"Why bother with earth?"-Atheist

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I see your point here. So it’s like judging someone’s bad behavior in the past is the same as judging their bad behavior in the future. The time reference is irrelevant. I can agree with this line of logic.

As to the person passing judgment on the person’s future bad choices. The person who can travel to the future, then knows that future is now unchangeable unless it intervenes. People can only change their choices to address a problem with new information and understanding. Otherwise, we are just making choices randomly and without thought. So if the person who knows that someone is going to land on making a bad decision, it’s not known to be bad at the time the sinner is making that choice. Otherwise they would make a different choice or better one. They can’t know this without new information on how to think about the problem or more data about the problem. Only the person traveling through time can educate this person to make a difference choice. Our future choices are locked in just as our past choices are locked in and can not be changed. The sinners can not help but be sinners since they can not make any other choices without new information about the problems they are addressing. It’s up to the time traveler to intervene. So if it does not intervene, doesn’t that make the time traveler culpable for the outcome as much as the people? If not more so since people make mistakes without knowing the full fallout of their bad choices and decisions. The time traveler does know this and is choosing not to do anything to stop it.
 
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Well, when speaking about God, He intervenes all the time, but doesn’t force others to choose certain things. Catholic doctrine would hold that all Good is from God and that no evil is unresistable.
The question of if an act is good or bad not being able to be known without knowing the future is not true in Catholic understanding. You cannot know the results of your actions without knowing the future, but your actions are not viewed as evil or good based upon results, but objective moral standards. In fact, in virtue ethics, the intent is more important than the end.

My point is that the time reference does not matter to a timeless being to know something as opposed to knowing it. Just as you knowing what you did today does not imply you couldn’t choose what it is you did.
 
God is about relationship. Indeed, he is a trinity. He’s inviting us to an eternal relationship. He doesn’t need it. But he desires it and invites us. We have the freedom to choose. ALL Choices will be final. That’s the purpose of this creation and each life. It’s a brief project for the purpose of making new, eternal friends. Tell your friend to opt for gaining a new friend. Why not?
 
We all know that someone that is acting morally can still make a bad decision based on bad reasoning and/or limited information on the issue. Someone is being immoral when they knowingly choose an immoral action to take. Such as someone lying to another person. They are acting immorally to that person. But if they are lying to protect someone else, then they are still acting immorally to the person they lied to, but the for a good reason.
You can make good decisions and still end up with bad results, which is what I believe all morally acting people do. They are all picking the good decision, as they understand it, out of all the other options they considered. Evil and bad people do not see themselves as evil and bad. That is a label the victims of these people place on those people. AKA one person’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist.
Since your espousing that your deity is good just by the idea that it is a deity makes me cringe since it directly implicates the worshipers as people who shelve their moral ability to assess an action made by their deity as good or bad and always assume it to be good. Sorry but that’s not how we determine if someone is good or bad. We always assess their actions based on what we understand about the situation regardless of who the person is. No one get’s a pass just because of their title and power. That is one thing about religious doctrine that will never get me to come to their side, regardless if there is a deity or not.
As to picking our moral actions, we have no choice but to pick the best one we can understand and implement. Again, no one chooses the bad option when they know of a better one. Just because your deity has a list of “sins” does not mean that one of those “sins” would not be the best option for someone to take as they understand the situation. If the person knew a better way to solve the problem that also isn’t classified as a “sin”, then they would pick that one. But their ignorance does not allow them to. So it’s up to the time traveler to educate that person to make a better choice. If it doesn’t, then the moral culpability is on that time traveler. The person making the best of a bad situation is doing the best that they can.
 
But that’s the thing, God isn’t a mere person, but the source of all reality, which subsists in Him, and He is lacking in nothing.

Sometimes, people do things wrongly based upon not enough information and acting hastily, such as donating to a charity that’s actually some sort of scam. The fault is on the scammer, and not the donator (assuming he did thoroughly check out what he was going to do).
Sometimes the one who does evil does not view his actions as evil. However, many people do view their actions as wrong and do them anyway.

You may note that for a sin to be mortally sinful, a prerequisite is knowledge that it is sinful.

In the fallen world, bad things can come from good intentions. However, there is a phrase: “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” It is called rationalization, a demented way of thinking of things, not in terms of concrete morality, but thinking objectively bad behavior (which can be seen via right reason, such as natural law) can be overturned.

We fall to concupiscience and turn our passions and good will to what is wrong. Most evils have an expression in a good, productive sense. It is the misuse of them that produces what is wrong.

That said, we are not the judges of moral conduct, but God is. He knows what each person is thinking. He knows what each person was going through, the minutia of their heart. So we can be sure His Judgements shall be appropriate.
 
I’d turn the table and question his underlying assumption.

Is he really saying there is no point in doing something you love to do because you know how it is going to turn out?

I’d say he’s far too wedded to the power of novelty.

Then I’d say, “Did it occur to you that you’re getting a bit beyond yourself in imagining that you know what you would and would not find worth doing if you were a supernatural being? When did you get to be an expert on what does and does not make sense for someone to do when that person is so far beyond you in wisdom and capacity that you can’t even imagine? It’s like a toddler questioning an adult. They don’t have a clue. Why can you see that so easily, yet you cannot imagine that you cannot begin to have a clue when it comes to the motivations of God?”

The answer, of course, is arrogance. If he won’t accept that, I think it is time to say, “We’ve been over this and over this. I think you know my answer. Try another question.” There is no point in letting him make this into a petty exercise in futile evangelization for atheism.
 
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Woe to anyone who contends with their Maker;
a potsherd among potsherds of the earth!

Shall the clay say to the potter, “What are you doing?”
or, “What you are making has no handles”?
Woe to anyone who asks a father, “What are you begetting?”
or a woman, “What are you giving birth to?”

Thus says the LORD,
the Holy One of Israel, his maker:
Do you question me about my children,
tell me how to treat the work of my hands?

It was I who made the earth
and created the people upon it;
It was my hands that stretched out the heavens;
I gave the order to all their host.
Is. 45:9-12

Tell him there is a complaint department. It is called prayer. If he doesn’t like your answer, he can try that.

If, as you suppose, he just wants to talk you out of being a believer, tell him that if there is no God, then life is just about being as happy as we can, is it not? Then ask him what there is about him that makes him imagine that his belief would make you happier than you already are? Why not allow people to believe whatever makes them happy, if you really think that people just live their lives and die and then pffft it is all over? If you think there is a life after this one, there is a point in evangelization. If you do not, why be such a busybody about it?

Turn the tables on this fellow as often as you can. Otherwise, he’ll never leave you alone and he’ll never examine himself. He’ll spend all his time trying to “fix” you. That will profit no one, especially him.
 
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Wow, first of all thank you to all of you who’ve replied to this threard. I haven’t replied to every comment but I have read them all. You all have given some great advice as well a points, thank you.😀
 
“But that’s the thing, God isn’t a mere person, but the source of all reality, which subsists in Him, and He is lacking in nothing.”
Someone’s power is irrelevant to their moral standing. It comes across as “don’t you judge me or else” or “who are you to judge me?!” Sorry but I will not be talked to in that tone of voice from anyone regardless of their power or how insulted they get for my lack of groveling to them.

I’m not talking about people being duped into making the wrong decision, I’m talking about people making decisions that they are just uneducated on how to think about their problem and come to a bad rationalization about how to approach the problem or they are not aware of the fall out of their actions.

Knowing the list of what is a “sin” or not will not stop people from sinning. They have to be educated in how to think so that they understand why these “sins” are bad. They need to understand how to think, not what to think. Otherwise to be able to get the reward for not sinning, just shelve your ability to morally think about problems and just do what is on that list without ever understanding why. It’s just “Do what I say, regardless of your ability to understand why since the punishment is worst than the fall out of a limited time of 80 years.” That is the direct implication of this topic. Why be stewards of this world? Why plan for the future? Why care for each other. Not because we understand why we should, but because it’s on the list of “sins” from this deity and the punishment of hell forever and the reward of bliss forever supersede any benefit or loss here on this 80 year experiment.

We are all judges of moral conduct. We are also responsible for those judgments of moral conduct. Your deity doesn’t get a pass anymore than your spouse, your kids, or a random stranger does.

It’s only a “fallen world” when people have limited knowledge about the situation and limited understanding of logic and ethics on how to solve the problem. That’s just reality, not some alternate version of a “non-fallen” world. Don’t want a “fallen world”, then you can’t have people. We can not be human if this is to be the case. Again this is coming across as, Created sick and then Commanded to be well. No one can succeed in that messed up standard.
 
It’s not really power…but the fact of God being God does mean that He is the source of all, including ethics, morality, all possibilities, etc.

It is the Church’s job to be a light and teach, educate, aid, etc on moral decision making and understanding, a light to the world. Having a heart set on fire and bringing light to others with its flame.

God is not a mere human. You really are not one to judge something done by Him for a couple of reasons, for instance, what standard are you using? what understanding have you of His actions, when He knows the end from the beginning and yet moves constantly to do good and bring virtue to all mankind?

But that’s beside the point. The point is, we are supposed to bring others understanding in moral things, and in fact, in right reason, all throughout the world. We may not be doing the best job, but we are doing quite a bit on this front.
 
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