"God does not cause actions." What about Genesis 1:1?

God has given us free will, no question, however, it operates only within the realm God has defined and when you have a defined realm to operate, that creates limits within which some desires are not possible. Even God has limited Himself via His character, else, He would not be God (e.g. He cannot create another God, He cannot make a rock He cannot lift, He cannot become nonexistence, He cannot do anything which would be inefficient since inefficience is a result of the fall of man and sin, and on and on).

I have read Job...not sure what you mean.

Not sure I understand the comment about the baby. God does not cause actions. Read the book of Job.

It's not so difficult. There's a shooting war going on. The Navy isn't getting shot at, but the Army is. Who wants to choose to go to a school where upon graduation you are likely going to be sent to a place to get shot at? The only part of the Navy that is also in harms way are the Marines, and Naval Academy middies have to choose to go into the Marines.

What would you call it? Random collision of atoms seems arbitrary to me.

How did sentience occur? Why don't rocks think? They are made up from atoms same as humans, and they've been around much longer than living tissue.

No, a just one. Each person will reap what they have sown. It is not vengeance from God, merely justice based on the actions of the individual's use of their free-will.

Why? Just because you say so? Billions have done so over time.

Evolution is not a FACT it is a theory, and one that has flaws. What you believe is true is not supported absolutely by science. You are just as entrenched in unsupported theory as you criticize in those of faith.

Is there a difference?

"my particular theology requires free will and rational thought." I agree to a certain point, but what happens to the 2 minute old baby who dies? We have to have a way of handling what eternally happens to those who never reach the ability to think through abstractions. This is why a just God is necessary.

Just/justice....now that will open a can of worms now won't it?

Ownership? Define own. Are you saying who controls me, or defines the rules within which I have no choice but to conform all my decisions to? Are you asking whether I have free will? Free will is absolute, but the extent of exercising it is limited (e.g. the person in a coma in the hospital is free will, but is limited...go on from there).

Help me understand what you mean by "own" please.

Define reality? Perception, or that which exists regardless if you ever existed? If you never existed, would gravity still exist, or only if you perceived it? Saying reality is the only absolute means that anything happening in reality is absolute; however, how is reality determined has been of great philosophical debate over the centuries. Even Descartes started with the uncertainty of his own existence in reality; however, his conclusion was based on a false presupposition which is that he things, therefore he exists, but that if faulty...what if he was knocked unconscious or in a coma as a vegetable in the hospital....would he then still exist even if his neurological pathways shutdown beyond conscious thought? Of course, so we have to move beyond ourselves for reality, else you can invent any version of reality you want, which means you are saying that relativity is the only absolute; however, if that is the case, then I would question whether that is even absolute since you in your world, only relativity is absolute...A cannot be nonA at the same time, but in your world, it apparently does.

Please consider the faultiness in your statement about reality. Keep emotion at bay and just think through this.

Funny, at times, I do admit I am ignorant of many things, especially of the evidence for macro-evolutionary systems. Can you educate me, starting with the chain of being that began with the Babylonian creation myth, or Greek philosophies of origins (Darwin did not invent the concept of evolution)?

It is from these myths and legends that led to Darwin's concepts, not his explorations on the isles of Galapagos. They still cannot explain ultimate origins. The God of the Bible is self-existent...in your world, matter is self-existent. We are not that far apart, except on that crucial, point conditio sine qua non.

The reason that the God of the Bible is the one, true God and no other is because absolutes exist, which confirm His Word, the Bible, then His Son, Jesus Christ was witnessed by man to have resurrected from the dead, which has never occurred by any man apart from the power of God.

You have to deal with absolutes, else, all theories you derive from relativity fall apart.

In order to start from existence, you have to have something existing, else, you are going right back to my point that something has always have to have existed for existence to be there at all, regardless if you say that is God or matter. If you cannot work out origins, everything else you derive from there is apt to be folly.

See my previous comment.

Your failing is to insist on everything being within your concept of understanding of the universe.