"Atheists Killed >140 millions" is Fallacious

[bahman]

Yours, obviously. There's only one thief.

Amazingly, you cannot see the simple fact, that we both committed evil!

Your brother's only "evil" was owning a wallet. Other than that, what offence would you charge him with?

No, he left the wallet on the table knowing that I would still it. Would you give a psychopath a knife knowing that he would kill you?

[Immanuel Can]

Amazingly, you cannot see the simple fact, that we both committed evil!

Your brother's only "evil" was owning a wallet. Other than that, what offence would you charge him with?

No, he left the wallet on the table knowing that I would still it. Would you give a psychopath a knife knowing that he would kill you?

Are you a psychopath? Did you have no choice?

[bahman]

Your brother's only "evil" was owning a wallet. Other than that, what offence would you charge him with?

No, he left the wallet on the table knowing that I would still it. Would you give a psychopath a knife knowing that he would kill you?

Are you a psychopath? Did you have no choice?

I asked whether you give a knife to a psychopath knowing that he will kill you. God knew in advance that Adam and Eve would fail yet he created the tree and gave them access to it. God is omniscient, isn't He?

[Impenitent]

why do you think you had to give the knife to the god that created it?

=Imp

[Immanuel Can]

God knew in advance that Adam and Eve would fail yet he created the tree and gave them access to it. God is omniscient, isn't He?

Absolutely. But there is an analytic choice here: either God provides human beings with a minimum of one genuinely free choice, or human beings can never freely choose relationship with God, but exist only as programmed automatons. The seriousness of the danger in the first case is vastly outweighed by the seriousness of the necessity in the second case. God's purpose was not to create a race of uniformly obedient robots or automatons, but rather to create free-will-having beings, beings capable of freely entering into relationships and even of becoming His beloved.

That was worth the price it was going to take.

But you should be aware that knowing and causing are two very different actions. Your brother might know that you would be likely to steal. Let's say he knows it absolutely, just for the sake of argument, but still thinks it's more important for your relationship that he trusts you with that responsibility than that he controls you. When the police come to arrest anybody, it won't be him. And why not? Because he did not cause you to do it. You did. You are not a drone, an automaton, a psychopath, a fated entity -- you are a being with a will of his/her own, fully capable of having made the right choice, but having stolen instead. Thus, the jail sentence will be exclusively your own -- unless your brother finds a means to pardon you.

[seeds]

No, he left the wallet on the table knowing that I would still it. Would you give a psychopath a knife knowing that he would kill you?

Are you a psychopath? Did you have no choice?

I asked whether you give a knife to a psychopath knowing that he will kill you. God knew in advance that Adam and Eve would fail yet he created the tree and gave them access to it. God is omniscient, isn't He?

Okay, myth disssection it is then...

It's worse than what you are pointing out, bahman, for not only did the God in the Eden myth omnisciently "know" that Adam and Eve would not be able to resist the fruit of the tree that he created and made readily available to them,...

...but he, being the worse parent imaginable, allowed the evilest (most insidiously persuasive) demon in all of reality (Satan) uninhibited access to them.

In other words, it's the equivalent of human parents going out for dinner and a movie while knowing full well that the babysitter they hired is a convicted pedophile.

No, wait, it's the equivalent of human parents literally watching a pedophile abuse their children while not making the slightest effort to intervene in the crime.
_______

[bahman]

God knew in advance that Adam and Eve would fail yet he created the tree and gave them access to it. God is omniscient, isn't He?

Absolutely. But there is an analytic choice here: either God provides human beings with a minimum of one genuinely free choice, or human beings can never freely choose relationship with God, but exist only as programmed automatons. The seriousness of the danger in the first case is vastly outweighed by the seriousness of the necessity in the second case. God's purpose was not to create a race of uniformly obedient robots or automatons, but rather to create free-will-having beings, beings capable of freely entering into relationships and even of becoming His beloved.

That was worth the price it was going to take.

But you should be aware that knowing and causing are two very different actions. Your brother might know that you would be likely to steal. Let's say he knows it absolutely, just for the sake of argument, but still thinks it's more important for your relationship that he trusts you with that responsibility than that he controls you. When the police come to arrest anybody, it won't be him. And why not? Because he did not cause you to do it. You did. You are not a drone, an automaton, a psychopath, a fated entity -- you are a being with a will of his/her own, fully capable of having made the right choice, but having stolen instead. Thus, the jail sentence will be exclusively your own -- unless your brother finds a means to pardon you.

Creating an agent with free will is good indeed. I am however asking why God created a sinful situation in which He knew that Adam and Eve would fail. The fact that God knew that they would fail yet persisted in putting them in that condition means that God has an intention or purpose.

[bahman]

Are you a psychopath? Did you have no choice?

I asked whether you give a knife to a psychopath knowing that he will kill you. God knew in advance that Adam and Eve would fail yet he created the tree and gave them access to it. God is omniscient, isn't He?

Okay, myth disssection it is then...

It's worse than what you are pointing out, bahman, for not only did the God in the Eden myth omnisciently "know" that Adam and Eve would not be able to resist the fruit of the tree that he created and made readily available to them,...

...but he, being the worse parent imaginable, allowed the evilest (most insidiously persuasive) demon in all of reality (Satan) uninhibited access to them.

In other words, it's the equivalent of human parents going out for dinner and a movie while knowing full well that the babysitter they hired is a convicted pedophile.

No, wait, it's the equivalent of human parents literally watching a pedophile abuse their children while not making the slightest effort to intervene in the crime.
_______

True. That was Satan who fooled Eve first by saying that the fruit makes you look like God and that God would never punish you for eating the fruit. I pointed out the existence of the Serpent several times in my previous posts but IC simply ignored it.

[henry quirk]

My 2 cents, as a deist...

If I am a free will (the libertarian kind almost everyone here works so hard to deny) then God cannot know what I'll choose to do next.

I am a libertarian free will. God doesn't know what I'll choose to do next.

Mebbe He chooses to deny Himself that knowledge; mebbe He is incapable of knowing.

Either way: My choices are mine and I'm morally and wholly responsible for them.

[Immanuel Can]

Creating an agent with free will is good indeed. I am however asking why God created a sinful situation in which He knew that Adam and Eve would fail. The fact that God knew that they would fail yet persisted in putting them in that condition means that God has an intention or purpose.

His intention was exactly what I was suggesting, I think: to create beings that had a choice of whether or not to know and love Him -- who had their own personalities, wills, choices, identities, and so on, and could thus be genuine companions, should they choose to do so.

Of course, the downside of that strategy is obvious: they might choose not to do so. That's the problem with free-will-having beings; they don't always do what you would desire them to do. But some would. As it is written in John 1:

"He [Jesus Christ] was the true Light that, coming into the world, enlightens every person.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own people did not accept Him.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name..."

[promethean75]

"But you should be aware that knowing and causing are two very different actions."

Lol this guy. This is what happens when u hold on to and try to reason your way through something that's patently absurd.

God knows Joe will stab bro and creates him anyway. During Joe's life (before he stabs bro), god tells himself that Joe may not stab bro afterall becuz he has freewill, all the while knowing that Joe's gonna stab em.

This is the thinking of a schizophrenic sadist, IC

Again: if god knows joe will stab bro, and joe has the freewill to not stab bro, and ends up not stabbing bro, god would have been mistaken in believing - knowing - joe was gonna stab bro. Can god be mistaken? Some gods can be (in other religions) but not your monotheistic omniscient god of the bible.

Even a five year old can understand this logic, and you're at least six, so what's your excuse?

[Immanuel Can]

My 2 cents, as a deist...

If I am a free will (the libertarian kind almost everyone here works so hard to deny) then God cannot know what I'll choose to do next.

Hi, Henry.

I would say that whether or not anybody knows what you do has no impact on what you do.

I might know you'll root for Michigan, not Washington, on Monday. Even if I'm 100% right about that, that won't mean that I MADE you root for Michigan, or even TOLD you to do so, or COERCED you to do so. My being right doesn't deprive you of any freedom at all, in fact. You have just as much liberty, whether I already know what you're going to do with it, or not.

[Immanuel Can]

I pointed out the existence of the Serpent several times in my previous posts but IC simply ignored it.

Well, it's not relevant. The Tempter is merely the means by which Eve received the choice. It didn't make her make the choice she did. She was still fully responsible for what she did. And Genesis is quite clear about that, too.

[henry quirk]

I would say that whether or not anybody knows what you do has no impact on what you do.

God is not just anybody. Moreover, it's not Him knowing what I do that's in question: it's Him knowing what I will do that's on the table.

I might know you'll root for Michigan, not Washington, on Monday. Even if I'm 100% right about that, that won't mean that I MADE you root for Michigan, or even TOLD you to do so, or COERCED you to do so.

You can never know absolutely what team I'll back. I may surprise you. God, as you reckon Him, knows absolutely. I can never surprise Hm. His absolute knowledge negates me as a free will, renders me null as person, extinguishes me as point of creative/causal power.

I am a free will. God does exist. Sumthin' has to give.

[Immanuel Can]

I would say that whether or not anybody knows what you do has no impact on what you do.

God is not just anybody.

That's for sure. But it doesn't change the equation. As I was suggesting, even if my knowledge of your choice is 100% right, it wouldn't imply I made you choose anything.

I think the problem is that we imagine choices as being rather deterministically linear. There's only one choice in a linear situation. And that troubles us, because we think that God knowing would mean he had to make us make the choice we made. But that's just not logical.

And I think that the real-world situation is dichotomous, polychotomous...we have many choices, in most situations, several; and we choose from among a range of possibilities, not from one yes-or-no choice. So what God sees must be rather like a "web" of possibilities, along which we are free to travel in the direction we choose, among those choices really possible to us. And God, being omniscient, is not at all baffled by the complexity of this situation, but can tell us not only what we should choose, or what we might choose that would be equally good, or what we will choose, but also what we should not choose, what would be worse or better to choose, what routes will eventually land us in this or that situation, and so on.

It would indeed take a God to manage all of that data, all at once. But He's God, of course.

And I have Biblical precedents for that very thing. For God not only clearly knows what choices men will make, but on occasion, tells them what would have happened if their choices had been different. That would be impossible, unless the world were more like what I'm describing than like the linear-choice model.

I know it takes a few minutes to get one's head around this. The linear model's just so easy to understand...and that's one of the things that makes determinism so attractive to so many people. It just looks so...understandable, so simple, so common sensical, that they're drawn to it. And it makes the controversy between the could be and the is just so...manageable. But I think that's actually its liability: it's far TOO simple to be accurate or useful at all in describing the reality in which we live. But it takes a bit of a paradigm shift to get one's head out of the old linear model and to conceive of the world as more complex.

Maybe try to think of it in terms of marriage partners. In that situation, you get a choice: you can marry Millie, Tillie, Cheryl, Sharon, Betty, Veronica...and any number of other women. It's not just "Betty, or nothing." But "nothing" is always an option, too, of course.

Now, once you pick Betty, the rest are out -- at least so far as being your first wife is concerned. And plausibly, Tillie, Cheryl and Sharon will marry other men, and be completely out of the possiblities forever. But if you marry Betty, you'll become a construction engineer, because you need to pay the bills; whereas Cheryl would encourage you to become a professional harmonica player, and Tillie would want you to try out for the NBA...so your life will go down vastly different paths, depending on which wife you choose. And Veronica may eventually become your third wife, but by that time you'll be retired from your job as construction engineer and be more concerned with grandchildren...and all of that, I might be able to tell you in advance -- if I were God -- but it will not constrain your choices at all, either way. I just happen to know what you'll freely choose, before even you do. But you're still perfectly free as to your choices.