Free will vs Omniscience

Nicely done, Faith. A short, clear and understandable explanation of your view.It's all BS, of course, but you said it so well and I appreciate the skill.Well put, Lady.

It's called indoctrination. If it is done early enough and often enough it becomes so ingrained in the mind that reality can no longer have any effect.

So, if I understand the concept you hold, you’re saying your god does not force or direct your decisions but knows what decisions you will make. He has given us unguided free will already knowing where that path of our free will is going to lead. That means that millennia ago your god knew that the decisions that would be made by all my ancestors would eventually lead to my conception and that the decisions I make would lead him to condemn me to hell for all eternity; that he allowed this course of events, without his intervention or direction, to unfold willingly and knowingly. The outcome is already known, my torture in the lake of fire, though not directed by him, was already known to him at the creation of the world.Since your god made the world to work this way how does this differ from a directed, predetermined, world absent of free will?Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

My bad. Thought experiment is being considered. At the level of us humans that sounds great. But, at the level of an omniscient deity the outcome is already known. Regardless of the fact that said deity does not guide our decisions, it knows, I assume with perfect certainty, what decisions we will make, has known from the beginning what decisions we would make and what all the outcomes will be. So, from the level of the omniscient deity everything is known and set.I cannot separate the fact that in the larger universal sense all is known and set while we humans practice free will? In your thought experiment then, the exercise of our free will in determining the course of events as we see it, will not, cannot, change the results this omniscient deity already knows to exist.Doesn't that make our free will an illusion? Are we not actually automatons without any ability to change the larger outcome an omniscient sees.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

We're in deep doo-doo because so many people make their choices based on emotional gut feel instead of on knowledge.The species is doomed.

Just from the bible, then, you cannot rightfully make a decision either way.Just from the bible, with all the questions of authorship, veracity, and reliability, as you say, there is no basis upon which to make a god-done-it decision.But, with the other evidence we have from all the sciences which show that a god is not necessary to accomplish the reality we see in this universe we are forced into a position of rightfully discounting, almost to zero, the various god-done-it philosophies. With all the holy books being under such questionable veracity there appears to be no evidence to counter this conclusion.If some must insist and faith is the only reason to conclude god then we must also conclude tooth fairy, leprechauns and Her Most Divineliness The Invisible Pink Unicorn (May She Always Have A Full Bag Of Feed) as well and that's just plain crazy.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

No, M'love, it is not that we think you're stupid. We know that you are ... lacking in certain critical thinking skills.Your bible is a kluge of political brinkmanship and opportunism with all the veracity of the book of mormon.

ringo addressed the one quote quite well already. I already do. This is me, at the moment. If things change, you'll know.If the "flirty language" is too disturbing for you I will try to control myself.

What? Sit on my throne and have the infinity of all of spacetime before me at a glance? There would be nothing to do except watch this, by now, dreadfully boring movie that I'd already seen an infinite number of times playing out yet again.If I decided I wanted to intervene in even the slightest way I couldn't since all was already done whether I'd intervened or not. I would be powerless ... and bored.No wonder all the gods vanished into oblivion. Under such a scenario not even the gods have free will.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

We mere mortals, non-omniscient and all, can (apparently) change our minds whenever we want. We are not limited by perfect knowledge of all events, past, present, future.If you’re a perfect omniscient god you have already made all the decisions and have already set the entire play from infinite past to infinite future. And if you do want to change your mind that’s a decision you already knew you would make and it is already a part of the infinite and perfect timeline already in place. You can’t, effectively, change your mind about anything. From the moment you set the universe in motion there is nothing left to do, all timelines known, nothing to change from the initial perfect plan. Might as well just dissolve into oblivion.So, no, I would not want the same position and perspective that an omniscient Deity is said to have. It would be a useless existence. I argue there IS only one community the community of man. No gods need apply.But, hypothetically, it would make no difference. The decision would already have been made and there is nothing anyone could do about it even god. Oh, but we already do know. We are each doomed to nonexistence. We will just cease to exist for all of the infinity left to eternity. Oblivion, the same place we came from. Or so our best evidence indicates.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

It's your experiment so you can set it up anyway you like. But, the question is, is the deity you experiment with here omniscient or not? If it is then I see no room for our having free will. The deity already knows what happens at every turn in every scene, has known from the start of eternity and, in fact, sees the whole story set in stone at the instance of creation.Any changes of mind god may have thunk up have already been thunk up in its perfect omniscience and either added to the play or not all before the creation. For an omniscient being there would be no such thing as second guessing. For an omniscient being all eternity is set within its mind from the start. All of it. Forever.Just the deity having the knowledge of what will transpire before the event for every event for all eternity is enough to vacate any notion of free will in humans, and I submit, in god itself.If, however, your contention is that we mere mortals have some kind of say in the script from this deity's point of view then that would presuppose that this god doesn't possess omniscience. Which is fine.Besides, I always had the impression that this whole free will thing was pretty much limited in the religious community to whether we, by our own thoughts, willingly chose to believe or not. Has nothing to do with our freedom of action in what we will have for dinner tonight.And here omniscience in your deity is especially heinous. So the story of an omniscient god goes, it has, from creation, already determined that I will not be counted among the believers and I will suffer an eternity of physical pain for not making a decision I was never destined to make on my own anyway. Once the play starts I couldn't decide otherwise no matter how much free will I'm supposed to have.Even the more robust views of free will are more illusion than reality, imho. I'm partial to the idea that we humans don't have much in the way of free will in much of anything since this universe already constrains our decision space to a rather small subset of probabilities. Right, Of course it is. Demons. Yup.

Well, I have a major problem with asking the Second Baptist Church of Memphis about what's wrong with any other denomination since IIRC, they couldn't tell you since they know nothing about any other denomination. They don't want their pure spirits infested by the poisonous demons of false satan-inspired religions so they avoid all study, recognition, even mentioning of any other sect.Other than that, yeah, I pretty much agree.

The real problem, however, is whenever a hateful thing is done to someone 99.9 percent of the times it comes from a religious conservative.

You don't talk to many atheists do you.You have no idea what atheists think. Nothing to do with faith.Faith in fantasy is your venue, not ours.I am constantly amused at how christians, supposedly charged with the welfare and keeping of their fellow humans, scream so selfishly when we as a society try to do just that.Apparently atheists are more christian than your church.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Realize this is the same twisted religious logic that keeps getting you lot such poor reception by thinking people.An atheist does not disbelieve in a Goo (as you so eloquently put it). We hold the concept with zero confidence pending evidence.There is a difference.I know you want to believe this about atheists because you think it puts the atheist on an equal "belief" footing with your fantasy. Since your belief in what atheists believe is also fantasy your premise falls along with your equal footing.