Christmas has a substantial secular component in the U.S.: BUT !! Q ...

USFREEDOM911 said:
Because we are responsible for all of our actions, due to having free will.
Misery is normally caused through either human action or non-action and if God intervened, then why would anyone have a reason to change their behavior.
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Man, it's difficult to get the point across to some of you simpletons.

You supposedly have this all-loving, all-powerful deity. What the fuck is he doing? You have a couple of options here, pal. All of them uncomfortable for you.

AWOL
Non-existant
Feckless

That must really suck for you.
 
domer76 said:
Man, it's difficult to get the point across to some of you simpletons.

You supposedly have this all-loving, all-powerful deity. What the fuck is he doing? You have a couple of options here, pal. All of them uncomfortable for you.

AWOL
Non-existant
Feckless

That must really suck for you.
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You left out some other descriptive phrases; but just because you refuse to listen, doesn't mean that He's not speaking to you. :D
 
sear said:
a) The Bible says we're created in his own image & likeness.

b) The very fact that we can not "figure him out" with our limited brains proves why he is God and we are not." S #15

Do you have any evidence for this at all?
If you study history, the opposite would seem to be true. Read Bertolt Brecht's Galileo. Science used to be the handmaiden of religion, until Galileo's astronomical observations contradicted Catholic Church doctrine.

I see no evidence that supports your "The very fact that we can not "figure him out" with our limited brains" claim.

We may not have figured it all out yet.

But we've done quite well, just in my lifetime! I was born in 1954. Back then there were cars on the road with 2 wheel brakes.
The cars we drive today are vastly improved!

They're safer.
They're more comfortable.
They're more economical.
They're more reliable.

Nope.
From Newton to Einstein, and well beyond; I think we're doing quite well.
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I thought you wanted a simple direct answer to your good and evil post. You're venturing off now into cars, Einstein, science, astronomy, etc. You started off acknowledging God as God. Now you're just trying relate earthly matters to spiritual ones.

So, sorry...my bad. I have no interest in strife and arguments about who is smarter...the Creator or the created. Venturing off into how we humans are doing on the earth that God created is not connected to your original post. There is no connection......what you're starting now is another conversation about how humans are doing. Nothing wrong with that, but it will only produce arguments among believers and unbelievers.

When you ask a spiritual question, expect someone to take you seriously and attempt to give you spiritual views from the source...the Word of God.
 
sear said:
#3

Ad hom,
it changes the subject. It doesn't address the argument, which for the record in this thread remains completely unrefuted.
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unrefuted?.......it isn't even a legitimate argument.....if he is both willing and able, then whence comes evil?.....from the fucking idiots doing the evil......humanity......did that slip your mind as well as Epicurus?.....

and learn to push the "Reply with Quote" button you simple minded twit......
 
domer76 said:
If your omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omnipotent deity exists, then there is no "free will". He/she/it knows all that has ever happened or what WILL happen. If the what WILL happen is already known, no free will for you. A done deal before you even did it.
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another simple minded argument......so God knows what you are going to do in the next ten minutes......that's called foreknowledge......does he tell you what to do?.....does it miraculously appear in your mind?......does he lift your legs to make you start walking?......of course not......YOU do not have foreknowledge.....YOU have to make your choices on your own......YOU have free will.....

not be able to answer why your all-powerful deity does nothing to prevent all the misery in this world
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he gave that job to you......why don't you do what you know you are supposed to do?.....because you freely chose to do evil......poor Epicurus.....
 
sear said:
#12

The source regarded as the definitive authority on the Christian trinity is THE HOLY BIBLE.

It's a collection of story books.

And if you read a few, you'll see that "god" intervened in numerous ways; DESPITE ostensible free will.
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Just how does the act of God keeping His promises eliminate FREE WILL? It does not. The scriptures detail just how God keeps His promises and prophecies concerning future events....or what some call "predestination" that some errantly conclude makes null and void man's gift of free will.

First of all...not even an omniscient God can know a future that is yet to exist. There is no such thing as the past, the present and the future running concurrently along some imagined time line. There is only NOW. You can't bring back the past and you can't foresee a future that has no guarantee of becoming a reality. Such nonsense is based upon SCIENCE FICTION.

Example: Is everything unchangeably ordained? The scriptures tell us that God repented that He had made man in the first place (Genesis 6:5-7). Proving what? God changed His mind. Why? Because even God could not see into a future that had not yet unfolded when He first made man. To even suggest that God created man in His imagine with the foreknowledge that man by majority would choose evil over good...is Absurd.

Free Will exists because we are told that Sin (evil or wrong choices) come from man's desires not God (James 1:13-15) And....man in his weakness (lack of omniscience, wisdom) will invent things that God has never thought of (Jer. 19:5, 32:35). God was speaking of the practice of the evil servants of Baal sacrificing children by fire at an alter.

These acts of human sacrifice by fire proves that man has free will and often chooses evil over good.

No one serves God because HE MAKES THEM.... To demonstrate the point the scriptures clearly detail the fact of Free Will and God's promises. "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." -- 2 Peter 3:9

So just how does God plan something even before time itself began...if He can't see into an imaginary future that is yet to be? He tells us just how He does it. He indeed sometimes intervenes with man because He can...He is God who is going to stop Him, the creator of the universe? The created? Hardly...but this does not eliminate man's free will choices...God simply works around those choices and manipulates the present to make come about that which He has planned in the past. He uses who He will, when He will....man does not have to believe in God for God to use him/her, God simply uses them because He can, because He has made some promise in the past.

The scriptures detail this information concerning God, Free Will and Predestination. The Bible tells us, "Behold the former things (the past) that have come to pass, and new things (the future) that I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them." -- Isaiah 42:9

Then God goes on to tell us just how he plans things and makes them come about when He wants them to come about...at a time of His choosing. "Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things are not yet done, saying My counsel shall stand, and I will do my pleasure, calling a bird of prey from the east (symbolism for a strong predator king/leader).....the man who executes my counsel, from a far country; Indeed I have spoken it (planned it in the past)...I will also bring it to pass (in the present when the times comes), I have purposed it, I will also do it." -- Isaiah 46:9-11.

No ones free will is violated...God simply does what He wants, when He wants BECAUSE HE CAN...HE IS GOD. :)

Not even God's omniscience allows Him to see into a future and KNOW what someone with free will ....might be thinking and acting on in the future, because those thoughts have not yet been generated. But...God's omniscience and omnipotence allow Him to manipulate the present to bring about what He has planned in the past...regardless of man's free will choices.
 
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" I have no interest in strife and arguments about who is smarter...the Creator or the created. " S #23
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Me too.
It wouldn't occur to me.

Instead, I simply responded to: "The very fact that we can not "figure him out" with our limited brains proves why he is God and we are not." S #15

In a court of law, an exceedingly low standard by the way, this is called "assuming facts not in evidence".

It was a simple claim of intellectual inadequacy. I cited counter-examples.

I fully understand why you would wish to cut & run. Not many people like to be proved wrong.

#24
Believers claim god is a benevolent overlord: omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.
"..from the fucking idiots doing the evil......humanity....."
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oh
You mean the ones god created?
So god established standards of morals and ethics; and also created humans that violate those standards.

Got it!
 
"Just how does the act of God keeping His promises eliminate FREE WILL? It does not." #32
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YOU quote the exact wording of the promise, and I can more directly address the answer.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
watching you and making comments to his angels on the progress you are making on your assignment.......how do you feel you are doing?.....
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Are those comments also made to you? Voices in your head, pally boy, are not a good sign for your mental health. But most of us recognize that.

Can you tell us all again how a 600 year old man built a football sized boat and got all the animals in the world on it?
 
Does God know everything? Yes. The Bible says he knows the beginning from the end.

Do we have free will? Yes. From the early days, believers were given the Great Commission to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. The salvation message is given and the hearer must choose life or death.

God knows everything and people are free to choose. They co-exist. In the natural it makes no sense, so we believe by faith that both are true simply because this is God's Word. We were not given the mental ability by God to grasp this. It's easier and less stressful to simply take God at his word, believe that both circumstances exist by design, give thanks to God that he knows best and go on with our lives trusting in his greater wisdom and live our lives by faith...which is all he asks to do. :)

As far as advancing automotively from the Edsel to the cars of today...OK...we can handle stuff like that, LOL
 
sear said:
Me too.
It wouldn't occur to me.

Instead, I simply responded to: "The very fact that we can not "figure him out" with our limited brains proves why he is God and we are not." S #15

In a court of law, an exceedingly low standard by the way, this is called "assuming facts not in evidence".

It was a simple claim of intellectual inadequacy. I cited counter-examples.

I fully understand why you would wish to cut & run. Not many people like to be proved wrong.

#24
Believers claim god is a benevolent overlord: omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

oh
You mean the ones god created?
So god established standards of morals and ethics; and also created humans that violate those standards.

Got it!
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You're veering all over the place...far from the simple concept of your original post. You're complicating a simple message from God's Word.
Yes, he knows everything from beginning to end.
Yes, we choose him or deny him.

Don't try to understand this what the natural mind...we can't, simply believe it by faith.

And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined He also called, those He called He also justified, those He justified He also glorified.
Roman 8:28-30
 
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