spamandham

The usual free will conundrum - if it is possible for god to know the outcome in advance, then the outcome must in some sense be determined (if by nothing other than god's knowledge of it), which then means apodiptic free will does not exist.

Julio

Free will is a misnomer; it’s religious jargon to impress the uninitiated and distracted. There is no such thing as free will.
If we were in possession of that “spiritual attribute” we would use it to disenfranchise the Almighty from our forum. How could an Almighty arrive in our planet to install free will if he would immediately reject our first article of faith? That is, that he would have no business condemning any human being for any spiritual default since we arrive morally innocent in a morally messed up environment? Free will would bring back moral justice by dispatching the Almighty to where he first came from!!

Doug Shaver

Free will does have problems, which is why I haven't believed in it for a long time. However, I think that particular problem is not so much with free will per se as about its coexistence with omniscience.

spamandham

The idea of free will, in the sense it is usually used, isn't coherent when analyzed.

The only sense of the word I've found that is coherent, is the idea that we ourselves are part of the causal chain that determines our will - but this is not generally what is meant by the phrase.

IamJoseph

This is better explained by the understanding that free will is limited to a moral/ethical decision only. No free will exists outside this vicinity. Plane crashes, breathing, buying a yello or red sports car does not constitute free "will". The 'WILL" does not relate to our will but the will vested in the Commandments [laws]. Technically, one can be saved in the last instant of life, and none know the future. We act against the will when we commit a sin or crime, such as stealing; we commit a giood deed only how we act after the wrong was commited. This says being decent is greater than being innocent.

bacht

Mark reports a centurion calling Jesus the Son of God at the crucifixion. Throughout his gospel it's the Jews who "don't know what they're doing".

As I reminded you, Alexander Janneus crucified hundreds of Pharisees and sat watching with his courtiers and partied. Herod pursued agitators in Galilee. The 1st revolt in the 60s was a civil war as much as a war with Rome.

Please stop using the word Nazi to describe the Romans. The National Socialists had a fully developed political and social theory which reflected modern ideas about economics and ethnicity.

IamJoseph

The Roman Emperors were depraved Nazis who commited a Holocaust in 70 CE when they flaunted the right to freedom of worship. That was Europe's FIRST holocaust. The inter battles between Jewish groups was a normal effect of Rome appointing 5-minute conversions of foreigners as rulers in Judea: how would you feel?

You have not answered how a self sacrifice was performed by one Jew when a decree of Heresy was hovering. Perhaps I presented a stumbling block, but the correct questions here may not be what is anticipated by Christians - which does not mean they are not encumbent.

bacht

Joseph, the Jews already had freedom of worship and they threw it away. The Romans were just doing what every other empire tried to do, protecting their interests as they saw them (you realize that the year 68 was a crisis for Rome?).

Using the word holocaust is misleading: the Romans had not spent years developing an anti-Jewish program of extermination as the Nazis did. It's more realistic to say that the Jews committed mass suicide by forcing the Romans to destroy them.

Are you talking about Jesus? I don't know what this paragraph means

IamJoseph

Perhaps you've been reading Europe's version of history. 1.2M is a holocaust, and equivalent to some 30M today - its omission in the Gospels should tell the world something - if their ears are still functioning. The war was a result of Nero resurrecting an old decree of Caligula. The other nations had no problem with that decree - they were not monotheistic. This battle for freedom of belief fell squarely on Judea - the birthplace of Monotheism - and Rome lost.

IamJoseph

This is fiction. You can't quote the Gospels to prove the Gospels. That was and is the problem with Europe - they never questioned the most bizarre and implausable stories given them. They also believed the blood libels and the protocols of zion. Says it all.