RE: Why did god allow people to be born after the fall ?
November 17, 2017 at 6:58 pm
(This post was last modified: November 17, 2017 at 7:09 pm by possibletarian.)
(November 17, 2017 at 2:27 pm)alpha male Wrote: No, they're not. I think, therefore I am. If god determined our every thought, then we don't exist in any meaningful way.
Quote:Not so. Taking Descartes at his word, the presence of thoughts would cause you to exist. You'd essentially be your god's puppet, and your existence as a puppet could still be in some way meaningful to your god.
Calvinists have built a whole theology around this, Of course they still have the ridiculous problem of a god that would do that.
The scientific opinion is now favouring the no free will scenario
I've just read Sam Harris's book 'Free Will' (well it's a paper really, small and easy to read) that seems to lay this out in easy understandable terms.
(November 17, 2017 at 6:58 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: It's funny that we get the blame for being sin-innate. You'd think the fault would lie with the creator, not the creation....
It would in any reasonable scenario you could imagine.
(November 17, 2017 at 6:56 pm)SteveII Wrote:(November 17, 2017 at 6:44 pm)possibletarian Wrote: Then that simply brings us back to asking, why did he allow people to be born, whom he knew would suffer eternally ?
Bold and Italics mine*
The what is prophecy then if not god knowing what you will do ? How do you separate god predicting with absolute certainty, and knowing ?
You didn't read carefully enough. God does not know that you turned right. God knows that you will choose to turn right (for the reasons I described above). The difference between the two is important because it removes the whole objection that we couldn't have turned left because God already knew something to be true. Is there a difference between predicting with absolute certainty and knowing? I don't think so.
Wonderful, then why allow those people to be born at all ? what purpose will it serve ?
The point being that for those who believe in neither hell, nor god, they are not consciously choosing or rejecting either.
'Those who ask a lot of questions may seem stupid, but those who don't ask questions stay stupid'