Atheism and the Christian God.

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In response to this statement by me:
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Philthy:
Really? Is this what your numbers told you? I didn’t get that - all I got was your inability to apply number sets to omniscience reliably. Numbers can’t handle infinity as well as you would like to pretend and your own thinking is limited to the mathmatical realm of the model you create to represent reality.

You replied:
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AnAtheist:
Ok, if that’s true, then WHY do religious people dare to make statements like “you must do A, then God does B”? If logic can’t be applied to God, those statements have no basis. Even if God told you so, how could you know there is a logical connection between his words and his mind, if he’s is not contained by mere logic?
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I think I now understand our problem. Somehow you are of the opinion that LOGIC and MATHEMATICS are equivalent. You are wrong. For example, the statement:“There is no truth other than that which can be mathematically verified” can not be confirmed nor denied using mathmatics - it is a PHILOSOPHICAL proposal and requires the use of philosophy.
 
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AnAtheist:
Good example. But if you have build that calculator, you know exactly why and how it calculates 1+1=2. You build it in a way, that it cannot produce 3 there,
And as God is supposed to have created the whole universe, my soul, and all of the rest, with full knowledge what happens if he creates all that in that way, all of my actions are predestined.
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You are still not getting it. It is not because God HAS knowledge of the future that CAUSES the future to occur the way it does. Plain and simple. The calculator arriving at 2 is completely independent of the knowledge THAT it will or HOW it will arrive at 2. That was the purpose of the example: KNOWLEDGE of event does not equal CAUSE of event.
And as far as your statement, “You build it in a way, that it cannot produce 3 there”, this in no way applies to how God built us - you have not provided a shred of evidence, mathmatical or otherwise, to refute the concept that God has built us to be able to good vs evil and yet at the same time has knowledge of what the actual result will be.

Phil
 
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AnAtheist:
Why not? When was the last time you discussed that issue with an ant?
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Just so we’re clear - are you joking here or is this your explanation for the innate sense of justice we possess?

Here I’ll give a mathmatical choice:

Let A = All who believe that justice is a function of the degree of social interaction of life forms and, as such, is directly proportionate to the degree of social interaction.

Let B = All those who believe that justice is a quality unique to humans, related to their social interaction, but not necessarily a function of it.

Enjoy-

Phil
 
The greatest thing about this whole thread is that in saying there is no free will people are actually using free will.

It’s a self-contradiction that many theologians have pointed out. Underlying the statement “everything is predetermined” is an intellectual ascent to that position. You have actually made a choice in saying that everything is predetermined. You chose between that and alternative ideas. So the very fact there is an argument refutes predeterminism.

As other posters have pointed out, it doesn’t follow that because God is omniscient, humans must be predetermined.

I like to view life as a journey. God has a purpose for me, and the devil has an anti-purpose for me. There are fence posts along the way that God wants me to touch. Can He make things happen that will guide me in the right direction? Sure, but He doesn’t determine if I go that way, He only helps. Meanwhile, the evil one appeals to me as well to get me to move away from those fence posts along the way. Again, the devil doesn’t determine it either, but he tries to distract me from my purpose. This is free will.

Now, God does know what my future holds because He is omniscient. Since He knows all time, he can take into account my decisions, and everyone elses for that matter, to bring about the outcome He wants WITHOUT determining my will.
 
Nan S said:
1. The omniscient God knows everything we could do, and all the choices we could make, and all the consequences and new choices arising from all of those decisions of ours.
  1. The omnipotent God gave us Free Will. He still lets us make the choices.
  2. The omniscient God knows ahead of time which choices we will make. If He did not, He would not be omniscient.
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good post - thanks. I have not seen the proof of the bolded above. To have knowledge of what does not yet exist does not necessarily follow. If something has not happened, and may or may not happen, then is one who lacks the knowledge of it lacking knowledge at all? Is it knowledge before it is reality? I say that is debateable.

Just my thoughts,

Phil
 
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Philthy:
Thank you for having the patience to explain your concepts more fully - my intuition led me to believe you had much more to say but that you were either confused re Catholic teaching or you were holding back for some other reason. Now I understand that it was “some other reason”, namely that you were treated uncharitably by others. That’s too bad - everyone deserves to speak freely, and debate should be as non-confrontational as possible. I have been guilty of the same…
That much being said, you are correct: we have different concepts for God. All I will say further is that at some point we need proof for our beliefs. I won’t attempt to engage you in debate about proving yours, but I will encourage you to reflect more fully with the independent mind you have on the proof of the Catholic Church: The resurrection of Jesus Christ. Just when you are ready to dismiss it as folk lore or some other easy explanation, you will still have to deal with the reality of the otherwise sane individuals who witnessed this event and had their lives radically altered by it.
Rather than disbanding by the death of their leader, which is the longterm example throughout human history, they were emboldened by the reality of his resurrection, transformed by it and accepted death rather than renunciation of this reality.

Keep searching…and peace be with you,

Phil
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I think as much proof as we will ever have is all around us, we live it. I do not dismiss the resurrection of Christ, I actually believe it! I do not think there are easy explanations for any of it. I think some of the theological labyrinths that have since insued, and the often tortured thinking that people have resorted to to explain the unexplainable are the problem, not the unexplainable things themselves.

Everyday I am immersed in wonders that no one can truly explain. I am in awe of it all.

it’s been fun discussing with you.

cheddar
 
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Philthy:
good post - thanks. I have not seen the proof of the bolded above. To have knowledge of what does not yet exist does not necessarily follow. If something has not happened, and may or may not happen, then is one who lacks the knowledge of it lacking knowledge at all? Is it knowledge before it is reality? I say that is debateable.

Just my thoughts,

Phil
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From Aquinas’ Summa Q. 14, A. 13:

I answer that , Since as we shown above, God knows all things, not only things actual but also things possible to Hum and to the creature, and since some of these are future contingent to us, it follows that God knows future contingents.
…

And although contingent things become actual successively, nevertheless God knows contingent things not successively, as they are in their own being, as we do, but simultaneously. The reason is because His knowledge is measured by eternity as is also His being; and eternity, being simultaneously whole, comprises all time, as was said above. Hence, all things that are in time are present to God from eternity, not only because of the essences of things present within Him, as some say, but because His glance is carried from eternity over all things as they are in their presentiality. Hence it is manifest that contingent things are infallibly known by God, inasmuch as they are subject to the divine sight in their presentiality; and yet they are future contingent things in relation to their own causes.

Sorry for the length. There is more before and after that is relevant. Hope this is enough for now.

David
 
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Philthy:
Somehow you are of the opinion that LOGIC and MATHEMATICS are equivalent. You are wrong.
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Of course they are. Logic can be represented with mathematics, ie formalised.
 
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Philthy:
You are still not getting it.
Oh, I do get it, but I don’t buy it, because it’s nonsense.
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And as far as your statement, “You build it in a way, that it cannot produce 3 there”, this in no way applies to how God built us - you have not provided a shred of evidence, mathmatical or otherwise, to refute the concept that God has built us to be able to good vs evil and yet at the same time has knowledge of what the actual result will be.
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Phil
Again, for the slow, worded differently. If God knows I will decide A, do I have the liberty to decide B instead? If yes, God is not omniscient, otherwise he had known I decided B. If no, I am not free to decide anything else than A. Get it?

ps: Let’s assume for a minute, I can decide A on my very own free will despite God’s omniscience. Then I am the ultimate cause for that decision. Then we have at least one thing that is not caused by the ultimate mover, debunking a lot of those arguments for a god. The causality chains all ending in God proposed in those arguments must be broken to allow for free will.
 
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JP2Admirer:
The greatest thing about this whole thread is that in saying there is no free will people are actually using free will.
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Just to make things clear: I do not deny the existence of free will. In fact, I think quantum physics very much allows it, as it allows uncaused events. What I deny is the parallel existence of free will and an all-knowing universe-creating mastermind.
 
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AnAtheist:
Again, for the slow, worded differently. If God knows I will decide A, do I have the liberty to decide B instead? If yes, God is not omniscient, otherwise he had known I decided B. If no, I am not free to decide anything else than A. Get it?

ps: Let’s assume for a minute, I can decide A on my very own free will despite God’s omniscience. Then I am the ultimate cause for that decision. Then we have at least one thing that is not caused by the ultimate mover, debunking a lot of those arguments for a god. The causality chains all ending in God proposed in those arguments must be broken to allow for free will.
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God gives you a choice: A or B
He let’s you choose.
Whichever you choose, God knew you were going to choose it because God is not bound by time or space. But this doesn’t mean your free-will has been eliminated.
Our puny brains cannot understand the ways of our Creator. We may think we have answers based on philosophy, science, math, and/or basic intelligence/common sense (this is largely due to our huge egos), but one day you and I will understand things that were beyond our grasp in this life.

Blessings to you!
 
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Mickey:
Our puny brains cannot understand the ways of our Creator.
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If your brain is so puny, then how do you know, he gave you free will or just the illusion of it?
 
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AnAtheist:
If your brain is so puny, then how do you know, he gave you free will or just the illusion of it?
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Many times the Bible commands men to choose righteousness and to overcome sin.
 
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dennisknapp:
Why do atheists have a problem with the Christian concept of God?

Problem of evil, maybe?

Peace
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For my part, it’s the basic idea of an anthropomorphic deity that I find impossible to believe. The idea that we were made in the image of God made a sort of sense back when everyone thought that all of the universe was pretty much the Earth and some complicated stage settings built around it for a few hundred miles.

But now we know that the Earth is an infinitessimally tiny speck in our solar system, which is itself an infinitessimally tiny speck in our galaxy, which is itself an infinitessimally tiny speck in the universe.

I can just about accept as plausible the idea of an intelligent entity behind the existence of the universe. But the idea that this entity, if it does exist, has anything in common with a single species of primates on a single speck of rock in a single speck of a solar system seems as ludicrous to me as suggesting that God resembles a paramecium.
 
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SamCA:
For my part, it’s the basic idea of an anthropomorphic deity that I find impossible to believe. The idea that we were made in the image of God made a sort of sense back when everyone thought that all of the universe was pretty much the Earth and some complicated stage settings built around it for a few hundred miles.

But now we know that the Earth is an infinitessimally tiny speck in our solar system, which is itself an infinitessimally tiny speck in our galaxy, which is itself an infinitessimally tiny speck in the universe.

I can just about accept as plausible the idea of an intelligent entity behind the existence of the universe. But the idea that this entity, if it does exist, has anything in common with a single species of primates on a single speck of rock in a single speck of a solar system seems as ludicrous to me as suggesting that God resembles a paramecium.
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You make a good point, but our infantismal existence is exactly a reason to believe in a Creator. The probability of a star that could sustain life is a trillionth of a trillionth percent of all stars. Since there are only about a trillion galaxies with about a billion stars, it is easy to surmise that there might only be one planet with life on it. We are the center of existence and the universe exists for us, no matter how materially infantismal we are.

Here’s a link to where my info comes from:

origins.org/articles/ross_designanthropic.html

Check out the part titled “Earth as a Fit Habitat.”
 
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AnAtheist:
Of course they are. Logic can be represented with mathematics, ie formalised.
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Really? How? I thought Gödel showed that any such formilisation would necessarily be unsound and incomplete (this seems to be the understanding, for example, in Gödel’s Theorem Simplified by Harry Gensler and Gödel’s Proof by Ernest Nagel and James Newman).

Thanks,

David
 
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JP2Admirer:
You make a good point, but our infantismal existence is exactly a reason to believe in a Creator. The probability of a star that could sustain life is a trillionth of a trillionth percent of all stars. Since there are only about a trillion galaxies with about a billion stars, it is easy to surmise that there might only be one planet with life on it. We are the center of existence and the universe exists for us, no matter how materially infantismal we are.

Here’s a link to where my info comes from:

origins.org/articles/ross_designanthropic.html

Check out the part titled “Earth as a Fit Habitat.”
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This is a pointless argument, and one that chases its own tail. How does anyone have the information to determine the probability of this? They do not. The fact that we exists proves that it is not only probable, it is possible. The fact that something happens, no matter how improbable does not mean someone is out there playing chess. The universe is vast (you say so yourself) and we honestly don’t have a clue how long it has been here, but we suspect It’s been around a heck of an impossible for us to imagine amount of time. This gives a lot of opportunity for even the improbable to take place, at some point. The way statistics work is that, eventually, anything that can happen, will happen given enough time and opportunity.

Don’t let scientists fool you (and I am one). They don’t “know” as much as the media makes us think they do. Our ability to “see” the cosmos, and to be able to grasp the patterns that span such vast distances and amounts of time is very limited.

I do think that science points to some things that are very godlike, but not anthropomorphic. The more I study and research, the more I believe.

cheddar
 
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Philthy:
Nan S said:
3. The omniscient God knows ahead of time which choices we will make. If He did not, He would not be omniscient.
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good post - thanks. I have not seen the proof of the bolded above. To have knowledge of what does not yet exist does not necessarily follow. If something has not happened, and may or may not happen, then is one who lacks the knowledge of it lacking knowledge at all? Is it knowledge before it is reality? I say that is debateable.

Just my thoughts, Phil
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The key is to remember that God is not limited by linear time. God existed before everything and created everything, including the linear time under which we exist.

God can and does move through our linear time, but is also free to move outside of it. To suppose otherwise would require also supposing that Time is greater than God, which would mean that God is not God after all, that Time is God … (it gets silly from here out).

In another description of God being unbound by linear time, I think of the descriptions of the Sacrifice of the Mass. We do not re-crucify Christ every weekend. Christ died once. But at every elevation and consecration of the host and cup, we get a glimpse of eternity as we participate again in the one eternal sacrifice.

To God, past, present, and future are all simultaneous. In His eyes, outside of the limitations of linear time, we are simultaneously going to do something, are doing that something, and already have done that same something. That’s how God knows, with 100% accuracy, what we are going to do before we know we are going to do it.

To us, it’s a one-way trip. With blinders.
 
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AnAtheist:
If your brain is so puny, then how do you know, he gave you free will or just the illusion of it?
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What do you make of Antony Flew’s resent change of mind? The worlds leading atheist becomes a theist. What does that tell you?

Peace
 
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