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Old 06-27-2001, 10:05 AM   #41
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Ok, how about this scenario:

If I was able to make a device that could destroy God, would God allow me to use my free will to destroy him/her/it or would God step in and say - "You can't use this device."
 
Old 06-27-2001, 10:37 AM   #42
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Quote:
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by SillyMonkey:
Ok, how about this scenario:

If I was able to make a device that could destroy God, would God allow me to use my free will to destroy him/her/it or would God step in and say - "You can't use this device."
</font>
This is completely nonsensical. It's like trying to imagine non-existence. You can't even fathom it.
 
Old 06-27-2001, 10:50 AM   #43
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I can imagine non-existance. It happened when I went in for surgery. I went to sleep but I didn't dream. 3 hours later, I woke up. I could have not woken up and I would have never have known the difference. As far as I knew, I didn't exist. Now that I can fathom non-existance, does that mean that I can also fathom a device that will destroy God. Some would argue that this device is reason.

If it were possible to come up with a device to destroy God, then would God allow me to use my free-will to destroy him/her/it?
 
Old 06-27-2001, 10:54 AM   #44
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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by pfypher:
This is completely nonsensical. It's like trying to imagine non-existence. You can't even fathom it.</font>
The bit of my memory that covers the time before I was born is non-existence, I don't have to imagine it I can remember it.

Amen-Moses

 
Old 06-27-2001, 12:55 PM   #45
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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Tercel:
However much you convolute the argument, free will remains a possibility.</font>
The argument isn't that free will isn't possible, but that free will isn't possible with an omniscient god. That omniscient part seems to keep getting skipped over, or the definition altered so that it will fit the scenario as you would like it to be.
 
Old 06-27-2001, 01:01 PM   #46
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Free will, in the sense that makes Man morally accountable for his actions, is only possible if predestination is true.
 
Old 06-27-2001, 04:58 PM   #47
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SillyMonkey,
What makes you think that it would be ever possible to create a device which could destroy God (because as I understand it God is indestructible)?

Oriecat,
The trouble is that "omniscient" can potentially mean so many different things when we apply it to God. Two questions to which we do not conclusively know the answers to impede us:
Is He inside Time or not?
Does he know the future, or all possible futures, or is he merely extremely intelligent that he can calculate likely futures?
Personally, I would pick the answers as: Outside Time, and knows the future. And I subsequently get my understanding of what God's omniscience must be like from this.
As I understand it the answers you are trying to use are: Inside Time, and knows the future. These I must admit come look like they might come close to creating a contradiction with Free Will. (I have never considered these two possibilities together so I can't give you my opinion without thinking about it for a while) But then your whole point begs the question. Given the definition you want to put on God's omniscience (which is by far not the usual one) you want to conclude that free-will and omniscience are incompatable. Even if you successfully concluded this, why should any theist give your argument even a moments notice when you are not actually arguing against what they believe?
Is this just another attempt at making Atheists feel good about their beliefs?
 
Old 06-28-2001, 02:56 PM   #48
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Tercel,

I don't suppose that I can argue that since I thought of a device that could destroy God, therefore it must exist?

Ok, seriously, wouldn't destroying God be the ultimate expression of free will?

Perhaps I should refine the destroying God to at least removing him from his seat of authority. Is that possible?

Tell God that I'm not going to live by his rules. If everything belongs to God and all the rules are made by God then how can I do anything that is outside of what God wants or expects unless I am able to usurp God?

I am asking because I believe in free will of man. That is how I am able to explain why God allows young children to be molested, "physically challenged" people to be raped, etc. It also explains why there is much rejoicing when someone does choose to believe that God's word is truth.

Does the story of the Tower of Babel give us an example of man's free will. Those folks wanted to see God. God didn't want them to succeed so he made them all speak different languages. God intervened.

What about Pharaoh? It says that God made Pharaoh's heart hard. Is that free will?

Perhaps the truth is that God gives us selective free will?

Perhaps this is the wrong thread for this question but, does God (Holy Ghost) live in Non-believers? If not, then does that mean he's not omnipresent?
 
 

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