This is what religion does to people. Limits their thinking. Gives them half-baked brains.I think half baked brains might be a cause, not a symptom, of religion!!
Now, let's continue to pretend that this god has this fetish for free-will. That is, he doesn't want to keep any lesser being from doing anything that that lesser being wants to do. Let's take child rape for an example. I'm not sure why some people end up with a desire to rape a child. It seems to me that that kind of thing could be programmed out of the system or dealt with somehow before the desire comes to fruition.Free will is just a means whereby apologists shift the blame for evil from God to humans. We can see what a farce it is from the case of the little girl being raped. Free will proponents forget that the girl has free will as well as her attacker. So god has a choice to make - does he allow the free will of the attacker to take precedence over the free will of his victim? If he allows the attacker to have his way he is complicit in the evil.
Also, AND THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, the exercising of free will is NOT contingent upon the the choice made being successful. For example, I could choose to try to fly but free will doesn't guarantee that I will succeed. God could still allow choices (such as the one to rape a little girl) to be made with free will, but intervene to prevent the evil that success would bring. For example, he could trip the rapist up just before he got to the little girl, or cause a car to backfire and put him off his stride so she could escape. An infinitely powerful and all knowing god could ALWAYS interfere in a way that allowed free will but prevented evil.
The other thing that really highlights the stupidity of the "free will" excuse for evil is the blindingly obvious contradiction that Christians seem oblivious of. Heaven is a perfect place, free of evil. If evil is a natural consequence of free will then free will cannot exist there. Everyone in heaven must be a zombie. No Christian will accept this idea, but they will readily accept that evil is a natural consequence of free will.
Go figure!!
