Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The Naked Mage · 01-31-2003, 10:32 AM

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He wanted his creatures to have something called free will.

"Since I'm such a nice soul-crushing overlord, I'm giving you kids free will...and whoever amongst you uses it will be consigned to the torture chamber! Of LOVE!"

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In order to have free will, they had to have the ability to choose between loving God and not loving him, righteousness and evil.

Somehow, I have doubts about a being that enjoys the smell of charred goat flesh and has trouble identifying the traits of his own animals' capacity to arbitrarily declare with any sort of authority what actions are "good" and "evil".

Have you ever even had any personal experience of this deity that could not be explained away as gas pains?

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It is not illogical, it is perfectly logical. Spock would even think so.

Actually, he'd probably take one look at this transcript and then try to disembowel you with a spork.

Philosoft · 01-31-2003, 01:25 PM

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Originally posted by spurly
Yes. He was able to do that. However, he chose not to. He wanted his creatures to have something called free will. In order to have free will, they had to have the ability to choose between loving God and not loving him, righteousness and evil.

What was the impetus for the "choice" made by God? If it was possible for him to create non-free-willed beings, why did he not choose to do so? What was God's motivation for creating free-willed beings?

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If they were going to choose, they had to have something to choose between - hence temptation and sin. It is not illogical, it is perfectly logical. Spock would even think so.

I'm still unclear on a few things. The tree in the Garden of Eden - was that the first actual good vs. evil choice A & E had to make? If they had made nothing but good choices until then, what would motivate them to make an evil choice the first chance they had? Maybe they had been exposed to evil previously, so they knew what it was? Maybe God was a poor parent and they wanted to get back at him? It just seems incomplete to say A & E chose to disobey God because they have free will. "Free will" is an absence of predetermining factors, not a system of decision making.

schu · 01-31-2003, 05:38 PM

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Originally posted by Sabine Grant
Hi Schu... those can be explained and always of course via personal interpretation. Let me give you some alternatives to your personal interpretation.

1-moneychangers : if you are refering to Christ's overturning the merchants tables and driving away anything of a mercantilist character from the Temple, I think it is rather commendable that a man would stand against the commercialization of religion. Is it not what most non theists are critical of nowadays... the fact that organized religion exploits people financialy?

2- Christ pertained to warn his followers that their faith would trigger antagonistic responses from even their own family members. Is it not a reality that some christians are ostercized by their own family and friends? or delt with with terms and demeaning characterizations as posted at times in this predominantly secular forum?

3- Not that he himself would turn mother against daughter etc... but that the belief in him would cause those who do not understand that belief to be antagonistic towards those who do. Another reality....

4- I have to assume that you display equal concern for animal rights in a society where we use them for medical experiment...or we even exposed pigs to a nuclear blast to examine the effects of exposure to intense heat. Just to say that expressing indignation over the "biblical pigs"necessitates equal indignation over the treatment of animals in our society. Or are the means we use justified by the end but it does not apply to Christ's? Also to point that only recently in Fl, legislation was passed to end the horrible treatement of pigs parked in individual cages to promote their fat intake by restricting their movement. Makes those pork chops more acceptable to eat....

5- It appears that Mary's devotion to her son was not demeaned by your perception of her role in his life. Now you would have probably been bitter and consider yourself violated, treated badly and "talked to ugly" but in Mary's case we are dealing with a woman who kept focused on what her greater purpose was. So I think trying to place in her psyche thoughts and emotions you would personaly have if you were Mary, may not be what describes her actual psyche as portrayed in The Gospels.

6- It is a fact that christian faith encounters antagonistic responses. If the goal of a christian is to be a peacemaker, Christ has no impact on any individual who is determined to war against christian faith. Again, he warns his followers that their faith will bring upon them antagonistic responses. Yet he promotes a peaceful behavior for any christian and guides them to principles such as humility to deter that antagonism.

7- Some theologians have presented what I consider to be a plausible explaination for Christ's statement on the cross... the transfer of the sins of humanity onto his persona necessitated separation from God. I personaly believe for example that the concept of hell is eternal separation from God's presence. The fact is that Christ retained his humanity until his last breath. That human part of him is the one experiencing separation from God.

All this sounds real good. The only problem is that it isn't consistent with what the book says! You are taking a story that is obviously hokey and trying to apply reason to it. It doesn't work. If a story is not consistent with reality all your hyperbole can't make reality from it.

You just prove my position by making these kind of assertions. There are passages that indicate that JC was god on earth and knew everything. That isn't a human trait. What did he do, go in and out of his god phase? And only for the modern apologists?

And nothing you have written gives any inkling why he, a perfect being, an all knowing being, would curse a fig tree for not bearing figs out of season.

Nothing in the Bible makes any sense except that the authors where barbaric people with a barbaric god of their own creation.

WWSD · 01-31-2003, 06:06 PM

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Originally posted by spurly
Yes. He was able to do that. However, he chose not to. He wanted his creatures to have something called free will. In order to have free will, they had to have the ability to choose between loving God and not loving him, righteousness and evil.

If they were going to choose, they had to have something to choose between - hence temptation and sin. It is not illogical, it is perfectly logical. Spock would even think so.

Kevin

Unless you are a proponent of the "openess" theology, I fail to see how we could have any sort of free will in the face of an omnipotent, omniscient being.

At the beginning of the universe, in an omniscient beings mind, a;; possibilities are known. Every choice I would, could, or should make are known to this being. This being could clearly see that the most probable path I would follow was the one to atheism.

Thus he would have known, prior to my creation, billions of years ago, or 6000 years ago, or whatever, that I would eventually not believe in him anymore. So, I question this beings motives for creating me, knowing full well what would happen to me. I also question this beings motive in never once intervening to change the path that I was on, knowing full well, as this being must, that I was going down the "wrong" path.

Why could he not have tweaked the parameters of the universe in the first place in order to nudge me along down the right path? Because he loves me?
That sounds absolutely absurd to me.

Because he wants me to have this "free will" that I keep hearing about?

Additionally, he could, should he want to, drop in on me right now and have a nice chat with me and present me with evidence that he is real. Obviously, I would then have the option of mulling over the information presented and change my views on the subject. Is that a violation of free will?

Some would argue yes I am sure, but I say no.

I have foremd various hypotheses based on my beleifs and data that I have collected in my life. My hypotheses can not all be right or I would be the greatest scientist in the universe.
At some point, though I believe that I am right about something, someone may come along and present data that is contradictory to my hypothesis.
If I am intellectualy honest, I will consider the data, and if it is good enough, I will have to change the way I think about the situation about which I formualted my hypothesis. IOW Iwill have to change the way I believe about the universe.

Does this mean that a simple data set has the ability to rob me of my free will?

No, that is silly. I could still choose to reject the data and believe whatever the hell I want, but I'm not dishonest with myself, therefor I would opt to change my views.

And so there you have it. The free will argument fails on the above accounts as far as I am concerned.

Starboy · 02-02-2003, 10:47 AM

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Originally posted by Chad
why be impressed? I mean if God did not achieve perfection, but was "born" with it and cannot be anything but perfect, why should anyone care if they cannot meet a standard that God has set for us when he did nothing to meet this standard himself? Basically, if God cannot fail, why be impressed by his perfection?

It may be so that there is a god and that it is perfect, however the question remains: perfect for what?

Starboy

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