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IF God knows the future, then the future is set in stone.
That's like saying a guillotine was invented for criminals but hey, let's use it on bystanders too.
Don't take this as an attack. It's not. It's just a question about your behavior here.
As an atheist, I assume your axiom is that there is no God, right?
I am more cool with that than you may be willing to believe.
The part I can't figure out, though, is your interest in the "image of God" in the mind of a theist. I mean, that person's God doesn't exist, right? So, since the other person is evidently wrong in light of your axiom, why does it matter after that what characteristics that person chooses to attribute to their imagined God?
Just curious. I'm honestly interested in your genuine answer.
This argument REALLY doesn't hold water! I understand why some think it does - but it doesn't.
Negatore. Hell was created for satan and his followers. Man wasn't created to follow satan. Those that do, aren't just "bystanders."
Two things here what you said in the first paragraph just does not jive... I explain it you just brushed it aside. I gave you the example of he parent with the kid... A kid has a candy "I know" he will drink water ...is that a prediction or I "impose" the drinking of water? Obviously I am not telling the kid to drink waterTo the bolded part: IF God has knowledge of what I actually end up doing, no, I have no free will. I may have the illusion of free will, but that was also predestined. You don't seem to be getting my point.
If God cannot be described by logic, then God is a useless concept. Does 1+1 not equal 2 for God? You enjoy espousing other human concepts to God - love, justice, compassion - but you refuse to attribute to him logic and reason. Is that simply because logic and reason threaten your image of God?
So....God has the ability to save people from hell with the snap of his fingers, but he simply doesn't want to? Now your God seems a bit immoral.
Imagine this: two parents have a kid. They value this "free will" concept so much that they refuse to stop their kid from playing in the street. They may shout from far away saying "get out of the road", but that's it. Then the parents get in their car, and run the kid over.
That's what your God is doing. He's being completely complacent, maybe shoving in a cryptic warning somewhere which is unconvincing to most people on the planet, and then if you don't abide by the warning, he personally destroys you. Personally, I don't like that scenario.
The kind of atheist that I am is not the "there is no god" atheist. I'm one of the "I don't believe in a god" atheists.
Until I find evidence for a theistic god, I will not believe in them.
So....God has the ability to save people from hell with the snap of his fingers, but he simply doesn't want to? Now your God seems a bit immoral.
Imagine this: two parents have a kid. They value this "free will" concept so much that they refuse to stop their kid from playing in the street. They may shout from far away saying "get out of the road", but that's it. Then the parents get in their car, and run the kid over.
That's what your God is doing. He's being completely complacent, maybe shoving in a cryptic warning somewhere which is unconvincing to most people on the planet, and then if you don't abide by the warning, he personally destroys you. Personally, I don't like that scenario.
Explain
Not believing in the Christian God = following Satan?
The kind of atheist that I am is not the "there is no god" atheist. I'm one of the "I don't believe in a god" atheists. Subtle rewording, but big difference.
I refuse to make the claim that the Christian God doesn't exist. I don't have any evidence for the Christian God, so I tend to reject the idea. But it is still possible, and I would accept the idea if there was sufficient evidence.
Until I find evidence for a theistic god, I will not believe in them. But that doesn't exclude the possibility. Hope that answers your question.
Does God know what is going to happen to me tomorrow? Simple question.
IF God has knowledge of what I actually end up doing, no, I have no free will.
If God cannot be described by logic, then God is a useless concept.
You enjoy espousing other human concepts to God - love, justice, compassion - but you refuse to attribute to him logic and reason.
Just because God knows us well of what we will do that means we do not have free will? no!! If you know the future of a person does this mean you caused it ? Nah.. of course not. There is no illusion...
God ascribes to his own logic you deny this thesis you prefer to say that He is illogical... I never said thatSo according to you Einstein is not logical if I (with lower IQ) do not understand him?
Love for God is not what human love is. I never said that either. Love is transcended for God and beyond any human emotion. But in order to "experience" that love we have to "trascend" that emotion; that is why a few posts back I talked about contemplation in God.
Please do be aware that any such evidence, will not be of the scientific sort. It won't be controllable or repeatable. It won't be contained in a test tube.
This comparison is wrong, and ridiculously so. Otherwise, how did any of us escape being run over in the street?
It does answer my question. Thank you, and I do appreciate the difference.
However, answering that question created new ones. I hope you don't mind my asking, as I believe the answers will help me better understand your position on this thread's topic.
So, if I may, my next question:
Let us assume you believe in the possibility of the Christian God, but you definitely reject the accuracy of one particular Christian's claim about some characteristics of God, as that Christian imagines Him.
Why is that particular Christian's image important to you? In other words, what consequence is there in someone else maintaining that God has any particular characteristic that is not logically a characteristic of God?
If that person's image of God is of no consequence to you, then why not just ignore those characteristics you reject, and move on with your search for evidence?
I'm not saying that God "causes" any of our actions - I'm just saying that we only can do what God sees us doing. It's sort of a time-travel paradox - if you knew the future, could you change it? If you could change it, then was it really the future? God, in this picture, is someone that knows the future. If God knows the future, that implies that there is only one linear string of events.
Paul got a revelation, Thomas got to touch the wounds - why do I have to take it on faith?
I'll amend it - there are two kids playing in the street. The parents yell "get out of the street". One does, the other doesn't. The one that stays in the street gets run over. The parents could have forcefully gone out in the street and brought them both back and saved them both. Wouldn't that be more appropriate?
This still doesn't follow. You may have heard a Prof or someone else make a convincing sounding argument like this, but it is not too hard to tear those apart.
God is not a concept.
None of this is true. We don't "espouse" anything to Him. His logic and reason are far beyond our own, which is included in your word "justice."
No problem
There are multiple reasons for that. You could even extend it broadly and ask why I even post here in the first place. In essence, I find these discussions stimulating and I think they keep me sharp in thinking about these subjects. Also, I don't like talking about these things with my theist friends, because I don't want to offend them. I feel I can be more honest with people online, though I try to avoid flaming.
I actually don't know why I'm in this thread because I usually post in Creation/Evolution topics. But I find it extremely interesting how a lot of Christians either don't think things through logically that are in the Bible, or try to make the Bible exempt from reason. It bugs me, so I comment on it.
Is God perceiving the passage of time similar to the way we do, with events historically following one another as the ongoing progression of cause and effect takes place (thus requiring him to respond to events in a historical order)? Or, does God have a vision of all events, throughout all of history, all at once, and therefore exercises some capacity to interact with various parts of history without regard to the order we perceive?
See, that's the big question! With my mind, it's extremely difficult to imagine anything outside of the dimensions we inhabit. But let's just add another half dimension to God. If God lived in 4 dimensions (whereas we only live in 3.5 - the 3 spatial, and the forward direction in time), it would be like Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut, with that alien race that lived in 4 dimensions. Their perspective was that life as they knew it was pretty unalterable, and that time was essentially like space. They could move forward and backward in their plot on time and space. To them, free will wasn't even a concept. Free will is a concept for us because we are stuck moving one direction in time. So maybe the whole concept of free will is a bit over-emphasized.
When we think of neurology, thinks sort of back that idea up. Consciousness is pretty much just physical connections in the brain. We are aware of our surroundings, but we are unaware of how little control we have over our bodies. Our brain is one big algorithmic fact-checking circuit making countless calculations and responding according to probabilities, experience, and the like. I think that we underestimate the decisions our brains make for us.
But if you end up throwing God into some "outside of time" thing, it very quickly becomes a cop-out for you to explain away any obstacle in your way. If an idea explains everything, it explains nothing. If you go out of your way to that say God is "outside of time", well, you can say whatever you want...you can say he intervenes when he feels like it, because you're already destroying the mental concepts in our minds of time anyway.
I'm starting to ramble and I need sleep, haha
You 'knowing' what a kid will do is not the same as an omniscient God knowing what someone will do. They are omniscient. They literally cannot be wrong. What you predict the kid does remains, however likely it may be - just a prediction. God however is described as our infallible creator that under no circumstance can ever be incorrect.Philothei said:Two things here what you said in the first paragraph just does not jive... I explain it you just brushed it aside. I gave you the example of he parent with the kid... A kid has a candy "I know" he will drink water ...is that a prediction or I "impose" the drinking of water? Obviously I am not telling the kid to drink water Just because God knows us well of what we will do that means we do not have free will? no!! If you know the future of a person does this mean you caused it ? Nah.. of course not. There is no illusion...
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