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Istari
Known Hero
Truth Teller, ToH
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posted June 20, 2007 08:22 PM |
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I've been away from the computer for a while so I haven't been able to respond to previous posts. I would like to catch up with them, and may have time this weekend. For now I only have time for a quick post.
I think we have very different concepts of free will. You are presented some form of free will that can be controlled. You are saying being omnipotent means you can control free will. That is definitionally impossible though. That is like saying God should be able to make a husband who is not married. His lack of being able to complete definitionally impossible tasks doesn't mean he is not omnipotent it just means the question is non-sensical. A better question may be: why did he choose to create being with free-will thus intentionally restricting his power over them? Can a being be all powerful and choose to restrict that power? Yes. Why? is the better question. That is were I lose certainty and speculate that you can't have love and a relationship without free will. You can't have free will without evil. So an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God must allow evil in order to share love and relationship. Is it worth it? The advantage of being God, is knowing the answer to questions like those.
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Opinions are immunity to being told you're wrong.
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Tenaka
Famous Hero
Makes sense
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posted June 20, 2007 08:31 PM |
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Don't have a lot of time for a reply, but I absolutely agree with Istari. 
You're question is, like Istari said, non-sensical. Free will is to have the possibility to do what you want. Even if it is sinning. So by restricting these things, you completely destroy the whole idea of free will...
Great questions, Istari, although that wouldn't completely fit in here. Yet I'd love to discuss them somewhere. 
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Lith-Maethor
Honorable
Legendary Hero
paid in Coin and Cleavage
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posted June 20, 2007 08:47 PM |
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sigh...
I think we are stalled here... you guys seem unable to understand simple things ...so let me say this again by definition the very concept of being omnipotent means that you are able to do anything no matter what ...being all powerful, therefore, should allow god to remove evil without messing with free will ...at least in theory
in reality, things are far more simple... using the programming example, it is perfectly possible to create a program able to make choices and still making sure the program doesn't self-destruct after a while ...if a simple flawed human being can do that with an even more flawed creation, why is it so hard for you to picture the creator of everything doing the same?
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You are suffering from delusions of adequacy.
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Tenaka
Famous Hero
Makes sense
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posted June 20, 2007 08:59 PM |
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(Wee, back on)
You're saying WE're hard-headed? You don't seem to be willing to listen! In fact, you're saying that an omnipotent being should be able to make a lightbulb, that at the same moment, is a lightbulb, and is not one. Have you ever heard of the word interpretation? 
With all due respect, if you think that's meant with 'God is omnipotent', you're not so clever. 
And as I mentioned before, a human, is not a program, nor was he meant as one!
What is a program? A series of 0's and 1's.
What is a human? That's just too complicated to explain, as we still don't know everything about ourselves!
Besides, giving a program free will is not possible. You'd have to give it human artificial intelligence. The program can only perform instructions that you've programmed in it.
No offence meant whatsoever! 
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Lith-Maethor
Honorable
Legendary Hero
paid in Coin and Cleavage
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posted June 20, 2007 09:12 PM |
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...i give up...
...apparently you don't even grasp the concept of "example"
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You are suffering from delusions of adequacy.
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Tenaka
Famous Hero
Makes sense
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posted June 20, 2007 09:17 PM |
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Quote:
using the programming example, it is perfectly possible to create a program able to make choices and still making sure the program doesn't self-destruct after a while
When you use examples, you should use 'if'. Plus, you can't completely base your conclusion on something that's impossible.
And last, but not least, there are no good examples for free will. We're unique!
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Lith-Maethor
Honorable
Legendary Hero
paid in Coin and Cleavage
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posted June 20, 2007 09:22 PM |
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Tenaka...
believe whatever you want dude... some old guy living in the clouds? go for it ...a flying waffle maker? if it works for you ...a loving father that has no problem damning his children for temporary transgressions or simply being born in the wrong area? its your head on the line, believe that too, no skin off my back
but don't even try to come on the upper end of this discussion, when you ignore more than half the posts made from the other end and you cannot even realise the basics of communication
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You are suffering from delusions of adequacy.
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Garbax
Hired Hero
Struggling with RL
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posted June 20, 2007 09:26 PM |
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Quote:
I think we have very different concepts of free will. You are presented some form of free will that can be controlled. You are saying being omnipotent means you can control free will. That is definitionally impossible though. That is like saying God should be able to make a husband who is not married. His lack of being able to complete definitionally impossible tasks doesn't mean he is not omnipotent it just means the question is non-sensical. A better question may be: why did he choose to create being with free-will thus intentionally restricting his power over them? Can a being be all powerful and choose to restrict that power? Yes. Why? is the better question. That is were I lose certainty and speculate that you can't have love and a relationship without free will. You can't have free will without evil. So an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God must allow evil in order to share love and relationship. Is it worth it? The advantage of being God, is knowing the answer to questions like those.
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Free will is to have the possibility to do what you want. Even if it is sinning. So by restricting these things, you completely destroy the whole idea of free will...
Well, at least that sends the omnibenevolent part of God down the drain, since He allows the existence of evil.
And one question: Isnīt choosing people before the very foundation of the world well, a little discriminating and a "shrinkment"(not sure if it is a word), of the Free Will? The Bible says that God actually did it, meaning that He selected which one will go with Him and who gets to burn in the lake of flames.
He does gives the people an opportunity to try, but is doomed right from the start since there are chosens and there are not chosen, it could be said that is rigged from the beggining, since there is a limited number in Heaven...
It quite difficult for Free Will to exist when there is someone Omnipotent and omniscient that created you
Iīm not the one destroying the Free Will idea, God already took care of that...
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Love is not blind, is retarded
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Tenaka
Famous Hero
Makes sense
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posted June 20, 2007 09:36 PM |
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Wow...
That's funny...I feel exactly the same way about you...
Seriously, that was uncalled for. If you think I'm an annoyance, you can also put that in a more structured reply.
And Garbax, as for the omnibenevolent, I wrote about that on the last page, and I can't force my self to typing it again...
But for the rest: Now that is a good point! 
I'm afraid I won't reply to it, for Lith-Maetor's sake. So, I'll stand on the sidelines of this thread, until someone invites me back...
Tenaka 
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Garbax
Hired Hero
Struggling with RL
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posted June 20, 2007 10:11 PM |
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And Garbax, as for the omnibenevolent, I wrote about that on the last page, and I can't force my self to typing it again...
Would you care to point me out to it? i must have missed it, thanks in advance!
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But for the rest: Now that is a good point!
I'm afraid I won't reply to it, for Lith-Maetor's sake. So, I'll stand on the sidelines of this thread, until someone invites me back...
Tenaka
Well, thatīs sad!
We had a fine conversation but if you donīt feel like participating in it then so be it...
Thatīs one of the biggest problems with this kind of threads, which Lith-Maethor himself pointed out: The sides are pretty well defined in this kinds of discussion and there is little to no chance that the other is willing to see the other point of view. I was a believer once so i understand many of your points because i once defended them...
I gave up on the Bible because there are things that simply donīt make the cut for me, at least not anymore.
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Love is not blind, is retarded
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Istari
Known Hero
Truth Teller, ToH
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posted June 20, 2007 10:44 PM |
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Well, at least that sends the omnibenevolent part of God down the drain, since He allows the existence of evil.
You are assuming that a benevolent being would not allow evil. That is a common hang up, because evil is so horrible. I suggest that there is a greater purpose (a loving relationship with God) for which evil is a temporary necessity. I cannot imagine a loving relationship without free-will and I can't imagine free will without evil.
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And one question: Isnīt choosing people before the very foundation of the world well, a little discriminating and a "shrinkment"(not sure if it is a word), of the Free Will? The Bible says that God actually did it, meaning that He selected which one will go with Him and who gets to burn in the lake of flames
He does gives the people an opportunity to try, but is doomed right from the start since there are chosens and there are not chosen, it could be said that is rigged from the beggining, since there is a limited number in Heaven....
That is a good question. Free will vs. predestination is a hotly debated and theologically perplexing question. I don't have that answer and I would seriously question those who think they completely understand that issue. The answer can only be sought through the Bible and revelation from God (though I'm not sure God needs us to know). Since we are debating the existence of God it seems to be looking a bit far down the road to debate free will and predestination. It is not central to the faith and honestly I'm more comfortable talking about it with people who first grasp the basics (I really don't mean any offense).
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It quite difficult for Free Will to exist when there is someone Omnipotent and omniscient that created you
Iīm not the one destroying the Free Will idea, God already took care of that...
It's true, it is difficult. It would take that omnipotent and omniscient God choosing to limit his influence (allowing free will)for a greater purpose.
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Opinions are immunity to being told you're wrong.
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted June 20, 2007 11:01 PM |
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So u tell me God created the whole universe with his billions of planets, stars, moons, suns, milkyways and whatelse more, he even is able to bring back deads to life (Jesus), but he is NOT able to control free will?...hmmm....
So he created Lucifer BEFORE Adam. He gave him free will and saw it was a bad decision, coz Lucifer turned evil. So what was his motivation making the same fault again with Adam? If he doesn't like sin and evil, why creating a being who will for sure tend towards sin and evil?
Doesn't make sense....for me...
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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Homer171
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted June 20, 2007 11:48 PM |
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@angelito: First God created angels then commanded them to worship only himself. After that God creating Man and he commanded angels to bow them. And Lucifer refused this order and thus far started the rebellion againts the God.
There are other "stories" aswell but most common is that Lucifer was high ranked Angel/Seraph (next to God). He became too pride and there for Lucifer was banished from the heaven.
It would not be free will if you could control it I just had to say that lame line... But what would be point of creating artificial intelligence or robot whit no toughs of it's own? If God would change peoples religion belifs whit ON/OFF switch it wouldn't be "Free will" anymore.
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Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
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Garbax
Hired Hero
Struggling with RL
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posted June 21, 2007 03:18 AM |
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Edited by Garbax at 03:20, 21 Jun 2007.
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Quote:
It would not be free will if you could control it I just had to say that lame line... But what would be point of creating artificial intelligence or robot whit no toughs of it's own? If God would change peoples religion belifs whit ON/OFF switch it wouldn't be "Free will" anymore.
Allright, you would hace a point IF Free Will allowed us to choose whether or not we go to heaven BUT, then again, people were chosen before the foundation of the world, quite a hell lot of time before we got a chance to decide.
Which makes me arrive to at least 2 possible conclusions:
Either there is no "real" Free Will and choice is just an illusion since we are born already with a ticket to heaven.
OR
God is not really all knowing, and he needs to determine which ones are going to get to heaven by giving them all an opportunity to make up their mind (this, of course, contradicts everything written anywhere).
OR
God simply doesnīt exist and itīs all a fancy story.
I personally advocate for the second...
Edit: Sorry if this post doesnīt make much sense, i wrote it up amidst two very fierce fights with two friends and i was under quite a bit of emotional stress...
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Love is not blind, is retarded
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TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Professional
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posted June 21, 2007 06:10 AM |
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Garbax, you are SO TitaniumAlloy's second account... 
u got me, plz don't ban
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Yes, about the whol 'Satan creation'...
Let's have a look at free will again. If God gives it to all of his creations (or at least menkind), of course he'd give it to this creation too, no? So we can assume that angels, archangels,etc, have free will. And when things have free will, it goes wrong...
 Here we have our sin
So, God created Lucifer, but not the way he became later. He was consumed by greed, and sinned.
And got kicked off his cloud!
Tenaka
Here's some simple facts
God created everything
Everything exists
Sin exists
Therefore god created sin
mmkay?
Quote:
I think we have very different concepts of free will. You are presented some form of free will that can be controlled. You are saying being omnipotent means you can control free will. That is definitionally impossible though. That is like saying God should be able to make a husband who is not married. His lack of being able to complete definitionally impossible tasks doesn't mean he is not omnipotent it just means the question is non-sensical. A better question may be: why did he choose to create being with free-will thus intentionally restricting his power over them? Can a being be all powerful and choose to restrict that power? Yes. Why? is the better question. That is were I lose certainty and speculate that you can't have love and a relationship without free will. You can't have free will without evil. So an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God must allow evil in order to share love and relationship. Is it worth it? The advantage of being God, is knowing the answer to questions like those.
It's not the omnipotence that gets him..
It's the omniscience 
He knows EVERYTHING that will happen
Suppose he creates a murderer
He knows that this person is a murderer, right?
But he also creates him that way. He chooses how to create him. He could create him in any way, but he choose to make a murderer. We're not saying it's not the man's free will to be a murderer, just that it's gods fault in the first place.
Should god just make everyone like ned flanders? I don't know. That's not the point. Just that if someone is a murderer it is because god made them that way, and not for any other reason.
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And as I mentioned before, a human, is not a program, nor was he meant as one!
What is a program? A series of 0's and 1's.
What is a human? That's just too complicated to explain, as we still don't know everything about ourselves!
Besides, giving a program free will is not possible. You'd have to give it human artificial intelligence. The program can only perform instructions that you've programmed in it.
LMAO
met·a·phor
noun
1. a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in A mighty fortress is our God. Compare mixed metaphor, simile
2. something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol.
But ok suppose I did say that we are programs (I didn't.) but suppose I did (I didn't though) taking your point of view, i understand it. we can choose what we want. but at the time of our creation, god knows exactly what we are going to choose, being all knowing. hence, there is only one thing that CAN be chosen, the one that god knew was going to happen. otherwise, if we choose something different than what god 'thought' we were going to choose, he would be wrong. and god is never wrong. so in essence, with an omnipotent creator, we are bound to a fate determined by that god. hence what we CHOOSE is really what we were always going to choose anyway, so there was really only one option.
in other words, we kinda are like programs. (which I didn't say originally, to be clear)
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John says to live above hell.
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pomo
Famous Hero
The lone peasant
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posted June 21, 2007 10:06 AM |
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Quote:
Quote:
It would not be free will if you could control it I just had to say that lame line... But what would be point of creating artificial intelligence or robot whit no toughs of it's own? If God would change peoples religion belifs whit ON/OFF switch it wouldn't be "Free will" anymore.
Allright, you would hace a point IF Free Will allowed us to choose whether or not we go to heaven BUT, then again, people were chosen before the foundation of the world, quite a hell lot of time before we got a chance to decide.
Which makes me arrive to at least 2 possible conclusions:
Either there is no "real" Free Will and choice is just an illusion since we are born already with a ticket to heaven.
OR
God is not really all knowing, and he needs to determine which ones are going to get to heaven by giving them all an opportunity to make up their mind (this, of course, contradicts everything written anywhere).
OR
God simply doesnīt exist and itīs all a fancy story.
I personally advocate for the second...
Well actually I think that the first and third are true We don't have free will... the existence of will is a psychological illusion. So why discuss it so much?
Given we don't have free will, a hypothetical God has no way to evaluate our actions as indicative of our moral worth, they are afterall simply a function of various psychological, social, historical and biological processes that we are largely unaware of. God furthermore presumably created the conditions that gave rise to our behaviour, so God is him/her/itself responsible for it. Basically, I agree with TA .
The implication is furthermore that you should not care how you behave (at least not on behalf of God). After all, you and all your potential influences were created by God God is responsible for your actions. You can do whatever you want safe in the knowledge that it was guaranteed to occur in that manner. This actually has paralells in religious thought. Calvinists argued that 'The soul who comes to find salvation need not fear that he will recieve it, for only he that is saved would come' (approximately, I can't remember the exact wording of it). In effect, you're only going to seek religion if you are already saved.
The second is obviously irrelevant given the third.
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TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Professional
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posted June 21, 2007 12:58 PM |
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Quote:
Basically, I agree with TA .
God forbid
"As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." (Romans 9:13)
God isn't all loving
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John says to live above hell.
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Istari
Known Hero
Truth Teller, ToH
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posted June 21, 2007 05:16 PM |
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"As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." (Romans 9:13)
God isn't all loving
Your hypothesis is that God is not all loving. You should try to disprove your hypothesis... if using the scientific method is your goal.
It is not hard to disagree with something that you don't understand. Try understanding it first than make up your mind about it.
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Opinions are immunity to being told you're wrong.
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SwampLord
Supreme Hero
Lord of the Swamp
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posted June 21, 2007 05:25 PM |
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Sorry, I haven't looked here in a while. Just on the topic of "multiple gods". It states in the Bible that they are one God, but there are three parts. Not that they're three seperate gods.
(And yes, TA, I know what I am talking about, I did go to Catholic school for 10 years.)
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They can take my swamp, they can take my town, but they will never take my FREEDOM!
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted June 21, 2007 05:51 PM |
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I just read something in "Ashan - A new beginning" that has relevance to this thread.
Great-E posted:
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Don't wanna sound like a douche but it seems like Ubisoft/Nival didnt bother much with the history. Seems kinda lazy job on their part, the usual "it came from nothing" theory
"So there was this one BIIG almighty guy who was there from the beginning, he created seven other guys with different characteristics who would then control all the other guys....oh and there was the evil dude who would oppose everyone"
Sound like Christianity? Yes, it does.
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Eccentric Opinion
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