Lets mess with christians part 2?

Question

see my last questions for problems

again assuming god is all knowing all powerful, created us, loves us, and gave us freewill.

The best and most logical answer to the last question I ask is that we do have freewill, it's just that god knows all the decisions that we will make before we make them. It doesn't mean we don't make choices it's just that god has known what they were going to be before he created the universe.

Here is the problem with that, if that is true it means that god knew exactly who was going to hell long before we actually went there, and long before he created the universe. If I go to hell, I go to hell because god created me knowing I would. If truely loved me or cared about me why would he create me just to send me to hell.

It can only mean a few possibilities, one god doesn't care at all, two god doesn't know the future, three nobody will ever go to hell

if either of these are true, christianity is wrong. explain this?

Answer 1

Exactly. I'm 99.9% atheist. I've tried. So I'm saying that this is "God's plan." Christianity makes no sense. If God knows everything, what is the point of prayer? Eh...go easy on them. They were brainwashed.

Answer 2

Okay, lets assume he knows the future. Lets say he knows all, he even knew that you, from birth, would make choices that would end up sending you to hell. You still were able to make the choices. You wrote your won life, YOU, and YOU ALONE, made those choices, he let you, he gave you the opportunity to. That itself is the essence of free will.

If he didnt care at all, you wouldnt have free will, you wouldnt even be alive. Why create you if he akes you choices for you? He doesn, YOU make them.

God doesnt know the future, this is possible. God is always here, first and the last, around us all, but there is a common religious belief that he may not know the future, he may just be living along with us. Planning events, but not knowing the outcome.

Why would nobody go to hell. I liked your argument, but you lost me there.

If any of these are true, why does that prove Christianity wrong. Read a Bible, the Words of Christ, the teachings of God through him explain it all, and suprise of suprises, it makes perfect sense.

Answer 3

No your theory would mean that God should not have made any of us because some people would choose to reject him. On what basis do you make this assumption. If you claim it is unjust, you are wrong because you did have a choice. So you must be claiming that God should have deprived everyone else of life because people like you would then be going to hell. But, then it is your theory that is unjust.
Your problem is that you have it all backwards. You think God is supposed to serve you. This is a common misconception in our arrogant and selfish society. The truth is that we are made to serve God. If you choose to cheapen yourself by not serving your purpose that is your choice. But then why do you pretend that God is somehow obligated to keep you around and take care of you for eternity. You are the one making yourself unfit. You are the one who chooses hell. All he is doing is granting your wish. And you thought your prayers were not answered.

Answer 4

If God gave us freewill, that means he does not preordain our lives & therefore does not judge ahead of time.
I believe [as I wrote in answer to another question] is that God does not send anyone to heaven or hell, it's our choice, by how we live our lives.
Judgement day, is not God judging us, but a review of how we choose to live & where we end up because of our choices.

Answer 5

'Omniscience' is logically incompatible with 'free will'. 'Omniscience', all by itself, is sufficient to put the lid on 'free will'; omnipresence and omnipotence are irrelevant. It is not necessary for god to intervene in order to negate 'free will' as a possibility. Omniscience negates free will all by itself.

If we really DO have 'free will', then an omniscient god is logically excluded. The logical fallacy lies in the premise that if god is omniscient, all outcomes are already known to god... everything that you think, decide and do... and everything that you WILL think, decide, and do.

For an omniscient being, all of existence over all of time is laid out as a tapestry before him... past, present and future, down to the smallest detail of material, of thought and of deed, and all is constantly in his awareness. There is no past, present and future from that perspective... there is only an eternal 'now'.

If that is the case, since god already knows everything that will happen, then everything is already decided... and as we go along through life, we are merely doing what has already been seen by god. Since god knows and sees everything that will happen, NOTHING that we think or do can be contrary to what god already sees and knows. We might THINK we have free will... but since we are merely acting out what god already sees and knows, this can be no more than an ILLUSION of free will.

Put another way, if you come to a point of decision, you have no choice but to take the path that god already knows you will take... there is no other option. That works all the way down the path of cause-and-effect... and, along the way, it even casts doubt on the validity of the concept of cause and effect. I don't want to get into that, though... it makes my hair hurt.

So, imagine that since before time began, since before the universe was created, god has 'known' that you would come to a point of decision at some spatial and temporal coordinate, and that faced with the possible paths A and B, you would take path A.

Now, during the course of your life, you arrive at that spatial and temporal coordinate where this choice exists. You evaluate the potential outcomes, and you have it in your head that you have 'free will', and thus, you are free to choose between path A and path B. However, since god is 'omniscient', and god 'knows' that you will take path 'A', then path B IS NOT an option... it IS NOT a matter of choice... it is a 'NECESSITY'. OF NECESSITY, you WILL take path A. Not 'must'... not 'can'... WILL take path A. You DO NOT have a choice. Path B is NOT an option... it is not even a POSSIBILITY. The best that you can achieve is the ILLUSION that you are free to choose.

So, either god is omniscient OR we have free will. It is QUITE IMPOSSIBLE for BOTH of these conditions to coexist.

The only way out of this logical dilemma is to limit god's power; i.e., start taking away things that god can see and know, until we get to a point where free will BECOMES a possibility. But when we start doing that, then he ceases to be omniscient... and thus ceases to be a 'supreme being'.

So... free will is an impossibility concomitant with an omniscient diety. The following sums up the possibilities:

1. There is no omniscient diety... therefore, the whole argument is stupid and irrelevant.

2. IF we possess 'free will' AND god exists, THEN, of necessity, it is IMPOSSIBLE that god is omniscient. (This does not preclude the notion of 'god'... it just means that he can't be as 'supreme' as one might think he is... or wish him to be.) You are (logically) obliged to acknowledge that god CAN NOT BE all knowing... and since omniscience is one of the things that makes god 'all powerful', then this means that god CAN NOT BE omnipotent, either.

3. IF god exists AND god is omniscient THEN, OF NECESSITY, it is IMPOSSIBLE that that we have free will, and you are (metaphorically speaking) nothing more than a piece on god's eternal game board; and, thus, "... man is not responsible for his actions."

Personally, I vote for number 1. You can pick any one you want... but YOU MUST PICK ONE, because there are NO OTHER possible outcomes... NO OTHER logically valid choices.

It is unfortunate (for the Abrahamic death cults of desert monotheism) that the concepts of god were solidified as dogma a few thousand years before the philosophical discipline of 'logic' was dreamed up by the Greeks. Those that concocted the religion did not have access to the intellectual tools that would have enabled them to realize that they had 'screwed the pooch' with respect to assigning god's impossible attributes. It wasn't until the 4th century that this logical impossibility garnered serious attention, and churchmen got their theological 'dancin' shoes' on, trying to weasel their way out of the logical dilemma.

They did not succeed, and this issue continues to be debated even 'til this day. This logical dilemma (and the resulting 'cognitive dissonance') was a key element in some of the various 'heresies' that were spawned in the early days of Christianity.

However, the simple observation that these impossible beliefs still exist shows that this does not seem to have been a very big hindrance, under the simple expediency that "There is no problem so big that we cannot ignore it, until it will go away." Too bad for them, though... it DOESN'T go away.

Corporate religion is helped along by the fact that most 'believers' do not employ logic or critical thinking skills; heck... that's why they're believers in the first place. If they employed logic and critical thinking, they WOULD NOT BE believers. So, even though these concepts create a logical impossibility, it does not seem to present a significant problem for them.

Answer 6

2 things are obviously true ... either you serve your purpose as a worker of evil .... or u serve ur purpose as a worker of righteousness .... God may know the outcome but you dont
...and what is up with the wannabe intellectual posting the book? ..well i'll respond to that nonsense because "logically" we are in a universe bound by time .. time is only relative to our world and our perception of it ... however we are bound by it and time is linear to us ... we CAN have a free will on our timeline and if God is in Heaven or another dimension divorced from the bounds of our timeline then everything is happening at once or whatever the relation is to our time ...so God could and does know all but it has nothing to do with our free will where we are and our perception of time in our lives and our choices here .. that is why we are here. So your premise is that Knowledge of the outcome prevents free will ... i totally disagree

Answer 7

God does care actually Hes given you a way out but you are not excepting it .( Jesus died for your sins and that makes you pure to enter heaven) Thats right God knew ahead of time that there were going to be Angels and me who would want any part of Him so He made Hell a place for those who do not want God can stay. He created you so you would come to see your need for Him and abandon your own righteousness for His . To come freely on your own or deny freely on your own take your pick .

Answer 8

Maybe God considers a lifetime on Earth and an eternity in hell better than not existing at all. Tis better to have loved and lost...

Answer 9

Yes, and no.

He saw the beginning and the end.

God created you to be you. You have the choice to enter into Christ's body and carry out God's purpose for you, and you have the choice not to. Your choice still exists, even though God sees all things.

God created no one just so they would go to hell. God created them so that they would live.

But, dude, look. You are trying to use limited time-space perception to conceive of that which you cannot conceive of. Because your understanding of God's mind is necessarily inexact, you are introducing all sorts of logical fallacies into your arguments.

If you don't have faith, pray for it. If you don't want it, don't pray for it. But what is the point of engaging in this useless exercise of trying to "trip people up" or prove something that is not provable? Crap, even the laws of physics aren't provable. So if we cannot even prove natural tendencies, which we do see, how can we even pretend to understand the mind of the divine, which we cannot see?

The time you spend creating your logically illogical arguments could be better spent. You could be thinking about how your life echoes in eternity, for example.

If you pray and ask God to reveal himself to you--and if you are honest and humble in your request--he will. And when he does, all you want to know will be laid before your feet.

All of these paradoxes will become lucid.

It appears that you want clarity. Well, you can HAVE it. Just go to the source, to God himself, and he will give you what you ask.

Don't take my word for it. Try it yourself and see.

Answer 10

lol...ok. Well God dosent "know the future". He does know the trials and tribulations that we will face in our lives, but I don't believe that he knows what choices we make until we make them. He gives us the free will to choose, and he makes it soooooooooooo easy for us to repent our sins and still get into heaven. God does not make any of his children with the intent that they will go to hell. I think there are a lot of "what ifs".....thats why it comes down to FAITH.

Answer 11

You won't understand...you are asking a spiritual question from the flesh. It doesn't matter what the answers are...you just won't "get it."

May you find the Grace of the Living God and His Son Jesus. (Just because you don't believe...doesn't change the fact that God loves you and is seeking a relationship with you).

Peace...