The Essence Of Faith & Belief.

So you mean to say that new evidence could over turn your belief in your god? How is that having faith?

It is only half the available options because God has apparently chosen to calibrate the scale such that evil exists. Presumably he could have created a scale which includes far worse than evil (lets call it evil++) but he chose to limit our freedom to just evil. I am simply suggesting that he should have calibrated his scale so as to make evil unnecessary for freewill.We can only conclude that rather than just testing whether we will choose to be good or not God actually wants us to be able to be evil. It isn't logically necessary for freewill. So why does evil exist? This isn't affected by removing evil so that the worst humans could be capable of is indifference.

Quite so.I'm livid that I can't assault and cause permanent damage to someone's soul or make it so they can't get into heaven.*Shakes fist at sky* Damn you god, for making me this way!

Me too.I also can't turn into a dolphin.
This is because I lack that ability.
Does that also mean I lack some aspect of freewill?If No:
If I lacked the ability to commit evil then I would have just as much freewill as I currently have.If Yes:
Considering how many billions of things I am unable to do - being unable to commit evil would make very little difference to my freewill quota.

There is faith, but there is also honesty. When new evidence is presented it must be considered.

The essence of faith is desire. We do not have faith in things that we do not wish were so.

Had I never been taught anything at all about what the Bible said, and was simply introduced to God by way of definition... I wouldnt need or require certainty since the concept of personal relationship was never brought up.Now, I believe that a personal relationship is necessary even if difficult to obtain. Certainty is also important. Fosters Home For Imaginary FriendsWhy admit to such a belief as that my Deity is an imaginary friend? I simply must will Him to be real!Otherwise, I will have been taught to find the ultimate question rather than the ultimate answer.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

There is no evidence for God so no reason to believe in him.

I only want to point out that its entirely possible to know that something must be true yet still lack faith in it..
therefore 'faith' by itself is not always irrational or opposed to critical thinking.

Do we humans have the ability to judge the Judge? What defines what is capable?The Deity may well tell us that we are incapable of seeing the big picture and thus are wrong in judging Him.

Who appointed Him Judge?Edited by zombie ringo, : Spellllling.

And this gets us to one of the oldest sub topics in human history---leadership. Humans elect leaders. We also choose our presidents, congress, and senators. Often, the choices we make are far from perfect.Look at Vladimir Putin, for example. Look at George W.Bush. Ronald Reagan. Some criticize Obama. Thus...on a human level, choices are made by majority vote.In a sense, I would argue that the same applies in the Spirit realm. God initially was autocratic due to Him having created everything seen and unseen. He then allowed for the possibility of evil....some would argue that He is thus responsible...which is true in a sense in that He is the Creator yet is also untrue in the sense that He never directly made angels nor later humans choose Him and only Him. Lucifer chose to establish his own abode...take on his own free will...and the inevitable consequences followed. Is this unfair? Critics may defend Lucifer as being forced into a no-win situation. Either submit or be banished. Lucifer could well cry out that "who made God in charge!" Humans later were given the knowledge of choice....good and evil. Now, we can well cry out that there is no law making God in charge. And yes, being the Creator of all things seen and unseen does give you veto power---as an omnipotent Deity. But so what? You seem to want your cake and eat it too. You seem to want free will and abolishment of all omnipotence. You seem to want a level playing ground...much as satan may have wanted....that establishes no authority save our own. Why you reject the whole "might makes right" paradigm is beyond me. Perhaps you mistrust the Creator. Perhaps you want to vote the autocrat out of office and establish some sort of spiritual democracy. My response to that is that it is not the Deity that cannot be trusted. It is the people at large. Look at human history. Did God cause any wars? Did God kill six million Jews? Did God carry out genocide against native americans? No. Humans did. Humans are their own worst enemy. Thus...as to the question of who put God in charge? I would answer by saying that God put us in charge and we have failed miserably. Hence, some believe that Jesus will return to finalize the problem of free will. You can cast your dissenting vote when this happens.

Not at all. I stand for collective authority. To paraphrase Thomas Paine, the people are better off being governed by themselves instead of by some distant despot. I certainly distrust His self-proclaimed messengers. How many times do we have to go through this? The people who claim to be "in communion" with God are a bunch of yahoos that I wouldn't trust with my lawnmower, much less life-and-death decisions. His representatives did, in His name. Why should I believe them when they say He is good and Satan is evil? Not if your God is real. The question was: Who put God in charge of putting anybody in charge? Who put Him in charge of judging our failures?Lee Harvey Oswald was a self-appointed judge, jury and executioner too. It's not always a good idea.Edited by zombie ringo, : Spellig.

Why does this matter? I didn't mention a Judge, and this statement of fact doesn't require me to judge a Judge one way or another.
But, of course, you need to show that a Judge actually exists before you question what we're doing with one... Reality. Sure.
Or, the Deity may well agree with us and is proud that we've figured out the system and are attempting to fix it on our own.
Or, the Deity doesn't exist and musing about it is just a waste of time.

One thing I like about your posts,Stile...is that you always think critically and list multiple options...different ways to approach a given situation!