The power of prayers vs. The Divine plan

Sorry I had you waiting SD.I guess there is a few possibilities. A, B and D. If no A, then the explosion wouldn't happen, likewise with B missing, likewise with D missing. However, if I say A&B then it would be like saying "It wasn't the murdererd fault, it was his knife". So I guess I am manipulated into choosing D. SO I choose D. Have I failed your test?

To mike_the_wiz:No apology necessary. You've told me that your reply would be delayed. I was patiently waiting.The focus of our disagreement, I believe, lie in your answer: The question's wording is who/what is responsible, so if God (D) did not produce the two chemicals (A and B) in the beginning, then they cannot exist. The fact that they exist and were made to react means that God, I believe, is responsible for the explosion. If you disagree, please show how this is not true.Please keep this in mind while I complicate the analogy below and in the future.*********************************************************************Analogy version 2:Consider if all the above remain true, but this time, Chemical A and B are entities that are alive (if you want, say a mould and bacteria culture). So the new, more complex analogy is as follows:Consider if God is a biochemical engineer:God made biological agent A.
God made biological agent B.
God knows that, if he mixes the two entities A and B, a reaction will occur.
God mixes A and B.
The expected reaction occured.Please tell me who/what is responsible for the occurence of the reaction:A) Biological agent A.
B) Biological agent B.
C) Agent Orange.
D) God.NOTE: I have not forgotten your post. I will reply to it in a separate post if you want me to, but I believe that by the time I'm through with the analogy above, I won't need to.Patiently awaiting your next post.

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

I guess it's D again.You do not have to respond to my other post.

To mike_the_wiz:Wonderful, we appear to be making progress!Ok, now this is much harder to grasp -********************************************************************Analogy version 3:This time, there is a chain reaction with products...Consider if God is a biochemical engineer:God made biological agent A.
God made biological agent B.
God knows that, if he mixes the two entities A and B, a reaction will occur to create agent C and agent D. These two biological agents will then react and lead to an explosion.
God mixes A and B.
The expected explosion occured.Please tell me who/what is responsible for the occurence of the explosion:A) Biological agent A.
B) Biological agent B.
C) Biological agent C.
D) Biological agent D.
E) God.Patiently awaiting your next post.

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

Okay, I am also going to have to pick E again. I think I know where this is headed, and I'll go with it for now, because I am interested in what you believe, or what you are wanting to show.I am hoping I will get to see where this "progress" will lead me. Into the lion's den no doubt.

To mike_the_wiz:I apologise for my late reply.Now, given analogy version 3. I would like to propose a question:If I look out the window and see a cloud drift across the sky, what ULTIMATELY caused it to move?Using analogy version 3:God thought about creating the world.
God knows that, if he created the world in a certain way (method gamma, let's say), a chain reaction will occur such that many years into the future (today), a cloud will drift across the sky and I will witness it.
God created the world that way (using method gamma).
Today the expected cloud drifting across the sky (and me witnessing it) occured.Do you agree?Patiently awaiting your rely.

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

What? If I had a kid, would I be responsible for his/her actions merely because I made him/her?
God is not responsible unless we as humans have no decision making abilities in and of ourselves.

Finally, someone who sees the problem with this. Good to see ya back here Phatboy, I like your bike avatar.Obviously your kid would be responsible. Apparently though, if you knew the kid will one day die a biological death, that means you shouldn't have the kid and somehow makes his/her actions your own. Bizarro!

Wow. I like this argument! Of course you would want to have a kid so they can have a long and wonderful life, and death is the accepted outcome.God sorta did things backwards though. He let us be born into death so that we my find life in the end! It's kinda like a mom making her kids eat the broccoli before the icecream.

To Phatboy:If you had a kid, YOU, as a normal human being (Assumed), CANNOT foresee all the consequences of "having the kid". You also CANNOT influence how the kid is made. Thus you are not responsible for his/her actions.However, the biblical God we are discussing CAN foresee all the consequences of creating human, and He CAN determine EXACTLY how we are made. Thus by my argument, He IS responsible our actions.Please read up a bit on this thread before asking any more questions. In particular questions pertaining to my arguments, analogies, and such. The 200 odd posts in this thread is saturated with them and chances are, you can find the answer to your questions in here.Patiently awaiting your better informed reply.

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

To mike_the_wiz:You, sir, are being unreasonable.You out of all people should understand the flaw in your argument.Your argument: Has once again completely disregarded everything in this entire thread.********************************************************************Using ONLY the omniscience argument:If you knew that your kid will one day grow up to become a mass murderer, and you had the kid, and he became a mass murderer, are you not in part responsible for this? I have undermined your pathetic excuse for an explanation using only HALF my argument.That's right!If you had paid attention to even HALF of what I said, then you wouldn't have made such a foolish remark!Now the other half: Omniscience + omnipotence/sole creatorIf you have complete choice in how your kid is to be made (Sole creator + omnipotence), PLUS you knew that he/she will grow up to become a mass murderer. Then are you not responsible for creating a mass murderer?I have repeated this argument for the n-th time in this thread. Seriously, you should really start to pay some attention after 200 posts.By the way, you have ignored post 216. You may want to re-read posts 210, 212 and 214 as well. Find the flaw in my reasoning.Patiently awaiting your intelligent reply.

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

You ask me to find the "flaw" in your argument. But that's the thing with analogies, you can "make" them to fit your argument. They of themselves, are not incorrect, of themselves.You see, my statement; Is used using your own logic. The fact is, that we do know our kids will die, and I'd love you to show me how that makes every decision they make into my decisions. Even if I know a few outcomes, death/suffering/illness/depression (things of everyone's life) - then that would STILL not make us responsible for our kids choices. Do you agree/disagree? Remember, I am only using the logic from your posts. The fact is, I can stop the death/depression/illnesses etc.. - If I don't have the kid (omnipotent), and I do foresee these things also, (omniscient) --> Because everyone suffers them at some time. SO, can you atleast list the "choices" I will be responsible for in that kid's life?If there are no "choices" I am responsible for, then my omnimax is infact independent of their freewill, in that, if I foresee these things, and I can stop them, yet they are still responsible for their own choices, then we can TRULY see that freewill seems to exist.I urge you to see that this does make sense. If I am not responsible for things I know can happen, and can stop happening BECAUSE of someone's freewill - then obviously there is not necessarily a reason to conclude that God knowing every outcome and being omnimax, will lead to him being responsible for our actions. WHY? Because they are still OUR actions, whether he foresees them or not.I'd like to finish with this topic now. It's going nowhere.Also, I'm not ignoring anything, I have read and even taken part in your recent "test". It is self-sufficient at best.This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 06-16-2004 02:57 PM

To mike_the_wiz: Now who was the one who started using analogies in the first place? Me or you? I have asked you to discuss my argument (post 107, part 2c), but you claimed that you are not well versed in arguments and would prefer analogies. Fine, says I, and then proceeded to demonstrate my arguments with the analogy in post 210 - 216.When I have succeeded in showing you in analogy form what you said you cannot understand in "assumption-argument-conclusion" form, you tried to undermine my actions by stating the above. Surely you are just delibrately blinding yourself to the obvious.If you claim that analogies are inappropriate because they can be "rigged" to fit an argument, then I am sorry, but you have no idea what an analogy is. You yourself, in every single analogy you presented me, have instilled a part of your argument into them. It is not easy to convey an entire argument through one analogy, but I have managed to do so with four. Analogies are used BECAUSE they can express an argument. It is true that we know a few outcomes, but the fact of the matter (and this is the gist that you seem to have overlooked, repeatedly) is that we are not talking about us - we are talking about the biblical God.We know "a few" of the outcomes, but God supposedly knows ALL. If God made us while He knows ALL the outcomes, we cannot have free will - this is my argument.The "situation with the kid" analogy has not taken omniscience, one of the key premises of my argument, into account, but this was not your fault since you did not propose the analogy (Phatboy did). However, you should have known (after debating me for the last hundred posts) that it is a flawed analogy, thus you should not have made the foolish remark that you did. No you're not. The kid analogy has failed to take into account omniscience (know EVERYTHING, not a few things), or omnipotence (to make your kid any way you like, even immortal), and so it is flawed and can in no way satisfy the conditions required for my argument.If you are a human being, with no omnipotence or omniscience, then you are responsible for none of your kid's actions. On the other hand, if you are omnipotent and omniscient, then you are responsible for every single one. I have 2 words for you: Sole Creator.If you don't understand what doesn't make sense about your perspective, after lengthy discussions and repeated reminders that you are missing an essential part of my argument, then I guess you suffer from inherently blindness to reason, self-induced blindness to reason, or ignorance of reason. When did "self-sufficient" come to mean "irrefutable"? It is either right or wrong, what do you mean by "self-sufficient"? If you think that it is wrong, show me why. Idiosyncrasy and ambiguity will get you nowhere.Patiently awaiting your reply.This message has been edited by Sleeping Dragon, 06-17-2004 03:47 AM

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

So if I know, say - 10 things that will happen to the kid, yet I allow his life, I am not responsible for even those things?I am glad you can see this now. Because what you've just said, is that if a few things can be known, then we are not at all responsible, therefore, if the lot be known, why would we be responsible?Your analogies are acceptable, and self-sufficient. I have to warn you SD, I only say something like this willfully. Your analogies are fine, I'm not even saying you shouldn't use analogies, so don't mis-represent me. BUT, and here's the clincher, you have simply not included freewill as an attempt to show that freewill doesn't exist. IOW, you've said "Freewill doesn't exist, cos it doesn't". Oh I understand, but pardon me for not taking your explanation as Gospel. Yet we know everything that will happen in a kids life, so we are omniscient. We know this through the billions of lives on the planet. We know every possible outcome. And we know many outcomes that will be certainties.BUT, if you say we are not responsible, then that makes me happy, afterall, ..I agree!!!!!!Patiently awaiting a meat pie.This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 06-17-2004 09:19 AM

To mike_the_wiz:1) Ahhhh.....read my words with care. I said creating the kid does not make you responsible for what your kid does - mainly because you can't possibly know how he/she will behave (You, sir, are not omniscient). I didn't say you're not responsible for things that happen to him/her.Consider:1) A is fertile.
2) B is fertile.
3) A engages in unprotected sex with B.
4) B conceives and gave birth to C.Are A and B responsible for C's birth? Yes, because their actions are the direct cause of C's birth. No other actions could lead to the birth of C.Are A and B responsible for C's eventual death? No, because their actions are NOT the direct cause of C's death. Birth is a condition that allows you to be killed. It is not a cause of death. You do not die BECAUSE you are born. You die because of natural causes, knife wounds, car crashes and dog bites, etc. Of course, the birth process may be complicated and death may result from it, but then this is not an inevitable consequence of unprotected sex (thus not caused by A and B).*********************************************************************2)Consider the case of God-like A and B:The differences between God and A/B in the last analogy are:
1) God is 100% accurate in His predictions (omniscience)
2) God is capable of making a child who is immortal (omnipotent)
3) God is the creator of all things (sole creator)Applying these conditions to A and B.1) A and B foresaw the death of C prior to C's birth. (For example, a chandelier will fall on top of the child right after he/she is born, smashing his/her skull, killing him/her instantly) - omniscience.
2) A and B could have made C immortal, but chose not to. - omnipotence.
3) A and B created the chandelier which will kill the kid, and they KNOW that it will . - sole creator.You keep missing point (3).In order to comply with the sole creator premise:If C will die of a car crash, A and B must have created the car AND the circumstances for it to crash into C.
If C will die of a knife wound, A and B must have created both the knife AND the circumstances for it to cause a lethal wound on C.
If C will die of a dog bite, A and B must have created the dog AND the circumstances for it to bite C.Since in this case, A and B created ALL the elements that are direct causes of C's death, and they know with certainty (thanks to omniscience) that those factors will kill C at a known time and a known place, A and B must have CAUSED C's death.*******************************************************************************3) Free will is more than "choosing". It is also implied that whatever you choose, the decisions you make will ultimately affect your outcome. In a sitaution where outcomes are predetermined (and therefore independent of your decision), free will is only on appearance and not true.If I can show that outcomes are predetermined, meaning that no amounts of decision can change the outcome, then I have, in effect, demonstrated that there is no true free will.By "no free will", I am not saying that you can't choose, because we obviously can. I am saying that it doesn't matter WHAT you choose, the outcome is predetermined - thus no TRUE free will, just the appearance of one.Consider the case of the loaded dice:I create a pair of dice such that they will always give double sixes when rolled. I ask you to roll it, and you get double-sixes. May I ask if the result was predetermined, or determined by your roll?I don't contest that you have rolled the dice (made a decision). I am contesting the fact that you believe the double sixes (outcome) you have rolled are a result of your own rolling (decision). You therefore believe that if you had rolled differently (made another decision), you would have gotten a different number (outcome). This is not the case because the dice are rigged - their outcome predetermined.*********************************************************************4) I am not asking you to mindlessly agree with me (after all, I presented an argument, not religious dogma). But if you look at my arguments and tell me that I'm wrong without supporting your claim with any logical/valid reasons, then you are either a bigot or an ignoramus. Are you referring to death? You seem to be arguing that if A and B gave birth to C, and they knew that C will inevitably die, then they must have caused C's death.Allowing something to happen, and causing something to happen, are decidedly different things. See point (1) at top in this post.Why is this different in God's case? See point (2) of this post.The point, again, lies embedded in the two word: sole creator.********************************************************************Patiently awaiting your reply.

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"