Free will vs Omniscience

jar writes:Each of the others mentioned make the very same claims about the god they market as you make about your creation.What makes your feelings valid?

Phat writes:I'm defending the apologists because for the life of me I can't yet figure out why you see their arguments as unrealistic apart from your insistence that they market a "God" Who foreknows damnation. That very well could be realistic...I'm not sure why not.

ringo writes:You have been trying to argue for months that God is not responsible for "our decisions" and you have been shown many times that if He is omniscient and irresponsible, He must be evil.

Phat writes:If God is omniscient there is little I can do about it...

ringo writes:It has nothing to do with what YOU can do about it. It's about what GOD can do about it.

jar writes:The issue is they market and you have always bought, a god that creates a living being KNOWING that individual living being with be damned for all eternity.

The issue is that they pervert and demean and diminish the message of Jesus and misrepresent the Bible and the Creeds and the teachings of Jesus.

The issue is that they market anything that will be easy to sell.

The issue is that they market that their flock should not think, not question, not believe that what is written in the Bible stories and in the Creeds is what is actually written in the Bible stories and the creeds.

The issue is that they are simply conmen, carny hucksters, comedians, shysters and pettifoggers.

The issue is that they are without worth, without honor and without merit.

The issue is that they are very, very, very successful in promoting a flock of willing dupes.

ringo writes:Myself, I don't see what serving somebody has to do with what they know or how much they know. We tend to serve our children and other loved ones based on criteria other than their knowledge.

Phat writes:Love God(and I'm assuming serve Him)

Jar says, "I'll believe it when I see it"Phat says, "I'll see it when I believe it".

The issue is they market and you have always bought, a god that creates a living being KNOWING that individual living being with be damned for all eternity.

jars belief statement writes:Message 1
Dark comes early in northern Maryland, and so it was inevitable that most of the time we entertained ourselves. What can be more entertaining to young men than big issues. Somehow, GOD and religion and mankind’s place in all of this seemed to be a regular topic of discussion. The evenings were long and the conversations often heated. When the weather allowed we’d sit out on the porch, arguing while we waited for our turn up on the ping-pong table, when bad we’d sit around in the front room, or visit one of the Master’s houses where we could huddle in front of the open fire letting ideas rise like sparks from the logs.It was there, in those long conversations where some of the questions raised by Father Joe and my parents began to get resolved. It was a period of opening horizons, my every belief being challenged by minds as quick and intensive as my own, by experience far greater than my own and by whole new moral systems, the Works of Mencius, the Gnostic Gospels, the philosophies of Greece and Germany, the writings of Thoreau and Frost and Twain and Lewis and Tolkein and Hemingway and Camus and Seller and Yeatman.It was when some of the things became clear.A GOD that chooses who will be saved doesn’t make sense. A GOD that creates all and then goes through and picks and chooses who will be saved is just plain cruel and arbitrary and not something to be worshiped.A GOD that wants to be worshiped is just too silly a thought. Maybe some picayune God might worry about what folk thought of Her, like the little girl who worries that her corsage might not be right, too big, or too small, or the guy that worries about his tie not being in style or that people think he looks funny, but GOD cannot be so insecure.The idea of Once saved always saved just made no sense. That’s one of those simplistic ideas that gives folk an out. Anyone who does something really wrong obviously wasn’t saved in the first place, or so their argument went. That just felt way to much like a copout and just another example of mental gymnastics, a way of cheating and making excuses.I think maybe the Honor System was beginning to change from just a set of rules to a way of life.It was in the second year at St. Paul’s that I went back and really started rereading the Bible and listening to what was in there.

jar writes:And you don't see how utterly silly that statement is.There is absolutely NOTHING you could do for a real god.

jar writes:my Belief Statement was like a travelog. It was a selection of a few faded snapshots out of a big album. Far more pictures were left in the book then were dragged out for the 'Belief Statement'.Faith made a claim that the story was brainwashing. I find that to be an absolutely amazing claim coming from someone who reads a Bible laced with commentaries. Such books don't even offer the possiblity of the person thinking about what is actually written but instead go straight to telling the reader what they must think.The reality is that I actually did spend a week pretty much agonizing over the question at that time ,and it is one that I constantly question even to this day. It was a direct challenge to what I thought I believed (which was in the statement just before what she did quote), that I was saved because I believed in Jesus. It would be so easy for folk to simply accept the warlord as Master and Savior, to profess or even truly believe. But what does that say about GOD?Another claim that seems to be made pretty regularly is that my Belief System is some soft and fluffy theology. I don't think so. I believe we are all responsible for our own acts. I cannot fall back on the excuse that I have a sinful nature because of some Fall and so I can't help it when I screw up. If I screw up it is because I made bad choices, not because of my Nature.I believe each of us will be judged, judged individually and completely, based on how we behave while here on earth.Another claim that seems to be part of the comments so far is that my theology is not that of the Bible. I think that is both true and false. First, I am not searching for the God of the Bible but for GOD. Second, the Bible, like Aesop's Fables (which also took form around the same time), is an anthology of anthologies, a collection of stories meant to convey the point of view of various peoples about how they saw God, themselves, their relationship with God and His with them, their relationships with their families and clan and with other clans and with all the other critters in the world.The God of the Bible is not GOD. Instead, like another old photo album, in the Bible we see snapshots of how the peoples saw their world and universe at a given moment. God may even be in some of the pictures, fuzzy, out of focus and unidentified in the crowd like a Biblical "Where's Waldo".As to the existance continuation thread, I am thrilled and shocked. Shocked because frankly I did not expect anyone to even read the original. Thrilled because I believe comment and discussions such as this thread so far where the issue of whether or not my learning experience is brainwashing is a powerful tool in its own as we all try to develop and hone critical thinking skills.One area of disappointment though is in the selective nature of the quotemining part so far. Further on in my Belief Statement (and I apologize for the length of the sucker, honestly I did cut out much in an attempt to keep it readable), I continue the discussion about questioning beliefs. Why was that excluded Faith? Why was that not also at least referred to?I honestly believe that there are two types of folk, those that look for Answers to questions and those who look for answers to Question. I believe this is an important distinction.

Phat writes:The issue is only that God allowed evil to become actualized through a fallen angel. Humans know the difference between good and evil, but they choose what is good in their own eyes rather than accept Jesus Christ and by extension the Holy Spirit. Now....tell me why this concept as "marketed" is evil? The only "Being" that God foreknows to be evil is satan himself. Humans destiny is on them...not on Him.