TalkBack: Choose God or Freewill

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From:	Xerculees	2001-01-08 12:22:33
Subject:	Freewill
Comment:	An All-powerful God vs. Freewill Let's say this all powerful God created humanity and everything. Does that necessarily mean this God created our actions as well? Or did this all knowing deity create humanity and give them the will to choose between good and evil on their own enabling them the power to lead their own lives. The ability to choose is what gives humanity it's power and strength. If you use that power for good, than you belong with God. If you use that power for evil then you belong with Satan. You decide where to spend eternity by your actions in this world. I'm wondering if there is some sort of limbo for those who aren't especially evil but not really that good either...
From:	james Plaskett	2001-02-09 09:52:34
Subject:	Free will
Comment:	See the example in my book re our Free Will to be cautious in crossing the road....
From:	Reader	2001-02-09 18:21:32
Subject:	Coincidences....
Comment:	I have read wonderful book recently... it was called 'Coincidences' and was written by the guy called 'Parsley' or something like that - I forget names easily... For names are not important - the content of the book is.. and this book was amazing.. it talked all about coincidences... it explained very well (for the first time in my life) why chickens have crossed the road and presented very logical, emphorical argument why most of them did not get killed while doing so... 'Parsley' discovered the truth about Universe and its very mechanics - poor chickens did not get killed because the speed camera was installed at this very stretch of the road few weeks earlier... 'Coincidence' or wot ?
From:	SpecialKasadilla	2002-10-18 21:26:23
Subject:	sadness...
Comment:	You know, as I read your story, my heart started to beat faster as I realized the sadness of your theory. Your statements are typical of those who mock God, so I didn't find any of them shocking. If you'd like to answer your own questions, then why don't you try reading the Bible? With an open mind, too. Read the book of Romans, and you'll find your answer. If you don't, then e-mail me and I'll tell you why God gave us free will to allow us to make our own decisions. Until then, try not to mock something that you have no belief in by presenting immature, rhetorical questions.
From:	maria	2002-10-28 19:36:35
Subject:	0
Comment:	so you saying suicide mean i will go to heaven, theres no life no nothing theres darkness thats farewell. thank you
From:	Topher	2003-04-16 21:00:25
Subject:	free will
Comment:	God knows everything that has happend and is going to happen. And God gives us free will by not stepping in and forcing us to do or not to do something. Haveing no free will would mean that we have no control over our actions, God gives us the choice to choose him or not to choose him, also why would life be worth living if we had no free will?
From:	anti-theist	2003-06-23 20:04:08
Subject:	religous psychosis
Comment:	Its amusing to see the crude and predictable banter by which these mindless religous automatons defend their precious and cherished beliefs. I have no need to read your petty publishings full of contradictory statements, otherwise i would become a theologian or some other useless religous entity. I could go on forever disproving your feverish word play, but anyhow, I will sustain until i publish some analogous article, for now my quick witted - perhaps narrow - insults will have to do. :)
From:	d.yager	2003-07-20 00:15:01
Subject:	responce
Comment:	Say... God knows which decisions we are going to make, yet we make those decisions OUR SELVES.
From:	DogsOfDiogenes	2003-08-13 16:00:46
Subject:	Reconciling God and Freewill
Comment:	For the theist, God's foreknowledge does not cause any serious problems with freewill. The solution was around in the middle ages (read Boethius) and is interesting because it prefigures modern physics with a 4-dimensionalist account of the universe. One must adopt a particular view of God and time. On the 4-dimensionalist view, time is just another dimension added to the three spatial dimensions. All times bear the same status of existence. The present is not ontologically privileged. God is defined as eternal; that is, atemporal. God, being outside of time, is equally present to all times simultaneously in one eternal moment. God does not see one's actions before they happen but, from outside of time is present at each moment as it occurs from the creation on to infinity. Thus, God's foreknowledge is importantly different from human foreknowledge. God's knowledge of what will happen tomorrow is not causal, He is a spectator to our choices as they are made. Although, I'm an atheist, this solution is very elegant and beautifully solves the problems that ostensibly arise between God's omniscience and human freewill.
From:	cosmicstargoat	2003-08-18 19:40:59
Subject:	God and Free Will-dogs of diogenes
Comment:	It's nice, all those wonderful attributes that you assigned to god, but there is still a huge problem with god and freewill. Consider this-Will there be freewill in heaven? Will there be sin in heaven? Taking this to all possiblities, ie. SIN/FREEWILL SIN/NOFREEWILL NOSIN/FREEWILL NOSIN/NOFREEWILL The first two choices are not acceptable, allowing sin in heaven. The third is not likely, because freewill will give rise to sin, e.g. the fall of Lucifer and the fall of Adam. You are left with NOSIN/NOFREEWILL, but that doesn't quite work either, does it? If god can create NOSIN/FREEWILL, then god by CHOOSING to create a creation that could choose to sin, shows that he WANTED evil to exist. God, by the very definition does not sin and has free will, he is the template for such attributes. With this in mind, I conclude that god is evil. There is no way that I know to resolve this. Fundies simply ignore fundamental flaws such as this. Do you have an answer?
From:	noemail@noemail.com	2003-10-11 16:29:03
Subject:	Freewill
Comment:	How did I find this website? Like a light that draws bugs, I have made it here. It is part of my destiny. Why am I a white male and not female, not black, hispanic, etc, etc. Why am I not rich? Why am I not poor? Why was I born in this age, not 100 years ago and not 1000 years from now? Why am I human? I think back on opportunities that I have taken and the ones I passed up. The things that I am proud of and the things that I am not so proud of. Things that would have put me on the top of the Darwins List and for some odd reason I have made it this far. Who knows where I will be tommorrow. One person works hard all there life and gets Black Lung. Another person does nothing and wins the lottery. 'Life is like a box of chocolates' I cannot control the forces which change my life, who I meet, who I don't meet, who I upset, who I don't upset. I only react according to what I have been shown. The world needs a mix of ethenticity, race, color, creed, welfare, etc. Ask yourself if this is where you expected to be, and then realize that this is where you are. Some will argue, Some will agree, but it only goes to show that that is what they were meant to do. God does not play dice. -Einstein
From:	DogsOfDiogenes	2003-11-20 20:13:16
Subject:	Reply to Cosmic Star Goat
Comment:	It's been a while since I've wandered this way. I'm thankful I decided to, otherwise I would have missed Cosmic Star Goats interesting reply. The first thing to mention is that CSG's reply brings up a seperate argument from the main post. I explaining how to reconcile God's omniscience w/ freewill. The argument works. CSG brought up a new argument (one that is reminiscent to Richard Hanley's thoughtful article 'Reflections on the First Matrix'), the problem of freewill and heaven. There are several responses from a Christian viewpoint (which, by the way, is not one I share). First, as CSG alluded to in his own post, there can be sin in Heaven. Look at Satan. He was in Heaven and he chose to indulge in sin... he just wasn't in heaven for very long after that. So the comment that there can't be sin in heaven isn't supported by Christian theology. Secondly, while it is true that God could create no sin/freewill, he could not create that combination with a creature that is capable of MORALLY SIGNIFICANT FREEWILL. This is a subtlety that is even lost on many philosophers. In order to create creatures capable of morally good deeds, he had to leave open the possibility of sin. One cannot choose the Good unless it is possible to also choose the bad or evil; let's call this the 'avoidablity analysis of moral freewill.' Thus, in order to create a creature capable of the highest good, God had to make a being that could choose between good and evil.
From:	cosmicstargoat	2003-11-21 06:24:19
Subject:	free will
Comment:	The main thrust of the entire sin/freewill issue is to point out fundamental flaws of the christian belief system. The Free Will doctrine works in one compartment...but not in all compartments. It is used out of necessity, by christians to try to explain things that are disturbingly non-consistent with an all-knowing, loving and perfect god concept. The free will cop out is short-sighted and does not address the big WHY of why a god concept would require worship, adoration or creations that would have to choose. I suggest that all these theological 'wriggles' are made merely out of necessity when a doctrine works in one christian compartment, but not another. Many christian apologists insist that heaven will be different...perfect....without sin, with all believers there in their resurrection bodies [whatever that is], with all sin and sinners chained up with Satan in hell. Nice concept, but too many loose ends.
From:	Eadon (Author of the article)	2003-11-21 08:37:30
Subject:	Freewill is a myth 1
Comment:	DogsOfDiogenes permit me to refer to the earlier of your two posts, “Reconciling God and Freewill”. You make interesting points, but I am compelled to challenge them. Firstly, let me say that “eternal” is NOT the same as “atemporal”. The former means to exist within a space-time with an infinite time dimension, and always being “there”. But an eternal being could conceptually experience a “now”, just like we mortals. Therefore an eternal god and an atemporal god are two different beasts: one is embedded in space-time forever; the other transcends time. (Note that if you transcend time, you must also transcend space, if relativity is to be believed). Your argument in saying that a god that created our space-time Universe must transcend time, sounds highly reasonable, although this is ultimately a metaphysical question. Secondly, and pompously, let me indicate that I’ve studied relativity at BSc. level and have worked on solving the simpler equations of special and general relativity, so I know a bit about what I’m talking about more than most, here, albeit not much more :) continued…
From:	Eadon	2003-11-21 08:38:35
Subject:	Freewill is a myth 2
Comment:	To create a universe, you must presumably create two things, a) the laws of physics that the universe obeys. A law of physics as we think of it is, for example, is akin to electromagnetism, or relativity. b) You must create boundary conditions that determine the initial “state” of the universe. For example, amongst other things, the state decides where everything in the universe will initially be and how fast they are going and in what direction, and things like the number of time and space dimensions, and the speed of light. (It may turn out that the laws of physics uniquely define what the boundary conditions, are, this is conjecture). Anyway, the upshot of this is that everything is deterministic, things inside the Universe are there due to the boundary conditions, and they obey physical laws. There is no room for freewill to appear in such a physical universe. To explain free will, you must invoke magic. I have seen no such evidence that such magics exist, therefore, I’ll apply Occam’s razor, and assume that Freewill does not exist either. Continued...
From:	Eadon	2003-11-21 08:39:35
Subject:	Freewill is a myth 3
Comment:	Finally, let me say that a god would simply set the laws of physics and the boundary conditions and that would be that, the universe exists, past future and present all laid out before him like a sausage on a plate. And, as the god transcends time, then he’d know the state of the entire universe, past and future all at once, and by our reckoning, it was all decided billions of years before we were born. In your argument, you talk about a god being a spectator. How can an atemporal being be a spectator, it is absurd, but lets accept that. Next you make a monumental leap by saying that the God is a spectator of our choices. By choices, are you referring to freewill? And if so, where did freewill suddenly come from? The only ways you can create freewill is to say that a god imbued us with freewill, or that some other supernatural entity or magic makes it happen. But that is hardly consistent with your self-proclaimed atheism. Freewill is no more real than a fairy, there is simply no objective evidence that it exists, and it is superfluous, for the concept of freewill explains diddley squat, in my eternally humble opinion.
From:	Eadon	2003-11-21 09:12:14
Subject:	Freewill is a myth 4
Comment:	Continued… But to be fair to you, you are only claiming that the principles you present are a solution to the religious conundrum of “God's omniscience and human freewill”. Unfortunately such an argument falls flat, because it fails to account for how those choices arose in the first place. Did the initial laws of physics and boundary conditions of the universe determine the outcome of those “choices”? In which case, your proposed “solution” is broken because determination is implied, not choice/freewill. On the other hand you can say that non-deterministic choices exist, but you have not explained why an omniscient god needs to be a “spectator” to discover our “choices”. In that scenario, your “solution implies that the god passively *learns* the outcome of our choices, but it makes no sense to say an omniscient being needs to learn. Paradoxes are a surefire sign of flawed logic. Furthermore, you are saddled with the unaddressed riddle of trying to explain how choice/freewill can arise without waving a magic wand. And call me a banana but wand waving and satisfactory “solutions” are rarely twain, even when trying to justify the consistency of a theology.
From:	DogsOfDiogenes	2003-12-24 23:22:38
Subject:	Eternal and Atemporal
Comment:	Actually, one of the accepted definitions of eternal IS atemporal. Eternal is frequently used in theological and philosophical discussions to 'mean outside of time,' though physicists may use the term differently. You can verify this by taking a look at the Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy at any bookstore, the first definition of eternal given is 'atemporal.' This is common throughout the literature. But we should refrain from becoming bogged down in semantic quibbles and focus on the initial question of whether God's foreknowledge is contradictory to the concept of freewill. And on that point, again, I say that it is not.
From:	DogsOfDiogenes	2003-12-24 23:38:19
Subject:	Does freewill exist at all
Comment:	Our current understanding of physics does not allow us to specify whether or not the universe is truly deterministic. In studying relativity, doubtless you also encountered the problems posed by quantum mechanics. The Copenhagen interpretation of QM posits a truly indeterministic world, reality breaks down and dissolves into an ontological (rather than a merely epistemic) probability. So yes there are laws, but the laws are probabilistic and indeterminate. There are other interpretations of QM, such as Pilot Wave theory, but the verdict is still quite open on this issue.
From:	DogsOfDiogenes	2003-12-24 23:50:03
Subject:	No freewill anyway
Comment:	You're arguing that freewill is an illusion. I would like to second that, but not for the reasons that you're giving. It doesn't really matter whether the universe is deterministic or indeterministic (which is something we really can't know until relativity and QM are reconciled), both ways are equally hostile to freewill. If the universe is deterministic, all events are immutablye fixed by the past and the laws of nature and all choices are part of a causal chain that extends outside of oneself; hence, there is no positive/metaphysical freewill. If the universe is indeterministic, at least one event is not fixed by the past and the laws of nature and just simply occurs and could just as easily have occured in another way. This seems promising for freewill until we remember that truly random events are not under our or anyone's control. Thus, once again, we do not get freewill.
From:	DogsOfDiogenes	2003-12-24 23:59:37
Subject:	Paradox?
Comment:	You suggested that an omniscient being that needs to learn is a paradox. Ostensibly yes, but when you recall that one of the key attributes of the omniscient entity in question is being atemporal, the paradox is resolved. The God of the theologians exists in one perfect, eternal moment and, being infinite, is immediately present to all time. Thus, there is no point at which he is ignorant and later learns. They God that they are suggesting knows everything at once. This has no apparent problems for freewill granted a 4-dimensional universe.
From:	DogsOfDiogenes	2003-12-25 00:13:45
Subject:	What's the point again?
Comment:	I would like to point out that I am not arguing for belief in God, nor am I arguing for the existence of freewill. My original posts have tried to stick to the topic of whether a Judeo-Christian God is contradictory with the concept of freewill. If that alone is the question, then the answer is yes. Granted other points, the conversation will travel down different roads. *Note: I noticed a minor typo in the previous post, 'Paradox?' It should read: 'THE God that they are suggesting knows everything at once.'
From:	ron	2005-01-15 13:52:43
Subject:	god?
Comment:	God does not function like us mere humans, he can do a lot more than we could ever imagine, so just by imagining what we would do if we were God is not enough to show what power and intellect he has. we as humans just cannot comprehend what God can do. I was once told a simple analogy of us compared to God by my Christian Studies teacher many years back, he said this, goldfish live in fishbowls, that is their life, their home and their universe, all they can understand is the things insde the fishbowl. The things outside the fishbowl is somthing it will never be able to comprehend as their life is the fishbowl. Like us, we only know as much as the world we live in and a few things we are just starting to understand outside this world, but what God knows and understand, is somthing we humans will neva be able to know. God did not just give us freewill, and allow us to chooze him or freewill, its much more complicated than that, somthing we cannot understand as humans. lol maybe when we finally see him, we will understand.
From:	C.S. Lewis	2007-11-14 00:05:03
Subject:	Mere Christianity
Comment:	'Another difficulty we get if we believe God to be in time is this. Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. But if He knows I am going to so-and-so how can I be free to do otherwise? Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot. Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call 'tomorrow' is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call 'today'. All the days are 'Now' for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not 'foresee' you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way -- because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you ahve done it is already 'Now' for Him.'