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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[Sheb]

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point that now that Helgo baptized me in the Rhine, I am a Catholic, a New Creature and a Member of the Body of Christ (hopefully a good one, not his toenail or something.)

[Calidovi]

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point that now that Helgo baptized me in the Rhine, I am a Catholic, a New Creature and a Member of the Body of Christ (hopefully a good one, and not like his toenail or something.)

[i2amroy]

To be fair that comic's not too wrong . Engineering's the not always pretty place that coats the whole thing together and keeps everything inside you running smoothly.

[UXLZ]

Fair enough.  That said, this is probably what was the final nail in the coffin of my religious practicing.  I quickly realized that the Christian God was perfectly happy for me to burn in Hell because He knew that under my current life circumstances I would never believe in His existence.  He knows that I can't accept that He exists without more than tenuous word-of-mouth type proof of His existence, and that's too bad because He won't show up on Earth for a few minutes one day and let people know he exists.  I've always said that it should be impossible to even doubt the existence of a real god, but... it seems to be the other way around for me.

I've gotta say, I agree a lot with this, especially the first part. However, for the Christian God as depicted, it goes even deeper than that. All things that happen, happen by God's will, and God's will alone. From the beginning of existence. Ironically, He doesn't really have a choice, either, a slave to His own omniscience. Even if He is... Let's say "outside the flow" and doesn't have His own actions dictated to Him by what He Himself can see... He knows all the consequences, stretching endlessly forever, of what He does, even if He simply chooses to take no action... That is still a choice.

To take a binary choice as an action... If you choose A, then B, if you choose B, then A. If you choose neither, then C. You have full knowledge of this, and you must make a choice, or make none, which is really a choice in disguise. Whatever the result, it occurs exclusively because of your choice.

So, all the bad things in the world, and the good, and the neutral. The small things, the random things, your flu or your broken leg? The coincidences that lead to the love of your life. The happy days, free of worry. The sad days, where you drown in despair. Your dead father, or your addict girlfriend? The hellish existence in concentration camps, and gulags, and the Vietnam war?
A nice big "God Approves!" sticker. All of it, all things that are, by God's will alone. Because how could He not?

[UXLZ]

Not quite, I don't believe I was quoting TelginFar. xD

Still, thanks. Fix'd. The closing bracket was stuck a bit, it mustn't have registered properly.

[Helgoland]

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point that now that Helgo baptized me in the Rhine, I am a Catholic, a New Creature and a Member of the Body of Christ (hopefully a good one, not his toenail or something.)

Huh, I thought about asking you whether you'd keep this under wraps or make it a public thing.

Also dat penis joke.

[penguinofhonor]

Wait, that literally happened? I thought it was some sort of in-joke or metaphor.

[Telgin]

I've gotta say, I agree a lot with this, especially the first part. However, for the Christian God as depicted, it goes even deeper than that. All things that happen, happen by God's will, and God's will alone. From the beginning of existence. Ironically, He doesn't really have a choice, either, a slave to His own omniscience. Even if He is... Let's say "outside the flow" and doesn't have His own actions dictated to Him by what He Himself can see... He knows all the consequences, stretching endlessly forever, of what He does, even if He simply chooses to take no action... That is still a choice.

To take a binary choice as an action... If you choose A, then B, if you choose B, then A. If you choose neither, then C. You have full knowledge of this, and you must make a choice, or make none, which is really a choice in disguise. Whatever the result, it occurs exclusively because of your choice.

So, all the bad things in the world, and the good, and the neutral. The small things, the random things, your flu or your broken leg? The coincidences that lead to the love of your life. The happy days, free of worry. The sad days, where you drown in despair. Your dead father, or your addict girlfriend? The hellish existence in concentration camps, and gulags, and the Vietnam war?
A nice big "God Approves!" sticker. All of it, all things that are, by God's will alone. Because how could He not?

Yep, I agree with all of this.  I had a fairly long discussion about just that in the previous religion (Christianity only?) thread.  I'm a believer in strong determinism even outside of religion, and don't believe we have free will in any capacity.  That's yet another thing that drove me away from Christianity, where free will is considered to be perhaps the most important part of what it is to be human.  If free will doesn't exist, then a lot of the tenets of Christianity no long make sense or become pretty terrible.

It actually makes me wonder about people who believe in predestination.  That's pretty much what it amounts to.  Or likewise people who believe in once saved, always saved.  In the latter case, I believe most people who believe that and witness someone who was supposed to be saved and a born again Christian doing something bad will just say "Oh, he was never saved at all I guess."  Or maybe that's not how it works?  The overwhelming majority of my exposure to Christianity has been through the Pentecostal Holiness churches of Protestant Christianity, which very much believe that if you do bad things you can become unsaved.

[Arx]

@UXLZ
Everything happens by the will of God, more news at eleven? I mean, it's a fairly standard thing that God could stop the bad things.

And I'm not quite sure why that makes Him a slave to His omniscience, any more than you're a slave to your knowledge of the world.

[SirQuiamus]

Wait, that literally happened? I thought it was some sort of in-joke or metaphor.

If you squint at Sheb's avatar for long enough, you'll notice that it looks like a combination of Jesus and Adenauer wearing an Imperial German helmet. With a Reichsadler in the background. :p

[Rolan7]

@Arx
He's not the slave in that scenario, it's us.  Our choices are meaningless because he could override them.  There's even like a dozen parts in the Bible where he does override free will, often to make people do wrong things so he can "punish" them.

What this means is that every decision we make, right or wrong, is being implicitly approved by God.  He can and has changed our minds in the past, without limit, which means we have the same "free will" as a bug you keep nudging in a certain direction.  None.  Just because you don't have to nudge the bug if it happens to go the right way, doesn't mean it made a meaningful choice.  It just saved you effort.

That's all depressing though.  I prefer to imagine God isn't all powerful, and is in an actual struggle with Satan.  Satan being the one who
orders tribes to slaughter and rape each other
demands animal and human sacrifice in his name, especially goats
confounds human language at Babel because we're getting along too well
hates gays, foreskins, and mixed fabrics
says "throw the first stone, throw lots of stones"
demands fear and absolute obedience on pain of death, often by plague
mind controls Pharaoh into giving the Israelites a hard time so he can slaughter the Egyptian firstborns
demands an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
has absolutely nothing in common with Jesus or Jesus's father

[Frumple]

Other interpretation is that that's statement's under the assumption that if the critter wasn't, it would, y'know, actually do something about all the shitty shit what shits upon existence. Maybe not be a genocidal jackass, as a bonus, I'unno.

Personally, if my knowledge of the world included a means to prevent shit like stillborns, SIDS, etc., so forth, so on, I would probably get right on that. Maybe not order mass rape, commit mass murder and infanticide, allow all the torturous atrocities mankind gets up to, stuff like that. Try to come off as something besides a homicidal egoistic psychopath. The little things.

Some sort of lack of agency goes a long way towards... well, not exactly excusing that, but at least making it understandable. Plays nicely into the atemporal thing that's often posited regarding the critter's nature, too. All that happens has already been done by that way of looking at things, and the critter's a slave, in the sense of being unable to do anything about it, to actions already committed. The omniscience is just part of the decision making that's already occurred, even if it's in the relative (to mankind) future.

Dunno if that's actually particularly in line with the biblical depictions, though. Iirc, there's bits where the critter is stated as changing its mind (the second covenant bit would be a pretty big one, imo), and the omniscience thing is... arguable, as is exactly what that entails even if that is how the all-knowing stuff tracks. Critter gets played up a lot in the fanfiction, really...

[UXLZ]

This is why I've argued so strongly against God's omni-... Well, anything.

And I'm not quite sure why that makes Him a slave to His omniscience, any more than you're a slave to your knowledge of the world.

@Arx
He's not the slave in that scenario, it's us.  Our choices are meaningless because he could override them.  There's even like a dozen parts in the Bible where he does override free will, often to make people do wrong things so he can "punish" them.

Sort of, sort of not. See, I stated that He could be free of his Omniscience... Somehow, in a way that we can't comprehend. However, even if He is indeed free of it (in that His own actions aren't predetermined),  He's still a slave to it in a certain regard. That is: He has no choice but to decide the fate of everything. As mere humans, we can allow things to 'take their own course' and choose to not do something, or make a choice without knowledge of its full consequences. God cannot do that, because it knows all the results of its choices. As I said, no choice is still a choice, if you know what not choosing results in.

[Rolan7]

Yeah, a perfectly omniscient and omnipotent being who chooses not to interfere is still directly responsible for everything, because they could interfere.  This is especially clear when they interfere in some cases but not others.

So the concept of a perfect God is kinda boring, depressing, and also it wouldn't be good.

[Arx]

As mere humans, we can allow things to 'take their own course' and choose to not do something

Emphasis mine. It's still a choice; you are a slave to your agency just as much as God is, God just knows more.

And honestly, I mostly agree with you guys about the omnipotence. Particularly given things like the variant translations of pankratos and all that.