god

I misinterpreted a biblical passage, than it is important for pro to properly interpret it for me: show me why it has been misinterpreted; don't just tell me I have done so. Just keep interpreting it until it stops contradicting itself, that's what Christians do. I would like to clarify a potential problem that can arise in this debate You really think that I'm so immature to devolve into name calling and pissing match with you? I'm insulted. My contention is that if this is true, than the action we ‘choose' has already been determined, thus our ‘free will' to decide is not free. For example, if god knows that I am going to debate David77, then my "decision" to do so has already been established and thus I didn't actively make a choice; I just followed what was destined to be. It appears from my interpretation of what you have said that you don't understand free will. Just b/c you know the future does not mean you control the future......it just means you know the future.....that's all. God can know what you will do w/o forcing you to do it. You still have free will. Your logic appears flawed to me. But to me, this is a post hoc rationalization to provide a reason for why a benevolent god would allow evil; So? Doesn't make it wrong. and this does not provide any evidence that god exists You claimed that god would stop evil, but since evil happens we can conclude that god doesn't exist. I was disagreeing, based on the rationale that it would hamper free will. if god we truly benevolent and omnipotent he would have the wherewithal and impetus to prevent malicious acts, especially on those who faithfully adhere to his commandments. I disagree. When you raise a child you don't protect your child from all injuries. You let the child get scraped on the knees a couple times to toughen him/her up. It's truly benevolent to allow pain rather than stopping it. But even more intriguing here is why god even wanted his creation to have free will, if his intention is for us to follow his commands. How would an answer to this question prove or disprove god? And I would be very grateful to my opponent if she would explain more about how god can be both interventional as seen in the parting of the red sea and non-interventional as see with giving humans ‘free will'. To me this contradiction is evidence that the god of the bible is merely a man-made idea, and thus doesn't exist outside of man's mind. If you interfered with free will then you have no free will. How many times do I need to say this? Free will is absolute. You can't give free will then stop all actions (or slow them) that you don't like, otherwise you can't call it free will. If a conscious creator does exists then why would he have established the reproductive system with such an obvious flaw? I remember an atheist providing me an similar argument. He said that engineers could make much better legs for zebras and have them run faster. The counterargument I presented to him is that lions would then starve to death. Nature is in balance. God can't make things perfect on earth, because then there would be no balance in nature. Flaws need to exist, for other animals to take advantage of the flaws so they could survive. Now I understand that this doesn't entirely (or directly) contradict your argument. However look at the principle, the evidence that things are not perfect is actually evidence that god has thought out things more than we did. If all births were flawless and perfect think about what other things in universe would be thrown off balance. The population would explode even more. In closing, I sincerely hope that this debate doesn't denigrate into a battle of emotional wills. Our subjective opinions are not a factor in this discussion nor should they be used to weigh the validity of the evidence presented. This debates hinges on the objectivity of facts and the logic used to support them. I'm offended that you are worried about this debate denigrating, that shows what you think about me and this debate. I may not use formal debate language (mostly b/c I never had been in a formal debate) but I can easily contain my emotions. For example I'm offended by what you say but I haven't yet insulted you back (not in a way that I know of consciously). Allow me pose you an informal augmentative point (I don't even know if this sentence is grammatically correct). What about faith? I'm sure that if you debated against Christians enough you've heard of that word "faith". How would you address that argument?