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 If you create Good there is always the possibility of it being corrupted [Evil]... unless you take away the possibility of Good being corrupted [Choice]. You cannot have Good and Choice without the possibility of Evil. That is nonsense. I can have both good and choice without evil. I can choose between a Vanilla Ice Cream Cone and a Chocolate Ice Cream cone. I have a choice - and both are good. I could cite lots more such examples. I'm sure you can uh... Evil is not a choice between two Good choices LOL; it's choosing to corrupt Good. You cannot have Good and Choice without the possibility of Evil. A God could not create Good... and allow the created to have freedom to choose... without the created to have the possibility of choosing to corrupt the Good [IE Evil].

possibility of it being corrupted [Evil]... unless you take away the possibility of Good being corrupted [Choice]. You cannot have Good and Choice without the possibility of Evil. That is nonsense. I can have both good and choice without evil. I can choose between a Vanilla Ice Cream Cone and a Chocolate Ice Cream cone. I have a choice - and both are good. I could cite lots more such examples. I'm sure you can uh... Evil is not a choice between two Good choices LOL; it's choosing to corrupt Good. Again - You are making an assumption that good came first - no reason to believe that is the way it happened. If there is only ONE god - then that god is the source of all good and all evil - and we have no idea which he created first. We also have no idea what he considers good or not. That is again an assigned preference by humans that has no logical basis. WE want our god to be All good - but that is NOT possible in monotheism - when you have only ONE creator. We have no real reason to believe a monotheistic god even prefers good over evil.

On Fri, 9 May 2008 19:34:09 -0500, monkfish wrote (in message < This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ): What kind of proof do you need? What kind of proof do you have? Thelogical ones. As long as they are _base_d in provable reality - bring them on. Faith is defined as believing something for which there is no proof, so the phrase theological proof is an oxymoron. Of course you can define proof in theological proof as being different from proof as in the definition of faith, but that just leads to confusion, so why use theological proof as that just confuses the issue, unless that is your goal. If we are going to do some theological reasoning, we might as well try to prove some theories theologically. For now, I'm more interested in thelogical facts. They are not scientific facts. They are not sociological facts. They are not mathematical or logical facts. They are not even linguistic facts. Do you have any idea what thelogical facts are? There are NO mythological(your word theological) facts - they are nothing more than desires _base_d on human feelings and imagination - and have no basis in fact. Your statement is an Oxymoron. IF you cannot prove a fact to be reality - test it -  retest it - a prove it  - it is not a fact. You cannot justify something as fact because it sounds good and fulfills some type of mental need of yours. Hence - the word MYTH. I need not believe in mythological/theological facts any more than I need believe in theology or mythology. And I don't.

I am guessing this blind faith turn around is seem by many believers as about the only way to defeat this? Anyway, where ever there is a discussion about god vs no god, up it pops often, amusing, as an apparent attempt to play the trump card (as in this post). The problem is, each person must find proof of god in their own way. You can't use a standard proof.  To me, the proof is in diversity. All those slightly different versions of a flower?  or lions and tigers and jaguars and cheetahs, and panthers.  All variations on a central theme.  But can one just claim survival of the fittest? Doesn't it seem weird one cat model diversified so many times, in very few ways, as a simple matter of survival?  I get tiger stripes vs a leopards spots.  But really, a jaguar, lion, and panther?  Or what of regular, miniature and toy poodles?  Is size really that important? Doens't it seem strange there's so many similar but slightly different models out there?  But if you accept a creator, well, he was in an artistic mood. Or, he couldn't decide, so he went with both.  A deliberate variation makes more sense than randomness and similar evolution in different areas.

Anyhow your flat reasoning is not correct. I'm not saying that atheists have blind faith because they don't believe in the existence of God. I'm saying that atheists have all other kinds of blind faith that makes them incapable of imagining the possibility that there could be something beyond our limited comprehension. A lot of atheists have no problem accepting  a god, as long as there's proof.  If you could prove god exists, many would accept it.  Would they convert to an already established religion?  Some would.  Create their won religion?  Again, some would.  Some would still deny it. But it's a misconception to say atheists will never believe in god (yes, some will never).  And you certainly don't have to insult them. And imagining and accepting are two different things.  I can imagine a three god ruled universe.  I don't accept it.  I can imagine a godless universe, but I don't accept it. And no faith is not a version of faith, blind or otherwise.  You can only have faith in something, not nothing.  They have no faith in their nothing, as they will have faith in something if ever shown something to have faith in.  And that something requires proof.  Proof needs to be testable, and reproducible.  As you have stated in another post, theological proof has none of that.

On Fri, 9 May 2008 19:34:09 -0500, monkfish wrote (in message < This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ): What kind of proof do you need? What kind of proof do you have? Thelogical ones. As long as they are _base_d in provable reality - bring them on. Can you imagine a five-dimensional being? Irrelevant.  Imagening one and accepting one with no proof are two different things.  Just because Ray Bradbury wrote a story about life on mars didn't mean he believed it.  In fact, he called the idea of Martian Life rubbish.