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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 06/02/2011 : 14:57:25 [Permalink]
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The part you can't acknowledge, because you would be required to relenquish the idea of an omnipotent deity, is the part where it creates you.
It looks into its mind, decides to create you, knows everything you will ever do, then creates you.
It doesn't have to control you, true, but you are nothing but a windup toy. You have been set in motion to do a specific set of things, all decided by your omnipotent deity before you were ever aware, and you didn't get to decide what those things are.
If there is some omnipotent deity out there the best you can hope for is the illusion of free will.
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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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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2011 : 16:06:03 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
If I choose "A", God will know I will choose "A". If I choose "B", God will know I will choose "B". But I didn't choose "A" or "B" because God knew I would. God knew I would because He can foresee which I will choose. But the choice is still mine to make. |
If it is known ahead of time what you will do, then how can it be said that you have any real choice in the matter? If someone knows what choice you will make before you've chosen, then you aren't really choosing because your path has been predetermined. You are merely taking the path you were always destined to take. If god knows you will choose A, then you can't choose B. So it's not a real choice, it's only the illusion of choice. In other words, it's fate.
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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 06/02/2011 16:10:09 |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2011 : 18:22:23 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
It doesn't have to control you, true, but you are nothing but a windup toy. You have been set in motion to do a specific set of things, all decided by your omnipotent deity before you were ever aware, and you didn't get to decide what those things are. |
So are you saying that it's impossible for an omnipotent being to create a creature with free will? Knowing is only "knowing", it's not "controlling". God's omniscience only means that He knew what choices I would make. It doesn't mean that He made them for me in advance.
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2011 : 18:25:03 [Permalink]
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| Originally posted by H. HumbertIf god knows you will choose A, then you can't choose B. |
Sure I can, in which case God would know that I will choose B. What God knows is dependent on what I will choose, not the other way around. "Knowing" doesn't equal "controlling". |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2011 : 19:07:25 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
| Originally posted by H. HumbertIf god knows you will choose A, then you can't choose B. |
Sure I can, in which case God would know that I will choose B. What God knows is dependent on what I will choose, not the other way around. "Knowing" doesn't equal "controlling".
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No matter how many times you repeat that, you will still be wrong.
Control has nothing to do with predestination.
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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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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2011 : 20:08:58 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
What God knows is dependent on what I will choose, not the other way around. |
How can his knowledge be dependent on your choice when his knowledge precedes your choice? God knows the outcome before the choice is ever made, and the only way that is possible is if the outcome was predetermined, i.e. determined in advance, which is exactly what you are asserting.
Look, I'm sure the answer you have given us is an apologetic you've picked up elsewhere. I heard the same answer from my religious instructors when I was young. But it's clear you haven't bothered to give the matter much independent thought or you'd realize how nonsensical an answer it is. You can say "knowing in advance isn't the same as determining in advance" all you'd like, but those words won't ever mean anything because it's a self-contradictory statement. It's not a "mystery" or "theological puzzle." It's just a blunt conflict between two premises that you are unwilling to abandon because you've been trained to accept them without question: "God knows everything that will happen" and "humans have free will." But those two statements can't be logically reconciled, no matter how much you try to force them to.
You'll find that this paradox and many others will only go away once you can admit that at least some of your starting premises must be faulty. But so long as you refuse to accept the possibility that much of what you've been taught is in error, illogical "mysteries of faith" like this will continue to plague your worldview. If one wishes to remain a committed Christian, by far the best defense is to never be intelligent enough to notice such problems in the first place.
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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 |
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2011 : 20:34:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
Originally posted by KingDavid8
What God knows is dependent on what I will choose, not the other way around. |
How can his knowledge be dependent on your choice when his knowledge precedes your choice? God knows the outcome before the choice is ever made, and the only way that is possible is if the outcome was predetermined, i.e. determined in advance, which is exactly what you are asserting.
Look, I'm sure the answer you have given us is an apologetic you've picked up elsewhere. I heard the same answer from my religious instructors when I was young. But it's clear you haven't bothered to give the matter much independent thought or you'd realize how nonsensical an answer it is. You can say "knowing in advance isn't the same as determining in advance" all you'd like, but those words won't ever mean anything because it's a self-contradictory statement. It's not a "mystery" or "theological puzzle." It's just a blunt conflict between two premises that you are unwilling to abandon because you've been trained to accept them without question: "God knows everything that will happen" and "humans have free will." But those two statements can't be logically reconciled, no matter how much you try to force them to.
You'll find that this paradox and many others will only go away once you can admit that at least some of your starting premises must be faulty. But so long as you refuse to accept the possibility that much of what you've been taught is in error, illogical "mysteries of faith" like this will continue to plague your worldview. If one wishes to remain a committed Christian, by far the best defense is to never be intelligent enough to notice such problems in the first place.
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This is exactly what I have been attempting to explain to some Christian people I know that think that demons can possess people. To me, means that their god is allowing this to happen. Not only that, the bible says that their god sends out 'evil spirits of the Lord' to torment people like Saul. If their god is sticking his hand in the lives of people for good or evil, freewill is bunk. |
"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2011 : 20:49:32 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by changingmyself
Originally posted by H. Humbert
Originally posted by KingDavid8
What God knows is dependent on what I will choose, not the other way around. |
How can his knowledge be dependent on your choice when his knowledge precedes your choice? God knows the outcome before the choice is ever made, and the only way that is possible is if the outcome was predetermined, i.e. determined in advance, which is exactly what you are asserting.
Look, I'm sure the answer you have given us is an apologetic you've picked up elsewhere. I heard the same answer from my religious instructors when I was young. But it's clear you haven't bothered to give the matter much independent thought or you'd realize how nonsensical an answer it is. You can say "knowing in advance isn't the same as determining in advance" all you'd like, but those words won't ever mean anything because it's a self-contradictory statement. It's not a "mystery" or "theological puzzle." It's just a blunt conflict between two premises that you are unwilling to abandon because you've been trained to accept them without question: "God knows everything that will happen" and "humans have free will." But those two statements can't be logically reconciled, no matter how much you try to force them to.
You'll find that this paradox and many others will only go away once you can admit that at least some of your starting premises must be faulty. But so long as you refuse to accept the possibility that much of what you've been taught is in error, illogical "mysteries of faith" like this will continue to plague your worldview. If one wishes to remain a committed Christian, by far the best defense is to never be intelligent enough to notice such problems in the first place.
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This is exactly what I have been attempting to explain to some Christian people I know that think that demons can possess people. To me, means that their god is allowing this to happen. Not only that, the bible says that their god sends out 'evil spirits of the Lord' to torment people like Saul. If their god is sticking his hand in the lives of people for good or evil, freewill is bunk.
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The old testament god is like an angry rampaging 2 y/o stomping down a sandcastle. A total fucking asshole most of the time, often spending his days torturing people, practicing genocide, telling others to practice genocide, and in general being the kind of guy you'd get a restraining order against if you knew him personally.
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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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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2011 : 20:55:41 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
But I'm talking about free will as a whole, not just as it relates to a single issue. Did Jesus have free will? Yes, He did. |
Just not on the most important issue to Christians. Why would free will about anything else matter? Having mundane free will while corporeal on this dirtball isn't the point to Christianity.| Besides, god's omniscience denies free will in every other sense of the term. If god knows everything you're going to do before you do it, then you cannot choose to do otherwise. |
Sure you can. In which case, God would fore-know you would choose to do otherwise. What God fore-knows is dependent on what we will choose, not the other way around. |
If before you were born, god foresaw that you would choose chocolate ice cream at Baskin Robbins on July 8th, 2011, then you can't possibly choose otherwise when you get there. You can't even not go to Baskin Robbins on that day.
The fact that you don't know what god has foreseen gives you the illusion of free will. But it's only an illusion, since your whole life has been pre-screened by your god, and if something were to happen that's not in the script, then he wouldn't be omniscient. |
- 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 - 06/03/2011 : 03:36:32 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
No matter how many times you repeat that, you will still be wrong.
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So you're saying that "knowing" does equal "controlling"? |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/03/2011 : 04:05:14 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
How can his knowledge be dependent on your choice when his knowledge precedes your choice? God knows the outcome before the choice is ever made, and the only way that is possible is if the outcome was predetermined, i.e. determined in advance, which is exactly what you are asserting. |
No, I'm not asserting that it's determined in advance at all. It's determined at the moment we make the choice. If God knows everything, then this means that He knows everything that's going to happen. But knowing doesn't equal controlling. God's knowledge of the choices I will make depends on the choices I will make, not on God's knowledge of them.
Think of it this way - I know my kids pretty well, and can often predict what they are going to do. For example, I can predict that my 13-year-old will play "World of Warcraft" after school today. That doesn't mean that, those times that I am right, they didn't have free will. It just means that I know them pretty well. Of course, I could be wrong, since I don't know them perfectly. But God (per the Bible, at least) DOES know us perfectly, so He's never wrong about what we are going to do. But that still doesn't mean that we don't have free will. Take God out of the equation, and the choices we end up making will still be the same choices we end up making. What I will have for lunch today depends on what I will decide to have for lunch today, whether God knows what it will be or not.
| Look, I'm sure the answer you have given us is an apologetic you've picked up elsewhere. |
No, it's my own conclusion based on my own reasoning and previous discussions on this topic.
| But it's clear you haven't bothered to give the matter much independent thought or you'd realize how nonsensical an answer it is. You can say "knowing in advance isn't the same as determining in advance" all you'd like, but those words won't ever mean anything because it's a self-contradictory statement. |
It's not, as long as we acknowledge that knowing doesn't equal controlling.
| It's just a blunt conflict between two premises that you are unwilling to abandon because you've been trained to accept them without question: |
Trained? Who do you suppose trained me?
| "God knows everything that will happen" and "humans have free will." But those two statements can't be logically reconciled, no matter how much you try to force them to. |
Sure you can, as long as you acknowledge that knowing doesn't equal controlling. Or are you saying it does?
| But so long as you refuse to accept the possibility that much of what you've been taught is in error, illogical "mysteries of faith" like this will continue to plague your worldview. |
Again, this isn't something I've been "taught", but just something I've thought hard about and debated in the past. Those who think that omniscience and free-will are incompatible are simply confusing knowing with controlling. That God knows something doesn't mean that God controls it, thus He can know our decision while still leaving the ultimate deciding to us.
| If one wishes to remain a committed Christian, by far the best defense is to never be intelligent enough to notice such problems in the first place. |
Or to think them through. And the conclusion I've come to is that those who think God's omniscience is incompatible with free will are confusing knowing with controlling. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/03/2011 : 04:11:10 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
If before you were born, god foresaw that you would choose chocolate ice cream at Baskin Robbins on July 8th, 2011, then you can't possibly choose otherwise when you get there. You can't even not go to Baskin Robbins on that day. |
Sure I could, in which case God wouldn't have foreseen that I would choose chocolate ice cream on Baskin Robbins on July 8th, 2011. What God foresaw about me is based on what I will end up deciding to do that day. In other words, it's not "I will do what God foresaw", but "God foresaw what I will do". Presuming that I will eat the chocolate at BR on 7/8/2011, then, yes, God already knows that. Presuming that I won't, God already knows I won't. But what He knows is dependent on what I will do, not the other way around.
But it's only an illusion, since your whole life has been pre-screened by your god, and if something were to happen that's not in the script, then he wouldn't be omniscient.
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Or God just has perfect knowledge of what I will do. But it's only knowledge. That's what you need to understand. It's only knowledge. |
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/03/2011 : 06:04:32 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by Dave W.
If before you were born, god foresaw that you would choose chocolate ice cream at Baskin Robbins on July 8th, 2011, then you can't possibly choose otherwise when you get there. You can't even not go to Baskin Robbins on that day. |
Sure I could, in which case God wouldn't have foreseen that I would choose chocolate ice cream on Baskin Robbins on July 8th, 2011. What God foresaw about me is based on what I will end up deciding to do that day. In other words, it's not "I will do what God foresaw", but "God foresaw what I will do". Presuming that I will eat the chocolate at BR on 7/8/2011, then, yes, God already knows that. Presuming that I won't, God already knows I won't. But what He knows is dependent on what I will do, not the other way around.
But it's only an illusion, since your whole life has been pre-screened by your god, and if something were to happen that's not in the script, then he wouldn't be omniscient.
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Or God just has perfect knowledge of what I will do. But it's only knowledge. That's what you need to understand. It's only knowledge.
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But yet, all through the OT we see Yahweh hardening hearts, tormenting and sending out his evil spirits onto people. So if he is directing things in any way what so ever, people no longer have freewill.
Also, coercion is in opposition of freewill, the threat of hellfire is coercion. |
"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/03/2011 : 07:24:37 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by changingmyself
But yet, all through the OT we see Yahweh hardening hearts, tormenting and sending out his evil spirits onto people. So if he is directing things in any way what so ever, people no longer have freewill.
Also, coercion is in opposition of freewill, the threat of hellfire is coercion.
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So is the threat of sending a person to jail if they break the law. But that doesn't mean that the person doesn't have free will. It certainly may limit what a given person will do in a given situation, but it doesn't remove free will entirely from that person in all matters. People still have free will. |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 06/03/2011 : 10:47:28 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by Dude
No matter how many times you repeat that, you will still be wrong.
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So you're saying that "knowing" does equal "controlling"?
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He is saying that predetermination means that the choice was already known at the time you were created. There is no free will in your example. Only fate which cannot be changed by the individual.
While it is not direct control, it is not free will. Under your example, you are not free to make your own decisions since the divinity you ascribe to has already pre-determined your path. He has wound you up and placed you on a track from which there is no deviation.
It is, however, control over how the creation will live it's life by setting the program beforehand. He knows because He planned it that way. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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The Mythicist position
