I'm going to consolidate this a bit, because we're splitting things up too finely again. I don't see what correlation you're speaking of. 

This is the problem when you're positing an omnipotent and omniscient being. He had to deliberately create everything how he created it, knowing each and every detail of the result. He would know that I would come to type this post. 

Now, what if this post was going to de-convert Christians (wouldn't it be nice!), and god simply decided to remove my desire to write it, is that a violation of free will? I would end up not writing the post because I simply didn't feel like it, but it was god manipulating my desires. Is that a violation of the agreement? I was never actively controlled, but my desires were manipulated deliberately, because someone above wanted me to behave differently.

But here's the problem. God could have made the universe a bit different, where all things until now were identical, but now I noticed a bird on my balcony, and decided to feed the bird instead of writing this post. God would have to know what tiny variable he had to change during the moment of initial creation in order for that bird to be there. By doing that, he would have prevented me from writing this post. Is THAT a violation of free will? 

If it is, then how does an omnipotent/omniscient god provide us with free will, when he created everything specifically in order for us to behave how we have thus far, and make the decisions that we have thus far? He would know a way for me to not write this post, but he also had to know how to create the universe in order for me TO write this post as well. That means that god created the universe that eventually resulted in my typing this post, and he knew that it would happen. If that is a violation of free will, then there can be no free will under Christianity, because god decided what we were all going to do anyways, even though we're the ones who are choosing to do it. He knows how long that fire will burn, and how. He knows in what order the molecules will be subject to the chemical reaction of wood burning.

If god knows these things going in, then our free will is worthless.

If he doesn't, he's not all knowing. 

No. There is no confirmed prophecy in the bible. I can predict that someone this weekend will win the lottery, and I will be right every single weekend. Why? Because I have provided no specific information. There are lotteries all over the world, and even on a very statistically improbable week where, say nobody wins the Powerball, 6/49 or LottoMax in Canada, EuroMillions, or anything of the major ones, I can look up lotteries all over the world, and without a problem, find several where someone won the entire jackpot. Now, if I were to tell you that "on this weekend, a person living in this community, will win this lottery", then I have done something more impressive. The bible never delves into specifics. When you are this vague, you can call your prediction correct just about any time you want. It does not mean that it is prophecy. 

The bible does have some rational effective advice. I'm glad it said not to commit murder, or steal. However, I highly doubt I require a book to tell me that.

Now, the bible also does tell you that rape is ok as long as you marry your victim (and that also means that the victim must marry their attacker), and even specifically outlines how much you are to pay her father for his troubles. It tells you how to treat slaves, and how much beating them is too much. It tells you to feed your enemies poo (Ezekiel 4:12...this one is fun). You find this to be a better grasp on how to be successful? Just which things in the bible that are illegal, immoral, and barbaric would you be doing if the law or society didn't stop you? 

I'm curious... what were slaves in Biblical times?  it sounds to me as if your understanding is somewhat unfounded.  I just need a simple explanation

caposkia wrote:

In every attempt to disprove these ancient scripts that we follow I have seen the runaround, contradictions, blind assumptions, excuses and accusations based on a subjective ground.  With all that said, what reason do I have to question my faith at this point?  Do you have something new based on solid research and logical reasoning?  if so, please present it.

It depends on what particular subject you wish to have "solid research and logical reasoning."

Archaeology? The bible is not supported historically by modern research. I can look up evidence for specific claims. Seriously, there is so much to dispute here that I am not going to attempt listing them all.

Your internal feelings? Fine. You feel warm and fuzzy when you see a rainbow, beach, infant, whatever. So do I. And that proves what?

Morals? Dude, I am as disgustingly boring at this point in my life as the most puritanical christian. I have just had an anniversary so I have been married to the same man without either of us having sex with any other person for 28 years now. I can't drink more than the occasional glass of wine. Sometimes I cheat and have a beer with dinner instead of a glass of wine. I have never smoked anything. Not for any particularly noble reason, just can't stand the taste. Don't bother to gossip. Haven't murdered anyone. Don't steal. Etc. Shall I go on? God/s/dess is not required for morality.

Love, beauty, peace? I have all of those, thanks. Perfect earth? If I had evolved to live on Venus (strictly uninhabitable for earth-like life), I would think Venus was perfect. Earth is not really as perfect as most christians who make the claim it is.

The problem of evil. You likely don't want to get me started on that one.

Pick one, and I will discuss it with you. But there are too many reasons to not believe for me to just take off randomly. See 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God for some basic refutations of the most common arguments. I agree with all of Harrison's arguments, so we could start there. Shall I get my copy of the book and we can go through them one-by-one?

actually, I would be quite interested in that..  Let's.  If you feel it's necessary to bring this to a new thread I'm game as well.

God does have a different level of love than we have and it is widely accepted that we can never fully understand this love.   We accept that it is greater than we can imagine.

Gods behavior was reflected through Jesus.  If you're going to compare other choices God made, we'd have to discuss them individually and talk about what we know and moreso what we don't know.

Jesus is a blood sacrifice due to the Law.  That was the way to forgiveness.  God didn't have to send His son to die for us... He could have gone the way of Noah's time and said forget you all.

concerning your last question:  just look at people, look at yourself.  Consider all the choices you made in life... can you honestly say you're all good?  

Consider this.  Is a murderer evil?

RobbyPants wrote:

This is pretty much how every one of these debates ends. The theist saying that they don't know, but still believe anyway.

You're suggesting it's over??? so soon?

God chooses to be just and unchanging... that means he's not going to judge anyone differently than anyone else as harsh as that might seem. Again you're trying to blame God for a choice the parents of those children made.

RobbyPants wrote:

I imaging if I ask you why it's the best thing, the answer will be some form of "I don't know, but I still believe it".

I imagine if i ask you what the better alternative could be you might answer I don't know, or just how about saving the children and killing the rest or some sort of compromise that you posit would not have any adverse future results... yet you still don't believe and still don't really know the results of an alternative choice nor what life was like at that time.

I should ask you this... how would you expect me to know exactly why this one choice in history was the best choice? I understand that God has not proven to me that he makes bad choices and all His choices in history have only proven a better future for His followers, so why should I doubt that it wasn't the best choice?

RobbyPants wrote:

Again, more of you simply saying you don't know, but still believe regardless.

as are you apparently. except that the 2nd part of your answer is; "but I still don't believe regardless" If I'm wrong above and here then answer the question.

caposkia wrote:

I hope you can now see how speculatory this whole conversation has to be.  Neither of us can claim to know the crimes of those whom died in the flood.  Neither of us can claim to know the quality of life of any infant, child or adult in that time before the flood.  Neither of us can claim to know the outcome to this date of any alternative choice based on whatever reasoning we choose to have as to an objection to the choice made.  

I claim to know that many in the flood committed no crimes. For starters the infants and probably the vast majority of the kids and likely many of the adults. 

So you've said it now. If god were to create a universe where all is identical, but my will to write that post was not present, it would be a violation of my free will. However, since we live in a universe where I did write that post, it could only mean one thing if an omnipotent and omniscient creator is behind our universe: god created a universe where he knew that I would have the ability and will to write that post. These can both be violations of free will, or they can both be not (depending on how you interpret it). It's not possible for one to be a violation, and not the other.

I agree that knowing something means that you've changed the outcome.  But if you know absolutely everything (as you believe god does), and can do absolutely anything (as you believe god does), and created everything ever (as you believe god did), then it is impossible for anything that has ever happened in all the history of the universe to be not god's will. Hence all occurrences in history of torture, murder, rape, any deadly natural disaster, etc., would all by definition have to have been god's will.

 

To say that he was not capable of making a universe that lacked these terrible things would be to say that he's not all powerful. To say that he did have the ability, but he decided to do it differently....well that just makes him a dick. 

My main point here is: All powerful + All knowing + created everything = everything that has ever happened were a result of his "specifications" when creating everything. If you can demonstrate to me where this point is wrong, then go right ahead.

caposkia wrote:

The book says that's written in your heart.  The OT predicted the coming of Christ.. regardless if you believe or not most historians accept that a person named Jesus Christ existed.  

So people that commit violent crimes got missed by the omnipotent heart-engraver?

Wrong. Historians believe that a person named Jesus existed. The only mention I think that dubs him the Christ is the Testimonium Flavianum, which is considered by historians to be a later interpolation by Eusebius, for whom promoting Christianity was a motive. If there was enough actual evidence, why would he feel the need to doctor that passage?

 A slave is a person who is the property of another person. Ownership of other people is, and always was, and always will be wrong.

I'm curious why you skipped the part about rape victims being forced to marry their attackers. You are a person who views that book as moral perfection, yet it contains passages like that. Does that not bother you?

 

It is when the entirety of your debate relies on you shifting goal posts and running two separate, contradictory arguments.

These aren't the same thing. How is it okay for God to judge the parents (equally) and then to take the children as collateral damage. Clearly, the children aren't culpable, but they're being subjected to the same punishment. That is unequal judgment. Just because you personally declare that the children dying wasn't directly because of God's judgment doesn't make him responsible when he's the sole person (entity?) doling out said judgment.

So, are you saying that the reason to worship God is abject fear of being punished by a powerful, yet deeply flawed entity as opposed to love? Why would you love such an individual? How would you know you could trust such an individual? You're painting a good picture of the Old Testament god, but that's not the one most Christians believe in.

No, and here's where you keep missing the difference. You start by accepting something despite a lack of evidence. You accept it despite it making no sense. If it doesn't make sense, you say that that's okay, it doesn't need to, and you believe anyway.

I reject the notion that I need to accept this because of a lack of evidence. While I can't prove that it didn't happen, the fact that it doesn't make any sense makes it seem even more dubious. These are not even close to the same thing.
 

A killing is a killing. What I am trying to draw from you is an explanation of whether it was justified or not. Whether you want to view God as a judge or not, how is it possible that a judge can be justified in killing an innocent?

I claim to know that many in the flood committed no crimes. For starters the infants and probably the vast majority of the kids and likely many of the adults. 

If it disturbs you, why do you worship the being that killed them?

Not only could he have chosen to allow them to live, it was a positive action from him that intentionally led to their deaths. He decided to use the flood as a means of punishing those he judged. He could have used a number of means (he is omnipotent remember?)

Yet you claim to know that God is good and that God has OUR best interests at heart. I am not coming up with excuses, I am looking at what the Bible says God did and asking if they are consistent with your explanation of God's will. The clearly are not.

You are missing my intention. I am not going to try to convince you that God does not exist. Nor is the moral discussion an attempt to do so. I find it genuinely mind boggling that someone who appears to be a fairly decent person and I am pretty sure doesn't have a bunch of dead bodies in the basement can not only defend but worship a being that you believe exists and believe committed genocide on such a massive scale. I can't figure out how you rationalize it to yourself outside of simply refusing to think about it. 

The story on this particular point is not "vague". It is very clear that God killed every human on the planet that was not in the Ark. It is very clear that those humans consisted of people from all age groups and therefore, it is perfectly clear that at least some of them were innocent. If this story happened and the story is accurate, then God is evil. What confuses me is that you believe the story is true and accurate, yet you seem completely unwilling to even question whether the act was necessary.

Rather than asking yourself "Is this God a being I should devote my life to and worship" you start with the worship and are apparently willing to rationalize absolutely any act committed by this being regardless of how horrifying it is. Have you even considered that the God written about in the Bible might actually be the devil and has successfully lied to humanity? Have you ever considered the idea that God might not be good as a possibility? If you have considered those possibilities and discarded them, explain your reasoning. If you haven't, how can you blindly worship a being without thinking over the most basic questions?

 

Jabberwocky wrote:

So you've said it now. If god were to create a universe where all is identical, but my will to write that post was not present, it would be a violation of my free will. However, since we live in a universe where I did write that post, it could only mean one thing if an omnipotent and omniscient creator is behind our universe: god created a universe where he knew that I would have the ability and will to write that post. These can both be violations of free will, or they can both be not (depending on how you interpret it). It's not possible for one to be a violation, and not the other.

I agree that knowing something means that you've changed the outcome.  But if you know absolutely everything (as you believe god does), and can do absolutely anything (as you believe god does), and created everything ever (as you believe god did), then it is impossible for anything that has ever happened in all the history of the universe to be not god's will. Hence all occurrences in history of torture, murder, rape, any deadly natural disaster, etc., would all by definition have to have been god's will.

That's like saying the will of the creator of the internet was to monopolize the porn industry.  I doubt that's the case.  Consider the creator of the internet was omniscient, omnipotent etc.  He would be aware of all the bad that could happen with the creation... He could prevent it, but then that would also prevent many good things from happening due to the fact that pretty much all of the processes that enable porn on the computer are there to enable families to connect, businesses to expand, pictures to be edited and shared, etc.  Point and case; God created a universe with as far as we know any number of possibilities... within those possibilities were all good intentions, but good intentions can be manipulated into anything anyone wants them to be in a universe with free will.  

Just because you have the capability of creating in a specific way doesn't mean that's the best way to create it.  Consider an internet without video chat, social networking, pictures, online shopping, bill pay online and so on... not much of it is left is there to use.

Jabberwocky wrote:

 

To say that he was not capable of making a universe that lacked these terrible things would be to say that he's not all powerful. To say that he did have the ability, but he decided to do it differently....well that just makes him a dick. 

unless His intentions were good and we were the ones that manipulated those good intentions and made them into bad things... which would make us the dicks.  e.g. our hands capable of building and creating have been manipulated by us to also kill.  We have 1001 uses for our hands, but we still choose to kill with them and create weapons designed to kill many at once.  

Jabberwocky wrote:

My main point here is: All powerful + All knowing + created everything = everything that has ever happened were a result of his "specifications" when creating everything. If you can demonstrate to me where this point is wrong, then go right ahead.

I feel I just did, please do comment on that though

Jabberwocky wrote:

Wrong. Historians believe that a person named Jesus existed. The only mention I think that dubs him the Christ is the Testimonium Flavianum, which is considered by historians to be a later interpolation by Eusebius, for whom promoting Christianity was a motive. If there was enough actual evidence, why would he feel the need to doctor that passage?

Wrong, Historians believe that a person named Jesus who claimed to be the Christ existed..   Otherwise Historians believing that someone in history named Jesus existing is not unusual be it that even today there are many people throughout the world whom possess the name Jesus.

I don't know why someone would feel the need to doctor a passage

rape bothers me (period) 

Also, where in the Bible did it say rape victims must marry their attackers?  

yet when anyone who claimed I did that was challenged to show me how I have, they've failed miserably, but please humor me.

Children suffer the conseqences of their parents actions all the time. When a parent gets arrested today, the children suffer from it no matter how much you think they don't. You're just trying to blame God for it here...

That would not be the right way to look at it. The assult isn't in the plans from what we understand... rather God will use the assult and turn it into something good... namely the child the might come of it. If a child is conceived, we figure there's a plan for them in this world no matter how minor.

RobbyPants wrote:

These aren't the same thing. How is it okay for God to judge the parents (equally) and then to take the children as collateral damage. Clearly, the children aren't culpable, but they're being subjected to the same punishment. That is unequal judgment. Just because you personally declare that the children dying wasn't directly because of God's judgment doesn't make him responsible when he's the sole person (entity?) doling out said judgment.

Children suffer the conseqences of their parents actions all the time. When a parent gets arrested today, the children suffer from it no matter how much you think they don't. You're just trying to blame God for it here... You're assuming the parents couldn't take the threat seriously and safe their family... You're also assuming the parents couldn't give their children to Noah knowing their fate and accepting it. Point is, I believe there were many ways for the parents of those children to save their children even if they couldn't save themselves, but they chose not to. The process again was strait across.

You're also again forgetting that God intended to end life... which includes men, women, and children. He put events in motion which once He found there was still someone worthy of life He changed to a consequence for all those who don't accept God and change their ways. I see it as God knowing that these generations to come were not going to change and that if a parent had even a speck of faith could have handed their child to Noah and said to take care of them.

If God is bad in your eyes, so be it then. All those who take parents away from children are bad as well and so are those who institutionalize children because parents are unfit to take care of them. We've made it a sad sad world. No one wants to look in the mirror though.

RobbyPants wrote:

So, are you saying that the reason to worship God is abject fear of being punished by a powerful, yet deeply flawed entity as opposed to love? Why would you love such an individual? How would you know you could trust such an individual? You're painting a good picture of the Old Testament god, but that's not the one most Christians believe in.

The OT God is the NT God, the only difference is Jesus Christ, because God does love His people. All God has wanted throughout history is for people to admit they have severe issues without God. Whenever the human race has failed to do that, bad consequences happen and God is viewed as the bad guy by those who don't know Him. Typical throughout history.. so it's a good question. If God is so bad, why do people... so many people in the world follow this God?

How about in history? Why did people in history follow such a God when other gods who claimed to be just as powerful or maybe even more powerful offered much better things like riches and 500 virgins... or even your own planet to rule?

RobbyPants wrote:

No, and here's where you keep missing the difference. You start by accepting something despite a lack of evidence. You accept it despite it making no sense. If it doesn't make sense, you say that that's okay, it doesn't need to, and you believe anyway.

actually that reasoning is why I believe... becasue every non-believer seems to have lack of reasoning or evidence as to why they don't believe... only that they haven't seen reason for it. They seem to make very little sense or reasoning when coming up with why they hate my God if in fact they do.

If there was lack of evidence as you say, I wouldn't believe... but the evidence is not something I can present to you on paper unless it's statistics or common reoccurances of certain results.

RobbyPants wrote:

I reject the notion that I need to accept this because of a lack of evidence. While I can't prove that it didn't happen, the fact that it doesn't make any sense makes it seem even more dubious. These are not even close to the same thing.

I accept your rejection. I wouldn't accept it either then if I were you. Consider that nothing makes sense until it's understood.

the judgement was justified.. but was it justified for the parents to drag their children through the mud like that? I think that was cruel

the children were at their parents mercy.  It is understood that no adult had committed no crimes... this would include Noah most likely.

Beyond Saving wrote:

If it disturbs you, why do you worship the being that killed them?

I don't worship the parents.  

The being that passed the judgement on teh people created all of them in the first place, but put the responsibility of the young ones on the parents shoulders.

He chose to use the flood to destroy all life.  That was the intention, lets' not forget that.

 Once one was found upright, the flood was a lesson for those future generations because it really was too late for the rest.  

The parents I'm sure could have handed off their children to Noah, but there's nothing in scripture that says any tried.  Are you still sure it was God's fault they died?  Yes he's omnipotent and can do anything, that also means He can allow us to reflect on our ancestors bad choices.

Beyond Saving wrote:

You are missing my intention. I am not going to try to convince you that God does not exist. Nor is the moral discussion an attempt to do so. I find it genuinely mind boggling that someone who appears to be a fairly decent person and I am pretty sure doesn't have a bunch of dead bodies in the basement can not only defend but worship a being that you believe exists and believe committed genocide on such a massive scale. I can't figure out how you rationalize it to yourself outside of simply refusing to think about it. 

I'm thinking about it.  You fail to put the blame where it belongs.  don't judge the righteous judge who passes judgement according to the law, Judge those who break the law and choose to drag others down with them.

You seem unwilling to question whether it was just.  There had to have been innocents and so those innocent deaths had to have been teh judges fault because the parents had no responsibility in the matter.

I have considered all that.  I have also seen the works of God and the works of those who claim to follow this God and clearly aren't.  Consistency failed with every other following.  This one has been proven to me.  I have seen it with my own eyes.  

consider that the devil has successfully lied to humanity, but which part of humanity has been duped?

caposkia wrote:

yet when anyone who claimed I did that was challenged to show me how I have, they've failed miserably, but please humor me.

Sure. I'll lift a quote from your current response since it highlights it pretty well.




Here is you likening God's ability to handle the situation to a parent getting arrested by people. In this situation of a parent getting arrested, people are relatively powerless to prevent the suffering of the children. They might mitigate it, but they can't really stop it. If this is your analogy for why God let the kids drown, then I can only conclude that you honestly believe God's hands were somehow tied and there was nothing he could do.

caposkia wrote:

Children suffer the conseqences of their parents actions all the time. When a parent gets arrested today, the children suffer from it no matter how much you think they don't. You're just trying to blame God for it here...

Here you are stating that he's powerful enough to take something bad and turn it into something good.

caposkia wrote:

That would not be the right way to look at it. The assult isn't in the plans from what we understand... rather God will use the assult and turn it into something good... namely the child the might come of it. If a child is conceived, we figure there's a plan for them in this world no matter how minor.

This is that contradiction. You first make God weak to the point where the kids dying were something that had to happen, and then you say that he's powerful enough to try to turn bad things into good things. Is he, or is he not powerful enough to have saved all of the children during the flood? Could he have taken something bad (wicked adults) and turned it into something good (righteous children)? If he could have done that, then they drown simply because he wanted them to. If not, then he isn't powerful enough to turn bad into good in any meaningful sense.

The problem of comparing this to other events is that the other actors don't have the ability or discretion to pin-point the consequences. When a parent gets arrested, we don't have the ability to make everything perfect for the kid, yet the Bible posits a god that can pin-point kill just the first born males, if he so desired. He didn't do that here. He killed everyone when he (demonstrably) didn't have to.

I will admit, this does paint a really creepy image of God in my eyes. One I would genuflect to out of fear and not love.

No, they're painted quite differently. The OT version of God looks a lot like a Greek god: very fallible and relatively weak (unable to find people hiding in a garden, worried about stepping in human waste while walking about the camps, unable to defeat armies with sufficiently advanced technology) and prone to fits of violent rage and jealousy, while still far stronger than people; basically, a poorly adjusted bully. This doesn't stop people from singing his praises in the OT, but out of all the things he does, he is quite limited in his capabilities and quite cruel and capricious.

The god of the NT is painted as much more patient and loving, although, this is rather paradoxical, as Christianity added the concept of heaven and hell to Judaism, so instead of threats of death, it now gets ramped up to eternal torture. So, I guess he takes a more passive-aggressive stance as time goes on.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. That I can't hate the notion of something that I don't believe in, or that I must believe if I hate it.

What is your evidence? A "feeling" or the "knowledge" that God exists? If you can't point to anything concrete, then the only evidence you have is evidence of a feeling, not evidence of God. You simply attribute that feeling to God.

I'm not saying you don't believe, but I don't think you have anything that could be categorized as evidence in any meaningful sense.

There are an infinite number of things that don't make sense and probably aren't true. Why should I consider this to be any different?

their blood is on their parents hands, not Gods.  Again the parents (considering consistency in scripture) would have likely had a choice to repent at least for their children's sake and allow them to survive but they didn't.  

Has, present tense, think about it.  

Consider good for a moment.  Is it good to destroy bad?  Is it good to allow bad to flourish?  

For the last time, parents are responsible and had the choice.  If a parent gets in a shootout with the cops at their house and a cop happens to shoot one of their children, what you've been saying throughout this thread is that the cop is at fault...and has passed judgement on that child for the parents attempt to shoot cops.  It's just not logical thinking.  I get where you're coming from.  I get your issue, but you're looking at it from the wrong perspective.  

Yes, I know where you're going to go with this too, if the cop was Omnipotent/omniscient than shooting the child couldn't be a mistake and would have been intentional.  That's missing the point.   The point is, the childs parents in the analogy put the child in danger and ultimately are at fault for the child getting shot.  In the Biblical scenario, God has made ti clear that we are responsible for the little ones and does not change that responsibility because parents aren't smart enough to put the well being of their child ahead of their own ideals.

You can blame God till your fingers fall off, but in the end, it's still the parents responsibility.  It seems we likely will never agree on that.  I know you want to make my God out to be this terrible being that has no sympathy for mankind... or in your case, just children it seems, but that is completely contradictory to pretty much all of scripture and you're taking one scenario that we know almost nothing about to the ultimate extreme as if you have some inside information that the rest of us never got our hands on.  This is not unusual for non-believers to do, but if you're trying to convince me that God is bad from this one scenario, you just don't have enough evidence or informatino on the scenario to justify that understanding. 

Let's take it to the ultimate extreme for a moment.  Let's assume (because that's really all we've been doing the whole time) that there were no children... the people were so far gone that they've gone as far as to kill every child that has lived before the scenario of the flood occurs.  considering that this people was considered so sinful that God wanted to destroy them and never make humans again, it is logical to think such a thing could have happened in such a society.  If so, your whole case is gone.  What now?  Are you going to come back and assume that's not possible?  

First, hands tied or not in the analogy, kids suffer, their parents are not there... You could let the parents go free in hopes they'll take care of their kids, but parents like that typically don't anyway and likely after the ordeal of getting caught will offer less attention to their kids and focus more on not getting caught. (actual case) all efforts by others considered the kids still suffered.

In the case of God from the very beginning He has put the responsible of this Earth and our young in OUR hands. The parents had the responsibility for their children and the consequence also applied to their children by the parents choice. I've gone through the hypothetical scenarios that throughout scripture has shown to be possible yet they did not happen. If God is as you say, then not even Noah would have been saved and we would not be having this conversation now. Yes God made a choice He chose no matter how grim to leave the fate of the children in the hands of humans as He intended to from the beginning.

Good attempt though.

now for my alleged contradiction. He is powerful enough to have saved all the children from the flood. Could he have taken wicked adults and turned them into riteous children? Be it that He left the children in the care of the wicked adults, likely not without contradicting himself. Someone would have had to be righteous enough to care for the little ones that could not care for themselves. If that were the case, there would have been no reason for the flood to destroy all of humanity. The scenario ultimately defies the Law of non-contradiction. If someone was able to care for the children, then not all were wicked and such a flood would not be considered.

All in all, God wanted to destroy humanity due to their extensive sin... that part is quite clear and has been said many many times now.

I'm assuming you're not accepting failure here yet, so what accusation are you going to try?

RobbyPants wrote:

The problem of comparing this to other events is that the other actors don't have the ability or discretion to pin-point the consequences. When a parent gets arrested, we don't have the ability to make everything perfect for the kid, yet the Bible posits a god that can pin-point kill just the first born males, if he so desired. He didn't do that here. He killed everyone when he (demonstrably) didn't have to.

The problem of comparing this to other events is there are no other events quite like this one. My ultimate point is, was and will be that God is putting complete responsibility of the children on the parents. Same as today. Nothing has changed.

RobbyPants wrote:

I will admit, this does paint a really creepy image of God in my eyes. One I would genuflect to out of fear and not love.

Which is why God has promised never to do such a thing again. All things considered, He likely was executing the Jesus plan when He said that. Ultimately destroying every time humanity turns completely wicked makes no sense becasue as in the case of Noah, there's always going to be someone or many someones who don't deserve to be a part of that consequence and it will also be a reoccuring event every so many generations.

God is one to fear, but also to love for the promises He has for all of us who come to Him through Jesus Christ and because of Jesus Christ.

RobbyPants wrote:

No, they're painted quite differently. The OT version of God looks a lot like a Greek god: very fallible and relatively weak (unable to find people hiding in a garden, worried about stepping in human waste while walking about the camps, unable to defeat armies with sufficiently advanced technology) and prone to fits of violent rage and jealousy, while still far stronger than people; basically, a poorly adjusted bully. This doesn't stop people from singing his praises in the OT, but out of all the things he does, he is quite limited in his capabilities and quite cruel and capricious.

That's a very shortsighted view of the OT. Considering not being able to find people in the garden for example. Do you really think He didn't know where they were or do you think He just knew they were hiding and playing along. Consider that whenever God came into the garden, they always came to Him except this one time and He knew why. Parents do this all the time when kids did something wrong and they knew not only exactly what it was, but where they are hiding. You're allowing the child to make the choice to fess up

RobbyPants wrote:

I'm not sure what you're saying here. That I can't hate the notion of something that I don't believe in, or that I must believe if I hate it.

I was referencing to non-believers in general and not specifically you, but considering you or anyone for that matter, you cannot hate something you don't believe in and if you do hate it, there must be some aspect of it that is real to you..

RobbyPants wrote:

What is your evidence? A "feeling" or the "knowledge" that God exists? If you can't point to anything concrete, then the only evidence you have is evidence of a feeling, not evidence of God. You simply attribute that feeling to God.

I'm not saying you don't believe, but I don't think you have anything that could be categorized as evidence in any meaningful sense.

from what you're considering, i've used history and science which has evidences including archaeology and specifically Quantum physics, but beyond that, the concrete evidences that can be shared over a forum are quite limited, not that they don't exist, but rather it's more self-evident if you're searching

RobbyPants wrote:

There are an infinite number of things that don't make sense and probably aren't true. Why should I consider this to be any different?

Because smart people who have studied it for years, including those who sought out to disprove it believe in it. It has also stood the test of time and generations of attempts to discredit it without avail. (you don't think you're the first generation to question it do you?) Biblical miracles have been documented and witnessed throughout the generations, Prophesies have come to pass and are coming to pass as described in the Bible, many attest to it... and so on.

At the very least it is on both of their hands. Whatever the parents did, God was ultimately the one who purposely killed the children. 

It is not good to destroy bad if by doing so you kill innocents. If the choice is to allow bad to flourish or to drown innocents in mass, it is much better to allow the bad to continue. 

Yet if a cop shoots a child and we determine that the cop could have avoided shooting the child we sometimes punish the cop, even in a high stress situation of a shootout. Yes, the parents bear some responsibility for whatever actions they do that brings the situation, but that does not absolve cops, judges or anyone else responsibility if their actions result in harm to an innocent. You keep trying to phrase it as either/or and it isn't an either or thing. That God is the actor in the situation who has the most power and knowledge to control exactly what happens just makes it especially ironic that you put all the blame on ignorant humans. It would be like blaming a child for playing with a gun and killing someone while absolving the parent of blame for allowing the kid to play with the gun.

As for your hypothetical, what would be the point of God drowning them then? If all the kids were dead, the society would not have continued. All he had to do was wait for 30-40 years, an eye blink for god, and every human in the world would have been dead and all the innocent animals still alive. So you simply have the senseless slaughter of animals because of a little impatience.

You cannot escape the reality that given an omnipotent god and the story of the Ark being real, God intentionally decided to kill children. So either you have to accept that killing children was ok in that situation and support the action, or you have to believe God did something bad. Trying to pass the blame onto others doesn't work and is completely nonsensical when you are assuming the being in question is omnipotent. 

When a person takes a deliberate action to kill a person, you hold that person accountable for their actions.

When a part of a car has a mechanical failure that is the normal result of wear and tear, you don't blame a person for it (we'll assume this isn't an "act of God" ).
When God decides to flood the entire planet for the explicit purpose of killing all people, I honestly don't know why we wouldn't hold him accountable for it.

Now, you can try to take my first point (killing another) and turn it into something like self defense and say it's justified, and then use that analogy to justify God flooding the world (it was justified!). That approach would not work, however; God is in full control of the situation and is not forced to flood the world for any reason other than his own desire to drown nearly the entire human population.

Good attempt, though.

caposkia wrote:

now for my alleged contradiction. He is powerful enough to have saved all the children from the flood. Could he have taken wicked adults and turned them into riteous children? Be it that He left the children in the care of the wicked adults, likely not without contradicting himself. Someone would have had to be righteous enough to care for the little ones that could not care for themselves. If that were the case, there would have been no reason for the flood to destroy all of humanity. The scenario ultimately defies the Law of non-contradiction. If someone was able to care for the children, then not all were wicked and such a flood would not be considered.

Simple: God could use magic to take care of the kids. He already clearly did so to:
1- make everything fit on the ark.
2- feed everything on the ark.
3- keep the freshwater and salt water fish alive in the same water.
4- clear the water away.
5- feed the herbivores for quite some time (all of the terrestrial plants would have been long dead).
6- feed the carnivores (you need about a 30:1 ratio of herbivores to carnivores to sustain the population, and the animals were only brought on the ark in pairs, not 60 deer and 2 wolves).
7- protect fragile geological structures that should have toppled.
8- reorganize the sediment layers to remove evidence of the flood.

If you accept that a global flood happened 5,000 years ago and the Bible's record of events is accurate, then all of the above points would have needed to be addressed. So, it's certainly possible that there's a cosmic being out there that could have handled all eight of those points, he also could have addressed those children.

I'll chalk this up under either depraved indifference or outright malice.

caposkia wrote:

All in all, God wanted to destroy humanity due to their extensive sin... that part is quite clear and has been said many many times now.

Destroy, as opposed to deal with it in any other way that he wanted. He's pretty powerful, supposedly.

caposkia wrote:

I'm assuming you're not accepting failure here yet, so what accusation are you going to try?

Wow.

The problem of comparing this to other events is there are no other events quite like this one. My ultimate point is, was and will be that God is putting complete responsibility of the children on the parents. Same as today. Nothing has changed.

Just for the record, I'm keeping this friendly.  I don't mean any of this to be agressive or forceful.  I just get sarcastic.  I apologize.  I did write that because it seems to be the trend for you at this point.  I'm thinking no matter what i say, you're going to accuse me of something and not admit that you might have been jumping to conclusions anwhere.

well, I will reiterate the origin of this conversation... the same thing I've been saying the whole time, but I'll take your words to describe it here:  Gods own desire was to "drown nearly the entire human population" but why?  The question I thought wasn't whether he meant to do it, rather was it a moral action or a murder spree.

Couldn't the immorality of people that prompted God to take such drastic actions be viewed the same as wear and tear on a car?  Think about it, 2 perfect people were born, over time, things started to go wrong, just like with any car.. eventually the car gets so beat up due to lack of preventative maintenance that it costs less to junk it than to repair it.  Why are we trying to blame God for the progessive corruption of man?

6 1 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with[a] humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Consider this, if the childrens parents, and their parents, and so on were completely moral and responsible, do you really think these kids would have had a problem?

now who's living in a fantasy world?  Non-believers try to toke God's work up to "magic", but if you consider what God did, God used logics, math, and natural occurances typically in all his work, it really came down to timing and accuracy.   If it was magic, do you think God would really have had to give Noah measurements for the ark, or could He have just said;  build an ark, however you like, I"ll make it work.  

1- make everything fit on the ark.
2- feed everything on the ark.
3- keep the freshwater and salt water fish alive in the same water.
4- clear the water away.
5- feed the herbivores for quite some time (all of the terrestrial plants would have been long dead).
6- feed the carnivores (you need about a 30:1 ratio of herbivores to carnivores to sustain the population, and the animals were only brought on the ark in pairs, not 60 deer and 2 wolves).
7- protect fragile geological structures that should have toppled.
8- reorganize the sediment layers to remove evidence of the flood.

..and I do not accept that it happened only 5000 years ago.  I believe that there is evidence of a severe flood 5000 years ago that yeilds to the possibility of a flood to the magnitude of what the Bible describes, but, very likely much longer ago than that.  

Also, why would God want to erase evidence of the flood?  If that was the case, just make sure it was never written about and thus no one would be looking for such an occurance.  Sounds to me as if God wants us to know about it.  

you're trying to look at it as if God grabbed each child and personally killed them.  God made a grand event happen.  I'm thinking parents had a choice in the matter.  They could have possibly handed their child to Noah and said; "take care of them" but they didn't.  Can't blame God for that.  I know.. you'll still try.

What a concept... and consider you made that choice... and the bad ultimately over time killed the same amount of innocent people that would have been killed to stop it?  What then?  Which would have been a better choice?  You have to rationalize here... to let bad flourish does put the innocent in danger... otherwise it wouldn't be bad.  

It really is an either or thing here though.  God has made it clear that we are responsible for our own.  If God is going to do some grand event that coudl put our own in danger, He has always scripturally from what we can see given clear warnings of doing so and a means for safety.  It is then left in our hands to make the appropriate choice.  I mean you can let your child walk on the tracks, then blame the train operator when the child gets struck, but why would you let your child walk on the tracks in the first place?  

or could it be that more children soon to be could be hurt before that happened and he prevented that?  Just because all children had been killed up to that point doesn't mean that no more children would be born in the next 30-40 years.  They might be born just for the sacrifice to whatever god they followed at the time.  Is it really worth putting more children in danger just so that the humans can wipe themselves out?  

caposkia wrote:

Wars and rumors of wars.  This wasn't just talking about every once in a while, but constant.  That wasn't happening until the last century.   

I'm sorry to derail here, but I can't let this slide without comment. Wars have been constant since before biblical times. You would struggle to find a day where there wasn't a war happening somewhere in the world. Despite having better technology for killing people, our wars today are significantly smaller. The only modern war that competes as far as per capita deaths is WWII. The world is not becoming more violent, it is becoming less violent both in terms of wars between nations and in terms of violence experienced on an individual level (such as murders). War has never been something that happens "every once in a while", for thousands of years peace has been the exception. 

Just looking at the wars Rome was involved in, war was constant when the bible was written.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_history_of_the_Roman_military

And that is just where Rome was involved. Warfare was also occurring in other parts of the world. 

RobbyPants wrote:

Personally, I’d say murder spree, because he had other options, and this was the one he took. I can get into that more…

I figured that'd be your approach... and from what i understand, to justify that perspective would be to suggest that we have the ability to know other alternatives and the outcomes of each... which no human can claim.

RobbyPants wrote:

I guess I think it would be more moral for God to step in and take the car to a mechanic earlier on, rather than letting it get to the point of totaling it. I think you and I are making different assumptions about whether or not it’s the God’s responsibility or the wicked people’s responsibility to pay attention to their car.

That was my point... God had tried to fix it many times... you see it within Adam and Eve after the fall, their children and so on... granted a lot of details are left out between then and the time in question, but there's nothing there to leave us assuming that God stopped trying to fix humanity up to this point.

RobbyPants wrote:

Sure, it’s possible that God was in there intervening somehow, but the Bible doesn’t say that, and it’s just a baseless assumption.

It would be implied by the points from Adam and Eve on where it indicated He had intervened.

Let's assume those points weren't there though... both our views then would be baseless assumptions and thus we could not conclude on the morality of God based on this incident.

RobbyPants wrote:

I would have rather God taken a more active role in preventing this whole mess. He was certainly powerful enough to do so. He did this out of neglect or malice.

based on what exactly?

RobbyPants wrote:

caposkia wrote:

Consider this, if the childrens parents, and their parents, and so on were completely moral and responsible, do you really think these kids would have had a problem?

Now, part of this gets into my next point (that God would have had to intervene after the fact for the world as we know it to come about from the ark*); if God had to intervene to keep all of the carnivores fed and to preserve (or restore?) fragile geological structures, why couldn’t he have intervened for the children? Lets assume the parents were irredeemably wicked (this makes no sense to me, but I’ll roll with it for this purpose), why couldn’t Noah have put all he children on the ark along with the pairs of animals?

without the parents consent, that would be kidnapping.

I believe the flood was localized to the part of Earth that was populated at the time. I don't believe it was literally the whole sphere of the Earth, but from a human perspective, anyone that survived would have seen the whole world flood. I also believe that it was all local animals and they likely flocked to the arc because when waters start rising, animals seek higher ground... the Arc was likely built on a higher point. Not necessarily a high point. Understanding that humans originated from a specific location, it would make sense that animals would originate in a similar area. Thus all animals could have still been wiped out due to this localized flood.

The water creatures died because ocean water mixed with fresh water and would kill all animals that couldn't survive in the opposing water conditions. What of the ones that can survive in both? I don't know the answer to that one.

RobbyPants wrote:

2- feed everything on the ark.

everything on the ark survived

RobbyPants wrote:

4- clear the water away.

I dont' remember teh context of this one

RobbyPants wrote:

5- feed the herbivores for quite some time (all of the terrestrial plants would have been long dead).

it's logical that he would have grabbed food for them... either that or they were all sustained in hybernation of some sort.

RobbyPants wrote:

6- feed the carnivores (you need about a 30:1 ratio of herbivores to carnivores to sustain the population, and the animals were only brought on the ark in pairs, not 60 deer and 2 wolves).

I again would assume a hybernation of some sort for these animals. Animals are known to live up to a few years depending on the animal in hybernation mode... they just needed to last 40 days and 40 nights.

right, but it talks about hearing of them... only nations involved in wars before the 19th century were aware of the wars, now adays we hear of all of them.  I never claimed the world is more violent now, just more connected, so no goalpost excuses on this one either... though more nations are typically involved in individual wars, vs. long ago

The Bible acknowledges constant wars at the time, in fact it says that Israel won't be at peace until the end.    That has proven to be true

Where in the definition of omniscience does it say you can predict the future?  Which btw, The Bible does make clear that God can determine certain futures and thus make them happen if He so chooses despite what happens in between.    

For what you just said above, God is fully aware of the result of everything "HE" does.  I believe God created everyone knowing full well the full possibilities in either direction.  I think the difficulty is knowing once given a choice which direction each individual will ultimately take considering every circumstance that could change the intended outcome.  

Let's discuss the definition of omniscience for a moment.  A few different places including Wiki define it as; "knowing everything that can be known"  which then brings up the question, can the future be known?  How do we determine if it can or cannot?