Re: problem of evil - to clear things up

"Damien Stanton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> "thing" implies logically possible.   It's the "Can god create a rock he
> can't lift" problem:  easily resolved by saying that such a rock is a
> logical impossibility.  Asking whether God can do X is only a meaningful
> question when X denotes a logical possibility, otherwise it is just a
> nonsense question, like asking what I said 200 years ago, it doesn't make
> any sense.  If I ask, "Can God create a round square?", the answer is not
> "No" or "Yes", but rather, "That's a nonsense question, you're not making
> any sense."

I do not accept your redefinition of omnipotent. An omnipotent being
is not limited to what only you can imagine. Who are you to say what
an omnipotent God can and cannot do? But this is only a secondary
point. I do not believe my claim that he should be able to make
creatures of free will that all freely choose to live in accordance
with his will is a logical impossibility--that is, if we accept the
premise that free will is a logical possibility in the first place (I
don't believe free will is supported logically, but I'm accepting it
as true for the sake of argument).

Does God have free will? Can God do evil? (I believe it is clear he
can if the Bible is an authority on this subject, but I'm operating
from a common theist's interpretation.) If God has free will and is
incapable of evil (which would support that he is also not
omnipotent), then why couldn't he do the same for us? Is he unable to,
or does he just refuse to? I submit that if he is unable to, then he
is not omnipotent. Or perhaps he is capable of evil and acting in some
arbitrary way, in which case heaven may not be all it's cracked up to
be.

Nor does this address my other points, i.e. if he must allow the
punishment of those who do not worship him in such an incompassionate
and unforgiving way, why follow through with the creation of those
people? He knew they would turn from his light, did he not? If it is
his choice to damn rather than being unable to prevent it, then why?
Besides being morally objectionable to this heathen non-believer, he
also supposedly wants us to freely choose, does he not? How can a
choice made under such coercion of ultimate punishment be considered a
truly free choice? It is a choice made out of fear rather than love
and respect. Is this what God wanted? That does not seem to fall in
line with the spirit of the original intent. At least if the
punishment was limited one could argue it is there to help us learn
from our mistakes, but it is not limited.

Why not allow all of his creatures into heaven, or at least give them
the peace of oblivion? Whether it is he that damns or someone or
something else that damns, since he ought to be capable of preventing
it from happening he is tacitly approving of it. If I can stop
something effortlessly and I am suppose to be infinitely loving, I
should be expected to not allow one of the few things in this world
that I can honestly consider truely evil.

People that support this house of cards are blinded by their beliefs.
Most thinking, civlized people that do believe are at least obliged to
reinterpret the bible in a manner that one can at least imagine a
flimsy justification for.