precognotion

Originally posted by twhitehead
Yes, the dog clearly cannot choose not to eat the meat. Either that, or you cannot be certain that it will. This is actually not that different from the famous 'believe in God' choice. Given sufficient evidence for God we would have no choice to believe in him. It would not be a choice. Therefore, in order for it to be a free will choice, God cannot give ...[text shortened]... believe in him. Therefore all theists must have made that choice without sufficient evidence.

Free will as a subject deserves more considered thought than it will probably ever get on this forum, although this forum could trigger such thought in some of us. One reasonably good discussion, albeit Catholic, is at

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06259a.htm

Originally posted by stellspalfie
i dont know if the dog will eat the meat. im pretty sure he will, but he might fall over dead before he gets to the bowl or a million other things might happen. if i knew 100% that he was going to eat the meat then i would have magic powers.

That's kind of my point. Maybe God doesn't have magic powers, but he just knows us really well, and can predict with alarming accuracy how we will act in a given situation. And yet, maybe even his predictions can be wrong or incomplete at times. Remember the story of Adam and Eve eating from the tree in the Garden of Eden?

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

I love the part that they 'hid' among the trees - hiding from an ominiscient being? And it must have worked, because God had to call to the man to find him. God has to question the man before he realizes that man has eaten from the tree. He does not just know that it has happened; he has to make inquiry.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Yes, the dog clearly cannot choose not to eat the meat. Either that, or you cannot be certain that it will. This is actually not that different from the famous 'believe in God' choice. Given sufficient evidence for God we would have no choice to believe in him. It would not be a choice. Therefore, in order for it to be a free will choice, God cannot give ...[text shortened]... believe in him. Therefore all theists must have made that choice without sufficient evidence.

I have to disagree... there are people who firmly believe (today) that the earth is flat.

The evidence for the earth being an irregular oblate spheroid is overwhelming and undeniable...
and yet there are people who believe that its a flat disk.

God presenting evidence of his existence would not force people to believe in him or remove free
will.

Particularly as the more important thing (as far as I understand it) is that people worship god.
And simply knowing god exists wouldn't force people to worship god.

Now of course if you knew god existed and knew that if you didn't worship god then god was going to
torture you for eternity then you don't have much of a choice.
And no (very few) rational sane person is going to choose eternal torture if they can fake worship the
god and avoid it.
But that god is petty cruel egocentric and evil. And so not worth worshiping without the threat of
punishment.

However this does not remove free will.

In the same way gravity doesn't remove my free will by preventing my from flying, and causing me
to die if I chose to jump off a tall building.

Originally posted by googlefudge
God presenting evidence of his existence would not force people to believe in him...

I have to disagree with this statement. If I see evidence that jumping off a tall building leads to a long fall and death, I cannot choose to believe otherwise no matter how badly I might want to try. If I watch 100 people jump, one by one, and plummet to their death, I am forced to believe that person 101 will also die if he jumps. I can't make a free will decision to believe otherwise, because the evidence has convinced me, whether I like it or not.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
That's kind of my point. Maybe God doesn't have magic powers, but he just knows us really well, and can predict with alarming accuracy how we will act in a given situation. And yet, maybe even his predictions can be wrong or incomplete at times. Remember the story of Adam and Eve eating from the tree in the Garden of Eden?
[quote] 8 Then the man and his ...[text shortened]... en from the tree. He does not just know that it has happened; he has to make inquiry.

in this scenario it still makes god look like a bit of a ****. if he still know what we will probably do in a situation then he shouldnt go around planting dodgy trees with tasty looking fruit knowing that we are going to eat it. if, like me he made the mistake of leaving a roast chicken in a room with a dog alone for an hour then got cross when the dog ate it then he's as big of an idiot as i am. it also makes him very human and very fallible and not intelligent enough to create all the bits and bobs that go together to make a universe (unless there is a celestial ikea with intruction manuals on how to put your flat pack universes together)

i like the thought of god in the garden of eden saying "hey who told you that you were naked, huh?" eve "oh, so you knew we were naked but decided not to tell us, you dirty old man"

Originally posted by googlefudge
I have to disagree... there are people who firmly believe (today) that the earth is flat.

The evidence for the earth being an irregular oblate spheroid is overwhelming and undeniable...
and yet there are people who believe that its a flat disk.

God presenting evidence of his existence would not force people to believe in him or remove free
will ...[text shortened]... y preventing my from flying, and causing me
to die if I chose to jump off a tall building.

No, it does not remove free will. You do have a choice. If you choose not to believe in God in the face of actual proof, then one might question your sanity, but you still do have a choice. A choice no sane person would make, but still, it's your choice, and you live or die as you choose.

Same with the faith choice with no actual proof. The end result is the same.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
if he still know what we will probably do in a situation then he shouldnt go around planting dodgy trees with tasty looking fruit knowing that we are going to eat it.

I agree, but you have your answer to the OP. We could have free will despite God knowing what we're going to do.

Originally posted by Suzianne
No, it does not remove free will. You do have a choice. If you choose not to believe in God in the face of actual proof, then one might question your sanity, but you still do have a choice. A choice no sane person would make, but still, it's your choice, and you live or die as you choose.

Same with the faith choice with no actual proof. The end result is the same.

You're basically saying that only an insane person can not believe in God in the face of proof.

This is an interesting statement. It means there are only two types of unbelievers:
1) Insane people.
2) People who have not seen sufficient proof of God's existence.

It does not make sense for God to eternally punish people of either category. An insane person is probably incapable of understanding that his some of his actions are morally wrong, and thus is not culpable.

People who have not seen sufficient proof of God's existence are logically justified in their unbelief. Isn't it God's fault for not giving them enough proof to convince them to believe? One cannot make an informed choice without access to key evidence at one's disposal.

Originally posted by Suzianne
No, it does not remove free will. You do have a choice. If you choose not to believe in God in the face of actual proof, then one might question your sanity, but you still do have a choice. A choice no sane person would make, but still, it's your choice, and you live or die as you choose.

Same with the faith choice with no actual proof. The end result is the same.

what if it's the insanity that causes you to believe in non-existent beings?

ever heard of schizophrenia?

Originally posted by SwissGambit
I agree, but you have your answer to the OP. We could have free will despite God knowing what we're going to do.

but in the example you gave god doesnt know what we are going to do!!! he only knows what we will probably do. therefore is a different god to the god ive been told on the forum 'knows everything'. which my op was aimed at.

Originally posted by Dasa
You will take another million births in this world of birth, disease, old age and death forever if you never start your spiritual life.

And when you do start your spiritual life - you will be insincere and embrace the meat eaters religion and make zero progress and you will take another million births in this world of suffering again and again and again.

Seems awfully inefficient. Shouldn't God make the truth a little easier to find? If people aren't 'getting it' after millions of chances, then the test is too hard.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
but in the example you gave god doesnt know what we are going to do!!! he only knows what we will probably do. therefore is a different god to the god ive been told on the forum 'knows everything'. which my op was aimed at.

I'm a fallibilist when it comes to knowledge.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallibilism

Unlike scepticism, fallibilism does not imply the need to abandon our knowledge - we needn't have logically conclusive justifications for what we know. Rather, it is an admission that, because empirical knowledge can be revised by further observation, any of the things we take as knowledge might possibly turn out to be false.

I say that God's knowledge (as evidenced by certain Bible stories) is also fallible; he can know something and yet it is possible that he is wrong about it. Thus, it is still valid to say that 'God knows everything'.

Originally posted by JS357
[b]Free will as a subject deserves more considered thought than it will probably ever get on this forum, although this forum could trigger such thought in some of us.[/b]

We used to have interesting discussions on the topic in the past. But nowadays there simply aren't any theists around with even passable debating skills with an interest in the topic.

For a while it was a favourite topic of knightmeisters. Although some posters got tired of him because he appeared (to some) to be simply rehashing the same stuff over and over and refusing to admit the logical conclusions, but at least he tried, and he tried to tackle the problem from as many angles as possible.

Originally posted by googlefudge
In the same way gravity doesn't remove my free will by preventing my from flying, and causing me
to die if I chose to jump off a tall building.

I am not convinced. Your fear of death does limit your free will. As long as you fear death you will not jump off the building and do not have the free will to do so, and we can safely predict that you will not, just as we can predict that the dog will eat the food as long as he has not been trained not to.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I am not convinced. Your fear of death does limit your free will. As long as you fear death you will not jump off the building and do not have the free will to do so, and we can safely predict that you will not, just as we can predict that the dog will eat the food as long as he has not been trained not to.

"remove" and "limit" are different words.