Trump's Christian supporters are unchristian

[Sparko]

Dumbell, even if you could somehow see the future, either from standing outside of it, or travelling through to it, would mean that it always existed, therefore nobody but it's creator chose anything. Sheesh, think man, think!

So if I had a time machine and went back to last week, knowing you would post the above yesterday, that would mean that I am in control of your will?

[Cow Poke]

So if I had a time machine and went back to last week, knowing you would post the above yesterday, that would mean that I am in control of your will?

Come on, Sparko - you know you control all of JimL's actions.

[oxmixmudd]

MM, if all of time exists so that you can travel to and fro, then travelling to the future is no different than travelling to the past, they both, both the future and the past, always exist. How is it that you can't grasp that idea? It's really not that difficult a concept to understand and it's been explained to you many times. Einsteins "Block Universe" is static, it all exists, past, present and future. You can't travel into a future whose existence doesn't precede your travell to it. Same goes for the past.

You are making bald assertions about time and the structure of the universe when we have only barely begun to unravel or discover what is really going on at that level. That is, you are basing your statements on assumptions about the nature of time and the universe that are at best speculative. We just don't have any way of knowing what we don't know, and our understanding of time and the universe(s) is still very limited. The scripture indicates God is outside of time, exists at all times ("before Abraham was I am"). But we don't really know what that would mean in terms of what time or the universe 'really' is. Retrocausality is hinted at in several experiments, and if there can be such a thing as retrocausality, then your assumption the state of the universe across time is fixed is false. In fact, Time itself might be multidimensional with many different 'pasts' and many different 'futures' relative to any given 'now'. And which one of those, or which multiple of those, is 'real' may be tied to an observer or set of observers. And we would have no clue how to navigate that or understand what that might mean as applied to what a hypothetical God can and can't do* as it relates to foreknowledge or existence.


Jim

*not to mention the fact an omnipotent God is not really tied to any existing set of rules that might describe what we call time and space.

[oxmixmudd]

Okay.


Simple assertion on your part.

correct, I'm no longer trying to make an argument for my position, I'm simply stating it.

Again, unsupported assertion, simple belief, not an argument.

correct.

It's not a logical paradox, what paradox?

That God can know the future but allow free will choices of the participants. You are saying both can't be true. Thus if they are both true, then it is a paradox, just like God being ominpotent but being unable to create an object he cannot move is a paradox. Either one invalidates the concept of omnipotent. The concept of omnipotence in that case leads to the paradox thus stated. Likewise the concept of omniscience leads to the paradox being discussed. In both cases you think these implied paradoxes present a quandry with the concept of God as it is presented in the Bible.

What we are arguing is free will and the supposed omniscient nature of god, not whether he exists or not.

No, you are saying God is not because of the implied paradox, that the implied paradox is part of the folly of belief in God, which goes directly to whether He exists or not.

Again, you seem to be confusing the argument. I don't happen to share your belief in the biblical god, but we are debating the possibility of free will along with an omniscient creator.

No, you are making assertions about the impossibility of free will and an omniscient creator and ignoring each and every example that shows such implied paradoxes do not have to exist.

Jim

[JimL]

You are making bald assertions about time and the structure of the universe when we have only barely begun to unravel or discover what is really going on at that level. You are basing you statements on assumptions about the nature of time and the universe that are at best speculative. We just don't have anyway of knowing what we don't know, and our understanding of time and the universe(s) is still very limited. The scripture indicates God is outside of time, exists at all times ("before Abraham was I am"). But we don't really know what that would mean in terms of what time or the universe 'really' is. Retrocausality is hinted at in several experiments, and if there can be such a thing as retrocausality, then your assumption the state of the universe across time is fixed is false. In fact, Time itself might be multidimensional with many different 'pasts' and many different 'futures' relative to any given 'now'. And we would have no clue how to navigate that or understand what that might mean as applied to what God can and can't do as it relates to foreknowledge or existence.

Listen Jim, if god created the universe, then he existed prior to that creation, prior to that universe, correct? CORRECT? So, God would be able to see that universe unfold into the future if indeed the future unfolds, CORRECT? He couldn't see it until it unfolds, CORRECT? And if it is all there already, if, rather than unfolding, all of time, the future, already exists, then it is all there already and there is no free will, CORRECT? Boy, you guys will twist your brains into pretzels before accepting logical facts that might contradict your beliefs. No offense!

[Cow Poke]

This thread has gone incredibly off topic! What is this, TWEB??!?!?!?!

[JimL]

correct, I'm no longer trying to make an argument for my position, I'm simply stating it.




correct.

Okay

That God can know the future but allow free will choices of the participants. You are saying both can't be true. Thus if they are both true, then it is a paradox, just like God being ominpotent but being unable to create an object he cannot move is a paradox. Either one invalidates the concept of omnipotent. The concept of omnipotence in that case leads to the paradox thus stated. Likewise the concept of omniscience leads to the paradox being discussed. In both cases you think these implied paradoxes present a quandry with the concept of God as it is presented in the Bible.

That's not a logical paradox Jim, there is nothing logical about free will and omniscience both being true. Free will could be true, hypothetically I guess omniscience could be true, but there is nothing logical about them both being true. It's a contradiction, which makes it illogical.

No, you are saying God is not because of the implied paradox, that the implied paradox is part of the folly of belief in God, which goes directly to whether He exists or not.

No, I don't believe I actually said that. I don't believe in your god, that's true, but this argument is about the possibility of us having free will and the definition of your god, the creator, as being omniscient. My argument is simply that both those positions can't be true, that they defy logic.

No, you are making assertions about the impossibility of free will and an omniscient creator and ignoring each and every example that shows such implied paradoxes do not have to exist.

That I am doing, yes, because i have explained to you the logical contradiction of such a scenario, and you have not refuted that but have instead gone off into the weeds "how do you know there just isn't more to it that we don't understand or some such." That is not a refutation or an argument for what you believe it's just an ignoring, a hand waving away of my logical argument. Omniscience of the creator together with free will of the created, is a logical contradiction.

[Mountain Man]

Listen Jim, if god created the universe, then he existed prior to that creation, prior to that universe, correct? CORRECT? So, God would be able to see that universe unfold into the future if indeed the future unfolds, CORRECT? He couldn't see it until it unfolds, CORRECT? And if it is all there already, if, rather than unfolding, all of time, the future, already exists, then it is all there already and there is no free will, CORRECT? Boy, you guys will twist your brains into pretzels before accepting logical facts that might contradict your beliefs. No offense!

In order to offend, you would first have to be correct.

You still haven't explained how foreknowledge is incompatible with freewill. You're just baldly asserting it. Let's see a logical argument:

P1 ...
P2 ...
P3 ...
...
C: Therefore, foreknowledge is incompatible with freewill.

You just gotta fill in the premises.

Go!

[Sparko]

Come on, Sparko - you know you control all of JimL's actions.

Shhh! Watch him dance!

[Sparko]

Listen Jim, if god created the universe, then he existed prior to that creation, prior to that universe, correct? CORRECT? So, God would be able to see that universe unfold into the future if indeed the future unfolds, CORRECT? He couldn't see it until it unfolds, CORRECT? And if it is all there already, if, rather than unfolding, all of time, the future, already exists, then it is all there already and there is no free will, CORRECT? Boy, you guys will twist your brains into pretzels before accepting logical facts that might contradict your beliefs. No offense!

Everything in the past is already fixed in time JimL. Does that mean you did not have free will in the past?

If you record some live event with a camcorder, every action recorded was done freely. And yet when you watch the recording, you can know every action that is about to happen on that tape. It doesn't invalidate the actions done with free will. It just RECORDS them. Time is the same. It is a recording of all of our free will actions, past, present and future.

[JimL]

Everything in the past is already fixed in time JimL. Does that mean you did not have free will in the past?

If you record some live event with a camcorder, every action recorded was done freely. And yet when you watch the recording, you can know every action that is about to happen on that tape. It doesn't invalidate the actions done with free will. It just RECORDS them. Time is the same. It is a recording of all of our free will actions, past, present and future.

And watching a recording of the past is not the same thing as knowing the future. C'mon you guys, you can't really be this dumb. What the hell is going on in your heads?

[Sparko]

And watching a recording of the past is not the same thing as knowing the future. C'mon you guys, you can't really be this dumb. What the hell is going on in your heads?

To your past self, what you know now is the future.

To your 9 year old self, everything that he did up till this moment is his future but you currently know every decision he will make. I guess that means you have no free will. Where you are currently located in time makes no difference. God is outside of time and has the perspective of looking back on all of time as "the past" - you currently only can view time before now as the past. 10 years from now you will know everything you will do in the next 10 years. So to your future self, every decision you will make is "fixed"

[Mountain Man]

Oh Jimmy...

You still haven't explained how foreknowledge is incompatible with freewill. You're just baldly asserting it. Let's see a logical argument:

P1 ...
P2 ...
P3 ...
...
C: Therefore, foreknowledge is incompatible with freewill.

You just gotta fill in the premises.

Go!

[Cow Poke]

To your past self, what you know now is the future.

And today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday!

[JimL]

To your past self, what you know now is the future.

To your 9 year old self, everything that he did up till this moment is his future but you currently know every decision he will make.

No, the present me would know every decision my past self did make, not will make.

I guess that means you have no free will.

No, it means I know what my past decisions were. duh!

Where you are currently located in time makes no difference.

Yeah, actually it does matter, if you exist in the present, then your future decisions haven't been made, so they can't be known, and if the future exists so that you could travel into it, duh, then it already exists, doesn't it?

God is outside of time and has the perspective of looking back on all of time as "the past" - you currently only can view time before now as the past. 10 years from now you will know everything you will do in the next 10 years. So to your future self, every decision you will make is "fixed"

Duh! If a being exists outside of time and can therefore see all of time, then duh!, all of time exists and there are no actual choices being made, you dunce!