[thechat] Religious dependance

[Lachlan Cannon]

m-s s-u-c-k-s wrote:

> let's say there is a room with a big red button on the end of a short
> pedestal in the center of the room. this button is very important in
> that it
> can never be pushed except by the person who owns it because it will cause
> much desctruction and only the person who owns it has the sense to
> determine
> whether or not it's time to push it. pressing the button will release 1000
> "weapons of mass desctruction" throughout the world to specific targets.

Then why the hell isn't it secured? Whoever made the button was an idiot
to let the person, no matter how trustworthy, have the ability to set it
off.

>> Now, having never read the bible my grip of these things is shaky... but
>> isn't this sin stuff originating from eating an apple from a tree which
>> they were forbidden to eat. A tree that they were expressly forbidden to
>> eat from, and was placed right in the middle of where they were staying?

> (in the last episode...) to give man a free will god had to set two choices
> in front of adam otherwise it could not be free will.
>
> let's put it this way... if god put the tree in a room with a locked door
> and hid the key to the room in his dresser drawer and still told adam
> not to
> eat the fruit, doesn't it stand to reason that adam could respond with "how
> can i do as you say if you don't even give me the ability to disobey?"
> where
> is the free will in not being able to go more than one way?

If I have a child in the house I make sure knives are kept out of that
child's grasp. It doesn't mean the child doesn't have free will.

It's impossible (afaik) for one soldier to be able to launch a nuclear
weapon by themselves. The soldiers still have free will. they're just
not able to push a button.

Adam would have had free will without the tree there. He just wouldn't
have been able to take the fruit.

Not being able to do one thing != no free will, otherwise none of us
have free will. (eg, I'm not allowed to drive without someone
supervising me, legally.)

> it's like communist countries...
>
> dictator: "hey everyone! you can have anything you want! (as long as it has
> nothing to do with doing anything other than what we tell you to do.)"

Communist countries are not by definition dictatorships, in the same way
that capitalist countries are not by definition democracies.
--
Lach
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