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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 06/09/2011 : 11:54:33 [Permalink]
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Agreeing with SS, et al. Before anyone can even discuss this nonsense, they must assume that there is actually some sort of an inner/outer-universal creature that is the master (or mistress or something) of all creation. Thus far, evidence in favor of such a beast is pathetically lacking, inside or outside of time -- would someone kindly inform me as to how a being can exist "outside of time."
This has got to be the dullest conversation to hit these boards in a good, long, heh, "time" and I'm disappointed in myself for following it. The only conclusion that can be reached from it is, yet again, that philosophers are full of shit as is most of their philosophy. It is mostly hand-waving and false duce ex machina to suit their imaginings and impress their followers.
So let's get down to the nitty&gritty, here: Who or what is "God" and what empirical evidence is there for he/she/it's existence, or lack thereof, inside of time or otherwise? Until this question can be reliably answered, the whole philosophical "discussion" is moot, and guess what; it will never be answered except by more bullshit philosophy. 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2011 : 13:10:01 [Permalink]
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David.....
| Sorry, but you're assuming there's a cause-and-effect here when there isn't. God knowing what I will choose doesn't cause me to choose what I do. It's just that God, being omniscient, knows everything, including what I will choose. It's just knowledge, not intent. |
ALL cause is God, there can be no other. So of course there is cause and effect - God is all cause, all else in the Universe is the effect of His causing everything. There is only cause and effect, nothing else - God's Cause, everything that ever happened or was or is is the effect of that Cause.
Your statement, "God knowing WHAT YOU WILL CHOOSE" states literally that there can be no choice. How can there be a choice if God (who is never wrong) knows that you will choose "A"? It is impossible for you to choose "B", because if you did, you would invalidate God.And if there is an "A" and a "B", and it is impossible for you to choose "B". then there is no choice. You cannot do anything but select "A" or else you will invalidate God. And a good Deist like yourself would not elect to do something like that, even if you could, would you? No matter, it is utterly impossible for you to choose "B"
The existence of God makes everything so simple, doesn't it? Everything that ever will be, every event that ever will occur is all totally graven in stone from Instant One. No human being can make any kind of choice about anything. It was all settled long before any one was born. So why should anyone lift a finger or have a thought about anything - it's all completely settled and out of your hands. Utter and total impotence! Let go and let God. He will anyway! Why have a brain? - God totally owns and controls it, you certainly don't
What incredible simplicists fundamentalists be! |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2011 : 14:51:13 [Permalink]
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KingDavid8 wrote: | Because we wouldn't want to be like that. If we can only choose good and never evil, then, ultimately, we're morally neutral. True "good" wouldn't exist for us. I'd rather screw up now and then, and even face the possibility of having some evil bastard kill me, rather than be nothing but a puppet for God. If I have no significant choices in my life, I'd just as soon not exist at all. |
You've just contradicted yourself. You have been insisting over and over that even if God knows every choice you'll ever make before he even creates you, somehow it is still us making a choice based on free will. Not saying I agree with that assertion, but it is an assertion you've been repeatedly making. Based on your own assertion that somehow God can know what we'll freely choose before we choose it, God should then be able to only create humans who will only ever choose good of their own free will. I don't need to see other people make evil decisions to understand the consequences of me making an evil choice. That's what my imagination is for. For instance, if I'm tempted to torture a child, I can imagine the consequences of such an action. I can empathize with the pain and suffering of the child because I can imagine being tortured myself. I can imagine the cries of anguish they will let out because I can imagine the sort of cries I would make if in incredible physical pain. I can imagine the outrage from my fellow mankind, because I can imagine the anger I'd feel if I witnessed someone else torture a child, especially one I care about. I don't ever have to see anybody else torture a child to decide myself to never do it, even if I'm tempted. So I'll ask again, using your own arguments, why can God just create people who will only ever choose good? In the Garden of Eden story, Adam and Eve don't have knowledge of good and evil, and yet God gets pissed at them when they choose evil. It is a stupid story that makes no sense. If they didn't know the difference between good and evil, then they didn't make an evil choice when they ate the apple any more than a baby makes an evil choice when it pulls the cat's tail. And if they didn't know the difference, why is God mad at them? Hell, if he knew they'd choose evil, why is he mad? And if they did know the difference, and they just chose what they knew was wrong because they thought they wouldn't get caught, then why didn't God just create Tom and Barbara instead of Adam and Eve, knowing that Tom and Barbara would choose to instead ignore the snake's temptations?
Christian theology is just dumb. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2011 : 16:20:15 [Permalink]
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| I must say KD8 has left me impressed with his behavior and self control in his dealings on SFN pages. When compared to others who have attempted to present their beliefs which are not accepted by many here. SS |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 06/09/2011 : 19:59:11 [Permalink]
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marfknox said:
| yet God gets pissed at them when they choose evil. |
They didn't choose evil, they chose knowledge. The ability to distinguish between good and evil (the fact that those two words are not the opposite of one another is a discussion for a later time).
The anger was because they disobeyed, but its still stupid because they don't really have any understanding of right and wrong until they eat the apple.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2011 : 20:32:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
I think this conversation has run it's course.
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If we all want to end it here and just agree to disagree, that would be fine with me. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2011 : 20:44:55 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by KingDavid8
Then you need to establish that it's a fact, which you haven't yet. |
No, I don't. You are immensely confused about the differences between empirical reality and a purely logical argument.
In a logical argument, we state our assumptions and from them (and their necessary characteristics) derive conclusions. "Facts" need not enter the equation at all.
Premise 1: god is omniscient.
Premise 2: god is honest.
Premise 3: god says, "you will get a glass of water."
Conclusion: you will get a glass of water.
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And what part of that says I don't have free will? I could very well choose to get the glass of water. Or even if God forced me to get the glass of water against my will, then it's only a temporary over-ride of my free will. It wouldn't remove it from me altogether.
| And if you claim that getting a glass of water after being told that you will is an exercise of free will, then you're arguing for a definition of "free will" that nobody else uses. |
No. My definition is of the same type that I posted from several sources several pages ago in this conversation. If God predicts that I will choose to get the glass of water, and I choose to get the glass of water, then God is omniscient and I have free will. There's no dilemma there. Even if He forces me to get it against my will, then I've only lost it for the amount of time it takes me to get the water.
| But if we're saying that God's foreknowledge is irreconcilable with our free will, then you would have to show conclusively that God's foreknowledge in some way causes us to choose what we do, directly or indirectly. |
No, in this logical argument we only need to show that omniscience is incompatible with free will as they are defined, which has been done. |
It's only been done if we're assuming that God's foreknowledge causes us, directly or indirectly, to choose what we do. I don't hold to that assumption, personally. And as long as that assumption is out of the picture, there is no paradox between God's omniscience and our free will. If God foresees that I will choose "A", and then I, using my free will, choose "A", then my free will and God's omniscience are both accounted for.
| If you really want a proposed mechanism through which such a controlling action might take place, then we would first have to demand a demonstration that you, indeed, have free will, and demand a demonstration that your god is, indeed, omniscient (or even exists). If you can't demonstrate either one, then demanding a conclusive cause for the latter eliminating the former is to put the cart before the horse. |
So you're saying that I need to prove God's existence to you before we can keep talking whether His hypothetical omniscience would be compatible with our free will? |
| Edited by - KingDavid8 on 06/09/2011 22:06:51 |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2011 : 20:57:48 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Your statement, "God knowing WHAT YOU WILL CHOOSE" states literally that there can be no choice. |
No, the word "choose" in my statement definitely implies a choice.
| How can there be a choice if God (who is never wrong) knows that you will choose "A"? |
God knowing what I will choose involves two things
1) God knowing
2) Me choosing
So which one is choosing? Me, or God?
| It is impossible for you to choose "B", because if you did, you would invalidate God. |
No, God knowing I will choose "A" doesn't mean I can't choose "B". It just means I won't choose to do so.
| And if there is an "A" and a "B", and it is impossible for you to choose "B". then there is no choice. |
It isn't impossible for me to choose "B". Had I chosen "B", then God, being omniscient, would have foreseen that I will choose "B". But since, in this hypothetical, I chose "A", then God foreknew I would choose "A". Nothing about this takes the choice out of my hands.
| You cannot do anything but select "A" or else you will invalidate God. |
Had I chosen "B" instead, then God wouldn't be invalidated, since He would, instead, have known that I would choose "B".
| And a good Deist like yourself would not elect to do something like that, even if you could, would you? No matter, it is utterly impossible for you to choose "B" |
If I chose "A", that doesn't mean it was impossible for me to choose "B". It just means that I didn't. I went to Taco Bell for lunch today. That doesn't mean it was impossible for me to go to McDonald's instead. It just means I didn't.
| Everything that ever will be, every event that ever will occur is all totally graven in stone from Instant One. No human being can make any kind of choice about anything. |
I disagree, obviously. I believe that God gave us free will, and because of it, we can choose between things. God's omniscience only means that He knows what we will choose. It doesn't mean that we don't choose. If I am going to use my free will to choose "A", then God knows that I will use my free will to choose "A". The choice is still mine, and the foreknowledge is still God's. My free will and God's omniscience are both accounted for. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2011 : 21:24:14 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
I think this conversation has run it's course.
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If we all want to end it here and just agree to disagree, that would be fine with me.
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Why would anyone agree to disagree with you when you are demonstrably wrong? There is no further need to reply to your irrational defense of omnipotence and there is no further need for you to keep defending it. You are wrong, it has been laid out in simple language, and we understand why you have to stick to your version (because you don't want to invalidate your god).
You could just man up and own your actual position, the logically irreconcilable one you share with Descart, and move on. You can keep your argument intact inside of that context, you just have to abandon the precepts of logic to do it. And why not? You believe in something for which no evidence exists anyway, so why not just own your delusion fully?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2011 : 21:46:02 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Based on your own assertion that somehow God can know what we'll freely choose before we choose it, God should then be able to only create humans who will only ever choose good of their own free will. |
He is able to. But, again, I'm very glad He doesn't. I'm not sure I know anyone who only ever chooses good, and I certainly know that I don't. I could certainly look at the worst examples of people (Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Dahmer, etc.) and say that maybe God should have stopped them, but not me. After all, as bad as I've been, I'm certainly not THAT bad. And, honestly, I can't say for sure why He didn't. I just don't know. But the existence of evil bastards like them simply isn't enough to convince me that God does not exist or doesn't care about us. And the fact that I can't imagine that God really WANTED them to do what they did is one of the things that convinces me that people can have a will that is contrary to God's will - thus free will.
But I think the answer to why God didn't prevent their existence is somewhere in the idea that God isn't only concerned with our comfort, but also our character. As awful as Hitler was, his bad example is something that brought out the good character in those who stood up to him, who risked and gave their own lives to stop him, and who, even today, use nazism as an example of what we need to avoid in the future. The human race learned from Hitler. Evil provides a certain level of moral contrast that I think is good for our character. In a way, bad examples are good for us.
Besides, who can say for sure that preventing Hitler's birth would have prevented the holocaust and WWII? Hitler hardly acted alone. If not him, then someone else could likely have taken his place, and done a more effective job where Hitler ended up failing.
| I don't ever have to see anybody else torture a child to decide myself to never do it, even if I'm tempted. So I'll ask again, using your own arguments, why can God just create people who will only ever choose good? |
God simply preventing the existence of those who are going to do a certain level of bad doesn't really seem like much an answer. It may make the world a more comfortable place, but it seems like a really lazy solution, kind of missing the point of why God gave us free will in the first place. And, obviously, wherever God sets the bar, we'd all want it to be above where we are, since WE certainly deserve to exist, right?
And who knows, maybe there would have been worse people than those we think of as the worst examples, whose existence God DID prevent. If He had, we wouldn't know, would we? No matter where God sets the bar, there are going to be people who we see as the "worst examples", those who happened to come in just under wherever the bar was.
| In the Garden of Eden story, Adam and Eve don't have knowledge of good and evil, and yet God gets pissed at them when they choose evil. It is a stupid story that makes no sense. If they didn't know the difference between good and evil, then they didn't make an evil choice when they ate the apple any more than a baby makes an evil choice when it pulls the cat's tail. And if they didn't know the difference, why is God mad at them? |
First of all, I believe that the story of Adam and Eve is a parable, not a slice of history. But in the story, their "evil" is simply disobedience. God told them not to do something, and they did it anyways. Even smarter animals, like dogs, can understand obedience and disobedience, though they're incapable of true good and evil.
| And if they did know the difference, and they just chose what they knew was wrong because they thought they wouldn't get caught, then why didn't God just create Tom and Barbara instead of Adam and Eve, knowing that Tom and Barbara would choose to instead ignore the snake's temptations? |
Being a parable, it wouldn't have made the same point. The author was trying to make a point about the consequences of disobedience to God, and a story about Tom and Barbara NOT disobeying God wouldn't have quite the same impact. |
| Edited by - KingDavid8 on 06/09/2011 22:06:06 |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2011 : 21:53:17 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by sailingsoul
I must say KD8 has left me impressed with his behavior and self control in his dealings on SFN pages. When compared to others who have attempted to present their beliefs which are not accepted by many here. SS
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Thank you. And, believe me, this is one of the more friendly "unfriendly" sites that I've debated on. I've been enjoying myself in the forum and am glad that the SFN members have been addressing my arguments and not just launching insults against me, as has happened on other boards. I hope we can keep things friendly, and if people end up finding me a nuisance, please let me know and I'll either try to be less annoying, or I'll gladly leave altogether if asked. This is your site, not mine, and I don't want to make it less enjoyable for any of you. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2011 : 22:01:35 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Why would anyone agree to disagree with you when you are demonstrably wrong? |
Then demonstrate how I'm wrong. My argument is that free will and God's omniscience are two separate things, neither one relying on the other. I'm saying that if I have free will, then I can choose what I desire to choose. And if God is omniscient, then He will know what I, using my free will, will end up choosing. And if God is omnipotent, then He would logically be able to create beings with free will.
Can you demonstrate that any of this is incorrect? So far, the responses seem to be disagreement, not disproof. That's why I say that I'm fine with us agreeing to disagree. If you don't want to agree to disagree, then by all means, let's continue. |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2011 : 22:41:33 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
I'm fine with us agreeing to disagree.
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And not be disagreeable. I know I could use practice on that. SS |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 06:30:21 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by Dude
Why would anyone agree to disagree with you when you are demonstrably wrong? |
Then demonstrate how I'm wrong. My argument is that free will and God's omniscience are two separate things, neither one relying on the other. I'm saying that if I have free will, then I can choose what I desire to choose. And if God is omniscient, then He will know what I, using my free will, will end up choosing. And if God is omnipotent, then He would logically be able to create beings with free will.
Can you demonstrate that any of this is incorrect? So far, the responses seem to be disagreement, not disproof. That's why I say that I'm fine with us agreeing to disagree. If you don't want to agree to disagree, then by all means, let's continue.
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It has been explained, many times. That you choose to ignore the explanations, to the point of denying they have been made, is a testament to the depth of your willingness (maybe unintentional, but I've seen to many of you to believe that) to lie.
The logic has been explained, all you have to do is read.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 06:48:43 [Permalink]
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| My wife and I have tried the mythicist position. It didn't work very well because her legs aren't quite long enough and I ended up getting a cramp in my thigh. |
Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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The Mythicist position
