Xapi- agreed.

Oh - and also, I submit that the existence of God or a god or gods (or Leprechauns, for that matter) will never be disproven (how could it?). But that, of course, doesn't tell us anything about it's likelihood or it's reality.

Dexter - Agreed.

It just kind of bothers me when people say "Hey, look! I disproved it!" as if they were Homer without the crayon, and don't bother to double check, or even listen when they are pointed out the flaws in their theory.

I love/hate those sponsored links that Google creates based on your search parameters... I searched for "Schrodinger's Cat" to be sure I spelled it correctly (I did - minus the umlaut)... but this is what the advert said:
Schrodinger's Cat
Low prices on schrodinger's cat.
Qualified orders over $25 ship free
Amazon.com
Hilarious.

Over time I've come to the conclusion that you can not believe in anything with 100% certainty, so why try? Be a Christian if it eases societal tension, but you don't have to be. One thing you dare not tell anyone is that they are wrong and you are right. There is no such thing as evidence to back you up. Walking in all haughty with your arguments and acting like they will convince anyone is short-sighted. All you can ever be sure of is that you exist. That and that alone.

darwyn...you have the will to choose...i didnt make you do anything!! I just know the outcome. Therefore you STILL have free will. My knowing did not affect your decision in any way so there is no way that you can say it does

WhiteSammy, You are correct that your knowing did not affect the decision... but if you (or anyone) CAN know then the future must be predetermined (because the future of someone with free will is unknowable).

thank you!! the only way that my knowing the outcome of your decisions is if i told you which would then lead you to actually think about your decisions. if i never told you then me knowing doesnt make any difference.

but one thing Dexter...
even if i know the outcomes but you dont know that i know then to you you still have free will (does that make sense?). free will isnt a matter of whether someone knows the outcome, its the process throught which you live your life. you get to pick what you do, i just happen to know the outcome.

If someone knew every decision that i would ever make it doesnt affect the decisions i would make. I still have the free will to make them even though someone already knows what i will do. the only way that free will is affected is if someone makes me do something. only then does my free become affected. Predetermination has nothing to do with someone's free will no matter how you try and phrase it because they are completely different.

Sammy, you're only getting half of what I'm saying. Here is the other half reworded:
1. No one can know the future unless the future is predetermined.
2. If the future is predetermined then by definition it can't be changed...
3. If we cannot change our future, then we have no free will.

How can someone have free will if they are unable to use it? If I cannot make another decision - ever - then what fate has already decided for me... than I clearly have no free will of my own.

Does a billiard ball have free will? Once it is hit it follows a predetermined path... the fact that it is coursing around the table on it's own at that point only gives it the illusion of independence. It cannot exert it's will on anything. It cannot change it's path. It has no free will. If people are 100% predictable (like a billiard ball) then they cannot have free will.

but to the person making the decision has the options and no one is making them choose a certain one so therefore they have free will. even if the future is predetermined it doesnt affect your decision making. no matter how you come to choose your course of action it will end up the same. predetermined means that it will happen a certain way it doesnt mean that that way is forced upon you.

For example, lets say that you come to a fork in the road and all of the paths end up in exactly the same place. Predetermination says which path you'll take but you dont know which path you will take until you take that path. Therefore there predetermination does not affect someone's free will unless someone else tells them the end or how to get there.

OK - I understand what you are saying now...
How do you distinguish between the path and the destination? Isn't the path part of the destination? And isn't the destination simply part of the path to another destination? I know that Hollywood stories having to do with time travel and trying to change history make a distinction... Where people change their actions and some significant "result" remains the same... but that is story writing... Isn't changing an action a result in itself? Seems to me that defining what the path is and what the destination is is purely a subjective and personal value-based process...

im just saying that you are always given choices and if you have unadulterated free will you will always choose the one that you want. the catch is that no matter the path you take it will always be the one that was predetermined. thats why i say predetermination has no affect on your free will.

and the hollywood stories always have the outcome the same no matter how the characters try to change it, because the path that they choose to take is always the one that got them into the situation in the first place(assuming they have time-travel capabilities).

Although the discussion seems to have moved away from it, I thought of another way to disprove Darwyn's argument.
Imagine that God routinely talks to everyone, says the same thing, and is interpreted correctly. I claim that God doesn't exist. Now there are differing theologies. According to your logic, if there are differing theologies, God doesn't exist. But in this hypothetical situation, God does exist. Therefore, your claim that different theologies disprove God is wrong.

@ The free will discussion, as I mentioned earlier, knowledge of an event is not the cause of that event. An omniscient being would know what I'm going to choose to do, but the choice is still mine. In the same way, I know what happened to people in the past, so I essentially know their future, but they still chose to do what they did.

does it feel like banging your head against a wall when trying to talking to darwyn due to his inability/unwillingness to understand your point of view?

Lol what is banging my head against the wall is that all of you miss the point ---

We CANNOT know!!!!

The argument has to stop there, we simply... can't!

What Thucydides mean is...

---Game Over---

I don't miss that point, its what I've been arguing.

I don't think there is any doubt: God is a libertarian. He gives you liberty.

If someone or something else knows what you are going to do, then it is not free will. It is predetermined. You just aren't in the know. That free will argument doesn't fly with me.

"It justs disproves a predicting God"

What god doesn't predict? An unpredicting god is not a god. It defies the very definition of omniscience, which is a crucial factor in determining godlike qualities...is it not? How does your interpretation of god differ from this?

"Are you making an allegation against Christianity or any belief at all? "

I'm making an allegation against any belief and using Christianity as an example.

"I have shown this point to be wrong, and it still leaves out what I believe in, wich is that...

...God exists but does not make himself known."

So then how is that any different from saying that unicorns exist but do no make themselves known? The flying spaghetti monster, perhaps? Leprechauns? As long as you or I believe he exists, he exists...in your own mind. Evidence exists nowhere else.

"It just kind of bothers me when people say "Hey, look! I disproved it!""
A reference to me, no doubt...I'm not saying that. I'm presenting an argument in someone else's words and defending it. I'm challenging you just as much as you are challenging me. That's growth, I'd say. :)

It's interesting that this has become largely a debate about free will. Although I'm an atheist, I tend to side with the Christians in this particular discussion.

I have nothing to add to Sammy's arguments; I'm just making an observation. But it's worth mentioning that this debate can be had entirely among atheists discussing whether the universe could be deterministic (through the laws of physics only).

And by the way:
>Low prices on schrodinger's cat.
>Qualified orders over $25 ship free
Not responsible if cat is neither alive nor dead before shipping container is opened.

White Sammy is right. All religions are faith-based. Game over.

@Darwyn:
"God says different things to different people"
...
"This only proves that god's nature is deceitful. And if it's in gods nature to be deceitful, it defines him as the devil."

So you acknowledge the possibility of a deceitful god?


"The people interpret what the god says differently"
...
"You can never explain yourself so clearly that misinterpretation is impossible, especially if you have to speak in different languages that may not have words for what you're talking about."


"We may have different definitions of omniscience then. Cuz part of being god is being all knowing and all powerful. There is nothing "impossible" to god."

There is no experience that can even theoretically be experienced in the exact same way by different people, because you interpret and experience things based on past experiences.

"The god only speaks to certain people, or none at all"
...
"Are you suggesting he never spoke to Jesus, his own son? How did Jesus know he'd save mankind from sin by being crucified then? Quite a gamble to put yourself out there for, eh? Even so, he surely spoke with Moses, right?"
...
"I'm making an allegation against any belief and using Christianity as an example."

So, using Christianity as an example, what if God only spoke to Jesus? That means that all beliefs that contradict him are wrong, and that he is right.


"People make stuff up and claim that God said it?"
...
"My point was that, if a god spoke only to one person, other people could make things up, causing different theologies."

You still need to answer this point.


"@ zuzak - Is not omniscience, knowing all? If you look it up, one definition is: infinite knowledge."
Um, yeah, that is what omniscience means. I have no idea what this was in response to.


"Imagine that God routinely talks to everyone, says the same thing, and is interpreted correctly. I claim that God doesn't exist. Now there are differing theologies. According to your logic, if there are differing theologies, God doesn't exist. But in this hypothetical situation, God does exist. Therefore, your claim that different theologies disprove God is wrong."

You still need to answer this point.


Remember, if I can show that a god could exist in any of these scenarios, then the proof is wrong, because it claims that no god could possibly exist.

diplomat...
are you talking about my post at 1:25pm(about 20 posts up?))

"What god doesn't predict? An unpredicting god is not a god. It defies the very definition of omniscience, which is a crucial factor in determining godlike qualities...is it not? How does your interpretation of god differ from this?"

I personally believe in a God as I have explained before. He's omniscient in the sense that he knows everything that is and was but he can't make perfect predictions based on that knowledge.

This is what I mean when I say you've got structures on your head that make it impossible to discuss with you. "If he doesn't comply with everything I ever heard Gods do, then he's not a God". Why?

"I'm making an allegation against any belief and using Christianity as an example."

That's a logicall fallacy right there. Christianity is a Religion. The beliefs of the Christians are not all true. Therefore, any religious belief is not true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_(fallacy)

"So then how is that any different from saying that unicorns exist but do no make themselves known? The flying spaghetti monster, perhaps? Leprechauns? As long as you or I believe he exists, he exists...in your own mind. Evidence exists nowhere else."

Well, as I said before, it is different in that I have reasons to believe that the world couldn't have been created by chance, therefore, there must be a Creator.

No, I don't have any evidence of his existance other than this line of reasoning, wich is not perfect at all, because I'm assuming that the Universe as it is couldn't have happened by chance, and perhaps it could.

This is why I say that I "believe", and not that I know.

"A reference to me, no doubt...I'm not saying that. I'm presenting an argument in someone else's words and defending it. I'm challenging you just as much as you are challenging me. That's growth, I'd say. :)"

Yes, but you have evaded all the holes that I and others have found in that line of reasoning, and kept repeating them all over again.