Better reasons to quit Christianity

[The Grand Nudger]

The really interesting thing about all of these claimed attributes (and even the god claim itself) and how they might relate to each other is not whether they are contradictory, but how they came to be attached (or what they were used to explain) in the first place. What cannot be ignored here, when discussing these attributes is that the originators of the narratives were, in many cases, creating these gods before it was apparent (or important) to anyone that the claims must be non-contradictory. Some things did not seem to be contradictory at one point though we currently understand them to be so, and of course, many of the claims appeared to be completely self explanatory or self-evident to the cultures that proposed them whilst today we much more accurately describe these as superstition (rain gods being a famous example).

What makes the whole thing really interesting ( to me at least) is how these characters have changed over time (and even how posters here on these boards attempt to engineer subtle changes to the narrative). What we have is a long history of these narratives serving us for a variety of purposes and being modified to better suit those purposes as perceived as by any given culture or person. Whether or not two claimed attributes of a divine narrative or a divine creature are contradictory (and whether or not that implies that either the narrative is incorrect or that the creature is non-existent) is, to me, a non issue. Fairy tales are fairy tales, this isn't an ongoing debate. The case, barring the introduction of some here-to-fore unseen evidence is closed on that count.

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So nothing is determining reality.

Try again. -It does not matter what is determining reality in the example of the precog, predestined events, and "choice".

How does reality happen then? How does Joe actually buy the car? Either he decides, a god decides, or nature decides.

Pancakes...I already told you.

If you say Joe, that's a choice.

Unless there's a precog involved, in which case it isn't. If there isn't a precog involved it -may be-, but there is still the possibility that it is not, if, for example, the future can be known...even if no one knows it. As I said, a precognitive entity doesn't lead to this problem, the requirements for precognition itself does. For precognition to exist, it must be possible to know the future. If the future is not set, it cannot be known, only guessed at. Would you like to argue for a deity [that is not precognitive] that wagered every human soul and indeed the entirety of the cosmos on a guess? If you want your precog, you're going to have to man up and accept a future that can be known, a future that is set, a future that is predestined.

If you say a god, the god works through either people or nature.

That isn't an issue of precognitive ability, that would be an example of tinkering, which is not required to eliminate choice, but definitely would put a nail firmly in the coffin for other reasons entirely.

And if you say nature, you're back to genes determining choices.

There's a fair bit more to nature than genes....you do realize this yes?

How is it so impossible that Joe can make his choice and the precog just be knowledgable about it?

Re-read my multiple explanations of this or find a way to ask a question that has not been answered ad naus. By the brute force of that knowledge being made available to the precog, Joe's choice can go no other way. Even in the example of a and b..Joe is incapable of choosing that which the precog does not experience (without removing the attribute of precognitive from the observer). Joe cannot even make a choice between two simple things, let alone a complicated decision such as the ones we find in our lives with multiple alternatives up to and including the decision to not make a decision at all. In the face of predestined events, which would become apparent in the case of precognitive abilities,Joe is not choosing (though from his -or our- point of view it may very much seem like he is). Joe is simply floating through the river of time and causality and the precog experiences this clearly.

Who says a precog can only see the inevitable? Perhaps it becomes inevitable, but not until Joe has made his choice.

Then the precog did not have knowledge of the future, but of possible futures, I already posted a little bit about this but if we want to go down that road we can.

Let me put it this way: just because reality has one path doesn't mean characters couldn't have diverted reality onto a different path.

Ah, well then, if reality only has one path then what you just brought up above is ruled out. There are no other possibilities, reality has only one path, the precog experiences it, it cannot go another way.

The precog simply knows what that one path of reality has become.

This is precisely the problem, yes.

If that isn't a choice, I don't know what is.

...clearly.....

The person picks what they want in the face of a theoretical, accessible alternative. To me, that's free will.

Except that you haven't given them an accessible alternative in your examples with regards to a precog. You are arguing for a lack of choice, and then concluding that there is a choice. Wrap your head around that.

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-With regards to your explanation of free will and love-
So, god, knowing all of this in advance (being precognitive), and in order for love to exist, set up a system such that I would be punished not for any failing of my character or goodness, but simply for not having faith; strange, since you would think that god as the "author of my heart and soul" would know why I don't....and I could have been written such that it was at least possible (and, because you have invoked predestination in invoking precognition...not by any actual choice on my part, only an elaborate illusion)?

This is the price of love?