(June 12, 2023 at 11:11 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: So....are you a devotee of the cult of elmo, or the cult of christ?

IDK who Elmo is.

(June 12, 2023 at 11:11 am)h4ym4n Wrote: Is there really a choice we can make when gods knows everything before we are born?

I'm not advocating for free will. We do not have free will rather we are either slaves to sin or slaves to Righteousness and God. A slave's will is not free rather it is subject to the will of his master. Meaning if the master allows you a truly free choice you are allowed to make that choice (like How God gives us the opportunity of which master to serve.) Otherwise our ability to choose is dictated by our master's will.

Quote:If I choose to not spend my eternity in hell and gods knows before I’m born that that isn’t happening, is there a choice?

If show me a home movie of a trip you took with your family to Disney, and you know how it all goes and what will happen next, does it mean you did not have the ability to choose what to do when things were playing out for the first time?

Quote: Can I change gods plan?

what do you understand to be 'God's plan?'

God plans to give you the freedom to choose which master you want to serve.. So no you can't change that plan.

(June 12, 2023 at 11:15 am)Ahriman Wrote:

(June 12, 2023 at 11:13 am)h4ym4n Wrote: I’m assuming from farmers post that he live and dies by the bible

I really don't think someone who lives and dies by the Bible would be posting on an atheist forum.

why not?

(June 12, 2023 at 11:17 am)h4ym4n Wrote: R-Farmer, are you a god/bible believing believer?

yes. doesn't it say my religious affiliation is Christian?

(June 10, 2023 at 8:24 am)R-Farmer Wrote:

(June 9, 2023 at 3:25 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Ths same punishment for all crimes sounds like essence of injustice.

and if sin is less of a crime and more of a Spiritual infection or virus? Does a doctor always prescribe different medicine for the same disease or infection? Just because you may have different symptoms or different severity of symptoms doesn't always mean you have a different virus or infection.

The same is true for spiritual infection of sin. Just because your symptoms of the spiritual sin infection we all have are different, it doesn't mean the treatment should be different (what is needed to over come this spiritual infection) Nor does it mean that if we don't get treated it will keep us from death. As the end result of a fully developed sin infection is death.

So sin is a virus God cannot defeat unless we go through some kind of rigamarole? I get why a human doctor would need me to agree to take a vaccine, but I don't get why such a consideration would apply to an omnipotent being.

(June 12, 2023 at 12:32 pm)R-Farmer Wrote:

(June 12, 2023 at 11:15 am)Ahriman Wrote: I really don't think someone who lives and dies by the Bible would be posting on an atheist forum.

why not?

Ahriman is our resident edge lord.

(June 12, 2023 at 12:31 pm)R-Farmer Wrote: If show me a home movie of a trip you took with your family to Disney, and you know how it all goes and what will happen next, does it mean you did not have the ability to choose what to do when things were playing out for the first time?

That's an interesting analogy, but it's foreknowledge that limits free will, not hindsight. Could that have done anything on that trip other than what God foresaw they would do?

(June 12, 2023 at 12:17 pm)R-Farmer Wrote:

(June 12, 2023 at 11:06 am)emjay Wrote: This is another new one on me. Is that what you believe?

Yes the God of the Bible never once self identifies as omni everything God. but Does self identify as the Alpha and Omega.' The beginning and end to all things. This description describes a God so powerful He can simply call creation into being and has the power and authority to end it all. meaning nothing in this universe has the power or authority to stop him. Making God's will is supreme attribute not his omni everything ability. This also answers the age old question Can god create a rock so big He can not lift it? No matter what the omni everything God does he finds himself in a paradox.. But the God of the Bible being the alpha and Omega can in fact create a rock so big He can not lift it if He wants or Can't if He doesn't want to. As again His will harnesses and limits his power so that He can accomplish anything He desires to.

Quote:And in this conception of God would he be able to permanently limit himself or just temporarily?

Let's say, you love peach cobbler. You love it so much you would eat it everyday every meal so long as you lived.. Now let's say you had the will power to make peach cobble a 'sometimes' food. (only on special occasions.) Now do you have the ability to make this discipline a permeant or temporary change? why would God be limited to one or the other is you yourself are not?

Quote: If I was god I'd certainly want to turn off omniscience from time to time, just to stop with all the spoilers in my entertainment But as to permanent limitations... ie god giving up his powers... that would make an interesting and thought-provoking story, and it to some extent did in Superman 2, when he walked into that machine and gave up his powers.

funny you said that.. when I started reading I thought of the exact same thing.

Not that it matters much for anything but what I meant by 'permanent', by analogy would be I could willfully choose, to 'blind' myself by closing my eyes, at any time able to undo that choice by opening my eyes... that would be akin to your peach cobbler example presumably, but to truly, permanently lose that power of sight, would be to remove my ability to see.

(June 12, 2023 at 12:17 pm)R-Farmer Wrote: Yes the God of the Bible never once self identifies as omni everything God. but Does self identify as the Alpha and Omega.' The beginning and end to all things. This description describes a God so powerful He can simply call creation into being and has the power and authority to end it all. meaning nothing in this universe has the power or authority to stop him. Making God's will is supreme attribute not his omni everything ability. This also answers the age old question Can god create a rock so big He can not lift it? No matter what the omni everything God does he finds himself in a paradox.. But the God of the Bible being the alpha and Omega can in fact create a rock so big He can not lift it if He wants or Can't if He doesn't want to. As again His will harnesses and limits his power so that He can accomplish anything He desires to.

The Bible says God is omniscient, but it doesn't really depict him that way, so it's fair to say it's limited in some way, perhaps voluntarily. The closest the Bible comes to claiming God is omnibenevolent is 'God is love', which is obviously hightly metaphorical since it's unreasonble to conclude from that verse that God is literally an emotion.

The Bible doesn't claim omnipotence for God either, only that he is very powerful. Powerful enough to create the universe (maybe not that big a flex since it's conceivable that we've already created universes by accident in cyclotrons) and flood the world; that doesn't necessarily mean that he could rearrange the galaxies to spell out 'See, I told you I was real' in English on a whim. Heck, creating the universe and us took him six days, he didn't create everything with a snap of his metaphorical fingers.

So it sounds like your God may not be inherently paradoxical. The story about him in the Bible conflicts with what the available physical evidence says actually happened in many cases; but he's not a married bachelor, not an omniscient, omnipotent being whose attributes contradict each other (if he can do anything he's not foreseen, he's not omniscient; if he can't do anything other than what he's foreseen, he's not omnipotent). This is a big improvement on the standard proposed God of Chritianity. That certainly doesn't mean you're not a Christian, Christianity contains multitudes.

(June 12, 2023 at 10:07 am)R-Farmer Wrote:

(June 10, 2023 at 11:34 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: So can any fictional creation be seemingly known as real if you approach it on the terms outlined in the fiction.  But doing so should be the preserve of children playing make belief during games, not adults.

Yes indeedie..

But this works both ways.. From where I stand the fiction is God does not exist. So then that begs the question who is the one who determines what is and is not fiction?

It is not the one, but the weight of evidence and the rule of not hiding implied complexity of a proposition that require explanation behind idiotic assertions.  So no, it does not cut both ways.   The cutting and bleeding out is all on your side.