Adoption by Homosexual Couples
closed account (iAk3T05o)
After my explanations, i have come to the realisation that some either confuse, misunderstand or don't know the meaning of all knowing, freedom, choice and force. It's funny.
Where did you here that because God is all knowing, you don't a have choice? Did you hear Him force you to go to sleep at night? You are going to sleep and He knows it. He didn't force you to sleep at a predetermined time at night.
He knows you will choose one thing (all knowing), He didn't force you because He didn't make that choice because He gave you freedom and freewill to choose.
@helios: God knows that you have choices, he knows that you can decide to:
1) ignore the person telling you to go to the place those boxes are.
2) listen to the person telling you to go
When you make a choice to go or not to go, God knows the outcome of each. He doesn't make you choose, He doesn't make your choices, He doesn't force you. You do that. You make your choices, God knows the outcome of each choice, You decide to open the box or not.
He didn't make you decide to do either, you did that and He knows the outcome of each of your choices. You aren't made to eat beans where there is rice and beans. God knows you will choose either rice or beans or whatever food is there. He knows what will happen when you choose rice, beans, any food that is there or all the food there. He doesn't decide for you. You have the freewill to decide and choose and each of your choices has their outcomes which God knows each of.
Where did you here that because God is all knowing, you don't a have choice? Did you hear Him force you to go to sleep at night? You are going to sleep and He knows it. He didn't force you to sleep at a predetermined time at night.
He knows you will choose one thing (all knowing), He didn't force you because He didn't make that choice because He gave you freedom and freewill to choose.
@helios: God knows that you have choices, he knows that you can decide to:
1) ignore the person telling you to go to the place those boxes are.
2) listen to the person telling you to go
When you make a choice to go or not to go, God knows the outcome of each. He doesn't make you choose, He doesn't make your choices, He doesn't force you. You do that. You make your choices, God knows the outcome of each choice, You decide to open the box or not.
He didn't make you decide to do either, you did that and He knows the outcome of each of your choices. You aren't made to eat beans where there is rice and beans. God knows you will choose either rice or beans or whatever food is there. He knows what will happen when you choose rice, beans, any food that is there or all the food there. He doesn't decide for you. You have the freewill to decide and choose and each of your choices has their outcomes which God knows each of.
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Well my problem is just the blatant contradiction. For an all knowing being to exist, everything must be predetermined. For example, I can go to sleep at any time. Let's say I go to sleep at 11:50pm today. God must know in advance that I'm going to sleep at 11:50pm, otherwise, god would not be all knowing. Therefore, it is not a free choice for me to go to sleep at 11:50pm. I might think it was a free choice, but if god already knew I would sleep at that time, clearly there was no choice to be made.
Or to take a more simple example, I flip a coin. It should be my choice how much force is put into the coin from my thumb. However, god should know if I do 500 flips what the outcome of all 500 flips will be in advance. Therefore, the force I apply to each flip is predetermined.
Or to take a more simple example, I flip a coin. It should be my choice how much force is put into the coin from my thumb. However, god should know if I do 500 flips what the outcome of all 500 flips will be in advance. Therefore, the force I apply to each flip is predetermined.
closed account (iAk3T05o)
Is it that the grammar is too big or something.
How can a perfect being need something to be predetermined? God is perfect, all powerful, all knowing, all present etc. If He needed something to be predetermined then he is not all powerful or all knowing. That is a scientific all knowing. God isn't bound by the rules of man.
He is not forcing you to follow Him! You are taking place in this arguement. God knows that, He knows when it will end, He knows it may not end, He knows everything. He is not a human. He is not bound by science. He doesn't need anything to be predetermined! May isn't predetermined. God knows you may or may not make a mistake when flipping the coin. He knows you may or may not sleep exactly at 11:50am.
How can a perfect being need something to be predetermined? God is perfect, all powerful, all knowing, all present etc. If He needed something to be predetermined then he is not all powerful or all knowing. That is a scientific all knowing. God isn't bound by the rules of man.
He is not forcing you to follow Him! You are taking place in this arguement. God knows that, He knows when it will end, He knows it may not end, He knows everything. He is not a human. He is not bound by science. He doesn't need anything to be predetermined! May isn't predetermined. God knows you may or may not make a mistake when flipping the coin. He knows you may or may not sleep exactly at 11:50am.
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closed account (z05DSL3A)
Nathan2222,
So which of these statements is wrong?
1, god is all knowing.
2, god knows the possible outcomes of every choice you will be faced with.
3, god knows which choices you will make.
So which of these statements is wrong?
1, god is all knowing.
2, god knows the possible outcomes of every choice you will be faced with.
3, god knows which choices you will make.
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| God knows you may or may not make a mistake when flipping the coin. He knows you may or may not sleep exactly at 11:50am. |
Yeah but come on man, I and everyone else knows that much. The key to knowing everything is knowing the actual outcome, not just possible outcomes. To know in advance the possible outcome does require knowledge of the event before the time of the event. God or not, thems the rules.
| After my explanations |
| Where did you here that because God is all knowing, you don't a have choice? |
I have explained above why this should be true. I'm willing to listen to reason, but if you are just going to contradict me without any arguments besides "it just is so" -- and believe me, I would absolutely love to hear such arguments -- then there's no point to this discussion.
| He didn't force you to sleep at a predetermined time at night. |
So, yes, God has indirectly forced every action I take at all times, including my bed time.
| When you make a choice to go or not to go, God knows the outcome of each. He doesn't make you choose, He doesn't make your choices, He doesn't force you. You do that. You make your choices, God knows the outcome of each choice, You decide to open the box or not. |
| Mats wrote: |
|---|
| Could you explain? |
| helios wrote: |
|---|
| Could you define free will? Personally, I can't think of one that's compatible with predetermination. |
Well now we get into my belief structure. I think I've explained it before... but briefly I'm a "Deterministic Agnostic" -- the core principle of my belief being that everything has a direct cause/effect relationship.. even if that relationship is incredibly complex and beyond our understanding.
Each point in time leads directly to the next. As if the universe is a gigantic state machine.
This extends to human thought and decision making as well. The decisions we make are based on our mood, previous experience, genetic makeup, and other mental and physical factors.
Things can affect our mood/physical state and therefore impact our decision making. Alcohol is an extreme example of this, but really any kind of physical contact with anything does this on some scale. If you eat a hearty breakfast and have more energy in the morning you will make different decisions that if you didn't, etc.
This means that free will is perceptive, rather than absolute. Yes, we have the free will to make decisions... but if you look at it with enough detail, those decisions amount to us being a big state machine and merely processing the input we've accumulated over our lifetime. So in that sense you could consider our actions as being predetermined or having a 'fate'.
But does being able to explain free will mean you don't have it? I'd say no. The decisions we make are still just as real as they would be. Just because a decision can be explained or even predicted does not mean it wasn't a decision. And isn't the ability to make decisions what "free will" is?
closed account (iAk3T05o)
I hope you are not confusing "may" with "will" .
"May" is a possibility, it is not set in stone, it is not determined.
For example, we may be wrong with the way we present time. God didn't force us to say that a day is 24 hours long. What if a day is 60 hours long? What if our presentation of time is wrong? What if it is 10 hours?
What if your computer spoils now? What if your house catches fire? What if you lose your job now? These are not predetermined.
What if the opposite happens? What if a tsunami occurs and floods you house? What if you are demoted?
If you want to know what free will isn't, hell is defines it. All you do there is experience pain.
If you believe you don't have free will, how are you an atheist? How do you have/not have children? How did Lucifer become evil? How did Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit?
God could have taken away free will. He could have made you all christians, decided not to let you have children etc.
You can die a non believer or believer. Absence of free will here means you must die a believer or non-believer. Because we have free will, some people that truly repent before they die become believer and vice versa. Don't worry if you believe God doesn't exist or is not good or forces you do things, when you die, if you go to:
1) Hell: You will know what it is like to be truly forced. What the absence of free will feels like. You will know what pain is. You will know the true plan of the devil for you.
2) Heaven: You will realise what free will is. You will know what it is like to have no evil. You will everything.
Don't worry. It's a matter of time.
"May" is a possibility, it is not set in stone, it is not determined.
For example, we may be wrong with the way we present time. God didn't force us to say that a day is 24 hours long. What if a day is 60 hours long? What if our presentation of time is wrong? What if it is 10 hours?
What if your computer spoils now? What if your house catches fire? What if you lose your job now? These are not predetermined.
What if the opposite happens? What if a tsunami occurs and floods you house? What if you are demoted?
If you want to know what free will isn't, hell is defines it. All you do there is experience pain.
If you believe you don't have free will, how are you an atheist? How do you have/not have children? How did Lucifer become evil? How did Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit?
God could have taken away free will. He could have made you all christians, decided not to let you have children etc.
You can die a non believer or believer. Absence of free will here means you must die a believer or non-believer. Because we have free will, some people that truly repent before they die become believer and vice versa. Don't worry if you believe God doesn't exist or is not good or forces you do things, when you die, if you go to:
1) Hell: You will know what it is like to be truly forced. What the absence of free will feels like. You will know what pain is. You will know the true plan of the devil for you.
2) Heaven: You will realise what free will is. You will know what it is like to have no evil. You will everything.
Don't worry. It's a matter of time.
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Disch: Ah-ha. Yes, we're both believers in the clockwork universe. We only disagree on the hardness of the term "free will".
So, it's not set in stone, but it's known beforehand by a perfect being?
Argumentum ad infernum is played out and boring.
They are not incompatible.
Not inconsistent with lack of free will.
What color is Russell's teapot?
EDIT:
Seriously. Argumentum ad infernum is a dirty tactic. Is religion really a matter of fear to you, rather than a quest for ultimate truth? I find you utterly pitiful.
| "May" is a possibility, it is not set in stone, it is not determined. |
| If you want to know what free will isn't, hell is defines it. |
| If you believe you don't have free will, how are you an atheist? |
| How do you have/not have children? |
| How did Lucifer become evil? How did Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit? |
EDIT:
| 1) Hell: You will know what it is like to be truly forced. What the absence of free will feels like. You will know what pain is. You will know the true plan of the devil for you. 2) Heaven: You will realise what free will is. You will know what it is like to have no evil. You will everything. Don't worry. It's a matter of time. |
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closed account (iAk3T05o)
I find you severely confused inside out. The right word to use for you isn't in the dictionary.
How can you say you have no free will and yet you go you aren't a christian?
Of all the things to be confused about, it is that you are an atheist because God predetermined you to be one.
What is your definition of free will?
I seriously believe you are confused with confusion.
How can you say you have no free will and yet you go you aren't a christian?
Of all the things to be confused about, it is that you are an atheist because God predetermined you to be one.
What is your definition of free will?
I seriously believe you are confused with confusion.
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Let's lets take a hypothetical situation. Let's say there is no God, regardless of whether there is one or not (which we can't currently determine anyways). If you have free will and mind, with all of the lacking evidence of a God, what path of logic would we take in order to believe in the Christian God you speak of specifically? Remember, this is assuming there is no God. Would it be the same path you would take in the case there is a God?
If there is a God, why does it make it damn near impossible to logically determine that he exists?
My definition of free will is to be able to choose my own path using the logic that I abide by. Am I supposed to break that logic for a God that follows little to no logic?
If there is a God, why does it make it damn near impossible to logically determine that he exists?
My definition of free will is to be able to choose my own path using the logic that I abide by. Am I supposed to break that logic for a God that follows little to no logic?
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closed account (iAk3T05o)
Think about this: God is omnipresent.
Show me one human, scientist, animal or insane person that is omnipresent. Logic only gets you from A - Z (words of Albert Einstein). Why would you want to logically explain something that does illogical things. It's not logical for a snake statue (made of cement) to become alive but it happened. It's not logical for a large body of water (the Red Sea) to split into two, long enough for a whole tribe to pass but it happened. Science is logical. It's logical for you to believe God doesn't exist because you can't see Him and His existence cannot be logically proven. To what benefit is proving His existence? Is it for some kind of achievement or assurance? Don't try to logicalize something that isn't logical. Believing in God isn't logical because logicality is limiting. If you believe in Him, you do. If you don't, you don't. We don't need to see something to believe it exists.
Show me one human, scientist, animal or insane person that is omnipresent. Logic only gets you from A - Z (words of Albert Einstein). Why would you want to logically explain something that does illogical things. It's not logical for a snake statue (made of cement) to become alive but it happened. It's not logical for a large body of water (the Red Sea) to split into two, long enough for a whole tribe to pass but it happened. Science is logical. It's logical for you to believe God doesn't exist because you can't see Him and His existence cannot be logically proven. To what benefit is proving His existence? Is it for some kind of achievement or assurance? Don't try to logicalize something that isn't logical. Believing in God isn't logical because logicality is limiting. If you believe in Him, you do. If you don't, you don't. We don't need to see something to believe it exists.
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I never said I was an atheist nor that I was a theist. I am an atheist, but I never said so.
All my arguments up to this point have been under the a priori assumption that God, as imagined by Abrahamic religions, exists, to argue that if He does, then free will is impossible. I'm not required to believe in something in order to ponder what it'd be like if it did.
This isn't a completely inconceivable notion if we rephrase it a bit: if God exists, He's the one who made me an atheist. This isn't a contradictory idea. I'm not arguing with 100% certainty that God doesn't exist, and I'm not discounting the possibility that I could be wrong about anything. But, regardless of whether I'm wrong or not, my opinion is the result of observation and introspection, which are determined by the local environment, and more generally the total state of the universe. All that my being wrong or right changes is the ultimate source of that state.
Free will can be said to have operated on a decision if external factors were not the sole influence upon the decision. I don't think free will is possible outside of Cartesian dualism.
EDIT:
Well... Maybe God isn't omnipresent. That's another alternative. I mean, He doesn't appear to be, what Him not filling our entire field of view, or obstructing movement in any way.
Well, yeah. Being sane is also limiting as far as feces smearing is concerned. That doesn't mean going mad is a preferable alternative.
All my arguments up to this point have been under the a priori assumption that God, as imagined by Abrahamic religions, exists, to argue that if He does, then free will is impossible. I'm not required to believe in something in order to ponder what it'd be like if it did.
| Of all the things to cook up, it is that you are an atheist because God predetermined you to be one. |
| What is your definition of free will? |
EDIT:
Well... Maybe God isn't omnipresent. That's another alternative. I mean, He doesn't appear to be, what Him not filling our entire field of view, or obstructing movement in any way.
| Believing in God isn't logical because logicality is limiting. |
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| It's not logical for a snake statue (made of cement) to become alive but it happened. It's not logical for a large body of water (the Red Sea) to split into two, long enough for a whole tribe to pass but it happened. |
You are actually wrong on all counts here. It is possible for a cement statue to come alive and it is possible for the Red Sea to part for any amount of time. That is what quantum mechanics tells us. However, the odds of such an occurrence happening are beyond unbelievably far fetched... Impossible though? Not at all. I'm not saying these things did happen, but your implying that science says this is not possible is wrong.
| Science is logical |
Science used to be logical. Since the 1920s, science is only logical where logic applies. In quantum mechanics and extreme cases of general relativity, logic breaks down and is not applied. Your notion of what science is, or how it is done, seems to be incorrect.
| Believing in God isn't logical because logicality is limiting. If you believe in Him, you do. If you don't, you don't. |
It seems believing in god is a booleon. Perfectly logical!
| Nathan2222 wrote: |
|---|
| It's not logical for a snake statue (made of cement) to become alive but it happened. It's not logical for a large body of water (the Red Sea) to split into two, long enough for a whole tribe to pass but it happened. Science is logical. |
This is really the crux of it.
Science attempts to answer the question of "How". It uses logic and the ability to reproduce behavior enough times so that we can understand it. This has proven to work many times over. The technological advances we've made due to scientific discovery is nothing short of incredible.
But in order for this to work... in order for science to answer the question of "How?"... someone has to ask it. If nobody asks the question, it can never be answered.
The above quoted paragraph tells me you are content with never knowing... and you have just accepted that it's illogical and impossible to understand. With that... you have resigned yourself to never understanding more than you currently do. You are at the limit of your understanding... and you are refusing to explore any further.
You are basking in your own ignorance, and allowing it to dictate your thoughts and actions.
Just to clarify... I'm not using ignorance as an insult here. We're all ignorant... just like we're all sinners. The difference between helios/myself/others and you is that we strive to fill in as many pockets of our ignorance as we can. Whereas you are happy to stay where you are.
Many would consider your mindset to be damaging to society. I won't get into why... but I will link to a great youtube video which talks about this topic in a surprisingly respectful and level-headed manner. I strongly encourage you to watch it. Maybe it'll help you gain some insight into what we're talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1te01rfEF0g
closed account (iAk3T05o)
God, The Christian, made you an atheist? Jeez. I didn't know beans made sorghum rice.
So my questions:
1) Which external influence are you getting (or do you believe God gives)?
2) How do you believe they are or how God is influencing you?
3) How well you would sleep if you saw evil, winged, black, red eyed creatures that could pass through you daily?
4) Why you believe you should be able to see God when when he gave you everything and asked one thing in return, you disobeyed?
Do answer them.
So my questions:
1) Which external influence are you getting (or do you believe God gives)?
2) How do you believe they are or how God is influencing you?
3) How well you would sleep if you saw evil, winged, black, red eyed creatures that could pass through you daily?
4) Why you believe you should be able to see God when when he gave you everything and asked one thing in return, you disobeyed?
Do answer them.
1. The universe.
2. God hypothetically created the universe.
3. If it was a constant stimulus, we'd get used to it. The constant brushing of your clothes against your skin doesn't freak you out, does it?
4. Well, excuUUuuse me, but no god has ever contacted me, or given me an explicit set of directives.
Since you talk so much about having free will, let me ask you a question. If God exists and supposedly respects free will, how is Him not presenting himself clearly and unambiguously (at the very least, not through the inaccurate, millenia-old writing of ignorant desert dwellers) more respecting of our free will than the opposite, if we're supposed to make a decision regarding his existence with our souls on the line? Wouldn't we be exerting more free will if we made an informed, rather than uninformed, decision? "Believe or burn" is coercion. "Look at me and believe" is not.
2. God hypothetically created the universe.
3. If it was a constant stimulus, we'd get used to it. The constant brushing of your clothes against your skin doesn't freak you out, does it?
4. Well, excuUUuuse me, but no god has ever contacted me, or given me an explicit set of directives.
Since you talk so much about having free will, let me ask you a question. If God exists and supposedly respects free will, how is Him not presenting himself clearly and unambiguously (at the very least, not through the inaccurate, millenia-old writing of ignorant desert dwellers) more respecting of our free will than the opposite, if we're supposed to make a decision regarding his existence with our souls on the line? Wouldn't we be exerting more free will if we made an informed, rather than uninformed, decision? "Believe or burn" is coercion. "Look at me and believe" is not.
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@Nathan2222 - so I'm asking yet again - how do you know that bible tells the truth?
closed account (iAk3T05o)
I can't explain anymore. You can take the horse to the stream but you can't force it to drink. Eventually, it'll get too thirsty to survive.
And,
5) If science tries to explain how, i've said you can't explain the existence of God. Explain the big bang, what caused it, how it came into being and if you can't explain that, there is nothing you can tell me about the "how-ness" of science that is right and it makes your arguements invalid.
@helios: Your soul is on the line? If it is, one way to save it has been presented but you don't accept. Find a way you think you can use to remove it from that line. I doubt you'll find any but try, i.e. if it is.
And,
5) If science tries to explain how, i've said you can't explain the existence of God. Explain the big bang, what caused it, how it came into being and if you can't explain that, there is nothing you can tell me about the "how-ness" of science that is right and it makes your arguements invalid.
@helios: Your soul is on the line? If it is, one way to save it has been presented but you don't accept. Find a way you think you can use to remove it from that line. I doubt you'll find any but try, i.e. if it is.
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