emotional

That's the way it goes:

1. I start participating in a debate.
2. The debate gets tough.
3. The arguments start to shake my cherished doctrines.
4. Ridicule is added to the mixture.
5. I can't hold on any longer.
6. The debate collapses.

It has always been so. It was so when I was an atheist debating against theists. It is so now. I'm just not a good debater. Discussion boards just aren't for me! But what other choice do I have for a bit of company, since I have no friends in real life?

KidFury

Emotional,

I usually post on apologetics.com where I am surrounded by theists attempting to refute my every word.

It gets really frustrating sometimes when you get the feeling that you keep repeating your position.

I have develloped 3 techniques:

1) learn how to make a closing statement: There comes a time when enough is enough and you need to sum up your position and leave.

2) Take your time: When responding to a refutation do not asnwer off the cuff as though it's obvious. Look at what happened with the robot argument. You didn't think it through before responding and you ended up having to hold an untenable position (that robots cannot make decisions). If you had taken the time to think about it, you would have remembered your programming classes in which you learned basic IF and THEN functions.

3) do not read a personal attack in every post.

Calzaer

Unfortunately, it's completely impossible to have any sort of meaningful discussion with a person who freely admits to being totally illogical and irrational when it comes to the subject of the discussion. He can say anything at all, and nobody could ever prove him wrong! Square circles? Sure they exist! I see no contradiction or dissoanance. I don't know how it works, but they exist!

emotional

Calzaer, I don't see my belief in both God's omniscience and decisional free will as being equivalent to belief in square circles. If I did, I wouldn't be able to believe in it. I can't logically explain why I don't see any dissonance between those two views, but the fact is it works for me that way.

BadBadBad

Emotional,

I'm sorry I've ridiculed your position, and I'm sorry I've obviously pissed you off.

It's just that I've seen a lot of folks here going on and on and on about God and God's doctrine. You'd think that some of what I've read is coming directly from some unknown book of the Bible, or that God himself was posting on this board. I'm going, wait a minute. The Bible doesn't even say anything like that. Then on numerous occasions, the matador tries to jerk the red cape out from in my face to proclaim, "Aaah, but I'm not a Christian, I'm a Buddist, or Theist or cherry picker."

The fact is that the only reason we're discussing this free will topic is because the Bible is inherently flawed on the subject. We're talking about pre-destination because the Bible says we are predestined to salvation or damnation by God. We're talking about free will because the Bible says we're saved through faith. We're talking about foreknowledge of our decisions because that's a popular apology for the contradictions between predestination and salvation through faith. Unfortunately, there's just no reference to this nifty resolution of the contradiction anywhere in the Bible. People just made it up after the fact. On top of that, no one has come close to addressing common sense arguments from Mageth and many others around here on the conceptual contradiction between predestination and free will.

I just don't buy it. The concepts of original sin and salvation are at the top of my list for rejecting christianity. It ties in to Heaven, Hell, after life, the father, the son, and the holy ghost etc. etc. To me, it's the crux of the matter.

My suggestion to you emotional, if I can be so bold, is that if you're not a christian, then you should consider completely dropping the baggage of christianity. If you want to believe in God, believe that as a human that you can't have a frickin clue what that means. Believe that anyone who has ever written about God can't possibly have had a frickin clue, and not only that, but the author was probably an ignorant self serving liar. If you want to believe that christianity has some nice portrayals of God, morality, and afterlife, fine. If you like how some people have had spiritual experiences during NDE, fine. Just don't proclaim you have your finger on the pulse of God, and that I'll get my just reward when I go to hell. That's pretty simple isn't it? If the Muslims and Christians would just keep that in mind, the world would be a hell of a lot better for everyone.

emotional

What baggage of Christianity? A few days ago there came here a fundaChristian poster called One Way, and I had battle with him over beliefs of God and the afterlife. He considered me a much greater enemy than the atheists here.



I believe:

1. The reality of God is hidden from people during earthly life,
2. It is revealed to people in the afterlife,
3. Therefore messages we get from people of the afterlife give a reliable picture of God.

I believe the Spirit Teachings are a channelled message of people from the afterlife, therefore what they say about God is reliable. They don't tell much, but here's a good sample:

Which is a clear refutation of the Christian doctrine of eternal hell. Why shouldn't I take that on face value? You say, "everything people say about God is a lie"?! Why should I think so? Even the Bible has some small bits of truth about God, so all the more so messages from the afterlife.



I never said you were going to hell. But I do have quite definite beliefs about heaven and hell and who goes where: people go to heaven or hell not according to their beliefs - faith counts for nothing, even faith in God - but according to their actions, according to how kindly they have been to other people and creatures. Most atheists are surely going to heaven. I'm quite sure Robert Green Ingersoll went to a high level of heaven after he died - his life was flawless. And even hell isn't an eternal chamber of sadistic torture. Hell is where people reflect upon their undoings, repent of them and get out afterwards.



The problem with Islam and Christianity is that they are hateful, dualistic (good-evil dichotomy), paranoid religions - full of cult mentality. That they believe in God is not the problem, the problem is that they believe in a divine sanction to label other people as evil and worthy of subjugation.

I have a right to hold conceptions of God and the afterlife, just as you have the right to disbelieve in those conceptions. I don't see any wrong with having such conceptions, so long as I don't harm people in their name.

I ate Pascal's Wafer

emotional, it seems like you are dropping out of the discussion on free will, so I won't reply to your last post you directed at me. If you still want to talk about it, then I'll be happy to respond to your points. I'm going out of town (again) for the weekend, so I'll respond to your arguments when I get back.

I do want to comment on a couple of things, though:

As I recall, this is the first debate I've been with you. Thus, it may be fallacious for me to extrapolate what I see from this discussion to any previous discussions you may have had. Remember that I am only going by what I see in this thread, and it is up to you to determine if you are usually like this or if it's a one-time thing.

That said, it seems to me like your big problem is that you hold onto an idea and just aren't prepared to let it go. You don't seem to be willing to consider that your ideas might be wrong, and thus consider any arguments against them. Your big objection to my arguments in this thread is that you just believe that free will exists, and you just believe that God is omniscient, and you don't see why this is a problem. When I tell you what the problem is as I see it, you don't seem to consider what I'm saying and then reply from there. You conclude that I am wrong because I am arguing that free will doesn't exist or God is not omniscient, and my argument is given no further consideration.

It's not necessarily bad to hold onto your views and make the other person explicitly show that you are wrong. However, when the other person does try to form the framework of his argument, it is bad to disregard his argument without giving it much thought and showing why his argument is flawed.

If you debate like this in other debates, then this may be where your debating problems are. If you're unwilling to accept that your opponent just might be right, then you aren't going to be able to gain any ground in a discussion.

-Nick

emotional

Honestly, I tell you, I have looked at all your arguments as to why God's omniscience and decisional free will are incompatible, and I just honest-to-God haven't been convinced. I really can't see why believing those two simultaneously is like believing in square circles. Say I haven't seen the light, but I just really can't see the glaring contradiction you all see here.

BadBadBad

Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, God the creator of the universe, God the omnipotent, omniscient, omni-being. I've understood from what you've posted here that you believe in something of these concepts. Plus you're discusssing Free Will along the lines of the christian apologetic explanation of the pre-destination/free will contradiction in the Bible. It goes something like - You're saved by faith. God predestines you only in that he has foreknowledge of your ultimate decisions. All of these concepts are baggage from Christianity.

For example, what is omnipotent? Why do you believe your God is omnipotent? What is the source of that fact about your God? Did God create the universe? What is the source of that fact? You see what I'm getting at? You're doing the same thing the early christians did. You're taking the culture of other religions, and you're re-defining God as you go. Perhaps yours will eventually be the ultimate religion of the future. All you need is to declare your book sacred, oh and maybe write in a few miracles and get a few unnamed people to claim they're true.


Why don't you just accept that you don't have a frickin clue what happens to you after you die other than what you have seen with your own two eyes? Based upon what I have seen with my own two eyes, I believe the only afterlife you're going to have is the rotting and decompsition of your corpse. Because despite what anyone else says, they don't have a clue beyond exactly that. These people with near death experiences didn't die. Therefore they can't tell you what happened after they were dead.

Perhaps a nice thought, but what's the basis in reality or fact? Instead of posting a link to this 30 chapter book, which no one is going to read, how about posting what authority the author has in defining God. You could just as well believe in IPUs because the author of your URL doesn't have any more authority than the author of this URL:

Institute for Unicorn Research


No, I said you should presume anyone who proclaims to define god is either ignorant or a self serving liar, and I think given the history of people who have proclaimed to know anything about God, this is a pretty safe presumption. If I told you that I not only believe in the almighty pink unicorn, but I talk to him and I feed him corn on my back porch, what would presume? No one can or ever has said anything definitive or factual about God. Small bits of truth in the Bible? Quote me one verse that is an absolute authentic and truthful fact about God or for that matter anything supernatural at all.

Now, after all that, why do you believe god is omniscient? Why do you believe that even assuming omniscience is possible, why do you believe that includes foreknowledge? Do you believe in predestination, because this discussion, like I said, follows along with what the Bible says about salvation? What is the basis for these specific concepts? Initially, I thought you were a christian, therefore I presumed you held the Bible as the ultimate authoritative source for these "facts." If you agree with us that the Bible is not the authentic word of God, what's the basis of this discussion? I don't believe in god, omniscience, or foreknowledge. So, for us to continue with a meaningful discussion, I think we need to establish the reality of these concepts.

Jamie_L

Emotional:

It looks like things digressed before I had a chance to respond to you. If you're still interested, here's my explanation for the way I see things.

There are different versions of this. The one I lean towards involves not just God's omniscience, but also his omnipotence, and the fact that he created the universe. Let's narrow things to a small example:

God is creating the universe. Because he is omniscient, he knows that if he creates the universe with initial parameters of Set X, I will be born, and I will decide to eat a donut on July 4th at 12:00pm. Now, God has a choice, he can continue to make the universe like this, in which case I WILL eat the donut on July 4th at 12:00pm. OR, God can change some parameters in Set X so that something different happens. Let's say I'll eat a hot dog instead at 11:58am on July 4th. Essentially, God is setting up the parameters that will determine my decision. He has to pick some set of parameters, and they will result in a particular decision. The only way to remove his Will from the equation is to create the parameters at random and somehow blind himself to their results. But even then, he chooses to let that universe flow. Which leads me to my thoughts on determinism vs. free will:

Given situation X, I have what appears to be a choice: Do A or do B. I choose A. Why do I choose A? Because given situation X, that's what I want to do. However, given the exact same set of circumstances, would I ever choose B given situation X? No. I choose A based on the desires that result from considering situation X. Situation X produces desires for A. In effect, I cannot really choose B because situation X does not produce desires to choose B. I am a slave to my desires, and I do not create my desires. They are the result of my brain, which is a creation of genetics and environmental inputs. I am exactly the same as a computer, just more complex. Of course it APPEARS to be a free choice. That's just the nature of being human, I guess.

This actually falls into the category of those things that make my brain hurt. I agree with you in that it seems that we all make decisions, and those decisions seem like free choice. But when I think about it real hard, as I describe above, it seems like we are really just responding to stimuli according to programming. A computer will always make the same decision given the exact same inputs. I don't see how we can be any different.

Of course, in practice, this lack of "free will" is meaningless. It doesn't change anything about day-to-day life. I think about it when I'm feeling philosophical, but most of the time I "choose" to ignore it and go about the business of "choosing" what I want for dinner, what I want to do this weekend, and what I want to type on these crazy message boards.

It's a lot like the puzzle of existence itself. Ow, ow, OW! My brain hurts! Make it stop! Ooh... a jelly donut. Yum.

Jamie