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Forums - General - Why do some believe these characteristics of a Creator?

Jay520 said:

Earlier you were. Here is one of your earlier posts:

"The fact that it's already determined doesn't change the fact that it's a choice.

Steps 0) God turns off omniscience.

1) God makes me.

2) God turns on omniscience.

Me can chooose, God can know. Problem solved. "

Omniscience deals with knowledge.

Yes, my wording here was bad. By that I meant "God puts concerns aside but maintains omniscience". With almost every other post after this one that meaning was clear, but I apologize if I confused you. What matters to me is not whether I'm right or wrong but that you find your answers. Now is your answer more clear? Despite the poor wording in this post, the meaning from then onward was always the same. Separation of concerns =/= loss of omniscience, and that's something we agree on, and that's the foundation for my faith in free will, at the moment.



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happydolphin said:
Chrizum said:

So let's say in a certain point in time, there are two choices for me to make: A or B. God has forever known which choice I am going to make, right? Because he is all-knowing. He knows I'm going to choose B. He is able to not think about this for a moment, but he still knows it. My choice is still predetermined even if God chooses to ignore that thought for that moment. Do you agree? Or is it still possible for me to choose A even though God has forever known I'd choose B?

He knows all. However, upon C, when he created you, he did not concern himself with your choice. He made you as he willed regardless of what choices you would or would not make, simply because it pleased him to make a being with the will to choose.

Whether he knew, ultimately, which choice you would one day make because of his transcendance of time and ability to know all, the moment he made you, he did not concern himself with that. He simply made you a person with the constant ability to choose, irrespective of his omniscience.

A pessimistic philosopher spent his days understanding the world around him, writing about it. Odd thing is he always had a fascination for art. It was his passtime. Every now and then, taking a moment away from his vocation, he would sit in front of a canvas to enter a world of imagination. Laying his pessimism aside for a moment, he made works based on his dreams, dreams of beauty.

I have no idea how the almighty omniscient creator made us with a choice, but if choice is a reality, I believe he more than anyone could pull it off.

A lot of words but you really haven't answered my question. I know God doesn't concern himself with my choice but he still KNOWS I'd choose B. Is it still possible for me to choose A even though God knows I'd choose B?

To clarify: I KNOW the oceans are being fished dry and that it is terrible but I don't concern myself with it most of the time as I still eat fish just the same. This, however, doesn't change the fact. The oceans are still being fished dry and I know it.



Chrizum said:

A lot of words but you really haven't answered my question. I know God doesn't concern himself with my choice but he still KNOWS I'd choose B. Is it still possible for me to choose A even though God knows I'd choose B?

To clarify: I KNOW the oceans are being fished dry and that it is terrible but I don't concern myself with it most of the time as I still eat fish just the same. This, however, doesn't change the fact. The oceans are still being fished dry and I know it.

You know it, but if you're not making your design of C based on that knowledge, then it doesn't matter anymore.

To clarify: In the end, at best you could call God irresponsible. But you could also call a parent irresponsible for bringing a child into this world. In the end, God gets what he wants: a world that choses to love him or that choses to hate him. That's all he wants, people with true desires to either cling to him, or reject him. He will then sift those who reject him and harvest those who cling to him, and do as he pleases. It's his will after all. As for me, I see nothing evil about that, it makes perfect sense to me, personally.



happydolphin said:
Chrizum said:

A lot of words but you really haven't answered my question. I know God doesn't concern himself with my choice but he still KNOWS I'd choose B. Is it still possible for me to choose A even though God knows I'd choose B?

To clarify: I KNOW the oceans are being fished dry and that it is terrible but I don't concern myself with it most of the time as I still eat fish just the same. This, however, doesn't change the fact. The oceans are still being fished dry and I know it.

You know it, but if you're not making your design of C based on that knowledge, then it doesn't matter anymore.

I'm not talking about design. There is no design nor C in my scenario. My question is simple: Is it still possible for me to choose A even though God knows I'd choose B?



Chrizum said:

I'm not talking about design. There is no design nor C in my scenario. My question is simple: Is it still possible for me to choose A even though God knows I'd choose B?

Did God make you in hypothetical scenario?



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dsgrue3 said:
timmah said:

I'll try this one more time. Determinism comes from the word determine, which suggests that God would have actively laid out paths for each individual person. I'm saying he does not do this. That requires an active role of almost 'pulling the strings' on a bunch of puppets, that's not what I'm suggesting. I'm theorizing that, if we were to say God knows the end from the beginning, yet free will exists, this would, by definition, imply a different definition and observation of time from what we know (as knowing future events as we define them without planning them would logically require a non-fixed perspective of time), that's why I used the time traveler analogy and the frozen river analogy. It's simply a way to attempt to understand and theorize a perspective outside our understanding and perspective of time. The idea of time is everything in discussing predetermination vs. pre-knowledge. You keep saying they're the same, I'm saying they're different as one is active, one is passive observation. The discussion of what this theorized passive observation could be, how it could take place, and what its impications would be is what I'm addressing. You might agree with me that in the time traveler analogy I gave, that would not have eliminated free will or choice, and I'm saying that's how a God outside of time could theoretically see things, thereby seeming to have knowledge of things that have not yet happened from our perspective, though from his perspective, we actively made that choice in our future, a future which he could theoretically view at any time for the sake of this discussion. One could also theorize that God could possibly use this theorized knowledge of the future to influence our present, thereby changing our future. One could then argue that if he did this, it would eliminate free will, therefore God would not directly interfere.

Keep in mind, I'm not a firm believer in the statements above, nor is it a core part of my faith, I'm merely posing them as an interesting discussion. I don't claim to know everything about God.

Yes, God has determined the paths of individuals if he is omniscient so it is indeed deterministic. To suggest he hasn't is to suggest he is not omniscient.

Nope. You're still using words like determined, while I'm making an argument for 'observed' (again, in a theoretical discussion). I'm always amused at how narrow the approach of some atheists is to theological discussions. You require the Christian accept a certain set of axioms that you work to pigeonhole them into, refuse to consider any axioms outside of the 'box' that works for your argument, then you will then use your specific axioms in an effort to disprove the Christian's belief system. You have a very clear agenda.



happydolphin said:
Chrizum said:

I'm not talking about design. There is no design nor C in my scenario. My question is simple: Is it still possible for me to choose A even though God knows I'd choose B?

Did God make you in hypothetical scenario?

Yes. God made me with free will. Irregardless of whatever it is I choose in the future. I accept that. Now, even though his knowledge about my choice isn't the basis of my creation, he still knows my choices, right? Like, hypothethically, if I were to ask God, and if he had to answer truthfully, he would say to me that he knows which choice I'm going to make. Do you agree or disagree with this?



timmah said:
dsgrue3 said:

Yes, God has determined the paths of individuals if he is omniscient so it is indeed deterministic. To suggest he hasn't is to suggest he is not omniscient.

Nope. I'm always amused at how narrow the approach of some atheists is to theological discussions. You require the Christian accept a certain set of axioms that you work to pigeonhole them into, then you will then use those axioms in an effort to disprove the Christian's belief system. You have a very clear agenda.

I'm sorry, but suggesting that god has not determined the outcomes of events is to suggest that god does not know the outcomes. You're arguing he isn't omniscient.



dsgrue3 said:
timmah said:
dsgrue3 said:

Yes, God has determined the paths of individuals if he is omniscient so it is indeed deterministic. To suggest he hasn't is to suggest he is not omniscient.

Nope. I'm always amused at how narrow the approach of some atheists is to theological discussions. You require the Christian accept a certain set of axioms that you work to pigeonhole them into, then you will then use those axioms in an effort to disprove the Christian's belief system. You have a very clear agenda.

I'm sorry, but suggesting that god has not determined the outcomes of events is to suggest that god does not know the outcomes. You're arguing he isn't omniscient.

If God can view time from a non-fixed perspective (the axiom in the argument I posed), this is simply not the case (just as a theoretical time traveler would not have to pre-determine a choice to witness it, thereby knowing it without pre-determining it). You simply refuse to consider that axiom. Again, I don't know how God works, I'm just posing a theoretical possibility based on one theological perspective.

And please, don't patronize my intelligence on this. Plenty of brilliant men have theorized a ton of different ideas on time as a dimension, spacetime, whether time is fixed in reality, or merely by our perspective of it, whether it flows, or if this is simply our way of interpreting it, whether all things in time exist simultaneously, or if there is one fixed point of existence in time that is absolute, whether time has an arrow, or if it is theoretically possible for travel through it, whether dimensions/realities can exist outside of time, whether time can be bent by gravity or speed, etc. etc. etc.



Wow I'm surprised by how many people here actually believe there's a god. O_O'



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