religion and choice.

This only applies to western religions(muslim, christian, judaism).

Theists believe that their god is omnipotent, or, putting it simply, has ultimate power. he can do whatever he wants.

Now, lets explore this a little.
If god has ultimate power, then time does not apply to him.
He can see the future, he can see the past, he can literally BE in the future or past at any time he wants.

This means that he can see what is going to happen, before it happens.
So therefore, there is NO such thing as free will and choice. all our choices have been predetermined before we make them.

So either God is extremely immoral, or he is not omnipotent.


Note: for scientific side of this, see M theory.

 

If this is true, your suggesting there is a god which isnt proven.

This is the good old destiny or free will argument

Personnally i do believe in god, and i dont think he controls us. Ever get that "Gut" feeling about the correct answer? Maybe thats god trying to help you .

Kinda the way ive always thought about it.

 

There are some who would say that God can be all-knowing in terms of the past and the present, but not the future. They claim that there is a sort of mechanism in each person (free will) that determines what they will do next, and that it cannot be reduced to component parts, which would allow prediction of actions.

 

free will determines what someone will do next????

 

Yes, God can see into the past and future.

He does not alter anything, he only observes what his people are doing/going to do/did.

The statement that everything is planned out is wrong, because God does not control anyone, only observes

Simple answer for this thread

 

I personally belive that we should not dedicate our lives to something that has no scientific evidence. however i don't have anything agaisnt religion aslong as its views does not impose on other's lives.

 

That's what some people claim. I, however, see no evidence that human decision-making cannot be broken down into its most fundamental level, the interaction of particles.

 

Science is not perfect mainly people just making up theories. These theories stay until they are proven wrong. The fact of the matter is whatever science we learn in school is mainly theories, most of which are going to be proved wrong in the future. Science and Religion both have theories of our existence, depends on what you believe.

 

Religion is not a theory. A theory is a well-substantiated explanation of something that integrates facts, explanations, and predictions. Most things that science theorizes about are correct, and most things that religion hypothesizes about are incorrect.

Also, science and religion are not equally considerable.

 

Why are you worshipping the ultimate voyeur?

 

i believe god already knows what happens in our future and yea we dont have a choice. our lives were already planned before we was even born. but i think that everything that happens to us is for a reason...

 

I think religion is a load of bull shit! Idc what anyone says, how can a 'spirit' or w/e this god is meant to be, have created a planet in 7 days, then control everything inside it? Tbh i think the bible was created to make money back when it was first ever written in w/e language... and btw dont PM me saying your offended as that is purely my view

 

Then you cannot really have the words "good' and "evil" in your vocabulary. If everything is planned out, then everything is in accordance with God's will, even such things as terrorist attacks, murder, rapes, robberies, etc.

Now, what would be the point in creating such a universe, where God is but the marionette, directing all that happens?

 

I would think most that most theists would tend to reject that (save for a few sects of Christianity - I think the Calvinists).

But now we can argue free will. Joy. If this is true, free will does not exist.

 

Not all religions say God has determined everything shredder. Infact some Christian branches believe he can not see the future because he gave us free will. You're being bias, I'm sure a lot of things in science don't make since to other people. It's a matter of opinion, If we came from apes, why are there apes still around. ext ext, evolution has been proven to be about as believable as religion. Yet people still blindly believe it to be true.

 

In the bible it says god can read your heart and he knows what your going to do, but he didn't controlling you like a puppet...

Also When the serpent decieved eve he told her it would make her become all powerful like god and in a way it did... Adam and Eve were considered perfect, after the ate from the forbidden tree. They started to look at things different and judge things and make their own morals and choices. So they were giving the power of ultimate free will...

 

Well, I can certainly see why. First, it doesn't seem reasonable for God to create a universe where he controls everything. Of course, laws of reason and logic may not apply to God, but it is certainly something to be considered when determining your personal views. Second, it's a rather depressing point of view. It suggests that you are powerless, and whatever will happen, will happen.

Oh, I'm not advocating any point of view over another. I'm just analyzing what others are saying.

Probably, but it doesn't make them any less true. For example, laws of calculus still apply whether poor people in Africa can understand them.

Well, if we had evolved from apes, then it would be reasonable to think that a group split off from the majority, and evolved to become humans. However, all modern apes and humans share a common ancestor. It split off into several branches, each of which continued to evolve.

That's actually not true. Sure, people can question certain aspects of evolution, and claim that they don't make sense, but nobody has actually come up with any conclusive proof that evolution is as believable as religion.

I am a firm supporter of the belief that, if you do not understand a concept, you have no right to believe in it. If you only believe in evolution because you were brought up assuming that it's true, and you have no idea how it really works, then you do not have the right to believe in it.

Well, if God knows exactly what you're going to do, then I would think that free will does not exist, since all of your choices are predetermined.

 

so either god is not as powerful as we are all meant to believe, or he is an immoral, unethical trickster.

 

Well for me, being a Lutheran, I do have a somewhat good understanding of this matter as I have and probably will go to a Lutheran school for all of my school years and this is always a question people ask. The way I see it as God is omniscient and as such does not only know what has happened or will happen but He also knows every other possible outcome to everything. I don't know if you ever saw that episode of Malcolm in the middle where Hal is asked to decide whether or not to pull the plug on that guy who was in a coma, and he tried to make a list of every possible outcome that could happen if he did or didn't pull the plug. The list went covering his entire kitchen and I am sure that he didn't get every variable but that is just a nice example of what I am trying to say. God knows every single possible outcome to everything that we could do and everything that could happen if we do something or not. It's like if you could go back in time you shouldn't disturb anything or everything in the future could potentially be completely different in anyway. As such He can use his superior wisdom to decide whether or not one of the actions chosen by our free will is good or bad and He does have the ability to intervene and change anything. Perhaps you decide that you want to go to the Bahamas for a week or so and have some fun in the sun and then you get a layover in like Detroit or something and your entire plan is ruined. Then you end up meeting some nice friends in Detroit who you end up becoming best friends with for the rest of your life, and then you later find out that there was a killer wilder beast in the Bahamas or something that could've killed you and you thought hmm I'm glad I wasn't there. Well perhaps that was just your luck or more likely it was God saying I know that he's going to die there, or get injured, and I need him to meet someone and perhaps share his belief in Me with these new friends of his in Detroit.
That was just an example of course of something that could happen but I think it proves my point, see God knew what was going to happen and decided it would be better not to have that happen and instead created a new scenario for you to go through so that you can avoid something potentially harmful or useless. Usually, I believe at least, it is for a better good that could come out of a situation.
And yes not only do I but I know my religion well and the pastors and teachers of my religion teach that God does in fact know everything and He knows what we are planning on doing. It's not like He himself directly affects our free will, but sometimes our free will and subconscious will intertwine and our subconscious will try to think about what will be best and if we believe in God I believe that it may try to think about what He would want us to do, and then even though we are using are free will to make a decision He is helping us make the right decision. That's like I believe that right now while I am trying to explain this as best as possible, I think that God is helping me explain it the way He would want you to hear it. I'm not going to say for sure but that's just what I think.
Also I am not saying that God intervenes every single time we are doing something wrong. There's quite a few times that I've done something wrong that I know God could've changed for the better, yet decided to leave it as is so that I could learn from my experiences.

Well see that's the main problem is you have to try and figure out if God created sin. I believe that He did not create sin itself or any of the "evil" things that take refuge in this world. You cannot argue that God created evil when He created Hell. Hell itself is not bad, it is where bad things go so that they can endure the everlasting punishment, which is of course to be totally and completely separated from God. See it is not bad it is just the worst thing anyone can endure. Now again what I believe is that God created the entire universe and Heaven in six days. The seventh day was His day to observe all that He had created and rest as He had just made the universe. Please note that as far as I am concerned Heaven is its own universe just as Hell is. Everything God had made was perfect and when He observed it was very good. The only problem that was, was in the Heavens, with an angel named Lucifer.
Lucifer was an angel who as far as I understand believed that he could do a slightly better job. Despite what many people say, I believe that angels do have free will. The only differences that are between humans and angels are that humans live only in the earthly universe until they die and angels can commute between the two universes. So as I believe it Lucifer had used his free will to rebel against God to show that he could do a better job. Of course this rebellion failed miserably as he is not omnipotent. This is where the evil started. It was not something that God created, but more something that a good being created by God managed to create that was evil. It is like when your child comes up with this farfetched idea about monsters that are under their bed. Did you create this idea about monsters and place it in their mind, or was it the child’s mind creating something? Of course you didn't tell your child that there’s a monster there you said there is no such thing as monsters where did you get and idea like that? And they say something like I don't know I heard something and assumed the worst. Usually that’s a pretty generic case I hear, or at least something to that affect.
As you might have understood what I was giving an example of is how God did not create evil, but what He created in turn was able to create and thus created evil themselves, in an act of trying to be like God. The reason I tried to explain how God did not create evil itself is because your statement sounds like if God created something evil and now has no control over it, what was the point in the first place, and so in my opinion He did it so that there could be something other than nothingness and even if it is full of evil at least He gave everyone the free will to not follow the evil ones. It might have been different and I'm sorry if I explained this for nothing but to me that is what it sounded like and I hope I may be clearing this up for someone out there. Sorry if this got a little long and if you have any more questions please just let me know I am more than happy to try and explain more about my belief to you.

 

Well, if God knows what's going to happen, then you do not have free will. If God knows what you're going to have for breakfast tomorrow, how can you have free will as to what you're going to eat?