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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
 Posted - 06/10/2011 : 07:23:03 [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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But yet, repeatedly the OT god was hardening hearts and sending out his evil spirit, by doing this, people had their freewill taken away.
I am going to explain it to you another way. When making computer programs there is 0 and 1. 0 being off 1 being on.
I write a computer program, (I am the creator) as I write this computer program, I know that I have to go from the beginning to the end and write the code that says, if this happens, then this happens by using on and off. There are only two choices, on or off. There are no choices that the computer or the computer program makes it only runs the code that I wrote using on or off, if this happens then that happens. My program is an antivirus, the ending would be that all the bad things on your computer will be destroyed and all the good things on your computer will stay on. Since I know the ending of the program and everything that can happen in between the beginning and the end, nothing in the program can change itself nor does it have the option to do anything that I have not programmed into it to get the computer virus free. Even in the event of crashing or the program files becoming corrupt, I have written code in to handle. You might say that the program has limited freewill but it doesn't, it only runs the code that I wrote into it, it cannot run any other way and it was written specifically to do what I chose for it to do. I know the ending, I wrote the ending and everything in between the beginning and the end I wrote to specifically get to the ending that I chose which was to separate the good from the bad in all the computer files.
You are the program kingdavid, your god is the computer programmer. If he knows the end and wrote the end according to his will, you do not have freewill, your 'choice' is only an illusion.
Now to get to my point about the OT god hardening hearts and other stuff he did in the OT. As soon as he changed the course of events, it proved that he was not omniscient because if he was, then he would have known that was going to happen when he supposedly created the world, which he apparently didn't because he had to harden the heart of the Pharaoh to get him to take a census right in the middle of things.
The fact that there is a specific ending that was chosen by the OT god, if his plan is to work out, he has to control the course of the events which does not leave room for freewill and by hardening the Pharaoh's heart, he changed the course of the events.
This is clearly demonstrated in the story of Jonah. Jonah was punished for not changing the course of the events for the OT god which proves that the OT god is neither omniscient nor does he allow freewill. The OT god had to coerce Jonah to do his bidding, coercion is contrary to freewill.
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"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 07:23:09 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
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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Ad Homenems weaken an argument. One of the rules we have agreed on is to attack the argument, not the person.
We learn more that way.
And so far, you haven't been annoying. Your premise has been found wanting because how you have limited the parameters equates to oversimplification. The reason we insist that knowing by a creator and free will are mutually exclusive is the inclusion of the creator aspect.
If God was not the creator in this scenario, then free will could occur. The mere act of knowing does not cause a fatal flaw to your argument. The inclusion of the creator aspect sets up a logical causation which is a fatal flaw to your argument.
Creator+knowing = no free will
Creator not knowing = free will
Non-creator knowing = free will
Although, in the OT, God is referred to as Elohim, which is plural. But that for another argument. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 08:18:33 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by changingmyself
But yet, repeatedly the OT god was hardening hearts and sending out his evil spirit, by doing this, people had their freewill taken away. |
At worst, it was only taking free will away from certain people at certain times. It didn't remove free will from the human race entirely.
I am going to explain it to you another way. When making computer programs there is 0 and 1. 0 being off 1 being on.
I write a computer program, (I am the creator) as I write this computer program, I know that I have to go from the beginning to the end and write the code that says, if this happens, then this happens by using on and off. There are only two choices, on or off. There are no choices that the computer or the computer program makes it only runs the code that I wrote using on or off, if this happens then that happens. My program is an antivirus, the ending would be that all the bad things on your computer will be destroyed and all the good things on your computer will stay on. Since I know the ending of the program and everything that can happen in between the beginning and the end, nothing in the program can change itself nor does it have the option to do anything that I have not programmed into it to get the computer virus free. Even in the event of crashing or the program files becoming corrupt, I have written code in to handle. You might say that the program has limited freewill but it doesn't, it only runs the code that I wrote into it, it cannot run any other way and it was written specifically to do what I chose for it to do. I know the ending, I wrote the ending and everything in between the beginning and the end I wrote to specifically get to the ending that I chose which was to separate the good from the bad in all the computer files.
You are the program kingdavid, your god is the computer programmer. If he knows the end and wrote the end according to his will, you do not have freewill, your 'choice' is only an illusion. |
That's only because it's impossible for a computer programmer to make a computer that has free will. But it's not impossible for an omnipotent God to make a creature that has free will.
Besides, a computer programmer certainly could create a computer that generates random numbers. I've written computer programs (and this was back in the 80's, on BASIC) that use random numbers in their functions. I know that generating numbers isn't the same thing as free will, but it does show that programmers can purposefully create programs that operate outside of the programmer's intention in some way.
| Now to get to my point about the OT god hardening hearts and other stuff he did in the OT. As soon as he changed the course of events, it proved that he was not omniscient because if he was, then he would have known that was going to happen when he supposedly created the world, which he apparently didn't because he had to harden the heart of the Pharaoh to get him to take a census right in the middle of things. |
Actually, I'd say that this proves that He WAS omniscient, and that the Pharaoh had free will. Think of it this way: If all of the Pharaoh's actions were pre-ordained by God, then why wouldn't God have just ordained him to take the census in the first place? God was clearly over-riding the Pharaoh's will in order to make him take the census, and that wouldn't have been necessary if the Pharaoh's will was what God ordered it to be in the first place. The fact that God had to change something here wouldn't have been necessary unless the Pharaoh would otherwise have been capable of acting outside of God's will.
And if God wasn't omniscient, then He wouldn't have known that a change would have to be made. There was no surprise for God here. He knew what would happen if He didn't harden the Pharaoh's heart, and He knew what would happen if He did.
| The fact that there is a specific ending that was chosen by the OT god, if his plan is to work out, he has to control the course of the events which does not leave room for freewill and by hardening the Pharaoh's heart, he changed the course of the events. |
What we see here is, at worst, God temporarily over-riding the Pharaoh's free will in order to bring about a certain conclusion. But this wouldn't be necessary if the Pharaoh didn't have free will in the first place. Why did God have to harden his heart? Couldn't He just have "programmed" a Pharaoh that would take the census willingly?
This is clearly demonstrated in the story of Jonah. Jonah was punished for not changing the course of the events for the OT god which proves that the OT god is neither omniscient nor does he allow freewill. The OT god had to coerce Jonah to do his bidding, coercion is contrary to freewill.
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Same thing. If God didn't give Jonah free will, then He wouldn't have had to coerce Jonah to do something different. You're talking about situations where God has to temporarily over-ride someone's free will in order to bring about a certain conclusion. If Jonah didn't have free will in the first place, doing so would be completely unnecessary.
And the fact that God knew what would happen if He didn't coerce, and what would happen if He did, just shows that God knew every possible outcome. Thus He was omniscient (or at least, this doesn't show that He isn't). |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 08:22:07 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
The logic has been explained, all you have to do is read.
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I've read, and I believe I've responded to every argument you and everyone else has made. If I haven't, I apologize, but feel free to ask me again, and I'll try to answer. |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 08:54:26 [Permalink]
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| KD8 brings up a good point. I have read replies far to many times (all the time) like the the one he just addressed, in debates. Whenever I read them, I too have thought that quoting the entry would be easier to respond to or harder to ignore than saying in effect " I covered that, go back and read it". If it's been ask or mentioned a quote to the effect seems to be in order. SS |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 11:33:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
What we see here is, at worst, God temporarily over-riding the Pharaoh's free will in order to bring about a certain conclusion. But this wouldn't be necessary if the Pharaoh didn't have free will in the first place. Why did God have to harden his heart? Couldn't He just have "programmed" a Pharaoh that would take the census willingly?
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Granting for the moment the premise that such a God existed, I would deeply resent having my free will messed with in such a manner by an entitly who could do whatever he wanted with my life. Just another reason to reject religion...
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 11:43:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by changingmyself
But yet, repeatedly the OT god was hardening hearts and sending out his evil spirit, by doing this, people had their freewill taken away. |
At worst, it was only taking free will away from certain people at certain times. It didn't remove free will from the human race entirely.
Taking freewill from anyone at anytime means that he was not omniscient because he had to change the course of events to fit into his 'divine plan'
I am going to explain it to you another way. When making computer programs there is 0 and 1. 0 being off 1 being on.
I write a computer program, (I am the creator) as I write this computer program, I know that I have to go from the beginning to the end and write the code that says, if this happens, then this happens by using on and off. There are only two choices, on or off. There are no choices that the computer or the computer program makes it only runs the code that I wrote using on or off, if this happens then that happens. My program is an antivirus, the ending would be that all the bad things on your computer will be destroyed and all the good things on your computer will stay on. Since I know the ending of the program and everything that can happen in between the beginning and the end, nothing in the program can change itself nor does it have the option to do anything that I have not programmed into it to get the computer virus free. Even in the event of crashing or the program files becoming corrupt, I have written code in to handle. You might say that the program has limited freewill but it doesn't, it only runs the code that I wrote into it, it cannot run any other way and it was written specifically to do what I chose for it to do. I know the ending, I wrote the ending and everything in between the beginning and the end I wrote to specifically get to the ending that I chose which was to separate the good from the bad in all the computer files.
You are the program kingdavid, your god is the computer programmer. If he knows the end and wrote the end according to his will, you do not have freewill, your 'choice' is only an illusion. |
That's only because it's impossible for a computer programmer to make a computer that has free will. But it's not impossible for an omnipotent God to make a creature that has free will.
If I have to change the program to do what I want to after it is created, then I was not an omniscient creator or else I would have known to begin with and corrected my mistakes. But as shown, your god was not omniscient because he had to later alter the course of events to fit his plan. That and the fact that he has a endgame plan.
Besides, a computer programmer certainly could create a computer that generates random numbers. I've written computer programs (and this was back in the 80's, on BASIC) that use random numbers in their functions. I know that generating numbers isn't the same thing as free will, but it does show that programmers can purposefully create programs that operate outside of the programmer's intention in some way.
Even in generating random numbers, the source code is still on/ off. You are talking about what the program does, it does not alter the program itself. Whether it is a random number generator or a virus scanner, it is built using the same I/O-on/off.
| Now to get to my point about the OT god hardening hearts and other stuff he did in the OT. As soon as he changed the course of events, it proved that he was not omniscient because if he was, then he would have known that was going to happen when he supposedly created the world, which he apparently didn't because he had to harden the heart of the Pharaoh to get him to take a census right in the middle of things. |
Actually, I'd say that this proves that He WAS omniscient, and that the Pharaoh had free will. Think of it this way: If all of the Pharaoh's actions were pre-ordained by God, then why wouldn't God have just ordained him to take the census in the first place? God was clearly over-riding the Pharaoh's will in order to make him take the census, and that wouldn't have been necessary if the Pharaoh's will was what God ordered it to be in the first place. The fact that God had to change something here wouldn't have been necessary unless the Pharaoh would otherwise have been capable of acting outside of God's will.
No, it proves that he wasn't omniscient because if he was, he could have hardened the heart of the Pharaoh when he created him and not have to go do it later when the events changed. It also proves that your god attempts to usurp people's freewill when he changed the Pharaoh's plan.
And if God wasn't omniscient, then He wouldn't have known that a change would have to be made. There was no surprise for God here. He knew what would happen if He didn't harden the Pharaoh's heart, and He knew what would happen if He did.
If he was omniscient, he would have known when he created the Pharaoh that he was going to not want to take a census and created him to take a census.
| The fact that there is a specific ending that was chosen by the OT god, if his plan is to work out, he has to control the course of the events which does not leave room for freewill and by hardening the Pharaoh's heart, he changed the course of the events. |
What we see here is, at worst, God temporarily over-riding the Pharaoh's free will in order to bring about a certain conclusion. But this wouldn't be necessary if the Pharaoh didn't have free will in the first place. Why did God have to harden his heart? Couldn't He just have "programmed" a Pharaoh that would take the census willingly?
At least you are coming to terms with the fact that your god has a will of his own that does not coincide with the will of everyone. Maybe now you will see that if your god changes anything in the course of events then he doesn't give freewill but actually takes it away.
This is clearly demonstrated in the story of Jonah. Jonah was punished for not changing the course of the events for the OT god which proves that the OT god is neither omniscient nor does he allow freewill. The OT god had to coerce Jonah to do his bidding, coercion is contrary to freewill.
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Same thing. If God didn't give Jonah free will, then He wouldn't have had to coerce Jonah to do something different. You're talking about situations where God has to temporarily over-ride someone's free will in order to bring about a certain conclusion. If Jonah didn't have free will in the first place, doing so would be completely unnecessary.
Which again proves that your god is neither omniscient nor does he give freewill. If he has to coerce anything then he didn't know about it to begin with and coercion takes away freewill.
And the fact that God knew what would happen if He didn't coerce, and what would happen if He did, just shows that God knew every possible outcome. Thus He was omniscient (or at least, this doesn't show that He isn't).
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He did coerce, so that is a moot point. He took Jonah's freewill from him as with many others in the bible. Once you realize that your god was forcing 'his will' onto people with threats of punishment, you will come to terms with the fact that your god is neither omniscient nor did he allow people to have freewill if it did not go according to his plan. If your god knows every choice you make then there would be no use for prayers or gods intersession, it was set in stone at the moment of creation.
There is no getting around this because your own Bible explains this, but you cannot see the contradiction in it because your mind is programmed to accept it.
Add that to the fact that the Ugarit texts says that Yahweh wasn't even the head god but a son of the head god El-Elyon which was later assimilated into Yahweh, then you really got yourself a problem. http://www.theology.edu/ugarbib.htm
Here is a good quote from the theology.edu website:
"What this means is that the Hebrew theologians adopted the titles of the Canaanite gods and attributed them to Yahweh in an effort to eliminate them. If Yahweh is all of these there is no need for the Canaanite gods to exist! This process is known as assimilation."
Sounds familiar... |
"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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| Edited by - changingmyself on 06/10/2011 12:00:01 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 11:47:08 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by sailingsoul
KD8 brings up a good point. I have read replies far to many times (all the time) like the the one he just addressed, in debates. Whenever I read them, I too have thought that quoting the entry would be easier to respond to or harder to ignore than saying in effect " I covered that, go back and read it". If it's been ask or mentioned a quote to the effect seems to be in order. SS
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That would be fine for the first few times. But after a dozen repeats of the explanation... I'm done typing, cutting, or pasting.
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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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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 12:15:55 [Permalink]
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King David wrote: | He(God) is able to (create humans who only ever choose good of the their free will). But, again, I'm very glad He doesn't. |
WTF? Why? You LIKE living in a world where some people rape children? You like living in a world where roving make-shift militias massacre villages and force children to kill their own parents in order to turn them into vicious soldiers? You like living in a world with human trafficking, terrorism, torture, etc? 'Cause I sure as hell don't, and if I thought there was a god who could change the world as we know it into a paradise where everyone is always good and kind and thoughtful, I'd be quite sure that God is NOT GOOD.
| 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. |
Not saying he should have stopped them. Saying he should have never created them in the first place. If he exists, and he is all powerful, all knowing, and all good, he would have created a world were people who make evil choices don't exist in the first place.
| After all, as bad as I've been, I'm certainly not THAT bad. |
So what? Are you saying you like having child rapists around because it makes you feel better about your own moral flaws?
| And, honestly, I can't say for sure why He didn't. I just don't know. |
I do. An all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good god doesn't exist.
| 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. |
Yeah, I got it. You want your beliefs to be true so badly that you accept theological ideas that defy logic. That is pretty clear.
| 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. |
This is idiotic. First of all, if he's all powerful, he can create being with excellent character built-in. Second, if human beings were to do something horrible to someone in order to give them character, that would be considered an unethical or immoral thing to do. So why is it good when God does it? Third, while some people grow and become stronger and more ethical in response to adversity, most people tend toward the opposite. For instance, abused children become more likely to abuse others. People under financial stress become more likely to commit violent crimes, steal, abuse their spouses or children, abuse drugs, and so on. Many people can be turned into total monsters with enough of the right sort of suffering and abuse. And if God is all-powerful and all-knowing, then ultimately he is to blame for every bit of suffering in this world.
| 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. |
For crap's sake, use your imagination a little! We're talking about fundamental questions about the nature of existence, creation, and the possibility of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good being! I'm saying that if such a god exists, NONE of us would have been created because ALL of us are morally flawed.
| 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. |
No no no! Preventing ANY bad.
| 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? |
You obviously lack the imagination to deal with these big questions. WE only deserve to exist because we already exist! There is an infinite number of possible people who could exist in our place. Is it some sort of cosmic injustice that those people don't exist? No. It just so happens that we're the ones that ended up here, and all those other possible people didn't. If the universe is indifferent to human needs, values, and desires, and there is no such god as the Christian god, then we can just make due with our lot and do the best we can to enjoy being alive for the short time we are alive. But if there is some all-knowing and all-powerful creator at there, then he is some kind of major dickshit to have decided, out of all the people he could have created, to have decided to create us, with all our flaws. KDavid, YOU are the one claiming that God can create people who will only choose good, yet somehow also possess free will. If you are correct in that claim, that means there's all these possible people who are much better than us humans, who could exist, but God decided to not let them exist because I guess he thought it'd be more fun to watch child predators rape babies. Yay, God!
| And who knows, maybe there would have been worse people than those we think of as the worst examples, whose existence God DID prevent. |
Again with the poor imagination. OF COURSE there are much much much worse people who could exist. It is possible. But it is not what happened. As an atheist, I'm saying what happens to be reality doesn't have any vested interest in human affairs, and that's why our world is sufficient for us, but a far cry from perfect or even pleasant most of the time. You are the one claiming there is some sort of creator-deity who puts us at the center of his interests. So you need to resolve the problem of evil.
| 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. |
No. If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, he could just make people who choose to do good all the time because they are genuinely just that awesome. Of course the whole idea of afterlife is absurd in Christian theology. There's no reason why an all-powerful God couldn't just create heaven and then create all the people who are going to be in heaven already there, and then just not create all the people who would have ended up in hell.
| First of all, I believe that the story of Adam and Eve is a parable, not a slice of history. |
Yes, most Christian theologians believe that. I am saying that as a parable that is supposed to reflect some deep truth about the relationship between God and mankind it is idiotic. The only way it seems to carry any truth is if the characters of God and the Devil in the story are anthropomorphized versions of much more abstract forces, not literal beings with personalities and self-awareness. But Christians do think God is literally such a being. And THAT is what makes the story so dumb.
| 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. |
It is still absurd since God knew they would disobey and thus could have no expectation of obedience. If a parent tells a child who is too young to have self-control to not eat their favorite food, and then puts that food in front of the kid and leaves the room, then comes back and yells at the kid for having eaten it, that parent is an asshole abusing their kid!
| 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. |
I don't take the story any more literally than you do. Tom and Barbara represent all the people who could have been created instead of the people who were created. In a cosmic view, Tom and Barbara have just as much right to exist as we do. And if God were good, he would have created them instead of us. |
"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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| Edited by - marfknox on 06/10/2011 12:19:31 |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 20:11:37 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by changingmyself
Taking freewill from anyone at anytime means that he was not omniscient because he had to change the course of events to fit into his 'divine plan' |
Omniscience only means that He knows what's going to happen, not that everything that will happen is part of His divine plan. Knowing doesn't equal controlling.
| That's only because it's impossible for a computer programmer to make a computer that has free will. But it's not impossible for an omnipotent God to make a creature that has free will. |
If I have to change the program to do what I want to after it is created, then I was not an omniscient creator or else I would have known to begin with and corrected my mistakes. |
In this case, the "program" involved us having free will and making choices for ourselves. That was not a mistake, but God's desire for us. Obviously, in the case of the pharaoh, God wanted him to do something different in a particular situation, and it seems to me that God had the choice between "pre-programming" the Pharaoh to do what God wanted from the beginning, or the much simpler option of just hardening his heart at the time. God chose the simpler option.
| But as shown, your god was not omniscient because he had to later alter the course of events to fit his plan. That and the fact that he has a endgame plan. |
And how does that show He wasn't omniscient? He clearly knew what the Pharaoh was going to do, and decided to make him do otherwise. This doesn't demonstrate that God didn't know what was going to happen, and it actually shows that the Pharaoh had a will of his own. If he didn't, God wouldn't have had to harden his heart to make him do what God wanted.
| It also proves that your god attempts to usurp people's freewill when he changed the Pharaoh's plan. |
Which means that people have free will, right? After all, if we didn't, then there would have been nothing for God to usurp.
| At least you are coming to terms with the fact that your god has a will of his own that does not coincide with the will of everyone. |
Yes, I think I've been saying that all along. When I'm talking about people having free will, I'm saying that they aren't automatically programmed to do whatever God wants them to do. That their will is separate from God's will.
| Maybe now you will see that if your god changes anything in the course of events then he doesn't give freewill but actually takes it away. |
Fair enough. But this proves that people have free will, doesn't it? After all, if we didn't, then it would be impossible for God to take it away. You can't take away from people what they don't have in the first place.
| Same thing. If God didn't give Jonah free will, then He wouldn't have had to coerce Jonah to do something different. You're talking about situations where God has to temporarily over-ride someone's free will in order to bring about a certain conclusion. If Jonah didn't have free will in the first place, doing so would be completely unnecessary. |
Which again proves that your god is neither omniscient nor does he give freewill. If he has to coerce anything then he didn't know about it to begin with and coercion takes away freewill. |
First, how does it prove that He didn't know about it? If God is going to change someone's mind, then this means that He knew what they were going to do. All you seem to be saying is that God wouldn't have had to change the course of events at the time, since He could have changed them earlier. Sure, and He could also have changed them at the time, which even seems like the more sensible option, personally.
And, again, if Jonah didn't have free will in the first place, then how could God have taken it away from him?
| If your god knows every choice you make then there would be no use for prayers or gods intersession, it was set in stone at the moment of creation. |
No, it was just "known". If you're arguing that god is taking free will away from certain people on certain occasions, then you're acknowledging that we have free will. If we didn't, how could God take it away? |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 20:31:50 [Permalink]
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King David wrote: | Omniscience only means that He knows what's going to happen, not that everything that will happen is part of His divine plan. Knowing doesn't equal controlling. |
Are you comprehending what you are writing? I think you are not. Here's an analogy:
I'm an artist. Sadly, I am not an all-knowing or all-powerful artist, so like all human artists, my actual creations are never exactly like the idea I had in my head. Sometimes they are just as good or surprisingly even better. Usually they fall short of my expectations. But let's say that I was all-knowing, so in other words I could foresee in my mind what my final work of art will look like if I make certain choices in the creation of it. And let's say I'm also all-powerful, so in other words, I can paint like mutha fuckin' Leonardo DaVinci if I want to. So now I have some idea in my head, my desired plan for a final work of art. So it follows logically that I'm going to produce EXACTLY what I wanted to produce.
So now I'm a creator god instead of an artist. For whatever weird reason I have this plan that involves creating intelligent meat puppets called humans, who can experience joy and love as well as hate, pain, and great suffering. And they are self aware and intelligent enough to make choices since they are capable of imagining various outcomes for their decisions. And as god, I desire that all these humans make the same moral choices I'd make if I were in their place (here we are assuming that my moral code is "good".) So that's no problem, seeing as I'm all-powerful and all-knowing. I can just make humans who have my same basic moral nature, only with mortal bodies and without the whole god-like qualities that I have. So it follows logically that if I desire for people to make good choices, they will make good choices. Not because they are robots that I've programmed to mindlessly choose what I want, but because I created them with an inherently good nature. If any human being has an inherent nature that is not all good (and we know that none of us do) then if we do have an intelligent creator, that creator logically can not be all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good. It just doesn't make sense. |
"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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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 21:07:12 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
King David wrote: | He(God) is able to (create humans who only ever choose good of the their free will). But, again, I'm very glad He doesn't. |
WTF? Why? You LIKE living in a world where some people rape children? You like living in a world where roving make-shift militias massacre villages and force children to kill their own parents in order to turn them into vicious soldiers? You like living in a world with human trafficking, terrorism, torture, etc? |
To me, it's preferable to living in a world where we don't exist at all, or where we don't have any sort of free will that matters.
| 'Cause I sure as hell don't, and if I thought there was a god who could change the world as we know it into a paradise where everyone is always good and kind and thoughtful, I'd be quite sure that God is NOT GOOD. |
If God took away our free will and basically made us puppets who could only do good and never evil, then the world might LOOK like a better place, but its residents (us) might as well not exist in the first place. We'd have no real choices, no real character, and the good we do wouldn't be our own.
| 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. |
Not saying he should have stopped them. Saying he should have never created them in the first place. |
Yes, that's what I meant by "stopped them", stopped them from existing in the first place.
| If he exists, and he is all powerful, all knowing, and all good, he would have created a world were people who make evil choices don't exist in the first place. |
Which means a world where we don't exist, or where we have no free will. The evil would be gone, yes. But so would the good. I can't imagine why an all-good God would want to get rid of so much good, just to get rid of the bad.
| After all, as bad as I've been, I'm certainly not THAT bad. |
So what? Are you saying you like having child rapists around because it makes you feel better about your own moral flaws? |
Ummm...no...
| And, honestly, I can't say for sure why He didn't. I just don't know. |
I do. An all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good god doesn't exist. |
Okay. I disagree.
| This is idiotic. First of all, if he's all powerful, he can create being with excellent character built-in. |
Then it's not "excellent character". I believe that character has to do with the choices one makes in all facets of their lives. If it's programmed in, then it has nothing to do with one's choices.
| Second, if human beings were to do something horrible to someone in order to give them character, that would be considered an unethical or immoral thing to do. So why is it good when God does it? |
He didn't. Hitler, Dahmer, etc. were the ones who did the horrible things, and their purpose wasn't to give us good character.
| Third, while some people grow and become stronger and more ethical in response to adversity, most people tend toward the opposite. For instance, abused children become more likely to abuse others. People under financial stress become more likely to commit violent crimes, steal, abuse their spouses or children, abuse drugs, and so on. Many people can be turned into total monsters with enough of the right sort of suffering and abuse. |
And many people step up to try to solve such problems. Responding to adversity isn't limited only to the people who are direct victims of the adversity.
| And if God is all-powerful and all-knowing, then ultimately he is to blame for every bit of suffering in this world. |
Not if the only way to stop it was to not create us in the first place, or not to give us free will to any meaningful degree. We'd all love to see free will taken away from those we don't like, but would hate to see it taken away from outselves.
| 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. |
For crap's sake, use your imagination a little! We're talking about fundamental questions about the nature of existence, creation, and the possibility of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good being! I'm saying that if such a god exists, NONE of us would have been created because ALL of us are morally flawed. |
And would that really be preferable? Sure, all of the evil would be gone from the world, but so would all of the good. Not creating us at all sounds like a "throw the baby out with the bathwater" solution. If God is all-good, why would He want to get rid of all of the good?
| But if there is some all-knowing and all-powerful creator at there, then he is some kind of major dickshit to have decided, out of all the people he could have created, to have decided to create us, with all our flaws. |
The contrast between the "best" and "worst" people is going to be there no matter WHO he creates. Again, it's not just a matter of our comfort, but our character. Refusing to create a certain person or group of people because they aren't going to live up to a standard is a lazy fix to the issue.
| You are the one claiming there is some sort of creator-deity who puts us at the center of his interests. So you need to resolve the problem of evil. |
Which I believe I have (though I doubt the answer would satisfy you). I believe that evil is a natural by-product of free will, the same free will that creates all of the good that humans do. Limiting things so that we can ONLY do good, or limiting those who exist to ONLY those will do a certain level of good, is to limit the same free will to the point that the "good" loses all significance.
| If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, he could just make people who choose to do good all the time because they are genuinely just that awesome. |
So those who do a lot of good, but a little bad, won't be created? Then He'd be getting rid of a lot of good, but only a little bad. I don't see that as a net gain.
| 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. |
It is still absurd since God knew they would disobey and thus could have no expectation of obedience. If a parent tells a child who is too young to have self-control to not eat their favorite food, and then puts that food in front of the kid and leaves the room, then comes back and yells at the kid for having eaten it, that parent is an asshole abusing their kid! |
That doesn't really relate to the story, though. Adam and Eve in the story should have had self-control and knew that they were disobeying God. They weren't anything like a child who is too young to have self-control.
| 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. |
I don't take the story any more literally than you do. Tom and Barbara represent all the people who could have been created instead of the people who were created. In a cosmic view, Tom and Barbara have just as much right to exist as we do. And if God were good, he would have created them instead of us. |
So, in other words, it wouldn't be a story about people disobeying God, when the author clearly wanted to write a story about the consequences of disobeying God. "Uncle Remus" could have written a story where Bre'r Rabbit isn't fooled by, and thus trapped by, the tar baby, but since that wasn't his intention, I can't imagine why he would have. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 21:20:06 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
King David wrote: | Omniscience only means that He knows what's going to happen, not that everything that will happen is part of His divine plan. Knowing doesn't equal controlling. |
Are you comprehending what you are writing? I think you are not. Here's an analogy:
I'm an artist. Sadly, I am not an all-knowing or all-powerful artist, so like all human artists, my actual creations are never exactly like the idea I had in my head. Sometimes they are just as good or surprisingly even better. Usually they fall short of my expectations. But let's say that I was all-knowing, so in other words I could foresee in my mind what my final work of art will look like if I make certain choices in the creation of it. And let's say I'm also all-powerful, so in other words, I can paint like mutha fuckin' Leonardo DaVinci if I want to. So now I have some idea in my head, my desired plan for a final work of art. So it follows logically that I'm going to produce EXACTLY what I wanted to produce.
So now I'm a creator god instead of an artist. For whatever weird reason I have this plan that involves creating intelligent meat puppets called humans, who can experience joy and love as well as hate, pain, and great suffering. And they are self aware and intelligent enough to make choices since they are capable of imagining various outcomes for their decisions. And as god, I desire that all these humans make the same moral choices I'd make if I were in their place (here we are assuming that my moral code is "good".) So that's no problem, seeing as I'm all-powerful and all-knowing. I can just make humans who have my same basic moral nature, only with mortal bodies and without the whole god-like qualities that I have. So it follows logically that if I desire for people to make good choices, they will make good choices. Not because they are robots that I've programmed to mindlessly choose what I want, but because I created them with an inherently good nature. If any human being has an inherent nature that is not all good (and we know that none of us do) then if we do have an intelligent creator, that creator logically can not be all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good. It just doesn't make sense.
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I understand what you're saying, and can see how it makes sense to you, but that doesn't really respond to my statement above. Even in your scenario, we're capable of acting on our own, without direct control from God, correct? Since you said that we're not mindless robots, then I assume we still have some degree of autonomy. Therefore, while God knows everything we're going to do (since He is omniscient), His knowledge still doesn't equal controlling. We still control our own actions, not God. That's all I was saying in what you responded to. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 21:38:50 [Permalink]
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KingDavid, if evil is a byproduct of free will, then an all-good God can't have free will, because if he did, he'd sometimes makes evil choices. If God doesn't have free will, what is so great about it? If God can have free will and he can always choose to do good because it is in his nature, then it is possible for him to have created people with free will who always choose to do good because it is in their nature. So which is it, does God not have free will, or did he just choose to make shittier people than he could have made (in which case, he sure as hell isn't all-good himself.)
You talk a lot about your preference for existence over nonexistence. I would also prefer to exist. But this conversation isn't about our preferences. It is about what is logical and true. You also seem to think that people have the right to exist before they exist. I may have the right to exist now that I do, but before that happened, I was just a possibility. So like I said, Tom and Barbara represent all the people who could have existed who would have make all good decisions, opposed to the people who do exist who are flawed. A perfect god would have made Tom and Barbara (figuratively speaking) not Adam and Eve.
| So those who do a lot of good, but a little bad, won't be created? Then He'd be getting rid of a lot of good, but only a little bad. I don't see that as a net gain. |
You obviously don't get what I've been saying. God would not be getting rid of any good. He'd be creating more good and zero evil.
Let's say Adam and Eve (as the symbolic representatives of the humanity that does exist in reality) made 50% good and 50% evil decisions, but Tom and Barbara (the symbolic representatives of the humanity that could have existed if God had decided to make them instead of us) make 100% good decisions. It's just in their natures. They can still live a life dealing with adversity that's built into their environment (not all hardship that people deal with his caused by other humans after all.) So they can still build character and such. It just so happens that they have the sort of inherent natures that cause them to always make the good choices when faced with any decision. So nobody is more good than anyone else. Every is 100% good. The end result is far far far more good than exists in the world today, and zero evil. That is logically what an all-good god would do if he were all-powerful. So if there is a god, he can't be both. It just doesn't make sense. |
"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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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 21:44:25 [Permalink]
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| I understand what you're saying, and can see how it makes sense to you, but that doesn't really respond to my statement above. Even in your scenario, we're capable of acting on our own, without direct control from God, correct? Since you said that we're not mindless robots, then I assume we still have some degree of autonomy. Therefore, while God knows everything we're going to do (since He is omniscient), His knowledge still doesn't equal controlling. We still control our own actions, not God. That's all I was saying in what you responded to. |
I didn't say he's controlling our actions! But if he knows that Bob, before he even creates Bob - so at this point Bob would have no right to exist, he's just an idea is God's head - will sometimes make evil decisions, if God is all-good himself, he'll decide not to create Bob after all, and instead create Tom, who he knows will always choose good.
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"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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| Edited by - marfknox on 06/10/2011 21:46:56 |
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The Mythicist position
