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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
 Posted - 06/10/2011 : 23:49:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
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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Isaiah 45:7 "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things"
How exactly does your god do this without affecting the free will of people?
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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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| Edited by - changingmyself on 06/11/2011 00:56:39 |
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 00:13:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
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.
If he knew it was going to happen then he knew it was going to happen WHEN he created the Pharaoh if he indeed created the Pharaoh. The fact that he had to change the Pharaoh's heart after he saw that the Pharaoh was not going to take a census, proves your god is not omniscient. This would be no different than me creating the program and seeing that it wasn't running like I planned and altering the code. I could not claim to be an omniscient programmer if I could not see that the program did not run properly when I created it.
This is played out in the whole Noah's ark flood scenario. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the biblical god is not omniscient. If he was, he would not have needed a redo. It is also played out when he had the Israelites going around killing the followers of other gods. If he was omniscient, he would have known that they were going to follow other gods to begin with and created them only to follow him since that is obviously what he wanted them to do instead of having his followers go around killing them.
| 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.
You are still not getting it, in order for the program to work to get to the end that I desire, as the creator, I have to control the aspects of the program. So either your god is not omniscient or we do not have freewill. It is either one or the other.
| 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 shows that he wasn't omniscient because he would have known it "in the beginning", not later in the middle of the program when things were not going the way that he planned.
| 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.
Again, it is either or, it cannot be both and your own bible states that god creates both good and evil, if he created them, he controls them. Just like I as the writer of the computer program control both on and off. This means he is altering things as they progress. If he is altering things as they progress then he wasn't omniscient and doesn't allow for freewill but infact takes it as he pleases to get to the end result that he has laid out which is his supposed divine plan of salvation.
| 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.
But what it doesn't prove is that freewill was given by your god. That is your 'belief'. As far as taking freewill, we can see that every day in our lives. So how exactly does that make your god a "God"?
| 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. |
If he had to coerce Jonah then your god actually took Jonah's freewill, it doesn't prove that your god gave Jonah the freewill to begin with. If your god randomly overrides someone's freewill then it really isn't freewill because we as humans would not know whether it was of our own choice or that of the god that is overriding. Which if you go look at the definitions of freewill, notice it specifically states fate aka divine plan? Take note that criminals take people's freewill daily. Are they gods too?
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.
The same way that he knew that the Pharaoh wasn't going to take a census. If the Pharaoh did not normally take a census at that time, there would be no reason to presume that he would start then. Do you think the story of Jonah is real? I don't, but I do think that it shows that your god doesn't give freewill but in fact takes it which isn't really a great thing if you think about it.
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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If it was known at creation by an omniscient creator then you cannot change or alter your perceived choice, no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to change or alter it.
And again, this does not prove that your god gave freewill to begin with. It just proves that your god takes freewill by coercion which I said from the beginning and if you look at the definitions of freewill, you will see that your definition of freewill does not coincide with the true definition of freewill because as you stated, your god takes it away on certain occasions and by coercion.
The fact that your god takes away freewill by coercion means that he never gave it to begin with because if he had, he wouldn't need to take it away randomly for things to go along with his divine plan aka fate which, if you look at the definitions of freewill it plainly states that fate is contradictory to freewill. |
"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 06/11/2011 00:49:56 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 07:27:08 [Permalink]
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changinmyself wrote: | You are still not getting it, in order for the program to work to get to the end that I desire, as the creator, I have to control the aspects of the program. |
To use your programmer analogy, I think KingDavid is saying that God creates the program knowing it will fuck up, and planning beforehand that he'll go in and change it part of the way through later. Which I suppose is possible, but it seems pretty dumb. Like God is just making things harder and more complicated for no reason. I guess he's bored up there with all that eternity. These are the sort of mental gymnastics KingDavid has to do to try to make his beliefs 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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teched246
Skeptic Friend
123 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 10:49:45 [Permalink]
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| I think the underlying argument here is that, god created Man with specific purposes in mind: to worship and love him, whatever..and that his decision to create people of whom he was absolutely sure would not fufill those purposes was arbitrary. Why build hardware (a computer in Changingmyself's example) to carry out a purpose if you were absolutely (operative word) sure that the hardware would fail therein? Kingdavid sidesteps the question by arguing that, the vanity of the creation decision rests on Man and Man alone due to us having freewill. But that still leaves the question of the rationality behind the decision; again, why create certain people to fulfill a purpose if you were absolutely certain that that those people, in their own freewill, would choose to do otherwise? "Well, it's up to us" doesn't answer the question -- if I wanted something done right, why would I leave it up to incompetent dumb shits of whom im absolutely sure will not carry out the task? The true vanity would rest on god in his own incompetence -- he should have "known better". |
"For all things have been baptized in the well of eternity and are beyond good
and evil; and good and evil themselves are but intervening shadows and damp
depressions and drifting clouds.Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy
when I teach: ‘Over all things stand the heaven Accident, the heaven
Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness." -Nietzsche |
| Edited by - teched246 on 06/11/2011 11:00:29 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 16:33:39 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
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. |
Dogs only understand those concepts after being trained to do so, by humans or other dogs. God never did anything with Adam or Eve to show them the consequences of obedience or disobedience. They had no idea that god would get angry if they were disobedient, because they'd never been disobedient and they'd never seen his anger before. They were completely naive about the mere concept of obedience, as well as having the "knowledge of good and evil" purposefully hidden away from them.
They could not possibly have been aware of what disobedience would provoke, no more than they could have been aware that nakedness was shameful. In fact, if something so minor as nudity was locked away in the fruit as an "evil," then so must have been disobedience.| The author was trying to make a point about the consequences of disobedience to God... |
The author failed, by ensuring that the story is actually about how much of a total jerk god is, by creating an environment in which his newly minted people were sure to fail, and punishing them when they did.
Edited to add that I just realized the truly monumental nature of god's horribleness. He let Adam and Eve run around in the Garden committing an evil act (nudity) without punishing them at all. You can't even train dogs to be obedient by sending mixed signals like that, you just train them to be fearful of random punishment. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 19:45:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
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. |
I don't believe that God has free will as we understand it. Neither do I think he experiences time as we understand it, or emotions as we understand them. I think God is so different from us that we can't comprehend Him, and any attempt to do so is going to end up with us anthropomorphizing (did I spell that right?) Him.
| 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. |
Is it? Your arguments earlier seemed to be along the lines of your arguing that a "different" world would be preferable to this one. I realize, of course, that I'm arguing the opposite, but all I'm saying is that our conversation does seem to be about preferences. Not just yours and mine, of course, but also God's.
| 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. |
I've gotta say that preventing all of those who won't choose "all good" strikes me as a way of limiting free will. It would be practically the same as giving us free will, but not allowing us to choose the bad. It might make for a more comfortable world, but I'd say God prefers us to make the choices for ourselves.
| 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. |
No, if He got rid of those who do a lot of good, but a little bad, then He'd be getting rid of good. I get that you're saying He'd essentially be replacing these people with people who will only choose good, but only creating those who will only do good still strikes me as a violation of our free will.
| 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. |
I still see this as a violation of our free will. It's basically saying "you can choose good or bad, but if you choose bad, I'll stop you from existing in the first place. Thus, no one will be able to actually choose bad." You may see this as what you think God would do, but I don't. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 19:52:20 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
| 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! |
I know. My point is that even in your scenario, we're still controlling our own actions. Thus God's omniscience doesn't equal our actions being part of His divine plan.
| 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. |
Yep, and Tom, once He is created, controls his own actions, correct? Yes, he'll never choose bad (since God wouldn't have created him if he would have), but he still will be making some sort of choices, if just between one good choice and another good choice (or a good choice and a morally neutral choice - like "should I help my neighbor paint his house, or just go read a book?"). Thus God's omniscience doesn't equal God controlling what Tom will do. Do you see what I'm saying? That was the point I was making, that you responded to. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 19:54:47 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by changingmyself
How exactly does your god do this without affecting the free will of people? |
I'm not saying that God's actions don't affect people's free will at times. I'm saying that we have free will.
Look, do you agree that people have free will or not? If not, then How can God's actions affect people's free will? |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 19:57:26 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by changingmyself
The fact that your god takes away freewill by coercion means that he never gave it to begin with because if he had, he wouldn't need to take it away randomly for things to go along with his divine plan |
So are you seriously arguing that we don't have free will, yet God's actions can take free will away from us?
That's like saying you can take jellybeans away from someone who doesn't have jellybeans.
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 19:58:45 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
I'd say God prefers us to make the choices for ourselves. |
How come you get to speculate on god's motives but when we point out something which doesn't make sense we're guilty of anthropomorphizing an ineffable being we couldn't begin to understand? Seems like a self-serving double-standard, if you ask me.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 06/11/2011 20:07:14 |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 20:09:31 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
To use your programmer analogy, I think KingDavid is saying that God creates the program knowing it will fuck up, and planning beforehand that he'll go in and change it part of the way through later. Which I suppose is possible, but it seems pretty dumb. Like God is just making things harder and more complicated for no reason. I guess he's bored up there with all that eternity. These are the sort of mental gymnastics KingDavid has to do to try to make his beliefs make sense.
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I think a better programmer analogy is this -
Suppose I am an omnipotent, omniscient computer programmer, and I've created a program that can create truly random numbers. Most of the time, I want my program to create truly random numbers. I don't WANT to decide what those numbers will be, but want the computer to decide. Being omniscient, I will know ALL of the truly random numbers my computer will ever create, even though, since they are truly random, I don't control what number comes out. I just KNOW what numbers they will be.
Thus I am still both an omnipotent and omniscient computer programmer, even though the numbers that my computer creates are outside of my direct control, outside of my will. (this is like God being omnipotent and omniscient, though we still have free will)
But for some reason, I want the 100th number it creates to be "50". Being omniscient, I will know whether the 100th number it creates will be a "50", and, if it's not, I can (being omnipotent) cause the computer's 100th number to be a "50" instead. Let's say I know, being omniscient, that the 100th random number would have been "89" if left to randomness. Instead, I turn that "89" into a "50".
Then, in this one case, it creates a "50" instead of a truly random number. In this one case, I over-rode its randomness and inserted something purposeful. But this doesn't mean that the first 99 numbers it created (and numbers 101+) weren't truly random.
None of what happens suggests that I am not omniscient or omnipotent. None of what happens suggests that there is anything I am not able to control, or not able to know. None of what happens suggests that the computer is generally able to create truly random numbers. All it means is that I can take away the randomness when I so desire. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 20:15:23 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
God never did anything with Adam or Eve to show them the consequences of obedience or disobedience. They had no idea that god would get angry if they were disobedient, because they'd never been disobedient and they'd never seen his anger before. |
No, God told them not to eat of the tree and what the consequences would be (Genesis 3:3)
| The author failed, by ensuring that the story is actually about how much of a total jerk god is, by creating an environment in which his newly minted people were sure to fail, and punishing them when they did. |
No, they chose to eat of the tree (Genesis 3:6-7). The story is clear about that.
| He let Adam and Eve run around in the Garden committing an evil act (nudity) without punishing them at all. |
Where does it say their nudity was evil? |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 20:18:54 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
Originally posted by KingDavid8
I'd say God prefers us to make the choices for ourselves. |
How come you get to speculate on god's motives but when we point out something which doesn't make sense we're guilty of anthropomorphizing an ineffable being we couldn't begin to understand? Seems like a self-serving double-standard, if you ask me. |
No, I'm guilty of anthropomorphizing God myself (sorry if I didn't make that clear). And as far as what God's motives would be in this situation, all we can do is speculate. If we aren't allowed to speculate as to what God would want and what He would do to achieve it, then what are we doing here? |
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 20:21:05 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by changingmyself
The fact that your god takes away freewill by coercion means that he never gave it to begin with because if he had, he wouldn't need to take it away randomly for things to go along with his divine plan |
So are you seriously arguing that we don't have free will, yet God's actions can take free will away from us?
That's like saying you can take jellybeans away from someone who doesn't have jellybeans.
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Another straw man.
What I am saying is that your god never gave us the freewill to begin with.
AND
The only thing that your god did is to take away the freewill that we were born with.
No isn't like saying you can take Jellybeans away from someone who doesn't have it to begin with. You are the one claiming that your god gave us freewill and is omniscient. Not me.
What it is more like saying, is that your god did not give us freewill contrary to what your religion teaches and according to the bible, all it shows is that your god took the freewill away which I have proven using the bible itself.
What your god did was usurp the freewill of his followers every chance he got and in my opinion he was no different than Jim Jones and just as much of a god as Jim Jones was.
I bet many of Jim Jones's followers thought that they had freewill too, right up to the point where they had to drink the koolaide.
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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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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2011 : 21:08:45 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by marfknox
To use your programmer analogy, I think KingDavid is saying that God creates the program knowing it will fuck up, and planning beforehand that he'll go in and change it part of the way through later. Which I suppose is possible, but it seems pretty dumb. Like God is just making things harder and more complicated for no reason. I guess he's bored up there with all that eternity. These are the sort of mental gymnastics KingDavid has to do to try to make his beliefs make sense.
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I think a better programmer analogy is this -
Suppose I am an omnipotent, omniscient computer programmer, and I've created a program that can create truly random numbers. Most of the time, I want my program to create truly random numbers. I don't WANT to decide what those numbers will be, but want the computer to decide. Being omniscient, I will know ALL of the truly random numbers my computer will ever create, even though, since they are truly random, I don't control what number comes out. I just KNOW what numbers they will be.
Thus I am still both an omnipotent and omniscient computer programmer, even though the numbers that my computer creates are outside of my direct control, outside of my will. (this is like God being omnipotent and omniscient, though we still have free will)
But for some reason, I want the 100th number it creates to be "50". Being omniscient, I will know whether the 100th number it creates will be a "50", and, if it's not, I can (being omnipotent) cause the computer's 100th number to be a "50" instead. Let's say I know, being omniscient, that the 100th random number would have been "89" if left to randomness. Instead, I turn that "89" into a "50".
Then, in this one case, it creates a "50" instead of a truly random number. In this one case, I over-rode its randomness and inserted something purposeful. But this doesn't mean that the first 99 numbers it created (and numbers 101+) weren't truly random.
None of what happens suggests that I am not omniscient or omnipotent. None of what happens suggests that there is anything I am not able to control, or not able to know. None of what happens suggests that the computer is generally able to create truly random numbers. All it means is that I can take away the randomness when I so desire.
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In your scenario, you are arguing the outcome, not the process or the program itself which would be like saying your god created the world to be chaos.
What we are arguing is the process, not the outcome. |
"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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The Mythicist position
