>2) God acting to eradicate ALL evil would be to deny humans free
>will. If one believes humans have free will, then a benevolent God
>would not want to deny us our free will. If humans do not have free
>will, then the point is moot - we are no longer moral actors nor
>subjects. You can't be evil or benevolent to a rock.

There is lots of evil in this world that has nothing to do with free will. Flesh-eating bacteria, Down's Syndrome, AIDS... The free will argument does nothing to explain these evils.

Furthermore, I hope you realise that since your god doesn't have moral free will (he cannot choose to do evil), he is not a moral actor or a subject either.


On the conflict between Science and Religion:

>please don't romanticise science and say scientists use logic more than everyone >else. The fact of the matter is that mathematical reasoning, which is what much >scientific reasoning boils down to, is a very different beast than the everyday >logic used to decide about religion.

It's only different because religious scientists don't want to question their beliefs.

Science works by observation. Can gods be observed? No.

Science works by Occam's Razor. Do apathetic gods add any explanatory power? No.

Science works by falsifiable hypotheses. Can apathetic gods be falsifed? No.

Science does not assume things exist a priori (with apologies to string theorists). Should we assume that gods exist? No.


>Science doesn't try to dictate to religion, and neither (these days) does religion >actively attempt to dictate to science. Science doesn't (and cannot) disprove the >existence of God and religion can't disprove empirical observation either. As I >said, they're orthogonal, not opposed. (If opposed, science would produce evidence >that religion was untrue and religion would also be able to prove science was >untrue).

That would depend on your standard of proof. What usually happens is people result to politically correct copouts.

In a broader sense, it is not that Science is incompatible with Religion. It is Reason and Faith that are diametrically opposed. Science is just one aspect of Reason, and Religion one of Faith.

(Also see: methodological naturalism vs philosophical naturalism)