Benelovant omnipotence and the problem of Evil

Originally Posted by Zelfreakv1

God gives humans the free will, to make whatever choice they want, whether it be good or bad. He knows there are people who won't follow Him, not because He made them that way, but because there are people out there naive to the fact of Him.

That itself is a bit of a contradiction; humans are all born naive without the capacity to understand the existence of a higher power up there. You don't expect a newborn infant to learn of God. People require the proper environment and logical stimuli (aka an entity that actually informs individuals of the presence of a Christian deity) to achieve understanding of religion. You wouldn't know a car exists unless someone told you or you've seen one yourself. Using your argument, I suppose we can assume that there are scores of Native Americans in Hell, considering that none of them had contact with Europe ever since the bridge of ice melted over the Bering Sea millenniums ago, and none of them ever managed to learn about the existence of God, thus defiling the First Commandment.

Originally Posted by Zelfreakv1

There wasn't any violence during the flood! We all have what is called Inherited Sin, which would be sin passed down since the beginning of our existence, because Adam and Eve sinned against the Lord by disobeying Him.

That's actually one of the things I'm not terribly fond of in the Gnostic scriptures. We're supposed to be viewing God as a benevolent, omnipotent, compassionate, and perfect deity, yet, like the other flawed deities of Greek and Norse mythology, the Bible decides to give us a cheap shot at our gut by then taking the easy way out, saying, "I the Lord your God am a jealous God..." It's one of the many things that I don't accept about the Bible, but the Bible is hardly the Christian faith. ^_^;

Originally Posted by Zelfreakv1

Of course God didn't want Adam and Eve to fail, but He gave them free will and had to test them. He knew they would fail. They weren't perfect beings, much as we aren't now.

That's a rather flawed dilemma, then. Given the context of the first few chapters of Genesis, you're insinuating, then, that God created a problem with the foreknowledge that Adam and Eve would not be able to pass the test. That's about as fair as given a first grader a test on high school calculus, then throwing him out of the class when he fails.

Originally Posted by Zelfreakv1

With the button analogy, I was just trying to put it in simpler terms. But what I meant to say if there is a label that says don't press, someone will anyways.

Then kindly don't create the button in the first place? Or put it out of reach? ^_^;

Personally, the Bible's a nice religious guide, but I wouldn't use it as the basis of a religious argument. The Bible is a combination of flawed understanding and writing, a soup that had too many cooks that ruined it, a book that underwent too many instances of translation and political censure, written by people with little scientific understanding. Even the most devout of Christians will have a hard time saying that every word in the book of Genesis is completely true without having to address the issue of the dinosaurs (some die-hard Christians take the easy way out and do not believe in the dinosaurs at all, which I find, unfortunately, a bit laughable). Personally, if a Christian God exists? I'd boot the Garden of Eden explanation and say that he put us directly on Earth and tinkers with mortal life the same way we might play SimCity or the Sims. But that's just a strange explanation of mine, and I'm not exactly religious, so... ^_^;

Originally Posted by Zelfreakv1

I could explain why there is suffering and pain in the world, but I can't say it the best. It never comes out the way it is supposed to. Whenever I say it, people take it the opposite way of what it means. So maybe someone else here could tell you.

God gives humans the free will, to make whatever choice they want, whether it be good or bad. He knows there are people who won't follow Him, not because He made them that way, but because there are people out there naive to the fact of Him.

people who wouldn't be "naive" if God hadn't made them that way.

or would come out of hiding every once and a while.

There wasn't any violence during the flood!

what, you mean drowning to death the entire population of the Earth isn't at all violent? So, I guess that means it's alright for me to take children and drown them in my pool out back. It's not violent and, hey, they're sinners anyway.

We all have what is called Inherited Sin, which would be sin passed down since the beginning of our existence, because Adam and Eve sinned against the Lord by disobeying Him.

inherited sin is the worst idea ever. God punishes people for something their ancestors did? That isn't just, that's evil.

Of course God didn't want Adam and Eve to fail, but He gave them free will and had to test them. He knew they would fail. They weren't perfect beings, much as we aren't now.

no, he did not have to test them. He's omniscient. There is no information a test could give God that he doesn't already know. Obviously they weren't perfect, or they couldn't fail God's extremely flawed test. Like I said before, if God knew that Adam and Eve would fail and made them in such a way that they would fail, God must have wanted them to fail.

remember, God is omnipotent, omniscient, and he created the Universe. Nothing happens unless he wants it to happen.

With the button analogy, I was just trying to put it in simpler terms. But what I meant to say if there is a label that says don't press, someone will anyways.

yeah, so if you really don't want anyone to push the button, you don't put it somewhere where people can push it.

By denying the Old Testament, I meant denying everything that is said in it.

denying how? You mean, why don't I think everything written in the Old Testament is the absolute divine truth? Well, that would be because it is logically inconsistent, self-contradictory, historically and scientifically inaccurate, and unproven.

Personally, I havent even really bothered with judging God's fairness. In actuality, there are limitless concepts with the same amount of evidence (none) that could be addressed. Essentially the question is meaningless. Is my idea of an invisible and ultimately intangible entity any fairer than anyone elses idea? The question means nothing whatsoever, really. Or about as much meaning as questioning how much compassion my toaster would feel for dormant volcanoes - it really is that arbitrary.

Originally Posted by Phazon goron

Here's something I've thought of recently:

If a completley omnipotent and Benelovant God created our world (With evil) then does that not contradict the very fact that this God is omnipotent at all?

Omnipotence is something completly beyond all comprehension; it is infinite and all is possible. If any God were benelovant and omnipotent, then should it not be able to create a non contrasting world where life cannot suffer?

That is to say God is benelovant, though. Yet surely, is not the world we live in not proof that benelovant omnipotence does not exist?

Here's something that will really cook your noodle:

Does cold exist?
Does darkness exist?

The answer to both those questions is no; cold and darkness do not exist because they cannot be measured, only the heat and light within the cold and the darkness can be measured. Similarly, one could say that evil does not exist, it is only what is there when good is not in its presence. Therefore, a benevolent omnipotent God could bring good to the world, but evil is simply what exists when He is not there. Interestingly, in the Bible it says that cold and darkness were there before God intervened, further concreting the idea (which is actually scientifically proven) that cold and heat are not things that literally exist, just as possibly evil is.

On that subject, God also gave mankind the choice to choose between Him and evil. In the metaphorical sense, it is much like someone offering shelter from the cold by opening the door, but the person has to walk through the door to get to that heat; The cold simply exists everywhere and it's only the fire inside that will keep the person warm.

God could choose to take free will from human beings and make everything happy, but what would be the point of that? Wouldn't be a much worse fate to live mindlessly than to live in a world of evil?

Originally Posted by Marshmallow Moo

God could choose to take free will from human beings and make everything happy, but what would be the point of that? Wouldn't be a much worse fate to live mindlessly than to live in a world of evil?

Assuming the God in question was Omnipotent, he could give us free will and eternal happiness, at the same time, because absolutely anything would be within his power. Much in the same way that an Omnipotent God could create a square triangle, or any other impossible reality.

Note that I still think the entire question is meaningless, because it deals with concepts that are as evidenced as fiction.

Originally Posted by Marshmallow Moo

Here's something that will really cook your noodle:

Does cold exist?
Does darkness exist?

The answer to both those questions is no; cold and darkness do not exist because they cannot be measured, only the heat and light within the cold and the darkness can be measured.

right, in a sense. Coldness exists, but it is just the feeling we associate with the lack of heat. Darkness also exists, as what we see when there is a lack of visible light.

Similarly, one could say that evil does not exist, it is only what is there when good is not in its presence.

one could say that, but I would have to disagree. I view good and evil more like a spectrum which goes in two directions. Sort of like the pH scale: instead of starting at zero and working up towards one ultimate value, it starts in the middle and works out toward two opposite values (yes, I know the pH scale works up from zero to fourteen, but neutral is right in the middle at seven--from there it works down to acids and up to bases, two opposites which both individually exist, rather unlike light and dark). One could say that good and evil are a line, while darkness and coldness are only a ray, to use a geometric analogy.

the way I see it, one can have a lack of goodness while not being evil. There is a sort of gray area between good and evil, an area of neutrality. Unlike coldness and darkness, which can only really be defined as a lack of certain other values, good and evil can be separately defined as positive values. Good, the way I would define it, is anything which causes more benefit than harm; likewise, evil is anything which causes more harm than benefit. If it were simply the lack of good, as you say it is, then what could you say about people who do no benefit and yet also do no harm?

Therefore, a benevolent omnipotent God could bring good to the world, but evil is simply what exists when He is not there.

this doesn't make any sense at all. It implies, first of all, that all good comes directly from God and that without God people are incapable of doing good.

secondly, it suggests that God is not, in fact, omnibenevolent (working always for the greatest ultimate good) nor omnipresent (present in every location all the time). If God were not existent somewhere, he would be violating his omnipresence, and if by leaving someplace he suddenly causes evil to take place, he would not be omnibenevolent. An omnibenevolent God would never do anything to allow evil to happen, so if evil is what exists when God is not in a certain location, God would never leave that location.

Interestingly, in the Bible it says that cold and darkness were there before God intervened, further concreting the idea (which is actually scientifically proven) that cold and heat are not things that literally exist, just as possibly evil is.

On that subject, God also gave mankind the choice to choose between Him and evil.

no he didn't. God is omnipotent and omniscient. He created a Universe in which Adam and Eve chose evil over God. Then, fully knowing they would do that based entirely on the fact that God created the Universe that way, he let it continue and didn't intervene. He didn't give anyone a choice, because simply by being omniscient he makes free will impossible.

In the metaphorical sense, it is much like someone offering shelter from the cold by opening the door, but the person has to walk through the door to get to that heat; The cold simply exists everywhere and it's only the fire inside that will keep the person warm.

it's more like kicking people out into the cold and then hiding the door, actually.

God could choose to take free will from human beings and make everything happy, but what would be the point of that? Wouldn't be a much worse fate to live mindlessly than to live in a world of evil?

1: no, I think I would be happy always being happy.

2: God could make everything happy and take away all evil without affecting human free will, for two reasons. The first reason is that there is no such thing as free will anyway. After all, like I've said multiple times (and been ignored about) if true free will existed, God could not be omniscient. If you had the ability to make any choice, then God could not possibly know what choice you make until you make it. So, he would not be omniscient.

secondly, Adam and Eve apparently had free will before evil was introduced into the world. If God had simply not put that tree there, consequently making evil impossible, then we would all be fine and just as free as ever. God could have made evil a physical impossibility. Just like our lack of ability to move things with our mind doesn't mean we don't have free will, our lack of ability to commit evil wouldn't either.

and honestly, if it means there's no evil in the world, I wouldn't mind giving up a part of my free will. In fact, that's how the law works. We all give up a few of our natural rights in order to ensure our own security and the security of society. There is no natural law anywhere that keeps me from punching people in the face whenever I feel like it, but I give up that right for the sake of society (as well as my own protection). The only problem with the law is that people are still capable of breaking it. God could fix that, being omnipotent.

Originally Posted by Moo

Here's something that will really cook your noodle:
Does cold exist?
Does darkness exist?
The answer to both those questions is no; cold and darkness do not exist because they cannot be measured, only the heat and light within the cold and the darkness can be measured.

[nitpick]Heat and (in familiar cases, including entirely those where it is antonymous with darkness) light arise from statistically based holistic interpretations of systems at the classical level: no different than darkness or cold. The idea that the former pair should be favored as extant over the latter based on a reductionist description is erroneous: by the very nature of their role in statistical physics "hot" and "illuminated" have no more meaning at the microscopic level than do "cold" or "darkened" (or, my personal favorite, "whole" contrast "hole")[/nitpick]

Originally Posted by Hyperactivity

Assuming the God in question was Omnipotent, he could give us free will and eternal happiness, at the same time, because absolutely anything would be within his power. Much in the same way that an Omnipotent God could create a square triangle, or any other impossible reality.

Note that I still think the entire question is meaningless, because it deals with concepts that are as evidenced as fiction.

I think first we must establish the extent of "omnipotence". If omnipotence simply means bending the laws of the universe at will, then it would not constitute God being able to create a "square triangle" because the laws that exist at the moment proclaim such a thing cannot exist. But if Got chooses the bend reality where such a thing is possible, then it can. In other words, a square triangle cannot exist now in any way shape or form through any power because of the laws already established. If those laws were changed however, then it could.

Also, one will find that fiction is much more worthwhile topic to delve into than the predispositioned "truth", as fiction is often expressed in a way which does not lie about the teller's wishes and ambitions. Plus, the exploration of fiction has many a time revealed the subject at hand to not be fiction at all.

Originally Posted by mmmmm_PIE

[nitpick]Heat and (in familiar cases, including entirely those where it is antonymous with darkness) light arise from statistically based holistic interpretations of systems at the classical level: no different than darkness or cold. The idea that the former pair should be favored as extant over the latter based on a reductionist description is erroneous: by very nature of their role in statistical physics "hot" and "illuminated" have no more meaning at the microscopic level than do "cold" or "darkened" (or, my personal favorite, "whole" contrast "hole")[/nitpick]

Forgive me for my lack of previous citation, but the idea of cold and dark not existing came from the mouth of Einstein himself. (Citation needed, unfortunately. Professor told me.) Plus, your use of nonsensical grammar structure and erroneously placed scientific words does not serve to heighten your intelligence in our eyes, but rather dim it. Anyway, your above post is false. Heat is simply particles moving, and light is the compilation of light particles or photons. The absence of either results in darkness and cold. Therefore, you cannot measure darkness or cold because their presence exists in only one state. The amount of moving particles or HEAT and photons or LIGHT can be measured because they exist in several states in several places.

Example: Try measuring the absence of chairs in your room. How can you? The absence of chairs exists in only one state, 0, which is in fact based on the assumption that the possibility of chairs being in your room exists. In other words, one can only measure how many chairs you don't have in your room, rather than the absence of chairs existing in your room. Hard to explain properly, but you're a smart person so I think you got it.

^Naturally I went by the broadest definition of omnipotence, which is the ability to do anything. I will point out that it is a logical contradiction; For example, a truly omnipotent God would need to have the capability of creating or envisaging something more omnipotent than itself, hence rendering it not completely Omnipotent. In my opinion, if a God has certain limits to it's own power, then it cannot be described as Omnipotent anyway, justifying my use of the 'hard' definition. Moving on...

The question of God's supposed benevolence is just as relevant as asking the same question of any other concept with an equal lack of evidence, and similar scope. I could ask the same question of a claimed all powerful rainbow Asparagus, for example, and it would be equally valid.

Originally Posted by Hyperactivity

The question of God's supposed benevolence is just as relevant as asking the same question of any other concept with an equal lack of evidence, and similar scope. I could ask the same question of a claimed all powerful rainbow Asparagus, for example, and it would be equally valid.

Perhaps equally valid but not necessarily equally true. In this case as in all cases, the term "truth is in the eyes of the beholder" can be no more correct. "Truth" is based only on information gathered from one or multiple sources, which filter it through their own perceptions and ideas before stating it. This can be seen anywhere, when several people see the same thing but have different interpretations of it.

Someone may say: "I know this is true because I saw it with my own eyes!" While another person may say, speaking of the save event: "I know this is false because I saw it with my own eyes!" How, then, does one define what truth is? The first person believes in the truth of it, and he is right in his eyes. The other person will mock at him, and he is right in his eyes!

In other words, there is no real human perception of "truth". Anything filtered through a human's eyes will come out biased in some way or another. I don't believe any human being could see truth for the way it is and nothing more.

Lysis: I actually agree with your points, for the most part, but, for the sake of fairness, I also want to poke a few holes in your argument... ^_^;

Originally Posted by Lysis

2: God could make everything happy and take away all evil without affecting human free will, for two reasons. The first reason is that there is no such thing as free will anyway. After all, like I've said multiple times (and been ignored about) if true free will existed, God could not be omniscient. If you had the ability to make any choice, then God could not possibly know what choice you make until you make it. So, he would not be omniscient.

I personally feel that omniscience and free will may not be mutually exclusive. It's like being psychic, knowing what the next choice is; by knowing the mind, you know what the mind would choose next based on the patterns and rules we've crafted our minds and personalities to be. I mean, if I were psychic, and I read a person's mind, based on their psyche profile, I can probably accurately determine how a person would react to a wide variety of situations. Omniscience is probably just taking that many levels higher. ^_^;

For the record, I don't believe in destiny. ^_^;

Originally Posted by Lysis

secondly, Adam and Eve apparently had free will before evil was introduced into the world. If God had simply not put that tree there, consequently making evil impossible, then we would all be fine and just as free as ever. God could have made evil a physical impossibility. Just like our lack of ability to move things with our mind doesn't mean we don't have free will, our lack of ability to commit evil wouldn't either.

I do believe that the Bible insinuates that evil existed before God created the world. But, again, I chalk this up to your usual Biblical contradictions of the timeframe between the creation of humanity and Lucifer's rebellion. The Bible had waaaaay too many authors to make the Big Book consistent. XD

Originally Posted by Moo

Forgive me for my lack of previous citation, but the idea of cold and dark not existing came from the mouth of Einstein himself. (Citation needed, unfortunately. Professor told me.) Plus, your use of nonsensical grammar structure and erroneously placed scientific words does not serve to heighten your intelligence in our eyes, but rather dim it. Anyway, your above post is false. Heat is simply particles moving, and light is the compilation of light particles or photons. The absence of either results in darkness and cold. Therefore, you cannot measure darkness or cold because their presence exists in only one state. The amount of moving particles or HEAT and photons or LIGHT can be measured because they exist in several states in several places.

Einstein was both often wrong and often misquoted; philosophy evolves in 50 years.
My post is terse because I didn't want to take up much space so far off topic. If you can suggest as alternative syntax that still makes my point, please do. If I made a grammatical error, highlight it.

Heat is a consideration of the motion of particles, and I never claimed otherwise. Relevant to my point, though, heat is not the motion of a single particle.
Light is a compilation of photons, and I never claimed otherwise. Relevant to my point, though light (in the senses I qualified) is not a single photon.
Heat is measured directly be comparisons of statistical equilibrium or indirectly through applications of equations generally related to the First Law of thermodynamics. Both methods rely on holistic properties of large numbers of particles (near orders of 10^23): again, microscopic descriptions cannot be considered at this level. Light (at our level) is much the same.

Heat and light are not distinguishable from cold and darkness (as extant/non-extant) at our level of consideration. None of the four terms retain their meaning at levels were the distinction can be made. To make the distinction, then, is idle.

Example: Try measuring the absence of chairs in your room. How can you? The absence of chairs exists in only one state, 0, which is in fact based on the assumption that the possibility of chairs being in your room exists. In other words, one can only measure how many chairs you don't have in your room, rather than the absence of chairs existing in your room. Hard to explain properly, but you're a smart person so I think you got it.

The "number of chairs in my room" has a reductionist description at the level of my association. Heat and Light do not: their only description are holisitc. Its a false analogy, I'm afraid.

Originally Posted by mmmmm_PIE

Einstein was both often wrong and often misquoted; philosophy evolves in 50 years.
My post is terse because I didn't want to take up much space so far off topic. If you can suggest as alternative syntax that still makes my point, please do. If I made a grammatical error, highlight it.

Heat is a consideration of the motion of particles, and I never claimed otherwise. Relevant to my point, though, heat is not the motion of a single particle.
Light is a compilation of photons, and I never claimed otherwise. Relevant to my point, though light (in the senses I qualified) is not a single photon.
Heat is measured directly be comparisons of statistical equilibrium or indirectly through applications of equations generally related to the First Law of thermodynamics. Both methods rely on holistic properties of large (near orders of 10^23) particles: again, microscopic descriptions cannot be considered at this level. Light (at our level) is much the same.

Heat and light are not distinguishable from cold and darkness (as extant/non-extant) at our level of consideration. None of the four terms retain their meaning at levels were the distinction can be made. To make the distinction, then, is idle.

While your compilation of sentence structure was incorrect and incoherent at times, the improvement in this post has made me forgive you. Plus I'm much too lazy to go back and check what I meant haha.

Yes, you are correct, though I still cannot understand your logic when you proclaim that because heat and light are not distinguishable "at our level of consideration... the distinction is idle." Regardless of our level of consideration, shouldn't the ability to measure it theoretically exist anyway, making the distinction exist through our observation or not? I am clearly not as practiced in this subject as you, so forgive my ignorance.

The answer to both those questions is no; cold and darkness do not exist because they cannot be measured, only the heat and light within the cold and the darkness can be measured. Similarly, one could say that evil does not exist, it is only what is there when good is not in its presence. Therefore, a benevolent omnipotent God could bring good to the world, but evil is simply what exists when He is not there. Interestingly, in the Bible it says that cold and darkness were there before God intervened, further concreting the idea (which is actually scientifically proven) that cold and heat are not things that literally exist, just as possibly evil is.

Does a vacuum exist? Of course it does, despite the fact that it is a lack of particles. Hot and cold and light and darkness are different ways of describing the same thing. If you've ever heard of fuzzy logic, you know that I may believe something to be light with a belief of 0.7, while I believe it to be dark with a belief of 0.3. In that case you have "both" at the same time and in the same sense. However, I do find it to be a somewhat flawed analogy. God is judged (to be good) by his nature, while humans are judged on their goodness by their thoughts and actions. They're not the same thing and often aren't even comparable.

I think first we must establish the extent of "omnipotence". If omnipotence simply means bending the laws of the universe at will, then it would not constitute God being able to create a "square triangle" because the laws that exist at the moment proclaim such a thing cannot exist. But if Got chooses the bend reality where such a thing is possible, then it can. In other words, a square triangle cannot exist now in any way shape or form through any power because of the laws already established. If those laws were changed however, then it could.

Even if he could, we couldn't understand it. It's a nonsensical object. We define our shapes to be mutually exclusive such that you can't have three points and four points. Our brains can't combine two things that are completely unrelated like a river made of love, the DNA of a user interface, or a 2-dimensional cube. You could, I suppose, find some sort of relationship between them that makes sense in a metaphorical way. But that wouldn't change their impossibility. And I don't think God would create such an object even if we asked him to.


This isn't fully a square triangle since it's only composed of triangles. Nevertheless, it's the closest thing you could come to it without some sort of perceptual optical illusion that I couldn't find.

Originally Posted by Marshmallow Moo

In other words, there is no real human perception of "truth". Anything filtered through a human's eyes will come out biased is some way or another. I don't believe any human being could see "truth" for the way it is and nothing more.

'Truth' is more or less an emotional concept in the context in which you have used it, and needless to say my concern is with what can be established without this bias. Emotions and feelings are intangible, and they are what is subject to fallibility. What exists physically isnt; these things can be measured with impartiality.

Originally Posted by Hyperactivity

'Truth' is more or less an emotional concept in the context in which you have used it, and needless to say my concern is with what can be established collectively. Emotions and feelings are intangible, and they are what is subject to fallibility. What exists physically isnt; these things can be measured with impartiality.

If you have read my whole post, you would have understood I said just that, only that human beings are biased through their experiences and even a collective response would sometimes could not garner the truth because of human limitations. For example, the truth could be that the sun is held up by a giant, 10-dimensional turtle, but the limitations of our 5 senses and 3-dimensional world tell us otherwise. Therefore, the "truth" to us is that gravity holds it up, while the truth in a universal sense (in this exercise) says a turtle does. Get the picture?

While your compilation of sentence structure was incorrect and incoherent at times, the improvement in this post has made me forgive you.

Heh; it's mostly a case of only being willing to write more than three sentences when I know someone can be bothered to respond...

Regardless of our level of consideration, shouldn't the ability to measure it theoretically exist anyway, making the distinction exist through our observation or not?

The problem is that when your attempting to define existence, hopping between holistic and reductionist levels of description (and I apologize for my continuing overuse of those lovely philosophical buzz-words) gets you into all sorts of trouble. All generalization you make either cause a spiral down towards "nothing is real except elementary particles/string/branes" or up towards "every impression that's ever been entertained by a human mind is equally real - square circles included".

When you do decide not to take higher or lower levels of approximation and interpretation into account, the difference between - for example - heat and cold is entirely social. A culture where heat is seen as the absence of extant cold and absolute zero is defined as a hypothetical maximum is certainly conceivable, as is a culture where they're perceived as equal and opposing forces (indeed, this is often the prima facie view the uneducated).

And yes, this post has a comma splice...

Originally Posted by Marshmallow Moo

Get the picture?

Yes, and I did read your previous post (I make a habit of reading the posts of those who I am conversing with), although to be honest I don't exactly see the relevance of the point you made, despite the fact that it is valid, in a sense.

Originally Posted by Marshmallow Moo

Forgive me for my lack of previous citation, but the idea of cold and dark not existing came from the mouth of Einstein himself. (Citation needed, unfortunately. Professor told me.)

sure, but that doesn't mean it's right. Even Einstein was wrong about some things.

Heat is simply particles moving, and light is the compilation of light particles or photons. The absence of either results in darkness and cold. Therefore, you cannot measure darkness or cold because their presence exists in only one state. The amount of moving particles or HEAT and photons or LIGHT can be measured because they exist in several states in several places.

PIE's explanation is indeed difficult to understand, but from what I can gather I think I might be able to simplify it for you.

look at it this way: we measure "cold" and "warm" in the same fashion, using a thermometer. On a Fahrenheit thermometer (since I am unfamiliar with the Celsius one) measurements below, say, sixty degrees could be considered cold. The lower the measurement goes, the colder it gets. Above seventy degrees could be considered warm, and the higher the measurement goes, the warmer it is. Thermometers do not measure what we call "warm" any more than they measure what we call "cold"--these are simply our perceptions of the amount of heat energy in the air.

warmness and coldness are both entirely in our perception. Neither is more real or extant than the other. The same can be said of lightness and darkness.

at least, that's what I think I understand of PIE's complicated explanation. I really don't know for sure what he's saying, and what I do understand I find hard to explain with words.

Originally Posted by Ysionris

Lysis: I actually agree with your points, for the most part, but, for the sake of fairness, I also want to poke a few holes in your argument... ^_^;

feel free to try.

._.

I personally feel that omniscience and free will may not be mutually exclusive. It's like being psychic, knowing what the next choice is; by knowing the mind, you know what the mind would choose next based on the patterns and rules we've crafted our minds and personalities to be. I mean, if I were psychic, and I read a person's mind, based on their psyche profile, I can probably accurately determine how a person would react to a wide variety of situations. Omniscience is probably just taking that many levels higher. ^_^;

indeed, I agree. If one were able to deduce, psychically or otherwise, exactly how a person's mind works, you could probably predict their actions quite accurately. Being omniscient takes this one step further: not only can you know exactly how a person's mind works, but you know exactly what external influences and environmental factors they will experience. You could predict, with this knowledge, what a person would do with one hundred percent accuracy.

however, we disagree on one thing. I think that this rules out any real notion of "free will." In a determinist Universe, everything that you do is based on the physical properties of your brain and the external influences you experience in your environment. Therefore, two people with physically identical brains who experience completely identical influences will be exactly alike and make the same exact decisions. Similarly, if you were to repeat the same situation over and over again, you would always make the same choices, or if you were to reset the Universe back to its initial state, everything would play out exactly the same as it has so far.

this rules out any possibility of "free will," as does omniscience. See, if we had true free will it would mean that in any given situation we would have an infinite number of possible choices. Free will means our choice cannot be determined beforehand; somehow, we decide on our choice as it happens, with our own will. This means that choices are completely unpredictable. Even a supposedly omniscient God would not know what choices you are going to make until you make them, because it is entirely up to your as-of-yet undecided will what you do, rather than any internal properties or external influences.

so, no matter how you look at it, God or no God, "free will" is meaningless.

For the record, I don't believe in destiny. ^_^;

neither do I, but I do believe in determinism.

I do believe that the Bible insinuates that evil existed before God created the world. But, again, I chalk this up to your usual Biblical contradictions of the timeframe between the creation of humanity and Lucifer's rebellion. The Bible had waaaaay too many authors to make the Big Book consistent. XD

well, I suppose evil must have existed before the world, since obviously Satan was evil before Adam and Eve were. I was always taught, however, that it was the Forbidden Fruit that introduced evil into the world (which I guess is wrong, since the serpent was evil--God introduced evil into the world by putting both the serpent and the fruit there) or at least into humanity.

Does the story of Adam and Eve have any meaning here? It is a Straw Man- it has no meaning unless you believe it to be true. That said, the same could be said about Pandora's box.

Here's something: What if we do not have the will to do evil and yet evil still exists in the form of natural disaster? In that case, would humanity not be perfect? Would there be a need for Heaven? No, becuase that is what would be Heaven. A perfect reality that may one day come about.