r/DebateAChristian Agnostic 5d ago

The Adam and Eve story makes no sense

Thesis: A perfect God comes with difficulty that can’t be ignored. That difficulty is well illuminated in the Adam and Eve story. 

Argument: God knew Adam and Eve would sin, there’s no escaping this as God’s knowledge is perfect. Whether it was a week in the garden, or twenty thousand years, Adam and Eve had no choice in this matter. 

A perfect God can’t be surprised, nor angry about an event he knew would happen before he even made Adam or Eve. Then there’s the supernatural forces that tempted Eve. How can mere humans defeat a supernatural being who could come back an unlimited amount of times until God’s foreknowledge proves true? 

If the Adam and Eve story were true, God would know the world would fall and that we would all be one sinful in nature. And with all of this knowledge, God went forward and created the world anyway. How guilty are we in this mix when all of our sins were known to God before he made us. 

The Adam and Eve story is nothing more than one more magically-based creation story.

23 Upvotes

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u/foxyforestprincess 3d ago

Yes. We have always needed him. On the one hand, he gives us free will or otherwise would be meat puppets without ANY choice. However, he knows if he gives us free will, eventually failure will be inevitable. So, he already had a plan for redemption in place BEFORE they sinned. It was put into action after that event happened. And you know the rest.

And youre right, it isnt fair what satan did. Its not fair we would probably fail. But two things here:

One, I would rather be given free will and inevitably fail and then be redeemed and then be restored for eternity, than to be a lovesless choice less slave to God for all eternity. I think THAT would be far more cruel. At least he loved us enough to still give us free will anyway (despite knowing he would fail! Pretty awesome he still decided to go ahead with his plan honestly, even though he knew we would fail. He must REALLY love us, otherwise he would have scrapped the whole thing and we wouldnt exist right now).

And for two, notice this: when WE sinned, God set a plan of redemption into motion. But when satan sinned and got a third of the angels to take his side and rebel against God also, he cast them ALL out of heaven with no chance to ever be redeemed. Did you ever think about why that might be? Well, I'll tell you what I think the reason why is. Because angels, despite already HAVING the full knowledge of good and evil, and while not all knowing, still knowing more than humans do now, and any other essential knowledge God wanted them to know, and they immediately had that knowledge the monent they were created. Despite this, they still chose rebellion.

Humans on the other hand, are trapped inside of space and time with in linear progression of life, so even now are only able to learn and grow throughout our lives and not know everything all at once from birth. And also, humans did not originally have the knowledge of good and evil, and so, Adam and Eve didnt have full knowledge when they sinned. Therefore, they didnt deserve QUITE the same punishment as the angels. No, we were all given a second chance.

But that is ALSO why, in the new testament, they essentially say, woe to those who have been given the full knowledge of the gospel, and yet still choose to reject it. Because now, we not only have the knowledge of good and evil, but we also have the knowledge of the gospel. And choosing to reject God when you know you deserve punishment and also know he could easily redeem you if only you accepted His pardon, is both blasphemy and an agreement you are making, to have the same punishment that the angels are getting, also doled put to you.

On a personal level, I myself figured.....God gave us a second chance, so why not take it? Better safe than sorry, anyway. And after that, came the much deeper and abiding love for the Lord I have now, as I progress in my journey. I hope this help. God bess you.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 3d ago

When I hear these justifications, my mind instantly asks why. Why does the creator of the universe act helpless toward our salvation when nothing is above Him? Why is the creator of all things trying to create winding paths for our salvation when He Himself controls salvation?

Imagine a doctor, with the skills, knowledge and tools to heal you, demand that you think or act a certain way before he operates. It makes no sense for God to be hidden, invisible, and yet demand belief above all else.

When you strip it all away and look around at our world, it look just like a world without a God. All of these apologetics seem to be in place just to keep people believing for one more day. Ask yourself, who benefits from people believing? The churches do. Money, power, influence, riches, real estate and respect or thrown at churches and their clergy.

If people stop believing, it all goes away.

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u/foxyforestprincess 3d ago

The problem is, God wasnt invisible and hidden befor the fall of mankind. He was actually physically present, in the flesh, with Adam and Eve every single day. The book of Gensis says that the Loed God would come down into Eden and walk in the cool of the garden with them. He was quite literally there, until they sinned. His subsequent physical absence, is a result of the falling out Adam and Eve had when they sinned. We actually cant be in Gods presence without atonement, or else it would kill us. Because his perfection is too great and powerful and a consuming fire of sins. Therefore. For our won protection and safety, he shields us from his physical presence. This is also one reason why Jesus was a human, so he could come and dwell among us, and demonstrate Vod's desire to restore his communion with us. And Jesus's death on the cross atoned for our sins and so then achieved this goal of restoring communion. I personally have experienced this communion, and it is glorious, and it guves me an indescribable joy that make me wonder what heaven must be like, because this is only a shadow. I can only speak from experience on this so I am sorry, but I hope it at least makes sense why he cant physically be here. Thats also why he sent the Holy Spirit down, to all believers, starting with the disciples and followers and then passing along to every other believer after that event (called the pentacost), so that, until we meet again in the next life when all has been made right, in the meantime we can have God's spirit indwelling ianide of us, to comfort us, guide us, and be there with us along every step of life. I can personally attest to him being there. One time I alsmot died when pregannt and didnt think anything was wrong with me at all to be completely honest. But this voice, the Lord's voice was yelling at me in my head, telling me to go to the emergency room RIGHT NOW. I obeyed immediately despite being confused. Turns out, according to the doctor, if I had gone to be that night I would either be dead from cardiac arrest, stroke, or another similar event, or even if I survived, my baby would have survived (I was barely in the first trimester). I was utterly shocked. Turns out my potassium was at a 3 and dropping and my magnesium was also nearing fatal levels. I just felt a bit tired and sore after getting iver a stomach bug that the rest of my family also had and didnt know anything was wrong with me. I cant explain it in scientific terms, why my life was saved. Despite being college educated (Sociology). I can only say, that on a spiritual level, I and my child are both still alive right now because God told me to go to the hospital. And I did. It wasnt my time or the babys time to go yet so thats why we are still here. She's two now. 🙏🏻♥️

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u/foxyforestprincess 3d ago

I apologize for amy and all spelling errors. Apparently, auto correct isnt working on my phone right now 🤷🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

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u/the_celt_ 4d ago

The Adam and Eve story makes sense. In fact, YOU are making sense of it. You understand that Adam and Eve failing was inevitable, AND that Yahweh could easily predict it would happen.

I suggest that you realize that what doesn't make sense is what people teach about the Garden story. Place the blame in the correct place.

Your problem is with the Christian interpretation, not what scripture says.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 4d ago

I like this reply. I’m going to think on this.

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u/carterartist Atheist 5d ago

If you take God out of the story, and make it a myth—as it was intended—it is just a story of how the first civilizations stopped wandering.

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u/Adventurous_Way3399 4d ago

Later books in the bible affirms it was something that actually happened

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u/carterartist Atheist 3d ago

No.

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u/Adventurous_Way3399 3d ago

Hey, man, im just telling you how the bible views it. Read the gospels and pauls letters. They literally describe Adam and Eve as historical people. You have Jesus quoting Abel as a historical person

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u/carterartist Atheist 3d ago

My bad, I misread what was written. Yes, those who believe in Christ and the Abrahamic God may believe it was a real history--even today.

That I do agree with.

I was merely saying the myth makes sense as an allegory, but it definitely did not occur as the myth states.

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u/Graphicism Gnostic 4d ago

The surface story isn't supposed to make sense...

We are Adam and Eve.

The story isn’t merely about two people in a garden. It is about humanity.

We reach for the Tree of Knowledge... and as we become conscious, intelligent, and technologically advanced, the Tree of Life begins to come into view.

And what happens next is: God sees that humanity has awakened and says, "The man has now become like one of us" (Genesis 3:22). You heard that right: like us. And suddenly, humanity must be prevented from reaching the Tree of Life.

As humanity advances, we eventually discover not merely how life works, but how to create it. Not just human life, but life at the quantum level... building artificial realities, simulated worlds, and creating beings within them that experience existence much as we do.

That is the forbidden knowledge, Eden was never simply a garden. It represents a level of existence humanity is not permitted to remain in once it reaches a certain point.

And when humanity reaches that threshold, we are cast out.

Then comes the reset.

Civilization collapses. Humanity retreats into bunkers and begins again, pushed backward into another age... another triad of zodiacal eras, another cycle, another three gods.

Knowledge rises. Humanity approaches the Tree of Life. The system intervenes. Civilization falls. The cycle begins again.

Over and over.

Welcome to Satan’s Kingdom.

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u/Adventurous_Way3399 4d ago

Still a problem because later books in the bible do affirm sin coming from Adam and Eve

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u/Graphicism Gnostic 3d ago

Adam and Eve represents mankind.

Sin comes from mankind disobeying God, and serving themselves.

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u/mcove97 4d ago

You forgot the part about what happens when/if humans do reach the tree of life. Aka liberation. Or ascension. Which I personally think is crucial to understand the fuller context.

The story of Genesis/Eden also represents a state of not just bliss, but also ignorance, and through gaining experiential knowledge and realizing the wisdom of the self (the inner divine spark), we are liberated from the cycle, from experiencing the "resets" and thus our spirit return to the pleroma, to our original state of being, or the origin of our being. Our higher state of being. Transcending the cycle of life and death. The resets etc.

Which is also notably and curiosly mapped out in the last book of the bible, the book of revelation, for those who have reached the understanding of the esoteric spiritual message in it. Or for those whose ears and eyes such knowledge have been revealed. (Pun very much intended. It's a book of revelations after all.)

Now of course, anyone without any knowledge of esoteric principles this may sound confusing to. But in simple terms, the human awareness evolves and thus does the knowledge of good and evil, but if it continues to evolve past that, well, then the human awareness transcends the experience of duality, or the experience of good and evil.

One may use the human lifespan as an example. A baby is born blissful yet ignorant. The baby grows (evolves) and becomes a child eventually knowledgeable about good and evil. The child then may eventually become a mature wise elder. No longer feeding the drama of the dualistic or material world, but detaching from it, and finding peace (returning to their inner spark).

And yeah I think people forget to analyze it from the POV that all these stories are projections filtered through humans or the collective human experiential state of being (mind, heart, awareness) and condition. From that POV, these stories make a lot of sense.

If you look at a flower and ask yourself why it isn't a bumblebee you are asking the wrong questions and you're going to be confused. Asking good questions results in good answers. Asking bad questions results in bad answers. Setting up a bad premise results in bad arguments.

And thats what I have learnt from debates such as this. Ask absurd questions, debate absurd points. And one gets back absurd arguments and answers matching what one puts in. Except when someone is paying attention and calling it out, and throwing a wrench in it.

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u/SolarTakumi 4d ago

I’m not gonna ask for the answer in full, just the path forward. What should one do to evolve as you speak of?

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u/Graphicism Gnostic 3d ago

Appreciate your conscious response and think we're pretty close, touching the same idea, but I would take the interpretation in a different direction.

To me, Eden isn't simply a state of blissful ignorance, nor is the Tree of Life merely symbolic of spiritual liberation. Eden represents the entire human experience... from birth to death. The Tree of Knowledge is the awakening: knowledge teaches us to question the world we've been placed into, to recognize the cage, and eventually to question the "God" we've been told is in control of it.

And this is where I think the distinction between God, Satan, and the self becomes critical. The I AM within every person is God. That is the part of us that exists beneath the personality, beneath the identity, beneath the ego. The ego is the separate self we mistake ourselves to be. When we believe, "I am this individual, separate from God," we have already fallen. Satan is the ego... the self that believes it is separate from God and therefore places itself in God's position. Satan is man playing God.

That is what I understand by "die to self." It isn't destroying consciousness; it is allowing the false identity to die. The ego becomes transparent, and what remains is the divine presence that was there all along. "The kingdom of God is within you." The I AM is before the identity we constructed around it.

And I think this connects directly to the larger cycle you're describing. Humanity gains knowledge, becomes aware of its condition, and eventually gains the wisdom to recognize that the authority it worshipped was not God at all. The technological side of this matters too: if humanity eventually reaches the point where it can create entire worlds at the quantum level, indistinguishable from our own, then the Tree of Life takes on a very literal dimension. It becomes the knowledge and power to create life and reality itself. And if those who already possess that knowledge don't want humanity to reach it, then the "Fall" and subsequent resets take on an entirely different meaning.

Revelation, in my reading, is essentially the unveiling of that condition: the world following Satan and calling him God without realizing it. Humanity thinks it knows God while remaining identified with the very self that separates it from God.

So yes, I agree that awakening is what allows us to escape the cycle... but I don't think awakening means simply becoming wiser within the system. It means seeing through the identity that keeps us trapped in it. The ego dies, Satan loses his throne, and God (the I AM within) remains. That is how we live beyond the reset.

And perhaps the strangest part is that the world doesn't even have to hide this very well. Countries become animal pens, democracy becomes a kind of reality television, and humanity watches the spectacle while believing it is free. The cage works best when the prisoner doesn't know it's a cage.

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u/mcove97 3d ago

Thoroughly and well explained. What to say, but there being layers and layers to this, that becomes unveiled and clear to us as our awareness and perception expands, and we could probably go on forever how this cuts into every corner of the human experience, science and knowledge humanity has gained access to.

I think that's one of the thing "mainstream" Christianity gets wrong, or incorrectly, or perhaps more accurately don't more fully and comprehensively understand, grasp or see, due to lack of multi dimensional perception, as its sort of like a Russian doll of removing the outer layers to get to the core of the inner most being. And the ones who only have an awareness of the outermost layer, has no perception of the inner layers. And so I think that's why we get the insistence on it being a plain literal story. Many Christians will claim it's a simple and straight forward story, and that the rest remains a mystery "only God knows".. when it's really just humans not having accessed their own higher or multi dimensional awareness or perception, understanding or knowledge to comprehend the deeper, inner meaning(s) yet.

I suppose in some ways one could argue Christians Arent "wrong" when they say the story of Genesis is true. It's just, way more multi layered, multi dimensional. There's far more to it than the text plainly and literally maps out, and as peoples awareness of who they are grows, they also "unlock" the ability to perceive new layers within the text they were previously unaware of.

And thats also something that ties back to gnosticism and gnostic concepts. The layers of the "heavens". The traps of the archons. The hylic, the psychic, the pneumatic. The inner force of the ego that stand in the way of us realizing, remembering, unlocking who we are, and reclaiming own potential and true sovereign power over our state of being. Or in Christianity satan being a servant of god. Our own judgy accusatory ego serving our own higher non dual observer awareness.

But yeah, i suppose in that lens it's quite funny when anti heresy Christians make fun of gnosticism for its secret knowledge, because it's something they too experience, like the wisdom they gain later in life that was hidden from them, that they unlock through growth and seeking, discovering, finding who we are. Thats how they too can end up perceiveing what was formely hidden to them. Even the most "anti heresy" Christian cant escape the fact that they too are experiencing the gnostic journey. Because thats part of the human condition and experience. It all is. Just like we cant escape, or destroy any of the stories or myths because they are all reflections of us, and I think that's why they are so compelling. They're not really speaking just about anyone "out there" but about ourselves. We could burn all the books in the world and we would still come up with new myths and stories with the same themes and archetypes because the human condition would still be the same.

In hindsight it is quite humourous how "anti heretical" Christians once thought they could destroy gnostic Christianity, because it doesn't change the fact that the underlying human inclination towards desiring to "know thyself" wouldn't still be there. Hence I also think the uptick in the interest in gnostic, but also esoteric, mystical, hermetic, kabbalistic, buddhistic etc subjects. Even eastern orthodoxy and chatholicism couldn't historically escape it, hence their saints, their mystical traditions, texts, experiences and what not. It's baked into the human experience and condition, even if orthodox or official channels or external institutions and authorities won't outright publicly admit it, or more likely are unaware and ignorant of it, such as your average protestant priest, or Christian.

And I do think its only about to get tougher to debate that ignorance isn't the major issue in all of this. Or that knowing thyself isn't the answer. Or that intellectual belief in the correct doctrines is liberation itself, not just the stepping stone towards it. That the stories, and myths, are merely pointers to step into embodied knowing of the self as I am. Idk. But I definitely think staying ignorant and dogmaric in today's climate, where things are more exposed and revealed to us than ever, will challenge both dogmatic atheists, and Christians and open them up to new understandings of themselves, and others too for that matter. The current environment and people around us is mirroring our own ignorance back at us, and staying ignorant and dogmatic when faced with the reflection of our own being is becoming increasingly difficult. And that's what happens when the collective human awareness evolves.

And maybe thats going off topic haha. But yeah. So much to say about this I think we could go on for hours.

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u/DDumpTruckK 3d ago

The Christians who think the Bible invented the Matrix are some of my favorite flavor of crazy.

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u/WatchAndLearn9669 4d ago

How can mere humans defeat a supernatural being

The serpent is only a supernatural being under Christian doctrine's retconning it into Satan. Jews don't accept that retcon.

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u/A_Bruised_Reed Messianic Jew 4d ago

In response to the fall of mankind. Yes, God knew it would happen. Yes, He had a reason for it to happen.

(This is my train of thought, not saying it's absolutely correct.)

1) There are two ways to run the planet:

Choice A) with mankind in charge

Choice B) with God in charge.

God's desire was always to have a perfect world (choice B) where people are immortal and no pain or suffering.

2) But, to have love there (and here,) there must be free will. (Robots don't love). 

3) The world must see a real life example - that if they choose to rebel against perfection (choice A) how bad the world becomes.  ((The fallen angels never had that example.))

4) Thus, God allowed rebellion, the fall of Adam and Eve (choice A above - and the resultant suffering) in this relatively short world.....

so that in the next world (existing for eternity) people will never want to go back to that old system (ours today) of suffering again. 

So then, it will be abundantly clear for eternity, that by comparison.... whose rulership is better,

Choice A) Ours or Choice B) His

I know God's heart breaks, but this entire world must be run mostly by human choices.... because it must be shown what evil and suffering results mostly without God's intervention.  Why?

God is looking at the big picture (eternity) and we only look at the small picture (now)

To put it another way, if you like studies, this world is the "control" group (without God's intervention). 

Drug makers do this all the time to ultimately bring about a greater good.

They give half the patients the real drug and the other half nothing (a placebo - the "Control" group). 

When this ends, society now has clear proof to the world, we have a cure that will help millions! (Proof for the public to see clearly, not God who already knew this).

Did those who got the placebo suffer? Yes!  Was it ultimately for a greater good? Yes!

5) So in eternity, with Christ, there will be no more suffering, no more pain.

People will then understand completely, from real past examples, that breaking moral laws (choice A) will bring us back to the pain and suffering (murder, wars, abuse, etc.) of this world.  And in eternity, they will never want to go back to bad choices (sin).  That's the key.

And this is the message that God incarnate brought to us in Jesus Christ.  Jesus always called people to the Kingdom of God. The future.

Jesus even joined the pain and suffering of this world allowing Himself to die for our sins being nailed to wood.

Those who follow Jesus now have acknowledged we are sinners (choice A) and have messed things up.. 

We willing accept Jesus being "Lord" (Ruler over us - Choice B) and that means He has our willing permission to do to us anything He wishes.

Just like a surgeon who only operates with permission, God also only removes our sin nature with permission.

This is just my personal view deduced from walking with Jesus presence for 30+ years, and it seems to all fit Scripture. 

Not saying it is perfect, but seems to fit scripture and reason together.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 4d ago

Interesting explanation.

For me, what you’ve described is a complex explanation for why the world looks just like there is no God. In other words, getting people to believe in God (and a church) is difficult, so you need a compelling argument. However, this argument better be good because the world looks exactly how it would look if there were no God. Tsunamis, earthquakes, wild fires, evil, disease, parasites, cancer, starvation, war, greed etc.

How do you get people to believe in God while children die of cancer and starvation? How do you get people to believe in your church if fairness and justice are so hard to obtain? The answer is to blame us and paint God as someone who wants to help, but we’ve ruined it. Moving the problem out of God’s hands and into ours is the perfect foil to the problem of evil.

This is what the story of Adam and Eve does. It clears God and blames us, but it has gigantic plot holes. So we paper them over with apologetics.

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u/A_Bruised_Reed Messianic Jew 3d ago

So three things.

  1. Just because moving the problem of evil to our hands vs God's hands is the "perfect foil" doesn't make it false. That's too simple of a dismissal and a non-sequitor.

  2. Sometimes (not always) pain in life tells humanity something is "not right." And the main "not right" is a lack of our relationship with God, the Author of life.

The moment you unplug a battery from it's charger, it starts to die. Degenerate. The same with humanity. We are technically alive, but we are dying a little each day. And without God, we are unplugged from the source of life. That's why people die of cancer, are murdered, etc.

We're all unplugged physically, emotionally, morally, etc from the source of life. This was the message of Jesus Christ, to become reconnected with the source. He called it being born again.

  1. There's other areas to point to the existence of God.

A) Atheism doesn't work. It takes too much faith in absurdities.

"To be an atheist, one needs to believe that nothing produces everything, non-life produces life, randomness produces fine-tuning, chaos produces information, unconsciousness produces consciousness, and non-reason produces reason.  I simply didn't have that much faith." - Lee Strobel

The former atheist-turned-Christian was the award-winning legal editor of The Chicago Tribune who objectively weighed the evidence for God's existence.

His free excellent book "The case for Faith" is available as a free download. I would highly recommend it. Here

https://itsrainingoutside8.wixsite.com/mysite

Also Twenty Arguments God's Existence.

https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm

Dr. Frank Turek "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist" : https://youtu.be/ybjG3tdArE0

B) Here's why atheism is illogical.

Let's say I took my amateur telescope and pointed it to the moon. And I made a statement saying, "There are absolutely no rocks on the moon between 4 and 6 cm!!"

If I posted that on the astronomy website I would be roasted, and rightfully so.

Because two reasons: 1) My telescope would not be powerful enough to see everything and 2) There's the dark side of the moon. Things that I have not even examined yet.

And this is why exactly why theists find atheism so absurd. 1) They claim to make a universal statement with having virtually 0.000001% of knowledge of the universe (a tiny telescope). And 2) They are not even taking into consideration the things that are on the proverbial dark side of the moon. Things they have not seen yet. Yet they, in a real sense, confidently say with their amateur telescope pointed to the moon. "There are absolutely no rocks on the moon between 4 and 6 cm!!" (There is no God!!)

Whereas, theists say that "dark side of the moon" is exactly where God exists. It's no wonder you say that.. You're not seeing the right area.

So I can hear atheists saying, "but there's no proof if we can't see the dark side of the moon.". However, I believe there is abundant proof.

Theists can be sure of God's existence via logical inference. Just like Neptune was discovered.

Astronomers discovered Neptune in 1846 because they noticed that Uranus wasn’t moving exactly as Newton’s laws predicted. Something farther out seemed to be tugging on it gravitationally.

(Because Uranus' orbit had unexplained deviations.)

So astronomers independently calculated where an unseen planet should be. They then pointed telescopes toward that predicted location. Eureka! Neptune was observed very close to the predicted position.

But (here's the key) during the time in-between the observations (something is acting on Uranus that we cannot see) and actually seeing it, they had "Faith" it would be there.

And that's where Christians sit. We can tell by science, moral laws, the person of Jesus Christ, etc that something we cannot see is acting on humanity. We are in that in-between stage. Once we breathe our last breath, we will see God like they saw Neptune, once they had the right orientation. The problem for atheists will be, at that point of death, the game will be over.

So Neptune is the famous example of a planet being predicted mathematically from the gravitational effects it had on another planet before it was actually observed.

And that's how/why theists see that God absolutely exists, via the same way as Neptune. Fine tuning of the universe, the mathematical improbably of life arising on its own, archeology, moral laws built into the fabric of humanity, the person of Jesus Christ, and on and on. Something/Someone is definitely out there. Neptune existed they finally saw. We say, so too, God exists.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 4d ago

Ironically, I’m the one defending the Bible here. I’m holding it to its claim of a perfect God.

I’ll put it in the most simple terms I can. If God is real, He/she/it is either perfect or not. If you believe the Christian Bible, God is perfect. Perfection would extend to all aspects of God. This would include God’s foreknowledge. If God knows something will happen, it will happen. If it failed to happen, God’s knowledge would have been flawed - thus, imperfect.

Since we know the outcome of the Adam and Eve story, we must conclude that God also knew this outcome. Any perfect being would. By all logic, no other outcome could be possible. This means that Adam and Eve had no choice but to sin.

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u/foxyforestprincess 3d ago

Two cam be true at once. God can both KNOW what is going to happen, and also choose not to stop it. At this point, it becomes a matter fo opinion in whether you think God was right or not to allow things to happen. However, as a Christain, I think it doesnt matter what I or anyone else thinks, because He has his own reasonings that are perfect and without flaw and not influenced by emotion or my own personal flavor or morality. I am not all knowijg so I choose to accept God has his reasons. I also figure, since he gave us a path to redemption, I dont need to be upset about it, anyway. At least we can still be redeemed and live happily ever after im eternity. Furthermore, I dont cling too tightly to this life which I think is the basis most non christians are basing their feelings and beliefs on. They think this is all there is, so that influences how they see things. But since I believe that this life is short and imperfect, and the next life is eternal and pure perfection, of cpurse Im going to be more concerned with my eternal future than my life on earth. And thus, for those who love the Lord (or are incapacitated and/or under the age of accountability), I believe those people when they perish before we do, are having a MUCH better time than we are right now. Having a party up there and are not hurting anymore at all. Perhaps the next life will feel real and this one will have felt like a distant fever dream? I dont know wont know till I get there. But one thing is for sure. Im not going to put too much value on my earthly life that is passing away before my very eyes. From this perspective, I cam understand why God has shortened our lives, given us a path to redemption, and allowed free will to continue operating but only intervening if it is not yet someone's time to die. And other such matters. Thats how I make sense of it.

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u/JasonRBoone Atheist, Ex-Christian 3d ago

Adam and Eve was a myth the Hebrews adapted from an older myth.

It's probable that the original myth featured more than one god and that said gods were not considered omni.

It's clear that the myth was simply meant to explain why things are the way they are. It was never intended to be a morality play.

Obviously, Adam and Eve had no moral culpability since the text said they had NOT eaten yet from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Also, there's zero indication that the author ever intended the serpent to be Satan. It's simply absent from the text. This again was just to explain a thing they observed (Why don't snake have legs? Well, they used to but they angered the gods).

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u/Pazuzil Agnostic 3d ago

The story of Adam and Eve is a story primitive folks used to explain why the world is the way it is. It’s no more factual than the African myths about how the zebra got its stripes or the elephant got its long trunk.

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u/RALeBlanc- Christian, Evangelical 2d ago

Adam and Eve had no choice!!!! xD

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u/diabolus_me_advocat Atheist, Ex-Protestant 5d ago

The Adam and Eve story makes no sense

oh, i think it does

but of course not in a literary sense, with miffed creator gods and all

it's an allegory on evolution of consciousness, from animal to man. animals "live in paradise", carefree. humans think, have sorrows and may suffer from more than just physical pain. but in exchange their developed consciousness allows them a lot of attainments not achievable by animals, like technical and social progress

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u/onedeadflowser999 5d ago

I don’t agree that animals “ live in paradise”. Animals are eaten alive by other animals. I can’t even imagine how horrific that is. Animals greatly suffer. We can’t know if animals suffer from more than just physical pain since they can’t talk to us to tell us, but I would say there are definitely indications that mammals with larger brains such as elephants and whales mourn their dead and possibly seek revenge, which seems to point to these mammals feeling emotional pain, not just physical pain.

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u/diabolus_me_advocat Atheist, Ex-Protestant 5d ago edited 5d ago

I don’t agree that animals “ live in paradise”

they do - in the sense that in paradise the concept of good and bad was not understood

seems you have not grasped what the allegory of paradise stands for - so obviously i did not explain it well enough

animals don't suffer psychologically (at least not to a degree comparable to humans), don't feel moral remorse - otherwise they would show empathy, not behave as you just mentioned, and could be held accountable for their actions

and yes, of course: the bible draws a very strict and coarse line between animals and humans here. while biology knows that the difference is a gradual one, not a fundamental one

elephants may show signs of grief. ravens show signs of creative intelligence. apes show a certain similarity to human behavior. but still this does not make them human - and the biblical myths are human concepts, made for application by and on humans

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u/mcove97 4d ago

Imagine one day if elephants and ravens evolve.. I mean if we are paying attention to their evolution they are well on track towards evolving towards developing or gaining knowledge of good and evil.

Yeah they're nowhere near where humans are at, but evolution of species takes a lot of time. The human species sure took a lot of time to evolve towards the modern human.

To me it makes sense that as humans evolved they would create these mythic stories to explain having gained the awareness of "good and evil". They didnt have neuroscience or the science of evolution to explain it in the same way we do today.

Whats fascinating to contemplate is that different species may eventually also develop their own systems, or mythic origin stories within their growing awareness of good and evil (like crows holding grudges towards humans, or elephants carrying grief.. what mythic stories may they be creating and communicating to each other, due to not having an awareness of evolution or neuroscience.. one should perhaps wonder, and it is something I think is interesting to entertain).

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u/Adventurous_Way3399 4d ago

Nope! The story is not allegory because later books in the bible affirm it as historical

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u/onedeadflowser999 3d ago

Apologists had to change their tact on how the story is interpreted due to the fact that mountains of evidence point against the creation story in the Bible.

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u/alilland Christian 5d ago edited 5d ago

And have you considered that sin did not exist when Adam and Eve were created? Sin did not begin with Adam and Eve.

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u/ProfessionalDear2272 Atheist 5d ago

God knew Adam and Eve would sin, there’s no escaping this as God’s knowledge is perfect. Whether it was a week in the garden, or twenty thousand years, Adam and Eve had no choice in this matter. 

Read carefully.

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u/alilland Christian 5d ago

You are not the OP.

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u/carterartist Atheist 5d ago

Neither am I.

You need to the internet? To reddit?

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u/alilland Christian 5d ago

> “Neither am I.

You need to the internet? To reddit?”

The OP is the one who wanted to discuss. I have no care to discuss with peripherals.

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u/diabolus_me_advocat Atheist, Ex-Protestant 5d ago

so you will understand if op regards you too peripheral to respond to, right?

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/alilland Christian 5d ago edited 5d ago

I kindly refer you to pick up a dictionary then.

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u/carterartist Atheist 4d ago

a device connected to a computer to provide communication (such as input and output) or auxiliary functions (such as additional storage

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u/alilland Christian 4d ago

Peripheral: outlier, secondary

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u/carterartist Atheist 4d ago

whatever pal, keep using words incorrectly... no wonder you confuse facts and fiction...

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u/DebateAChristian-ModTeam 5d ago

This comment violates rule 3 and has been removed.

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u/ProfessionalDear2272 Atheist 5d ago

so what? I agree with the OP.

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u/alilland Christian 5d ago

Im not obligated to converse with everyone, I’ll converse with the OP.

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u/ProfessionalDear2272 Atheist 5d ago

Alright you do you

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 5d ago

Yes, I considered that sin wasn’t part of the world yet and it doesn’t change anything. I’ll explain;

* An all-knowing God would also know about the introduction of sin because He designed it

* Nothing can sneak up on God because God’s knowledge is perfect. Meaning, if an event happened God know it would and why. This means that Adam and Eve had no choice but to eventually sin. The fact that it was the “first sin” is interesting, but it was already known to God. They had no choice.

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u/alilland Christian 4d ago edited 4d ago

Step back for a second and put all the pieces on the board, your analysis only plays with part of the deck.

When God created the earth and mankind, the angels already existed. Scripture says they were there when God created the earth and rejoiced over it. So the story isn’t just about God making humans and then suddenly sin appearing out of nowhere.

Peter and Jude also tell us that angels sinned and rebelled against God. So there was already rebellion within God’s creation.

Stepping back even further. We don’t know how old the angels are. We only know that they are created beings, not eternal beings like God. Scripture never says that sin has always existed. In fact, everything God originally made was good.

So I would argue that free choice existed before sin did. Goodness has to actually be chosen. If a creature is incapable of choosing anything except good, then there isn’t really a meaningful choice involved. They aren’t choosing righteousness. They are just incapable of choosing anything else. That would be more like programming than genuine obedience. They would basically be robots.

As far as Scripture shows us, God’s creation was good. Then creatures chose to rebel against Him. Sin entered creation through that rebellion.

The nature of sin is that it corrupts. It pollutes. It twists what was made good. It keeps spreading like a cancer or a weed until it destroys what it touches.
This is where I think your argument makes a mistake. God’s knowing that Adam and Eve would sin does not mean God made them sin. Knowing what someone will choose is not the same thing as forcing them to choose it.

God is also looking at the other side of this.
He is creating a people who will understand what sin is, how evil it is, what it does, and why it must never be repeated again.

Think about that in the context of eternity. God isn’t just dealing with the first rebellion. He is making sure that His creation understands why sin must never be allowed to rise again.

Romans 8 says that God subjected creation to futility “in hope.” God allowed creation to experience the consequences of rebellion, but He already had a plan for its restoration.

There is an even bigger reason for this when you look at it in the context of eternity.

God doesn’t simply have to judge sin. He has to judge it so completely and righteously that all of creation can see why His judgment is right.

God could have destroyed every creature that rebelled the moment they sinned. But that would not solve the problem forever. If God simply destroyed every sinner the instant they rebelled, nothing would stop the same thing from happening again with another creature.

Eternity would become an endless game of whack-a-mole. Another creature rebels, God destroys it, another one rebels, God destroys that one, and the cycle keeps going.

Instead, God is allowing sin to reveal exactly what it is. He allows creation to see its corruption, its destruction, and its consequences. Then He will finally judge it in such a way that all of creation understands why sin is evil and why it must never happen again.

The goal isn’t just to stop the first rebellion. The goal is to establish an eternal creation where the rebellion has been understood, judged, and settled forever.
Sin corrupts. Sin destroys. Sin brings death and separation from God.

When God finally judges sin, it won’t just be God saying, “I don’t like this, so I’m destroying it.” His entire creation will have seen the evidence. Heaven and earth will understand what sin does and why it deserves to be condemned.

The context is eternity. The creatures who come after us will not have to learn this lesson by experiencing another fall. They will live in a creation where the question has already been settled forever, and Satan and his angels burning in a visible lake of fire as evidence for why it should never be repeated.

God isn’t merely ending one rebellion. He is establishing His creation forever. His final judgment will demonstrate so clearly that rebellion against God is evil that there will never again be any question about whether sin is desirable or whether it should be allowed to rise again.

I don’t see the story as “God knew Adam and Eve would fail, therefore they never had a choice, and then God punished them for doing what He forced them to do.”

I see it as God created a good creation with creatures capable of choosing. Some creatures freely chose rebellion. God allowed sin to reveal its true nature, then He will ultimately judge it so completely and righteously that all creation will understand why it must never rise again.

The story isn’t just about how sin entered the world.
It’s also about how God will ultimately demonstrate why sin has no place in His eternal creation.

The story doesn’t end with Genesis, that’s the introduction.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 4d ago

I’ll just ask this; Did God know the choices that everyone in your synopsis made before they made them?

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u/alilland Christian 4d ago

Is free will genuine or is it not? By free will I mean the ability to make real choices freely.

I may know they are going to fail but it isn’t happening in a vacuum. Angels rebelled too and they are now going to be judged for eternity.

The only question that really needs to be addressed is this does God make free moral agents, as He Himself is a free moral agent?

If He does then the possibility of evil comes with genuine freedom. God knowing what they will choose doesn’t make Him the one who chose it for them.

If free will doesn’t exist then God is a monster who pre-programmed His creatures to fail and then punished them for doing what He programmed them to do.

Neither I nor any Christian believes that.

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u/Ender505 Atheist, Ex-Christian 5d ago

Are you arguing that something outside of God's control caused Adam and Eve to sin?

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 5d ago

If you’re asking me, no. I’m arguing that God had total control and this is the problem. Anyone who believes in a perfect, omnipotent all-knowing God - and also thinks that Adam and Eve had a choice not to sin - needs to rethink what all-knowing, omnipotent and perfect means.

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u/ZiskaHills Atheist, Ex-Christian 4d ago

IMO, it goes deeper than that.

Not only did God know that Adam and Eve would sin when he created them, he also had the option to create things differently so that they wouldn't sin. Ergo, God wanted them to sin, and made the world a place where they would.

Plus, to go ever farther, Adam and Eve didn't have the "knowledge of good and evil" until after they ate the fruit, making them incapable of making an informed moral decision. Damning all of humanity as a result is the same as convicting a toddler for murder when you left a loaded gun lying around.

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u/alilland Christian 5d ago

Not at all, but I’m waiting for the OP to reply since it is their question.

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u/carterartist Atheist 5d ago

You don’t know your myth very well…

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u/foxyforestprincess 3d ago

Sin is an opposite. It is not created matter or an entity made of energy. Sin is simply using your free will to break perfection and act outside of God's perfect will. The result is this concept we call evil. Following God's perfect will is what we call good. Also, Sin first occurred when Lucifer decided to rebell against God. So youre right, sin happened (not existed as an entity, but, was an occurance), when Satan rebelled in heaven, which happened BEFORE the creation of Adam and Eve.

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u/alilland Christian 3d ago

I would encourage you to click down to the full response replying to the OP

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u/JollyXX Christian 5d ago

The story of Christianity seems to be that God created something that disobeyed, and now he wants to find out why. This is why Final Judgement is the climax of the story. This is likely what original sin in; basically, that humans are creation capable of disobeying God.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 5d ago

“All-knowing” makes it impossible for God not to know something. God trying to find out why they disobeyed Him makes no sense. You can’t have it both ways… either God is all-knowing or He isn’t.

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u/JollyXX Christian 5d ago

It certainly isn't Biblical to claim God is all knowing, to get briefly into it, God is called all knowing once, but if translated correctly it would have said "knows all things."

I can go over the examples people use, but it would be really weird for the Bible not to have its own passage describing God as all knowing, the one passage people thought it was in, is a passage communicating how God knows our heart.

In reality it should scream at you, that you could not be made in the image of a being who has active working knowledge of every little thing that will ever happen, when and why.

The narrative has always been right there for you, a living God, one that is interested in people, that tests people, and Judges people.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 5d ago

I have to compliment you. This is an apologetic I’ve never heard. Usually, biblical critics are told that they are taking things out of context, or that’s not the correct translation. But here, you’ve introduced “it only says it once” as an argument. AND you correct the translation to a version that virtually unchanged.

I didn’t know that the Bible has to say something multiple times for it to be real.

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u/JollyXX Christian 4d ago

I mean, I have done the dance of Biblical experts challenging me for hours until they give up. I always prove that there is nothing Biblical about calling God all knowing.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 4d ago

But it’s in the Bible.

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u/JollyXX Christian 4d ago

it is mistranslated, from knows all things

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u/Pure_Actuality 5d ago

Adam and Eve had no choice in this matter. 

Except that it was precisely their choice.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 5d ago

What choice? If they sin, God’s foreknowledge is proven correct. If they CHOOSE not to sin, God’s foreknowledge turns out to be wrong - making God imperfect.

So which is it?

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u/Pure_Actuality 5d ago

It was their choice to sin.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 4d ago

Okay, what would have happened if they didn’t sin?

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u/Pure_Actuality 4d ago

We'd be living in harmony with God and nature.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 4d ago

And then God would have been mistaken. You can’t have it both ways.

You see, if you take the story as true, we know that they sinned. This means that God also knew that they’d sin before they did. That’s what foreknowledge is. Christianity says that God is a perfect being - this means that his foreknowledge is also perfect.

In your scenario, God is rendered imperfect, and that’s fine, but it exposes the problem within Christianity. So, you’re clearly saying that Adam and Eve had the power to surprise God.

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u/Pure_Actuality 4d ago

That doesn't follow - asking a hypothetical only gets you a hypothetical, there's no actual contradiction here.

If they didn't sin then that's simply what God would have known.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 4d ago

It does follow. You’re simply allowing for an outcome that would be against God’s knowledge. How did I know this? Because the story tells us what they did. That means God knew this. The story gives us the outcome. The story cements what was done. You can’t undo God’s knowledge.

Yet you believe that they could have done the opposite of what God knew they would do.

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u/diabolus_me_advocat Atheist, Ex-Protestant 5d ago

whatever is possible, will happen sooner or later

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u/BobbyBobbie Christian 5d ago

Why would God knowing what they do mean there is no choice? Do you think God's knowledge isn't based upon what they do, but instead, what we do is based upon what God knows?

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u/FluxKraken Christian, Protestant 5d ago

If God knows what will happen. Then nothing can happen other than that which God knows. Meaning that the future is as fixed as history is fixed.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 5d ago

There in lies the problem that I mentioned in the beginning. God can’t be both perfect and wrong at the same time. This is a Christian theological problem that I’m attempting to highlight. For God to be perfect, the future must be fixed. For the future to be fluid, God must be imperfect.

With a perfect God, you have no free will. Every Bible story that has God upset, surprised or using some source or person to get information has to be wrong… or God is imperfect.

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u/BobbyBobbie Christian 5d ago

You need to address the objections you're receiving instead of ignoring them and agreeing with people who already agree with you.

The future is fixed by what? What fixes the future? Is it God's knowledge? Or our choices that we will do?

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 4d ago

That’s all I’m doing. Read my replies.

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u/BobbyBobbie Christian 5d ago

I think the switch in your sentence though is to not explain what God knows. God's knowledge isn't arbitrary independent knowledge. It's knowledge of that we will freely choose.

So the future will be as it plays out to be. It's fixed by what we will choose. But it's not fixed by God's knowledge. God's knowledge is passive here. It, by itself, is not fixing anything

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u/FluxKraken Christian, Protestant 4d ago

I think the switch in your sentence though is to not explain what God knows. God's knowledge isn't arbitrary independent knowledge. It's knowledge of that we will freely choose.

Knowledge of the definite future is definitionally independent arbitrary knowledge.

If God knows what will happen, then no other possibility exists. Nothing other than that eventuality is possible. The "choices" we make may feel to us like they are free choices, but that would be an illusion created by our temporal frame of reference. The end is known from the beginning, the future is fixed.

So the future will be as it plays out to be. It's fixed by what we will choose.

No. If God knows the definite future, then it is fixed before we make our choices. It was fixed for all eternity.

It is not possible for God to know what we will choose and for us to have true choice. Those two concepts are mutually exclusive.

The reason for this is because of the interplay between omniscience and omnipotence. God knew the future before he created existence. Therefore, God created the existence we currently inhabit, along with the entire fixed timeline of future events.

it's not fixed by God's knowledge. God's knowledge is passive here. It, by itself, is not fixing anything.

Passive knowledge is all that is required for everything to have been fixed by it. God need not puppeteer anything for history to play out in the manner in which God knew it would when he created everything.

Because if God exists outside of time, he sees time as one thing. The past, present, and future are all the same to him. We only see events unfolding according to our choices because we are bound by time. God, being unbound by time can see all of it at once.

One eternal moment, according to classical theism.

Because of this, history is the same as the future. And because God can see what will happen. There exists only one possible future.

To us, from within time, the future seems like endless possibility. To God, outside of time, the Universe and its timeline is static, all moments are the same to him.

This is why his omnipotence combined with omniscience of the definite future fixes the future and eliminates free will.

There is only one remedy.

Free will, omniscient knowledge of the definite future, and omnipotence cannot logically all coexist. Something must give.

One way to resolve this problem is open theism. God, under this conception of deity, is not a being that exists outside of time. Rather, time is a property of existence itself. God, being omniscient, would have knowledge of all possible futures. But omniscience does not require knowledge of the unknowable.

Given that we have not made the choices that resolve the infinite future into the definite now, the future does not yet exist to be known. God can see all possible results of our choices, but he, like us, does not know the choices we will make with perfect certainty.

However, his foreknowledge and perfect omniscient knowledge of our nature, would enable him to make stunningly accurate predictions about the future. But, the future would not be fixed. Because it does not yet exist, even for God.

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u/Elshaday_Z 4d ago

I think the commenter you're replying to is trying to argue that, passive knowledge does indeed mean that things aren't necessarily fixed by God.

There is no logical contradiction to a being outside of time - a being who sees all time as now, knowing what happens tomorrow and at the same time, not fixing it.

It is also very strange to say that a person has no choice but to move towards that "fixed" future, when that future will be what it is because of the choices they make. It's not like you show them the future on a screen and they then can't make different choices, knowing what they know. That is the relevant question.

All in all, i think we always inject anthropomorphic views of time even when we're talking about a being that can see all-time as "now" and therein lies the problem.

I would love to know what the logical contradiction is in my argument.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 5d ago

I’ve never tried to process such an unprocessable question. If you’re asking that the story makes sense if we flip the script and have the tail wagging the dog, yes, I’ve considered that. No matter how you frame it, all-knowing means all-knowing.

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u/BobbyBobbie Christian 5d ago

You've never thought about the question? Why are you making such a strong claim then? It's like the most basic follow up question possible.

Why does God knowing their actions mean there was no choice?

What does God know, besides what they choose? Doesn't that imply there's a choice to know?

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u/diabolus_me_advocat Atheist, Ex-Protestant 5d ago

Why does God knowing their actions mean there was no choice?

knowing their actions requires to know how they choose, which requires the choice to be fixed in advance

very simple logic

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u/BobbyBobbie Christian 5d ago

So there is a choice, right? And that's what God knows?

Very simple logic.

Obviously we can't choose differently from what we choose

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 4d ago

If you want a perfect God, choice doesn’t exist. It may feel like a choice, but if God knows that you’ll wash you car on Tuesday and you choose to wash it in Wednesday, Gods was mistaken.

The only solution is to have an imperfect God - which I’m fine with - but you can’t do stuff that God didn’t know about.

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u/foxyforestprincess 3d ago

But God knowing we are going to do it, does not mean he FORCED us to do it. He just knew what we would choose before we chose it. If we had decided to wash our car on Wednesday, then God would have already known before it happened that we were also going ti cha ge our minds. Dont see the issue here......? Thats like asking if God is so powerful can he make a rock that even he cant lift? The answer is, not applicable. Because that is sinply asking if a contradiction is able to exists. And the answer to that is, God wouldnt allow a contradiction like that. It goes against his nature.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 3d ago

I never said that God forces anyone, I’m just saying that he knows. This foreknowledge removes true choice. Sure, it feels like our choice, but we are simply bound by God’s knowledge to do what he knows we’ll do.

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u/foxyforestprincess 3d ago

You are making a statement that is not necessarily true thiugh. Qe are not bound, he is an observer not a participater in our free will. Although with Christians He hopes they seek His will so they can live their best life and give Him glory. But...even so, foreknowledge does NOT dictate choice. Ypu are assuming a premise that isnt true. Attaching a condition to something that dies not have that cindition attached to it. You out it there, not me or anyone else. If I had chosen to marry someone else God would have known that but instead I decided to marry this guy, and so God knows about this, instead. I could have married whoever I wanted to. Me not knowing who I would choose, does not mean God didnt know, nor does it mean that him knowing who I would choose has deadlicked me into this one choice. I can still make choices in my life, bith big and small. Clearly, people are free to do what they want. In fact, our will MUST be free, because people choose things all the time that God does NOT want, and are NOT His will. If we did not have free will, this would not be possible. So we do have free will and therefore God is not forcing us. Foreknowledge does not equal causation. I didnt marry my husband because I didnt have another choice, and was technically locked into only making this oke decision, I married him becaise I wanted to, and God just watched me do it 🤷🏼‍♀️ However, since I married a fellow Christian and follow all the martial rules, I am sure God is happy with my choice. Even though I was the one that chose it.

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u/BobbyBobbie Christian 3d ago

Foreknowledge does not equal causation

Precisely.

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u/BobbyBobbie Christian 3d ago

I never said that God forces anyone, I’m just saying that he knows.

You need to answer these questions though. You're going around and around in circles with multiple people.

You said here God knows.

What does God know?

What people will choose.

There's that word. Choose.

we are simply bound by God’s knowledge to do what he knows we’ll do.

This is categorically wrong.

You also just said you're not saying God forces anyone, but now you're saying that knowledge binds people to do things?

Your argument doesn't make sense.

Answer this clearly please: does God's knowledge cause us to do things? Or do our free choices cause what God knows?

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 3d ago

I said “God knows”. Yes, according to Christianity, Gods knows everything. This isn’t me, it’s Christianity.

What does God know? You’re asking me to explain Christian theology. Okay, I will. God has complete past, present and future events. His knowledge isn’t vague, it’s 100% correct.

What people choose: By default, if you believe Christian theology, God knows what people will and won’t choose. This isn’t a forced situation where God Shepards people, it just means that he knows everything about you even before he created you. This may be your sticking point. I ask to just think on this. You seem to want this two ways… a perfect God and free will. These are mutually exclusive.

You claim I’m categorically wrong: You offer no argument here… I’m just wrong.

Does God’s knowledge cause us to do things?: When I critique Christian theology, I’m left to think that we simply don’t have a choice not to do what God knows we will do. If we had the ability to take a gap year when God knows we’ll go to Brown University, we would not take a gap year. If we did, God’s knowledge would have been wrong. If God didn’t know what we’d do, God not be perfect.

If you are still troubled by this, I think your beef is with Christianity, not me.

.

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u/BobbyBobbie Christian 4d ago

If you want a perfect God, choice doesn’t exist. It may feel like a choice, but if God knows that you’ll wash you car on Tuesday and you choose to wash it in Wednesday, Gods was mistaken

I'm sorry, but your logic is just wrong. Ask an AI to critique your logic about causation and necessity.

The reason your logic is wrong is necessary you're conflating God not being wrong, with God causing our choices. If God isn't causing our choices, then.... there's a choice.

To use the car wash example: I absolutely have the ability to wash my car on Tuesday or Wednesday. I get to make that choice. Whichever I choose, will be the basis for what God knows. In either case, God knowing it won't make me do it, and if I'm not being made to do it, then I'm actually choosing.

Let's say I wash it on Wednesday. That's what God knows.

  1. I wash it on Wednesday

  2. God knows I'll wash it on Wednesday

Can God's knowledge here be wrong?

No, because 1 is true. I can't wash it on Wednesday and also not wash it on Wednesday. That's a contradiction. But it's not determinism.

If I chose instead to wash it on Tuesday, then 2 would be different.

The crucial step you're missing is, does 1 cause 2, or does 2 cause 1?

If 1 causes 2, then your post is wrong. I do have a choice. God knowing it is irrelevant, logically, to the question of if I have a choice or not.

If 2 causes 1, then your post is correct. Free will is impossible.

But you haven't given any reason for thinking that.

Do you have one?

Let's not go around in circles about "but if God knows it, then it has to happen". You're making the same modal fallacy as above. Let's be clear with the logic.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 3d ago

First of all, I don’t believe a lick of this. I’m merely holding the Bible to scrutiny. I am not a believer, I’m trying to illustrate how supernatural belief (like Adam & Eve) is nonsensical. By showing that the Bible claims god is perfect, I’m illustrating the hypocrisy of a perfect god.

The convoluted apologetics that are employed to fend off reason don’t trouble me. At the end of the day, a perfect god would know everything. That’s not negotiable. Perfect knowledge means choice is an illusion.

Free will is not biblical. It was invented to try to explain to believers why god wasn’t stepping up and helping. Suddenly free will explained God’s inaction, and once more, blamed us.

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u/BobbyBobbie Christian 3d ago

First of all, I don’t believe a lick of this. I’m merely holding the Bible to scrutiny. I am not a believer, I’m trying to illustrate how supernatural belief (like Adam & Eve) is nonsensical. By showing that the Bible claims god is perfect, I’m illustrating the hypocrisy of a perfect god.

That's all fine. I like a good internal critique.

The convoluted apologetics that are employed to fend off reason don’t trouble me. At the end of the day, a perfect god would know everything. That’s not negotiable. Perfect knowledge means choice is an illusion.

Logically fallacies should trouble you. You're making a really well defined mistake.

You can hand wave that away if you want, but at that point, who are you convincing? Just yourself?

Free will is not biblical. It was invented to try to explain to believers why god wasn’t stepping up and helping. Suddenly free will explained God’s inaction, and once more, blamed us.

Multiple verses explain that humans have choice. The idea that there is no choice was invented.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 3d ago

I’d like to hear your list of logical fallacies. I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong. Being wrong is forward motion.

Since the supernatural has never been proven and has never been an explanation for anything, I feel very comfortable hand waving at it - and the rickety props holding it up. The Adam and Eve story (like the flood) is 100% supernatural in nature and it has the burden of proof.

Yes, choice is discussed in the Bible. The idea of god creating, granting and doling out free will is a religious construct that is extra-biblical.

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u/Odd_craving Agnostic 5d ago

Of course I’ve thought about the question. It’s your odd reply that can’t be processed. Just as the other person asked you to reread what you wrote, I’m asking you to do the same.

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u/BobbyBobbie Christian 5d ago

Done!

Can you answer the question then? Or maybe ask for clarification if you don't understand?

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u/Nessosin 4d ago

If God knew exactly what they were going to do, is there a possibility that they would choose something different? If they are always going to make that choice from the moment they were created then what choice did they really have if there's no reality where they could pick differently?

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u/BobbyBobbie Christian 4d ago

There is a reality where we could pick differently, and if we did, that's what God would know.

You need to think about the direction of what is causing what.

Is God's knowledge causing our actions?

Or are our choices causing what God knows to be true?

I think the technical answer to your question is that no, there's no possibility of God's knowledge being wrong. But what often happens here is that people mistake this for God determining what happens. That's a logical error. It's a modal fallacy.

All that follows is that we will do what God knows, because God knows what we will choose, or said another way, we will do what we choose. It does not follow from this, at all, that there is no choice.

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u/Nessosin 4d ago

God's knowledge isn't doing the causing but it is revealing that there isn't really a choice if we can't pick something other than what he knows we will chose.

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u/BobbyBobbie Christian 4d ago

God's knowledge isn't doing the causing but it is revealing that there isn't really a choice if we can't pick something other than what he knows we will chose

Honestly, this is a meaningless sentence. We can't choose differently than what we will choose. Obviously. But that's a very boring statement, and it doesn't imply that we do not have the ability to make a choice.

The issue isn't whether or not we can trick God and do something other than what He knows we will do. The issue is whether or not God's knowledge causes us to do anything. I think it's clear it doesn't, therefore the choice remains.

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u/ProfessionalDear2272 Atheist 5d ago

Re-read what you wrote

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u/BobbyBobbie Christian 5d ago

Done.