Originally posted by: Schmitty
Originally posted by: loic2003
Even though he is all powerful? Surely if he designed humans he would know exactly how they would act so there is no such thing as free will if you believe an all-powerful god created everything there is.
Example: Imagine one guy who knew everything made a computer: the whole thing, every minute part. The computer is pretty sweet, but every so often it crashes. Is it a) the fault of the guy who made it b) the computer's fault, so it should be sent to a pit of fire for eternity?
That is such a worthless comparison. The problem being between God and your computer tech is that God programmed us to have free will, whether to believe in him or not. If your computer tech. programmed the computer with an AI and told it that it has the decision to work or not, and it decided not to work, then its not the programmers fault its the computers fault. The problem with your argument is that your computer is not given any choices at all. free will or other wise, your computer is made to do one thing, and if it doesn?t then its the fault of the programmer.
Ok, lets look at the AI enabled computer example. If we're looking from the perspective of god here, the tech guy would know when the AI decision command was performed. If it used a random function he would know the point at which the CPU would be called when the random seed was generated and would be able to predict the decision of the computer. Remember, the tech guy is all knowing and would know every detail of every moment that has and was to come. There is no such thing as free will if every single aspect has been created in a controlled manner performs in a predictable way.
We can observe how the brain works. It is scientific fact that it works with electrical impulses traveling along neurons, synapses etc. I'm not saying we know the brain inside out, it still has many unknowns. According to the religious zealots, god designed this brain. Our decisions are performed in the brain, I don't think anyone can deny this. Where does this free will claptrap originate?
God gave us free will, but he also knows the choices we will make. But, unlike a parent, he gives us free rein to make mistakes, knowing that we are inherently sinful beings. There might be consequences for these actions, but since we the people made the choice, we still have to figure out how to get out of it. Get my drift?
That's my point. So apparently he already knew this from moment one of the creation of the universe therefore we're all buggered, really.
I feel I have sufficient intelligence to make my own informed decision as to what is the right and wrong thing to do. The religions were created as a means for controlling the population and trying to keep them orderly. For example, when the Jewish religion was created sanitation levels were very poor, hence the requirement for circumcision.
Religion is also a handy way to fill in the blanks in areas that we are not currently knowledgeable about. For example, the old Norse gods believed that thunder and lightning were the result of the mighty Thor striking his hammer. Who believes that now? If you travel back to the days where that religion was common, people would argue just as vehemently, if not more so, that their beliefs were correct.
It's time to move on, methinks.
Still, on a more positive note, at least you guys aren't scientologists. Now
they are a seriously nasty group of people:
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