Originally Posted by: HammurabiWhy else?[/Quote]
See what happens? Being an eternal being's got to get boring so why not create a world to act as a television. Something to craft and something to work with. Make it and rather than control it, just point at a suggested direction to go.

Originally Posted by: Hammurabi
My argument has no relation to the issue of divine intervention.[/QUOTE]
You missed the point. If we're about to do something it's because God made us do it and that's final. So we've got no say in what we do because God's always there to make us do what he wants us to do, from day one. The relation to divine intervention is there.

Originally Posted by: Hammurabi
Wrong. Omniscience is mutually exclusive with free will, and even if it weren't life is no assurance of free will. [/QUOTE]
Aren't you making an assumption that we all believe in omniscience? Maybe God would know what is going to happen if we take a certain path, but also what would happen if we took a different path. Just because there's no assurance of free will doesn't mean there's no assurance that there is no free will.

[QUOTE=Hammurabi]
You misunderstand my argument. Who said anything about preventing anything? God is not at fault for not stopping evil but for setting its clockwork in motion with the knowledge of what would happen and the knowledge that without setting it in motion nothing else ever would.

No, I hear your argument loud and clear, but the thing is that I don't believe in fate. So for me to believe in a predetermined, omniscientific path would be hypocrisy. And here I ask you again, what's the point of setting such a cycle knowing exactly what's going to happen? "Weeee, I sure am happy I made this entire planet full of drones that do exactly what I made them do. I tell you what, this predetermined lifestyle is so full of surprises," said God.

[QUOTE=Hammurabi]
Manipulation is a bad word to use. If god is omniscient he doesn't change our lives as they progress, they were planned from the start. And yes, an absense of free will is an absense of accountability.

Why's manipulation a bad word? If our entire lives are mapped out from the beginning then there's no way to avoid anything and thus we've been placed on a single direction rail that will lead us where we go whether we like it or not. Destined or damned. And omniscience is a bad word because it makes things sound like there's such a thing as fate (which I don't believe in) and there's no point in having faith or even bothering to care about anything if we're going where we go whether we like it or not.

[QUOTE=Hammurabi]
No, because he knew before creation what we would do with our lives as we saw fit, with or without faith, smoking or nonsmoking, and what would happen to us after death. Because of this knowledge creation is reduced to simple clockwork.

So there's really no point in life because we're all just living in a drone-like world where we can't actually control what we do because we're bound to some cycle of events that causes us to live our monotonous, day-in, day-out lifestyle in which we deal with the same drones every day so that we can participate in some rat race that really doesn't matter? Why don't we just kill ourselves and get to the point if that's the case? Personally, I'd rather be dead than living in some world where I don't get any say in what I do. I didn't ask to be born so the least the gods can do is let me live my own life. That'd be pretty shallow and malevolant of any god to force me (I'm an illegitimate child by the way) into this world so I can just be pushed around as they see fit only to die and get nothing to say about it. They deserve the blasphemy if that's the case. It's all a sick joke and I say let's have at it with the armageddon and get to the point.