Not bad, but not good enough.
All of them.
Drug dealers don’t go to rehab. They are much too smart to use their own merchandise. But I understand your point, even though I disagree with it. No, it is not better to fail and then recover, then never to fail in the first place.
If you take the word “destroy” literally, then maybe not. But you should think “outside the box”. Wanton destruction is not the only venue available to God.
A good parent does override the free will of the young child, but as the child grows older, more and more responsibility and freedom is given. I see my relationship with God as the opposite of what you describe. If I have free will, how exactly do I remain a toddler?
Really? So, a person who does even one “evil” act should be destroyed? How evil is evil?
So replace rehab with prison. What if that’s what it takes for him to find his way to God? Let’s say he meets the prison chaplain, who completely changes his life? These are the way I see God “intervening” in our world without taking away our free will. God called that chaplain to serve Him. He made a free choice to say “Yes”. He then positively influenced the drug dealer, who in turn influenced others. Personally, I think that for many people, they need to see failure in order to appreciate the success that follows.
So what other ways should He use? I gave an example of what I think He already does to help us overcome evil in this world.
Im not sure I could control myself speaking with Maher - he seems so conceited to me and my anger would probably get the best of me. But I’d simultaneously go straight for the throat - and the heart - with something like this:
Pertaining our knowledge and power. Humans will never “grow” into Gods.
Not necessarily destroyed. I will give you a better way.
It is he last sentence which is problematic. It reflects a questionable principle.
I am not sure what you refer to. Are you talking about the alleged “guidance”?
Now, a few remarks and a summary. The thread is getting fragmented into irrelevancies. It happens all the time.
Summary of the problem:
Premise of Catholics: "God **desires** everyone to be with him in heaven." Observe the verb: "desires", not "wants" or "wills". If God "wanted" or "willed" everyone to be with him, it would have happened.
Corollary of the premise: "God does not want to **force** anyone to be with him. He gave us free will to decide which way we want to go." There is a serious problem with one. God never gave "full disclosure" or "due diligence". There are no clearcut "guidelines" to tell us what to do and how to do it. (Yes, I know that for Catholics the Bible and the RCC are considered sufficient. But they are totally insufficient for the rest of us.)
Possible solution #1: God could have "bypassed" this whole kaboodle called "universe" and creation, and created all the "souls" directly in heaven. No problem at all. If he "knew" that someone would not want to be there - like Satan - he just **would not have created** them in the first place.
Possible solution #2: Very similar to the first one. God creates the world, and creates all the "good" people (the ones who freely want to be with him) and never bothers to create the "rest".
These are two foolproof solutions. I could give a few others, but do not want to give too many options.
The question of the OP is repeated now: "**Why did God not choose one of these options?**"
The principle I am following here: "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure!"
Your turn to answer.You did not answer my earlier post but i answer yours anyway…
This is right…
This is a matter of opinion, but still does not close the fact that by logical thinking one can see that RCC is the top explanation…
Putting yourself to Gods position you do not know he could have done it, in fact there is a good reason to suspect that he could have.
You have a human problem with the concept of time witch does not exist for God, he created us in time yes but the ones of us who are going to get uncreated, meaning dead, are probably from eternal perspective quite similar to not have been created at all. Hell is being away from God eternally, that pretty much means getting oneself uncreated…
These are not foolproof, they are merely human solutions, which do not take in to account Gods power, love or the fact that he is infinite, It is quite easy to see these are human problems.
Maybe he did, you have to go back to our potentiality discussion and not skip it without thinking about it to understand
God has done quite a lot of prevention the problem is that from human perspective it is hard to see, we are consumed by what we see, if understanding what eternal means what God has done is just that, a lot of prevention…
That does not follow. No one suggests that we lose our free will when we get to heaven, and turn into “mindless” robots.
I never said anything like that.
Wow, that is one strange assertion. If someone does not get created than that person does not exist. A nonexistent person does not have will, cannot experience love, has no desire, etc, etc… That is not what hell is supposed to be. Hell is supposed to be an active existence, and very unpleasant at that.
On the very contrary, these solutions do take into account God’s power and love.
Nonsense. The potential does not equal actual. The actual does not need to happen.
Here is the true answer for the posited question: If God **really** "desired" to have everyone saved, then his omnipotence would have allowed him to do so without touching free will. Since he never chose to do so, the premise is incorrect, namely God never "desired" everyone to be saved.
And that unpalatable conclusion is the reason why you guys and gals fight tooth and nail **for the existence** of evil. And that is very ironic indeed.seems you have a strong agenda put you did not answer my point… You are wrong since you look at it like color blind looks at colors… i will come back with the premises and conclusions tomorrow or monday, since tomorrow morning have to go to church…
that is true but for free will you need to have a choice and at least we know now that somebody made a bad choice
you are right i was merely stretching your words
There hasnt been too much teaching about what hell is really like, in fact what comes to magisterium of the church we could say we do not really know what it is like, those are human assertion, God did not tell us that
I dont think they do, they are rather trying to make God look evil
yes you are right but that is an easy one, now you need to show me where there is potential for something which have never come to be. We know there is potential for Atheist to become Christian only because some Atheist already did… Find me a real life example where potential is but has not happened.
I did not say that, i said if there is no evil nobody can choose since there is no potential, this is clear misinterpretation
This is your own agenda point by which you grow to your premises but this has not been proven to begin with.
And this is a bad joke…
Maher’s two questions:
Now you say that the there must be a potential in order to have free will. So far so good. It is also true that someone actually made a bad choice. That is fine as well. But even if no one ever had actually made a bad choice, the potential would still be there and so would free will.
Fine. It was you who said that nonexistence would be like hell. I merely disagreed.
Here is one: no one has ever grown to be 3 meters tall, but the potential is still there. No human has ever run the 100 meter dash under 9 seconds, but the potential is still there. The examples are endless.
It is not nonsense, it is irrelevant. The concept of potential obviously came from the “actual”, so what?
Actually you said exactly that, though you used different wording. I will explain it one more time:
As usual, you are welcome to draw a different conclusion. So far there was no argument why God did not create the world with free will and without actualized evil. You attempted an argument, but it is clearly incorrect as shown in the previous paragraph.
Not at all. He clearly sees that the “omnipotence”, “omniscience” and “omnibelevolence” of God are incompatible with the existence of evil.
Evil exists because free will (to those given it) exists. Choice equals the potential for evil to exist.
This has been refuted many times. Getting boring to see the same incorrect argument.
No one mentioned omnipresent.
How conveeenient. Obviously you never heard of the Euthyphro dilemma? Maybe you should look it up.
I am not defining anything. The language does. You try to redefine it, but you fail.
Words have meanings, even if you don’t like them.
I am glad to amuse you.But, you are quite amusing in doing so, so do keep up the good work!
Let me clarify something. I don’t say anything negative about “God”, per se. What you perceive as negative comments are not about “God”, they are about the belief system pertaining to God. That is where I see very serious problems.
No, I am not searching for a way to believe again, and I never was a Catholic. I was baptized Presbyterian, and until I became 18 years old, I was a lukewarm believer. I attended church on Sundays, went to Bible classes - though, I have to admit - mainly for the company. The sermons I never really “heard”, I found them incredibly boring and pretty much “tuned them out”.
I am not going through anything. My time here is simply a little innocent entertainment, which I can afford, being retired.
I never had any traumatic experience inside the church or outside. My life is great. I had my share of hard times, just like everyone else, but generally speaking my life was most satisfactory.
I have no idea why you think that. When I speak about God, I speak of the human (Catholic) concept of a being, who has many “strange” attributes. I find some of them nonsensical, and some in dire contradiction with life as we all experience it.
You are very kind, and I sincerely thank you for your concern. But I don’t “reject” God, I do not believe that such a being exists. I look at the available evidence, and find it wanting.
And that is precisely what I am doing.
I don’t think so.
I don’t have “spirituality” and I don’t fight.
God does not need our help, if he is omnipotent.
I don’t believe in the devil either.
I never found a “soul” within me.
That is also very kind of you.
You are most kind, thank you. If I come to a specific question, I will take the liberty and send you a PM. Thank you again for your kind concern.
It may have been “refuted” to your satisfaction, but it can’t be truly refuted to my satisfaction because the basis of free will is the ability to choose “nonsensically” (badly) and thereby “sin” and evoke evil.
Oops!
<chuckle, chuckle>That “dilemma” is only a dilemma if you don’t START (axiomatically) with the KNOWLEDGE that God is who God is!
Show me where rape was condoned by God?
Just like the child who thinks it “evil torture” to have to undergo a painful operation that would save him, you claim to be able to definitively state what is “evil torture” (lack of benevolence) and what is “comfort” (benevolence).
Yes they do, and you fail to see them.
Like a rat in a maze.