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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

[McTraveller]

Humans didn’t define good and evil according to the Bible, the fruit did. Why was knowledge of good and evil stored in a fruit, which could not act on it? This brings a new question to me, since the knowledge was granted to Adam and Eve after they ate the fruit, did the fruit have thoughts too?

I'm going to take this at face value. The story of the apple is an allegory.  The fruit was indeed "the knowledge of good and evil" - it pointed out to humans that good and evil are defined by relationship with god, not that there was some kind of magic knowledge in it like a list of rules or something.  Also there is explicit mention around the time of the Flood about part of the reason for the flood is everyone doing what was good "in their own eyes" - humans defined their own good and evil, and it wasn't aligned with God.

The sin of eating the fruit wasn't really physically eating the fruit - the sin was doing what people wanted, rather than what God wanted.  Hence my statement: the sin was humanity putting itself in the place of God.

The story makes this clear - the first thing the people did was go and hide, not "oh hey look we are now wise!"  They did indeed get knowledge of good and evil - they learned what it was like to disobey and, in so doing, have a broken relationship.  This never stopped - the second thing they did, after trying to hide, was blame each other, then the serpent.

[Naturegirl1999]

If God doesn’t want humans choosing what to do, why give them free will at all? Why didn’t he smite the serpent? Make the tree intangible? Erase the memories of evil so all they know is good? As a god, he had other ways to either prevent the problem, or less lethal ways of dealing with it

[HmH]

If God doesn’t want humans choosing what to do, why give them free will at all? Why didn’t he smite the serpent? Make the tree intangible?

Because things are so much more entertaining when people are allowed to bumble about randomly and create cool stories in the process.
If they're following a scenario of your own devising, or even working by a set of rules simple enough that you can predict their next action, the stories they create aren't very interesting anymore. The magic is just... gone.

I find it puzzling that many religious people think about God as something that exists for them. Did they create God for the purpose of improving their lives?

As for "doesn't want humans choosing what to do"... How do you know God doesn't want people to occasionally do evil things?
As an atheist with only a brief teenage interest in religion, I don't remember the Bible very well. Certainly not enough to trust my ability to search it exhaustively, even with Internet resources.
But I don't think I ever saw anything that says "God doesn't want you to sin". Only that God loves everyone and that sinning will be punished, which is not the same thing.
Maybe he just wanted large masses of humans to coexist peacefully long enough that they'd evolve past the violent, monotonous cycle of tribal associations and militaristic empires rising and falling to no lasting effect, and scaring the followers of his new, revised religion into not doing socially disruptive things was the most effective option.

[ZBridges]

One argument is that free will is an illusion and doesn't actually exist.  Everything that happens and has happened is predestined, including, if you believe in it, Eve eating the forbidden fruit.

[wierd]

Predestiny is actually the position held by the NT.


It would not be incompatible with free will either, if ManyWorlds is true-- because then every branch possible of your total being is expressed in the greater multiverse.  It could be argued that the "change" that happens at the end of days, is the uniting of all world-branches into a single superposition one, as this would allow human minds to comprehend a superposition-nature God.

That would satisfy some other passages.

See or instance, 1 corinthians 15:49-53.

49And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
50Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
51Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.


and

1 John 3:2

Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.



Nearly all of the problems with "free will" vs "Omniscience" disappear when you permit many-worlds to be true, and as pointed out, is actually hinted at in the bible.  The existence of God as a trans-temporal, static being is also hinted at. In many places in the bible God asserts the present tense for past and future events, which would be correct if you are talking about a fully manifested wave equation. A being that knows all of the outcomes, regardless of which branches are taken, would have to have superposition knowledge. This kind of knowledge (as an innate feature), is not really comprehensible to a linear human mind, which would fit right in with God being Unknowable.

The conversion of the human mind into the kind of mind that God possesses is exactly what is stated by the Corinthians passage; It enables men to become permanent, incorruptable beings (because you are a static superposition of your many branch-path selves, and thus have perfect knowledge of your total existence, and exist in a permanent and immutable form, as a pure expression of reality)

It would also enable that human consciousness to comprehend the nature of the divine, by being like the divine in structure/nature.

[lemon10]

One argument is that free will is an illusion and doesn't actually exist.  Everything that happens and has happened is predestined, including, if you believe in it, Eve eating the forbidden fruit.

Predestination just makes the Garden of Eden way worse though. The reason everything is predestined is because God knows exactly what is going to happen, and it happens that way presumably because he lets/wants it to happen that way.

So when he put the fruit tree there, he put it there knowing that if he didn't change the outcome he would come down in a few years/decades/centuries and yell at Eve for eating the fruit.

But presumably god himself could have simply chosen not to put the tree there, or given eve a better warning or just made it ten times as tall and super slippery so eve could never get the fruits no matter how hard she tried.
Of course its possible that he himself is limited by his own knowledge and is a helpless observer unable to change his own actions (like Dr. Manhattan), but that doesn't seem to be an interpretation that many (if any) Christians take.

Its like if you saw your kids eating some cookies you told them not to eat, then went back in time to before they ate them, did literally nothing to stop them, then beat them to within an inch of their life once you caught them eating the cookies the second time.

So if predestination is a thing and God *did* know beforehand the Garden of Eden is much worse, not better.

[wierd]

That kind of thinking comes back to the kind of bullshit where people think God should be a helicopter parent and swoop in endlessly to fix everything, all the time-- and why not? He's both omnipotent, and omnicient, so should be a piece of cake, right?


The issue there, is that God is not out to make humanity into Affluenza Affected Idiots.


God is out to create smaller, independent versions of himself. He wants children, not eternal mooches and dunderlings.


The only way to accomplish that, is to allow humanity to experience consequences, and that means experiencing sin, to know-- fundementally and intimately-- why it is to be avoided, and not "Daddy just doesn't like it, and tells me I can never have that thing."


It really does get old, listening to people complain about biblical God being "Evil", for not being eternal helicopter dad.

[Frumple]

well no, the evil comes from things like dysentery and plague and fatal or crippling congenital defects and neurological disorders and the divine genocide/mass murder/(allowing/encouraging mass rape)/etc., and so on and so forth

Folks aren't looking for eternal helicopter dad, they're looking for a dad that isn't fucking abusive and didn't decide crotch rot was a thing that should exist, and/or didn't literally build their creations to fail and suffer.

Like, you don't actually need widespread misery and gnashing of teeth for folks to understand some shit is bad, especially when you're literally the one that decided what said folks comprehensive capabilities are. You don't need to break your kids legs for them to understand they shouldn't run on slippery floors or some shit.

[wierd]

That kind of thinking presupposes that God picks and chooses, rather than simply satisfies requirements.


Consider God more like a math function, and less like an arbitrary decision making being.  Satisfying the requirements of the function does not care about the size or scope. 
Ultimately, the argument devolves into "That thing is very unpleasant, and causes lots of suffering!"-- to which God's answer is the same every time. "That's why you shouldnt do that."


The major point of difference you are trying to inject, is that god should always intercede on circumstances where the action of the abuser does not cause harm to the abuser, but only the abused, and where the abused did nothing wrong.


That is again, helicopter dad syndrome.

Part of the mortal experience is for the abuser to understand that their action is intolerable.  This can be resolved, humorously, with many-worlds as well.  In some paths, they take the role of abuser. In others, the abused.  When all is finished with the world, the individual has the full experience of the sin-- both as abuser, and as abused.


That would NOT occur, if God swooped in, and played helicopter dad.

[McTraveller]

Most of those "plagues" and things are considered to be a direct consequence of continued "bad behavior."  There's also significant - and often overlooked in especially American Christianity - indication in the Bible that sin is not just personal but is communal - bad behavior by some does have dire consequences for people who don't themselves "do bad stuff".

The theology of disease and such is that not only does sin break the relationship between humans and God, but also between the world and humans.

This is not a "specific" consequence of sin, it's a "general" consequence of sin.

Put another way: God has said, "you want a world without me, here it is."

I don't know how to make an argument if that is evil or not though; I'd have to do more research to see what has been discussed on it - because this by no means a new discourse.

(Personally, I am in agreement with wierd regarding "helicopter dad" concept.)

[Rolan7]

That kind of thinking presupposes that God picks and chooses, rather than simply satisfies requirements.


Consider God more like a math function, and less like an arbitrary decision making being.  Satisfying the requirements of the function does not care about the size or scope. 
Ultimately, the argument devolves into "That thing is very unpleasant, and causes lots of suffering!"-- to which God's answer is the same every time. "That's why you shouldnt do that."

I'm having a lot of trouble understanding your argument.  Are you really supposing that all suffering comes from bad decisions?
Not every unpleasant occurrence is a moral lesson.  People die, or worse, and sometimes that happens in complete obscurity due to natural causes.

Maybe some suffering serves to train us away from ungodly behaviors.  Is that God interceding to train us, being that "helicopter dad" but with a belt?  I guess not, the way you describe God as a function.  But that sounds more like you're describing the natural world, which trains us to survive it.  Not towards any higher purpose, simply survival (which includes communal behaviors because humans survive much better together).

I think that's the world we live in, obviously.  Horrific diseases aren't punishments or even tortures, they're just diseases.  They teach the lesson of surviving diseases.  Sometimes people get away with horrible acts and learn nothing.  Sometimes we learn from our mistakes, sometimes we learn from our successes too.

The major point of difference you are trying to inject, is that god should always intercede on circumstances where the action of the abuser does not cause harm to the abuser, but only the abused, and where the abused did nothing wrong.

Frumple wasn't calling for intercession:

well no, the evil comes from things like dysentery and plague and fatal or crippling congenital defects and neurological disorders and the divine genocide/mass murder/(allowing/encouraging mass rape)/etc., and so on and so forth

Folks aren't looking for eternal helicopter dad, they're looking for a dad that isn't fucking abusive and didn't decide crotch rot was a thing that should exist, and/or didn't literally build their creations to fail and suffer.

Like, you don't actually need widespread misery and gnashing of teeth for folks to understand some shit is bad, especially when you're literally the one that decided what said folks comprehensive capabilities are. You don't need to break your kids legs for them to understand they shouldn't run on slippery floors or some shit.

Heck, based on the Old Testament it's probably good that God is interceding less now.  Otherwise we would have to learn not only to survive a hostile world, but also dance around various amazingly arbitrary commandments.

That is again, helicopter dad syndrome.

Part of the mortal experience is for the abuser to understand that their action is intolerable.  This can be resolved, humorously, with many-worlds as well.  In some paths, they take the role of abuser. In others, the abused.  When all is finished with the world, the individual has the full experience of the sin-- both as abuser, and as abused.


That would NOT occur, if God swooped in, and played helicopter dad.

That's a pretty idea but it has the same problem as ghosts:  Memories being stored in a "soul" rather than the brain.  I guess anything's possible, but I think that just leads to a philosophical debate without much payoff.

[wierd]

Basically, in order to fully and completely understand the consequences of causing suffering, one must experience suffering.


God in this thought experiment, is a static "is" type being. Much like the equation (35x*15Y)/(17x*7Y) holds for several values of X and Y, "god" is the equation for all possible states and outcomes, at all temporal intervals. By plugging in the variables, you get your answer.

In this way, it is all knowing, and has a timeless quality. (this is a simplification but consider it more in this light than "crochety old deity handing down capriciously arbitrary edicts")

God's knowledge of X and Y (to carry the analogy), is not bounded by some notion of "But that's EXTREME X!!"  it is merely "X" in terms of its intrinsic nature.  This is how "sin" is treated. When viewed in this capacity, it becomes necessary for humans to experience "The full potential range of X", in order to have the same intrinsic understanding of the nature of X. This means human experience must include the "wantonly base suffering" seen.

Failure to have it included, is god swooping in and going "There, there humans-- Daddy god will make it all better; you dont have to experience X above this arbitrary and capriciously defined value! There-- there"

Rather, God is trying to inform you about the rational proportionality of X, and how X is defined.  Swooping in and tampering with those results would ruin any and all gains in that respect.



Now, your argument is more in line of "a disease outbreak is not caused by sin!".  However, consider more fully-- We have had the money, resources, and skill to create a cure for Ebola for many years now.  Is it a sin that we have simply just not done it, because the number of people impacted has not been a strong motivator to invest those resources or bring those skills to task?


Selfishness of this nature, is just another manifestation of "x".  It is "sin".  The existence of the disease highlights and demonstrates this sin existing. Thus, the disease is necessary to shed light on the sin, and allow humans to comprehend the sin nature.

The argument thus-- that god should not make things like ebola, is again "I want to never have to contend with my sin nature." which is Affluenza Affected Idiocy.  Helicopter Daddy swooped in, and made sure that nothing bad ever happened to demonstrate how shit a person you actually are.


Or perhaps, closer to home-- We KNOW how to combat the covid-19 pandemic, but we consistently choose not to do those things, and instead have directly caused the horrible and painful deaths of over 200,000 people in the US alone because of it.  Those that have caught it and survived, have a certain proportionality chance of experiencing life-long debilitation from the ordeal.  And why? Because we are selfish, and do not want to do what needs to be done, to prevent that harm and suffering.--- Sin.

The existence of the pandemic, is necessary to drive home the importance of eschewing selfishness.  Without it, you never have consequences for the selfishness; God has swooped in, and cleaned it all up for you.

[HmH]

Now, your argument is more in line of "a disease outbreak is not caused by sin!".  However, consider more fully-- We have had the money, resources, and skill to create a cure for Ebola for many years now.  Is it a sin that we have simply just not done it, because the number of people impacted has not been a strong motivator to invest those resources or bring those skills to task?

Okay.
So you're saying that cancer and Alzheimer's syndrome were created by God in order to force people to spend resources and time to cure them?
And that it doesn't matter that those ailments existed thousands of years before humanity had enough knowledge and infrastructure to treat them in any way, which kinda made these diseases pointless?

Putting unsolvable problems in front of a child, with very real punishments when they fail, is not what loving parents do.
While swooping in to solve problems one person has created for another can be reasonably seen as helicopter parenting, not creating extremely painful and hard-to-cure diseases is a different matter.

[wierd]

That's the rhetoric of a temporally bound being.

Specifically-- why would we have invested the energy to learn about disease, if disease did not exist in the first place?

Why bother with helping other people, or being concerned about their welfare in any capacity-- if they never were exposed to any danger at all, ever, to begin with.



again, "I want to never contend with my sin nature, and you are a bad bad god for forcing me to do so. Whaaa."

[thompson]

Ok, there are a lot of things to digest here. The God-as-wavefunction idea seems to me to be similar to the God-as-Universe idea that comes up in some Eastern religious philosophy. I like how you’ve tried to integrate biblical text into this, but in all honesty I’ve never been too sympathetic to that sort of biblical argument.

I feel theology gets much more interesting when you start to consider the real practical limitations of religion. After all, God did not transcribe the Bible, so how do we know it’s accurate? Which passages are reliable, which suffered transcription errors, which were one man’s fanciful interpretation that was misrepresented as absolute truth? Is God truly omniscient? Perhaps omniscient should actually mean “has the potential to know everything, but limited by finite attention, etc”. What does God even want?

Which bring us to my (half-serious) take on theology: God created the Universe out of boredom, messed around with it for a bit, then got bored with it and moved on. He probably doesn’t even realise we’re sentient. After all, how could he? If we created a sentient AI we’d most likely assume it only has the illusion of sentience, Turning test and all that. So, God created evil because he thought we were just mindless bits in his RAM card and that it wouldn’t do any harm. Now he’s got a full-time job so is too busy to bother with it further. We just need to hope the server he’s running it on holds up.