I - an atheist - am morally better than the Christian God

[Ronson]

That's where the higher levels of education and higher levels of scientific knowledge come in. For all those reasons about 1000x more high-quality material has been produced in the last generation about theological questions than in all of previous history combined.

We also have doctors who can't spell (I see it often) and "atmospheric chemists" who believe the oceans are spraying us with raw sewage and covid. We may have more knowledge available today but less common sense and too much specialization.

False. In general the data points to IQ increasing right through the 20th century and perhaps plateauing in the first couple of decades of the 21st century. This is called the Flynn effect. This appears to be primarily due to an increase in the number of years spent in formal education on average, and a recent end to that increase. There is some diversity in the results of studies that focus on the very most recent decades (1990s or 2000s through to the present). I'm assuming your inaccurate claim of IQs dropping since the 70s comes from one of the most extreme data points among those studies and ignores the others, but I'm not aware of there being even one study suggesting a 1970s peak. If you'd said 1990s or 2000s rather than 1970s you might be able to defend that position somewhat.

I stand corrected, the study was regarding those born in 1975 and onward. But scores are still steadily dropping in most western countries.

https://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6674

You seem to be asking a question about word definitions. In general any word can be defined by any particular individual as a technical term, e.g. "For the purposes of this paper, I am using the word 'evil' to mean...", or they have some sort of semi-consensus meaning (which may change over time) among speakers of a particular language (or sub-culture) which the writers of dictionaries try and record.

In his other thread Whateverman gave his own technical definition of evil as "unnecessary suffering of conscious creatures", and followed it up with some examples of when he would/wouldn't title the suffering unnecessary. By his definition, and examples, it's pretty clear that evil as he defines it, exists.

In this thread, he said he was using the Christian definition.

Alternatively, we can grab one of the dictionary definitions of evil:
-"something which is harmful or undesirable." e.g. "the various social evils of our modern world"
Clearly there are things in the world that I would consider harmful or that I think are undesirable.

I'm confused that you seem to think this was some sort of gotcha. It's about as hard as "What's 1 plus 1? Checkmate atheists!"

Just because a word is hijacked and the definition altered isn't a victory for your side.

We had this argument at another site where Christians were claiming "atheist" means a belief there is no god(s). Atheists countered and argued it is only a lack of belief in god(s). As soon as the dust started to settle, another atheist would come in and say atheists believe there is no god(s). Semantics. Both sides win because they create their own conditions.

So if your definition of evil has a secular definition, that's fine. But to then apply that secular definition to how God operates with it in an historical spiritual definition is simply cheating.

[Sparko]

Here's why: I know how to rid the universe of evil without impacting the free will of its inhabitants. Even better, I will do this the instant I'm granted the ability to do so.

The Christian God already has this ability, and refuses to use it.

This makes me morally superior to him.

---

The problem of evil can be solved instantly in this way: prevent the birth of anyone who will freely choose to do evil.

Then there would be no one born. Great solution.

Did you ever consider that maybe having to live through a life of sin and seeing the horrors of it could be WHY we will willingly give up the ability to sin? Maybe our lives here are a necessary part of why we can live sinless in Heaven for eternity? Kinda like letting a child make some mistakes creates a wiser adult?

[Mountain Man]

The problem of evil can be solved instantly in this way: prevent the birth of anyone who will freely choose to do evil.

If man genuinely has freewill, then it is literally impossible for God to know what choices we will make prior to us making them. And, no, this does not place a limit on God's omniscience. Omniscience simply means to know everything that it is possible to know, so, for instance, God does not know the answer to "5 divided by 0", or what a square circle looks like. Similarly, if humans have genuine freewill, then God can not know what choices we will make prior to us making them. For him to create humans who he knows will only "choose" to do good would require him to limit or eliminate human freewill and turn humanity into a bunch of Stepford wives in which any good "choices" we make are as morally meaningless as programming your computer to say, "I love you." Which brings us to one of your other proposed solutions: simply don't create any beings at all, and then there can be no evil. But this also is contrary to God's desire to bring about a state of affairs in which there exists the greatest amount of good. In this case, it is a greater good to choose right when you have the power to do wrong than it is to have no choice at all, and in order for that to happen, evil has to be a real choice such that some beings are actually able to choose it.

[Sparko]

These threads of Whateverman seem really juvenile.

[Mountain Man]

These threads of Whateverman seem really juvenile.

They have the air of someone in high school or his first years of college who greatly overestimates his knowledge and ability to be clever.

[Christianbookworm]

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.
5
Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes. Proverbs 26:4-5

Or in modern terms, replace fool with internet trolls. Don't ask me how internet trolls have been around for thousands of years. For all I know, jerks like that annoyed people in the paleolithic era!

Well, if anyone really wants to learn, www.christianthinktank.com has some good articles. Don't read unless you rally want to learn. This is not intended to be an argument. Just some research. This is a list of the articles covering some common objections. Fundy atheists should not waste their time reading it.

http://christianthinktank.com/objedex.html

[Christianbookworm]

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.
5
Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes. Proverbs 26:4-5

Or in modern terms, replace fool with internet trolls. Don't ask me how internet trolls have been around for thousands of years. For all I know, jerks like that annoyed people in the paleolithic era!

Well, if anyone really wants to learn, www.christianthinktank.com has some good articles. Don't read unless you rally want to learn. This is not intended to be an argument. Just some research. This is a list of the articles covering some common objections. Fundy atheists should not waste their time reading it.

http://christianthinktank.com/objedex.html

[Cow Poke]

These threads of Whateverman seem really juvenile.

I have an explanation for that.

[37818]

If man genuinely has freewill, then it is literally impossible for God to know what choices we will make prior to us making them.

Only if God is not infinite.

[Mountain Man]

Only if God is not infinite.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that, but I suspect you're taking issue my using a temporal term like "before" when discussing the knowledge of a timeless being, and I will concede that there are certain limitations in the English language and our own understanding of time that sometimes results in imperfect descriptions.

[Christianbookworm]

It's like a choose your own adventure book. God knows what each page holds and knows what would have happened. If you made a different choice, He'd know you made that choice. Knowledge by itself doesn't effect free choice. Only if He told you what choice you will make. That might be confusing.

[JimL]

It's like a choose your own adventure book. God knows what each page holds and knows what would have happened. If you made a different choice, He'd know you made that choice. Knowledge by itself doesn't effect free choice. Only if He told you what choice you will make. That might be confusing.

Knowledge of the future does not determine the future, that much is true, but knowledge of the future is proof of the cause of that future and the cause is he who holds the knowledge. You can't change gods knowledge, therefore you can't determine your own future.

[Whateverman]

it's also a simple value judgment on your part that it is not a morally superior act to create a world with free willed, morally significant, creatures and allow them to freely choose their moral orientation, plus make a way for them to change from being morally corrupted to morally pure; mas compared to your solution, which is to make a world where any morally corrupted creatures are eliminated before they can be born.

Whether God's choice was morally superior to mine or not, He was willing to drown an entire planet full of people to achieve mine; He wasn't content with his own. That right there is a solid indication of which choice he preferred. And as we're taught, whatever God wants represents the greatest Good.

Creatures that never existed never had free will which could be interfered with.

I think you have misunderstood - the creatures whose free will is interfered with in your model are those who, once created, choose freely to have children - where those children themselves would choose evil. The potential parents. They try to have children, but some mysterious thing (Whatevermangod) prevents them from doing so.

That's very easy to dispense with. Instead of not allowing to be born those people who will chose evil, do the same for people who will bring evil into the world, directly or indirectly. That has the added benefit of not requiring God to be an abortionist.

[Whateverman]

Then there would be no one born.

That's your assumption, not mine. Do your argument a solid and go beyond merely asserting it, and then expecting us to agree.

[Whateverman]

These threads of Whateverman seem really juvenile.

This is a direct consequence of the prepubescent reasoning that makes up most of the discipline you think of as "Christian apologetics".

Elevate the quality of your ridiculous dismissals of logic and common sense, and you'll suddenly hear criticism that - again - has risen to your level.