God botherers - are you insane?

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
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"He could have made us robots and controlled the whole deal from start to finish...

If he's omnipotent and omniscient, he did control the whole deal from start to finish.

Talking with "God's followers" isn't easy (because so many of them, including you, don't even understand the most basic tenets of the faith they profess), but I'm already used to it.[/b]

I have a question for you. Imagine you are trying to create a robot using AI computer technology in the 22nd Century. Your mission is to create a robot that can make real moral choices and either listen to your guidance or not listen to your guidance. In short you are trying to give this robot autonomy , sentience and REAL free will. You could programme this robot to make it look from the outside as if it understood the difference between right and wrong and made choices. You could programme it to look 'as if ' it actually knew how to love. But that would still just be programming and not real freedom. You would have protected your robot from never going astray but robbed it of true autonomy. So how would you go about creating free will in this robot? And more importantly how would you go about giving it this real (not pseudo) free will whilst at the same time guaranteeing that it never messed up or did anything wrong. How would you let go of this robot and free it of mere programming but also control it at the same time? Is it possible? Your argument depends on this remember. Have a go at playing God and see if you can find a kindergarden solution.

(I'll give you a clue , if you are a parent you will understand the dilemma inherent in this question )

Also ,are you so naive as to think some of us haven't thought these things through? We're not all mindless creationists you know.

If he's omnipotent and omniscient, he did control the whole deal from start to finish.

I think you have a confused interpretation of omnipotent. He controlled the start and will control the finish largely , but left the middle bit a lot more open. The fact that he hasn't totally controlled the middle bit doesn't mean that he couldn't if he so chose.

Also , if you are so graduated in theology you will have heard of this one...? Question - Can God create a rock so heavy that he can't lift it? If he can't does that prove he's not omnipotent?

Originally posted by knightmeister
I think you have a confused interpretation of omnipotent. He controlled the start and will control the finish largely , but left the middle bit a lot more open. The fact that he hasn't totally controlled the middle bit doesn't mean that he couldn't if he so chose.

Also , if you are so graduated in theology you will have heard of this one...? Quest ...[text shortened]... te a rock so heavy that he can't lift it? If he can't does that prove he's not omnipotent?

No it's physically impossible since acceleration equals force divided by mass making only an infinite mass unmovable and there is no possibility of an infinite mass.
And No for a lot of other reasons.

Originally posted by knightmeister
I have a question for you. Imagine you are trying to create a robot using AI computer technology in the 22nd Century. Your mission is to create a robot that can make real moral choices and either listen to your guidance or not listen to your guidance. In short you are trying to give this robot autonomy , sentience and REAL free will. You could programm ...[text shortened]... e of us haven't thought these things through? We're not all mindless creationists you know.

You don't ask the most important question, which is: Why would he bother ?

Originally posted by frogstomp
You don't ask the most important question, which is: Why would he bother ?

So if you had your free will and autonomy taken away from you so that you could never truely love and know what it is to be loved...and be reduced to an automaton would you be happy? If not then why ask this question? Do you not value these things?

Originally posted by knightmeister
If you read my response in the recent 'free will' thread you will understand my argument that God only knows what will happen because he is outside time , not because he looks along the timeline like we do.

So he may know about what the rapist does but not 'in advance' . He knows because he is already in the future watching it. But it's equally pos ...[text shortened]... ernal he doesn't have to wait to find out , he justs sits in tomorrow watching it happen.

What about biblical prophesy? Isn't that allegedly an example of God forseeing things hundreds of years into the future?

It seems you will either have to retract the claims of your post, or renounce many of the claims in the bible.

Originally posted by knightmeister
So where does God stop? Does he intervene at every single point where sin is happening or likely to happen? If he does then we have no space at all to learn , grow , make mistakes or live at all. If he doesn't then you would accuse him of not intervening! He can't win. Infact , God is itching to intervene all the time and holds off waiting for a decisi ...[text shortened]... than you the value of true freedom and is prepared to pay the price for it (even his own life)

God could stop needless acts of evil, like natural disasters that kill millions, etc. It's kinda hard to grow as a human being when you're dead, and kinda hard for family and friends to learn any life lessons from the tragedy when they're dead, too. Naturally, some of those millions are also condemned to hell, as if being killed wasn't enough.

As thesonofsaul has pointed out, Jesus lost nothing by dying. He knew he'd be resurrected later.

Originally posted by knightmeister
I have a question for you. Imagine you are trying to create a robot using AI computer technology in the 22nd Century. Your mission is to create a robot that can make real moral choices and either listen to your guidance or not listen to your guidance. In short you are trying to give this robot autonomy , sentience and REAL free will. You could programm ...[text shortened]... e of us haven't thought these things through? We're not all mindless creationists you know.

Free will doesn't guarantee success. Do I lack free will because I can't carry out my decision to jump 100 feet high? I think not.

Originally posted by knightmeister
I think you have a confused interpretation of omnipotent. He controlled the start and will control the finish largely , but left the middle bit a lot more open. The fact that he hasn't totally controlled the middle bit doesn't mean that he couldn't if he so chose.

Also , if you are so graduated in theology you will have heard of this one...? Quest ...[text shortened]... te a rock so heavy that he can't lift it? If he can't does that prove he's not omnipotent?

An omniscient being can't 'leave the middle open'.

Your last question is about as practical as Pascal's wager.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
An omniscient being can't 'leave the middle open'.

Your last question is about as practical as Pascal's wager.

I had a feeling you would find some way not to answer my question. De-valuing the worth of the question is a classic defence against going down a road you don't want to go down.

For all you know this question maybe very practical in a future just round the corner. Even if it wasn't it's still worth pondering and you know it.

Try another one if you like. How would YOU go about creating real free will if you were God. Do you think you could do it whilst at the same time preventing 100% anything happening that you would not have liked to happen? How would you guarantee that everything went hunky dory without taking back the very freedom you had created? Of course, you can't answer this or my previous question because you know REAL freedom of will implies at least some risk of something unexpected or undesired happening.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
[b]An omniscient being can't 'leave the middle open'.

And why not? It's no use making these simple statements without providing an argument to back it up. You are entitled to hold your concepts of ominipotence and omniscience but they are not the same concepts as held by Christians. You need to show through logical argument that because God leaves parts of his creation open to the actions of free men that therefore he does not know what they are doing or what they will do.

The basic problem here is that you project your own experience of looking along the timeline on to God. If YOU take a risk on some outcome you do not know what will happen. If YOU control an outcome 100% you know the outcome. You cannot conceive how you could possibly take a risk on an outcome but still know the outcome , ..the only way you could do this is by controlling the outcome. So , in a sense you are right...from your perspective it makes no sense at all. However , if you were able to jump into a time machine you could know the outcome of your risk and still not have control of it , simply by being free of the constraints of time.
Because you are trapped in time you cannot conceive how God can do this , but if you factor in the idea that he is not trapped in time like you and can watch you living you life backwards from death to birth just as easily as watching it from birth to death (what's more he can spend a trillion , trillion years watching your life if he so wanted) then you might have an idea of how he can know exactly what you are going to do tommorrow without it having any implications for your freedom of will.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
What about biblical prophesy? Isn't that allegedly an example of God forseeing things hundreds of years into the future?

It seems you will either have to retract the claims of your post, or renounce many of the claims in the bible.

Biblical prophesy is about God saying "I'm going to do this ...this is a bit where I will take control" . In any case it's not something he foresees , from God's perspective the end of the world has already happened , he's just letting us in on the final act as it were. You need to really , really think harder about this word 'foresee' . It would make no sense to God. He's eternal remember.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
[b]God could stop needless acts of evil, like natural disasters that kill millions, etc. It's kinda hard to grow as a human being when you're dead, and kinda hard for family and friends to learn any life lessons from the tragedy when they're dead, too. Naturally, some of those millions are also condemned to hell, as if being killed wasn't enough.

Having not been able to make any inroads into the free will argument regarding men's actions you have moved on to natural events and the question of suffering . There are some terribly thorny issues for Christians here and no easy answers I will grant you this, but before we move on to them are you conceding defeat on the free will thing? Do you accept that it is not logically possible for God to give us real freedom and guarantee no cock ups?

Originally posted by frogstomp
No it's physically impossible since acceleration equals force divided by mass making only an infinite mass unmovable and there is no possibility of an infinite mass.
And No for a lot of other reasons.

Well, I guess you could argue that before the creation of the universe (assuming there was one) then the creation of a universe would have been physically impossible too (there being nothing to make it out of).

As the universe certainly appears to exist then it has either always been here or physically impossible things can happen.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
As thesonofsaul has pointed out, Jesus lost nothing by dying. He knew he'd be resurrected later.[/b]

It is true that Jesus had a strong unshakeable faith or knowledge of his ressurection so it is not a true comparison with what you or I would go through. But then you or I would not be facing the prospect of having the entire sin of the world placed on our shoulders either. The accounts of sweating blood in the garden of gethsemane suggest an anguish equal to any man's. You also need to remember that Jesus was as truely human as any of us are. He knew joy , pain , grief , and love friendship too. So are you saying that faced with the prospect of crucifixion you would just be able to say as a human being " Ho hum ...it's Ok I'm going to be ressurected anyhow...pass me a paper while I'm up there I'll do a crossword while I am waiting.."