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Heaven and Hell role reversal

gfunkusarelius said:
when i was in sundayschool they showed us video that heaven would be full of bikes and cheeseburgers. there were no drugs, but the burgers looked good and it was all you could eat (an angel even pulled one out from behind a tree).
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Presumably they supply free drugs to deal with the trans fatty acids.
 
Throwing in Free Will only muddies the waters further. It's always the same with believers. They hold an illogical position. To get out of it, they make it so illogical nobody can sort it out (to their satisfaction) and thus they claim victory. Really the theodicy problem is THE nail in theism's coffin and no amount of fuzzification will do much about it.
 
JustGeoff said:
I've had this debate on this forum before. The claim that we have free will and the claim that God can accurately predict natural disasters are logically incompatible. If we have free will, then the future is not exactly predetermined. If the future is not exactly predetermined then even an omniscient God cannot perfectly know the future because the future is logically unknowable. It is no different to an omnipotent God not still not being able to create square circles.
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It's interesting, though, that our human ability to predict natural disasters demonstrably (and substantially) exceeds that of the supposedly "omniscient" God.

Similarly, our human ability act to mitigate or prevent natural disasters demonstrably (and substantially) exceeds that of the supposedly "omnipotent" God.

We can, for example, predict flooding and issue evacuation warnings. We can issue tornado watches, and predict dangerous heat waves. We're tracking a tropical storm (Beryl) off the Carolina coast right now. and have identified another area of "tropical cyclone formation possible" off the south coast of Mexico. God apparently either can't or won't.

As kingMerv put it -- doesn't God have access to Doppler radar?
 
JustGeoff said:
I've had this debate on this forum before. The claim that we have free will and the claim that God can accurately predict natural disasters are logically incompatible. If we have free will, then the future is not exactly predetermined. If the future is not exactly predetermined then even an omniscient God cannot perfectly know the future because the future is logically unknowable. It is no different to an omnipotent God not still not being able to create square circles.
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But humans are not omnipotent and therefore there are things beyond our influence. Events in that category can be accurately predicted by a sufficiently-potent and sufficiently-knowledgable God. Natural disasters fall under that category; therefore there is no logical incompatibility.

Natural disasters and diseases appear to be an unavoidable part of our reality. Human-created evil appears to be avoidable, at least theoretically.
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Human-created evil is only avoidable by the removal of free will.
 
Ladewig said:
I can see your point about free will, omniscience, and disease; after all, the likelyhood of catching many diseases depends on the actions of individuals. But natural disasters are not related to human activity and free-will. The recent underwater earthquake in the Indian Ocean was not related to human activity at all. Surely God could have predicted that event, despite the existence of free will.
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Not exactly. The nature of chaotic systems like two tectonic plates meeting makes it very hard to say what finally causes the rock the give way after 80 years of stasis. There is no direct connection between free will and rock eight miles beneath the surface, so God should have been able to know that there was going to be a big one in the vicinity some time soon. But then we know there is a going to be a big one in the vicinity of Istanbul some time in the next two years. That won't stop 40,000 people from getting killed because nobody knows exactly when it is going to happen.

Free will is only relevant because it is continually resetting the system. It's like 6,000,000,000 pairs of butterfly wings......
 
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Ossai said:
An omnipotent god could make a square circle.

Ossai
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Eh?

A square circle is a logically incoherent concept. It cannot exist. How can God bring into existence something which, by definition, cannot logically exist?
 
JustGeoff said:
Not exactly. The nature of chaotic systems like two tectonic plates meeting makes it very hard to say what finally causes the rock the give way after 8- years of stasis. There is no direct connection between free will and rock eight miles beneath the surface, so God should have been able to know that there was going to be a big one in the vicinity some time soon. But then we know there is a going to be a big one in the vicinity of Istanbul some time in the next two years. That won't stop 40,000 people from getting killed because nobody knows exactly when it is going to happen.

Free will is only relevant because it is continually resetting the system. It's like 6,000,000,000 pairs of butterfly wings......
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Why not just conclude that God doesn't particularly care about us?

ETA: I'm still not getting how free will causes earthquakes.
 
This Guy said:
When I thought such things mattered, my opinion on free will/predestination was that we are free to do what we want. But the all knowing invisible sky man already knows what we are going to do.
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But that cannot possibly make sense. If He already knows what you are going to do, how can you possibly do anything else? For Hell to be a just punishment for something you have done, surely there had to some remote chance of you not doing whatever bad thing you did?
 
KingMerv00 said:
If God is omnipotent he could prevent suffering AND give us free will.
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How? If we have free will then we have the freedom to impose needless suffering on other human beings and there is nothing God can do to stop it. By granting us free will, God voluntarily gives up a degree of omnipotence.
 
KingMerv00 said:
Heck, HUMANS are more powerful than God in that respect. Doesn't the Almighty have access to doppler radar?

It amuses me how some of the faithful are prepared to reduce God's power. It never occurs to them to reduce God's benevolence.
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God cannot be omnibenevolent in the way many theists believe either. GWB thinks God is on his side. OBL thinks God is on his side. Both of them cannot be completely correct.
 
JustGeoff said:
How? If we have free will then we have the freedom to impose needless suffering on other human beings and there is nothing God can do to stop it. By granting us free will, God voluntarily gives up a degree of omnipotence.
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I don't know how. He is God for Christ's sake. He can do anything. Even the illogical. Why? Because he is God. How? He's God.

It is so much easier simply to believe that if God exists, he is just enjoys the suffering.
 
andyandy said:
if god is neither omniscient nor omnipotent then why worship him - he's just an extra-terrestrial being......
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Nothing I said makes God non-omniscient or non-omnipotent. Omniscience only means "Knowing everything that is knowable/known." and omnipotence only means "Capable of doing anything logically possible."

Also, I never suggested God wanted to be worshipped. I am not defending Christianity here.
 
KingMerv00 said:
Why not just conclude that God doesn't particularly care about us?
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Maybe he doesn't. I guess His priority has to be the well-being of the whole above the well-being of each individual being.

ETA: I'm still not getting how free will causes earthquakes.
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It doesn't. It just makes the future fundamentally unknowable. A human action could affect the precise timing of an earthquake. Let's say there is a system under tension, like the fault off Indonesia that finally shifted 18 months ago and set off the tsunamis. What decided the precise moment it breaks? Perhaps somewhere along the line somebody set off some explosives in an open-cast copper-mind. Free will can affect this by being the last straw which breaks the camels back, or the abscence of the last straw. Nothing a human could do would change the fact that some time around 18 months ago that fault was going to snap. But human action could (and must) have influenced the precise timing, even if it was very marginal. If there is no free will and hard determinism is true then the precise timing would have been absolutely knowable to any being in possession of the relevant information be it human or God.
 
KingMerv00 said:
I don't know how. He is God for Christ's sake. He can do anything. Even the illogical. Why? Because he is God. How? He's God.
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If God had given me the free will to choose my own actions and I choose to murder somebody for no reason other than enjoy causing misery then God cannot prevent the Geoff-induced misery. He can only prevent it by denying me free will in the first place.
 
How did free will in a chaotic system affect or prevent God from being able to predict and/or prevent this?
...Next morning the daughter arose, and having prepared breakfast, went to the adjoining room to call her father, and was horrified to find him lying upon his shattered bed, a mutilated corpse. Her screams brought the husband quickly to the bedroom, and an inspection disclosed a ragged opening in the roof, directly over the breast of the unfortunate man, which was torn through as if by a cannon shot, and extending downward through the bedding and floor; other holes showed the direction taken by the deadly missile. Subsequent search revealed the fact that the awful calamity was caused by the fall of a meteoric stone, and the stone itself, pyramidal in shape and weighing twenty pounds and a few ounces, avoirdupois, and stained with blood, was unearthed from a depth of nearly five feet, thus showing the fearful impetus with which it struck the building. The position of the corpse, showed the victim was asleep when stricken, and that death, to him was painless.
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http://www.meteoritearticles.com/znp01311879.html
 
JustGeoff said:
Maybe he doesn't. I guess His priority has to be the well-being of the whole above the well-being of each individual being.
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You are missing the point. What makes you think that God cares about humanity at all? Why is goodness assumed?

It doesn't. It just makes the future fundamentally unknowable. A human action could affect the precise timing of an earthquake. Let's say there is a system under tension, like the fault off Indonesia that finally shifted 18 months ago and set off the tsunamis. What decided the precise moment it breaks? Perhaps somewhere along the line somebody set off some explosives in an open-cast copper-mind. Free will can affect this by being the last straw which breaks the camels back, or the abscence of the last straw. Nothing a human could do would change the fact that some time around 18 months ago that fault was going to snap. But human action could (and must) have influenced the precise timing, even if it was very marginal. If there is no free will and hard determinism is true then the precise timing would have been absolutely knowable to any being in possession of the relevant information be it human or God.
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I temporarily cede the point for the sake of argument. Why did God create a word where Earthquakes are possible? Why have meteors?

Can God do anything godly?
 
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