God versus science

[Zkribbler]

Actually, this focuses us on one of the great DoubleThinks of traditional Christian dogma.

If we're all performing as part of God's Plan, we are not demonstrating free will.

If we're acting according to our free will, then we are not following any plan by God.

[Berzerker]

"Our love of God is commensurate with our knowledge of God's ways." Moses Maimonides.

My belief in "God" strengthens the more I learn about existence

[Zkribbler]

Didn't Einstein say something near the end of his life like, "The more I study physics, the more the universe resembles a thought rather than a physical place."

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Actually, this focuses us on one of the great DoubleThinks of traditional Christian dogma.

If we're all performing as part of God's Plan, we are not demonstrating free will.

If we're acting according to our free will, then we are not following any plan by God.

Umm... How it is freewill if we have to choose something other then God's plan?

We choose to follow God's desires for us, or don't. That is how we have freewill.

There is a logical problem with having to show freewill by doing the opposite of what someone says. You are still constrained in that case, just different than what the person is saying.

Someone could always follow God's will. And still have freewill. The key is the choice.

Just because I choose to not break the law, doesn't mean I am not able to break the law (and face the consequences). Similiarly, someone who breaks the laws everytime he sees one is not demonstrating free action either. Neither does someone who sometimes breaks the law and sometimes doesn't in some sort of random fashion.

Jon Miller

[Zkribbler]

Maybe my mind lacks the necessary subtlety. But it seems to me we must either be following our own wills or following God's will. If our individual wills are identical to God's will, then our wills are subsumed by His, and we have no free will but can only follow the dictates of God.

[Jon Miller]

That doesn't make any sense at all Zkribbler. I don't want you to give me all your money. So you had better give me all your money since otherwise your will will be subsumed by mine and you will have no freewill.

Jon Miller

[Impaler[WrG]]

aneeshm: Who's that mega-post paper by, you said a hundred years, it sounds a bit like a response to Neitchze or perhaps Kirkigard.

[Drake Tungsten]

Give him back his freewill, Jon. Don't be a dick...

[Aeson]

You aren't God Jon... if (hypothetically) you were, and had created Z knowing what he would do... then it would be your will, not Z's.

[Zkribbler]

Let's try another approach.

Let's say I don't have free will. Then who's will is guiding my actions. Why, it must be God's.

--But if I have free will, and Jon is right, then my free will is to follow the will of God.

So, what the difference between having free will and not having free will?

[Jon Miller]

Because you can choose to do differently. It is the choice. But you don't have to do differently in order to exercise that choice.

JM

[Zkribbler]

I remain befuddled.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
aneeshm: Who's that mega-post paper by, you said a hundred years, it sounds a bit like a response to Neitchze or perhaps Kirkigard.

Swami Vivekananda.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Aeson
You aren't God Jon... if (hypothetically) you were, and had created Z knowing what he would do... then it would be your will, not Z's.

the talmud says everything is in the hands of G-d, except the fear of G-d (Berakot 33B)

Here is a brief discussion of Maimonides position:

There are two questions some pose:
1)"If God knows everything, how can we have free will? God knows what I am going to do, so I cannot select an alternative choice."
2) "God knows what will happen. To say differently is to say that God isn't all knowing and powerful."

Maimonides addresses the first, free will question and teaches that God's wisdom is not like our wisdom. "Because My thoughts are not as your thoughts, and your ways are not as Mine, so says God." (Isaiah 55:8) Our wisdom is based on cause and effect. We cannot project our method of knowledge onto God. How God knows something is not how man knows, and therefore, His knowledge does not preclude us from free choice. As an example: a weatherman may say that it will snow, and he knows this 100%, and then it snows. But he is not the cause. He did not make nature produce snow. He merely studied nature, saw all the causes involved, and determined that since a few factors are ripe, it will definitely snow in a certain region. Again, he was not the cause of the snow. This is somewhat analogous to how God is also not the cause of our actions, although he knows what we will choose. However, God does not need to rely on cause and effect to know man's action. He has a completely different method, unknown to man, and which does not interfere with our free will.

[Adalbertus]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Here is a brief discussion of Maimonides position:

There are two questions some pose:
1)"If God knows everything, how can we have free will? God knows what I am going to do, so I cannot select an alternative choice."
2) "God knows what will happen. To say differently is to say that God isn't all knowing and powerful."

If God is master of and not subject to the time, he even could devise the world according in a way that we'll have our free will and the world still works as God intends. We even don't need to be predictable, because God, *** grano salis, looks afterwards how we did decide and acts before our decision.

And I'm not quite sure if passing of time is simply an illusion of our mind which adapts to the fact that our size is roughly 0.1 x 0.5 x 1.7 x 7E14 m, and if by reason of strength 8E15 m.