Free will: an illusion

This is Directed at Iano primarily, and intended to discuss the notion of free will. But obviously anyone who shares his views are welcome to respond.Iano's viewpoint is that Free will is what makes us human, and within the confines of his belief system, If God were to make himself known to us in an explicit, undeniable way, this free will would be taken from us, as we would have no choice other than to believe.my thoughts are as follows:- It is my belief that if the Xian doctrine is to be believed, God is all knowing, and outside of time. He knows what will happen, what has happened, and what is happening. Therefore any notion of free will is a myth. We are merely playing out what is inevitable. Given this Predestination, I have the illusion of choice, but in truth there is only one path which can be followed, the one which Your God can see and knows to be true.- It is my understanding that freedom to chose requires having ALL THE RELEVANT INFORMATION to make that choice. INFORMATION.. not hearsay, not stories, not ancient questionable texts. REAL INFORMATION. If god made himself undeniably known to us we would then have the CHOICE to accept or reject him.. 'Free will' still intact, this should be no problem to you. (Or does your 'free will' only apply to choosing to believe without evidence? Does this mean that you have now lost your free will given that you have been saved and have had undeniable evidence of god?)-You yourself state and have stated that in our fallen condition we are UNABLE to discern information or evidence correctly,
i.e. We cannot make the correct choices without God making them for us (Deciding to save us).Even if God made himself known to each and everyone of us, your teachings state that we are unable to choose because we are fallen or flawed. If you give 'free will' to a person who is unable to properly excercise that free will, what freedom do they really have?to summarise: (the engineer in me likes to strip things down to the important points)1) Free will is an Illusion, since God knows what will happen, what choices we will make.2) Without the relevant information to make an informed choice our 'Free will' is not free at all.3) Without the ability to even discern what information is correct (due to our 'fallen state'), free will is irrelevant, pointless, wasted. and point 2 doesn't even come into play.I would appreciate a straight answer to these points. I have raised these points many times and the usual tactics come straight into play: dodge/weave/analogise/distract.
You analogise using the blind man story, and ignore the obvious gaping holes in this analogy.

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If you choose to respond to this post I would appreciate as direct as possible responses to these three points. Please leave out the parent-child analogies, please leave out the leading question as a response tactics. simply address the points. And if your response is going to be along the lines of "well we couldn't possibly understand what god's plan is" don't bother... please.)

I would have thought Faith and Belief.Iano suggested a 'great debate'.. but I fear my debating skills and my spare time may not be up to it.

this mightn't work then, I'm not interested in being converted,
I simply wanta response, as you see it to the questions/points raised.If you hold these opinions I wouldn't have thought it would be a big deal to answer.

Free will to choose whether or not to follow god, as opposed to waiting for god to choose us.Free will in the sense that Adam and eve supposedly had free will to choose to obey/disobey god. (god made them, god knew what they would choose.. was it free will at all?)Does Free will have any meaning if we are "fallen" and thus cannot make reasonable choices.

fair point, I guess in this case I take issue with the fact that God will punish us for not choosing him, when he provides no hard evidence of his existance.. why not just present us with all the facts and let us choose? why does he choose to play games with us for the purposes of this discussion.. yes..

I suspect yes.. but you'll have to ask the Xians that one...

well how about you answer the quesions and ignore other posters

thanks jar, but I'm not sure you are the target of this thread

From our perspective maybe.. but in reality there is no choice.. what will be will be.
the God that says he gave us free will.. didn't really... he lied.. he just gave us the illusion of free will. he knows what will hapen, what choices we wil make, we are powerless to do anything but follow the path.

You ever heard of the flying spaghetti monster? Giant Pink unicorn?can you prove they don't exist?anyway.. this is off topic for this thread.. please take this discussion elsewhere

It's not that the fore knowledge affects the decision, but rather that because the decion is foreknown.. it follos that there is only one decision you will make...
so what choice is there? really?you have a choice of A or B
God knows you will choose A
you choose A (as god predicted)there was no chance of you choosing B...
There was no real choice.. for a moment you had the illusion of choice, but you were always going to choose A. God knew that. He created you that way.now.. if choice A was to be an athiest.. you are now destined for hellWhat kind of god, created a being that is destined for hell.. with no chance of a way out?a cruel, spiteful, evil god.

how can it be.. God knows the outcome.. he created you such that there would be only one outcome either stop or run.. whichever one you choose was foreknown.. It was the only outcome possible..it was predestined.there is only the illusion of choice.From gods point of view you have no choices.. you are playing out what he knows will happen. nothing more.

so how many realities are there?the point is you chose A (as per god's foreknowledge).. there was no circumstance under which you would choose B, then god would be wrong..I'll have to continue tomorrow... sleepy time...

you're not convincing me...

I would also like to have the other point discussed.. So.. if (for arguments sake) we assume that mj is correct, and
- we have free will (despite foreknowledge)
- We consider making a decision without information to be free willWhat about our ability to make a decision? according to the bible, we are 'fallen' we cannot be trusted to make decisions because our fallen state prevents us from understanding the evidence or information.what good is free will if we are unable to use it wisely?Edited by Creavolution, : removed reference to iano