ask yourself.

[wildwood]

Has any religious person ever seriously wondered why their idol would have bothered to create Earth and all its sinning and questioning minions? It surely would have made more sense to create the planet's creatures without fault so he could enjoy his creation!

[woofgang]

The answer as i understand it is called "free choice"

[FredPuli43]

God knows! (And that's their answer, too).

[goodlife]

Jesus, was said this: “You must love your neighbour as yourself.” (Matt. 22:39)
What will you do? This will depend upon whether you have faith in God’s promises or not. For even though you acknowledge that it is illogical for trees and tortoises to outlive intelligent man. And to go this far and no farther will bring no lasting benefit to you or me.

[AB Editor]

Morning.

Your question seems to ignore several well known arguments against it such a Free Will.

Do you not know about the concept of Free Will, or have you just ignored it to make "a point". If it's the latter then I would suggest this isn't in the spirit of The AnswerBank.

In answer to your question: I am sure some religious person has "bothered."

It also make no sense to create a world without free will, where would drama come from? Drama is conflict after all!

[jno]

the latter more predictable, the former more interesting, don't you think? Which do you prefer, a film where you don't already know the outcome or one where you do?

[rowanwitch]

We are pawns in a giant battlefield game moved by super intelligent aliens with a sick sense of humour sounds as good a theory as any

[boxtops]

Ask yourself why we make wormeries, or keep goldfish in a bowl...

[naomi24]

Actually, I think your question is very relevant. We’re told God wants a perfect world – which if we believe Goodlife – is what he intends to end up with when he eventually bumps all the baddies off. Bearing in mind he is reputed to be omniscient, it follows that he would have known exactly what would happen before he created anything and therefore it makes no sense for him to have made an imperfect world unless that is what he intended to do. Completely illogical. The concept of free will is man’s excuse for this God’s mistakes and for his failings.

[Old_Geezer]

It is a point I have occasionally wondered. If we are all on a journey to somewhere why not start with the intended end result. But I can only ponder on whether the value is in the journey rather than the destination somehow.

Besides creating something is often more enjoyable than having already done so. And if a deity is outside of time then maybe everything exists at once and the concept of producing something and enjoying it afterwards are invalid concepts. Maybe all instances of the creation come as a 'job lot'.

[jabuchanjx]

According to what I have grown to believe, when God created Man, man was without fault. He created woman to be company and comfort to man. It was the jealousy of one of God’s failing angels that tempted woman and it was free choice that she took to embark upon her sin, and it was free will that the man chose to take and embark upon his sin.
If you are complaining or questioning the evil works or the questioning of God and whether he exists, that too falls under free will. You have free will and can choose to do bad things rather than good, and you have free will and can choose to have a little faith that something strong, magical, aw inspiring and loving created humans and chose to give us the freedom of free will as to whether or not we would continue to believe in him in his absence, looking forward and working toward something better. Is this what you meant?

[Old_Geezer]

Free will or not, I think we can all agree it is all women's fault.

[rowanwitch]

If Adam hadn't spent so much time at work naming animals and fish etc she wouldn't have got bored and tempted my a bit of snakeskin.... I bet Adam wished he'd turned that serpent into a handbag and shoes now.

[jake-the-peg]

I assume it's a science project he's now bored with

[jake-the-peg]

Incidently the best refutation of the "free-will" argument I've heard came via Waldo

Is there sin and evil in heaven?

No? then is there no free-will?

Ah but God is omnipotent he must have a way to resolve this dificulty in heaven.

If he can resolve the difficulty in heaven he could resolve it on Earth

He is clearly either unable or unwilling to do so

Therefore he must either not be omnipotent or he must want evil and wickedness in the world creating suffering

Therefore if an omnipotent God exists he is evil

[WaldoMcFroog]

If Paul is to be believed, "For all have sinned and do need the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23).

If this is the case, then free will is clearly not sufficient to allow us to avoid sin that supposedly condemns us to Hell, and thus the free will argument is of limited value in excusing what must, if he is held to exist, be considered God's collossal error.

Given that an omnipotent, omniscient deity must, by definition, not only be capable of creating a being that does not wish to sin and must understand the implications of not doing so, one is forced to conclude that God did indeed desire the situation some would claim we are in.

Please note: hypthetical assumptions of God's existence for the consideration of religious claims make him no more real than that other villain, Voldemort.

[ludwig]

As jno says, it's more interesting for him this way.

It's like if you had a load of puppies but you didn't want them all, it'd be interesting to put them all at the end of the room and see which ones came to you for a cuddle. Those you'd keep.

The ones that didn't you could throw onto a bonfire.

[jno]

If this is the case, then free will is clearly not sufficient to allow us to avoid sin

That doesn't follow. It may be that it is sufficient, but people are not taking advantage of it. My computer is perfect (no doubt) but I still screw up when using it.

[vetuste_ennemi]

<<For even though you acknowledge that it is illogical for trees and tortoises to outlive intelligent man>>
Will whoever winds the key in Goodlife's back explain why these two facts are ILLOGICAL (stress VE)?

[Old_Geezer]

I don't think the claim was that people could not sin in heaven if they so wished, merely that if they were the sort of people who so wished, they would not find themselves in heaven.

[WaldoMcFroog]

jno, if the claim were to be analogous, your computer would have to be broken from the moment of its assembly.

In any case, there is little point comparing someone manufactured which necessarily has a possibility of faults by dint of its human design and construction and a postulated perfect entity which is supposedly not constrained in the same way.