religion and choice.

as an addendum to shredderbeams arguement: if god does know ALL the possibilities of what you may have for breakfast, then there is no choice for variation.

Also, do you believe that someone who makes a mistake in their life should be subject to eternal punishment?

you said yourself that god sometimes interfers to help people, like the bahama's example.
Isn't it therefore, gods fault for EVERY person who has to spend their entire eternity in hell? when he could have quite easily prevented the cause of the person's evildoing?

 

You fail to make a connection between God and all actions. There's absolutely no reason to believe that God causes anything - only when you assume God exists, does it not fail.

And assuming makes an ass out of you and Ming.

...wait...

 

It's not so much that He knows whats going to happen, He does but its more like, He knows what you are going to choose to do. You still choose what you are doing, but He knows what you are going to choose, and He can affect the world around you to make your decision different, even though your decision is still made. You can throw a curveball and say I'm eating lasagna for breakfast and God will know that you are planning on choosing that. I see your point on how if its predetermined then its not free will, but its not so much predetermined as it is He just plain knows what will happen. You could try and think of it like a deja vu(spelling?) type thing. Only instead of Him thinking He knows what will happen because He has the feeling it already happened, He just knows for 100% that this will happen as to him it is happening in the present. You can think of it like this. The beginning of time is at point a and the end is point b. A.---------B. Now see God is so huge, He is in point A and point B at the same time, and He continues to go on and on. It is like when a day feels like a year, well to Him the entire eternity is right now. He is currently located at the creation of earth, and the armageddon day at the same time as He is here now. This is part of His omnipresent thing. He is everywhere here, then, and there. He is in the present, past, and future and even though our time is going by, His time is halted in every place and fashion. To Him we are a really, really long movie and He can fast forward, rewind, pause and even go back to the begining or straight to the end if He feels like it. Now we have decided what we are doing in our lives so it is like we are writing the script and He is directing. If He decides to do something different, it will go that way even if we try and write something in differently, yet we still get to write every other line in the script. Does that analogy help?

Also Elementalelf, when I was using that Bahamas example part of the main point is God can intervene in your life if He wants to but He still gives you that free will to choose what to do even if what you try to do doesn't work out. He isn't responsible for what you choose to do just because He gave you that ability to choose to do it. That is like saying that a father is responsible for his son's child that his son had with an underaged 17 year old girl, when the son is 35. The father who did have responsibility over his son at one point doesn't still have responsibilty over him when he gives him his own free will when he lets him move out of the house. The son would be an adult then and would have to make his own choices and take responsiblity for his own actions. God is not responsible for our actions anymore because He gave us the responsibility of free will. He is letting us make our own choices whether they be right or wrong and He can intervene if He wants but He doesn't always which is why we shouldn't rely on Him to fix everything. We do need to take some responsibility for our actions. I kind of have to go now but I can explain this in more depth in the morning.

 

If he knows what you're going to choose, then you cannot change your mind. You still don't have free will.

 

God creating something that creates evil is the same as God creating evil.

I'm applying him to the same standards as Hitler and Osama. (God gets credit for them, AND all their deeds...)

EDIT: man I have been staring at this post for a long time. already one page lag. hah.
K.

but: If God exists in the past, present, and future, how does he control things that happen in them? How would we know if God decided to change the past? (Perhaps that's the basis for holocaust deniers - God went back in time and changed history)

 

God gave us the ability to choose, he knows what we will choose... yes, we can change our mind, but God knows we will do that... he knows what you think and where you will go in life.. so yeah, theres my 2 cents

 

See to us if He did change anthing in past, to us it would be known as fact now. Perhaps World War II wasn't supposed to happen and Germany was supposed to win and rule the world. Then God decided no that's not a good plan and He changed a few aspects of life to allow certain things to go certain ways and then in our present we know this to be fact. He doesn't go back to change anything he would only change something in the present. He doesn't need to change stuff in the past since He does know the future so he can change in the present and make everything work out perfectly. Again I'm not saying that He can't just change the past and make us see that as fact but He doesn't need to since He can just change stuff in that now. Like in WWII, He doesn't have to change that now, since He could just change it then. It is hard to switch since God is in everytime at His present time yet we are just in our present, but it should make some sense.

 

I believe that what you said is true, but at the same time false. Your future is predetermined if you believe in religion, but although it is predetermined you still make your own decisions.

Think of this way:
You are now god. You know what every person on earth is going to do, but they do not.

So to simplify it, if you believe in god, then your future is predetermined, but not by you.

 

Well, if the mind is nothing more than a series of interacting particles, then that would imply that free will does not exist. If, however, there is something more to it (as some would say, if the mind is irreducibly complex), then that would imply that it is impossible to know the future, and hence, we do have free will.

Then we don't actually have free will.

 

yes because he still lets you deceid even though he knows what your going choose, and he will already if your going to change your mind so you can change your mind any time and he will have known, doesn't mean we dont have free will all because he always knows what we will do with that free will

 

That actually would mean that we don't have free will, for if he knows what we are going to do, then our actions are predetermined. How else would be know?

 

Justafan, I am not going to quote your post, but God does not control people, maybe sometimes keeps them from harms way, (hell, depends what you beleive). Anyways, I feel that you really have no argument in that post, it seems like a weak explanation for such a controversial matter.

 

because WE predetermine them!!!! all because he cant see what happens doesn't me he makes it happen, lets say that i drop some fish food into the water and i see a fish, i know that that fish is going to eat the fish food, all because i know that it will happen doesn't mean i force it to eat it and that fish still chose to eat it on its own will

 

If something is predetermined, it's predetermined. If what I'm going to be doing at noon today is already decided, then I hardly have free will as to what I'm going to do.

 

today at noon you are going to what you are do, whether someone knows what your are ogne do or not does not change that you chose to that at noon

 

No it doesn't, and it isn't predetermined it is only known by this "higher being."

Shredder if I said that I know you will reply to this thread does that mean it was not your choice?

 

Then nothing can change what I'm ultimately going to do, no?

 

Amazing according to Shredder I said he will post here and here did. So I made his choice for him and have written his descisions, So do I control you?

 

Or were you destined to predict that I would post here?

 

No, I make my own choices, while you make your own choices... Although, because someone knows what your going to do doesn't mean you didn't make the decision.