Better reasons to quit Christianity

[Undeceived]

I don't UD. I cannot, because our knowledge of the particulars of both the cosmos and ourselves has changed so drastically from the time we coined the phrase and the concept as to render it completely and utterly useless. It appears, at this point, to be an artifact of ignorance.

However, whichever definition you choose, either 1 or 2, would be ruled out by a precognitive being (or, in the absence of a precognitive being, by predestination itself). No amount of wriggling on either term would alter that without abandoning the term in earnest, only clinging to the word so as to reconcile an ill-conceived myth with your own (though perhaps not entirely clear headed) much better understanding of the subject (relative to it's origins).

If you won't define free will, how can we begin to argue whether precognition is in conflict with it?
Are you saying there is no free will based on your "knowledge of the cosmos"? In that case, present your evidence. Don't impose science's definition of free will on God unless you are sure it's true.
Choice, to me, is not mutually exclusive from predestination. Do you think it is? Or are they both the same, but you use the term "predestination" anyway? To be clearer-
Scenario: God creates our genes and therefore determines our future choices. We make choices based on the attributes we possess (which come from our genes). God predestined. We also chose what we wanted. Never did we deny our own wishes. In this scenario, predestination and choice work together. They are equally involved. The only way you could get a stronger grip on your life is to choose your own attributes, which is impossible without first having some.

But even this scenario has a problem. It assumes that genes make decisions.

If the future can be known, it is not a series of choices (except from the flawed point of view of the individual that does not have precognitive abilities), more a steady flow of inevitability.

Ah, this makes more sense now. If this is your definition of a precog, then God is not a precog. He is not bound to know only inevitabilities. To Him, everything is in the present. He is outside of time. Or to put it in terms of time, he can foresee a person's choices before they make them (using knowledge of the situation/person's personality/ect.). If you dispute this, please tell me your definition of "inevitability" and explain how it a choice cannot be part of it. Not everything is inevitable, is it?

[The Grand Nudger]

We can discuss it the moment your definition involves a choice. Not being comfortable with declaring what something is (when I don't possess such knowledge) does not prevent me from listing the things that it is not.

Let me help you rephrase the next statement into something that resembles sense.

"Don't impose a god unless you're sure that it's true".

In what way would you be making choices if the future were predestined? God doesn't create our genes, as such whether or not our genes have anything to do with our choices has nothing to do with whether or not god determines anything. Did we chose what we wanted, or is the future predestined? -In this scenario- choice and predestination do not work together, because they cannot, but I understand that it is important for you to imagine that they can.

It doesn't matter how the precog experiences the future, or from what vantage point they can view it, that doesn't alter precognition's (and predestination's) implications for "choice". If god, btw, uses his knowledge of a person to make a guess, than I suppose that makes me a precog as well, because I can handle that. Not sounding like the superhero he's made out to be, gotta be honest.

[Undeceived]

In this scenario- choice and predestination do not work together, because they cannot

Why not? Are you defining choice as what you want to do, or being able to choose how you choose?

[The Grand Nudger]

Sigh, again with this shit.

For an entity to be precognitive not only must they be able to know future events (from whatever vantage point, however they experience it), those events must occur, or else their ability is not precognition. If those events must occur......what room is there for choice? I don't need to mince words on this, I'm not interested in wiggling around until I find a favorable definition. A choice, in this context, is the simple act of turning left, or turning right, when presented with a fork in the road (for example). How-ever and why-ever you go which-ever way you go is unimportant to my point, completely, utterly, and entirely unimportant (that you found yourself on the road, unimportant, that no other options were presented, unimportant, no matter how thoroughly you are constrained by circumstance, if you have one path going you left, and one path going right, whichever you go down would be indicative of a choice, whatever it means to "make a choice").

Precognition is not the act of making accurate guesses with regards to whether someone will choose between a or b. It is knowledge, it is certain, it is inevitable. If it is not knowledge, if it is not certain, if it is not inevitable....it is not precognition.

If you could choose either a or b, the precogs experience of the timeline and your future choice be damned (from whatever vantage point, however they experience it), you have a choice...but the precog is no longer a precog. It becomes either a competent or incompetent gambler of competing possibilities (depending on whether or not their guess happened to be right in any given particular).

Is it more important to you that your god must be able to experience these future events and they must pan out as experienced....or is it more important to you that you have choices (and all that comes along with those choices) ala the narrative? One or the other is going to have to bend. A very simple example. Suppose that this precognitive god, experiencing the future as though it were the present, experienced me choosing a over b. Could I, when I approached that point in the timeline myself (experiencing time as we seem to experience it, in a linear fashion) - choose b?

[spockrates]

I've given you the most relevant example possible, the precog and the implications that their ability has on time and our perception of it. Any specific "choice" is covered under this example. I have explained, I believe three times now, in very simple terms, why the precog has this effect, I haven't once implied that the precog had to force anything (though you have constantly argued against this for some strange reason).

I'll say this, one more time....and after this point I am going to begin assuming that you understand me perfectly well (or simply never will, for whatever reason). You're asking me which choices might be predetermined and which might not (or what amount might be pre-determined whilst the outcome is not), I keep trying to explain to you that under the example of the precog there are no choices. We aren't having the same discussion. So, if we want to have the same discussion, help me help you. "I don't understand" isn't very specific, what don't you understand?

Precognitive abilities would require that the future be able to be known, accurately.
If the future can be known, it is not a series of choices (except from the flawed point of view of the individual that does not have precognitive abilities), more a steady flow of inevitability. If it were not, then it could not be known accurately, and there would be no precogs.
It is not an issue of whether or not the amount of "choices" you are presented with has been tinkered with.


If the future can be known, even if no one knows it, just the potential for the future to be known with accuracy ( no limiting, no forcing, no other powers, no other abilities...and even..if there are no precogs.....), our choices are a long series of illusions.

You need help finding a way to reasonably disagree with christians of any stripe when they go down this "god does this and god does that route"? Let me help you.

"Excuse me sir, I appreciate that you took the time to explain your beliefs to me, but I fail to see why I should share those beliefs, or how I could have confidence that your explanation is accurate without any substantiation whatsoever."

Please define Precog. I have no idea what you mean by the word, and I'm unable to find the word in any online dictionary.

http://m.dictionary.com/definition/Preco...kId=ibc5yn

[The Grand Nudger]

Strange because I just googled the word and... Precog, precognitive, precognition.
http://bit.ly/OtDd9K

Your interwebs broken amigo?

(It's not as though I hadn't spelled the word out in full in these posts...are you actually reading my responses? I'm beginning to suspect that this, as I feared from the start, is going to be -another- word game.)

[Undeceived]

Suppose that this precognitive god, experiencing the future as though it were the present, experienced me choosing a over b. Could I, when I approached that point in the timeline myself (experiencing time as we seem to experience it, in a linear fashion) - choose b?

He'd only experience what you pick. Your pick determines his experience, not the other way around. Since God is outside of time, they happen simultaneously. He cannot have foreknowledge of an event which will not happen. Foreknowledge and predetermination are not the same thing. You make your choice. The being with foreknowledge simply knows what your choice will be--he does not make it for you.

If predestination is making a choice in place of someone, a being with foreknowledge does not necessarily do that.
If predestination is something else, it is able to coexist with your choice.
Do you disagree?

[spockrates]

In this scenario- choice and predestination do not work together, because they cannot

Why not? Are you defining choice as what you want to do, or being able to choose how you choose?

Maybe Rythm is just playing the part of a laughing hyena? Perhaps he might not want to give us specific definitions and examples that aren't clearer than mud, because he is in it for the confusing and mocking, and not for the truth? That's the impression I get, though I could be wrong.

[The Grand Nudger]

Can he be mistaken in his experience UD. That is the issue. Can this precognitive god experience something that does not come to pass?

(The word precognitive is pretty fucking descriptive asshole)

---

"Predestined" or "predestination" has use and meaning outside of theology, stripped of all superstition predestination would simply the notion that the future may be determined, that things may be predestined. There is a better word for this, but this is the term we've been using, so I'm running with it. It has nothing to do with making a choice for someone in the context (neither does precognition) of my argument. Whether or not this precognitive being makes your choices for you, or whether or not this precognitive being set up the predestined events has literally no impact on what I'm trying to explain to the two of you.

Assume that the precognitive's experience does not influence the events, assume that the precognitive did not arrange what events were predestined. What does this alter about my explanation of how predestined events and precognition affects the notion of choice?

[spockrates]

Strange because I just googled the word and... Precog, precognitive, precognition.
http://bit.ly/OtDd9K

Your interwebs broken amigo?

(It's not as though I hadn't spelled the word out in full in these posts...are you actually reading my responses? I'm beginning to suspect that this, as I feared from the start, is going to be -another- word game.)

OK. You were saying God is a precog, which translates, "God is a precognition." The grammar is confusing, since precognition is a paranormal ability, rather than a person. It would be less confusing to say, "God possesses precognition," or something similar.

So let's look at the definitions of precognition:

pre·cog·ni·tion
   [pree-kog-nish-uhn]
noun
1. knowledge of a future event or situation, especially through extrasensory means.
2. Scots Law .
a. the examination of witnesses and other parties before a trial in order to supply a legal ground for prosecution.
b. the evidence established in such an examination.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/precognition?s=t

You also made the point that if the God with precognition saw what choices a person would make, the idea that the choices were freely made would be an illusion. Now I see noting in the definition to suggest that one having the paranormal ability somehow causes freewill to be an illusion. A more detailed explanation of the word also does not seem to support your theory in any way that I can see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precognition

So I'm still at a loss as to why you believe someone having precognition necessitates that freedom of will is an illusion. Are you saying that freewill itself is an illusion, and all choices are predetermined, though there is no God? Or are you saying that if there was a God with a precognitive ability only then would freewill be an illusion?

An example I hope you will use to help me understand you:

A person with the paranormal ability of precognition is watching a chess match between two chess masters. The person has a premonition that one of the two chess players will win the game, how many moves it will take to win the game, and what the final move will be that puts the losing player in checkmate. Please explain how, in this example, the freedom of the two chess players to choose what moves they will make is an illusion.