During
one of my debates, Dr. Barry Creamer said "I'd rather live in a place with
evil and free will, than a place with no evil and no free will."
So, I asked him "Is there free will in heaven?" he said "Yes." So I said "Is there evil in heaven?" He said "No."
His
response was: "Evil is not required for us to have free will. You can
have choices without one of them being evil. Just like in heaven - We
will have choices, but we won't be able to choose evil anymore."
That
sounds like a great answer - because after all, assuming that you have
free will in heaven doesn't mean you'll be able to 'choose' to burn the
place down, or kick Jesus in the face.
Evil isn't an option in heaven. But you still have choices.
His answer sounds
great, but it also means we could have free will on earth without rape,
earthquakes, and 3-yr-olds dying of cancer. Evil is not necessary for us
to be able to choose, but God created evil anyway. Isiah 45:7 says so.
I'll end this with a few points that are probably the strongest reasons why I am an atheist:
- Evil is not necessary for free will, but you believe God created it anyway, and you still worship him as though he is good. Why did he create evil in the first place, when he could have granted free will without the suffering and agony?
- You believe God is strong enough to stop rape and child cancer and earthquakes, but he chooses to watch us suffer. Yet you believe he loves you.
- Satan "knew" God existed, saw God face to face, and still turned against him. So, God showing himself to us would not remove our free will, but could literally save billions of souls. Yet he doesn't do it. And you think he loves us and really cares about our eternity.
- You believe that God sees the wars over him, and Muslims vs Christians dying by the thousands every day - and doesn't stop it. He doesn't clear the air. He doesn't settle the feud, even though he has the power. Yet, you thank him and pray to him and glorify him. It makes no sense to me whatsoever.
Why doesn't a powerful loving god stop the wars, save the children, and stop the earthquakes? Because the concept of god was conjured up by archaic people trying to make sense of the world and gain political power to take over land.
If we are products of evolution, our stupid fighting and senseless killing and contracting of diseases makes perfect sense. We are flawed because we are evolving, and evolution isn't perfect, and our immune systems aren't perfect, and this world isn't perfectly designed for our survival.
Injecting God as the answer only begs more questions about why 'he' would allow such things. Remove God from the equation, and suddenly, the answers are clear.
14 comments:
I may not be remembering correctly but I believe the Bible says that those in heaven will be spending eternity prostrate before God, worshiping Him.
The problem of free will in heaven (without evil) is an old one. You might look up "beatific vision" to see one proposed solution.
In this (as I understand it), those who see the glory of god will freely give up free will. Or something.
@Iavelle1417
An eternity on your knees pleasing a god-- not really my idea of a "Heaven"
@mikekoz68
You have just made an interesting point. For those who do not believe in the god of the bible but are wrong, we have no hope for some good heaven. There is only the choice of hells. One is to spend eternity praising the sociopathic god of the bible and we know what a piece of work that god is. The other option is the traditional place of suffering. Since the god of the bible allows no criticism and even a negative thought will get a "soul" transferred to the suffering place, it is only a matter of time before everyone is in the bad place. We heathens might have been wrong but we would have the satisfaction of not having wasted our precious time on earth worshiping a monster.
An eternity of worshipping an all "loving" deity sounds an awful lot like living in North Korea
David, if you read this, ask Mr. Creamer, why couldn't god create us in a way where we freely chose the good? I had a debate with a Christian recently and asked that question. They told me it was a logically contradiction. I pointed out that Jesus, god's son(or himself) was created that way. No response. That question could be a real stumper for Christians.
The real irony is that after atheists tell us there is no God to tell us what to do, they invariably turn around and try to...you guessed it...tell us what to do! LOL!
So for those atheists who think heaven would be hell...whats your complaint?
You will get to go where you really want.
The Lord will say...YOUR Will Be Done.
But at least in Christian theology forgiveness is open to all...Human
Society is not so forgiving; if you make significant mistakes you are tarred with them for life.
To your first comment. We don't believe a god exist so who else would we listen to, so no irony. Secondly, your Christian theology of forgiveness just allows people to do what they want then they ask for forgiveness, at least that's how some Christians use it. Atleast having guilt or being possibly "tarred" could prevent one from doing the bad thing in the first place. You can keep your lord.
Like the blog post states "Injecting God as the answer only begs more questions about why 'he' would allow such things. Remove God from the equation, and suddenly, the answers are clear."
- There is no god. Plain and simple.
Man, David sure does love guns.
One challenge for most Christians is explaining the context of scripture, especially when originating Hebrew and Greek words can easily be taken out of their original meaning.
One thing I've always admired about Theologians was the steadfastness of truly understanding the context context of scripture and the culture at the time when the words were originally written down.
The question of God creating evil is not new and many apologetic's have used theology to help explain what evades the less discerning. Here is an example of how Isaiah 45:7 can be better understood.
http://carm.org/does-god-create-evil
If there is free will in heaven, but no evil, why can't there be free will on earth without evil?
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I'll take a shot at it.
The reason there is no evil in heaven is that those in heaven see God face to face. This is *after* having gone through the trial of life on earth, in which you have the choice to love goodness, and the God who is its source, or hate it. Once in heaven, the trial is over. You are no longer subject to the temptation to commit evil, because there is nothing and no one in heaven who is the least bit evil in order to tempt you. Having had the choice between good and evil, you have chosen good once and for all.
There is still free will, but no longer the choice between good and evil, because evil just isn't there, and whatever was in you that caused you to commit evil on earth, is no longer in you.
I mentioned that those in heaven see God face to face. Since God and goodness, in a sense, are the same thing, you are looking goodness in the face. To freely choose evil in that situation is virtually impossible. It would be like having a hot fudge sundae on a plate in front of you, and a pile of steaming dog poop on another. Do you really have a choice in that context?
Now the question will arise: Why doesn't God show us himself while we're here on earth? Well, as I said, because earth is a trial: We are put into a context in which we *can* choose good or evil, because we're not seeing "goodness" (or God) face to face. In this world evil does not always appear foul and repellant, and the good does not always make itself obvious.
Why then doesn't God simply make the evil repellant to us, and the good obvious? Because again, it's a trial. It's character-building. It's having us make our own choices when the choices sometimes are not easy. When choosing the good is not easy, there is more merit in choosing the good. As studies have shown, people are happier when they earn their accomplishments rather than having things handed to them.
No, that still does not answer why this "God" would put man-kind and earth as a whole through such misery in the first place. Come on, it just doesn't make sense.
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