Questions for theists.

[ElDinero]

I don't know where you got frustrated; I would describe my approach to your crap analogy as 'irreverent'.

Of course he made it the inevitable conclusion. He created people and everything in them. How could your all-powerful God not know that the characteristics he has imbued humans with would lead to them acting in this way? Don't be so silly. All of this is illogical nonsense, and I think you know that. Your gymnastics to shoehorn it into what you want to believe and relieve God of his responsibility is really tiresome.

I find this free will argument hilarious and pathetic, in equal measure. It doesn't exist. From someone who claims he gets his prayers answered in the form of his boss giving him a bonus at work (which presumably interferes with his free will, since he apparently wasn't planning to do that until you gave God the shout), it's laughable.

[tackattack]

I must have missinterpreted your angst for frustration, so I apologize. I'm not following the logic where something happening to you, or an opportunity being present interfere's with free will. If you would like to present specific arguements with your isses with free will I'd be glad to address then if they're in the vein of this thread. I also don't follow your logic on sin being the inevitable conclusion by design. Presenting an opportunity does not confer control over the individuals acting on the scenario. For example:
Let's say I present you with an opportunity for gaining $12 million. I don't assume that the inevitable conclusion is that you'll take it, because you have a choice. Regardless of whether I could read you mind and new every variable and indeed could tell the future, at the time of presentation from your perspective as the actor, you'd have the free will to decide whether to take it or not. The only thing that could possibly confer any small iota of accountability to me would be if I indeed could reliably tell the future. Even with that though it doesn't detract from any of your accountability from your perspective at all.

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I can't see my post to edit and add to it, but if you're still butt sore about me not taking the time to pick up the prayer conversation, point me in the direction or stop throwing it up like a whiny little girl. How you feel about an arguement is completely irrelevant and is pure emotionalism, check it at the door if you'd like a real discussion.

[ElDinero]

Angst? Get fucked, tack. And if you can't understand how creating people and their characteristics and knowing ahead of time how those characteristics will lead them to act makes you accountable for those decisions, whatever. It's pretty obvious.

As for how it interferes with free will, here. You said you prayed to God and the prayer was answered. Therefore, I am assuming that without the prayer, you believe the bonus you received would not have been forthcoming at that time (if you don't believe this, then the usefulness of the prayer was zero). So your boss had no intention to give you a bonus 'of his own free will'. God intervened and made it so that your boss did give you a bonus. Explain how that does not interfere with his free will?

By the way since you've not been around and that conversation continued, I'd be interested in your response to this: http://atheistforums.org/thread-3113-post-183442

[tackattack]

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Angst? Get fucked, tack. And if you can't understand how creating people and their characteristics and knowing ahead of time how those characteristics will lead them to act makes you accountable for those decisions, whatever. It's pretty obvious.

As for how it interferes with free will, here. You said you prayed to God and the prayer was answered. Therefore, I am assuming that without the prayer, you believe the bonus you received would not have been forthcoming at that time (if you don't believe this, then the usefulness of the prayer was zero). So your boss had no intention to give you a bonus 'of his own free will'. God intervened and made it so that your boss did give you a bonus. Explain how that does not interfere with his free will?

By the way since you've not been around and that conversation continued, I'd be interested in your response to this: http://atheistforums.org/thread-3113-post-183442

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Apparently I had to dump my cache to see the posts, sorry for the delay.

1) It doesn't make him accountable for the decisions, period. That's assinine and in that world, you're righ,t all Christians would just blame everything on God and have no personal accountability. Perhaps you meant the consequences, which I'll conceed makes sense, while not entirely at least partially culpable. Perhaps the sum of the consequences will balance out?

2) In that example, my bosses intent is irrelevant. God may have presented him the opportunity to reward me with such timing as to concide with the answering of my prayer. God could have also answered by winning the lottery, or a check from the govt. or a donation from a friend or church. It's the frequenc of prayers being answered and the timing of the answers along with the uniqueness of the causal chain for the event that makes the prayer an answer rather than a circumstance. This is off topic though. God didn't force him to give me a bonus, he presented the opportunity and Mike took it at that time and place for his own reasons. You implied earlier that my free will was affected by the prayer was being answered. I've shown where neither of our free wills were violated, but certain opportunities were encouraged.

3) I'll go there and check it out immediately as I seem to have lots of time available tonight. I tried but the page is unavailable.

[5thHorseman]

Tack, have you answered the OP? If not please could you, i'd be very grateful.

[The Grand Nudger]

Would the creator of a sentient explosive device designed to detonate in the middle of an urban area not be responsible for the effects of the detonation?
(want me to draw the comparisons between ourselves and "sentient explosive devices", lol?)

[ElDinero]

Apparently I had to dump my cache to see the posts, sorry for the delay.

1) It doesn't make him accountable for the decisions, period. That's assinine and in that world, you're righ,t all Christians would just blame everything on God and have no personal accountability. Perhaps you meant the consequences, which I'll conceed makes sense, while not entirely at least partially culpable. Perhaps the sum of the consequences will balance out?

2) In that example, my bosses intent is irrelevant. God may have presented him the opportunity to reward me with such timing as to concide with the answering of my prayer. God could have also answered by winning the lottery, or a check from the govt. or a donation from a friend or church. It's the frequenc of prayers being answered and the timing of the answers along with the uniqueness of the causal chain for the event that makes the prayer an answer rather than a circumstance. This is off topic though. God didn't force him to give me a bonus, he presented the opportunity and Mike took it at that time and place for his own reasons. You implied earlier that my free will was affected by the prayer was being answered. I've shown where neither of our free wills were violated, but certain opportunities were encouraged.

3) I'll go there and check it out immediately as I seem to have lots of time available tonight. I tried but the page is unavailable.

1. Perhaps the sum of the consequences will balance out? Oh dear, tack. Oh dear, oh dear. You're walking a tightrope. If you can look someone who has suffered a severe tragedy or injustice in the eye and say 'It'll all work out in the end, God has a plan', then you're going to plummet in my estimations. Could you honestly feel you were being anything other than morally bankrupt if you were to say to or about a rape victim 'Sure, things were bad for her, but it will balance out'? What could possibly happen to balance that out? It's a really vile notion to suggest that God is playing good cop, bad cop with people.

2. More gymnastics. The fact that you credit your boss recognising your ability to God is fairly insulting to your boss. I didn't imply that it interfered with YOUR free will, but that of your boss. Like I said, you claimed that the event of getting a bonus was a response to a prayer. In which case if you had not prayed, it would not have happened. Yes or no? If yes, then your boss had his free will interfered with, because had you not prayed he would not have given you the bonus. If no, then your prayer was useless and had no effect because it was coming anyway.

Mike gave you the bonus at that time because that was when he got cleared to approve it having made the request months ago. So it wasn't anything to do with his own reasons. What else was he going to do having got the approval? Sit on it for a few weeks and wait?

3. Apologies, the link is http://atheistforums.org/thread-3113-pos...#pid183442

[Statler Waldorf]

It's easy to figure that out, you're defending xenocide justified by the might of a god. They aren't. You're malfunctioning. Of course I know that you don't actually leverage these principles and justifications in your day to day life. You have a special set of rules for your very special imaginary friend. Without them the concept isn't manageable, so I understand.

Nice circular argument! Well played.

“How do you know these things are wrong?”
“Because people who have functioning moral compasses know they are wrong.”
“How do you know those people have a functioning moral compass?”
“Because they know that the things above are wrong.”

Return to the top and repeat until judgment day…

[The Grand Nudger]

It's only circular if you assume some objective morality, which I don't, no soup for you. What is morally righteous? Whatever any given culture decided to describe as such at any given time (subject to revision, abandonment, etc). I present the entirety of cultural anthropology as actual evidence of this statement, instead of mental masturbation under the charming (but in your case inaccurate) guise of "logic".

[tackattack]

@@5thHorseman
Sorry must have missed that somewhere thought I did. Here you go.

1) as an atheist, what will happen when I die because I reject faith and superstition, through lack of evidence?

There are 2 basic (majority holding) schools of thought on what happens when you die. Your soul rests until the day of judgment, upon which day your soul will get resurrected and you will be judged for you acceptance of rejection of Christ. The other is that “good” souls go to heaven to wait and “bad” souls go to either a Jewish concept of Sheol or Catholic concept of purgatory to atone for your life before judgment. In the latter idea you would end up in heaven. As that is a more Universalist approach, I don’t subscribe to personally, I am of the former school. Within that schools there are 2 more circles of thought, one is that you have just one life to accept God. The other is that his forgiveness extends even to the day of judgment. Since the latter is also more Universalist in nature I am also of the former of those schools of theological thought.

2) what will happen to my children as they haven't been christened, baptised or genitally mutilated?
I’m not aware that salvation is dependent on any of those 3 things in the majority of opinion on Christianity.

3) my mum is a dead atheist who was a wonderful moral person, kind and accepting of others beliefs, a socialist and altruist who spent her life helping those with mental difficulties. What would happen to her?
See 1

4) because atheists are not gullible enough to believe things without proof and we cannot force ourselves to believe,(I have tried) would god be nice to us because of this?
See the latter part of 1

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Would the creator of a sentient explosive device designed to detonate in the middle of an urban area not be responsible for the effects of the detonation?
(want me to draw the comparisons between ourselves and "sentient explosive devices", lol?)

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You still missing the point that we are not a self-destructive design so your analogy is flawed. He may have put the people, C4, timer, street and houses there, but it takes someone choosing to put those things together of their will to make your scenario work.

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Apparently I had to dump my cache to see the posts, sorry for the delay.

1) It doesn't make him accountable for the decisions, period. That's assinine and in that world, you're righ,t all Christians would just blame everything on God and have no personal accountability. Perhaps you meant the consequences, which I'll conceed makes sense, while not entirely at least partially culpable. Perhaps the sum of the consequences will balance out?

2) In that example, my bosses intent is irrelevant. God may have presented him the opportunity to reward me with such timing as to concide with the answering of my prayer. God could have also answered by winning the lottery, or a check from the govt. or a donation from a friend or church. It's the frequenc of prayers being answered and the timing of the answers along with the uniqueness of the causal chain for the event that makes the prayer an answer rather than a circumstance. This is off topic though. God didn't force him to give me a bonus, he presented the opportunity and Mike took it at that time and place for his own reasons. You implied earlier that my free will was affected by the prayer was being answered. I've shown where neither of our free wills were violated, but certain opportunities were encouraged.

3) I'll go there and check it out immediately as I seem to have lots of time available tonight. I tried but the page is unavailable.

1. Perhaps the sum of the consequences will balance out? Oh dear, tack. Oh dear, oh dear. You're walking a tightrope. If you can look someone who has suffered a severe tragedy or injustice in the eye and say 'It'll all work out in the end, God has a plan', then you're going to plummet in my estimations. Could you honestly feel you were being anything other than morally bankrupt if you were to say to or about a rape victim 'Sure, things were bad for her, but it will balance out'? What could possibly happen to balance that out? It's a really vile notion to suggest that God is playing good cop, bad cop with people.

2. More gymnastics. The fact that you credit your boss recognising your ability to God is fairly insulting to your boss. I didn't imply that it interfered with YOUR free will, but that of your boss. Like I said, you claimed that the event of getting a bonus was a response to a prayer. In which case if you had not prayed, it would not have happened. Yes or no? If yes, then your boss had his free will interfered with, because had you not prayed he would not have given you the bonus. If no, then your prayer was useless and had no effect because it was coming anyway.

Mike gave you the bonus at that time because that was when he got cleared to approve it having made the request months ago. So it wasn't anything to do with his own reasons. What else was he going to do having got the approval? Sit on it for a few weeks and wait?

3. Apologies, the link is http://atheistforums.org/thread-3113-pos...#pid183442

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1. Your opinion of me really matters little and detracts from the conversation. Unless you question my motives, integrity orknowledge in the subject that is. You’d actually be surprised what could be done to balance that out, even in one person’s lifespan. We actually have a prison ministry, ties to an outreach ministry and ties with an addiction/abuse ministry. I’ve spoken to lots o f rape victims, addicts, homeless who have turned their pain into a testimony for God and helped others that suffer to get through their pain. They’ve even been to our Church to speak. They’ve also backed several philanthropic events. If they can see that their personal pain is more than balanced out by all the good they could do sharing that pain, who am I to question, I’ve never been through anything that traumatic. I only said perhaps because that’s not something I could speak from experience on.
2. You’ll excuse me if I’m not that limber. If I had not prayed I see no expectation that the bonus would have been presented when it did, because it probably wouldn’t have been started. Because of that you claim that my boss’ free will was interfered with, so let’s examine that. In the almost 5 years I’ve been here that was the one and only bonus, anyone has gotten, and that remain true today, so I have no reason to expect a bonus. It’s not for lack of justification that they’re not given; simply that it’s his prevue when and for whom to submit it. It was his decision to break the norm to attempt it and his decision not to tell me anything about it. When it got approved was not in his decision, nor is there a standard time frame to expect to hear back from corporate. Where exactly in there was his ability to choose interfered with?
3. No prob. I’ll go there as soon as I’ve finished previewing this post.