Again it wasn’t only that but it was a major factor. I just want to wish that to never happen to you. Funny thing is that when I became an atheist and later antitheist I met 2 new people that were also agnostics. They have treated me way better in that small timeframe they know me that my religious people did my whole life. The worst betrayal is the one coming from those who m you hold dear to heart and was willing to take a bullet for them .
God was the last one to go. Just imagine that even when all this bs was happening I was still holding onto my faith. Until God betrayed me himself. At least that’s how it felt
So, V. Putin is not responsible for the brutal war against a fellow Slavic nation he started, against the will of a clear majority of the Russian people. To be sure if God is responsible for everything, then humans are not. So, we are free to enjoy our riches while complaining about gas prices? Then if God does not exist then humans are responsible for everything? It seems to me that there must be a middle ground. I am not responsible for Putin, but I am responsible for myself. Putin is also responsible for what he does. God is the Creator Who save us the ability to choose and makes us responsible for our choices.
Of course,. the concept of heaven and hell, ultimate responsibility for who we are and what we do, seems to be the primary problem that atheists have with Christianity…
I think I am getting what you are saying (at least some of it). My response is that what we can say about God is limited by our comprehension of things and our experiences, so that we use examples that are within these limitations. For example, Abraham tries to change God’s mind to save his relative -and he thinks he has succeeded - yet Sodom is destroyed. Jonah thinks his prophecy would be fulfilled and gets upset with God when the city is spared.
My outlook is that our ability to know how things may turn out is fundamentally based on cause and effect. Knowing in this sense is followed by understanding and logical reasoning. If we step out of this, we are more likely to indulge in scifi - and there are numerous examples where time travel and change/unchangeable notions are explored.
My response is obviously not a definition (or even explanation based on a logical derivation of God’s powers). I occupy the position that we have freedom (of spirit, intellect and reason) that enables us to make decisions and to change our minds. I think the freedom that we attribute to God is singularly so, and we may reason within our limitations - so things are known by God (that we may not) and yet we are not made helpless before a super power and as a result, cannot exercise our choices, limited as they may be. We are free to choose even when God knows what we would do.
Yeah, I don’t really understand God being above time, like how would he decide to act and why? Was it because he saw future being different than he wanted and made a choice that fits everything perfectly into the picture? I would be glad if you could explain it to me.
That is biblical speak. It implies that Judas’s will was taken over by the devil. From then on Judas is not culpable at all. Nor does he have free will.
From a commentator’s point of view this might be valid, but it is not what Judas himself thought or why. You would have to ask Judas, but unfortunately he hanged himself. That in itself proves that he thought himself culpable…
The problem with discussions about free will is that they are not biblical. The
Bible (Personification accepted) is quite happy to impose God or the Devil onto any action or result.
The problem here is that Nick knows both what he is talking about and the bible. He has formed his opinions and can justify them. And, if you read the Bible in a certain light, you can reach the same conclusions. It is no use trying to belittle him or just refuting him. You have to show where you think his reasoning is flawed and why. Then he has to agree. (and why should he?)
I agree with you at least to some degree, maybe indeed, free will, something that is out of reason and is uncaused, is something that is too ridiculous to believe in, I also don’t think that free will doesn’t at all interact with things that are happening, I think free willed spirit also makes decision and makes conclusion based on what is happening, you could say that free will to reality has the same connection as player has to a game world, he makes decision in them, he often gets sucked into situations he didn’t want to be in, but in the end, there is no game character that can foresee what player will exactly do, his actions are influenced by what is happening in the game, but at the same time, it’s far from the only factor, and because of that, he is free from anything that would happen in game, game could restart, and player could make a different decision, he is affected by cause and effect in game, but he isn’t defined by it.
I think this is the closest we can get to visualize relationship of free will with this world.
If this is still not really believable to you, that’s okay, we can agree to disagree, because this sentence doesn’t make sense to me:
Appreciate it and thank you very much for actually defending my intellectual capability and my intelligence since many here seem to think that I’m just a dumb anti theist who doesn’t make sense. But I have to say that in the end some here already can see that my logic is not flawed and actually it is very plausible.
@DGX37 although a Christian agreed with many things that I’ve said and actually we share quite a bit of the same view on how God works. It really shows that although at different camps the view that I’m trying to convey (about free will at least) it’s really a hard one to argue with ,if you understand it. That’s why no counterargument hasn’t been formed yet.
Now I’m not talking about the other things such as my view of God and my view of Christians because of course these comes from my biased perspective and although I can defend them my logic might indeed be flawed. But about the free will argument I don’t think my logic is flawed. Far from it.
Glad there are still very open-minded people in this site. Didn’t really expect it after all the backlash I’ve received. Although some of it was justifiable since I don’t really like Christians
I get what you are saying here - my take is that ultimately God as the Creator takes responsibility for His creation. I guess another way of saying is for us to try and distinguish between the created and the uncreated (God).
It is a human trait to try and assign blame or culpability. (It can’t be my fault!). We are on very dodgy grounds to try and assign anything to God be it blame or anything else.
Whether God is ultimately responsible or not will not change the way things are.
I guess God has as much responsibility as any creator has. He made it…
I think I just object to the idea that he created a problem just to solve it (like certain anti-virus programmers)
I would be glad if I could explain it to you, too. I don’t really understand it either, and I don’t think anyone can. It’s not like we can get our heads around him and have him in a box, perfectly evaluated by our intellect. His dynamic relationship with us who are ‘stuck’ in sequential time is a wonderful mystery. I know that he intervenes providentially into the lives of his children – we have objective evidence – and that he answers prayer (certainly not predictably!) – we have objective evidence of that, as well. But how he can be sovereign over time and material, conducting and directing the orchestra that praises him without violating anyone’s free will, that is worthy of marvel and awe.
“Was” is a tensed verb and in the past, and “he saw the future” does not apply because he is already there, both expressions keeping God limited to sequential time. The English language has no capacity to use anything but time-bound language, and maybe none other does, nor do our Western minds truly understand anything else – cause and effect are before and after, intrinsically sequential and determinate, and not simultaneous. But maybe we can get a hint from quantum mechanics and Einstein’s “spooky interaction.”
Now that we have God’s relationship to time nailed down (yeah, right ), this addresses your “why” question directly and way more understandably than the one about time (it’s an argument against YECism and you might have seen it before?):
Every person inherently does what they think is best for themselves. That is not quite the same as being self-centered. Just above where I mentioned Hebrews 12:2, eve Jesus is acting out of “enlightened self-interest” (a term from which it easy to infer a meaning of selfish, but it is not). A book that deals well with the question is Desiring God, all we need to want – I love the subtitle , an apparent oxymoron .
I am sorry but that is a gross misrepresentation of a type of person who, by default has the opposite goals. If you are talking about Heaven, most religions do not even have one, including Judaism. Jesus was primarily a Jew. He said so Himself. And Jesus was about selfless love which is the antithesis of Self-centred anything.
Ohhh well. I have formed my opinion on Christians a long time ago. Not from here of course. As I have said above I have a biased so sorry I can’t change it.
It looks like you just quoted @Combine_Advisor from my post without looking at his original, mistakenly presuming something he actually did not say in context. I was actually not disagreeing with him. It is also not clear to whom you are speaking, him or me.
‘Selfless love’ can still be enlightened self-interest.
I don’t really understand it either, and I don’t think anyone can. It’s not like we can get our heads around him and have him in a box, perfectly evaluated by our intellect. His dynamic relationship with us who are ‘stuck’ in sequential time is a wonderful mystery. I know that he intervenes providentially into the lives of his children – we have objective evidence – and that he answers prayer (certainly not predictably!) – we have objective evidence of that, as well. But how he can be sovereign over time and material, conducting and directing the orchestra that praises him without violating anyone’s free will, that is worthy of marvel and awe.
), this addresses your “why” question directly and way more understandably than the one about time (it’s an argument against YECism and you might have seen it before?):
, an apparent oxymoron 
.