That's an argument I've frequently heard, but it misunderstands God's nature. God is consistently in all places at all times and is not restricted by time. God is actually outside of time and therefore does not "foresee" events, but rather simply observes them all at once. Besides, free will does not stop becoming free because God knows what will happen. If I give a kid a bowl of ice cream and a bowl of dead mice, I know he or she will go for the ice cream. Does that mean I'm depriving the child of free will?
However you spin it, God created everything exactly as it is, knows exactly what the result of that will be (or is, or was, or however you want to describe it), and has the means and the know how to get a different result, if that's what he desires.
As for your example, did you create the kid from scratch, down to the very last subatomic particle? Did you build its brain in such a way that it derives happiness from eating ice cream, and is repulsed by dead mice (which you also created in exactly the way they are)? Because if so, the kid's not exactly free to act in ways that you didn't intend for it to act.
Taking this analogy a little further, if you then hide a razor blade in the ice cream, you can't somehow pretend you're completely blameless because free will when the kid somehow ends up eating said razor blade and you especially can't claim that you're omnibenevolent. Especially when you're perfectly capable of, you know, not putting a razor blade in the ice cream in the first place.
Hardly. That's more like if somebody looked at Medusa's head while Perseus was using it to kill a sea monster after he explicitly warned them to shield their eyes.
Well, no. Largely because a severed Medusa head is an inanimate object. Nobody is trying to claim it's an all loving being.
You misunderstand me. God didn't deliberately kill her, she looked back.
And one could have seen what happened from a distance without turning to stone. Or heard the sound, felt the heat, or smelled the smoke and blood.
...What? So your argument in your previous post is that God specifically used his Instant Death Glance form to send a message (on top of simply demolishing the city) to the world not to fuck with him. So knowing this, how exactly is anyone supposed to know he's in his Instant Death Glance form without someone actually looking at him and dying? If you can safely look at him from a distance (which is a news to me, but let's go with it for now) and not die, then how would you know that you will die if you look at him from close up? Though if you just meant see the city being destroyed and not God himself, then again, what the fuck is the point of his Instant Death Form? If no one is truly meant to actually see him, he might as well appear as giant rubber ducky for all it would matter. As such, the only possible reason he could have for specifically choosing the Instant Death Glance Form is that he fully intends for someone to look at him and die from it. It's not like an all knowing being needs to take precautions.
Again, you miss my point about exaggeration. If everything Jesus said was meant to be taken literally, there'd be millions of people walking around with logs in their eyes. And it has to be remembered that Jesus was a carpenter, i.e. a small businessman. Therefore, He would know that what He was suggesting was economically unfeasible. There is a school of thought that says what He really meant was that the wealthy should take care of the poor, through charity or other means.
So basically, when Jesus said "give as much as you can afford to helping the poor rather than wallowing in opulence. If you're still loaded by the time you show up at heaven, we're going to have a problem", what he really meant was "give whatever you won't really notice, but not so much that you might actually have to downsize a little, we can't have that now can we?"
That's a common misconception. I used to think that was the case too. But the real picture was far more complex.
Of the general commands, only Deuteronomy 7:1-5 demands the total destruction of the Canaanites. Deuteronomy 20:10-18 qualifies this by specifically mentioning the destruction of Canaanite cities. The others concern driving them out, destroying their idols and not making any treaties with them.
Ah, just drive them off their land, then. Yeah, that's totally not a horrible thing to do to people. I for one don't know what the fuck the Palestinians are complaining about.
And even that wasn't actually done. God’s angel did not insist on the total destruction of the Canaanites after the war (Judges 2:1-10). If slaying all the Canaanites was God’s command, the angel would have said so. God’s angel also said he would no longer drive out all the Canaanites since Israel showed little interest in doing so. In essence, the divine command of conquest was rescinded. Because of disobedience, the Canaanites remaining were now allowed to stay. They would become a test for Israel’s faithfulness to God (Judges 3:1-6). It seems unlikely God would use the Canaanites in this fashion if they were fit only for slaughter.
I guess not. Really, they're just there to "test Israel's faithfullness" (again, why does an all knowing being need to do that in the first place? Especially by displacing and supplanting an entire culture?). Totally something an omnibenevolent deity would do.
If you take it at face value that the Hebrews massacred civilians in Jericho, then you also have to take it at face value that every single Amalekite was completely and irredeemably evil. You can't have it both ways.
And what alternative would you suggest?
So are they irredeeemably evil, or is God all powerful and all loving? Because last I checked, the Bible says God can do anything. If he can't somehow redeem the Amalekites (which, again, he created to be so "irredeemably evil" in the first place), then he's not in fact all powerful.
So I'd say it's you who can't have it both ways.
Of course not. But again, that's a false equivalence.
Ah, so you would not consider it okay to wipe out an entire culture, even if they are "irredeemably evil" in your book, then. Well good. You sir, are a better source of moral guidance than God.
Again, if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them.
Well, bearing in mind that I am neither all loving, all knowing or all powerful, I have a few. For instance, as I've said many a time before, don't create them to be so "irredeemably evil" in the first place. Or failing that (because reasons), humans are far more suggestable than you might expect. Use something like priming or the anchoring effect (or other things that modern psychology have yet to figure out) to very reliably change their ways without touching their supposed free will. Marketers have been doing it to you and everyone else for decades. Or perhaps I could say fuck free will, it's not somehow worth mass slaughter or even a thing in the first place in this scenario, and just rewire their brains to be less terrible.
As you can see, even someone who isn't even close to all knowing or all powerful can think of a few things that are far more preferable to genocide. Who'd have thunk it?