Free will vs Omniscience

Hi Phat, If choices are "laid out" then are they choices?If by laid out you mean we have several choices then they are choices.
But if it is already predetermined what you will do then you are simply operating according to program.If God exist, God most likely decided to do this study blinded,as in a clinical trial.Think about it. If he already knew Lucifer would rebel then even Lucifer was condemned at the moment of his creation.
That just does not seem logical.

He chose rebellion because he was created choosing rebellion. The choice to side with God was never a option. There are no options in the face of omnipotent- omniscience. It is a contradiction that I can not see any way to reconcile. A all knowing, all powerful God is having something happen against it's will? Does not compute.
If God exist,perhaps there is something we don't know about God.

I get what GDR is saying. So I will chime in.Jesus is one with the father same substance.Jesus is God.These are basic tenants of the faith for being a Christian.Catholics take it one step further and believe that the Eucharist and wine are actually the flesh and blood of Jesus once concentrated by the priest through transubstantiation.People are free to believe or disbelieve what they may but saying you are a Christians pretty much means you at a minimum believe the most basic tenant of that faith.I think that is all GDR was trying to illustrate.Is it hocus pocus, hogwash, woo? A bunch of mystic superstitions held over from the first century? Perhaps, but a great many people believed it and died at the hands of the Romans for it.
A great many more still believe it for whatever their reasons.
If you are a Scientologist you believe in Xemu. If you are a Mormon you believe that Joseph Smith received addendum to the Bible in 1827 from angels. If you are a Muslim you believe Mohammad got the good word from the angel Gabriel in the 600's.
And yes if you are a Christian you believe that Jesus of Nazareth is God, was crucified by the Romans and came back to life.Or I could be wrong, but I get what GDR is saying anyhow.
My dos centavos.

Hi Purple Youko, Interesting topic,Page Not Found | Last.fmI ran across discussion on this link with a thought experiment:

quote:

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Suppose that a new car is to be given away by your local community association on Saturday night. Every adult in the community is eligible. In the undetermined universe, the winner of the car will be drawn at random by computer selection from the list of community adults at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday night and the winner announced over the local FM radio station. In the determined universe, the computer random selection has already been made but the name of the winner is being maintained secret in the vault of the community association until 8:00 p.m. Saturday night when it will be announced over the radio. For the average person in the community the emotional impact of the contest is identical whether an undetermined or determined universe exists. His odds of winning are the same and he listens to the radio announcement with the same anticipation. For a person who believes the universe to be undetermined, there is no point to any action relating to his winning. He might just as well stay in bed until 8:00 p.m. Saturday. However, for a person in the determined universe and believing that the universe is actually determined, he might break into the community association safe, see if he is the winner, and if not, substitute his name as the winner.

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The moral of this example is two-fold. First, the emotional rejection of a determined universe is false. If a person operates outside of knowledge, that is on faith, he cannot distinguish between an undetermined and determined universe. Secondly, a person acting on knowledge will realize that it is only in a determined universe that his specific actions can be considered important and effective. In an undetermined universe none of his actions can effect the outcome which he desires.

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In the movie Minority Report the precogs knowledge is in a conditional future. But if one knows the future then one can change it. IOW if the precogs predict a certain future whats to say it is not their foreknowledge/predictions that are driving the events?Some think that omnipotence of knowing will introduce a infinite loop of causality because the knowing affects the chain of events. Thats seems to be the paradox.Does nature abhor a paradox? For the current time being the universe seems to be infinite and indeterminate, this could be wrong though based on who you talk to so I am not starting a shit storm. I saw a documentary called
Particle Fever Depending on the weight of the Higgs Boson
the universe would be either caotic and unknowable or symmetrical and more information forthcoming. To heavy and the answers would possibly not be found in this universe or completely arbitrary giving way to multiverses and craziness. It came out right in the middle of the two critical values known as the Goldilocks zone. As if once again nature refuses to let go of all her secrets. I believe we can not know everything, Maybe*we are not meant to. If we did, like in the example above what would be the point of setting a alarm clock at all and getting out of bed. How boring it would be, kinda like that Twilight zone episode where the guy goes to Hell but thinks he is in Heaven because he wins every game, he gets everything he wants and he knows every outcome. At the end of the show he says something like "Man if I knew heaven would be like this I'd rather of gone to hell." And the devil says my dear fellow what ever made you think you were in heaven?Edited by 1.61803, : fix linkEdited by 1.61803, : maybe*

How can our choice be separate from the universe or vice versa, if we are intrinsically a part of it.

Hi Stile,Cause and effect are, on a macro level, deterministic.
We can make choices and those choices are real and the choice we make in turn affect the world around us. I believe everyone agrees with that.Now:If a omnipotent God exist then he must exist outside of influencing our choices otherwise there can be no free will in the face of all knowing all powerful. I realize people will come up with a plethora of apologist reason why both omnipresent and omnipotent can give rise to freewill,
but the bottom line is they are essentially diametrically opposed.
I wont pretend to understand how it can be otherwise.My take on freewill is that the future has not already occurred.
Time is according to some a one way street from the past -> present -> future. The arrow of time is asymmetrical and it seems Entropy goes in one direction as well as the cosmological arrow moving from quantum fluctuation to infinitely expanding flat universe. **This could be wrong but at present looks right**Each moment is not a continuum though but a separate point in time like a snap shot. It is only our continuous flux through these points that give the illusion of fluid movement of time. This vexes me to no end. Mathematically and in Physics time can move in either direction.
We know through Einsteins theories that Time does not exist at the speed of light so God if God exist must dwell at that speed. God also would have infinite mass to sustain that speed.If that is what God is doing.Then God could in theory transcend time and space and if so could know all things at all time in stasis without interfering with our freewill. God could according to this thought experiment have access to all the snapshot stitches in time while we on Earth would experience time relative to our speed having our coffee and cakes none the wiser.

Hi Tangle, Perhaps.Or god is operating at the speed of light and has infinite mass. This would mean time as we know it does not exist for god.
god would be omnipotent and omniscient in a sense and yet choose to remain blinded for reasons humanity may not understand.You call it evil I get that but perhaps that is the price to be paid for our existence. I would rather there be something than nothing otherwise I could not enjoy my buttered sour dough bread.

Painting someone with different views than yours as a torturing pedo sympathizer brush is pretty crappy.
Why "that" would come to mind rather than any other zillions of unsavory things is beyond me and probably says more about your state of mind than mine methinks.

Touche', I can not reconcile evil in the face of a benevolent, omnipotent god.
Im just glad we can have this conversation rather than not exist at all.Since things do exist it seems everything affects everything.
The lion is not evil when it consumes a zebra. When some mentally deranged person commits a heinous crime against another person it is evil but how can one negate a murderer's free will to kill?
Ether there is free will for evil and good alike or there is none.
Evil may be the price we pay for our freewill. I do not know.

It is what it is. It comes with the territory apparently. Besides a good steak is yummy. Not so good for the poor cow though. There is that free will of mine infringing on the cows quality of life. I suppose that as well is a unfortunate side effect of having beings with the freedom to do evil stuff. If you wind up there you can tell me.

Almost as ludicrous as Lot wanting to turn his son out or bang his own daughters.

Is a Lion evil for stalking and killing and eating a zebra?
But if I stalked and killed and ate a zebra would I be evil?
To the zebra it doe not matter.Maybe evil is knowingly and willingly acting in direct opposition to what is moral.
A human construct.Some folks seem to think God is evil for allowing evil to exist.
I would rather exist than not exist.
And if a omnipotent God exist and has constructed our existence as such that there must be evil then it is what it is.
If evil in the world is the price we must pay to exist then I will take it. And hope that enough people do what they can to minimize the evil.
Simply going around saying God is evil because no good God would do such things is like saying you think your mother is evil because she gave birth to you and introduced you into a evil world.

"She could a found a hag with a twig or I miss my guess." Archibald From the movie Rob RoyBut any way I am with Phat on this one. Evil is a human construct.
God is where the buck stops so yes if you want to call God evil then technically you'd be right. But there are other religions where the distinction is not so clear .Shiva is both the creator and destroyer. Well maybe God is like that.Edited by 1.61803, : find.

Hi Stile,I get what your saying. How can God be omnipotent and not be able to create the world without evil.That's why one must accept that you can not have things like free will and then expect that someone else's choice may infringe on your freewill.Someone is gonna get hurt. No way around it. If God exist he certainly is unable to reconcile this issue because maybe he as well is willing to accept the down side in order for us to exist as well. I dont know.