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[Idiom]

lucusLoC you should post more often. That's the best I've seen someone do that rebuttal yet. Go to an atheist oriented site and post that. Watch them go apeshit. 

Ok, this just bugs me. It is often used as an argument or explanation for why someone does not believe in God (or higher power or whatever), but all it does (to me anyway) is show ignorance and a lack of critical thinking ability.

Same. Especially when they just post only that as if it were a closer to a religious thread.

fallacy of false choice. simply put, it is a fallacy where a limited set of choices are given, and where those choices are represented as the only options when in reality there are more options available.

Epicurus set out with a goal when he made that which really shows up when prodding it. That I think is the bane of reasonable and beneficial religious arguments.

I always thought this would be a very awkward position for God. You could call it "Evil" for him to destroy someone's free will and you could call it "Evil" to allow "Evil" to happen unto others when he could stop it. When there's no right answer there is no wrong one either, but Epicurus always struck me as a "glass half-empty" kind of philosopher.

[Cyx]

You seem to value logic quite much, yet you claim that we have free will like it's the most natural thing, though I don't think you could come close to giving a convincing argument for it. We make choices, but we make them according to the situation, our knowledge, and our past. What is the difference between "My house is on fire do I go inside and save my child or do I try to carry my wife to the hospital ?" and a machine processing "Livingchildimportance=10, livingwifeimportance=7, chancetomakeitintime = 56%, chancetodieinthefire=34%, ownlifevalue=7" ? The only one is that for the human, the numbers are harder to figure out, leading to the illusion that his decision is made on the spot. But we all have some knowledge, some experiences, and we all care about some things. Where is the "free will" in this, once you've figured out the exact numbers ? Given that a good psychologist can do it very efficiently, why the hell couldn't God ? Which leads me to the second argument:

If God knows everything, he knows what we are going to do. And knew it from the start. I already pointed out that this idea wasn't very much in the favor of the concept of free will, but there's more; there is no "experiment" there, he knew who would make good choices and who would make bad ones. Yet he still created us. This is one of the underlying arguments of the problem of evil; how can you be good when creating something you know will make bad choices and cause evil, then giving him the ability to do so ?

Thirdly, there is no mention of free will in the four propositions. God is assumed to want Good, and you admitted yourself that free will needed evil; logic would then tell you that your free will had no place there. God wants Good, God knows how to make it, God can make it, so God makes it, end of story. But even then; why would free will be equal to good ? Isn't Good, by definition, everything you could ever want ? What exactly is the benefit of a good made deliberately by us over a good made deliberately by God ? I can't see why there would be any. Yet He doesn't seem that willing to make the world a better place.

And Jude, I think you're wrong. I feel like "With great power come great responsibility" kind of applies here. You just can't "allow Evil to exist and not be malevolent". I was about to say it's like causing the pain yourself, but since we're talking about the guy who created everything while knowing everything, he actually did. What definition of malevolent doesn't include a guy that watches everyone suffer because of him, all the while having the power to stop it all without any consequence whatsoever ? I don't feel that arguing semantics is needed here. Maybe you could give an example of a definition of good that would make the world we're living in a perfect place devoid of evil ?

(Just to make it clear, absolutely no hard feelings towards anyone here, I just enjoy arguing about religion.)

[Dakk]

Whatever eerr said. Existing or not, too much of an ass for me to care about.

[Idiom]

You seem to value logic quite much, yet you claim that we have free will like it's the most natural thing, though I don't think you could come close to giving a convincing argument for it.

The subject of free will itself is another argument entirely. Very abstract sort of concept, but arguing over it's existence is irrelevant. Free will is a given within the cannon that Epicurus was after. Epicurus was trying to dislodge the whole Judeo-Christian as illogical from within it's own cannon in which we have been given free will.

If God knows everything, he knows what we are going to do. And knew it from the start.

If I go back in time with a history book and know what everyone is going to do, do they still have free will? Of course they do. Free will is the ability to choose for yourself regardless of what someone else already knows. God would be outside of the flow of time, meaning that everything already happened. You already chose. From his perspective him, it's already done and he's seen it.

Thirdly, there is no mention of free will in the four propositions.

No there isn't. That's where Epicurus falls apart with the false dichotomy error. It also falls apart when you stop using "good" and "evil" as polar and absolute and capable of existing separately.

God is assumed to want Good, and you admitted yourself that free will needed evil; logic would then tell you that your free will had no place there

You're coming at that from one side. Alternatively, If God wanted "good" and did not give free will? There is no "Good" without it. The Bible doesn't go about how God wants good things, it's about how he wants us to do good things, "good" from free will. Good is a relative and does not exist without evil OR free will.

Isn't Good, by definition, everything you could ever want ?

"Good" doesn't exactly have an absolute definition. And it sure as hell isn't "everything you could ever want" (that would include a lot of "evil").

What exactly is the benefit of a good made deliberately by us over a good made deliberately by God ?

Because with the free-will thing that's a given for what we're talking about, when we choose to do "good" it's special because it has more... I'm not sure how to put this. It's rare. It's not forced or a given. It's spontaneous. There was an example already given in the OP if you actually read all the way through. If I program robots to love me... so what? There's nothing special about it. If I program robots with free will to do so, when they do, I'd be tickled. There are soon to be robotic sex slaves within the next couple decades (albiet very privative compared to the scifi ones they're influenced by). They're going to be programmed to like you no matter what. Where's the love? If they weren't forced to like you by programming, but they did anyway, then there is the miracle of love.

Yet He doesn't seem that willing to make the world a better place.

You mean he doesn't seem to be willing to stop others from doing "evil" unto others. To do so, he would have to interfere with free will, and turning someone into a robot generally falls under "evil". I alread said in case you missed it:

I always thought this would be a very awkward position for God. You could call it "Evil" for him to destroy someone's free will and you could call it "Evil" to allow "Evil" to happen unto others when he could stop it. When there's no right answer there is no wrong one either.

Also, as already said he want's good from free will, do recall that he needs free will for that to happen, so he can't go about squashing free will without being counterproductive.

Just a small point; if you have an omnipotent being then in theory that being should be able to set things up so that free will exists and evil does not.

bjlong has a good bit on that below. Again with the "within the given".

(Just to make it clear, absolutely no hard feelings towards anyone here, I just enjoy arguing about religion.)

You did a good job of sounding chill.

[bjlong]

The Judeo-Christian view is generally that omnipotence is bounded by logic--illogical omnipotence is set up to be illogical, so illogical results are natural.

[Neruz]

Just a small point; if you have an omnipotent being then in theory that being should be able to set things up so that free will exists and evil does not.

Sure. But of course, that doesn't mean that it would be malevolent for allowing evil to exist. (not that you're saying that)

Well if we assume that 'evil' is something bad or negative, then by not reducing or removing the evil in the world God would be guilty of causing direct harm to us via inaction. While that might not be malevolence per say, it certainly doesn't sound like something a benevolent being would do.

[LegoLord]

Just because God, according to some religions (not all, this is an important distinction), is able to see all of history at once doesn't mean there is no free will.  It could just mean that it all happens instantaneously to him.  Years seem long when you are a child, and the come to seem shorter as adults.  Keeping that in mind, imagine what the flow of time might seem like to an immortal.

Frankly I think there are too many assumptions about what God is; everyone seems to be talking about a different definition of "God."

I also think there seems to be too much assumption of knowing the bible.  Okay, you read it.  So what?  It's a very ancient, very long text, and not a simple one.  Neither is it terribly linear, and for several parts of it you must know a good deal about history as well.  It was originally written in various ancient languages, and by many different authors, some of them with dubious authority on the matters of which they wrote.  You'd have to spend ages to really understand what was originally intended to be written, and then you'd have to know who wrote what, and how close they were to the events they wrote of.  Trust me, I tried to simply read the bible.  And I've seen those with ideas about it that heavily contradict what churches as a whole have determined about it - churches, which often have at some point had several people dedicated to figuring it out (Reformation, for example, from which we got a number of the modern Christian Churches).   Normal methods of reading just don't work for the whole thing.

And then, of course, there is ignoring statements.  That happens a lot for some reason.  But one of the previous posts falls back on the assumption that all religions' respective Gods have the same traits, something already pointed out to not be true.

[Muz]

If God were to prevent evil, then the result would be heaven. Heaven is described as the lack of any evil. Hell is where all the evil goes. Earth is pretty much the testing grounds to sift whether an individual is good or evil. It's only in the presence of other evils that a person can show whether or not he is also evil. It's all a test, not to see whether we pass, but to prove that we get what we deserve. Good people who are forced to suffer through life enjoy it in heaven. Bad people can't deny that they've been bad.

That falsifies the 2nd line of Epiricus' argument, and the rest don't apply.

[Neruz]

But why bother with the test? If God is Omniscient then he already knows which people are good and which people are evil. Indeed he knows everyone that has lived and will live, and knows exactly how good or evil they are, and where they will end up. If he is Omnipotent, then he can make himself Omniscient.

In the face of an Omnipotent or Omniscient (or both) God, such 'tests' are a complete waste of time, and an entirely unjustified torment to the subjects being tested as well. God has no reason to test people, so if he is testing them then he is deliberately causing harm for no justifiable reason. That is malevolent.

[Muz]

Why does education force us to do tests?
1. To prove that we can pass. God knows whether or not we pass, he tests us just to show to everyone else whether we deserve it. Being Benevolent, I'm sure we're allowed to appeal our final verdict, and it's just a way of gathering evidence.
2. To make us better at things. Good people become even gooder by keeping themselves away from evils.

It's not a complete waste of time, when the whole purpose of your time on Earth is to be tested. There's no harm when the worst thing that can happen to you is pain and death, and upon death, you're automatically assessed.

[Neruz]

1. To prove that we can pass. God knows whether or not we pass, he tests us just to show to everyone else whether we deserve it. Being Benevolent, I'm sure we're allowed to appeal our final verdict, and it's just a way of gathering evidence.

Except that A: Everyone alive doesn't see the result, so it can only be of any use to people already dead. And B: If God is truely omniscient then his word is far better than any test, as his word would be infallible, a test is not.

2. To make us better at things. Good people become even gooder by keeping themselves away from evils.

But what's the point of being better? Once you're good enough to get into Heaven, that's it, you're in.

It's not a complete waste of time, when the whole purpose of your time on Earth is to be tested. There's no harm when the worst thing that can happen to you is pain and death, and upon death, you're automatically assessed.

The test is a waste of time; God already knows what the answers are.

[Dakk]

Plus, being omnipotent makes the whole test thing redundant. If you have omnipotence then you can make anything become anything.

[Neruz]

Exactly.

Omnipotence and our observable world do not work out.

[Muz]

I suppose without a test, then there'd be people in the afterlife arguing that they didn't have a chance to prove themselves. Arguably, God could force us to shut up, but that goes against the free will concept. Anyway, the Islamic version of Adam and Eve implies that humans were created to prove to everyone that Satan was a rebel, which suggests that God would test people just to prove in front of other people; that implies that his word alone doesn't count for much.

Being omnibenevolent, if he tosses someone in hell, he'd want to show that guy that it was well deserved. Otherwise, the poor guy would go around eternity wondering why God deemed him unworthy. And his friends would wonder the same thing. The point is not to prove to us before death, it's only to be used to people already dead.

[Realmfighter]

I suppose without a test, then there'd be people in the afterlife arguing that they didn't have a chance to prove themselves. Arguably, God could force us to shut up, but that goes against the free will concept. Anyway, the Islamic version of Adam and Eve implies that humans were created to prove to everyone that Satan was a rebel, which suggests that God would test people just to prove in front of other people; that implies that his word alone doesn't count for much.

Being omnibenevolent, if he tosses someone in hell, he'd want to show that guy that it was well deserved. Otherwise, the poor guy would go around eternity wondering why God deemed him unworthy. And his friends would wonder the same thing. The point is not to prove to us before death, it's only to be used to people already dead.

What do you believe the prerequisite for going to heaven are? Just believing in god? Being a good person?