(November 25, 2011 at 1:46 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Agreed, god isn't "a bodiless being out in space", in fact, he doesn't seem to be anywhere at all.. hehehe. Common ground with borderline nut-jobs ftw!God doesn't know anything we/man collectively know or don't know. You can throw out the term "God" because it covers a lot of territory, and replace it with an "us". There are plenty of references in ancient works that refer to God as an us. The ultimate authority on planet earth is eventually the people. That's what the Arab spring was/is all about. The "us" got sick and tired of the "them". The "them" are only temporary in the total span of time. It is the We/Us that will eventually rule. To make that happen the "us" need to know what we/our guys need to know. We're trying to give it to you. You need to understand the "us" before that can happen.
Btw, Tack, Eve never had a chance, god knew exactly what was going to happen did he not? Chance or choice assumes that there are at least two options. If god already knew the outcome, it was set. Precognitive ability annihilates choice, chance, free will, etc. If you want to keep one or the other of these things (gods precognitive abilities, or our free will) you'll have to make a choice as to which is more important to you. Were I a christian, I'd keep free will, alot of the story rides on free will, not so much on god's ability to foretell the future.
Foretell the future--that can be done prospectively. Prophecies can be done by knowing how and on what grounds people think. A particular thought process in conjunction with those animal things afore mentioned can have a predictable result, self destruct. It's simple. Psychiatrists do the same thing today--calculate the end result of a particular way of thinking.