Need Rebuttal
Offline I gave a christian the "If god is omniscient and “god is love," why would he allow a child to be conceived, knowing that that child would one day reject him and spend eternity burning in Hell" Question and this is the answer he gave back.
You can't look at it as God allowing a child to be born. In Psalm 115:16 it says the heavens are the Lord's but the earth He has given to the sons of men. This alone answers most questions as to how God could "allow" so many horrible things to happen in the earth and why it seems so unjust; and I am suprised that things are not worse than they are now, because in the beginning God gave full dominion of the earth to Adam, but that dominion fell to Satan when Adam sinned. Satan is thus called the 'ruler of this world', and as it says in 1John5:19 "the whole world lies in the power of the evil one". Now this is just to show you that what happens in the earth is not necessarily all God's will, He gave us the earth to make choices and to make babies, that is of our will, but you will find your answer in John1:11-13, where is says that we are born according to the will of man, but those who receive His Son are born of God. To say it another way, in John3:6 Jesus teaches us that "that which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit". So we are born of the flesh by our parents choices obviously, but to be born of God's will is to receive His Son and be born of His Spirit (that's what the whole born-again thing is about). This is also explained in 1 Corinthians 15:44-46, which is a very good explanatory chapter to read.
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It would be great if you could all help me think of a good response to this statement. Thanks so much.
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So the argument is that because God choses to abdicate his responsibility that absolves himself of any further consequences?
"I'm just going to swing my arms around and around. If you get in the way, that's your own fault."
If God is all-knowing, how does free will exist exactly? I can't make a choice that God doesn't know in advance I would make, so I really don't have free will in the first place. If I don't have free will then how can God claim my actions are my own responsibility alone?
If God knows everything that will happen then the universe is just one long string of dominoes all lined up. God pushed over the first piece and then somehow it's our fault which way our individual piece fell?
"A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." -- former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien
I'd think it would be more like giving a child a computer hooked up to a bomb and saying you aren't libel. Although that is what the contract would say that has the child's poorly drawn name on it if someone felt like trying it.
Two things stand out in this response.
1. Things are being said not to be within the control of god.
2. Freewill.
For one simply ask where satan and humans came from. The argument so far means that either god didn't know this things were going to happen, couldn't stop them, or didn't feel like it. It is past just whats going on right now, but at the very start of things according to the story. This makes about as much sense as a perfect being needing to fix something they created.
Two is going to be its own argument. Does freewill make god let bad things happen? Does freewill exist? Can Rush choose not to have freewill?
Ooops. It looks like your theist friend skipped over the 'flood' where god allegedly rid the earth of evil to start over with Noah and kin who were supposed to be righteous.
What about babies that are born and then die shortly thereafter?
They die without having the opportunity to 'receive the son'. They don't have the chance to be 'born again'.
Dante allocated the first circle of hell for unbaptized children and virtuous pagans. Where does your theist friend think they go and why?
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Wow, where to start? First off you are working at this whole thing from the wrong angle. It would be like you asking me why Superman allows all these things to happen and then I answer by quoting pages from back issues of that comic book. The problem would not be with my explanation. My problem would be with my SOURCE!
Anytime you get into an argument about abstracts and opinions you will fail. Why? Because you can’t prove or disprove any of it! My suggestion would be to point out the obvious flaws in his comic book. So here is how I would respond:
You are using the Bible as a source for your answer?!?!? To believe pretty much any of the fantastical things that you read in the Bible is truly astounding! In every other aspect of your life you base your beliefs and judgments on facts and evidence. Why don’t you use those same attributes when it applies to mythologies like these?!?!? To use the Bible as a source, and thinking it is without error intellectually or otherwise, would be the belief of someone who was either lying, ignorant or crazy. To look at the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-38 and honestly believe that there is no error would be to put yourself firmly in the category of crazy! Neither mentions Mary in its lineage and neither claims to be anything else other then THE pedigree of Jesus. Or to claim that Jesus is God when Jesus himself testified in many cases that he was not (John 14:28 ; John 20:17 ; John 7:16). Paul says Christianity lives or dies on the Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:14,17) but that is hardly a special event. Throughout history many “God” figures have done that very same thing. Most of whom did so BEFORE Jesus did. Romulis and Apollonius of Tyana are just two that quickly come to mind (The former a predecessor and the latter a contemporary). I mean Surely you don't believe Ecclesiastes 1:9 ("What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun" )? How many cities had an atomic bomb dropped on them prior to 1945, and how many people walked on the moon before 1969? Now I’m not asking that you throw out all your personal beliefs. All I’m asking is that you apply REASON to your judgments. Or, at the very least, PLEASE apply a fourth grade level version of The Reasonableness Test! Feel free to check out Biblicalerrancy.org for thousands of flaws in this “perfect” book. I would also suggest reading “Letter to a Christian Nation” by Sam Harris or “Sense & Goodness Without God” by Richard Carrier. In the case of Carrier I would suggest starting on page 49 if you already have a reasonable grasp of what “words” mean.
I don’t know how confrontational you want to be but use something like this to get them talking about stuff you CAN prove and show them. And don’t let them change subject! Make them document a verse that counters what the numbers say. They will never be able to do it . If they accept your points then start ratteling off more errors with the Bible. If they are being honest they will quickly start seeing things your way. If not then follow the advice of Bill O’Reilly and RUN!
I mean if they won’t acknowledge the error that 2 Kings 8:26 has Ahaziah beginning his rule at age 22 and 2 Chronicles 22:2 has his rule start at 42 then you are truly dealing with a mental disturbed person. At which point you need to fall back on the adage: “Which is worse, the fool or the one arguing with the fool.”
Hope this helps.
-Michael.
BTW it helps to keep your replies so you can cut an paste them when the points come up with some other monkey. I mean it’s not like Christian have creative arguments.
"Those who have stepped into the arena shall forever cherish a feeling the protected will never know."
an omniscient, omnipotent creator cannot abdicate his perfect responsibility for all possible outcomes. That simple. No theist can ratioanally reply.... all replies fall into self contradiction.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
1 John 5:19 actually says,"and we know that we re of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness" It does not say that we are in the power of the evil one, but rather that we lie in wickedness. Two very different things.
A good response would be to pound him on the existance and nature of evil, freewill vs. being controlled by satan, and if Satan really exists according to the bible.
Most of this doctrine seems to have a bit of wiggle room though. You couldn't have the trinity without a bit of wiggle.
Religion is the ultimate con-job. It cons the conned, and it cons the conner.
Mr.T : "I ain't gettin' on no damn plane [sic]" - environmentalism at it's best
Thanks you have all been helpfull in comming up with a response. I complined some things that you all said into one rebuttal and this is the response i got.
First of all It was not God who relinquished His rule or responsibility in the earth, it was us who turned away from Him, but because of God's perfect holiness, integrity, and justice, the consequences of that sin were very severe. But He never withdrew His love, because even before they were cast out of the Garden, He promised to send a deliverer to redeem us from our sin, death and the curse that we brought upon ourselves and the earth. Now God did not create evil. Lucifer was a great angel, above all the others, but he became pridefull because he saw his greatness and exulted himself rather than God who had made him great. Because of his pride he was cast down and led a great rebellion in Heaven, deceiving many of the angels with him, to follow their own ways instead of serving God. Now this is seen in us, when Satan tempted and deceived us into following our own ways instead of being obedient to God, we 'fell short of His glory' or in other words we could no longer abide in His presence (and again, it was not God's 'choice' to take the presence of His Spirit from us, but it had to be that way because God is holy, and divine justice required it [and ultimately, only the blood of Christ could satisfy divine justice]). Now when we fell away from God into death, we could no longer partake of the tree of Life (which was a symbol of our partaking of Christ, the divine nature; which we can again partake of through faith, having been reconciled to God through the sacrifice of His Son, the Lamb of God, except now it is by grace that we can partake and live, because none of us are worthy of His glory.) Now the thing about free will is that first you have to understand how far we have fallen from the way things were before, as God intented it to be. When we fell away from God, our eyes and our understanding were darkened, and we could no longer see by the Spirit but only by our carnal nature. The moment they had sinned, they were no longer in God's glory (they became self-conscious), and were no longer led by the Spirit (by His cousels and voice, His ways and His guidance, His thoughts and His will were no longer known) we were left to our own thoughts and understanding and reasoning, which is all basically based on nothing, on the outward observances and natural senses. Now this is most important, that the natural mind itself (our intellect, reasoning, understanding, wisdom, etc.) is all contrary to the Spirit and Truth. Now this will be very hard for you to accept, because basically we are meant to be living from a higher realm (by the Spirit), and without seeing from that place in Truth, it is impossible to see beyond yourself, your own carnal sphere of being. But please listen, the wisdom of man is considered "worldly, natural, demonic", for fallen man no longer lives by the wisdom that comes from God. We live by the counsels of our heart and soul, but as the bible says, the intents and thoughts of mans heart are evil, and there is no good in man, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good. The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one." There is none who are righteous according to God. We may make good decisions and act all good and be kind and loving, but we are sinners, we are born into sin. It is our nature to be selfish, to follow our own ways. And I tell you it's worse than it may seem, I have seen it in the depths of its ugliness before God. Mankind is truly demonic in nature without abiding in Christ (living by the Spirit). The heart itself has a veil over it, and the mind can do nothing but build its own little world based on notions, experience, reasoning, creating our own little perspective on reality and who God is, etc.(when in truth, God is Reality; but that makes no sense to the natural mind). 1corinthians2 talks about this, "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." So debating with atheists and all sorts of apologetics is useless, because it all involves the human mind, which can not comprehend the things of God. It is the spirit in man that must be awakened by revelation, to see the things of God by faith. And true faith is not like the world's concept of faith which is just believing without seeing (which the natural mind can do, making us falsely think that "we have faith"Now this connects right into the issue of free will. We see in Jesus the way man is to live with God (except that Jesus was fullfilling the requirements of living with God, His law and His commandments, on our behalf, so that we can walk with God by grace, free from the requirements, for no one can be righteous enough on their own, because it is not just outward obedience but a pure heart and mind that He requires, which He does restore to us if we are "washed in the blood of the Lamb" and walk with Him in the Spirit). Jesus said "the Son can do nothing of himself unless it is something He sees the Father doing", and "I can do nothing on My own initiative...because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me."(John5:19,30) Just as He abides in the Father, we are to abide in Christ. He gives us the illustration that He is the head and His church is the body; now it is the head that the body receives its commands and direction from, its the head that sees and thinks and everything else, and the body can only abide in the head (just as we are to "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."Proverbs3:5-6) And like I was saying before, this is obviously contrary to all human wisdom which is based on our own understanding and judgments. "Jesus said "I am the vine and you are the branches, for without Me you can do nothing."(John15:5) And so we see that we are no longer to live for ourselves but for Him, "He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf."(2corinthians5:15). God gave us a gift, the gift of Life, it was the gift of Himself that he gave for us (the blood of Jesus); and because of this we truly owe Him everything, and we can give Him nothing that is not already His, except our will, to surrender our will; to give him our will is to offer to Him ourself, our lives. And so I don't look at how it works out that the world has free will even though everything is already done (looking at time from an eternal standpoint/ from the Spirit) because it really isn't supposed to be like that.
See, there is no answer that I can give you or anything I can say that would make you believe, but I tell you, in His presence, there are no questions, there's something about God Himself that answers all our questions and brings the soul to rest. in His presence is the most beautiful love, and there is no desire but to be with Him. Only He can satisfy. The mind can't argue a thing when He Himself is there. I want also to ask, concerning the the questions of free will and God's omniscient sovereignty; can you imagine any other way things could possibly be? God, because of who He is, is necessarily and unchangably omniscient and sovereign and all powerful, but He desires sons and daughters, children who will walk with Him because of love. Now we who give our lives to Jesus Christ, are surrendering ourselves in love to God, and the greatest thing we can give him is the surrender of our willAny ideas?
WOW you might want to rethink this post. I’ve only gotten to 3 sentences and two flaws quickly come to mind. First the logic here is that the fruit of good and evil allows you to know which is which. And by telling Adam and Eve not to eat from it would assume that they did NOT know the difference (Not noticing they are naked and all that.). This being the case how could they possibly know that eating from the tree was “evil”? Or even disobeying God was evil for that matter? And having never been punished before (Being “perfect creations” and what not.) how could they even expect a bad outcome? When your child first makes a mistake do you throw them out into the street? I find it doubtful. Next, God DID create evil (Isaiah 45:7 and Lamentations 3:38). Haven’t even read the rest, and I’m not trying to insult you, but you will probably want to do a little more research on your own before having us spend time helping you. After you have done that then come back and I’m sure everyone will be happy to help.
"Those who have stepped into the arena shall forever cherish a feeling the protected will never know."
Fictional super heros never have the buck stop at them.
"I gave you free will"
It stands to reason that in doing that you are responsible for what you start.
If god is all powerfull then based upon "all" bad has to be included, otherwise you have semantically plased a limit on a word that is used to discribe "unlimited|". Bad, has to, by the "unlimited" standard be included in "all".
Even in the bible Isiah 45:7 god admits to doing bad.
If a parent put it's kid in a house full of asbestous, razor blades, loaded guns and broken glass on the floor any rational person would call in child protective services.
God has no excuse if one is going to say "all powerfull" .
Who would hire a baby sitter who said, "If 100 child molesters walk through that door, I'll call the police on some, shoot some, call the police on others after they rape the kid, allow some to excape."
Tell me what a 5 year old would ever do in their short life to deserve an all powerfull being saying, "Sorry kid, I am going to sit this one out. I'll punish him after the fact, but you still have to go through it".
I wouldnt hire such a person to pick up dog poo.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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