Atheists: What would be evidence of God’s existence?

[muhammad_isa]

So you're claiming a deity exists that is omniscient, but that it's omniscience is dependant on chance? That sounds like another contradictions to me.

Do you know what omniscience means?
It means that God is aware of everything.
How is God's omniscience dependent on chance?
Explain..

 

[muhammad_isa]

Correct. And it would not be possible to know what's coming in the future were it not already written in stone.

I notice that you haven't replied to my posts, that explain how free-will and a known future are compatible..
I wonder why that would be?

 

[Sheldon]

How is God's omniscience dependent on chance?
Explain..

I didn't make the claim, re-read the exchange. It took me two clicks to get back to the original post from mine that you responded to.

Do you know what omniscience means?
It means that God is aware of everything.

Yes I do, it is defined as the state of knowing everything. So your interpretation is inaccurate.

 

[Trailblazer]

So you're claiming a deity exists that is omniscient, but that it's omniscience is dependent on chance? That sounds like another contradictions to me.

No, I am not saying that.
I am saying that what God knows = what we will choose because God knows what we will choose.
However, what God knows is not the cause of what we will choose. What we will choose is contingent upon our desires and preferences.

Humans have the will/ability to make choices based upon their desires and preferences. Our desires and preferences come from a combination of factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances. How free they are varies with the situation. Certainly what we refer to as “free will” has many constraints. However, we have the ability to make choices.

 

[Sheldon]

So you're claiming a deity exists that is omniscient, but that it's omniscience is dependant on chance? That sounds like another contradictions to me.

No, I am not saying that.

Well that's what you said:

What God knows is contingent [dependent] upon what we choose,

 

[Trailblazer]

Well that's what you said:

That is what said and then I went on to explain what I meant by that.

I said: "What God knows is contingent [dependent] upon what we choose,"

The reason what God knows is dependent upon what we choose is because what God knows is identical to what we will choose.

 

[Sheldon]

what God knows is identical to what we will choose.

So we don't have any other choice then?

 

[muhammad_isa]

So we don't have any other choice then?

Is that supposed to be funny?

"what God knows is identical to what we will choose."

What has the above got to do with chance?
It is what we choose, which is not random.We choose it because we want to choose it.

 

[Trailblazer]

Correct. And it would not be possible to know what's coming in the future were it not already written in stone.

Trailblazer said: If the outcome was predetermined in advance, no choice was made

You said: Correct. And it would not be possible to know what's coming in the future were it not already written in stone.

That's true, but only God knows what is coming in the future because only God knows what is written in stone on the Tablet of Fate.

Everything that God knows is written in stone because God knows everything that has ever happened or that will ever happen, but what God knows does not CAUSE anything to happen. Human free will choices and actions cause things to happen.

You have defined a situation that allows you to believe both that God has omniscience including for the future, and that man has free will as well by simply saying that free will occurred during a predictable chain of events,

I did not say that free will occurred during a predictable chain of events. Nothing is predictable, things happen as we make the choices and cause things to happen. God knows exactly what will happen because God has foreknowledge, but God's foreknowledge does not cause anything to happen. What causes things to happen are human choices and their ensuing actions.

 

[Trailblazer]

So we don't have any other choice then?

I said: what God knows is identical to what we will choose.
I did not say that we could not have chosen anything different.

We had a choice and had we made another choice God would have known we were going to make that choice.

 

[Trailblazer]

Oh dear. You obviously still haven't grasped this.
Under an infallible omniscient god it seems like we choose what we want to choose, but what we feel we want to choose is inevitable because what we "choose" must always be the option that god already knows we will choose.
We are not being forced to choose against our will. There is no sense of coercion.

Oh dear. You obviously still haven't grasped this.
Under an infallible omniscient God we choose what we want to choose. God knows what we will choose because God is omniscient. What we "choose" will always be the option that God already knows we will choose because God knows what we will choose, but God's foreknowledge is not what causes us to make any choice in particular. We can choose whatever we want to because we have free will to choose.

 

[Sheldon]

So we don't have any other choice then?

Is that supposed to be funny?

How so, read what she said?

what God knows is identical to what we will choose.

Ipso facto we would have no choice.

"what God knows is identical to what we will choose."


It is what we choose, which is not random.

That's what she said, though is contradicts what she said previously, however it clearly means we have no other choice.

 

[Sheldon]

I said: what God knows is identical to what we will choose.
I did not say that we could not have chosen anything different.

They're mutually exclusive.

We had a choice and had we made another choice God would have known we were going to make that choice.

SO you're claiming your deity knows what we will choose after we choose it? Well you're back to describing a human now. It's a circle of contradictory claims.

 

[Sheldon]

Under an infallible omniscient God we choose what we want to choose. God knows what we will choose because God is omniscient.

Again this is a rational contradiction. It isn't logically possible for a deity to both know the one choice we will make, and for us to have other choices, they are mutually exclusive positions.

 

[Yerda]

Again this is a rational contradiction. It isn't logically possible for a deity to both know the one choice we will make, and for us to have other choices, they are mutually exclusive positions.

Just out of curiosity, do you suppose an intelligent agent (let's imagine hyperintelligent AI) could know enough about you to predict how you will react in an particular event with something approaching 100% accuracy?

 

[Trailblazer]

Trailblazer said: what God knows is identical to what we will choose.

Sheldon said: Ipso facto we would have no choice.

That does not mean we had no other choice. We had a choice right up until we made the choice.

Explain why you think we could not have made another choice. What was preventing us from making another choice?

 

[Trailblazer]

Trailblazer said: I said: what God knows is identical to what we will choose.
I did not say that we could not have chosen anything different.

Sheldon said: They're mutually exclusive.

No, they are not mutually exclusive because if you had chosen something different God would have KNOWN that you would choose something different.

Trailblazer said: We had a choice and had we made another choice God would have known we were going to make that choice.

Sheldon said: SO you're claiming your deity knows what we will choose after we choose it? Well you're back to describing a human now. It's a circle of contradictory claims.

No, I am claiming that God ALWAYS KNEW what we were going to choose, before and after we chose it and that is why if you had chosen something different God would have KNOWN that you would choose something different.

 

[Sheldon]

Just out of curiosity, do you suppose an intelligent agent (let's imagine hyperintelligent AI) could know enough about you to predict how you will react in an particular event with something approaching 100% accuracy?

What do you mean by suppose? Do you mean can I try and imagine such an entity? Why would I, since there is no objective evidence I would have to disbelieve it, and is it even a falsifiable concept?

 

[Sheldon]

That does not mean we had no other choice. We had a choice right up until we made the choice.

Yes but you claimed it knew which one we would choose before we made the choice. So the other choices would have to be an illusion.

Explain why you think we could not have made another choice. What was preventing us from making another choice?

Well this is your belief not mine, but but you claimed your deity already knew the one choice we would make, and before we made it. thus the other choices you keep claiming we have couldn't be real.

 

[Trailblazer]

Trailblazer said: Under an infallible omniscient God we choose what we want to choose. God knows what we will choose because God is omniscient.

Sheldon said: Again this is a rational contradiction. It isn't logically possible for a deity to both know the one choice we will make, and for us to have other choices, they are mutually exclusive positions.

The whole point is that we had other choices BEFORE we made the one choice that we made.

If we had made another choice God would have known that was the one choice we would make.

Once we make the choice that is when what we chose has to be identical with what God knew we would choose.