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Of course, that assumes the existence of free will in the first place...

 trexmeyer wrote:

 daedalus wrote:

 Alexzandvar wrote:
The insanely smug smiles with which they cast down judgement is very annoying.

Blessed is the mind too small to doubt.

I would hope that most religious individuals experience doubts at some point in their respective lives. Many (specifically Christians) seem to have a poor understanding of their own Bible or beliefs and have voiced some doubts and confusion that I believe are easy to explain from a Biblical standpoint even if the actual answer may be more distressing than the question. IIRC the most common complaint that I have heard is concerning the problem evil. Why does God let bad things happen? Why does God allow evil to exist? According to the Bible and the Protestant Doctrine I am familiar with, God gave humans free will. For what purpose? Apparently because it desires willing worshipers and not robotic underlings. Since humans have free will we naturally have the freedom to do evil. Should God intervene and prevent this evil action it would essentially be negating free will. Evil exists because God allows free will to exist. This doesn't mean that God condones evil.

Of course you also have to explain the non human caused things like deadly diseases, cancer and the like. Why would god just invent stuff to randomly kill us.

 Fafnir wrote:
Of course, that assumes the existence of free will in the first place...

This. An all-knowing God, creating a being with free will, already knows how that being is going to behave, but creates him that way anyway... So everything, from Adam and Eve nomming on that apple/pomegranite/fig/whatever onwards has happened because God said 'Well, I know how this is going to end badly... but the Hell with it, I'll do it anyway..'

And then it's our fault for behaving as per the description on the tin. It's ultimately the equivalent of teaching your dog to chew on the newspaper... and then scolding them for chewing on the newspaper.



That's a big part of my problem with the Christian religion - If God does exist, he's not someone I want anything to do with because, frankly, he's an donkey-cave.


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 carlos13th wrote:
Of course you also have to explain the non human caused things like deadly diseases, cancer and the like. Why would god just invent stuff to randomly kill us.

As punishment for allowing homosexuals, and women wearing pants. Duh.

And then it's our fault for behaving as per the description on the tin. It's ultimately the equivalent of teaching your dog to chew on the newspaper... and then scolding them for chewing on the newspaper.

One could argue free will hinges on human ignorance. We don't know what's going to happen, so even if God does, the decision still matters as to our character which might be the entire point; God knows what will happen, but we choose it ourselves because we don't know.

I had a whole spiel about the Garden of Eden question, but damned if I just don't want to type it out right now. Probably the only concise post I've ever made on Dakka. Something about the story being a great metaphor for the human condition.

 insaniak wrote:

This. An all-knowing God, creating a being with free will, already knows how that being is going to behave, but creates him that way anyway... So everything, from Adam and Eve nomming on that apple/pomegranite/fig/whatever onwards has happened because God said 'Well, I know how this is going to end badly... but the Hell with it, I'll do it anyway..'

And then it's our fault for behaving as per the description on the tin. It's ultimately the equivalent of teaching your dog to chew on the newspaper... and then scolding them for chewing on the newspaper.

Since we are created in Gods image we know why he does this, it's just so he can watch a worldwide episode of Funniest Home Videos (probably the dark humour version) every day on a loop.

 insaniak wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Of course, that assumes the existence of free will in the first place...

This. An all-knowing God, creating a being with free will, already knows how that being is going to behave, but creates him that way anyway... So everything, from Adam and Eve nomming on that apple/pomegranite/fig/whatever onwards has happened because God said 'Well, I know how this is going to end badly... but the Hell with it, I'll do it anyway..'

And then it's our fault for behaving as per the description on the tin. It's ultimately the equivalent of teaching your dog to chew on the newspaper... and then scolding them for chewing on the newspaper.



That's a big part of my problem with the Christian religion - If God does exist, he's not someone I want anything to do with because, frankly, he's an donkey-cave.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 carlos13th wrote:
Of course you also have to explain the non human caused things like deadly diseases, cancer and the like. Why would god just invent stuff to randomly kill us.

As punishment for allowing homosexuals, and women wearing pants. Duh.

That's how I feel about it Insaniak. If such a being does exist, why the feth would I worship it?

Carlos, the Biblical explanation would be as a punishment for Adam and Eve's sin of eating the forbidden fruit.

 LordofHats wrote:
One could argue free will hinges on human ignorance. ...

One could, but it would be a flawed argument.


If I know everything there is to know about, say, machines, and I build a machine that I tell people can decide for itself whether to water my plants or blow a giant hole in the space-time continuum, but in actuality I know full well that the way I designed it means that it will do something quantum every time I turn it on, that machine doesn't have free choice...

Free will just doesn't work with the idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing creator. The two concepts are mutually exclusive.

 insaniak wrote:


Free will just doesn't work with the idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing creator. The two concepts are mutually exclusive.

That model of free will is a flawed argument. Just because you know a choice will made before hand, doesn't effect the person making it at all because they don't know its coming.

The question with God and Free Will isn't a question of can they exist at the same time, its a question of why would God bother? You don't start reading a book when you already know the prologue, opening act, middle sections, and the ending. That's just pointless but then if he is infinite I guess he has time to spare... Still doesn't answer why he'd go through the exercise to begin with.

At that point, it's still only the illusion of free will.

 LordofHats wrote:
That model of free will is a flawed argument. Just because you know a choice will made before hand, doesn't effect the person making it at all because they don't know its coming.

Sure, to the person 'making' that pre-ordained choice, it's a surprise. That's not the issue though. The issue I have with it is with a God who creates people to behave a specific way and then holds them accountable for behaving that way. The fact that the person thinks they're legitimately making a choice doesn't actually mean that they have free will if they've been designed to act that way.

The question with God and Free Will isn't a question of can they exist at the same time, its a question of why would God bother? You don't start reading a book when you already know the prologue, opening act, middle sections, and the ending. That's just pointless (but then if he is infinite I guess he has time to spare...)

Didn't you hear? God is mysterious, apparently.

 Fafnir wrote:
At that point, it's still only the illusion of free will.

Incompatiblism isn't the only view of free will, and at that point we're debating philosophy which I've always liked to say is just a free pass to make gak up (/jk) Debating philosophy though is probably an even bigger general waste of time in OT than the never ending flow of gun control threads XD

I think the notion of free will is one of those items--that deep down we all inherently question and doubt--but the inevitable feeling of unease that accompanies that realization chases it away.


The more neuroscience advances, the more likely we will understand that consciousness is just a surfboard riding on the crest of waves--whereas deeper in our brain, the decision has been made and really we just become conscious of it when we 'think' we're making that decision. It's an immature field to be sure but that makes their recent discoveries even more startling.

Changing a person's moral compass by bombarding certain areas of the brain with electromagnetic impulses--fMRI scans showing researchers are aware of a person's decisions before they are--that's very unsettling research--and it's only going to become worse for those whom insist on free will. You think evolution has been divisive? Just wait!

I think Free Will will be redefined over the next century. It's one of those things that can fancifully move the goal posts whenever it wants to continue existing (like God so they at least have that in common).

People I think are already starting to realize they have nowhere near as much control over their lives as contemporary culture likes to tell them they do.

 LordofHats wrote:
I think Free Will will be redefined over the next century. It's one of those things that can fancifully move the goal posts whenever it wants to continue existing (like God so they at least have that in common).

People I think are already starting to realize they have nowhere near as much control over their lives as contemporary culture likes to tell them they do.

Well said and I agree, the term will be redefined. We can already see this (in a typical god of the gaps style), when quantum physics is invoked--a transcendent consciousness that is explained by spooky action at a distance, etc.

It's also one of the reason I personally believe more non-theistic religions will grow in popularity in the coming decades. Buddhism, deism, etc. Of course, I view this as a result of the constant bombardment science has unleashed on mass religious views...but I suppose others may view it as enlightenment .

 carlos13th wrote:
This is very much the case.

If they actually cared about finding the answers to those questions they could have typed it into google and got the answers for most of them. Those kind of questions only seem sensible and reasonable if you have surrounded by others who also don't tend to question things.

Sure, but that's been the case for creationism since it began. My point was that creationism hasn't actually invented any new questions for quite some time now. It's basically been spinning its wheels, selling the same product now that it sold in 1995, largely by the same people. I'm not saying this to diminish the scary number of people who believe this stuff today, but to predict that maybe we might start to see the tide slowly begin to turn against creationism. And that if that is the case, then what is needed is not to take creationism on directly with debates, but just let science carry on being its awesome self, perhaps with an improvement in how it sells itself to the general public.

Don't look for science to beat creationism, but just look for science to continue being the only game in town that's looking to explain how things actually work, and deliver all kinds of new technology to people. And just let creationism sit over there, continuing to offer no answers, just the same old questions.


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 insaniak wrote:
If I know everything there is to know about, say, machines, and I build a machine that I tell people can decide for itself whether to water my plants or blow a giant hole in the space-time continuum, but in actuality I know full well that the way I designed it means that it will do something quantum every time I turn it on, that machine doesn't have free choice...

Free will just doesn't work with the idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing creator. The two concepts are mutually exclusive.

Not really, because you're assuming that 'knowing' means you specifically programmed each individual bit. Obviously, if you specifically program each line of the machine so you determine which days it will 'choose' to water the plants, and which days it will blow a hole in the space time continuum, then there's no real choice in the machine

But consider instead a machine that's been procedurally generated - you give it a long series of inputs, but let the machine's programming form by itself. Then you might unpack that programming and run it through a model to see which days it will water and which days it will destroy space-time as we know it and so you know what will happen, but regardless of what you learn you still let the machine do as it has developed.

 AgeOfEgos wrote:
I think the notion of free will is one of those items--that deep down we all inherently question and doubt--but the inevitable feeling of unease that accompanies that realization chases it away.

See, all you have to do is stop believing in that silly notion of 'free will' altogether, and everything becomes a lot easier.

 LordofHats wrote:

 insaniak wrote:


Free will just doesn't work with the idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing creator. The two concepts are mutually exclusive.

That model of free will is a flawed argument. Just because you know a choice will made before hand, doesn't effect the person making it at all because they don't know its coming.

The question with God and Free Will isn't a question of can they exist at the same time, its a question of why would God bother? You don't start reading a book when you already know the prologue, opening act, middle sections, and the ending. That's just pointless but then if he is infinite I guess he has time to spare... Still doesn't answer why he'd go through the exercise to begin with.

Well if God is all knowing and powerful it means he/she/it creates people knowing fully what they will do and then punishing them for doing it.

Does an omnipotent and omniscient God really disqualify the existence of free will?

I have always thought of it as God knows every possible outcome of every scenario and is merely watching it unfold. It doesn't have to know what an individual will do, but it does know what will happen no matter what the individual does. There is an infinite number of potential outcomes. God can see all of the results.

Omniscient would also imply knowledge of which of the potential outcomes will happen.

 trexmeyer wrote:
have always thought of it as God knows every possible outcome of every scenario and is merely watching it unfold. It doesn't have to know what an individual will do, but it does know what will happen no matter what the individual does. There is an infinite number of potential outcomes. God can see all of the results.

So what you're saying is, we're living in the Matrix, and God is the Architect watching a bank of Tvs displaying every possible universe and every possible iteration of Neo?

I'll take the red pill please.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:


I'll take the red pill please.

This is Christianity bro; Red wafer, or blue wafer?

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
have always thought of it as God knows every possible outcome of every scenario and is merely watching it unfold. It doesn't have to know what an individual will do, but it does know what will happen no matter what the individual does. There is an infinite number of potential outcomes. God can see all of the results.

So what you're saying is, we're living in the Matrix, and God is the Architect watching a bank of Tvs displaying every possible universe and every possible iteration of Neo?

I'll take the red pill please.

I am not a Christian and I do not believe in a creator-deity of any kind.

 Fafnir wrote:
At that point, it's still only the illusion of free will.

Arguably that's all that free will is because, once we start talking about the existence of a will, we are necessarily talking about a being that requires a deterministic universe.

From a Catholic standpoint we're born sinners anyway so it doesn't matter anyway what you believe!

The notion that reality is merely the enactment of some foregone conclusion in God's mind is basically a rejection of history and therefore a misapprehension of Christianity.

I think this discussion is getting bogged down in confusion about the word "omniscience." Keep in mind, it means knowing everything that can be known. It is no slight to God to admit that he does not know non-knowledge. If the being of Creation is unfolding historically then everything that was or is could have been otherwise (if only to some infinitesimal degree) but wasn't. That is the premise of historical knowledge; therefore historical knowledge of the future is logically impossible, a.k.a., non-knowledge.

To expand on that the entire concept of a supremely all powerful creator who can literally do anything and everything and knows anything and everything is more of a construct created by Christians as time went on, not something laid out word for word in the big book.

LoH, I think a good deal of the idea of God getting thrown around on the internet is a function of uncritical use of language (by Christians and others).

 LordofHats wrote:
To expand on that the entire concept of a supremely all powerful creator who can literally do anything and everything and knows anything and everything is more of a construct created by Christians as time went on, not something laid out word for word in the big book.

We have no way of knowing what God does and doesn't know... he never told us what he does and doesn't know or can and cannot do. We only know what he has revealed to us, and we are making implications of his power and limits based upon what he told Moses and what Moses told 'us'.

nkelsch: We don't just have revelation. We may know God, albeit incompletely, through the faculty of reason.

So where does God fit in with the eventual heat death of the universe?

I mean it starts snuffing out stars one by one killing trillions of living things "just cause" regardless of the one planet he spent so much time on, doesn't that make him kind of a dick?

And doesn't that kind of take away from his omnipotence?