Okay. So God is all-powerful and all-knowing. In your mind, he created the universe and has the power to alter it at will. Bear in mind that you also consider God omniscient (all-knowing). That means that God knows the entirety of happenings in the universe, from beginning to end. This means that you believe in a God that knew he created sin and sinners, knew that he has the power to change it and knows that he will not change it. Thus, allowing people to suffer, knowing he can alter reality while choosing not to. Do you think that that is good?

Yes I absolutely believe all of that. God Created everything. God Allowed sin and Gave us free will. God Gave us His Commandments. God Spoke to us through the Prophets. God Gave us Salvation through the Sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ Taught us His Fathers Word. We have the rules (law), the example (teachings) and the exact model of purity (Christ). That we chose to sin and that we suffer is a privilege we don’t even deserve, we deserve NOTHING from God. If He Chose that we had no free will to sin, our very existence would still be a privilege we don’t deserve.

You don't have free will because an omnipotent and omniscient has, in your view, created a deterministic existence that dictates (through Gospel and his unwillingness to alter) every facet of being - even the degeneracy that you decry.

Let me be clear, He Created everything and nothing is beyond His Capability or Control. But He Gave us the moral compass along with the freedom to stray from it. He Sent a Great Flood to wipe the slate clean and we still sin. He Wiped Out Sodom as punishment for sin, yet we sill sin. Wanting your child to be good and them actually being good are, sadly, two separate wills. If He hadn’t Wanted the possibility of sin entering the world, it wouldn’t have,

Yet when the virtuous Lot fled from Sodom with his daughters. His daughters proceeded to get him drunk and then raped him when he passed out. Noah disowned his eldest son because his son spotted him laying naked and unconscious in a vineyard. Abraham dropped his barren first wife and was willing to kill his son. He only stopped because God told him to. Is that a moral compass? Also, how come God was always to people thousands of years ago and not now?

Yes, like I said, we continued to sin. Abraham didn’t ‘drop’ Sarah for Hagar, Sarah told him to have a child with Hagar believing she could never conceive. Abraham was willing to kill Issac because God Instructed him to. God Spared Issac because of Abraham’s willingness to obey His word. That is the perfect example of moral compass. God still Speaks to people, believe me. Perhaps not in the same manner as He Revealed Himself to the Prophets but you have to remember, that was before He Sent His Only Son as a Sacrifice got us. He didn’t need to do that for us, but He Did. So now we have had an actual physical example of Him in human form who taught us His Word and died so that we might be saved from eternal damnation.

Yes, like I said, we continued to sin. Abraham didn’t ‘drop’ Sarah for Hagar, Sarah told him to have a child with Hagar believing she could never conceive. Abraham was willing to kill Issac because God Instructed him to. God Spared Issac because of Abraham’s willingness to obey His word. That is the perfect example of moral compass. God still Speaks to people, believe me. Perhaps not in the same manner as He Revealed Himself to the Prophets but you have to remember, that was before He Sent His Only Son as a Sacrifice got us. He didn’t need to do that for us, but He Did. So now we have had an actual physical example of Him in human form who taught us His Word and died so that we might be saved from eternal damnation.

If Abraham was willing to kill Isaac (he's the founder of Judaism, by the way) and God told him not to, this doesn't indicate free will.

How so? Abraham was willing to do as he was told, he wasn’t forced. A willingness to do as ones told is not the same as not having the will to chose not to.

How so? Abraham was willing to do as he was told, he wasn’t forced. A willingness to do as ones told is not the same as not having the will to chose not to.

You would kill your child if you believe God told you to?

Oh gosh, am I as good as Abraham? I would like to think I would find the strength to do what God told me. In reality, (aside from having no children), I can say with great confidence that I fall very short of Abraham - which is why I am in complete admiration for his strength in this regard. I would struggle to put it in the mildest of contexts. As I’m certain Abraham did too. He did not know God would Spare Issac, he was indeed a very great man, far more worthy than I am, yet I am still saved. Such is God’s Mercy.

Your last response is very frightening.

That is because you don’t recognise the unconditional and undeserved Love of The Almighty and the ultimate sacrifice He paid for lowly sinful me so that I might be saved. I owe Him everything I have and certainly don’t deserve.

A slave, glad of your chains, envious of a man willing to kill his son because a voice told him to.

A loyal servant, grateful for an undeserved existence let alone salvation. Not envious but in admiration of a great Prophet so dedicated to God that he was willing to sacrifice so much. Keep in mind that, the sacrifice God Spared Abraham of, was the same Sacrifice God Made by offering His Only Begotten Son... For me, and you.

You're so willing to lump everyone on Earth's misdeeds on one man's soul. That's not having the strength to deal with your shortcomings.

On the contrary, I feel abject shame for my shortcomings, always. It was not my will that ‘lumped’ everyone on Earths misdeeds on Christ (not a man but God in human form), it was God’s Will. For you to think that, it is somehow easier for me to deal with my shortcomings by knowing they are forgiven by such a tremendous sacrifice, than believing there is no one to answer to, no one who paid that price, is not really logical.

"On the contrary, I feel abject shame for my shortcomings, always." I can't take away your guilt and your "abject shame" proves your faith hasn't either. If the immaculate conception was true, Jesus was made from the genetic material of Mary, which does make him human too. This is the philosophy of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Mary's genes distinguish God from himself, while he is him at the same time. The truth is that belief in God justifies anything. Remember that the original translation of "Thou Shalt Not Kill," is really, "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder." I have a friend who was training as a vicar. He told me that the bulk of the clergy take the Old Testament with a pinch of salt. Why? Because it talks of permitting killing other tribes and taking their women as you would take their cattle. For nearly one and a half millennia, the Pope's words was considered unalterable. It took Henry VIII to give him the figurative middle-finger, to break that hold completely.

So have you never disappointed your father? Or parents/ guardians? (I do not know your circumstances) but, you know that shame you feel when you screw up but they love you anyway? Having shame for disappointing my Father in Heaven doesn’t mean he doesn’t Love and Forgive me anyway. My faith means, I know that He Does, that is why I feel shame in the first place. I am not disputing that Jesus Christ took human form, but He Is God. How can you use the Commandment to not murder in your argument that faith in God justifies anything? The Old Testament has been fulfilled by the Coming of Christ. Who called out the Jewish authorities when they wanted to carry out ‘old law’ eg: the stoning of Mary Magdalene. We have a New Covenant. I do not subscribe to the notion that the Pope is infallible, that is blasphemy.