free will

i see many christians on here use free will as a way of excusing bad human behavior. i ask this though - if god knows what is going to happen to everybody then it is impossible for them to have free will. we all have our futures planned out. nothing can change.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
i see many christians on here use free will as a way of excusing bad human behavior. i ask this though - if god knows what is going to happen to everybody then it is impossible for them to have free will. we all have our futures planned out. nothing can change.

So it seems that if we do have free will then God does not plan out our futures. Is it not us that desides what, when and where we deside to go in our life's?

Originally posted by stellspalfie
i see many christians on here use free will as a way of excusing bad human behavior. i ask this though - if god knows what is going to happen to everybody then it is impossible for them to have free will. we all have our futures planned out. nothing can change.

I agree with the g-man. God does not have to plan what is going to happen to everyone in order to know what will happen, if He is not restricted by time as we are. 😏
HalleluYah !!! Praise the Lord!

Originally posted by stellspalfie
i see many christians on here use free will as a way of excusing bad human behavior. i ask this though - if god knows what is going to happen to everybody then it is impossible for them to have free will. we all have our futures planned out. nothing can change.

You forget that free will is also the only way that you can be held accountable for your own decisions. Do you take responsibility for your own actions, or do you not? If not, why not? Claiming you have no free will doesn't give you much of a leg to stand on.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
i see many christians on here use free will as a way of excusing bad human behavior. i ask this though - if god knows what is going to happen to everybody then it is impossible for them to have free will. we all have our futures planned out. nothing can change.

Are you saying that it is impossible for an all powerful God to know what is going to happen yet, at the same time, give us free will? Hmmm? He does not seem to be that all powerful from your description.

Originally posted by Suzianne
You forget that free will is also the only way that you can be held accountable for your own decisions. Do you take responsibility for your own actions, or do you not? If not, why not? Claiming you have no free will doesn't give you much of a leg to stand on.

Good point. I'f we did not have free will, then why would God hold us accountable for our actions? If we did wrong then that would be from his plan, not ours.
Many say that Adam was perfect and should not have sinned and it was by God's plan that Adam did wrong.
But that just can't be as Adam did pay for his sin. If that were God's plan for him to sin, it just doesn't make sence and why would God do that to us?
He wouldn't plan such an sad life for humans. No parent would do that to their children.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
if god knows what is going to happen to everybody then it is impossible for them to have free will.

Not so.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
i see many christians on here use free will as a way of excusing bad human behavior. i ask this though - if god knows what is going to happen to everybody then it is impossible for them to have free will. we all have our futures planned out. nothing can change.

and so we return to the classic all knowing creator of the universe "God" coupled with free will contradiction that theists who buy into it are powerless to understand.

It's a simple problem:Reveal Hidden Content
Suppose "God" created the universe. Then there exists some temporal point at which a universe does not exist (else a transition from no universe to at least one universe could not occur).
The entire parameter set which would define the beginning of this universe was known (without error, and in maximal detail) to "God" prior to its' creation (by omniscience); and also the entire set of physical (or metaphysical) responses to the first event which takes place in the universe is also known (without error, and in maximal detail) to "God" (again by omniscience).
From this it follows that any action we carry out is an action known by God (an such actions cannot fail to happen given the infallible knowledge of "God" ) - and it was known before it created a universe with the parameter set which would enable us to do them.

Hence under this construction of "God" it follows we have no free will. Reveal Hidden Content

So God is not all powerful then, you cannot have your cake and eat it, maybe god was omnipotent but gave it up to see where his creation would take itself.

Theists by definition do not exercise free will, they presumably follow the rules laid down for them in their given religions holy book. They only exercised free will when they were atheists and decided to become theists who follow a particular religion.

What about those that were born into a religion, did they all still have their epiphany, or have they never exercised free will, If God gave us free will could it be argued that only atheists are adhering to gods prime directive.

We get given free will so that we may learn about ourselves and the world in which we live only to find out that to understand "the mind of "God" " we must allign our will with "His" on order to awaken on the other side .

One of the main problems I have with this is that is that how can we understand allign our will with a non existent entity?
This is where the definitions of "God" come in handy.
We can see "God" as in everything, especially in humans! So to understand A LITTLE we must pick up on the vibes around us and use our free will to make the correct set of choices (that we always follow up on !! ) to get a bit of momentum on the path to understand "Gods will" , which is largely an illusion but the meaning that the words imply compels me to think that the central theme is untouchable by either our physical or mental bodies. It is a lake to cross yourself.

Originally posted by Suzianne
You forget that free will is also the only way that you can be held accountable for your own decisions. Do you take responsibility for your own actions, or do you not? If not, why not? Claiming you have no free will doesn't give you much of a leg to stand on.

Nah, you can be threatened with being accountable and punishable for your own decisions, even if they are not free, if threatening you has the effect of preventing you from acting in accordance with those decisions you would make without that threat. Free will is not a required element, as long as the threat is effective in changing the decision from yes I will do this to no I won't. Nothing need be free about it.

Originally posted by Suzianne
You forget that free will is also the only way that you can be held accountable for your own decisions. Do you take responsibility for your own actions, or do you not? If not, why not? Claiming you have no free will doesn't give you much of a leg to stand on.

i think people make decisions based on the way their brains are put together. if we could watch somebody make a decision, then rewind time and watch them over and over again, as long as the variables were the same we would get the same decision being made. although the brain offers up many options the person always chooses the same. so every decision you make in life is down to the chemical make up of your brain and by choosing the same option means you could only ever make one choice, which goes against the concept of free will.

the biblical idea of free will implies that in any situation a human has the ability to make any decision possible. if you rewind time in this situation you should see the person making different decisions. if they made the same decision over and over this would show they do not have freedom or control over the brain, it would show there brain controls them.

as science is at the level of being able to understand the chemical make up and electrical activity in the brain that controls thought they can accurately predict a persons actions. which again shows that the brain is in control.

biblical freewill also struggles when it comes to other aspect of the human brain. could a person with a compulsive disorder be described as having free will? if i have to count to 10 before i do anything, do i really have a choice, if i did i wouldnt do it.

as for the theory that society would crumble without free will because nobody would be accountable - this is doesnt work for many reasons. firstly taking responsibility is just a series of thoughts constructed by that causes us to take a set of actions, humans are predisposed to feeling empathy and having a conscience, we need these for our groups to function. for those of us whos brains stop them from being empathetic or having a conscience and leads them to causeing harm to our societies we need to have laws that cause them to not act on their lack of conscience and we have prison to punish/rehabilitate them.


does anybody have any evidence of free-will in action??

Originally posted by stellspalfie
i see many christians on here use free will as a way of excusing bad human behavior. i ask this though - if god knows what is going to happen to everybody then it is impossible for them to have free will. we all have our futures planned out. nothing can change.

Who forced you to write this ?

Originally posted by jaywill
Who forced you to write this ?

my brain.

what forced you to ask that question.