Good atheists go to heaven. Bad Christians do not.

[Asher]

For some reason this thread reminds me of people who argue about Klingons and all that.

[Tuberski]

Yep, your right.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Asher
That's the great thing about religion, everyone in the world disagrees about it. When it gets to that point you gotta wonder how valid something is when everyone thinks about it differently.

this is true of almost everything

Jon Miller

[CygnusZ]

Originally posted by Lincoln
How do your children have free will if you know that they will do a certain thing? Why does foreknowledge mean that someone does not have free will?

Because, Humans cannot know anything with certainty. I can have a baby and guess that it will cry, but perhaps it will simply die. As a human having foreknowlege is literally impossible.

For God though, if he knows something is going to happen years before it happens, that means there is nothing that person can do to change the event. If a person cannot do anything to change an event whose outcome value has been determined years before he was ever born it means that he is stripped of his free will. For it to be possible for truth values of the future to be defined before the event occurs it must in turn cause the loss of free will.

http://mrs.umn.edu/~okeefets/DeFato.html

[Bereta_Eder]

BTW for the record, I'm an agnostic, not an atheist.

I have a feeling it is propably impossible to know if God exists. However the most important thing is to strive to be a good man while on earth, not to preocupy yourself with questions which propably have no answers.

After that, God (if He exists) knows where,if or nothing.


"What is death to fear it, except a neverending dreamless sleep or a place in heaven where you meet yet again your long lost loved ones".

Plato

(not sure if he said it precicely like that - just from memory and with crude translation.)

[CygnusZ]

How does that line prove that God is good? If anything it seems to leer more towards the neutrality position.

"Instead, those who are called by God have been foreknown, predestined, and justified."

EDIT:Note that those called by God are _FOREKNOWN_. There is a list that God has of those that are saved, and those that are damned for all eternity. Not all men can be saved, only those whom are pre-selected.

According to your interpretation (and it is exactly that), God selects his elect few and is content to have everyone else go to hell. He knows beforehand that they will go to hell, does not save them, and it is right that they do so. It is not the will of Man, or his own fault that he goes to hell, but it is because of the predestination of God that he does. God isn't good because it is his will that man has become damned (heck, if predestination is really true he made Eve eat the fruit).

So you have a God that isn't good, but is all-knowing. That doesn't logically contradict itself.

[CygnusZ]

Originally posted by paiktis22
"What is death to fear it, except a neverending dreamless sleep or a place in heaven where you meet yet again your long lost loved ones".

Plato

(not sure if he said it precicely like that - just from memory and with crude translation.)

That's Socrate's "The Apology" which was a speech he made before the jury of Athens when charged with his crimes. Although it was written by Plato it is considered to be the most accurate representation of Socrate's speech. Mind you, I think Plato probably had a better knack for rhetoric than Socratse.

[Bereta_Eder]

So it was from Apology, didnt remember that.

(maybe Socrates didnt even exist considering all we have from him are second writings)

many historians believe that socrates was a fictionary character made by plato to convey his ideas.

(but then again socrates also appears in other philisophers texts IIRC)

I always mix Plato and Socrates up because of that

[CygnusZ]

He also appears in an Aristophanes play "The Clouds". They were contemporaries in Greece.

[Bereta_Eder]

I think he also appears in Xenophone's texts

[SKILORD]

(I Apologize if this thread has gotten off topic thjeis post is most definately on topic)

Luthrans Beleive that "Goodness" or "Badness" has nothing to do with heaven, we are saved by asking God for forgiveness as all of our sins regardless of how "good" we are are far too much to gain us enterance to the pearly gates.

[CygnusZ]

Doubtful, considering that Xenophanes lived before Socrates.

Then again, I'm not sure exactly how accurate these birth/death dates really are.

Socrates 469-399
Xenophanes 570-475

[Boris Godunov]

Well, there is also no real evidence that Socrates ever existed...

[CygnusZ]

There's no evidence any of us exist.
.
.
.
Unless you can prove the existance of a good God

[Lincoln]

Originally posted by CygnusZ


Because, Humans cannot know anything with certainty. I can have a baby and guess that it will cry, but perhaps it will simply die. As a human having foreknowlege is literally impossible.

For God though, if he knows something is going to happen years before it happens, that means there is nothing that person can do to change the event. If a person cannot do anything to change an event whose outcome value has been determined years before he was ever born it means that he is stripped of his free will. For it to be possible for truth values of the future to be defined before the event occurs it must in turn cause the loss of free will.

http://mrs.umn.edu/~okeefets/DeFato.html

That does not make sense. Foreknowledge does not change free will unless the one who has that foreknowledge chooses to effect the will of another. No one is "stripped" of his free will except where God intervenes.

It is true that in God's eyes our future cannot be changed but he is outside of time. In the time dimension where we live we make free choices. The only way that our free will would be effected is if God told us our destiny. In that case you may as well just go along for the ride. In the meantime our choices effect our destiny and God knows the result.