Don't blame Satan if things don't work out. It's God's plan right?

I think that's part of the appeal: the ingrained superiority Christians feel.

Agreed.

Parents aren't all powerful. But the Abrahamic god is (according to their faith) all powerful. So it could stop any war, any disease, any pain, ... but does not. Either it's not all powerful or not good. Choose. Or, as I think, doesn't exist.

Parents cannot prevent evil and are not all powerful.

Jod introduced the idea of freewill to the board.

Lucifer said "That's a bad idea, chief. Free will would ruin them."

Jod cast him out.

Humans fucked everything up.

Jod sent his CTO, Jesus to try and fix it. It went poorly.

Lucifer said " I told you so"

Its not a misread, your interpretation skips the important parts. The problem with your interpretation is right here:

be blessed without the burden of knowledge

The actual sin was both the man and woman breaking their covenant with God,

The knowledge is "of good and evil." Until eating they couldn't know that breaking a covenant was wrong no matter what their god has told them. They did not know that they should listen to what their god said, the concept of "should/shouldn't" was devoid of meaning to them. While they had free will, literally all actions were purposeless and the two would just bounce around the garden not knowing if they should actually listen to their god or not. This becomes more evident when you read further as well as look at the stories from neighboring cultures this was borrowed from.

Later in the chapter their god speaks to the other deities in the pantheon about how the humans must be cast out of the garden as having their new abilities, may find the tree of everlasting life and become as powerful as the rest of the gods and supernatural beings. The idea is that having knowledge of the ramifications of one's actions and living forever would mean that humans would no longer be controlled by the gods. That having free will, knowing what is good and what is evil and being immune to the wrath of the gods would render them all powerful.

This narrative then follows that their god casts them out into the world riddled with pain and suffering and humans eventually lose their knowledge of the past and how their god has their thumb on them. This is why Satan, "The Accusor", is called the bringer of light. As sin is defined as a transgression against god, Satan is there to show how the fall of man was truly an enslavement by their god. Rather than leave humans dumb bouncing around the garden or immune to suffering, their god keeps humans ensnared in this system of life, suffering and everlasting torment. the story of the garden is what makes their god relevant when they otherwise shouldn't be.

A major problem I've always had with that story is the fact that it is predicated on the fact that Adam and Eve acted disobediently by eating of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. But what is disobedience? Is disobedience a form of evil? To disobey God would be evil if it was done with knowledge, correct? How could Adam and Eve have possibly known that what they were doing was evil if they had no knowledge of such? Why would God set the situation up to necessitate that Adam and Eve would eventually disobey his wishes if they had no knowledge of good and evil, and therefore no knowledge of how their actions would have an impact or how their actions would be considered wrong. If a 2 year old disobeys their parents it's easy to brush off their behavior as just being ignorant, and Adam and Eve are effectively like the cosmic 2-year-old, totally incapable of understanding consequences, or righteousness, or disobedience. Fundamentally, the God that created the Garden of Eden must be evil because what he did is akin to me putting an infant in a room with a loaded bear trap and telling them not to touch it. They don't understand the consequences, nor do they really understand what commands mean. Is it really the baby's fault for getting caught in a bear trap if I am the one with superior agency and knowledge and I was the one that set the whole thing up in the first place? Who is really the evil one here?

God is often referred to as the Father, and if he is truly a father I would say that he fails miserably in that duty by the very fact that he put his children directly In harm's way. Yes, it is the responsibility of the parent to put obstacles in the way of their children so that they can grow, but at the same time it is also the responsibility to protect them from grievous harm, and clearly he didn't do this according to Genesis.

the third was the story of the great flood

And don't forget the really fun part, where you can actually still see the three flood stories smashed into one if you look at the sentences.

Yeah, the average person gets a pass on this sort of thing because I generally assume they haven't thought much about it. But it's particularly galling when biblical scholars do it.

I saw one biblical scholar whose schtick was debunking things evangelicals believe about the bible. He would happily admit it's written by a collection of authors over a long period of time, who were doing so not literally but in rhetorical styles popular in their day. Things like that.

Once, I saw him describe how the early Israelites did not believe in the three omnis. They may not have even believed in a monotheistic god, but it was certainly not omniscient and omnibenevolent. Then he went on to say that despite that—despite the fact that the authors of the religious text and the society that invented this god not believing in three omnis—he nevertheless did believe god was omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Wtf?

The concept tends to fall apart with modern Christianity where everyone just goes to heaven and hell is written out.

Huh? From what I can tell Christians are more fixated on hell than ever now. Listen to them talk about gay/trans people, Palestinians, women who get abortions, or literally anyone who isn't Christian, and it's clear that they're really excited about the idea that their god will torture those people for all eternity while they get to watch from heaven. You'll even get catholics and protestants both thinking they're the only ones going to heaven and the "wrong" kind of Christian goes to hell because of technicalities like whether you go to confession or not or whether praying to Mary is idolatry. Some outright say that it's okay to kill gay/trans people, Palestinians, etc, because they're damned anyway and god doesn't give a shit about them.

But why is that all good? Why couldn't he have earth be good?

That doesn't work. People with crap lives often can't meet the standards of goodness that many forms of Christianity need for you to be qualified for heaven

If the kingdom of heaven is within us, where is the kingdom of hell? The tree of life, whether yggdrassil, abramic, or hermetic offers great insight, here.

We're talking about the Abrahamic trio, so God is supposed to be all powerful. That means there is nothing beyond his power. There is no "can only" or "can't" or "incapable" for him. He can have His cure and save the tree too, He doesn't have to choose. Your example only works if God is limited in some capacity, and has to make trade offs that we can't understand.

That argument lands you in the "we can't know which religion is true" category, because if we can't know the plans of god, we also can't know which god is real.

So, while it absolves the believer from having to answer the problem of evil, it simultaneously robs them of any certainty about the truth of their religion.

But only if they think about it.

I'm upvoting because I thought this was done good engagement with the premise and you don't deserve to be downvoted for it.

But fundamentally, you've missed a pretty big step. What if god just…didn't create a situation where children get diseases that can only be cured with one rare tree?

Or, more importantly, what about diseases that cannot be cured? What about natural disasters? Yes, some types of natural disasters have gotten more common and worse as a result of human action, but they still happened before climate change, and if anything were more disruptive to people before we had modern building practices.

We're talking about a god that is literally capable of anything. It could just wave its hand and delete all disease from existence. It chooses not to.

IF there was some reason, first of all, God could give us the ability to understand if he wanted to, as he is not supposed to be limited. Second, it would imply someone is getting something from it, God, us, or otherwise, that for some reason, God can't give in a way that doesn't involve evil. But again, if he is never limited, that shouldn't be the case.

Also, if cancer and other diseases are supposed to exist and kill people for some kind of purpose we don't understand, why do we have the ability to treat, vaccinate and cure those same diseases? If medicine gets to the point of preventing every ailment, then why does that "oh so important" reason for it existing not matter anymore? It would seem if these things NEED to exist, we shouldn't be able to prevent them from happening under any circumstances.

That is an interesting thought experiment in general but I don't think it really squares with Christian theology and the central role humanity has in it.

The Nicean Council excluded a bunch of books, and Jesus was Jewish. In kabbalah, you learn about reincarnation, and so why did people think Jesus and John were OT prophets? So karma isn't a punishment, but a teacher, you repeat lessons, which are scaffolded, until they are mastered. Well, why don't you remember past life lessons? Why aren't crib sheets allowed in exams? Is doing the right thing only for personal gain still the right thing? Then no one should be upset with billionaires for reversing dei. And Jesus said the whole law can be summed love God, love your neighbor as yourself. Not better than, not less than. And that the kingdom of heaven is within us. Also the fall of the morning star gave "the devil" the earth as his dominion. "Be in the world, not of it," and "be wise as serpents, innocent as doves," eg be neither boot nor doormat. Love you neighbor as yourself. Ha-Satan is the prosecutor, who freely comes and goes into heaven (where is the Kingdom?) who lists every reason (sin) you don't get to be there (schism of self). And a defending angel can list one redeeming quality and you're in. You passed that particular lesson set. Now you have a new set.

Also Jesus said he teaches in parables, don't take things so literally. Why wouldn't he want every student to understand? They're not on that lesson set, yet. Someone just learning division isn't ready for trig.

I always wondered about that. When would enough be enough.

At least here in the US, a person's zip code of birth is a huge indicator of their success and life trajectory. That, to me, would seem to indicate that free will is bullshit.

Or in other words, “free will” is a macroscopic effect arising from the fundamental laws of the universe. Like most everything else we deal with.

Like… temperature doesn’t really exist, it’s really just an average of kinetic energy of particles. But that doesn’t stop it from being a useful concept!

Why are we better off behaving that way? Under that outlook, it seems like free will is a trap to hold people accountable for things they wouldn’t actually be responsible for.

Yeah. It's a fair take, and this is generally what I was getting at.

Robert Sapolsky wrote a whole book on this based on this called Determined. I really enjoyed it and pretty much agree

John Calvin approves.

I'm mostly agnostic to it almost all of it. For all I know, the ancient Egyptians were spot on.

God having a plan vs. everything being calculable to us is practically the same thing, no? Either way, it's still best to act within your moral framework, religious or atheist because it's just better to be a good person. I think me calling it a dilemma for either side is a stretch.

not a christian, but it is a problem for atheists depending on your framework of morality

traditionally, determinism is not compatible with moral responsibility since all actions are predetermined and it is not obvious that one can be held morally responsible for them. you have to do some mental gymnastics with either the nature of causation (see hume), or the nature of morality (see error theory), or the nature of what exactly 'freedom' is (see john stewart mill) to resolve this incompatibility

to the problem of the theist test, standard christian doctrine is that your fate in heaven is predetermined and individuals have been pre-chosen by god (theological term is 'the elect'). in that sense, your worldly life is not a 'test', but the idea is that the holy spirit reveals god to those who have been selected.

there are philosophical problems with all of these, but just wanted to make the point that both theist and atheist philosophers have been debating this for hundreds of years and it is not at all actually obvious accepting hard determinism solves everything.

I never meant to imply it was. I was simply stating that with a hyper advanced understanding of chemistry it's possible that everything in the universe could have been predicted up to this point by an infinitely well programmed/powerful computer or whatever. Because in my head, that's theoretically possible, it's also possible everything is predetermined, not by some grand scheme or designs, but just predetermined by random chance.

Apologies if I'm using the incorrect phrasing.

True true, but if there is genuinely quantum randomness, then the reactions those atoms go through aren't predetermined, so the initial conditions could be on an individual basis, but not the long term.

the horrors god would be responsible for if god is in control

You're forgetting the counterfactual. Namely, that we live in The Best Of All Possible Worlds and what you describe as horror is actually the nicest things can conceivably get. The standard Christian argument is that, without God, existence would be significantly worse. Also (depending on your flavor of Christianity) the mortal life is a proving ground not a final destination. Life is a trial one experiences before being eligible to enter the Kingdom Of Heaven, where God is fully in control.

The horrors are a consequence of Free Will mixed with the corruptive influences of evil spirits sent out to tempt mortals to sin. And they are transient, while the Christian Reward is supposed to be eternal. You see this best in the Story of Job, during which he suffers a litany of torments but holds firm to his faith. This faith is ultimately rewarded, not just through the restoration of his material pleasures, but through the promise of an eternal blissful afterlife.

I’m not saying that people don’t have free will or that it’s not talked about in the Bible, but free will is not something presented as a gift, yet alone God’s greatest gift to humanity as the meme says.

From my perspective, once God set the universe in motion he has mostly taken a step back from direct action. I would say life is a test of sorts for us, to see if we can make earth resemble the good of heaven, on a humanity wide scale. But it’s also an individual test for each person’s willingness to use their obtained knowledge to still be good unto others. We are all the children of God, from my own perspective we are learning to become like God, who is the Bible is shown as loving and kind.

Hey, at least you're judging based on the facts of what the Bible says. God is who He is. He's not campaigning. You disagree with Him, but at least it's really Him.

Of course, that puts you in the same position as Job. You want to judge God. You want to put him on trial. You disagree with Him.

And if you have the opportunity to question Him directly, you'll say the same thing Job said.

Ok, I misrembered the details so my bad on that one. What it actually teaches was that god created the serpent, put the serpent in the garden, knew Adam and eve wouldn't resist the serpent so god still wanted all the wars and misery in this world.

His perspective on the world went too deeply against mine. I couldn't take the hypocrisy anymore.