I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things

[Tiberius]

That's just more word play.

"You have to choose what G-d knows" is designed to be deceitful, in that it implies that you are forced to choose something when you are not. It's all a silly game.

How can you say there is a CHOICE when God knows the outcome ahead of time? Your attemtps to avoid this simple fact of logic are the silly game.

We have free-will. Legal systems all over the world acknowledge that.

I never said we don't have free will.

If you think that it is not possible for G-d to know what we will choose, then that is the issue .. nothing to do with loss of choice .. the so-called paradox relies on deception.

Actually, if you'd understood anything I've been saying, you'd know that my point is and always has been that the idea of us having free will and the idea of God knowing the future are mutually incompatible. They can't both be true, since they contradict each other.

 

[Tiberius]

It is not. The whole deception revolves around false logic.

Not it is not.

If we have free will and can make any choice we want, then there are many possible options, and the outcome is not determined until the choice is made.

If God knows the future, then there is only one possible outcome, which was determined from the beginning of time.

How is it false logic to say that these two situations contradict each other?

 

[Tiberius]

I have shown how God can be omniscient while we have free will.
You did not even try to understand my pov because you are so sure you are right.

No you didn't. YUou simply asserted it. You gave no explanation at all.

What you did was like claiming that a square and a circle are the same thing by asserting, "Yes, it's a shape that has four equal sides that meet at ninety degree angles, but it doesn't have any corners at all."

I can have my cake and eat it to and I demonstrated how. You ignored everything I posted to you, you did not even respond to it with a counter argument. Instead you came back again with the same argument and a trick question. You cannot refute what I said using logic so you keep coming back with the same old mantra.

Spouting mutually exclusive situations and asserting that they can somehow coexist has nothing to do with logic.

The salient problem is that you don't know anything about God or how God functions, so you cannot possibly understand what it means for God to be omniscient.

Given that even believers have wildly varying ideas about how God works, it seems to me that they are all just making it up as they go.

 

[Tiberius]

That's true. It is not for us to see and we have never seen it. Only God has seen it since He wrote it.

Yah huh.

Do you realise how utterly unconvincing that line is?

In any case, you've just seen that God doesn't need the script. So what's the point of it?

The script is the Book of Life also known as the Tablet of Fate. Most people would not want to see it because they would not want to know what lies ahead, but Baha'u'llah assured His followers that there would be nothing to worry about, no matter what fate befell them in this ephemeral world.

“O thou who art the fruit of My Tree and the leaf thereof! On thee be My glory and My mercy. Let not thine heart grieve over what hath befallen thee. Wert thou to scan the pages of the Book of Life, thou wouldst, most certainly, discover that which would dissipate thy sorrows and dissolve thine anguish.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 132-133

Cool story. You do realise that quoting passages from any holy text to someone who does not believe that holy text is completely useless, right?

That's true too. It was locked in the instant God knew what we'd do, long before we acted out the script.

If our actions were locked in the instant God knew what we would do, then how can we bear any responsibility for our actions?

 

[Tiberius]

@Tiberius wanted to trick me into answering NO so he could prove he was right in his assertion that he has no free will to choose (to wear the BLUE shirt instead of the RED shirt) if God is omniscient.

However, what flies completely over his head is that he could have chosen to wear the BLUE shirt instead of the RED shirt on Friday, and in that case God WOULD HAVE KNOWN on Thursday that he was going to choose to wear the BLUE shirt on Friday.

Sadly, there is only one atheist I know who could ever understand this. I sure wish I had kept his name.

And in that case, God would have said to you on Monday, "Hey, TrailBlazer, I know for a fact that Tibs is going to wear the BLUE shirt on Friday." And then I would be unable to CHOOSE to wear the red shirt.

As usual, you completely miss the point.

If God knows on Monday what shirt I will wear on Friday, then my choice is set and can not be altered.

 

[Triumph]

This was your unevidenced assertions:

This was my response:

I have no idea what this response has to do with your unevidenced assertions above, all you have done is offer more unevidenced assertions?


You claimed that:

1. Our DNA was designed before we started splitting cells to become a Homo Sapiens.
2 It was programed to exist
3. and the programer is called God.

What objective evidence can you demonstrate for those 3 separate claims?

NB Denying or attacking scientific facts like species evolution, doesn't remotely demonstrate any objective evidence for those claims. It is not a choice between your unevidenced claims, and species evolution.

Here you go.

Sheldon, here is another example that shows God exists because prophetic scripture is true.
Isaiah 14:12
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
Genesis 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven"
A fowl is a bird and they fly in the sky above our head, the sky is called Heaven. Firmament is a word that describes firm boundaries. The sky where oxygen exists has a boundary beyond that is outer space. Heaven is not outer space. Heaven just means the place birds, fighter jets and attack helicopters called "locusts" fly. Missiles also are found in heaven taking it by force..

Lucifer falls in the sky, heaven. The morning is created by the Sun that is created by Nuclear Fusion. A son of Nuclear Fusion is a thermonuclear missile that looks like a star rising even in daylight when it is launched and will cause destruction when it hits Earth.
A nation that did not own a nuclear missile felt weak compared to nations that did own them. But once that weak nation attains a nuclear weapon it is used against a nation considered it's enemy.
This 1st nuclear missile launched against another nation starting the final war, nuclear WW3 is called "Lucifer".
Also note this, Capernaum is located on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Luke 10:15
And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell." Hell represents burning destruction.
Biranit is a military camp in northern Israel on the border with Lebanon. It is the headquarters of the Galilee Division of the Israel Defense Forces
On July 14, 2006, the base was hit by Katyusha rockets fired by Hezbollah during the 2006 Lebanon War.
John 3:13
And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven...."
All pilots, angels, that enter the sky, heaven, must come down, back to Earth because pilots need to eat, drink and sleep.

Again, Lucifer is the thermonuclear missile that starts World War 3, the End of Days war.

 

[Tiberius]

You are the one who has not demonstrated anything... you are just riding piggyback on Tiberius who is dead wrong.

Are you claiming/asserting/stating that I am wrong here, or just telling us what you believe without presenting it as a fact?

 

[Trailblazer]

Spouting mutually exclusive situations and asserting that they can somehow coexist has nothing to do with logic.

They are not mutually exclusive except in your mind because you have decided that they are.

 

[Trailblazer]

If our actions were locked in the instant God knew what we would do, then how can we bear any responsibility for our actions?

Our actions were not locked in the instant God knew what we would do.
What God knows we will do and what we choose to do are completely separate, and neither one affects the other.

God's all-encompassing knowledge does not cause what we do, it is a perfection of God.

 

[Trailblazer]

And in that case, God would have said to you on Monday, "Hey, TrailBlazer, I know for a fact that Tibs is going to wear the BLUE shirt on Friday." And then I would be unable to CHOOSE to wear the red shirt.

As usual, you completely miss the point.

If God knows on Monday what shirt I will wear on Friday, then my choice is set and can not be altered.

God would never say on Monday "Hey, TrailBlazer, I know for a fact that Tibs is going to wear the BLUE shirt on Friday" if God knew that Tibs was going to choose to wear the RED shirt on Friday.

If God knew on Monday that Tibs was going to choose to wear the RED shirt on Friday, God would say "Hey, TrailBlazer, I know for a fact that Tibs is going to wear the RED shirt on Friday."

God knows on Monday what shirt you will wear on Friday because God knows what choice you will make on Friday.

As usual, you completely miss the point.

 

[Trailblazer]

Are you claiming/asserting/stating that I am wrong here, or just telling us what you believe without presenting it as a fact?

I explained this to you yesterday in more than one post and I explained it to you again tonight.

You will choose what God knows you will shoose NOT because God knows what you will choose, but because what you will choose to do is identical with what God knows you will choose.

Whatever you choose at whatever time you choose it that choice will be what God has always known you will make. What God knows has no bearing on what you will choose. There is no connection whatsoever.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Isaiah 45:5-7
New International Version

5 I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
6 so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting people may know there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other.
7 I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.

I believe that Isaiah 45:7 refers to fate and predestination and that prosperity and disaster are things that happen to us that are beyond our control.

In short, God is responsible for both the Good and the Bad things that happen to us, those things that are not subject to free will and thus are beyond our control.

“Some things are subject to the free will of man, such as justice, equity, tyranny and injustice, in other words, good and evil actions; it is evident and clear that these actions are, for the most part, left to the will of man. But there are certain things to which man is forced and compelled, such as sleep, death, sickness, decline of power, injuries and misfortunes; these are not subject to the will of man, and he is not responsible for them, for he is compelled to endure them. But in the choice of good and bad actions he is free, and he commits them according to his own will.” Some Answered Questions, p. 248

Man is compelled to endure them because God set it up that way since we live in a material world where some of the bad things happen are beyond our control. That is our destiny, our fate, for which God is responsible.

If you are one of the people who had a fairly easy life, a happy life, a person to whom mostly good things happen, maybe you do not think much about fate and predestination, but I think about it a lot because I was not one of those people. In fact, I cannot even imagine what it would be like to be one of them. It is as if they are living in another universe.

If God is fair and just, and God loves everyone, why do some people have it so easy whereas other people have such difficult lives? I know the religious apologists have answers but I do not accept those answers. I want to know why even though I know I will never know why.

Thanks, Trailblazer.

Trailblazer, according to the Bible, who controls this world?

God? Or the Devil?

 

[Hockeycowboy]

I explained this to you yesterday in more than one post and I explained it to you again tonight.

You will choose what God knows you will shoose NOT because God knows what you will choose, but because what you will choose to do is identical with what God knows you will choose.

Whatever you choose at whatever time you choose it that choice will be what God has always known you will make. What God knows has no bearing on what you will choose. There is no connection whatsoever.

Did God know Cain was going to kill Abel? If so, then why does Genesis 4 tell us that God tried to get Cain to control himself?

 

[muhammad_isa]

How can you say there is a CHOICE when God knows the outcome ahead of time?

How does it make a difference?

I never said we don't have free will.

You just did ! You asked "How can we have a choice, if G-d knows what we will choose?"

How does knowledge of future events force us to choose?
It doesn't.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Not it is not.

If we have free will and can make any choice we want, then there are many possible options, and the outcome is not determined until the choice is made

That is correct.

If God knows the future, then there is only one possible outcome, which was determined from the beginning of time.

Not as far as we are concerned.

For G-d, time is perceived differently.
What we see as "time passing" is a perception .. it is not a fundamental phenomena, even though scientifically we define it as such.
We have to define it as we do, in order to construct a model of the physical universe. Strictly speaking, 'time' is not absolute.

 

[Trailblazer]

Trailblazer, according to the Bible, who controls this world?

God? Or the Devil?

God controls this world.
I do not believe there is a Devil.

 

[Trailblazer]

Did God know Cain was going to kill Abel? If so, then why does Genesis 4 tell us that God tried to get Cain to control himself?

God knows everything that ever happened, everything that is happening now, and everything that will ever happen in the future.

All of that is written on the Tablet of Fate, as if it has already happened, but it has not happened yet in this material world until it actually takes place.

I do not believe that God tried to get Cain to control himself.
The Old Testament God is anthropomorphic stories about God, they are not anything the real God did. They are stories that contain spiritual lessons.

 

[Tiberius]

They are not mutually exclusive except in your mind because you have decided that they are.

They are mutually exclusive because it would violate the laws of logic for them not to be.

 

[Tiberius]

Our actions were not locked in the instant God knew what we would do.
What God knows we will do and what we choose to do are completely separate, and neither one affects the other.

God's all-encompassing knowledge does not cause what we do, it is a perfection of God.

Yes they are.

If God determines on Monday that I will wear the red shirt for my lunch meeting on Friday, is there any way for me to choose to wear a different shirt AFTER that point? Yes or no.

Of course, you're probably just going to declare that I'm trying to trick you, or that the question is dishonest. Hint: It's not. You just want some way out of having to answer it.

 

[Tiberius]

God would never say on Monday "Hey, TrailBlazer, I know for a fact that Tibs is going to wear the BLUE shirt on Friday" if God knew that Tibs was going to choose to wear the RED shirt on Friday.

If God knew on Monday that Tibs was going to choose to wear the RED shirt on Friday, God would say "Hey, TrailBlazer, I know for a fact that Tibs is going to wear the RED shirt on Friday."

God knows on Monday what shirt you will wear on Friday because God knows what choice you will make on Friday.

As usual, you completely miss the point.

No, you miss the point.

And the point is that if God knows that I am going to do a particular thing, there is no way that I can choose to NOT do that particular thing.