Tony_Stark said:
Well, aside from the obvious flaws in your logic, I see that you keep saying there is a god, which mean you are not an athiest. And if you are, claiming that religion is folly, is just plain ignorant since athieism is, in fact, a religion per Websters dictionary. Anyway, more to the point of your OP, and your quoted post, God, as Christians believe him to be, does not "predict" anything, he knows it. Now, I'm a father of three, and as a parent, I understand how this works more than I ever did before I was a parent. You see, God gave us free will, the ability to think independantly, to make our own choices, we are not just another animal roaming this planet, this is why we as a species are so much more "evolved" than any other species on the planet. God knows what our choices and actions will be, but does not intervene because he gave us that free will. That free will is what allows us as humans to grow, to learn what we can and can't do. It is how each of us is able to "grow" as an indivual because every choice has consequences either good or bad, and it is by those consequences that we become a stronger, better person. Now, if I look at this as a parent, I see my oldest. I tell her to clean her toys up, I know that she won't, but because I want her to grow as a person I don't hold her hand and force her to clean up her toys. When she doesn't clean up her toys, she gets a punishment. After a while of doing this, she begins to learn that if she cleans up her toys, she won't get in trouble. If I held her hand and forced her to clean up the toys, she would never learn to do it herself, thus she would, in effect, be a drone. |
Flaws in my logic? Please do elaborate.
I don't think that there is a God, but kept assuming that there is for the sake of argumentation. And I used the word predict since God can predict everything flawlessly, which is the exact same as knowing. He flawlessly knows everything that will happen because He can predict it.
Bolded: I beg to differ. Many times has God intervened with our free will. Jesus is a great example of this; Were it not for Jesus, lots of people would have acted differently today, effectively affecting our free will. God knew whta would happen if He would not have sent Jesus to Earth, but decided to do so in order to make us make different decision (for the better) throughout our lifetimes. And then there is the Noah's Ark story which Whiplash brought up earlier where God punished the humans for their decisions even before they had their chance to change their mind and ask for forgiveness. Even worse: God knew that he would drown those people before He created them, so why would He create life if it would just end up in pain for the individual and everyone surrounding it?
In fact, all Abrahamic religions fall prey to that lack of logic. Why create humans in the first place if you knew exactly which one would end up in heaven and which ones would end up in hell even before creating them? Why create life that is destined to live an ethernity in hell? God is responsible for their misery, He created them, and knew where they would end up. He also know where you and your daughter will end up once you die, and your free will cannot affect that knowlegde as it is determined by God.
Instead of thanking God for His support (which people who are born in Africa and who keeps stealing things cannot do), you should be glad that you are living the fortunate life that you are living instead of being born to simply go to hell. Be aware that the underlined in your quote box also functions as evidence that everything is determined.
(To everyone; I'm glad that we've been back on topic lately.)
