Whereas that is true, that everything leads unto another, it is a universally-held belief that we ourselves make our own decisions and have the power to choose between different options, so the idea of sin more-so relates to choosing options which oppose Christian values and beliefs, etc.

I understand where you're coming from for sure though, but that idea of people being able to act of their own accord is a belief held within the Christian framework (and also that God granted them this).

On the other hand, there is, in nature, no free-will to speak of really. The universe is much like a wound-clock and everything is, with some exception, predetermined. The decisions we "make" are influenced by so many other factors which were influences by so many other factors which all date back to the beginning of the existence of anything. So, determinism has a large role to play. Still, there still exists chance and randomness. There's something called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which to the better of my understanding, describes how particles act in unpredictable ways and have an element of randomness to them. It is these particles behaving in such a way that gives rise to possible pathways in our timeline. So, that's likely the closest possible thing we have to freewill: randomness.


It's a common problem actually.
I'll surmise it in a little syllogism.

P1: God is omnipotent.
P2: God is omniscient.
P3: God is omnibenevolent.

P4: God engineered the circumstances in which Adam and Eve would sin, knowing that they would sin and that humanity would be damned because of it.
P5: God has the ability to prevent these circumstances and create circumstances that promote the well-being of humans.
P6: God wants to create circumstances that promote the well-being of humans.

C1: God engineered the circumstances in which Adam and Eve would sin, knowing that they would sin and that humanity would be damned because of it. He had the ability to do otherwise. If premises 1 and 2 are true, premise 3 is false.
C2: God has the ability to prevent circumstances that damn humanity and create circumstances that promotes the well-being of humans. God wants to create circumstances that promote the well-being of humans. God has created circumstances that have damned humanity. If premises 1 and 3 are true, premise 2 is false.
C3: God wants to create circumstances that promote the well-being of humans. God engineered the circumstances in which Adam and Eve would sin, knowing that they would sin and that humanity would be damned because of it. God wanted to create different circumstances, but could not. If premises 2 and 3 are true, premise 1 is false.

It's not much of a syllogism, but that outlines the problem.
Anyway, that grants that God even exists, which there is still no conclusive proof for whatsoever.
The bible is riddled with fallacies and contradictions.

EDIT:


No, the problem of Adam and Eve has nothing to do with God's feelings toward free-will or anything of the sort.
The problem of Adam and Eve details that either God is responsible for their sin and doesn't care to change it (knowing it would happen and being able to do otherwise, thus not being omnibenevolent), that God is responsible for their sin and would've changed it had he known what would happen (thus not being omniscient), or that God knew it would happen and wanted to do differently but couldn't (thus not being omnipotent).

It describes that the defining characteristics of God are incompatible with reality or what is said to have occurred.
God cannot be all of those things if the story of Adam and Eve is to be taken as a realistic account of history.


People bother to have such complex arguments over God because it is something that plagues our modern world.
Religions seek to spread and control things such as our education.
There are religious groups that are petitioning to have creationism taught in schools as opposed to evolution.

This is one of the reasons people have such complex arguments over it.
Another is that it is highly invasive. Christianity and a number of other religions preach intolerance, violence, ignorance, mindless obedience, and all other sorts of things. It is things like these that some people often refuse to accept and buy into. Furthermore, Christianity (and other religions) offer a proposed answer to the life, our existence, and everything, which has been the center of much thought since the beginning of our conscious being. It is no wonder that people debate it so highly as for such a large question, a lot of people want to make sure they're correct in their beliefs. There are so many reasons that people have complex arguments over God. God and religion, not to mention, is also a very, very complex subject as well. It's more than an argument over where to go for dinner. Instead, it's an argument that involves multiple fields such as biology and other earth sciences, philosophy, history, and so forth. It makes claims about human nature, where we come from, how we should condone ourselves, and so forth. If something had that much of an impact over you, would you at least like to know that it was even the truth?

Even if God in Christianity is proven to exist as described in the bible, he is a malicious and tyrannical dictator. I don't know about anyone else, but I personally would not follow God if he were to exist because I do not support his methods or the actions he carries out, nor his values. As 'just' punishment, I'd be sent to burn and suffer the worst possible agony for all eternity.

There are so many, many things wrong with religion. Complex arguments are had because it seeks to invade, and there is much opposition.

My pastor will BS his way out. His logic has been twisted for 50+ years. he'd probably stick to his statement, "Why is it God's fault if they had free will?"

I told him that's stupid because he said he KNEW they would sin, so they were in a lose lose situation and that Adam and Eve's free will was irrelevant. I also told him it's like a programmer making a program, and knowing it will fail, blames the program. He told me, "So your comparing the Almighty God to a programmer?" He avoided the first objection completely. I'd even point out contradictions, but then he would ignore them and only address the ones which don't seem contradictory.

Just so you know, he has a Ph.D in theology, he is an anti-evolutionist because he believes that evolution states, "Nothing created something and that something made everything and randomly made intricate beings such as us." He believes all the shit Ray Comfort says, he believes circular reasoning isn't wrong. Think of him as Ray Comfort, but having a formal training. Stubborn, ignorant, and intolerant.

Yeah, it's things like that that irk me particularly much.
I wonder if they train you to work around proper logic.

This is probably going to be the only religious argument I make

First of all:
God gave man free will. That was true. But he only set up one rule, which was not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But when the first humans abused this free will that was given by God, God punished them.

Second of all:
Yes, God maybe saw that Adam and Eve were going to sin. So a long long time later, his way to save us from that sin, was to send His only son, Jesus Christ. So, don't say God didn't have the power to stop this. Jesus died for us. Jesus humbled himself and became human. He let himself die for all the sins that we have committed. And don't say that God had the power to stop Jesus from being killed. No. He chose for Jesus to be killed so he can take all our sins, and resurrect, conquering evil.

Lastly:
I don't think the bible was made because of an idea. If you've actually read a bible, you'd see many books in it. Most of these books were written from experience. Not an old legend or some news story that came out of nowhere. They were written out of experience, so I don't believe that the bible was written out of an idea.

Okay, there's my argument as a Catholic. You can either agree or disagree, do what you want with this information.

Well, I don't want to argue and cause any trouble, so I'll leave it at that


Anyway, anyone here play Clash of Clans?

Not me, but during class, my whole class plays whenever the teacher doesn't care if we play or not. (we use tablets in school now)

What's so fun about it anyway?
(and I heard there's a Castle Clash)

@Rapp: wow, I'm actually kinda impressed since you leave me speechless after your argumentation which fairly does not happen that often.
I really much enjoyed your logical argument which would be too long to quote now and the fact about the Heisenberg Uncertainity Principle is something left unconsidered by my side, thanks for the information.
Eventough I think that the idea of a person choosing between two options is more of an illusion since there are no neutral decisions in one's life, which is again determined by different actions and decisions happening around us all the time. But this does not contradict your point, fair played well sir ;)
I'm actually willing to say that you have proven me wrong about my ideas by this fantastic argument you created, which unfortunately leaves me unable to answer any further.

@JorreI: never argue with a religious person using logic, you will just feel bad in the end by their ignorance shown in discussions. I just read a nice quote about this whole topic:
"I am an opponent of religion. It teaches us to be satisfied about not understanding the world." - Richard Dawkins

and yes I am playing clash of clans, add me (MrCount) if this is possible

@Ranged: Don't get me wrong, I dont want to offend you in any way, but there is sort of a minor thing not fitting into your argumentation: the bible was written some hundred years after the death of Jesus Christ and was, during this time, told as tales from person to person. In my country we have a game called "Stille Post" which means something like "silent post" and is played by kids in Kindergarden. Everyone needs to be quite and someone sends a message to the person sitting next to him by whispering a word or a phrase into his ear. This word or phrase is given around from ear to ear and from person to person and in most cases something funny happens when it comes back to the person who sent it. If you imagine this being done over hundreds of years by thousands of people all over a continent, you can imagine how accurate the bible actually is. ;)

The points that I'd be inclined to raise would be that God knew what would happen and had put circumstances in motion which he knew would lead them to sinning. It's essentially like knowing someone will drive somewhere, but removing their breaks knowing they will drive and crash. Even if such a thing were really fixed later, it's unnecessary pain and evil that was caused. Albeit, my biggest fall-through is not having read the Bible fully-through. I can't easily debate you without doing more research. Most of my standpoints are based from philosophical analysis of Christianity and its claims rather than analysis of text, though I really ought to read it fully through when I have the chance.

The other point I'd be inclined to make is that the idea of God sending Jesus automatically puts us in debt without having first agreed to it. It is essentially blackmail. We're placed in this position where we're committed to something against our own will. The other thing regards what happened to Jesus. I wouldn't condone crucifixion by any means, but it automatically would commit me to that whole situation.

Anyhow, this is not a formal argument or anything by any means. This is an unstructured spewing of my standing on the issue. Perhaps I'll write something more formal later, but I'll leave it at that for now. I don't have the time to write something out quite yet.


I'm glad you've found it impressive and that it's taught you something new. Though it doesn't take into account the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the ideas I've presented are likely best presented in a video by Sam Harris.



Anyhow, I best be off to do some schoolwork. I have to cram so, so much.

Count, yes your right. There will be wrong words and such. But the essence is the same.

ANYWAY enough religious stuff...
Anyone getting/already got a PS4/Xbox One/Wii U yet

Mh, no consoles on my end.
I only use the computer really, and I'm quite removed from gaming.
The only game I really play is Toribash.

How about you?