I think we have a choice as to the way we live out our lives. A good point though is that even though it feels like a choice, it has already been made by us before we make it. I seem like I'm babbling but follow me on this. Think of tim as this line: ______+______ Now lets say for agument that the present is the middle of the line marked +. At this point we all "feel" like we have infinite choices. I could continue typing this post, trade 10,000 S&P Contracts , or jump out the window, etc. Now lets assume for a minute that it is physically possible for you (you can insert God here instead of yourself, for those of you at least that believe there is one) to travel into the future. If you could do that, say travel 5 seconds into the future, that time (call it +5), would be your present, while my present would still be + since I haven't made my decision yet. But since you traveled 5 seconds into the future, my past-present decision was made (I jumped out the window ) and my decision is irrevocable since my present has become your past. Now I know the correction you will all make, you're going to say, but Chris, I can't travel through time, you're full of shit. If its impossible to travel through time though, then nothing can travel through time (since if something could travel through time, you(God) can too). And if nothing can travel through time, time is not linear anymore but a single point: + where everything (including God) is situated and the future is not fixed, (and the past is forever gone, even to God). By the way, you can not choose to believe that God can not place himself in another time, make it his present and also make him omnipotent, so you have to make a choice here, whether you believe time is a line or a single point. I personally believe time is a point, so in my universe God CAN exist, and so can my free will. Anyway, let me know what you think! MUChris
CURRENT SCORE ATHEISTS: 61 THEISTS: 85 ________________________ "I'm gonna git medieval on 'yo ass!" -- Pulp Fiction
axe, dan first dan--- bro, dont worry about "getting on my bad side", i really enjoy this discourse. axe, thanks for getting me thinking--- however, my belief in a creator has not been altered. my view is the creation CAN NOT fully fathom the creator. all the best, surf
Surf, You have officially made my efforts worth while. I was once a theist (christian) who "got to thinking" after hearing atheistic arguments. It's the first step to a long road of discovery. peace axeman
Thanks! You too surf! Just for the record Surf. If the creator actually DID exist, then I would agree that the creation probably cant fully fathom the creator. However, the existence of the creator is the very thing we are debating, which has not been proven, so that statement cannot be used in the argument or it would be circular reasoning. peace axeman
don't worry goldenarm, i don't hold it against you. i guess you just don't know any better. you need to realise that I too get offended and feel insulted. especially when holiery-than-thou christian bigots pre-judge me as being a less of a man than them just because i don't believe in their fairytale god. MY beliefs and values are CONSTANTLY being distorted and misrepresented by christians and other theists. man, if this were any other group of people, we'd have the ACLU jumping up and down all over the place. but when it comes to christians bashing atheist, it's all fair game. well fuck that. you people are truly unbelievable. your whole position is routinely destroyed even by 10 years olds. yeah, that's the age i was when i realised that the Adam and Eve story HAD to be bullshit. but what does the christian do in the face of such obvious stupidity? does he admit that the bible contains at least one (but there are MANY) piece of gross fiction which immediately casts doubt over the whole christian position? oh no. they just "interpret" away till their hearts content. it just totally boggles my mind how someone can claim knowledge of their god on the basis of a book that contains SO MANY obvious fictions and outright self-contradictions as the bible. then you get something like the omniscience argument. that is one MASSIVE spanner in the whole super structure of christianity. HUGE SPANNER. why? cos it means that god is FALLIBLE. he can fuck up. he's not perfect. see, unless i KNOW 100% beforehand exactly what the result of my action will be, i am not perfect, i am prone to fucking it up. the christian is logically FORCED to conclude that the god cannot be all knowing, if he still wants to maintain the notion of free will. that really should be the end of the story as far this perfect god claim goes. but no, as usual the christian just shuts his eyes, prays for understanding (obviously never receving it!) and lives on in blissful ignorance and then proclaims that he has some great "truth". sickening. truly sickening. goldenarm, if you christians would just shut your mouths and quietly believe whatever the hell you want to, you wouldn't hear a peep out of me. remember, i'm not the one that started this thread. but when you guys come out in public proclaiming that you know of some great truth that's gonna save the world, there is no way i'm gonna sit back and let you spew forth your garbage. and when you make personal attacks and question the morality of people like me (atheists), i'm gonna hit you right back where it hurts.
i have a great point to make...... i was just talking to a girl i know...she's religious and i'm obviously not at all. i asked her, if we had a kid, how would she handle him/her going to church or not? well what happens is, if she DOESN'T send her kid to church, she feels like she's doing something wrong. if she doesn't do it, she feels like it's bad! can you people not see how the religious brainwashing cycle repeats??! can you not see why there are so many religious people!!? at a young age if your parents didn't send you to get trained, they would have thought they were doing something wrong.......so they sent you.......you got brainwashed.....and since you're conditioned now, you do it to your kids too! what a great system!!!! the atheist perspective/my perspective is......raise your kid BLANK. let them grow up and decide for themselves what they want to believe when they're old enough to think on their own...without having been conditioned their whole life to believe certain things....ESPECIALLY WHEN THE BELIEFS ARE OUTRAGEOUS AND HAVE NO PROOF!!!!!!! WHAT A JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! free thinking, open minded, non brainwashed, people like me can see the truth...and how UNBELIEVABLY ABSURD RELIGION IS!!!! you have been trained just like a rat!! that sounds mean, but that's exactly what has happened to you!!! you just don't think something like that could really be the case....but it is!!! i already know you're gonna hate me saying this....i probably would too if i were you.
I think you accidently mistated this. If you say that free will and omniscient are mutually exclusive it means you are saying that you can only have one or the other. I don't think this is what you mean to say. I have to admit though, I do think they might be mutually exclusive. This is because if it is known (not just an educated guess) what we will do then it is pre-determined (we would be like robots).