Credit where it is due then. You recognize we are discussing an irrational act of blind faith. It's the blind faith of bringing no rational enquiry to an idea that a dead jewish zombie is not, well....dead. So a blind contradictory faith. But apparently not just irrational. Ridiculous and unreasonable too. A self perpetuating unintelligible irrational blind faith which sits in a self-serving isolated absurdity of disallowed interrogation absent any reasonable questioning and critical inquiry. A place where ghouls, goblins and imaginary friends reside. I just think it an insult to the intelligence which I suggest you would say is God given anyway.
If G_d set the rules of right and wrong, sin and not, then temptation serves what purpose? Is G_d a trickster or malevolent? Why allow the imperfections in man that set him up for likely sin, repeatedly, throughout life?
If G_d set the rules of right and wrong, sin and not, then temptation serves what purpose? ---------------------------------------- God gave you free will, the ability to make choices, that's the wild card. We create our own temptations.
There is no God given free will. The ability to choose not to sin or not to have sin when you are supposed to be born with it, just doesn't wash. On the other hand, the use of duplicitous religious double speak is a choice.
Ok...under the world view of "no faith" [if I am labeling your "world view" incorrectly, please correct me]....I would assume that some sort of system of right and wrong, good and bad exists.....My question would then be, assuming a code of conduct exists, what causes a person to act badly ? Is it a medical or psychological malfunction which would then therefore absolve that individual, or do acts of will play a part ?
Are you asking me that because you can't think of anything other than it must be God behind it ? So according to what it is I understand you believe, it must be God causing a person to act badly seeing how God invented sin and has already decided who will sin. I'm simply suggesting to you that just about any other reason will sound more plausible than an invisible imaginary incomprehensible irrational fanciful notion called God, was the some THING or other which invented sin so people can contradictorily have free will to choose to act badly or not, even though God has decided who will. It's so infantile. Like a child saying its unseeable teddy bear invented porridge and candy so s/he would have to choose to eat well or not but the bear has already decided what will be eaten anyway. To default to primitive superstition every time some knowledge is required or a problem exists such as people acting badly, the root of which should be properly and practically understood, is no answer. It just creates further piteous questioning which in turn is usually responded to with even more unresolved superstitious answers by the questioner. I'm saying you'll have to remove God from both expressions in any equation before knowledge may begin.
I have either worded my question to you poorly, or misunderstood your answer to nutmeg. Do you acknowledge that under your "zeitgeist" an individual act of non-compliance against an established set of "rules of conduct" is in most instances, an act of will ? A conscience act of non-compliance. Where this will to act "comes from" is irrelevent, for the question at hand.