[QUOTE=Kievan Mereel]We're God's children. He wants us to be happy, that's His plan. [/QUOTE]

Then why didn't God go into lightningbolt-frenzy when he heard Linkin Park?

[QUOTE=Noble Outlaw]The many-worlds theory has absolutely nothing at all to the possiblity of omniscience and free-will coexisting. if god is omniscient, he knows what will happen in every single universe. he couldn't both have a plan and have the many-worlds theory, because in one of those worlds, or possibly in every single universe except the one where everything in his plan goes perfectly, his plan fails. if you believe that he's all-powerful, i doubt this is the case. free will and a plan from god are MUTUALLY EXCULSIVE. end of discussion! if he has a plan for us, that is 100% certain to happen, then we can not all have free will, because then there's a chance that every one of us will **** up.[/QUOTE]

Woah, Speed Racer, back up the train. I'm not tyring to prove that God exists through multiverse theory or some other complicated set of thinking. Put the pitchforks and torches down.

I 100% agree, the "point" of the many-worlds theory is not to explain omniscience and free-will coexisting. The "point" is to explain apparent paradoxes in quantum mechanics. However, I disagree that it has "absolutely nothing" to do with free will or omniscience, simply because multiverse theories have to do with everything. There is nothing within this universe that they do not deal with. If many-worlds is true, it applies to everything within our universe (and the many other ones that would then exist). Since both omniscience and free will are concepts and possible realities in our universe, many-worlds theory can apply to them.

So, let me rephrase: if many-worlds theory is true, can omniscience and free-will coexist?

I argue that they can. By definition, if you were omniscient you would know all possible outcomes of everything that could happen. Under the many-worlds theory all possiblities not only could happen, but *do* happen. Therefore your omniscience does not preclude my ability to choose. It has been said many times in this thread that omniscience and free will cannot coexist. I present this as an example where they can. That is my point.

[QUOTE=Kievan Mereel]So, to sum it all up about Omniscience & Free Will, God has known from the beginning what we're going to choose, but just because He knew it was going to happen doesn't mean He forced anyone to do it. We all choose for ourselves and experience the concequences.[/QUOTE]

Nononononononononononononono

Think about what the JKwhosaysNi just said.

Whatever we do, it's pre-destined. We can do only one thing, namely the one thing that God knows. So, even if we think we change our minds, we were destined to do so.

Ergo, free will is an illusion. (If you say God is all-knowing) That is the only -logical- conclusion.

If God knows what happens to us, then that means there is a set path that each person's life will follow. And thusly there is no free will, as everything we do follows that path, though it follows the path invisibly to us, and thus free will is merely an illusion.

Don't believe me? Think about the times you've had a choice to do two or more different things, and you picked one option over the other(s) just because you were "more in the mood" for that instead of something else. For example, let's say that you're hungry and you have the option of either a turkey sandwich, or a balogna sandwich. You pick the turkey sandwich because you're more in the mood for turkey than for balogna. And you haven't had either sandwich in months, if not years (elminating that "I just had that the other day" factor). What put you in that mood? Is it not possible you were in the mood because it was predetermined? And if it was predetermined, then does that not negate free will?

I prefer to think it's not predetermined, and that every choice is my own. I don't know if it's correct or not, but I have an easier time believing that than the alternative predetermined option.


----

I also find it hard to believe that if God does love us all, then why did he make so many of us have such flaws as being addicted to drugs, or why did he make so many people like sex before marriage? if it's a test, then did he really create EVERYTHING? because if he created everything, then would that not give him the option to create us with whatever likes and dislikes he wants us to have? Especially if it is supposed to hurt him so much when we do sin, why doesn't he just take the option for us to sin out of the equation?

Why doesn't he just make us all in such a way where every single person born loves him, then he doesn't have to hurt to see us sin. Does her perhaps like to hurt from time to time, and thus allow us to sin to satisfy that particular need? And doesn't that kind of make him more twisted than we should think of him?

Hopefully that makes sense.

Why does the human race insist on taking something simple and complicating it without end?!

God's Plan = Point A to Point B. This DOES NOT mean that it has to go in a straight line or take a single path. You have Genisis and you have Revelations. What happens between those two events is completely irrelevant.

Free Will = We all have it and it in no way affects God's Plan.

It is my opinion that God has a very subtle physical influence in the universe since it's creation. This does not mean that he may or may not influence your decisions in a subliminal way. However, in the end, the decision is still yours to make. In is my opinion that these minor influences are done ONLY to help 'coach' us back on track or otherwise safegaurd and preserve the integrity of the events to come of which is described in Revelations (kinda like a self-fulfilling prophecy).

There are no multiverses or any kind of non-sense like that. Nor is the future already written in stone (per se).

We have free will? According to the bible we don't.

Romans 8:28-30



Revelations 13:8

I'm not sure why it's so hard for people to grasp the idea that CaptBevvil just mentioned. Does it have to be so black and white? Free will, or no free will? Well, believe it or not, there is a middle ground between those two, and we are in that middle ground.

Romans also makes another big suggestion towards predestination where Paul talks about Pharao and how he was raised up into power for the sole purpose of being torn down. In Exodus it states that "God hardened his heart" whenever Moses asked for his people's freedom. Paul explains it by saying that his heart was hardended so that God's glory could be shown in Egypt.

TheJkWhoSaysNi, you just totally raped those passages...

Predestined (in that context) means that he has established how their life after death will be. In this case, that they will have ever lasting life in Heven. see also John 3:16 (which pretty much handles your second quote to as people who have been 'saved' are written in the Book of Life). see also John 14:6, John 11:25-26, John 1:12, Ephesians 2:8-9, & Revelation 3:20.

We should make a Wii game out of this thread

I admit, I'm not perfectly knowledgeable of the bible. But if the end point is predetermined, does that not mean that the path leading to the end is predetermined as well? If it's predetermined that someone will go to Heaven at the end of their life, does that mean that whatever the person does in between can't change that, albeit doing drugs, not believing in God, or Christ, or killing someone? Or does it mean that the person will only do things that would allow him or her into Heaven? If the latter is the case, isn't that just about the same thing as a predetermined life, or at the very least free-will within a given range of possible choices? And if that's the case, that's not free will, at least not my idea of it anyway.

Look, the future can't be changed anymore than the past. Only your crude predictions of the future. What ever happens will happen; the only difference between the past and the future, is that you don't know what will happen, but you do know what did happen. That and your position in time. I think. So yeah. Where does free will fit into that? I don't know. Is there free will? I don't know. Is it what we've come to think of it is if it as, probably not.

I'm a predestination man myself. Start with Ephesians 1:11. Destin != for-knew.

This thread made better through the power of Gizoogle

If God created us, didn't he intend us to be that way?

Damn godbotherers.

Just read the thread through once (I was skim-reading, so apologies if I repeat something that I might have missed) and I might as well put in my 2 cents in about the whole free will debate.

I believe that God sees all, and know's all about us. He knows what we've done, what we're doing, and what we're going to do. However, that doesn't mean that all the people who are or are not living with God are automatically following his plans for us from birth.

God does have plans for us. Admittedly I don't have a very good knowledge of the Bible, but I know that there are various lines in there that state that.

I fully believe that we all have free will, we can do whatever we like. We can make choices that honor God, or we can make choices that don't. I believe that we're only following God's plans for our lives when we've chosen to believe in him and act accordingly to how it's said that we should be acting in the Bible.

Sin is the one big thing that we all have (whether we've chosen to follow God or not, we're all still sinners, there's no way around that), and it's the one thing that can drag us down in our relationship with God (I say relationship because I believe that Christianity in it's real form is a relationship with God, and a religion by definition is a different thing, but that's another discussion for another time).

In our lives we're always being thrown choices at us where we can either honor God and live the way that he want's us too, or we can go along with what sin tempts us to do. For example, let's say that it's Friday night and a lot of my friends want to go somewhere and get completely hammered. I'm fully aware that getting drunk is a sin, but it's still tempting none the less. Now God can remind me that it's a sin to get drunk, although 99% of the time I find that God steps back for a second and lets me make my own choice - whatever I decide, i've made the choice of my own free will, not because God's pulling the strings.

To sum it up quickly - God has a plan for us, but it's up to US to make the choice as to whether or not we go along with it.

And just in case anyone is wondering, i'm a Pentecostal Christian.

Haha, for a second there I thought you said:

So god wants me to sell porn and he wants the people buying the porn to lie to their spouses on the phone by saying they're at church/home depot/7-11/the mall/toys-r-us?

No... That's definately not what I was trying to say...

.

YOU SIR WIN AN .GIF

Predetermined, in this case, means determined before death. Basically, when you are 'saved', it is then determined that you will go to Heven when you die. Hence, 'predetermined'. If you do anything after that and do not ask for forgiveness (and/or do so wanton and carelessly) then you were never really 'saved' to begin with. Going through the motions doesn't cut it.

As to your free-will limitation question, yes, it's free-will within a given range of possible choices BUT you limiting yourself to that 'range' was a choice in and of itself that you made with your free-will.

Guidance itself (even if Hevenly) does not deminish your free-will. You still have to make a conscious decision to accept the guidance.

Make sense?

Yes, that does make sense, thank you. However, I still find that precise explanation that makes me weary of the religion. If God is supposed to love everyone, but yet condemns those who do not follow him (ie those who are not "saved") to hell, then does he really love everyone? Why would he let someone he is supposed to care so much for go to hell, especially since it's supposed to be such an incredibly horrible place?

Wait- Massassians convincing people of the doctrine of predestination? Um... *head explodes*

This relates to Free-Will, actually. First, I'll pose a question:

Would you wheather force someone to love your or would you perfer them to love you by their own free-will?

Now, the consequences of loving God is that you must follow his teachings (or 'moral code' if you will). This results in you living a fairly undisruptive life (as in disruptive to others). Your reward for following such a life is grand (in this case, eternal life of happiness). The incentive to follow this path is the fear of the consequences of not doing so (in this case, eternal damnation).

To answer your question, I would say that God loves everyone so much, that He gives us plenty of warning of the negative consequences of not following (loving) Him. I think the way God see's it is that you were given a choice to accept Him into your life and have Him as a friend (who would 'save' you from such things as Hell) or to close your heart to Him (in essence, telling Him that you don't need His help). I would think it bothers Him greatly when His creations reject Him. But, like any good parent, He has to hold firm to the punishments (consequences) He lays out for us.

I disagree, take the example of life.

The end point of my life here on earth is physical death. My body will stop functioning one day. There is no way I can avoid it, stop it, or turn from it; it will happen. It is predestined. As the old saying goes, "There are only two sure things in life: death and taxes." My endpoint (being death) is predetermined, I have no control over it. (Now I may be able to have some control over the way I die (mostly through doing stupid things :)), but death itself I cannot escape.)

So by your logic there is only one possible way I can live my life since my end is predestined. That is, of course, ludicrous. I have a vitually infinite number of ways to live my life. I can choose to work today or lie in bed. Go to lunch at Jimmy John's (which I did by the way) or Subway. None of these different choices ultimately affect my destiny, which is physical death. Now if Jimmy John's had poisoned their sandwhiches, I might reach my destiny sooner, but had I gone to Subway, I still would still die eventually. The choice (or path) does not ultimately affect the destination. This is essentially the Braveheart Principle (yea, I'm reaching a bit here, but the logic is essentially the same), "Fight and you may die. Run and you'll live, at least for awhile..."


I'd love to discuss more, but I am going out of town for the weekend (to Cedar Point). So have a good weekend everyone, cuz I know I'll be enjoying myself.

The book can also be used.....as a hat

newbhat

It's good to know that I can be banned for 3 days and you christians still can't come up with an answer of "Do we have free will" that you all agree on. I would love to throw rastas into the mix, but you christians would dismiss their beliefs as absurd, despite the fact that they're as much christian as catholics.

You have free will, but religiously you just wouln't want to.

Right, because temptation is bad, despite the fact that the only reason you christians act civil is because some book promises you eternal paradise (which is leik, omg, temptation!) and yet the rest of us heathens are constantly raping and murdering each other because there's no way non-believers could ever have a moral code despite the fact that it is the most efficient approach to civilization.

My main problem with Christianity is that you're scared into believing. "No, it's not good enough to be a good person. You need to accept Jesus or be damned forever."

"Thou shalt worship ME!"

It's a freaking cult. A sect gotten out of hand.

There's no logic to the entire 'God sent his son to die for everybody's sins' story whatsoever. [/rant]

I agree. There's especially no logic since their god flat out said "one god, and that's me!" He didn't mention a son, he didn't mention some holy ghost, he said praise me or else! According to their religion, Jesus was probably a tool of the devil to misguide the flock...

most christian relgions, if not all, say that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all one and the same

aka trinitiy lolarpolarpops

The way I see it, the ultimate goal of any religion is to convert people to it.
If the religion says "You can go to heaven if you join our religion, buuuuut if you're a good person you can go to heaven if you're Buddhist, or Muslim, or even a Taoist."

No one would convert to Christianity if that were the case. So, the people who founded the religion, especially given the circumstances they lived in (Roman times, Christians were persecuted. The more Christians there were, the less chance they would be persecuted.), they would want as many converts as possible. So they included the clause "if you don't embrace Christ, you're going to hell."

So, regardless of my beliefs on the subject of God, Heaven, Christ, etc, and granted this post is two pages late, that is why that bit would be in the bible and such a fundamental part of the belief structure.

Yeah, I don't think that's entirely true (see happydude's post).



You mean, other then an act of self-sacrifice performed out of compassion?



Actually, he didn't say that (at least, not that I can recall). The first commandment reads "Thou shall have no other gods before me." (except the Today's English Version).

Personally, I think those were very choice words.

If you read the Bible (or any religious text), it's a good idea to think about what the words mean to you...not what the relgion wants you to think it means.

Ah, that's good, Bevvil, then you accept the idea that Islam is an acceptable faith, as god was so clever with his wording, he could make anyone else an idol after him!

Free will: The ability to freely choose between two or more options. What options are there? Life or Death. You choose.

Oh goody! Gold made it in here. Because everone knows that I care what Gold's well-informed opinions are! I'm glad you shared your insightful view with us, Gold, now I know that when you walk into a store to buy a new shirt, in your mind you're only functioning on "Life or Death." Because apparently those are the only options. Ever. Thank you!