John 8:44; 1 John 3:8; Revelation 12:9.
Why do you think the world is so messed up?
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things
- Thread starter Trailblazer
- Start date
Why do you think the world is so messed up?
Sheldon
Veteran Member
Oh dear god....
Sheldon
Veteran Member
Not one poster challenging your claim is denying we have autonomy, they are pointing out the logical consequences of your belief. Trailblazer has less grasp of logic than you do, as her posts show she is relentlessly irrational, using known common logical fallacies at an astonishing rate.Of course you are right. It is all in their heads.
They can see that they have free-will, unless a God who they can't see and can't hear "informs them" what they "must" do
However please do demsontrate there is no contradiction in your rationale:
1 You claim a deity knows exactly what we will do before we do it.
2. You also claimed we cannot do anything your deity does not know we will do.
So when your deity knows that someone will commit murder (for example) can they choose to not do it, even though your deity deity knows they will?
Sheldon
Veteran Member
Logical reasoning adheres to strict principles of validation, as I had to explain to muhammed isa, you can't have your own. You have also not expressed any knowledge about a deity, only subjective claims and beliefs.
Could you explain what principle of logic was violated please?
I'm guessing you don't see the irony.
Yet you have failed to demonstrate any of this knowledge, only subjective claims and beliefs? Also you have relentlessly resorted to known common logical fallacies in your posts, so your rationale is demonstrably not rational.
That is because your arguments are often irrational, and contain no objective evidence to support them.
Last edited:
Sheldon
Veteran Member
I know, though the irony of her invoking logic is ironic, since like muhammed isa it is pure rhetoric.
Sheldon
Veteran Member
So I am free to choose a colour shirt other than the one you claim a deity knows I will choose then?
Dear oh dear, and around we go.
Sheldon
Veteran Member
Can we make a choice other than the one your deity knows we will choose, and make your deity wrong?
Last edited:
Sheldon
Veteran Member
Whilst claiming to be rational, ironically.
Sheldon
Veteran Member
A no true Scotsman fallacy, making your claim irrational by definition. Also a massive irony overload.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
It is not rational [ logical ] to claim that "we have no choice" due to an agent knowing what we will WANT to choose.
It is a contradiction.
1. It is a given that we have free-will
Your claim, is that we have no choice if G-d knows what that choice is. That is not rational [ based on logic ] .. it's simply your opinion based on your perception of reality.
i.e. if an agent can know "beforehand", then that agent is causing
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
No .. it is you who claim our choices are an illusion. What is responsible for our actions if it is not our choice? Who / what is responsible for our choices, if not us?
Sheldon
Veteran Member
Firstly you have not addressed your claim, I understand, you wish to move swiftly on, I would as well, and you don't care to address the error.
Yes it is, and a flat denial of the obvious contradiction won't strengthen your claim or make it rational. This was exposed in your inability to offer any rational answer to the question.
If a deity knows we will commit a murder, can we not commit that murder and make your deity wrong?
Nope, that's your claim, I ma merely exposing the logical contradiction. Not sure why you keep misrepresenting your belief as mine, even after i have repeatedly corrected you.
Can we make a choice different to the one you believe your deity knows we will make?
Sheldon
Veteran Member
Nope this is still untrue.
Can we make any choice other the one you believe (not me for clarity), a deity knows we will make?
joelr
Well-Known Member
When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?
Here's what she said to me
Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be
It is entirely sane to believe in the above, yet we are responsible for our actions as well.
There are probable futures based on many factors. But definitive futures are not possible. True if one takes action to make something happen then the probability will increase that a certain outcome will happen.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
I said:
Continually repeating that question does not answer MY question..
I've answered yours already. We will make the choice that G-d knows, NOT because we are forced to choose .. but because He is able to know our choice, DESPITE our perception that we have not made it yet.
Can you please now answer mine?
Who / what is responsible for our choices, if not us?
WonderingWorrier
Active Member
As in the observer knowing the outcome is not influencing the outcome.
Like watching a fly get caught in a spiderweb and knowing the outcome does not influence the spider to kill the fly.
Am I understanding you correctly?
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
That's right .. yes.
That is the mistake that they are making.
They assume that it is not possible to know the future, unless the agent that knows it, is causing it.
..so really, it is not a problem about our free-will .. it is about the perception of the future being "unknowable".
WonderingWorrier
Active Member
Thats a good point. And you keep repeating it.
Its a shame they are not listening.
But we can only hear what we are each capable of hearing.
joelr
Well-Known Member
In the OT Satan was Yahwehs agent. Yahweh sent Satan to kill 70,ooo people (many children and babies), to torture Job as well as other errands.
During the 2nd Temple Period 500-300BC the Persian version of the devil was borrowed along with a great battle where the world ends, all followers get resurrected and live on a paradise on Earth and the devil is forever defeated.
Why would Yahweh use Satan as an errand boy then suddenly it's this all out war between the two? Hmmm, maybe because they saw it in Zoroastrianism and over a few centuries it folded it's way into Hebrew myth?
Satan - Wikipedia
" During the intertestamental period, possibly due to influence from the Zoroastrian figure of Angra Mainyu, the satan developed into a malevolent entity with abhorrent qualities in dualistic opposition to God. "During the Second Temple Period, when Jews were living in the Achaemenid Empire, Judaism was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Achaemenids.[26][8][27] Jewish conceptions of Satan were impacted by Angra Mainyu,[8][28] the Zoroastrian god of evil, darkness, and ignorance.
Zoroastrianism, such as its monotheism,[5] messianism, belief in free will and judgement after death, conception of heaven, hell, angels, and demons, among other concepts, may have influenced other religious and philosophical systems, including the Abrahamic religions
Yup, looks that way.
In fact all this fear of Satan didn't really start until far after Biblical times (it's made up from made up stuff)?
"In the Middle Ages, Satan played a minimal role in Christian theology and was used as a comic relief figure in mystery plays. During the early modern period, Satan's significance greatly increased as beliefs such as demonic possession and witchcraft became more prevalent. During the Age of Enlightenment, belief in the existence of Satan was harshly criticized by thinkers such as Voltaire. Nonetheless, belief in Satan has persisted, particularly in the Americas."
This is what the Persians already believed before they occupied Israel, This is the origin of apocalyptic writings.
Zoroaster taught that the blessed must wait for this culmination till Frashegird and the 'future body' (Pahlavi 'tan i pasen'), when the earth will give up the bones of the dead (Y 30.7). This general resurrection will be followed by the Last Judgment, which will divide all the righteous from the wicked, both those who have lived until that time and those who have been judged already. Then Airyaman, Yazata of friendship and healing, together with Atar, Fire, will melt all the metal in the mountains, and this will flow in a glowing river over the earth. All mankind must pass through this river, and, as it is said in a Pahlavi text, 'for him who is righteous it will seem like warm milk, and for him who is wicked, it will seem as if he is walking in the • flesh through molten metal' (GBd XXXIV. r 8-r 9). In this great apocalyptic vision Zoroaster perhaps fused, unconsciously, tales of volcanic eruptions and streams of burning lava with his own experience of Iranian ordeals by molten metal; and according to his stern original teaching, strict justice will prevail then, as at each individual j udgment on earth by a fiery ordeal. So at this last ordeal of all the wicked will suffer a second death, and will perish off the face of the earth. The Daevas and legions of darkness will already have been annihilated in a last great battle with the Yazatas; and the river of metal will flow down into hell, slaying Angra Mainyu and burning up the last vestige of wickedness in the universe.
Ahura Mazda and the six Amesha Spentas will then solemnize a lt, spiritual yasna, offering up the last sacrifice (after which death wW be no more), and making a preparation of the mystical 'white haoma', which will confer immortality on the resurrected bodies of all the blessed, who will partake of it. Thereafter men will beome like the Immortals themselves, of one thought, word and deed, unaging, free from sickness, without corruption, forever joyful in the kingdom of God upon earth. For it is in this familiar and beloved world, restored to its original perfection, that, according to Zoroaster, eternity will be passed in bliss, and not in a remote insubstantial Paradise. So the time of Separation is a renewal of the time of Creation, except that no return is prophesied to the original uniqueness of living things. Mountain and valley will give place once more to level plain; but whereas in the beginning there was one plant, one animal, one man, the rich variety and number that have since issued from these will remain forever. Similarly the many divinities who were brought into being by Ahura Mazda will continue to have their separate existences. There is no prophecy of their re-absorption into the Godhead. As a Pahlavi text puts it, after Frashegird 'Ohrmaid and the Amahraspands and all Yazads and men will be together. .. ; every place will resemble a garden in spring, in which
there are all kinds of trees and flowers ... and it will be entirely the creation of Ohrrnazd' (Pahl.Riv.Dd. XLVIII, 99, lOO, l07).
Interestingly the Wiki page on Revelations says it has similarities with Persian stories because the consistent destruction of thirds? Uh.... did they forget about the giant Earth shattering war of God vs Satan and a general resurrection where the religious live in paradise stuff?????
The Apocalyptic literature - Wikipedia page finally figured out it won't be thrown in jail as a heretic for pointing out religious syncretism:
When speaking of the end times, apocalyptic literature generally includes chronologies of events that are to occur, and frequently places them in the near future, which gives a sense of urgency to the prophet's broader message. Though the understanding of the present is bleak, the visions of the future are far more positive, and include divinely delivered victory and a complete reformation of absolutely everything. Many visions of these end times mirror creation mythologies, invoke the triumph of God over the primordial forces of chaos, and provide clear distinctions between light and dark, good and evil. In such revelations, humankind is typically divided into a small group that experiences salvation, while the wicked majority is destroyed. Since the apocalyptic genre developed during the Persian period, this dualism may have developed under the influence of Persian thought.
joelr
Well-Known Member
There are issues with omniscience and freewill that have been discussed for centuries. As imaginary as a theistic God seems to be theologians have to act as if he's out there and the philosophy must be discussed.
Omniscience (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
3. Foreknowledge and Human Free Action
Knowledge of all true propositions would seem to include knowledge of all truths about the future, at least if there are truths about the future. Thus omniscience would seem to include foreknowledge. There is a long tradition, however, of philosophers who have thought that divine foreknowledge was incompatible with human free action, or, at any rate, they took arguments for the incompatibility seriously enough so as to require either disarming them or limiting what is involved in divine omniscience. (Similar reasoning might be given to argue that God’s foreknowledge is incompatible with some of God’s own free action. See Swinburne (2016 183) for a such a suggestion. We will follow tradition and consider only the application to human action.) Early discussions include ones by St. Augustine (On Free Choice of the Will, Bk. III, ch. 3) and Boethius (The Consolation of Philosophy, Bk. V). They each considered an argument that may be represented (where S is any person and A is any action) as:
- (1)If God has foreknowledge that S will do A, then it is necessary that S will do A.
- (2)If it is necessary that S will do A, then S is not free with respect to doing A.
- (3)If God has foreknowledge that S will do A, then S is not free with respect to doing A.
Subsequent philosophers, however, beginning at least as early as Aquinas, identified a flaw in the argument. According to Aquinas (Summa contra Gentiles, I, 67, 10), the first premiss is ambiguous between the “necessity of the consequence” and the “necessity of the consequent”. That is, (1) may be interpreted as
- (1′)It is necessary that if God foreknows that S will do A, then S will do A.
- (1″)If God foreknows that S will do A, then it is a necessary truth that S will do A.
There is a second, more difficult argument for the incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and human free action. An early version was given by Pike (1965), and it has occasioned a voluminous recent literature. (For some of this literature, see the papers and bibliography included in Fisher 1989.) Developments of the argument typically draw on the following claims:
- (4)A proposition reporting an event in the past is forever afterwards “fixed” or “unalterable” or accidentally necessary.
- (5)A contingent proposition that is entailed by an accidentally necessary proposition is itself accidentally necessary (accidental necessity is closed under entailment).
- (6)If a proposition is accidentally necessary at a time, no one is able at any later time to make it false.
This argument requires a number of nontrivial assumptions. So there is no lack of places for an objector to attack, and, in fact, philosophers have tried various ways of discrediting the argument, none of them entirely convincing. Ockhamists (named after William of Ockham) try to defend the claim that many propositions apparently reporting God’s past beliefs are not wholly about the past, and thus are not accidentally necessary. Accordingly, Plantinga (1986) and some of the authors of the papers in Fisher (1989) on the distinction between “hard” facts and “soft” facts deny (4). But it has proven remarkably difficult to provide clear and persuasive principles for determining which propositions apparently about the past are not completely or really about the past.
An alternative defended by the sixteenth-century Jesuit, Luis de Molina, is to deny (5), the principle that accidental necessity is closed under entailment of contingent propositions (Freddoso 1988: 58). Of the assumptions required for the argument, however, (5) has seemed to many to be the least controversial, at least if we really do grasp the modality of accidental necessity. For a simple argument against (5), see (Wierenga 2016:102).
Finally, it remains open to deny (6), to hold that even if it is already accidentally necessary that Jones mow his lawn tomorrow, he nevertheless has it within his power to do something, for example, spend the day indoors, which is such that if he were to do it, it would be false that he mows his lawn (Plantinga 1986: 257). Jones can remain indoors tomorrow, and if he were to do that, the past would have been different; in particular, God would never have believed then that Jones would mow his lawn tomorrow. See also Mavrodes (1983) for a defense of the claim that events of the past are now preventable. Some philosophers object, however, to this sort of counterfactual power over the past.
We have just looked at three strategies for rejecting the argument. Some theistic philosophers, however, are happy to accept it. One position accepts the argument and gives the Boethian response, like that given to the first argument above, that God’s mode of existence is eternity, so he does not have foreknowledge. On this view, it does not matter that divine foreknowledge is incompatible with free human action, because God’s omniscience does not include foreknowledge (see, for example, Stump and Kretzmann 1991). Other philosophers have objected that regardless of whether God is eternal rather than everlasting, it does not suffice to reply to the argument simply by appealing to God’s eternity. Plantinga (1986), Zagzebski (1991), and others claim that an exactly analogous argument could be constructed using the premiss that 80 years ago it was then true, and so now accidentally necessary, that God eternally knows that Jones mows his lawn tomorrow. According to this revision of the argument, divine eternal knowledge would be as incompatible with human free action as divine foreknowledge is; so the Boethian response leaves the argument unchallenged.
In recent years perhaps the most widely accepted response to the argument is to accept it but to deny that omniscience extends to knowledge of the future. Geach (1977) held that apart from “present trends and tendencies” there is no future to be known. Swinburne (1993 and 2016) holds that omniscience does not include foreknowledge of future free actions. Hoffman and Rosenkrantz (2002) give a careful account of omniscience, intentionally limiting God’s foreknowledge to truths that are “causally inevitable”, where causally inevitable events are not free actions. Indeed a recent movement within philosophy of religion, so-called Open Theism, has been developed with the explicit aim of leaving the future “open”, and thus unknown to God, precisely so as to leave room for human freedom. Hasker (1989, 2004) has been a leading figure in this group, as have been the contributors to Pinnock (1994). In a similar vein, Mawson recommends that theists who think that God is in time should say “that God suspends judgment on everything that will actually happen in the future.” Instead, on this view omniscience extends to the future only in knowledge of “the probabilities of particular futures developing” (Mawson 2019: 38–39). We saw at the outset of this essay that one of the motivations for attributing omniscience to God is to be able to develop a doctrine of divine providence. But those who deny that God’s knowledge extends to future free actions will have the difficult task of stating or accepting a doctrine of providence, if God does not know what free agents will do.