some questions regarding FREE WILL?

Kenworth,

From a Christian perspective, God created all things including time, and 1000 years is the same as a minute, or a minute is the same as 1000 years to God.

God exists outside of the time dimension. Hence God sees all things past, present and future exactly the same way. It is like the universe is a big fish bowl where he sees in, but we don't see out.

When believers are united with God it becomes an eternal "now" event. There is no past or future. Everything is in terms of "now". The reason I know that is because God is not in the time dimension. The souls of the dead, both saved and lost, exist differently from the time dimension we know.

 

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# God has an unchangeable plan for everything past, present & future.
# Everything that occurs past, present and future will be part of God's unchanging plan.
# Thoughts and actions occur and are part of God's unchanging plan.
# Thoughts and actions cannot be anything other than what God has planned.
# Free-will doesn't exist

# God knows infallibly what will occur in the Universe before it occurs.
# God can’t change the future because he knows everything absolutely.
# God has no Free-will

# If God exists, then he is omniscient.
# If God exists, then he is free.
# An omniscient being must know exactly what actions he will and will not do in the future.
# If one knows that he will do an action, then it is impossible for him not to do it, and if one knows that he will not do an action, then it is impossible for him to do it.
# Thus, whatever an omniscient being does, he must do, and whatever he does not do, he cannot do (from 3 and 4).
# To be free requires having options open, which means having the ability to act contrary to the way one actually acts.
# So, if one is free, then he does not have to do what he actually does, and he is able to do things that he does not actually do (from 6).
# Hence, it is impossible for an omniscient being to be free (from 5 and 7).
# Therefore, it is impossible for God to exist (from 1, 2, and 8).

with thanks to infidel guy.

 

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Audible,

Time has not always been here. How does your model fit in a timeless realm?

In Christianiy God has a permissive will and an absolute will. God's permissive will allows man to make choices within the boundaries he specifies. God's absolute will is, as you said, only one choice, but it happens to the best choice. There is only one "best choice", just as there is only one absolute truth.

 

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but if there are boundaries doesnt that mean there isn't free will?

 

1: Reality is the universe, everything herein is nature.
2: The universe is "that which exists"
3: The supernatural is "that which is beyond nature"
4: Thus the supernatural, by definition, is that which does not exist
5: God is a supernatural entity, outside of reality

Moreover, given the modern definition of `God` as the omnipresent creator of the universe;

6: If the God exists, it must exist within the universe
7: Indeed, by definition, it is omnipresent throughout the universe
8: Existence of God is dependent upon prior existence of the universe
9: So the universe had to exist before the God
10: The modern definition of God is a self-contradictory paradox

A thing that doesn`t exist has no influence. It cannot create itself, nor the conditions necessary for its emergence.

 

Ithopal said,

Thank you for thinking about me. Wish me luck on my Six Sigma examination tomorrow. Please say a prayer for me. Yuck Yuck Har Har

The Only problem with the cemetary is I don't get to stay there, and the bible says:

The preaching of the cross is foolishness to those that perish.

Ithopal, The bible had you figured before you were born, and you just can't stand being the executive summary, now can you?

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Audible:

You are going against sciency theory, because the time dimension and the universe have a finite age. It did not always "exist." If it did not always exist, then reality did not always exist according to your argument.

Again, you are going against science theory, big bang, etc.

Your argument loses even if there is no God.

 

ithopal,

Will you pray for me to pass the six sigma examination?

For you , my brilliant ithopal, I have some sample questions to ponder:

Six Sigma Sample Questions

If I pass I will receive my black belt in the statistical martial arts.

I've been thinking about you.

So has God:

Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.

 

The supernatural would be something which has some existence outside of the part of the universe we can describe with scientific means. You are saying that nothing exists which cannot be placed within our measurements, which is a fine disregard for scientific progress, both past and future.

no.
If God exists 'within' the physical universe that we can access with our present science, that does not mean God had to grow out of the physical universe and be preceded by it. Also, the idea that god is completely contained within the physical universe as we know it, does not follow from the idea that the universe is imbued somehow with God's presence.
Your definition of God is a self-contradictory paradox, but it is a one-dimensional fundamentalist ideology, which you use to attack all ideas of God.

 

mustafhakofi: > "Free will. Christians believe that people who do not accept Jesus as the son of God will go to Hell.?"

Battig1370: > FREE WILL? --- Does a child raised in a Muslim Family and Community, or does a child raised in a Hindu Family and Comunity have free will?

Peace be with you, Paul

 

Science Cannot Allow Supernatural
"Given its history and its nature, it's clear that science (a modern form of rational naturalism) cannot allow even one supernatural explanation of natural phenomena - it would then have to be called something entirely different (Natural Theology?). Far worse yet, supernatural explanations -- which are usually inherently untestable, for reason is impotent in the context of miracles -- are supremely easy to concoct, and thus would multiply like viruses and quickly kill science.

a paradox exactly, no it does not attack all ideas of god, it attacks the idea of god.
but it cant be a fundamentalist ideology, it's just a logical arguement.
you cant make it what it's not.

 

Audible said,

Natural laws proove that the universe is not infinitely old. We have covered this in another thread.

Scientists generally conclude the origin of the universe was a "metaphysical" event, where the laws of physics did not exist in their current state. This theory does not require the existence of a god for the atheist ilk. Instead it requires the existence of a parallel universe where antimatter exists.

So as an atheist you can choose the parallel universe with antimatter as the origin, whereas I choose a purposeful creator.

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The choice is yours -- no pun intended.

 

Billy T,

OK, I read your personal data, and you are a PHD physicist. I will answer your questions point for point, since you communicate in this fashion. First of all, try to accomodate the communication styles of others. If you want answers, then you need to be able to listen. For example, you assume I am out of your realm because I said QM stands for quality manager in my lingo. This is just semantics, no big deal (by the way statistics is THE central science for quality professionals). We understand how random events (noise) causes problems in the execution of a plan. With that said, may I take point for point.

Again, if you used the words "fatalism" or "determinism" we would be on the same page. Instead you chose quantum mechanics -- not in my dictionary as a philosophy. The discussion is a semantical argument . You are from Brazil, Is english your native language? I will try to make an allowance.

Yes, I came to that same conclusion as a six year old boy, though I did not look at the atomic level, and I went further -- even if we did have all the knowledge we would not have free will -- this is fatalism. Even if we could go back in time and change what was done in the past, we still would not have free will, because who is to say the new paradigm wasn't predestined to start with, and I was allowed as an agent of change to make the "intended reality" actually take place. I got to play "God" as it were, and yet I had no free will. I no longer hold this belief system that started when I was six years old.

Beauty is in the "soul" of the listener. I thought I made that point clear. Animals have a soul, but it is not the same as a human soul. If you look up the word "soul" in the dictionary, as I originally presented to you, I am being consistent. Like or dislike of a given music is a "soul" issue, and a life's experience issue. For example you might like madonna, but you probably wouldn't want to hear it at your parent's funeral. Again, I gave you this information.

Yes music is an absolute, It is designed to evoke responses from the soul. Whether or not you like a given song shows where your soul stands. This does not prove the God of christianity, it only proves that a soul exists as defined in the dictionary.

There could be life on other planets, I don't know. I believe that God has a "permissive will" and an "absolute will." Those people that can not fit within these boundaries end up in Hell. Those that will fit in the boundaries end up with God in heaven. God can change his paradigm to accomodate His permissive will. Permissive will is influenced by the wants and needs of humans. Hence, christians pray to God for his assistance.

I hope this answers your questions.

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the origins of the universe are just speculative or abstract reasoning, but more feasible, than god did it.
it requires nothing as speculative, as parallel universes, this is pure science fiction, parallel universes are as bad as a belief in god, totally baseless.

 

Question: What was there before God created everything? God, right? What did God create everything from? God, right? If everything is created by Him, from Him; everything is God. The only hell that exists is the hell we "GODS" create for ourselves. By knowing who and what we really are, only then can we have the "self-realization", and just be.

 

Free Will,... hmm.. God didnt give me a choice as to wether or not I wanted to be born. Or the conditions I would be born into? I would have loved to have had a choice.

 

Audible,

You don't think the universe has been around forever do you? If you think it has been around forever, then you disagree with the science community, the big bang theory, etc.

The evidence shows the universe is less than 36 billion years old. So how did it get here? Was it God or was it some metaphysical event other than God?

The science community says it was some metaphysical event other than God.

 

I have'nt said that, but I do disagree with your flawed reasoning,

do you know what metaphysical means(speculative or abstract reasoning), you have to read with your eyes open.

now this next part is only speculative or abstract reasoning, but much more feasible than god did it.
before the big bang the primordial vacuum could have existed forever just waiting for that moment to burst into action.

and I quote from "The Planck Era
Written by Sten Odenwald "http://www.astronomycafe.net/cosm/planck.html

"So, we are left with the remarkable possibility that, in the beginning, there existed quite literally, nothing at all and from it emerged nearly all of the matter and radiation that we now see. This process has been described by the physicist Frank Wilczyk at the University of California, Santa Barbara by saying, " The reason that there is something instead of nothing is that nothing is unstable". A ball sitting on the summit of a steep hill needs but the slightest tap to set it in motion. A random fluctuation in space was apparently all that was required to unleash the incredable latent energy of the vacuum, thus creating matter and energy and an expanding universe from 'nothing at all'.

The universe did not spring into being instantaneously but was created a little bit at a time in a 'bootstrap' process. Once a few particles were created by quantum fluctuations of the empty vacuum, it became easier for a few more to appear and so, in a rapidly escalating process, the universe gushed forth from nothingness.

How long did this take? The primordial vacuum could have existed for an eternity before the particular fluctuation that gave rise to our universe happened. Physicist Edward Tryon expresses this best by saying that " Our universe is simply one of those things that happens from time to time".

The principles of Quantum Gravity may ultimatly force us to reconsider questions like 'What happened before the Big Bang?' because they imply the existence of something (time) that may not have any meaning at all. These questions may be as empty of meaning as an explorer on the north pole asking, 'Which way is North?'. Only the complete theory of Quantum Gravity may tell us how to ask the right questions!. "

does that help you.

 

Audible quoted,

So you are saying it happened before. When? Where? The last time it happened -- what is that like now?

In "nothing" time doesn't exist anymore. How does something happen "from time to time" when time is meaningless. This statement is self-fulfilling like: "I assume therefore it is." Well of course!

Something from nothing, that is not the predominant line of thinking in the science community.

"Metaphysics" is physics that excede our own natural laws. This seems more credible. You should be debating Athelwulf on this subject. I will sit back and enjoy the show.

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Gee.. Never thought I'd see the day Woody of all people argued for good science.

*Snicker*