Be hold the pale horse & the king makers

Gee, imagine Lulz (monger) responding to this thread. DD and I went way too many rounds on subjects like this with him, and your'e right..total waste of time as he knows all and sees all... he is a god in his world. Originally Posted by JS42

There's a god of the bus station mens room???

There's a god of the bus station mens room??? Originally Posted by dirty dog

ROFL!!

... God or free will; that is your choice. You can't have both. In fact, you can only truly choose free will. You cannot choose God because if there is a God then he's already determined your so-called choice ... Originally Posted by Longermonger

At the risk of feeding the troll:

If I know that you're going to hit me, I will behave differently towards you than if I don't. I can't help it.

God does not have that problem. He is fully able to know what you will choose and still respond as though he didn't. So he can respond with laughter.

In the same way, God can know how things will end without forcing things to end a certain way.

I think of it like this:

Imagine that I marked a 1 mile circle as a boundary then figured out a way to communicate to an ant that it means death to go outside that boundary and I created a mechanism to track the ant. The ant has "free will" to do whatever it wants within that large boundary. Just because I know where it is and what it is doing, doesn't mean I "pre-determined" the choices it would make along the way. Or forced it to cross the boundary and die. Or not cross and live.

(Yes, you can shoot holes in the analogy. But you can get the idea it conveys if you choose. Or not.)

Now that ant might come up with some ant logic as to why the boundary exists and what that says about me. But an ant isn't going to be able to comprehend all of me and my reasons with his ant brain.

So his ant logic will be flawed. Like yours.

ok cheaper's thinking I try to do good how ever theres 2 things I will do if you hit me theres no turning cheeks there me ethier nocking the shit out of you or me asking dirty for something with fire to put you down if you know what i mean. And if your wife is open to it I will fuck her maybe even take a pic so you can have something to look at. But other than that I am down for the 10 rules Or at least a 8 of them

"To believe in that religion is to believe in the ILLUSION of free will, but not ACTUAL free will. You can reply to this or not. Either way you'll THINK that you have the choice. But if you believe in God's plan, then it is only fate. God has already decided that you'll reply."

Well guys, I didn't think I would be drawn into this. But here goes nothing.

From many years of religious contact; one of the better explanations of free will is as follows:

as a parent you see your child running into the street with a car coming down the street. You have no power to stop he car. You can only yell at the child to stop; but, the child has a choice to ignore your warning. That choice is free will.

This is the only explanation that ever made sense to me.

JR

Religion, GOD, freewill, karma, faith, etc., can only be defined from the observer's point of view. With infinite observers there exist infinite definitions, none really right or wrong. We only create conflict when we attempt to impose our definitions on others' beliefs.

Even the Bible says we can never know the true nature of God. I would guess that most religious writings, from any religion or study of religion, contain such a caveat.

DD's belief of either God or Free Will, no exceptions, come from his personal observation and beliefs, That makes him right, but only from his point of view. Any(all?) contrary beliefs have similar claims of validity. Even illogical points of view can claim the exemption of blind faith, and are still equally valid (or not).

Once we step from the real to the mystical (and all faiths have some element of mysticism), we have no absolute anchors (except, of course, our own beliefs, see above) to tie to truth, accuracy, or reality.

Hell, even real events (i.e. Gulf Oil Spill) have myriad explanations, results, consequences, based on the observers point of view. If we cannot find agreement about real, tactile, measurable events, how can we expect to find consensus about a subject as esoteric as faith?

It is certainly fun to banter the subject, so long as personal strife is excluded from the argument.

I'm fairly certain this observation will have pissed off somebody. Is that proof of pre-destination, or the whimsy of God (see O.T. Job), or the infinite possibilities of human reaction to any discourse?

Please advise.

I thought hay lets step out the box & think what are things going to be like in 20 years will there be a new world order. Will the free masons or the illunmanate or any of the other groups of king makers finally just make one goverment. Is not some aspect of this in the bible. What say you. Originally Posted by Cheaper2buyit

A little known fact.
The King James version of the bible was commissioned to be written by King James of England, who was also King James of Scotland (I forget which James the number is after the name and I don't want to take the time to look it up)

Anyway, there was a lot of bickering about what the proper translations where, and which books should be included. So King James had the best of the best of all the learned men come together to put together a translation in English so that everyone could accept this as the best translation available.

What is the surprise here? King James from Scotland was a Mason, not only was he a Mason, but he and his family before him were at the top of the Masonic order. So you see, we got the King James Version because of the Masonic order. Don't believe it, look it up and do some history study. It was a surprise to me too.

I love history, I just can't make a living at it.

JR

as a parent you see your child running into the street with a car coming down the street. You have no power to stop he car. You can only yell at the child to stop; but, the child has a choice to ignore your warning. That choice is free will. Originally Posted by JRLawrence

The OBVIOUS problem with that analogy is that the father figure has NO POWER to stop the car. God (the Father) is supposed to be ALL-POWERFUL and would have knowledge of the event thousands of years before it happened. God would be ENTIRELY able to prevent it. Furthermore, God isn't really in the position to truly prevent anything...because He CAUSES everything.

Let me see if I can re-write it.

God and you see your child running into the street. God has created you, your child, the street, the car, etc. He's planned out the events and knows exactly what is going to happen. He has the power to prevent the pending carnage but doesn't. Why would he? He's doing this on purpose according to His plan (which is perfect). You, on the other hand DON'T know what's going to happen. All you can do is scream "STOP!" as loud as you can. Your child turns and looks at you. Your eyes lock briefly just as the bumper of the Pontiac Aztek plows into your offspring. There is nothing left but gore, pain, and a red mist. Just as your God planned. Later, you praise God at the funeral.

God does not have that problem. He is fully able to know what you will choose and still respond as though he didn't. So he can respond with laughter. Originally Posted by BiggestBest

Yes, He can fake it.

Now, to the ants!

The difference between your ant experiment and God is that you didn't BUILD and PROGRAM the ant like God did. You also don't have any control over the ant's tiny brain. God must have control of ALL to be ALL-POWERFUL.

Your brain can't be out of God's control. God also has to know everything in your brain. And why wouldn't He...He built you. So you're less like an ant to God and more like one of those programmable toy robot dogs. Woof! Woof!

Gee, imagine Lulz (monger) responding to this thread. DD and I went way too many rounds on subjects like this with him, and your'e right..total waste of time as he knows all and sees all... he is a god in his world. Originally Posted by JS42

Ponder what led you post here. According to what you believe, God decided that you would reply to my post long before you were ever born. Perhaps even before He created the Universe. Ask yourself why He would want to do that.

I'm not a god. I'm more of an anti-god. I'm just a guy. I'm just a guy who's not infected with the religion virus.

He has the power to prevent the pending carnage but doesn't. Why would he? He's doing this on purpose according to His plan (which is perfect). Originally Posted by Longermonger

Nice write up and good logic. However, the illustration was about the difference between foreknowledge and freewill.

Because man has a freewill, he is capable of making his own decision about how he will live his life. Most religions, and most churches ignore that little bit about freedom. In turn they try to grab the power over our lives and tell us what decisions to make. A study of many religions, including Christianity tell us that just because God has us figured out (foreknowledge) he has chosen not to have a direct interference on our decisions.

In other words, we make our own choices; how we treat others, how we treat ourselves, (I don't go to the gym enough; I know that I should) and the power we give to others to rule our lives. By others, we mean both organized religion and governments.

There will always be a problem with people who want to take the power to control others lives and/or property. These people, or institutions, include: governments, organized religion, organized crime, pimps, robbers, and abusers.

All of this is broadly included in free choice. We can all look at some of our own decisions and look back to see that we did not have to be God to understand that some of our choices were not the best choices.

JR

Jr your wasting your time, he is as devot in his atheism as he is in his homosexuality, nothing you say is going to change his mind LOL. It was just a joke monger.

If it could think, I'm sure a clock would believe that it has the free will to turn forwards or backwards, quickly or slowly, or even to stop. But the clockmaker knows better.

To imagine that the clockmaker chooses not to "interfere" with his perfect clock misses the point; the clock is just a clock.

Back in reality, the only clockmakers are humans. Free will exists and supernatural creators don't.

Gentlemen....let's keep this about the topic, not each other!!

Not that Longer is open to other ideas, but I'll say it anyway:

God decided to give us free will. It's not free if he overrides it. So he has chosen NOT to do that.

For him to script every outcome of every decision would make it NOT be free will and then we would be robots.

That is one reason that God does not stop events (just so you can have the outcome that YOU think is best). If you were a parent, you'd understand how hard it is to NOT interfere when your child is making a bad decision.

It's the third Chinese curse (in increasing severity):

May you live in interesting times
May you come to the attention of those in authority
May you find what you are seeking

We make stupid choices and there are consequences. Good and bad.