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Athiests: read "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:10 AM Author: Fantasy-prone dragon It's a thoroughly researched and methodically logical examination of where Christianity is legit. It was really what turned me when I was cynical and too smart for my own good. I don't think you should bash Christianity until you read this. It's written by the former legal editor for the Chicago Tribune. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338046) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:25 PM Author: Stirring Casino Cuckold Mike, the word is "atheist" and not "athiest."
HTH |
Date: April 5th, 2009 11:10 AM Author: violent native No.
Thanks for asking though. That was thoughful. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:11 AM Author: Fantasy-prone dragon Sounds just like me 10 years ago. Ignorance is bliss, I guess. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338058) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:12 AM Author: violent native That right, the whole bowl of dicks. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338063) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:20 AM Author: doobsian plaza I like you as a poster. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338097) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:11 AM Author: mildly autistic chad That book has been refuted many times, idiot. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338053) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:12 AM Author: Fantasy-prone dragon Convincing. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338059) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:15 AM Author: magical bisexual ticket booth indirect expression Why? (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338077) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:16 AM Author: Fantasy-prone dragon Because it provides by far the most logical arguments you'll ever hear in favor of Christianity. If you really want to be confident that there's no logical basis for it, this is the best/easiest way. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338083) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:18 AM Author: magical bisexual ticket booth indirect expression What if I just think it's nonsense and don't really care about the subject? Can I just go ahead and live my life without reading your friend's little book? (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338089) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:21 AM Author: Fantasy-prone dragon You can't think it's nonsense with confidence unless you've dealt with the strongest logical arguments in favor of it. Personally, if the issue involves me possibly going to hell, I'm going to take the time to at least read a short book. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338102) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:22 AM Author: magical bisexual ticket booth indirect expression meh, just seems like bullshit. later. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338104) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:06 PM Author: 180 greedy associate yarmulke just don't be a bad person and you won't go to hell even if your little fantasy world does turn out to be more than flaming bullshit (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11339924) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:21 AM Author: doobsian plaza Who gives two shits whether any man-made belief system is right or wrong? (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338100) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:30 AM Author: Rusted Address Nibblets Does it address Zeno-type paradoxes like the question of whether God can create a rock so big that he cannot lift it? Or is this book something like a dumbed down version of Descartes' Proof of God's Existence (which has been discredited)? (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338135) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:18 PM Author: Arousing Regret Parlour It is more focused on the divinity of Jesus looking at historical evidence, archeological evidence, etc. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338607) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:35 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater you do realize that no amount of physical or historical evidence can ever make any case for a supernatural being right? (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338762) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:42 PM Author: Arousing Regret Parlour I wasn't all that impressed by the book, personally (though I only read a few chapters). That doesn't change the fact that I have a whole lot more respect for most Christians than for most atheists. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338810) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:44 PM Author: magical bisexual ticket booth indirect expression most christians are ignorant third world poors (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338828) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:14 PM Author: Stirring Casino Cuckold This is true, actually. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11339593) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:25 PM Author: Arousing Regret Parlour So would be the statement "most people are ignorant third-world poors." (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11339658) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:26 PM Author: Stirring Casino Cuckold This is true, actually.
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:44 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater why? the blind acceptance from the crib, the need to believe that is so great it will inspire violence when threatened sufficiently? (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338831) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:41 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone Zeno paradoxes? why would a book on Christianity address Zeno paradoxes? (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338806) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:43 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater b/c christianity is itself based on a few paradoxes, the problem of evil in teh face of a god who is claimed to be omnipotent, omniscient and ominibenevolent for one (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338820) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:46 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone explain what zeno paradoxes have to do with this. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338847) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:47 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater nothing, the dood was comparing those paradoxes to the ones contained in christianity, the point is there are some paradoxes (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338857) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:48 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone i disagree. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338863) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:48 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater what is your simple solution to the problem of evil then? (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338868) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:50 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone lots of people have posited arguments about why god might allow evil to exist.
e.g. god wanted to create human beings as free moral agents to shape the world for good or ill. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:52 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater free will is another one of the problems, if you'll read a little augustine you'll see how much bullshit his solution is given that a perfect god would seem to act purely by necessity all of the theodicies are terrible |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:54 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone i've read lots of augustine. i think free will is an interesting problem, but it's a problem for far more than christians. it's a problem for anyone who beleives in morality at all.
i think some of the theodicies are successful on the moral problem of evil. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:57 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater which ones? the only really decent one is liebniz's best of all possible worlds (which most people mock a la voltaire) it isn't morality that gets in the way of free will, it is a morality that is defined and enforced by an all powerful all good god point is, these are serious problems and the vast majority of christians don't even know what the world "theodicy" means and it has never even ocurred to them that their notions of free will are not consistent with their notions of god |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 2:04 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone there are far more recent ones than leibniz.
john hick's: i don't like much.
alvin plantinga: this is solid on the argument from moral evil IMO.
I know morality doesn't get in the way of free will. And I don't think the problem is supposed to be that God enforces evil, it's supposed to be that it's not compatible with omniscience.
free will is consisent with god, IMO. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 2:07 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater that which is perfectly good and perfectly powerful and perfectly knowledgable must create only that which is best, best is superlative, that is singular, perfection is unity etc etc. all that bullshit which is to say god must do that which is best, if he doesn't, he isn't god as we conceive of him, free will actively and consistently undermines that which is best (just look around you man) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 2:09 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone http://bearspace.baylor.edu/Scott_Moore/www/handouts/free_will_defense.html (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11339060) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 2:13 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater in just scanning the first flaw I see is that the argument wants the atheist to show that that which is good will always "eliminate" evil, but the christian himself already claims that that which is good is the very source of evil (unless they want to become zoroastrians instead or neoplatonists, in which case there are other problems, although the neoplantoic theodicy is pretty decent) god is not only perfect, he is the source of all that is, being is a result of his divine will, which is to say this argument tries to overcome the problem by simply redefining god and christianity |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:12 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone The argument is that it is consisent with an all powerful, all knowing and all loving god to allow evil to exist because creating free moral agents (with the capatcity to choose to commit right or wrong acts) is a great good that cannot exist without evil.
The argument is logically sound and is consistent with orthodox christianity.
edit: if you mean that god is the "source" of evil because god creates free will which entails evil acts, that's true. as far as i know, that's not opposed to orthodox christianity. god created satan, and is therefore in some sense the "source" of evil. that is the doctrine. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:14 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater not really, it ignores creation, god does not allow evil to exist, he causes it to exist free moral agents may provide some amount of good but the end result is something less than perfection, which god, as a perfect and all powerful being, is capable of providing but has failed to do |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:20 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone see my edit.
Also, the whole point of the argument is that god could have created a world with no evil if he had chosen not to create other free moral agents (possible world 1).
The premise is that a world with free moral agents is a great good, absent from possible world 1.
Possible world 2 contains free moral agents who sometimes do evil acts.
On balance, possible world 2 is better than possible world 1. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:24 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater how so, why could god not have created free moral agents imbued with knowledge of that which is good and a need, much like the need god himself must have, to only do that which is good? And wouldn't the first world be perfect? How can anything be better than perfection? What benefit is there to free will? At the end of the day this is all post hoc rationalization for underlying beliefs that are not consistent. The true solution is this, either god does not exist, or he is not perfect as we think of him. Both of those solutions make far more sense.
edit: the notion of satan is also inconsistent. The story goes that Satan rebelled against god, but god had absolute control of Satan (even if he gave him free will God can always take it back so he is in effect tacitly consenting to all the actions of his creation), so god rebelled against himself?
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:31 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone The argument is that the first world is not perfect. It lacks free moral agents choosing to do good acts, which is a good thing.
You are hung up on the idea that a perfect world is simply one without any evil. Plantinga's argument is that there is good that is absent from the perfect world you describe, and that such good is only possible where evil is also possible. On balance, possible world 2 is better than possible world 1.
You may disagree, but this is entirely logical and "consistent." Far better philosophers than you, who are atheists, have admitted as much.
If you create an agent that "needs" to do good, is that agent free? |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:37 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater but he can offer no reason why free will is good when its only known effect is to ensure that things are not perfect, logically, free will seems like an evil his argument comes down to "free will is good", but there is no reason whatsoever to think this, and there are plenty of reasons to think that it is itself inconsistent with god, look at the reasons that doods like augustine and boethius both end up with to support free will (both of whom are better philosophers than both of us and than plantinga) and tell me there isn't a serious problem that has yet to be convincingly solved |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:40 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone i guess if you want to say that a freely chosen act of kindness is not inherently a good thing, i can't prove you wrong. it seems clear that this is out of touch with most people's sense of goodness/value. plantinga is appealing to people who share that intuition.
i agree that if you don't think random acts of kindness are a good thing this argument should be unconvincing to you. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:41 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater "most people's sense of good" isn't an argument of any sort, it is an appeal to emotion, which makes this argument more of the sort of bullshit one would expect, and utterly unconvincing (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11339734) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:48 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone Are you serious?
Please point me to the defintion of "good."
I'm saying random acts of kindness are good. You're saying they're not. This is base-level intution. You can't argue about it.
There is no argument, for example, that pleasure is good. You accept the premise or not. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:51 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater no, you are saying random acts of kindness coupled with random acts of viciousness are good, I'm saying acts of kindness minus the chance for viciousness is good
I don't accept the premise, b/c there is no reason to do so, and that is why I am not a christian. You accept the premise, without a reason to do so (other than your own need to believe it) and that makes you one. I'll stick to my reasons. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:55 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone "no, you are saying random acts of kindness coupled with random acts of viciousness are good, I'm saying acts of kindness minus the chance for viciousness is good"
the point is that if there is no chance for viciousness then it was not a "random act of kindness," which people understand as being FREELY chosen.
I am not a Christian. If you don't think freely chosen good acts are good I can't convince you any more than I can convice you pleasure is good. These things are intutions that you accept and move on, or not. Like pleasure = good. That's why philosophers don't argue about them. If you want to deny that pleasure = good to a utilitarian, he will have no more to say to you. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:01 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater relying on axioms that aren't that obvious is never a good foundation for a system of belief
I think an act of kindness is good even if it was done simply b/c it is a good thing to do and apart from any randomness, this seems like a much more common intuition |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:03 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone if you had no other option but to do it, how is it kind?
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:04 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater god has no option but do lots of things, are you saying God is not perfectly kind? (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11339902) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:12 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone you are arguing that god is not free. that is a whole other debate. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11339972) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:14 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater doesn't take much of a debate god is perfect so god must do that which is perfect unless you want to argue that perfection is not an absolute state you're pretty screwed on this one, most people agree, by intuition and more, that perfection is unity, it is singular, and it is absolute
any possible action must be capable of comparison to other possible actions, and only one of them can be the best and god can only do that which is best, so he acts by necessity |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:21 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone i don't have time for this. im going out soon.
suffice to say, it is not simple:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1019.htm#article3
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:24 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater suffice it to say, aquinas is just making shit up at that point (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11340041) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:35 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone i don't think you understand what "inconsistent" means.
a good god allowing evil to exist is only "inconsisent" if goodness is necessarily inconsisent with the possibility of evil. this the whole argument: there are goods that cannot exist without evil.
EDIT: YES GOD TACITLY CONSENTS. The argument is that this is not inconsisent with god being all knowing, powerful, loving. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:39 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater and you don't undestand creation, god does not allow evil, he causes it the solution is that God is not "good" but simply "is" and that evil is a part of that the argument that good requires evil fails b/c it robs you of any good reason to prefer good to evil, if good and evil are simply forces at work that require each other to exist, why not be evil? In doing so you are causing good to come about, which makes you good. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:42 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone "if good and evil are simply forces at work that require each other to exist, why not be evil? In doing so you are causing good to come about, which makes you good."
this is not logically entailed at all.
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:45 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater if good requires evil to exist than those who perform that evil are a necessary cause of good I don't know about you but that which is necessary for something I call a cause, and I assign moral responsibility to actions based on what they cause, but if evil causes good how does one call anything evil? |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:49 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone "if good requires evil to exist than those who perform that evil are a necessary cause of good"
Please see "intro to logic" for how this is not entailed. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:53 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater maybe you need to read up on it again x requires y or else x cannot exist
not y, therefore, not x
pretty logical
also, how can free will be a good thing if god himself does not possess it? |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:00 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone the same way a cute puppy can be a good thing even if god himself is not a cute puppy.
it's not evil that must exist, it is the option of evil that must exist.
edit: what i was objecting to above was your idea that doing evil logically causes good.
evil being a necessary byproduct of free choice (a good) != evil causees good. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:03 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater but if god does not have free will then there is something superior to free will (as god is always perfect right) and it would be better if whatever that state of being is were the case in the world, so why wouldn't god do that which is best?
your argument is that god chooses free will for no reason whatsoever, it leads to evil, or perhaps even needs evil, and there are better options, as demonstrated by god himself |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:07 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone the idea of there being a perfect good is not inconsisent with the idea of there also being lesser goods.
tell me what world is better:
1. only a perfect good exists.
2. a world with a perfect good and other lesser goods also exists. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:09 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater when the perfect good and the lesser good necessarily preclude the existence of one another (ie we can't be free and whatever it is that god is) the perfect good is better by definition free will cannot exist along with not-free will, and that is your solution, a paradox |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:13 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone how does the perfect good and the lesser good preclude each other's existence?
i don't understand your second sentence. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:15 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater the perfect good is the state of god that is not free will, whatever the opposite of free will is, let's call it determinism the lesser good is free will one cannot be both free and determined, that is a contradiction god is determined, so determined must be superior to free |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:23 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone See what I said above about Aquinas. I agree that this is an issue that needs to be resolved, but I don't think it's clear and I have to leave.
If you're ever on when I am later I'm happy to finish it. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:46 PM Author: Rusted Address Nibblets Because one of the arguments against God (or at least against the idea of an all-powerful God) is the omnipotence paradox. I don't remember if this is one of Zeno's paradoxes or not. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338844) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:48 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone it's not (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338859) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:49 PM Author: Rusted Address Nibblets Then I stand corrected. Thanks. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338873) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:45 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater descartes never really meant it, and one of his proofs is basically the ontological proof, which has not been discredited (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338835) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:32 AM Author: Dun doctorate (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338141) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 11:36 AM Author: Bespoke Pistol forgive them mike_ditka, for they know not what they do (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338155) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 1:46 PM Author: Azure garrison marketing idea so the hellenized jews didn't make up jesus to pwn the romans? go figure! (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11338842) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:19 PM Author: Impressive multi-colored philosopher-king Does he explain why despite the fact that Judea was a literate province there are no independent, written accounts of Jesus's ascension to heaven over a large city? I'm just curious. I mean, I guess I could see how all the residents would just look up, see some dude going up to heaven and just shrug and write about their falafel being mediocre instead. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11339614) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:20 PM Author: Sapphire parlor volcanic crater jesus was invisible to heathens (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11339623) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:22 PM Author: green histrionic place of business telephone subtle anti shawarma trolling. (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11339636) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:17 PM Author: 180 greedy associate yarmulke lol (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11340005) |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 3:51 PM Author: stubborn know-it-all athletic conference I read it. Now I believe.
Enjoy burning in hell heathens. |
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Date: April 5th, 2009 4:23 PM Author: provocative topaz goyim is it also a thoroughly researched and methodically logical examination of rising from the dead, walking on water, getting pregnant with god's kid without getting fucked by him, and the utility of sycophantic "prayer"? (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#11340036) |
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Date: November 6th, 2026 6:00 PM Author: Dunedain cowboy (πΎπ£) (https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=968412&forum_id=2#50238991) |