[Tichy]

I must admit, I am impressed by the sophistication of your argument. Still, not being well versed in Christian mythology, I have lots of questions.

For example, isn't god supposed to be all powerful, so that he created everything, including the devil, hell, and death? Would it cost him anything to simply make you not die - contrary to a human giving a kidney to another human, which indeed would be a high price to pay. Hasn't god, in fact, also created kidney disease? And what is the sins you are talking about? It sounds to me as if there are conditions for being granted eternal life after all, which practically amounts to coercion again.

Anyway, I really just felled compelled to reply because I thought your reasoning was not all that bad (for a religiously deluded person - sorry :-). I am willing to believe that at least you mean well.

[euroclydon]

Did God invent Kidney cancer and if so why? I think God has given us an environment to live in which life is precious and meaningful. The irony is that in Christianity we are promised eternal life, where all bad will be undone.

Right now what we have is free will, without a seatbelt. When an average person become angry or jealous, they may hurt someone, but usually not too badly, but when a mentally ill person becomes angry or jealous, the sickness in their brain may leave their violence unchecked, as in Sandy Fork.

Solzhenitsyn said, after years on observing mans depravity, that the line separating good and evil run through the heart of every person. We're all in a way guilty of the same sin.

[flyinRyan]

This has been argued and discussed endlessly throughout the centuries, but the answer to your questions are: free will. For example, God didn't make "the devil", he made an angel who chose to go against God.

The "Eternal life" thing sounds like coercion when you think of it as "do this or you'll be tortured in hell" but the point is God lets you chose to be with him or to not be with him. If God is everything that is good, then there's not going to be a way to make a place that does not have him and yet is pleasant to be, right?

[Crake]

Yeah, this is about when you run into that whole "how can you have free will if god is supposed to be omnipotent" problem that's been dogging various religions for centuries...

[flyinRyan]

Actually, philosophy passed that bit quite some time ago. Being omnipotent is not a problem for free will.

[Crake]

I can see why some people would want to think that. Humans are amazing at rationalizing their irrational emotional responses.

[username3]

The world was created perfect, but there was a tree of knowledge of good and evil, so people didn't know about good and evil, but they ate of it for some reason. They then had knowledge of good and evil. We're all experiencing what good and evil is.

Was it possible to just learn good and evil in a perfect world without all the death?