Is this the best of all possible worlds?
Posted by Go1gotha@reddit | greentext | View on Reddit | 455 comments
Posted by Go1gotha@reddit | greentext | View on Reddit | 455 comments
lyfeNdDeath@reddit
The Abrahamic god is of a falsifiable nature. Spinoza's idea of God is much more interesting
Il-Duce-@reddit
Why is this being downvoted. I don’t know what Spinoza’a idea of God is? Is that unpopular?
lyfeNdDeath@reddit
https://youtu.be/gioaH2kFaIM?si=ABfvvWidmgsH44gm You can watch this video on spinoza's idea of God.
As to why I got down voted it's probably because I called the existence or atleast the nature of God as described in the Abrahamic religions as easily falsifiable. Falsifiable basically means a statement that can be logically proven false. God is described as all knowing all powerful and infinitely merciful. All of these can be proven false. There are is a famous paradox called the omnipotence paradox which says that can an omnipotent God make a mountain so heavy that he himself can't lift it, not being able to lift the mountain means that God is not omnipotent, being able to lift it means that he can't make such a mountain so he's again not omnipotent. It's basically like Russell's paradox in early set theory.
If you want to explore more about why God allows evil to persist you can look up something called "theodicy".
Il-Duce-@reddit
I’ve heard about that paradox, and I was thinking the other day of a way to try and resolve it.
So basically the paradox is this right?: Can God create something which he cannot destroy? If the answer is yes, then there is something God cannot destroy so he isn’t omnipotent. If the answer is no, then God is not omnipotent because he can’t do something.
So I think that the answer to this question is no, and that it doesn’t create a paradox for the same reason that saying God can’t create a four-sided triangle doesn’t create issues with his omnipotence, because what’s being asked for is itself a logical contradiction, yeah it’s something that an omnipotent being couldn’t do but that’s because the concept being asked for does not have logical coherence. The object that God cannot destroy is like the triangle, because omnipotence by virtue of being omnipotence can’t be limited and an object God couldn’t destroy would be a fairly obvious limitation. In essence the question is asking can omnipotence not be omnipotence, the limit is one of logical coherence rather than of potency proper.
Typing it out it definitely seemed a solution defence in my head, but I’m curious if any similar sort of idea has been thought before in theology?
Natedude2002@reddit
I mean if god is all knowing, he knows what I’m going to do, therefore I can’t choose to do anything. An all knowing god would know from the beginning of time if I was going to have pizza or hibachi for breakfast tomorrow. If he didn’t know, he wouldn’t be all knowing, right?
This has actually been my biggest issue with simultaneously believing in free choice and an all knowing god, so if anyone has an answer to this I’d love to hear it. And while we’re at it, the reason I don’t believe that god is good/just (if he exists at all), is a good/just god wouldn’t allow all the suffering in the world. For instance, that bible camp that got flooded and a bunch of kids drowned a couple years ago.
vitimilocity@reddit
Good by your subjective worldview?
Natedude2002@reddit
Yes, innocent children suffering via starving to death/flooding/disease is objectively not good in my subjective worldview.
vitimilocity@reddit
By what objective standard do you have this beleif? Or do you have one?
Natedude2002@reddit
Because it’s bad
vitimilocity@reddit
Why is it objectively bad from your worldview
Natedude2002@reddit
I’m not arguing my worldview. You’re not gonna convince me it’s not bad that innocent people suffer for no reason.
necronformist@reddit
A thousand years of theology vs a greentext
KodakKid3@reddit
this geeentext isn’t some gotcha but are we really gonna pretend “a thousand years of christian theology” is some irrefutable authority
literally first chapter is a talking snake lol
ImTheZapper@reddit
Apparently the more ancient a piece of fiction, the more its supposed to be taken seriously. In 2 thousand years harry potter and LOTR will reign supreme in theology.
arbiter12@reddit
I mean, and I say this with no sympathy, there is a "test of time" argument.
If something was studied, debated and estimated for 2000 years, it's more peer-reviewed than something I came up with in the shower. It doesn't mean it's perfect, or even good, but it's "better".
Theology is not "2000 years of people agreeing with each other" (if you know anything about lore-nerds, it's more like "2000 years of constant arguing"), so it's VERY peer-reviewed, at least in the basic structural concepts.
Nowadays we can crowd-source knowledge, so time is a bit less relevant, but back in the days if something was older than your great-grandfather, it was basically as old as the earth itself (no way to know anything older without reading and most people can't read).
TrumpDesWillens@reddit
In that case then Hinduism or some ancestor worship type shit is the most based religion cause they're the oldest.
commentsandopinions@reddit
Peer review is people criticizing your explanation because they don't believe that what you're saying is consistent with observed data.
Christian history is people arguing with the source of "I made it the fuck up" and pretending that the the slightly different version of the story they use to control their particular flock is the one true story.
Comparing that to anything academic is hilarious.
arbiter12@reddit
No...Peer-reviews is when you're being reviewed by your peers.
A cardinal arguing with another cardinal is a peer review.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review
Go educate yourself before you attempt to educate others.
commentsandopinions@reddit
Read more than the first couple sentences before you try to claim to be educating anyone
kdjoeyyy@reddit
It’s not as simple as you are making it seem
Xardnas69@reddit
It is that simple, it's not peer reviewed and never will be
-esperanto-@reddit
You’re a genuine idiot, he was using peer review as a metaphor to begin with
ImTheZapper@reddit
Using a word wrong isn't a metaphor. That was an attempt to use the authority that the term "peer reviewed" carries with it, but for something it literally cannot apply to.
Nanocephalic@reddit
Haha fuck no, you can’t pretend that religion has been peer reviewed
arbiter12@reddit
You morons know the difference between peer-review and scientific peer-review, right?
ImTheZapper@reddit
Like I said, bandwagoning their preferred stories. Plenty of thousands of years old religious sects have bitched and moaned the whole time about it. This all comes down to a bunch of people crying to each other over imaginary things they like more than other imaginary things.
Xardnas69@reddit
Christianity is not peer reviewed lmao. Hell, people can't fucking agree on the interpretation to the point that multiple branches of christianity exist with some pretty huge differences. That means that either the bible is poorly written slop or the people arguing about it are all idiots. The answer is both.
And regardless, anon is completely right. The bible explicitly says that god is all-knowing, almighty and all-loving. If he knows everything, he knows every choice you will ever make and thus you have no free will and are punished for something you didn't really have any agency in.
If he somehow isn't omniscient, he's still almighty so he can just make himself omniscient (monotheistic religions are so boring man). Unless he isn't almighty, but then he's not really a god
God is watching a movie that he directed and punishes you for playing the role he forced upon you to perfection (not like you had any choice). Christianity is inherently flawed and full of bullshit like this
Fun1k@reddit
JustATownStomper@reddit
"Peer reviewed" lol only recently have religious institutions, and not everywhere, have stopped indoctrinating people and suppressing sharp criticism. 200 years ago people were still burning at the stake for saying the wrong things.
13ame@reddit
You said old = true just because it‘s old. If this was about peer reviews there wouldn‘t even be a debate. We have z e r o solid evidence of god yet a ton to prove that he can‘t exist. Which is it?
Byder@reddit
peer-reviewed lol.
TheBluesDoser@reddit
Yeah, but for 1850 of those years, people were mostly morons.
Hell, even in the othet 150
wordjedi@reddit
It's all about having a lot of kids then indoctrinating them when they're too young to have critical thinking. It's why so many religions are family this, family that. Sounds wholesome, the religions which did not keep flogging everybody to breed, like the Shakers shrank and died.
The "genius" is, nobody needed to create an evil plan to bullshit everyone into making more congregants. There have been religions which promoted celibacy and ones which promoted breedin'. The ones that we have today did the latter.
Alfred_Leonhart@reddit
You do know we don’t think the Iliad or Odyssey is a theological piece right?
Drafo7@reddit
Judaism is plenty old tf are you talking about? In fact I think the only major world religion that's older is Hinduism.
ihatetheplaceilive@reddit
Zoroastrianism is older than judaism. In fact, a lot of historians believe that judaism was influence by zoroastrianism. Particularly with the appearance of angels and demons, as well as the messianic idea.
Drafo7@reddit
Cool beans. Lmk when it has a few million followers. Then I'll consider it a "major world religion."
ihatetheplaceilive@reddit
You do know there were lots of semetic language speaking civilisations. There's only one left. I'll let you marinate on that.
Drafo7@reddit
And how does that have anything to do with what we're talking about?
ihatetheplaceilive@reddit
Look up why jees are in the semetic class of linguistics.
Semetics isn't religion. It's a language profile.
Drafo7@reddit
I'm not Jewish and I'm not trying to convert anyone to Judaism. I was not saying Judaism is superior to other religions or is more valid or true in any way. All I said was that it's the second-oldest major world religion, which is an objective fact. And I've never killed anyone.
ihatetheplaceilive@reddit
No it isn't. Like said, there's hinuism which is one, and zoroastruanism, which is two. So, you see, you are objectively wrong.
Drafo7@reddit
Zoroastrianism has less than 200k followers worldside. It's not a major world religion.
ihatetheplaceilive@reddit
When was anything said about major?
Drafo7@reddit
I said Judaism was the second-oldest major world religion. Are you illiterate?
ImTheZapper@reddit
Only major religion of today sure, since at the oldest its around 4 thousand years old. Plenty of religious artifacts and architecture about twice as old as the oldest modern religions are known though.
For example, the one I fucking mentioned in the comment you replied to.
Drafo7@reddit
So in other words, a religion's age has nothing to do with how many people believe it. You disproved your own point.
ImTheZapper@reddit
My point was "how old it is has nothing to do with authority", because I was agreeing with the guy I responded to. Are you mentally delayed in some way?
Drafo7@reddit
This was your comment. You were claiming that people in the future would believe LotR and Harry Potter were actual historical events because the books would be thousands of years old by then. You were also relating this to modern religions, and therefore insinuating that the only reason people believe them is because they're old. But then you immediately contradicted yourself by bringing up a belief system even older than Judaism that no one believes anymore. If age was what made people believe in Judaism (or Christianity, or Hinduism, or whatever) then there would still be millions of worshipers of Tiamat. But there aren't. So my question for you: were you born a moron and an asshole, or were you just born a moron and decided to become an asshole later?
ImTheZapper@reddit
Wait you decided on your own that my point was the fucking joke of my comment and not the thing I agreed to that I said was my point? Try being condescending when you don't sound more inbred than a habsburg.
Jijelinios@reddit
Bro; you're not as prepares as you think. Spend some time listenijg to people who don't already agree to your views, but truly listen and make an effort to understand their point of view even if it feels wrong, force yourself to accept another view.
Drafo7@reddit
What are you even talking about? I'm not arguing perspectives or opinions. I'm talking about facts. Judaism is the second-oldest major world religion in the world right now. That is a fact. I'm not saying it's any more or less true or valid than any other religion, but the fact remains that it's older than Buddhism, older than Taoism, older than Confucianism, and it's got over 15 million followers. This has nothing to do with differing points of view. I'm not about to start forcing myself to accept that the world is flat, so why should I force myself to believe whatever tf you think this conversation is about?
BrazillianFartPorn@reddit
Absolute idiot lmao
MardavijZiyari@reddit
No religion is older than any other
NinpoSteev@reddit
Meanwhile non fiction can be treated as a joke. I'm not seeing anyone keeping a close eye on Ea Nasir's descendants.
Kicooi@reddit
In 2 thousand years, the religious people of that era will compare the descriptions of Leviathan in Job, and Dragons in Tolkien, and claim that the two corroborate each other and that this is irrefutable proof that their holy book is real and true (it’s an amalgamation of the Bible, the Quran, the Hobbit, and Spider-Man)
strawberry_semenade@reddit
"But that part wasn't meant to be taken literally!"
Gonna start using this argument every time I lie. "I didn't lie, my words just weren't meant to be taken literally!"
Do-it-for-you@reddit
For thousands of years it was taken literally, then we disproved it and all of a sudden it’s not meant to be taken literally.
Christofray@reddit
loud incorrect buzzer noise
Do-it-for-you@reddit
Do you have proof that Genesis was not taking literally for thousands of years?
Christofray@reddit
The belief that the Bible is historically inerrant was a reactionary response to Enlightenment era examination of the Bible. Those peoples’ relationship with historical fact was more complicated than “did this actually happen or not.” And pretty much anyone who studies this type of material professionally will tell you as much. Trying to boil it down into a simple binary is post-Enlightenment behavior. There is a marked increase in the prevalence of that dogma after those examinations became more widespread.
INCUMBENTLAWYER@reddit
Not really, there have always been non-literalists like Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and others
Do-it-for-you@reddit
True, but those are anomalies, and even then, the only times they came to the conclusion to not take parts of the bible literally, was to explain away issues and contradictions they found in the bible.
Clement of Alexandria said to not take Mark 10:25 literally to try and explain how rich Christians were also allowed in heaven. Or how to explain the Celestial Hierarchy which appeared contradictory.
Augustine knew Genesis and Sirach 18:1 contradicted each other, so to fix this he just said don't take Genesis literally. He even just straight up closed the book on everything and said "If science contradicts the bible, then that part of the bible shouldn't be taken literally". So, like I said, they were taken literally, until it was proven wrong, in which case you don't take it literally, that was basically his motif.
Had they not found any contradictions, you can bet they would have taken everything literally too. But because they found contradictions, they felt forced to tell people to not take it literally to try and explain these issues away.
INCUMBENTLAWYER@reddit
I don't really see why augustine's position is so bad though. Re-evaluating your understanding of a text based on new information is a good thing, actually.
Nanocephalic@reddit
The christian message is true, except that every time we learn how something works, it disagrees with the christian holy books.
INCUMBENTLAWYER@reddit
Tell me exactly how something like evolution disproves concepts like repentance, or the resurrection, or final judgement?
Wrangel_5989@reddit
Augustine is quite literally the foundation of much of Catholic theology so no he wasn’t an anomaly lol. Much of his belief continued through theologians like Thomas Aquinas.
Additionally it’s been the Church’s position that the Bible isn’t meant to be scientifically 100% accurate, that’s why the church was the sponsor of science through the renaissance and many scientific advancements came from Catholic priests. Universities as a whole came from Catholicism, as well as the history of debate on universities as they were very much where different theological and scientific ideas were put up for debate.
Where you biblical literalists is with the rise of Protestantism as the Bible is the be all end all while Catholicism and all apostolic churches hold that Christ established a church to guide humanity. As such Protestantism is where you see the rupture, as seen especially with Young Earth Creationists. You also see Protestants fail to heed Augustine’s words and fall into the Muslim trap of trying to prove the Bible to be scientifically accurate.
TheBasedEmperor@reddit
Their “allegorical” interpretations didn’t extend beyond the meaning of “days.” They still believed that Adam and Eve were real people and that a global flood really happened, otherwise Eusebius wouldn’t have spent so much time trying to reconcile the Babylonian flood myth with the biblical one.
Shlafenflarst@reddit
I'm still convinced many things in the scriptures were actually not meant to be taken literally, yet some idiots did, and we know how it went from there.
commentsandopinions@reddit
The book's message being up to your interpretation is incompatible with its message being a divine truth of the way things are supposed to be. It's really just one or the other.
KonamiKing@reddit
This really isn’t true.
Like the creation for example, it has the cycles of ‘day and night’ before there was a sun created. It is obviously not meant to be literally 24 hours. And the hebrews didn’t. But some loonies at some point decided it was a literal modern week.
Do-it-for-you@reddit
Not sure where you're getting the information that Genesis was not meant to be taken literally. I'm trying to google some information on it now and I keep getting literal explanations, and we're in 2026.
Like how God himself is illuminating the universe or how God is able to create light without it coming from a source because he is god. Or how the creation of the sun was happening on day 1 but not completed until day 4, etc.
KonamiKing@reddit
I didn’t say it was not taken literally in the past. Just that it has also been taken not literally in the past as well.
Even the definition of ‘literal’ isn’t clear. When it says ‘the first day’ does it literally mean 24 hours, even when the necessary object to define day, the sun, has not been created yet?
Do-it-for-you@reddit
Come on man you're being pedantic. I'm not claiming it has never not been taken literally before, I'm claiming that generally, among the vast majority of Christians throughout the history of Christianity, it was taken literally.
And yes, a day is a 24 hour period, the vast majority of Christians throughout history believed God created the world in 6 separate 24 hour time periods and rested on the 7th.
KonamiKing@reddit
You don’t have any evidence for that. Probably even the majority of ancient Jewish and Christian theologians considered it purely a structural explanation device. The structure is the three places are created (light/dark, sky/water, land/water) and then populated in the next three days (sun moon, birds fish, animals).
It’s really only been seen as the ‘default’ by American evangelicals in recent centuries.
Do-it-for-you@reddit
If you mean we don't have evidence that majority of Christians and Jewish people throughout history believed Genesis described the literal creation of the universe. I can tell you we have a ton of evidence for this. Genesis was absolutely meant to be taken as a fact of matter, not a story, not fiction, and that's exactly how the vast majority of people read it and understood it throughout history.
The message that God judged human violence with a great flood requires an actual, historical flood, which includes the creation of the actual rainbow. Not a fake metaphorical flood, and that was how people understood it for centuries.
Preaching Christ from Genesis, by Sidney Greidanus, Eerdmans 2007, and Graeme Goldsworthy’s Gospel and Kingdom. The Paternoster Press 1982.
croptochuck@reddit
Works with Trump.
arbiter12@reddit
thatguy_jacobc@reddit
Rent ain’t free these days. Gas, groceries, ballrooms, taxes goin to billionaires
Most of us can’t live off the protein rich river of political semen your drinking from
Loves_octopus@reddit
The issue is if OOP wanted to actually understand what Christians believe they could Google “free will christianity” and get a million results discussing the topic.
My biggest pet peeve is someone coming up with a half decent question about a thought structure and thinking they’re the first person to think of it and that it completely refutes the thought structure.
It’s most egregious in flat earth circles where they will ask legitimately good questions about the “globe model” but completely ignore any legitimate answer. You’re almost there! Thinking critically is good! But god forbid you accidentally learn something.
LeglessElf@reddit
But free will is itself a bad response to the problem of evil. Ignoring the fact that most Christians can't coherently define what free will even is, it doesn't actually absolve God of anything.
Suppose the tri-omni, eternal God is considering what type of universe he wants to create. He considers a universe (our universe) in which humans have free will. But, since he's God, he knows exactly what humans will do with their free will if he chooses to create said world. He knows that there will be hundreds of genocides and millions of rapes and tens of millions of dead children if he chooses to create said world. God doesn't actually have to create such a world. He could create an entirety different world where humans still have free will, or he could avoid creating a world altogether. By considering our world and all the bad stuff it will involve and choosing to create it anyway, God is choosing to bring about all of said bad stuff.
It's like if Ted Bundy's mom somehow magically knew with 100% certainty what her son would do if she became pregnant, and yet she chooses to raise Ted Bundy anyway. Yes, there is a sense in which Ted Bundy is responsible for all of his murders. But his mom would be responsible in a far more profound and ultimate way.
Now do I get to pontificate about how all the Christians deploying the erroneous "free will" defense can't be asked to do some basic research on the subject before opening their mouths? Or is this back-and-forth just a normal part of how discourse works, in a world where the vast majority of people have to have opinions on subjects they haven't fully investigated yet?
Sofagirrl79@reddit
Ted Bundys teeth told him to do terrible things,but his Molars tried to hold him back
American dental care sucks lol 😂
arbiter12@reddit
There're a lot of assumptions here. (Mind you, i'm not theologist or even a good Christian)
1- "Suffering is evil"
Suffering is a bad feeling, but it would be hard to argue that all suffering is "evil" and/or "useless". Most learning and growing takes pain so unless we take growth as evil, suffering is not evil. He created the world knowing it would cause suffering, suffering is not evil. It works as intended. (oversimplified, it's not a full argument)
2- "G.d needs to be absolved"
Practically, even if you completely hate and disrespect the dude/entity, He doesn't need your approval. You are completely free to disagree and hate what's happening, but if there is a hierarchy and if He is on top, He literally doesn't need your understanding, approval or acceptance. You hate billionaires, CEOs and G.d, but none of them ever responded to the angry tweets. Why would they?
3- "G.d doesn't have to create the world"
Even empirically, this one is shaky. Maybe His existence depends on the universe being a place. Maybe he inherited a blank space and this is his 500th universe (bigbang cycle). Maybe the minuscule failures in crime-rate/wars on that one dumb planet we live on, is nothing compared to the huge success of organizing the entire universe. I wouldn't know but to assume that "Entity doesn't need to do X, because I don't need to do X" is a basic fallacy.
You are completely correct though, christf4gs trying to say that everything is perfect all the time and free will is the only problem are massively coping. I'm answering you because your arguments have merit, but I wouldn't engage with them at all.
LeglessElf@reddit
There are good reasons for making all of these assumptions I made, and significant costs for rejecting them: costs that Christians generally would not be happy to take on. Sure, there are all kinds of other deities that could still exist, but the problem of evil pretty thoroughly and specifically precludes the God of the Bible (as Christians understand him) from existing.
Re #1, arguments from the instrumentality of suffering cannot absolve God. Any end that can be attained via suffering, an omnipotent deity can attain without suffering.
What's more, even if God weren't omnipotent and really did need to allow suffering in order to facilitate growth, this would then just raise the opposite problem of why there is any comfort or peace in the world. Since comfort and peace deprive us of opportunities for growth, it seems that only a truly evil God would allow comfort or peace to exist. A Christian who used this defense could no longer consistently thank God for "good" things that happen to them, since those would all represent missed opportunities for growth.
You could try to take the middle position that every good requires an equal and opposite evil, and that it all cancels out in the end. In which case the world and its happenings tell us nothing at all about whether God is good or evil (if it even makes a difference), since every possible world is consistent with either. This is essentially a nihilist position. It doesn't matter what I do or God does. The balance of good and evil is maintained no matter what. Obviously Christians would not be happy with this conclusion.
Re #2, God needs to be accountable* to a moral standard outside himself in order for the term "omnibenevolence" (the third "omni") to have any meaning with respect to God at all. If what God does is only "good" because it's what God does, then you haven't actually told me anything about the types of things God is liable to do. God could literally do anything at all and it would be consistent with such a standard of goodness. It would no longer be meaningful praise for Christians to say that God is good. The ontological argument (a popular theist argument which generally states that the greatest conceivable being has to exist) would no longer be able to explain why God is the way he is.
*By accountable, I mean morally accountable. An omnipotent deity can obviously do whatever he wants without suffering repercussions. The actions of said deity are still good or evil based on the merits of the actions themselves, as per some moral standard that isn't just "Everything I do is good because I did it."
Re #3, it certainly is possible that God depends on our universe in some way (or even that our universe is part of God, rather than some separate creation). That again goes against the idea Christians have of a perfect God who is entirely above us.
hunter54711@reddit
This argument only makes sense in the context of our current universe where we have both suffering and pleasure. God inherently is outside of that dichotomy. It doesn't take imagination to imagine a universe where suffering does not exist, and that's you as a mere mortal. Not an all powerful creator God.
I would agree that the creator of the universe doesn't need my approval. But on the other hand, the creator of the universe would logicalyl have a completely different set of morals than a mortal on Earth. Why would I consider his opinion on morality to be more correct than mine?
I would say personally this is your best argument, although having such massive limitations on the creator of the universe precludes him from being omnipotent.
This plays on to what I said before but I think you're right that if a creator does exist his priorities are completely alien to us. And even if we assume a creator is the Christian God what makes his opinion and values more correct than mine?
MrBoxingMatch@reddit
The issue with the “free will” argument is that God doesn’t seem to care about free will in the Old Testament and is clearly willing to act against evil. He floods the earth because of humans committing great sin, sends bears to maul children for disrespecting of his prophet, sends a famine onto Israel for Baal worship, sends plagues onto Egypt for enslaving the Israelites, etc
If God truly gave a rat's ass about free will, then he should be purely non-interventionist and just let things play out naturally. An interventionist God is incompatible with free will.
commentsandopinions@reddit
Honestly there's an even more basic issue with the free will argument: if god can't create a universe where people have free will yet doing evil and causing suffering is impossible then she isn't god, as supposed by abrahamic religions, ie omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent.
The_Law_of_Pizza@reddit
None of which will actually answer the question, because the church has been trying (and failing) to address this problem since it was created.
We don't have to artificially pretend that there's some reasonable, respectable answer just because there's two thousand years of horseshit to read through.
The OP might be a greentext written by a schizophrenic teenager in their mom's basement, and it may not be an original thought - but it's still a critical point and a fair criticism.
lilgraytabby@reddit
But most of the answers put forth are totally unsatisfying and reek of "oh shit how do we maintain that all of this is true while brushing off this question". All of the answers syart from the assumption that Christianity is true.
Loves_octopus@reddit
I can guarantee there’s no shortage of works that do not assume Christianity is true. Obviously the Christian ones do.
lilgraytabby@reddit
What do you recommend that tries to answer this without starting from a Christian perspective?
psinguine@reddit
The Greentext is also dumb. Just because I know you'll do it doesn't mean I made you do it. If my kid does something stupid, and I'm not surprised because I fucking knew they were gonna do something stupid, and then I punish him for doing the stupid thing, he'd be a dipshit if he tried to argue that I made him do it. No, you're just predictable.
commentsandopinions@reddit
If you made the entire universe in the way that it is knowing that the results of your actions and how you have chosen to make it will result in that outcome then yes, you did make them do it.
I know, that if I light this match in this room full of gasoline, this room will catch on fire and my house will burn down.
Buuuuuut even if I light the match and walk away I didn't burn down the room, the burning gas vapors did!
psinguine@reddit
Did we read the same Greentext cuz I'm talking about that.
Huuballawick@reddit
The way I see it, Christianity it basically just a fanfic of Judaism, which itself is a fictional pseudo-history/cultural stories of the Jewish people/faith. So it's not even worth considering in an objective way.
wordjedi@reddit
Joe Rogan: "that guy's dead" meaning [the prophet who wrote it]()
DiabeticRhino97@reddit
(it is not literally in the first chapter lol)
beingmemybrownpants@reddit
There are a couple schools of thought about on it. The Free Will and Calvinism. Kierkegaard it's been a lot of timem using about it. There's certainly aren't good explanations. And that's where Kierkegaard says you got to do that leap of faith should
Old-Post-3639@reddit
What was meant was that there have been two thousand years of pondering implications like these. If anon actually had a question about this, the works of people like St. Augustine of Hippo or St. Thomas Aquinas would likely propose solutions. Chances are, if you've thought of some theological snafu, someone else has already made an effort to untangle it.
sanchower@reddit
Question. In this thousand years of studying theology, what has been learned? What conclusions do almost all of the world’s theologians agree upon, and what has definitely been ruled out?
I mean like in the same way that everyone in the physics world agrees that Einstein’s theories of relativity are real, except for fringe quacks that nobody takes seriously. We should have arrived at least on which God exists, right?
Tyrannosaurtillerson@reddit
Yeah we've still had a thousand years of philosophy and guess what, we're still no closer to finding a universal meaning of life. Does that mean we need to throw out Socrates, Nietzsche, and Kant? Somethings, like philosophy, and like religion, we can never know for sure.
Some things cannot be universalized to apply to every one. It's why some people can find absolute fulfillment and absolute love in Christ and some don't. Unfortunately, there is no flow chart towards happiness, sometimes you just need a leap of faith.
sanchower@reddit
yeah but like they aren't the same thing, you know? Philosophy says, here are the big questions of life, and here are some tools we can use to think about them. Religion, on the other hand, is almost like a stunted, primitive version of philosophy. It likes to say, here are the big questions, and here are the answers, I have arrived at them by supernatural means, trust me bro. No I am not going to provide you with actual evidence, just "HaVe FaItH" that I'm not scamming you.
(And sometimes, religion IS a scam. Just straight-up. Scientology for example, or Mormonism, are religions founded by con artists. They just sat down one day and made up a bunch of bullshit. How can I reliably tell what's a scam and what isn't? We only know definitively that those two examples are scams because they happened relatively recently.)
You can't just glibly say "well some answers simply don't apply to everyone and you have to find your own path" when religion is going around making definitive statements - with answers - that are either true or not. Will you, or will you not, be punished in the afterlife for the sin of drinking alcohol? This isn't like Kant's categorical imperative where it's just one way of thinking about the world. It is a thing that either does or does not happen. So which is it, theologians? This is important because I'm planning a party this weekend.
Tyrannosaurtillerson@reddit
I'm not arguing that philosophy and religion are the same. I'm arguing that unlike science, philosophy and religion attempt to answer questions that you logically cannot answer. So just as there is no universal theological truth that applies to all religions, there is no universal philosophical truth that applies to all philosophies.
People aren't religious because they want to scam people (believe me there's a lot of better ways to make money than arguing over theology with reddit comments), they are religious because of a personal experience with God that transformed their life.
What's important to understand is that there are levels to truth. For example: OJ killing his wife is on a very different level of truth than the sky is blue today. I would stake my life on the sky being blue. I would not stake my life on OJ killing his wife.
To religious people, God being real is on the sky being blue level of truth, it might be on an even deeper level of truth. They have experienced a personal experience and relationship with God as real as the sun rising up in the morning and the sky being blue during the day.
The reason why I say religion can't be universalized to everyone is because not everyone experiences this relationship with God. Personally, I don't believe that God makes himself known to everyone. I believe that some people are predestined to be saved and some are not.
If you never experienced a religious experience then of course religion and theology don't make sense. But if you have, you understand it to be the deepest source of truth and the rock upon you build the rest of your life.
sanchower@reddit
Oh okay yeah that makes sense. God reveals himself to some people, but not others. Oh and he gives different people completely conflicting ideas of who he is and what he wants, so they’ll get into protracted centuries-long arguments about it with no possible resolution. Right?
Or maybe not, and your particular brand of Calvinism is the only correct thing, and people who claim special revelations of the Buddha or whatever are just hallucinating and/or lying?
luketwo1@reddit
I do enjoy the fact there are like 7-8 major religions that all say you go to hell for worshipping the wrong one, even if god were real your odds are not good lol
BobertRosserton@reddit
That’s always been the funniest part about Pascal’s wager. “Nooooo u have to love god and believe in him, statistically you have nothing to lose by believing in him and only lose out if he is real and you don’t believe!” Yeah except when you choose Christianity and it turns out the one true God was some random sect of ultra orthodox Mormonism.
sanchower@reddit
Also the “you have nothing to lose” part is bullshit because immediately after that they tell you to follow all their rules and give them 10% of your paycheck.
TheCentralPosition@reddit
Just believe in a version that doesn't ask you to do that.
sanchower@reddit
Well that’s another problem with Pascal wager, I can’t choose what I believe. I have to follow what the evidence suggests. I mean I guess I could try gaslighting myself into believing it, but I’d always be aware of my self-deception on some level
spectraldominoc@reddit
That except that the fact Hell isn't what you're actually thinking of, the one that is pushed by the media like hellfire and red demons , Hell is simply not being in God's Realm basically, you rejected him , and that is it , and as far as i know , i could be wrong but there isnt mentions of what hell actually is other than your separation of God.
So it's like , oh you dont want to live with me , okay. And that's it ig.
QuixoticCoyote@reddit
There is that one thing about being tossed into the furnace where there will be fire and the gnashing of teeth, but even that isn't, like, right now. Thats at the end times, not a current hell.
The hell that we know of is basically fanon.
sanchower@reddit
Well yeah and there’s dozens of sects of Christianity, and some of them say, yes, hell is definitely 100% real, and you’ll be physically tortured forever if you go there. But others say it’s just “separation from God” and that you’re just going to be apart from his presence forever, or maybe you just stop existing, or nobody goes there at all. Also they differ on who goes there - just really bad people? All non-believers? Just people who consciously reject God? What about unborn babies, mentally handicapped people, things like that? And if non-believers go to hell - what does that mean? What, specifically, does one have to believe in order for it to “count”?
Ask a hundred theologians these questions. Get a hundred answers.
Longjumping_Belt_405@reddit
Dont forget gods uknowable mercy and that he can decide on a case by case basis according to some
DapperBug9267@reddit
Einstein's theory of relativity is the closest theory to the truth (observation results) that we have right now that explains gravity. But it's still incomplete as it doesn't work at the very small level (which is no unimportant fringe quack). Physics is an everchanging world, and it definitely won't stop now as discoveries are speeding up.
necronformist@reddit
You're mistaking me for someone who takes theology seriously
hairyballsinmybutt@reddit
Gotta love how it's always only Christian theology.
PrrrromotionGiven1@reddit
Because no native English speaker has Islamic or Hindu or Buddhist etc. theology and cultural stories inserted into their upbringing
At most you get a couple of dumb anecdotes from each (dude... yin-yang is so deep...) but it's nothing compared to the exposure you naturally get to Christian folklore and mythology even if neither of your parents are Christians
hairyballsinmybutt@reddit
I don't think it's that deep. I just think people are mad their parents made them go to church when they were kids.
PrrrromotionGiven1@reddit
The obviously stupid stuff from the Bible like Noah's Ark gets heat, but who has even heard of the stupid stuff in Hindu mythology? Nobody except Hindus and people brought up in India. Meaning it isn't discussed on the English-speaking internet. From what I gather, Hindu mythology is effectively powerscalers going crazy making up insane feats for all the different deities, like it's the ancient version of kids in the playground arguing why Sonic would kick Mario's ass or whatever. I'm sure there is similar idiocy in all major religions somewhere.
My parents didn't make me go to school even once because they are both atheists. Yet, my exposure to Christian culture was thorough anyway.
commentsandopinions@reddit
ie it's theology but cool. There's a reason we all loved Greek mythology.
arapturousverbatim@reddit
Did we all?
Toocoo4you@reddit
Sonic would kick Mario’s ass though
Buttfranklin2000@reddit
It's literally the same. Christian theology is interwoven with western culture.
I have no connection to any non-western imageboards, forums or social networks, but I do wonder if for example arabs have similiar shitposting but with islamic theology (yes I know they're a bit more strict with it but there has to be secularized shitposters that grew up muslim).
Or if on the japanese imageboards people shitpost about shintoism, idk.
Nopeisawesome@reddit
I grew up with Buddhism so it’s funny because it is probably one of the few religions where the theologists go “Yeah the supernatural stuff is probably bullshit made to appeal to pagans so that they would at least integrate Buddhism into their beliefs but as a Buddhist you should not go around and judge others for how they believe even if you think it’s bullshit *cough* evangelicals *cough*”
Do-it-for-you@reddit
Well yeah, the vast majority of the western world grew up in Christian countries.
I’m sure if you go to Arabic 4chan you’d get Arabic atheists making similar arguments against Islam.
forchinski@reddit
Yeah so get this they've got this frog spirit and when it reaches inside my ass it's supposed to pull out my soul instead of, uh, making me cum
Shintoism drbunked
demonotreme@reddit
Oh, well, must be legit then. Nobody would spend centuries and entire books arguing about something that was really just so much bullshit.
B3kindr3wind1026@reddit
People believed the earth was flat and the sun rotated around it for a lot longer than we’ve understood it isn’t and doesn’t.
The amount of time that humanity believes in something has no correlation to how accurate it is.
BitsAndBobs304@reddit
Fancy words for "because god says so even if it doesnmake any sense to the intellect and reasoning and logic he gave you"
Hanza-Malz@reddit
You're saying this as if that was a mountain of scientific breakthroughs and not just a bunch of child molesters drunk-written fanfiction.
necronformist@reddit
No I'm saying it as the latter
SausagePotatoes@reddit
Unironically yes 🗿
TGWsharky@reddit
I mean, this is basically Calvinism.
S4l47@reddit
Acoustic anon vs. the entirety of Christian scholars
HiTekLoLyfe@reddit
Do you believe in everything based on how long people have believed in it? I’m sure you don’t.
necronformist@reddit
I'm surprised people think this was me being on the side of the one thousand years of theology, I get it in hindsight, I was vague, but you're right, I don't believe that, the comment was me clowning on theology
LeglessElf@reddit
A thousand years of Christian theology and not one good response to the problem of evil has been formulated.
(Predictably, there will be a number of bad responses to the problem of evil in reply to my comment, which will helpful in illustrating how dire the situation is.)
Ecstatic-Compote-595@reddit
and yet
Electrical_Total@reddit
Thousand years of theology vs basic common sense
Here4th3culture@reddit
Show this to the pope
spicypsudo@reddit
Literally all of 4Chan vs a fairy tale
SuperArppis@reddit
keeleon@reddit
Why would you assume God operates under the same morality and logic as a human? Do Ants think the same way you do?
Go1gotha@reddit (OP)
Because the Bible tells us so.
Xcalibus@reddit
Wait until you find out that the christian god is simply a rebranding of a Caananite storm god.
Go1gotha@reddit (OP)
Source?
I-Like-To-Eat-Rocks@reddit
oversimplification fallacy
Go1gotha@reddit (OP)
Which key facts or nuanced details do you think have been omitted?
Please list alphabetically.
(Extra marks for capitalisation and punctuation.)
SuperGrandNovice@reddit
if free agency exists then isn't someone all knowing if they know everything except what has yet to happen? as it would be impossible to know such, therefore He knows everything that is knowable.
Fishmongererererer@reddit
There are a number of actual theological answers to this.
Eastern Orthodox: It’s a mystery. God is fundamentally an incomprehensible being and such mortal minds can’t fully comprehended God’s nature. We are told we have both free will and that God knows the future.
Catholic: God is an infinite being. God exists outside of time and therefore knows both the future and the past. This does not mean that we do not have free will. Simply knowing what someone will choose doesn’t invalidate the choice.
Calvinist: You don’t really have free will. God has already chosen who he will save and who he won’t (basically the greentext). Some allow for a degree of free will but that overall it’s irrelevant compared to God’s sovereignty
Other Protestant: Exists on a spectrum between Calvinist and Catholic viewpoints. Some other interpretations exist.
Mormon: God isn’t actually infinite, omniscient or omnipotent in Mormonism. No issue with free will.
n1g3r6356@reddit
if i know what you’re going to do, you DONT have free will. that’s just determinism. determinism allows for there to be reason and logic involved but it’s a pre fixed outcome…
M0rgr0m@reddit
Yes you do lol.
Just because you know the outcome doesn't mean it wasn't a chosen outcome. Only if one is informed of said outcome does that become an issue
n1g3r6356@reddit
do you know how determinism works? the point is you will believe that you have free will and make the best option you feel you have, but the choice was basically inevitable based on the way the universe formed and set everything in motion leading up to your existence
M0rgr0m@reddit
I understand that line of thinking, yes. I just dont believe it
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
All terrible answers.
Except it does when you also believe god created us and picked every attritibute for us. Catholics literally believe god created some of us knowing we would end up spending eternity being tortured. Lol.
Recipe-Jaded@reddit
No we don't
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
You literally do
Recipe-Jaded@reddit
We believe every person has the ability to choose redemption. So, no.
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
Do you believe god created us with our current attributes, as well as the environment we live in?
Recipe-Jaded@reddit
I'm not interested in arguing the same point you have tried to make with other people, because your line of thinking is flawed from the very start.
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
You cant answer the question
Recipe-Jaded@reddit
Have a blessed day
Fishmongererererer@reddit
Actually Catholics believe that all people have the full capacity to choose redemption. Everyone is created with the capacity for it, even if many don’t choose it. The viewpoint you’re espousing is the Calvinist doctrine.
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
If god creates you, picks your attributes for you, and knows for certain that you will choose eternal torture, then there never was "capacity" to do anything different.
Fishmongererererer@reddit
Again, that’s just Calvinism.
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
"Oh look, I invented a name for this silly idea, now it sounds official and totally not silly"
Fishmongererererer@reddit
“Oh look I’m willfully misrepresenting what other people believe. I’m totally not an ass”
You can think the Catholic position is illogical but the position you are pointing out is not the Catholic position. That is the Calvinist position which has been definitely declared a heresy by the Catholic Church.
Dennis_enzo@reddit
Eastern Orthodox: Please don't think about this paradox since we don't have an answer, just keep believing.
Catholic: Just assume that the paradox is not a paradox at all and just keep believing.
Calvinist: Dance for your god, puppet.
Other Protestant: Believe whatever helps you sleep at night.
PrrrromotionGiven1@reddit
That's stupid. That's like saying an omnipotent being can do anything except for the impossible things. The whole point of the term omnipotent is that nothing is impossible for them.
CreatorA4711@reddit
Omnipotence as a concept can’t exist because of the paradoxes it forms. One example of such a paradox is whether or not an omnipotent being can create a stone that cannot be lifted by even them.
If they can create the stone, then they would not be able to lift it, and therefore are not omnipotent. If they cannot create the stone, then they would not be able to do truly anything, making them not omnipotent.
IamWatchingAoT@reddit
See the problem with this paradox is that an omnipotent God can indeed make it possible. That's what omnipotence means. If God is omnipotent he can make himself both unable and able to lift an hypothetical stone at the same time.
Dhelio@reddit
No it's not. Stuff like that is just nonsense. It's like saying "can god create a married bachelor?". The statement doesn't make sense, and as such is logically irresolvable.
IamWatchingAoT@reddit
The squirrel cannot comprehend a rocket and because of this, rockets do not exist to the squirrel
Big-Rub9545@reddit
“Cannot comprehend” is not the same as “impossible”. You’re talking about a logical contradiction, not just something that’s hard to grasp.
IamWatchingAoT@reddit
You're literally proving my point. To you, the concept of existence without logic is impossible. You simply cannot conceive it, so you assume that it cannot be. The squirrel cannot possibly conceive of the concept of a rocket. Such a thing could never exist, so it might as well not. But rockets exist. And a God who can "break" logic can also exist, because that's the meaning of omnipotence.
Big-Rub9545@reddit
Feel free to read through the rest of the conversation regarding this treatment of logic as some removable object or bound (which misrepresents what logic is).
You’re mixing illogical (which means something is logically unsound and thus inherently meaningless or impossible) with “difficult to conceive of”. In the hypothetical that a squirrel is cognizant, there’s nothing illogical about a rocket from their perspective (so using it as an example is a false analogy).
IamWatchingAoT@reddit
I have. And every single smartass who thought using logic against the entity that literally created logic is an immense gotcha. I just don't know how else to explain it. That's like an ant questioning how you can move in three dimensions because it can only move in two. I just have no words to reply to this stupidity.
It's not logically unsound for an omnipotent being to be capable of the impossible. That's literally what omnipotent means. If you still think omnipotence is bound by the rules of worldly logic, then I just have no more arguments to give here.
Big-Rub9545@reddit
Well, I’d suggest spending this time to instead learn more about logic and omnipotence, since logic isn’t a created thing (doesn’t have any concrete existence in the first place), and I don’t believe that’s how anyone would define omnipotence.
asnaf745@reddit
Thats the thing logic too would not be constraint for a truly omnipotent being. We are the ones here trying to put boundary of logic to a boundless being so our feeble minds can comprehend it.
We cannot possibly grasp or reason about a being that is truly omnipotent, because it would also be above reasoning. Though by all means this is a boring way to imagine the god, because this way of thinking throws all kind of debate out the window because of the fact that we simply can't understand such a thing. For that I am more inclined to believe god is still very powerfull but still bound by concepts like logic, but not truly all powerfull and all knowing.
This though also leads into another rabbit hole of, we just put a restraint on god, where does it stop?
Big-Rub9545@reddit
The problem is that you’re thinking of logic as a bound or limit on something. Logic is instead just a coherent expression or structure of ideas.
When we say God is omnipotent, that means there is no thing that God is unable do or actualize. A squared circle or a married bachelor are not “things”. Both of those are just combinations of words with no underlying meaning. When we say those are illogical or impossible, that isn’t synonymous with “very hard to grasp”. That means that those terms, phrases or expressions don’t actually mean anything to begin with (in that sense, “married bachelor” conveys as much meaning as “bladada”).
The omnipotence “paradox” is fallacious because it speaks of meaningless expressions as if they were actual, meaningful things.
asnaf745@reddit
But you are applying boundaries to omnipotance, an omnipotent being should also be able to actualize things that are not things. It sounds stupid and nonsensical, but saying it cannot create something impossible would be limiting it then it wouldnt be omnipotence.
Big-Rub9545@reddit
These expressions are not limits. Notice your own wording “cannot create something”. This is still speaking of these expressions as if they convey meaning. Putting words together doesn’t automatically create or express meaning. “God can’t create a married bachelor” conveys as much meanjng as “God can’t create bxhshja”.
Logic is not a bound or limit such that illogical contradictions are 1) things 2) that are impossible. Contradictions are not “things” in the first place that you can speak about as being possible or impossible (or any other description/adjective for that matter). They aren’t exceptions or exclusions from omnipotence since they are meaningless ideas to begin with.
So when a “married bachelor” is described as illogical, that doesn’t mean we’ve imposed some arbitrary mental constraint on it despite its being a thing. It just means that expression doesn’t actually mean or express anything (hence the comparison to gibberish; it’s just a more intelligible form of gibberish).
Drepanum@reddit
I just wanted to give you a verbal thumbs up for writing this, scratching my itch to do so myself
Esava@reddit
A lack of understanding is very different from it being logically impossible.
We aren't talking about humans not being able to imagine the colours a butterfly can see or how a 4 dimensional being would experience the world.
We are talking about a mathematically logical fallacy that is impossible. That has nothing to do with a lack of understanding.
Dhelio@reddit
No. I am saying that the sentence is malformed. It starts with an illogical premise and pretends a logical conclusion. It's a grammatically valid sentence pointing at no coherent referent, because there's no it to make or fail to make.
Dennis_enzo@reddit
So an omnipotent god is somehow bound by logic?
Dhelio@reddit
It's like asking whether the rules of chess constrain the game of chess. There's no separation. The laws of logic are expressions of the rational structure of being, and God is being.
Dennis_enzo@reddit
Except I could change the rules of chess if I wanted to. Can God change the rules of logic?
Dhelio@reddit
You're still treating God and logic as two separate entities, and I'm telling you that there's no separation. If you say "I can change the rules of chess" you're placing yourself as God and the rules of chess as logic, which isn't what I've stated.
Dennis_enzo@reddit
Yes yes, God works in mysterious ways.
Big-Rub9545@reddit
That would be a very bad response, since you effectively just chuck out all logic from the discussion if contradictions can suddenly become logically acceptable in some cases. The actual problem with this “paradox” is that omnipotence doesn’t apply to logical contradiction. They aren’t “things” such that a being can be capable or incapable of doing them in the first place.
CreatorA4711@reddit
I like this argument better than the other person’s argument
asnaf745@reddit
I tend to answer these questions in my mind as "he is god, he cant be comprehended by human mind nor is bound by any logic even its own" thats what omnipotance sounds like to me, god is everything and nothing at once.
I feel like this is where I should clarify I am agnostic. I came to believe if god truly exists logic paradoxes cannot prove or disprove god's existence. Because god is above those.
BrunesOvrBrauns@reddit
Brother you're gonna OD huffing so much copium
asnaf745@reddit
what copium, I don't even believe in a god
maninahat@reddit
The answer is yes, he could create a stone that even he couldn't lift, and he'd still be able to lift it anyway. An omnipotent being can not only do the impossible, but also the conceptually impossible.
CreatorA4711@reddit
Then he couldn’t make a stone he couldn’t lift. If he still lifts it, then he couldn’t make it unliftable. Doing the conceptually impossible just means he broke the rules of the assignment.
maninahat@reddit
Nope, being all powerful means being able to do impossible things. Being able to lift the unliftable stone is impossible, and therefore something he is perfectly capable of going within the rules.
CreatorA4711@reddit
Yeah, except he still lifted a stone he wasn’t supposed to be able to lift. Lifting the stone proves that he was unable to truly create something beyond his own power.
maninahat@reddit
Nope, the stone is unliftable, and therefore he can't lift it. Him also being able to lift it is just details.
flingerdu@reddit
"The main point is just an inconvenient detail"
maninahat@reddit
My main point is that a truly omnipotent being is not bound by the limits of a rational paradox, otherwise he wouldn't be omnipotent in the first place. A truly omnipotent being could land always butter side down and always butter side up, the concept of mutual exclusivity can't limit him.
putin_my_ass@reddit
He created Hitler knowing what he'd become, and didn’t stop him. All knowing, all powerful or benevolent, but not all 3 at once.
Vlisa@reddit
It was to teach us the lessons he knew we would already learn to make us the better people we were always going to be.
putin_my_ass@reddit
All in the name of progress!
The same god that created the ichneumon wasp, apparently.
Victornf41108@reddit
Isn’t free agency what happens to the guys who don’t get drafted or something?
Ryengu@reddit
You would also know everything that could possibly happen, even if which one will happen isn't predetermined.
plaguelivesmatter@reddit
Ive actually never considered this.
Fake and gay
Reading_username@reddit
EnchantingAx23@reddit
Jarvis, sort by controversial
sculksensor@reddit
JinjaBaker45@reddit
The 3rd point doesn’t follow from the 2nd.
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
I always took it as God being a writer who wrote a "choose your own adventure" book. He knows everything that can happen, but likes to watch the reader choose where the book goes.
ThriceStrideDied@reddit
Bro watched the readers create the Holocaust
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
The author should NOT have put options like that in the book
Varixx95__@reddit
Like that is a whole argument about it, if god didn’t want us to sin, why they gave us the possibility to on the first place
Like for example you can’t biologically fly no matter how hard you try, you don’t have that physical capability. You can’t also imagine a color you can’t see, you don’t have that psychological ability either. Then why let us even be tempted? He could have made it so humans can’t even comprehend the idea of sinning, but he didn’t
He gave us fully awareness and control over if we want to seen. He made it so sinning is more pleasurable than acting right just to right after tell us we shouldn’t do it and punish us if we do FOR ETERNITY
It’s like giving a child a button and tell him if he press it he will get a candy but be punished for it in 30 years. What is going the child going to do?
att0mic@reddit
And at the end of the day, the entire concept of sin is completely pointless because what ultimately decides your eternal fate is whether you believed and worshipped, regardless if you've lived like a saint or commited the most heinous acts imaginable.
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
I mean yeah, certainly, if you take it all at face value.
I've had as many conversations with myself about God and life and religion as there are letters in my reply, probably more.
In the end I accepted something I was scared to before, something I realized ages ago - God is something meant to be between you and the universe. No one should care if it is the same God their father, brother, mother, sister, friend, lover and any other another person believes in, or if they believe in one at all.
Religion is what I have a problem with. Morality and ethics should not come from fear of divine retribution, it should come from a fear of failing to be human. A loving God would not hate his children for petty reasons like tattoos or being gay. An almighty God would not be happy with any of his children violently spreading a message of peace and prosperity, or forcing others to pray like they pray.
Religion has also been muddied pretty much from the start. People wrote and rewrote what they wanted, started a thousand different ones, almost all with the goal of control and power rather than love and unity.
So I don't take it at face value. I pray to God in a way that speaks to my heart and soul, and I handle life with my flesh and bones.
I know this sounds like some schizo rambling, especially since I was too lazy to go into a few points deeper, but the tl;dr is: believe whatever you want, as long as you are a human first and a believer second.
Ok-Gur1259@reddit
dude that's no schizo rambling, that sounds like a very wise take. I feel like people never put a definition first of what is "God" before even arguing. Your point emphasizes what God is to you, and what societal place a religion should have rather than what it is actually, and I wouldn't say it better than you
Martijnbmt@reddit
I think if some people calls me crazy, I take it as a compliment.
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
As I've grown as a person, this sentiment has been more and more true as the time goes on.
We should all be free to be as weird as we truly are though.
Objective_Target_477@reddit
Free will, nigga
rudolfs001@reddit
So you're saying he's a cosmic psychological researcher running a species wide marshmallow test?
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
That one was a fun thought experiment too, the Cosmic Ant Farm.
Delroc@reddit
Technically hell as we know it is just fanfiction, in the bible it's effectively just a place without God. And Satan isn't ruling over it or tempting people to sin so that he can punish them, he's just an angel who got sent there and is in the same situation as anyone else there. It isn't so much a threat of eternal punishment and damnation as a threat of not going to heaven. Which isn't much better, because being a good person only because there's a reward at the end means you aren't really a good person.
And then they teach children the version where if they're bad, they will go to hell and they will be doomed for all eternity, because I guess that's better at convincing the kids to stay in line. It's been a while since I read any of it as well because even as a kid I had the awareness to question why there wasn't any evidence of this stuff when there was plenty of evidence for everything else I learned at school, but I think it's pretty easy to get into heaven, you just need to repent and accept God, even if you have sinned in the past. I'm not sure if there's really any sin that God won't forgive, which is a little messed up, but like I said, it's a system which encourages people to be good simply because if they are, they'll get to go to heaven.
IamWatchingAoT@reddit
The readers created the holocaust and blamed the writer for the evil exercise of their own free will
ThriceStrideDied@reddit
Nah, God shouldn’t be writing that in the first place
A__Whisper@reddit
You want free will or not?
You can play an RPG and complain that the devs but no "evil/mean" options in it so its the "illusion of choice" but then conversely you'll say "Nah the dev shouldn't have put in the mean option in the first place"
Which do you want?
Jonesy1348@reddit
If god knew the Holocaust would happen (which he did) then letting it happen makes him evil. A just god wouldn’t have.
A__Whisper@reddit
This really isn't the gotcha you think it is, none of this is stuff that theologists haven't contemplated before.
At the end of the day it comes down to whether you want true free will or not. God does not condone actions like the one you mention, he specifically cautions against it, constantly, all the time. He respects our free will to do what we want though, even if we make ourselves suffer for it. A parent's job isn't to coddle their adult children but hope that the lessons they taught them in their youth are enough to keep their head on straight.
Jonesy1348@reddit
He didn’t have these same reservations with sodom. Or when did his whole pillar of salt bit. Or his bet with satan regarding job. Or the flood. Or when he murdered all the firstborn sons of Egypt. You can’t say he’s a non interventionist when he intervened all the time. And I know the general cop out of “that was Old Testament” but if god is truly all knowing then why would he change? If he knew the future or even the possible future that intervening was bad then why intervene to begin with? And all knowing god would be immutable.
A__Whisper@reddit
These are the same regurgitated talking points by plebbit atheists. I won't argue with a smugjak
Jonesy1348@reddit
Because you ain’t got nothin chief
ThriceStrideDied@reddit
You can still have free will without having literally unlimited options for it
A__Whisper@reddit
What If I want to choose C? Where's my free will then? There's no such thing as "limited" free will, that is an oxymoron.
ThriceStrideDied@reddit
Predetermination = no free will
Choices = free will
Hope that helps!
“What if I wanna fly into the sun using my arms? Because I can’t do that, I guess I don’t have free will!!!”
A__Whisper@reddit
Holy midwit
ThriceStrideDied@reddit
Speak for yourself
pwillia7@reddit
But he made children's bone cancer all by himself
starkguy@reddit
God is seinen author
m0dernw4y@reddit
Maybe he enjoyed
CummyMonkey420@reddit
Ooopsies 🫣
Go1gotha@reddit (OP)
Excellent point.
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
Except god also created the reader knowing exactly what the reader will choose. Its fucking r worded.
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
That's not the cherry I like to pick in my personal religion. I'm of the "God knows what CAN happen, not always what WILL happen" variety.
Jonesy1348@reddit
If god doesn’t know what is going to happen, he hats all this hoopla about a plan? You can’t just make up your own religion that’s ridiculous. It’s why I’m not religious. Christianity alone has over 4000 different denominations. You put two Christian’s in a room I’d bet you five dollars they don’t believe the same thing
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
I absolutely can make up my own religion. I just made up seven of them writing this comment. Nine before I even hit the period. Twelve more while I took a two minute break.
It was a stand-in word to not have to explain myself, but I believe in a god my own way. And I leave morals and ethics to my human side.
Another big part of why I left organized religion is just that, so many contradictions and petty ass rules and regulations that I could not concieve of a deity that would put that together. So it was all either A) entirely human written (what most believe) or B) mostly human re-written (what many others believe). In the end I decided to not care which of the two it actually is, and vibe with God and the universe my way.
As for the Christians in the room, it's not a problem if they don't believe in the same things. It's a problem if they care about what each other believe. That's what even the aforementioned ones command: love thy neighbor. The problem arises when that love turns conditional, and the condition becomes faith in the same deity.
Jonesy1348@reddit
My point about the Christian’s in a room is, how can you believe your god is the real god, when not two people can even agree who that god is or what he stands for? If I showed a group of people a color, and they were to tell you theyre answers as to what the color is, and they all gave different answers not two of them being the same, how could you possibly know what that color is for certain? How could you know I showed them a color at all? My point is how can you believe sure there is a god, or that yours is even the right one, when everyone says theirs is the right one? At that point why believe at all? There’s an infinite chance you’re wrong, and an infinitesimal chance you’re right.
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
Because it doesn't matter my guy, that's the point.
I believe in what I want to believe, and it's mine. Between me, myself and I. The way I coexist with the world and the universe shouldn't matter to anyone else and vice versa. If you believe in God and I don't, or if we don't believe in the same god, or any combination you can think of doesn't matter, because it is personal. It can never and should never affect my behavior towards other people, or any lasting relationships I have.
I don't need anyone to believe that the God I believe in is the God that they have to believe in too.
Your color analogy makes no sense in this context btw
Jonesy1348@reddit
I mean it’s definitely a sign of mental instability to believe in a god you made up. Not even one that was made up years ago and has centuries of dogma and indoctrination, but one you personally admit you made up.
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
☝️🤠
This right here is what we call a dummy
Why does someone elses belief impose itself upon you so much?
The_Law_of_Pizza@reddit
So God doesn't know how it all ends?
You've sort of defined him out of being God if he's not all-knowing. And if he isn't all knowing, then he also isn't all-powerful.
I concede the point that you can create a hypothetical little-g god who sparks a universe that he doesn't know the future for - and that this can be made consistent with the idea of fee will.
But the typical belief system of monotheists - that big-G God is all-knowing and all-powerful - inherently means that God knew exactly what would happen if he made each person exactly as they are. It's a closed system at that point, with God choosing the procedurally generated seed and therefore knowingly locking each person and the universe into a predefined cycle that he already knows the ending of and is therefore responsible for its outcome.
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
My comment was mostly facetious, but since we are discussing monotheism, especially Abrahamic religions, I actually look at it from a similar but a bit different standpoint.
Imagine any moment that had happened in history. Now make it not happen at all. Now make it happen differently. Now you have a multiverse with every possible thing that can happen differently resulting in a mew universe. Now, in every single such multiverse, everything that happens to make that specific universe is predetermined (as it would not be that exact universe if it could be any different). God can see and know what happens in every single such universe, but you yourself don't know which one you're in until you die. Free will is still a thing, because you have technically picked every option possible already, but you are just a fragment of yourself living through one of those chosen pathways. Everything is both predetermined and completely random at the same time.
Tbf I kinda separated myself from organized religion a while back, and I believe in God my own way, but that was always the easiest way to come to terms with the concept of "everything is predetermined but also you have free will".
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
That doesnt make any sense. Just because the train conductor cant see where the track goes doesnt mean he has the power to make the train go wherever he wants. God sees where the tracks go- he made them.
Halo_Dood@reddit
I think similarly to u/wrongitsleviosaa
Let me reword it as there's a third path to your little-g god and big-G God.
little-g god started a universe but has no knowledge of the future
Big-G God created a predetermined universe where he knows exactly the choice you will make and you're locked in.
but the third path God that we're describing is that God puts before every human at every moment in time, a decision tree. Each possibility in the decision tree is truly free to each human to decide but God sees all these possibilities. Each human is free to decide which path they take down their personal decision tree, but God, as the ultimate shaper of reality, can influence the outcomes of human decisions as they move through time down their decision tree path.
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
Why doesn't he influence everyone to not get tortured for all eternity. Your explanation was even stupider tbh
Halo_Dood@reddit
"if you're only a good person because you're scared of burning in hell for all eternity, then maybe you weren't a good person to begin with" while also saying "why can't god just make everyone do good things all the time?"
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
Christianity only requires you accept Jesus to go to heaven, being a good person isnt even a requirement. Lol, lmao
But in any case if god has the power to stop people being tortured forever why doesn't he use it
Conzyyyyyyy@reddit
Because he wants to allow people to choose where they go. If you decide to live your mortal life away from God why would he force you to life eterninity with Him.
Sin is a crime (Which needs to result in punishment) and God knew that we will always fall short so Jesus came to take all the blame on His shoulders to give people the opportunity to reach paradise through Him by acknowledging the grace Jesus showed and accepting him as your savior.
The Bible doesn't fully explain what hell is but there are many different interpretations with the most common ones being fire and brimstone, eternity away from God with the suffering being the knowledge that you that you'll never have the chance to feel the grace of God again. Some other ones are that hell won't be infinite with either it being like a prison sentence when after you've served it you will be allowed to enter paradise or after the sentence has been served you will just dissappear into non-existence.
So God can technically change reality to make sure we all make it into heaven but at the price of erasing free will.
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
And you actually believe that shit huh
Conzyyyyyyy@reddit
Yep.
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
Thats fuckin nuts lol
Conzyyyyyyy@reddit
To each their own.
Halo_Dood@reddit
american evangelical christianity
not even once
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
Oh yeah your brand makes way more sense
Delusional lol
Halo_Dood@reddit
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
What I said makes perfect sense, you were just too antsy to argue that you didn't realize I was agreeing with you
Chin up king
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
Nope, it doesnt make sense actually. Hope that helps
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
:)
Dennis_enzo@reddit
Cool, but that's not what Christians believe which is clearly what the post refers to.
Ofiotaurus@reddit
Hmm, that’s a beautiful way too look at it. God knows every possible outcome but not what outcomes are chosen.
CursedPoetry@reddit
Right, but even in your analogy, a book is already finished and so the point still remains that if he knows everything that will ever happen there is no choice.
Say you’re hiking and there’s a fork in the road and you can go left or you could go right and you spend 10 minutes deciding which direction you wanna take and eventually you decide to go left, from your perspective it seems like you have agency and you chose left, but God, in this circumstance always knew and forever knew you will always choose left right was never actually an option. It’s just the illusion of choice then.
So even in your analogy of a choose your own adventure book God already written and finished the book. There is no agency then you are still on a roadmap that every single thing in your life has already been planned or in your case, the book has already been written
cobanat@reddit
I see it like that Men in Black character who could see every possible future at once. He knows every of those are options and how each of those actions spawn their own branches, but which one you pick is up to you and He’s genuinely along for the ride, waiting to see your chosen predetermined path. That’s the point of free will. Did He know you were going to go left instead or right? Yes. But at the same time, He also knew you were gonna go right instead of left and all the decisions afterward that came with. And the mind fuckery begins there too great for our stupid little reddit minds to comprehend. But that’s the point, we’re not supposed to understand.
All that to say, did He know I was going to pick this left stall instead of the right one? Yes. Could He have warned me there ain’t no ass wipe papers in here? Also yes. Is there ass wipe papers in the stall next to me? Idk probably. So, what did I do to deserve this punishment? Probably should’ve given the homeless guy my banana but there I was sitting in my desk with my home packed lunch and my extra banana snack enjoying it while homeless dude kept begging out in the streets.
CursedPoetry@reddit
Okay, again, and I’m genuinely not trying to be rude here, I’m trying to be as diplomatic as possible, but I really don’t think you understand what free will actually means. What you wrote reads exactly like someone who hasn’t fully thought through the implications of what they’re saying. And I’m not saying that as an insult, because I’ve literally had this exact conversation before.
Years ago, my friend Owen said almost the exact same thing to me on the bus. Same kind of “God sees all possible futures” argument. Same “you choose but He already knows” framing. At the time I basically just planted the seed and moved on. Years later, after he stopped really identifying with Christianity, he came back to me and was like “yeah, I kinda get what you meant now.”
That’s not me saying “I’m objectively right and you’re wrong.” I understand that you have your interpretation and I have mine, and maybe I’m misunderstanding part of what you mean. I’m self-aware enough to recognize that I’m projecting that old conversation onto you a bit because your comment reads almost identically to his. But I can also separate that memory and still engage with your actual argument as its own thing.
So let’s actually look at what you said.
You said:
I love Men in Black! I love Griffin! But, this is where the premise starts falling apart.
That is not how free will works. At least not in the way Christianity traditionally talks about it.
Free will means you genuinely have the ability to choose otherwise. Not “it feels like you chose,” not “there are technically infinite branches somewhere,” but actual choice. The ability to go left OR right.
Now yes, obviously your environment, upbringing, biology, previous experiences, all influence your decisions. I’m not pretending humans exist in a vacuum. But the core concept of free will is still that you are not a puppet on strings following a locked script.
And this is where your argument contradicts itself.
Because later you say:
Which is it?
Did I choose it, or was it predetermined?
Because those are two completely different systems.
If it is predetermined, then there was never a real possibility of me choosing otherwise. Ever. If God already knows with absolute certainty that I will go left, then I was always going left. There was never an actual open possibility of right.
And even if you bring in the “infinite branches” thing, it still doesn’t solve the problem.
Let’s say there are infinite universes. In one I go left. In another I go right. Butterfly effect happens, timelines split, whatever.
Okay.
God would still know every single branch already.
Meaning every branch is still predetermined from His perspective.
So now instead of one predetermined universe, you just have infinite predetermined universes. That doesn’t suddenly create free will. It just scales determinism upward.
And again, even inside your own framework, you can’t actually “pick” the branch, because the branch you were always going to end up in was already known beforehand.
That’s why I keep repeating myself, because the contradiction keeps reappearing no matter how the framing changes.
You also say:
And look, I agree that the universe is incomprehensibly complex. Obviously. But saying “it’s too complicated for humans to understand” is not actually an argument.
Otherwise literally any contradiction could just be defended by saying “well humans are too dumb to understand it.”
Complex systems are still systems. They can be broken down and analyzed. Complexity is not magic. It’s layers of interacting rules and structures.
And even if we grant your premise entirely and say “okay humans can’t fully comprehend this,” that still doesn’t fix the contradiction because God supposedly CAN comprehend it perfectly.
Which means from God’s perspective there is still a single known outcome.
Which means the outcome is fixed.
And if the outcome is fixed, there is no libertarian free will. At best you have the feeling of choice while following a path that was always known.
That’s why your argument feels like a two-door hallway that converges back into one hallway anyway.
You present it like: “you can go left or right.”
But then you immediately say: “the destination was predetermined.”
So really what you’ve described is two entrances leading into the same locked system.
It’s just determinism with extra visual effects added on top.
And again, I’m not saying this to be condescending or dismissive. I genuinely think people mash these ideas together because they WANT both things to be true simultaneously: 1. God is perfectly omniscient. 2. Humans have genuine free will.
But the second you start defining the terms carefully, the logic falls apart and you end up in ad infinitum and chalk it up to humans being to dumb to understand.
F-Lambda@reddit
And what part of someone seeing ahead of time prevents you from choosing? You're assuming that time is linear and causal. This makes sense because that's what we experience. But if retrocausality exists, then you choosing it caused God to see you choose it before it happened.
CursedPoetry@reddit
See, this still doesn’t actually solve the problem though, it just reframes it in more abstract language.
You’re basically saying: “Well maybe time isn’t linear, maybe retrocausality exists, maybe God sees things outside of normal causality.”
Okay. Sure. I understand the argument you’re making.
But if you break it down into its actual components, the problem is still binary.
Either: 1. God already knows with certainty what you will choose. 2. Or He does not.
If He does know with certainty, then the outcome is fixed from His perspective, regardless of whether time is linear, non-linear, circular, outside causality, retrocausal, whatever. The structure changes, but the contradiction remains.
And if He DOESN’T know with certainty until you choose, then by definition He is not omniscient.
That’s the part I feel people keep dancing around.
Because even in your retrocausality example, you’re still describing a system where God is either: - reacting to your choice, - predicting your choice, - altering outcomes after your choice, - or existing outside time while already knowing your choice.
None of those restore true libertarian free will.
Because if God retroactively changes outcomes, then He’s still manipulating the system.
And if He already knew what you’d choose before you chose it, then again, there was never a genuine alternative possibility from the perspective of omniscience.
I feel like I sound silly repeating myself over and over, but the reason I keep repeating it is because every version of this argument loops back into the same contradiction.
People keep changing the geometry of problem instead of addressing the actual issue.
“Time isn’t linear.” Okay, cool.
That still doesn’t answer: Could I have genuinely chosen otherwise?
Because if the answer is “no,” then that’s not free will.
And if the answer is “yes,” then either: - God can be wrong, - or God does not fully know the future.
You can’t have: - absolute omniscience, - absolute certainty, - AND genuinely open future possibilities
without eventually collapsing into contradiction somewhere.
And also, the other irony here is that your own explanation immediately falls back into linear thinking the second you try to explain it.
You said I’m assuming time is linear and causal, but then your actual example is:
Read that sentence carefully.
You literally just described: 1. I make a choice. 2. That choice causes God to observe it. 3. God observes it “before” it happens. 4. God then changes or alters the past which again takes away agency.
That is still operating on a linear framework. You’re still using temporal ordering. You still have a “before” and an “after.” You still have causality. You literally used the word “caused.”
So the irony here is kind of insane to me, because the argument starts with: “you’re assuming time is linear,”
and then immediately explains the mechanism using linear causality.
You’re still describing events in sequence.
Even retrocausality itself still depends on relational ordering. You cannot describe something as “retro” causal unless there is some notion of earlier/later to begin with. Otherwise the term becomes meaningless.
And again, even if we fully granted the premise and said: “okay, maybe God exists outside time,”
the contradiction STILL remains.
Because either: - God knows the outcome with certainty, - or He doesn’t.
If He does, then the outcome is fixed from the perspective of omniscience.
If He doesn’t, then omniscience is incomplete.
Changing the geometry of time does not remove the logical tension. It just changes the visual presentation of it.
That’s why I keep saying people are trying to preserve two incompatible ideas at the same time: 1. Genuine open-ended free will. 2. Absolute omniscient certainty.
And every attempt to reconcile them ends up sneaking determinism back in through the side door while still calling it freedom.
And again, I’m not saying this arrogantly. I fully understand humans probably comprehend like 0.000001% of reality. But saying “well maybe time works differently for God” is not actually an argument by itself. It’s just moving the contradiction into a dimension we can’t inspect directly.
Because at the end of the day, regardless of whether time is linear or not, you still end up with the same fork:
Either your choice was genuinely open, or it was already fixed.
And if it was already fixed, then the feeling of autonomy is not the same thing as actual autonomy.
F-Lambda@reddit
Knowing what something is isn't causation. An astronomer can predict an eclipse from their observations with 100% certainty, but has zero causal power over the event itself. Knowing a fact isn't what fixes it; it happening is.
It's like a quantum state decohering. The environment doesn't make the choice, it just reveals the choice the particle made.
CursedPoetry@reddit
It feels like you read my entire comment and then just responded to a different argument entirely.
Because nowhere did I say “knowledge causes the event.”
That is not my argument.
You keep trying to counter: “God knowing causes the choice.”
But my argument is: “If God already knows the outcome with absolute certainty, then from the perspective of reality, the outcome is fixed.”
Those are not the same claim.
Your astronomer analogy doesn’t actually work because eclipses are deterministic physical systems. An astronomer predicting an eclipse does not suddenly create free will. In fact, if anything, that analogy hurts your own position because it demonstrates exactly what I’m saying: the event is already fixed enough to be known with certainty beforehand.
And then you say:
Okay, but if it is already knowable with perfect certainty before it happens, then there was never a possibility for it to happen differently.
That’s the point you keep skipping over.
I agree knowledge itself is not causation. I never argued otherwise. But causation is not the issue here. Fixity is.
You’re arguing against a point I never made.
And then the quantum analogy honestly just feels like scientific vocabulary being used as aesthetic filler instead of an actual logical bridge.
No it isn’t.
Because quantum uncertainty does not magically solve omniscience.
If God is omniscient, then there is no uncertainty from God’s perspective. None. Zero.
Quantum randomness only helps your argument if God ALSO doesn’t know the outcome beforehand.
Otherwise all you’ve done is take an event that appears probabilistic to humans and say: “God already knows which result occurs.”
Which again collapses right back into the exact same problem.
And the decoherence analogy also quietly sneaks determinism back in again, because you literally say:
Okay. Cool.
Then apply that directly to God.
If God already eternally knows the “choice” before you experience making it, then from the perspective of omniscience, the outcome is already settled.
Again, not CAUSED. Settled.
That distinction matters.
You keep responding as if I’m arguing: “knowledge magically forces events into existence.”
I’m not.
I’m saying that if an omniscient being cannot possibly be wrong about what you will do, then there is no genuine alternate possibility in reality, regardless of whether you psychologically experience deliberation.
cobanat@reddit
I’m sorry I ain’t reading all that
CursedPoetry@reddit
It’s really not that long lol
cobanat@reddit
Martijnbmt@reddit
I imagine that since we are talking about Mr God, it could be a magical book that would allow the the story to change, what with free will and all thag.
CursedPoetry@reddit
But again if god changes it; it still knows what’s what
Martijnbmt@reddit
In my example God doesn't change it, but the book changes itself without God's interaction. It's magical after all, and I'd think that He would be able to do create such a book if He's real.
CursedPoetry@reddit
Right, but you’re not I don’t mean to offend you, but I don’t think you’re understanding my point even if the book changes that still means God knows what’s in the future really think about that since God is an omnipotent being meaning he’s everywhere all at once he knows everything that will ever happen ever even in a magical book example that changes it could change 1 billion different times that doesn’t matter. Omnipotence means they know everything meaning that even if the book changes 1 billion times those billions of changes are completely irrelevant because God already knows the future it doesn’t matter how you slice it you will always come back to the same conclusion, which is if a God is omnipotent and knows everything that will ever happen ever that means we do not have free will.
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
In a way, yes. You can also look at it like if both the left and the right road lead to the same place once you pick them. In any case, you arrive at the same conclusion and it's a big part of why I quit organized religion.
FickleConcentration@reddit
Or a game dev, he knows everything about the game. That’s obviously he made the game but a game is more than the mechanics and story it’s about how you play it, what you do and how you perceive it and react. Idk something like that makes sense to me.
TraumaPerformer@reddit
cyac@reddit
I just think in that interpretation it is either
God is all knowing, so he knows what will happen, so there is only one true path and the others are not really possibilities, just illusions as they can never happen as god can never be wrong.
or
God doesn't know which possibility a person will choose, in which case all possibilities maybe are real possibilities but that makes god not all knowing.
wrongitsleviosaa@reddit
Kinda becomes a pick-your-poison situation huh
Free will might just be a carrot dangling in front of our faces or life itself could be an illusion
cyac@reddit
Just sounds like your initial interpretation of it being a 'choose your own adventure book' either doesn't make sense or invalidates god's all knowingness. Either way it is what it is. I guess your view still can make sense if you see god as not being all knowing.
MaximusPrime5885@reddit
The way I heard it was like if someone offered me $1 million or a chocolate bar, they basically know I'll take the $1 million.
God knows everyone so well he already knows the decisions we'll make. But we can still make the decisions.
sirhappynuggets@reddit
Nah you can’t be all knowing and leave anything up to a choice outside of your knowledge. God probably isn’t real though. But I’m not against a god who doesn’t know everything.
Notbbupdate@reddit
Anon invents Calvinism
The_Shittiest_Meme@reddit
Calvinism is more believing that you are predetermined from birth if you go the Heaven or Hell, and that your life will reflect the outcome of that, and theres basically nothing you can do to change if you go to Heaven or Hell. If good things happen to you, like being wealthy or finding success, it means you probably go to Heaven. If bad things happen to you, like being poor, destitute, or sick, then you are probably going to Hell.
HenFruitEater@reddit
The poor and rich thing has nothing to do with calvanism.
The_Shittiest_Meme@reddit
It was the theology of the Puritans, that material wealth and success was evidence of who was elect and who wasn't. And they are a pretty major branch of Calvinism.
Tyrannosaurtillerson@reddit
Literally not true. The idea that Puritans were a proto supply side jesus comes from Sociologist Max Weber's 1905 book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It is not, and has never been part of Calvinist Theology.
From John Calvin's Institutes:
It literally says how suffering and affliction are a confirming sign of being united with Christ — because Christ's own path to glory ran through suffering, so the elect's path tends to as well.
You can argue that in practice, Puritans may have used prosperity gospel as a psychological reassurance against the anxiety of predestination, but you cannot say that it was the "theology of the Puritans". That runs contrary to almost every mainstream Christian belief system.
MerkDingle@reddit
That’s messed up. So you get a shitty life and when dying, you’re like, “Finally, it’s over” and then proceed to burn in hell for all eternity lol
Tyrannosaurtillerson@reddit
me when I spread disinformation on the internet
Anen-o-me@reddit
Foreknowledge is not causation bro.
SilliusS0ddus@reddit
When an omniscient Being knows something that means it is set in stone.
What value does free will have in that situation ? is it not just an illusion ?
Anen-o-me@reddit
But it doesn't mean they caused the outcome. Again, foreknowledge is not causation. People make that mistake over and over.
I knew Venezuela would end up starving with a dictator when they elected Chavez into power, doesn't mean I made that happen.
Bad example but whatever.
Free will still created that outcome.
SilliusS0ddus@reddit
Does free will actually exist or matter when the outcome is knowable ?
kt4-is-gud@reddit
Yes ur still making those outcomes
SilliusS0ddus@reddit
God made the conditions that majorly contributed to all those outcomes.
anti-gerbil@reddit
God made the world in such a way that i'm writing this comment right now. If god had arranged the atoms of the world in a different way or at a different time, i would be jacking off to gay horse porn instead. God knew when making the world that it would cause me to write the comment instead of jacking off. We don't have free will because our actions and reaction all stem from when and how god made the world.
officer_shnitzel_69@reddit
It is if the being claims he predetermined everything from the getgo
ajmeko@reddit
Idk, of God is omniscient amd omnipotent, he knew from the creation of the world what traits and circumstances he'd create you with, and knew from the start wether or not your your "free will" would land you in heaven or hell. You can't say he's got no hand in it, God created everything about you. Kinda unfair to send the gays to hell when God made them gay in the first place.
Anen-o-me@reddit
The world can be just like a wind up toy that he lets run loose, and god could theoretically constrict himself from knowing things like that, or know it but firewall that knowledge away until later, etc.
Since those traits mostly come from genetics + environment, god doesn't necessarily make people directly with those traits the way medieval theologians thought.
maninahat@reddit
Why would God knowing the future mean humans don't have agency? If I knew for certain my dumb kids bare going to steal from the cookie jar, that hasn't removed their agency because they are still making the decision to steal from the cookie jar; it is not me knowing it that is causing that eventually to happen.
Dennis_enzo@reddit
If you can see the future that will happen with 100% certainty that means that there's a single, fixed time line. And if there is a single fixed time line that will happen no matter what, it means that all decisions that anyone makes were set in stone since the beginning of existence and no one can choose anything else. And if you also happen to be the creator of this existence and you had the option of doing it differently but chose not to, everything that happens is your fault.
maninahat@reddit
It's not that things will happen no matter what, it's that things will happen because of what. The predictors of the future already are factoring the what.
In Greek mythology, some bozo gets told by oracles his son will kill him one day. He takes every step to prevent that happening, however him taking those steps sets up the chain of events that leads to his son eventually killing him by accident. The thing the bozo failed to realize is that the oracle's predictions are already factoring in that he would take these steps, and also that he'd be told the prediction in the first place that would cause him to behave this way.
The Bozo always had choice, he was just in the unusual position of being told where his choices were going to eventually take him.
Dennis_enzo@reddit
Cool story. Of course, in stories you can always set it up in such a way that it all wraps up neatly, since you're the one making it up. Reality doesn't work that way though.
The novel Fast Forward does the opposite. An artist sees himself 20 years into the future and realizes that he is still poor and unrecognized. He then proceeds to kill himself, proving that the future is in fact not set in stone and free will might exist.
If your bozo had killed himself after hearing the prophecy, he could have proven the same. But of course he can not kill himself, since he is forced to make the decisions that are already set in stone.
maninahat@reddit
I'm using fiction to explain a theological/philosophical concept, none of this is based in reality because we can't see the future.
The Bozo is not forced to take the path. Were he not to make the choices he had made, he would not have put himself in a situation where his son kills him, and therefore the Oracles would not have told him his son was going to kill him. The Oracles prophesy reflects what the man is going to do, not decide what he will do (accepting that hearing the prophesy is itself one of the things that causes the man to behave the way he does).
It's not that the man can not kill himself, its that the Oracles already know whether he will kill himself or not. If he is definitely going to kill himself, their prophesy will simply say that he will kill himself. Their prophesy has to reflect the actions the man will take, not the other way around.
Dennis_enzo@reddit
I'm not sure what your point is. This just reinforces what I originally said; that the future is set, can not be any other way than the one way that is foreseen, and as such any 'choice' is an illusion.
Note that the oracles in your story knew that telling the bozo his future would end up killing him, and yet 'chose' to do so anyway. Could they have chosen not to tell him and thus change his future? If yes, the future is not set in stone and all of this is moot. If no, 'choice' does not exist.
No matter which way you cut it, being able to see the future either means that choice does not exist, or that the future is not set in stone and what you foresee might not happen.
kt4-is-gud@reddit
I think u genuinely lack comprehension. I’ll make it simple. You have free will, god has given that to you, that being said he also knows what you will do with it. Him knowing what you will do with it doesn’t detract from the fact it’s ur will.
Dennis_enzo@reddit
Nice claim, no evidence, fundamentally contradictory.
Baddyshack@reddit
Just delete your account
lilgraytabby@reddit
But in the scenario you domln't know: you suspect. You can still be surprised by your kids deciding not to take a cookie. If you KNEW, then they do not have a chance not to take the cookie. If you can know the future (not just make an educated guess, truly 100% know) then nobody can make choices because it's already set in stone.
maninahat@reddit
What does knowing the future have to do with people's decisions? I know for a fact that yesterday my kid took a cookie from the jar, does me knowing she made that choice turn it into a non-choice in retrospect? Does it mean she never had a choice to begin with? No.
lilgraytabby@reddit
You know that she made that choice yesterday. Do you know that she will make the same choice tomorrow?
maninahat@reddit
If I can see the future then yes, I'll know for certain which choice she is going to make. But I didn't decide for her, she will make her choice.
lilgraytabby@reddit
If you can see the future then that means the future is predestined, so no she never had a choice. Because having a choice means that you can choose to do something different. So if it is a 100% fact that she will take the cookie then she didn't have a choice because there was never a chance that she would choose differently.
If you can 100% know the future than choice cannot exist.
maninahat@reddit
How is that different then talking in the past tense? My kid made their choice yesterday, I know what choice they made, it's impossible to change that choice in retrospect. Does that mean they never had a choice at the time?
Me knowing what she does/did/will do has no bearing on what choices she chooses to make.
lilgraytabby@reddit
Because the past already happened. The future has not. We can't go back in time and change the past because it already happened. If free will exists, then we can make choices that change the future.
Knowing the choice that she made in the past does not mean she didn't make a choice.
Knowing the "choice" she will make in the future means that she does not have a choice, because there is no chance that she will "choose" differently.
maninahat@reddit
If knowing a choice does not have any bearing on the person's ability to choose when it comes to the past, why would it to the future? I am failing to see why having that knowledge has any meaningful impact on someone else choosing something. It's not like I'm forcing my kid to take a cookie, just by knowing she is going to choose to do so tomorrow. I only know she is going to take the cookie because she will decide to take the cookie. If she didn't, I would know she wouldn't.
Drepanum@reddit
Brother you are right but you are just repeating thins to someone unwilling to understand. Nonetheless I think you should change the vernacular: choices do not exist, everything is predetermined, but it's not our knowledge of what is going to happen that makes the future predetermined
lilgraytabby@reddit
If you know 100% that she is going yo take a cookie tomorrow, is there any chance that she does not do it?
Because if someone can only take one course of action, then they never made a choice. A choice needs at least two options.
vaterl@reddit
And if I can see every possible future, which means the child taking and not taking the cookie, how are they predetermined to take one? I see all paths they can take, but it’s still different paths. I didn’t choose one for them.
maninahat@reddit
If I know then there is no chance she would not do it . But -again- the choice will be hers at the given time. Me already knowing which choice she'll make doesn't mean she didn't have the other option, it means I know she won't take the other option on her own volition.
lilgraytabby@reddit
If the future is set in stone, then how can she make a choice? Maybe it seems like she has a choice, but if she can't actually choose differently because then your vision of the future would be wrong, then she didn't actually have a choice.
Being able to know the future 100% means that the future is set in stone. If the future is set in stone then we never actually make choices, it just seems like we do.
If you already knew all the choices she was going to make, why should you bother traching her how to be a good person? If it's already determined what she'll do woth every single choice ahead of time.
maninahat@reddit
If the future is set in stone, then so is every preceding moment, including what were previously future events, ie what is now the past. Which is why I was bringing up the past. The past is something we know is set in stone, and yet that fact doesn't negate the choice being made what was once contemporaneous.
If I don't teach my daughter to be a good person, she won't make good choices, she'll make bad choices. Causality is still a thing even with my future seeing powets. In fact I'd already know the consequences of failing to teach her to be a better person.
lilgraytabby@reddit
The past already happened, yes. While I am eating my dinner, I can choose wether I want to eat my spinach first or my potatoes. In 15 minutes when I'm done eating anymore, I can no longer make that choice because it's in the past. But I don't know which I will eat first tomorrow. But if it turns out that there is an omniscient being who knows that I'll eat my spimach first tomorrow then the possibility of me eating potatoes first can't exist, because that would make the omniscient being wrong. So I don't actually have a choice in the matter.
But if all the choices your daughter will ever make are already set in stone (because if she did something different then the omniscient being would be wrong) then she literally never makes a choice in her life. If it's all predetermined and god knowd what's going to happen then we're only going through the motions and can't make any choices at all.
If eveyone's choices are set in stone already then you teaching her right from wrong wouldn't matter because her actions are already determined.
maninahat@reddit
What if I told you, after you finished your dinner, that I had already forseen you eating the spinach first - that didn't change your role in deciding which to eat, you made your choice without my input. Your choice was very real to you, you made the choice, I just happened to already know how it was going to go down, yes? From a practical standpoint it's no different than if I said nothing or if I couldn't see your future, you're still picking which side to eat first in your own time.
lilgraytabby@reddit
The illusion of choice was real to me, but if at no point in the process there was any chance for me to eat potatoes first then no, I never made a choice. A choice means that you can pick either one. If it was predestined by a 100% omniscient being then it can never be a genuine choice even if it feels like one.
maninahat@reddit
Functionally, there would be no difference between you choosing the spinach and there being no fate, and you choosing the spinach and then later learning you were fated to go spinach. The experience is the same either way, with the fate version factoring in your entire chain of reasoning for picking spinach over potatoes.
It is therefore meaningless to fret about it being a non-choice, if either reality, the no-fate or fated one, is indistinguishable.
lilgraytabby@reddit
Oh I don't believe in free will anyways, but ai think religious people who try to both believe in an omniscient god AND free will are trying to have their cake and eat it too.
If god knows the future 100% then that means you can't do anything that falls outside of the future he knows. Which means you cannot actually choose your next action because obly one option is available to you: the one the god already knows you will make. In a world with an omniscient god I just truly don't see how any choice is not an illusion.
And if god already knows your choices how can he justify sending people to hell for something that they mever had an option not to do?
SilliusS0ddus@reddit
Small problem here:
He also made the person who is choosing.
He made them with the mental attributes which make it likely for her to steal from the cookie jar
maninahat@reddit
Even without factoring a god into the equation, do you think an individual's choices are just a matter of their DNA? The kid might have a natural impulse to take cookies, but they know what they are doing and making a conscious choice.
SilliusS0ddus@reddit
I think there is some amount of genetic and developmental determinism.
genetics and the conditions you grow up in shape you and the kind of choices you make.
vaterl@reddit
I think you’re confused thinking God knows about a single set future, he sees all possible future. He doesn’t exist in time and space, so I guess that’s hard for you to wrap your mind around. That’s sort of the whole point of God though, throughout human history, in case you missed it.
lilgraytabby@reddit
"I think you're confused" as if this isn't all made up anyways. And actually there have been plenty of religions where gods allegedly existed physically in the world. Christianity isn't the only religion and there was plenty of human history before it was established.
KoodlePadoodle@reddit
I dunno, just cause God knows what number I'm thinking before I think to think it doesn't mean I didn't choose to think it.
Dennis_enzo@reddit
If you are truly free to think of a random number, no one can know beforehand with absolute certainty what you're going to pick.
lifetimeoflaughter@reddit
Yes they can. If their knowledge follows your decision and they then travel back in time. Guess who exists beyond time?
The information of what choice you’ll make doesn’t exist before you’ve made your choice. It can only be known after you’ve made it, but God exists both before and after at the same time. That’s how he can know what you’ll do before you do it. Because he’s already seen it happen. You still 100% made the choice yourself.
Dennis_enzo@reddit
Yes let's ignore all the inherent paradoxes that that causes.
'Beyond time' is not a coherent concept.
lifetimeoflaughter@reddit
Nah let’s hear the laundry list of paradoxes this supposedly causes. You made it sound like a lot so I expect at least 3.
And what’s incoherent about an omnipotent God being beyond time? God is not bound by linear time and can be present at any moment in time, past, present and future simultaneously from the beginning of time until the end. Coherent enough?
Dennis_enzo@reddit
Here's a simple one. If god sees that I'm buying ice cream tomorrow and he tries to prevent me from doing so, what happens?
If he can't stop me from buying ice cream, does that mean that there is some fundamental force more powerful than god which prevents it? How is that possible? Isn't he supposed to be all powerful?
If he does prevent me from buying ice cream, his foresight was wrong. But it can't be since it's supposed to be flawless. How does that work? Does the universe now implode from this logical contradiction?
But I can already see that this is pointless. You will just argue that god can do anything, even fundamentally contradictory things because he is god who can do anything because some holy book says so. And you will offer not a single explanation for why and how exactly god can do all these fundamentally contradictory and impossible things. No argument can beat 'indescribable god magic can do anything that I make up'. Have a nice day.
lifetimeoflaughter@reddit
Didn't know you too have divine knowledge of the future. Why don't you wait and see what I have to say instead of being a condescending prick?
What you need to wrap your noodle around is how this causality chain works. First of all, if God observes you making a choice to buy ice cream, you've made that choice. Whether or not God stops you is irrelevant to the question of if you have free will.
Gods own actions do not apply here. His foresight applies to us because we are limited by time. For himself, there isn't any version of God that hasn't done something yet. He just is. Eternal and unchanging. If he chose to stop you he will always stop you and therefore he would know you wouldn't get your ice cream from the get go. If he doesn't stop you he'd have knowledge of how you got to eat your ice cream.
You can't set his knowledge of the events in stone and then change the events. His foresight follows the events not the other way around. Forwards or backwards in time does not matter. It works the same way as normal. Event leads to information about that event now existing. Change the event, the information changes. You cannot change the event and expect the information not to follow.
Any questions? Or maybe an apology and some manners this time around.
A_New_Dawn_Emerges@reddit
What happens when you pick a number in your head? It just pops into your mind, right? Is that really free will then?
Running_Gamer@reddit
Nobody can truly understand God using human cognitive ability. God can see all possible known and unknown dimensions. you trying to understand God’s perceptive is like an ant trying to understand Einstein’s theory of relativity. It is biologically impossible.
Atompunk78@reddit
God chose to give us free will, hence he doesn’t know everything that will happen. All-knowing means he knows every that can be known, in the same way as all-powerful generally means he can do everything that can be done
It’s all bullshit obviously but there is reasoning behind it
Mental_Jeweler_3191@reddit
That's an interesting argument.
I'd compare it with St Augustine's De libero arbitrio voluntatis.
In the final analysis, however, I find the latter slightly more compelling intellectually.
Cement-eater@reddit
stupidfritz@reddit
The latter of what?
the_gerund@reddit
latter rip lol beynbaldes
Fun1k@reddit
captain_assgasm@reddit
You could've at least told the people something about the book. Because a world with genuine freedom is better than a world of just perfectly good people walking around. That without evil to choose the good doesn't exist and whatnot. Something so others can get at least a glimpse into what you're trying to say.
But you decided to flex on random people how intellectual you are and what big boy books you read. Without providing any useful information, without trying to educate people. Holier than thou you are, for you read philosophy books not just greentexts!
Super-Fill7098@reddit
Reddit ass comment
Mental_Jeweler_3191@reddit
My impression is that people on Reddit tend to be upfront about calling other people stupid and badly informed. I suppose I may have been mistaken.
Super-Fill7098@reddit
You have
Mental_Jeweler_3191@reddit
Well, thanks for informing me.
Dick.
KAAAAAAAAARL@reddit
At least he has one
stupidfritz@reddit
Sure thing, regard. Did you drop your helmet on the way from middle school?
Super-Fill7098@reddit
Yeah
_Afinef_@reddit
Read
plaguelivesmatter@reddit
Reddit ass comment 2
Super-Fill7098@reddit
Yeah
Onotadaki2@reddit
k3rstman1@reddit
breadman242a@reddit
Nah I’m gonna take anons word over Augustine
MechaZombieCharizard@reddit
Augustinian predestination discourse in my gay racist shitpost sub? I won't have it
JeffyGoldblumsPen_15@reddit
That's some redditor tier understanding of Christianity.
Uniquely-Bee@reddit
Tfw when midwit toddler level arguments absolutely BTFO your 2,000 years of cope theology
JeffyGoldblumsPen_15@reddit
TFW you a typical fedora tipping predditor believes Christianity is owned. No real argument. Nothing disproved. Just some low tier single paragraph of I haven't read the Bible. Now let me tell you how it's fake attempt at an argument
nekonayahVT@reddit
Honestly, I do the same thing in The Sims and Tomodachi Life, so I understand the appeal. They are not to blame for anything, and yet I give rewards and punishments to my actors. I also have my favorites and those I just want to see suffer for no apparent reason. Sometimes i kill some of them, and sometimes I regret it and bring them back.
nekonayahVT@reddit
I actually do it in Tomodachi Life and The Sims, so I kind of understand.
One-Pressure1615@reddit
Atheist applying a very human and restricted concept of omniscience upon a being that is impossible for us to conceptualize. Classic.
For an honest answer, God can see what happens, and what will happen. Not because he can see the future but because his concept of time is not like our “past, present, future” concept. He still gave us free will.
Hence the apple incident.
k410n@reddit
This is what a 5 year old thinks religion is about.
Vechs@reddit
God knows the Minecraft world seed, and knows what will generate based on that seed. But you, the player, still have agency on the server.
theceure@reddit
That's not even close. But nice try meat bags.
lifetimeoflaughter@reddit
“Humans therefore have no agency or moral responsibility”
Wrong, try again.
Marik-X-Bakura@reddit
If someone knows the future, that doesn’t somehow mean that everyone else has no agency or control over themselves. That’s a pretty massive leap.
_Empty-R_@reddit
ill make it, not you (them)
LemonFlavoredMelon@reddit
Christians: God gave us free will!
Also Christians: If you question God's plan, you're wrong!
Make it make sense
TaquitoLaw@reddit
Technically if he was all powerful he could know the endings and plots to every single possible movie and just wants to see what page you're choosing your own adventure
jacktheripper1307@reddit
calvinism
Wankainu@reddit
How do we go from "God knows everything" to "humans have no responsibility?" Thats just an insane leap in logic. Just because you know what will happen to something dosent make its own actions irrelevant, you just simply know the outcome of that creatures own actions/inaction. Saying that a person has no agency in their life is antithetical to the purpose of life on earth as taught in the Bible. Humanity is special in that they can do what they want with a conscious, and with emotions, and morality. God dosent truly punish anyone. Descriptions of hell are often just described as a dark and sorrowful place without the love of God. All the tales of a lake of fire and brimstone are mostly either mistranslations, or misinterpretions. For example, when he'll was described as having/being a lake of fire, that was describing metaphorically to what it would feel like to the sinner by cross referencing a previous story in the bible (i think it was Ghenna or something along those lines.) Being brought to hell after death is more like being set in the corner and being left alone after you said you dont love your family, and realizing that you truly and deeply miss them.
TL;DR: OP thinks that your choices dont matter if someone knows they will happen (pseudo intellectual)
MustardJar4321@reddit
Youre all laughing at anon but this is the exact reason i left my faith
casteezyboy@reddit
God set the parameters but left the choices up to you. He will not force you to love Him because that's not true love
LiterallyAPidgeon@reddit
Free will isn't real, but it works the same way money works. We pretend it's real and then it helps society function day to day
ItsMichaelRay@reddit
I disagree with the third line. Humans have agency and moral responsibility, but God knows the outcome of that agency/responsibility.
princealigorna@reddit
You don't have these problems when you worship the old gods, who never claimed to be all-good and had much more limited domains of influence. Just saying
TimidTurkey_321@reddit
How dare you use logic in regards to religion
Quercus408@reddit
Can't wait for all religion to just become mythology. It's so much more fun, that way
officer_shnitzel_69@reddit
They'll just make new ones. Humanity can never survive without some from of metaphysical belief
james_frankie@reddit
God likes to joke around.
COYScule@reddit
Anon is like when your teacher asks you a question about the reading and you just make something up
Rohen420@reddit
repost subhuman
M0rgr0m@reddit
What's so hard to understand about the idea that he knows everything that will happen, but by his non-interference we have free will? He simply knows what we will choose to do.
vaterl@reddit
This is the preschool level of “Le Epic Reddit Christian debunk”, and it’s the most easily answered argument that atheist fedora Redditors make. Like, at least try, a little.
Gale-@reddit
4chan and intentionally misinterpreting a religion, a tale as old as time.
Lord412@reddit
He gave humans the ability of choice. He is all knowing in the sense of if you do something even in private he knows. He didn’t map out every possible scenario for everyone. He just built a universe and a rock for us to do whatever we want. The future isn’t something that is set in stone. If you were a god how much attention would you pay to one individual? Probably not a ton.
adlcp@reddit
God gives himself drugs to induce amnesia, god watches our films and grieves or rejoices along with us.
Thedran@reddit
The very basis of this question accepts that god sees everything through all of time. Even if you assume that every action has already happened that doesn’t remove free will it just means that the entirety of the choices of that free will have already happened and can be observed by God.
jimbo224@reddit
It still wouldn't be our free will though, it would be God's
angus22proe@reddit
Anon thinks he is smarter than the greatest european intelectual minds in history
Wiinterfang@reddit
God is a creator and he made us in his name. So we create stuff too, we don't create forever happy stuff. Heck some of the things we create were so abysmal he had to hit the old reset button once.
GraniteSmoothie@reddit
De Heretico Comburendo
nukey18mon@reddit
Fails on premise three, just because the outcome is known doesn’t mean that humans have no agency.
Firelord_Iroh@reddit
If god is perfect. And all he does is perfect. Then irregardless of which Abrahamic religion you follow. Whatever is written down are his direct perfect words.
If god says marrying 9 year olds like Muhammad did is A-okay, it is still true to this day, as god is perfect.
If god says 1 Samuel 18:27 talking about David killing Philistines then bringing their foreskins???? Yup. Ordained by god.
If “oh this is god telling men true words, and the men, being fallible, wrote it down wrong”. Then it isn’t really the word of god is it, so why follow it so closely.
Religion pisses me off
Lichruler@reddit
Looks like an /r/atheism user escaped containment, with how many of these “greentexts” about Christianity he’s posting.
shadow_irradiant@reddit
Don't get why crossyboys get so stumped by this...
We muzzies believe this life is a test for something. Our souls being extra-universal beings and whatnot. And Big guy teacher knows what everyone's gonna score, but he lets the students take the exam anyways. You fail because you suck, not because the teacher knows you're gonna fail. We've solved this shit in the 700s and yall still crying about it in the year of the crossylord 2026
MattMurdockEsq@reddit
Y'all fucking wild.
Il-Duce-@reddit
There’s a difference between knowing will happen for certain based on a complete knowledge of the facts and knowing something will happen because by necessity it cannot happen otherwise. God’s knowledge of future events is the former not the latter. People still choose to be evil, it’s just that God knows which ones will make the choice. The Humans still have agency.
A_New_Dawn_Emerges@reddit
Most humans who ever lived will burn eternally in a lake of fire, but at least they had free will for an infinitely brief fraction of their existence. Totally worth it, can't imagine a better way to do this.
cocainebrick3242@reddit
anon wasn't paying attention to the whole "humans have agency and are responsible for their actions " part.
A_New_Dawn_Emerges@reddit
God knew Adam and Eve would eat the fruit. He created humans as sinful and then complained about how sinful they were. It's the ultimate "stick in the bike wheel" meme. Never found a Christian who could come up with a satisfying explanation for this.
RatioTechnical234@reddit
its not about believing, dummy.
its about maintaining control and planting a false hope that the proletariat can hang on with their heads down, ask no questions. While the Bourgeoisie and the Aristocrats do whatever the fuck they want.
Either that
or god is a demented chud asshole.
no in between
Pretty-Researcher404@reddit
Sometimes you gotta have a good script and then watch the magic happen
Disastrous-Speed-594@reddit
What if God experiences time non-linearly so he only knows because you've already chosen to do it?
Il-Duce-@reddit
If I remember my High School Theology Class that was the view of St. Thomas Aquinas, basically the semi-official philosopher of the Roman Church.
googlin@reddit
butt muh free will
Sentinel_2539@reddit
You're gonna send me back into the rabbit hole of determinism.
outer_spec@reddit
anon literally just reinvented calvinism and pretended like it was a new thing
inTsukiShinmatsu@reddit
Have you played the sims
thethirdrayvecchio@reddit
“If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of not having their pool ladder deleted, that person is a piece of shit”
ShepherdOfShepherds@reddit
If pool ladder is your strength, what are you without it?
Hyper669@reddit
I think the idea is that while your fate is predetermined, you still have the free will that'll lead you to said fate.
unsungunsung@reddit
In the grand scheme of history, 4chan has caused 0.001% of the harm that Christianity has to the world 🤷🏼♀️
tarqtarqsauce@reddit
its always funny to me how atheists want to confine an endless and all powerful force of the universe such as a god of everything, to human logic
be a little more creative guys
DrWD-Gaster@reddit
TopBun06@reddit
Anon discovers the Epicurean Paradox
mister-fancypants-@reddit
if people had no control then there’s no free will… but there is? I think it’d be more like God can see the future but it’s not predetermined idfk i’m not religioys
SmoothPimp85@reddit
Epstein psyop product ridicules religious people. Good greentext
kfish5050@reddit
God is an Author. He is "all-knowing" in the sense that His word is Canon, not that he literally knows every thought going through every person's head every second. He made us in his image, therefore we are able to create stories ourselves and be our own Gods to our characters. We don't make characters suffer for no reason, it makes the story more interesting and allows our characters to grow and develop. We like to believe our characters have their own will, yet they literally don't do anything unless we will it ourselves. In that sense, a purely technical analysis would indicate that no, they don't have free will, and therefore we don't either. However, in the whimsical world of stories, authors tend to be messengers of the world brought about by their imaginations, often feeling whe will of their characters by imagining what they would do in the situations given to them. So, if that is the case and holds true to our reality, it could very well be that our God is currently concerned with whatever characters he's focused the story on and the vast majority of us are living out our lives as extras, within the offscreen time and being insignificant to the plot regardless. Of course, we never know who the main characters really are, or even if our reality is currently being "observed" by God's story, but to ourselves this reality is a constant and fixed flow of time for everyone.
Think of your favorite story, whether it be a live action sitcom, reading from a book, or any of the plethora of ways we share them. Are you, as the reader or audience of the story, keenly aware of every second of every character's life? Do you see them use the bathroom? Does the story ever skip ahead, like progressing to some time during the next day without revealing what happens to each character during the night? If you know where to look, you'll find that each and every one of the stories you love is full of these kinds of narrative holes, where you as the reader or audience discount as an insignificant time period of the story. But living as a character yourself, you don't have that luxury and you live your life every second at a time in chronological order. Of course you can't tell which parts are "real" and which aren't, even if you were somehow made aware of the meta. So in a sense, you can call the gaps in narration the true existence of free will, where even if you created your own characters, you would not account for every second of this time.
activetaway@reddit
I mean if he's all powerful, then I imagine he'd be able to blind/disable the all knowing part and truly have randomness.
That seems feasible for power beyond human comprehension
Hopesick_2231@reddit
If God exists, we must kill him by any means necessary
Crashover90@reddit
You've got the chutzpah in you.
ThePrimeOptimus@reddit
Squidward-Daring-Today-Arent-We.jpg
Ecstatic-Compote-595@reddit
yeah buddy it's fake lmao. Also god isn't supposed to be looking at you all the time, he could but he's got better shit he could be doing
TON-OF-CLAY0429@reddit
I mean not really he’d always be watching if he was real cuz he’d be omnipresent.
_zarathustra@reddit
This is conflating many different nuggets of folk wisdom as if it's one coherent, religious philosophy. Which religion is this supposed to be referring to? If Christianity, is it referring to Calvinism, Mormonism, Catholicism? All are wildly different and none agree with all of the above.
DeltaT37@reddit
Belief? No it's FAITH
No_Location_8199@reddit
Do you think someone knowing what you're going to do means you have no agency? That's stupid.
XAlphaWarriorX@reddit
Yea Calvinism is pretty dumb.
It's something thr Dutch believe, so you know it's wrong and perverse.
pedrokdc@reddit
Anon is rehashing medieval philosophy...
Zee3420@reddit
Predestination is still to this day a debated topic.
Most denominations have their own interpretation of it.
CloudySpace@reddit
what if its all knowing, but not to the future. what if human autonomy and free will are made for entertainment?
FooManPooh@reddit
Picture of doctor unrelated
_Stealth_Hawk@reddit
Anon doesn't get it and it shows.
JoshSmithDaGOAT@reddit
Method
Petrica55@reddit
Have you seen like any fandom ever?
thebestdogeevr@reddit
Eh, everything's happening based off the laws of physics so it's all predetermined anyway, God or not