I meant in terms of those who ignore God's standards, even if God was present. For some, it would make no difference.
That's possible, but those "some" would constitute a minuscule number of complete idiots.
If God were to actually punish people for breaking His rules (as He is alleged to have done in the Biblical era), then His existence would be obvious, and His wrath unquestionable.
Without a doubt, there are some people in even the most effective of surveillance regimes who will try to subvert the system; And some who will break even the most obviously sensible and reasonable rules.
But an all-knowing and all-powerful God could (without even touching my precious free will) remind me of His rules and the consequences of breaking them
in real time, if He cared one iota about my actions.
If I were about to (for example) risk my immortal soul by committing adultery, it would be pretty compelling to me if the clouds were to part, and a giant finger of admonishment emerge to wag in my face while a booming voice said "This is against my commandment; Think long and hard before you make this mistake!"
And yet, this kind of thing just stopped happening a couple of thousand years ago, because... er... when Jesus died for our sins that made everything different somehow. So does Jesus's bad weekend mean that God no longer cares if I commit adultery? Or does He no longer care if I burn in hell eternally for having done so? Or does He not understand that I am skeptical of the claims made by His followers and their books? Or is He happy with both the adultery and the subsequent punishment? What, indeed, is the benefit of an infinitely excessive punishment that occurs long after the crime, and is unknown (other than as unconvincing rumours) to anyone else who might be contemplating a similar crime?
We know that if you want people to not commit crimes, the best option is to stop them before they act; And that a less effective option is to impose small and well publicised punishments immediately after their crimes; and that even less effective is to impose larger punishments but with longer times between the crime and its consequences. Massive punishments, long after the event, are now known and demonstrated to be by far the
least effective way to reduce criminal activity.
But God seems to have missed all the developments in criminology and psychology since the medieval era, and to have settled on the punishment model we know to be least effective - extreme and excessive punishment for even the most minor transgressions, imposed long after the offence, and in secret (with only easily dismissed rumours of the punishments ever reaching those who might also choose to commit the crime in future).
Never mind "free will"; Whatever that is, the current legal system clearly doesn't prevent it from operating just the same way it would and did in an entirely anarchistic environment. And yet the supposedly all-powerful God can't even achieve something as limited in its effectiveness as our secular and human systems of law, crime, and punishment.
If you park in a 'No Standing' zone, and block up peak hour traffic, then if it's a very brief transgression, not much will happen to you apart from some invective from passing motorists. If the offence is more prolonged, a local laws officer will turn up, and instruct you to move the vehicle. If he cannot find you, or you refuse, he might impose a financial penalty, proportional to the severity of the offence and its impact on other citizens. In the most severe cases, your car will likely be towed (the authorities will act to mitigate the damage you're doing, once they have tried and failed to persuade you to do so); And you will, within a specified fairly short time period, pay a fine to have it returned to you, or it will be permanently confiscated. This system is a sufficient deterrent that most people don't commit the offence, and the few who do are unlikely to commit it in its most severe form twice.
The punishments are public; Everyone knows what they are. And they are swift; Nobody is allowed to continue, unpunished and unmolested, with their offensive behaviour indefinitely, or even for very long. And they are proportionate; Nobody gets incarcerated for life with hard labour, for a mere traffic violation*.
If God were sitting on the traffic laws committee for the city council, His solution would be very different. He would have the city authorities do
absolutely nothing for an average of thirty or forty years, and then secretly and mysteriously kidnap the offender and subject them to eternal misery, while having a bunch of (frankly unconvincing) people spread rumours that this had probably occurred, and hint darkly at the possibility that it could happen to anyone. Meanwhile, every highway in the city would be choked with traffic, while preachers sermonised about the problem being due to homosexuality, and to a constitutional ban on posting the parking regulations in schools. Any call to introduce tow trucks to at least clear up the worst affected streets, would be dismissed as an unacceptable violation of the free will of the offenders.
Which of these do you think would be the most effective solution to traffic congestion in the city?
Why, if you apparently feel God to be worthy of your respect (or even worship), do you make Him out to be so massively and completely incompetent that even a city council can develop a more effective way to influence people to do the right thing?
*May not be applicable in North Korea, or for black people in some states of the USA.
). I am not the guru of other Christians, especially when there are tons out there that could give you tougher challenges than I. If I'm able to respond to your posts at a low level refuse-to-learner as you put it - so what more of them... who are more than cerebrally worthy? I like your humour btw like some of the others... which may be the best you can do, just to respond with something to say, 'which has no weight if that's your debate'.
