Questions for Christians

Presupposition: God is all-knowing. He knows all that ever has, all that is, and all that will be.
Consequently: He knows all that I have done, all that I am doing, and all that I will do.

If God has always known how I will live and how I will die, then He knew before I was even born that I would live and die without having faith in Him.

Ultimately true omniscience contradicts the existence of free will. If God knows everything, then he knew before my creation that I would go to Hell when I die. How is that my fault?

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i agree

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Just become a nationalistic Neo-Pagan or something if Christianity doesn't speak to you. A lot of Neo-Pagans don't believe their symbols have a literal existence, but it's just meant to be metaphorical about the universe and a guide on how to live one's life.

Christianity is easy to beat rationally because it's about faith, but there is a lot of good nationalistic Neo-Paganism that is compatible with scientific understanding of the world.

Possible solution, God knows all possible choices you may make, but does not know which particular choice you will make. Does this mean he is still all-knowing? I think this is something similar to the view given in process theology

t. spooks

Also, if your reasoning is sound, christfags will just point to Job and say that as a created being, you can't complain that you were not part of the elect.

What is this, 2007 Sup Forums??

Nationalistic Neo-Paganism encourages a virtue ethics rather than the deontological one, like the Abrahamic faiths. Check Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue.

There are some smart Neopagans that also use bipolitical interpretations to defend their virtue ethics.

Nationalistic Neo-Paganism is compatible with scientific understanding because it's based on an urge to preserve language and cultures of one's forbears while promoting a socially harmonious environment. It may speak to you more than Christianity.

>like the Abrahamic faiths
unlike the Abrahamic faiths* which encourage deontological ethics*

First problem is our concept of hell isn't exactly in line with scripture. Eternal conscious torment lacks a lot of scriptural support. Note that God said in the OT that he would "never consider burning his children" (paraphrasing) in response to people sacrificing children unto idols

Secondly, look into universalism or annihilationism and it makes God make more sense.

Knowing what you will choose doesn't mean you won't make that choice out of your own free will.

wow ima christian and you just btfo of me /s

I know that you're probably going to eat tomorrow.

Does that mean you shouldn't eat?

>you are a deity-renowned cosmic biologist
>you propagate life in a petri dish that happens to expand infinitely
>intelligent life develops, you prod it with a cauterizing blade but otherwise leave it alone
makes perfect sense DESU
>you can live infinitely

>>Knowing what you will choose doesn't mean you won't make that choice out of your own free will.
If God knows everything that I'll ever do before I'm even born, there is no free will. It's just predestination, and my "choices" are the inevitable result of upbringing, environment, and a predictable mind.

"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive"

Note that our sin condition is understood as inherited from Adam, so if ALL men are born into sin, ALL shall be made holy unto Christ. Hence, ALL, as in EVERYONE. This is not to say Hell doesn't exist, but I think our understanding of it may be incorrect. Think about it, it lines up with ideas making their way into Christianity that weren't there in the first place, such as
1. Christmas date, celebration
2. Easter date, celebration
3. Rapture (debatable)
4. Constant doomsday predictions, when Jesus himself says he doesn't know when, only God does.
5. Charismatics
6. Pagan ideas infiltrating the Catholic Church

"So will fall he and his faithless progeny: whose fault? Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me all he could have; I made him just and right, sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. Such I created all th'ethereal Powers and Spirits, both them who stood and them who failed; Freely they stood who stood and fell who fell. Not free, what proof could they have giv'n sincere of true allegiance, constant faith or love, where only what they needs must do appeared, not what they would? What praise could they receive? What pleasure I from such obedience paid, when will and reason (reason also is choice) useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled, made passive both, had served necessity, not me. They therefore as to right belonged, so were created nor can justly accuse their Maker, or their making, or their fate, as if predestination overruled their will, disposed by absolute decree or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed their own revolt, not I: if I foreknew, foreknowledge had no influence on their fault, which had no less proved certain unforeknown."

-Paradise Lost, John Milton

Now I know that this is just a theory, but to me, it seems very plausible.
>TL;DR: You make choices, God knows them, but you made them all by yourself anyway

your freedom to will different choices were there, it's just that in the end, you didn't make the choices that you didn't make.

Because you chose it.

Simple.

He knew what your choice would be.

It's your choice to make, and you've made it.

Why you chose to NOT believe in God, I don't know.

Only you know.

>...and die without having faith in Him.

How do you know that ?

>Presupposition: God is all-knowing. He knows all that ever has, all that is, and all that will be.
Unlikely, since evolution has elements of a searching or heuristic algorithm.

>Consequently: He knows all that I have done, all that I am doing, and all that I will do.
If you wish to be determinative...

>If God has always known how I will live and how I will die, then He knew before I was even born that I would live and die without having faith in Him.
...which makes it okay in your small world view?

>Ultimately true omniscience contradicts the existence of free will. If God knows everything, then he knew before my creation that I would go to Hell when I die. How is that my fault?
And you use the entire thing to completely deny any potential responsibility, of course it becomes not your "fault," nothing is to you, is it?

0/10, obvious untermensch.

Free will or even compatibalism isn't the monopoly of the atheist. I see it as a lack of faith that God should be responsible for everything rather than humans take responsibility.

Continued:

It's like what the Oracle tells Neo.

"You've already made your choice. Now you just have to understand WHY you made it."

You have chosen not to believe in God.

Your choice.

Your real question should be:

Why did you make that choice?

Your own life is in your hands.

>your freedom to will different choices were there, it's just that in the end, you didn't make the choices that you didn't make.
>He knew what your choice would be.
>It's your choice to make, and you've made it.
Either I had different options to choose from with my free will, or God knows everything I'm going to do before I do it. These are mutually exclusive options.

>Why you chose to NOT believe in God, I don't know.
There are two different outlooks on this. Either God put me on Earth knowing full well I would doubt the power of God, or God is not truly omniscient.

God IS truly omniscient.

He left it up to you do decide whether or not you would believe in him.

He saw that you decided that you wouldn't believe in Him.

Thus, you made your own choice.

Free will.

If there was no free will, then everyone would believe in God.

Get it?

God gives you free will.

You've already made your choice, now you have to understand WHY you made your choice.

>He saw that you decided that you wouldn't believe in Him.
>Thus, you made your own choice.
How do you not see the contradiction there? If God knew the outcome of my choice before I was even created, then there was no choice. It was scripted.

HOW DO YOU FUCKING KNOW YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE IN GOD ?

Except that it was your choice.

All along.

There is no contradiction, you just can't see past your own bias.

You had a choice to decide, thus you decided.

You will not believe in God.

God saw what you chose.

There is your free will.

If it were scripted, he would of forced you to believe in Him, and there wouldn't be anything you can say about it.

That's scripted.

The real question you should be asking is:

Can I change my choice?

That would prove whether it is scripted or not.

I'm unable to have "faith". The only things that could change that are A) I witness a literal miracle/angel/devil or B) Something changes my brain chemistry or alters my conscious mind.

If God knows what I will do before I do it, then it is impossible for me to make a different choice, yes?

>A) I witness a literal miracle/angel/devil
you'd just assume you were hallucinating, or file it under 'as of yet unknown naturalistic explanation'

I can see you are having trouble understanding.

That's understandable.

We aren't omniscient.

The closest is the speech by the Oracle To Neo.

Neo asks: "How can I have free will if it's already been chosen?"

Watch the clip, try to understand.

youtube.com/watch?v=ixgFi3G_HAs

right, but other choices are there, you just won't make them.
imagine it like an unscripted video recording of a guy choosing between 3 doors to walk through.

the fact that the recording shows that he walks through the center door doesn't cause the man to walk through the center door.

That's the wrong question to ask.

You really should be asking:

Why did I make this choice?

If a literal angel as describe in the Bible descends from the skies in all its horrifying glory and expounds the word of God, I will fucking believe.

No, the question to ask is "could I have made a different choice?".
If the answer is no, then in what meaningful way do I have free will?

Think of it this way: you've already watched a video of something, say a sports game. You know the actions the players will take, and you know the final score. Yet, you exerted no power to control them. They had the free will to act on their own accord. God's knowledge of what will happen doesn't affect the game because he's resigned himself to take a largely spectator position.

This also raises the question of: what's the fucking point of praying if "God works in mysterious ways," aka he's going to do what he wants and knows what's best for you anyway, and everything is preordained regardless as God is timeless and omniscient.

Don't get too far into these logical contradictions unless you want to become an atheist. It's endless.

Both of these are forgetting that you have video of these events that WILL happen in the FUTURE. The outcomes are already written. The man cannot choose any other door. The players cannot take any other actions. The score may as well be the result of fate.

You have to say, “Things do not happen because God knows them, God knows them because they happen.”

For example, if tonight I go to church, and God knows from all eternity that I will go to church, freely, voluntarily, I will get outside and walk up to the monastery, or I will jump in my car and drive up to the monastery; God knows whether or not I will freely do that. If, in fact, I won’t go—if, in fact, I will stay home because I have a stomach ache, or I stay home because I fell asleep, or I stay home because I have some work to do and I choose to do that rather than go to church, then that is what God knows.

My action determines God’s knowledge, and that is very important. God knows things because I will freely do them. I don’t do them because God knows them.

>Ultimately true omniscience contradicts the existence of free will. If God knows everything, then he knew before my creation that I would go to Hell when I die. How is that my fault?

This is very simple to explain. God's omniscience and foreknowledge is only selective. Not the inability to see the future but CENSORING himself from people's individual choices.

These verses below give people the freedom to choose right from wrong and either obey or disobey.
>De 30:19, 20; Jos 24:15

Here Jehovah admits lack of knowledge of specific individuals or people based on their choices or future choices.
>Genesis 22:12; Genesis 11:5-8; Ge 18:20-22; Exodus 3:7; Joshua 22:22; Psalm 14:22

Here you can hurt God's feelings for the bad choices you make. It is not possible to get your feelings hurt when you knew and allowed someone in the future to do something you WANTED to happen. So it's obvious God censored himself from these people's choices and as a result they hurt his feelings AFTER they committed their wrong deeds.
>Hebrews 3:16; Ephesians 4:30; Psalms 78:40,41; Genesis 6:5-6

Here you can make God REGRET!! Regret is only possible when a certain outcome you expected results in something unexpected. God had certain expectations for people but instead he felt regret after their actions changed those expectations. God cannot make mistakes but those around him can AND DO!! As a result they can make him regret their existence or position he put them in.

>1 Samuel 15:10,11; Gen. 6:5, 6; Jonah 3:4-Jonah 3:10; Jer. 15:5, 6.

Conclusion
Jehovah's selective foreknowledge is based only in free will and making good or bad choices. Outside of that he can see everything. It's equivalent when your parents own you as a child and own all "your" property. They can choose to violate your privacy to make sure you are not hiding anything from them. But they choose not to too respect you even at the risk of you hiding something wrong from them.

The players don't have free will then, because no matter how many times you watch the video, nobody can possibly so anything that wasn't already determined.

do you feel entitled to such an event?
wouldn't you just chalk it up as 'some strange luminescent extra-terrestrial spacecraft is reading some fables from humanity's past to us?'

The consequence of this argument is that your actions were necessarily set in stone when God created the universe. In what meaningful way do you have free will if you don't decide your own fate?

>Jehovah's selective foreknowledge is based only in free will and making good or bad choices. Outside of that he can see everything.
So in this age of nuclear proliferation, where mankind can end at any time as the result of a madman and mutually assured destruction plans, Jehovah CHOOSES to be ignorant of the future?

Intelligent alien life capable of FTL travel coming here just to troll us is arguably less likely than an extra-dimensional deity sending a messenger to spread his word.

God is supposed to be timeless. Past, present and future have no meaning to him. The beginning of time and the end of time are the same moment to God.
You're missing the point. Yes, every time you replay the video, they will perform the same actions. You only get one shot at the game, as in life. But you didn't mind control the players. You didn't manipulate them in any way. They made their own choices.

You seem to be more in the mindset of God setting up dominoes on his own and watching them fall in a pattern he determined. It's not like that. He knows the actions you will take. But he did not force you to take them.

You could argue that he is cruel for letting people fall into hell through ignorance when he has the power to stop them, like watching a mouse walk right into a trap. But that's a separate theological discussion.

>Could I have made a different choice?

Because the answer is yes.

Not that difficult to understand.
Two Time Lines.

Let's say I am God.

>Time Line 1

>I don't know what you are going to choose.

>Will you believe in me or not?

>Let's see.

>Time line 1 plays out.

>I, as God, don't influence your will in any way in this timeline, I just see what you choose.

>Let's assume you choose not to believe in God, again your choice.

>I know now what your own heart has chosen.

>Return to the present.

>Time line 2 begins.

>Based on what you chose in timeline 1, I already know what you (out of your own free will) chose.

>In this timeline, timeline 2, you are not here to make the choice, you've already made it in time line1.

>You are just here to try and understand WHY you chose that way in time line 1.

Get it?

God is all knowing, of all creatures he gave us free will. Because our actions and their consequences change our futures collectively, our free will is stimulating to time itself where there was nothing but static before us.

The analogy doesn't make much sense. If Timeline 2 plays out exactly like Timeline 1, why are there two timelines? If there's only one set future that has always played out as it will, that reinforces my point.

If I WILL make a certain choice, no matter what, then you can't say it's possible for me to make a different choice. If it is possible, as you say, then give me an example of when it could happen.

It makes perfect sense.

You. Have. Already. Made. Your. Choice. Freely. In. Timeline. 1.

Now, there might be a chance for you to change your decision.

Have you ever had a Deja-Vu?

Where you say, "Wait, I've already been here. This has already happened."

That is an opening, a split between the timelines where you are given a chance to change your choice.

Deja-Vu's are a second chance to change your original Choice.

The next time you have a Deja-Vu, know that it's your chance to change your mind or actions.

Food for thought.

Now think about this, could God, knowing what you have already chosen in timeline 1 change and force a different outcome in time line 2?

Of course.

But the moment he changes what you have chosen in timeline 1, then it isn't free will anymore.

It's scripted.

no it doesn't
just because you don't believe doesn't mean God doesn't exist

...

i've made this exact point here before OP, you're not gonna get anywhere with it

Time is linear. This "multiple timeline" bollocks isn't supported by anything.

>Intelligent alien life capable of FTL travel coming here just to troll us is arguably less likely than an extra-dimensional deity sending a messenger to spread his word.
what an interesting admission, i had you pegged all wrong.

have you ever looked at the evidence for the resurrection account of Jesus Christ?
if one is not dogmatically naturalistic in their thinking, all the evidence points toward the man Christ being dead for 3 days and rising again.

this free-will discussion is sort of pointless in comparison, but i won't derail your thread.
you should check out lee strobel's 'the case for Christ' if you're bored enough one day.

So, I take it you've never had a Deja-Vu then?

A more compelling argument against the judeo-christian god is this:

God holds rapists and murderers in higher regard than non believers.

If you rape and murder but then confess before getting electrocuted, you can be given the grace of God.

If you live a good life but refuse to be his cheerleader or build your beliefs around a 2000 year old book, you go straight to hell.

Who the fuck wants to worship a god with that logic?

You're simultaneously arguing for a deterministic universe and free will.

Either my choices are made at the moment I make them, or they are determined before I make them.

Deja-vu is the result of an unnatural brain state. If you think you've lived through a moment you're experiencing for the first time, it's either your imagination running wild or you have something medically wrong with you.

>Constant doomsday predictions
Isaac Newton

>time is linear
where's the proof of that?
time is a measurement
so the instrument or method is the reader
not time itself

Yes, that's it.

Go back into your box.

It's safer there.

Against your own experiences of Deja-Vu, which is impossible to explain outside of the Meta-Physical, just retreat into what you have already willingly chosen.

There is no God.

MacIntyre is Catholic. Thomism embraces virtue ethics.

Just going to point out that your bizarre theories about the metaphysical aren't a great way to convert people. The phenomenon of Deja-vu has been a subject of psychological research. We know why it happens, and it has nothing to do with "multiple timelines."

>It's impossible that Deja-Vu is a physical phenomena caused by the physical chemicals in your brain
Is that what you're saying here, in your own passive aggressive sort of way?

You don't need to be psychic nor a seer/prophet/precognitiant to know what mankind is capable of and where it is heading. If even you, as a pitiful simple human can see patterns of prediction of how close mankind is to self-destruction then how much more is God.

Two things: God was already aware of mankinds potential to self-destruct a long time ago.

>(Genesis 6:11, 12) And the earth came to be ruined in the sight of the [true] God and the earth became filled with violence. 12So God saw the earth and, look! it was ruined, because all flesh had ruined its way on the earth.

>(Revelation 11:18) But the nations became wrathful, and your own wrath came,... and to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”

That's why God originally caused humans to speak different languages so they couldn't plan together immediate self-destruction. By confusing language nobody could unite to plan anything anymore.

>Gen 11:6 After that Jehovah said: “Look! They are one people and there is one language for them all, and this is what they start to do. Why, now there is nothing that they may have in mind to do that will be unattainable for them. 7Come now! Let us go down and there confuse their language that they may not listen to one another’s language.”

If Protestant is true, no free will

There is no true free will. That's the answer.

Shut the fuck up and accept that God has more power than you ever will. Otherwise you can rebel like Satan, that's literally why Lucifer rebelled. You might be the type destined for Hell.

>Christianity
>deontological
laughing_aristotelians.jpg

Suppose this. You are at a crossroads heading left and right. The only possible actions are to stand still, turn around, turn left, or turn right. Each have their own set of consequences, and more crossroads. I know that you will take one of those roads but that doesn't mean you didn't take the choice yourself. It's up to you to take the right choices, stop trying to blame something other than yourself.

By your logic

God made Satan rebel

He did. Satan was nothing compared to God. He knew he would rebel. God is all knowing but he allows everything to happen so he can watch.

I don't get why this bothers people. I can only assume it annoys people to discover that their fates have already been set in stone, they just can't see it. You can't fight God, it's like a dog trying to outwit a human being. Just either accept it or rebel against him, he knows what you'll do either way.

hell might have been made up by the jews, who knows...but if there is an omnipotent being in the universe (which is incredibly likely because of how vast the universe is) then why would it care if you believed in him...its like us wondering if our cells care or believe in us...they are just there...stop being a faggot

>There is no true free will.
If that's the case, Satan actually rebelled because God created him knowing with certainty that he would rebel. If there are types destined for hell (such as Satan), then you agree with my thesis.

Stupid people should just have faith, they shouldn't involve themselves with topics they won't understand since it will only imperil their souls.

If I CAN'T make a choice other than the one you know I WILL take, then I don't have free will.

It's impossible to make any choice other than the one that's already been determined for me.

I do agree. Some people are destined for Hell. God is all powerful and can also be viewed as cruel. You sorta can decide for yourself whether to accept him as your Creator or to deny him. But in the end, it hardly matters, as you're going to make a choice and he already knows your destiny.

We are created as pawns to serve God. It's beyond us.

Free will is by definition the ability to choose. Just because you can't fly on your own willpower does not disprove the point. If God forced you to fly right now against your will then there would be no free will in that decision that you would make for yourself.

Ergo

Anything I do is just god

Which means there is no meaning or even end to anyone's actions

This deity is also deceitful for he makes humans with the impression of self determination when it is in fact him who pull the strings

So what a human is is merely a mere passenger trapped in a vessel which he has no control of

Ergo, God caused evil and is also deceitful for casting blame upon the instruments which was directly in his control

It is immoral to accept a creator who,

A)claims he loves humans but simply uses them as his toys

B)cast blame upon his toys which he is in control of whilst the toys possess no sense of self determination

C)create creatures with the sense of self determination but in fact, they have none

I see, so if I have a dream and a few weeks later it plays out exactly as in my dreams including the place, location, and events, that has nothing to do with anything meta-physical, but instead physical chemicals in my brain that foresaw the future?

>Have Deja-Vu.

>Strange, I've already seen/dreamt this.

>Oh, don't worry. Nobody can see the future. It's a chemical imbalance that made you see future events that occurred exactly as how you saw them.

You do know that science is not perfect, and nothing is impossible right?

Agreed. He does this because he only wishes to 'save' certain kinds of people. I disagree with a lot of the "he's completely benevolent" shit, because it's obvious free will is flaky and he creates situations where people will suffer, and some will be punished by him for reasons outside of their control.

But that's all up to him. If he really is all knowing, and God, then he can do as he pleases. Again we're all basically pawns and you can either accept that knowledge or fight against it like Satan did.

Consider the train tracks dilemma of killing 4 people or 1 person. You're given a choice there on how to react. The person that originally laid down the tracks knew that there was a possibility people could be hit by it but the purpose of the tracks is to deliver people quickly and efficiently, is the person that laid the tracks the murderer or the person that chose to tie 5 people to train tracks the murderer?

What supports this? Scripture?

Except you are inconsistent

Satan did nothing. It was God

So by definition, you cannot even tell us what to do or what we can do. Because it is simply up to the deceitful God you worship

Sure you can fight against it but look where that got Satan, and he was basically the favorite child among the Angels. If you think you have a fighting chance against God you'd have to defeat lucifer first.

This is only so if God simply uses foreknowledge and let it be

But here, we talk about God who does not endow creatures with free will

This means that God intentionally made it such that x people will be killed. The chain of event is set up such that this will and must happen.

Nothing but God changing his mind can stop it

It's tricky. You can choose right now whether to accept or deny it but yes, at the farthest level what you choose doesn't even matter. God created you to fulfill your destiny, which is set in stone and which he already knows completely.

So yeah. True redpill of religion is that we're all pawns and none of our choices really matter. Some are created to serve God, some are created to be punished. It's like, beyond us and shit.

But someone put those people on the tracks, that was their own decision. The people that got laid on the tracks through the actions of their own lives put them in a position to be laid on the tracks. All God did was make some tracks. Everything else was human action where they could have done figuratively anything else.

Nothing, it's just really poor thinking. Ignore it.

>There is nothing to reconcile. Because you know that the sun will be in the sky tomorrow doesn’t mean that you will have caused it to be there! Even though God already knows what our free choices will be in the future, our choices are still ours and are still free. If our free choices change how the future will be, God already knows that and has known it for all eternity.

You're misunderstanding the argument. You never had the dream in the first place, you simply have a false memory of the dream that your brain created as the thing you thought you dreamed about took place.

If it's impossible for me to make any choice other than the predetermined choice then I don't have free will.

>Ultimately true omniscience contradicts the existence of free will.
Why?
>I would go to Hell when I die.
Proof?
>How is that my fault?
Explain how it wouldn't be your fault and then how it's relevant.

This is why Calvinists exist.

>all-knowing
>does not know which particular choice you will make

It's not poor thinking. It's the truth. If it's impossible for us to make any choice other than the predetermined one that God knows, then we don't have free will.

You're taking the knowledge of any possible outcome and assuming that that means he knows what outcome we will make. An omnipotent being will know what choice we make but he does not choose for us what choice we make he just knows you're going to do something stupid and --- there you go and all he can do is facepalm and reset the list of possible actions and outcomes for what happens next in your life. This happens until you die and your frustration is in the fact that you don't have the foresight to know what could come next either so the DM must be cheating.

Again you are inconsistent

Your deity is the one that controls me. Ergo, I do not have any choice. All I do is simply carry out what God made me do, as a passenger with no control over my own person.

So yes, the true redpill of religion is that it is inconsistent and presents a deceitful, sadistic deity not worth anyone's time

I respect Catholicism, but I'm just saying his approach is compatible with Neo-Paganism also.

Not according to the argument I was responding to where this is not even the case since people getting tied to tracks is in fact God's own doing and intention.

All of it is and not men

There are some schools of thought of Christianity that is deontological. I was just offering a way to still remain nationalistic if this guy does not find Christianity is for him.

>Presupposition: You have free will
>Presupposition: That it's your fault.

Not even a Christcuck but you're retarded senpai.