The idea that an all knowing God would anticipate the need for a Savior given a freewill universe only seem prudent.
“All knowing” and “freewill universe” are mutually exclusive. There’s no way around that. A being cannot be “all knowing” unless everything is pre-destined. If everything is pre-destined, one cannot have free will. It’s a simple as that.
Your very existence, if there is free will, would have to depend on an infinite number of free will decisions, all going just the right way, among all your ancestors dating back millions of years. Any one of them decides any one tiny thing differently, and you are not here right now. And thus any plan that some god would have for you would depend on a whole lot of luck to come to fruition.
For example, your father could have done any of a thousand different things differently the day he met your mother, or he could have used his “free will” and married someone else, or a different person could have used his “free will” and decided to drive drunk and run over your mother and kill her when she was a little girl, or your grandmother on your mother’s side could have used her “free will” and had an abortion instead of having your mother, or your great-great-grandfather could have used his “free will” and committed suicide or make a mistake in World War I and get himself killed before marrying your great-great-grandmother, or your parents could have used their “free will” and had sex on a different night during a different menstrual cycle as the night you were conceived (and “you” would have a completely different chromosomal make-up making “you” someone different) etc etc etc etc etc.
It simply doesnt work if you are trying to make some argument that there is an omniscient creator being in the sky and that we have “free will”.
And what the hell do you mean “prudent”? Why would such a god create his beings in such an imperfect way if he needed to “anticipate the need for a savior”?
When mom told you not to eat the cookie, did she tell you it would cause you to die? Mom telling you not to eat hemlock is probably a better comparison. The resulting death (hell) is a natural consequence not demonic torture. Evidently, there are natural/unavoidable consequences in Heaven.
I can't prove my kids love me. I can discern from their actions and words how they may feel about me. If they are consistent in their actions/words, I may come to accept as truth that they love me. This 'truth' cannot be proven by me or them. But, that doesn't negate the possibility that it is actually truth.
We got to stop with the whole parent-child analogies, they fail on so many levels. A parent (or at least a good one) doesnt stay completely hidden from his/her children and expect them to worship him/her!!
Anybody can put words on paper. Writing isn't the miracle. I don't worhship your pink bunny because I haven't read his book yet. Can you provide a link? Does he claim to love me? Is he willing to give his life for me?
Bolded by me. At what point did this invisible god-being “give his life for me”??? Near as I can tell, if you believe this story, he just took a trip down to earth for a few decades then went back to heaven. He doesnt have a “life” and never did.
Does he have a message that has been documented for thousands of years?
The bible, and how it came into being, is the most powerful argument
against the existence of a god that I can come up with.
The scriptures that became the bible represented the local religious beliefs of a group of people in the mid-east over 2 millennia ago. They werent significantly more far-fetched than the other tall-tales floating around different parts of the world around that time. There were many “documented” legends in various other parts of the world (e.g. the Iliad in Greece, Fengshen Yany in China, etc etc) Like all local legends, the ones who wrote it were the “chosen people” and their god or gods took care of them against other peoples during wars, etc.
Of course, mankind, even by idiotic creationist estimations, existed long long before the hebrew scriptures came into being. So you have to ask yourself what took him so long, if this was "his" word. Why all the other "words" prior to this? Unless of course this was just the local mythology of an ancient peoples and such a god never really existed.
These scriptures were then compiled by a committee in the 3rd century because an emperor wanted to unify his empire under a common religion. Think about that for a second. A
committee decided what words represented a holy truth and what words did not. How could you possibly think that is how an all-powerful creator being would get his word out to his creation!!! Why would this subset of his creation be necessary to determine what were and werent his words. Couldnt they have been wrong? Maybe the books that didnt make the cut were really his words and the truth! How the hell did these guys get it right? And why would it need to be a committee if they were being divinely inspired???
Why wouldnt the translations then be inspired? You would think if this were the word of a creator god he would want those of us who dont speak ancient hebrew to get his word too. Why are there dozens of different versions in english alone?
The fact the Bible is words on paper isn't that impressive. The fact those words have caused men to go to their death defending the story the words are telling is impressive.
Not impressive at all. Do you want me to put a list together of crazy beliefs people have given their life for? Do you believe there was a spaceship behind the Halle-Bopp comet? The members of Heaven’s Gate gave their lives in that belief. Do you believe that the 20 hijackers of 9/11 are in heaven with 70 virgins right now? Do you?
