Carl is trolling, he's not the least bit interested in honest discussion. I can't be arsed with him anymore.

Shove all his threads into one.

carl wrote:God was not taken by surprise by mankind's sinfulness nor is He without a plan to redeem the situation:

So He has a solution for the problem He created?

Cool. How's that working out?

The point, in case it escapes you, is that omnipotent beings don't need "a plan" to do anything. They want something done, it's done. That's what "omnipotent" means.

Regardless, your objection still doesn't address the issue of the vast amount of suffering not caused by human beings.

carl wrote:

Nicko wrote:Regarding your first point, it is irrelevant that human beings are the immediate cause of some of the suffering that exists when you are positing the existence of a being who is the ultimate cause of everything. To say nothing of the massive amount of suffering that occurs without any human action and in the absence of any human ability to prevent or ameliorate it. If you want to point to human-caused suffering as a way out for your conception of God you need to:

a) Assert that God was for some reason unable to create a universe* that did not contain a massive amount of suffering, thereby denying His omnipotence.

b) Assert that God was unaware that the universe He was creating would contain a massive amount of suffering, thereby denying His omniscience.

c) Assert that God did not care that the universe He was creating would contain a massive amount of suffering, thereby denying His omnibenevolence.

d) Some combination of the preceeding.

In any event, for your objections to hold, you must reject the idea that God - if He exists** - is omnipotent, omnicient and omnibenevolent. At least one of those attributes has to go. Which is it, or would you like to just chuck all three?

A 'good' God is not discounted simply based on a 'bad' world:

Yes he is carl, especially when said god is claimed to be both benevolent and omnipotent.

carl wrote:1) After God created everything, His Creation was 'very good': "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day." (Genesis 1).

Then were did evil come from, or is evil good?
Answer the question carl, no dodging.

carl wrote:2) That 'very good' Creation became tainted by mankind's sin:

Where did sin come from carl?

carl wrote:3) Mankind's first case of murder: "Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him." (Genesis 4).

Where did the human capacity for murder come from carl?

carl wrote:4) The earth became 'filled with violence': "Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways." (Genesis 6).

Where did violence come from carl?
Why didn't god stop the violence, carl?

carl wrote:The above explains how a 'good God' created a 'very good' world which soon became filled with violence because of mankind's sinfulness.

Actually it explains fuck all.
It completely ignores the fact that:
1. God supposedly created everything, including sin, murder and violence.
2. God being claimed to benevolent and omnipotent, first creating evil and then failing to stop it.

carl wrote:God was not taken by surprise by mankind's sinfulness nor is He without a plan to redeem the situation:

You're still ignoring the problem of evil carl.
Why did god create the situation in the first place, carl?

And you can stuff your mindless preaching it won't convince anyone.

carl wrote:In the meantime, we can show our genuineness of our concern for those suffering (like in third world nations) by establishing organizations and helping them. In some nations today, there is ONE DOCTOR for 100,000 people. Therefore, NONE of us should say there are 'plenty of charitable organizations out there'. No there aren't.

Yep, because the problem will be solved by creating more charities, not by donating more to existing charities and making sure these can work properly.

carl wrote:Now if we could just get atheists to group together to form just one relief organization....

Seriously carl, stuff this pathetic herring.
You've been repeatedly corrected on this dishonest guff. Your continued attempts to stufff it back into the dicsussion serve only to demonstrate Fallible's observation.
You're not here to discuss, just to troll.

Also carl, are you going to adress, at any point, your mistakes with regards to biblical knowledge?

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

carl wrote:A 'good' God is not discounted simply based on a 'bad' world:

Yes he is carl, especially when provided that said god is claimed to be both benevolent and omnipotent.

A small correction. The argument from evil is sidestepped by a deity of less-than-maximal power or goodness.

As an aside, such a sidestep renders the theist so stepping unable to use sophistry like the Ontological Argument.

Nicko wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

carl wrote:A 'good' God is not discounted simply based on a 'bad' world:

Yes he is carl, especially when provided that said god is claimed to be both benevolent and omnipotent.

The argument from evil is sidestepped by a deity of less-than-maximal power or goodness.

True, but that doesn't apply to carl's god.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

Nicko wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

carl wrote:A 'good' God is not discounted simply based on a 'bad' world:

Yes he is carl, especially when provided that said god is claimed to be both benevolent and omnipotent.

The argument from evil is sidestepped by a deity of less-than-maximal power or goodness.

True, but that doesn't apply to carl's god.

carl wrote:
Now if we could just get atheists to group together to form just one relief organization....

Would you mind confining this more-charitable-than-thou sanctimony to one thread only? Thanks.

carl wrote:
BTW, will those studies actually claiming to confirm the origin of the universe (as if !) contain the words: "possibly", "maybe", "we propose", "it seems likely", "could", "should", "might", "in all likelihood", "theorize", etc.. ?

I doubt if any study will authoritatively claim to confirm the origins of the universe. We leave the delusions of 100% certainty to religion.

We need to discern what is speculative and what is confirmative.

We can and we do. It's called science. You should learn about it.

carl wrote: >snipped the preachy bollocks<

(Now if we could just get atheists to group together to form just one relief organization....

I left in the non-preachy, but stupid, bollocks.)

Denis Diderot wrote:Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

I think he had a point.

carl wrote:We need to discern what is speculative and what is confirmative.

The Wholely Babble is neither.

It's bollocks from start (...differing creation stories, at least one of which is wrong...) to finish (...the ravings of a mad/inebriated moron).

Actually, "the ravings of a mad/inebriated moron", could apply to most of it!

Whose computer have you borrowed to type your shit on, Carl? (As a 'Good Christian'TM, you must have sold your own and given the proceeds to the poor.)

Thomas Eshuis wrote:Also carl, are you going to adress, at any point, your mistakes with regards to biblical knowledge?

Of course he won't! (They never do.)

carl wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:

carl wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:Studied any actual cosmology, have you? Only some of us have spent time poring over the peer reviewed papers, and know that your above caricature is precisely that.

If you are claiming there are studies which somehow confirm the origin of the universe - without ANY SPECULATION involved - please let us know about this. That would be news to all of us.

Nice selective cherry-picking of my post there carl. Oh wait, what did I say immediately after the part you selectively quoted? Let me remind you (with relevant part highlighted in blue):

What has actually happened in the world of cosmological physics, as anyone who has actually studied the subject properly will tell you, is that the theorists have been able to make advances that for the moment, take several of their ideas beyond the reach of the experimenters. But, those same theorists have started to search for ways and means of making their theories empirically testable, because they know that at bottom, this is the only means by which their theories stand a chance of being properly refuted or validated. Indeed, I've presented two papers by Steinhardt & Turok, in which they present an empirical test allowing their own ideas to be validated at some point in the future, and a considerable amount of diligent labour is being expended toward making that empirical test a reality.

And guess what, carl? Work is underway to conduct those very same empirical tests I covered in the blue highlighted part of my post above, the part you duplicitously snipped in order to peddle yet another strawman canard

Plus, as anyone who paid attention in science classes will tell you, speculation is an essential part of science. It's the means by which new ideas are formulated. But of course, there's the second essential part of science, namely finding ways of testing the products of said speculation, and performing the requisite tests, to determine if the data supports the requisite ideas. Which is where science differs from religion. Religion erects unsupported assertions, demands that said assertions be treated as fact, and treats any proper inquiry into the likely truth-value of those assertions as some sort of heinous offence. Science generates hypotheses, then tests those hypotheses to destruction, and the survivors of said test become the evidentially supported foundations of scientific theories.

Let's see how much of my above post you quote mine next time, shall we carl?

BTW, will those studies actually claiming to confirm the origin of the universe (as if !) contain the words: "possibly", "maybe", "we propose", "it seems likely", "could", "should", "might", "in all likelihood", "theorize", etc.. ?

We need to discern what is speculative and what is confirmative.

Oh it's this tiresome and dishonest tactic that we've all seen before, namely pointing to the language style, and suggesting that this, and the word choices contained therein, somehow invalidates the actual science. Yawn.

Here's a clue for you, Carl. The style is known in the relevant circles as 'the scientific subjunctive'. It was devised because the whole purpose of a scientific paper, is to present evidence for perusal, and seek agreement that said evidence supports the requisite hypothesis, and the tentative language of the scientific subjunctive is in accord with this process. Peer review fills in the gap, and a successful peer reviewed paper, one that has persuaded the relevant reviewers that it has made its case, is the one that ends up being published. Whereupon, those reading the published paper can then determine for themselves if the peer reviewers were correct, and the paper does indeed make that case. Papers that stand the test of time become the foundations of our knowledge.

You see, unlike supernaturalist apologetics, which consists of "here's some assertions, treat them as fact", the business of science consists of "here's the empirical data, here's the hypothesis, we contend that the data supports they hypothesis, do you agree?" The published papers are the ones where the peer reviewers agreed.

But it's entirely typical to see you dodge the substantive questions with such duplicitous rhetorical elisions, Carl, we see this all the time from supertnaturalists.

Now, the fun part, Carl, is that with respect to the cosmological papers I have been discussing, as I have repeatedly stated, work is underway to provide the very empirical tests that will either refute or reinforce the requisite hypotheses. As I said in my previous post, if those tests come back with a negative result, it's back to the drawing board, whilst a positive result means that the authors pick up a Nobel Prize. This is how it's done, Carl, not by making shit up and pretending that one's made up shit dictates to reality, which is all too frequently the process involved in religion.

Of course, the only reason you're peddling the mendacious apologetic fabrications you are peddling here, Carl, is because your mythology has nothing of the same standard to offer. All it has to offer is a collection of blind assertions peddled as purportedly constituting fact, several of which are untestable and hence worthless, and many of which are plain, flat, wrong. Your desperate attempt to hide this deficiency behind an apologetic smokescreen isn't working. As I've said repeatedly here, the piss-stained Middle Eastern nomads who scribbled your mythology and its contents, and in doing so provided much that makes many here think it was written with crayon, were incapable of even fantasising about entities and phenomena that scientists have not only alighted upon, but placed within precise, usefully predictive quantitative frameworks that are in accord with observational reality to 15 decimal places. Something that your mythology is completely incapable of providing. All of which renders your desperate clutching at apologetic straws, such as the above, woefully inadequate.

carl wrote:
A 'good' God is not discounted simply based on a 'bad' world:

1) After God created everything, His Creation was 'very good': "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day." (Genesis 1).

2) That 'very good' Creation became tainted by mankind's sin: "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it; all the days of your life; It will produce thorns and thistles for you...and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3). Death and suffering are introduced by mankind's sin.

3) Mankind's first case of murder: "Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him." (Genesis 4).

4) The earth became 'filled with violence': "Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways." (Genesis 6).

The above explains how a 'good God' created a 'very good' world which soon became filled with violence because of mankind's sinfulness. This process of degradation continues today, via the sins and hurtful acts of modern humans (everybody today).

You're not very good at this are you Carl?
If things were so good, how come they get tainted by mankind, a part of the "very good" created in the first place by the "good God"? Did he fuck up? If I create a very good chocolate cake but it becomes tainted by the old engine oil from my car's sump I decided to add into the mix, is it the oil's fault the cake tastes rank or silly old mine for being such a brainless prick as to add it in the first place?
See, the creator of everything only gets to be called good and to have his creation counted as very good if it actually turns out to be good rather than conceited old him simply declare it good. Its a bit like marketing. Ford will advertise their new car as being just fantastic but before we all dash out and buy one, many of us will check out the reviews of the motoring press and anyone who did buy one before we part with any cash. If it turns out to be riddled with faults, the claims of Ford will be seen as not very reliable.
Seems like God's claims weren't too reliable.

God was not taken by surprise by mankind's sinfulness nor is He without a plan to redeem the situation:

So despite claiming all was "very good", God was expecting problems. Seems his benchmark for "very good" isn't really that high is it now? Bit like a car manufacturer who releases a car with a known fault with a plan to announce a recall for the owners of their new "not good after all" car.

1) God sent His Son to redeem the world: "So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[f]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man (Adam) was of the dust of the earth; the second man (Jesus) is of heaven.

2) When this redemption plan is fully set in the future, death itself will be abolished: "For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinth. 15).

3) The present world will burn, right down to the elements: "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare." (2 Peter 3)

4) God will remove all sadness when He creates a brand-new tragedy-free world: "Then I saw "a new heaven and a new earth," for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away...He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed." (Rev. 21).

Which kind of begs the question; if God is capable of making things this way and it's far better and they way he really wanted it all along............... why release the original version and not just skip to the better than "very good" version with all it's man caused taints?

5) Now, about our impatience with this current world of suffering: "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3)

So hang on... God fucked up by creating things to his mediocre, self described "very good" standard which as we see isn't as good as that which he actually aspires to and the reason he won't skip to the better version is that not enough of us have grovelled enough for being short of his expectations due to his original slapdash way of creating things in the first place?

The point made earlier is that God has not yet removed suffering in this world yet because:
1) Suffering in this world AND sin in this world are intertwined. To remove suffering is also to remove sin. Since removing sin means removing all of us sinful humans,

My bold. Why? Apparently, Adam and Eve weren't born with sin installed. That came when they were egged on by a talking serpent to eat from the fruit of a tree that God put there. Sure he told them not to eat it but again, you have to question who created a fruit with such a cuntish thing as sin in it's make-up and who created the talking serpent.
Why not just restore them back to being sin free and carry on?
Why not turn them to pillars of salt like he did to Lott's wife for peeping and then make some new ones out of dirt again... this time without being able to speak Parceltongue?

He has planned this NOT FOR TODAY but for the future. This is a sign of His patience and mercy on all of us today (a good thing!).

So a sign of his mercy is that instead of getting on with installing his upgrade from a pretty piss poor idea of "very good" to his much better version is that he keeps letting miserable shit happen to people like new born babies born with terrible defects?

2) Natural disasters are a consequence of sin by Adam and Eve. Although we were not there at that time in the Garden of Eden, we suffer the consequences. Likewise, others suffer the consequences of our sins today (those around us including our families, for example).

Why? Why due to the actions of two gullible, innocent people who had no precedents to follow, no comprehension of the gravity of their deeds, are babies born with limbs missing or too many limbs or what should be internal organs on the outside or blind, deaf, without eyes or any of the shitty things that happen to them?
If my kids misbehave, should I punish their children too and set up some sort of trust fund to pay for all my future generations to be punished likewise? I doubt it, for that would make me a cunt would it not?

3) We will have to wait for the 'new heaven and new earth' to see a natural disaster-free world - in the future. Our waiting is due to God's patience and mercy on us (like I said, a good thing).

Or perhaps a different way of looking at this might be because;
A)God is a cunt and likes people to suffer.
B)God is impotent to prevent sin or suffering
C) God is a man made concept and hence ...... well nothing really.

4) Waiting in no way implies God is unable or unwilling to remove suffering if there is a reason: Patience and Mercy upon you and me. The above Bible verses, in no way, imply God is waiting for no reason or is just taking His time while He is relaxing. "Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." This is a show of God's goodness to us.

Please do enlighten me on what God's reason might be to not remove the suffering of children born with horrendous defects, often painful and which doom them to an early death after a short and miserable life, and where the mercy is to be found in doing that. If a man, a doctor for example, was found to be deliberately inflicting such conditions on children (or not preventing by means of a cure he had in his power to easily give), he would be despised and considered to be a monster.

In the meantime, we can show our genuineness of our concern for those suffering (like in third world nations) by establishing organizations and helping them. In some nations today, there is ONE DOCTOR for 100,000 people. Therefore, NONE of us should say there are 'plenty of charitable organizations out there'. No there aren't.

Now if we could just get atheists to group together to form just one relief organization....

You mean like this lot? Maybe not strictly an atheist organisation but certainly not a religious group.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) (pronounced [medsɛ̃ sɑ̃ fʁɔ̃tjɛʁ] ( listen)), or Doctors Without Borders, is a French-founded (now international and federal) humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland.[1] The organization is known in most of the world by its localized name or simply as MSF; in Canada and the United States the name Doctors Without Borders is commonly used. In 2007 over 26,000, mostly local, doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, logistical experts, water and sanitation engineers and administrators provided medical aid in over 60 countries. These doctors and nurses decided to volunteer their time to solve issues of world health. Private donors provide about 80% of the organization's funding, while governmental and corporate donations provide the rest, giving MSF an annual budget of approximately US$400 million.[2]

Médecins Sans Frontières was created in 1971, in the aftermath of the Biafra secession, by a small group of French doctors and journalists who believed that all people have the right to medical care regardless of race, religion, creed or political affiliation, and that the needs of these people outweigh respect for national borders......continues

carl wrote:
A 'good' God is not discounted simply based on a 'bad' world:

1) After God created everything, His Creation was 'very good': "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day." (Genesis 1).

2) That 'very good' Creation became tainted by mankind's sin: "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it; all the days of your life; It will produce thorns and thistles for you...and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3). Death and suffering are introduced by mankind's sin.

The above explains how a 'good God' created a 'very good' world which soon became filled with violence because of mankind's sinfulness. This process of degradation continues today, via the sins and hurtful acts of modern humans (everybody today).

This is in direct contradiction to the OT:

Ezekiel 18:20
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

People cannot be responsible fir ech others sins carl.
So how can infants be punished with illness, hardship and death?

carl wrote:God was not taken by surprise by mankind's sinfulness nor is He without a plan to redeem the situation:

1) God sent His Son to redeem the world: "So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[f]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man (Adam) was of the dust of the earth; the second man (Jesus) is of heaven.

If people cannot carry each other sins they surely cannot redeem them either. Cue Jesus special pleading.

Nicko wrote:

carl wrote:God was not taken by surprise by mankind's sinfulness nor is He without a plan to redeem the situation:

So He has a solution for the problem He created?

Cool. How's that working out?

The point, in case it escapes you, is that omnipotent beings don't need "a plan" to do anything. They want something done, it's done. That's what "omnipotent" means.

Regardless, your objection still doesn't address the issue of the vast amount of suffering not caused by human beings.

1) Where in the Bible does it say God caused the Fall after His initial Creation? It doesn't. It says humans caused it and continue to perpetuate it today.

2) What cosmic law says God can't have a plan and have a certain timing for the unfolding of His plan?

Suffering, birth defects, disease, natural disasters, death, etc. were all brought into God's perfect Creation by Adam and Eve's original sin, which tainted God's original Creation which was initially 'very good'.

Genesis 1: "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day."

Furthermore, the place in which most of humanity errs is our belief that we can somehow make our personal wrongs right thru our good deeds. This is where the Bible is especially unique: We cannot 'pay' for our sins by our good deeds any more than a convict on death row who claims his past 'good deeds' should get him off death row. If a judge let a death-row convict go free because of his past good deeds, he would be a corrupt judge. God is not corrupt.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

carl wrote:
A 'good' God is not discounted simply based on a 'bad' world:

1) After God created everything, His Creation was 'very good': "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day." (Genesis 1).

2) That 'very good' Creation became tainted by mankind's sin: "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it; all the days of your life; It will produce thorns and thistles for you...and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3). Death and suffering are introduced by mankind's sin.

The above explains how a 'good God' created a 'very good' world which soon became filled with violence because of mankind's sinfulness. This process of degradation continues today, via the sins and hurtful acts of modern humans (everybody today).

This is in direct contradiction to the OT:

Ezekiel 18:20
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

People cannot be responsible fir ech others sins carl.
So how can infants be punished with illness, hardship and death?

ok, so are you thinking the Bible is showing that suffering today is punishment for the sin of Adam and Eve?

People cannot be responsible for the sins of others, fully agreed by myself AND the Bible.

General question not directed at anyone: Have you ever hurt anyone? That was your sin - with hurtful consequences on the innocent party. The innocent party is NOT responsible, but suffers nonetheless.

God will right this wrong on Judgment Day IN THE FUTURE; the Bible never claims that heaven is here now.

Rev 21: Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”

Note: This is A FUTURE EVENT.

Adam and Eve's "sin" was to seek knowledge. In what kind of fucked up universe is curiosity a bad thing?

Stupid book is rotten to the core, from first word to last.

carl wrote:

Nicko wrote:

carl wrote:God was not taken by surprise by mankind's sinfulness nor is He without a plan to redeem the situation:

So He has a solution for the problem He created?

Cool. How's that working out?

The point, in case it escapes you, is that omnipotent beings don't need "a plan" to do anything. They want something done, it's done. That's what "omnipotent" means.

Regardless, your objection still doesn't address the issue of the vast amount of suffering not caused by human beings.

1) Where in the Bible does it say God caused the Fall after His initial Creation? It doesn't. It says humans caused it and continue to perpetuate it today.

Oh wait, this is more apologetic bullshit. The reason it's more apologetic bullshit, is because your magic man is asserted to have been perfectly capable of constructing a universe that didn't contain a built in time bomb, in the form of the magic fruit tree and two idiot stool pigeons who, bereft of the very knowledge they could only obtain from eating said magic fruit, were incapable of knowing whether or not eating said magic fruit was actually wrong. Because, according to the requisite mythological assertions, these two idiot stool pigeons were purportedly "created" without any capacity for ethical thought by your magic man. Said stool pigeons could only find out whether or not an action was right or wrong, by acquiring the capacity for ethical thought in the first place, which according to your mythology, was only possible by violating the edict not to eat the magic fruit. In short, the whole "fall" mythology is a crock of shit, because [1] your magic man is asserted, by your mythology, to have built this time bomb into the universe, and set in motion the events required to detonate it, and [2] according to the same mythology's assertions, the poor idiot stool pigeons lined up for the trap were deliberately "created" to be wholly ignorant of the whole plot, and indeed bereft of even elementary ethical capability. It's almost as if your magic man set up the universe as a giant fucking game of Lemmings.

The idea that this was a "perfect creation" is a total crock of shit. The most charitable thing one can say about this arrangement, is that it's a Rube Goldberg fudge from start to finish. On the other hand, the amount of twisted malice required to come up with a scenario like this, makes the arrangement, as I've said above, more like a gigantic cosmic game of Lemmings, with your magic man devising a fiendish trap ensuring that the poor fucking lemmings will never get home.

carl wrote:2) What cosmic law says God can't have a plan and have a certain timing for the unfolding of His plan?

Except that the "plan" in question was a schadenfreude crock of shit from start to finish. See above.

carl wrote:Suffering, birth defects, disease, natural disasters, death, etc. were all brought into God's perfect Creation by Adam and Eve's original sin, which tainted God's original Creation which was initially 'very good'.

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

The idea that a "creation" capable of being broken, because two idiot stool pigeons ate the wrong piece of magic fruit, is a "perfect" one, is the sort of spastically palsied idea only a supernaturalist could treat as other than point and laugh material. Your magic man purposely built a fucking time bomb into this laughably asserted "perfect creation", then arranged for it to be set off.

carl wrote:Genesis 1: "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day."

Except that something that could be buggered up by two idiot stool pigeons, doesn't strike me, or anyone else with functioning brain cells, as "very good". It's a fucking crock of shit from start to finish, and the idea that this was the "perfect creation" of a "perfect" magic man, is an idea that fails to rise above the level of competence required to be worthy of a point of view. It's deranged, insane, retarded shit from start to finish, and it's a testimony to the venomous influence wielded by religion, that grown adults continue to treat this shit as something other than deranged, insane, retarded shit. I know five year olds that could construct better stories than this.

carl wrote:Furthermore, the place in which most of humanity errs is our belief that we can somehow make our personal wrongs right thru our good deeds. This is where the Bible is especially unique: We cannot 'pay' for our sins by our good deeds any more than a convict on death row who claims his past 'good deeds' should get him off death row. If a judge let a death-row convict go free because of his past good deeds, he would be a corrupt judge. God is not corrupt.

Oh how supernaturalists love their bad analogies. Which is a bad analogy, because what's happening here, according to your above assertions, is that the entire fucking human race is being made to pay, for all eternity, for a purported "misdeed" none of its present living members had anything to do with. What you're presenting us with here, is a nightmare vision of the universe as a cosmic North Korea, with your magic man as the eternal Kim Il Sung. This vision you're offering here, is worse than retarded and insane, it's dangerous and inhuman. It's sick, twisted, obscenely repugnant, and stinks noxiously of the hideous stench that arises whenever human beings prefer a doctrine to their fellows.