pharoah

I did not equivocate the two. I pointed out that the snake was described as having three remarkable attributes that snakes today don't have - he could walk, talk, and was craftier than any other beast. You accept two of these attributes but you refuse to accept the idea that the snake could talk because it conflicts with standard apologetics.

Your notion of rejecting it because you couldn't find a biblical precedent puts you in dangerous territory. On those grounds most of the miracle stories should be rejected. There's no biblical precedent for humans being thrown into a fire and surviving, humans surviving a night in a lion's den, humans being swallowed by a whale, the sun standing still, brass snakes healing people, manna falling from heaven, etc. etc.

You seem to have overlooked the other part of my post. I'll repost it again for your convenience.

There is yet another problem with your interpretation. If this is addressed to Satan, then it's saying that the seed of Satan will bruise the heel of some seed of Eve. Who is this seed of Satan?

John A. Broussard

How can you so consistently avoid the issue?

Let's just stick with one question and one question only to begin with:

An omniscient god knows what you are going to do.

If you have no free will, will you do anything other than what the omniscient god knows you are going to do?

rhutchin

The answer to the following questions is, NO.

1. If you have no free will, will you do anything other than what the omniscient god knows you are going to do?

2. If you have free will, will you do anything other than what the omniscient god knows you are going to do?

3. If you have no free will, will you do anything other than what you would do under (1) but with a non-omniscient god?

4. If you have free will, will you do anything other than what you would do under (2) but with a non-omniscient god?

5. If you have no free will, will you do anything other than what you would do if you had free will?

So, what's your point?

JPD

God must be constantly adjusting his list to accommodate his believers thoughts and deeds. Does his list follow or does he write it before the action takes place? If he writes it before then he can't just record one possibility since there are a number of possible routes that a human might take. If he knows which of those the believer will take before the human takes that route then is not freewill negated since the believer falls within the plan?

Wayne Delia

What a horrible analogy for Calvinism! You seem to think God has everyone's name on some sort of list of "The Elect," people who are destined for salvation well before they're even born. So, to now claim "The ticket is offered and the terms understood," you portray God as dangling a ticket in front of anyone, asking "Want a ticket to the game? Want a ticket to the game?" Unless a person is on the metaphorical "Will Call" list in advance, God must say "Ha! Can't have it!" to the rest. That's a hell of an example of an "offered ticket."

How condescending and misleading of you. If all one does is read about it in the Bible, one is allegedly shit out of luck unless one actually does what is in the Bible. And there are quite a few loopholes scattered in fine print all over the Bible about these so-called conditions, and several of them contradict each other - mainly due to Paul shooting his mouth off about "All you need is faith," while elsewhere Jesus says "Hang on a second, you need to be baptized," and Paul says "Good works will not help you at all," while James, brother of Jesus, says "Faith without good works will keep you out." (I suspect nobody even knows the complete set of terms.)

Even if I'm not on the list of "The Elect?" How casually you toss aside your own theology in order to salvage your pride!

No. That's an analogy to a hypothetical character who is whispered an offer of a ticket to a football game while he is asleep. Ubercat did not say that he himself was asleep. You either failed to understand the analogy or you are deliberately misrepresenting it.

I pretty much came to that conclusion all by myself, but I have noticed that a lot of other people hold the same opinion.

WMD

rhutchin

If God has created a deterministic system in which the person's desires determine the route taken, then there will only be one possible route that a human might take. In such a system, Libertarian Free Will is negated (because LFW can exist only in an indeterminist world) but Compatibilist Free Will exists (because the system allows a person to express his desires in the choices he makes).

Wayne Delia

He hasn't. The system is deterministic because God knows what all the outcomes will be, and God can't be wrong. Thus, the person's desires are irrelevant. Everybody seems to understand that but you.

That's because God can't be wrong, not because the person necessarily desires the outcome.

Your premises are all screwed up, you are fond of throwing around terms you can't even define, and your conclusion does not follow from your screwed-up premises... which, I suppose, is par for the course.

WMD

rhutchin

I guess we will have to wait for someone to respond who knows the correct definitions and can explain how my premises are screwed up. Until then...

John A. Broussard

I'm willing to keep trying, since you are.

God knows exactly what we are going to do. (Let's not give a name to this concept, since that sentence should be clear in and of itself.)

If we do not have free will (and we don't need any kind of name for free will, here. Any variety of free will will do.) we will do exactly what god knows we are going to do.

Are you agreed on that score? If so, we can move on. If not, let's settle this matter first.

Thank you.

Wayne Delia

There's no counter-argument so strong that you can't ignore it, right?

Further, you've just conceded you don't even know the correct definitions of your own premises. Why bother throwing around terms you don't even understand?

WMD