Some logic for both sides...

[Lori_7]

It's not hard; it's impossible. Let's say god can do anything that people want him to, That removes the need for further discussion.

but he doesn't do anything people want him to. he just gives people what they ask for. people generally don't understand their own limitations, and ask for detrimental things. things determined to be detrimental according to law. law that they refuse to believe exists until it smacks their ass, along with the rest of our collective asses. look at this world. it's gone to shit.

 

[Lori_7]

lori,

That cannot be true. If it were then a hell could not exist. It is not in anyone's best interest to be condemned to hell.

If he is omnipotent and if he truly always acted in our best interests then he could have created an environment where everyone would make the correct choices for life. Since he appears to be prepared to allow people to suffer and die in hell then he clearly does not act in everyone's best interest.

you are talking about taking away people's free will, and that is not in our best interest. people choose to be in hell. take a look around man...

 

[Lori_7]

Lori,

It is a necessary condition and paradox that would have to occur if manipulation of time were possible.

No. I would not be the factor that determines your action. But the fact that your action would be known before you made it means that you no longer would have any freedom to do anything else.

If the knowledge exists by whatever cause than that precludes you from having freedom of choice.

listen, i don't know what you're trippin' on, but if you moved forward in time, saw my decision made before i made it. came back and did not interfere with my free will to make that decision or influence me in my decision making, then i own that decision, and you didn't have a damn thing to do with it, obviously.

 

[Saquist]

Lori,

An evolutionary process is mutually exclusive to a god driven process. Evolution is a natural and unguided process. To say that a god is directing evolution is a contradiction in terms.

Either evolution is the process by which we have arrived or something else is the cause. They cannot be mixed.
.

I would concur with this.
It is either or not both.

 

[Lori_7]

lori,

Certainly I do not know the exact words but those experiences of shared emotions and experiences happen to all normal people frequently. You are just interpreting natural events with your excessive imagination.

no, you are interpreting MY events with YOUR imagination. who is better to determine what happened to me? you or i? i was there, you weren't. i was the one who experienced it. you did not. i have experienced and seen this happen to myself and other people before. you apparently have not. i have no understanding of why it is that some people think that just because they haven't experienced something themselves, that it just doesn't happen. i'm not like that. why would i assume that i've experienced all there is, or that i know all there is? and if someone else tells me about an experience they had that i have never had, i don't argue with them and tell them they didn't have it. that's just preposterous! why is it that you're like this cris? why do you base your decisions on a lack of experience rather than what you experience?

 

[Lori_7]

I would concur with this.
It is either or not both.

god creates the law, and he creates according to the law. everything is law.

 

[Enmos]

no, you are interpreting MY events with YOUR imagination. who is better to determine what happened to me? you or i? i was there, you weren't.

I'm not entirely sure you were..

 

[shichimenshyo]

i have had the holy spirit channel messages to me through people who had no idea it was happening. they were just doin' their thing...making conversation. no, to where my jaw hit the floor. and the other person's like, "what?" :shrug:

You see the problem I have with this is, when people say "god spoke through me" its accepted, but when a man says 'tiny man named ted speaks through me" is call schizophrenia.

 

[Lori_7]

Ok, let's establish where we are at right now..

You state that god, knowing every [perceived] choice that you will ever make, does not negate 'free will', that you are indeed still making a free choice.

We shall assume for the sake of this that god also has free will, the freedom to make specific choices. It is therefore valid to state that this god chose to create Adam and Eve. He did not choose to create say Bob and Jane or Mark and Mary, he chose specifically to create two beings knowing every single action they would ever do in their lives.

But he did not choose what those actions would be, he merely chose to create two people that would do specific things. They were created and could not have ever done anything else.

So what I will ask for the sake of discussion is why did he not create Bob and Jane instead? See, Bob and Jane both would have chosen differently. They would not have eaten the fruit and thus not caused the fall of man.

You cannot argue that they do not have free will, (your very argument is that they would have free will), even though god would know specifically in advance that these people would not completely fudge everything up.

So why choose to create two beings that you know will fudge everything up? It is a specific choice on gods part, the creation has absolutely no say in the matter whatsoever, they will simply undertake every action that they are going to undertake and consider it a choice.

But then so would Bob and Jane - no evil would have ever been done and the world would be a better place perfect place. Countless billions of lives would not have suffered and end up suffering for eternity because of [perceived] choices that they could never make.

So, I have now sent an email to god detailing the solution to all his, (and our), problems. Start from scratch and this time create Bob and Jane instead of Adam and Eve. Free will is still entirely intact, he didn't make the choice for them, he simply knows in advance that they wont make a complete mess of things.

i think god wanted everything to be all fudged. he wanted us to know good and evil so we can learn to make better choices, if we so choose. the way i see it, is that the only way we can ever live eternally, is if the entire human race chooses of their own free will to do the right thing all the time. imagine if that were so. but in order to do the right thing all the time, we have to be educated about the law and it's consequences. void of knowledge obviously didn't work for adam and eve. they didn't know any better. but now we do.

 

[Saquist]

god creates the law, and he creates according to the law. everything is law.

um...I'm not really following that.

 

[Lori_7]

I'm not entirely sure you were..

well praise the lord! someone here actually admits to not being sure of something! it's a frickin' miracle! kudos to you dear.

 

[Lori_7]

You see the problem I have with this is, when people say "god spoke through me" its accepted, but when a man says 'tiny man named ted speaks through me" is call schizophrenia.

i happen to think that schizophrenia could very well be a spiritual influence. not all spirits are good ones you know. i'm basing that on experience that i have had myself, and that which i've witnessed in other people that i know.

 

[heart]

Lori:
i think god wanted everything to be all fudged.

Why? Why create evil in the first place? Why set up man
to fail from the get go?

 

[Lori_7]

um...I'm not really following that.

law. everything that exists and happens does so according to some law...

natural, physical, chemical, biological, spiritual...it's all law.

 

[shichimenshyo]

i happen to think that schizophrenia could very well be a spiritual influence. not all spirits are good ones you know. i'm basing that on experience that i have had myself, and that which i've witnessed in other people that i know.

Schizophrenia is caused by chemical imbalances in ones brain, do you think that god and demons alike speak through people by altering the chemical makeup of their brains?

 

[Lori_7]

Why? Why create evil in the first place? Why set up man
to fail from the get go?

he's actually setting us up to win. to be invincible. he is teaching us how to live forever. everything in the universe is a duality. everything is a choice or has an opposite. to create or not to create. light or dark. cold or hot. love or hate. peace or chaos. pain or comfort. sickness or health. good or evil.

the list goes on and on...

 

[Lori_7]

Schizophrenia is caused by chemical imbalances in ones brain, do you think that god and demons alike speak through people by altering the chemical makeup of their brains?

i think that there's a physical manifestation of things that are initiated by the spirit. there is always a process by which something occurs. it's not magic.

 

[shichimenshyo]

i think that there's a physical manifestation of things that are initiated by the spirit. there is always a process by which something occurs. it's not magic.

Then do you think that in science we are begining to see the process by which the divine occurs? If so, wouldnt you agree that in finding that out we are in a sense becoming gods?

 

[Yorda]

Ah - so you define God as "life"?
Okay - but why call it God?

because life is omnipresent, omniscient and it created everything. and jesus said that he is life. but many modern people don't really know what life is...

and even if something seems that way, it's only unexplainable, and only unexplainable because of our own limitations. we just haven't found out the science behind it yet. that doesn't mean there's no science behind it.

do you think there is science behind god too?

But the fact that your action would be known before you made it means that you no longer would have any freedom to do anything else.

even god can't know everything about the future (our actions). that doesn't mean that he's not omniscient. it just means that the future is not set (created), it is something that we create and choose.

The universe appears to behave according to some very fundamental laws.

you forget one thing that doesn't follow laws: free will. the mind. god.

 

[Lori_7]

Then do you think that in science we are begining to see the process by which the divine occurs? If so, wouldnt you agree that in finding that out we are in a sense becoming gods?

i think that's a good way to say it, except that i think we are coming to know god, not to be god. i think that there is only one, and that we are all a part of him. i think that we will always be human, but it won't always be like this.