Free will vs Omniscience

Some things take time. And I never learned it from you...you don't even believe that God exists so how could you have taught me? O Tangled one, perhaps we should go fishing.

I have asked you before, how can you be "saved" from something that hasn't happened yet? And what sense does it make to be "saved" BY the entity that you're being saved FROM? There's no logic to it. Not all posers. A lot of them are delusional. That's not an argument, yada yada yada.

As Jesus pointed out to the disciples, the lady who gave two mites gave more than the rich men who gave bags of gold - because she gave all she had. See above. Jesus told the rich young ruler to "sell what you have and give to the poor" - not "sell a lot and give to the poor". It isn't how much you do that counts. It's how much you could do and don't.

Apparently it takes years and years of repetition to get through to you, so here goes, again: You can learn something from Frodo even if you don't believe The Lord of the Rings is true.

Only if you fight your mind. This is very, very simple stuff, but you have to switch off that bit of your mind that can't let you think. You didn't learn it from anyone Phat, it's been pointed out to you hundreds of times. You see, you still haven't got it. It's logic, not belief. That isn't hard is it? The next step is to see that if god is all knowing and knows what you'll do before you were born and also knows that you'll murder someone but still sends you to hell for all eternity, then he's evil. At the very least, he doesn't love you. Anytime. Always.

Missed this but I want to reply, so...

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You're making one really big mistake, and riding it out to make all the other mistakes you're confusing:

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We’ll see who is making the really big mistakes.Remember, my position is that if God creates a universe, knowing everything that will happen in it, then God has primary responsibility for those events.

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That's like saying you made the choice to have a blue room if I picked the colour and you simply painted the room.

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Well, that’s obviously false. Knowing in advance is not the same as not knowing in advance. So there is one really big - and obvious mistake on your part.

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So - if we make the choices of our free will, and therefore God does not choose how the actual universe will go...
And God merely creates the physical universe according to how our free wills decided how the actual universe will go...

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Neither of these is the case in your scenario. In your scenario God ran a simulation and then chose to actualise that simulation. In doing that God chose that the events that occurred in the simulation should occur in reality. So God did clearly choose how the actual universe would go.

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How are you then saying God made the choice of how the actual universe would go?

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By choosing to actualise the simulation. That is absolutely clear.

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You're playing semantics with the words.
You're taking "God made the universe - therefore, God decides all things in the universe" and applying it to my statements of "God made the universe, however, within that universe God did not decide all things, we decided our own free-willed choices."

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This is an outright falsehood. All I am doing is pointing out the implications of your scenario.

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Just because "God made the universe - therefore, God decides all things in the universe" is an easy and (perhaps) popular way to think of God creating universes does not mean that all universes must be created in this fashion.

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But that is not what I am saying. You are leaving out the whole question of certain foreknowledge, despite the fact that you intentionally introduced that element and in spite of the fact that it is an essential part of the assignment of responsibility. Indeed, we had already agreed that simple creation without understanding the consequences is different.

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Clearly - you're wrong, and it's just your insistence of "what you know of reality" that is blocking your ability to imagine a God with powers such as the ones I'm describing.

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Since you are unable even to accurately represent my position and your objections fail to address it, it is clear that the problem is yours.

Why? Since when do humans demand that God be responsible when it is we who should be required to be responsible? And one would think that part of what our responsibility entails is to acknowledge that God is in a position over us and not something to be defined by us. It amazes me that some are oblivious to this position. Why must certain foreknowledge eliminate our responsibility? In theory, it should be irrelevant to us what God knows and doesn't know. We have no right to hold Him accountable--but only ourselves. Whether or not He smites us out of existence or not is beyond our control anyway and for us to hold Him accountable would only hypothetically be logical if we had a relationship with Him and knew our place rather than us arbitrarily setting the ground rules of the relationship.

LOLThat has been explained to you a brazillion times Phat.If God is the creator of all that is seen and unseen then God is responsible for all that it created.If God is the creator of all that is seen and unseen and God has foreknowledge then God is responsible for all that is done by what it created.If God is the creator of all that is seen and unseen and God has foreknowledge then God is responsible for all that is done by what it created and if anything created is then damned then that God is also evil and unworthy of anything but contempt.

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Why?

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Because God knowingly decided that those things would happen, and as a consequence they inescapably will.Given that, how could God not be responsible? Are you going to argue that God can’t understand what he’s doing?

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when it is we who should be required to be responsible?

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For what? God’s decisions made long before we were born?

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And one would think that part of what our responsibility entails is to acknowledge that God is in a position over us and not something to be defined by us.

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This is incoherent.

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Why must certain foreknowledge eliminate our responsibility?

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I didn’t say that it was eliminated, just that it was secondary to the responsibility of the primary decision-maker - whose decisions came first and were made in full understanding of the consequences.

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In theory, it should be irrelevant to us what God knows and doesn't know.

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It cannot be when discussing this subject because it is one of the most relevant issues.

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Whether or not He smites us out of existence or not is beyond our control anyway and for us to hold Him accountable would only hypothetically be logical if we had a relationship with Him and knew our place rather than us arbitrarily setting the ground rules of the relationship.

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There is no problem with addressing the question of responsibility as a hypothetical.We do not have a duty to be sycophants. If you insist we do, you paint God as a tyrant. And you know my feelings about that.

I challenge thatg assumption. Is a parent responsible for their childs behavior beyond the age of accountability? Is that Grandparent responsible for how their child raises their grandchildren? Why then must God be responsible for our behavior and our choices? Foreknowledge is irrelevant. It is quite simply none of our business what God knows and when. Perhaps in this case you have an argument.

Do you even know what "all that is, seen and unseen" includes? All that is. Good, bad, sad, happy. All that is. It is relevant to those Christians that claim God has foreknowledge.

But you're always saying that God doesn't want us to grow up.Either we're responsible and God is irrelevant or God is responsible.

You always make these blanket assumptions. I've no problem with us being responsible but how on Gods green earth does this then make Him irrelevant?

it's not an assumption. It's a conclusion. The same way that the Pope is irrelevant to your decision on whom you vote for. If you're responsible, somebody else isn't. That's pretty simple.

Not really equivalent at all.The Pope is human. God isnt. Now it may well turn out that God is irrelevant or non existent but this is not conclusive and thus God cannot be judged irrelevant except by your uninformed choice.