I see a lot of Christian haters on this forum.

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Seriously; if a real miracle can be performed, then I would really like to witness it. I'm not so shallow and gullible that mere words can convince me - I have to actually witness a demonstration of an extraordinary event before I can believe that it has actually occurred.

For instance, why is it that not one amputee has ever had a missing limb regrow? I am not talking about surgical reattachment, I am talking about the spontaneous regeneration of an entire arm, leg, or even an eye or internal organ that no longer even exists.

Y'see, I'm missing part of my left hand from an accident that happened over 50 years ago, and all my prayers, all my faith, and all of the laying-on-of-hands by "Faith Healers" has done nothing to restore my hand and make it whole.

Two things will convince a person that God either does not care or that He simply does not exist: (1) They break a commandment and God does not smite them for it, and (2) They pray for wholeness and wellness and they do not get better.

Why Won't God Heal Amputees? <-- Link

" a nice one with any reasonable power."

Aslan is not a TAME lion.

Read towards comprehension Job.

Certainly,anyone looking for a "nice" God such as my parents were never "nice" will be disappointed.

Sorry, 1050, Christ is NOT Jeeves.

All three major Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) are derived from ancient mythology. If you believe in any of those three you might as well believe in Egyptian, Roman or Greek mythology while you're at it.

Not true. There is no logical contradiction and you have given me no good reason to think that there is.
From commonsenseathsism.com
'Plantinga basically killed the logical problem of evil'

You need to invest time in the literature.

I think Judaism is the first religion that was monotheistic.

I thought it was the religion Akhenaten imposed in his short lived cultural revolution in Egypt.... if someone knows an earlier one, I would actually be interested to find out.

What about Melechitzedik from whom Abraham received a blessing? Melechitzedik blessed Abraham in the name of the One (Most High) God. Rabbinic tradition has it that Shem, one of Noah's son's was monotheistic. Poor Noah was too confused by his favorite agricultural product to have a valid opinion.

ruveyn

I was under the impression there'd been some development I'd not heard of when you said that. Then I looked it up, and found it was the old "free will" argument. Oh dear.

(1) The argument is flawed in that we do not freely choose to do evil. Indeed, we often do wrong against our higher judgement because our physical natures overcome it (eg. drug abuse, obesity, alcoholism).

(2) It is also flawed in that we often do evil because we do not know it is evil. The inventor of CFC aerosol sprays did so because they improved the world in some small way - an entirely good thing - without realising that they also had a side effect that damaged the world. Parents screw up their children because they are, paradoxically, trying to be good parents. Homeopaths peddle quack cures because they actually believe they work. If we are unaware of the outcome of our choice, do we really have free will?

(3) Even if all the above were not an issue, Plantinga's response is incomplete. There is a lot of evil in the world that is not our doing. Birth defects, natural disasters, plagues, droughts, meteorite strikes... if any of these things are due to our action or inaction, I again ask how we can be considered morally responsible when we could not predict the outcome. And some are not. The volcano that buried Pompeii, killing thousands of people, was not an act of evil brought about by free will. Indeed, these people had no choice - the very idea of a volcano was unknown to them!

Now this is where God comes in. God could have stopped the volcano. He did not. God could have warned them about it. He did not. The only being with any free will in the issue decided not to prevent this evil. Explain that, Plantinga.

Can't be. I think if you carefully trace the origins of Judaism, you have to distinguish among rabbinical judaism (mostly a product of the Pharisees), the post-exilic religion, and the religion of the prophets from Moses to the captivity that forms the backbone of the religion practiced by the Pharisees. Yahweh-worship proper goes back before Noah, and probably it's earliest formulation was with Noah.

Do I think Yahweh-worship was the first monotheistic religion? Yes, and apparently this was Abraham's faith by the time he met Melchizedek. By no means was this early religion restricted to Abraham and his descendants only. Abraham just happened to be the one whom God blessed and made certain promises to, and it seems to me the idea was to perpetuate formal Yahweh-worship by having a nation dedicated to that with an open invite to other peoples to join in.

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Monotheism

It looks like monotheists existed in Egypt and Persia before there were any Hebrews.

Anyway, the commandment "you shall have no other gods before me" at least admits of the existence of other gods. Moses doesn't claim that other gods don't exist--only that they mustn't come before Yahweh.

ET, if he exists, is a natural being who evolved elsewhere. God is magic and not natural.

ruveyn

That can't possibly be. Yahweh was the tribal god of the Israelites.

Versions of the Noah story/flood myth that predate the Bible do not mention Yahweh, but do mention the existence of multiple gods.

http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mes ... /tab11.htm

Well it may be old but it still works. I must have missed its refutation being published and accepted by the academic consensus.



You are assuming that a loving God would chose to punish someone for doing an evil they had no control over, massive question begging. Further, you are also assuming that God could not possibly have a reason for allowing evil. You need to understand the massive burden of proof attached to making the logical problem of evil.



See first point.



Natural evil does not create a necessary logical contradiction either. Further, the free will defense also applies to natural evil since, on Christian theism, the natural world was in perfect harmony before the fall of man. It is therefore logically possible that natural evil is a necessary part of our redemption.



Plantinga's argument was against human evil, not natural evil. The argument based on logical inconsistency from natural evil has been dead even longer. The statement God is good and there is evil does not mean that there is a logical contradiction, you are just assuming there is. When debating the logical problem of evil, my responses don't have to be realistic, or even plausible as long as I demonstrate a possible logical consistency, then the logical problem of evil fails. Describing a situation where a benevolent God and evil could be inconsistent simply does not cut it. To prove the logical problem of evil you have to prove that they are 'necessarily' inconsistent, in that, they could not possibly be consistent in any possible world.

From the internet encyclopedia of philosophy (http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-log/#H5);

Since the logical problem of evil claims that it is logically impossible for God and evil to co-exist, all that Plantinga (or any other theist) needs to do to combat this claim is to describe a possible situation in which God and evil co-exist. That situation doesn’t need to be actual or even realistic. Plantinga doesn’t need to have a single shred of evidence supporting the truth of his suggestion. All he needs to do is give a logically consistent description of a way that God and evil can co-exist. Plantinga claims God and evil could co-exist if God had a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil. He suggests that God’s morally sufficient reason might have something to do with humans being granted morally significant free will and with the greater goods this freedom makes possible. All that Plantinga needs to claim on behalf of (MSR1) and (MSR2) is that they are logically possible (that is, not contradictory).

What is the definition of morally sufficient reason?

You ought to know.

Me, I don't know anythinmg about magic and I know only a very small amount of what is natural. Either you are older than me by a few millennia or you used your time better. Call me Horatio.

Your name is 75 in binary? You have me curious.



I read it as meaning a reason that produces more overall good than harm. Of course, you immediately have the question of what constitutes good and evil in the first place. The New Testament never really addresses this; the Old has the much simpler view that Good is whatever God tells you, and Evil is doing whatever he deems wrong. Absolute morality is based upon the whims of the ultimate dictator, and questioning those whims is one of the Evil things. Problem solved!