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[Sergius]

Anyone who has read the ancient greeks or has any grasp on logic can understand this simple fact:

Predetermination and free will are mutually exclusive.

Free will doesn't mean people can make choices. Free will means that our choices affect the outcome of things.
Predetermination is that everything has been decided by advance.

Omniscience, specifically of the future, implies predetermination (you can't KNOW the future if the future isn't set in stone. Not even a God could... unless he made sure it IS set in stone).

These two concept were the main driving force in nearly all greek plays. Initially it was very popular to have Oracles dictating what would do, and the "heroes" being unable to change that. Even when knowing about it, their attempts to avert the future simply made possible for it to happen in the first place. After that, the concept of Free Will emerged, where, to put it succinctly, the Oracles are full of shit, and the "hero" of the play would be able to challenge their destiny, even if it was written, and cause such change that it didn't play the way it was foretold, but the way they chose.

Of course I can see someone saying "well you can't understand God because you're just mortal and not omniscient. God makes it so even when he knows what can happen we can change what happen, except God knew it all along, so we didn't change it. But we changed it anyway, because he said so. And he must be right."

[Idiom]

Predetermination and free will are mutually exclusive.

Thank you Serius!

If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?
If a person goes with a ham sandwich over turkey for lunch, and someone knew he would, does he still choose his own sandwich?

Of course I can see someone saying "well you can't understand God because you're just mortal and not omniscient.

I'm omniscient. Check this out:
Science has dictated that there is a probability of everything and anything (no matter how small) due to the probabilistic nature of our existence. Therefore I know the future of all the multiverses combined:
Shit happens eventually.
 

"The point is, that god would save us a LOT of negative emotion if..."

Anyone read what Gorjo first contributed?
Lucifer is the benevolent God's right hand man (and complete tool).

That WTF made my day. Thanks Gorjo, that was pretty sweet.

Also that the "knowledge" was that good and evil are not black and white makes way more sense. A God can then allow evil and still be benevolent within some perspectives, enough that he can say he is benevolent, and with God controlling both... it's actually all a little more plausible.

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

Idiom:  well, thats not quite exactly what i said but.......

Sergius:  I said in my original post ( i think, maybe 1 after) about how I am not an adherent to predestination.  But also, predestination and free will are anything but simple logic.

Also, "not even a God could" is a strange statement.  If He is omnipotent, He very well could do anything.  You cant define "G O D" as you do with only omniscience without omnipotence.  They are part and parcel.

Greek Oracles are just poor chicks sold by their family to some dirty/greedy men who get her hopped up on whatever is avaliable (sulfuric fumes in the case of delphi) and let her ramble and babble while they "decypher" the mysteries for the paying marks rubes yokels customers.

Oh, and about that tree falling, yes it makes a sound, but no it doesnt make a noise, and hands off my frakkin sandwich! 

[Sergius]

Sergius:  I said in my original post ( i think, maybe 1 after) about how I am not an adherent to predestination.  But also, predestination and free will are anything but simple logic.

But it is exactly what it is: if you know the future, the future is set in stone. That's IT. You can't just say "well God can make it... not be IT." Anymore than you can refute arguments by saying "God is omnipotent and therefore he can make me be right and you be wrong."

If we go with the notion that there are many possible outcomes, then all God could do is be 25% sure that outcome X would happen and 75% certain that outcome Y could happen, which would make him about as omniscient as the Weather Channel. And if we intend to follow Quantum theory or whatever that all the possible outcomes happen in separate branches of the trousers of time, and God can know all the possible outcomes beforehand, he's still an asshole because he goes around the outcomes that don't have a "choice" about being the "wrong" outcome and acting pissed off and childish at anyone that participated in said outcome. And what about the ones who got it right? He goes there and gives them free candy?

I'm going to have to leave this argument, because seriously I can't argue with people like that. I mean seriously if "God" said "let there be light!" and it remained dark, I can already see the fans claiming that dark is the new light because God says so, and he is omnipotent and he make it so that light is dark, and that people claiming that it is still dark as before is a "strange statement."

Also, "not even a God could" is a strange statement.  If He is omnipotent, He very well could do anything.  You cant define "G O D" as you do with only omniscience without omnipotence.  They are part and parcel.

See above.

[Shoruke]

I get the vibe that I'm not being clear enough. I'll try again.

-Working on the assumptions that god is omnipotent and omniscient
-He made us, exactly as we are.
    -He did not roll d6 to determine our intelligence, he decided it himself
        -he also knew exactly what would happen because of his making our intelligence precisely as it is
    -he made everything else, too
    -he knows precisely how everything in the universe works, and therefore the future

So, because god made everything, and knew precisely how he did it and how it would work, god decided EVERYTHING a long time ago. Us arguing on this forum at this time is a part of that decision, as are any instances of laughter, pain, friendship, hatred, pain, killing, hunger, nuclear explosions, anything. Actually, being omniscient and omnipotent makes god, by definition, utterly incapable of 'randomness'. He knows precisely what he will do and how he will do it, and it's not like he's able to mess up. And anything he did mess up, he did on purpose.

God decided EVERYTHING. Relative to earth and everything on it, we have free will because we can decide for ourselves and make any change we want. (despite that god decided what those decisions and changes would be a few decillion years ago, or more) Relative to god, we have no free will at all, because he decided what we would think about and decide a long, LONG time ago. Saying we have free will is a lot like picking up a ball, saying it has free will to decide where it goes, and throwing it. It doesn't have any free will at all.

If a person goes with a ham sandwich over turkey for lunch, and someone knew he would, does he still choose his own sandwich?

Yes, he chose his own sandwich. However, if the person was actually a robot designed to only eat ham sandwiches and not turkey ones, then no, the robot's programmer chose the ham sandwich.


I don't feel like I'm being 100% clear yet, so here's one last shot. If god is omniscient and omnipotent, then he decided everything that would happen on earth (or off of it) a long time ago. Unless you wish to assume he fucked up somewhere, which is just a little bit contradictory to "omniscient and omnipotent".

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

Sergius & Shoruke:  I see we are at an impasse, as apparently we are all refusing to even consider each others points and just keep beating our own dead horses over and over.  I am sure we think of each other isn't getting the point, which most often happens in religous disagreements, too much vested personal interest to overcome most likely.

That being said, Sergius, your last post didnt make much sense to me.  Not logically or such, just that it seemed like one of those times where our heads are thinking one thing and our fingers typing another.  I have those all the time! 

we should all probably read more on Calvanism and one of its main counterparts, Arminianism, before we continue a discourse about predestination.  People who are, I think, much smarter than us have wrestled with that issue with far better results and arguments than ours.

anyway, God Bless

[Il Palazzo]

I found Sergius' arguments pretty clear.

At the moment, the point of the discussion seems to be: are free will and predestination relative or not(and thus, mutually exclusive)? We're yet to see some proper argumentation for each stance.

Also, I wouldn't like to see this discussion stop, just because there was somebody smarter(probably) thinking about this before. We could kill pretty much kill every argument this way.

[RAM]

Much harm has been caused by actions inspired by religion.
Much of that inspiration is borne of the dismissivness, and other aspects, of the attitudes, both within, and without those who consider themselves religious, that deny that religion.

Much harm is caused by the policy that others should adopt one's own position.

Perhaps it is best, before you ask what is right, and what is wrong, to first ask  if the debate itself is wise and profitable.

[¿]

Perhaps it is best, before you ask what is right, and what is wrong, to first ask  if the debate itself is wise and profitable.

Too late and there's nothing else to do here.

When what I do appears to be my own will to me, and all consequences are as such, what's it matter anyway? Seems irrelevant to me whether or not everything I do is predetermined.