Personal revelation vs. free will

[ThomM]

The problem with the claim is that that is a MAJOR contradiction in the definition of the god of christianity and its doctrines.

The god of the xtians is claimed to be all knowing - and that COMPLETELY prevents "FREE" will.

If the god knows everything that will happen BEFORE it happens - as claimed - then WHEN it does happen - there is NO "FREE" choice. YOU can only do what the god already knows.

IF the god already knows you are evil - you CANNOT choose to do otherwise and the god remain All Knowing.

So - since - as a human I can only make decisions and "choices" when I an alive - YOU cannot say that I am "FREE" to choose any of the possible options if the god already knows - I am not actually free to choose something the god doesn't know.

[Cyberman]

The lie is safe because it guards itself (Blake's 7 reference, for my fellow geeks out there.)

I saw all of Blakes 7 and don't get this reference.

Please refresh my memory.

No problem, Plumb. It's a paraphrased line from the Season 2 episode "Weapon". Plotwise, there's a fugitive technician from a Federation Weapons Development Base named Coser who fakes a crashlanding on a remote planet with a new weapon he's invented called IMIPAK (Induced Molecular Instability Projector And Key). Basically, it's a rifle-shaped device that induces a lethal molecular instability in whatever it's fired at, but which only kills if and when you press the button on a separate remote control. Essentially, you can mark a person for death, with or without telling him you've done so, and keep him alive for as long as you wish afterwards; or set up a perimeter of the keys so as to make sure he will never enter where you don't want him to go. Coser is willing to give this weapon to Blake and his crew to aid their rebellion against the tyrannical Federation. (To anyone unfamiliar with the series, Blake's 7 is sort of an upside-down Star Trek; the Federation are the bad guys and the good guys are a disparate band of criminals, outlaws and revolutionaries who only follow their leader, Blake, as long as doing so suits their own agendas.)

However, the line I nicked comes from the concept of the Clonemasters, a sort of ecclesiastical order of human cloning specialists who hold all life connected and sacred. The Federation in the form of Servalan and Travis have commissioned the Clonemasters to create a perfect replica of Blake (actually two, since Travis shoots one of them) in order that Coser will hand over IMIPAK to the clone instead of the real Blake. The exchange in question goes like this:

TRAVIS: I meant no impudence, Supreme Commander.

[Fen descends the stairs unnoticed as Servalan and Travis talk]

SERVALAN: The Clonemasters are awesome, Travis, because they have ultimate power. They can create life, and in whatever form they wish.

TRAVIS: As can a number of Federation biologists even today. Cloning's been known for centuries, but was abandoned because it was inefficient and tended towards genetic stagnation.

FEN: I fear you are both mistaken.

SERVALAN: [Bows] Clonemaster Fen.

FEN: [Inclines her head] Servalan. It was never abandoned, Travis. The leaders feared its potential as a weapon. But a weapon once created cannot be abandoned. It can only be contained. And so they entrusted it to us. And we cannot create life in any form we wish. That would violate the Rule of Life.

TRAVIS: Power usually makes its own rules.

FEN: My predecessor believed in the Rule of Life. When the time came, a single cell was taken from her and stimulated into growth. The child was identical in every way to the child that she had once been. She brought it up, taught it, trained it - so that when that child became a woman, she not only looked like my predecessor, she thought like her. And like her, I believe in the Rule of Life.

SERVALAN: You were cloned. I did not realise that.

FEN: All the Clonemasters are themselves cloned. All are identical to the original group that came to this planet.

SERVALAN: And are trusted for the same reasons they were trusted.

TRAVIS: Belief in the Rule of Life .... What about an enemy who doesn't believe in it? What's to stop him cloning a whole army of fanatics to move in against us?

FEN: Nothing. But if it happened the Rule of Life is clear. We would help you.

SERVALAN: The weapon is ours, and safe because it guards itself.

FEN: Precisely so.

My paraphrasing sort of echoes the original context, in that the lie (of supposedly holy mythology) is owned by those who believe it to be true, and it guards itself by virtue of being perfectly circularly defined. If any of that makes sense to anyone outside my bizarre brain.

[pgrimes15]

How is what you have done for your son any different than what God has done for us through Christ on the cross?

Er . . . . . he hasn't killed his son.

You did say any different.

Regards

Grimesy

[Faith No More]

However, that's not the bit that interests me, in terms of this thread anyway. No, the thing I find hard to wrap my brain around is this idea of personal revelation. It's the card that is usually played once the believer gets close to the edge of realisation that it might all just be a story, because that's the only source they have. We've seen it time and again: "I know God is real because He has revealed Himself to me in such a way that it cannot be denied".

So my question to all that would be: what price free will in all this? If God (or Allah, or Quetzecoatl) appeared in front of you in a manner that took away all doubt of its reality and authenticity, hasn't your free will been taken away?

It's a catch 22 that they simply ignore. Personal revelation does interfere with free will, however, they desperately need it as part of the faith equation. Humanity as searched since the beginning for evidence of god that can be verified by others, but none has ever been found. They only way to cling to their faith then is to hold onto some sort of unverifiable evidence, i.e. personal revelation, which no one can refute. That makes personal revelation extremely important to their faith, the effects on free will be damned. As we've all seen, it just takes a little bit of 'doublethink,' and it suddenly becomes no problem for them.

[Cyberman]

In my peculiar imagination, I see it as a religious version of The Truman Show. If you haven't seen it but would like to, please do so before reading any further as there's going to be a few spoilers. Anyway, the only source of information regarding God, JC, Nazareth, and all the rest of the story is inside this bubble of mythology called the bible, which is like the huge studio that is Truman's whole world. Any curiosity Truman may have about the truth of what he's told is punished in some way, so he becomes conditioned not to question the story.

Once a believer comes into contact with the edge of their bubble-world, whether through education, chance or deliberately as Truman did, they come to realise that there might be a previously unknown world of knowledge waiting for them outside. Sometimes they find the courage and the motivation to open that door and step through, as Truman did. Mostly though, they will deny the edge of their world is even there and that's when the ad hoc rationalisations come puking up, from argument by numbers to the testimony of personal revelation. I just wish there were more Trumans with the courage to step through that door and view the bubble from the outside where the world may be bigger and scarier but the light is better.

I hope this makes sense, my brain does often have a strange way of reading the world.

[Faith No More]

I hope this makes sense, my brain does often have a strange way of reading the world.

It's actually a very apt analogy.

[Cyberman]

Thank you, it's something that only came into my head in bed this morning while I was busy being awake (not like that you naughty lot; remember I'm widowed and depressingly single) - so I wasn't all that sure whether it was coherent enough to actually make the point I was going for.

[ThomM]

[quote='Drich' pid='326177' dateline='1345741877']
How is what you have done for your son any different than what God has done for us through Christ on the cross?

Er . . . . . he hasn't killed his son.

You did say any different.

Regards

Grimesy


WE also exist - and are not fairy tales as well
Thom

[Cyberman]

How is what you have done for your son any different than what God has done for us through Christ on the cross?

In fact, when you actually start to look at it on more than a platitudinously superficial level, there are many, many differences. The lack of blood sacrifice and just simple basic existence are only the start.

[jonb]

How is what you have done for your son any different than what God has done for us through Christ on the cross?

In fact, when you actually start to look at it on more than a platitudinously superficial level, there are many, many differences. The lack of blood sacrifice and just simple basic existence are only the start.

Do you think Drich is going to try to prove my non-existence so he can complete the analogy?

Anyway who's this Joseph geeza?