Also consider that since you made the droids and you started everything, you are the C.E.O. of the company. You control every aspect of how things are run. Yet you decide not to fire this employee who has blatantly sabotaged your prized equipment and even gone so far as to attempt to force you to take the company public so he can buy all the stock and get you thrown out on the streets. You decide it’s better to keep him around as head of the scrap pile, even though he’s still plotting to destroy you and your company and is actively working to ruin your droids so they all get trashed.

Your only saving grace is you created a repair bot that was able to fix many of the problems with the damaged droids. However, you decide that it’s actually better if you let some of the reprogrammed droids wreck him so you can repair him as a symbolic gesture. Instead of actually letting him continue his good work, you decide to keep him in your corner office all the time and only let specific wrecked droids come be healed. The other droids you send to your arch-enemy to make him stronger.

None of this seems to make much sense. Try running a business with this strategy and it’ll go under rather quickly.

I’m surprised that you were so easily convinced by such a simple point, but if that is what worked… then welcome!

I hope you enjoy the freedom and love to be found on this side of the fence.

1.“The blame falls on God”…The basic argument is whether or not God caused evil. I won’t try and delve into the whole scope of this argument, because to do so would be to make the same mistake that was made here in this post. However, many theologians have concluded that God could have ordained evil exist without being evil Himself. This conclusion is Biblical with the best example being the fact that God himself ordained that Jesus would die to atone for sin. Jesus death was a profound act of murder and evil that, according to the Bible, was fully set in motion by God himself. The point still remains that God is not the one who disobeyed, it was Adam, and God did not perpetuate the act of Jesus death, man did. The book of Romans deals with the ramifications of this statement especially in chapter 9 so read that before you go off asking dumb questions. Please!!!

2.“The snake was right”…He absolutely was right. Adam and Eve knew what evil was, but before this moment Adam and Eve had no concept of what evil was like because it didn’t exist in humanity yet. I can know what something is and not know for myself what it is like. This happens all them time. I knew as kid what driving a car was but I didn’t have a clue what it was like until I did it. The knowledge of good and evil came when they themselves experienced evil by disobeying God. Evil at its core is doing what goes against the will of God and disobeying falls into that category.

3.”What kind of God would punish so many innocent people and animals throughout history because of one sin…”…This is a misunderstanding of what is actually going on here. No its not a misunderstanding its reducing something down to an easier form instead of dealing with reality, because that would be a lot harder than throwing out ridiculous punditry. God is not punishing the world for one sin, rather He is punishing a world that is now innately wired to sin. Man now has the ability to know good and evil and faithfully chooses the evil. Atheism is a great example of this. You say I don’t believe in God, and if He does exist I think He’s a big fat jerk so there. You are also assuming that God sends Adam and Eve out from the garden because He now hates them and wants to make them pay, but this is not true since the Bible is clear that events had already been set in motion for God himself to redeem mankind. These events will happen because of God’s love. Man will be punished for disobedience but the act of punishment itself is intended to turn mans heart back to God. It would be horrible if every time somebody’s kid did something bad if they just said, “Ah don’t worry about it.” The kid would grow up to be a raging narcissist and be impossible to be around. Punishment always has a loving purpose when it comes to God. But I will say again that volumes have been written about this subject by really smart people who for some reason couldn’t sum up their thoughts in 300 words on an internet blog.

4.“Why did he make the tree have magical properties so that when they ate Adam and Eve “knew good from evil”…This was my favorite line of the whole thing really. I will answer the question. The tree wasn’t magical. The Bible never says it was magical. It was the choice that caused the change in man, not the fruit.

I would love to write more here but my kids are about to kill each other. Sin nature at its finest!

Some dualists in the past have actually asserted that the god who created the world is evil and that Jesus was the serpent that convinced Eve to eat the fruit to free man from the evil god.

This is called begging the question. Yes, if everything has a cause then there’s a God. But what evidence do you have that that is the case?

I throw a pair of dice. They come up 6. What was the cause of 6 (as opposed to 7?)

In your world, God decided that the dice should come up 6 – but then you have a large number of new questions opened (”why did he pick 6 and not 7?”)

In my world, there was no cause for 6 over 7. It was just random luck. No explanation is needed – the end.

“2. The Universe began to exist”

Again, how exactly do you know this fact?

Stupid typos. :p

(At any rate, Daniel’s posts are incomparably more poised, articulate, and relevant than Marcy’s is.)

Me: “cdesign proponentsists” anyone? ;)

Sorry, Marcy, but you calling Daniel egocentric is ridiculous. Each post of his that I’ve read has shown him to be far more restrained and fair than several of the other commenters here (with most of whom I agree).

Your post reads as nothing more than a temper tantrum from someone who feels deeply offended, but can’t quite figure out any rational way in which to mount a defense. So, you resort to a dogpile of subjunctives, which you seem to think justifies making ad hominem attacks—which, in turn, you seem to think actually makes the strong defense you so crave.

But, screaming while writing on the floor, flinging poo, does not constitute a sound intellectual defense.

So, please, actually carefully THINK about the cogent points Daniel has taken the time to broach (and how staggeringly tenuous and illogical your response to them was).

“If there is a god who governs the universe …” well it’s a good job there isn’t then.

“Because you cannot understand God does not mean that His children cannot understand Him.”

Well firstly you already said that it doesn’t matter whether we are his children or not we still can’t understand every thing, although the bits about persecuting others for their sins seems to be easy to understand, and secondly I thought we where supposed to all be his children – oh well.

“Jesus never imposed His view on anyone. He only responded to those who attempted to impose their view on Him.”

To address the second part are yo seriously trying to claim that god doesn’t try to impose his will? So let’s see you can be a completely moral person and do good for others all your life but if you don’t believe in god you burn in hell for eternity.