Christians, doesn't it annoy you...

[mrfish]

Originally posted by Kieran
No, it isn't.

These dolls can truly interact with Him if it is their desire. They can refuse to "play" with Him, too. Either way, it is their choice.

it is not their choice. if someone is going to wonder whether or not to believe in god then god already knows the outcome of their decision.

if someone is going to pray to god to be a part of their life, then god knew that before they were born and he knows the extent of his involvement and where they will spend eternity.

they can't be a bad person and suddenly choose good- god had to knw all along they would choose good. it only seems like a choice to you-

 if someone already knows the outcome then it is not a choice. it is an illusion of choice. there's no way around that.

[Apache]

Originally posted by mrfish
well you're enlightened apache, maybe you can explain it:

say i find a wallet on the street and no one is looking and it has $500 in it.

i presumably have the freewill to return it or keep the money- or to ignore it or a host of other choices. in the end i can only choose one of those options because of the restrictions of our universe. if god is omniscient then he already knows what that choice will be. it's pointless for him to give me some mechanism to establish myself as a righteous or sinful person because the outcome is already known-

it's not like i can choose to return it and impress god- he already knew whether i would choose to return it or not.

Certainly.

God wants us to follow and worship him. You've stated you read and studied the bible, so I don't think you would argue the point.

God gave us freewill to choose him or evil. Some choose evil. God knew they would. Why would God make some choose evil in contradiction of his own stated plan? He wouldn't and doesn't.

[Kieran]

they can't be a bad person and suddenly choose good- god had to knw all along they would choose good. it only seems like a choice to you-

if someone already knows the outcome then it is not a choice. it is an illusion of choice. there's no way around that.

If my young daughter kicks my older daughter for being a snot, does it mean she didn't have a choice? I mean, I already knew she would. It was easily predictable.

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

Thanks for the explanation Kieran... I've always had a problem with pre-destination, just never made sense to me if we were given free will and the ability to make our own choices.

Of course, lotta things don't make sense to me.. I just wanted to see what a person with faith thought about it.
-SW

[mrfish]

Originally posted by Apache
Why would God make some choose evil in contradiction of his own stated plan? He wouldn't and doesn't.

so you mean he didn't want them to choose evil (also his creation btw) but they did anyway? you mean he didn't know they would choose evil long before he even created the first human?

if he knew, and he didn't want it that way- then why did he will it to be so?

before god set out on the very first day he had to know the following:

that original sin would occur
that he would have to send his son to die for the jews
that wars would be fought in his name
that you would post this
that i would think he was a fraud.....etc etc

so what's the point?

[mrfish]

Originally posted by Kieran
If my young daughter kicks my older daughter for being a snot, does it mean she didn't have a choice? I mean, I already knew she would. It was easily predictable.

you didn't know because you are not omniscient, god is. if you knew in advance that you daughter would kick her, and you know with no degree of uncertainty exactly what will happen, then in order for you to maintain your omniscience yes she would have to kick her, otherwise you'd be wrong and that can't happen- so no, she didn't have a choice.

[Apache]

Originally posted by mrfish
so you mean he didn't want them to choose evil (also his creation btw) but they did anyway? you mean he didn't know they would choose evil long before he even created the first human?

if he knew, and he didn't want it that way- then why did he will it to be so?

before god set out on the very first day he had to know the following:

that original sin would occur
that he would have to send his son to die for the jews
that wars would be fought in his name
that you would post this
that i would think he was a fraud.....etc etc

so what's the point?

How do you interpret "they did it anyway" into "he didn't know"?

There must really be something to this bible thing. I'm seeing "can't understand" in action.

[mrfish]

imagine god floating in space before the world was created. at that point he knew all the trouble that would occur from satan's treachery through to the final list of names in the book of life.

he had to know full well that not everyone would fulfill his vision- he knew in advance that he was creating billions of souls destined for hell.

why would a perfect being create a world that would unfold like that?

you christians act like god gave us this perfect paradise and thought we'd be appreciative and then when we weren't he got all upset and decided to mercifully give us chances to get back on his good side.

he created us knowing full well in advance exactly what our failings would be- that doesn't make any sense! why would you punish someone for doing something that was known before they were even born!

[Kieran]

Uhhh, that was a dodge.

Yes, I can give you about a 99% certainty under those circumstances what would happen. I don't have to be omniscient, and even if I was, it wouldn't change a thing (which is after all the point).

You are saying the path cannot be altered or God isn't omniscient. Agreed. Where you always lose it is taking that point and equating it with God made it happen.

Yes, God knew there'd be original sin.

Yes, God knew there'd be the Law, and it would get screwed up by man.

Yes, God knew there'd be war.

Yes, God knew there'd be suffering.

Yes, God knew He'd send His Son to be sacrificed.

Other than Jesus (who in reality is the earthly manifistation of God), no individual's path is set by anyone other than themselves. This is why we are ultimately accountable.

It's like this... free will means just that. It means some will not go the way God wants them to. It doesn't mean God made them take that path. People choose to be apart from God, not the other way around. And if you really want to get right down to it, hell is being separated from God. So you see... people choose to go to hell.

[mrfish]

no, actually i still think you are missing it by a mile. how about this:

before time, god knew he would create a species called humans, he knew that one of them would be named joe, he knew that on joe's 34th birthday he would have a choice to kill his wife after an argument, he knew that joe would choose to kill her and he knew that joe would be unrepentant and go to hell.

joe was born with no say in his creation but even when he was an innocent toddler god already knew what joe would do.

what's more evil? joe the murderer or a god that felt it necessary to create joe in the first place? uncreated, joe would never do any evil or burn in hell- god created joe knowing full well that that would be joe's fate.

god is sadistic- see above.

[Kieran]

But Joe always did have the choice.

C'mon... how would you know there was free choice if people always chose the same path? Yet... you would condemn God for creating people with free will that choose to go another direction?

[Arfann]

Originally posted by Kieran
It would appear so, Apache.

I'll say it again... God will let you jump. God knew you were going to jump. God did not make you jump.

See it now?

Yep. I see that omniscient, all-powerful, changes water into wine God person just standing by and letting me do it. Not egg-zackly setting a proper example is he? But what should I expect from one who could stop the horrors of war, starvation, etc., but doesn't. It's much more rational to assume he (He, She, It) doesn't exist.

[mrfish]

joe's fate was set from the day he was born- how can't you see that? for him to have had a choice, one of the options had to be "don't kill wife" but that option didn't exist to joe.- god created him knowing that the "kill wife " version would prevail without a doubt.

i mean god designed joe, built his hardware by hand, installed him with his own god brand morality software v1.0 which predisposes the human to sin yet punishes them for choosing it. and then he scripted him to kill his wife-

joe couldn't have chosen "not kill wife" because the outcome was known even before he existed- joe was sentenced to be created and suffer that fate.

god is like a space toy maker gone mad. building us one minute and then being dissatsfied with us the next, tossing us by the armful into the fire. if you were going to engineer a world and a species and had god powers would you design such a bizarro system?

[Kieran]

More appropriately, not an omniscent person with his focus on the world, I'd say. There's the bigger picture you see, and that bigger picture is eternity. So yeah, there's suffering here on earth, but in the grand scheme of things it is nothing compared to eternity.

[Kieran]

Let's turn this around- tell me how to give your children free will without actually letting them exercise that free will.