And presuming he's not a metaphor based on a tribal deity that was vanquished by another tribe following the more popular god Yahweh (or alternatively, YHWH).
If God's only way of offering us free will is by allowing a being to 'tempt' us towards something that will result in us being tortured forever, then I must say... God's kind of inept. And an asshole.
Free will is the ability to choose. If Satan offers a choice and you silence him you don't remove free will, you just remove a choice. Removing Satan is not removing free will.
Yes Chi everything is relative but operating within the presumption that the garden of Enden myth is more than allegory and is at least partial truth then the, admittedly ham fisted, metaphor is no less relevant.
But they're #3 on my favorite list of victims to troll IRL. Right behind militant Atheists, who are a distant second to Republican Hill Staffers, and Cato/Heritage Foundation Interns.
Honestly the two of them were naked as jaybirds and presumably spending their time doing little other than rutting and naming animals, and really how do you interpret several days of copious bleeding from one's genitalia every month with a bronze age level of knowledge of biology and not come to the reasonable conclusion "wow, women must have done something to really piss god the fuck off at some point in the past."
I am a Christian, (Well, I believe in agod. Not christianity's the God. I just don't know the word for that) so to my belief, yes a God exists. Feel free to disagree, I will now explain why.
I think a god exists, because where else could something come from? I know the big bang theory and the chaos theory and the evolution theory, but even those had to come from somewhere. I'll start on big bang, it's a very small possibility, and even if it did happen, where did the big bang come from, what started it? And what created te big bangs starter? A deity would be a good explanation. Same with chaos and evolution, where did the chaos or original animal come from? Maybe you say it was just there, but both and scientifically and religiously that doesn't make sense to me. So I believ a deity/deities was where it started. For atheism, all I can say is I feel it is for the ignorant who want everything to revolve around them. Now start the hateful comments!
Self centered? As opposed to believing that I was created by an omnipotent being who made me because he loves me so huggy muggy much and that the creator of everything spends his time keeping a tally of the good and bad things I do so that he can put me in the firey time out torture chamber later on? I hardly think believing in my own relative unimportance on a cosmic scale is selfish.
A deity would perhaps be a good explanation and till there is proof to the contrary we cannot rule out the existence of one but we can with comfort disprove the Bible, Torah, and Quran's explanations for the formation of the earth and the creation of man. Does that disprove god? Absolutely not but it does bring the credibility of the veracity of the old testament.
That's ultimately an argument from ignorance. People were ostracised in the middle ages for stating that Earth wasn't the centre of the universe. Science doesn't happen to know everything, it's an ongoing process ~ a fact that many people seem to miss.
And atheists being self centered? What? I think Exodusv stated it best. Most atheists are content with the fact that yes, we are in fact not special. To say that we're ignorant for thinking that is itself a display of ignorance.
Btw, chaos theory didn't 'come' from something. To be most realistic it originated in a clever dude's mind, it's a theory and mathematical model, not a thing. For evolution, you're referring to abiogenesis ~ which is a field that is work in progress, much like M-Theory is a work in progress model of the beginnings of the universe.
To claim that we simply don't know the answers, therefore a deity is the best possible explanation is as I stated before: an argument from ignorance.
I must agree with the other responses to this. "I don't know how it happened therefore it must have been a god". It's not a very good argument, actually it isn't an argument at all.
Atheists want everything to revolve around them? Like the christians who still actually claim that Earth is the centre of the universe? Please.
A dog or an ape has the capacity for self interested choice but that doesn't make it free will.The ability to chose between action and inaction is part of free will but what differentiates choice and free will is the higher reasoning processes. It is the ability to make decisions that are at times contrary to both self interest or communal interest based upon the more abstract concepts of good and bad that define free will.
That seems to be your definition of free will. My definition is simply it is the ability to make a choice, yourself. It is not that everything you do is predetermined or destined but that every action you make you have decided upon. While moral choices, which concern themselves with the concepts of good and evil do fall under that, it also provides for more mundane decisions. Will I have tea with or without milk? A simple choice, hardly world changing but still my choice.
