The Batlord

I call bull****. The Christian god is supposed to be all-powerful and all-knowing. So logically, nothing has ever happened, is happening, or will ever happen without God's knowledge and consent. If God couldn't stop it, he wouldn't be all-powerful. If he didn't know about it, he wouldn't be all-knowing.

So, with that in mind, everything you do throughout your life, and everything that makes you who you are (from your personality to your shoe size) was decided before you were ever born. The same would apply to everything to everything from the trajectory and speed of every bouncing ball, to the actions of every human being ever created.

With all of that in mind, since God created everything about you and the world that you would interact with, with complete knowledge of how history would play out, the idea of free will becomes nonsense. It's impossible to deviate in even the slightest way from the plan and vision of a being who is all-powerful and all-knowing, and since God created literally everything, he necessarily did so in a calculated way that decided your future without your being able to do anything about it. You can't even scratch your ass if it isn't a part of God's "plan".

Therefore, every horror perpetrated by man was dictated by God, and we are simply his puppet automatons. Whether or not he physically pressed the button to release the gas to kill the Jews in the showers of Auschwitz, the responsibility is his alone, since his creations are not capable of being responsible for anything whatsoever under any circumstances.

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innerspaceboy

Quite right. And further -

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?

Epicurus (c. 341 - c. 270 BC)

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Aux-In

It's your thread. Explain it.

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"All over a bowl of bitter beans."

Lilja

I think you have the right to freedom of speech and posting whatever you want. But if I own the server you are posting on, I have the right to take down or edit any posts I do not want.

DeadChannel

Enlighten us.

JGuy Grungeman

He knows all that there IS TO KNOW, which means currently. He can look into the future if he wanted, but only if he deems necessary, like the Book of Revalations.

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DeadChannel

I've read this, it's a good one.

Are you familiar with Bakunin's God and the State? You might not agree with the state part, but imo he makes a pretty compelling argument as to why the idea that god is necessary for human dignity is bunk. He actually argues the opposite: that if God exists he is everything, and humanity is necessariy nothing.

It's a good read, and one that has been unfortunately basically left out of the current atheist cannon because of its association with anarchism.

Wouldn't he have still seen, like, the holocaust coming?He would have seen the Jews being rounded up, and the equipment that would be used to kill them. He would have even seen into Hitler's own mind and what his intentions were. God wouldn't have had to look into the future to see that coming, nor would he have to for almost every other atrocity in history, being omnipotent and all.

Chula Vista

One of my favorite quotes. Pass this one along to a hard core Christian and then sit back and watch their head start spinning.

Hey, ISB, did you ever get around to reading that Karen Armstrong book I told you about?

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

The Batlord

I think this is basically like the, "Can God make a boulder so heavy even he couldn't lift it?" question, except it can't be dismissed as frivolous. Can God choose to not know something if he's all-knowing? If he can then he's not all-knowing. If he can't then he's not all-powerful. I'd like to see something to back your claim up. It just sounds like a rationalization.

Regardless, he created you, which encompasses everything I said before, and even if he somehow can be all-knowing and still not know the fate of his creations, the result is the same: you have no say in what you do, because you were designed down to the smallest detail. You're a bullet fired from a gun, bound by the laws of physics (or God's will), but the only difference is that now the shooter has closed his eyes. Now God is just responsible for being the cause of every horror ever perpetrated on humankind due to his refusal to act to the greatest of his abilities, only now he can't even claim to have an actual plan to justify every single instance of bad, bad ****.

How reckless and cruel is it for an all-powerful being to drop a thinking and feeling person into a world of rape and murder and starvation and genocide and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome when God doesn't even know just how many times that person will be unconsentually penetrated by roving death squads? If that's his MO then I denounce his right to have any say in what I should do and what my values should be, since he simply cannot be counted on to know what is in my best interest.

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RoxyRollah

Well lets break down amendment #1 (.U.S. only all others need not apply #ionlyknowourbillofrightsfronttoback.) And remember that this was written so the government is aware of what they can and cannot do. This is notice for them, served 200 years ago because the biggest thing the framers were worried about was the CONSOLIDATION OF POWER. AND THE STATE RUNNING PEOPLE'S LIVES WHEN THEY CAME HERE FOR FREEDOM IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Verbatim:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Line one: The state can not come in and say this IS the new religion we are all doing this...... (Ummm no no we ain't) you can't jail, fine or kill someone for worshiping,praying, or serving God whether it is a different God than others, or a different God then the state believes in. YOU HAVE THIS RIGHT NO MATTER WHAT.

Line two: THE STATE CAN NOT TELL YOU WHAT YOU CAN AND CAN NOT SAY, under no circumstances.

( So person to person we all respect the fact that we pretty much know we can say what we want with impunity, whether it's bigoted, immoral, rude, hurtful or mean. Regardless of whether the individual is an ******* or not they can still say what they want and there aint **** the state can do about it. This is why I personally believe "hate speech" is UN-CONSTITUTIONAL. BECAUSE UNDER THE ****ING LAW OF THE LAND YOU CAN SAY WHATEVER WHEN EVER TO WHOMEVER and there isn't anything they can do to stop it. AND IF YOU CHARGE SOME WITH 'hate speech" it's a gross miscarriage of justice.)

Line three: THE PRESS CAN REPORT ANYTHING THAT IS NEWS WHEN THEY WANT WHERE THEY WANT HOWEVER THEY WANT. THE FEDS AND COURTS HAVE NO POWER TO STOP THEM, CENSOR THEM, OR DENY THEM.

LINE FOUR: PEOPLE CAN GATHER IN LARGE GROUPS PEACEFULLY, wether it's to express themselves or say to GOVERNMENT ''hold the **** up man you are over stepping your boundaries here. WE THE PEOPLE don't want this or ask for this. What are you doing?

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