Flip Flop Existance

[trumpet152]

RyanL:

Nostradamus had “fulfilled prophecies” too (as did 1984)…

Good point.

 

[Hitetlen]

EnterTheBowser:

Hey, you’re not playing by the rules! You’re supposed to be defending the existence of God.

Huh? I am a hard-core atheist

EnterTheBowser:

Anyways, let me make my own analogy: would you want your children to perform precisely as you designed them? Would you want to have complete control over their actions? Or would you prefer that they be their own person - even if this preference entailed that on occasion, some of them did things you didn’t approve of?

I also have a problem with the wording “my children”. I don’t own them, even if I participated in the process to bring them forth. And indeed, if I could make sure that they always conform to my standards, I sure would prefer that. Why wouldn’t I? I like my standards…

EnterTheBowser:

Additionally, I think your conception of free will is problematic. Let’s imagine, for an instant, a Godless universe. Now, at this point, there’s nothing with enough knowledge about you to predict your actions. So you’ve got free will. But then, unbeknownst to you, an alien begins monitoring the Earth, and with supercomputers and very sensitive measuring tools, she gains enough knowledge about your behavior to be able to exactly predict it. So now you wouldn’t have free will. But in reality, nothing about you has changed. So it’s silly to say that you might have gained or lost free will, since there was no actual change in yourself - and it seems that free will is definitely a property of a thing/person.

If it were possible, then my free will would have been illusory in the first place. But of course, this is just a playing with words. Free will simply means that we are the primary causative agents for our actions. We may not have true “free will”, but we have to act as if we did. It is impossible to “prove” free will, because we have no way to stop time, rewind it and see if having the same (truly same) circumstances would result in the same decision or not.

 

[trumpet152]

EnterTheBowser:

The argument runs that the importance of free will outweighs possible harms. Without free will, we would be mere robots, and no good at all would arise - whereas in a free world, though there is evil, there is also the oppurtunity for good.

Why is free will good? Why is being a “robot” bad? Should we let prisoners out of jails so they can free will? No! The greater good is accomplished when their free will is limited. Why didn’t God do this?

 

[RyanL]

Hitetlen,

On this thread, no matter what you believe, the “rules” are to take a certain position. Since you are a “regular member”, you must argue for the existance of God on this thread. Because I am a “senior member”, I must argue against the existance of God on this thread. If you are unwilling or unable to do this…well…this is probably not the thread for you.

God Bless…er…wait…I’m supposed to be an athiest…“Bless yourself!”,
RyanL

 

[Hitetlen]

RyanL:

Hitetlen,

On this thread, no matter what you believe, the “rules” are to take a certain position. Since you are a “regular member”, you must argue for the existance of God. Because I am a “senior member”, I must argue against the existance of God. If you are unwilling or unable to do this…well…this is probably not the thread for you.

God Bless…er…wait…I’m supposed to be an athiest…“Bless yourself!”,
RyanL

Mea maxima culpa, that rule must have slipped my attention So I will just shut my big mouth…

 

[jax8686]

Why did God give us free will if he knew it would lead to evil? Didn’t he see this coming?

if you forced your wife/husband/gf/bf/anyone to love you, is it love? if you give them the option, and they seek you out and find you, isnt that pure love, and a million times stronger than the forced?

 

[tdandh26]

The answer to why we have free will, is to Love freely, do you want a subserviant spouse who has no self initiated feelings toward you, or one who sees something in you that gives that person the ability to love you of their own free will.
All nature is in a constant state of change, therefore someone or something must be controlling it, for if it was established by some coincidence then it would not change but remain in the form at which it was at its inception.
The books of the Bible were written by many different people, throughout a vast amount of time. The flowing sequence of events which proceed from these books from the beginning of the old testament to the end of the New, must draw one to the conclusion of one Author with many scribes. This Author dictated, through inspiration, His revelation over many centuries.
A deep and involved discussion of the topic would require to much space to continue, not to mention more time than I have, so I leave it to the more competent thinkers of truth.

 

[jax8686]

Another proof for the need of the existance of God is the ‘watchmakers theory’: if you found a watch in the middle of a feild, you would deem it necessary that someone made that watch, it did not just appear there; in the same way for the complexity and intricasy of the universe, there must be a maker.

Also, if there is no God, where does our natural tendancy to seek God come from?