Evidence for God from Science

Great post, August.

I would like to remark to Canuckster that Calvinism, unlike Islam, is not fatalism. Adam was fully responsible for his sin. The Quran seems to deny that. 'Allah wanted me to do it...Allah made me do it...I couldn't help it!' Calvinism places responsibility on the sinner's shoulders.

Turgonian wrote:Great post, August.

I would like to remark to Canuckster that Calvinism, unlike Islam, is not fatalism. Adam was fully responsible for his sin. The Quran seems to deny that. 'Allah wanted me to do it...Allah made me do it...I couldn't help it!' Calvinism places responsibility on the sinner's shoulders.

I understand that, my friend.

As I stated I'm not anti-calvinist, although I certainly do reject hypercalvinism.

I understand that determinism and fatalism are overstatements for many in terms of calvinism. In fairness, I suppose my position is that I see the mystery of the position entering into the picture earlier than most calvinists and don't struggle as mightily to attempt to explain away some of the elements of free will that I also see present in some key passages that I believe require some hermeneutics to explain away that lead to some consequences if you maintain them consistently in other areas.

I know you understand, but I didn't quite see what the point was in bringing up the Quran and its fatalistic doctrine. But I just saw LowlyOne was the culprit. Sorry for accusing you. * hides *

"Why" God does something is hardly ever a question, but mostly just doubt of His character. I've heard countless people ask "if God's so good, why does He kill so many people in the OT or allow horrible tragedies to happen?"
Is that really a question?
It's more like asking God "why do You do exactly what You want with the things You created based on what You deem as necessary, being Creator of the universe and omnipotent, able to see the effects of things infinitely in advance?"

It reminds me of a time I was playing a complex videogame and my sister was watching me play. (it was Vectorman for the Sega Genesis).
I purposely did something that would cause my character to die, but grant me a greater advantage later in the game. My sister hadn't played the game as much as I had, and as such, couldn't see why I would do something so seemingly contradictory to the point of the game, which was to survive. She would ask me why, and I would just say "trust me. watch and you'll see."