Hi! I’d like to make a few comments on your post:
The classic fatalism argument, when applying to God, is that:
1,If God knew, before creating the universe, that God would create the universe, then it was not in God’s power to NOT create the universe.
2, If God doesn’t have the power to change the occurrence of creating the universe, then God does not have free will.
3, God is omniscient (all-knowing), and therefore knew before creating the universe that God was going to create the universe.
4, Therefore, it was not in God’s power to change the occurrence of creating the universe. (1,3 MP)
5, Therefore, God does not have free will. (2,4 MP).
The first thing I want to talk about is that, premise 3 of the classic fatalism argument does not apply to God. We may think that, because God is all-knowing, God knew since a long time ago that we would do X at T. To us, things that will happen in the future are pre-existed, long before their actual occurrences. However, it is not true to say that God also knew what He would do before doing that. The reason is that, time is created by God, therefore doesn’t apply to God. Which means, in other words, God is not limited by time – what we think to be “the future”, might be just like the present to God. Therefore, the “foresight” part of God’s omniscience, because of its relevance to time, applies only to humans but not to God.
Also, same as you, I don’t agree with what premise 2 describes. It seems to me that, “to have power to change the occurrence of something (at T)” is a baffling thing to say. What we do, or what happens at T, is what’s final and that doesn’t change. For example, right now, I either sit here to finish writing this, or go out for a walk, no matter which one occurred, it is what happened. Does it then mean that right now, I do not have free will because I can’t change what happened? No, because our free will doesn’t hinge on “ the power to change something’s occurrence”, but on when we’re doing something, whether or not we are restrained by someone/something else. That is, whether I choose to continue to write or not is up to me, myself, not others, so I do have free will on this. The situation of God is similar. God does not change, and God never changes, however, He is completely free, because He decides His actions, not something else decides His actions for Him. If God wants to create the universe, he creates the universe, and that is God’s free will.

God actually intends to put evil in the world — Isabel Hu

Firstly, evil isn’t put to the world by God. Borrowing from the free will defense, evil is the result of human free will, and it has nothing to do with God’s intention. Back to the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve could have avoided the sin as they were warned by God, but they chose to follow their free will, which then caused evil. God didn’t put the fruit into Adam’s mouth.

as an intermediary to strengthen people’s faith and ultimately align with goodness. — Isabel Hu

Evil isn’t an intermediary to achieve good. Evil is just evil, which is the opposite of good, and no matter what it does, it can never morph into goodness. You may say that tests and temptations work as intermediaries to strengthen people’s faith.

1 Corinthians 7:17-24, it is clear that the institution of slavery is objected or at least not favored by Christian value, — Isabel Hu

In fact, what this passage means is that, even if you are called to be a Christian as a person who’s enslaved, you won’t be thought less of in the eyes of God, because although you are physically not free, you’re totally spiritually free to follow Jesus. Therefore,
“let it not be a grief to you(7:21)”, and “if you have a chance to become free, make use of it. (7:21)”, but there’s no need to worry about the current situation, for God is always with you. These verses are used by Paul to teach and console the Christians who were not free, they are not the most direct evidence of God’s objection to slavery.

but there are no explicit words of objection delivered in Bible; instead, there is only conservative preaching such as what Paul writes in Philemon 1:14 — Isabel Hu

Philemon isn’t about Paul, or God’s opposition to slavery. The Gospel, also, is not about social reforms. In the historical context of the New Testament (OldT as well), slavery was a social phenomenon, and the purpose of the Gospel is not to teach people to break this social system, but to spread the words of salvation in such a society. Does God see slavery as a sin/evil that He wants it to be eliminated so bad? Perhaps not, because there were more important things needed to be done, which I suppose was individual salvation.

don’t think God has the desire to eliminate all evil directly; — Isabel Hu

Actually, there are a lot of evil that God wants to eliminate directly, such as all of the healings and exorcisms Jesus performed.

I see -- thank you for proving thoughts here, appreciate that!

To paraphrase a bit, your original argument may have this form:

1, Yahweh is good and all Yahweh wants is good.
2, Children who suffer terribly and die uselessly from cancer is permitted by Yahweh.
3, Children who suffer terribly and die uselessly from cancer is good.
4. The will and sentiments of researchers who endeavor to save those children are contrary to 3.
5. Activities of these researchers are not good.
6. Therefore, there should be no more medication to be made for prevention/cure/relief.

Supposing that premise 1&2 are both true, premise 3 still seems to be a problematic conclusion because suffering of children is not something He(Yahweh) wants — I guess you can say that it’s permitted though, under His own purpose. But suffering and suffering alone in this sense, is NOT what He put to you so that you can be left to deal with it, this is not and will never be His purpose.
There are several ways to solve the Epicurean problem in this case:
(1)Evil(children’s suffering) is part of God’s purpose, where God uses it to achieve what's good. But here we’re discussing Yahweh, who’s all-good, so evil isn’t part of the plan.
(2)What we think to be evil doesn’t actually exist because it is just “evil as opposed to good”: in this case, children’s suffering is not evil, and Yahweh doesn’t see it as evil.
Many may find that (2) is hard to be agreed, but here's among what I can think of the best explanation: God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent but He has His plan and purpose. According to the bible, God would wipe out all of the suffering and save humans when He thinks it’s the right time — when the salvation is achieved by the sacrifice of Christ, which therefore destroys the true evil. And finally, God promises the eternal life, where there’s no suffering or pain. So the pain/suffering anyone has experienced on earth is eliminated forever. So human suffering is not regarded as irrelevant by God, it is rather something He finds so heavy and He sacrifice his own son to end this, And it’s a misunderstanding that there is a “greater good”, or good in the big picture, because salvation is always about individuals, and God is not a pragmatic God.
for premise 4, they(the researchers who try to save the children and find the cure) do not fail to imitate Yahweh, in fact, they succeed in doing it. The reason is simply that Yahweh is good and all He wants is good, and being altruistic to help those who suffer is certainly good(thus premise 5 and 6 both fail), so it is not contradictory and unwanted(from your link page, imitating Yahweh is to represent His image, which image is omnibenevolent).

Many Protestants think kicking a dog is as evil as murder and rape, — Gregory

I don't think that's true and I don't think many Protestants hold this belief as long as they acknowledge that if you're not in heaven sins are not equal, for each has its own consequence. I think Leviticus explains it.

and even believe that babies are murderers and rapists because of original sin. — Gregory

any Protestant who has the right belief of resurrection/salvation would discard thoughts such as this.

Therefore if the issue of eternity can only be dealt with by either convincing myself of an interpretation of my mortality that allows me to accept it or by becoming immortal, then without the divine, it's got to be the first option. The second option becomes available through religion, rebirth or an eternal afterlife, it means you can take the second option of simply becoming immortal. The first option is not unachievable though, there are logically consistent and believable ways to come to grips with your mortality. — Judaka

Optimistic nihilism should work within these two restrictions, recognising that equally true or equally not untrue interpretations can be chosen between by their pragmatic benefits and aim at creating a worldview which produces positive effects. — Judaka

Thanks for the detailed explanations, I think these may help to solve the problem. And yet, can you talk a little bit about how do you, as an optimistic nihilist, understand eternity differently from the theistic/religious views?

the argument of you provides some essential ideas, but I also want to add on something:

your argument follows that,

1, The existence of objective beauty is not improbable under theism
2, The existence of objective beauty is very improbable under atheism
C. The existence of objective beauty provides strong evidence to favor the theism over atheism (prime principle)

for premise1, you seem to mean that under theism(especially Christianity), God is like an artist who designs beautiful scenes and then makes us to have a certain response toward that, in your example, when we’re watching the sunset, we are supposed to be impressed by its beauty and amazement, and “we would say something is quite wrong with an individual that doesn’t acknowledge it as beautiful(quote from you)”. I can relate this to be something that would happen but I don’t see why it is something that shows beauty is objective. Being aesthetically objective, relative to being aesthetically subjective, means that something can either be beautiful or not beautiful, depend on its intrinsic value, and it doesn’t change if we have different perspectives on it. However, people have radically different sense of beauty in real life, and objective beauty almost doesn’t exist. It is true that when watching the sunset, most of us will be in agreement that it’s beautiful, but what if it’s Duchamp’s art? It may result in that half of us think that’s good and half of us think that's bad, so what kind of message God’s trying to convey here is not clear. So having a “beauty thermometer” is only a partially correct idea.
Also I don’t think that the cause of us to agree on some objective beauty (Michelangelo’s art is beautiful, puppies are cute, etc) is a direct evidence of God’s existence, because it probably has more to do with us sharing a common morality: we think Michelangelo’s art is beautiful because it portrays what’s holy and ideal, and holiness and ideality are what we think to be good and progressive(in your argument, you talked about morality as well so it may worth to think that is the “beauty thermometer” an evidence of the “moral thermometer” or an evidence of God himself).

for premise2, it may also be somehow unconvincing to say that the existence of objective beauty is very improbable under atheism(especially under evolution theory). But I guess in this case you can also say that being able to appreciate beauty is evolutionary-oriented because it helps to practice and stimulate human’s sensory system so we can be more intelligent, and therefore more adaptive.

I think you probably need more examples and reasonings for your argument because beauty is too much to be talked about!

And the problem seems to be that, positive nihilists know there is an eternity, and will they find religious belief to be good or beneficial in this case?

If a positive nihilist doesn't find meaning in the search of religion or doesn't find meaning in the benefits of religion, then said positive nihilist would never become a theist. — Isaac242

I think what Nietzsche believes to be the best response to eternity is that you should put yourself at the center and see and act form your own perspective, seeking every specific moment that you’re experiencing, so time or eternity might be an illusion but your wills and deeds are real in this process. So if an ordinary people realize this and get rid of the pessimistic attitude towards life and death, he/she can overcome nihilism and become superman — I don’t think it works this way though and I don’t know why they won’t just choose to be a theist in this case instead of trying to practice this whole set of thoughts. Also it would be impossible that all positive nihilists result in finding meanings in God or religion so yeah I guess religion nihilism will always remain as long as theology is not complete.

Sure. Nietzsche believes that Christianity is a rational morality and all it does to people is that it “enslaves” them by telling them what to do, through reasoning. But Nietzsche regards reason/rationality itself is an illusion so what Christians believe is wrong, and freewill is above all.

Why does being omnipotent have to be logically possible, assuming that the definition of logical pertains to something with sound reasoning? — Isaac242

What I'm trying to say here is that omnipotence is logically possible only if with this definition in the parentheses, which is (x is an ability/capability & is logically possible) -> s has x, Sorry for the confusion.

To my understanding, the kind of capabilities a being described as omnipotent may possess are far beyond what the definition of logical encompasses. — Isaac242

I agree.

The very definition of omnipotence means nothing is impossible for god, and nothing is impossible for god means everything is possible insofar as god is concerned. God must be able to defy a contradiction just as easily as he winks a mote of dust into existence. — TheMadFool

I agree.

The stone paradox fails because all that God would have to do is simply decide not to create the stone — freewhirl

That's right.

The original 12 Apostles alone, it can be argued, were given authority to write Scripture. So if something is not written in the new Testament by them, a Christian can quite possibly reject it. — Gregory

It is true that we shouldn’t know about history merely by etymology,
and it’s reasonable for non-Christians to question such problems like Paul isn't the real author of the Pauline Epistles.( mainly the most controversial Hebrews, other letters of Paul are recognized in academia that they were all written by Paul himself) However in this case, in the church Pauline Epistles are just the traditional name/designation for a bunch of letters, if there are historians inside/outside the church who can provide conclusive evidence of the true author of a particular book/gospel/letter, then the church would just change the scope of Pauline Epistles, and I don’t find anywhere in Bible talking about that the original 12 Apostles alone were given authority to write Scripture, if there is I hope to know.

The gospels and the epistles are wildly accepted as historical materials (because they pass all the conditions for a material to be used in historical study), and there are a lot of evidence suggesting that Jesus and his deeds( healing, teaching, performing miracles, resurrection) were real, choosing not to believe doesn’t effect the reality that they are very significant evidence.

So the question is now simply that, are we supposed to accept Jesus, who is mighty and resurrected, as God.

Hopefully these answer your question about the truthfulness of the New Testament.

Therefore He wills the Good necessarily and freely. This may be possible in a supernatural (imaginary) being, but still I see no room left in God for Him choosing (within His nature) the Good in the face of pain and suffering. Therefore man has the ability to be greater than God. — Gregory

God is good so everything He does is just in His justice, but something He doesn’t do, so He can only honor our freewill. Even if human cause sufferings He too mercifully only does good for those things. There’s something I believe to be the core nature of God, that God is not, and can’t be love; God is not, and can’t be mercy, He is just who he is. Also why does this follow that man has the ability to be greater than God.

Gregory,

By saying what you’ve said in the earliest post, your argument may follow this form:

1.Jesus’s resurrection is the gist of Christianity because it’s a miracle.

2.For us to ever accept a religion/faith, it must has something peculiar/exclusive.

3. Miracles of resurrection are reported in every culture, civilization, and religion in history.

4. Therefore, embracing Christianity isn’t the best choice.

And I believe this argument is faulty because every one of the 3 premises is problematic in its own way. For premise 1, resurrection is much more than a miracle. Besides the fact that resurrection itself is a miracle, it is the core of the Christian Gospel which meaning isn’t equivalent to any other miracle.
And resurrection, although one of the most important foundations in Christianity, isn’t the whole importance of Christianity because resurrection can’t be separated from all of the former events that ascribe it meaning(including Jesus gives people full mercies, washes away their sins, crucified, tormented and died, while the reality of resurrection hasn't taken place), and the other thing is that people follow Christ not because Jesus’s died and resurrected — Peter was a follower of Christ before Jesus even died.
You didn't say premise 2 explicitly but I believe you’ve suggested that way by saying that Jesus’s resurrection seems a lot less impressive when knowing that there are a lot of such miracles in other culture or religion. And this premise is also not true: The reason for us to accept a faith is about the goodness it brings to us or what about it that’s gonna make ourselves better, and it doesn’t have anything to do with wether it’s exclusive to other religion, culture, etc. For example, it is less likely that someone is a Christian because she thinks that it’s distinctive that Jesus could resurrect — the basic idea of premise 2 may work for many other conditions but our belief’s just not based on that.
For premise 3, as I said, resurrection is the core of the Christian gospel, so it’s not equivalent to any other miracles alike — I assume you’re suggesting the miracles that bring the dead back to life in this argument’s context. According to my knowledge, miracles that resemble resurrection in other culture or religion that I can think of including reincarnation in Buddhism, Hinduism and ancient Chinese culture, and former Egyptians also believes that people can rise from the dead, but none of these entail what resurrection entails. So this premise is based on an asymmetrical analogy.
Also I don’t see the relevance for the part in which you’re saying that we have no way of knowing if Luke, Mark or Paul were real apostles who could write the Scripture. I assume you consider this to be a loophole in the Bible because you’re suggesting that if they were not real apostles, they wouldn’t have traveled along with Jesus, which could then put the truthfulness of Jesus’s deeds, also the truthfulness of the very Scripture in doubt. However, what I’m trying to make here is that it doesn’t put the Scripture or Jesus in doubt, for 1)It’s very not likely that the Apostles are not real apostles — if you read the Scripture you’ll find that Peter writes incessantly about Paul and vice versa, and 2)It doesn’t matter even if they are not because Bible isn’t the only document where Jesus is recorded, Jesus is a real character whose deeds and life stories were attested by many historians.

TheMadFool,

Your original argument may follow this form:

1.Every creature is equal in the sight of an omnibenevolent god.

2.If god loves all his creations equally, he doesn't intervene natural evil.

3.God permits natural evil.

This argument is unsound because both premises are not true.
I assume that what you’re suggesting here is based on a pantheistic view that god is an idea of “an omnibenevolent being”, so we’re not going to draw Christianity God, Jewish God or Muslim God into discussion because they’ve all clearly demonstrated anthropocentrism, which premise 1will fail in any of these cases.
First of all, it’s theoretically possible that an omnibenevolent god treats its creations equally, from maggots to human, and all of the life forms. But is it actually the case that an omnibenevolent god treats all of its creations equally — I don’t think so, at least by far. If all of the creations are equally viewed by an omnibenevolent god, there are two possible outcomes that 1)all of the creations are equal in the sense that they all live a safe, suffering-free and resource-rich life, or 2) there are killings, threats and suffering but every creature has the same level of ability or advantage to cope with danger and has the same chance to survive, and this model sort of goes cycle after cycle to ensure that every creature obtains its equality. We could basically deny the first outcome because we know that all kinds of creatures need to consume other species to survive, then left the second outcome, which is also impossible based on the facts — there will never be such equality in our world( created by an omnibenevolent god) because some creatures are evidently more defenseless than the others, for example, an elephant could easily uproot a tree and, after all, human always have the biggest chance of survival among all other creatures. Though it’s undoubted that there’s an ecological circulation within the system, it’s still true that some species experience a lot more/less number of death or have longer/shorter life span than the others. So an omnibenevolent god doesn’t treat every life form equally because every life form is not equal and can never be equal. Therefore premise 1 fails.
As for premise 2, it seems to me that it’ll be more sensible if god loves all his creations equally so he does intervene natural evil. Also if you think of god as a parent, then being impartial probably isn’t the way of showing its goodness, because seeing sibling rivalry without stopping them seems more like being indifferent than loving though. There will never be a good, loving parent who sees her children fighting over each other and all get hurt but stays and watches just because she’s too impartial to intervene. Also an omnibenevolent god wouldn’t have created a family full of everyday family feud.