Martin, creating begins with the freedom to choose evil is not the same as creating evil! And if you take the position, as I do, that evil is not itself a thing, but rather a lack of good (in the same way that darkness is just the absence of light or cold is just the lack of heat), all you could say then would be that God allowed the creatures he created with freewill to choose to be less than good, or to reject good thereby becoming less than good, or evil. In this case the question becomes does God have sufficient justification for allowing evil? And does this in anyway make him responsible? I would say it does not in a similar way having children who grow up to do wrong things does not make parents responsible for the children’s wrongdoing (usually).Mike, I would ask what exactly you would consider sufficient evidence? It seems to me that in a great many cases atheist are just simply unwilling to consider the vast amounts of evidence that convinces a great many people as sufficient. In the debate between those who believe in naturalism/materialism and those who believe in creationism or intelligent design, the argument is not over what is evidence (they are all looking at the same stuff!), but rather what will even be considered based on philosophical presuppositions! In that sense it seems the creationists/ IDers have more open minds since when science cannot give satisfactory naturalistic answers they can allow for the possibility of personal intervention of some kind, while continuing to study the evidence. In the case of all the many things science cannot deal with (i.e. non-material realities, numbers, logic, morality, personality etc.)a supernatural creator is the only reasonable answer!With regards to your statement that you have not been presented with one piece of evidence that Christianity is more valid than any other religion, that is unfortunate, unless of course you have been but have ignored or discounted it!I would offer as evidence of Christianity over every other religion the historic reliability/ accuracy of the Bible (the Gospels in particular being excellent examples of reliable ancient texts), the person of Jesus Christ (and his claims about himself), the coherence of Christianity with reality.It is simply not accurate to say there is no science in the Bible that was not available to iron age man. There are references to the shape of the earth, wind patterns, currents in the oceans, not to mention the practices the Isrealites lived by that medically speaking blew away all the cultures that surrounded them.I would ask in what way you think the Bible could be more accurate historically? It’s never been shown to be incorrect. There may be some things that have not been verified for sure yet, but no archeological find I’m aware of has ever dis-proven it! There are references outside of the Bible to Jesus Christ but even if there weren’t, as I mentioned above the Gospels are simply the best and most reliable ancient texts in existence. Just because they were later collected into our modern Bible does not diminish their reliability as ancient sources of history!
Martin, creating begins with the freedom to choose evil is not the same as creating evil! And if you take the position, as I do, that evil is not itself a thing, but rather a lack of good (in the same way that darkness is just the absence of light or cold is just the lack of heat), all you could say then would be that God allowed the creatures he created with freewill to choose to be less than good, or to reject good thereby becoming less than good, or evil. In this case the question becomes does God have sufficient justification for allowing evil? And does this in anyway make him responsible? I would say it does not in a similar way having children who grow up to do wrong things does not make parents responsible for the children’s wrongdoing (usually).Mike, I would ask what exactly you would consider sufficient evidence? It seems to me that in a great many cases atheist are just simply unwilling to consider the vast amounts of evidence that convinces a great many people as sufficient. In the debate between those who believe in naturalism/materialism and those who believe in creationism or intelligent design, the argument is not over what is evidence (they are all looking at the same stuff!), but rather what will even be considered based on philosophical presuppositions! In that sense it seems the creationists/ IDers have more open minds since when science cannot give satisfactory naturalistic answers they can allow for the possibility of personal intervention of some kind, while continuing to study the evidence. In the case of all the many things science cannot deal with (i.e. non-material realities, numbers, logic, morality, personality etc.)a supernatural creator is the only reasonable answer!With regards to your statement that you have not been presented with one piece of evidence that Christianity is more valid than any other religion, that is unfortunate, unless of course you have been but have ignored or discounted it!I would offer as evidence of Christianity over every other religion the historic reliability/ accuracy of the Bible (the Gospels in particular being excellent examples of reliable ancient texts), the person of Jesus Christ (and his claims about himself), the coherence of Christianity with reality.It is simply not accurate to say there is no science in the Bible that was not available to iron age man. There are references to the shape of the earth, wind patterns, currents in the oceans, not to mention the practices the Isrealites lived by that medically speaking blew away all the cultures that surrounded them.I would ask in what way you think the Bible could be more accurate historically? It’s never been shown to be incorrect. There may be some things that have not been verified for sure yet, but no archeological find I’m aware of has ever dis-proven it! There are references outside of the Bible to Jesus Christ but even if there weren’t, as I mentioned above the Gospels are simply the best and most reliable ancient texts in existence. Just because they were later collected into our modern Bible does not diminish their reliability as ancient sources of history!