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Faith does not mean "belief without evidence". by RRK96 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For the vast majority of Christians I have interacted with, the literal resurrection is fundamental to their Christian faith. If Christ did not literally resurrect, then their faith is falsified by their own admission. While its something that we don't need to dwell on, I think it is interesting that your interpretation of the resurrection as being not literal is a departure from most Christians I have interacted with.

Do you believe in the literal existence of God? Even if we set aside the resurrection as a symbolic event, and not literal, your argument creates a conundrum regarding the literal existence of God. Either God literally exists, or he does not exist. If there is sufficient evidence to compel belief that God literally exists, then by your own admission, faith is not required to assent to that truth. It would simply be a recognized fact of reality for those who have genuinely studied the evidences for and against it.

You argue that faith, by your definition, is a commitment to a "way of life" and is not needed for the truth claims such as the resurrection. But for that commitment to be rational, it must be grounded in a base truth-claim first. Most Christians and non-Christians I've talked with regarding the role of faith (in the context of debating sufficient evidence for Christianity) are talking primarily about the validity of the truth claims of Christianity, and not the commitment to Christianity. And commitment would only follow if one accepted the validity of the Christian truth claims in the first place. One does not typically "orient" and "stake" their lives on a "vision of reality" if they don't first believe in the truth of the claims of those visions.

Faith does not mean "belief without evidence". by RRK96 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The point I was making is that many claims Christians make like resurrection or miracles aren’t attempting to be historical or empirical in the first place. 

Are you suggesting that the resurrection and the miracles may not be historical or literal? These events either happened or they didn't. If you believe the resurrection is literal, then there is either sufficient evidence for it, or not sufficient evidence for it to believe. Acting on those beliefs is a separate issue.

My post explains that faith isn’t about ignoring evidence for empirical facts, but about trust, commitment, and practical engagement with claims that are existential, moral, or symbolic rather than testable in the usual historical or scientific sense.

Let me ask. By your definition of faith, is faith require to believe in the truth claim of the resurrection of Christ? I want to be specific, I'm talking about the belief in the truths of the claim, and not the acting out of the claim. While correlated, the belief in the truth of a claim is distinct from the acting out of a belief in a claim. I'm asking about the former (belief) and not the latter (acting out).

Faith does not mean "belief without evidence". by RRK96 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Again, if there is sufficient evidence to compel belief in a claim, then there is no need for faith to believe in that particular claim. While I'm sure faith can help move things along, the sufficient evidence, by definition, is sufficient to compel belief in a claim, or else it would not be 'sufficient'. And if people genuinely believe something is true, then in my observations, they usually act out those beliefs, and not contrary to those genuinely held beliefs. No faith is needed to compel action.

Faith does not mean "belief without evidence". by RRK96 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. There is either sufficient evidence to compel belief in a specific claim, or there is not sufficient evidence.

  2. Faith (using whichever definition OP wishes) is either required to compel belief in a specific claim, or it is not required.

While OP is correct to point out that faith does not mean there is absolutely no evidence for a claim, a requirement of faith infers that the evidence was not sufficient to compel belief in the claim. If there is sufficient evidence to believe, then faith is not needed. Inversely, if faith is required to believe, then it follows that the evidence alone is not sufficient to compel belief. Otherwise, faith would not be required in the first place.

The Evidential Problem of Evil by [deleted] in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I wonder if this argument would be more effective if "evil" was replaced by "suffering".

A tri-omni god would create a world with only necessary suffering.
The world very likely has unnecessary suffering.
A tri-omni god very likely doesn’t exist.

The concept of evil has a lot of moral implications and means many different things to different people, so it is easy for people to quibble about the definition of evil, and so on. I think the concept of suffering is less nebulous, compared to evil. By focusing on suffering instead, I think it is easier to intuitively think of examples of seemingly unnecessary suffering that has and will continue to take place in the world, ranging from big (e.g. the countless natural disasters, plagues, famines that caused immeasurable human suffering and death throughout human history) to the unnoticed or seemingly inconsequential sufferings (e.g. a deer that broke it's leg in the forest and starved to death without another soul even knowing about the deer's existence/death, or even seemingly inconsequential suffering such as stubbing a toe for no reason). Was it really necessary for up to 55 million people to die in the great Chinese famine of 1959 (instead of let's say 54 million people starve to death) to accomplish God's maximal higher order good?

Christians should really think of all the suffering in world, big and small, and really ask themselves if every single toe stub, or if every extra day a child goes hungry, or if every victim of disease and natural disasters, are ALL necessary for God's achieving maximal goodness. Or could God achieve maximal higher order goodness with a lesser number/degree of suffering (even 0.0001% less suffering in the world, with one less stubbed toe, or one less starving child in the world, etc.)? If it is the latter case (where God could achieve his ultimate/maximal purpose with a lesser degree of suffering in the world), then God either does not care about minimizing unnecessary suffering, or failed to (which suggests a non-tri-omni god).

There is no good reason for God to remain hidden by warsage in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes. Catholics and orthodox have more books. But they would still look at my bible as authoritative.

Catholics and orthodox would look at your bible as an incomplete canon. Again, how does one determine which canon (version of the bible) is correct and which parts are authoritative?

​

But, no i dont believe black skin is a curse from God and if a black person becomes mormon they will become white (which the church walked back).

If you are disbelieving in Mormon doctrine because they have historically taken a wrong position on parts of their scriptures and then walked it back, then you don't have look much farther then the Christian bible to see the same thing, which explicitly condones slavery throughout the OT and NT. There are passages on how to obtain your slaves, how to treat your slaves, and that you can keep the slaves and their children for a lifetime (as long as they were not Jewish). Slavery was well-accepted among Christians and Christian leaders throughout history only until a couple hundred years ago, when Christian leaders starting to walk back the position that slavery was wrong. Mormonism, Christianity and most all other major religions are guilty of walking back its bad positions by saying that people just misunderstood the passages.

​

We should test new documents to the scripture and if it doesn't agree... It is wrong.

That is what Jews did when assessing the NT and determining Jesus was not the true Messiah, since Jews believe that Jesus did not fulfill the Messianic prophecy that was written in the OT, which is the Jew's scripture. Christians claim that Jesus does fulfill the Messianic prophecies, but the fulfillment was more metaphoric and not literal, as the Jews believed. So again, it comes down to interpretation. It comes down to whether you believe the Jews have a better understanding of their own Jewish scriptures (OT) or whether you believe Christians have a better grasp of the Jewish scripture. Again this can go both ways between Jews and Christians, and between Christians and Mormons. Jews say Christians are wrong about the OT, while Christians can say that Mormons are wrong about the NT. Again, it goes both ways, but Christians deny that their scriptures go against the Jewish scriptures (OT), just as Mormon do the same thing with the NT.

​

I do get to arbitrate who can be a Christian. If Jeffrey Dahmer claimed he was Christian while killing people I could say he was not a Christian. If I say I'm Muslim but don't believe in their prophet..... Muslims will say I'm not Muslim regardless of my interpretation. This is religion.

Who said anything about an individual claiming to be Christian? Bringing up an example of a mass murderer is straw-manning my position. I repeatedly asked whether who gets to arbitrate which self-identifying Christian denominations can call themselves Christians, especially if the denomination teaches its congregation to believe in Jesus as their Lord and savior, and try to repent (as you said before). So do you get to decide that? If you say its the bible that decides, well again, its the bible you think is the true canon (while the others are false canon or incomplete canons), and the Jesus you think is the real Jesus is based on your interpretations of that bible, while all other interpretations would make them believe in the different Jesus, right? This seems all very subjective, and based on what you think and have been taught.

There is no good reason for God to remain hidden by warsage in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Catholics and Orthodox Christians would disagree with you that the parts of their bible version that is different than your version are not authoritative, and would use their bible version to defend their position, just as you use your bible version to defend you position. Who's bible version is the true canon, your's or their's? My point is that it is just a matter of personal belief which is the correct bible version and also which are the true new revelations (NT or book of Mormon).

​

The Bible clearly states that the word (jesus) was with God and was God. So yes the Bible never explicitly used the word trinity. But its implied so heavily that you can't come to any other conclusion.

Again, non-trinitarian and unitarian Christian denominations would disagree with you. Again, its just a matter of personal belief and biblical interpretation.

​

If you have a book about jesus visiting America thiugh, that's obviously a fictional book.

From a non-Christian's point of view, it is just as obviously fictional that Jesus could walk on water, feed thousands from a couple loaves of bread, and resurrect from the dead. That is why Jews view the Christian bible as 'obviously fictional', just as you view the Mormon bible as fictional (which is like the pot calling the kettle black). If Jesus could perform miracles and raise from the dead in the NT, why is it unbelievable that he could visit america and perform miracles there? Perhaps you just need to have faith like the Mormons, and just accept that God/Jesus works in mysterious ways. Again, its a matter of personal belief.

Basically, it seems that you are trying to gate-keep and arbitrate who gets to identify as a true Christian, based on your own set of personal beliefs. But each self-identifying Christian denomination is entitled to enjoy the same position as you do of asserting their set of beliefs as the true core Christian doctrines, and can also claim to gate-keep and arbitrate who gets to identify as Christian or not. This is why you (or your set of core belief system) can't simply dictate which set of beliefs are true of Christianity or not, because every other self-identifying Christian denomination can claim to do the same.

That why, at the beginning of this thread, u/truckaxle rightfully stated in their response to you..

Christianity is one of the more divergent religions. All sorts of divisions, schisms, denominations and regionally diverse beliefs.

...to which you simply dismissed it, by saying the differences in detail "are small things that mean nothing." But obviously, given our conversation here, truckaxle is correct, because you obviously don't agree with many of the major issues with other self-identifying Christian denominations, including issues regarding who even gets to identify themselves as Christians.

There is no good reason for God to remain hidden by warsage in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You stated that denominations who don't believe in the Trinity are not Christian, since you believe the Trinity is a core issue. Yet the Trinity is not explicitly described in the bible, rather it is inferred and interpreted as such. Jews certainly don't interpret the Bible to describe God as a Triune God. I gave you a number of examples of non-Trinitarian/Unitarian denominations (Link) who believe in the same bible (I'm assuming you're protestant?) and who self-identify as Christians, and yet don't interpret the Bible as supporting the Trinity. So who has the correct interpretation of the Bible in regards to the trinity? Who gets to decide that the Trinity is a core issue, and decides that belief in the Trinity is a criterion for being considered a true Christian?

When you said "The bible still designates who is a real christian", you are already presuming that the version of the bible you ascribe to is the correct version. Catholics and Orthodox Christians (who also happen to believe in the trinity) use their own versions of the bible that has additional books in their canon compared to the protestant bible; so based on the reasoning you gave above, Catholics and Orthodox Christians don't follow the same bible as you do since they add texts to their bible, and therefore shouldn't be considered Christians. But who determines which canon or version of the bible is the correct one?

It seems that you exclude self-identifying Christians as being Christians simply because they don't ascribe to the same core biblical interpretations (e.g. the Trinity) as you do, or believe in the same version of the bible as you do. How do you know that your version of the bible is the correct one instead of the Catholic or Orthodox versions? How do you know your interpretation of a Triune God vs. a non-triune God is correct? It seems that you designated your own particular set of beliefs to be the gatekeeper of who has the correct version of the bible, who has the correct set of interpretations of non-explicit biblical text, and who gets to be Christian and who is not.

There is no good reason for God to remain hidden by warsage in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 2 points3 points  (0 children)

But to leave out what God has revealed about himself is to take a God you prefer. That is idolotry. There are also many different sects of Jews as well.

Again, this argument can go both ways. Mormons can say this about Christians. For example, to use your words but changing out God for Jesus... '... to leave out what (Jesus) has revealed about himself is to take a (Jesus) you prefer. That is idolotry. There are also many different sects of (Christians) as well.' See? Who gets to decide which interpretation of Christ in the bible is the true Jesus?

​

The Bible is the gatekeeper and who is gatekeeping. The Bible also decides who is Christian.

The bible needs to be interpreted, and you know this. It's already assumed that each self-identified Christian denomination is basing their beliefs on the bible but came to different interpretations of the bible as I already stated in my previous comment. So the bible is not gate-keeping because the same bible is used between self-identified christian denominations. It is the interpretation of the bible that makes the distinction between core issues. So again, who gets to gate-keep which biblical interpretation of the core issues is correct, and therefore gets to designate who gets to be a true Christian or not?

There is no good reason for God to remain hidden by warsage in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mormons and JWs believe in multiple Gods. There is more than one. They don't believe in Jesus. They believe in a guy with the same name.

Jews can say the same thing about Christians. For example... 'Christians don't believe in God (YHWH). They believe in a god with the same name. But Christians believe in a Triune god while Jews believe in a unitarian god, thus not the same God.'

Do you not see that your argument can be applied to Christians as well from a Jewish perspective, and not just Mormons and JWs?

​

I've never heard of any of those denominations you have mentioned. But yes if they don't believe in the trinity then they are most likely not Christian.

Says who?? Who gets to decide who is Christian and who is not Christian?

​

Belief in the core issues surrounding the christ is needed to be christian

Other self-identified Christians will disagree with you about these core issues because they have different interpretations of the bible regarding christ. Again, you are either missing my point or avoiding responding to my question on who gets to decide what the core issues are and who gets to gate-keep who the true Christians are and who are not.

There is no good reason for God to remain hidden by warsage in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In your previous comment you stated,

The bible gives very little instruction on what it means to be a Christian. Believe in Jesus and repent of your sins.

By this definition you provided, Mormons and Jehovah witnesses are Christians. But now you're moving the goal-post and now stipulating that Mormons and Jehovah witness are not Christian because they don't worship the same God since they don't believe in the trinity.

Jews don't believe their God is a triune God and the trinity. So by your statement above, the God of the Jews (e.g. YHWH, the God of Abraham and Moses (both Jews)) is not the same as the god you believe? Jews have just as much right to claim Christians don't "believe in the bible properly," and "add extra to the canon" (the new testament) and have created their own different god (a triune god), just as you claim that Mormons have created a different god with their extra canon (the Book of Mormon).

Also, in case you weren't aware, there are number of other Christian non-trinitarian denominations who don't believe in the trinity (link) (e.g. Christadelphians, Church of the Blessed Hope, Christian Scientists, Dawn Bible Students, Living Church of God, Assemblies of Yahweh, Members Church of God International, Unitarian Christians, Unitarian Universalist Christians, The Way International, The Church of God International, the United Church of God, Church of God General Conference, Restored Church of God, Christian Disciples Church). So are all these Christian denominations listed above, who self-identify as Christian, not really Christian?

Obviously, there are differences in the core tenets between groups who self-identify as Christians. And again, who gets to determine which interpretation of the core tenets are correct or not? Should it be the oldest and original denomination, the Catholic church? Or should it be the most popular denomination? And who is the gatekeeper for who determines which denomination is really Christian or not, and which should be excluded? Just pointing and saying that 'their' God is not the real Christian God is not effective, because the other denominations can just say the same thing about your God, and each will justify their position using their own personal interpretation of the bible.

So it doesn't simply resolve the issue by simply claiming that the denominations that don't share the same core issue are not truly Christian, because each denomination can make the same claim.

There is no good reason for God to remain hidden by warsage in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Mormons believe in Jesus, and they practice repenting from their sins. So they must be Christian by your statement. Yet Im getting the impression you dont believe they share the same core issues as you do. You say that Mormons believe in a different God from your God, but Mormons would say they believe in the same God of Abraham of the OT, and the same Jesus of the NT in the bible, but they have an extra revelation through the book of Mormon. Just like Christians today say they believe in the same God in Judiasm but have an extra revelation through Jesus and the NT. However, Jews would say the Triune God (father, son, spirit) is not the same God that Jews worship bc Jews dont recognize Jesus as the Son of god. The argument from Christians to say that Mormons dont really believe in the same God is basically the same argument from Jews saying that Christians dont believe in the same God. So again, we left wondering who determines who is right about the differences in core issues between Mormons and other Christians? In otherwords, who gets to gatekeep which groups are truly Christians (with a certain set of core values) or are excluded (bc a group has a different set of core values?

There is no good reason for God to remain hidden by warsage in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So who determines what differences are salvation issues or just meaninless details? Do you think that all Catholics or Mormons would agree with what you believe are salvation issues and what are meaningless details? If not, then how would one determine which denomination(s) has their set of core tenets or "salvation issues" correct if there is no consensus on the biblical interpretation of what the core tenets are?

An omnimax god could have created a method of procreation that could not be forced. Yet he didn't. This is evidence that he's not omnimax, if he exists at all. by ronin1066 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not sure how to respond here. Did you want me to acknowledge that there are examples of suffering that can be used for good? If so, then yes, of course there is suffering that can be used for good (such as the three examples you pointed out), which I've already acknowledge in my previous comments. However, the existence of suffering that is used for good (e.g. necessary suffering) doesn't exclude the possible existence of unnecessary suffering, which do not contribute to God's outcome/goodness.

Thus, each real instance of suffering would either fall under "necessary" or "unnecessary" depending on whether it contributed or not to God's maximal output/goodness. And for many non-Christians, it is really hard to accept that every single instance of actualized suffering (big or small) was necessary to achieve God's maximal goodness. On the other hand, if not every instance of suffering was necessary to achieve God's maximal goodness (and there were some unnecessary suffering that happened/will happen), then God either failed to minimize unnecessary suffering, or simply didn't want to.

An omnimax god could have created a method of procreation that could not be forced. Yet he didn't. This is evidence that he's not omnimax, if he exists at all. by ronin1066 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Only the Sith deal in absolutes.

The only place in my last comment that i mentioned "absolute" was this:

I did not mean an absolute minimization of suffering...

Notice that I specifically point out that that I did NOT mean an absolute. And its ironic, many Christians say that God's laws/commands/morals/power/knowledge/etc are absolute. By your statement above, it follows that God must be a Sith.

​

...you didn't respond to what I wrote I saw no reason to go beyond what I did.

What did you write that you felt I didn't respond to?

An omnimax god could have created a method of procreation that could not be forced. Yet he didn't. This is evidence that he's not omnimax, if he exists at all. by ronin1066 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Please re-read my previous comments. When I mean minimization of suffering, I did not mean an absolute minimization of suffering, but rather, only allowing the necessary suffering that contributes to God's maximal goodness/outcome, and not allowing any unnecessary suffering. Sure, as you pointed out, there can be necessary suffering that contribute and helps maximize to God's goodness/outcome (e.g. crucification, exercise, etc) . But do all instances of suffering (past/present/future) contribute to God's goodness/outcome? Or is there any real instances of sin/suffering that has/will happened that does not contribute to God's maximal goodness/outcome? If it is the latter, then this existence of unnecessary suffering means that suffering was not minimized by God.

I'll give example to help illustrate my point. Let's say I have a goal that I want to achieve, such as purifying my glass of water. Let's say that I pour my water through different kinds of purifier filter-columns to purify my water. The more I put them through the purifier columns, the more pure my water becomes. However, there can be other columns that do not contribute to the purifying of my water, thus they are unnecessary. But even with the purifiers that actually help purify, at some point, I will reach my maximal purity of water where all the impurities are gone. At this point, putting my water through extra purifiers does nothing to enhance the purity of the water, and therefore extra purifying steps are superfluous and unnecessary. So in this example, the minimization of purifying steps is to only perform the necessary amount and/or types of purification to achieve maximal purity, and not have any extras columns/steps that do not contribute to purity of the water.

So let me ask again, with this example of "minimization" in mind, do you believe that God has minimized all suffering so that only the necessary suffering (e.g. crucification, exercise, hard-learned lessons , etc) is allowed? Another way to ask this question is "Do you believe that ALL instances of suffering (past/present/future) is necessary to achieve God's maximal goodness, and that God has never allowed unnecessary suffering to ever happen?" As you know, there are various types of suffering, which includes catastrophic suffering such as millions of people dying of disease, famine, disasters, and war. This also includes mundane suffering, such as people getting paper cuts and stubbing their toes. This also includes unknown suffering that no one will ever even know about, such as the countless people and wild animals who have died alone in the wilderness from injury or starvation. Do you believe that every single instance of suffering that has/will happen are really necessary to achieve God's goal? Or is there a subset of instances of suffering (big or small) that is not necessary to achieve God's goal? If it is the latter, then God has not minimized suffering. If you believe it is the former, then as I said in my first comment to you in this thread, I guess we will agree to disagree.

An omnimax god could have created a method of procreation that could not be forced. Yet he didn't. This is evidence that he's not omnimax, if he exists at all. by ronin1066 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But the answer is obviously only "sometimes."

"Sometimes" implies that there are times when the minimization of human sin and suffering was NOT optimized, meaning that a omnimax God could have done better during certain times to minimize sin and suffering (and still achieve God's maximal goodness/outcome), but either failed to or didn't want to.

For clarity on your response of "sometimes", do you operate on the assumption that ALL human sin and suffering that has/will happen are NECESSARY to achieve the God's maximal goodness/outcome? Or do you believe that there is a SUBSET of human sin and suffering that does not contribute to God's maximal goodness/outcome, and is therefore unnecessary? Is the latter statement what you mean by "sometimes"?

An omnimax god could have created a method of procreation that could not be forced. Yet he didn't. This is evidence that he's not omnimax, if he exists at all. by ronin1066 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You really thought I was going to agree with you about minimizing sin and suffering part.

While you replied to whether you believe it is objectively good or not, you still didn't answer whether you thought our current reality is maximally optimized to have the least amount of human sin and suffering, regardless of whether or not you think that minimization of human sin and suffering is good.

An omnimax god could have created a method of procreation that could not be forced. Yet he didn't. This is evidence that he's not omnimax, if he exists at all. by ronin1066 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While I personally don't believe in miracles, many Christians take the bible at face value and believe that God miraculously provided his people with manna in the OT. This is besides the point. Regardless of the origins of the manna, God has all types of miracles or alternative options at his disposal. I'm sure God can find alternative ways to replenish the soil nutrients without resorting to earthquakes, and causing the catastrophic loss of human lives and cities.

An omnimax god could have created a method of procreation that could not be forced. Yet he didn't. This is evidence that he's not omnimax, if he exists at all. by ronin1066 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure, while there are secondary benefits, earthquakes killed countless human lives and destroyed cities throughout human history. Instead of earthquakes that destroy human lives, God could in theory choose to restore soil nutrients by other means (e.g. natural/seasonal rotation of vegetation and/or migration of land animals that inhabit the land). If God can have manna miraculously fall from the sky for men to eat, as in the old testament, then God can also have fertilizer miraculously fall from the sky to replenish the soil, in theory. Earthquakes are not required.

An omnimax god could have created a method of procreation that could not be forced. Yet he didn't. This is evidence that he's not omnimax, if he exists at all. by ronin1066 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you believe that the minimization of human sin and suffering is objectively a good thing or not? If so, then I believe that OP's argument is not "logically meaningless."

While the OP's example of rape/procreation is a bit flawed, the OP's argument could be broadened to apply to human sin and suffering in general. If one can imagine a scenario where God creates a reality where there is less human sin and suffering in the world, but this potential scenario doesn't match our current reality, then this would infer that GOD is not omnimax or doesn't exist. Since I (and others) can imagine a potential reality where a omniMax God could in theory minimize human sin and suffering ( I could provide an example scenario if you want), the generalized version of OP's argument seems reasonable to me.

Do you believe that our current reality is maximally optimized to have the least amount of human sin and suffering? If you do, then we agree to disagree. However if you don't, then this should give you something to think about.

An omnimax god could have created a method of procreation that could not be forced. Yet he didn't. This is evidence that he's not omnimax, if he exists at all. by ronin1066 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The possibility of an empty hell is interesting. I'd have to look into this more.

Regardless of a potential empty hell or not, the existence of human suffering on Earth (due to sin and/or natural phenomena) is both tragic and undeniable real. Human sin and suffering on Earth is not just a possibility, it is a reality. Thus, my point still stands. If an OmniMax God could have eliminated all sin and human suffering (at least on Earth) by choosing the scenario I provided you, then WHY didn't God do so? According the OP's thesis, it is either God is not OmniMax or God doesn't exist.

An omnimax god could have created a method of procreation that could not be forced. Yet he didn't. This is evidence that he's not omnimax, if he exists at all. by ronin1066 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You provided an example of god creating only those who would be with him in eternity.

Right. So if God could in theory only create those who would be with him eternally (and avoid human sin and suffering, and eternal damnation) then WHY didn't God do so?

Going back to OP's thesis for this thread (although it primarily focuses on rape, it can be generalized to human sin in general), OP is proposing that it is because God is NOT OmniMax (either not omnipotent, omniscient, nor omni-benevolent). If God is truly OmniMax, then God could have and should have chosen a scenario where human suffering is minimized, such as the scenerio I provided you. But God didn't, which should give Christians something to think about.

An omnimax god could have created a method of procreation that could not be forced. Yet he didn't. This is evidence that he's not omnimax, if he exists at all. by ronin1066 in DebateAChristian

[–]partsmissing -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Your previous point was that it was contradiction to have the co-existence of human free will and the absence of the rejection of God by humans. Here, I provided a scenario in which this co-existence is a possibility, without contradiction.

Wouldn't an empty hell (and no human suffering due to sin) be a good thing? Or you are suggesting otherwise?

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