Exposing Atheistic Myths

[Learner]

When YOU try to have your tri-omni god, but weasel out from recognizing that a god who knows everything that is about to happen would have to knowingly put himself into a position of regret.
Where did you get the idea he could turnnnoff a trait yhat makes him The Almighty...i ask yet again?

I just explained in my previous post. Different stages, after regret, introducing laws and new commandments along the time-line right up to the much later NT (final prophecy enters here).

I like the little emphasis..... I ask yet again? Sure...as if....

oh, what a remarkable refutation of my thesis. Except it isn't.

Well I'll have to look carefully at your thesis before making any further comment (a little later).

 

[Keith&Co.]

When YOU try to have your tri-omni god, but weasel out from recognizing that a god who knows everything that is about to happen would have to knowingly put himself into a position of regret.
Where did you get the idea he could turnnnoff a trait yhat makes him The Almighty...i ask yet again?

I just explained in my previous post. Different stages, after regret, introducing laws and new commandments along the time-line right up to the much later NT (final prophecy enters here).

that does not explain why he would have this all-knowingity and not use it every chance.
I mean, if he's just trying shit to see how it turns out, he could prophesize the future without anyone getting hurt or going to Hell.
If there's something he wants to achieve, he can see each step and tweak the exact changes to reach the desired goal.

If he can see the future, there should be nobregrets.
If he has regrets, that's his fault , for either not checking, or continuing anyway.

 

[Lion IRC]

Who wants to live their life without free will? God's puppet on a string. A mechanical wind-up doll. Predictable.

 

[bilby]

Who wants to live their life without free will? God's puppet on a string. A mechanical wind-up doll. Predictable.

What makes you think that what people want has any influence at all on the question?

Things that are real exist. Things that are fictional do not. Human desire for the existence or non-existence of things is completely irrelevant.

I like the idea of freedom of will. But I may not have any choice at all about that...

 

[Keith&Co.]

Go away and think about it and come back later.
Or maybe someone can mssg you privately to explain.

Well, he is a creationist. It's important to him that the flooding event was a sorting process, putting entire species at a certain level of geology. Old, young, eggs, empty shells, footprints, nests, all confined to the same strata, to appear to have lived great distances in time from the mammoth...old, young, partialy chewed, and cave paintings sorted to a different time.

Maybe in his view, the production process sorts defectives to the bottom of a bin. While the evaluation process is another sort, taking samples from the top? THEN a single defective piece might have only one chance in 400 of reaching the top, while the inspector has only one in 400 chance of reaching down to the dinosaur defective level. So that anecdote was a 1 in 160000 chance.

 

[Lion IRC]

What makes you think that what people want has any influence at all on the question?

The point is that some folks think God's ability to know what we will choose prevents us from choosing. How so?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Who wants to live their life without free will? God's puppet on a string. A mechanical wind-up doll. Predictable.

What makes you think that what people want has any influence at all on the question?

Not on the question, just on the conclusion. A number of theists try to recruit me by my desires.

I see no reason to think that heaven is real, they don't offer evidence of it, they ask why I wouldn't want to see Grandma again. Or be able to see my kids when they finally catch up with me.

Or, lacking any sign of divine law enforcement, they ask if i wouldn't like to think that uncaught criminals faced the ultimate justice.
Wouldi really prefer to think that all this had a purpose.
And so on... not the story we can prove, but the fairy tale we can sell....

 

[Lion IRC]

Go away and think about it and come back later.
Or maybe someone can mssg you privately to explain.

Well, he is a creationist. It's important to him that the flooding event was a sorting process, putting entire species at a certain level of geology. Old, young, eggs, empty shells, footprints, nests, all confined to the same strata, to appear to have lived great distances in time from the mammoth...old, young, partialy chewed, and cave paintings sorted to a different time.

Maybe in his view, the production process sorts detectives to the bottom of a bin. While the evaluation process is another sort, taking samples from the top? THEN a single defective piece might have only one chance in 400 of reaching the top, while the inspector has only one in 400 chance of reaching down to the dinosaur defective level. So that anecdote was a 1 in 160000 chance.

No.
This is pretty basic stuff.
You have 40 widgets to inspect. All laid out before you. Say they're on a conveyor belt. You check them one by one and take any defective ones you find off the conveyor.

Now, the one single defective widget just so happens to be the very first one you inspect, but it could have been the very last one depending on its proximity to the point where you are reaching out to pick up the first item for inspection.

Quite obviously the widgets closer at hand have better odds of being the first one you pick up to inspect. And with 40 objects there are obviously more than 40 different combinations of possible positions in a stack of widgets

 

[bilby]

What makes you think that what people want has any influence at all on the question?

The point is that some folks think God's ability to know what we will choose prevents us from choosing. How so?

The same way that an author's ability to know what his characters will choose prevents them from choosing.

Harry Potter chose to accept the offer to attend Hogwarts. But as J K Rowling knew, he couldn't have done anything else. No matter how many hesitancies, doubts, reasonings, or self examinations she wrote into the text, his decision was entirely determined by what she know he would do.

You won't pick up a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in which he chose not to go to Hogwarts. Any appearances in the story of freedom to choose on his part are purely fictional - and the same must apply to freedom of choice in any universe where the choices made are known in advance - by anyone, including a god or gods.

 

[bilby]

Go away and think about it and come back later.
Or maybe someone can mssg you privately to explain.

Well, he is a creationist. It's important to him that the flooding event was a sorting process, putting entire species at a certain level of geology. Old, young, eggs, empty shells, footprints, nests, all confined to the same strata, to appear to have lived great distances in time from the mammoth...old, young, partialy chewed, and cave paintings sorted to a different time.

Maybe in his view, the production process sorts detectives to the bottom of a bin. While the evaluation process is another sort, taking samples from the top? THEN a single defective piece might have only one chance in 400 of reaching the top, while the inspector has only one in 400 chance of reaching down to the dinosaur defective level. So that anecdote was a 1 in 160000 chance.

No.
This is pretty basic stuff.
You have 40 widgets to inspect. All laid out before you. Say they're on a conveyor belt. You check them one by one and take any defective ones you find off the conveyor.

Now, the one single defective widget just so happens to be the very first one you inspect, but it could have been the very last one depending on its proximity to the point where you are reaching out to pick up the first item for inspection.

Quite obviously the widgets closer at hand have better odds of being the first one you pick up to inspect. And with 40 objects there are obviously more than 40 different combinations of possible positions in a stack of widgets

With 40 objects there are exactly 40 possible positions for a specific object in any given arrangement. That you don't understand this speaks very poorly of your mathematics teachers.

 

[Lion IRC]

What makes you think that what people want has any influence at all on the question?

The point is that some folks think God's ability to know what we will choose prevents us from choosing. How so?

The same way that an author's ability to know what his characters will choose prevents them from choosing.

Harry Potter chose to accept the offer to attend Hogwarts. But as J K Rowling knew, he couldn't have done anything else. No matter how many hesitancies, doubts, reasonings, or self examinations she wrote into the text, his decision was entirely determined by what she know he would do.

You won't pick up a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in which he chose not to go to Hogwarts. Any appearances in the story of freedom to choose on his part are purely fictional - and the same must apply to freedom of choice in any universe where the choices made are known in advance - by anyone, including a god or gods.

But that's NOT what's happening with God and His created humans.

JK Rowling both knows AND compels the characters in her book by virtue of the fact that she writes the script.
Her characters are exactly like the puppet on a string.
JK Rowling doesn't pretend her characters write the story.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Before the Flood, everyone on Earth were characters in a movie that god had already seen before he created Heavens And Earth.
But he went ahead and created Heanens, Earth, and inherently wicked peeople, already knowing he was going to repent of their creation.

Or not, in Learner not-necessarily-omniscient theology. However thst works.

 

[Lion IRC]

No.
This is pretty basic stuff.
You have 40 widgets to inspect. All laid out before you. Say they're on a conveyor belt. You check them one by one and take any defective ones you find off the conveyor.

Now, the one single defective widget just so happens to be the very first one you inspect, but it could have been the very last one depending on its proximity to the point where you are reaching out to pick up the first item for inspection.

Quite obviously the widgets closer at hand have better odds of being the first one you pick up to inspect. And with 40 objects there are obviously more than 40 different combinations of possible positions in a stack of widgets

With 40 objects there are exactly 40 possible positions for a specific object in any given arrangement. That you don't understand this speaks very poorly of your mathematics teachers.

*sigh*
If those 40 objects are placed in a circle around me and you blindfold me, spin me around three times and then ask me to point in any direction to select the object I am going to inspect first, THEN there is an equal 1 in 40 chance that I might pick the defective one first.

BUT that's not what's happening in the example given.

If you place all 40 in a stack, and I start at the top working my way thru them one by one, then the ones at the bottom do NOT have an equal chance of being picked first. And the final arrangement of each of the forty objects has many more than 40 possible combinations. (like the rubics cube example)

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Go away and think about it and come back later.
Or maybe someone can mssg you privately to explain.

We've all heard, "If a tree falls and no one hears it did it make any noise?" The answer is that it certainly made noise unless it fell in a vacuum. And trees don't fall in vacuums.

I only bring that up because I had a similar exchange with a believer some time back. He said the answer depended on how we define sound. So maybe religion and creationism are merely the proof of Dunning Kruger when talking scientific literacy.

If you've coached long enough you know how important coachability is in a player. Some kids aren't ready to be coached. Some never will be. Most are pretty good about trying to learn and improve, after all that's why they're there. But they're all adults under construction and so even the most difficult ones are worth the time because you know their whole life is ahead of them and the game is just a conduit to more important things, that they're going to be adults one day.

 

[skepticalbip]

No.
This is pretty basic stuff.
You have 40 widgets to inspect. All laid out before you. Say they're on a conveyor belt. You check them one by one and take any defective ones you find off the conveyor.

Now, the one single defective widget just so happens to be the very first one you inspect, but it could have been the very last one depending on its proximity to the point where you are reaching out to pick up the first item for inspection.

Quite obviously the widgets closer at hand have better odds of being the first one you pick up to inspect. And with 40 objects there are obviously more than 40 different combinations of possible positions in a stack of widgets

With 40 objects there are exactly 40 possible positions for a specific object in any given arrangement. That you don't understand this speaks very poorly of your mathematics teachers.

*sigh*
If those 40 objects are placed in a circle around me and you blindfold me, spin me around three times and then ask me to point in any direction to select the object I am going to inspect first, THEN there is an equal 1 in 40 chance that I might pick the defective one first.

BUT that's not what's happening in the example given.

If you place all 40 in a stack, and I start at the top working my way thru them one by one, then the ones at the bottom do NOT have an equal chance of being picked first. And the final arrangement of each of the forty objects has many more than 40 possible combinations. (like the rubics cube example)

So, in this case, you start at the top. Given that there are forty possible positions that the defective widget could be in, what are the odds of it being in the top position?

If you imagine anything other than 1 in 40 then I not only have to question your understanding of math but also your grasp of reasoning.

 

[Lion IRC]

...A former co-worker is a very religious person. We were performing a typical inspection on an order that contained 40 pieces, all identical. We would measure one piece and visually inspect the remaining pieces for completeness. He grabbed one piece and it was incomplete, but all the other pieces were complete. Only the first one he picked up had a dimension that was unfinished! This is very unusual. He came to me in a state of amazement.

Yes. That is unusual.

He said, "What are the chances...So I calmly said, the odds are forty to one because there are 40 pieces.

So I calmly said no.
It's not 40 to 1 that he would pick the defective widget first unless all objects are within equal proximity to a blindfolded co-worker with an exactly equal chance of picking any of the 40.

Talk about a look of disappointment, knocked him right of miracle-witnessing-land.

I very much doubt the co-worker's faith was tested by such a bad claim and misunderstanding of Bayesian probability.

 

[DBT]

Who wants to live their life without free will? God's puppet on a string. A mechanical wind-up doll. Predictable.

What is free will?

 

[Learner]

It's Gods factory and He hasn't a bar or challenge to reach, since it was non-one elses rules or regulations, creation etc.. Well ok ... apart from the atheists who somehow, seem to devise the bar for failure and definition as the default from what they interpret in their minds from the scriptures. especially for debates - why yours and not ours? Any how... I think He would be quite Gracious to say it was His mistake... His own mistake, by His own judgement and understanding. He repents and grieves in HIs heart ...

Not an issue AT ALL!

We apparently have a different understanding of the word, repent. You apparently see repentance as an, "Aw, shucks. My fault. Sorry about that" then walking away and forgetting about it. My understanding of the word is that it not only requires accepting responsibility, expressing the regret, and also requires atonement. Leaving billions to suffer in hell for his mistake is hardly atonement.

Its not just the different word understanding but the context too. You are oblivious to the expression of Gods pain in the texts for example, which IS of course, quite different from "Aw, shucks".

He sent the Savior, because we are bound by the laws in our contract so to speak. Honour it ... (an old soldier would say in some other circumstance) because God does, and He has to.

(just a theist pov)

As I see the dilemma, god (if there is one) just isn't the tri-omni being that Christians paint him to be. He would either have to have limited abilities or be a real sadistic bastard.

We see differently agreed.

 

[Learner]

Who wants to live their life without free will? God's puppet on a string. A mechanical wind-up doll. Predictable.

What is free will?

If you are willing to give us the parameters, so we can all agree on, then maybe the topic can pick up a little. Must be balanced! (I noted some varied propositions by a couple of very educated philosphers, just as Charlies describes and links to, Cheers BTW)

Unless you mean to discuss: What version do you like best?

(Sorry Lion to take over, it was the first question, sitting right in front of me )

 

[DBT]

Who wants to live their life without free will? God's puppet on a string. A mechanical wind-up doll. Predictable.

What is free will?

If you are willing to give us the parameters, so we all can agree on, then maybe the topic can pick up a little. Must be balanced! (I noted some varied propositions by a couple of philosphers via Charlies links, Cheers Charles BTW)

(Sorry Lion it was the first question, sitting right in front of me )

I'm not the one using the term, hence my question on what is being referred to or meant by the term as it is being used.