Belief systems poll

[AdamCrock]

I'm almost positive that the God exists. I cannot prove it, but it is little something more like a sixth sence or a hunch One thing about God entity however I do not understand - the omnipotence......

By my understanding of "free will" God does not have one because if He is all-knowing , He already knows the choices He is going to make and yet He is all-powerfull so He can change those choices but it's a major paradox because He is all-knowing - so by changing His choices He defy His all-knowingness ...

edit: so if the God is all-knowing , He cannot be all-powerfull and if God has free will (as I understand it), He cannot be all-knowing.

 

[timtofly]

I am curious why God needs free will? Are you saying that God does not have a choice, or that he is unable to provide himself with choices? Neither do I see being all powerful as a limit problem. If one is capable of knowing all outcomes, it does not matter what choices one makes.

The problem would be if there was a force that could oppose God and thwart any choices God makes. Humans have been trying to paint God into a corner from the moment they first learned about God. Most scholars (on the topic) would agree that God is not linear nor bound by time. Therefore God has already experienced any and all choices made, if there were any to make at all.

The Bible claims that God does not change, and that would lead people to assume that everything is predestinated. But that may not be the case, it may just mean that God has no need to change or make choices. That would not limit God, since choosing not to have choices is still not going against one's will. So far as we know, humans and satan are the only beings that actually have free will.

 

[AdamCrock]

Thanks timtofly, great response. I concur that God does not need to make choices in the first place since he knows-all, He already know what to do in order to exact His will. Maybe my doubt is because I perceive the universe through my human eyes and I have a concept of time, which is as far as I understand it irrelevant to God as He says "I am the beginning and the end" at the same time...... so pehaps God is not bound by time therefore making it possible to be all-knowing and all-powerfull at the same time and exist in parallel with the all possible choices and their consequences at the exact same moment.

Are you saying that God does not have a choice, or that he is unable to provide himself with choices?

The first one - As I understand it the God has no free will and no choice, instead he ceded that trait unto us because we are the ones to make choices and God only respect that and acts acordingly to our wishes, if we do not wish to get salvation we are not getting one for example... I think ... I am saying that he ceded free will unto us because a will to create is required in order to create universe in the first place. The first choice of God was : "To create or no to create the universe"

 

[timtofly]

That is a fair assumption.

I think that God created the angels first, and they had free will, but when satan rebelled they lost their free will except for satan. It is hard to put that within the text of the first two chapters of Genesis. I think that most would have to agree that if the serpent who tempted Eve was satan, then such a rebellion was currently in progress, or had already happened.

There is the possibility that it has not even happened yet and satan went back in time, to tempt Eve, but we just do not have all the information.

 

[AdamCrock]

Interesting concept because in order to go back in time , one must exist within a timeline, not beyond time like God. That makes Satan and the rest of the rebelled angels exist in parallel with us in the same time (which makes them possible to have a free will) and the God and the rest of the angels exist beyond time which makes them devoid of free will.

 

[Kyriakos]

Interestingly, one of the apostles (iirc Paul?) mentions in a letter that for god ten thousand days are like a day, and a day is like ten thousand days. Which is a pretty curious double synecdoche-type of thing (i guess amphisynecdoche), but not really something that echoes an existence out of time.

 

[El_Machinae]

Which, when applied with the Mormon teaching that God is an extra-solar entity, could easily imply that God is orbiting Sol at some relativistic velocity.

 

[Borachio]

Well, the point is, trying to explain Israelite monotheism as psychological tends to fall a bit short when held up against the actual history of Eurasian monotheism.

I can't make head nor tail of this. For me, religion is all pretty much a psychological reality - if it has any reality at all.

What do you mean by Israelite monotheism? (Surely it's what everyone thinks it is.)

But then what is Eurasian monotheism? I've never heard of any such thing.

Thanks timtofly, great response. I concur that God does not need to make choices in the first place since he knows-all, He already know what to do in order to exact His will. Maybe my doubt is because I perceive the universe through my human eyes and I have a concept of time, which is as far as I understand it irrelevant to God as He says "I am the beginning and the end" at the same time...... so pehaps God is not bound by time therefore making it possible to be all-knowing and all-powerfull at the same time and exist in parallel with the all possible choices and their consequences at the exact same moment.



The first one - As I understand it the God has no free will and no choice, instead he ceded that trait unto us because we are the ones to make choices and God only respect that and acts acordingly to our wishes, if we do not wish to get salvation we are not getting one for example... I think ... I am saying that he ceded free will unto us because a will to create is required in order to create universe in the first place. The first choice of God was : "To create or no to create the universe"

Colour me in as a simpleton, but how do you square "God exacting his will" with God having no free will.

What do you mean by "will".

Interesting concept because in order to go back in time , one must exist within a timeline, not beyond time like God. That makes Satan and the rest of the rebelled angels exist in parallel with us in the same time (which makes them possible to have a free will) and the God and the rest of the angels exist beyond time which makes them devoid of free will.

You know, I can make out sentences composed of words here; but I honestly can't make any sense of what you're saying.

Still, I'm sure it's just me being dim-witted.

 

[timtofly]

What does any one mean by will? Will is the progression of one's desires. Saying one has free will or will at all for that matter is a redundancy.

We now add choices. One comes to an option in one's desire. If the "correct" option is already pre-determined there really is no choice and by extension no free will, because one is being pushed in a direction of desire beyond one's control.

Does God have choices? Is there a factor outside of God's control that takes God's choices away. Or can God himself limit his choices, and still be all knowing and all powerful?

Interesting concept because in order to go back in time , one must exist within a timeline, not beyond time like God. That makes Satan and the rest of the rebelled angels exist in parallel with us in the same time (which makes them possible to have a free will) and the God and the rest of the angels exist beyond time which makes them devoid of free will.

Seeing as how angels seem to be in another dimension, it is possible to have a different time reference also, if one at all. It either has not happened from our perspective, or it has. It was not in our timeframe or historical knowledge, or if you want to get philosophical in the human consciousness. We have mythology of gods and demigods at war, but where it fits in actual history is a mystery, and some count it out all together as just "made up".

 

[AdamCrock]

Perhaps I was jumping to conclusions too fast. One is fo certain that God works in mysterious ways and by my understaning of the case God had a free will which was transfered onto us. If God is not bound by time His will is already done, therfore I've used the sentence "he already knows what to do". I should have used the sentence "He has already done what he wanted to do". He has created the universe, created the angels, created us and gave us free will to either follow him or not. He has given us His son to teach us the way. He has created a kingdom in Heaven for us to reunite with him and He will come at the end of days because that is his will. By "will" I understand an extention of one desire as We know that it will not change so He no longer have a choice because He has already chosen and by extension no "free will" as I understand it. The rest is up to us and we now have the choice to follow Him or not.

Does God have choices? Is there a factor outside of God's control that takes God's choices away. Or can God himself limit his choices, and still be all knowing and all powerful?

Now this is a "God's paradox" in a nutshell which I don't fully understand. It is a similar one to that one which states "If the God is all-powerfull can He create a rock so heavy he can't lift it"

The answear to this question might be : Yes he can create such rock but then he would loose his omnipotence which would be transferred to that rock, and we would have rock which no force in the universe can move.

The answear to the paradox which timtofly stated might be : God no longer have choices because his free will was transferred to beings with free will.

This is just how I see and try to understand things and I might be entirely wrong all the same so don't take anything for granted

 

[Borachio]

You certainly have some interesting perspectives, Mr Crock, I can see that.

I just don't seem able to understand them very well. That means nothing, though. There's a myriad things I don't understand.

 

[Kyriakos]

Now this is a "God's paradox" in a nutshell which I don't fully understand. It is a similar one to that one which states "If the God is all-powerfull can He create a rock so heavy he can't lift it"

I find that trope to be quite useless. Most people can create objects so heavy that they themselves cannot lift them. Some solidifying acid (even formic acid) can make this pretty commonplace if you start with a milky substance which then gets turned into a more solid block.

So the trope is about asking if a god can do something any human potentially can. I don't really see why a god would even care whether it can lift something it made. I suppose it can always also make an archimedean invention to help it lift the first object

 

[Borachio]

Which kind of misses the point about the paradox, I think.

But I've never found the paradox a particularly interesting, or useful, one either.

It just asks whether an omnipotent entity could do something impossible, or paradoxical. Or just plain illogical.

I've not yet found any reason, for myself, to think that such a being couldn't.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yeah, i did not miss that, i just pushed it to the side due to its even worse quality as a facet of an argument

I do not see why a god could not do something paradoxical. On the other hand, as i have stated before, i do not think a god would really be conscious as we define consciousness (or as we identify it anyway).

I suppose the main issue the trope is about was whether any such impossibly overarching being can do something which would create a precedent acting in a way against its own power. Again i cannot see how those notions would remain largely the same if we are talking about a god, and not just a being with far more powers than our own.

 

[Traitorfish]

I can't make head nor tail of this. For me, religion is all pretty much a psychological reality - if it has any reality at all.

I think I may have meant to say "a pyschological reflex" or something like that, sorry. Point being, complex social processes like religion, while certainly have a pyschological dimension, are rarely well-explained as individual neuroses manifested on a grand scale. Psychological history can have its place, but can no more serve as a total explanation than cultural, social, economic or intellectual histories can- and given the noted tendency of pyschoanalysis towards the creation of closed systems, we should be doubly suspicious of attempts to make it work that way.

What do you mean by Israelite monotheism? (Surely it's what everyone thinks it is.)

But then what is Eurasian monotheism? I've never heard of any such thing.

Monotheism in Eurasia. Lots of different kinds, emerging in different places at different times in different ways for different reasons. Persia, Israel, Greece, India, China, probably a few more I'm unfamiliar with. Hard to put each of them down to the same pyschological impulse. Nietzsche had his particular issues with Judeo-Christian monotheism, and some interesting stuff to say as far as it goes, but he was no historian, and in no position to explain the emergence of monotheism, or monotheisms, as an historical reality. His stuff is best understood as a sort of counter-myth, I think, a useful device for developing certain criticisms of the present, but not necessarily containing a straightforward historical truth. (And I think that Nietzsche, give his scepticism of truth-claims, would probably be okay with this.)

 

[Kyriakos]

Given his rather significant involvement and persistence in this particular examination of the jewish religion (including christianity) i am pretty sure he would be tempted to attack you if he heard you making such a statement

Of course chances are that somewhere between him and you there would be some horse collapsing from the weight it was made to hopelessly carry, so Nietzsche would never really reach you, like Achilles and that tortoise

 

[Traitorfish]

Given his rather significant involvement and persistence in this particular examination of the jewish religion (including christianity) i am pretty sure he would be tempted to attack you if he heard you making such a statement

Sure. He's Nietzsche: he attacked everyone for everything. That was his shtick.