I grew up atheist for 16 years. I had always kept an open mind towards religion, but never really felt a need to believe in it. My sister started going to a Wednesday night children's program at a church. Eventually, I was dragged into a Christmas Eve service. Scoffing, I reluctantly went, assuming that this was going to be a load of crap, but when I went, I felt something. Something that I've never felt before. I felt a sense of empowerment and a sense of calling. Jesus called upon my soul, just like he did with his disciples. he wanted me to follow him. Now, my life is being lived for Christ. He died on the cross for my sins, and the sins of everyone who believes in him. He was beaten, brutalized, struck with a whip 39 times, made to carry a cross up to the stage of his death. This I believe to be true, and I can never repay him for what he has done. I still have my struggles with Christianity, but I've found this bit of information most useful. Religion is not comprehensible in the human mind, because we cannot comprehend the idea of a perfect and supreme being, a God, but we can believe it in our heart, and that's the idea of faith. Faith is, even though everything rides against me believing in Jesus, I still believe in him because I know that it's true in my heart. I invite my fellow Brothers and sisters of the LORD to talk about how Jesus has helped you in your life. No atheists and no insults please
The major point that many miss in this is that humans are often willing to perform, and not merely capable of, evil. If God did create us to the tiniest detail, for what reason did He make our natures be like that?
What you view as evil may,to the person doing 'evil',be seen as good.For example: Abortions or Mercy killings.
You're either tiptoeing more around the Bible than your average Fundamentalist, or you're switching your perspectives more than Mitt Romney. Either way, the hypocrisy in your posts intensifies once again, and we still have yet to see any posts from you that holds water. Is this intentional? Who's to say at this point? Only thing we have so far is that it's eliciting responses from users on both ends of the table.
I'm quite curious Fiends, if you find this stuff to be completely idiotic then why use it as a point against homosexuality?
I still can't find where Fiends has recently made any discernible points. They all sound like emotional rants lacking credibility that were in response to rebuttals. :S
I still can't find where Fiends has recently made any discernible points. They all sound like emotional rants lacking credibility that were in response to rebuttals. :S
I'm beyond caring of this thread, i already said what i needed to say.
I'm beyond caring of this thread, i already said what i needed to say.
If you would explain your points more thoroughly, I would love to discuss. But as I mentioned, there wasn't much to reply to, as most of it did not require a response.
I'm beyond caring of this thread, i already said what i needed to say.
"I can't defend what I've said but in an effort to seem more edgy and give myself a sense of superiority, I'm going to make some faux pas statement about my transcending of caring for my personal beliefs"
In an effort to get things back on track, I thought I might take a stab at Fish's excellent question:
Calling back to 452; just how can someone reconcile the notion of free will with divine creation?
The thought here is that we either challenge our notion/conception of our own free will or we challenge God's omniscience. After all, if God already knows what we're going to do, then it seems like we couldn't have had much of a choice in the first place. In order to preserve both, we need to look for a compatibilist position.
I had mentioned earlier Jon Kvanvig's manuscript that tries to develop a logical system that allows for God's knowledge of our actions whilst preserving our choice in the matter. I can't find the article though and, even if I could, it would just be too much to try and engage with (assuming I could even understand it in the first place).
But the gist is along these lines. I know if I were to offer my wife some toffee cheesecake and other conditions hold (e.g. she hasn't just eating, she's not on a diet, etc.) then she would eat it. She certainly has a choice in the matter, but I'm still comfortable claiming knowledge of this counterfactual. In fact, we can reliably predict many different choices that people - even complete strangers - would make under certain circumstances.
Now, given that God has created us, He is in a much better position to know things about us. We can also presume that God, apart from being in a much better epistemic position, is also a much better overall epistemic agent that any person could hope to be.
This line of thought brings up a different sort of problem, however. A useful account of knowledge isn't going to require 100% certainty about the propositions which the agents knows. If we want to hold a compatibilist view, this gives us another reason to endorse a non-probabilistic account of knowledge. In other words, if the knowledge is certain, this would undermine our compatibilist position. But this leaves open the possibility that God might end up believing things that are false, which seems incompatible with our understanding of Him.
There may be some ways out of this second worry, but I'm not sure the initial argument can even get off the ground.
I've lost the ability to read, but I'm too emotionally invested in this thread to leave it alone for more than an hour. Help!
Nope.
"I can't defend what I've said but in an effort to seem more edgy and give myself a sense of superiority, I'm going to make some faux pas statement about my transcending of caring for my personal beliefs"
This line of thought brings up a different sort of problem, however. A useful account of knowledge isn't going to require 100% certainty about the propositions which the agents knows. If we want to hold a compatibilist view, this gives us another reason to endorse a non-probabilistic account of knowledge. In other words, if the knowledge is certain, this would undermine our compatibilist position. But this leaves open the possibility that God might end up believing things that are false, which seems incompatible with our understanding of Him
I'm not sure I follow this. Unless we count 0% and 100% as probabilities, any certain knowledge would be non-probabilistic. Is there a compatibilist model that does not rely upon a probabilistic universe?
I'm not sure I follow this. Unless we count 0% and 100% as probabilities, any certain knowledge would be non-probabilistic. Is there a compatibilist model that does not rely upon a probabilistic universe?
Yeah, sorry about that - this thought was wholly unclear. Maybe it would help to explain what I'm trying to avoid. There is a kind of folk conception of knowledge that what we know is 100% certain. This conception of knowledge doesn't work for a variety of reasons. The upshot is that avoiding this notion of knowledge isn't ad hoc at all. Plus it gets us into the compatibilist framework in which God can know things that aren't determined (where the notion of determined can be read a probabilistic or physically or whatever).
So the compatibilist model I have in mind would, in fact, be compatible with a probabilistic universe (though it wouldn't have to rely on one). I hope that's a bit clearer. Though if it's not, that's okay. I'm more worried about the initial argument that leads to this problem. Of course, any and all comments are welcome!
In terms of afterlife, this should still mean that, for a certain percentage, the ultimate reward is unattainable and the ultimate punishment is inevitable for reasons entirely beyond their control.
If we assume that the punishment is eternal, how can it be justified? The only workaround I see here is if we suppose that the heaven/hell afterlife were a temporary experience that can be recalled in an after-afterlife. Then, at least, we could say that whatever caused them to be danmed for a while probably won't happen again. Not that it's a good reason, mind you.
Just came across this interview with Al Plantinga on the irrationality of atheism. Plantinga is one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century, and it's a really fun read with lots of points to consider:
