RE: Do you believe in free will?
March 4, 2012 at 5:42 pm
(This post was last modified: March 4, 2012 at 5:46 pm by Godscreated.)
(March 2, 2012 at 8:53 am)picto90 Wrote:(March 2, 2012 at 3:26 am)Godschild Wrote: God knowing what we will do has nothing to do with Him controlling what we do. A man knows that to commit murder means time in jail at the least, so he thinks about it, do I commit the crime or do I go on and live my life, either way it's his decision by his freewill.
As for the freewill God gives mankind, you have a choice to believe in Him or not, the rest of your life is in God's hands
You're failing to see my point. The ability to make a decision is not the same as free will. If "God" knows exactly what you're going to do in your lifetime, then you were always going to make the decisions you were going to make. From the day you were born, you were always going to end up exactly where you are right now. Yes you made decisions along the way, but from the moment you came into being it was predetermined that you were going to make those decisions. It was always going to happen. If it was always going to happen, how is that free will? If we had free will, in the true sense of the word, then God wouldn't have a clue what decisions we were going to make. Perhaps you might argue that God lives outside of time... and that's fine if you want to believe that, but in that case, from God's perspective you've already made every decision you're ever going to make. It's already been decided before you even get there. And don't retort with a bunch of decisions that you feel were your own. What I'm trying to tell you, in essence, is that making decisions and free will are not the same thing!
Who predetermined it? Not me or you, nor God, He saw what was to be, but had nothing to do with my decision. So how is my decision anything but freewill?
(March 2, 2012 at 9:30 am)genkaus Wrote:(March 2, 2012 at 3:26 am)Godschild Wrote: person runs into a burning building to save another's life and dies trying, that decision has nothing to do with genes, it is a selfless act of love that many do not possess, yet it is a decision made of one's own freewill.
Selfless, sure. But an act of love? Really?
Love is a highly selfish emotion that results when one values an object or a person above everything else. "Loving" everything and everyone is not a noble concept, it the corruption of the noble concept of love.
If the person being saved is a stranger (or someone irrelevant), then it is not an act of love. If the person being saved is a loved one, then it is not a selfless act.
Love selfish really, you must not be married, are you close to family?
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.