Are all atheists this ill-informed about religion?

[Mudhammam]

Omniscience and free will are a problem - but I say an even larger one looms in the solution that theists often suggest, which is something like the following:

God exists outside of time; temporal events are always present to his knowledge; momentarily granting that free will can be intelligibly incorporated into either schemes of spontaneity and/or necessity, his omniscience merely implies foreknowledge of what, in time, freely or causally follows - albeit an individual's will or acts of will or whatever is meant by that term.

The consequence is this: it means that God's omniscience is effected by temporal events - which is an absurd situation given his creation of, and existence outside, time.

[Edwardo Piet]

The thing is God can't ever have existed before time because that makes no sense. Also he can't exist outside of time because time=space-time and outside=spacial.

So in whatever sense that "God" is separate to time he can't do anything or be anywhere before space and time is around so he cannot exist outside of it in any meaningful way.

[Minimalist]

Oh, Evie, you're just not reading it in the proper context.

You see they have these special glasses....

[TheRocketSurgeon]

I think you got it wrong, Minimalist. This is clearly the way it's done:



Edit: Found a better one.

[Edwardo Piet]

Unfortunately that's only Mormon specific

I like Min's for the broader range

[vorlon13]

Goddamn Joseph Smith.

Imagine how ill-informed he would be about Mormonism today !!!

LOL, for starters, since he changed and revised EVERYTHING, and then his successors went off in random directions, some trying to make sense of the mess Old Horny Joe left behind, others rampantly and carelessly obfuscating and twisting doctrines to satisfy their whims, Joe wouldn't know where to start, and the current batch of elders would excommunicate him instantly for most all of his wacky ideas that aren't scripture in his own church anymore.

[Edwardo Piet]

I knew one Mormon once.

Very nice well spoken guy, 19 years old very tall indeed, like nearly 7 foot. Had to have his shoes specially made. Very strong big glasses - he was practically blind without them. He had migranes all the time, had come to the UK from America and ate nothing but croissants and drank nothing but huge bottles of full fat milk.

He went back to America to be a missionary. He believed in really crazy shit but was a really nice guy. I wish he hadn't gone to America to force his beliefs down people's throats, because other than that he was really nice.

His sister was an atheist and I wonder if he had anything to do with that by being so religious.

He once told me that he believed heaven and hell were on a giant spectrum so there was every other celestial situation in between heaven and hell and the dead middle was total boredom. Apparently that's a Mormon thing too.

EDIT: Seriously just had to edit the start of this post, I genuinely accidentally left out the 2nd "m" and it genuinely said originally "I knew a Moron" once.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Oh. I just thought the Mormon thing could apply equally to all... with details changed for the appropriate cults they represent, of course.

[Edwardo Piet]

Good point

[IATIA]

Honestly, though, is less a contention against free will and more a contention against the idea that Gaud has any right to punish anyone for anything since he is knowingly responsible for everything that happens in the Universe.

That I fully agree with. Anyone that goes to Hell, was created by gaud with full knowledge of the outcome. Basically, it boils down to gaud intentionally creating someone to help fill up Hell.

May perhaps gaud needs the devil for continued existence and the devil needs souls for the same, therefore gaud must keep feeding souls to the devil to survive.