You are putting words on my fingertips because that is not what I said or implied. I said that God cannot "make" someone "freely" chose to do something. I even acknowledged in another post on this very thread that God hardened Pharaohs heart in order to carry out his judgement (amongst other reasons). On some occasions, God hardened Pharaohs heart. On other occasions, Pharaoh hardened his own heart. So this is a poor "i got cha" moment on a false implication on what was said.
No, what you said is this, "I am still trying to figure out how can someone "force" a person to believe something?" to which I replied, "God has magic. He can do anything." And then you said, "God cannot do what is logically impossible. He cant make married bachelors or draw squared circles."
So you suggested that forcing someone to believe something is logically impossible, you never said anything about freely. To reinforce this point, you have been saying that belief is a matter of choice, if God can control someones will and belief's can be chosen then God can force someone to believe something.
Back to the sting operation analogy. If a man has a preconceived mindset that the lady standing on the corner is a prostitue but she is really a undercover officer, is the lady lying??? Absolutely not. So you can drop this "God was lying" business, because I will keep bringing forth the prostituting analogy. You have no answer to this whatsoever.
I have told you several times that the analogy is not apt, you are comparing a preconceived mindset to a delusion, which makes no sense. You are suggesting that everyone is delusional by changing the definition of delusion from "altered perception of reality" to "preconceived mindset". God altered their perception of reality, he sent them a delusion. They saw and/or heard things that were not really there, in your analogy, the undercover officer that looked like a prostitute WAS REALLY THERE. That's the big difference.
No. Altering their perception of reality is for an undercover officer to literally entice the man in terms of sexual favors for money, and then arresting him when he take the bait. In other words, he think she is a prostitute based on what she is telling him.
What? No, that isn't an altered perception of reality, the man perceived reality just fine here, she was just lying and trying to trap him. Big difference.
Playing with their perception on reality is to do exactly what I said in the analogy, for her to just stand out the on the corner and walking back and forth and some guy with a mindset of picking up prostitutes think that she is a hooker without her saying anything. Two different concepts.
I don't think either of these propose an alternate perception of reality in any way, your analogies suggest that the man perceives reality just the same as everyone else, the only difference is that this man has a different mindset, he, like everyone else(bar the cops involved) thinks the woman is a prostitute, everybody that doesn't know about the operation(and can recognize a prostitute) is perceiving reality just the same they see a girl on the street that looks like a prostitute, this is reality, this is what is actually happening, nothing is altered or played with. What you are focusing in on is the man's mindset compared to the other peoples mindset. He wants to use a prostitute for sex, that's the only difference between him and everybody else in your analogy.
Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. "Not his perception of reality, his thoughts on his perception of reality." What? This is the SAME THING.
No it isn't, his reasoning and his thoughts based on what he is perceiving is different from what he is actually perceiving. What he is seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling and tasting is his perception of reality. His recognition of the woman being a prostitute is his reasoning, his thoughts that occur after he perceives reality. So, his thoughts on his perception of reality are different to his perception of reality, they occur after he perceives reality.
Intelligence is the ABILITY to THINK and LEARN. Its funny you talk about the birth process, because this is exactly why ID is more plausible. The reproductive process as a whole is very complex. A zygote is not considered intelligent, but the process in which a zygote is part of is very complex.... The same question applies to them as well, and the same problems lie with them. I asked this question on this forum before, and no one even came close to answering it.
And I'm not going to answer it here. I am simply going to press the issue of intelligence coming from non-intelligence. We see it all the time in the birth process. You clearly agree since you yourself said that a zygote is not considered intelligent yet intelligence is produced by it. Repeating that it is a part of a complex system doesn't answer the question or support your point.
This is not an option because in contemporary physics we have evidence that the universe is not infinite, but in fact finite. The question is not "if", the question is "how" and "why".
This form of the universe is finite, the composition of the universe is not limited in time, it didn't just get here at one point, from what we understand, it has always been here. Prior to the Big Bang, there was a singularity that contained the entirety of the universe. At what point did the universe get created? Scientifically speaking of course. The only real answer is, "I don't know." Nobody knows, the issue is largely speculative because there is no data to support any hypothesis.
Cmon now. Either God exist, or God doesnt exist. You choose to believe that God doesnt exist, for whatever reason. It is a choice. If you cant see how it is a choice, then I cant help you.
So we are just agreeing to disagree here? I noticed you stopped arguing and just repeated the original assertion. My point stands, belief structures of individuals that differ to those imposed on them by their community exist whether belief's are chosen or not. Right now, you have no more evidence suggesting they are chosen. I don't have much else to offer, I still maintain that everything that makes me me and everything that contributes to my belief's is not chosen and therefore my beliefs themselves are not chosen.
Death for sin is not a created system. The created system is the act of atonement. Death is a necessary act of judgement when you offend a holy God. It is a necessity. If you start off with false premises, your conclusion will end up false, as is evident here.
But death didn't even exist before God created anything. How can a punishment exist for a crime when neither the punishment or the crime can occur? God's act of creation resulted in the creation of the system where sin can occur and where sin is punished by death. It is the only logical conclusion, God created those systems.
Not a contradiction at all. Free will corresponds to the nature of a being..... God cannot freely choose to do something that is contrary to his nature. God doesnt have a sinful nature, so he does not have the capability to sin. Humans have sinful natures, so we do have the capability to sin. So far from a contradiction, just an error on your part in regards to what free will implies to specific beings.
Why did God create humans with sinful natures?
You are using your own subjective moral standard to critisize an opposing view. This is your opinion.
Moral standard? What? I said that it was flawed? That a system is in place and then that system was counteracted. This part of our debate has nothing to do with moral standards. It is my opinion, do you have some means to argue against it?
Those "real things" can be perceived differently by different people. So really, all of it is subjective.
Indeed, everything concerning humans belief's and opinions is subjective.
If by "absolute" you mean "objective", then I agree, they are non-existent, only i believe they are non-existent if we negate God.
Absolute means true of all places, times and people. Objective just means a system outside of subjective interpretation. A moral code written down somewhere is objective, humanism is an objective moral system, as is the Biblical moral code. Assuming the truth of the Bible, it suggests that it's moral code is both objective and absolute. Absolute means there is a distinct right and wrong, an absolute moral system (if one exists) means that what it states is absolutely true.
If there is no ultimate source of goodness, an entity with a perfect moral code of ethics, there is absolutely no one we could have a absolute right or wrong in any case. Right and wrong would depend on the person or the people..... So without God, to say that this kind of activity is wrong is just an opinion.
I honestly don't know whether there is an absolute moral code that exists and is true of all people, times and places, I have no idea. But I see no reason to restrict the concept to a God's existence, if it does exist, it may be a universal law similar to that of other universal laws like gravity.
