so before you read, know that he had previously refuted my 2nd argument against theistic gods by saying "god forces free will to exist because he is omnipotent" because he couldnt refute the argument with logic so he used illogic which is probably the only time any valid refutation will ever take place that is rooted in illogic. see the previous post if you want to see that argument. it isnt necessary though because the only thing in that post that is relevant to this one is what he said about free will.
every argument i have against the existence of theistic gods can be validly refuted by saying "god is omnipotent so he can do x" i was trying to think of one where he couldnt do that. i thought of this and it turned out more beautifully than i could have imagined.
please note that at a few times i was not in a thinking mindset so i fucked up a bit and veered off in a ineffective direction.
it starts with me stating the argument.
me: i've been thinking of an argument that you couldnt refute, its an oldie but a goodie. it's one i almost never use because it appeals to emotion somewhat and relies on doctrine pretty heavily and it presupposes gods existence to prove his non existence. anyways its the problem of evil.
im just gonna give you the logical version.
1. god exists.
2. god is omniscient.
3. god is omnipotent.
4. god is omnibenevolent.
5. therefore no evil can exist.
basically, if god exists, then he knows how to prevent evil, he has the power to prevent it, he's perfectly good, so evil cannot exist in the face of a perfectly good being who knows how to and has the power to erase evil. evil exists according to your theology, so either god doesnt exist or nothing is evil.
one response is that we have free will so we have the capacity for evil. this response isnt sound because god apparently has free will and yet he can do no evil which means evil is not a requisite of free will. free will ultimately is just the choice to do good or evil if you take it to its very basics. look at the story of adam and eve. so since free will doesnt require evil as a choice, then the free will response to the problem of evil is useless.
another response you could do which you would do to every other argument is pull the omnipotence defense and this is why i used this argument. because it would require you to posit that god puts evil into the world. ultimately it would boil down to you having to take a position of "god creates evil but its not evil for him" or something like that.
him: Sorry, I haven't sent you a message in a while, I have been busy working on an anti-evolution argument that I think is scientifically irrefutable. Might be a world changer... we will see. Anyway, I was looking at this message about god and evil, and the answer lies in what is defined as good and evil. Evil is viewed simply anything that is contrary to the nature of God. In essence, God can do evil, he just doesn't because that is not who he is. See, free will doesn't mean you have to do everything that is free, just that there is an option.
"if god exists, then he knows how to prevent evil, he has the power to prevent it, he's perfectly good, so evil cannot exist in the face of a perfectly good being who knows how to and has the power to erase evil." I'm not very sure where you ground this statement. Having the power and using the power are not the same thing. You are what you do, not what you have. You may have a tendency to be angry, but that is not what makes you a murderer. Murdering someone makes you a murderer.
me: god created heaven and hell. a place of infinite torment and a place of infinite joy. are either of those evil or good? how can you be so sure god is good if he can commit evil?
"in the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth" yeah he created heaven. hell was made for satan and his followers. have you read the bible? god kills over 2 million people and thats not including the flood or sodom and gommorrah. killing is considered evil in most of the situations which he kills. he does it simply because he doesnt like what somebody is doing.
how would one distinguish which of gods actions are good from evil? i dont think we can say anything about morality if we cant use god as the basis for morality.
him: Heaven and Hell are not creations per say, but they are places where particular individuals dwell. For example, where does the president of the united states live? In the white house. Where does God and his children live? Heaven. Where does the devil and his followers live? Hell. The names for these places and what they become are subject by the people who dwell in them. As in when you first moved to where you bedroom (assuming you have one), it was not your bedroom until you moved into it and put all of your stuff in it. I believe God sent the devil to a place called hell, and the devil has made it what it is.
Now I can believe God is good even though he could commit evil by what good is. Evil is anything that is contrary to the nature of God. Which means that things that are good are subject to his doing of them. So he can only be good. He is consistent in the way he is good and is not changing that, so good is what applies solely to what God's nature is. Therefore, God makes things evil, by not doing them. If it were God's nature to murder, it would suddenly become good.
Killing is not evil, murder is. and heaven and hell are places which cannot take on likenesses or character. You cannot have evil places, that is personifying.
me: god is omnipotent so couldnt he make anything he wanted good or evil?
him: Well, yeah he could.
me: then how can we have any morality? how can morality exist at all? and if good is in his nature, then wouldnt it logically follow that he makes everything good? he his omnibenevolent after all. and if there is any evil in the world isnt it 100% on him?
him: If everything was directly of him, than yes, that would be correct. the kicker is though that not everything is from him. He gave man (as well as the serpent in eden) the ability to be creative. So indirectly God is the author of evil, directly we are.
me: if man has the capacity for evil, and god created man, then the capacity for evil and therefore evil itself comes from god. we cannot be the author of evil when god was the author of us
him: Indirectly speaking you are correct, but to be the author of something, it must be direct, so your conclusion is logically flawed.
me: man has the capacity for evil does he not? does god want evil? if good flows from gods nature and he has the power to make anything evil into good, then why not do it and erase all sin? wasnt that what jesus was for? to forgive us of our sin? why not just erase it?
him: Well, to erase sin I would think it would erase the ability to choose God or not. Other wise, there would be no option 2
me: oh and also, i just thought of something. if god decides what is good and evil and evil exists then therefore god is the author of evil. dont know why i didnt think of that before lol i just woke up.4
him: I held that argument before, I don't think it is active creation, because with Good, not good must come. But these are ideas and not really substances. So to create good is to create not good. Like creating fudge is like creating not fudge. I think...?
note: i missed this response and my next response was a month later.
me: i think i missed your response. you said the creation of good comes with not good aka evil. if this was your last response then im sorry i missed it. here is my counter:
yes, for x there is not x. however, my point is that since god decides what is good and evil, he is therefore the author of good and evil because if something is evil, then it is because he makes it so. he has power over everything, therefore whatever exists does so because he allows it to and furthermore, it is directly from him because he is responsible for all creation. if you program something, then you are responsible for everything that programming does.
ultimate argument:
PART A
1. god designed us.
2. therefore our actions are the result of the way he programmed us.
3. therefore he is responsible for our actions.
god is omnipotent.
god is omnibenevolent.
god is omniscient.
god is omnipresent.
1. god can make good evil and evil good.
2. therefore god decides what is good and what is evil.
3. therefore if something is evil, then it is because god says so.
god is responsible for all creation because he designed everything. therefore god is ultimately responsible for everything within creation.
we must be cleansed of sin in order to go to heaven because sin cannot exist in the presence of god.
PART B.
everything we do, god is ultimately responsible for.
god decides what is good and what is evil.
sin/evil cannot exist in the presence of god.
god is omnipresent.
god has control over everything.
god is perfectly good.
we flowed directly from gods nature.
good flows directly from gods nature.
PART C:
god is present everywhere therefore evil should not exist anywhere.
god decides what is good and evil, therefore good and evil are not objective things, they are just his opinions.
the bible never says god is always right, nowhere in any religion does it say gods opinion is always right. opinions are not a matter of right and wrong.
he is ultimately responsible for whatever happens because he has power over everything and therefore he is responsible for everything because something exists only if he allows it too.
conclusions:
1. good and evil are not objective things.
2. even if they were, since evil/sin cannot exist in the presence of god, and since god is omnipresent, everything is naturally good. therefore in order for evil to exist, god must force it into existence by way of omnipotence. therefore if good and evil were objective things, then anything thats "evil" is necessarily the direct result of god.
3. since free will must exist only by god forcing it to exist by way of omnipotence, and since anything evil can only exist by way of omnipotence, evil actions are therefore the direct result of god. god forces us to do evil.
Total conclusion: evil cannot exist except by way of god forcing it to and therefore if evil does exist, god is solely and directly authoritative and responsible for it.
this argument probably could have been more concise but i wanted to make sure it was full proof.
this is probably the greatest argument ad absurdism i have made to date and i think i have a new found respect for epicurus. i used to think the problem of evil was a weak argument, now i see the true genius of it. although i dont think it was really taken to this deep of a level. ever. maybe im just giving myself too much credit although i doubt it because i have never seen it taken to this level.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
argument 2 refuted...sort of. lol
this is in response to my second argument against theistic gods. ultimately, he ends up saying that god is omnipotent, therefore god forces us to have free will (he believes god isnt subject to logic) this is really just leading up to the MAIN MAIn (yes two mains) argument. i will put our free will discussion here just in case you want to read it. it would really only be to see both of our reasoning and how our argument progressed.
here it is.
I noticed you had an extension to the second one (which I have not read yet), but based off what I have read I will give this response...
2) No real assumptions in this one and this is a common and valid argument. As a matter of fact one that I had before I became Christian. The belief that a legitimate Christian has is that God made time (as I mentioned earlier), so he is not bound to it. With this as a possibility for an all-powerful, one must really think against the assumption that God is ruled by time, but rather he rules it. As far as predestination goes, it can coexist with free-will (but you really would not call this predestination). If I illustrate I think you will see it better. If I have a convict who steals all the time, and he goes to jail, what assumption can I make? He probably stole. See, predictability does not imply a predestination. If I can predict you being amazed at a magic trick I made, does not mean I made you to be amazed by it, but rather it is designed to amaze you. See God works the same way, he created the Earth to amaze us, but we can be unamused by our choice. He designed the world so that in end everyone could come to see him and love him. But not everyone does, why? because everyone has the choice.
Summary: God has not made us to love. He has made us with free will and knows whether what our will is will, because he knows our hearts even more than we do. It does not mean that some were designed to not love him, he speaks to everyone, but not everyone will. And God does not live within time, rather he created it.
Conclusion: Is there really a choice then? I say yes, because just because he knows what we will do, does not mean he put it there.
me: uhm you clearly misunderstand my arguments. i dont know how you think predictability plays into it. it doesnt read my 2nd argument again and read the link in that argument. summarize my arguments to me before you try to refute them so i can clear up any misunderstanding. just go read argument 2 again and then read this. http://ablogofmar.blogspot.com/2011/08/elaboration-on-argument-2-some-things.html
i think you summarizing it might take too much time so dont bother if you really dont want to. i just want to get these misunderstandings out of the way. im not saying that his knowledge makes it so there is no free will, my argument is that there is no possibility of free will even existing because if there is a future to be known, and god knows it, then its predetermined. thats it. if my all my actions are known before i have made them, then i have no free will. and god must exist within the timeline if he omnipresent. he must necessarily exist inside and outside of time because if he doesnt, then he isnt omnipresent and you have absolutely no way of saying he doesnt exist anywhere, i have the "omnipresent" way of saying he exists everywhere.
so go read again please and then try to refute it because im pretty sure i just cleared up your unintentional straw mans
him: Perhaps, I didn't clarify what my position was as well. See, I am disregarding the validity of your argument because free will and foreknowledge do not cancel one another, because knowledge by itself (without any action on that knowledge) does not control. If it did then you are correct, but the fact remains that it doesn't. Also, if you would like to prefer that God exist inside and out of time, thats fine and probably accurate, but the Christian believes that he has dominion over it and is not subject to it's laws (of course with the exception of Jesus, but he is a huge list of exceptions in the play). So far, both of your arguments have been based off of semantics subject to definition and mistranslation. It might help me if you summarized your arguments to key points, but I digress. I haven't read your link yet so I will give you enough credit for that, so I will read it now and send another response, but I think I understand your position.
me: 1 god is omnipresent and omniscient.
2. therefore he exists everywhere and knows everything.
3. therefore he exists everywhere inside and outside of time. he knows the future and everything that will ever happen has already happened from his perspective.
4. if everything has already happened before anybody had a chance to do it from their inside time perspective, then they dont have free will because they must be set on a path to do the things that have already been done.
i explained this in my elaboration on argument 2 but i dont think you read it because you would have a clear understanding of my argument.
what im not saying: god is subject to time. foreknowledge dictates action.
him: I read your elaboration but there is a part of truth you refuse to accept and it is exactly what you say you are not saying. Foreknowledge does not dictate an action. To control someones will is to negate free will. Think on that for a day or so and really don't let your contradiction sink back in. Think with me... free will = what dictates free will? Did we say God has determined someones destiny? No, all we said is he knows what the people will do... we agree on this. If I know what you are going to do does that mean I made you do it. Of course not, in the same, just because God knew what you were going to do doesn't mean he made you do it. You are in control as we physically observe, but the God I talk about does not assume control. Controlling and predestination are not the same thing, and hardly predestination isn't relevant to who God is. If you still think I don't get it let me explain what I have done. I have read your claim that God has predetermined free will because at both ends of time he exist and because he sees what happens at the beginning and the end, you assume the choices you made were not your choice. Incorrect. I'm telling you to look at it this way instead of clinging to your half-logic. See it that way and see the other side of the argument. I just don't think you want to hear it.
me:1 god is omnipresent and omniscient.
2. therefore he exists everywhere and knows everything.
3. therefore he exists everywhere inside and outside of time. he knows the future and everything that will ever happen has already happened from his perspective.
4. if everything has already happened before anybody had a chance to do it from their inside time perspective, then they dont have free will because they must be set on a path to do the things that have already been done.
i explained this in my elaboration on argument 2 but i dont think you read it because you would have a clear understanding of my argument.
what im not saying: god is subject to time. foreknowledge dictates action.
im sorry for such a long message. im sorry for not explaining it enough. you really arent understanding, thats the problem. maybe its because im not explaining it well enough which is why i apologized for that. im saying there is no free will. its not predetermined, its just not there at all. my choice was made before i was even born, thats not free will. I AM NOT SAYING FOREKNOWLEDGE DICTATES ACTION! you are drawing a casual line that is not part of my argument. i discussed this same thing with somebody else. im not saying his knowledge dictates what i do, im inferring that i have no free will because i infer that everything was predetermined since the universe was created which is inferred from god knowing the future.
god creates the universe and knows the future. i infer there is a future to be known and thats how he knows it. if the future were not x, then he would not have knowledge of the future being x. x is anything that is on the timeline, all choices and actions by anybody. there is a timeline. the future is there, so im unwittingly just following the transparent footsteps before me. the future is decided, i havent chosen x now and yet my actions and thoughts were predetermined to happen due to the nature of time which resulted from the universe being created.
so, i infer from gods knowledge of the future, that there is a set timeline by which everything is fulfilling, a predetermined set of things that will happen within time starting from the beginning of the universe to whenever it ends if it does. ITS INFERENCE! im inferring this from the asserted attributes of your claimed god., im not making a causal connection. being that all everything that would ever happen was predetermined since the beginning of time, that negates free will. im saying free will is negated, its not there at all, its impossible, it cant exist due to the nature of the universe. the way the universe is dictates the nature time which is within the universe, the nature of time (being that everything is following a predetermined path and has been since the beginning of time)
the nature of time makes free will impossible. there is no choosing because i was set to make those choices before i existed. they arent even choices, everything i will ever do just is, it just is, thats it. my actions are just there. so the nature of time negates free will. and who designed the universe and time? according to you, god did.
my argument.
1. god knows everything.
2. god created and designed time and the universe.
3. god knows everything that is within time.
4. therefore the nature of time is such that everything is set on a predetermined path since the beginning of time.
5. if everything was predetermined before i existed then free will doesnt exist.
6. given 2, 4, and 5, god is responsible for my lack of free will.
in your counter you said "controlling and predestination arent the same thing" i agree, but in my original argument, i wasnt saying he controlled our actions, im just arguing that we dont truly have free will. to control, something must have the ability to control. im arguing that the nature of time makes free will impossible if god exists, im arguing this from the inferences i make about the nature of time from gods foreknowledge. im not drawing a causal connection between foreknowledge and no free will. im drawing a causal connection between time and no free will and then pointing out the causal connection between god and time because he created time according to your theology. then im showing you the link.
so foreknowledge---> inference about the nature of time.
nature of time----> causal connection to impossibility of free will.
god----> causal connection to the nature of time.
thats how my argument works. foreknowledge dictating free will is no where in there.
and here is another argument: our thoughts are essentially molecules interacting. all of our brain and us is made of molecules. at the smallest scale, molecules are never truly random. they are deterministic. given this, all our actions are deterministic. we are set to do things before we do them. clockwork is the same. you wind up a clock and it ticks. each tick is determined to happen before it does. our actions are determined before they do because our thoughts are determined before they do in the same way that the clock is. would you say a clock has free will? the clock on at its most basic level, is the result of molecules moving. our thoughts and actions, are the result of molecules moving. molecules are deterministic, therefore we have no free will.
and here is another one: god created the first humans, adam and eve. humans cannot make decisions if they dont have decision making processes. therefore god must have designed the decision making processes of adam and eve, or if you dont believe that, he designs them for every human, or if you dont believe that, he designed whatever evolved into us, he also designed how genetics is transferred and how we are conceived, since he designed whatever comes before us, and since whatever comes before us is determined by what came before them and their genetics, and given that god designed both the original, and the genetics, he is responsible for our actions. i am the result of my genetics and environment. all of my environment and the environment for every living thing that has existed was ultimately decided by god, and given that genetics were too, god is ultimately responsible for our decision making processes and therefore our decision making processes are not our own and therefore our free will isnt really ours. its just one that god gave us.
if you design how a robot works, everything about it, how its processes work, and you design the environment it will operate in and you set it to operate by itself, and you know everything it will do since before you created it, then when it does something, is it responsible for what its doing? replace robot with human. we dont control our decision making processes because we arent responsible for what brains we have and we arent responsible for the environement we are in. in this argument im presenting, are actions are ours but the we arent responsible for the processes which lead to our actions, we arent responsible for the processes which dictate our reasoning and thoughts, so our actions arent the result of our will because our will is really just what we choose, our chocies are the result of processes we arent responsible for, therefore our actions arent the result of our free. we dont even have free will if everything that leads to our actions isnt our responsibility. and from there the only responsibility you can give to us for our actions is the movement of our muscles. and even they are the result of processes we dont control or are responsible for (they are synonymous in the way that im using them).
given that everything is on a set path, we arent in control or responsible for the processes which lead to our thoughts and actions, how do we have free will? if you really are able to explain how we have free will, please do. what is free will? just what we choose? what we want to choose? if we arent responsible for the precursors to our actions then how can we be responsible for our actions? my thoughts and reasoning wasnt chosen by me was it? are they my responsibility? i am only what is in my mind am i not? am i responsible for any part of my mind? what comes before dictates what comes after right? my mind since i was born was the result of environment and genetics, both of which i am not responsible for.
so PLEASE TELL ME how i have true free will.
i am the one doing the actions and the choosing in the third argument, but im just doing them. just as a computer does what its programmed to do, i am as well.
again, given the above 3 or 4 arguments, how do i have free will?
god created everything that came before me that lead to me being, everything that anybody is results from what was before.
you say im using "half logic" but your only argument is "its you choosing" and my counter to that even if i believed that were the case (which i dont) is "am i responsible for how i choose? am i responsible for the beginning of the processes that result in my actions?"
if you say yes then tell me how. if you say no then you admit my free will isnt mine and that true free will doesnt exist.
on a side note, in society, whether or not god exists, people should be held accountable for their actions because the survival of society and function of it depends on it. the us having free will and us not truly having it really doesnt change anything with regard to how we act. when i "choose" something, i dont act as if its not my choice. i accept responsibility for it only because thats how society functions. thats how we work. if somebody kills and then says "i was predetermined to do it and im not really responsible" he may be right but if we just let him go and dont hold him accountable, then our society would fall. nobody wants a killer or somebody not being held responsible for what they do. its just how we work.
oh and also, dont say "well then why are you bothering in discussion with me if im going to believe what im gonna believe?" my actions may be predetermined and so may yours, however it doesnt mean i cant still affect you. my predetermined actions may be predetermined to affect yours, like gears turning and causing each other to turn.
sorry for such a long post, its just that you havent pointed out any real flaws, everything that you have said that you think is a flaw in my reasoning is you failing to fully grasp the entirety of what im trying to convey. i have thought about this and reasoned through it for two years now. it will be three years in two months. i dont think about it all the time but i do think about it whenever something like this comes up or when my mind wanders, which is a lot. you want me to think about it but i have.
him:With what you say, I'm not surprised you believe what you do, but you still have drawn an unwarranted conclusion. you have assumed predetermination as truth because you have thought about it long enough to decide that is true. the molecules in your mind don't dictate your actions, and human intelligence is not accounted for within the brain as far as I know, and if you have a chemical explanation that shows the actions the brain makes in decision making, then I would like you to show me the case study because that claim is sort of random and as far as I know undocumented by you. Either way, you still only (and admit) to everything you say being off of inference. Look, what you believe is that you are simply effected by the environment you are put in if God is not there. You believe your choices are not your own, and you simply react to everything around you. This is a fair belief I would say given your world view, that society must move on and for society to progress the weak must and will perish. To be 100% honest with you, I cannot explain how God is able to give free will to us while knowing what we do. Yes he created us and has a plan, but we can deviate from that. Of course the only way I can really explain this is that God is not subject to the linear timeline you and I understand. See this is part of the omnipotent factor of God. He is not subject to the laws he creates, and if one is to stubborn to accept that, or simply not love him because of it, then that is his choice. But understand this because this may seem like me stepping down but its not. Truly, you have spun a paradox that God is not subject to because he is beyond or physical realm. I think you understand that though but still try to place him in that physical realm when he is not there. Does that make sense? I think you are really looking inside the box for something that is outside of the box with this argument. That's what I mean by half-logic, you have narrow vision to what is possible because you have decided that only "x" is possible, when that is not true. You are just trying to create a contradiction that simply isn't there by looking at it from a faded lens, blending the inside and outside of the box by your own judgement of where that line is, where really, you can't see it, so you don't know whether it even exist. Of course
me:OOOOHHHH i get what youre trying to say now. youre saying that im asserting attributes about god for the sake of my argument right? well see the thing is, im only using the definition of god within your theology. omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, and ultimately perfect. that is the attributes of the judeo christian god right? i use omniscience and omnipresence as well as a bit of omnipotence for my argument. omnipresent means exists everywhere. omniscient means knows everything. so knows the future and exists at every point inside of time and outside. if you are christian, then this is the god you believe in. correct me if im wrong. if its the god you believe in, then my argument is valid against you.
as for the second part of your argument. your argument can be summarized in full as "you have free will." i just demonstrated how i dont and you just say "yes you do".
give me your definition of free will.
him:Really you have consistently drawn the line that isn't there. I really don't like to accuse people of just not getting it because it seems very arbitrary, but really I don't think you get what I am saying at all. You are consistently drawing the line that God is __________. God is this thing that you make him out to be for the convenience of your argument. Understand the viewpoint you argue with is not formed by you, this is arguing with yourself. What you need to understand is when you refute an argument, you don't refute the one you expect me to believe. You refute the one I SAY I BELIEVE. If you don't see yourself doing this then let me explain, you have transfered you understanding of who God is onto someone who knows that God is not like that, but you still hold me subject to your own invalid interpretation. You description of God is based off of what you think he should be like, not what he IS like. Just like I can't tell you what you believe (which I haven't and I have made it clear to you in every message that all I did was infer based off of experiences with other people and correlations you have with them.) But I have not told you what to believe as you have dictated me to.
Here is your free-will that is relevant to what God allows you to control. You have the choice to choose him or not, and everything else he is in control of. You get to look at God at the end of the day and decide whether you love him or not. If you say no I don't, thats your choice you made, if you say yes I do, then that is your choice you made. You talk like a behaviorist who believes that all decisions in life are effected by the environment. Since you recognize that God is in control of that environment, you infer it is directive to your choice. That is not true, because to God who gives things worth, the only choice that matters to him is whether you choose to love him or not, and this goes unaffected by the environment. You can blame things that happened to you and say they were God, but with that being "true" in your mind, you will fail to realize that he only wants good for you, and as far as an active God is concerned, he actively shapes to protect and create good, and any wrath is directed towards evil. MANY arguments within this topic, but I will digress to let you digest it. (By the way, I hope you see the relevance to your argument, Free-will is whether you choose God or not, not free-will to do as you please, because that would make us all powerful, and we are not that.)
Okay, Free will is the choice to decide what you will do. The environment you are subject to in your life is dependent on your will to choose God or not. If you do so, his will works for you, if you do not, his will works for you still... but against your own will because there is a will he designed you for (sorry if my language is directive), and thats what he wants for you.
Now the God I believe in has FULL omnipotence, not just a "little bit." He can do all things you deem impossible, and defy human logic despite the fact it doesn't make full sense. But what God would be worth worshiping if we could nail him to something... thats no God at all, thats a man.
For the sake of your argument, I would suggest conforming to this ideal to see where I am truly coming from. Then try to refute it based off of your inferences. It is not possible for you to understand, as well for you to not accept. In other words, God not only lives outside of and inside of time, but in and outside of human logic. You will call this an unacceptable argument and say that leaves God untestable. Scientifically speaking that is true, but this is not a matter of science, but deciding whether or not he exist based of off who he says he is. What you have consistently failed to see is omnipotence even to a point of defying human logic. So yes, you did assert attributes about God for the sake of your argument, by assuming my standing and a false pretense of who God is.
Now for your argument, how do you define determinism, because determinism based off of cause and effect (your cause: God created man, your effect: man (being that he is as created by God) acts upon who he is. Since God created man, and man acts off of who God created him to be because that is who he is, then man's will must be God's will. This is a logical thought, but you can look at man today and say, well surely there are men who do not fulfill what God's will would be, so you conclude that, since some men do not reflect who God's character is then you can decide 1 of 2 things: 1) God does not exist because if he created man, they should reflect his "perfect will." 2) God can exist, but he is a liar and not who he says he is (loving, creator of good) because he obviously created some man to be evil.
This all makes sense IF you do not give man the free will he IS credited to have. If you do then it becomes only one solution: 1) God exist and created man with a free will to choose what God wants. If man does not choose God's will, then man has created a deviation from God's nature (which is how Good is judged) and created evil. So, man created the evil and not man, and because God has all the power to escape man's understanding, all man has to understand is he did. The why? Because God knows that a revelation of who he is at maximum would overpower man's free-will and they would choose him just for that, and he want's the choice to be purely free and unforced. If God gave something that man could nail him to, not only is he not worth worship, but he has negated his desire for man to humble himself so God can remove the sin in his life and make man pure. Then God reveals. For a Christian, the how is not important because it is negated by omnipotence.
All that matters is why.
me: if god exists i would agree with that. he is inside and outside of our logic and it does make it a untestable claim. when did i try to apply my logic to him during this second argument? also, i do apply my logic to him in other arguments but its because im treating it as a claim. you're doing exactly what i said many theists do. that comment that started this. in order to keep my arguments from refuting their belief, they say "god is above our minds" or "you cant apply logic to god" but to me its a claim and im applying logic to the claim of god in my other arguments. i would end the conversation right here if it were another argument, but argument 2 is special in that it uses the posited attributes of the god of your theology to infer things about the nature of time that would make free will impossible. so, do not, DO NOT say that my argument fails because i cant apply logic to god, THE ONLY THING im using that has to do with god is omniscience and omnipresence. even omniscience alone would work but omnipresence makes my argument stronger.
"So yes, you did assert attributes about God for the sake of your argument, by assuming my standing and a false pretense of who God is."
this is what pisses me off. you have claimed my argument doesnt work because im asserting whatever about god. I AM NOT!
does your theology and religion and do you believe that god is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, eternal, and perfect?
yes: then you have no objection because im only using your asserted attributes to god for my argument. your theology claims there is a god and it asserts things about him. in my argument, im using two of the things it asserts (omniscience and omnipotence) to make inferences about time and to demonstrate we have no free will. my understanding or lack thereof about god doesnt matter. IM NOT SUBJECTING YOUR CLAIMED GOD TO LOGIC OR REALITY. nothing is being put on him except for he created the universe. that is literally the only thing my argument asserts about him.
so stop saying my argument doesnt work due to me asserting things about him because im not. the argument still works and has yet to be refuted in any way. your only objection is that im making assertions about god.
the part about determinism is not my argument. not even close. the only part you got right was god created man.
correct me if im wrong.
god created man and designed everything about man. your definition of free will is the ability to decide what to choose. you believe we should be held accountable for our choices. you believe we have original sin. tell me what you believe the origin of sin is please. you believe that if we dont choose god then we cannot be absolved of sin. you believe not being absolved by sin will lead to us going to a place called hell when we die. hell is a place if eternal torment. heaven is where we go when we die if we are absolved of sin. free will is the method by which we are able to choose god or not. free will is "purely free".
i have a few questions before i can provide a knock-down argument.
what is the soul? is it who we really are? what purpose does it serve? what part of us is it responsible for?
does god design us all individually or did he design us all individually? simply, are we all individually designed? if so then to what extent?
what makes us who we are? would you agree that genetics and our environment are the determining factors in who we become?
if not then explain why or if there is other factors then give them and explain why.
im attempting to refute free will here even though i already did with argument 2 but it seems you are struggling to understand it since you keep saying it doesnt work because im asserting things. so i will refute it another way
oh and i define predetermination as something that is inevitably going to be.
him: Now you say that you only use omnipresence and omniscience in your argument to hold your argument. Let me clear up the misuse you are doing. IF THE GOD I BELIEVE IN IS OMNIPOTENT AND YOU SEE THAT THAN YOU HAVE TO ACCOUNT FOR THIS WHILE MAKING YOUR ARGUMENT. You analyze omnipresence and omniscience by themselves and disregard omnipotence which you know you claim. THIS IS THE HALF LOGIC I'M TALKING ABOUT. You only look at half of the claim and decide because you can refute two characteristics that the third does not have to be analyzed. But look again, you can't just pick God's character apart because that has an effect on your perception of who he is while you argue. This is while when arguing against it you have to assume he does exist so you don't mistakenly pick it apart. See, omnipresence and omniscience may help your argument and alone you would be right, but you only look at those and fail to recognize omnipotence. If you order a ham and cheese sandwich and only get cheese, there is obviously something wrong, but put the ham back in and it taste alright again.
On to your own questions: The soul and the spirit are not the same thing, I assume you mean spirit and not soul but I will explain both just to make sure. The SOUL is a physical part of your being that accounts for your emotions. When you feel sad, angry, stressed, flustered, happy, etc.. it is your feelings. Spirit is the eternal being within man that God has created like him. It is the spirit which makes a choice (often based off of the feelings the soul has).
Biblically the question you ask about design is unexplained. Most people don't really ask this question because it is a how question not a why question. But I do know that God has a plan for everyone's life, and therefore I might infer that he makes us individually, but we are created with a will God desire's for us, depends on our choices whether or not we fulfill that will.
What makes you who you are is the choices you make, if you believe environment and genetics dictate you then you have little count for spirit. The man who feels like he should stay in bed, but because he cares about his family gets up and goes to work is what makes his decision, not the comfort of his bed, nor his tendency to sleep, but his desire to love his family is what he chooses. Do you believe that his family is an environmental influence? Sure... but say he gets out of bed just to please God? Is God an environmental influence? Depends on your definition of environment, if your environment is strictly sensible then no, but otherwise yes.
Now I see where you are going with these questions, but that is the mystery of god's ways we accept purely on the fact that he is omnipotent. Omnipotence is what makes your argument invalid. Don't eat the sandwich without the meat, eat the whole sandwich.
me: i just facepalmed. im not trying to refute any characteristics of god.
the key to your world view is free will.
i refuted free will.
i do this through inference from the asserted attributes of your claimed god.
im only using omniscience and omnipresence for the argument. omnipresence has no affect on the argument. im not even saying hes not omnipotent. im not mentioning omnipotence because it doesnt matter AT ALL to my argument and so i dont mention it. just because i dont mention it doesnt mean im saying hes not omnipotent.
explain to me the flaw in my argument.
things i am not saying in the argument:
foreknowledge dictates action.
asserting anything about god other than he created the universe.
as for the soul being responsible for emotion, its pretty much been proven that emotion is chemicals in the brain, why do you think women get weird because of their ridiculous amount of hormones? i guess the hormones have nothing to do with it because its the soul apparently.oh and if its physical then it must be measurable, and yet we have absolutely no evidence that such a thing exists.
you said earlier that people can deviate from gods plan. if he knows everything they will do, then i think he would know making plans is pointless. andhow would any plan he makes fail if he has power over everything? and how can you contend we have choices when i just demonstrated that free will is impossible and you have yet to refute my argument or even make any sound objections?
refute my argument before you assert we have choices. i do believe the environment you grow up in and genetics determine your decision making processes. we have no control over what determines our decision making processes, and therefore we arent truly accountable for our decisions. the man who gets up to work even though he feels he should stay in bed doesnt need to be accounted for because both those things account for him. it does account for spirit. literally the only the objection you had was "it doesnt account for spirit" you didnt explain how it doesnt even though it does.
you sort of danced around the questions and tried to argue against what i was asking even though they were questions so i will never mind that and lets just stick to the argument.
explain exactly how argument 2 is unsound.
i dont understand your sandwich analogy. but it doesnt matter because omnipotence doesnt make my argument invalid because im not subjecting god to any logic. explain how omnipotence makes my argument invalid.
him: Omnipotence means to be all powerful. This includes the power to create a free will, know what people will do, and still have a plan for them to return to his original plan. It simply defies the logic you understand, but that is all it is. Argument 2 excludes this as a possibility because it defies your logic. So your argument only nitpicks at two particular characteristics of God, when it should look at all of them because all of them have an effect on the free will argument. This is why argument 2 is unsound in its judgement.
me: what the hell are you talking about?
"This includes the power to create a free will, know what people will do, and still have a plan for them to return to his original plan"
i dont even understand what youre saying, mainly with the last to parts.
him:Unlimited and all powerful. The definition of omnipotent. Do you think these chain of events cannot exist in this scope omnipotence? If God has POWER to defy human logic, than he has power to do things we do not understand. Thats all there is to it. It really is a stalemate of belief.
me: sure, omnipotence has the power to defy our logic. how does that have any bearing on my argument?
him: Let me say it like this, even though God knows our past present and future, and he can be on all sides of it at once, at the same time, he is powerful to make free will possible to work within time to adjust for his will as need be, (even that last statement I'm not sure of, I can't be, because I am not there to see how). I can only nail God to that he is actively shaping the world so we are drawn closer to him. I know he just does it in his own way. You might see this as me saying he is above all of our ways and we can not understand, and you would be right. In the same way that we cannot grasp infinity, its simply out of our reach. But just because we can't understand it does not prove that it is not the way. So maybe you're right... we can't really understand the overruling of logic because we are within logic, not outside of it. Well... if you are not satisfied with that
me:alright i concede. your articulation now makes sense. but do you understand how silly it is? i mean you must understand its the ultimate cop-out right? its a great way to cover up a lie. "I can tell you but i'd have to kill you" "i it only doesnt make sense because you dont understand". YOU ARE DOING THE EXACT SAME THING I ORIGINALLY SAID THEISTS DO WHEN I POINT OUT A FLAW! "god is above our minds". i mean really youre just accepting something that doesnt make sense and then making an excuse for it and thinking it makes you justified in still believing it. "oh it doesnt matter if it doesnt make sense because he is above our senses". your best argument was for me to just "try it". i refuse. this has once and for all gave me reason not to try it again.
i have argued with hundreds, literally hundreds of theists. almost all of them that even understood the arguments i was making, said the same thing you are saying. i remember you asking what i have to lose by trying it and i thought of saying this but didnt think i was justified, now i know i am justified. i have my rationality, my logical reasoning, logic is the only true connection we have with reality, its the only way we determine what is truly real. nothing else does it. with everything we believe and do we use reasoning, even now you were doing mental backflips to come up with an excuse for your nonsensical belief and the only thing you could come up with is "it doesnt have to make sense because god is above it". I'LL BE DAMNED before i choose to sacrifice my only connection to reality in order to believe something.
your beliefs do not make sense and you must admit this, you have to, there is no other way around it. you cant say that when i point out a flaw and you say logical contradictions dont matter. you talked about me using half logic but what about you? your only way of dispelling opposition is that they cant apply logic to your beliefs! what kind of logic is that!?
the only way i can think somebody can be so content believing something that doesnt make sense is with self-delusion, lack of regard for reason, and not caring much for the truth. i shall never surrender my mind to believe something that wont matter until im dead anyway. i intend to live this life as rationally and morally as i can, and since my actions are affected by my beliefs, and since reason is necessary for good moral basis, i will not believe your religion.
i care about my life and how my actions might affect the lives of others too much for me to just allow my actions to be dictated by irrationality.
on a side note, i always like how christians tell me "im just to prideful to humble myself before god" yeah thats right. if i dont bow down on my knees then he wont even show himself. and showing himself would apparently be worth more than everything in the world if your theology is true. thats like a tyrant dont you think?
"if you bow down before me and declare me your master and you will get everything you want, you just have to humble yourself thats all. just declare me your master and live how i want you to live and you will get everything you could ever want. but if you dont, then you will be tortured forever."
yeah i refuse to bow to tyrants, so even if god did exist, i still wouldnt worship him, i have too much honor and pride in my will to stand up to tyranny. i would rather burn forever and bow before a cruel, unjust, tyrannical being who lets people suffer just because they dont do what he wants. just because he refuses to show himself to people who dont sacrifice the logic and reason to believe in him even though he supposedly gave them logic and reason.
its just a cruel test to see how well we can discard our rationality. its sick and i refuse.
him:Well I'll let you know a couple of things. 1st off, if you were using full logic with me, you would have concluded this notion of nonsense in the first place. Yes, it doesn't make sense, and I will concede to that. I'm sorry if I have solidified your standpoint any further, and all other sorts of things irredeemably fallacious. But I have to tell you something else, though logic in our minds does make sense, what if the question resolves to is it perfect. Only in our minds it is, and unfortunately it is a tricky card I'm going to play here is to question the validity of human reasoning in the first place. Granted this could crumble my own position from your point of view (to say if I don't believe in reason, then what reason did you have to come up with that reason in the first place?) It's not that, what I'm saying is that in inductive reasoning, we close our minds to the impossible because of our cling to reality. Do you believe if you believed in a God, it would strip you of all known ties to reality you have? It would seem that way, and it is true that you have your life to lose, but what is there to gain. In a world where life is random, to randomness it would return. If we die and there is nothing to be gained after death, then why ever live in the first place? To live life to preserve something you believe will inevitably be destroyed anyway? If you truly cling to this sense of reality, then you jeopardize your reality by remaining here. Slippery slope fallacy coming up, but wouldn't it make sense that as long as you remain in the physical world, the more meaningless it becomes to you if you accept death as an inevitable? It's a depressing state of mind to be in... because honestly with this world view (the only one I can infer you would have and make sense), you are simply in it for you. If your sanity is all that matters, then why jeopardize it by further confusing your mind with your emotions. For example, why love someone, if the resolve of this love is temporal? You only have your sanity to lose by staying where you are. See how can you generate a rational purpose for your life if there is nothing to give a purpose? Also life is hard to live, and all we have to cling on are temporal values... so life in term is meaningless.
If you ever turn a Christian to this rational of thinking they do one of two things, die or live life for that temporal enjoyment. Either way both have no hope, and I specifically remember you claiming to a hope, which was temporal. Hope that is not eternal is no hope at all I argue, and you really have nothing to gain. In other words... you rationally have no hope to lose, and no sanity to lose, because you can redeem insanity by this worlds perspective when you embrace pursuing nothing. So my question for you (in spite of all the ones before to help rationalize my train of thought) is do you agree with this rational for life?
here it is.
I noticed you had an extension to the second one (which I have not read yet), but based off what I have read I will give this response...
2) No real assumptions in this one and this is a common and valid argument. As a matter of fact one that I had before I became Christian. The belief that a legitimate Christian has is that God made time (as I mentioned earlier), so he is not bound to it. With this as a possibility for an all-powerful, one must really think against the assumption that God is ruled by time, but rather he rules it. As far as predestination goes, it can coexist with free-will (but you really would not call this predestination). If I illustrate I think you will see it better. If I have a convict who steals all the time, and he goes to jail, what assumption can I make? He probably stole. See, predictability does not imply a predestination. If I can predict you being amazed at a magic trick I made, does not mean I made you to be amazed by it, but rather it is designed to amaze you. See God works the same way, he created the Earth to amaze us, but we can be unamused by our choice. He designed the world so that in end everyone could come to see him and love him. But not everyone does, why? because everyone has the choice.
Summary: God has not made us to love. He has made us with free will and knows whether what our will is will, because he knows our hearts even more than we do. It does not mean that some were designed to not love him, he speaks to everyone, but not everyone will. And God does not live within time, rather he created it.
Conclusion: Is there really a choice then? I say yes, because just because he knows what we will do, does not mean he put it there.
me: uhm you clearly misunderstand my arguments. i dont know how you think predictability plays into it. it doesnt read my 2nd argument again and read the link in that argument. summarize my arguments to me before you try to refute them so i can clear up any misunderstanding. just go read argument 2 again and then read this. http://ablogofmar.blogspot.com/2011/08/elaboration-on-argument-2-some-things.html
i think you summarizing it might take too much time so dont bother if you really dont want to. i just want to get these misunderstandings out of the way. im not saying that his knowledge makes it so there is no free will, my argument is that there is no possibility of free will even existing because if there is a future to be known, and god knows it, then its predetermined. thats it. if my all my actions are known before i have made them, then i have no free will. and god must exist within the timeline if he omnipresent. he must necessarily exist inside and outside of time because if he doesnt, then he isnt omnipresent and you have absolutely no way of saying he doesnt exist anywhere, i have the "omnipresent" way of saying he exists everywhere.
so go read again please and then try to refute it because im pretty sure i just cleared up your unintentional straw mans
him: Perhaps, I didn't clarify what my position was as well. See, I am disregarding the validity of your argument because free will and foreknowledge do not cancel one another, because knowledge by itself (without any action on that knowledge) does not control. If it did then you are correct, but the fact remains that it doesn't. Also, if you would like to prefer that God exist inside and out of time, thats fine and probably accurate, but the Christian believes that he has dominion over it and is not subject to it's laws (of course with the exception of Jesus, but he is a huge list of exceptions in the play). So far, both of your arguments have been based off of semantics subject to definition and mistranslation. It might help me if you summarized your arguments to key points, but I digress. I haven't read your link yet so I will give you enough credit for that, so I will read it now and send another response, but I think I understand your position.
me: 1 god is omnipresent and omniscient.
2. therefore he exists everywhere and knows everything.
3. therefore he exists everywhere inside and outside of time. he knows the future and everything that will ever happen has already happened from his perspective.
4. if everything has already happened before anybody had a chance to do it from their inside time perspective, then they dont have free will because they must be set on a path to do the things that have already been done.
i explained this in my elaboration on argument 2 but i dont think you read it because you would have a clear understanding of my argument.
what im not saying: god is subject to time. foreknowledge dictates action.
him: I read your elaboration but there is a part of truth you refuse to accept and it is exactly what you say you are not saying. Foreknowledge does not dictate an action. To control someones will is to negate free will. Think on that for a day or so and really don't let your contradiction sink back in. Think with me... free will = what dictates free will? Did we say God has determined someones destiny? No, all we said is he knows what the people will do... we agree on this. If I know what you are going to do does that mean I made you do it. Of course not, in the same, just because God knew what you were going to do doesn't mean he made you do it. You are in control as we physically observe, but the God I talk about does not assume control. Controlling and predestination are not the same thing, and hardly predestination isn't relevant to who God is. If you still think I don't get it let me explain what I have done. I have read your claim that God has predetermined free will because at both ends of time he exist and because he sees what happens at the beginning and the end, you assume the choices you made were not your choice. Incorrect. I'm telling you to look at it this way instead of clinging to your half-logic. See it that way and see the other side of the argument. I just don't think you want to hear it.
me:1 god is omnipresent and omniscient.
2. therefore he exists everywhere and knows everything.
3. therefore he exists everywhere inside and outside of time. he knows the future and everything that will ever happen has already happened from his perspective.
4. if everything has already happened before anybody had a chance to do it from their inside time perspective, then they dont have free will because they must be set on a path to do the things that have already been done.
i explained this in my elaboration on argument 2 but i dont think you read it because you would have a clear understanding of my argument.
what im not saying: god is subject to time. foreknowledge dictates action.
im sorry for such a long message. im sorry for not explaining it enough. you really arent understanding, thats the problem. maybe its because im not explaining it well enough which is why i apologized for that. im saying there is no free will. its not predetermined, its just not there at all. my choice was made before i was even born, thats not free will. I AM NOT SAYING FOREKNOWLEDGE DICTATES ACTION! you are drawing a casual line that is not part of my argument. i discussed this same thing with somebody else. im not saying his knowledge dictates what i do, im inferring that i have no free will because i infer that everything was predetermined since the universe was created which is inferred from god knowing the future.
god creates the universe and knows the future. i infer there is a future to be known and thats how he knows it. if the future were not x, then he would not have knowledge of the future being x. x is anything that is on the timeline, all choices and actions by anybody. there is a timeline. the future is there, so im unwittingly just following the transparent footsteps before me. the future is decided, i havent chosen x now and yet my actions and thoughts were predetermined to happen due to the nature of time which resulted from the universe being created.
so, i infer from gods knowledge of the future, that there is a set timeline by which everything is fulfilling, a predetermined set of things that will happen within time starting from the beginning of the universe to whenever it ends if it does. ITS INFERENCE! im inferring this from the asserted attributes of your claimed god., im not making a causal connection. being that all everything that would ever happen was predetermined since the beginning of time, that negates free will. im saying free will is negated, its not there at all, its impossible, it cant exist due to the nature of the universe. the way the universe is dictates the nature time which is within the universe, the nature of time (being that everything is following a predetermined path and has been since the beginning of time)
the nature of time makes free will impossible. there is no choosing because i was set to make those choices before i existed. they arent even choices, everything i will ever do just is, it just is, thats it. my actions are just there. so the nature of time negates free will. and who designed the universe and time? according to you, god did.
my argument.
1. god knows everything.
2. god created and designed time and the universe.
3. god knows everything that is within time.
4. therefore the nature of time is such that everything is set on a predetermined path since the beginning of time.
5. if everything was predetermined before i existed then free will doesnt exist.
6. given 2, 4, and 5, god is responsible for my lack of free will.
in your counter you said "controlling and predestination arent the same thing" i agree, but in my original argument, i wasnt saying he controlled our actions, im just arguing that we dont truly have free will. to control, something must have the ability to control. im arguing that the nature of time makes free will impossible if god exists, im arguing this from the inferences i make about the nature of time from gods foreknowledge. im not drawing a causal connection between foreknowledge and no free will. im drawing a causal connection between time and no free will and then pointing out the causal connection between god and time because he created time according to your theology. then im showing you the link.
so foreknowledge---> inference about the nature of time.
nature of time----> causal connection to impossibility of free will.
god----> causal connection to the nature of time.
thats how my argument works. foreknowledge dictating free will is no where in there.
and here is another argument: our thoughts are essentially molecules interacting. all of our brain and us is made of molecules. at the smallest scale, molecules are never truly random. they are deterministic. given this, all our actions are deterministic. we are set to do things before we do them. clockwork is the same. you wind up a clock and it ticks. each tick is determined to happen before it does. our actions are determined before they do because our thoughts are determined before they do in the same way that the clock is. would you say a clock has free will? the clock on at its most basic level, is the result of molecules moving. our thoughts and actions, are the result of molecules moving. molecules are deterministic, therefore we have no free will.
and here is another one: god created the first humans, adam and eve. humans cannot make decisions if they dont have decision making processes. therefore god must have designed the decision making processes of adam and eve, or if you dont believe that, he designs them for every human, or if you dont believe that, he designed whatever evolved into us, he also designed how genetics is transferred and how we are conceived, since he designed whatever comes before us, and since whatever comes before us is determined by what came before them and their genetics, and given that god designed both the original, and the genetics, he is responsible for our actions. i am the result of my genetics and environment. all of my environment and the environment for every living thing that has existed was ultimately decided by god, and given that genetics were too, god is ultimately responsible for our decision making processes and therefore our decision making processes are not our own and therefore our free will isnt really ours. its just one that god gave us.
if you design how a robot works, everything about it, how its processes work, and you design the environment it will operate in and you set it to operate by itself, and you know everything it will do since before you created it, then when it does something, is it responsible for what its doing? replace robot with human. we dont control our decision making processes because we arent responsible for what brains we have and we arent responsible for the environement we are in. in this argument im presenting, are actions are ours but the we arent responsible for the processes which lead to our actions, we arent responsible for the processes which dictate our reasoning and thoughts, so our actions arent the result of our will because our will is really just what we choose, our chocies are the result of processes we arent responsible for, therefore our actions arent the result of our free. we dont even have free will if everything that leads to our actions isnt our responsibility. and from there the only responsibility you can give to us for our actions is the movement of our muscles. and even they are the result of processes we dont control or are responsible for (they are synonymous in the way that im using them).
given that everything is on a set path, we arent in control or responsible for the processes which lead to our thoughts and actions, how do we have free will? if you really are able to explain how we have free will, please do. what is free will? just what we choose? what we want to choose? if we arent responsible for the precursors to our actions then how can we be responsible for our actions? my thoughts and reasoning wasnt chosen by me was it? are they my responsibility? i am only what is in my mind am i not? am i responsible for any part of my mind? what comes before dictates what comes after right? my mind since i was born was the result of environment and genetics, both of which i am not responsible for.
so PLEASE TELL ME how i have true free will.
i am the one doing the actions and the choosing in the third argument, but im just doing them. just as a computer does what its programmed to do, i am as well.
again, given the above 3 or 4 arguments, how do i have free will?
god created everything that came before me that lead to me being, everything that anybody is results from what was before.
you say im using "half logic" but your only argument is "its you choosing" and my counter to that even if i believed that were the case (which i dont) is "am i responsible for how i choose? am i responsible for the beginning of the processes that result in my actions?"
if you say yes then tell me how. if you say no then you admit my free will isnt mine and that true free will doesnt exist.
on a side note, in society, whether or not god exists, people should be held accountable for their actions because the survival of society and function of it depends on it. the us having free will and us not truly having it really doesnt change anything with regard to how we act. when i "choose" something, i dont act as if its not my choice. i accept responsibility for it only because thats how society functions. thats how we work. if somebody kills and then says "i was predetermined to do it and im not really responsible" he may be right but if we just let him go and dont hold him accountable, then our society would fall. nobody wants a killer or somebody not being held responsible for what they do. its just how we work.
oh and also, dont say "well then why are you bothering in discussion with me if im going to believe what im gonna believe?" my actions may be predetermined and so may yours, however it doesnt mean i cant still affect you. my predetermined actions may be predetermined to affect yours, like gears turning and causing each other to turn.
sorry for such a long post, its just that you havent pointed out any real flaws, everything that you have said that you think is a flaw in my reasoning is you failing to fully grasp the entirety of what im trying to convey. i have thought about this and reasoned through it for two years now. it will be three years in two months. i dont think about it all the time but i do think about it whenever something like this comes up or when my mind wanders, which is a lot. you want me to think about it but i have.
him:With what you say, I'm not surprised you believe what you do, but you still have drawn an unwarranted conclusion. you have assumed predetermination as truth because you have thought about it long enough to decide that is true. the molecules in your mind don't dictate your actions, and human intelligence is not accounted for within the brain as far as I know, and if you have a chemical explanation that shows the actions the brain makes in decision making, then I would like you to show me the case study because that claim is sort of random and as far as I know undocumented by you. Either way, you still only (and admit) to everything you say being off of inference. Look, what you believe is that you are simply effected by the environment you are put in if God is not there. You believe your choices are not your own, and you simply react to everything around you. This is a fair belief I would say given your world view, that society must move on and for society to progress the weak must and will perish. To be 100% honest with you, I cannot explain how God is able to give free will to us while knowing what we do. Yes he created us and has a plan, but we can deviate from that. Of course the only way I can really explain this is that God is not subject to the linear timeline you and I understand. See this is part of the omnipotent factor of God. He is not subject to the laws he creates, and if one is to stubborn to accept that, or simply not love him because of it, then that is his choice. But understand this because this may seem like me stepping down but its not. Truly, you have spun a paradox that God is not subject to because he is beyond or physical realm. I think you understand that though but still try to place him in that physical realm when he is not there. Does that make sense? I think you are really looking inside the box for something that is outside of the box with this argument. That's what I mean by half-logic, you have narrow vision to what is possible because you have decided that only "x" is possible, when that is not true. You are just trying to create a contradiction that simply isn't there by looking at it from a faded lens, blending the inside and outside of the box by your own judgement of where that line is, where really, you can't see it, so you don't know whether it even exist. Of course
me:OOOOHHHH i get what youre trying to say now. youre saying that im asserting attributes about god for the sake of my argument right? well see the thing is, im only using the definition of god within your theology. omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, and ultimately perfect. that is the attributes of the judeo christian god right? i use omniscience and omnipresence as well as a bit of omnipotence for my argument. omnipresent means exists everywhere. omniscient means knows everything. so knows the future and exists at every point inside of time and outside. if you are christian, then this is the god you believe in. correct me if im wrong. if its the god you believe in, then my argument is valid against you.
as for the second part of your argument. your argument can be summarized in full as "you have free will." i just demonstrated how i dont and you just say "yes you do".
give me your definition of free will.
him:Really you have consistently drawn the line that isn't there. I really don't like to accuse people of just not getting it because it seems very arbitrary, but really I don't think you get what I am saying at all. You are consistently drawing the line that God is __________. God is this thing that you make him out to be for the convenience of your argument. Understand the viewpoint you argue with is not formed by you, this is arguing with yourself. What you need to understand is when you refute an argument, you don't refute the one you expect me to believe. You refute the one I SAY I BELIEVE. If you don't see yourself doing this then let me explain, you have transfered you understanding of who God is onto someone who knows that God is not like that, but you still hold me subject to your own invalid interpretation. You description of God is based off of what you think he should be like, not what he IS like. Just like I can't tell you what you believe (which I haven't and I have made it clear to you in every message that all I did was infer based off of experiences with other people and correlations you have with them.) But I have not told you what to believe as you have dictated me to.
Here is your free-will that is relevant to what God allows you to control. You have the choice to choose him or not, and everything else he is in control of. You get to look at God at the end of the day and decide whether you love him or not. If you say no I don't, thats your choice you made, if you say yes I do, then that is your choice you made. You talk like a behaviorist who believes that all decisions in life are effected by the environment. Since you recognize that God is in control of that environment, you infer it is directive to your choice. That is not true, because to God who gives things worth, the only choice that matters to him is whether you choose to love him or not, and this goes unaffected by the environment. You can blame things that happened to you and say they were God, but with that being "true" in your mind, you will fail to realize that he only wants good for you, and as far as an active God is concerned, he actively shapes to protect and create good, and any wrath is directed towards evil. MANY arguments within this topic, but I will digress to let you digest it. (By the way, I hope you see the relevance to your argument, Free-will is whether you choose God or not, not free-will to do as you please, because that would make us all powerful, and we are not that.)
Okay, Free will is the choice to decide what you will do. The environment you are subject to in your life is dependent on your will to choose God or not. If you do so, his will works for you, if you do not, his will works for you still... but against your own will because there is a will he designed you for (sorry if my language is directive), and thats what he wants for you.
Now the God I believe in has FULL omnipotence, not just a "little bit." He can do all things you deem impossible, and defy human logic despite the fact it doesn't make full sense. But what God would be worth worshiping if we could nail him to something... thats no God at all, thats a man.
For the sake of your argument, I would suggest conforming to this ideal to see where I am truly coming from. Then try to refute it based off of your inferences. It is not possible for you to understand, as well for you to not accept. In other words, God not only lives outside of and inside of time, but in and outside of human logic. You will call this an unacceptable argument and say that leaves God untestable. Scientifically speaking that is true, but this is not a matter of science, but deciding whether or not he exist based of off who he says he is. What you have consistently failed to see is omnipotence even to a point of defying human logic. So yes, you did assert attributes about God for the sake of your argument, by assuming my standing and a false pretense of who God is.
Now for your argument, how do you define determinism, because determinism based off of cause and effect (your cause: God created man, your effect: man (being that he is as created by God) acts upon who he is. Since God created man, and man acts off of who God created him to be because that is who he is, then man's will must be God's will. This is a logical thought, but you can look at man today and say, well surely there are men who do not fulfill what God's will would be, so you conclude that, since some men do not reflect who God's character is then you can decide 1 of 2 things: 1) God does not exist because if he created man, they should reflect his "perfect will." 2) God can exist, but he is a liar and not who he says he is (loving, creator of good) because he obviously created some man to be evil.
This all makes sense IF you do not give man the free will he IS credited to have. If you do then it becomes only one solution: 1) God exist and created man with a free will to choose what God wants. If man does not choose God's will, then man has created a deviation from God's nature (which is how Good is judged) and created evil. So, man created the evil and not man, and because God has all the power to escape man's understanding, all man has to understand is he did. The why? Because God knows that a revelation of who he is at maximum would overpower man's free-will and they would choose him just for that, and he want's the choice to be purely free and unforced. If God gave something that man could nail him to, not only is he not worth worship, but he has negated his desire for man to humble himself so God can remove the sin in his life and make man pure. Then God reveals. For a Christian, the how is not important because it is negated by omnipotence.
All that matters is why.
me: if god exists i would agree with that. he is inside and outside of our logic and it does make it a untestable claim. when did i try to apply my logic to him during this second argument? also, i do apply my logic to him in other arguments but its because im treating it as a claim. you're doing exactly what i said many theists do. that comment that started this. in order to keep my arguments from refuting their belief, they say "god is above our minds" or "you cant apply logic to god" but to me its a claim and im applying logic to the claim of god in my other arguments. i would end the conversation right here if it were another argument, but argument 2 is special in that it uses the posited attributes of the god of your theology to infer things about the nature of time that would make free will impossible. so, do not, DO NOT say that my argument fails because i cant apply logic to god, THE ONLY THING im using that has to do with god is omniscience and omnipresence. even omniscience alone would work but omnipresence makes my argument stronger.
"So yes, you did assert attributes about God for the sake of your argument, by assuming my standing and a false pretense of who God is."
this is what pisses me off. you have claimed my argument doesnt work because im asserting whatever about god. I AM NOT!
does your theology and religion and do you believe that god is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, eternal, and perfect?
yes: then you have no objection because im only using your asserted attributes to god for my argument. your theology claims there is a god and it asserts things about him. in my argument, im using two of the things it asserts (omniscience and omnipotence) to make inferences about time and to demonstrate we have no free will. my understanding or lack thereof about god doesnt matter. IM NOT SUBJECTING YOUR CLAIMED GOD TO LOGIC OR REALITY. nothing is being put on him except for he created the universe. that is literally the only thing my argument asserts about him.
so stop saying my argument doesnt work due to me asserting things about him because im not. the argument still works and has yet to be refuted in any way. your only objection is that im making assertions about god.
the part about determinism is not my argument. not even close. the only part you got right was god created man.
correct me if im wrong.
god created man and designed everything about man. your definition of free will is the ability to decide what to choose. you believe we should be held accountable for our choices. you believe we have original sin. tell me what you believe the origin of sin is please. you believe that if we dont choose god then we cannot be absolved of sin. you believe not being absolved by sin will lead to us going to a place called hell when we die. hell is a place if eternal torment. heaven is where we go when we die if we are absolved of sin. free will is the method by which we are able to choose god or not. free will is "purely free".
i have a few questions before i can provide a knock-down argument.
what is the soul? is it who we really are? what purpose does it serve? what part of us is it responsible for?
does god design us all individually or did he design us all individually? simply, are we all individually designed? if so then to what extent?
what makes us who we are? would you agree that genetics and our environment are the determining factors in who we become?
if not then explain why or if there is other factors then give them and explain why.
im attempting to refute free will here even though i already did with argument 2 but it seems you are struggling to understand it since you keep saying it doesnt work because im asserting things. so i will refute it another way
oh and i define predetermination as something that is inevitably going to be.
him: Now you say that you only use omnipresence and omniscience in your argument to hold your argument. Let me clear up the misuse you are doing. IF THE GOD I BELIEVE IN IS OMNIPOTENT AND YOU SEE THAT THAN YOU HAVE TO ACCOUNT FOR THIS WHILE MAKING YOUR ARGUMENT. You analyze omnipresence and omniscience by themselves and disregard omnipotence which you know you claim. THIS IS THE HALF LOGIC I'M TALKING ABOUT. You only look at half of the claim and decide because you can refute two characteristics that the third does not have to be analyzed. But look again, you can't just pick God's character apart because that has an effect on your perception of who he is while you argue. This is while when arguing against it you have to assume he does exist so you don't mistakenly pick it apart. See, omnipresence and omniscience may help your argument and alone you would be right, but you only look at those and fail to recognize omnipotence. If you order a ham and cheese sandwich and only get cheese, there is obviously something wrong, but put the ham back in and it taste alright again.
On to your own questions: The soul and the spirit are not the same thing, I assume you mean spirit and not soul but I will explain both just to make sure. The SOUL is a physical part of your being that accounts for your emotions. When you feel sad, angry, stressed, flustered, happy, etc.. it is your feelings. Spirit is the eternal being within man that God has created like him. It is the spirit which makes a choice (often based off of the feelings the soul has).
Biblically the question you ask about design is unexplained. Most people don't really ask this question because it is a how question not a why question. But I do know that God has a plan for everyone's life, and therefore I might infer that he makes us individually, but we are created with a will God desire's for us, depends on our choices whether or not we fulfill that will.
What makes you who you are is the choices you make, if you believe environment and genetics dictate you then you have little count for spirit. The man who feels like he should stay in bed, but because he cares about his family gets up and goes to work is what makes his decision, not the comfort of his bed, nor his tendency to sleep, but his desire to love his family is what he chooses. Do you believe that his family is an environmental influence? Sure... but say he gets out of bed just to please God? Is God an environmental influence? Depends on your definition of environment, if your environment is strictly sensible then no, but otherwise yes.
Now I see where you are going with these questions, but that is the mystery of god's ways we accept purely on the fact that he is omnipotent. Omnipotence is what makes your argument invalid. Don't eat the sandwich without the meat, eat the whole sandwich.
me: i just facepalmed. im not trying to refute any characteristics of god.
the key to your world view is free will.
i refuted free will.
i do this through inference from the asserted attributes of your claimed god.
im only using omniscience and omnipresence for the argument. omnipresence has no affect on the argument. im not even saying hes not omnipotent. im not mentioning omnipotence because it doesnt matter AT ALL to my argument and so i dont mention it. just because i dont mention it doesnt mean im saying hes not omnipotent.
explain to me the flaw in my argument.
things i am not saying in the argument:
foreknowledge dictates action.
asserting anything about god other than he created the universe.
as for the soul being responsible for emotion, its pretty much been proven that emotion is chemicals in the brain, why do you think women get weird because of their ridiculous amount of hormones? i guess the hormones have nothing to do with it because its the soul apparently.oh and if its physical then it must be measurable, and yet we have absolutely no evidence that such a thing exists.
you said earlier that people can deviate from gods plan. if he knows everything they will do, then i think he would know making plans is pointless. andhow would any plan he makes fail if he has power over everything? and how can you contend we have choices when i just demonstrated that free will is impossible and you have yet to refute my argument or even make any sound objections?
refute my argument before you assert we have choices. i do believe the environment you grow up in and genetics determine your decision making processes. we have no control over what determines our decision making processes, and therefore we arent truly accountable for our decisions. the man who gets up to work even though he feels he should stay in bed doesnt need to be accounted for because both those things account for him. it does account for spirit. literally the only the objection you had was "it doesnt account for spirit" you didnt explain how it doesnt even though it does.
you sort of danced around the questions and tried to argue against what i was asking even though they were questions so i will never mind that and lets just stick to the argument.
explain exactly how argument 2 is unsound.
i dont understand your sandwich analogy. but it doesnt matter because omnipotence doesnt make my argument invalid because im not subjecting god to any logic. explain how omnipotence makes my argument invalid.
him: Omnipotence means to be all powerful. This includes the power to create a free will, know what people will do, and still have a plan for them to return to his original plan. It simply defies the logic you understand, but that is all it is. Argument 2 excludes this as a possibility because it defies your logic. So your argument only nitpicks at two particular characteristics of God, when it should look at all of them because all of them have an effect on the free will argument. This is why argument 2 is unsound in its judgement.
me: what the hell are you talking about?
"This includes the power to create a free will, know what people will do, and still have a plan for them to return to his original plan"
i dont even understand what youre saying, mainly with the last to parts.
him:Unlimited and all powerful. The definition of omnipotent. Do you think these chain of events cannot exist in this scope omnipotence? If God has POWER to defy human logic, than he has power to do things we do not understand. Thats all there is to it. It really is a stalemate of belief.
me: sure, omnipotence has the power to defy our logic. how does that have any bearing on my argument?
him: Let me say it like this, even though God knows our past present and future, and he can be on all sides of it at once, at the same time, he is powerful to make free will possible to work within time to adjust for his will as need be, (even that last statement I'm not sure of, I can't be, because I am not there to see how). I can only nail God to that he is actively shaping the world so we are drawn closer to him. I know he just does it in his own way. You might see this as me saying he is above all of our ways and we can not understand, and you would be right. In the same way that we cannot grasp infinity, its simply out of our reach. But just because we can't understand it does not prove that it is not the way. So maybe you're right... we can't really understand the overruling of logic because we are within logic, not outside of it. Well... if you are not satisfied with that
me:alright i concede. your articulation now makes sense. but do you understand how silly it is? i mean you must understand its the ultimate cop-out right? its a great way to cover up a lie. "I can tell you but i'd have to kill you" "i it only doesnt make sense because you dont understand". YOU ARE DOING THE EXACT SAME THING I ORIGINALLY SAID THEISTS DO WHEN I POINT OUT A FLAW! "god is above our minds". i mean really youre just accepting something that doesnt make sense and then making an excuse for it and thinking it makes you justified in still believing it. "oh it doesnt matter if it doesnt make sense because he is above our senses". your best argument was for me to just "try it". i refuse. this has once and for all gave me reason not to try it again.
i have argued with hundreds, literally hundreds of theists. almost all of them that even understood the arguments i was making, said the same thing you are saying. i remember you asking what i have to lose by trying it and i thought of saying this but didnt think i was justified, now i know i am justified. i have my rationality, my logical reasoning, logic is the only true connection we have with reality, its the only way we determine what is truly real. nothing else does it. with everything we believe and do we use reasoning, even now you were doing mental backflips to come up with an excuse for your nonsensical belief and the only thing you could come up with is "it doesnt have to make sense because god is above it". I'LL BE DAMNED before i choose to sacrifice my only connection to reality in order to believe something.
your beliefs do not make sense and you must admit this, you have to, there is no other way around it. you cant say that when i point out a flaw and you say logical contradictions dont matter. you talked about me using half logic but what about you? your only way of dispelling opposition is that they cant apply logic to your beliefs! what kind of logic is that!?
the only way i can think somebody can be so content believing something that doesnt make sense is with self-delusion, lack of regard for reason, and not caring much for the truth. i shall never surrender my mind to believe something that wont matter until im dead anyway. i intend to live this life as rationally and morally as i can, and since my actions are affected by my beliefs, and since reason is necessary for good moral basis, i will not believe your religion.
i care about my life and how my actions might affect the lives of others too much for me to just allow my actions to be dictated by irrationality.
on a side note, i always like how christians tell me "im just to prideful to humble myself before god" yeah thats right. if i dont bow down on my knees then he wont even show himself. and showing himself would apparently be worth more than everything in the world if your theology is true. thats like a tyrant dont you think?
"if you bow down before me and declare me your master and you will get everything you want, you just have to humble yourself thats all. just declare me your master and live how i want you to live and you will get everything you could ever want. but if you dont, then you will be tortured forever."
yeah i refuse to bow to tyrants, so even if god did exist, i still wouldnt worship him, i have too much honor and pride in my will to stand up to tyranny. i would rather burn forever and bow before a cruel, unjust, tyrannical being who lets people suffer just because they dont do what he wants. just because he refuses to show himself to people who dont sacrifice the logic and reason to believe in him even though he supposedly gave them logic and reason.
its just a cruel test to see how well we can discard our rationality. its sick and i refuse.
him:Well I'll let you know a couple of things. 1st off, if you were using full logic with me, you would have concluded this notion of nonsense in the first place. Yes, it doesn't make sense, and I will concede to that. I'm sorry if I have solidified your standpoint any further, and all other sorts of things irredeemably fallacious. But I have to tell you something else, though logic in our minds does make sense, what if the question resolves to is it perfect. Only in our minds it is, and unfortunately it is a tricky card I'm going to play here is to question the validity of human reasoning in the first place. Granted this could crumble my own position from your point of view (to say if I don't believe in reason, then what reason did you have to come up with that reason in the first place?) It's not that, what I'm saying is that in inductive reasoning, we close our minds to the impossible because of our cling to reality. Do you believe if you believed in a God, it would strip you of all known ties to reality you have? It would seem that way, and it is true that you have your life to lose, but what is there to gain. In a world where life is random, to randomness it would return. If we die and there is nothing to be gained after death, then why ever live in the first place? To live life to preserve something you believe will inevitably be destroyed anyway? If you truly cling to this sense of reality, then you jeopardize your reality by remaining here. Slippery slope fallacy coming up, but wouldn't it make sense that as long as you remain in the physical world, the more meaningless it becomes to you if you accept death as an inevitable? It's a depressing state of mind to be in... because honestly with this world view (the only one I can infer you would have and make sense), you are simply in it for you. If your sanity is all that matters, then why jeopardize it by further confusing your mind with your emotions. For example, why love someone, if the resolve of this love is temporal? You only have your sanity to lose by staying where you are. See how can you generate a rational purpose for your life if there is nothing to give a purpose? Also life is hard to live, and all we have to cling on are temporal values... so life in term is meaningless.
If you ever turn a Christian to this rational of thinking they do one of two things, die or live life for that temporal enjoyment. Either way both have no hope, and I specifically remember you claiming to a hope, which was temporal. Hope that is not eternal is no hope at all I argue, and you really have nothing to gain. In other words... you rationally have no hope to lose, and no sanity to lose, because you can redeem insanity by this worlds perspective when you embrace pursuing nothing. So my question for you (in spite of all the ones before to help rationalize my train of thought) is do you agree with this rational for life?
Ego
When somebody thinks they are better than most people in some aspect, they are generally looked down upon or as having a inflated ego, or as self-deluded. I consider myself pretty wise/intelligent for my age. I'm not a genius and i'm no sage but I think i'm definitely above average in both categories. I think the reason people tend to be disapproving or angry at people who think they're above most others in an area is for a few reasons.
1. the person who has a high opinion of themselves treats others as if they are below them which causes anger.
2. the other person knows they are below them and gets angry because if it.
it can also be a combination of the two. i seriously treat others as if they are below me. yet, people still tend to think that i think i am better than them as a person simply because i am above their level in one area. i am trying to become more and more humble. my wisdom and intelligence are not in all areas, they are actually pretty narrow areas. we are all above another in some area, so lets treat each other as equals. one should not be angry toward another just because they are better than them in an area, because chances are, they are better than each other in different areas. everybody has their niche. dont be mad because another knows their niche.
one last thing. some people do really have an unjustified ego and are self deluded. its important to recognize that some live i delusion and some live in reality when it comes to ego or self-opinion in an area or overall.
one last thing. some people do really have an unjustified ego and are self deluded. its important to recognize that some live i delusion and some live in reality when it comes to ego or self-opinion in an area or overall.
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