.


So you only love your wife if there's another woman tempting you to cheat? You only love your kids if there are other kids jockying for your affection?

As I have said before, love cannot be forced and comes from a choice.


If it was just another tree, why would they mention it was "pleasing to the eye"? If everything was pleasing to the eye, why would they make specific note of the pleasingness of one particular thing?

Thats rediculous logic. By your logic saying "That women is beautiful" is stupid because there are obviously other beautiful women in the world so to say one is beautiful is silly.


And even if it was ordinary, does that really change the analogy? Do you install dangerous appliances in your child's bedroom, so that he will learn not to play with them? Do you feel that using drab-coloured appliances is somehow less objectionable than if you used colourful appliances for the same purpose?

Your insinuation was that God tempted them into sinning. Thats not the case. I've already stated that unless they had the ability to sin, they cannot have been said to be free, since their situation was forced onto them.

This is one of the notions that I think is at the core of the problem with Christianity: the idea that we must have the potential for evil in order to do good, or that we must be tempted to be evil in order to be virtuous.

You misunderstand. Christianity says evil exists because good exists. Darkness can be idenfied because light exists. If there was no light we wouldnt know what darkness is because we would know no diffrent.

You misunderstand. Christianity says evil exists because good exists. Darkness can be idenfied because light exists. If there was no light we wouldnt know what darkness is because we would know no diffrent.
Right. And I think that analogy is bunk. Bad things would happen in the world even if human evil totally disappeared, and thus there would still be plenty of opportunity for good to "shine." Think of the recent tsunami; talk about an opportunity for good-doing! No human evil required, and you have some ready-made "darkness" to accomodate your "light"!

Let me be perfectly clear: human goodness does NOT require human wickedness.

Hell, if human goodness requires that human wickedness exist, why the hell are we fighting crime? We should be allowing crime to happen, so that we can then do good things to help the victims, right? If we fight crime, the implication is that we would like to "win," or at least to reduce the amount of crime, and by your logic that means we will be reducing the amount of good in the world! We don't want that! If we were to eliminate murder, or rape, or abuse, then we would eliminate tons of goodness! Why do we even put criminals in jail? We need them out there doing evil, so we can be good! If we put a rapist in jail then he can't be out raping more women and allowing more good to exist in the world! We shouldn't punish criminals, we should thank them for making it possible for there to be goodness, by being the evil that "balances" our good!

This is much the same logic as saying, "if you turn on all the lights in a room, and there is no corner of the room that is untouched by the light, you will be utterly blind because there will be no darkness to "balance" the light."

Neither the human eye nor human morality works in such a way. I can perceive light even if there is no darkness (because darkness is simply the lack of light, while light is the PRESENCE of particles rather than merely the absence of darkness), and I can be good even if I cannot be wicked.

I would not convert.

Because mass human religion, quite frankly, creeps me out. Religions believe in perfect gods (recent ones anyway, the Greeks for instance had rather imperfect gods, and thus I'd be closer to believing them than Christianity or any other modern religion).

I believe that, if there is a god, he's just as flawed as humankind until proven otherwise. A god with no flaws is a god with no personality, and I find the idea of some faceless, lifeless something ruling the world and the universe rather disturbing.

Whether it's true or not, I'd rather a flawed god rule than a perfect one. But you don't always get what you want.

I'm unsure if a god exists at all sometimes, but when I do, I'd like to think there's something more than a faceless entity (supposedly loving or not).

This is one of the notions that I think is at the core of the problem with Christianity: the idea that we must have the potential for evil in order to do good, or that we must be tempted to be evil in order to be virtuous.

I'm not even remotely tempted to kill another person. I am not remotely tempted to rape another person. The majority of evil in the world holds no appeal for me whatsoever. Does that make me incapable of doing good? HELL NO. I probably spend more time helping other people than the average person does. Is my free will reduced at all by my lack of temptation to do evil? I don't think so.

I don't see any reason why God could not give all people a similar sense of morality. Why would He allow there to be people who are strongly tempted to murder or rape, when He could just as easily make it so that such things hold no allure for us? Humans are not tempted by the idea of having their fingernails pulled out slowly, one by one, yet we still are free creatures with the ability to choose our actions; why could God not have given us a similar aversion to harming OTHER people?

The idea that humans would become robots without the ability to do evil to each other is, frankly, stupid. A quadrapalegic is pretty much incapable of directly harming another person, so does that mean he lacks free will? Does he have less moral worth than a fully-abled person, since the fully-abled person is capable of significantly more evil?

Also, remember that the vast majority of what makes us individuals, and the vast majority of our choices, have absolutely nothing to do with good and evil. My friends and I hold pretty much identical opinions on the subject of doing evil, but that doesn't mean we are identical. My friends and I are equally incapable of committing a rape, but that doesn't make us robots. We make millions of choices every day that determine who we are, and I can't honestly even remember the last time one of my choices involved choosing between "good" and "evil." They're just choices, individual and personal, and it is making THOSE choices that keeps us from being identical automitons. We all are identically unable to fly by flapping our arms, but that doesn't make us robot; why would we suddenly become robots if we lacked the ability to murder another human being?

Where do you get your sense of morality from? What does good and evil mean to you? I'm not speaking of good vs. evil. Those terms are subjective to me unless there is some absolute moral authority to which I can look to. I am talking about submitting to God's will, which by default means adhering to his definition of good and evil. Obviously, there are murderers and rapists among us. Based on your sense of morality, they are considered evil. Do they see themselves as evil based on their sense of morality? In the Bible, Jesus said (I am paraphrasing) 'The ten commandments say do not murder, but I say if you hate your brother, you have committed murder in your heart.' So according to God, haters are murderers. Are haters evil in your morality? If you derive your sense of morality from your personal nature, how can you be sure it is right? Maybe we should all conform to our own morality, but what happens when someone else's morality steps on ours?

Where do you get your sense of morality from?

From lots of places. My upbringing is a factor, but there are some things I have changed, rejected, or added on my own. Personal experience is another strong factor, though I also rely on guidance from other people, books, art, research, and sources beyond myself. My morality is a conglomeration of everything I know (so far) about what it means to be human, and what I feel is right. It's personal, subjective, and more meaningful to me than any cut-and-paste morality that people have suggested I follow.

What does good and evil mean to you? I'm not speaking of good vs. evil. Those terms are subjective to me unless there is some absolute moral authority to which I can look to.
Good and evil are subjective. There is no absolute moral authority, in my opinion.


I am talking about submitting to God's will, which by default means adhering to his definition of good and evil.

So if God appeared to you, and you KNEW it was God, and God ordered you to drown ten infants, you would feel that was a Good act because God willed it?


Obviously, there are murderers and rapists among us. Based on your sense of morality, they are considered evil.

No, they are not objectively evil. I believe they are evil, according to my subjective moral code, and I believe that I will do everything in my power to stop them and prevent them from acting in a way I believe is evil. But I don't claim to have any objective moral authority on the subject.


Do they see themselves as evil based on their sense of morality?

Some do, some do not. Rapists have a variety of moral systems.


In the Bible, Jesus said (I am paraphrasing) 'The ten commandments say do not murder, but I say if you hate your brother, you have committed murder in your heart.' So according to God, haters are murderers. Are haters evil in your morality?

I don't believe emotions are good or evil. Only the way in which we choose to act on our emotions can be good or bad.


If you derive your sense of morality from your personal nature, how can you be sure it is right? Maybe we should all conform to our own morality, but what happens when someone else's morality steps on ours?
I cannot be sure my moral system is right. I never claim that it is. My moral system dictates that I live as best I know how, according to my beliefs, and within only one limitation: that my freedom to live as I believe must never directly prevent another human from exercising the same freedom. It's the "your freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose" mentality. I extend that standard to other people, as well; they are free to believe whatever they want, so long as their beliefs do not prevent me from exercising the same right of individual choice.

Because there is no objective source of morality, I have decided that the best thing for me to do is apply one moral code equally to all persons (including myself), since I have no objective criterion that would allow me to seperate people into a particular set of groups with different rights. I also conclude that my limited moral understanding means I should have this moral code be as minimal as possible, to ensure that I am interfering in individual freedom of moral choice as little as possible.

So, to answer the question I know you were setting up earlier, I believe that rapists have every right to go around believing that rape is moral. However, they do not have the right to rape anybody, because that interferes with the freedom of the victim. I have the right to go around thinking murder is okay if I want (though I want to be clear that I DO NOT ACTUALLY THINK MURDER IS OKAY), but I don't have the right to act on that belief in a way that takes freedom of choice from anybody...in other words, I don't have the right to murder somebody.

So, to answer the question I know you were setting up earlier, I believe that rapists have every right to go around believing that rape is moral. However, they do not have the right to rape anybody, because that interferes with the freedom of the victim. I have the right to go around thinking murder is okay if I want (though I want to be clear that I DO NOT ACTUALLY THINK MURDER IS OKAY), but I don't have the right to act on that belief in a way that takes freedom of choice from anybody...in other words, I don't have the right to murder somebod.

I guess I don't understand. You are saying it would be okay for me to think it is okay to murder somebody, but not okay to actually do it because I would be infringing on their rights. But if I think it is okay to murder somebody, why would I not do it if I wanted to? Thinking it is okay to murder somebody goes hand in hand with not caring about their rights, namely their right to live. If everybody does what is okay in their own mind, then it only matters what someone else thinks when they are in agreement. If morality is subjective, then all that matters is what matters to me. I should be able to do whatever I want as long as I am okay with it. I have to hope what matters to you doesn't infringe on my rights and need to be prepared to defend my rights as long as defending them doesn't interfere with what matters to me. In my opinion, there is no point to morality without absolute moral authority. Absolute moral authoritary implies a supreme authoritarian (is that a word?) who has provided 'the rules.' You could have a God who didn't provide a clear morality, but that is the same as no God; do what you want because it doesn't matter.

This discussion of free will and good vs. evil ties right back to what I was saying about Adam and Eve, now that I think about it:

I think somebody earlier on was trying to say that Good and Evil are objective concepts, so Adam and Eve could commit an act that was objectively Evil without knowing anything about the standards of determining Good and Evil. Sort of like how I could pick up a green marble blindfolded; I picked something that has the quality of Greenness, though I was unaware of it having that quality, just as Adam and Eve could have picked something that was Wicked without knowing that it had the quality of Wickedness.

[This then leads to substantial debate on God's reaction to their unknowing choice, but I will set that aside for now.]

Now, if that is the case, and the qualities of Good and Evil are objective qualities, then my point about free will is correct; human knowledge of Good versus Evil is totally unnecessary, because an action will still have the objective quality of being Good or Evil regardless of whether a human is aware of that quality. Humans could do nothing but Good their entire lives, and it would still be Good even if nobody ever did Evil, because Goodness is an objective reality rather than a quality imbued by human perception of an act. We might not be able to fully GRASP the distinction between Good and Evil, but there are plenty of things we don't grasp and we don't consider that proof that we lack free will. We also could, theoretically, possess ONLY knowledge of what is Good, and no knowledge of what is Evil, or vice versa. Humans could be made totally incapable of doing Evil and would still be capable of doing Good, and vice versa.

The only way that existence of Good could depend on existence of evil would be if good and evil are based solely on human perception; we perceive contrasts, and thus we would not perceive "goodness" the way we do unless we had an alternative concept of "evilness" to show us its opposite.

Personally, I view it the way I view our perception of colours. My friend Aaron is colourblind, and cannot perceive the difference between red and green. However, he can still see many many other colours, and is actually a very artistic person. Just because he cannot appreciate the distinction between red and green does not mean he cannot see purple or orange or yellow. A person who cannot distinguish our current concepts of "good" and "evil" is not necessarily an automiton with no cognitive sense of "colour."

Or, to think of it another way, I can identify the yellow colour of a ball even if there is no red object present to contrast it against. I can even identify that the ball is yellow when it is resting on a yellow table in a yellow room with yellow lighting...even if there is nothing of any other colour that I can see, anywhere, I can still identify that the ball is yellow. I can still experience goodness even if there is no badness provided for contrast, because goodness does not require uniformity; many very different things may have the quality of yellowness, just as many different things may have the quality of goodness, and thus I can easily identify and distinguish them even though they share a potentially important trait. If God were to make all people yellow we would still not be automitons; if He were to make us all Good we would also not be automitons.

I guess I don't understand. You are saying it would be okay for me to think it is okay to murder somebody, but not okay to actually do it because I would be infringing on their rights. But if I think it is okay to murder somebody, why would I not do it if I wanted to?

You might very well do it, but I would classify that as "wrong." That is my personal moral code.

Thinking it is okay to murder somebody goes hand in hand with not caring about their rights, namely their right to live.

Not necessarily. You might think they have a right to life, and you might value it very highly, but you might murder them anyway. It's happened plenty of times.


If everybody does what is okay in their own mind, then it only matters what someone else thinks when they are in agreement.

I would say the opposite is the case. If everybody agreed, there wouldn't be any issue.

If morality is subjective, then all that matters is what matters to me.

If that is your moral choice, yes. In my moral system, what matters to other people is also very important. That is what I have chosen to believe. If you choose to believe that only you are important, then that could be your moral system.


I should be able to do whatever I want as long as I am okay with it. I have to hope what matters to you doesn't infringe on my rights and need to be prepared to defend my rights as long as defending them doesn't interfere with what matters to me.

That's my moral system, you see...that each person has the right to believe whatever they choose, and to act on it in any way they like, so long as they do not directly prevent any other person from exercising the same freedom.


In my opinion, there is no point to morality without absolute moral authority. Absolute moral authoritary implies a supreme authoritarian (is that a word?) who has provided 'the rules.' You could have a God who didn't provide a clear morality, but that is the same as no God; do what you want because it doesn't matter.
If you feel there is no point to morality without some objective source then that's fine. I don't agree with you. I feel my morality is very meaningful and important, and I don't have any objective source for my morality. I feel that my morality has a very clear "point," in that it makes me a happier, more generous, more productive person, and helps me to make the world a more joyful place. I feel those things are important...some people don't. I don't much mind that there are people who disagree with me, nor do I need to feel that I am "objectively" right in my moral system.

Basstopia you arguement that bottles morality condones murder is facile, and frankly it pisses me off when religious people condemn out of hand the ethics of those who have devoted much time and energy in trying to find an acceptable way to live. To reject absolute morality, and then try and live a 'good' life is a profoundly difficult thing, and I respect anyone who trys, for myself I have lived a profoundly mediocre life, by my own standards.

However, the point of this thread was, assuming God does exist, would you convert? I (and I assume bottle) still would say no, God may create and sustain all things, God may know and love all, my conceptions of good and evil remain, they are both illusions, I like alturism, I disslike violence, these are a matter of preferance. I seek a world where altuism prevails over violence, this does not imply any absolute morrality.

This discussion of free will and good vs. evil ties right back to what I was saying about Adam and Eve, now that I think about it:

I think somebody earlier on was trying to say that Good and Evil are objective concepts, so Adam and Eve could commit an act that was objectively Evil without knowing anything about the standards of determining Good and Evil. Sort of like how I could pick up a green marble blindfolded; I picked something that has the quality of Greenness, though I was unaware of it having that quality, just as Adam and Eve could have picked something that was Wicked without knowing that it had the quality of Wickedness.

[This then leads to substantial debate on God's reaction to their unknowing choice, but I will set that aside for now.]

Now, if that is the case, and the qualities of Good and Evil are objective qualities, then my point about free will is correct; human knowledge of Good versus Evil is totally unnecessary, because an action will still have the objective quality of being Good or Evil regardless of whether a human is aware of that quality. Humans could do nothing but Good their entire lives, and it would still be Good even if nobody ever did Evil, because Goodness is an objective reality rather than a quality imbued by human perception of an act. We might not be able to fully GRASP the distinction between Good and Evil, but there are plenty of things we don't grasp and we don't consider that proof that we lack free will. We also could, theoretically, possess ONLY knowledge of what is Good, and no knowledge of what is Evil, or vice versa. Humans could be made totally incapable of doing Evil and would still be capable of doing Good, and vice versa.

The only way that existence of Good could depend on existence of evil would be if good and evil are based solely on human perception; we perceive contrasts, and thus we would not perceive "goodness" the way we do unless we had an alternative concept of "evilness" to show us its opposite.

Personally, I view it the way I view our perception of colours. My friend Aaron is colourblind, and cannot perceive the difference between red and green. However, he can still see many many other colours, and is actually a very artistic person. Just because he cannot appreciate the distinction between red and green does not mean he cannot see purple or orange or yellow. A person who cannot distinguish our current concepts of "good" and "evil" is not necessarily an automiton with no cognitive sense of "colour."

Or, to think of it another way, I can identify the yellow colour of a ball even if there is no red object present to contrast it against. I can even identify that the ball is yellow when it is resting on a yellow table in a yellow room with yellow lighting...even if there is nothing of any other colour that I can see, anywhere, I can still identify that the ball is yellow. I can still experience goodness even if there is no badness provided for contrast, because goodness does not require uniformity; many very different things may have the quality of yellowness, just as many different things may have the quality of goodness, and thus I can easily identify and distinguish them even though they share a potentially important trait. If God were to make all people yellow we would still not be automitons; if He were to make us all Good we would also not be automitons.
Bravo.

Although, perhaps, we would not know anything without an appropriate contrast, I have seen red, many times, and thus I will never know what it is to experience yellow without having experienced red... Still, as I dont beleive in morality this has no bearing on good & evil for me ;)

Bravo.
Thanks...It's a complex topic, so I'm trying not to talk in circles while I sort out my thoughts :P.

Thats absurd. Saying that a lack of knowledge of something is a logical proof to its non existance is absurd. By that logic we can say that photons only came into existance very recently and thus human beings have been groping around in the dark for the last several centuries.

Not true. These are completely different things.

"Evil" or "wickedness" is a matter of human behavior and motivation. Before the Bible's introduction of "knowledge of good and evil", we were presumably much like dogs -- or perhaps more appropriately, trained monkeys -- who could be given commands, might even have a vague understanding of "hurt if I don't", but who certainly could not be "evil" any more than an ape can be evil. We had "free will", apparently, in precisely the same sense that any beast has free will -- we could decide to take a biscuit, take a walk, or take a dump. We could even, I suppose, smack someone one for trying to take our biscuit.

But none of that makes us evil. Or good, for that matter. We simply were not moral creatures. Thus, if we misbehaved under such circumstances, the only "reprimand" that makes moral sense is one designed to teach us to behave better. "Don't hit Eve for taking your biscuit!"

Instead, they do one thing out of line, and God goes on a tirade and punishes, not just them, but their entire progeny through the history. When, according to the Christian logic under discussion, they could not have known any better!!

There could as much be "evil" in the world before knowledge of good and evil as there could be mathematics without knowledge of numbers.

Adam and Eve had free will but what they lacked was an understanding of morality, that does not detract from there free will,

But that is not the Christian doctrine. The Christian theodicy, again, holds that without evil there can be no free will. For our purposes, let us define "evil" as "taking pleasure in doing wrong." (See that story about Augustine and the pears I've been going on about... He discusses how he enjoyed stealing them just for the sake of doing wrong -- he never even ate them, just threw them away.) No one can take pleasure in doing wrong if they do not know what wrong is.

in the same way that my lack of understanding of quantum entanglement does not detract from my free will. God did not give them the burden of understanding, only of obedience.

Then why did he treat them any worse than a disobedient puppy?

Once again, God comes off as a real sadistic bastard.

There could as much be "evil" in the world before knowledge of good and evil as there could be mathematics without knowledge of numbers.

See, and that's how I view it. Since morality is a human construct, morality could not have existed before humans "knew good and evil."

However, just for the sake of argument, I tried going down the alternative path and considering what might be the case if there were some objective Good and Evil qualities that exist independent of human conceptions...and we still wind up at your conclusion, that...

Once again, God comes off as a real sadistic bastard.

But the same circular logic is found in situations not involving God

Sure, ethics is a tough subject. It can be difficult to get out of the circular arguments.

Nevertheless, in the case of my example, the circle reveals its own "out." As soon as you say, "God wills it because it is good," you admit that there is a non-theological (objective) reason for things to be good. Once you do that, you get out of the circle: there is no longer any reason to talk about God.

So what would you have him do? Keep them locked in Eden with no way of ever getting out? A prision is still a prision even if its very nice.

This is the sort of "very nice" prison that Kafka would invent.

In the middle of Paradise, there is one very delicious-looking tree whose fruit is supposed to be deadly. (God tells Adam he will "surely die" if he eats it.) A friendly serpent comes along and tells Adam's partner Eve that it is all a ruse, if he eats the fruit he will "be like God."

Now, Eve likes God! She admires no one in the world more than God! Wouldn't it be great to be just like him? ("I want to be just like Daddy when I grow up!")

Eve thinks to herself, quite realistically, "Why would God, who is so good to us, plant a poisonous tree in our back yard? That would be silly. It's probably something for grown-up people (older than a few days)... and he doesn't think we're ready for it! He's trying to protect us, that silly God! But I want to be like God now, and I know I can handle it... he's just underestimated us!" ("I can do it, Daddy!!")

So she takes a bite of the fruit, and gives some to Adam. Indeed, they had called God's bluff!! They did not die!! That silly, lying God!! Moreover, they were more like God now... with knowledge, they were more grown up!!

So what does that asshole do? He gets pissed off and kicks them out on their own, with punishments for both them and their descendants. Were they given any reason to suspect such harshness? No.

What kind of free will is it in which God first lies about the consequences, then radically overreacts? Did they have the choice to leave Paradise? No. By all indications, they had no reason to believe there was anything outside of Paradise.

The balloons and pretty colors are a bit of an overstatement, but that seems to be the case. Unlike the illustration, God is more than the Parent. He is also the Creator. As the creation, we are subject to the creator's will.
Yes, but that is an extremely complex moral judgment. How can we know that it is "just" to be subject to the creator's will, and "wrong" to disobey him, before we know what "right" and "wrong" are?

I believe a creation that chooses to honor the creator is more satisfying to the creator.

Yeah, but he's GOD. Why is he so obsessed with "satisfaction," and such a baby when he doesn't get it? He sounds a lot like a guy who takes a girl on a date, pays for everything, wins her carnival prizes and what-not... and then gets pissed when she doesn't sleep with him.

If God really respected free will, he would have to admit that if we don't love him, maybe the problem is his, not ours. Once again, he comes off as a rather neurotic fellow.

Also, while the burning stove may seem cruel, perhaps there is a benefit as well. Adam and Eve lived in Paradise. They knew no other existence until eating the fruit. How good is perfection when that is all you know? Maybe seeing success after knowing failure provides perspective otherwise unavailable.

And exactly how many generations of humanity are supposed to live in misery before Adam and Eve learn how good they had it?

Staying in the Garden would have been wonderful BUT you have missed the point of what I was saying. The Garden was there with a way out. Now God left the way out open to them at all times.

Yeah, but the sick thing is that he didn't label it. Or rather, he labelled it "candy aisle," provided a vague warning of death, and left the serpent to tempt them into it. All of a sudden they were kicked out of Paradise forever... and you call that a free choice?

If God wanted them to appreciate how good they had it, why didn't he just send them out for outside-of-Paradise day-trips? I don't need to live in the ghetto to know I don't want to... I just need to visit for a day.

God wanted them to stay in the garden and be in the kind of relationship with them there which was extremely personal, as in way more than we can know now. But he would not force them to. Why? Because he wanted them to love him. By its very nature love cannot be forced.

Right. But by that logic, it is highly irrational to get angry with someone for not loving you.

You cant even begin to speculate properly on the nature of heaven, but if you must be so pedantic, then its like a marriage. A mariage is a prision in so far as you are commited to one partner alone. However you choose that state because you love that partner.

And if you don't love your partner? Should he beat you and send you out into the desert for it?

Of course they had free will. They could choose to eat or not eat the fruit.

Then that just proves that there can be free will without knowledge of good and evil, right?

Q: 'If the Christian God existed, would you convert?'

A: 'No, I don't think we'll get allong'

or to put it differently: I may be coerced by an all powerful God, but I can't see how this god is an object worth of worship. No amount of ethical reasoning is going to overcome that.

I decided I'd post a reply to this post, but wouldn't vote in the poll. Simply because I don't agree with any three of the answers. Or the question. "If the Christian God "EXISTED"?" Now, I don't think such a thing can "exist" simply because each person's opinion of what this "God" is is different. Some stick by what they teach you at first school [An old man sitting on a cloud] And others think different. I myself as a Christian, don't think many of the stories should be taken LITERALLY, And that they purely are there to teach us how to be good people. I mean.. The bible/some parts of it was/were written abit after Jesus died, right? So there's not really much chance the stories are COMPLETELY correct. And the things like "God created us in his image" I don't beleive in. There's simply no evidence "he" exists. And if there was a man sitting on a cloud somewhere, I think we may have just discovered him by now. Don'tya think? I mean sure, I respect people's beleifs and stuff if that's what they think. And if they think I should be able to call myself a Christian or not. I've been told many-a-time I can't call myself that. I personally don't think things like religions should be followed so strictly, and as they're someone's beleifs, which will reflect on their life and how they live it, I think they should have a chance to be slightly different to others in the same religion. However, we do find that these simple differences in beleifs have devided Christian groups. So yeah. I think I'll leave it at that. Something to dwell on, eh?

To me Christian means follower of Christ, so I suppose (stretches catagory to breaking point) I could call myself one.... hmmm.....

I suppose if we open up the debate to all the different Christian ideas of god, then we will end up with two billion or so threads! My vote stays no! I refuse to acnoladge morral superiority (or inferiority) of any other being, but I reserve the right to love or hate them as seems fit to me.

The parent Analogy isn't originally mine, but someone elses. They were attempt to say that it's Gods fault that man is "naughty"

i realize that, but it looked to me as though were were trying to rationalize his analogy with your own argument.

I wouldn't say Scientist, but perhaps, a Self Study course Instructor. all the materials and lessons are provided, the Instructor sits at the head of the class and says I am here if you have any questions and problems, Now as the Lab Class progresses, he moves amoung the students and will offer advice and counsiling as to what needs to be done, there are texts and notes from previous years that the students can use as well as bringing Questions to the Teacher Himself.

Now as the Students, we can peruse the books and the notes, ask the instructor for guidence or we can choose to go it alone. the instructor will aid those who ask for help, but will not impose his views and advice on those who choose not to ask.

he will hover and watch but not interferre, he will help when asked but it's up to the students to follow his advice or not.

and he will hand out the final grade when all is said and done.

i hate to keep expounding on these analogies but the key thing you'd be missing here was that the self study course instructor wouldn't actually be visible to the students, and that he only whispered to one or two students that he existed, and left it up to them to rationalize that to the rest of the class. now, those that believe can ask the instructor for guidance, and might actually hear an answer in the form of a sign or a sudden revelation that they attribute to the "supposed" instructor. and so to the people in the class who do not believe those few who proclaim the instructor to exist, they don't know if they should follow the advice that those believers say that the instructor has offered.

He does exist, IMHO, and I am a happy non-practicing Christian. I guess you could group me in with the Protestants?

I'd also like to point out that God (Christianity), Allah (Islam), and Yahweh (Judaism) are all one in the same.

So you're saying that the world's 3 largest religions are false? That the world's oldest religion is false? I could call you a Nazi for being disrespectful to Jews.

Warblington, as a ranter to a non ranter, thanks for contributing :)

He does exist, IMHO, and I am a happy non-practicing Christian. I guess you could group me in with the Protestants?

I'd also like to point out that God (Christianity), Allah (Islam), and Yahweh (Judaism) are all one in the same.

So you're saying that the world's 3 largest religions are false? That the world's oldest religion is false? I could call you a Nazi for being disrespectful to Jews.

Indeed you could, but you would be paying a great dissrespect to the Jews, I do not beleive in their God, who is not the same as that of the Christians and Muslims, but of the same broad tradition, however I do not advocate killing, or discriminating against any of these, or other groups.

Yahweh is in no provable way, the oldest of gods.

Yahweh is in no provable way, the oldest of gods.

Indeed. In many provable ways, he is one of the youngest.

Sorry, but I'm still pissed of about the asertion that atheism makes one a Nazi, I'm an athiest because I find certanties like theirs so alienating, because I accept that I havn't always got the right end of the stick. I can be a vitriolic debator, but I am a tollerant man, and this tollerance is tied up in my athiesm, it stems from the same place.

Staying in the Garden would have been wonderful BUT you have missed the point of what I was saying. The Garden was there with a way out. Now God left the way out open to them at all times.

So it wasn't a prison because there was an open door. The only catch was that walking through that door meant they had to endure pain, suffering, evil, and death.

God wanted them to stay in the garden and be in the kind of relationship with them there which was extremely personal, as in way more than we can know now.

So he decided they could have a choice: either stay in the garden as mindless automitons to worship him blindly with no knowledge of the alternative, or gain knowledge and be cast out forever.

I know that's exactly the kind of healthy relationship I try to acheive in my real life.


But he would not force them to. Why? Because he wanted them to love him. By its very nature love cannot be forced.

So instead of forcing them to love Him, He just used his all-powerfulness to punish them for all eternity because they didn't love Him the way He wanted them to love Him.


You cant even begin to speculate properly on the nature of heaven, but if you must be so pedantic, then its like a marriage. A mariage is a prision in so far as you are commited to one partner alone. However you choose that state because you love that partner.

Ah, "marriage is a prison." Is there any more Christian a sentiment?

No, my friend, a real marriage is never a prison. Marriage is an agreement, a mutual partnership. No person is kept against their will, nor are they held unwilling captive by the other. That may be the Biblical model of mating, but sane adults don't interact in such a manner.

You need to make up your mind, at any rate. Was the Garden a prison? Is Heaven? Is being all-good and all-happy forever and ever a prison? Why would God be trying so hard to get us all back into Paradise, if doing so means that (in your terms) He is trying to imprison us?


Of course they had free will. They could choose to eat or not eat the fruit.

Excellent. Then free will does not require the human ability to do evil, and later thesis stands firm. God deliberately allows human-caused injustice in the world.


As I have said before, love cannot be forced and comes from a choice.

But I guess coersion is just fine...God can say, "love me or I will cause you and all your decendents to live in pain and injustice for the rest of foreve," and that doesn't count as "forcing" anything.

No wonder religiosity is so strongly correlated with domestic abuse.


Thats rediculous logic. By your logic saying "That women is beautiful" is stupid because there are obviously other beautiful women in the world so to say one is beautiful is silly.

No, honey, it's like if you were in a room filled with beautiful women, and you decided to tell somebody about one particular woman who was there. Saying, "she was beautiful" would be silly and redundant, since you've already set the scene by explaining the room is full of beautiful women. The Garden has already been described as paradise, the beauty of God's creation, so specifically stating that one Tree is "pleasing to the eye" must really be significant for them to single out that particular bit of beauty to be mentioned.

Of course, the entire point is irrelevant, and I'm not sure why I'm even pursuing this discussion...


Your insinuation was that God tempted them into sinning. Thats not the case. I've already stated that unless they had the ability to sin, they cannot have been said to be free, since their situation was forced onto them.
I'm not insinuating anything. I'm stating quite clearly that there is a finite number of logical possibilities. You have failed to respond to any of them, other than to say "nuh uh!" and repeat yourself.

Indeed. In many provable ways, he is one of the youngest. Please give a little snippet more, I'm afraid that my conception of time is a little, fluid, I am certain that Judaism is not a truly anchient religion, but this stems from vews I have of what religion is mixed with insufficient knowladge to make it a pillar of my case.

Please give a little snippet more, I'm afraid that my conception of time is a little, fluid, I am certain that Judaism is not a truly anchient religion, but this stems from vews I have of what religion is mixed with insufficient knowladge to make it a pillar of my case.

Well, the earliest form of Yahwehism dates -- even according to the Bible -- to Abram's taking the name Abraham and leaving the ancient city of Ur, which historians now believe to be a real historical event.

Prior to that time, Abram was a worshipper of the Sumerian religion. Indeed, his father was a priest of that faith. So, the Sumerian gods, along with other gods of that era -- Egyptian, Babylonian, Teutonic, etc. -- predate Yahweh.

Offhand, I'm not sure of the exact dates... but it seems that the early religions may have been around in full bloom for several thousand years before Yahweh.

Of course, the Yahweh of Abraham was quite a bit different than the God of modern Judaism.

The next phase occurred around the exodus from Egypt... again, I'd have to look for exact dates, but put this some time between 1000 to 2000 years B.C. That is when Moses introduced the commandments. It is NOT, however, the time at which the Torah was written down, by all available evidence.

The Torah appears to have been written during or immediately after the Babylonian captivity, some 500 years or so B.C. It is at this point that we get the Genesis story, which actually bears a strong resemblance to the Babylonian creation myth. It has even been theorized that the "seven days" of creation are actually a condensed version of the seven tablets on which Babylonians wrote their creation myth.

At any rate, I would date full-blown Judaism to about this time. Bear in mind that by this point, the peak of the Greek (actually Agaean) gods has already come and gone.

Of course, elsewhere in the world you have Native American religions and Eastern religions that had been around for thousands of years. Of these, Hinduism is still around.

Thus, of currently worshipped gods, I would say that the Hindu gods are by far the oldest.

Well, the earliest form of Yahwehism dates -- even according to the Bible -- to Abram's taking the name Abraham and leaving the ancient city of Ur, which historians now believe to be a real historical event. How far can we trust this though ;) Are you sure Yahwehism dated from this time, or just Abrahams addoption (wasn't sure from your wording) Of course, the Yahweh of Abraham was quite a bit different than the God of modern Judahism. Quite so, I understand that even after the setteling of Judea there where two (male and female) gods in the Judaic religion.
At any rate, I would date full-blown Judaism to about this time. Bear in mind that by this point, the peak of the Greek (actually Agaean) gods has already come and gone. Gone!?

Of course, elsewhere in the world you have Native American religions and Eastern religions that had been around for thousands of years. Of these, Hinduism is still around. However, as with Judaism, these religions have changed, of native American Gods I know little, Hinduism is much younger than you suppose, although I understand its close cousin Bramanism (still going) was well established at the time of the first Buddah (I think 500BC or there abouts).

How far can we trust this though ;) Are you sure Yahwehism dated from this time, or just Abrahams addoption (wasn't sure from your wording)
Yes, this is the origin of Yahwehism as such. The Bible gives a lineage for Abraham... but all of his ancestors, historically speaking, would have been Sumerian. As I said, his father was a priest of the Sumerian religion.

Then Yahweh came along and said, "pick up your things and go where I tell you." Apparently, Abraham did what he was told... and his descendents became followers of this new (nameless) God. But he would have been treated as one god of the same nature as any other Sumerian god. The Hebrews just believed that he was "the best."

Quite so, I understand that even after the setteling of Judea there where two (male and female) gods in the Judaic religion.

Indeed. There was also no indication of either omniscience or omnipotence. He was much more like any of the ancient Gods... one could hide things from him, one could bargain with him, and so on. When he was associated with "holy places," like certain mountains, it was believed that he actually resided there. He was not an "immaterial entity in the sky" (or anywhere else).

Gone!?

Quite so. While Zeus et. al. were still officially worshipped by Hellenic peoples, their real influence was over. With few exceptions, the religion had been scuttled to a sideline of life, in favor of a rising secularism. Perhaps more importantly, men had begun to apply a critical edge to their thinking about the gods. They began to consider whether it made sense for gods to be anything other than wholly "good"... and only in this period did people begin to think of gods as "perfect" beings.

It was an entirely different world, religiously.

Ah I see what you mean, I thought you where saying that the whole kit and kaboodle of the Olimpian gods had been replaced with another, which confused me :) You know, I think I could have got on with Appolo, it's the whole being the moral arbiror that exclueded me, but I love the pomp of religion.

Right, back to the fray!

hell no I wouldn't - I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints if the only God was the one talked about in the Bible.

Amen brother Amen!

hell no I wouldn't - I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints if the only God was the one talked about in the Bible.
Agreed in my opinion the god as described by Christianity does not deserve worship

Agreed in my opinion the god as described by Christianity does not deserve worship


Don't tell the Christian God (I know you talk often) this but when I get to the afterlife I'm starting a resistance to try to bust other souls out of the Christian Heaven and Hell.

Don't tell the Christian God (I know you talk often) this but when I get to the afterlife I'm starting a resistance to try to bust other souls out of the Christian Heaven and Hell.
Viva La Resistance !

I think the opposition has evaporated :( I may even have to go to bed!

Yes, goodnight, I hope you have all had fun :)

right i gotta post this in support of pineappolis i too find the mere thought of being classed as a nazi for being an atheist offencive i also find it a very amusing comment from (if it has there's tones to read on here) a christian so let me help a lil... bottle has a good idea as an athist we dont read a book writtan by man when the book itself said worshep no god bar myself (isnt contantly reading a book worshep ?) it has may contradicitons that people of questionable minds querey for example how can the book say worshep 1 god but also say worshep these other ones as well (father son and holy spirit) it wouls make far more sence to say worshep the holy spirit but pay mind to the words of the father and son... but this raises other problems becouse as humans arnt we all children of god ?
there are some other bits but by posting them i dont wish to upset members of the catholic faith as it can be viewd as a direct attack on them
as for classing myself as an atheist im proud to be one it makes me question things an seek answers that others blindly accept it is also good to see bottle has done tonnes of homework lol
this thread can go on for ages and i will post again but for now i gotta shoot to work ... nightshit bummer innit!! :(