How can we have free will of God knows every single thing we're are ever going to do, including believing in him...

How can we have free will of God knows every single thing we're are ever going to do, including believing in him, with perfect foreknowledge? Doesn't it also mean that God is choosing whether or not you get to go to hell, as he knows exactly what would convince you to believe? So basically, God creates most of humanity to burn them Infinitly? Seems pretty scummy if you ask me

Do you think God is incapable of accurately predicting the infinitely multiplicative, winding paths of human lives? Because if I was a theist, I would wager he could. It doesn't have to be set in stone for him to call it.

Sometimes we all have to do things we don't particularly want to do.

But God is all powerful right? Why would he have to do anything he doesn't want?

But he has perfect foreknowledge so he knows exactly which outcome you're going to choose, removing the element of choice, so ultimately you're not responsible for your actions

I don't think god has to follow moral or legal guidelines, he/she/it might as well just destine people for hell for the fun of it.

But isn't god meant to be all loving? Why would he ever condemn people to eternal torture for a finite crime?

test

My Children, start believing in Jesus

Couldn't god just pretend to be all loving, or lie? In all seriousness, if you had ultimate power and knowledge over everything, would you always behave the way you claimed you would, even if it got boring, just because your creation believes that you will?

If everyone was good, it wouldn't mean anything. We'd have nothing to compare 'good' to. If you don't believe you're not going to believe. You're one of the ones God made shit.

You know exactly what would convince me, and considering that I don't believe you either don't want me to know and let me suffer, you don't care and will let me suffer or you don't exist, which one is it?

i found jesus

...

> so ultimately you're not responsible for your actions
that's basicly the same way of thinking the church used to do basicly anything they want and it worked really well until Nietzsche killed God and left all of our western values to rot, missing their religious base.

Wasn't that god's original plan though? To have a perfect utopia without suffering in the garden of Eden? And the problem is that he punished Adam and even from eating the forbidden fruit even though he knew that they would eat it, he created them that way
If this is the case then God is a monster and why would he ever deserve worship?

In jewish religion hell is not eternal. We're put there for a period until we're cleansed.

Okay. Keep trying to criticize something with infinite wisdom. That'll work.

I'm more talking about Christianity, but I thought Jews didn't believe in an afterlife, or is that just the more secular side of Judaism

God isn't real.
But its a great concept. having an almighty god always watching you and judging your actions can be a helpful thought. Having to always do good even if there are no witnesses is a good idea, helps people get their life on track.
Life is all about taking risks and achieving something, and God is a great concept to unite many people under, and to push them to do good and get their shit together.
Do not underestimate the psychological worth of religion

it's an afterlife for those who die. Some get to the 'world to come' without dying a physical death.

But how does he have Infinite wisdom if he keeps fucking up? He was surprised that they ate the fruit, that the world went to shit and then he killed everyone for it knowing it would all happen an infinite amount of time before it happened. Then the world goes to shit again and he sends himself down to sacrifice himself, to himself to circumvent a rule he put down in the beginning that he could easily just remove.

How is he Infinity wise?

Having perfect foreknowledge doesnt mean what he currently predicts is forced upon you. He is a god, it makes sense that he simply reasons what you will do because of how thoroughly he understands.

A NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES

you can't

God's omniscience and our free-will are logically contradictory

If God is omniscient and knows everything (including knowledge of all future events)
Then logically God knows when and how you are going to die
God also knows if you are going to heaven or hell
Because God is omniscient, it is not possible for you to surprise God and wind up in an afterlife he didn't foresee
Therefore, when God created everything, he set into motion all of the events that would have to transpire, for the future he knew would happen, to take place (including some people going to Hell).

>removing the element of choice

No it doesn't. Faulty logic. Just because you watched the end of a movie doesn't mean you determined the script.

Does a kid listen if you don't give them horrifying ultimatums?

timmy that is hot. *kid touches it*
timmy that is hot and if you touch it i will hurt you so bad. *kid dosent touch it* or if does - you hold timmys hands to the object and the genuine panic it will tell its kid thats hot with in the future will scare even its kids into not touching the hot thing.

But he's omniscient, he knows absolutely everything there is to know about the entire universe with perfect accuracy, everything goes according to his plan does it not? He's know you before the universe ever existed, so because of that he created you knowing that's exactly how your life would turn out and theres no other way it will turn out because God has perfect knowledge, and then he did nothing to stop it, it's the same as making you do it, so you're not responsible for your actions if the god of Abraham exists
You can't have free will of your life is already perfectly planned out

the cart driver gives no shit about the self dialogue of the horse as long as it follows the carrot stick in the right direction

But God made the cosmos with perfect knowledge of how it will go and end, he knew exactly what you would be doing at this very moment before creation. Its not as if he's peaking ahead and has no idea what's leading you here, he created you knowing exactly what will lead you there with perfect knowledge

>Just because you watched the end of a movie doesn't mean you determined the script.

God isn't just a patron to the movie

He's an omniscient creator being

The Bible even says that he is omniscient, you're comparison is a false equivalency

But he knows every scene, every second, every frame, so he has determined the script

God can't escape his own essential nature. He does some things because that's who he is.

But he is omnipotent is he not? Nothings outside of gods capabilities, he didn't have to create the universe this way, he created it knowing that humanity would fall and then punishes us because we were created that way, if you were god would you punish a fish for eternity because it can't walk, knowing that you yourself make it that way? God is a monster in the bible, the simple fact that hell is forever is testiment to that

He could have made a world that was nothing but suffering if he wanted. Also suffering helps us get stronger. and people are rewarded for their suffering in heaven if they're not total bastards their whole life.

cause and effect give no shit about reason.
self responcibility in action is law to keep your species from imploding in selfish short term thinking. it happens that people respond better to this when it is not outright stated.

hence religion, all good guidelines for a moral baseline that favors against greedy shortsighted dicks who bring us all down.

exaclty this

God is omniscient and has perfect knowledge of all things

If God does not have perfect knowledge of all things (including all future events), then he is not omniscient, and is therefore not God

Before God created everything, he knew that I would exist, he knew what I will eat tomorrow for breakfast, he knew when I will die, he knew how I will die, and he knew whether or not I will go to heaven or to hell

I cannot make a choice or action that will surpirse God, because he already has perfect knowledge of every future action I will take

Therefore, when God created everything, he set into motion, all of the things that have to come together to fulfill everything he already knows, and human free-will is therefore negated if God is omniscient

a monster in the eyes of man
in gods eyes, he is just toying around

But this post god me thinking, I'm an atheist, just to be clear, but how would we know if a hypothetical omnipotent god even has an intent? How would he decide what to do next?
Imagine if god existed pure, without any attentions at all; What if one day he gave himself the desire to make man suffer? There would be no turning back, as his desire to make the species of man and then torture it in hell for all eternity would prevent him from making himself un-desiring again. He would simply not want to.
And by making man believe he is the only pure, truly good thing, god could ensure that man would suffer the most if he found out that god was in reality the most evil thing that man ever knew, striving only to abuse his trust.

Because what other explanation is there to god being described as infinitely wise and of such a good will? Why would god need to make himself an unreachable illusion of good and perfection for his people if he was all that all a long? A good-willing god wouldn't even make a hell to begin with.

>be part of a species that has has algorithm and statistical analysis, moves masses by social economic manipulation.

how can we have free will?

are you being lead over a cliff or to a good horizon? think or yourself, and follow a track to good. what shepard are you following?

not in some spoopy hypothetical way but in a actual functional way, chances are you are being lead, are you ok with the direction?

I've been ignoring every single conversation having to do with spirituality for 2.5 years now and just focussing on the real world. It's been great. Try it. People are retarded and are going to continue being so no matter what you do. Focus on the top whatever%.

what if god actually just doesnt want to think about your dumb ass but then you shoot up a school and god sees it and is like "fuck i forgot that cunt is going crazy murder today"
thats basicly the same as when you forget to turn off the stove and your house burns down.
I mean god created us in his image, imagine all the trouble he is going trough with us.
I guess trying to fix us made him depressed and now he doesn't give a shit anymore and just sends people to hell.
i guess now we have to be good people without god.
Maybe he will come back to us later.

But his all-knowledge measn that nothing can escape his vision and attention. At least, that#s according to christianity-.

>what if god actually just doesnt want to think about your dumb ass but then you shoot up a school and god sees it and is like "fuck i forgot that cunt is going crazy murder today"

If we're having a logical discussion of the Christian God, then we can demonstrate from Christian sources that--being a perfect being--God cannot "forget" things, it would be logically impossible from all of the claims surrounding "what he is," i.e., all-powerful, perfect, omniscient, etc

Your ad hom has nothing to do with the fact that God's omniscience logically contradicts man's free-will.

It is impossible for a being to be omniscient, to create everything, and to endow his creation with free-will--because at the moment of creation, said deity is putting into motion, all of the things he already knows are going to take place.

If a future event surprises God, then he is not omniscient, and is therefore not God

>thats basically the same as when you forget to turn off the stove and your house burns down.

And this is another false equivalency, as God--being perfect--would not be prone to human error.

>I mean god created us in his image, imagine all the trouble he is going throug with us.

Being "created in his image" says nothing of the logical contradiction between God's omniscience and our free will

>I guess trying to fix us made him depressed and now he doesn't give a shit anymore and just sends people to hell.
>i guess now we have to be good people without god.
>Maybe he will come back to us later.

And all of this is equally irrelevant to the argument

Why do you assume he’s all knowing? There HAS to be a God. Everything is impossible without a creator, but just because there is a God it doesn’t mean we know anything about it.

Firstly I'm talking about the Christian god specifically, but secondly you have do demonstrate the universe can't exist without a creator, there's nothing that suggests we NEED a creator, let alone that there is one

the best argument for God (erm Christianity) as far as I can tell is that teh calendar says AD and before that it said BC hurrdurrr

the education system failed you

well maybe god cant multitask, like us

>If a future event surprises God, then he is not omniscient, and is therefore not God

Maybe god has created factors for this world, which are fundementally random and unknowable until observed.
God knows that he created something random, but it is fundementally random, means it has no cause at all. Its just a small random event that God placed in the world for him to enjoy. Maybe that small random event is you!

>And this is another false equivalency, as God--being perfect--would not be prone to human error.

but god createed us in his image? what about us is godly, even?

>And all of this is equally irrelevant to the argument
but its a nice thought
.)

but he can do everything, I thought?
>Maybe god has created factors for this world
No, but maybe god has created rules for himself, because his infinite knowledge and capabilities bored him? That would answer a lot in this thread.

Or! Or! Hell is a very lonely place only for the truest mistakes of humanity. Jesus died for 'all' 'our' sins already. I think most if not all people go to different levels of heaven.

/Thread

What? God gives us free will that's why there's so much hatred and pain in the world, and god still remains all loving and forgiving.

Therefore, your understanding if god must be flawed. If there are logical falacies un you belief system, then you need to cut those things out, go back to source material, and reexamine.

if he made rules for himself he wouldnt be allmighty if he couldnt break them.
and the bible states that god is almighty
if he made rules and could break them then he still chooses to not ignore the rules to end evil, I mean theres nothing to punish god for breaking his own rule.

Are you stupid? Prove to me that you don’t need a creator for anything to exist. Something can’t be created by nothing. Even if you believe in the big bang it doesn’t explain how the big ball of matter was created. It’s pretty idiotic to believe something has existed forever without anything creating it, it has no logic.

I'm just saying that god might be all-knowing and all-powerful and as such deciding all our fates, but he could give us free will by just making rules that limit his own power.
He can break those rules, yes, but what if he just chose not to?

God isn't an entity like you are thinking of it. It's not He/She, nor does it make decisions or cock block your free will. The fact that you assigned personification and a gender, means your brain is totally fucked by society. Every religious faction and fanatic thinks god is an alien from outer space. This is just false because aliens would be created like us. The universe is your creator and at the same time your conscience awareness of the universe makes it exist. In essence, you are the universe trying to understand itself and experience what it is.

Yep. But still, we derive all this from speculation about what we can sense.

and there is so much fucking more that we cant sense, original user is right but I feel there is more at play.

Your error is placing God within time. Think of him as eternal, as outside time, and the problem disappears.

No, it doesn't, that's exactly the problem.
If god is basically putting us onto a marble-rollercoaster that he himself constructed and knows the outcome off, then why the fuck would he punish us?

>Do not underestimate the psychological worth of religion

You mean denial and/or ignorance?

You literally put him in time again by saying he knows the outcome, as if somehow it is in the future for him, but he sees the future.
Try again. Try to imagine a deity that exists outside time.

euphoric

thats a big part of religion.
there is only one true god, fuck the rest, kill them all, send those infidels to hell!

You fucking noblefag you literally are calling me out on not wording it in a way that pleases you. Stop fucking treating me as if I were your student.
Of course I'm able to imagine a deity outside of time, but my point stays the same, why would god want us, as beings that live with time, to suffer? He/She/It controls everything about us, so isn't it madness that god puts us into hell for doing something he made us do?

I've had this conversation a lot with people. I live in the Bible Belt so it's a little challenging to explain sometimes.

Imagine all of time as a ruler, you know, 1-12". Think of it this way, God sits in all of it. Meaning, right now, God is here as I type this. He's also here as you read it at the exact same time. He's also at the creation while we debate and is also in current time. He sits in all time. Meaning, he sees all of it as it's happening right now. Moses, leading the Isrealites, the end of time, it's all happening right now to God.

It's a pretty simple concept if you think about it. It's just something we don't like to comprehend because it's so mind blowing.

We have free will within that time. God just already knows the choice we are going to make. We've already been condemned to Heaven or Hell, in Gods eyes, because he sees the choices we will make in the future, in real time.

Saying we don't have "free will" makes no sense because God isn't making the choice for us or demanding we do X, Y, or Z. He just knows what choice we are going to make.

Last sentence. Spot on. You've got to think 4th dimension.

No need to get mad because you're too stupid to articulate ideas clearly.
God doesn't want us to suffer. God does not control everything about us. We choose Hell. No one is in Hell who wants to be in Heaven.

Well, now they probably are. Think of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

Step one to stop being a faggot: What you've just described is mind-blowing to nobody. We all understand what you've just said perfectly.
Step two: God has literally made us the way we are, by creating adam and eva in the way they are and giving them the world around them, and especially by giving them the emotions that lead to sinning, he has ultimately caused every action that would condemn a man to hell. Because, as you've said, Time as a dimension works as a ruler, there is no "random" in the world, every thought, every spoken line and every opinion formed in this so-called "free will" is caused by a line of actions reaching back as far as the creation of everything. Saying that "we decide" to sin and god just knowing what choices we are going to make means nothing else than "god has made us make these decisions, then looked at how we actually turned out to make the decisions this all-powerful entity has predetermined for us, and then put us in hell for it as punishment for his own actions".

Parable is the key word

God has fucking created everything.
Choices are nothing but complex reactions to the world around us, we aren't special entities designated with some magic that will decide differently just because, no, we are equipped with a complex thinking apparatus that processes everything we have experienced and experienced right now, and god creating the universe in the way he did caused and will cause everything that ever happens.

Time isn't a variable, if we went back in time and lived trough the same period of time again everybody would decide exactly the same, behave identical to how they behaved the last time, and not differently for no reason at all.

> It’s pretty idiotic to believe something has existed forever without anything creating it, it has no logic.

Does the same not go for God? I don't really understand the big bang theory so I won't comment on that, but if God created the universe, then doesn't that imply He existed before its creation? And how long before that? If not infinitely, then what was His predecessor?

Well then we gotta whollatta thinking to do. Or just take the Buddhist route and not worry about any of this.

...

1) Why are you so angry? I just joined in on this thread.
2) There was no emotions when Adam and "Eva" were tempted. It was a temptation that Eve made a poor judgement call, as did Adam.
3) We do decide our own paths and if we either sin or live righteous lives. It's pretty simple. To think you don't have control over your actions and anything you do is a result of thousands or even 10's of thousands of years of stuff, is ignorant.

Adam and Eve did not cause me to given to drunkeness during my time of it.
Moses' actions played no part when I would sleep with women out of wedlock.
The path Paul took plays no part on if I decide or not decide to follow the Word.

What you've just described, you're a victim. You don't believe you control your actions or life. That you could go out and murder a room full of people and it's Gods fault because he knows what choice you're going to make.

I don't understand your anger.
I don't understand why it's a hard concept to swallow. God sees all time. You're free to make choices in that time, He just already knows what you're going to do. Kind of like the story of Job. Great story.

I'm an outside user, but I think I know the answer to this one;
There was a speculation also shared by Stephen Hawking I think, that antimatter and matter can co-materialize from nothing. It's just like electric charges; if we have equal parts of negative and positive matter, there will still be neutral matter quota overall in the universe.
That way, matter can just jump in and out of existence, the matter and hypothetical antimatter that reside in our universe right now have just not found back together to be converted back into nothingness.
I'm not entirely sure of this theory but I've grabbed that up somewhere on the long run and to me, it makes at least a little sense.

So you're a materialist and a determinist. Consider that those who aren't materialists or determinists don't accept your premises.
Of course, according to your own theory, you can't help but espouse these ideas - they aren't conclusions you've drawn from thinking but only a kind of mental reflex to irrational stimuli. Believing that as you do, why do you push your ideas at all? One, they're not ideas, and two, you will have no effect on the inevitable. Again, I suppose, according to your theory, you're just a hapless retard bleating a non-thought because you cannot NOT bleat it.

No. We choose. Just because He already knows is irrelevant to our experience and humanity. If you choose to reject Christ, you forfeit your soul. God's ways are higher than ours. We cannot possibly understand his ways or even the absence of time.

Valid point.

Depends on which aspect of the creation you're speaking of.

The Bible states in Genesis that God's Spirit hovered over the deep. It was dark and without form. Implying that the earth, as a whole, was already here. Then God formed land, sea, etc.

The idea of a deity being eternal isn't so hard. I'm of the thought, though, that we aren't the first civilization to live on this earth. I think God's done this before and may do it again. Also, we limit God to earth. Who's to say he didn't do more, elsewhere?

Jesus is a false god, false messiah, false teacher.

YHWH God already said: "I am not a man"

You forfeit your soul when you worship Jesus and not YHWH God.

Jewish, I take it?

converted to Judaism when I realized the truth.

That's what Satan wants you to believe

In the old testament, then, where did YHWH state that He's not a man?

Also, who was he talking to in Genesis when us He said, "Let US make man in OUR image"?

Not in your face about it, just want to learn.

1)I'm actually not that angry, but I saw these 5 angry pepes in my folder and they are always a little bit angrier, so I decided to go post them in chronological order.
2)I understand why we three don't understand eachother
The reason we are having this debate at all is because I've been raised following physics and science of nature, while you've been raised following the word.
According to what I've learned in science in all these years, mind, soul, decision, these all are just products of our thinking apparatus, the brain, which works nothing different than a very adaptive machine. A computer if you will, and no matter how often you look at the same slice of time, since you'll go into it with the same knowledge stored trough synapses in your brain, the same emotions that are flowing trough you as chemicals, the same impulses your senses are getting from outside, your decisions made will always be the same.
If you follow that way back, then everything we're doing is just based on what particles the world around us and our own body is currently compromised of, meaning that an omnipotent being could at one point in time just change every atom, every electron, every quarx in the entire universe into a specific order, causing a precise, infinite future to unfold in time. This would mean that, if given enough precision and if you have the required speed to absolve this and the ability to alter each particle in the universe, I could make Tom, a human who hasn't been born yet, kick a rat into a trashcan in about a hundred years. Just by changing the world around me with enough foresight.

The difference between us is that you two probably have been raised with much different beliefs, and since we both took all the time in our lifes until now to develop this worldview that we call true, it is impossible for either of us to just accept the other one's complex understanding and computing of the world around them just trough a Sup Forums argument.

Here's how to tell whether or not Satan wants it. Ask yourself whether God said it. If God said it, then Satan wants the opposite.

God said He is not a man, is unchanging, is without form, etc. Satan wants you to believe that something else, a man (in the form of a man, changing from unborn to born, from child to adult, etc.), is divine. That's what pagans believe.

Read Deut.13. Get an education, dipshit.

That's a catch-22 argument. Either free will exists and God is a fucker or free will doesn't exist and God is still a fucker.

Why can't you just admit that you're an intolerant faggot with a huge gaping pussy?

Also, you're trapped in this judeo-christian paradigm about what God is. It's very small-minded of you.

Wow just found the limit to my IQ. Thanks for the reply. I'll think about this for a while.

There is no choice. We don't choose anything. You're basically trying to argue that human "choice" supercedes God's omniscience.

God in his omniscience and omnipotence created us with foreknowledge of every decision we would make, and our choice, our existence, is an illusion; it doesn't exist from God's perspective, and to argue otherwise would be to say that god is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, thus not God.

"We choose" is an argument against God, not for him.

Actually, I am not at all saying, that we can't change our fate, I'm saying that everything we try to do to change our fate, as the future is already set in stone, is a part of our fate. Meaning that me trying to convince you of my beliefs is just another influence on you during your life which shapes your actions and thoughts.

TL;DR: I think we're getting to a point where it's important that every contestant shares a similar view on how the world fundamentally functions in order to continue meaningful discussion. And this is obivously not the case. I am not saying any of us is wrong about how we view the world, but we just can't reach eachother how someone of our own opinion could.

Sorry, but I am not a fundamentalist nor a Biblical literalist, and even if I were, I'm not illiterate, so your poorly-formed understanding of Deuteronomy isn't very compelling.

"I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and therefore not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city" (Hosea 11:9)

"God is not a man, and therefore, [not] deceiving; neither the son of man, and therefore [not] repenting.” - (Numbers 23:19)

"And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for He is not a man, and therefore [not] repenting. " - I (Samuel 15:29)

“Because He [God] is not a man (אִישׁ human), as I am, so [it is not possible] I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.” (Job 9:32)

As for Genesis 1:26, God is speaking to the earth. You will notice in the next verse, it is only the singular God who actually creates. Man is made of earth and God's breath.

If you were right, then God would continue to speak in the 1st person plural all the way through. The fact that He doesn't disproves your false trinitarian bullshit. Finally, God explicitly says He is is alone with no other persons or things that are also God.

Get a fucking education, dipshit.

Same problem as before, someone who can't understand eternity.

>a conversation on Sup Forums where one guy actually admits to not knowing more than everybody else
What else wonders will I witness today?

You only think my reading is "poorly formed" because you are depending on a corrupt translation as your basis. But, I am reading from the original Hebrew.

One needn't be a fundamentalist or a literalist to understand some basic facts about who is and is not God. This is simple conceptual consistency.

The trinitarian doctrine is self-defeating and incoherent.

I agree that eternal exitstence, god or universe, isn't that hard to believe. There are few things more exciting to me than imagining the discovery of an alien planet with the same goes as us. Like holy shit what a confirmation.

What makes you think civilizations have existed before ours?

>So basically, God creates most of humanity to burn them Infinitly? Seems pretty scummy if you ask me

Relax, it's an artificial control mechanism. The idea of a single god destroyed many other deities. It was a hostile corporate takeover and monopoly scheme.

And what does eternity have to do with the fact that humans have no choice from God's perspective?