Confession of a former christian

This is a major point of argument in Philosophical circles. I would disagree with you.Let's say you're born and God knows that when you turn 20, you'll turn left at a particular intersection. You go through your life and then, when you're 20, you come to the fateful intersection. You are presented with an apparant choice: turn left, turn right, or got forward. Now, knowing that God knew from the point you were born (and every point before and after) that you would go left what are the odds of choosing each direction? I'd say, regardless of how you might feel at the time, the odds are 0% for turning right, 0% for going forward, and 100% for turning left. Thus, regardless of whether you think you have a choice, the fact that God knew what "choice" you would make effectively removes the choice from your hands.As a note, I don't believe in God, but I, too, do not believe in free will. I think it's a necessary illusion, but an illusion nevertheless.

No document with with more vindicated, factual statements? Not one? Have you ever heard of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica? Or maybe the Merriam Webster Dictionary? I'd say those documents have far more vindicated, factual statements...in fact...all of them.

Umm, by definition, if something is written down, it is already known...the person writing it had to know it. You claimed there was nothing with more factual statements than the Bible. Just because you already know what is in an encyclopedia doesn't make it any less factual.On your next point, I would ask you to write down anything the Bible says that has been proven true that isn't something that had already been known. Your example of the distance between two cities is not a good example. We have atlases galore, and no one starts praising their copyright page.

But that's just it. A film "in the can" has a set progression, the characters have no choices, you can't watch a film one time and it ends happily, and then watch it again and the main character decides to kill everyone else. Feeding information back in time would absolutely take away choice. If I could build a time machine, go back in time to Gettysburg and watch without interfering...I would know exactly how the battle wold go. There is no option for it to go any other way. All the combatants and generals would be forced to do exactly the same things.If someone knows what you will do..."know" is in possession of a belief that is in fact true, then you have no option to do anything else. A prediction is something ele. I can predict, with varying degrees of accuracy whether it will rain later today. But I am not in possession of omniscience and extra-temporal existence. God, supposedly, is, which means every thing he says about the future is true and unchangeable. If its unchangeable, then the odds of you choosing to do other than God predicts is zero.To get back to your movie analogy, let's say you're watching your favorite film, one you've seen many times. You're watching it with someone who has never seen it. You turn to your friend and say, "He dies at the end." That is something you "know" to be true, and the character at which you pointed has no option but to die at the end, it has been scripted and already seen, it can't be otherwise. If it can't be otherwise, there is no choice, only the illusion of one.

The earliest legal code found in existence is the Code of Ur-Nammu from around 2100 BC. We could just as easily say that all legal codes are based on that one. In fact, it is quite advanced for it's time, instituting monetary penalties for certain crimes, rather than the "eye for an eye" penalties used later.Also, Every major civilization had a set of laws, the Aztecs had one, and had no contact whatsoever with the Bible. All codes of law are similar because there are some crimes that are endemic to the human condition: murder, robbery, and rape being the top three. The fact that the Bible has prohibitions of that is nothing special. The laws that are special in the Bible, namely not to eat shellfish or not to have any god higher than their God are not found reflected in most modern law books, seemingly refuting your point...yet again.

What the Hell does that mean? Are you saying they were written in hand signals? Are they tonal books, with each word represented by a sound? They were written down, using letters corresponding to sounds to form words that represent real ideas or things. What about them makes them not alphabetical?

Bu that's the thing. Many laws in the Bible are not followed, not made laws, and in my opinion, very wrong. One of the laws of the OT is not to eat shellfish. I love shrimp, very tasty."Feed one's animal before themselves." Anyone who knows anything about dog training knows that's a bad idea. You eat before you feed your dog, that shows the dog that you are the alpha, the pack leader if you will."not to destroy a food bearing tree." So, if I want to build a home in a spot, but an apple tree happens to be growing there, it is illegal to chop down that tree (thereby destroying it) and build my house?The Bible has some good laws, but the good laws of the Bible are the same laws every culture has grappled with. Far more laws from the Bible are things we don't follow, are not outlawed in America, or are expressely protected in the Constitution.