Free will, or is it?

without understanding what God is, interpreting what did come from God is difficult.its easy to miss whats being said, unless the context is clear.read the bible with this in mind:God is reality like breathing air. he was the original body, original consciousness before all things that created all from himself (so you are a part of his body)God created all from himself based on his own faith he was. (faith=action based on belief with no doubt to the outcome)by this, you can understand doubt. doubt is poison to faith. therefore poison to God. doubt then , is satan (look at convo between satan and God in job.)therefore, evil is the absence of God, and we exist only in his body, by his faith. no faith, no part in the body.because faith is poison, the Word (consciousness of God) came into being in the body of a man to defeat doubt, and be a shield between the true consciousness of God, and man. so that the body isn't poisoned)the bible i the "written (or published) word of God" but the living Word is the consciousness of the energy that was "existence" singluar, timeless.NOW. remember the verses you do know, put them into that context, and see if it makes better sense.

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keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides

Hi Logic, Logic slight correction in that statement. Eve was deceived. The man was not deceived he chose to eat the fruit.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Neither scientific method or present scientific knowledge would lead you to any specific conclusions about the ultimate origins of the universe, other than (possibly) that we cannot know them.There is nothing in scientific knowledge incompatible with the concept that a God (or Gods, or wizards, or anything else) created this universe, but there's loads of knowledge which is incompatible with Jewish creation mythology, and all the creation mythologies of other cultures as well. It seems to be a characteristic of our species to invent beginnings to fill in the gaps in our knowledge, then believe in our inventions, an apparently pointless thing to do. No-one knows how frequently abiogenesis would be expected to happen in a universe of this age and scale, but I think I'm right in saying that most biochemists who study the various possibilities of how it could happen would be surprised if it has only happened once. Some even think it so likely that it could happen more than once in just one solar system, and even could have happened more than once on this planet.The calculations done by creationists are wishful thinking, and aren't based on the chemistry of this universe, but usually on an already complex micro-organism popping into existence, which has nothing to do with any of the abiogenesis hypotheses, and is extremely unlikely.An idea for you to consider might be that if you observe a phenomenon, then you're probably in a universe which can produce that phenomenon, not in one which can't! I'm as likely to start believing in a God who condemns people to burn for eternity and who wants humans to stone one another to death as I am to believe that the earth is flat, another ancient myth.Your God should learn to love his enemies.Closer to the topic, if your God already knew what I would decide, and he is responsible for producing me as I didn't choose to exist, why doesn't he burn himself for eternity, and cut out the hypocrisy?

It is probably more accurate to say that God provided Adam and Eve with a choice.Can we agree that a genuine free-willed choice requires the "chooser" having access to at least a pair of balanced options? If so, then God permitting the serpent into the garden (so that the serpent could spin his deceitful story) succeeds in providing Adam and Eve with the option entitled "Disobey God and access desirable consequences". We arrive thus at an alternative to the option entitled "Obey God and avoid accessing undesirable consequences".That the serpents story was deceitful is neither here nor there. What matters (from a choice perspective) is that as far as Adam and Eve were concerned, the consequences on offer were balanced in fashion. All that remained was that their free will be exercised.God could have indeed prevented the serpent from entering the garden. Then there would have been no choice. And things would have remained as they were. Adam and Eve and their offspring in some kind of proto-relationship with God where no choice was involved with their being in it.God found this undersirable and used the serpent to supply choice. And I don't think anyone would really argue with his wisdom. Few would admire the quality of a relationship which was never chosen for in some way shape or form.{AbE} I don't see how God providing man with a choice affects Gods omnipotence in any way. God is achieving a goal of his: arranging it so that created creatures can choose (in some way shape or form) whether to come into a God-sized relationship with God or not. What the choice is is not the issue - merely that God ensure we have one.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

To be deceived means that you believe a lie to be true. In order to believe that this lie was true, Eve had to reject what God had said would be the consequence of disobedience. To chose to reject what God had said. For that is what Eve did - she chooseThe deceit only enabled a choice to be made - it didn't make the choice for her.If the allure offered by disobedience was so powerful as to overwhelm the constraint placed on her by what God had said, then her choice wasn't free. If the allure offered by disobedience was too weak to contend with the constraint placed on her by what God had said then her choice wasn't a free one either. Free choice required that the choice be balanced so as to be attributed, finally, to her will. And her will alone.I'm not sure how Adam is any different to Eve in this respect. He was there with her and heard the deal too. She died and he died.

Hi bluegenes, bluegenes I am having a problem maybe you can explain it to me.You are not the first one that has made the statement God is responsible for them being here.Could you please explain to me how your mother and father exercising their free will to have sex which resulted in your mother becoming pregnant. Then further exercising their free will not to have you aborted make God responsible for you being here.Especially when you don't even believe He exists.Now you can exercise your free will and blow some more smoke if you desire.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

There should be the word "if" somewhere in the sentence that you're referring to. It's an "if this, then why not that?" kind of question, not a statement, and you know very well that the likes of me would not state that I was created by your God. I agree that I'm the product of a biological process. A three and a half billion year old one. It's your idea that your God is responsible for us being here, if he's supposed to be both a creator God and omniscient. Omniscient means that having decided to create, he knows that ICANT will come into existence, and will be posting what he posts on EvC. This means he's responsible for everything, because he created knowing what the results would be.The thread is really about the contradictions inherent in the concept of an omniscient, omnipotent creator, and anything else having free will. Genuine free will for us would remove his omniscience and omnipotence, by definition.The best way to get out of this would be to describe us as part of God, so that all power we have removes nothing from the whole. However, we should then stop referring to God in the third person. Also, it conjures up the image of God condemning parts of himself to burn for eternity, and makes him a masochist rather than a sadist as I suggested earlier in the thread.Either way, he's weird.

It's ironic that in those sorts of discussions that the Christians have to try and persuade the non-believers that God's omniscience/omnipotence is not all it's cracked upto be (or as we see here try and handwave it away) while the non-believers are the ones who have to take the normal christian position.

Hi lano, lano a couple of thing tells me the man was not present to hear the conversation.The man was given a direct order from God not to eat the fruit and if he did he would die. This was prior to woman being created. Gen. 2:17The woman told the devil who was speaking to her through the serpent that they were not to eat or touch the fruit or die. If the man was there he would have corrected the woman as God had not mentioned touching the fruit. Gen. 3:3The devil speaking through the serpent did not tell a complete lie. He lied about dying but he did not lie about her eyes being opened. Gen. 3:5The woman saw the fruit was pleasant to the eyes and desired to make one wise. She took and ate.Dress it up any way you want the woman made a choice by using her free will. She chose to believe the devil speaking through the serpent than to believe her husband who had told her what God said and adding a little by himself.The man knew what God had said and he was adding extra precaution so the woman would not even touch the fruit. Having added this condition the man could not have been present to hear the conversation.The woman did give to the man and he did eat. Why would the man use his free will and choose to eat the fruit knowing he would die. I can only guess that he did not want to be alone and knowing the woman was going to die he chose to die with her.Further examination: When God asked the man if he had eaten of the tree (as if God did not know already) his answer was the woman gave to me and I did eat. Notice he did not mention the serpent.When God asked the woman she said the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. Beguiled = influenced by trickery, flattery, mislead, deluded or deceived.The woman claimed innocence by the fact she was deceived by the serpent.The man made no excuses.He did make a statement: "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." I know there are those who say the man was blaming God for giving him the woman. I don't see that at all in light of what he said in Gen. 2:24. I take it to mean if she was going to die he would choose to die with her.Rom. 5:19 tells us by one man's disobedience many were made sinners.
This does not say mankind or woman but denotes male.My conclusions:The woman was tricked into eating the fruit. The only effect it had was to influence the mans choice.The man knowing the woman was going to die used his free will and willfully chose to eat the fruit and die with the woman.Had he not eaten the fruit he would still be in the garden by himself.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

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You are not the first one that has made the statement God is responsible for them being here.

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Could you please explain to me how your mother and father exercising their free will to have sex which resulted in your mother becoming pregnant. Then further exercising their free will not to have you aborted make God responsible for you being here.

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Because God can see every variation of every interaction (If god had set the university with one set of circumstances, a tree would have fell in front of Bluegene's dad's car and his parents would have never have meet and he was never born) before he creates the universe - he knows the ultimate outcome of every single variable at the most absolute level. Bluegene's existances because God set up the universe so that he would exist, what his parents wanted to do is irrelevant - they'd don't have any choice or understanding of the bigger picture, they are just the result of the balls that god rolled at the start of time and the universe.I don't understand why christians are suggesting that god does not know every possible outcome before hand and does not have ultimate control over every element of the creation of the universe.

The seperent and tree are only there because God wants them to be there - god knows before he starts, the outcome of introducing those variables. God introduces those variables because he wants man to fail.A man at the mercy of the games of an all-powerful trickster such as the Christian god clearly cannot be to blame. It would be like locking up a dog because you waved a t-bone in front of it while explaining in latin why it shouldn't eat the t-bone. To then complain it eat the t-bone and requires eternal punishment is the idea of a sick or warped mind or maybe just a bully.

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To be deceived means that you believe a lie to be true. In order to believe that this lie was true, Eve had to reject what God had said would be the consequence of disobedience. To chose to reject what God had said.

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And she (or rather, the serpent) was right. The consequences for disobedience never happened.She didn't die.

So, is you God all-powerful or not?

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The woman told the devil who was speaking to her through the serpent

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What is the scriptural justification for the claim that Satan is speaking through the serpent?According to my reading of Genesis, the serpent is just a serpent, and even God refers to him as nothing more than a "beast of the field".

Hi bluegenes, So you are saying when I see a statement like: "Closer to the topic, if your God already knew what I would decide, and he is responsible for producing me as I didn't choose to exist, why doesn't he burn himself for eternity, and cut out the hypocrisy? " I should assume someone is trolling and just ignore it altogether. Thanks for the information. So since you know God so well. Are saying that if He wants to give man an ability to use free will to make a choice to accept Him for who He is or not to accept Him He can not do it?What kind of reasoning is that? I'll use your word "weird".God is exercising his omnipotence in giving you the free will.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."