Why does God permit evil????

I just explained this. They cannot be considered in isolation from one another. If they could you would be absolutely correct, I grant this.

I knew Portugal when it was poor and its nothing like Africa. Why should my reasoning behind my logic have to be excluded for any reason. Whats this about cold and not feeling it ? You know the question I pose why are you deliberately avoiding it?

Sure they can be considered in isolation from each other. I noticed what you were doing with all of the extra statements in your answer, but that still doesn't avoid the point. If heaven is a better place than this, and the realm of heaven precedes earth, and God always does what is best, then God would have created us in heaven.

Well yes. If we go by this premise one cannot have heaven without first passing through earth because God made it that way.

And I realized what you were doing with your initial question about if I believed in heaven or not.

No, that does not follow. Heaven is the culmination of the our earthly experience. In the same way that it is logically impossible for 2 to come before 1 whether or not 2 is of greater value or not, it is logically impossible to get to heaven before earth. If you want to be created in heaven you must first pass through earth. It is logically impossible to skip the first and get straight to the second. Therefore God, in doing what is best, created you here so that you might experience what is next.

You yourself even admitted this could be so. Therefore I rest my case

With all due respect, please don't resort to such desperate attempts to make your argument appear logical. In that sentence I said "if we go by the premise", which means speaking hypothetically. I didn't say that I thought it was possible or likely. Also, I should have italicized the words but in that same sentence I also said "because God made it that way", therefore logically attaching the responsibility that one must exist on earth before existing in heaven to this God.

What matters here is that the realm of heaven, and the conditions that make heaven better, were already in play before God created the earth.

well I'm not debating absolutes here. I could of course be completely wrong. I'm merely creating the room for possibility. And IMO what I said is at the very least possible.

---------- Post added 02-05-2010 at 04:26 PM ----------

First I'm not 100% sure if heaven existed before earth, at least not in it's current form. And even if it did I could conclude that it's in fact better now than it was before that time. And lastly, I'm not quite sure how you came to such a conclusion about heaven anyway.

However, all that aside I'll bite. What exactly are you getting at with this one?

I already stated where I was getting at, and I politely would not like to restate something that I believe is so clear.

You said that if heaven and earth could be considered in isolation of each other I would be correct. Heaven and earth can be considered in isolation of each other. Heaven is one realm and earth is another. Does this not mean that I'm correct?

being in different "realms" does not infer isolation in the sense that there is no connection between the two realms. And that in order to get to one realm one must first pass through the other realm. Being in different realms does not imply isolation only a different form.

I feel that we will now continue going round and round

I agree with you that if unless a connection between heaven and earth does not exists in such a way as to make it logically impossible to have one without the other then, yes, God did not do His best. I admit this.

Now can you admit that it is possible, not necessarily so, but possible, that indeed, there such a connection might exist?

Are you saying that it is logically impossible to have heaven without earth? I don't mean that in the sense of a person getting to heaven before living on earth, but in the sense that heaven couldn't exist without earth.

My point is that if there was an all-knowing, all-powerful, infallible, beneficent god he would have created us in heaven.

I stated my point for you about heaven, but it was when I edited the post. Sorry. Allow me to say it again. My point is that if there was an all-knowing, all-powerful, infallible, beneficent god he would have created us in heaven.

Peps you constantly interject, without real explaination of your true intentions. One liners are fine but I would like to know more of your true feelings.

---------- Post added 02-05-2010 at 02:27 PM ----------

So when did he decide to stop interfering in mans evil intentions? Your telling me the god of the old testament is the same god Jesus spoke of?

Xris, there you have Portugal...

Link:

If I understand your argument, you are saying,
"If there is a god who created the universe and us humans in it, and this god is all-powerful and loving and all those other good things, then why did this God not just put us in heaven where all is perfect, rather than having us go through this messy process of being born, and being being mistreated, and doing bad things, and having to learn how to do good things, and suffering, and seeing other people suffer, and dieing?"

And Amperage is saying, "This whole process that we go through on earth with all the stuff that we have to go through and learn from are all necessary as a part of getting to be in heaven."
I suggest that Hue-Man is forgetting some of the properties of the God that most theist believe in, including being All-Knowing and All-Wise (which none of us here can honestly claim to be.)

(See posts #1040 & 1043 in this thread)

It is popular among atheists to introduce their straw-man concept of God as a basis for an argument, then when theists suggest that "God is more than that!" they say, "There you go again, changing the concept of god just to win your argument!" Actually, the theists have a much more robust and interesting concept of what God is than the atheists seem to want to consider. It is the atheists who have changed the concept of God to fit their arguments. This god that you atheists don't believe in? Well we theists don't believe in that god either! The God that we believe in is the Source of all Virtues and the definer thereof. He shows His love through His presence within us (if one chooses to let Him in) and through the guidance in words and deeds of His Prophets and Messengers. Words such as:
"O SON OF SPIRIT! The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes."

Here is an analogy for your argument, Hue-man:
You seem to think that being in the end-zone is where you aught to start, and the game is over and there was nothing for anyone to prove. Ask anyone who has played football for the fun of it, and they will tell you that all the effort and the pain were worth it, whether they won or lost. In Football, as in life, it is not whether you "win" or you "lose", it is how you play that makes you a better person.