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I have various choices to make about designing this person, e.g. their DNA, the make up of their soul etc etc.
However I can also see the future so know exactly what this person will say and do for their entire life based on these design paramaters. Of course these life choices are also made as a result of one's environment, but that is also controlled by God ultimately. The same with any other factor.
Then I send them to Hell based on their life choices.
It is all of course nonsense. I've seen the argument around freewill vs omniscience before, but never introducing the design aspect first. (It probably has been done before, most of these arguments seemed to have been done thousands of years before)
Even if you take the argument back to just the big bang, and say God had a choice about how the universe would turn out, the argument still works. After all, Christians always say "look at how the universe was perfectly designed, it must have been done by a God".
Have I made any flaws in this argument? I guess the only one is that God's omnipotence can turn off his omniscience during the design process? Or that God is not omnipotent and/or omniscient? Or that God is just a prick.
There are many of these. Including why design both diseases and an immune system? Scientists all around the world are working on eliminating disease to make the world a better place. This:
1. Is undermining God's fine work in creating disease and misery for humans.
2. Means that scientists are better creatures than God.
Scientists have all but eliminated diseases like smallpox. They're obviously not essential to have, yet God must have put them there. This one doesn't even need any mention of freewill.
Not all Christians believe God's omniscience extends to knowledge of future actions. The user ChadWooters doesn't, for example. For him and the like, the future doesn't exist and a we have libertarian free will to do otherwise than we in fact do, so it's not possible to know beforehand the outcome.
"The reason things will never get better is because people keep electing these rich cocksuckers who don't give a shit about you."
-George Carlin
December 11, 2013 at 3:59 pm (This post was last modified: December 11, 2013 at 4:01 pm by Godscreated.)
(December 11, 2013 at 6:07 am)FreeTony Wrote:
Ok so I'm God and I'm making a person.
I have various choices to make about designing this person, e.g. their DNA, the make up of their soul etc etc.
However I can also see the future so know exactly what this person will say and do for their entire life based on these design paramaters. Of course these life choices are also made as a result of one's environment, but that is also controlled by God ultimately. The same with any other factor.
Then I send them to Hell based on their life choices.
It is all of course nonsense. I've seen the argument around freewill vs omniscience before, but never introducing the design aspect first. (It probably has been done before, most of these arguments seemed to have been done thousands of years before)
Even if you take the argument back to just the big bang, and say God had a choice about how the universe would turn out, the argument still works. After all, Christians always say "look at how the universe was perfectly designed, it must have been done by a God".
Have I made any flaws in this argument? I guess the only one is that God's omnipotence can turn off his omniscience during the design process? Or that God is not omnipotent and/or omniscient? Or that God is just a prick.
There are many of these. Including why design both diseases and an immune system? Scientists all around the world are working on eliminating disease to make the world a better place. This:
1. Is undermining God's fine work in creating disease and misery for humans.
2. Means that scientists are better creatures than God.
Scientists have all but eliminated diseases like smallpox. They're obviously not essential to have, yet God must have put them there. This one doesn't even need any mention of freewill.
You forgot many things, like sin is what brought all bad things into the creation, the creation was perfect until sin entered. If you believed in God would you desire to be His little puppet on strings? Being who He says He is do you think He would make you a puppet?
GC
(December 11, 2013 at 3:19 pm)Upside Down Dog Wrote: Yeah, Calvinists such as myself don't believe in free will.
So are you saying God would send those He created to hell, just because it is what He desires? What about the scripture that says God desires no one should suffer eternal punishment.
GC
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.
December 11, 2013 at 4:40 pm (This post was last modified: December 11, 2013 at 4:43 pm by WesOlsen.)
(December 11, 2013 at 3:59 pm)Godschild Wrote: You forgot many things, like sin is what brought all bad things into the creation, the creation was perfect until sin entered. If you believed in God would you desire to be His little puppet on strings? Being who He says He is do you think He would make you a puppet?
GC
(December 11, 2013 at 3:19 pm)Upside Down Dog Wrote: Yeah, Calvinists such as myself don't believe in free will.
So are you saying God would send those He created to hell, just because it is what He desires? What about the scripture that says God desires no one should suffer eternal punishment.
GC
If god creates people in the knowledge that some of them will sin, then god's entire experiment is essentially pre-determined; the fate of all time and matter is known to him. It also means he condemns people to eternal misery for his own enjoyment/undisclosed reasons. If god creates free will but cannot himself see the future of all things, then his power is limited. Why do christians disagree with one another on the nature of omnipitence and whether god is or is not omnipitent?
(June 19, 2013 at 3:23 am)Muslim Scholar Wrote: Most Gays have a typical behavior of rejecting religions, because religions consider them as sinners (In Islam they deserve to be killed)
(June 19, 2013 at 3:23 am)Muslim Scholar Wrote: I think you are too idiot to know the meaning of idiot for example you have a law to prevent boys under 16 from driving do you think that all boys under 16 are careless and cannot drive properly
(December 11, 2013 at 3:59 pm)Godschild Wrote: You forgot many things, like sin is what brought all bad things into the creation, the creation was perfect until sin entered. If you believed in God would you desire to be His little puppet on strings? Being who He says He is do you think He would make you a puppet?
Where did the bad things come from? They must have been designed by God surely?
Unless there are some laws that God had nothing to do with and cannot overcome.
I kind of like the idea that if we are created in god's image, we can know god as a person pretty well just from knowing ourselves. Humans are imaginative and creative creatures with great problem-solving skills. I mean, we seem to spend a lot of time thinking up problems just so we can solve them! We create and build amazing things, often going through a process of failed experiments and screw-ups until we get it right, then we add to what we've learned and keep making it better.
Maybe that is god. Maybe this universe is the first he made, or the eighteenth. Maybe Earth is the thiry-fourth planet in this universe that he seeded with life and he checks on us every now and then and chuckles at some of the crazy stuff we imagine about him (and face-palms at some of the more gruesome stuff). Maybe he sees us the way we see our video game creations, so that watching us torment and kill each other is just his version of Call of Duty (or the NFL). Maybe he already perfected humanity and world-building and out there is a utopian world with people who are super happy and enjoying life because goddamn... he finally got it right!
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
(December 11, 2013 at 4:56 pm)Tonus Wrote: I kind of like the idea that if we are created in god's image, we can know god as a person pretty well just from knowing ourselves. Humans are imaginative and creative creatures with great problem-solving skills. I mean, we seem to spend a lot of time thinking up problems just so we can solve them! We create and build amazing things, often going through a process of failed experiments and screw-ups until we get it right, then we add to what we've learned and keep making it better.
Maybe that is god. Maybe this universe is the first he made, or the eighteenth. Maybe Earth is the thiry-fourth planet in this universe that he seeded with life and he checks on us every now and then and chuckles at some of the crazy stuff we imagine about him (and face-palms at some of the more gruesome stuff). Maybe he sees us the way we see our video game creations, so that watching us torment and kill each other is just his version of Call of Duty (or the NFL). Maybe he already perfected humanity and world-building and out there is a utopian world with people who are super happy and enjoying life because goddamn... he finally got it right!
Any of the above makes more sense (and seems somehow more "godlike") than the strangely needy, vindictive freak with the bizarre salvation plan described in the Bible.
= paradox, except if you can obfuscate and use apologist logic to redefine what a paradox is. Or you believe that at least one half of The equation is irrelevant/ not applicable.
(December 11, 2013 at 3:59 pm)Godschild Wrote: So are you saying God would send those He created to hell, just because it is what He desires? What about the scripture that says God desires no one should suffer eternal punishment.
GC
That's not what the Greek says nor what the context implies.
I'm assuming you're talking about 1 Tim 2:4 and 2 Pet 3:9?
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