rationalskepticism.org

Bob@RealScienceRadio wrote:I wrote this post ten days ago as this thread was being locked (and so I posted it at rsr.org/willhud9 because I couldn't post it here. I'm thankful that when THWOTH reopened the thread later that day, he made this helpful comment: "I would like to remind members contributing to this discussion of the 'attack the post not the poster' principle we aspire to here. Please keep this in mind when posting." That helps a lot, but still, I thought I'd go ahead and post my reply to willhud9 as written. Thanks all.

willhud9 wrote:

Bob@RealScienceRadio wrote:...virtually the entire creation movement speaks with one voice in answering your question. Our answer is Genesis 3, the Fall. God created a paradise in which Adam and Even and their offspring could have lived forever. But with our rebellion against God, in His mercy, God limited the harm we can do to one another as we grow older and more selfish and bitter, by providing a contingency in the creation. If we turn against God, our bodies will no longer function forever; they will break down, and death will ensue. The fall, the groaning of creation itself, is one of the most fundamental aspects of the creation movement.

^ Is so contradictory it is hard to find out where to begin. ... Where was the mercy in the narrative? He cursed Adam and Eve and exiled them from the garden.

Death. Death was the mercy.

I added the bold emphasis above to highlight the point. The longer that human beings live openly expressing their rebellion of God, as is evident of so many, the more bitter, selfish, and hateful they will become. Consider as an example this RationalSkepticism.org forum.

I know not to ask for civility, let alone human decency and kindness, from a forum like this that celebrates men sodomizing men, women dismembering their unborn children, the euthanizing of others, and the mocking of Jesus Christ who died for them. But I can use the general mean-spirited demeanor of atheist websites as evidence of the hatefulness that can hardly be contained within those who proclaim godlessness. You probably wouldn't ask, but I'll provide you with a similar assessment from non-creationists.

The New York Times article Unnatural Science is spot on about the science and evolution sites (like PZ Myers filthy blog). The Times article generally describes (anti-creation) science blogs like from "PZ Myers [who] revels in" a "weird vindictiveness", "religion-baiting", "preoccupied with... name-calling", "incendiary rhetoric that draws bad-faith moral authority from the word 'science'.” The Times writer Virginia Heffernen asks, "Does everyone take for granted now that science sites are where... researchers... go not to interpret data... but to... jeer at... churchgoers?" And she answers that, "the most visible" of "the science bloggers..." are "charged with bigotry". Even Atheist Prof. Massimo Pigliucci of the City University of New York describes the science webs of PZ, et al., as "a culture of insults... spouting venom or nonsense" and urged these bloggers to "enroll in the nearest hubris-reducing ten-step program" and suggested that they give "the best possible interpretation of someone else’s argument before you mercilessly dismantle it," and finally, "Engage... your opponents in as civil a tone as you can muster" [which I think was THWOTH's point].

willhud9, just like here at RationalSkepticism.org, PZ Myers mocked me and my RSR friend Will calling us idiots in the title of his blog: Bob Enyart and Will Duffy, partners in idiocy. Like RS and many atheist blogs, Myers' site is filled with vulgarity and constant references to human waste and sex acts. If you think you're just an animal, you gradually lose sight of your higher virtues; then reproduction and defecation is pretty much all you got. These atheistic science sites, rather than exemplifying diversity, free speech, tolerance, instead, drip with intolerance, anger, bodily fluids, and hatred toward those who disagree.

So, to state it again willhud9, after man rebelled against God, in His mercy, God ensured that we would die, so that our hatred would be contained, and we would not forever be able to harm one another. Whoever asks God to live with Him shall, and whoever does not want to live with God forever shall not, but also, they shall not forever be able to hurt others. (That is the merciful part.)

willhud9 wrote:Where is this mercy of God limiting the harm we can do?

It is in death willhud9.

willhud9 wrote:

Bob@RealScienceRadio wrote:(As you may know, Darwinists themselves have struggled to account for the depth and capacity of human suffering which seems to go so far beyond what would be brought about by a mere natural selection for biological survival.)

The bolded bit is an unsubstantiated assertion.

Yes, I didn't source it. I thought that was common knowledge. I don't have time now to dig up sources. Perhaps someone here at RS can post some.

willhud9 wrote:Furthermore the Fall is not a consistent part of your worldview. It is full of holes and contradictions that only the idiom "God works in mysterious ways" can fill and when that line is given the entire worldview simply becomes "when I don't know the answer: God" which begs the question of why hold onto that ideology if logic and rationality poke so many holes into it.

willhud9, in more than 30 years of talking with skeptics and atheists, I don't recall ever answering someone's question about the fall, sin, suffering, or death, with anything like: God works in mysterious ways. To me it seems that these issues are dealt with directly in the Bible and the basic understanding of them are straightforward. Those Christians who do struggle with such questions (like Billy Graham after 9/11) are those who follow the ancient pagan Greek concept of fate and believe that all things, good and evil, including kidnappings, tortures, and rape, flow from the mind of God and were eternally decreed by Him. Those Christians, though they may be true Christians, have been influenced by the ancient Greeks, especially by Plato & Aristotle (and later by the hellenized Roman, Plotinus), to think that everything is part of an unchangeable plan, and so for them, they look at a child rapist, and call it a mystery. The rest of us Christians refer to that as sin. Hatred born of indulging in selfishness that flows from a rejection of God.

It seems to me a straightforward matter that love is the answer to the problem of evil, at each of its various levels, and that love requires freedom, because love must be freely given. There are implications of this which might not be evident at first thought, but by the second or third thought, they usually do become evident. Then, you might not agree with us creationists and our understanding of the fall, but at least you would understand it.

Thanks willhud9, again, for the opportunity to discuss such monumentally important questions as suffering and freedom.

- Bob Enyart