does the believe in god

[timbell000]

destroy the concept of free will?

timbell000 Reviewed by timbell000 on 08-15-2007. does the believe in god destroy the concept of free will? Rating: 5

[stinkyattic]

the belief, you mean?
I don't think so. Teh concept of God the Clockmaker (divine design, the rest is up to us) does not preclude free will.

[jdmarcus59]

to belive in God is an act of free will, God has given man free will so that we could chose
to have a loving relationship with him. if God did not give man free will then we would be
nothing more then robots, and you cant have a loving relatoinship with a robot who is only
doing what he has been programed to do.

[Hardcore Newbie]

It depends on your definition of God, really. If you believe there is a being that knows everything and is all powerful, then free will can't exist. Even if an all knowing being wasn't a god of sorts, then it's still impossible to have free will, we'd all just be acting out what this being already knows.

[jdmarcus59]

It depends on your definition of God, really. If you believe there is a being that knows everything and is all powerful, then free will can't exist. Even if an all knowing being wasn't a god of sorts, then it's still impossible to have free will, we'd all just be acting out what this being already knows.

what you just said makes no sence, but you had the free will to say it, and you have the free will to belive it. now you have the free will to read this are not read this. what are you going to do?
are you going to respond and say what ever you want, or is somone going to come up behind you and put a gun to your head
and make you do somthing YOU dont want to do. as in making you
do somthing aganist you FREE WILL.

[Hardcore Newbie]

I can't do anything that hasn't already been written, if there is an all knowing being. If i did anything else, then that being would be wrong. God is supposedly an all knowing being. I can't do anything else besides what god already sees. It'd be different if this apparent god weren't infallible, then we might be able to change our destinies.

If god sees me die a certain way, wouldn't it be impossible for me to die in any other way?

If god sees what meals I will eat next week, can I magically choose different ones or not eat all together?

[delusionsofNORMALity]

the idea of an omniscient deity would imply that the future is predetermined (how could god know the future if it didn't already exist?) and that would mean that your choices are merely an illusion. this leads to the conclusion that life is futile, as all of your decisions are already made.

[Hardcore Newbie]

If you want to see it that way, it doesn't necessarily mean that our paths are set. God may know what we're going to do, but that could change at any given moment, and he can keep up with the change.

This does not compute

Wouldn't that mean that God saw that we wanted to eat pizza, and knew exactly when we'd change our minds to have some burgers? because if he didn't know that we were going to change our minds, he does not see all. If it was already laid out that we were going to change our minds, did we really change them? No, we did exactly as we were supposed to.

[Oneironaut]

If there is an omniscient God, then he knows you better than you know your best friend. Better than anybody has ever known their best friend. He knows every little nook and cranny of your psychology, how your mind works down to the last detail. He's monitored your every action throughout your whole life, and done a thorough analysis of your behaviorisms and decision-making skills. He knows exactly how to put himself in your shoes. How could he not know what you're going to be up to in the future?

Of course, there is no God, and I still believe there's no such thing as free will. The way I explain it is like this. Everything either has a cause, or is completely random. That's basic logic. Every event that ever happens is the result of a chain of causes, except for quantum things which are completely random and can't be predicted. If something is not random, it must have a cause, and if something has no cause then it must be random. Our thoughts are no exception to this logical tautology.

A lot of people think we make decisions in our heads that don't have causes in the real world. That is, it's not just a chemical reaction in your head; it's not something that's just inevitable given your perception of reality and the structure of your brain. However, they fail to realize that it cannot be this way unless your thoughts are random. If one decision was not chosen over another for some definable reason, then it was chosen at random.

The brain is nothing more than a complex computation device that tries to calculate what the best decisions are based on the information that's already in the brain and the new information that is streaming into the brain all the time. Your thoughts have definable causes: your experiences with the real world, your memories, your genetically programmed instincts, whatever chemicals might be affecting your brain at the time, etc. If there were no causes which resulted in your stream of thought, it would be completely random, and you'd go psychotic.

Human thoughts are no exception to the chain of causes and effects (plus quantum randomness) that has been going on since the Big Bang. As far as I'm concerned, "free will" is an incoherent concept. How can something not be random and not have definable causes that makes it predictable ahead of time? It's not logically possible.

[Hardcore Newbie]

You didn't understand what I said I guess... he could know exactly what we're going to do, but then if er change our mind, then what he sees will change at that moment.

I'm not sure if your contraction means "we were" or "we are". usually it wouldn't matter, but since we're talking about supposed futures and tenses are getting switched, it's a big deal

In any case, if God didn't know that I was going to change my mind, then he doesn't know everything. If god doesn't know exactly how my life will transpire, that means he is not the all knowing. it wouldn't matter to us on earth (the ones that can't see the entire future) what we perceive as a choice. if I ever change my mind about something, god knew of that change before i was born. Even my supposed choices are made before I was born.

If god can only see the choices I make as I make them, then he isn't all knowing. How can he be all knowing if he didn't know my 'choices' before they're made?

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Actually, come to think of it, an all knowing being and anall powerful being can't even coexist. If a being is all powerful, then it can do whatever it wants. If a being is all knowing, then it knows everything in the past present and future. How can the future be defined to an all powerful being? The all powerful being should have the power to change the future. If the all powerful being could do so, the all knowing being would be wrong, and therefore, not all knowing. The fact that these two ideas are supposed to belong to a single entity makes it worse, as the being can't exist.
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Man I love weed, I have to read this tomorrow. I put it in equal signs because I love it