Free Will: Fire at Will!

Indy, all I think you've done is simply further refine the dilemma instead of conclusively putting it to rest.

You've left me with veritable barn-sides to aim at. The notion of free-will and an all powerful God for example. If indeed we have free-will, and it shall be safe to assume that we both agree with the notion, it is very hard to reconcile that with an all-powerful being, especially a historical one, say from the Bible. A god that works in such a way that he destroys Canaanite cities at whim, or hardens hearts of tyrants against whole peoples seems to be in direct contradiction. Where is the choice of the people Sodom and Gomorrah? Where is the choice of Pharaoh in letting the people of Israel go? He paid the price of his inability to choose with the life of his son, slain by a cruel agent of a cruel God.

And, how do we explain a God that is good in the light of the suffering that exists today? If this God has the power to stop senseless random suffering, why doesn't he? You speak of a common and understandable morality, and it is easy to recognize that if a person has the power to stop a person from killing a child, (and even do it in such a way that protects the life of the offender) and yet allows that killing to happen, that person is responsible in some measure for the death of that child. We call it manslaughter in our legal system, but the legal idea is based on an moral idea that God seems to fall short on.

Either God is powerful and cruel, or God is powerless, good perhaps, but pathetic.

Or a third option. He isn't there. This is much simpler to conceive in this case, and much more powerful in light of Occam's Razor