Do you ever doubt your Atheism? Do you think Theists are arrogant because they believe they were created by their God?

Dude--you okay or are the 'Shrooms finally getting to you? Although mind altering drugs can be fun--reality's this way. Follow me--I'll show you. LOL.





"So he got fired? Big deal. It's happened to the best of us. So he got kicked out of his house by his 400 lb'ed wife?!?!? That's probably better for him anyways."-OldSchooler on ChrisMBHater's absence

I think the arrogance of being an atheist is way beyond compare to agnostics or believers. To be an atheist you have to believe that you understand everything in the universe as you see it is a fact as to not believe in god. While the agnostic just has to say prove it to me without discounting that belief as true. IMO agnostics are the most humble.

//Do you ever doubt your Atheism?//
Sure. Everyone doubts their own belief system, if only for a few seconds. Anyone who says otherwise is either a liar or a fool.

//Do you think Theists are arrogant because they believe they were created by their God?//
No.

Frankly, (and I'm gonna take a wild guess here), your Christianity makes me happy. I would much prefer that the world is full of good people who disagree with me theologically than bad people who agree with me. Folks who go out on mission work, who do their best to improve the lives of some poor starving villagers by whatever method, are pretty well entitled to say, "And here's this other thing I believe..." Fine by me - the end result is that the poor starving villagers, if the missionaries have done their jobs right, are less poor and less hungry. Good deeds and all that.

The purpose of all religions is to provide a framework for behavior - do x, y, and z, and you'll be rewarded in the afterlife. Not coincidentally, x, y, and z behaviors also benefit society and help to maintain cohesion and peace in all of the people around you.

And that's how I try to live my life - not because I fear Hell, or damnation, or judgement of the Lord, or whatever. But I believe that if I behave in a way that benefits society, I'm doing good things. Don't confuse this with fascism; I'm not advocating behaving in a way that benefits the state because the state is all that is and will be....but rather, I try to live my life in a way that benefits my neighbors, friends, and community. **** the state.

Mostly that's because, since I believe there is no afterlife, I realize that how I behave and act NOW is the only way I will be remembered - my judgement will come from the community, and I want to be remembered well. My only chance to be remembered well is to act well and to behave well. So that's what I try to do.

Heck, I'm even OK with the Ten Commandments - or 7 of them, anyway. I don't think they should be posted on courthouses or in the front lawn of a city hall, but they remain pretty good rules to live by nonetheless.

My wife is an Episcopalian - we have no kids, but if we do, they're going to church. They can decide that there is no God (or decide that dad's a loony) when they're old enough to think for themselves.

Christianity is simply the process of convincing one's self that there has to be something better than this BS on the other side. Keeps you motiviated to be good and in older times, under control. We have replaced the Church with IRS agents.

_____________________________________________
January 6,1991: The last post season victory for the Bengals.

//I think the arrogance of being an atheist is way beyond compare to agnostics or believers. To be an atheist you have to believe that you understand everything in the universe as you see it is a fact as to not believe in god. While the agnostic just has to say prove it to me without discounting that belief as true. IMO agnostics are the most humble.//

You've met the wrong atheists. I don't understand the whole Universe - I never will. But I'll also never just say, "Well, I don't understand this, so I'll just dust my hands off and say, 'God did it,' because that's not science, nor is it honest. We can always learn more - that's why we try to. Long-term, I believe that mankind might make a dent in the level of knowledge about the Universe about which we know nothing....about.....uhm....

Right. Moving on.

Michael Newdow is a douchebag. He's the Odell Thurman of atheists.

I have met a few athiests and they rarely say anything about religion or care to get in that discussion. Its a no win for them. Kinda like a pro choice v pro life debate. Nobody can convince anyone of anything in that debate.

If they keep to themselves, pay their taxes, cut their lawns, and don't put up a U of M or Browns flag in their yard they are cool.



_____________________________________________
January 6,1991: The last post season victory for the Bengals.

"You've met the wrong atheists. I don't understand the whole Universe - I never will. But I'll also never just say, "Well, I don't understand this, so I'll just dust my hands off and say, 'God did it,' because that's not science, nor is it honest. We can always learn more - that's why we try to. Long-term, I believe that mankind might make a dent in the level of knowledge about the Universe about which we know nothing....about.....uhm...."

I’m not saying they are acting arrogant, but suffice it to say they seem arrogant and should state, IMO, an agnostic stance instead of implying they know for a fact God does not exist, just as people stating for a fact he does. I can understand the not knowing whether he does or does not exist, but to take the stance of non existence as a fact is just as wrong to me as stating he does for a fact, No one can prove (other than faith) his existence or non- existence. Although, IMO, there is a lot more circumstantial evidence in his existence than against.

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

that said, i dont claim to know either way, there may be a "God" who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, but a "God" who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings is preposterous.

copypasta:

it is possible that there is an army of invisible dragons on the far side of the Moon that are preparing to mount an attack that will lead to the extinction of humanity. These are highly technologically advanced dragons, which is why we have not detected their existence. Plus they are invisible. Now if the invisible dragon army exists, we had better pour all of our social resources into mounting a massive thermonuclear assault on the far side of the Moon, because if we don't get them before they get us, we are all going to go extinct. Clearly, there are four distinct possibilities:

1. The dragons do not exist, and we do not believe in them. In this case, OK, we pretty much go about our lives as we do now.
2. The dragons do not exist, and we believe in them. In this case, we waste some societal resources in nuking the Moon, but at least we get to survive.
3. The dragons exist, and we believe in them. In this case, yay! We nuke the dragons and we get to survive.
4. The dragons exist, and we do not believe in them. Holy crap, now we are in some deep ****, because when the dragons attack, we are all doomed, doomed!

This is, you will note, basically isomorphic to Pascal's Wager. Now, if you look at these four possibilities, you would conclude that we had best get started nuking the dark side of the moon, post haste.

Except --- holy **** --- what if the evil army of invisible dragons is actually on Mars, and the dark side of the Moon is, in fact, populated by twinkly Tinkerbell fairies whose magical fairy dust is the only weapon that can kill an invisible dragon! After all, these dragons are magical --- they already live on the dark side of the Moon, and a massive wave of high-intensity radiation may just bounce off their hide. Now we are into some deeply heavy ****, because having bought into our former analysis, we are investing major social resources in nuking the Moon, but if we nuke the Moon we are all doomed because the fairies will all be vaporized. And holy cow, how do we know that the fairies are on the Moon, and the dragons are on Mars? What if the dragons are on the Moon, and the fairies are on Mars? Now we've got a head-spinning vortex of possibilities:

1. The fairies exist on the dark side of the Moon, the dragons exist on Mars, and we believe in them. In this case, we send some fairy-harvesters to the Moon to gather up all the fairy dust, plus we need to build some fairy-dust-crop-dusters that can function in the Martian atmosphere. We dust the dragons and yay! We survive!
2. The fairies do not exist, but the dragons do exist; but the dragons live on Mars, and not the Moon, and we choose not to believe in any of it. Now the dragons are going to come get us, and we are all doomed, doomed!
3. The fairies exist, and they live on Mars, but the dragons do not, but we believe that the dragons exist and the fairies do not. In this case, we will probably nuke the Moon, but the fairies live on Mars, so no harm no foul. Plus we didn't even need the fairies to begin with, since the dragons do not exist.
4. The fairies exist, and they live on Mars, and the dragons live on the Moon, but we believe only in the dragons and not the fairies. In this case, we will end up nuking the moon; but --- damn! --- we still die, because we do not realize that the only way to defeat the dragons would be to mount a Mars mission to gather magical fairy dust.
5. The fairies live on the Moon, the dragons live on Mars, and ---

Wait a second. What if the dwarves who have lived underground in Caucasus Mountains since the dawn of time could forge us an enchanted sword, with which our chosen champion could command the dragons? In that case, we had better pour all of our resources into invading the Caucasus Mountains and contacting the dwarves, before some random terrorist stumbles upon the hidden cave entrance and says the Word of Power that unlocks the gate that has been shut for countless millennia. Because if some terrorist stumbles on the hidden cave entrance and speaks the Word of Power, we are all ****ed. Plus, we need to maintain military hegemony over the world indefinitely, and if we could command the invisible dragons, we would basically have military hegemony sewn up.

Man, I never knew that computing a simple wager would be so difficult. I'm beginning to lose track. I mean you've got the dragons and the fairies and the dwarves, and holy **** what about the starfaring guild of alien wizards? What about the Ancient and Venerated Order of Elephant Shamans? What about the Conspiracy of Snowboarding Yetis? What about the Creeping Evil from Beyond Space and Time? This matrix of possibilities is growing exponentially with every sentence. But basically, the point is, in most cases, you're better off believing that everything exists, because what if it does? HMMMMMM? WHAT IF IT DOES EXIST? Then we are all ****ED. So believe, mother****er, believe, before the Teddy Bear Von Neumann Probe From Alpha Centauri turns the entire solar system into a bazillion cute and cuddly polyester toys.

//Frankly, (and I'm gonna take a wild guess here), your Christianity makes me happy. I would much prefer that the world is full of good people who disagree with me theologically than bad people who agree with me. Folks who go out on mission work, who do their best to improve the lives of some poor starving villagers by whatever method, are pretty well entitled to say, "And here's this other thing I believe..." Fine by me - the end result is that the poor starving villagers, if the missionaries have done their jobs right, are less poor and less hungry. Good deeds and all that.//

i used to say this in a simpler way : whatever you need to keep you from touching kids is fine with me. my ethics are my own and i don't need to be told theyre ok, but i'm glad something is keeping you from being a degenerate.

http://www.jhuger.com/pascal

try that for fun.

my ethics and belief system are real and testable, based on game theory, the prisoners dillemma, and evolutionarily stable strategies. someone needs to put together a book and make it a religion. bet they could make some money off of it.

The central flaw of the religious that attempt to Atheists are illogical is they believe something created what they cannot explain. In essence, it makes more sense to have a god that created the universe, instead of the universe just being here.

That may be attractive at first, but does not a god that created the universe have to be more complex than the universe he created? If that is true, are you not using something more complex to explain something less complex?

If you have faith, so be it. More power to you. But don't use a creator as a lame attempt to expalin where the universe came from.

I grew up Catholic and have switched to atheism over the years. At least Catholics allow their memebers to belive in evolution. Anyone who does not belive in evolution is not capable of rational thought.

I'll go so far to say there is more evidence of evolution than gravity. Gravity could be an odd manifestation of electrical force, or the strong nuclear force.

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who undertsand binary, and those who do not.

I'm an agnostic who feels (hopes?) that there is some sort of ultimate all-knowing, all-being force which mere mortals cannot possibly comprehend with our puny intellects. To me, organized religion is a clear product of the human desire to give meaning to existence and gain assurance that we will live on after our body dies. Science has led me to reject Christianity, but has not put a dent in my belief that we are part of something infinite and eternal. Sometimes that idea frightens me, sometimes it is very calming.

"Get a clue jack azz! Stop reading your history books" - quote from "Murf's Guide to Survivin' in Da Hood"

I believe there is something out there somewhere. I don't know what it is and I don't think anyone else does either.

I believe there is a higher power for the simple fact that the vast majority of humans beings choose good over evil. Each one of us has the ability to walk into a crowded store and open fire or push an old lady into traffic, but almost all of us never will. And because of that, I believe in a god.



-------------------------------------------
President of the FalconGoose Association of North America or FANA.

I'm not going to comment on religion in this thread, but I will say that astronomers and astrophycisists (in other words, scientists) acknowledge that 90-95% of the known universe is comprised of dark matter and dark energy, which they also acknowledge knowing nothing about, which in effect means that even if they knew 100% of the answers (which they don't) with the 5% of the universe they are able to observe, that still means we are largely ignorant about 90-95% of the rest of the universe.

And no, my point isn't to say "if we can't explain something, that must mean God did it," but to say that as "advanced" as we believe science to be, it is still only truly knowledgeable of about 5% or less of the material that comprises the universe, which for me, isn't a whole lot to go on in terms of what beliefs are "crazy" and what beliefs aren't.

*****************
"...I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze. But I, I think maybe it's both, maybe both happening at the same time." -Forrest Gump

"You've met the wrong atheists. I don't understand the whole Universe - I never will. But I'll also never just say, "Well, I don't understand this, so I'll just dust my hands off and say, 'God did it,' because that's not science, nor is it honest."

What I find interesting is that there are more questions and answers with faith, than without it. The atheist is quite an intriguing individual. There is more evidence for the existence of the Supreme Being, than there is not. I find it rather amusing that an atheist can go through life being exposed to all the evidence, and yet be so blind at the same time.

Sometimes you only see what you're looking for, or allow yourself to see. If you are looking for nothing, or refuse to get beyond preconceived notions, then that is exactly what you'll get.

Consider Josh McDowell, an atheist that set out to disprove the existence of God, and after years of research and analysis, concluded otherwise.

how naive sinsinn keep telling yourself that and it will all be good. There is no proof people wake up none nada zip nothing. I'm not against religion or faith, but thats what it is faith nothing more, there is no "proof". Believe all you want just keep it off my wave.

CMBH, lets not forget though, scientists know enough about atoms to harness their energy without ever seeing one. I am amazed they have been able to figure out what they know with just what they are able to see.

What does an Athiest say when they are having an orgasm? ...OH OH OH I think there might be a God? <rim shot> ..... Think about it for a second, then laugh.

...Actually I think if there is a God, I think she is a big black lesbian. AND The Bible is a Fairy Tale.

"...CMBH, lets not forget though, scientists know enough about atoms to harness their energy without ever seeing one. I am amazed they have been able to figure out what they know with just what they are able to see."

Oh, believe me, if it were up to me and not the advances of science over thousands of years of human existence, I'd be a hunter/gatherer. lol.

No, I'm not belittling scientific discoveries like the atom, the hubble space telescope, or questioning the influence of science throughout human history, for good and ill. I am just saying that relatively speaking, we know 5% or less about the nature of the universe.

I find it interesting that we can make discoveries of the things on the micro level, but not on the macro level. In other words, we're the short sighted ant that can't see the things that are right in front of our faces.

If an ant suddenly had "understanding" and good vision, it would be flabbergasted at the things that were right there all along, but which it never had the tinyest inkling about.

Until we find out the nature of dark matter/energy, we remain ignorant about 95% of the universe.

Our reality is based on our perception. If you have a 20 room house and only go into 1 room, you've seen 5% of that house. Until you leave that room, you have no idea what's in the other 95% of that house, and that room is "your" reality, but not necessarily the true reality. We're still in the 1 room in the 20 room house, and have no idea what's in the other 19 rooms. Yes, we've discovered some amazing things in this 1 room, with more discoveries yet to come in this one room, but the other rooms are a total mystery. That's all I'm saying.

Dunn, what about Buddhism, Hinduism, New ageism, Zoroastrianism, Voodoo, witchcraft, satanism,..etc. Are those all fairytales too, or just Judaism, Chrisitanity, and Islam?

Hey, the scientists say we're all stardust. That every element in our bodies, and everything we see and eat and breath and feel on earth, is the product of elements fusing into heavier elements during the collapse of a star and the ensuing supernova explosion. According to science, we all came from stardust. I find that quite agreeable to God's own ancient statement in the bible that "from 'the dust' you came, to 'the dust' you shall return..."

Nah. Couldn't be. Those old fogey Jewish sages just hit a lucky guess about 6 thousand years before our modern science did, and since they didn't say "from the stardust you came, to the stardust you will return," it doesn't count.

Just like in Genesis where God said "let there be light" as his first act of creation. That doesn't correspond to the scientific belief of "The Big Bang" because it didn't say "...and God said, let there be a big bang..."

I don't have all the answers, that's for sure, but no one does. Personally, I hesitate to label all religios beliefs as "fairytales." That's just me though.

"Do/think what thou wilt..."

72 virgins? 72 virgins? ...Is it me, but after two or three virgins You gonna want a women who really knows how to do "IT" <rim shot>

I wonder how Noah got all those dinosaurs and 30,000 species of insects on that Ark.

" I wonder how Noah got all those dinosaurs and 30,000 species of insects on that Ark. "

The ark story is a story. While there may have been a flood and there may have been a Noah who built an ark, I don't think he rounded up all the animals and saved every species from extinction. There are a lot of other stories about a great flood around the same time so I think those stories are written after an actual event in history.

The ark story is more believable than the 72 virgins.

Dunn, how can you fit 72 virgins in your bubble? Wait, wouldn't it actually be 73? <rimshot>

"...I wonder how Noah got all those dinosaurs and 30,000 species of insects on that Ark."

He took babies?

"I wonder how Noah got all those dinosaurs and 30,000 species of insects on that Ark."


Noah's Jurassic Park Ark?!?!?!?!?!?!? <Patented Dunn Rimlick>

har har.





"So he got fired? Big deal. It's happened to the best of us. So he got kicked out of his house by his 400 lb'ed wife?!?!? That's probably better for him anyways."-OldSchooler on ChrisMBHater's absence

If God (or something) "made" the universe, why'd he/she make it soooo BIG? 20,000 light years out & counting.
Seems like an awful lot of trouble.
Karma works for me, cause it makes me feel good. I'm good with Gretto also.

"If God (or something) "made" the universe, why'd he/she make it soooo BIG? 20,000 light years out & counting."


20,000 LY's will not get you half way through this galaxy, and on average, the size of a full moon in the night sky covers almost half a million galaxies.

Now ask, why did God make it THAT big!

Here are some questions for you Judeo-Christian believers:

Can you have both an omnipotent creator and free will?

Can God make a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who undertsand binary, and those who do not.

Actually, the observable Universe is about 46 billion light years across, although matter cannot travel faster than the speed of light. The reason for this is because the Universe is merely a container, and can expand without matter going with it.

Think of a bag full of cold syrup:
You lay the bag flat on the counter, and it spreads out, but the syrup stays in one place for a few moments before slowly moving to catch up with the bag. Same with the Universe and the matter herein.




Keep in mind that the Universe is also expanding from within at a measurable rate.

Take a rubber band, and place two dots on it, about an inch apart. Now, stretch out the band: the two dots are farther apart from an outside observer's perspective.

But from the someone on the rubber band's perspective, the two dots are still one inch apart - because that someone has ALSO gotten stretched out. Units of measure are getting longer as the Universe expands, which will help to contribute to the ultimate fate of the Universe - either the Big Freeze, where everything spreads out so much that there is no way that heat can move from one location to another; or the Big Rip, where all of the matter in the Universe gets spread out so much that atoms begin to break down into their constitutent particles (quarks, gluons, and electrons).

I'm rooting for the Big Rip, because it sounds cooler. Plus, we'll have about 8 months here on Earth after the Solar System becomes gravitationally unbound to really freak out.

If we are also getting stretched out, how can we measure or detect the expansion?

Astrophysicists understand far less about the true nature of the universe than they purport to know. Even the term "expanding universe" is a misnomer as the universe is generally accepted to be infinite. "Stretching" is a better term to describe this activity, but stretching into what? We can't comprehend this idea as it is beyond our ability to do so. The fact that there are concepts that we are incapable of logically understanding suggests to me there is some sort of higher power or intelligent energy.

Homey, they measure expansion through examination of changes in "redshifts" of the light coming from distant galaxies. Redshift changes as a function of distance.

"Get a clue jack azz! Stop reading your history books" - quote from "Murf's Guide to Survivin' in Da Hood"

...I like a Big Bang, hell sometimes a Big Rip is really good too, but a big freeze? Can't be worse than the AFC Championship game in 82 can it?

You have asked the question that takes us from rubber band thought experiments to FLRW geometry and other complex, crasy-ass mathematics.

In reality, it's much more complex than the rubber band - the reason being, when you look at it in the simplest way (i.e. the rubber band experiment), it seems as if the stretching is uniform.

However, in reality, "clumps" of matter (for lack of a better word) do not stretch out the same because of how they stretch out spacetime - think of a bowling ball on a trampoline - it stretches the trampoline's surface out, right? Well, matter on the "surface" of space makes those same dimples (they're called gravity wells, for the record).

Worth noting: A gravity well, caused by a single object by itself, looks basically the same from every viewing angle, because it's a four-dimensional object. Weird, huh?

Anyway, back to the whole stretching-of-space thing: since local clumps of matter stretch out the fabric of spacetime, and because of how it's done (i.e. we don't really know), the expansion of the universe is left to happen at a much slower pace in those areas. So, really, the space between us and the sun isn't changing, and the space between the sun and the outer rings of the Kuiper belt isn't changing appreciably either.

But since the Universe is 99.7% empty, the expansion is happening and happening observably so.

I suggest starting reading here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space

And basically following all the links that look interesting.

On the question of the "enormous" size of the universe which "Jack Steele" brought up:

The size of something is a matter of perspective within the mind of the observer.

To a supreme creator being who is perhaps not governed by the laws of time, space, and physics, the universe might not be all that big at all.
To us, it's big. To an ant, our backyard may as well be "the universe."

It's all about perspective.

Also, keep in mind, when you look up at the stars, you are essenmtially looking back in time and seeing them as they existed thousands and millions of years ago, however long it took their light to reach us. We have no idea what the universe really looks like at this moment. Alpha Centauri is our closest celestial neighbor, apx 20 something light years away. We can have a good idea what it's doing, presently. Other stars much, much farther away, maybe not so much.

As recently as the ww2 era, astro-scientists believed that the Milky Way, our galaxy, was THE entire universe.

Draw, I'll take the bait:

"...Here are some questions for you Judeo-Christian believers:

Can you have both an omnipotent creator and free will?"

Of course. An omnipostent being would be all powerful and all knowing. Maybe this being can see the entire history of the world from beginning to end, like a rolled out scroll, and the life of every individual human on the face of the earth throughout history, from beginning to end. This being would know what choices we'll make before we make them, but that hardly means we were forced to make those choices against our will. It just means that an omnipotent creator isn't constricted by the laws of time. To us, time is a construct of past, present and future. To a being living outside of the laws of time, all three aspects of time could be evident to him simultaneously. It doesn't mean we weren't free to make our own choices in life, regardless if those choices were known ahead of time by a creator.

"...Can God make a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?"

Not if he's omnipotent. If there is a creator, he might have created the laws of physics as we know them, but that doesn't mean they apply to him, just as the concept of "time" as we know it, or "distance," might not apply to him either.

I'll tell you what a real miracle is: Here is an ongoing thread about atheism and religion at mbs.com, and people for the most part are having a normal, civilized discussion about it!

Praise Jesus!

*****************
"...I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze. But I, I think maybe it's both, maybe both happening at the same time." -Forrest Gump

Chris you are usually right on the money, but on these you are wrong.

Omnipotent means all powerful, the ability to do anything. If he can make an object so heavy he cannot lift it, he cannot lift something, and hence is not omnipotent. Obviously by not being able to lift something, even of his own creation.

As for the free will, you hit upon the notion that all-knowing god would know your choices before you made them. If god knows them before you choose, you have no choice. If god know I am going to have meatloaf for dinner tomorrow, I cannot choose not to eat it.

Some try to expalin that it is a choice to do so in the first place. But if god knows, my future is predestined. The opposite of free will. If you still do not beleive, go to the dinner example again. If god knows what you are having for dinner tommorow, can you choose not to have that? To have free will you have to be able to choose other than what god knows. Furthermore (although I did not use omnipotence in the free will question) if god is all powerful, he can compel your behavior. If that is possible, you do not have free will. That is true even if god chooses not to interfere in your life. The mere fact that he could menas you have no free will.

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who undertsand binary, and those who do not.

draw, I am an idiot. -DW

"Chris you are usually right on the money, but on these you are wrong.

Omnipotent means all powerful, the ability to do anything. If he can make an object so heavy he cannot lift it, he cannot lift something, and hence is not omnipotent. Obviously by not being able to lift something, even of his own creation..."

I'm not sure how what I said was "wrong." I know what "omnipotent" means, which is why I said that if God is omnipotent, then there wouldN'T be an object he can't lift. How that makes me "wrong," I'm not sure. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

"...As for the free will, you hit upon the notion that all-knowing god would know your choices before you made them. If god knows them before you choose, you have no choice..."

Why? I fail to see the logic here. God knowing what you're going to do is hardly the same as forcing you to do it. If you are not forced to do something and are free to make your own choices, then you are excercising free will, regardless of an omnipotent being knowing the choices you'll make in advance of you making them. Your mindset regarding free will dictates that God makes people do bad things and good things just because he knows what they're going to do. My mindset is that God knows what your choices are before you make them, but doesn't force you to make them. How this contravenes "free will" I don't know.

"...If god know I am going to have meatloaf for dinner tomorrow, I cannot choose not to eat it."

I still don't see the logic.

You seem to be saying that if God knows you're going to make meatloaf tomorrow, then he somehow forced you to make meatloaf. I don't see the correlation.
Let's say I have superpsychic abilities and know you're going to eat meatloaf tomorrow. Does that mean your free will to eat something else was taken away by me just because I knew you were going to eat meatloaf?

"...Some try to expalin that it is a choice to do so in the first place. But if god knows, my future is predestined. The opposite of free will.."

Someone "knowing" your future is not the same as someone making you live that future by taking all choice away. If you have the ability to make choices, then you have free will. Period. If God knows you're going to murder someone when you're 34 years old, that doesn't mean you were forced to murder someone when you were 34 years old just because an all powerful being knew ahead of time that you would. You made the choice, not God.

"...If you still do not beleive, go to the dinner example again. If god knows what you are having for dinner tommorow, can you choose not to have that?"

Of course. You can change your mind and decide to have pizza instead, but then, God still knew you were going to change YOUR mind and have pizza. That doesn't mean he took your free will away and forced you to choose pizza instead of meatloaf. An omnipotent being knowing your future is not the same as an omnipotent being controlling your future. Knowing your future and controlling your future are two different things. Knowing means God knows what you're going to do. Controlling your future means you had no choice and God forced you to make the choice you made. Which choices in your life has god forced you to make?

"...To have free will you have to be able to choose other than what god knows..."

If God knows your future, that means he made that future happen even though the choices you made that shaped that future were your own?

I would change one word in that statement of yours. The last word.

"...To have free will you have to be able to choose other than what god wants."

Big difference, and that is the choice we have, and that is the definition of free will. We have the choices to do things that please God, and to do things that displease him. Doesn't mean the choices aren't ours. God gives us the choice to do right and to do wrong. That he knows our choices ahead of time doesn't mean we were forced into making those choices like pre-programmed robots. Knowing our future, and controlling our future, are two different things.

"...Furthermore (although I did not use omnipotence in the free will question) if god is all powerful, he can compel your behavior. If that is possible, you do not have free will..."

Just because an omnipotent being has the power to compel you to do whatever he wants, that doesn't mean he does. Having the power to do something and actually doing it are 2 different things.

"...That is true even if god chooses not to interfere in your life. The mere fact that he could menas you have no free will."

Huh? The fact that someone, somewhere "could" interfere in your life, but doesn't, still means you have no free will? I fail to see that argument.

Let's go back to the food analogy. Mom puts a cookie jar on the table and tells a child not to eat a cookie before dinner. She could have chosen to put the cookie jar in an inaccessible place, but instead, left it up to the child as to whether or not he would obey her wishes. The fact that she could have prevented the child from taking a cookie in the 1st place by placing the jar on top of the fridge, but didn't, means she took away the child's free will by giving him a choice to obey or disobey her? I don't get it. Even if she knew with 100% certainty that her child would take a cookie, that still doesn't mean she took away the child's free will. If mom puts the cookie jar in a place the child can't reach, then she takes away that child's "free will" regarding his choice of obeying her or disobeying her, but the fact that she "could" have removed the cookies altogther but didn't, doesn't then mean that her child didn't have the free will to make his choice to obey or not obey.

Personally, I think you're getting the doctrine of "pre-destination" mixed up with "free will." In my mind, the two are totally different things. Pre-destination means that your fate is sealed and you have no choice in the matter, and have no choice to shape your own future. Look around you. Who is forcing you to make the choices you make? A supreme being knowing the choices you'll make is not the same as a supreme being controlling the choices you'll make.
You have total free will over your own life and the choices you make. A supreme being knowing the choices you'll make before you make them, does not mean you were forced to make them. "Knowing" something is not the same as "controlling" something.

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"...I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze. But I, I think maybe it's both, maybe both happening at the same time." -Forrest Gump

"Omnipotent means all powerful, the ability to do anything. If he can make an object so heavy he cannot lift it, he cannot lift something, and hence is not omnipotent. Obviously by not being able to lift something, even of his own creation."

But if he can lift it, he does not have the ability to create something unliftable, stripping god of omnipotency.

all she has to do is say... your going to pick it up... and her omnipotence is clear...
oh wait..that isn't god it is my wife.... oh well same dif

"Well, it ain't braggin' if it's true
Yes sir, yes sir
It ain't braggin' if it's true
Muhammad Ali said that
Back when he was a young man
Back when he was Cassius Clay
Before he fought too many fights
And left his brain inside the ring"

"Can God make a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?"

Ah, this old riddle again.

The problem lies within the question, not within God. The question poses an impossibility, and then takes that impossibility as proof of failure of the concept of God. However, this is merely an aspect of the language humans have created to transmit ideas and actually has no bearing on whether or not God exists.

Many such philosophical problems are created around the failures of language rather than the problems they purport to address.

For example: If you throw a stone at a tree, does not the stone first have to travel half the distance to the tree, and then half the remaining distance, and half the remaining distance, etc. before it will ever hit the tree? Since there will always be a half to the remaining distance, I have just proven (in terms of a flawed human language) that you can never throw a rock and hit a tree, right?

As Homey says, if he can lift it, they he cannot make an object he can't lift. When you cannot do something you are not omnipotent.

Free will again...I will try it in argument form.

All-knowing God knows my whole life's result right now
All-knowing god know what I am having for lunch today, say X for lunch
Even if I choose X (one of the near infinite choices I have) for lunch, I still could not have chosen Y even if I wanted too
The fact that I could not have chosen Y for lunch means I have no free will
In fact, regardless if I choose X or not, I could make no other choice
If I have only one "choice" I am pre-destined

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who undertsand binary, and those who do not.

God exists outside of the realm of time.

Your rock question is a joke. You are basically using word play to refute God. You are saying that in order for someone to be all powerful they must be able to do something that limits their own power. I'm sorry, but that is not in the definition of all powerful.

So let me get this straight, if god cannot build an object so heavy he can't lift it, then he's not omnipotent, and therefore, not God. If he can build an object so heavy that he can't lift it, then he's not omnipotent, and therefore not God.
You definitely have the bases covered.

As to the concept of free will, I believe we are beginning to spin our wheels.

You have the mindset that if a supreme being knows every move you'll make before you make it, then that supreme being is somehow responsible for the choices you make, and therefore, you have no free will to make other choices. This makes no sense to me. A supreme being operating outside your plane of existence and not interfering with the choices you make but knowing the choices you'll make in life, is not the same thing as a supreme being acting as the puppet-master, forcing you to dance to his tune.

Draw, there was a time in my life when I thought exactly as you do about the concept of "free will." It didn't make sense to me that one could have free will as long as an omnipotent creator knew your final result from the very beginning. Then, I don't know when, but without any effort whatsoever, my mind easily wrapped around the concept and it made total sense to me, and now, I can't understand how I had such difficulty understanding that a God knowing the outcome is not the same as a God controlling the outcome.

It's obviously a philosophical difference in interpretation of just what the concept of "free will" means. You have the belief that if there is an omnipotent God, you have no free will because he's powerful enough to know the end from the beginning, while I have the belief that a God knowing what you'll do in life is not the same as a God forcing you into choices you don't want to make in life.

Free will is not based on being able to do something different than what God knows we're going to do, it's based on being able to do something different than what God wants us to do. If an omnipotent God didn't know what choices we'd make before we made them, then he wouldn't be an omnipotent God. If an omnipotent God didn't allow us to make our own choices in life, then we wouldn't have free will. Him knowing our choices ahead of time is not the same as him forcing the choices we make down our throats.

We still have choices in life. God knowing what those choices will be does not mean he's making the choices for us. If he's not making the choices for us, and we are making the choices for ourselves, then we are excercising free will, even if God knows beforehand 100% of every choice we'll make in our lifetime.

Knowledge of something does not equal control of something. I have knowledge that there's oil in the middle east, that doesn't mean I control the oil in the middle east. God knows what I'm going to eat for dinner tonight even though I haven't even thought of what I want to have yet. Eventually, as I get hungry, I will CHOOSE what I want to eat tonight. I will make that choice all on my own without any input whatsoever from God. Him knowing what I'd eat tonight before I did still doesn't mean he chose for me.

I don't see any argument that is going to change my mind, and my POV isn't going to change your mind either. What is clear to you is blurry to me, and what's clear to me is blurry to you. We may just have to leave it at that.

God knowing you're going to eat pizza tonight isn't the same as god forcing you to make the choice to eat pizza tonight. You will never get me to see it that way, and I will probably never get you to see it my way.

It looks like one of those "agree to disagree" moments...

Anyway Draw, I appreciate having a civilized debate over this issue with you.
Thank you.

What evidence do you offer to support that statement?

Anything that does not involve faith?

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who undertsand binary, and those who do not.

My biggest problem with organized religion (Catholocism/Christianity) is that it doesn't seem to take into account indigenous tribes on continents outside of Europe.

It seems sort of odd to me that the people in Europe were somehow "enlightened and blessed" and the tribes in the Amazon got the shaft from God until his people crushed and indoctorinated their lands.

Free will or no free will, religious folks have been KILLING non believers or foreigners or indigenous folks for thousands of years. I guess all those people who did the killing are going to heaven, huh? Seems a little silly to me.

"The American Cancer Society says uninsured patients are 60 percent more likely to die within five years of their diagnosis."

Yeah, on a similar note the Catholic church only recently changed their stance that you had to be baptized to go to heaven.

Sucks if you were born in Asia! Or died before your parents let a child molester dunk you!

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who undertsand binary, and those who do not.