Trump's Christian supporters are unchristian

[oxmixmudd]

There is no effective difference between what you “can do” and what you are “willing to do” in a universe where what you will actually do has been known for all eternity by an omniscient deity.

So the probkem here is a refusal to acknowledge anything different than what you choose to believe. The difference is simple. What I can do is the set of possible options. What I am willing to do is the subset of the possible options that is compatable with my mental and emotional state in the moment I choose. Free will then is the capacity to without external hindrence choose from among those choices in the willing to subset.

So, can you explain how Gods knowkedge of what I will do at a given point in time prevents me from choosing what I wish to choose at any given moment?

Jim

[Mountain Man]

There is no effective difference between what you “can do” and what you are “willing to do” in a universe where what you will actually do has been known for all eternity by an omniscient deity.

There is a huge gap between "God knows what I will do" and "Therefore, I have no freewill." It's your burden to close that gap and demonstrate that the truth of the premise necessitates the truth of the conclusion.

[JimL]

So the probkem here is a refusal to acknowledge anything different than what you choose to believe. The difference is simple. What I can do is the set of possible options. What I am willing to do is the subset of the possible options that is compatable with my mental and emotional state in the moment I choose. Free will then is the capacity to without external hindrence choose from among those choices in the willing to subset.

So, can you explain how Gods knowkedge of what I will do at a given point in time prevents me from choosing what I wish to choose at any given moment?

Both Tass and I have explained that ad infinitum, Jim. It isn't gods knowledge that prevents you from freely choosing, the knowledge is just the evidence of the cause that prevents you from freely choosing, and that cause is the knower, the creator, in this case, the god. If an engineer knows the future of his creation, knows each path it will take, then the creation isn't free to choose its own path, its own future. You guys want it both ways, you believe for some unknown reason that both the engineer can know the path its creation will take, as well as believing that the creation can go its own way. It is a logical contradiction and unless you can come up with an actual explanation as to how that could be possible, then you just don't have a ligit argument. It's just a belief, something you've been taught and want to defend, but can't.

[oxmixmudd]

Both Tass and I have explained that ad infinitum, Jim. It isn't gods knowledge that prevents you from freely choosing, the knowledge is just the evidence of the cause that prevents you from freely choosing, and that cause is the knower, the creator, in this case, the god. If an engineer knows the future of his creation, knows each path it will take, then the creation isn't free to choose its own path, its own future. You guys want it both ways, you believe for some unknown reason that both the engineer can know the path its creation will take, as well as believing that the creation can go its own way. It is a logical contradiction and unless you can come up with an actual explanation as to how that could be possible, then you just don't have a ligit argument. It's just a belief, something you've been taught and want to defend, but can't.

Explanations have been given. but you refuse to hear them. Part of it is an incorrect definition of free will. Part of it is assuming the future can't be know without forcing the outcome. And part of it is just plain stubbornness.


Jim

[JimL]

Explanations have been given. but you refuse to hear them. Part of it is an incorrect definition of free will. Part of it is assuming the future can't be know without forcing the outcome. And part of it is just plain stubbornness.

The stubborness on this issue is coming from your side, Jim. I didn't refuse to hear your explanations, I simply disagreed that they were legit explanations and I explained why I concluded that they weren't legit. Most of your answers to my questions were "because it's god, we just can't know how he could know our future free will choices. But we do know how he could know, he would be the engineer, the architect of us and our future. Or he could have created a "block universe" in which all of time exists with god observing it from the outside. In either case, there would be no free will. But a counter argument that says, "we just don't know" how god does it, we just believe he can eternally know what our free willed future choices will be, is not a real argument. It is simply a belief, unsubstantiated with a logical argument.

[Tassman]

So the probkem here is a refusal to acknowledge anything different than what you choose to believe. The difference is simple. What I can do is the set of possible options. What I am willing to do is the subset of the possible options that is compatable with my mental and emotional state in the moment I choose. Free will then is the capacity to without external hindrence choose from among those choices in the willing to subset.

This is getting perilously close to gobbledygook, I’m afraid.

So, can you explain how Gods knowkedge of what I will do at a given point in time prevents me from choosing what I wish to choose at any given moment?

It’s not so much a matter of being prevented from choosing what you wish to choose at any given moment. It’s simply that if you choose differently from what the omniscient deity knows you will choose, then he is not omniscient. It’s one or the other, God’s omniscience or your freewill, it can’t be both.

[Tassman]

There is a huge gap between "God knows what I will do" and "Therefore, I have no freewill."

You will do whatever the omniscient deity has eternally known you will do. If you do otherwise then God is not omniscient. It’s one or the other, it can’t be both.

[oxmixmudd]

This is getting perilously close to gobbledygook, I’m afraid.

That has to be one of the most dishonest things I've ever heard you say Tassman.

Source: Websters

free will noun
Definition of free will (Entry 2 of 2)
1 : voluntary choice or decision
I do this of my own free will
2 : freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

© Copyright Original Source

Free will is not undirected random decision making from a set of possible choices. It is the choice I choose based on whatever it is within me that causes me to make that choice. As long as it is not forced by prior causes, as long as divine beings are not making me choose whatever I choose, it is free will.

The predictability of my choice only factors into whether or not it is free will if the basis for those predictions is solely prior causes, or if divine agents are forcing it -> per the definition. You and JimL are assuming that Gods prediction MUST be based on prior causes. That is an assumption, you've not proven that to be the case.

It’s not so much a matter of being prevented from choosing what you wish to choose at any given moment. It’s simply that if you choose differently from what the omniscient deity knows you will choose, then he is not omniscient. It’s one or the other, God’s omniscience or your freewill, it can’t be both.

Again, you are back to the random chance choice definition of free-will. I'm not going to make a random pick from the options presented. I'm going to make my choice. And my choice is defined by who I am, not the quantum state of some atom over there. God knowing what that choice is does not mean I did not make that choice of my own free will. I won't make another choice Tassman, not because God's knowledge prevents me, not because I can't. I won't make another choice because the thing that makes the choice is an integral part of who I am. And without an external influence to push me some other way, I have no reason to make a different choice. And that choice is free will because it is not forced by prior causes, nor is God or gods forcing me to make it.

Jim

[JimL]

That has to be one of the most dishonest things I've ever heard you say Tassman.

Source: Websters

free will noun
Definition of free will (Entry 2 of 2)
1 : voluntary choice or decision
I do this of my own free will
2 : freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

© Copyright Original Source

Free will is not undirected random decision making from a set of possible choices. It is the choice I choose based on whatever it is within me that causes me to make that choice. As long as it is not forced by prior causes, as long as divine beings are not making me choose whatever I choose, it is free will.

The predictability of my choice only factors into whether or not it is free will if the basis for those predictions is solely prior causes, or if divine agents are forcing it -> per the definition. You and JimL are assuming that Gods prediction MUST be based on prior causes. That is an assumption, you've not proven that to be the case.



Again, you are back to the random chance choice definition of free-will. I'm not going to make a random pick from the options presented. I'm going to make my choice. And my choice is defined by who I am, not the quantum state of some atom over there. God knowing what that choice is does not mean I did not make that choice of my own free will. I won't make another choice Tassman, not because God's knowledge prevents me, not because I can't. I won't make another choice because the thing that makes the choice is an integral part of who I am. And without an external influence to push me some other way, I have no reason to make a different choice. And that choice is free will because it is not forced by prior causes, nor is God or gods forcing me to make it.

Jim

Jim, we are talking omniscience, not predictability. Now, you are being disingenuous. Omniscience means that you have no free will, because your choices were determined by the knower prior to you even existing.

[Sparko]

Your film strip isn't recording anything Sparko, every single clip on the roll is, and always has been, a part of the whole roll. If you run the film through a projector you can create the illusion that change is taking place in time, but in reality nothing of the film is changing, the entire movie exists already, and most importantly with respect to this argument, always has existed.

Not hard to understand really. Not sure why you are having such a difficult time with it. If I have always been eating waffles yesterday, then when did I make the choice to eat waffles yesterday? Think about it.

Irrelevant to the argument.

Again, irrelevant to the argument. Now lets see if you can think and understand why the future can't both exist in some sense along with you having free will.

So you are just an automaton and don't even think? You just do stuff because you always have? That makes no sense Jim. You (in this scenario) chose to eat waffles because you got up, thought, "gee I want waffles this morning" and then ate the waffles. You chose it. Made a mental decision. Out of your own free will. You made the choice the morning you ate the waffles.

I am done arguing with you if you can't even grasp the concepts we are discussing without resorting to idiotic strawman arguments.

[Sparko]

Are you addressing me or Sparko, because it is Sparko's argument, not mine. I'm just explaining the error in his, and apparently your, viewpoint. If all of time exists so that god could stand at the future end of it, look to the past and see it all, then obviously all of time, and all events in time, exist, and have always existed. There can be no free will in that which has always been.

Which is no different than you standing here right now and looking at the entire past. He would just be further along. I guess that means that since all of time exists from the big bang until 1 second ago, that you had no free will all this time.

If God were standing right beside you right now and had all knowledge of past events, you would not think that means there was no free will in the past, right?

So if you hopped in your time machine and visited yourself in 2010 and said, "Hey JimL! God is right now up there in 2019, where I just came from, both he and I know everything you will do between 2010 and 2019." That means you don't have free will?

The only thing that changed is your location in time, you jumped back 9 years to talk to your earlier self.

[Sparko]

How could I make "the choice” before I existed? And yet the omniscient deity has eternally known what my choice will be when I do eventually get born; it’s predestined. And if I choose differently God cannot be said to be omniscient.

You didn't make the choice until you made the choice. God just knew when you would make it.

[One Bad Pig]

You didn't make the choice until you made the choice. God just knew when you would make it.

Tassman and JimL appear to be assuming that this is logically incoherent. I don't know what either side of the argument gains by essentially repeating their positions ad nauseaum.

[JimL]

Tassman and JimL appear to be assuming that this is logically incoherent. I don't know what either side of the argument gains by essentially repeating their positions ad nauseaum.

We repeat it ad nauseaum in the hopes that it will finally sink in, but oddly enough it never seems to get through. Very odd actually, because it's really a rather simple concept to understand. Must be a mental wall against logic erected in defense of their religious beliefs. Interesting.

[oxmixmudd]

We repeat it ad nauseaum in the hopes that it will finally sink in, but oddly enough it never seems to get through. Very odd actually, because it's really a rather simple concept to understand. Must be a mental wall against logic erected in defense of their religious beliefs. Interesting.

You can keep making up stories and telling yourself how stupid the other fellow is, or you can try to understand. Its ... your choice


Jim