Athiest are the dumbest people. No Offence its just true.

[Randy Carson]

The thing to keep in mind is that I'm calling this free will and 'significantly free' because these are terms you claim to believe in and I don't see a reason to argue with you on terminology of something like this. If your God is omnipotent and omniscient then choosing to have someone become 'convinced'  through sufficient reasons or remaining 'unconvinced' through insuffecient reasons is no different from 'causing' them to do or not do something. Which is why if all would choose to not do good there would be just as much 'free will' as in a reality in which some would choose to do good and just as much as in a reality in which all would choose to do good. I don't care if you call it free will or 'significantly free beings', the most important point is that through God's omniscience and omnipotence, by choosing to create any world, he shapes it with no more or less of this 'free will' or 'significantly free beings' than in any other world he'd create.  Again, this will return down below.

I'm still reading, but I want to ask before I forget: What if God gives someone enough cause to accept His plan, will, love, forgiveness, existence (all of which we can just call "Him" hereafter), but they simply don't want to? IOW, God has provided them with adequate intellectual cause but their rejection is volitional? They simply don't WANT to serve God because they prefer to be their own boss, so to speak?

Okay, back to my reading of your post and diagrams...

[Randy Carson]

So you understand that he could create different worlds or this world differently (matter of wording there). So is your point that he didn't create just one world, but that we are one of an infinite amount? If so, I can understand your position a little bit better. But again, God's supposed omniscience and omnipotence combined with the concept of infinite creations still means he can create an infinite amount of 'perfect' and different worlds.

I don't think we should get hung up here. If God is omni, then he could envision the creation of an infinite number of worlds and then create the one in which EVERYONE accepted him of their own free will - unless it is not logically possible that He could do that. (I think I stated at the outset that Plantinga showed why this would be a logical contradiction, and although I know WHAT Plantinga said, I could not explain WHY at this point. I would need to do some research.)

Alternatively, God could have simply made "any old world" but then populate it exclusively with "Stepford Wives" - the good M&M's only approach.

Your argument is (correct me if I'm wrong) that it is obvious that God did NOT take either of these two approaches (since not everyone accepts Him) because He could not do so or did not want to do so. Thus, either God must not exist or else He is a lesser God than theists envision.

(Continued)

[Randy Carson]

And you're right in that some people turn to religion through hardship in their lives. But an omnipotent and omniscient God could just as easily, without literally any effort, have them turn to him through a different path. A less difficult, argueous path. If you believe this is possible, as you say it's easy (actually seeing as he's omnipotent it takes literally no effort at all), then it should be equally possible and easy for him to have those who turn to him through hardship turn to him in a different way.

So, at this point, you're envisioning the ultimate nanny-state. God ensures that there is no suffering and that everyone comes to know him by means of a "less difficult, arduous path". How easy should God have made it for us? How would this impact our free will?

Let's say for the sake of argument that God intervened and prevented a rape from occurring...or prevented a murder. Great! Praise God.

But if He does that for one or two people, wouldn't He be obligated to prevent every murder? Every rape? Divorce hurts people, too...what about preventing every divorce? Unemployment is bad....should God be obligated to prevent anyone from losing their job? Or falling on the playground and skinning their knees?

If God intervened in every situation that conceivably causes us pain, our lives would be so free from suffering that we would consider a hangnail to be a great injustice requiring God's intervention. At what point in this process of eliminating pain and suffering would life become so insipid as to be unworthy of living?

But at what point would God have to eliminate free will in order to accomplish this utopian existence? As disgusting as it is, God cannot stop the rapist or murderer without impinging on the free will of all mankind. Consequently, He allows the pain in order to respect the greater good.

And if we are not morally free to choose to rape or not rape, to kill or not kill, and we are forced to serve and obey God, why would we love Him at all since we really had no other choice?

Ultimately, aren't you asking why God didn't skip Earth and simply put us all directly into heaven?

[Hakurei Reimu]

But if He does that for one or two people, wouldn't He be obligated to prevent every murder? Every rape?

Yes. Some shit the human species can do without. According to you, he has the power and knowledge to do so. He must therefore not be willing, and thus complacent in each and every one of them.

Because any one of us, in a similar situation, in every rape and murder, would do something. We are quite willing and often able to interfere with each other's free will, frequently. Are you saying that God can't?

Divorce hurts people, too...what about preventing every divorce? Unemployment is bad....should God be obligated to prevent anyone from losing their job? Or falling on the playground and skinning their knees?

And now we hit the slippery slope. For a god that supposedly planned out the entire universe and its history, he is complacent in a whole bunch of harm that he, if not planned, foresaw. Yet any one of us, in any position witnessing every one of these bad outcomes or foreseeing such, would have an urge to at least help out the poor unfortunates. We, with our meagre power over the universe, do more to help out than God does.

If God intervened in every situation that conceivably causes us pain, our lives would be so free from suffering that we would consider a hangnail to be a great injustice requiring God's intervention. At what point in this process of eliminating pain and suffering would life become so insipid as to be unworthy of living?

You seem to be quite willing to put limits on the power and cleverness of God here: are you saying that God can't make a world without suffering and a creature able to live a worthly life within it anyway? See, hangnails happen because we live in a world where compromises have to be made; in a world without trade-offs, nails wouldn't be necessary at all. We are the way we are, both physically and mentally, because we are first and foremost a survival machine â€" as long as we propagate, we've done our job in that perspective and everything else is secondary. We are the product of an unfair, unjust world, and as such would have much trouble in a utopia. But a creature designed to live within a utopia would look upon our world and would literally not be able to deal with it.

Hell, even in utopias, we find things to do. Anyone who's played Minecraft in Creative knows this.

In short, I don't see what's so special about suffering per se that warrants a life without it to be not worth living.

But at what point would God have to eliminate free will in order to accomplish this utopian existence? As disgusting as it is, God cannot stop the rapist or murderer without impinging on the free will of all mankind.

More slipery slope bullshit. The definition of what is "evil" is arbitrary anyway. Why couldn't a bar be set to state, 'this amount of badness, but no more'? It seems that no bar has been set, at all.

Consequently, He allows the pain in order to respect the greater good.

Again, you're willing to put severe constraints on God's power and cleverness, saying that he can't respect the greater good without inflicting pain.

And then when people use their free will to reject him, as designed, God sends them to hell for it. "You can do it your own way/If it's done just how I say."

[GrinningYMIR]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cRwmqKWTLT8

[Randy Carson]

Yes. Some shit the human species can do without. According to you, he has the power and knowledge to do so. He must therefore not be willing, and thus complacent in each and every one of them.

Because any one of us, in a similar situation, in every rape and murder, would do something. We are quite willing and often able to interfere with each other's free will, frequently. Are you saying that God can't?
And now we hit the slippery slope. For a god that supposedly planned out the entire universe and its history, he is complacent in a whole bunch of harm that he, if not planned, foresaw. Yet any one of us, in any position witnessing every one of these bad outcomes or foreseeing such, would have an urge to at least help out the poor unfortunates. We, with our meagre power over the universe, do more to help out than God does.
You seem to be quite willing to put limits on the power and cleverness of God here: are you saying that God can't make a world without suffering and a creature able to live a worthly life within it anyway? See, hangnails happen because we live in a world where compromises have to be made; in a world without trade-offs, nails wouldn't be necessary at all. We are the way we are, both physically and mentally, because we are first and foremost a survival machine â€" as long as we propagate, we've done our job in that perspective and everything else is secondary. We are the product of an unfair, unjust world, and as such would have much trouble in a utopia. But a creature designed to live within a utopia would look upon our world and would literally not be able to deal with it.

Hell, even in utopias, we find things to do. Anyone who's played Minecraft in Creative knows this.

In short, I don't see what's so special about suffering per se that warrants a life without it to be not worth living.
More slipery slope bullshit. The definition of what is "evil" is arbitrary anyway. Why couldn't a bar be set to state, 'this amount of badness, but no more'? It seems that no bar has been set, at all.
Again, you're willing to put severe constraints on God's power and cleverness, saying that he can't respect the greater good without inflicting pain.

And then when people use their free will to reject him, as designed, God sends them to hell for it. "You can do it your own way/If it's done just how I say."

Beautiful. You have walked all the way down that slope and arrived at the inevitable conclusion: If I were God, I would have done things better.

Which doesn't exactly tell us how though, does it?

[Hakurei Reimu]

Beautiful. You have walked all the way down that slope and arrived at the inevitable conclusion: If I were God, I would have done things better.

Which doesn't exactly tell us how though, does it?

Left as an exercise for the reader, but of course, you don't engage in those.

The solution is abstract beings. See, all of the suffering in the world ultimately comes down to physics/chemistry/biology. You get crushed by a rock â€" that's physics. You suffocate in carbon monoxide â€" that's chemistry. You get an ingrown toenail, or cancer â€" that's biology. Do stupid shit to impress a girl â€" that's biology. Make war â€" that's caused by scarcity, which boils down to physics, chemistry, or biology. Death â€" biology. Abstract beings have no need to worry about such things. So, why didn't god make abstract beings instead of human beings, with no urge to hurt each other (how?) and instead have the urge to do constructive things.

There, worlds better than the material world and furthermore, God already has a model of such abstract beings â€" himself.

Yes, I am being arrogant here, because your God is an idiot.

But again, we are so terrible because the world itself is terrible, and we are but a reflection of that.

[Baruch]

Beautiful. You have walked all the way down that slope and arrived at the inevitable conclusion: If I were God, I would have done things better.

Which doesn't exactly tell us how though, does it?

We don't need to know how ... "G-d moves in mysterious ways"

[Gawdzilla Sama]

We don't need to know how ... "G-d moves in mysterious ways"

So does his mother when she's getting double boned.

[Blackleaf]

Let me get this straight. God allows evil is the world because pain is a necessary evil. So then, God was counting on Adam to eat that fruit so that he could have an excuse to curse the world with pain and suffering? And what of Heaven? Does Heaven have pain and suffering too? If so, what a reward Christians have awaiting them.

Jesus. Some Christians are so thick that they can't see the obvious holes in their own arguments. They'll say it's A when convenient, then when the problems of A are pointed out, they say it's B, and they don't think they've contradicted themselves.

[Baruch]

Necessary evil?  That means G-d is an ontological bastard!

[Mike Cl]

Necessary evil?  That means G-d is an ontological bastard!

Yep!  And every other kind of bastard one can think of.

[JBCuzISaidSo]

Well, he has eyewitness accounts of people who may or may not have been there who conceivably might've said that Jesus came back from the dead.  Sounds like a pretty strong case to me.

Uh, no. That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. Prove life after death, THEN tell me where they go. This sounds so easy?

[Hydra009]

Uh, no. That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. Prove life after death, THEN tell me where they go. This sounds so easy?

Would you accept the eyewitness testimony of the little kid who allegedly went to heaven and saw his perpetually youthful grandfather?  (not the admitted fraud, the other one)

If that doesn't work, let me trot out some apologetics literature that misrepresents quantum mechanics yet seems just sciency enough to sound plausible to those with a childlike faith (and education).

Also, did you know that the Bible is really beautifully written, lots of people are theists (what do they know that you don't?), and all Abrahamic faiths basically worship the same god? (give or take Jesus)

I could do this all day.  The evidence is so overwhelming!

[Harassed]

I don't see a debate, it's 2016. 
The religious fanatics want everyone to think there's a debate. 
I don't think moderately religious people care much.  They are mostly normal?