Why not make everything perfect from the beginning?

[Thumpalumpacus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga%27s_free_will_defense

A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. Now God can create free creatures, but He can't cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren't significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can't give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so. As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God's omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.

The problem you have is how to reconcile free will with Omniscience.  Also, what is the Biblical provenance for "free will"?

eta:  the answer is, "There is none."

[TheJackel]

Yes it does deserve scrutiny as I already think that mankind is not inherently good unlike the romantics view.  But I see us ALL as having a moral compass and natural desires to do what is right.  Again beyond the issue of a bottom up or top down process it means that goodness should have no monopoly.  Harmful and terrible things have been done in the name of religion.  Good and wonderful things have been done by non-believers.  That is why the Christian views this as a fallen world with the disposition to entropy.  We all know that we should be more selfless and that there is a perpetual injustice in this world and the suffering all around us.  Humanism is an effort to see that religion does not have a monopoly.  But any relativism that exists means that nihilism is going to be the ultimate blind and reckless master...

To any fellow Christian that may be reading this I would say that we need to not be puffed up as we are all more alike in our nature to do good/evil as anybody else.

This argument is entirely fallacious, especially when it's trying to argue that without religion there wouldn't be any purpose to life, or morality.. It's a pleading argument to subliminally suggest that if one is not a believer of your ideology, that one would have no purpose, or moral judgment.. And when it comes to harmful and terrible things in this world, well, unfortunately it's not a perfect world. This generally means that you may not be understanding that morality is subjective, abstract, and dependent of point of view.. Morality is best described under positive, negative, and neutral mental addiction subject to abstract interpretation. This is inherently a natural human trait that has nothing to do with religion.. Bad people will do bad things regardless if it involves religion, money, drugs, power, status, or what have you.. Welcome to the real world where you can't simply pin bad things to atheism.

Now lets talk about Nihilism and purpose and why your argument is false...

Wiki:

Nihilism (pronounced /ˈnaɪ.əˌlɪzəm/ or /ˈni.əˌlɪzəm/; from the Latin nihil, nothing)

This is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life[1] is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.

Purpose:

1 a : something set up as an object or end to be attained :

Attained:

"To succeed in a directed effort, process, or progression"

When we look at purpose, it only requires something to be capable of attaining.. Existence itself is self attained or even self attaining. Energy for example self oscillates and self attains order from chaos through positive, negative, and neutral feedback loops. Emergence, or emerging properties are self-attaining, or attained. There is no requirement for intelligent intervention for a purpose to exist. A purpose can be served without necessarily needing to be observed, or even known to have a purpose. A pattern doesn't need observation to be a pattern, or have a pattern either. People do not require religion to have purpose or to self-attain their own purpose in life.  Your use of Nihilism is completely disingenuous, or dishonest discourse in what is a failed attempt to suggest someone can not have a purpose without religion, or even a GOD. It's a fallacy that purpose would require some magical sky fairy to bestow upon us a purpose, especially when the purpose of existence is simply to exist while the purpose of non-existence is simply to not exist.

Thumpalumpacus is correct, his life does not require a religious ideological construct, belief, or GOD in order to attain and have a meaningful purpose.

Example 2:

Even The point of Zero would be a success from the progression of regression. Direction only needs energy to have a directed process, or progression. Directed effort comes once a level of complexity reach the point of self direction. The point where life begins to evolve is a prime example of existence self attaining. Direction and progression does not need intelligence to be directed. Thus self-oscillation through feedback loops lead to the emerging order from a chaotic system, and through this system we get self-direction, and then self-cognitive dynamics, and eventually the possibility, or probability of life, or intelligent beings such as ourselves.

So I really think you need to concede that everyone's life has purpose, meaning, and value regardless if they believe in a god, or follow a religion. I find it offensive that you would even attempt to attach Nihilism to other people just because they don't follow your ideological constructs.

[TheJackel]

In regards to Free Will, This would literally be impossible if one believes their GOD to be omniscient. By definition everything is already known by this so called GOD, and this includes any choices you make, have made, or will make in the future.. It would know all of this before it would have ever created you.. There is absolutely no free agency in omniscience. Again by definition, you are merely a puppet with a pre-written script playing a part in a pre-written puppet show to which the outcome is already written and known. Thus, Omniscience means the knowing of the eternal past and knowing the eternal future all in one picture.. hence, it means knowing infinitely what happens in the infinite future. Worse yet, all meaningful purpose is lost because there no longer is a purpose to be had when everything is already done, known, executed, judged, or processed... So to your GOD, watching you now is like watching an infinitely old rerun.. And It gets even worse! This also means an omniscient GOD would have known prior to our "creation" that we would war and kill each other, or even had known that Hitler would slaughter millions of Jews long before he was ever born!.. Sound's like a sadistic plan of amusement out the boredom of knowing everything..

And here is a all powerful and all knowing GOD problem that proves the fallacy in the theist argument:

Can an infinitely omniscient GOD learn something new that to which he can not possibly not already know? Could he have new thoughts, ideas, dreams, plans, or memories if he is infinitely omniscient and infinitely already Knows, done, planned, dreamed, or thought of? Funny how that self contradicts infinite power.

[Tank]

If God gave humanity free will, God is still vicariously responsible for what we do with free will. Consider an adult who gives a child a loaded gun, is the adult free of responsibility for what the child does with the gun? Of course not, the adult would rightly be considered irresponsible and the child not responsible for what they did with the gun. Of course the ideal outcome would be if the child used the gun killed the adult. Hmmm what an appropriate outcome!

[Filanthropod]

If there truly is a God, why wasn't the world designed as a utopia from the beginning? Why let humans suffer hundreds, even thousands of years of sickness, famine, war, rape, taxes, child molestation, kidnapping, murder, torture, thievery, adultery, politicians, welfare, loneliness, Britney Spears, Dick Cheyney, George Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, The Dallas Cowboys, Chad Johnson, John McEnroe, Osama Bin Laden, The Unibomber, skateboarders, and last but not least - Polka.

If I were an all powerful being, I surely would have made everything perfect from day one. I'm still baffled by the biblical story that the biting of an apple is what has lead to so much scum and villainy.

I would like to hear a Christian's answer on this as well.

The question is, why do you assume that a god's existence would mean that the universe would be a utopia?

[Thumpalumpacus]

I think we're commenting with the Christian god in mind, who is allegedly Omnibenevolent.

If God gave humanity free will, God is still vicariously responsible for what we do with free will. Consider an adult who gives a child a loaded gun, is the adult free of responsibility for what the child does with the gun? Of course not, the adult would rightly be considered irresponsible and the child not responsible for what they did with the gun. Of course the ideal outcome would be if the child used the gun killed the adult. Hmmm what an appropriate outcome!

In addition to this and Jack's fine post, another contradiction is the idea that there is free will at all when one's soul is held hostage.  "Believe in me or burn for eternity in Hell" is hardly different from "Give me all your money or I'll blow your brains out".  To excuse God the extortion he is practicing is to find the robber "not guilty" because his victim voluntarily surrendered his money.

[Gawen]

If there truly is a God, why wasn't the world designed as a utopia from the beginning? Why let humans suffer hundreds, even thousands of years of sickness, famine, war, rape, taxes, child molestation, kidnapping, murder, torture, thievery, adultery, politicians, welfare, loneliness, Britney Spears, Dick Cheyney, George Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, The Dallas Cowboys, Chad Johnson, John McEnroe, Osama Bin Laden, The Unibomber, skateboarders, and last but not least - Polka.

If I were an all powerful being, I surely would have made everything perfect from day one. I'm still baffled by the biblical story that the biting of an apple is what has lead to so much scum and villainy.

I would like to hear a Christian's answer on this as well.

The question is, why do you assume that a god's existence would mean that the universe would be a utopia?

He doesn't assume that. He's wanting to know why the best of all possible worlds....isn't.

[Gawen]

I think we're commenting with the Christian god in mind, who is allegedly Omnibenevolent.

If God gave humanity free will, God is still vicariously responsible for what we do with free will. Consider an adult who gives a child a loaded gun, is the adult free of responsibility for what the child does with the gun? Of course not, the adult would rightly be considered irresponsible and the child not responsible for what they did with the gun. Of course the ideal outcome would be if the child used the gun killed the adult. Hmmm what an appropriate outcome!

In addition to this and Jack's fine post, another contradiction is the idea that there is free will at all when one's soul is held hostage.  "Believe in me or burn for eternity in Hell" is hardly different from "Give me all your money or I'll blow your brains out".  To excuse God the extortion he is practicing is to find the robber "not guilty" because his victim voluntarily surrendered his money.

It mindboggles me that the Judeo/Christian/Islamic believers can't see this.

[TheJackel]

I think we're commenting with the Christian god in mind, who is allegedly Omnibenevolent.

If God gave humanity free will, God is still vicariously responsible for what we do with free will. Consider an adult who gives a child a loaded gun, is the adult free of responsibility for what the child does with the gun? Of course not, the adult would rightly be considered irresponsible and the child not responsible for what they did with the gun. Of course the ideal outcome would be if the child used the gun killed the adult. Hmmm what an appropriate outcome!

In addition to this and Jack's fine post, another contradiction is the idea that there is free will at all when one's soul is held hostage.  "Believe in me or burn for eternity in Hell" is hardly different from "Give me all your money or I'll blow your brains out".  To excuse God the extortion he is practicing is to find the robber "not guilty" because his victim voluntarily surrendered his money.

It mindboggles me that the Judeo/Christian/Islamic believers can't see this.

They see it, it's just that they choose to ignore it because it's damaging to their ideology and faith. Hence, it's easier to ignore something that threatens the very fabric of your entire belief system than to accept and confront it, or at the very least address it rationally. I used to do this all the time when I was a Christian, and it took a long time before I really began to question my own beliefs. So in many cases, these arguments turn into circular defense vs critical assessment of the subject at hand. He has a strong emotional attachment to his ideology, and that isn't going to be erased by just simply proving his ideology as being inherently flawed, or wrong.  The perfect example of this failure of rationality was when a fellow Christian told me that "Only God can KNOW how to create Knowledge".. I couldn't help but wonder if he ever understood how illogical that is, or how self contradiction that statement was.

[Gawen]

They see it, it's just that they choose to ignore it because it's damaging to their ideology and faith. Hence, it's easier to ignore something that threatens the very fabric of your entire belief system than to accept and confront it, or at the very least address it rationally. I used to do this all the time when I was a Christian, and it took a long time before I really began to question my own beliefs. So in many cases, these arguments turn into circular defense vs critical assessment of the subject at hand. He has a strong emotional attachment to his ideology, and that isn't going to be erased by just simply proving his ideology as being inherently flawed, or wrong.  The perfect example of this failure of rationality was when a fellow Christian told me that "Only God can KNOW how to create Knowledge".. I couldn't help but wonder if he ever understood how illogical that is, or how self contradiction that statement was.

This is a very good summation of the reality of religious belief, I reckon. It makes sense.

[EaglesFanPhila]

He doesn't assume that. He's wanting to know why the best of all possible worlds....isn't.

Exactly. Having humans suffering for thousands of years makes no sense at all to me; and then they have to endure armagaeddon before reaping the fruits of a utopia. WTF!  

Remember, people believed in Santa Claus because that what's they are told at an early age until they learned it was physically impossible for a fat man to squeeze down a chimney, let alone exit through the chimney, and make it around the world in one night to every child's resident to drop of toys. I don't believe it's possible for one mighty deity to be able to see what each individual on Earth is doing at the same time. But don't say this to a Christian or you will be arguing for hours.

[pinkocommie]

Remember, people believed in Santa Claus because that what's they are told at an early age until they learned it was physically impossible for a fat man to squeeze down a chimney, let alone exit through the chimney, and make it around the world in one night to every child's resident to drop of toys. I don't believe it's possible for one mighty deity to be able to see what each individual on Earth is doing at the same time. But don't say this to a Christian or you will be arguing for hours.

I don't see the point in trying to make sense of the capabilities of a deity when they very idea of the deity itself existing in any capacity is already a ridiculous assumption.  I don't doubt the existence of unicorns because I think the animal wouldn't be able to navigate through a forest easily with that kind of protrusion on it's head - I don't think they exist because they're obviously a fictional creature.  Period.  Same thing with any god/goddess.