Christ said:
Wow, King Solomon, I'm beginning to see why so many people on JWN don't like you. You don't have a very kind way of speaking, do you? It seems like you get off on tearing people down and trying to come off as a bully.
Dude, get over yourself: just because you picked a loving and concerned Christ avatar doesn't make you Christ, or magically protect you from criticism when you say stoopid (sic) stuff. So put on your big-boy pants, or stay out of discussions if you don't have thick-enough skin to have your sacred and beloved beliefs questioned.
"Goodness gone corrupt"? You deep-thinker, you! Next you'll say that evil is the opposite of good? No spit.
What I meant by goodness gone corrupt is that evil existing doesn't necessarily mean that God created evil. Things breakdown and degrade. Rust is an example. I'm sorry if this was too symplistic for you. Many of the points I brought out seem to be too simple for you, and that's fine. Just ignore them.
You DO understand the difference between matter made of atoms, and ideas?
All matter in the Universe is subject to the laws of entropy (AKA degradation, where rust is a slower version of a fire burning, AKA oxidation). But ideas exist in brains, biological matter which is self-repairing. Ideas can be written down, where 1 + 1 = 2, now just as it did when arithmatic was developed by the Sumerians.
There is no reason that a perfect God would allow human brains to have the capacity for evil (eg medications are used to regulate the impulse control centers of the brain's frontal lobes that modulates the ability for humans to engage in "evil" acts). You can say this results from degradation as a result of Adamic sin, but then how did a perfect Adam sin, in their perfect state? Not so perfect, then?
WHO made Adam and Eve lacking in wisdom (the antonym is 'foolish', so God made them as fools), such that they desirous of wisdom to the point of foolishly and implusively disobeying YHWH?
I've written posts/threads on the topic before, so search for "diminished capacity" or "sociopath", and you can find posts written on how the Bible's description is consistent with the first couple being created as amoral sociopaths, hardly "perfect".
But none of that matters, from the standpoint that evil apparently existed BEFORE YHWH made man: Satan had fallen before man's creation, right? So why continue with the production of man and animals if the Divine Plan was already off-track? What happened to God's self-inspection skills, saying "it was good" at every step?
BTW, God doesn't give man the permission to exercise "free will" when it comes to sinning: "free will" only applies to conscience matters.
Sure he does. He tells you what the outcome will be regarding sinning, but you can keep on going. You may have to live with consequences, but you are still free to sin. Try and understand the words "free will" first, ok? It's different than having no consequences.
Sorry, but God does NOT give permission to disobey his laws. Any action contrary to YHWH's Divine Will is considered a sin. With sin comes wages of sin, death, punishment, etc. Punishment is inescapable, as God renders PERFECT justice, per the Bible.
There is NOTHING "free" in that situation, and the definition of free will is pretty basic, easy-to-understand:
free will
n. 1. The ability or discretion to choose; free choice: e.g. "chose to remain behind of my own free will." 2. The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will. The decision to engage in any action while under threat of punishment for it cannot be characterized as a "free will" choice: the choice is heavily biased towards compliance by the threat of punishment. Hence why I said that the only choices where man is allowed to exercise free will are those situations where God's Divine Will is mute on the subject. In JW eschatology, this would be situations where the JW uses their "Bible-trained" conscience after confirming that God is mute on the subject.
Shocking that you wouldn't know that: didn't you serve at Bethel? Not surprisingly, I guess: I've even heard many a JW elder say, "God didn't want to make Adam and Eve as robots, where they HAD to obey him, like robots." Nope, that's exactly what God SHOULD have done, since YHWH demands perfect compliance with His laws, where one bad choice meant death, suffering for all mankind. That's asking alot for humans that were made as fools, and YHWH should hardly be surprised that he made fools, and they made foolish choices (as fools are want to do).
That's called "appeal from ignorance", saying we don't know, but we should still believe in the unknown?
Sigh...again, you misunderstand. (Seems to be a theme). I didn't appeal to ignorance. I said there were things that I do not yet understand. I can believe in something that I don't FULLY understand. I don't fully understand how gravity works, but I see enough evidence to believe in it. I'm sorry if that example too is too simple for you. I was merely saying that there are some things that can't be commented on because full knowledge of it isn't readily available. That's a good thing. It pushes us to explore and investigate. Not to stay ignorant.
Sorry, but it was an appeal to ignorance:
An appeal to ignorance is an argument for or against a proposition on the basis of a lack of evidence against or for it. If there is positive evidence for the conclusion, then of course we have other reasons for accepting it, but a lack of evidence by itself is no evidence.
You also said that although you personally do not understand the topic, you assume that there IS more to understand on the topic, which is an ASSUMPTION: if you don't understand it, why would you assume there IS more to know about it? Maybe there's no "there there", and hence why rational people do not accept ideas for which no compelling evidence exists.
for which there is no evidence?
You are the one saying there is no evidence. Gee...talk about logical fallacy. You saying there is no evidence does not mean there is no evidence. There are plenty of eyewitness accounts and other pieces of scientific evidence (whether you believe them or not) that show that there is a supernatural realm. You'll find plenty of people (scientists included, whether you believe them or not) that believe there is sufficient evidence.
"Eyewitness accounts"? Like they exist for Bigfoot?
Lay your scientific claims on us, PLEASE, showing the existence of a "supernatural realm". You'd find an interesting audience here, and James Randi is offering $1 mil to anyone who can present such that withstands scientific scrutiny. Your last comment was an appeal to authority, where the majority of scientists don't believe (and some believe IN SPITE of the lack of evidence, for their own reasons).
Rereading your past posts over the past while, I think you were and are just looking an opportunity to insult someone. I saw you do the same with Cedars and others on the site. It must be sad and lonely to have those feelings for others and have so much fake pride in yourself that you can't help but try to insult others to make yourself feel better.
Thanks for concern, but from the logic you displayed in your posts, you probably should be concerned with your own lack of critical-thinking skills, and not mine (replace 'rafters' with 'fallacious reasoning', and you should grasp the idea). I'm here on a mission of mercy, helping others to improve their critical use of logic.
You have my pity, KS.
Whoops, there it is! Can't miss the condescending words a Xian uses to say, "screw you, and may you burn in Hell". You earned minus points with that one around here, LOL!
Oh, and this:
Recovery said:
We cannot just look at the Bible and say well, this is talking about the Israelites, not us. This is talking about eating animal blood only, and should not be applied to ingesting blood for nutrition via blood transfusion.
That's a great example of why you don't want the ilk of Recovery cluttering up your decision-making process, when making major medical decisions for your family: blood transfusions have NOTHING to do with nutrition.
