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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[UXLZ]

Pretty much, a being such as that becomes directly responsible for everything (and I do mean, quite literally, everything) simply by existing. Not necessarily even by the possibility of their interference, but because their lack of action leads to consequences that they have full knowledge of.

So the concept of a perfect God is kinda boring, depressing, and also it wouldn't be good.

I've argued extremely strongly against the existence of a perfect God in the first place even being possible, let alone likely, but for this discussion's sake I'm just assuming it somehow works.

Emphasis mine. It's still a choice; you are a slave to your agency just as much as God is, God just knows more.

In the context of this argument though, God doesn't just know more, God knows everything.

It's like if I had a button, and if I pressed it, an ant mound was destroyed. If I didn't press it, it wasn't. In this scenario, I have exactly two choices, and regardless of what I do I am wholly responsible for that ant mound's fate. In God's case, the choice of to press the button or not press the button occurs an incomprehensibly large number of times, and decides the most minute of things. Like the individual location and molecular arrangement of the specks of dust that float into the air when you hit a cushion. But ultimately, these things are due to His choice, and His choice alone.
However, we, as humans, do not have things so simple. That is, we aren't aware of the total and utter consequences of every choice we make. God is.

If we start off at point A, and end at point C, that's not within our control. We don't know the consequences.

If God starts at point A, and ends at point B, that's entirely by His will, it can't not be. We could toss a coin, because we wouldn't know the outcome of that coin toss. God couldn't, He does.

[Sheb]

Wait, that literally happened? I thought it was some sort of in-joke or metaphor.

No, no, we did it two weeks ago.

[Calidovi]

snip

In the end though, the argument for not having a perfect life is that God knows what we need more than we do? It's a rather shallow concept, but it ties up ends.

[penguinofhonor]

Huh, that's a pretty cool thing to happen on a forum.

[Rolan7]

snip

In the end though, the argument for not having a perfect life is that God knows what we need more than we do? It's a rather shallow concept, but it ties up ends.

It ties up a couple while there are millions, though.  People *can* grow from hardship, sure.  But so many people randomly get too much to handle and just lose hope.  It doesn't explain why God would keep kicking a homeless person who he knows is going to die in the street, unsaved.  Or arrange for people to become addicted to life-ruining drugs.

The right amount of hardship can make people reexamine their life, even become Christian.  But then there are people who just get waaaay too much.  And others who don't get any to speak of.  God's theoretical manipulation is suspiciously similar to natural processes.

Makes sense if it's Satan trying to encourage materialism and tribalism though.

[Calidovi]

snip

In the end though, the argument for not having a perfect life is that God knows what we need more than we do? It's a rather shallow concept, but it ties up ends.

It ties up a couple while there are millions, though.  People *can* grow from hardship, sure.  But so many people randomly get too much to handle and just lose hope.  It doesn't explain why God would keep kicking a homeless person who he knows is going to die in the street, unsaved.  Or arrange for people to become addicted to life-ruining drugs.

The right amount of hardship can make people reexamine their life, even become Christian.  But then there are people who just get waaaay too much.  And others who don't get any to speak of.  God's theoretical manipulation is suspiciously similar to natural processes.

Makes sense if it's Satan trying to encourage materialism and tribalism though.

That's the proper counterargument. People bite the dust way too often while Jesus argues that the suffering go to Heaven and leave the hellish Earth. There's a lot more about certain secular beliefs and whatnot, but that's the main idea I take from Christianity as a whole.

[UXLZ]

snip

In the end though, the argument for not having a perfect life is that God knows what we need more than we do? It's a rather shallow concept, but it ties up ends.

I'm sure that everyone non-Christian needs to get their soul tortured in Hell for all of eternity, with no respite 'nor chance of redemption. Definitely what we need.

I'm being sarcastic though, and that idea of Hell is probably actually wrong anyway.

By the way, if God's actually omnipotent (which He isn't, but that's another can of worms and for argument's sake we'll assume He actually is somehow), then there's nothing that stops Him from just making us all happy and magically getting what we need. In fact, He could have just designed us differently from the start, really... The existence of an omnipotent being tosses "Need" out the window.

[Calidovi]

snip

In the end though, the argument for not having a perfect life is that God knows what we need more than we do? It's a rather shallow concept, but it ties up ends.

By the way, if God's actually omnipotent (which He isn't, but that's another can of worms and for argument's sake we'll assume He actually is somehow),

Just curious, do you have biblical evidence for that statement? Or is it inferred knowledge? I'm asking because I'd like to know, not because I want to be an upstart.

[Arx]

snip

In the end though, the argument for not having a perfect life is that God knows what we need more than we do? It's a rather shallow concept, but it ties up ends.

By the way, if God's actually omnipotent (which He isn't, but that's another can of worms and for argument's sake we'll assume He actually is somehow),

Just curious, do you have biblical evidence for that statement? Or is it inferred knowledge? I'm asking because I'd like to know, not because I want to be an upstart.

It's inferred based off the fact that he thinks omnipotence is self-contradictory. I disagree with him there, but hey.

[Frumple]

Also something about iron chariots?

[UXLZ]

Why do you disagree with me, though? Is there a counter-argument that doesn't boil down to "Just because"? There are a lot of explanations as to why Omnipotence is simply impossible, what's yours for why it is?

On another note, it's mostly "Utter Perfection™" that I argue as being self-contradictory.

[Rolan7]

And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.

The NIV version changes it to "they" couldn't drive them out, for obvious reasons, but even that hilarious revisionism doesn't really address the issue.

Edit: To be fair, maybe they were cold iron.  Pretty sure Satan would be weak against that.
Edit: Kidding aside, the God of the Old Testament works in strangely limited ways and the Israelites suffered many crushing defeats despite his blessing.  It honestly reads like the story of the most powerful god in a pantheon.

[Arx]

Why do you disagree with me, though? Is there a counter-argument that doesn't boil down to "Just because"? There are a lot of explanations as to why Omnipotence is simply impossible, what's yours for why it is?

All the arguments I've seen you make are along the lines of not being able to make an object they can't lift, and so on. Those seem kind of meaningless when considering omnipotence, which as a concept is kind of meaningless. It's like saying you can't actually find the derivative of a function because you can't actually get the gradient across zero distance.

hilarious revisionism

I find this particularly a) offensive and b) arrogant. Unless you actually read Hebrew, and have read the original passage, you aren't in a position to say whether a translation is revisionist.

[UXLZ]

The point I'm making is specifically countering omnipotence though, not God as a whole. Omnipotence as a concept is meaningless because it can't exist. 

A different kind of iron chariots.

[Calidovi]

Why do you disagree with me, though? Is there a counter-argument that doesn't boil down to "Just because"? There are a lot of explanations as to why Omnipotence is simply impossible, what's yours for why it is?

On another note, it's mostly "Utter Perfection™" that I argue as being self-contradictory.

This is why I added that little disclaimer. It's not because I want to refute your argument, it's because I want to know.

Arx, however, has answered that statement, though in vague terms.