Church dilemma - knowing the will of God vs affirming that God’s ways are inscrutable, According to convenience
Reminds me of the Epicurean Paradox:
If you read the Bible with a purely objective mind and come away thinking God is the good guy in the story, I have some serious questions about your morality and ethics.
Username checks out?
What’s the use of being god if every run-down schmuck with a two dollar prayer book can come along and fuck up your plan?
- George Carlin
I don’t think many Christians would actually argue for that first point tbh. It’s not something Biblically portrayed as one of God’s gifts. Free will is portrayed as something that was given conditionally, but taking from the tree of knowledge and specifically eating the fruit of knowledge is known as man’s first sin in the Bible.
I think it’s a bit of a metaphor for a parent wanting to shield their child from the harshness of reality, but as the sheltered child grows older they often want to know more about the outside world and in doing so become exposed to the cruelty. This was my own experience with religion growing up. A teacher of mine one day sat us down and pleaded the above with our class, as many of us grew to see through the veil of how reality looked.
In retrospect I think some things about the world make sense to not be told about, depending on one’s age. However, I think other things should never be hidden, have been hidden, or done in other cases.
Side note: I think the idea of God’s plan is for people to hold love for one another. Lots of people lose sight of what they are called to do and how they are to act though. They’re called to love their neighbor as their self, called to love their enemy, and called to forgive others for their transgressions. I personally think people are called to do good works in conjunction with holding faith, as people are called to act righteously in this life.
I don’t think many Christians would actually argue for that first point tbh.
Then truthfully, I don’t think you’ve had this conversation with many christians. Every single one immediately defaults to that point when confronted with the horrors god would be responsible for if god is in control.
Don’t worry, they don’t read the Bible, and especially don’t read the old testament.
They believe they have god given freedom of action
You have the freedom to choose God or face an eternity of unimaginable suffering.
No good god would make an unlasting punishment. if you have forever, then even Hitler, Dahmer would have enough time for a finite punishment. Even the worst people in the world don’t deserve a unlasting punishment.
The Nicean Council excluded a bunch of books, and Jesus was Jewish. In kabbalah, you learn about reincarnation, and so why did people think Jesus and John were OT prophets? So karma isn’t a punishment, but a teacher, you repeat lessons, which are scaffolded, until they are mastered. Well, why don’t you remember past life lessons? Why aren’t crib sheets allowed in exams? Is doing the right thing only for personal gain still the right thing? Then no one should be upset with billionaires for reversing dei. And Jesus said the whole law can be summed love God, love your neighbor as yourself. Not better than, not less than. And that the kingdom of heaven is within us. Also the fall of the morning star gave “the devil” the earth as his dominion. “Be in the world, not of it,” and “be wise as serpents, innocent as doves,” eg be neither boot nor doormat. Love you neighbor as yourself. Ha-Satan is the prosecutor, who freely comes and goes into heaven (where is the Kingdom?) who lists every reason (sin) you don’t get to be there (schism of self). And a defending angel can list one redeeming quality and you’re in. You passed that particular lesson set. Now you have a new set.
Also Jesus said he teaches in parables, don’t take things so literally. Why wouldn’t he want every student to understand? They’re not on that lesson set, yet. Someone just learning division isn’t ready for trig.
I always wondered about that. When would enough be enough.
It could take hundreds or thousands of years but no one person deserves unending punishment for finite sins.
Depends on the flavour of Christianity
At one end unforgiven sins condemn you to the ancient Greek underworld, slightly modified
At the other end you land in limbo if you haven’t been perfect for a time that fits, thence to heaven for the rest of forever
Beyond that end, their god is infinitely forgiving so everyone goes straight to heaven.
At the other end you land in limbo if you haven’t been perfect
Slight correction, but limbo was the ‘first’ area of hell, where you just get bored forever. Purgatory was where you washed off the crusted shit on your soul and could eventually get into heaven.
Did Calvin write this post?
It was Hobbes who said…
“But his Lordship [tells]us that God is wholly here, and wholly there, and wholly every where; because he has no parts. I cannot comprehend nor conceive this. For methinks it implies also that the whole world is also in the whole God, and in every part of God. Nor can I find anything of this in the Scripture. If I could find it there, I could believe it; and if I could find it in the public doctrine of the Church, I could easily abstain from contradicting it.”
Only the right half. Arminius was responsible for the left.
Did god not have the power to give us free will without also giving us evil?
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Had the power but opted not to: god is himself some part evil
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Didn’t have the power, did the best he could with the tools he had: god is not omnipotent.
Pick one.
Life isn’t black and white. Also, Psalm 82: 6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
7 But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. (Lucifer, for example)
I think it’s a misread to say it gave us evil. The garden is portrayed as being a paradise with a tree of knowledge. The man and the women, as they self-identified themselves to be, were both allowed agency to be themselves and be blessed without the burden of knowledge, so long as they did not eat the forbidden fruit. Both the man and the woman independently made the conscious decision to break the rule given to them to not eat the fruit of knowledge. The actual sin was both the man and woman breaking their covenant with God, through the eating of the fruit. My take on this is that story is meant to show that God can help you and will help you, but if you choose to go against his will you have the face the consequences of that decision on your own. However, you can still seek forgiveness for your decisions and even be forgiven, but this doesn’t magically put everything back to the way things were before.
The story is more or less a cultural device to explain good and evil from the perspective of the early Israelite society. The story itself is rippled throughout the Bible in this way: God gives instructions, the people follow the instructions at first but then grow complacent, bad things happen because people stop following God’s instructions, and then one of the leaders of the tribe of Israel steps in to help get people back on the right path of following God’s instructions.
I’ll add that functionally Genesis is three serparate creation stories that were pulled into one book. Culturally, the early Israelites borrowed some of the elements of other creation stories of their time seen in other cultures such as the Babylonians. The first creation story is the seven days, the second is what we know as the story Adam and Eve, and the third was the story of the great flood.
Its not a misread, your interpretation skips the important parts. The problem with your interpretation is right here:
be blessed without the burden of knowledge
The actual sin was both the man and woman breaking their covenant with God,
The knowledge is “of good and evil.” Until eating they couldn’t know that breaking a covenant was wrong no matter what their god has told them. They did not know that they should listen to what their god said, the concept of “should/shouldn’t” was devoid of meaning to them. While they had free will, literally all actions were purposeless and the two would just bounce around the garden not knowing if they should actually listen to their god or not. This becomes more evident when you read further as well as look at the stories from neighboring cultures this was borrowed from.
Later in the chapter their god speaks to the other deities in the pantheon about how the humans must be cast out of the garden as having their new abilities, may find the tree of everlasting life and become as powerful as the rest of the gods and supernatural beings. The idea is that having knowledge of the ramifications of one’s actions and living forever would mean that humans would no longer be controlled by the gods. That having free will, knowing what is good and what is evil and being immune to the wrath of the gods would render them all powerful.
This narrative then follows that their god casts them out into the world riddled with pain and suffering and humans eventually lose their knowledge of the past and how their god has their thumb on them. This is why Satan, “The Accusor”, is called the bringer of light. As sin is defined as a transgression against god, Satan is there to show how the fall of man was truly an enslavement by their god. Rather than leave humans dumb bouncing around the garden or immune to suffering, their god keeps humans ensnared in this system of life, suffering and everlasting torment. the story of the garden is what makes their god relevant when they otherwise shouldn’t be.
A major problem I’ve always had with that story is the fact that it is predicated on the fact that Adam and Eve acted disobediently by eating of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. But what is disobedience? Is disobedience a form of evil? To disobey God would be evil if it was done with knowledge, correct? How could Adam and Eve have possibly known that what they were doing was evil if they had no knowledge of such? Why would God set the situation up to necessitate that Adam and Eve would eventually disobey his wishes if they had no knowledge of good and evil, and therefore no knowledge of how their actions would have an impact or how their actions would be considered wrong. If a 2 year old disobeys their parents it’s easy to brush off their behavior as just being ignorant, and Adam and Eve are effectively like the cosmic 2-year-old, totally incapable of understanding consequences, or righteousness, or disobedience. Fundamentally, the God that created the Garden of Eden must be evil because what he did is akin to me putting an infant in a room with a loaded bear trap and telling them not to touch it. They don’t understand the consequences, nor do they really understand what commands mean. Is it really the baby’s fault for getting caught in a bear trap if I am the one with superior agency and knowledge and I was the one that set the whole thing up in the first place? Who is really the evil one here?
God is often referred to as the Father, and if he is truly a father I would say that he fails miserably in that duty by the very fact that he put his children directly In harm’s way. Yes, it is the responsibility of the parent to put obstacles in the way of their children so that they can grow, but at the same time it is also the responsibility to protect them from grievous harm, and clearly he didn’t do this according to Genesis.
the third was the story of the great flood
And don’t forget the really fun part, where you can actually still see the three flood stories smashed into one if you look at the sentences.
Going by the Bible, it’s both. He acted with malice and proved himself to not be omnipotent many times.
Jod introduced the idea of freewill to the board.
Lucifer said “That’s a bad idea, chief. Free will would ruin them.”
Jod cast him out.
Humans fucked everything up.
Jod sent his CTO, Jesus to try and fix it. It went poorly.
Lucifer said " I told you so"
“What if you gave them free will AND ALSO gave them the knowledge of the true nature of existence, rather than relying on them figuring everything out via very obviously man-made religions?”
“Naw.”
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Yup.
The teachings of Christianity don’t make any fucking sense. (Unless you’re willing to gaslight yourself for a lifetime.)
Now now, don’t discount free reign to also gaslight others for a lifetime as well. And judge and shame others too. It’s great for complete assholes.
I think that’s part of the appeal: the ingrained superiority Christians feel.
Not just Christians, that’s a common thing with any cult, be it for a person, a country, etc.
That’s the point of religion. Trick the brain into thinking everything is going according to plan so that it gives out the happy time drugs instead of the “you need to wake the fuck up and do something about this” drugs. The religion pushers get their cut, and everyone thinks their happy.
Well, since this is a religious discussion, I’m a Christian. It’s always God.
Job 1:6-12 very clearly shows God granting permission for Satan to test Job.
1 Kings 22:19-22 shows the “court in heaven” and God soliciting ideas from spirits for enticing Ahab to attack Ramoth Gilead, where he will die. When a good suggestion is made, God grants permission.
Exodus 10:1-2 states clearly that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart to not let the slaves go, so that God could display his “signs” (plagues).
Satan is a liar, and the father of lies.
Romans 9:19-21 NIV
One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
Wow, sounds like a cruel deity that’s definitely not worthy of worship.
Hey, at least you’re judging based on the facts of what the Bible says. God is who He is. He’s not campaigning. You disagree with Him, but at least it’s really Him.
Of course, that puts you in the same position as Job. You want to judge God. You want to put him on trial. You disagree with Him.
And if you have the opportunity to question Him directly, you’ll say the same thing Job said.
I’m judging a fictional character based on how he’s characterized by the book he appears in. There may be a higher power, but the god of the Bible certainly ain’t it.
Certainly? You have a better candidate? Baal? Molech? Satan, perhaps?
You do you; pick a side, deny the battle, anything you choose.
I’m quite seriously suggesting that the God of the Bible, and specifically the Christian God, is is the most perfect God that could be imagined, and yet wholly unexpected as He is revealed. The God of the Bible soothes no one. He ruffles everyone’s feathers. He is pure perfect and exacting. Yet there is love and mercy there.
Now, His followers have done a lot to screw up that presentation. But that’s as it always has been. In the Old Testament, in Jesus’s day, and now, the people of God - even those with direct divine revelation - have been misrepresenting Him.
Joshua 24:15 NIV
But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. [Or the gods of reason, science, and unbelief?] But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
And if you have the opportunity to question Him directly, you’ll say the same thing Job said.
That would be what, “Why are you so weirdly obsessed with Leviathan?” after Job 41?
Haha, Leviathan was certainly the “big bad” in Job. I don’t know what creature was being referred to (maybe a species of large crocodile?) but yes, he gets a lot of air time.
No, I meant Job 42:3, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.”
I would add that not every author is writing unbiased in the Bible. We know now for instance that some books near the end of the Bible attributed to Paul may not have been written by him, but by some of the people under Paul in the early church. So adding parts about women not holding positions of authority within the Church more or less served to cement their own positions and authority for the early-Christians that were formalizing the religion.
Yep. That’s addressed in books the Council left out.
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What shits me is Christians (and Jews and Muslims, but it’s mainly Christians who do this) who just handwave away the problem of evil. Like fine, I can accept that some evils might arise as a result of human decisions and free will. Things like wars and genocides are done by people. It’s difficult to swallow even that much with the idea of a god who supposedly knows all, is capable of doing anything, and is “all good”, but fine, maybe free will ultimately supplants all that.
But what I absolutely cannot accept is any claim that tries to square the idea of a god with the triple-omnis with the fact that natural disasters happen. That children die of cancer. You try telling the parents of a child slowly dying of a painful incurable disease that someone could fix it if they wanted, and they completely know about it, but that they won’t. And then try telling them that person is “all good”. See how they react.
I find religious people who believe in the three omnis after having given it any amount of serious consideration to be absolutely disgusting and immoral people.
Yep years ago I was in a bible study, well on my way to being an agnostic already. They were going over a difficult passage and the conclusion was ‘god works in mysterious ways’. Not that I hadn’t heard that nonsense before but for some reason hearing it in that scenario was the last straw and I never went back.
Yeah, the average person gets a pass on this sort of thing because I generally assume they haven’t thought much about it. But it’s particularly galling when biblical scholars do it.
I saw one biblical scholar whose schtick was debunking things evangelicals believe about the bible. He would happily admit it’s written by a collection of authors over a long period of time, who were doing so not literally but in rhetorical styles popular in their day. Things like that.
Once, I saw him describe how the early Israelites did not believe in the three omnis. They may not have even believed in a monotheistic god, but it was certainly not omniscient and omnibenevolent. Then he went on to say that despite that—despite the fact that the authors of the religious text and the society that invented this god not believing in three omnis—he nevertheless did believe god was omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Wtf?
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you here, but thought I’d provide a counter argument.
A group of children are dying of a horrible, deadly disease that can only be cured with the bark from a specific tree. So we go into the forest and chop this tree down to save the children from an excruciating disease.
A squirrel had built its entire home in that tree. That tree was everything to the squirrel. Now the squirrel has nothing and will suffer because we chopped down its home.
How do we explain this to the squirrel? Well, we can’t. No matter how hard we try, we can’t explain why we needed to destroy its home. The squirrel is physically incapable of understanding.
Playing devils advocate here, perhaps the reason for the need for human suffering is so beyond our understanding and comprehension that we are just physically incapable of understanding. Maybe we’re just squirrels, and human suffering needs to happen for some greater purpose unbeknownst to us.
I’m upvoting because I thought this was done good engagement with the premise and you don’t deserve to be downvoted for it.
But fundamentally, you’ve missed a pretty big step. What if god just…didn’t create a situation where children get diseases that can only be cured with one rare tree?
Or, more importantly, what about diseases that cannot be cured? What about natural disasters? Yes, some types of natural disasters have gotten more common and worse as a result of human action, but they still happened before climate change, and if anything were more disruptive to people before we had modern building practices.
We’re talking about a god that is literally capable of anything. It could just wave its hand and delete all disease from existence. It chooses not to.
We’re talking about the Abrahamic trio, so God is supposed to be all powerful. That means there is nothing beyond his power. There is no “can only” or “can’t” or “incapable” for him. He can have His cure and save the tree too, He doesn’t have to choose. Your example only works if God is limited in some capacity, and has to make trade offs that we can’t understand.
A parent can easily do their children’s homework. How does that benefit the kids? A passing mark doesn’t mean the kid understands and the lessons don’t get easier.
The “homework” you’re talking about is war, starvation, disease, rape, slavery, and death.
A parent is supposed to help their children, not torture them to death for a “lesson”.
We did that. It’s our mess to clean up.
Oh, but I never voted for that politician! Did we do anything besides vote and clicktivism?
Disease? Starvation? Disaster? Let us not pretend like God didn’t create human evil either. For what? For fun? “To teach us a lesson”?
The all powerful, all knowing God never seems to do anything either in case you haven’t noticed.
Btw, Alan Watts addressed some of this in The Book (on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are). If you can be bothered.
So we’re given the means to solve these tests. When we learn to work together to solve them, rather than “punishing” each other, we get closer to solving them. Disasters happen, whether natural or man-made. We either work together or we don’t. Test time.
the Abrahamic trio, so God is supposed to be all powerful.
The funny thing is, the ancient Israelites almost certainly didn’t believe this. It was a more recent invention that’s obviously not supported by the old testament or the talmud.
IF there was some reason, first of all, God could give us the ability to understand if he wanted to, as he is not supposed to be limited. Second, it would imply someone is getting something from it, God, us, or otherwise, that for some reason, God can’t give in a way that doesn’t involve evil. But again, if he is never limited, that shouldn’t be the case.
Also, if cancer and other diseases are supposed to exist and kill people for some kind of purpose we don’t understand, why do we have the ability to treat, vaccinate and cure those same diseases? If medicine gets to the point of preventing every ailment, then why does that “oh so important” reason for it existing not matter anymore? It would seem if these things NEED to exist, we shouldn’t be able to prevent them from happening under any circumstances.
Also, if cancer and other diseases are supposed to exist and kill people for some kind of purpose we don’t understand, why do we have the ability to treat, vaccinate and cure those same diseases
Oh god, now you’ve hit on why some of the sects that we consider cults do what they do. Somehow, wearing clothes, using plows, building structures to provide shelter and warehousing, creating roads that wheeled contraptions (but they don’t have engines!) use, etc., etc., as part of our technological lives isn’t a sin, but using medical advancements is!
That argument lands you in the “we can’t know which religion is true” category, because if we can’t know the plans of god, we also can’t know which god is real.
So, while it absolves the believer from having to answer the problem of evil, it simultaneously robs them of any certainty about the truth of their religion.
But only if they think about it.
They’re all true and all not true. Each culture given the appropriate teachers at the appropriate time for the appropriate lessons. Five is five, until it’s 5.2.
That is an interesting thought experiment in general but I don’t think it really squares with Christian theology and the central role humanity has in it.
Any “evil” suffered in current life will be compensated with reward in afterlife.
The concept tends to fall apart with modern Christianity where everyone just goes to heaven and hell is written out.
That doesn’t work. People with crap lives often can’t meet the standards of goodness that many forms of Christianity need for you to be qualified for heaven
Something about camels and needle eyes.
But definitely don’t bring that up with the american ‘christian’ or you’ll have to hear the litany of excuse attempts.
But why is that all good? Why couldn’t he have earth be good?
If there is no evil how can there be good?
If the purpose of life is to be a test, how can you test without challenges (evil)?
The crux of the problem is once again the modernized version of Christianity. Where hell has been written out and Adolf Hitler goes to heaven because “Jesus died for his sins”.
The concept tends to fall apart with modern Christianity where everyone just goes to heaven and hell is written out.
Huh? From what I can tell Christians are more fixated on hell than ever now. Listen to them talk about gay/trans people, Palestinians, women who get abortions, or literally anyone who isn’t Christian, and it’s clear that they’re really excited about the idea that their god will torture those people for all eternity while they get to watch from heaven. You’ll even get catholics and protestants both thinking they’re the only ones going to heaven and the “wrong” kind of Christian goes to hell because of technicalities like whether you go to confession or not or whether praying to Mary is idolatry. Some outright say that it’s okay to kill gay/trans people, Palestinians, etc, because they’re damned anyway and god doesn’t give a shit about them.
Most we observe in the media either the kumbaya Christians, where Jesus died for everyones sins and everyone goes to heaven. Or the MAGA Christians who believe treating the poor like dirt is owning the libs.
The question about evil existing is rather easy to answer but all the Christian internal discourse would be more confusing. I don’t have much experience with it but
technicalities like whether you go to confession or not or whether praying to Mary is idolatry.
Wouldn’t that directly violate the first commandment?
Asking someone already in the kingdom is no different than asking someone without the kingdom to intercede on our behalf. Also God has 72 names in our tradition, millions in others.
Also God has 72 names in our tradition, millions in others.
Mary is not God or part of the trinity right? Jesus ascending into heaven would not mean Mary is in heaven. Which would mean Mary remains dead until judgement day and is not yet in heaven. Unless I am not familiar with something.
You’re not familiar with a lot because churches and politicians occulted this information. It’s in the whole Bible (you can find the Ethiopian Bible in English online but there are mistranslations so you have to go to the Jewish and hermetic kabbalah and other sources to find them. Also I already referred to Psalm 82, wrt God.
Thought terminating cliche
I think you can have this same dilemma as an atheist as well. I’m personally agnostic as I don’t have the knowledge to make a decision.
If we are all just atoms moving/reacting, surely everything we’d ever do would be predetermined by the initial reactions/vectors/forces at the big bang. I know there’s quantum randomness and stuff, but it’s possible that’s all calculable and we simply don’t have the means to calculate it. If that’s the case, IMO we still have freewill because we can’t predict the future, and it’s still worthwhile to move forward doing our best to be good people.
I don’t think believing in fate (or a plan) is strongly correlated with atheism
This isn’t a problem for athiests, I am a determinist athiest, we have no free will and the idea is silly in a place governed by physical laws. It honestly doesn’t matter at all to me and I don’t see any reason to care.
it’s a problem for theists because this is supposed to be a big test, god is checking if we belong in heaven. If we have no free will the test makes no sense at all.
not a christian, but it is a problem for atheists depending on your framework of morality
traditionally, determinism is not compatible with moral responsibility since all actions are predetermined and it is not obvious that one can be held morally responsible for them. you have to do some mental gymnastics with either the nature of causation (see hume), or the nature of morality (see error theory), or the nature of what exactly ‘freedom’ is (see john stewart mill) to resolve this incompatibility
to the problem of the theist test, standard christian doctrine is that your fate in heaven is predetermined and individuals have been pre-chosen by god (theological term is ‘the elect’). in that sense, your worldly life is not a ‘test’, but the idea is that the holy spirit reveals god to those who have been selected.
there are philosophical problems with all of these, but just wanted to make the point that both theist and atheist philosophers have been debating this for hundreds of years and it is not at all actually obvious accepting hard determinism solves everything.
traditionally, determinism is not compatible with moral responsibility since all actions are predetermined and it is not obvious that one can be held morally responsible for them.
this is nonsense. You’re still making choices, just because you would’ve made those choices no matter what doesn’t mean your choices aren’t punishable or your fault. It’s not that you didn’t have a choice, it’s that you would’ve made that decision no matter what based on the laws of physics. These are not incompatible ideas, and I don’t get why people struggle with this. It’s very straightforward.
to the problem of the theist test, standard christian doctrine is that your fate in heaven is predetermined and individuals have been pre-chosen by god (theological term is ‘the elect’). in that sense, your worldly life is not a ‘test’, but the idea is that the holy spirit reveals god to those who have been selected.
this is also nonsense, the point was that it was a test, god should already know who’s going to be selected, if there’s no free will, this is still all pointless. Why does god need the holy spirit to do all that nonsense if it isn’t a test?
It’s not that you didn’t have a choice, it’s that you would’ve made that decision no matter what based on the laws of physics
in your view, what is the difference between having a forced decision and not having a choice? and why exactly would this forced choice be punishable in the same way a free one would be?
the point was that it was a test, god should already know who’s going to be selected, if there’s no free will, this is still all pointless.
a calvinist would not agree that the point is a test. read up on the ‘doctrine of unconditional election’ if you are curious. in brief, god makes decisions about who is saved and who isn’t not based on conditions they follow in their life, but based on his own purposes and goals.
If it’s predetermined, why did god make all these evil people that were just going to be miserable in hell anyway?
this is the problem of evil, there are numerous responses and the literature is extensive. again, a calvinist would probably say that he created evil people for his glory and grace. notably, jesus dying on the cross for humanity’s sins as a display of god’s grace does not make sense without the existence of evil.
in your view, what is the difference between having a forced decision and not having a choice? and why exactly would this forced choice be punishable in the same way a free one would be?
In determinism, you still have free choices, it’s just you would’ve made that choice if time was reversed and played again, nothing changed so why would the result be different? You compared all the options, and decided to make that choice, and if we reversed time, and played it back, you’d still make that decision… but it’s not like the universe compelled you to make that decision, nobody FORCED you to make that choice, you still made a decision all on your own, even if we reversed time and you would’ve made the same one, that changes precisely nothing of importance.
in brief, god makes decisions about who is saved and who isn’t not based on conditions they follow in their life, but based on his own purposes and goals.
then he’s just a dickbag putting us all in a world to suffer for fun, when he could just make us all in heaven.
again, a calvinist would probably say that he created evil people for his glory and grace. notably, jesus dying on the cross for humanity’s sins as a display of god’s grace does not make sense without the existence of evil.
yeah it doesn’t make any sense. that doesn’t actually make it make sense, that’s just a vague set of words. So god is a dickbag that needs worship why? Quite frankly like, any decent human being is better than this god, he’s just evil.
Quite frankly like, any decent human being is better than this god, he’s just evil.
incidentally, i agree with all this. but what a theist would probably say in response is that if god exists, he defines what evil is. what you perceive as evil is just your perception and can be wrong.
its not a bad argument, but i believe contrarily we have deep moral intuitions and can generally rationalize them in a kantian way, i believe we can make moral judgements independently of god.
if god exists, he defines what evil is.
There’s no way to make babies having cancer moral. There’s no version of that god that is any good. If this isn’t a test, why give babies cancer?
there is a bit of a shifting of goalposts here with respect to how you define making a ‘choice’ with regard to logical and physical possibility/impossibility.
suppose i place a marble on a slope and let go. the marble rolls down due to gravity. did the marble ‘choose’ to roll down? it does not seem so.
is it possible for the opposite to occur, that is, the marble to roll up?
- logically? yes, there is nothing logically contradictory about the marble rolling up after i drop it
- physically? no, due to the laws of gravity
the logical possibility that the marble can roll upwards does not mean that it is a free will choice. replace the marble with an agent ‘choosing’ between options A and B, supposing the agent ‘chooses’ B. because you claim to be determinist, i take it you believe physics completely dictates the universe’s events, thus it is physical necessity that the agent ‘chooses’ B. however, it is logically possible for the agent to ‘choose’ A as choosing A does not entail anything logically contradictory.
what is the difference in the case of the agent vs. the marble? or do you actually believe the marble ‘chooses’ to roll down?
what is the difference in the case of the agent vs. the marble?
The agent made its decision based on knowledge, reasoning, experience, the risks, the morals. A marble doesn’t have knowledge, humans do, even if we’re deterministic, we can make decisions, it’s just that the decision will be made no matter what. That doesn’t free us from the responsibility of our decisions.
Just because the agent would’ve never made a different choice, doesn’t mean these things don’t matter anymore, it’s wholly irrelevant to whether or not we should punish them.
My take is that there is no free will, but that this fact is irrelevant and we’re all better off just behaving as though we do.
Yeah. It’s a fair take, and this is generally what I was getting at.
John Calvin approves.
At least here in the US, a person’s zip code of birth is a huge indicator of their success and life trajectory. That, to me, would seem to indicate that free will is bullshit.
why would that be a problem for free will?
all it shows is that we cannot freely choose everything, it does not prove that we are not ever able to freely choose.
Not sure that’s true. Free will doesn’t mean anyone can do anything. It means any decisions a person makes are truly decided by them, and they actually could have made a different decision.
People who don’t believe in free will believe that the physical laws of the universe are deterministic. That leptons and quarks behave in ways determined by their state. That this is true even inside your brain, and thus decisions you make are actually just the result of particles interacting. Even quantum effects, though random, are not consciously decided and thus do not affect free will.
The circumstances you are in change the inputs to those equations, but they don’t change the fact that the equations exist.
Hmm almost as if free will isn’t some magical ability to remove yourself from any disadvantageous situation, but a fundamental liberty to choose how you act in response to said situation and see in it a metaphysical meaning that transcends cultural ideas like success? Damn, wouldn’t that be crazy. If only that was true, could you imagine?
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Or in other words, “free will” is a macroscopic effect arising from the fundamental laws of the universe. Like most everything else we deal with.
Like… temperature doesn’t really exist, it’s really just an average of kinetic energy of particles. But that doesn’t stop it from being a useful concept!
I reckon we are so incredibly complex, are integrating so much information that from inside it’s hard to see if you’re deciding or selecting by rule your preferred path given what you know
You can call the complexity free will, we’re all so different having had different parents, different childhood experiences, different education, different opportunities so each has their own solution that rises to the top in any situation
But also brain scans have demonstrated that for minor stuff (like raising your hand) action precedes “deciding” to take the action.
Robert Sapolsky wrote a whole book on this based on this called Determined. I really enjoyed it and pretty much agree
Why are we better off behaving that way? Under that outlook, it seems like free will is a trap to hold people accountable for things they wouldn’t actually be responsible for.
If you’re a complex machine whose action could be perfectly predicted (with full knowledge of everything you ever experienced) it’s still reasonable to punish you for breaking rules - the risk of punishment goes into your programming as part of the (deterministic) calculation of what action to take
Because one of the many inputs to people’s actions, if we assume that their actions are deterministic, is their knowledge of how other people will respond, and how they have responded to similar things in the past.
It’s also very often used as an argument against rehabilitation in prisons:
If free will exists, then crime is a choice. If you choose crime, you are a bad person, and punishment is the only way forward.
If you commit the crime again, it’s because the punishment didn’t work, and/or because the person is simply bad, so a longer punishment is needed, and infinitum.
It’s also used to justify the death penalty, which would not make any sense in a deterministic universe.
That’s not a dilemma for atheists because atheists aren’t the ones claiming there’s an omnipotent being guiding everything.
Also, you can be both an atheist and an agnostic. They cover different things. I’m fairly certain you’d consider yourself an atheist in regards to the sun god Ra.
I’m mostly agnostic to it almost all of it. For all I know, the ancient Egyptians were spot on.
I’m convinced it’s impossible for us to determine whether there are two gods or not.
I’m a diagnostic.
Damnit, I just finished watching Alien Romulus and that’s a dad joke worthy for the android in it.
I think you can have this same dilemma as an atheist as well.
I’d like to hear your opinions on how you think so (truly). The way I see things, Atheism is only the answer to a single question: do you believe in any gods? If “yes,” you’re a theist or deist. If “no; I don’t know; not currently; maybe one day,” then you’re an atheist. It’s not a philosophy or a comprehensive worldview, and it can’t possibly answer deeper questions.
What you’re referring to in the latter half is Determinism and Compatibilism (Determinism + free will). Science is currently leaning pretty strongly towards Determinism, but since Compatibilism doesn’t add much more to the idea, it’s also still a candidate possibility.
It’s very likely you could calculate every chain reaction from the Big Stretch up until now and maybe even into the future. Whether we have the ability to affect or disrupt those chains might be a matter of philosophy.
God having a plan vs. everything being calculable to us is practically the same thing, no? Either way, it’s still best to act within your moral framework, religious or atheist because it’s just better to be a good person. I think me calling it a dilemma for either side is a stretch.
That’s not how predetermination works. Just because there is an explosion does not mean that every particle has a preset location it must reach to enact a grander outcome of the combustion. Atheists don’t suffer from a need to have decisions rendered by an omnipotent being or a universe that is some stand-in for that being. There is no grand plan. The Big Bang was not some kick off for a well thought out schematic.
I never meant to imply it was. I was simply stating that with a hyper advanced understanding of chemistry it’s possible that everything in the universe could have been predicted up to this point by an infinitely well programmed/powerful computer or whatever. Because in my head, that’s theoretically possible, it’s also possible everything is predetermined, not by some grand scheme or designs, but just predetermined by random chance.
Apologies if I’m using the incorrect phrasing.
I don’t think we know enough about the universe yet to be sure that cause/effect is 100% the be all end all. It sure seems like it is from where we’re standing now though, that’s for sure.
But did you choose which atoms make up you? I think there is no free will because we’re don’t choose out of all options what atoms we get, we are just thrown into a random atom combination.
True true, but if there is genuinely quantum randomness, then the reactions those atoms go through aren’t predetermined, so the initial conditions could be on an individual basis, but not the long term.
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No matter how well you point out the paradox (if God knows everything that will happen, free will doesn’t exist, because everything is predetermined, just like a fully written book), a significant portion of christians will simply ignore and keep circling between “but God gave us free will” and “God knows everything”
