A few questions, I would like to discuss with the Christian people here.

[Mysterious]

Hello there, thank you for honouring my thread with your presence!

I have a few questions, which I would like to discuss with the Christian people on this board. And since this is one of the biggest and most active Christian forums in the world, this seems like the perfect place. The questions concern God, His characteristics and existence, Christianity, Ethics, etc.

In the past, some Christians who I presented these questions to have felt offended. I sincerely hope that this is not the case here, and apologise in advance if it is. It is not my intention to insult anyone or attack your religion, I merely search for an in-depth discussion concerning your religion.

Three more things, before we get started. First, I apologise for any spelling- or grammatical errors made in my posts. English is not my first language, since I’m from Holland, and even though I always use the spelling checker some mistakes slip through. Second, I’m not sure whether this thread really belongs in this section. It seems more appropriate for the debate section, but I can’t post it there because I need to post a hundred times elsewhere before that, and I don’t feel like wasting your and my time writing a hundred posts just to make this thread. And third, for your own sake, don’t try to answer all these questions at once. It took me days to think of them and weeks to formulate them properly, so don’t stay up late trying to answer every question. I wouldn’t want to endanger your health.

Ready? Okay then, here we go:

A number of questions, directed towards the Christian people here.


1. The heaviest stone:
Here’s a classic one, to get things going. Some of you have probably heard this one before. God is said to be omnipotent, or all-powerful. Which means that He can do everything He wants. So, can God create a stone that is so heavy that God Himself cannot lift it?

2. The true fruit:
All right. Imagine a man, living all by himself in a fruit garden. This garden has all kinds of fruits, like apples, bananas, oranges, etc. However, this man doesn’t eat the different sorts of fruit. In fact, he only eats one sort of fruits, the bananas. That’s the only fruit he eats, every day, for his entire life. And every time after eating a banana, he says: ”This banana is delicious. I made the right choice, because bananas are the most delicious fruit on the planet. It is the true fruit!”

Now, this man has the full right to say what he says about bananas. But does he know it, when he says that bananas are the true fruit?

2b. Now, let us transfer this analogy to religion. Imagine a religious man, a Christian, who has been a Christian all his life, saying that Christianity is the true religion and should be preferred over all other religions. Now, this man has the full right to say and to believe that. But does he know it?

3. Job’s Problem:
As you all know, there is a lot of suffering in this world. War, hunger, diseases, you name it. Now, when I sometimes ask Christian people why there is suffering in the world, and why the all-loving God doesn’t stop this (since He is omnipotent), some of them say that God is testing us. He is making us suffer to see whether we will stay loyal to Him. They sometimes refer to the story of Job, in which God takes everything from Job (his wife, his children, his land, his health) because Satan challenged Him and wondered whether Job would stay true to Him.
Now, being God, He has a certain right to accept this challenge and let Satan have his wicked way with Job for the sake of His challenge. According to the Christians, He gave us everything, so it isn’t too illogical that He can take it away (although not all Christians will agree with this).
There’s just one little thing that bothers me. God, according to Christians, is
All-knowing. He knows everything about past, present and future. This means that He didn’t have to accept Satan’s challenge, since He already knew Job would choose Him. In fact, there’s no use in testing any of us by suffering at all, because God already knows who will come out of the test, and thus who are the true Christians. So why does He do it anyway?


3b. Some of you might answer that God might already have known that Job would remain faithful to Him, but that Satan didn’t. But then, does that really matter? I mean, destroying an innocent men’s life just to prove that He’s right doesn’t seem like something a benevolent God would do, right?

4. The Dictator:
Once, in a country far, far away, there was a cruel dictator. He had ruled over his little country for decades and made the inhabitants suffer a great deal. One day however, there was uproar in the country, and an angry crowd gathered before the house of the dictator, only to be stopped by his own private army. The people were furious, and they demanded elections. They said that they wanted to have a choice, to express their free will. “Okay”, said the dictator, “As you wish. I will organize elections, and you can freely choose between me and an impartial other candidate. However, if any of you dare not to vote for me, I will put you in the deepest dungeon and torture you horribly!”

Now the dictator gave his people a choice. But is it a free choice? Do the people really have an opportunity to express their free will?

4b. Later that day, the dictator’s ten-year-old son walks up to him, and asks him whether he can have some candy. The dictator nods, opens a drawer, takes out two pieces of chocolate and puts one of them in each hand. The reaches out his hands towards his son and opens them, displaying a piece of white chocolate in the right hand and a piece of brown chocolate in the left hand. The dictator tells his son that he can pick whichever he wants. So the boy picks out the right hand, containing the white piece of chocolate.
However, upon doing this, the dictator becomes furious and gives his son a mighty blow to the side of his head. Crying, the boy asks him why he did that. The dictator answers that he didn’t want him to pick the white piece of chocolate, and that he has the right to punish him because of that. The son disagrees. After all, what’s the use of having a choice when ultimately the decision is forced upon you anyway? According to him, it is not a fair choice.

So who’s right? The dictator, or his son?

4c. Now, if your answer to the last two questions was ‘no’, which seems quite possible, please answer me this;
The Bible says that God gave us free will. He gave us a choice. (In fact, this free choice seems to be the root of all our errors. Homosexuality = free choice. Catching HIV while trying to support your family by selling your body = free choice. Drown in the Tsunami = free choice.) However, if we don’t choose the side of God, we will burn in hell, which probably hurts a lot. And we don’t just go to hell for a short time, but we stay there for all eternity. Now, I agree with you that choosing between heaven and hell is a choice. But is it a free choice? Is it really a free choice anymore than the dictator gave his people or his son a free choice? Or does free choice include the acceptance of whatever choice you make, without adding any negative consequences to it?


4d. Back to the dictator. During the night after the original riots, a small group of angry people is still determined to take care of the dictator. They manage to enter his house, but they can’t make their way past the guards in front of the dictator’s bedroom. So in the end, they decide to kidnap the son of the dictator instead. They take the young boy to their secret headquarters, and once there, they send a message to the dictator, telling him that if he doesn’t end his reign over their people, they will kill the boy. They feel that this if fair, since after all, the boy is the son of the dictator. The boy himself disagrees, arguing that his father’s choices aren’t to blame on him. It wasn’t his will for the people to be suppressed by the dictator.

Suppose that the people kill the boy if the dictator doesn’t stop his reign. Would this be a morally acceptable thing to do?

4e. If your answer to this last question was no, consider what is written in Exodus 12: 29-30. Can God, a being that is supposedly perfect, do something that is morally unacceptable? And if He can’t, doesn’t that raise some questions about His omnipotence, since omnipotence is the ability to do anything?

5 God’s gender:
[sarcasm] Wow, thank you very much for insulting my religion [/sarcasm]. A statement that a Christian girl once made to me for referring to God as a ‘She’. Unfortunately, instead of making me feel sorry, it made me feel curious by raising a couple of questions.


For example, last time I checked God wasn’t made out of matter. No matter means no genitals. No genitals, means that technically one cannot refer to God as a ‘He’. Or at least not forbid anyone else to refer to God as a ‘She’. Right? (If your answer to this question is yes, you can skip questions 5b, 5c and 5d.)

5b. Of course, some of you will respond to this saying that the bible refers to God as a ‘He’. However, the bible was written in a time when men were considered superior to women and dominated them. Women were considered as ‘personal property’. So at the time, if anyone were to refer to a ‘supreme being’, which God was supposed to be, using ‘She’, he wouldn’t have been taken serious for an instant. So people referred to God as ‘He’. But does this really mean that God is a ‘He’? (If your answer to this question is yes, you can skip questions 5c and 5d.)

5c. Another thing. I (and note that I am a male) consider women to be the superior sex. Naturally, this means that I consider men the inferior sex. So far no harm done, at least not to the ladies here. However, here comes the tricky part. If I refer to God as ‘Him’ this means that I consider Him male, or belonging to the inferior sex. Which is downright insulting, considering God is supposed to be a superior being. You see the dilemma. I can’t call God a ‘She’ because Christian people won’t tolerate it, but I also can’t call Him a ‘He’ since that would be insulting Him too. What am I to do?

5d. One last thing. This one is even trickier than the ones before, but I’m asking anyway. I noticed that a lot of the Christians (not all, mind you) are against gay marriage. However, something most of them (at least the Catholic ones) agree on, is that Catholic priests should not be married, since they are ‘married to God’ as the expression goes in many countries. All fine so far. But. God is referred to as a ‘He’. Male. Catholic priests are also male. But if Catholic priests are married to or have a union with God, then this means that a male has married another male. Gay marriage. Right?

6. The good guy:
One day, a fisherman has a heart attack while fishing on the side of a lake, and falls into the water. A stranger on the side of the lake sees the man struggling not to drown, dives into the water and rescues the fisherman. The fisherman thanks the stranger, and asks him why he saved his life, since he was a total stranger to him. Since nobody else was watching him, he could have easily let him drown without having to endanger his life by diving in with him. The stranger answers that he saved the fisherman because he is a Christian, and he believes that good deeds like saving another persons life will get him to heaven.
A year later, the same fisherman has yet another heart attack on the side of the same lake, and hits the water again. Another stranger on the side of the lake sees this, and saves the fisherman like the first stranger did. After catching his breath, the fisherman asks this stranger the same question as he asked the other stranger a year ago, curious whether this is, like the other man, a Christian. This stranger, however, tells the fisherman that he is an atheist, and that he doesn't believe his good deeds will get him to heaven. To him, saving the life of the fisherman and seeing his happiness is enough reward.

Now, out of the two strangers, who had the better motive? The Christian, who saved the fisherman because he wanted to get the reward of going to heaven, or the atheist, who apparently didn’t need a reward that big for saving the fisherman?

 

[Mysterious]

7. For richer, for poorer:
Imagine two boys, standing in front of a candy shop. Both boys have five dollars to spend. The difference between the two, is that one boy knows that after he has spend the money, he can go back to his parents, who will give him an infinite amount of money as long as he’s a good boy. The other boy is an orphan, and knows that after this money, there is no more money to be spend, nothing.

To whom do you think this money will be worth more? The boy that knows that there are lots and lots left after he spends this money, or the boy that knows that the five dollars are all there is?

7b. Now, let's apply this question to religion. Christians believe that after this life, there is heaven (if you do good) where you can live on for all eternity. Atheists, however, believe that this life is all there is, and that when we die we simply cease to exist. To whom will this life be worth more?

7c. One of my Christian friends once asked me whether I don't consider my life to be worthless, since I don't devote my life to God. She wondered whether my life has value to me, since there's nothing after it. According to your answer to question 7 and 7b, is she right?

8. Yin-Yang, or the point of Heraclitus:
Imagine a world, far away from this one. However, even though it's far, this world is a lot like ours. As a matter of fact, it is exactly like ours, with one exception. Never, on the entire history of this world, has there been a war. Not a single minor battle, not a hooligan fight, nothing. The concept of war is unknown to them.

Do these people have a word for war?

8b. Do they have a word for peace?

8c. Do they, from their perspective, live in peace (while probably not even having a word for it)?

8d. Is it possible for peace to exist without ever having a war?

8e. Is it possible for something to exist, without the existence of the very opposite or counterpart without which it cannot be defined?

8f. Is it possible for there to be good, without the existence of evil?

8g. Is it possible for there to be good people, without the existence of bad people?

8h. If bad deeds, done by bad people, are necessary for there to be good deeds, done by good people, and if the good deeds are even defined by the bad deeds, in it justified to blame someone for doing bad deeds? Even if without his bad deeds, there wouldn't be good deeds, and thus the bad deeds obviously need to be done?

8i. Can you punish someone in hell for all eternity for doing bad deeds? Is it justified, when you consider that without bad deeds, there wouldn’t be good deeds?

9. Heaven and hell:
Time to use our imagination again. Imagine an atheistic man falling in love with a Christian woman. Despite their different opinions when it comes to religion and God, they’re a perfect match and truly love each other. They both feel that the other person is ‘the one’ for them, their true love.
One unfortunate day, they get into a car crash, and they both die. The woman goes to heaven, since she’s a good Christian, and the man, being someone who has denied the existence of God, goes to hell.
However, as soon as the woman (or rather, her soul) finds out that the man (or rather, the soul he didn’t believe in) went to hell, she becomes very upset. All her life, she has been told by the Church that heaven is supposed to be a place where one can only experience positive feelings, for negative feelings cannot exist in a place that is perfect. However, not being able to be with her true love is a very bad experience to her, and therefore, she truly feels that if she can’t be with him, heaven will not really be heaven.

Now, what’s going to happen? Is de man allowed to go to heaven, even though he’s an atheist? Or is the woman forced to suffer because of a sin she didn’t commit herself, thus making heaven not the perfect place for her?

10. A point made by Aristotle:
This one’s a little more abstract. First, I want you to think about the idea of ‘perfection’ or of something being ‘perfect’. You can pick either one. If you find this difficult, you can also look for a definition of ‘perfect’ that suits you in a dictionary, as long as you have a good idea of what being perfect means before you move on to the next question.

10b. Now, keeping your definition of ‘perfect’ in mind, I want you to consider whether something that is perfect can still improve further, or whether it can still achieve a higher goal. Take a hypothetical ‘perfect swordfighter’ for example. Could he or she improve his or her skills even further by practicing? Could he achieve a higher level of sword fighting then his current level?

10c. Okay, now for something completely different. The next two minutes, I want you to think of five actions that have no goal whatsoever.

If you have actually tried this, you will find that it is impossible. Every action that is performed has a goal, from the tiniest wink of an eye to a career lasting a lifetime. All actions have a goal. By the way, if you are convinced that you have found an action that does not have a goal, you’re welcome to post it, so we can decide whether you’re right.

10d. Almost there. I’m going to make a number of statements, which are deducted from the Bible and from what we’ve discussed in 10, 10b and 10c. Together, however, they lead to a conclusion that does not fit with the image of God as we know it. Yet, I can’t find where my line of reasoning goes wrong.

• The Christian God is said to be perfect in every way possible. (For reference, see 2 Samuel 22: 31, Psalm 50: 2, and especially Matthew 5: 48.)
• The Christian God is an acting God, meaning that He has undertaken several acts. He has created this Earth, He has sent His own son down from heaven to save us, and He’s doing all sorts of things now to keep us safe from harm and protect us from Satan.
• Since God is acting, God must have goals, since every action has a goal.
• Since God has goals, there must be something that He has not yet achieved, for what use would further goals have if one has already achieved everything one desires, or everything that can be achieved?
• Since there is something for God yet to achieve, there’s something that He hasn’t achieved yet.
• If there is something for God to achieve yet, God cannot be perfect, for being perfect in all ways is the realisation of everything that is to be achieved.
• Thus, God is not perfect in every way, since something that is perfect in every way has no goals to achieve and therefore has to be passive (this last point was originally made by Aristotle, so the props go to him).

Where did my line of reasoning go wrong?

11. Of all places!:
God has many characteristics, including some we have discussed before, like being all-powerful (omnipotent) and all knowing (omniscient). One other characteristic of God that is mentioned quite often is the idea that He is present everywhere, or omnipresent. There is no place where God isn’t present. There is, however, one problem if this were true. You see, hell, according to Christians, is also a place. Which leads us to the conclusion that God must also be in hell. But that can’t be, since hell is supposed to be a place devoid of God and His love. It would be rather strange if good Christians get to be with God in heaven, while atheists also get to be with Him in hell. Not to mention that if God is in hell, and hell is only for sinners, God would have to be classified as a sinner himself.

So which one is it? Is God in hell? Or isn’t He in hell, meaning that He is not omnipresent?

12. About pork and homosexuality:
Do you, as a Christian, consider being homosexual or committing homosexual acts to be an unforgivable sin? Would performing homosexual acts on a regular basis be sufficient to be condemned to hell if the person lives according to the rules of the bible concerning everything besides his sexual orientation? (If your answer is no to both questions, you can proceed to question 13.)

12b. Do you, as a Christian, consider liking pork or eating it to be an unforgivable sin? Would eating pork on a regular basis be sufficient to be condemned to hell if the person lives according to the rules of the bible concerning everything besides his liking of pork? (If your answer is yes, you can proceed to question 13.)

12c. Do you, as a Christian, consider liking shrimp or eating it to be an unforgivable sin? Would eating shrimp on a regular basis be sufficient to be condemned to hell if the person lives according to the rules of the bible concerning everything besides his liking of shrimp? (If your answer is yes, you can proceed to question 13.)

12d. Now, I want you to consider both what’s being said in Leviticus 11: 1-12 and the fact that most bible verses addressing homosexuality are also in the book Leviticus. Why do you disapprove of homosexuality, while you do not disprove of eating pork or shrimp? Isn’t that using double standards, since all three things are mentioned as sins in the bible?

12e. One more thing before we leave the topic of homosexuality. Suppose that homosexuality and the fight against it really is as important as George Bush, Fred Phelps and lots of other conservative Christians make it seem. Why doesn’t Jesus mention it even once in the bible?

13. The puppets of Popper:
One night, an eight-year old son awakens his mother. He’s crying, and tells his mother that he is afraid of the trees just outside his bedroom window. According to him, the trees have the ability to come alive, and they’re planning to attack him while he’s asleep. The following conversation ensues:

Mother: “But you’ve never seen the trees move, have you?”
Son: “No, but they only move while I’m asleep.”
Mother: “But why are they still in the same place when you’ve woken up again?”
Son: “Because they want to trick me.”
Mother: “And how come I’ve never seen them move while you were asleep?”
Son: “Because you’re not a child. You can’t see them move, because you’re grown-up.”
Mother: “How come?”
Son: “That’s just the way it is.”
Mother: “But how can simple trees move like that?”
Son: “They’re magic. They can do anything.”
Mother: “Isn’t that a bit illogical?”
Son: “What did I just tell you mom? They’re magic! They don’t have to apply to logic.”
Mother: “What if we’d set some traps?”
Son: “They’re much to clever to fall for that.”

…(two hours later)…

Mother: “But they’d have to break a few laws of physics to get past the hyper-advanced motion detectors. How would they do that?”
Son: “Mom, I told you a hundred times already. They’re magical. They can do that, even though I can’t explain how.”

So in the end, the mother is not able to disprove her son’s idea that the trees in their garden can come to life and that they’re planning to attack him.

Does this mean that what the son believes is true? And if your answer to this question is no, why isn’t it?

 

[Mysterious]

13b. Back to religion. Another conversation, but this time it’s between an atheist and a Christian, discussing the existence of God.

Atheist: “But I’ve never seen or heard God.”
Christian: “That’s because you can’t see or hear him. I for one can experience him, but you can’t.”
A: “But why not?”
C: “Because you’re not a Christian. It’s impossible to experience Him if you don’t believe in Him.” (Note the parallel with the kid saying “You can’t see the dolls move because you’re not a child”)
A: “But some of God’s characteristics are impossible when you apply logic to them. For example, can God create a stone that is so heavy that he cannot…”
C: “Blahblahblah. God doesn’t have to apply to logic.”
A: “Why doesn’t He have to apply to logic?”
C: “Because He’s almighty. That’s just the way it is.”
A: “But if He can’t be perceived, and He doesn’t have to apply to logic, that means that there is no way that He can ever be disproved to exist!”
C: “Yes. And because you can’t disprove that He exists, that means that He simply must exist.”

According to your answer to the previous question, is the Christian right? Does not being able to disprove something mean that it has to be true?

13c. How is believing in God more ‘believable’, more ‘credible’ or more ‘true’ then believing in trees coming to life and planning to attack you?

14. Headshot or starvation:
All right. Since terrorism seems to be a hot topic these days, I’ve decided to do a question on that as well.

One day, a man is driving through the Iraqi desert. He drives into an ambush, and terrorist take him to their hideout somewhere in the middle of the desert. Once there, he’s given a terrible choice. Either he’ll receive a headshot right there and then, or they’ll throw him in a pit and wait for him to die of starvation. They warn him that choosing the pit in order to buy some time won’t help, since there’s no chance that his friends will ever find their hideout in time. In other words, choosing starvation won’t increase his chance of survival and will only make him suffer more. In the end, the man chooses to be shot in the head, since he sees no point in the suffering he’d have to endure whilst starving in the pit.

Do you think he made the right choice? And do you blame him for making that choice?

14b. Okay. Same situation, with two slight differences. The Iraqi desert is switched for a hospital. And the terrorist is switched for something that has claimed many more victims. Cancer.

The man is in the hospital. The doctor tells him that he has cancer, and that it cannot be cured in any way. The chance of him getting better is nonexistent. To make things worse, the disease will take a long time to develop, making him weaker and causing more pain step by step. Ultimately, he won’t be able to move or speak anymore. He does have one choice, however. When the pain caused by the disease becomes too much for him to bear, the doctor is willing to give him a lethal injection. However, if the man doesn’t want that injection, the doctor is willing to let him live until the disease itself kills him. The man chooses the first, giving the doctor permission to give him a lethal injection when he indicates that the pain is becoming unbearable.

Do you think he made the right choice? And do you blame him for making that choice?

14c. Did you give a different answer to question 14 and 14b? And if so, why? Both cases are, after all, very similar. Both man are faced with a situation that will inevitably lead to their death, and their only choice is to die quick and painless at an early point of the situation, or slow and painful later. So what makes it that you agree with the choice being made in one question, and disagree with the choice made in the other?

14d. Back to the situation in 14b. As soon as the doctor leaves, a nurse approaches the man. She tells him that she overheard the entire conversation between him and the doctor, and that she has come to warn him. As she Christian, she feels that giving someone a lethal injection is murder, and thus a great sin. In fact, the man himself is also sinning, for asking the doctor to perform sin. Chances are, according to her, that they will both end up in hell for this. God, after all, has given him life, and God will take it at the time He chooses too. Dying sooner by a lethal injection is against God’s will.

After listening to her, the man replies to her by asking why God allowed him to become this ill, and why God wants him to die. The nurse tells him that God doesn’t want him to die. The man is surprised by this answer. After all, God is omnipotent, right? So if He doesn’t want the man to die, He could cure the man’s disease easily. He could even have prevented the man from ever becoming ill.

So why didn’t He?

14e. “Okay,” says the nurse: “Maybe He does want you to die. I mean, we all have to die at some point. But the thing is, you shouldn’t pick a moment yourself. You should wait for the moment God chooses for you to die. That way, the doctor doesn’t have to give you the injection and thus, he won’t be sinning.” Again, the man is surprised by the answer. First of all, this would mean that God wants him to suffer, while in the end, he’ll die anyway. Second, God is all-knowing. So He must have known, at the point where he allowed the man to become ill, that the man would choose euthanasia. Yet he still allowed it. And as a result, the man is forced to choose between hell on Earth and hell in the afterlife. How could a benevolent God do such a thing?

15. Death penalty:
Do you, as a Christian, support the death penalty? (If your answer to this question is no, you can skip question 15b and c and go to question 16)

15b. Why do you support the death penalty while the Bible (Exodus 20: 13) clearly says, “You shall not murder”? After all, murdering or killing someone means that you take somebody’s life, and isn’t that exactly what happens when you execute someone?

15c. Is your answer to the last two questions at odds with the answers you gave at 14b and c? Do you for example feel that euthanasia is not right while you do support the death penalty? And isn’t that a bit strange, feeling that you shouldn’t give lethal injections to people who want them but that you should give lethal injections to people who don’t want them?

16. The chemistry test:
Okay, let’s take a break from these heavy topics and switch to a much more carefree situation. Two boys in high school, named Joël and Patrick, who are filling in a chemistry test.

The most important question on the test is why chemical reactions take place. Patrick writes a page-long essay on this question, involving reactants, chemical change, motion of electrons and the forming and breaking of chemical bonds. However, he also forgets a few important things, and in the end he isn’t able to completely explain why chemical reactions take place.

Joël’s answer to the same question is much simpler, as it is made out of only once sentence, stating: “Chemical reactions take place because God makes them take place.”

After the test, Patrick and Joël get together and discuss their answers. When discussing the question discussed above, Patrick argues that he has a better answer then Joël. After all, he gave a thorough explanation of the entire process. There might still be a few things that he doesn’t know yet, but the important thing is that he really did try to answer the entire process and explained a great deal about it. Joël disagrees. He thinks that the answer he gave, about God making that the chemical reactions take place, simply explains everything and thus provides a more complete answer to the question.

Who do you agree with, and why?

16b. The situation described at question 15, could be seen as a small version of the battle between, for example, the people supporting the Theory of Evolution and Big Bang Theory, and the Creationists or the people believing Intelligent Design, when it comes to the question how mankind and Earth came into being. Regarding this question, the evolutionists have come a long way modifying and improving their theory, and in the end they have given a plausible explanation for the existence of man, although the theory still has some flaws and doesn’t explain 100% of the story. The Creationists, however, simply argue that we exist because God created us, and think that this answers the entire question, while the ToE does not.

Who do you agree with, and why?

16c. Does your answer on 16b have a misfit with the person you choose in question 16 (did you choose Patrick while arguing that the Creationists have a better answer, or vice versa)? And if it did, why? What’s the big difference between Joël and the Creationists? Both seem to give the same answer when faced with a difficult question.

17. Paley’s living watch:
This question will discuss a very popular argument that’s often used to defend the idea of Intelligent design, known as Paley’s watch. For those of you who are not familiar with it, I’ll describe it shortly. In 1802, a theologian named William Paley formulated the following question: “Suppose you’ve never seen a watch in your life before. Then, one day, while walking through the forest, you find one. Now, considering the perfect coordination of parts such a watch needs to function, would you expect it to have been created by a series of coincidental, random event, or would you expect it to have an intelligent creator?”

Most people would have to admit that they’d expect it to have a creator, upon which Paley and other supporters of intelligent design argue that the same goes for the complex human body. It’s so complex that it simply must have had an intelligent creator, God.

But before we make that conclusion, I’ll know ask you to take our thought-experiment a bit further:
“Okay, so we’ve never seen a watch before, and we find one in the forest. We study it, and marvel about it’s complexity. But then, suddenly, something strange happens, the watch erects itself in the palm of your hand, leaps off, and hops away through the forest. Now, since you’ve never seen a watch before, you’re not that surprised. But you do follow the watch, just out of curiosity.

Upon following the watch, you stumble upon an entire community of watches. Some of the watches work at a battery-farm, where they grow the batteries they need to survive. You even notice that some men’s and woman’s watches have formed bonds, sometimes resulting in the woman’s watch becoming bigger and bigger, until in bursts open and all sorts of children’s watches come crawling out of it.

Intrigued by this finding, you decide to do some archaeological research in the area. You find all sorts of fossilised watches, and when you put them in chronological order, you find that as you go back in time, the watches become increasingly simpler. They go from the sophisticated watches of today to the oldest clock, which are in fact simple sun clocks consisting of a simple, tall stone.

Would you, if you’d seen all that, still conclude that the watches had an intelligent creator? Even after you’ve seen them being born, and after you’ve studied their development from something that was a lot less complex?

17b. Some of you will probably avoid the question asked above, by making the obvious remark that watches don’t do all that. But then, isn’t that the essential difference between a human and a watch? The fact that a human is alive, that it’s born and develops during life, while a watch does not?

 

[Mysterious]

18. God versus Logic, a fight He can’t seem to win:
Since circles are my favourite kind of shapes, let’s circle back and end the questions by starting at the first one again. The one with the unliftable stone. That first question, along with a lot of others, clearly shows that when logic is applied to the characteristics of God, some of them appear to be impossible. Logically, it isn’t possible for God to both create an unliftable Stone and lift it, since the very definition of an unliftable stone is a stone that can’t be lifted. Either way, God isn’t capable of one of those things, which means that ultimately, He isn’t omnipotent.

There is, however, one answer to question one that seems to solve it. Which is saying that God being omnipotent means that He is not bound by the rules of human logic. In fact, this answer can be used for a lot of the questions above. If God doesn’t have to apply to logic, He can have no body and still be male, He can be omnipresent and still be in hell, etc. And it is plausible, since if God can do anything, He can surely break the rules of human logic, right? All in all, this answers a lot of questions while remaining faithful to the Christian doctrine, and it seems to good to be true.

Unfortunately, it is.

You see, there is one important consequence about God not having to apply to human logic. And that consequence is that we know nothing about God.

Why? Simple. God might not have to apply to human logic, but we humans sure do. In fact, every proposition, every characteristic, every sentence we read is processed according to the rules of logic. Can you for example think of a square with just three sides? Chances are you can’t, because the definition of a square is something with four sides, and one with three sides simply doesn’t fit with the logic of the concept of a square. However, if the square was omnipotent, meaning it could break the laws of mathematics, it could very well have three sides while still being a square.

Still with me here? Don’t worry; there is a point to all of this. You see, the same problem applies to God. If God doesn’t have to apply to the rules of human knowledge, we don’t know anything about him, and neither will we ever. God could be telling lies all the time and still be considered telling only truth, since the idea that one cannot tell a lie and still be truthful is based solely on logic. God could do all sorts of evil things and still be called benevolent in the bible. He could play us like puppets while still saying we have free will. In the end, everything said both in the Bible and by any other Christian regarding God would become meaningless, since meaningfulness is derived from logic.

Even God’s existence itself could be called into question. After all, the idea that His existence makes it impossible for Him not to exist, since existence and non-existence are mutually exclusive, is founded on logic. So if God doesn’t follow the rules of logic, He could exist and not exist at the same time, meaning that the atheists are right in denying the existence of God. To make matters even worse, there would be no telling when God exists and when He doesn’t, since such a conclusion would no doubt be based on logic, and logic doesn’t apply to God.

You see the dilemma, don’t you? Either God has to apply to logic, meaning that a lot of the characteristics He has been assumed to have are simply impossible, and seem to leave Him in need of a serious redefinition. Or He doesn’t have to apply to logic, which means that we don’t know anything about Him and thus can’t be sure about anything regarding Him, not even His existence. Ultimately, the latter would mean that the Bible and anything else said about God would be meaningless, while the first one would mean that He isn’t the God we think He is.

So which one is it? Or is there an error in my line of reasoning?

 

[FallingWaters]

What do you hope to gain by having all these questions answered?

 

[fishon]

Mysterious,
You ask: 1. The heaviest stone:
"Here’s a classic one, to get things going. Some of you have probably heard this one before. God is said to be omnipotent, or all-powerful. Which means that He can do everything He wants. So, can God create a stone that is so heavy that God Himself cannot lift it?"

You won't find easily offended, bored by nonsense questions, yes. When you write: "Here’s a classic one..." that indicates that you are not really serious. Why would you ask a "classic one" YOU KNOW you will never get a satisfactory answer too.

I hope your other questions, which I haven't read yet, have real substance to them.

Oh, that answer to your question, "Nobody knows."
fishon

 

[fishon]

Mysterious,
Looks like you are into games.

Oh well, I will play for a while, though nothing I say will make a real difference to you and I know it.

#2. The True Fruit.
"Does he know?"

That is what faith is all about.

Let's see, I know that Jesus the only way to the Father, because John 14:6 says it.

You see, you probably have the problem. You don't like the statement that "I know." But it is no problem for me.

It is not up to me to prove to you "I know." It would be up to you to prove I don't know. And why would you want to?

I have never experienced another woman than my wife, and I know I don't want to. See was the one for me, so do you think I missed out on something better because I didn't try the other "fruit?"
fishon

 

[Mysterious]

What do you hope to gain by having all these questions answered?

Wisdom. To be specific a broader insight into the Christian religion. Why do you ask?

You won't find easily offended, bored by nonsense questions, yes.

Unfortunately, the first basher seems to have entered this thread. Oh well, you're not the first to go around shouting things like this, and you won't be the last. Try to have a bit more of an open mind, will you?

When you write: "Here’s a classic one..." that indicates that you are not really serious. Why would you ask a "classic one" YOU KNOW you will never get a satisfactory answer too.

How am I not serious? So just because other people have asked it before and didn't get a satisfactory answer, I'm not allowed to ask it? I beg the difference.

I hope your other questions, which I haven't read yet, have real substance to them.

I'm hoping the same for your next answers. Instead of spewing your bile, try to contribute to the discussion, please.

 

[fishon]

Mysterious,
I more of your games today.

Again, nothing I say or someone with the capacity to answer in a intellegual way would satisfiy you. You are not looking for God, you are trying to put doubts in my/our faith. Sad.

You write again: "that...doesn’t seem like something a benevolent God would do, right?

Right. But He is God and I am not. His ways and thoughts are not mine.

Um, He made the flea and the elephant. The elephant I understand; the flea, not a clue why He created that awful creature.

He made Michael Jordan, tall and atheletic. Me, short and can't even dripple a basketball. Why? Is it fair?

--One baby lives; one baby dies.
--One soldier comes home; one soldier dies.
--I pray for Dick to recover, he does; I pray for my mother to recover, she does not.
--I am way smarter than my neighbor, he is rich.
I am not.
--You ask questions that I really can't answer. Then again, I can't tell you why and airplane can fly. It still flies.
fishon

 

[FallingWaters]

Wisdom. To be specific a broader insight into the Christian religion. Why do you ask?

I asked because I don't see how getting the answers to these philosophical questions will help you with Christianity.

 

[fishon]

Msysterious,
Sorry I wasted your time.
fishon

 

[Mysterious]

I asked because I don't see how getting the answers to these philosophical questions will help you with Christianity.

Getting the answers would mean that the idea of Christianity having no rational ground, something a lot of atheists claim, would be destroyed.

And Fishon, I accept your apologies. Maybe we can have a further discussion some other day, when you realise that I'm not attacking you nor your religion. Have a nice day.

 

[metherion]

I'm gonna answer most of these questions. But if you don't mind, I think I am gonna take a couple days to do it, since I don't have as much free time as I wish I did (having schoolwork and all).

That ok?
PS. PM me with the name of the thread so that I do in fact remember this thread so that I do return to post in it.

Metherion

 

[Reformationist]

Hello there, thank you for honouring my thread with your presence!

You're welcome.

I have a few questions, which I would like to discuss with the Christian people on this board.

Well, as you have put a lot of effort into posting, I'll do my best to answer your questions.

1. The heaviest stone:
Here’s a classic one, to get things going. Some of you have probably heard this one before. God is said to be omnipotent, or all-powerful. Which means that He can do everything He wants. So, can God create a stone that is so heavy that God Himself cannot lift it?

This question, though often asked, is not really that difficult to answer. It is actually quite similar to the question, "Can God create another God." It is true that God is both omnipotent (the exclusive source of all power) and sovereign (the ultimate authority). These two traits, among others, are specific to God and, thus, incommunicable. Now, if God were simply omnipotent and sovereign, we could potentially have a evil Ruler. This is not possible, however, because, along with the aforementioned traits, God is also holy. Therefore, what we can determine about God is that He enjoys all power, all authority, and all righteousness. Couple all of that with the fact that the law of non-contradiction applies to the Creator just as it does the creation and we see this question for what it is, a fallacious impossibility. It's like asking what happens when the immovable object collides with the unstoppable force. By their very nature those two things preclude the possibility of the other. In case you are not familiar with the rule of logic about which I speak, the law of non-contradiction is that something cannot be A and not A at the same time and in the same sense. Applying that principle to this question shows quickly that it is illogical to claim that God can do all things but is unable to do something at the same time and in the same sense. Often the issue is clouded by a misunderstanding about "omnipotency" as a divine trait. Thankfully, you have properly stated the definition of omnipotency as God's ability to do "anything that He wants." This caveat precludes any and all questions about whether God can do somethign that violates His nature, including violations of logic. So, to sum up, yours is not evidence of God's lack of power but, rather, a question that requires that we allow for the possibility of logical fallacy as a viable basis for rational argumentation.

If I may, a question in response to yours. Why would God want to create a stone that is so heavy that He could not lift it?

2. The true fruit:
All right. Imagine a man, living all by himself in a fruit garden. This garden has all kinds of fruits, like apples, bananas, oranges, etc. However, this man doesn’t eat the different sorts of fruit. In fact, he only eats one sort of fruits, the bananas. That’s the only fruit he eats, every day, for his entire life. And every time after eating a banana, he says: ”This banana is delicious. I made the right choice, because bananas are the most delicious fruit on the planet. It is the true fruit!”

Now, this man has the full right to say what he says about bananas. But does he know it, when he says that bananas are the true fruit?

2b. Now, let us transfer this analogy to religion. Imagine a religious man, a Christian, who has been a Christian all his life, saying that Christianity is the true religion and should be preferred over all other religions. Now, this man has the full right to say and to believe that. But does he know it?

It would depend on the manner in which you employ the adjectival qualifier "true." In the first scenario, the man proclaims, "It [the banana] is the true fruit!" A banana is truly a fruit so, if defined in that manner, the man is right. However, if "true" is employed to indicate a meaning of "only," well, obviously there are other fruits so the man is in error.

Insofar as the analogy applies to the second scenario, we would be required to acknowledge a broadening of the word's potential scope as there is a definitive moral element that does not exist in the first scenario.

I would need more information before I could attempt to address this question.

3. Job’s Problem:
As you all know, there is a lot of suffering in this world. War, hunger, diseases, you name it. Now, when I sometimes ask Christian people why there is suffering in the world, and why the all-loving God doesn’t stop this (since He is omnipotent), some of them say that God is testing us. He is making us suffer to see whether we will stay loyal to Him. They sometimes refer to the story of Job, in which God takes everything from Job (his wife, his children, his land, his health) because Satan challenged Him and wondered whether Job would stay true to Him.
Now, being God, He has a certain right to accept this challenge and let Satan have his wicked way with Job for the sake of His challenge. According to the Christians, He gave us everything, so it isn’t too illogical that He can take it away (although not all Christians will agree with this).
There’s just one little thing that bothers me. God, according to Christians, is All-knowing. He knows everything about past, present and future. This means that He didn’t have to accept Satan’s challenge, since He already knew Job would choose Him. In fact, there’s no use in testing any of us by suffering at all, because God already knows who will come out of the test, and thus who are the true Christians. So why does He do it anyway?

First and foremost, your account of the basis for God's actions towards Job is completely unbiblical. Secondly, God does not "test" anyone in an effort to determine what we would do. As you note, He is omniscient. If your question is simply, why does God allow mankind to struggle, the answer is not simple at all. You'd have to understand the issue of federal headship as embodied in Adam and Christ, the Fall of man, the corruption of his nature, redemption, the holiness of God, and man's need for a Savior. That said, the short and sweet answer, at least for a Christian, is answered by Scripture itself:

James 1:2-4
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

In short, the trials we encounter conform us and sanctify us.

Unfortunately, for the nonbeliever, struggles serve no purpose beyond making your life more difficult.

4. The Dictator:
Once, in a country far, far away, there was a cruel dictator. He had ruled over his little country for decades and made the inhabitants suffer a great deal. One day however, there was uproar in the country, and an angry crowd gathered before the house of the dictator, only to be stopped by his own private army. The people were furious, and they demanded elections. They said that they wanted to have a choice, to express their free will. “Okay”, said the dictator, “As you wish. I will organize elections, and you can freely choose between me and an impartial other candidate. However, if any of you dare not to vote for me, I will put you in the deepest dungeon and torture you horribly!”

Now the dictator gave his people a choice. But is it a free choice? Do the people really have an opportunity to express their free will?

This scenario is, of course, irrelevent to a discussion about the nature of God or Christian beliefs because, the Christian worldview does not allow for the idea that the creation has a right to be angry with God or demand anything of Him. We do not elect God. He elects whom He will have mercy upon and none that He graciously decrees to have mercy on have done anything righteous. They all deserve only His wrath for their rebelliousness.

4b. Later that day, the dictator’s ten-year-old son walks up to him, and asks him whether he can have some candy. The dictator nods, opens a drawer, takes out two pieces of chocolate and puts one of them in each hand. The reaches out his hands towards his son and opens them, displaying a piece of white chocolate in the right hand and a piece of brown chocolate in the left hand. The dictator tells his son that he can pick whichever he wants. So the boy picks out the right hand, containing the white piece of chocolate.
However, upon doing this, the dictator becomes furious and gives his son a mighty blow to the side of his head. Crying, the boy asks him why he did that. The dictator answers that he didn’t want him to pick the white piece of chocolate, and that he has the right to punish him because of that. The son disagrees. After all, what’s the use of having a choice when ultimately the decision is forced upon you anyway? According to him, it is not a fair choice.

So who’s right? The dictator, or his son?

Again, this is completely irrelevent to a discussion of biblically based reasoning. Those whom God has not given a desire to be His will never come to Him and ask if they can.

4c. Now, if your answer to the last two questions was ‘no’, which seems quite possible, please answer me this; The Bible says that God gave us free will. He gave us a choice.

No. God demands that you choose righteously and the Bible never says He gave you free will. God originally created man as a morally upright, volitional creature. When man chose to rebel against the authority of God, his nature was corrupted by sin and his will was radically altered. He retained his volitional nature but his fellowship with God was severed and, though God continued to be gracious, man quickly became a cesspool of iniquity.

Man still freely chooses but, as a creature whose will is always in accord with his desires, he will only and always choose according to whatever desire exerts the most influence. In the case of the unregenerate man, his will is always more strongly influenced by the sinful desires of his flesh. Thus, his own inherent corruption renders his will, not free, but, rather, enslaved to sin.

Now, I agree with you that choosing between heaven and hell is a choice. But is it a free choice?

When you show me, from Scripture, where we are told that man chooses between going to Heaven or going to hell I'll be able to answer this question. The gift of eternal life is the unmerited gift of God which is given because of what Christ did on a person's behalf, not a choice they make.

4e.Can God, a being that is supposedly perfect, do something that is morally unacceptable? And if He can’t, doesn’t that raise some questions about His omnipotence, since omnipotence is the ability to do anything?

Two things. First, I am surprised to see you err here where you were previously accurate. "Omnipotence" is not the "ability to do anything." There are a number of things that God is unable to do because they contradict His nature. God cannot sin for instance. Secondly, morality is not defined by the creation. It is defined by a holy God. Therefore, just because you, in your finite understanding, presume that something is "morally unacceptable" does not make it so.

5 God’s gender:
[sarcasm] Wow, thank you very much for insulting my religion [/sarcasm]. A statement that a Christian girl once made to me for referring to God as a ‘She’. Unfortunately, instead of making me feel sorry, it made me feel curious by raising a couple of questions.

For example, last time I checked God wasn’t made out of matter. No matter means no genitals. No genitals, means that technically one cannot refer to God as a ‘He’. Or at least not forbid anyone else to refer to God as a ‘She’. Right?

God is not corporeal. Reference to Him as a "He" is not indicative of a gender.

6. The good guy:
One day, a fisherman has a heart attack while fishing on the side of a lake, and falls into the water. A stranger on the side of the lake sees the man struggling not to drown, dives into the water and rescues the fisherman. The fisherman thanks the stranger, and asks him why he saved his life, since he was a total stranger to him. Since nobody else was watching him, he could have easily let him drown without having to endanger his life by diving in with him. The stranger answers that he saved the fisherman because he is a Christian, and he believes that good deeds like saving another persons life will get him to heaven.
A year later, the same fisherman has yet another heart attack on the side of the same lake, and hits the water again. Another stranger on the side of the lake sees this, and saves the fisherman like the first stranger did. After catching his breath, the fisherman asks this stranger the same question as he asked the other stranger a year ago, curious whether this is, like the other man, a Christian. This stranger, however, tells the fisherman that he is an atheist, and that he doesn't believe his good deeds will get him to heaven. To him, saving the life of the fisherman and seeing his happiness is enough reward.

Now, out of the two strangers, who had the better motive? The Christian, who saved the fisherman because he wanted to get the reward of going to heaven, or the atheist, who apparently didn’t need a reward that big for saving the fisherman?

Neither motive is righteous. That said, acts of civic righteousness are committed by Christian and non-Christian alike. Neither will get to Heaven because of these acts of kindness and all of them, if selflessly performed, are the product of God's grace, whether the person acknowledges it or not.

 

[metherion]

found some time with stuff being shifted around. So I did it now.
This will be a multi-part post, but to save space I will put the questions in parens instead of quote brackets.

(1. The heaviest stone:
Here’s a classic one, to get things going. Some of you have probably heard this one before. God is said to be omnipotent, or all-powerful. Which means that He can do everything He wants. So, can God create a stone that is so heavy that God Himself cannot lift it?)

Ah. Logic inconsistencies. Gotta love them.

I like this response.

Without redefining omnipotence, the paradox can be refuted as a self-contradicting formulation. It can be helpful to re-state the paradox in this way: "Does total ability include disability?", or even, "Is the total lack of disability itself a disability?" Viewed in this light, a simple answer of "No" to the classical formulation of the question ("Can an omnipotent being create a stone...") involves no contradiction, no paradox and requires no re-definition of omnipotence. Other responses may require a nuancing of the notion of omnipotence.

Or in my words, "Does being perfect at everything include being perfect at being imperfect?" No, it doesn't.

If you don't like that, search wiki for "omnipotence paradox". I like 2, 3, and 4 under "types of omnipotence".


(2. The true fruit:
All right. Imagine a man, living all by himself in a fruit garden. This garden has all kinds of fruits, like apples, bananas, oranges, etc. However, this man doesn’t eat the different sorts of fruit. In fact, he only eats one sort of fruits, the bananas. That’s the only fruit he eats, every day, for his entire life. And every time after eating a banana, he says: ”This banana is delicious. I made the right choice, because bananas are the most delicious fruit on the planet. It is the true fruit!”

Now, this man has the full right to say what he says about bananas. But does he know it, when he says that bananas are the true fruit?
I thought bananas were plantains. Oh well.
I guess he doesn't. But it depends on what you mean by "true fruit."
2b. Now, let us transfer this analogy to religion. Imagine a religious man, a Christian, who has been a Christian all his life, saying that Christianity is the true religion and should be preferred over all other religions. Now, this man has the full right to say and to believe that. But does he know it?)

This is slightly different from the banana in that God has (supposedly) come to Earth many times to do things, like the Exodus from Egypt, Fatima, et cetera. If he or she was around to experience those things, then yes. He or she could know. If he or she wasn't around, if he or she heard of them from credible sources, then I would say he or she could "know".


(3. Job’s Problem:
As you all know, there is a lot of suffering in this world. War, hunger, diseases, you name it. Now, when I sometimes ask Christian people why there is suffering in the world, and why the all-loving God doesn’t stop this (since He is omnipotent), some of them say that God is testing us. He is making us suffer to see whether we will stay loyal to Him. They sometimes refer to the story of Job, in which God takes everything from Job (his wife, his children, his land, his health) because Satan challenged Him and wondered whether Job would stay true to Him.
Now, being God, He has a certain right to accept this challenge and let Satan have his wicked way with Job for the sake of His challenge. According to the Christians, He gave us everything, so it isn’t too illogical that He can take it away (although not all Christians will agree with this).
There’s just one little thing that bothers me. God, according to Christians, is
All-knowing. He knows everything about past, present and future. This means that He didn’t have to accept Satan’s challenge, since He already knew Job would choose Him. In fact, there’s no use in testing any of us by suffering at all, because God already knows who will come out of the test, and thus who are the true Christians. So why does He do it anyway?)

I always thought of Job as a parable book, not a literal book. Like some of the prophet's writings and stuff. You'd have to ask a literalist for this one. Sorry.


(3b. Some of you might answer that God might already have known that Job would remain faithful to Him, but that Satan didn’t. But then, does that really matter? I mean, destroying an innocent men’s life just to prove that He’s right doesn’t seem like something a benevolent God would do, right? )

See my previous answer.

(4. The Dictator:
Once, in a country far, far away, there was a cruel dictator. He had ruled over his little country for decades and made the inhabitants suffer a great deal. One day however, there was uproar in the country, and an angry crowd gathered before the house of the dictator, only to be stopped by his own private army. The people were furious, and they demanded elections. They said that they wanted to have a choice, to express their free will. “Okay”, said the dictator, “As you wish. I will organize elections, and you can freely choose between me and an impartial other candidate. However, if any of you dare not to vote for me, I will put you in the deepest dungeon and torture you horribly!”

Now the dictator gave his people a choice. But is it a free choice? Do the people really have an opportunity to express their free will?)

Yes. Yes it is, and yes they do. They also have the opportunity to freely endure the consequences, for good or for ill.

(4b. Later that day, the dictator’s ten-year-old son walks up to him, and asks him whether he can have some candy. The dictator nods, opens a drawer, takes out two pieces of chocolate and puts one of them in each hand. The reaches out his hands towards his son and opens them, displaying a piece of white chocolate in the right hand and a piece of brown chocolate in the left hand. The dictator tells his son that he can pick whichever he wants. So the boy picks out the right hand, containing the white piece of chocolate.
However, upon doing this, the dictator becomes furious and gives his son a mighty blow to the side of his head. Crying, the boy asks him why he did that. The dictator answers that he didn’t want him to pick the white piece of chocolate, and that he has the right to punish him because of that. The son disagrees. After all, what’s the use of having a choice when ultimately the decision is forced upon you anyway? According to him, it is not a fair choice.

So who’s right? The dictator, or his son?)

The son is right, it isn't a fair choice if the decision is forced upon you.

(4c. Now, if your answer to the last two questions was ‘no’, which seems quite possible, please answer me this;
The Bible says that God gave us free will. He gave us a choice. (In fact, this free choice seems to be the root of all our errors. Homosexuality = free choice. Catching HIV while trying to support your family by selling your body = free choice. Drown in the Tsunami = free choice.) However, if we don’t choose the side of God, we will burn in hell, which probably hurts a lot. And we don’t just go to hell for a short time, but we stay there for all eternity. Now, I agree with you that choosing between heaven and hell is a choice. But is it a free choice? Is it really a free choice anymore than the dictator gave his people or his son a free choice? Or does free choice include the acceptance of whatever choice you make, without adding any negative consequences to it?)

I would say the second thing, about the acceptance.

(4d. Back to the dictator. During the night after the original riots, a small group of angry people is still determined to take care of the dictator. They manage to enter his house, but they can’t make their way past the guards in front of the dictator’s bedroom. So in the end, they decide to kidnap the son of the dictator instead. They take the young boy to their secret headquarters, and once there, they send a message to the dictator, telling him that if he doesn’t end his reign over their people, they will kill the boy. They feel that this if fair, since after all, the boy is the son of the dictator. The boy himself disagrees, arguing that his father’s choices aren’t to blame on him. It wasn’t his will for the people to be suppressed by the dictator.

Suppose that the people kill the boy if the dictator doesn’t stop his reign. Would this be a morally acceptable thing to do?)

No, it would not be a morally acceptable thing to do.

(4e. If your answer to this last question was no, consider what is written in Exodus 12: 29-30. Can God, a being that is supposedly perfect, do something that is morally unacceptable? And if He can’t, doesn’t that raise some questions about His omnipotence, since omnipotence is the ability to do anything? )

God is not only Omnipotent, we believe He is Omnibenevolent. He could, theoretically, but He wouldn't.

Furthermore, this whole dictator thing is flavored rather badly.
If you go by the creation stories literally (which I don't), God asks Adam and Eve not to do ONE THING. ONE THING. And that was to eat one specific thing. Out of everything ever made, He asked them not to eat one thing. So what did they do? They ate the one thing. That would be like me asking you please not to visit me at one minute after one in the afternoon. ANY OTHER TIME. 1:01:01 would be good even. But you show up at 1:01:00. So, understandably I am not too happy.

I personally understand it to mean that when God first made mankind, mankind was spiteful to God, and so God stopped being directly with us, and retreated to "Godhood", speaking through signs and prophets and whatnot.

I will get more into what I think about Hell later.

End of part one.

Metherion

 

[metherion]

(5 God’s gender:
[sarcasm] Wow, thank you very much for insulting my religion [/sarcasm]. A statement that a Christian girl once made to me for referring to God as a ‘She’. Unfortunately, instead of making me feel sorry, it made me feel curious by raising a couple of questions.


For example, last time I checked God wasn’t made out of matter. No matter means no genitals. No genitals, means that technically one cannot refer to God as a ‘He’. Or at least not forbid anyone else to refer to God as a ‘She’. Right? (If your answer to this question is yes, you can skip questions 5b, 5c and 5d.)
)
I would say that is correct. He is just termed as a He because English doesn't really have an "It" term that isn't really considered rude. Calling someone an It is rather rude, and we don't wish to be rude to God. Since generally, an unknown or gender neutral thing in English is a he, God is a He. But not really. Get what I mean?

(6. The good guy:
One day, a fisherman has a heart attack while fishing on the side of a lake, and falls into the water. A stranger on the side of the lake sees the man struggling not to drown, dives into the water and rescues the fisherman. The fisherman thanks the stranger, and asks him why he saved his life, since he was a total stranger to him. Since nobody else was watching him, he could have easily let him drown without having to endanger his life by diving in with him. The stranger answers that he saved the fisherman because he is a Christian, and he believes that good deeds like saving another persons life will get him to heaven.
A year later, the same fisherman has yet another heart attack on the side of the same lake, and hits the water again. Another stranger on the side of the lake sees this, and saves the fisherman like the first stranger did. After catching his breath, the fisherman asks this stranger the same question as he asked the other stranger a year ago, curious whether this is, like the other man, a Christian. This stranger, however, tells the fisherman that he is an atheist, and that he doesn't believe his good deeds will get him to heaven. To him, saving the life of the fisherman and seeing his happiness is enough reward.

Now, out of the two strangers, who had the better motive? The Christian, who saved the fisherman because he wanted to get the reward of going to heaven, or the atheist, who apparently didn’t need a reward that big for saving the fisherman?
)

If the Christian only did it because he wants to get to Heaven, then quite possibly. However, if the Christian does it because it is right, and going to Heaven is just a bonus, then neither.

(7. For richer, for poorer:
Imagine two boys, standing in front of a candy shop. Both boys have five dollars to spend. The difference between the two, is that one boy knows that after he has spend the money, he can go back to his parents, who will give him an infinite amount of money as long as he’s a good boy. The other boy is an orphan, and knows that after this money, there is no more money to be spend, nothing.

To whom do you think this money will be worth more? The boy that knows that there are lots and lots left after he spends this money, or the boy that knows that the five dollars are all there is?)

It'll be worth more to the one who only has 5 dollars, with no more left over.

(7b. Now, let's apply this question to religion. Christians believe that after this life, there is heaven (if you do good) where you can live on for all eternity. Atheists, however, believe that this life is all there is, and that when we die we simply cease to exist. To whom will this life be worth more?)

I would say to the Christian. I would say that because how the Christian spends his life can determine whether or not he gets the rewards, while the atheist can have a great time and be totally hedonistic now because, well, why not? The atheist might enjoy it more while he is here, but not necessarily.

(7c. One of my Christian friends once asked me whether I don't consider my life to be worthless, since I don't devote my life to God. She wondered whether my life has value to me, since there's nothing after it. According to your answer to question 7 and 7b, is she right?)

Your life can have value to you, certainly. Heck, your life even has value to God, even though you don't believe in Him, because you prompted these questions.


(8. Yin-Yang, or the point of Heraclitus:
Imagine a world, far away from this one. However, even though it's far, this world is a lot like ours. As a matter of fact, it is exactly like ours, with one exception. Never, on the entire history of this world, has there been a war. Not a single minor battle, not a hooligan fight, nothing. The concept of war is unknown to them.)

Do these people have a word for war?
Probably not.
8b. Do they have a word for peace?
Probably not, or if they do it would be their word for how things are there now.
8c. Do they, from their perspective, live in peace (while probably not even having a word for it)?
I guess so. I dunno though, I have a hard time seeing the world through someone else's shoes.
8d. Is it possible for peace to exist without ever having a war?
Yes, it just won't be seen as peace.
8e. Is it possible for something to exist, without the existence of the very opposite or counterpart without which it cannot be defined?
In some cases, I think so.
8f. Is it possible for there to be good, without the existence of evil?
Yes, it just won't be seen as such.
8g. Is it possible for there to be good people, without the existence of bad people?
Yes, it just won't be seen as such.
8h. If bad deeds, done by bad people, are necessary for there to be good deeds, done by good people, and if the good deeds are even defined by the bad deeds, in it justified to blame someone for doing bad deeds? Even if without his bad deeds, there wouldn't be good deeds, and thus the bad deeds obviously need to be done?
Yes. The bad deeds need to be done for the good deeds to seem good. Otherwise, the good deeds are just deeds. But they still are.

8i. Can you punish someone in hell for all eternity for doing bad deeds? Is it justified, when you consider that without bad deeds, there wouldn’t be good deeds?
See my talking about of Hell later. Remember, not everybody has a brimstone and hellfire view of Hell.

(9. Heaven and hell:
Time to use our imagination again. Imagine an atheistic man falling in love with a Christian woman. Despite their different opinions when it comes to religion and God, they’re a perfect match and truly love each other. They both feel that the other person is ‘the one’ for them, their true love.
One unfortunate day, they get into a car crash, and they both die. The woman goes to heaven, since she’s a good Christian, and the man, being someone who has denied the existence of God, goes to hell.
However, as soon as the woman (or rather, her soul) finds out that the man (or rather, the soul he didn’t believe in) went to hell, she becomes very upset. All her life, she has been told by the Church that heaven is supposed to be a place where one can only experience positive feelings, for negative feelings cannot exist in a place that is perfect. However, not being able to be with her true love is a very bad experience to her, and therefore, she truly feels that if she can’t be with him, heaven will not really be heaven.

Now, what’s going to happen? Is de man allowed to go to heaven, even though he’s an atheist? Or is the woman forced to suffer because of a sin she didn’t commit herself, thus making heaven not the perfect place for her?)

I don't know.

(10. A point made by Aristotle:
This one’s a little more abstract. First, I want you to think about the idea of ‘perfection’ or of something being ‘perfect’. You can pick either one. If you find this difficult, you can also look for a definition of ‘perfect’ that suits you in a dictionary, as long as you have a good idea of what being perfect means before you move on to the next question.

10b. Now, keeping your definition of ‘perfect’ in mind, I want you to consider whether something that is perfect can still improve further, or whether it can still achieve a higher goal. Take a hypothetical ‘perfect swordfighter’ for example. Could he or she improve his or her skills even further by practicing? Could he achieve a higher level of sword fighting then his current level?)

No. Not according to how I think of perfection.

(10c. Okay, now for something completely different. The next two minutes, I want you to think of five actions that have no goal whatsoever.

If you have actually tried this, you will find that it is impossible. Every action that is performed has a goal, from the tiniest wink of an eye to a career lasting a lifetime. All actions have a goal. By the way, if you are convinced that you have found an action that does not have a goal, you’re welcome to post it, so we can decide whether you’re right. )

Does it count if I know the goal isn't going to happen? Like arguing with certain-people-who-will-remain-unnamed-in-the-crevo-forums?
If not, then you are right.

(10d. Almost there. I’m going to make a number of statements, which are deducted from the Bible and from what we’ve discussed in 10, 10b and 10c. Together, however, they lead to a conclusion that does not fit with the image of God as we know it. Yet, I can’t find where my line of reasoning goes wrong.
0. The Christian God is said to be perfect in every way possible. (For reference, see 2 Samuel 22: 31, Psalm 50: 2, and especially Matthew 5: 48.)
0. The Christian God is an acting God, meaning that He has undertaken several acts. He has created this Earth, He has sent His own son down from heaven to save us, and He’s doing all sorts of things now to keep us safe from harm and protect us from Satan.
0. Since God is acting, God must have goals, since every action has a goal.
0. Since God has goals, there must be something that He has not yet achieved, for what use would further goals have if one has already achieved everything one desires, or everything that can be achieved?
0. Since there is something for God yet to achieve, there’s something that He hasn’t achieved yet.
0. If there is something for God to achieve yet, God cannot be perfect, for being perfect in all ways is the realisation of everything that is to be achieved.
0. Thus, God is not perfect in every way, since something that is perfect in every way has no goals to achieve and therefore has to be passive (this last point was originally made by Aristotle, so the props go to him).
Where did my line of reasoning go wrong?)

God created everything. This includes time. Which means God must exist apart from time. Which means He is both "before time" and "after time". Which means He exists at the point where His goal is achieved. Which means He is perfect in every way.

end of part two

Metherion

 

[metherion]

(11. Of all places!:
God has many characteristics, including some we have discussed before, like being all-powerful (omnipotent) and all knowing (omniscient). One other characteristic of God that is mentioned quite often is the idea that He is present everywhere, or omnipresent. There is no place where God isn’t present. There is, however, one problem if this were true. You see, hell, according to Christians, is also a place. Which leads us to the conclusion that God must also be in hell. But that can’t be, since hell is supposed to be a place devoid of God and His love. It would be rather strange if good Christians get to be with God in heaven, while atheists also get to be with Him in hell. Not to mention that if God is in hell, and hell is only for sinners, God would have to be classified as a sinner himself.

So which one is it? Is God in hell? Or isn’t He in hell, meaning that He is not omnipresent?)

God is omnipresent. Omnipresence needs space and time. If time and the world end, and Hell still exists then, that implies Hell is outside space and time. Which means omnipresence does not apply.

(12. About pork and homosexuality:
Do you, as a Christian, consider being homosexual or committing homosexual acts to be an unforgivable sin? Would performing homosexual acts on a regular basis be sufficient to be condemned to hell if the person lives according to the rules of the bible concerning everything besides his sexual orientation? (If your answer is no to both questions, you can proceed to question 13.))

Committing homosexual acts is a sin because it is sex outside of marriage, which is fornication, which is a sin. I do not think being homosexual in and of itself is a sin. As for the Hell-factor, I'm talking about it later.

(12b. Do you, as a Christian, consider liking pork or eating it to be an unforgivable sin? Would eating pork on a regular basis be sufficient to be condemned to hell if the person lives according to the rules of the bible concerning everything besides his liking of pork? (If your answer is yes, you can proceed to question 13.))

Acts 15. (I think that's the chapter. Basically at one of the REALLY early Councils, the Apostles get together, apply Jesus' teaching about how nothing from without makes people unclean, figure out He was decalring all foods clean, and give us carte blanche to eat not-blood. Even though I'm not 100% sure it's the right chapter, for continuity's sake I'm gonna keep using it.) Booyah.

(12c. Do you, as a Christian, consider liking shrimp or eating it to be an unforgivable sin? Would eating shrimp on a regular basis be sufficient to be condemned to hell if the person lives according to the rules of the bible concerning everything besides his liking of shrimp? (If your answer is yes, you can proceed to question 13.))

Acts 15.

(12d. Now, I want you to consider both what’s being said in Leviticus 11: 1-12 and the fact that most bible verses addressing homosexuality are also in the book Leviticus. Why do you disapprove of homosexuality, while you do not disprove of eating pork or shrimp? Isn’t that using double standards, since all three things are mentioned as sins in the bible?)

Fornication is not condoned in Acts 15. Foods are.

(12e. One more thing before we leave the topic of homosexuality. Suppose that homosexuality and the fight against it really is as important as George Bush, Fred Phelps and lots of other conservative Christians make it seem. Why doesn’t Jesus mention it even once in the bible? )

Maybe He did and that part of the manuscript is lost or got destroyed. Or maybe it ISN"T as big as they make it seem. One of the two.

(13. The puppets of Popper:too long. just having the question part.

So in the end, the mother is not able to disprove her son’s idea that the trees in their garden can come to life and that they’re planning to attack him.

Does this mean that what the son believes is true? And if your answer to this question is no, why isn’t it?)

Not necessarily. While it might not be true, it still might be. I think there are some "unprovable" math theorems out there that work but can't be / haven't been proven yet.


(13b. Back to religion. Another conversation, but this time it’s between an atheist and a Christian, discussing the existence of God.

According to your answer to the previous question, is the Christian right? Does not being able to disprove something mean that it has to be true?)

Nope. No it doesn't. I means it isn't provably false. It also probably means it isn't provably true, either.


(13c. How is believing in God more ‘believable’, more ‘credible’ or more ‘true’ then believing in trees coming to life and planning to attack you? )

Because it seems that God has come and done miracles on Earth (Lourdes, for one), while as far as A know, trees haven't attack people yet.

(14. Headshot or starvation:
All right. Since terrorism seems to be a hot topic these days, I’ve decided to do a question on that as well.

One day, a man is driving through the Iraqi desert. He drives into an ambush, and terrorist take him to their hideout somewhere in the middle of the desert. Once there, he’s given a terrible choice. Either he’ll receive a headshot right there and then, or they’ll throw him in a pit and wait for him to die of starvation. They warn him that choosing the pit in order to buy some time won’t help, since there’s no chance that his friends will ever find their hideout in time. In other words, choosing starvation won’t increase his chance of survival and will only make him suffer more. In the end, the man chooses to be shot in the head, since he sees no point in the suffering he’d have to endure whilst starving in the pit.

Do you think he made the right choice? And do you blame him for making that choice? )

It's not the choice I'd choose, but in that situation I wouldn't blame him or condemn his choice.

(14b. Okay. Same situation, with two slight differences. The Iraqi desert is switched for a hospital. And the terrorist is switched for something that has claimed many more victims. Cancer.

The man is in the hospital. The doctor tells him that he has cancer, and that it cannot be cured in any way. The chance of him getting better is nonexistent. To make things worse, the disease will take a long time to develop, making him weaker and causing more pain step by step. Ultimately, he won’t be able to move or speak anymore. He does have one choice, however. When the pain caused by the disease becomes too much for him to bear, the doctor is willing to give him a lethal injection. However, if the man doesn’t want that injection, the doctor is willing to let him live until the disease itself kills him. The man chooses the first, giving the doctor permission to give him a lethal injection when he indicates that the pain is becoming unbearable.

Do you think he made the right choice? And do you blame him for making that choice? )

I do not think he made the right choice, because new treatments might be discovered while he was still dying. We have some pretty crazy painkillers, and there are also chemically induced comas, and freezing. While it might not be know to work, I would favor him putting himself in one of those programs because he might be able to come back after a cure was found.


(14c. Did you give a different answer to question 14 and 14b? And if so, why? Both cases are, after all, very similar. Both man are faced with a situation that will inevitably lead to their death, and their only choice is to die quick and painless at an early point of the situation, or slow and painful later. So what makes it that you agree with the choice being made in one question, and disagree with the choice made in the other? )

Death isn't inevitable in b. There is hope of finding a cure before you die in b. Not so in a.

(14d. Back to the situation in 14b. As soon as the doctor leaves, a nurse approaches the man. She tells him that she overheard the entire conversation between him and the doctor, and that she has come to warn him. As she Christian, she feels that giving someone a lethal injection is murder, and thus a great sin. In fact, the man himself is also sinning, for asking the doctor to perform sin. Chances are, according to her, that they will both end up in hell for this. God, after all, has given him life, and God will take it at the time He chooses too. Dying sooner by a lethal injection is against God’s will.

After listening to her, the man replies to her by asking why God allowed him to become this ill, and why God wants him to die. The nurse tells him that God doesn’t want him to die. The man is surprised by this answer. After all, God is omnipotent, right? So if He doesn’t want the man to die, He could cure the man’s disease easily. He could even have prevented the man from ever becoming ill.

So why didn’t He?)

Ah yes. The old "Why doesn't God prevent all badness ever for everybody?"
Sigh.
Perhaps because God knows that if He does that people will start taking His help for granted and doing really really stupid things that go against what He wants knowing nothing bad will happen? Taking away all negative effects is not as good as it's cracked up to be.

(14e. “Okay,” says the nurse: “Maybe He does want you to die. I mean, we all have to die at some point. But the thing is, you shouldn’t pick a moment yourself. You should wait for the moment God chooses for you to die. That way, the doctor doesn’t have to give you the injection and thus, he won’t be sinning.” Again, the man is surprised by the answer. First of all, this would mean that God wants him to suffer, while in the end, he’ll die anyway. Second, God is all-knowing. So He must have known, at the point where he allowed the man to become ill, that the man would choose euthanasia. Yet he still allowed it. And as a result, the man is forced to choose between hell on Earth and hell in the afterlife. How could a benevolent God do such a thing?)

This is again assuming the one-strike-you-burn POV, which I disagree with.

End of part three.

Metherion

 

[metherion]

(15. Death penalty:
Do you, as a Christian, support the death penalty? (If your answer to this question is no, you can skip question 15b and c and go to question 16))

Yes, but only in extreme cases.

(15b. Why do you support the death penalty while the Bible (Exodus 20: 13) clearly says, “You shall not murder”? After all, murdering or killing someone means that you take somebody’s life, and isn’t that exactly what happens when you execute someone?)

The Bible also says to stone or burn people for all sorts of things, like wearing cloth made of multiple threads, or planting different crops too close together, and all sorts of stuff. We are allowed to kill people in self-defense, and stuff. Murder and killing aren't quite the same. When I said extreme cases, I mean cases where even in prison someone continues to be dangerous to others around him, like escaping, or killing other prisoners or guards and stuff.

(15c. Is your answer to the last two questions at odds with the answers you gave at 14b and c? Do you for example feel that euthanasia is not right while you do support the death penalty? And isn’t that a bit strange, feeling that you shouldn’t give lethal injections to people who want them but that you should give lethal injections to people who don’t want them?)

They way that I have explained it makes sense to me.

(16. The chemistry test:
Okay, let’s take a break from these heavy topics and switch to a much more carefree situation. Two boys in high school, named Joël and Patrick, who are filling in a chemistry test.

The most important question on the test is why chemical reactions take place. Patrick writes a page-long essay on this question, involving reactants, chemical change, motion of electrons and the forming and breaking of chemical bonds. However, he also forgets a few important things, and in the end he isn’t able to completely explain why chemical reactions take place.

Joël’s answer to the same question is much simpler, as it is made out of only once sentence, stating: “Chemical reactions take place because God makes them take place.”

After the test, Patrick and Joël get together and discuss their answers. When discussing the question discussed above, Patrick argues that he has a better answer then Joël. After all, he gave a thorough explanation of the entire process. There might still be a few things that he doesn’t know yet, but the important thing is that he really did try to answer the entire process and explained a great deal about it. Joël disagrees. He thinks that the answer he gave, about God making that the chemical reactions take place, simply explains everything and thus provides a more complete answer to the question.

Who do you agree with, and why?)

Well, I'm a chemical engineer, so I must confess a certain bias. If on a test in a chemistry class I am asked why something happens, I would answer with the physical reason, not the metaphysical reason. So I would afree with Patrick.

(16b. The situation described at question 15, could be seen as a small version of the battle between, for example, the people supporting the Theory of Evolution and Big Bang Theory, and the Creationists or the people believing Intelligent Design, when it comes to the question how mankind and Earth came into being. Regarding this question, the evolutionists have come a long way modifying and improving their theory, and in the end they have given a plausible explanation for the existence of man, although the theory still has some flaws and doesn’t explain 100% of the story. The Creationists, however, simply argue that we exist because God created us, and think that this answers the entire question, while the ToE does not.

Who do you agree with, and why?)

I'm a Theistic evolutionist. As to why, more of the observable evidence supports evolution as opposed to a young created earth. While ToE isn't perfect, it fits what we know far better.

(16c. Does your answer on 16b have a misfit with the person you choose in question 16 (did you choose Patrick while arguing that the Creationists have a better answer, or vice versa)? And if it did, why? What’s the big difference between Joël and the Creationists? Both seem to give the same answer when faced with a difficult question. )

Nope. My answer didn't misfit.

(17. Paley’s living watch:
This question will discuss a very popular argument that’s often used to defend the idea of Intelligent design, known as Paley’s watch. For those of you who are not familiar with it, I’ll describe it shortly. In 1802, a theologian named William Paley formulated the following question: “Suppose you’ve never seen a watch in your life before. Then, one day, while walking through the forest, you find one. Now, considering the perfect coordination of parts such a watch needs to function, would you expect it to have been created by a series of coincidental, random event, or would you expect it to have an intelligent creator?”

Most people would have to admit that they’d expect it to have a creator, upon which Paley and other supporters of intelligent design argue that the same goes for the complex human body. It’s so complex that it simply must have had an intelligent creator, God.

But before we make that conclusion, I’ll know ask you to take our thought-experiment a bit further:
“Okay, so we’ve never seen a watch before, and we find one in the forest. We study it, and marvel about it’s complexity. But then, suddenly, something strange happens, the watch erects itself in the palm of your hand, leaps off, and hops away through the forest. Now, since you’ve never seen a watch before, you’re not that surprised. But you do follow the watch, just out of curiosity.

Upon following the watch, you stumble upon an entire community of watches. Some of the watches work at a battery-farm, where they grow the batteries they need to survive. You even notice that some men’s and woman’s watches have formed bonds, sometimes resulting in the woman’s watch becoming bigger and bigger, until in bursts open and all sorts of children’s watches come crawling out of it.

Intrigued by this finding, you decide to do some archaeological research in the area. You find all sorts of fossilised watches, and when you put them in chronological order, you find that as you go back in time, the watches become increasingly simpler. They go from the sophisticated watches of today to the oldest clock, which are in fact simple sun clocks consisting of a simple, tall stone.

Would you, if you’d seen all that, still conclude that the watches had an intelligent creator? Even after you’ve seen them being born, and after you’ve studied their development from something that was a lot less complex? )

Probably not.

(17b. Some of you will probably avoid the question asked above, by making the obvious remark that watches don’t do all that. But then, isn’t that the essential difference between a human and a watch? The fact that a human is alive, that it’s born and develops during life, while a watch does not?)

I didn't answer that way, so this question doesn't really apply to me.

(18. God versus Logic, a fight He can’t seem to win:
Since circles are my favourite kind of shapes, let’s circle back and end the questions by starting at the first one again. The one with the unliftable stone. That first question, along with a lot of others, clearly shows that when logic is applied to the characteristics of God, some of them appear to be impossible. Logically, it isn’t possible for God to both create an unliftable Stone and lift it, since the very definition of an unliftable stone is a stone that can’t be lifted. Either way, God isn’t capable of one of those things, which means that ultimately, He isn’t omnipotent.

*sigh*

There is, however, one answer to question one that seems to solve it. Which is saying that God being omnipotent means that He is not bound by the rules of human logic. In fact, this answer can be used for a lot of the questions above. If God doesn’t have to apply to logic, He can have no body and still be male, He can be omnipresent and still be in hell, etc. And it is plausible, since if God can do anything, He can surely break the rules of human logic, right? All in all, this answers a lot of questions while remaining faithful to the Christian doctrine, and it seems to good to be true.

Unfortunately, it is.

You see, there is one important consequence about God not having to apply to human logic. And that consequence is that we know nothing about God.

Why? Simple. God might not have to apply to human logic, but we humans sure do. In fact, every proposition, every characteristic, every sentence we read is processed according to the rules of logic. Can you for example think of a square with just three sides? Chances are you can’t, because the definition of a square is something with four sides, and one with three sides simply doesn’t fit with the logic of the concept of a square. However, if the square was omnipotent, meaning it could break the laws of mathematics, it could very well have three sides while still being a square.

Still with me here? Don’t worry; there is a point to all of this. You see, the same problem applies to God. If God doesn’t have to apply to the rules of human knowledge, we don’t know anything about him, and neither will we ever. God could be telling lies all the time and still be considered telling only truth, since the idea that one cannot tell a lie and still be truthful is based solely on logic. God could do all sorts of evil things and still be called benevolent in the bible. He could play us like puppets while still saying we have free will. In the end, everything said both in the Bible and by any other Christian regarding God would become meaningless, since meaningfulness is derived from logic.

Even God’s existence itself could be called into question. After all, the idea that His existence makes it impossible for Him not to exist, since existence and non-existence are mutually exclusive, is founded on logic. So if God doesn’t follow the rules of logic, He could exist and not exist at the same time, meaning that the atheists are right in denying the existence of God. To make matters even worse, there would be no telling when God exists and when He doesn’t, since such a conclusion would no doubt be based on logic, and logic doesn’t apply to God.

You see the dilemma, don’t you? Either God has to apply to logic, meaning that a lot of the characteristics He has been assumed to have are simply impossible, and seem to leave Him in need of a serious redefinition. Or He doesn’t have to apply to logic, which means that we don’t know anything about Him and thus can’t be sure about anything regarding Him, not even His existence. Ultimately, the latter would mean that the Bible and anything else said about God would be meaningless, while the first one would mean that He isn’t the God we think He is.

So which one is it? Or is there an error in my line of reasoning?)

I would say that God is partially conceivable by human logic, and partially not. Things like omnipotence, existence, and so on, can be defined by human logic. Things like a world without time aren't understandable by humans. We don't know what a timeless world would be like, since none of us have been in one.
But the things that are important for understanding how He works and His relvant qualities are understandable.

Now, I was gonna talk about Hell, and what I think it is. I think that Hell is separation from God, not pain and Hellfire. Of course, being separated from God would be pretty terrible. I believe that you only go to Hell if you choose to go to Hell, either because you believe you can't be forgiven, or because you are too prideful to accept you were wrong, etc. You can always repent, even if you last act was a sinful one. It's never too late.

And that's what I have to say about that. You might need to get a YEC to properly answer some of your questions though.

End.
Hope that helped.

Metherion

 

[Reformationist]

7. For richer, for poorer:
7b. Now, let's apply this question to religion. Christians believe that after this life, there is heaven (if you do good) where you can live on for all eternity. Atheists, however, believe that this life is all there is, and that when we die we simply cease to exist. To whom will this life be worth more?

One can only understand the fullness of the value of life when one understands the value placed on life by the Lifegiver, God Himself. This is the very reason that the secular world generally sees no moral problem with abortion. They do not see that child's life in the way that one who understands the value God places on that life does.

In reference to #8, I am answering only those questions which are pertinent to a Christian worldview.

8. Yin-Yang, or the point of Heraclitus:
Imagine a world, far away from this one. However, even though it's far, this world is a lot like ours. As a matter of fact, it is exactly like ours, with one exception. Never, on the entire history of this world, has there been a war. Not a single minor battle, not a hooligan fight, nothing. The concept of war is unknown to them.

8d. Is it possible for peace to exist without ever having a war?

Such will be the case in the fullness of God's plan when the glorified saints are confirmed in the grace of God's protective embrace.

8e. Is it possible for something to exist, without the existence of the very opposite or counterpart without which it cannot be defined?

God exists and, while satan is the antithesis of God, he is a created being and, thus, subservient to the authority and power of God. God has no "equal opposite."

8f. Is it possible for there to be good, without the existence of evil?

There will be only good in Heaven so, clearly, yes.

8g. Is it possible for there to be good people, without the existence of bad people?

"Good" is a term that is relative to God, not other people, so yes.

8h. If bad deeds, done by bad people, are necessary for there to be good deeds, done by good people, and if the good deeds are even defined by the bad deeds, in it justified to blame someone for doing bad deeds? Even if without his bad deeds, there wouldn't be good deeds, and thus the bad deeds obviously need to be done?

If I'm understanding this poorly worded question, the justification to punish evil deeds is not dependant upon their place in the plan of God. Just because God decreed, in eternity, that Judas would betray the Lord Jesus does not release Judas from the guilt of the action.

8i. Can you punish someone in hell for all eternity for doing bad deeds?

I cannot punish anyone in hell for a single minute. I am not God.

Is it justified, when you consider that without bad deeds, there wouldn’t be good deeds?

This is false and has no basis in a discussion of Christian ethics. The "goodness" of a deed is determined by its complicity with God's revealed will. It is not determined by it's relationship to something that is contrary to the perceptive will of the Almighty.

9. Heaven and hell:
Time to use our imagination again. Imagine an atheistic man falling in love with a Christian woman. Despite their different opinions when it comes to religion and God, they’re a perfect match and truly love each other. They both feel that the other person is ‘the one’ for them, their true love.
One unfortunate day, they get into a car crash, and they both die. The woman goes to heaven, since she’s a good Christian, and the man, being someone who has denied the existence of God, goes to hell.
However, as soon as the woman (or rather, her soul) finds out that the man (or rather, the soul he didn’t believe in) went to hell, she becomes very upset. All her life, she has been told by the Church that heaven is supposed to be a place where one can only experience positive feelings, for negative feelings cannot exist in a place that is perfect. However, not being able to be with her true love is a very bad experience to her, and therefore, she truly feels that if she can’t be with him, heaven will not really be heaven.

Now, what’s going to happen? Is de man allowed to go to heaven, even though he’s an atheist? Or is the woman forced to suffer because of a sin she didn’t commit herself, thus making heaven not the perfect place for her?

First, no one is granted eternal life in Heaven because they are a "good Christian." Any who are given that great gift are given it on the basis of God's graciousness in imputing to them the benefits of the meritorious work of Christ. Second, the idea of a "perfect match" between one who loves God and one who does not is incongruous. The "perfect match" for a believer is, of course, a believer, who will love them as Christ loved the church. Lastly, the Bible does not reveal how we will not grieve for the condemnation of those we love, only that we will not.

10. A point made by Aristotle:
God cannot be perfect, for being perfect in all ways is the realisation of everything that is to be achieved.

While this question does present us with more of a mystery about God, we must start with the understanding that the Bible is not a comprehensive answer guide to all questions we may come up with about God. It is what it is, His revelation. He has chosen to reveal what He has chosen to reveal and it is not our place to seek to understand the hidden counsel of God. That said, the verse I posted earlier (James 1:4) differentiates between perfection and completeness. This is not to say that God is incomplete but, rather, that His plan has not been fully manifested. He decreed that His plan would unfold in a linear fashion and while He establishes the end from the beginning, His plan is still unfolding. This includes His plan to bring glory to Himself through creation, which I believe was His reason for creation.

11. Of all places!:
God has many characteristics, including some we have discussed before, like being all-powerful (omnipotent) and all knowing (omniscient). One other characteristic of God that is mentioned quite often is the idea that He is present everywhere, or omnipresent. There is no place where God isn’t present. There is, however, one problem if this were true. You see, hell, according to Christians, is also a place. Which leads us to the conclusion that God must also be in hell. But that can’t be, since hell is supposed to be a place devoid of God and His love. It would be rather strange if good Christians get to be with God in heaven, while atheists also get to be with Him in hell. Not to mention that if God is in hell, and hell is only for sinners, God would have to be classified as a sinner himself.

So which one is it? Is God in hell? Or isn’t He in hell, meaning that He is not omnipresent?

"Omnipresent" does not just mean that God is "present everywhere." It means that He is "present everywhere at all times." That said, it would be incongruous to claim that a Being that is "present everywhere at all times" is not somewhere. One thing to note is that God is infinite. Therefore, we must acknowledge the nature of the infinite, which is "that which has no end, no limit, and no finite boundary." Additionally, finitum non capax infinitum, which means, "the finite cannot contain, or apprehend, the infinite." This means that while hell is coram Deo, "before the face of God," God does not reside in hell, as hell is a finite place and God is infinite.

12. About pork and homosexuality:
Do you, as a Christian, consider being homosexual or committing homosexual acts to be an unforgivable sin?

No. The only sin that will not be forgiven is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which is knowingly attributing the work of the Spirit of God to satan (Matthew 12:31,32).

Would performing homosexual acts on a regular basis be sufficient to be condemned to hell if the person lives according to the rules of the bible concerning everything besides his sexual orientation? (If your answer is no to both questions, you can proceed to question 13.)

The Bible says that committing a single sin makes one guilty of transgressing the entire law of God (James 2:10), therefore, yes, even a single homosexual sin in a lifetime of obedience is sufficient to be condemned to hell.

God bless

 

[Reformationist]

13b. Does not being able to disprove something mean that it has to be true?

No.

13c. How is believing in God more ‘believable’, more ‘credible’ or more ‘true’ then believing in trees coming to life and planning to attack you?

For one who has not been given faith by God, it isn't.

14. Headshot or starvation:
One day, a man is driving through the Iraqi desert. He drives into an ambush, and terrorist take him to their hideout somewhere in the middle of the desert. Once there, he’s given a terrible choice. Either he’ll receive a headshot right there and then, or they’ll throw him in a pit and wait for him to die of starvation. They warn him that choosing the pit in order to buy some time won’t help, since there’s no chance that his friends will ever find their hideout in time. In other words, choosing starvation won’t increase his chance of survival and will only make him suffer more. In the end, the man chooses to be shot in the head, since he sees no point in the suffering he’d have to endure whilst starving in the pit.

Do you think he made the right choice?

No clue.

And do you blame him for making that choice?

I am not in the place of God so it matters not whether I blame him.

14b. Okay. Same situation, with two slight differences. The Iraqi desert is switched for a hospital. And the terrorist is switched for something that has claimed many more victims. Cancer.

The man is in the hospital. The doctor tells him that he has cancer, and that it cannot be cured in any way. The chance of him getting better is nonexistent. To make things worse, the disease will take a long time to develop, making him weaker and causing more pain step by step. Ultimately, he won’t be able to move or speak anymore. He does have one choice, however. When the pain caused by the disease becomes too much for him to bear, the doctor is willing to give him a lethal injection. However, if the man doesn’t want that injection, the doctor is willing to let him live until the disease itself kills him. The man chooses the first, giving the doctor permission to give him a lethal injection when he indicates that the pain is becoming unbearable.

Do you think he made the right choice?

Well, it shows a marked lack of faith in God so I would have to say no but, again, I am not the man's judge so I would certainly not blame him.

15. Death penalty:
Do you, as a Christian, support the death penalty? (If your answer to this question is no, you can skip question 15b and c and go to question 16)

Yes.

15b. Why do you support the death penalty while the Bible (Exodus 20: 13) clearly says, “You shall not murder”? After all, murdering or killing someone means that you take somebody’s life, and isn’t that exactly what happens when you execute someone?

The mandate against murder is in reference to unlawful execution. The death penalty is only employed in cases where the death penalty is a lawful response to criminal actions.

18. God versus Logic, a fight He can’t seem to win:
Since circles are my favourite kind of shapes, let’s circle back and end the questions by starting at the first one again. The one with the unliftable stone. That first question, along with a lot of others, clearly shows that when logic is applied to the characteristics of God, some of them appear to be impossible. Logically, it isn’t possible for God to both create an unliftable Stone and lift it, since the very definition of an unliftable stone is a stone that can’t be lifted. Either way, God isn’t capable of one of those things, which means that ultimately, He isn’t omnipotent.

Your first question stood in violation of the law of non-contradiction so it's a view that "loses" right from the get go. Omnipotence does not mean that God can do anything, including things which are illogical. It means that God is able to do all things that are in accordance with His nature. I can see I gave you far too much credit in my initial response. You have made the same error as others who employ this illogic as a means of arguing against the omnipotence of God.

God bless