Destiny and Free will

[Emre_1974tr]

If god knows ahead of time (the only meaningful definition of know in this case) what option you will pick, you cannot have a choice in a meaningful sense. If god knows you will go left, you cannot choose to go right.

No, you can choose, but you will not. Because you decided this with your free will. In the same way, you wrote the answer above to me with your own free will, and I know this. If I were to go back in time, I would know that you were going to write this answer. You had the freedom not to write this answer or to write a different one, but you wrote this one, and we both know it.

 

[Olmstead]

If you believe in evolutionary creation, that too is entirely the creation of Allah. The fact that it is a long-term or gradual process does not mean that something happens on its own. Again, it is Allah Himself who brings about every deed and event. By the way, concerning the creation of the universe, the Quran does not mention a restrictive timeline of thousands of years like the Bible; it points to a much longer timescale:

Did Allah choose what would happen in the universe, or did He just create it at the beginning and watch?

 

[arthwollipot]

If you believe in evolutionary creation, that too is entirely the creation of Allah. The fact that it is a long-term or gradual process does not mean that something happens on its own. Again, it is Allah Himself who brings about every deed and event. By the way, concerning the creation of the universe, the Quran does not mention a restrictive timeline of thousands of years like the Bible; it points to a much longer timescale:

You're skirting close to Spinoza's pantheism here, where God is the universe, and the universe is God. God is completely defined and described by the laws of nature and has no personal will or consciousness. The ultimate result of which is, of course, of what use is the concept of "god" anyway?

 

[Emre_1974tr]

You're skirting close to Spinoza's pantheism here, where God is the universe, and the universe is God. God is completely defined and described by the laws of nature and has no personal will or consciousness. The ultimate result of which is, of course, of what use is the concept of "god" anyway?

No, on the contrary, I am saying that God created free wills and universes out of nothing and distinct from Himself.

 

[Emre_1974tr]

Did Allah choose what would happen in the universe, or did He just create it at the beginning and watch?

God Himself decides and creates; He both brings things into existence out of nothing in the beginning, and carries out all subsequent acts of creation and works as well.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Weird.

I thought God already knew what we are going to do, so why does he intervene? Looks like he made a mistake in creating us.

 

[arthwollipot]

God doesn't intervene in this scenario. In this way the world is indistinguishable from a world where no god exists.

 

[Emre_1974tr]

God doesn't intervene in this scenario. In this way the world is indistinguishable from a world where no god exists.

He does not interfere with free will in the realm of trial alone. He continuously creates everything else. Even what we call the laws of physics is the event of God repeating something in the same way. In reality, nothing comes into being or continues on its own. Meanwhile, when He creates in a different way outside of the manner of creation He constantly repeats, we call this a miracle. For example, we consider reproduction through birth to be ordinary, but when creation happens without a father (Jesus) or without a mother and father (Adam and the first humans), we call it a miracle. However, all of them are equally God's creation and intervention. The creation of the universes from nothing, creating by using and deriving from pre-existing material, coming into existence through birth, being suddenly created directly from earth again in the Hereafter... all are, in reality, the same.

 

[arthwollipot]

He does not interfere with free will in the realm of trial alone. He continuously creates everything else. Even what we call the laws of physics is the event of God repeating something in the same way. In reality, nothing comes into being or continues on its own.

And once again we are back to Spinoza. God is physics and physics is God.

Meanwhile, when He creates in a different way outside of the manner of creation He constantly repeats, we call this a miracle.

If God is physics, then everything is a miracle, therefore nothing is a miracle. Miracles are defined as situations where the laws of physics doesn't apply, which undermines your previous suggestion that God is physics.

For example, we consider reproduction through birth to be ordinary, but when creation happens without a father (Jesus) or without a mother and father (Adam and the first humans), we call it a miracle.

If such an event could ever be demonstrated to actually occur, perhaps. But it doesn't. Nothing happens except in accordance with physics.

However, all of them are equally God's creation and intervention. The creation of the universes from nothing, creating by using and deriving from pre-existing material, coming into existence through birth, being suddenly created directly from earth again in the Hereafter... all are, in reality, the same.

Therefore God is indistinguishable from physics, therefore Spinoza, therefore God is entirely redundant and a universe with a God is indistinguishable from a universe without one.

 

[Emre_1974tr]

And once again we are back to Spinoza. God is physics and physics is God.

No, God is not physics or the universe or anything of that sort. He created these from nothing and governs them. As the observer and the ruler, God is everywhere and at all times (now, past, future...) but is physically completely outside of them. It is He who created them from nothing. And as I said, if He wills, He creates differently, and we call this a miracle. Miracles have happened countless times and continue to happen. In fact, science witnesses some of them and jumps through a thousand hoops to sweep this truth under the rug. For example, by giving various names and forced interpretations to the creation of the universe from nothing, it gives the impression that it was derived from something that already existed, etc...

 

[arthwollipot]

No, God is not physics or the universe or anything of that sort. He created these from nothing and governs them. As the observer and the ruler, God is everywhere and at all times (now, past, future...) but is physically completely outside of them.

He is the thing, and he is simultaneously not the thing. This makes no sense.

It is He who created them from nothing. And as I said, if He wills, He creates differently, and we call this a miracle. Miracles have happened countless times and continue to happen. In fact, science witnesses some of them and jumps through a thousand hoops to sweep this truth under the rug.

Science investigates everything that actually happens. No miracle has ever been demonstrated to have actually happened. Not one, anywhere in the world, at any time. Never. If it had, we wouldn't be having this conversation as God's existence would be manifest and without doubt.

For example, by giving various names and forced interpretations to the creation of the universe from nothing, it gives the impression that it was derived from something that already existed, etc...

You do not understand science at all.

 

[JayUtah]

He created these from nothing and governs them.

Those things operate according to laws that we can discover, study, characterize, and apply. Physical law is just the observation of consistent operation and apparent causation. In the secular world we call the collection of such behaviors physics. If your god governs the behavior of those things, but isn't functionally identical to physics, then you're just waving your hands frantically with no understanding of what you and others mean by the words they say.

As the observer and the ruler, God is everywhere and at all times (now, past, future...) but is physically completely outside of them.

Your god cannot be simultaneously present and not present. I can't accept a god that is inherently a contradiction. It's not a matter of being closed or open minded about it. It's about such statements being vapid, illogical, mealy-mouthed platitudes.

And as I said, if He wills, He creates differently, and we call this a miracle. Miracles have happened countless times and continue to happen.

No. The miracles you mentioned earlier are merely truth claims from within a religion. Being born of a virgin, for example, is a completely unevidenced claim. Yet these occurrences are used circularly to prove the existence of gods with supernatural powers. The argument leaves us puzzling whether the gods were invented to explain the miracles for which there is no evidence, or whether the miracles were invented to justify the belief in a unevidenced gods. If you relax the need for miracles to exist, the behavior of the universe reverts to its pure, lawful form. We do not need to invoke magical beings to explain the purported exceptions to the laws.

In fact, science witnesses some of them and jumps through a thousand hoops to sweep this truth under the rug. For example, by giving various names and forced interpretations to the creation of the universe from nothing, it gives the impression that it was derived from something that already existed, etc...

No, you don't understand how science approaches cosmology. You're the one giving names (Allah) and forced interpretations (wizards doing wizard things) to the scant observations we can make regarding the origin of the universe. Ignoring those wishful claims is hardly jumping through a thousand hoops. Invoking a magical wizard to explain the origin of the universe is not intellectually better.

 

[Mojo]

Miracles have happened countless times and continue to happen. In fact, science witnesses some of them and jumps through a thousand hoops to sweep this truth under the rug. For example, by giving various names and forced interpretations to the creation of the universe from nothing, it gives the impression that it was derived from something that already existed, etc...

"We don't know how this happened" is not evidence of a god, and proposing that goddidit is exactly what you are objecting to.

 

[Emre_1974tr]

"We don't know how this happened" is not evidence of a god, and proposing that goddidit is exactly what you are objecting to.

This is precisely why a so-called scientific board must use such language when it identifies a miracle; otherwise, the atheist board would suffer a philosophical breakdown. If a truly scientific board were practicing genuine science, the existence of Allah (the Creator) would have been accepted by now. Furthermore, if real science were being applied, the cures for all diseases, and even for aging itself, would have already been revealed to the world.

 

[Mojo]

This is precisely why a so-called scientific board must use such language when it identifies a miracle; otherwise, the atheist board would suffer a philosophical breakdown. If a truly scientific board were practicing genuine science, the existence of Allah (the Creator) would have been accepted by now. Furthermore, if real science were being applied, the cures for all diseases, and even for aging itself, would have already been revealed to the world.

 

[arthwollipot]

This is precisely why a so-called scientific board must use such language when it identifies a miracle; otherwise, the atheist board would suffer a philosophical breakdown. If a truly scientific board were practicing genuine science, the existence of Allah (the Creator) would have been accepted by now. Furthermore, if real science were being applied, the cures for all diseases, and even for aging itself, would have already been revealed to the world.

Emre, what do you think science is?

 

[Mojo]

Emre, what do you think science is?

Turkish.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

1) No, you can choose, but you will not. 2) Because you decided this with your free will. In the same way, you wrote the answer above to me with your own free will, and I know this. 3) If I were to go back in time, I would know that you were going to write this answer. 4) You had the freedom not to write this answer or to write a different one, but you wrote this one, and we both know it.

1) So you can't choose. Glad that we agree.
2) No, you have said over and over that god know what you will do at every single point in the future. This negates free will.
3) And here you admit that free will doesn't exist. If you, with knowledge of the future, can say with certainty what I do in that future, then I have no free will.
4) See 1).

The harder you argue for free will in your imagined system, the more conclusively you prove that it is an impossibility within it. The only way humanity can have free will in a theistic system is with imperfect gods.

 

[JayUtah]

This is precisely why a so-called scientific board must use such language when it identifies a miracle; otherwise, the atheist board would suffer a philosophical breakdown.

What is being proposed as a miracle comes with no objective, testable evidence. Science is not being unfair when it rejects such claims.

If a truly scientific board were practicing genuine science, the existence of Allah (the Creator) would have been accepted by now.

No. There is no scientifically tenable evidence for the existence of Islam's deity. What you propose is straightforward circular reasoning. You propose—without evidence—that miracles occur. You then propose—again without evidence—that your god is the cause of those miracles. You acknowledge the existence of physical law, but you simply invent a fanciful ulterior cause for which there is no separate evidence. Then, without evidence, you propose exceptions to those laws and ask us to believe that this is evidence of the ulterior cause and its whimsical agency. All this is sheer attribution, not evidence. It's as circular as reasoning can get.

Science is especially adept at detecting fallacious reasoning. That's mostly what the scientific method is all about, and what is responsible for science's demonstrated success along so many separate lines of inquiry. When science detects and rejects poor reasoning, it is not malicious. Your claims to supernatural causation fail just as badly (and for the same reason) as claims of extraterrestrials, ghosts, and psychic ability. You are all equally fallacious; Islam is not being singled out for unfair treatment. Your problem is that you don't know what science does and what evidence is.

Furthermore, if real science were being applied, the cures for all diseases, and even for aging itself, would have already been revealed to the world.

Science can show its progress toward curing diseases and alleviating the effects of aging with objective, reproducibly testable evidence. When you can meet that standard, you can expect more favorable attention from scientists. Until then, you're just complaining for no good reason.

 

[Steve]

Emre, what do you think science is?

Science is exactly what he wants it to be. Just like his religion.