Predestination, prophecy, omniscience, god has a plan and free will

[Dancefortwo]

So I'm having a bit of an online conversation with a Christian (on reddit/debate a Christian) about those four items in the thread title.  Yeah, I know, having a conversation with a Christian is probably not wise but I like to make Christian actually think about what they believe.  And even if they don't "think", which mostly they don't, at the very least somone lurking and reading what I wrote may have a lightbulb moment. 

Prophecy and "god has a plan" is such a huge thing with Jesus nuts.   They claim Jesus was prophecized in the Old Testament so he and his crucifixion was destined to happen because of the Adam and Eve catastrophe.   If the whole Jesus thing was fated to happen the only way this could come about is if every choice and decision made by every human being (after the Adam and Eve debacle) aligns specifically so it guarantee it's destined end, the crucifixion.       

Free will cannot happen with the Jesus destination. The only way free will could be added in this scenario is if there is as much chance that a prophecy fails as there is that it will succeed, but since the very definition of prophecy is that it's destined to happen failure is out of the question and so is free will.    

As far as I can see this is quite the delimma for Christians.

Whatcha all think?

By the way, this is all hypothetical stuff here.  We all know the Bible is an old book of mythology and tribal stories.

[Minimalist]

[airportkid]

Religion's attraction is that it removes having to be responsible for your own life.  I think for many people being personally responsible is too frightening; it means recognizing that failure is an inextricable element of our identity.

Any rubric that shifts the mantle of personal responsibility elsewhere is going to be very welcome - and if that rubric is riven with logical inconsistencies, paradoxes and contradictions, so what?  None of that is important, and can be waved away by simply saying you haven't got the brainpower to reconcile it anyway - that's the pastor's job.  All that's important is that you're not responsible for the pitfalls, and in the end you'll spend eternity in a La-Z-Boy listening to Wayne Newton sing about how great God is without a care in the universe.

[Minimalist]

that's the pastor's job.

I thought the pastor's job was to fuck all the kids?

[Dancefortwo]

Religion's attraction is that it removes having to be responsible for your own life.  I think for many people being personally responsible is too frightening; it means recognizing that failure is an inextricable element of our identity.

Any rubric that shifts the mantle of personal responsibility elsewhere is going to be very welcome - and if that rubric is riven with logical inconsistencies, paradoxes and contradictions, so what?  None of that is important, and can be waved away by simply saying you haven't got the brainpower to reconcile it anyway - that's the pastor's job.  All that's important is that you're not responsible for the pitfalls, and in the end you'll spend eternity in a La-Z-Boy listening to Wayne Newton sing about how great God is without a care in the universe.

 

  Religion's attraction is that it removes having to be responsible for your own life. 

True, but it also sort of doesn't. The responsibility for all the worlds problems sit squarely on humans and their sins.   This is according to bible nuts.  Humans became these horrible worthless sinners when Adam and Eve opened Pandora's box and let all the bad things out in the world and now we too are born sinners and it's our responsible to make it all good again by accepting Jesus.  We're guilty by proxy.  

But if Adam and Eve started the ball rolling and Jesus is the one and only prophecy fulfillment that corrects this problem then free will is out the window because every choice and decision humans made MUST culminate with Jesus being nailed on a stick to wash away our sins as god intended.  On the other hand, the only way free will can exists is if the Jesus prophecy is NOT a foregone conclusion.  It was not fated to happen.  It was just a series of unrelated events and was no different than the 20 thousand or so other Roman crucifixions.

Free will, predestination and prophecy don't mix. It's oil and water but Christians don't like this.

[Phaedrus]

Sky daddy is so magical, your dilemma isn't a crux in his divine plan.

[Reltzik]

So I'm having a bit of an online conversation with a Christian (on reddit/debate a Christian) about those four items in the thread title.  Yeah, I know, having a conversation with a Christian is probably not wise but I like to make Christian actually think about what they believe.  And even if they don't "think", which mostly they don't, at the very least somone lurking and reading what I wrote may have a lightbulb moment. 

Prophecy and "god has a plan" is such a huge thing with Jesus nuts.   They claim Jesus was prophecized in the Old Testament so he and his crucifixion was destined to happen because of the Adam and Eve catastrophe.   If the whole Jesus thing was fated to happen the only way this could come about is if every choice and decision made by every human being (after the Adam and Eve debacle) aligns specifically so it guarantee it's destined end, the crucifixion.       

Free will cannot happen with the Jesus destination. The only way free will could be added in this scenario is if there is as much chance that a prophecy fails as there is that it will succeed, but since the very definition of prophecy is that it's destined to happen failure is out of the question and so is free will.    

As far as I can see this is quite the delimma for Christians.

Whatcha all think?

By the way, this is all hypothetical stuff here.  We all know the Bible is an old book of mythology and tribal stories.

IMO, free will is too poorly-defined to even know what the claim is about.

But as far as divine plans go.... who the fuck would plan THIS?

Let's 1) take the ENTIRE Bible narrative as true for the sake of argument, and 2) God has His heart set on incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, redemption through Jesus and the goal of getting everyone to believe, etc, and 3) God actually cares about free will, and no that doesn't contradict point 1 the bible is perfect and so is our interpretation of it shut up you filthy heathen.

Now let's imagine that Adam and Eve have just been kicked out of Eden, cherubim and  a flaming sword has been posted on duty to guard the singular way into the Garden that has four navigable rivers flowing out of it in four different directions, and God is selecting the best approach to solving this whole sin thing.  (Or maybe God planned this all out long before the Fall, whichever.)  God, being omniscient, would be aware of all the possible approaches, which means that He would be aware of at least the following two possible approaches.

Approach 1:  Get it done as soon as possible.  Do the immaculate conception thing with Eve.  Jesus is the first child born ever, in place of Abel.  Cain gets jealous and does the crucifying.  Boom, the only three people living in the world, who are also (excluding Jesus) the only three people to have EVER lived, know the story, have witnessed it firsthand, and are primed to repent and be saved, all of their own free will.  Universal salvation of the entire human race without a single soul consigned to hellfire, with everyone retaining at least as much free will as they have in...

Approach 2:  What we read in the Bible, as interpreted by modern mainstream Christianity.  A path which includes roughly four millennia pre-Jesus of EVERYONE getting damned, virtually the entire population of the earth wiped out in a flood without even the opportunity to freely choose faith in Jesus, Pharaoh's heart being hardened, genocide in the holy land down to the baby boys and livestock without, again, them being given the opportunity to freely believe in Jesus, Jonah and how exactly ZERO definitions of free will fit with his story, and eventually at most a few hundred people witness the resurrection to tell everyone in the whole world (including the ones on other continents that wouldn't be discovered for centuries) about this Jesus fellow through a game of telephone across multiple language barriers shepherded under the thoroughly-trustworthy and not-at-all-inviting-suspicion auspices of a priesthood rife with people hungry for worldly power, worldly coin, and worldly child molestation, and, oh, who did the whole Inquisition and colonization and subjugation and forced conversion thing.  Because free will.

So even if we could resolve free-will with predestination, what are we supposed to believe here?  That God wasn't omnipotent enough to do the Jesus thing right out of the gate?  That God wasn't omniscient enough to realize that this was an option?  That God wasn't omnibenevolent enough to choose the option that forestalled millennia of pointless and needless genocide and damnation and separation from Himself and, oh, yes, curtailment of free will?  That God wasn't just enough to reserve hellfire only for those who had directly engaged in Original Sin, rather than visiting damnation unto the umpteenth generation?  That God wasn't merciful enough to save as many as possible?  That God lacked the free will to choose the option?  Or, just possibly, that the whole business is nonsensical fiction invented by a priesthood hungry for worldly power, worldly coin, worldly child molestation, colonization, subjugation, and forced conversions, and that all the plot holes are a result of them not being able to write a coherent mythology, combined with not NEEDING to write it coherently because they arrange it so that everyone else is either trained to practice willful ignorance of the plot holes or gets burned at the stake?

[no one]

Religious malarkey, is religious malarkey. No matter who fabricated the drivel.

[Dancefortwo]

So I'm having a bit of an online conversation with a Christian (on reddit/debate a Christian) about those four items in the thread title.  Yeah, I know, having a conversation with a Christian is probably not wise but I like to make Christian actually think about what they believe.  And even if they don't "think", which mostly they don't, at the very least somone lurking and reading what I wrote may have a lightbulb moment. 

Prophecy and "god has a plan" is such a huge thing with Jesus nuts.   They claim Jesus was prophecized in the Old Testament so he and his crucifixion was destined to happen because of the Adam and Eve catastrophe.   If the whole Jesus thing was fated to happen the only way this could come about is if every choice and decision made by every human being (after the Adam and Eve debacle) aligns specifically so it guarantee it's destined end, the crucifixion.       

Free will cannot happen with the Jesus destination. The only way free will could be added in this scenario is if there is as much chance that a prophecy fails as there is that it will succeed, but since the very definition of prophecy is that it's destined to happen failure is out of the question and so is free will.    

As far as I can see this is quite the delimma for Christians.

Whatcha all think?

By the way, this is all hypothetical stuff here.  We all know the Bible is an old book of mythology and tribal stories.

IMO, free will is too poorly-defined to even know what the claim is about.

But as far as divine plans go.... who the fuck would plan THIS?

Let's 1) take the ENTIRE Bible narrative as true for the sake of argument, and 2) God has His heart set on incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, redemption through Jesus and the goal of getting everyone to believe, etc, and 3) God actually cares about free will, and no that doesn't contradict point 1 the bible is perfect and so is our interpretation of it shut up you filthy heathen.

Now let's imagine that Adam and Eve have just been kicked out of Eden, cherubim and  a flaming sword has been posted on duty to guard the singular way into the Garden that has four navigable rivers flowing out of it in four different directions, and God is selecting the best approach to solving this whole sin thing.  (Or maybe God planned this all out long before the Fall, whichever.)  God, being omniscient, would be aware of all the possible approaches, which means that He would be aware of at least the following two possible approaches.

Approach 1:  Get it done as soon as possible.  Do the immaculate conception thing with Eve.  Jesus is the first child born ever, in place of Abel.  Cain gets jealous and does the crucifying.  Boom, the only three people living in the world, who are also (excluding Jesus) the only three people to have EVER lived, know the story, have witnessed it firsthand, and are primed to repent and be saved, all of their own free will.  Universal salvation of the entire human race without a single soul consigned to hellfire, with everyone retaining at least as much free will as they have in...

Approach 2:  What we read in the Bible, as interpreted by modern mainstream Christianity.  A path which includes roughly four millennia pre-Jesus of EVERYONE getting damned, virtually the entire population of the earth wiped out in a flood without even the opportunity to freely choose faith in Jesus, Pharaoh's heart being hardened, genocide in the holy land down to the baby boys and livestock without, again, them being given the opportunity to freely believe in Jesus, Jonah and how exactly ZERO definitions of free will fit with his story, and eventually at most a few hundred people witness the resurrection to tell everyone in the whole world (including the ones on other continents that wouldn't be discovered for centuries) about this Jesus fellow through a game of telephone across multiple language barriers shepherded under the thoroughly-trustworthy and not-at-all-inviting-suspicion auspices of a priesthood rife with people hungry for worldly power, worldly coin, and worldly child molestation, and, oh, who did the whole Inquisition and colonization and subjugation and forced conversion thing.  Because free will.

So even if we could resolve free-will with predestination, what are we supposed to believe here?  That God wasn't omnipotent enough to do the Jesus thing right out of the gate?  That God wasn't omniscient enough to realize that this was an option?  That God wasn't omnibenevolent enough to choose the option that forestalled millennia of pointless and needless genocide and damnation and separation from Himself and, oh, yes, curtailment of free will?  That God wasn't just enough to reserve hellfire only for those who had directly engaged in Original Sin, rather than visiting damnation unto the umpteenth generation?  That God wasn't merciful enough to save as many as possible?  That God lacked the free will to choose the option?  Or, just possibly, that the whole business is nonsensical fiction invented by a priesthood hungry for worldly power, worldly coin, worldly child molestation, colonization, subjugation, and forced conversions, and that all the plot holes are a result of them not being able to write a coherent mythology, combined with not NEEDING to write it coherently because they arrange it so that everyone else is either trained to practice willful ignorance of the plot holes or gets burned at the stake?

Excellent post.  I hadn't thought about the 20 million or so people on the other side of the planet who didn't have a choice and were drowned in a flood. 

Christians convince people that they are miserable, horrible, worthless sinners who have through their own dreadful, awful free will choices landed themselves in hell because they didn't accept the Jesus offering.  It's the religious equivlent of holding a gun to someone's head and telling them "Your money or your life."   When something is coerced and it's backed by physical threats it is not a free will choice.  Christian conversion is the very definition of extortion.

[Szuchow]

Bible and prophecies aren't anything I care about as dumb fucks will believe in whatever they want regardless of what they will hear. As for "free will" I find it to be a meaningless term, excuse for space Hitler inaction and prop for "just world fallacy".

[isbelldl]

When I still believed, I came to the conclusion that free will was just an illusion. Now that I no longer believe, I still suspect that free will may just be an illusion.

If there is an all-knowing being, by definition, it must already know everything you will do. As such, your actions must already be known, therefore your choices have already been made in some sense. I don't think it's possible to have an all-knowing being and have free will be more than an illusion. Funnily enough, that line of reasoning was a large part of what lead me to stop believing. It was specifically reading the Exodus story that killed my belief. If it were true, not only would it prove that we do not have free will, but would also prove that the one in control was malicious. In the story, God hardened Pharaoh's heart specifically so that he could show his power. The supposed loving deity could have softened Pharaoh's heart so that he would allow the Jewish slaves to go free without a fight. Instead, he chose to make Pharaoh unwilling to listen so that he would have an excuse to torture the Egyptians and ultimately kill all of their firstborn children. That makes it very clear that in Christian mythology, at least some people do not have free will, and that God is a cruel being.

From the non-religious perspective, we're all matter/energy. As best we understand, matter/energy follows predictable rules. Our thoughts and experiences should be explainable as a series of interactions of matter/energy. As such, if it were possible to know all these interactions, it should be possible to predict an individuals thoughts and actions, making free will an illusion. Of course, quantum physics might be enough to make that premise false, but I don't have a solid enough understanding of quantum physics to be certain.

All that said, regardless of whether free will is real or an illusion, I live as if it is real. I don't know whether my decisions were already predetermined, but I'm still making them from my perspective. I still experience the results of my decisions, so I try to make the best decisions I can. It doesn't matter whether I ultimately had any choice. I'm still the one living with it.

[GenesisNemesis]

Forgiveness also doesn't make sense. I should forgive someone for something that was predestined to happen anyway? Huh? It's almost like Christianity is fundamentally incoherent.

[Bucky Ball]

So I'm having a bit of an online conversation with a Christian (on reddit/debate a Christian) about those four items in the thread title.  Yeah, I know, having a conversation with a Christian is probably not wise but I like to make Christian actually think about what they believe.  And even if they don't "think", which mostly they don't, at the very least somone lurking and reading what I wrote may have a lightbulb moment. 

Prophecy and "god has a plan" is such a huge thing with Jesus nuts.   They claim Jesus was prophecized in the Old Testament so he and his crucifixion was destined to happen because of the Adam and Eve catastrophe.   If the whole Jesus thing was fated to happen the only way this could come about is if every choice and decision made by every human being (after the Adam and Eve debacle) aligns specifically so it guarantee it's destined end, the crucifixion.       

Free will cannot happen with the Jesus destination. The only way free will could be added in this scenario is if there is as much chance that a prophecy fails as there is that it will succeed, but since the very definition of prophecy is that it's destined to happen failure is out of the question and so is free will.    

As far as I can see this is quite the delimma for Christians.

Whatcha all think?

By the way, this is all hypothetical stuff here.  We all know the Bible is an old book of mythology and tribal stories.

Prophesy was not prediction.
Omen-reading was forbidden. Deuteronomy 18 :11-12
"Let no one be found among you who .... etc etc. "
Ignorant Christian Fundies know nothing about the real nature of prophesy, and the role of a "prophet".

"The ancient role of a prophet in Hebrew culture was to interpret the words or will of their god to the people OF THEIR OWN DAY. NOT to predict the future. (That's Hollywood's idea of the role of a prophet).
So you often hear fundies talking about "prophesy", and how various prophesies were a 'foretelling", or prediction of the future, and indeed they count them up as "proof" that Jebus or whatever HAS to be true, as the "prophecy" came true.
In fact Leviticus forbade fortune telling and divination, so we know it was an abomination to even think in these terms for many/most centuries in Hebrew culture. However, with the rise of Apocalypticism, around the turn of the millennium, this changed somewhat, and is evidenced in many Christian writings, including the gospels, as they adopted the notions absent in ancient Israel, but coming into popular view with the Essenes. In terms of Hebrew culture, and the "telling of or prediction of" the future, was unknown, and forbidden, and not at ALL a view of the major prophets themselves. However in the the new view, certain "hidden meanings" or "pesherim" began to be looked for, in the practice of Midrash. The name for this is called "pesher", (or seeking a "hidden meaning"), which was not even known to the original speaker/writer, but only "revealed" later
to certain believers. Originally, the (plural) "pesherim" were only fully revealed to the Son of Righteousness, (the leader of the Essenes), and the idea was first found and fully understood after scholars read the Dead Sea scrolls, and was a sub category of "Midrash", (or study of the texts).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesher
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midrash
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsou...15650.html
Thus we see that "prophesy" as fortune telling as began to be practiced in Judaism around the First Century, (and picked up by Christians and the gospel writers), really was a very late invention and never a classical part of Hebrew scripture, or understanding, either interpretation, or intention, and certainly was not the function of the ancient office of "prophet", in Hebrew culture, who was to be a "mouthpiece" to the people of their own day, and not Madame Zelda with her crystal ball.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/r...html#proof"

[Alan V]

From the non-religious perspective, we're all matter/energy. As best we understand, matter/energy follows predictable rules. Our thoughts and experiences should be explainable as a series of interactions of matter/energy. As such, if it were possible to know all these interactions, it should be possible to predict an individuals thoughts and actions, making free will an illusion. Of course, quantum physics might be enough to make that premise false, but I don't have a solid enough understanding of quantum physics to be certain.

From a materialistic perspective, the top-down causation called free will is still a possibility as a function of the emergent properties of life and consciousness.  Quantum mechanics is not required to explain how this works.

See Reduction and Emergence

[Dancefortwo]

So I'm having a bit of an online conversation with a Christian (on reddit/debate a Christian) about those four items in the thread title.  Yeah, I know, having a conversation with a Christian is probably not wise but I like to make Christian actually think about what they believe.  And even if they don't "think", which mostly they don't, at the very least somone lurking and reading what I wrote may have a lightbulb moment. 

Prophecy and "god has a plan" is such a huge thing with Jesus nuts.   They claim Jesus was prophecized in the Old Testament so he and his crucifixion was destined to happen because of the Adam and Eve catastrophe.   If the whole Jesus thing was fated to happen the only way this could come about is if every choice and decision made by every human being (after the Adam and Eve debacle) aligns specifically so it guarantee it's destined end, the crucifixion.       

Free will cannot happen with the Jesus destination. The only way free will could be added in this scenario is if there is as much chance that a prophecy fails as there is that it will succeed, but since the very definition of prophecy is that it's destined to happen failure is out of the question and so is free will.    

As far as I can see this is quite the delimma for Christians.

Whatcha all think?

By the way, this is all hypothetical stuff here.  We all know the Bible is an old book of mythology and tribal stories.

Prophesy was not prediction.
Omen-reading was forbidden.  Deuteronomy 18 :11-12
"Let no one be found among you who .... etc etc. "
Ignorant Christian Fundies know nothing about the real nature of prophesy, and the role of a "prophet".

"The ancient role of a prophet in Hebrew culture was to interpret the words or will of their god to the people OF THEIR OWN DAY. NOT to predict the future. (That's Hollywood's idea of the role of a prophet).
So you often hear fundies talking about "prophesy", and how various prophesies were a 'foretelling", or prediction of the future, and indeed they count them up as "proof" that Jebus or whatever HAS to be true, as the "prophecy" came true.
In fact Leviticus forbade fortune telling and divination, so we know it was an abomination to even think in these terms for many/most centuries in Hebrew culture. However, with the rise of Apocalypticism, around the turn of the millennium, this changed somewhat, and is evidenced in many Christian writings, including the gospels, as they adopted the notions absent in ancient Israel, but coming into popular view with the Essenes. In terms of Hebrew culture, and the "telling of or prediction of" the future, was unknown, and forbidden, and not at ALL a view of the major prophets themselves. However in the the new view, certain "hidden meanings" or "pesherim" began to be looked for, in the practice of Midrash. The name for this is called "pesher", (or seeking a "hidden meaning"), which was not even known to the original speaker/writer, but only "revealed" later
to certain believers. Originally, the (plural) "pesherim" were only fully revealed to the Son of Righteousness, (the leader of the Essenes), and the idea was first found and fully understood after scholars read the Dead Sea scrolls, and was a sub category of "Midrash", (or study of the texts).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesher
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midrash
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsou...15650.html
Thus we see that "prophesy" as fortune telling as began to be practiced in Judaism around the First Century, (and picked up by Christians and the gospel writers), really was a very late invention and never a classical part of Hebrew scripture, or understanding, either interpretation, or intention, and certainly was not the function of the ancient office of "prophet", in Hebrew culture, who was to be a "mouthpiece" to the people of their own day, and not Madame Zelda with her crystal ball.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/r...html#proof"

Oh, Bucky, these Christians don't know omen reading was forbidden and they don't care. They're working with an Christian god concept that aligns with what they pick and choose out of the Bible for their Christian purposes.   It's my experience that they tend to believe in free will and this is the leverage they use to blame people who chose wrong, reject Jesus and thereby ending up roasting on a spit in hell.  They HAVE to believe in free will otherwise their god is a big dick.  Free will isn't really a thing in the Bible but Christians need to make it a thing because god would get the blame otherwise.  It's not gods fault, it's people rejecting god and refusing to accept Sacrifice-on-a-stick, Jesus.   God gets off the hook every time.  

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves."    

Except it doesn't work if a god is omniscient.  Past, present and future choices are already known to a omniscient god.

[Minimalist]

So I'm having a bit of an online conversation with a Christian (on reddit/debate a Christian) about those four items in the thread title.  Yeah, I know, having a conversation with a Christian is probably not wise but I like to make Christian actually think about what they believe.  And even if they don't "think", which mostly they don't, at the very least somone lurking and reading what I wrote may have a lightbulb moment. 

Prophecy and "god has a plan" is such a huge thing with Jesus nuts.   They claim Jesus was prophecized in the Old Testament so he and his crucifixion was destined to happen because of the Adam and Eve catastrophe.   If the whole Jesus thing was fated to happen the only way this could come about is if every choice and decision made by every human being (after the Adam and Eve debacle) aligns specifically so it guarantee it's destined end, the crucifixion.       

Free will cannot happen with the Jesus destination. The only way free will could be added in this scenario is if there is as much chance that a prophecy fails as there is that it will succeed, but since the very definition of prophecy is that it's destined to happen failure is out of the question and so is free will.    

As far as I can see this is quite the delimma for Christians.

Whatcha all think?

By the way, this is all hypothetical stuff here.  We all know the Bible is an old book of mythology and tribal stories.

Prophesy was not prediction.
Omen-reading was forbidden.  Deuteronomy 18 :11-12
"Let no one be found among you who .... etc etc. "
Ignorant Christian Fundies know nothing about the real nature of prophesy, and the role of a "prophet".

"The ancient role of a prophet in Hebrew culture was to interpret the words or will of their god to the people OF THEIR OWN DAY. NOT to predict the future. (That's Hollywood's idea of the role of a prophet).
So you often hear fundies talking about "prophesy", and how various prophesies were a 'foretelling", or prediction of the future, and indeed they count them up as "proof" that Jebus or whatever HAS to be true, as the "prophecy" came true.
In fact Leviticus forbade fortune telling and divination, so we know it was an abomination to even think in these terms for many/most centuries in Hebrew culture. However, with the rise of Apocalypticism, around the turn of the millennium, this changed somewhat, and is evidenced in many Christian writings, including the gospels, as they adopted the notions absent in ancient Israel, but coming into popular view with the Essenes. In terms of Hebrew culture, and the "telling of or prediction of" the future, was unknown, and forbidden, and not at ALL a view of the major prophets themselves. However in the the new view, certain "hidden meanings" or "pesherim" began to be looked for, in the practice of Midrash. The name for this is called "pesher", (or seeking a "hidden meaning"), which was not even known to the original speaker/writer, but only "revealed" later
to certain believers. Originally, the (plural) "pesherim" were only fully revealed to the Son of Righteousness, (the leader of the Essenes), and the idea was first found and fully understood after scholars read the Dead Sea scrolls, and was a sub category of "Midrash", (or study of the texts).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesher
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midrash
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsou...15650.html
Thus we see that "prophesy" as fortune telling as began to be practiced in Judaism around the First Century, (and picked up by Christians and the gospel writers), really was a very late invention and never a classical part of Hebrew scripture, or understanding, either interpretation, or intention, and certainly was not the function of the ancient office of "prophet", in Hebrew culture, who was to be a "mouthpiece" to the people of their own day, and not Madame Zelda with her crystal ball.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/r...html#proof"

The ancients called them Oracles and they had a decent track record... when you could figure out what they meant which normally only happened after the fact.

[isbelldl]

From the non-religious perspective, we're all matter/energy. As best we understand, matter/energy follows predictable rules. Our thoughts and experiences should be explainable as a series of interactions of matter/energy. As such, if it were possible to know all these interactions, it should be possible to predict an individuals thoughts and actions, making free will an illusion. Of course, quantum physics might be enough to make that premise false, but I don't have a solid enough understanding of quantum physics to be certain.

From a materialistic perspective, the top-down causation called free will is still a possibility as a function of the emergent properties of life and consciousness.  Quantum mechanics is not required to explain how this works.

See Reduction and Emergence

I did read your linked post. I think it's interesting, but I'm not convinced. I do think it quickly becomes too complex to realistically predict or model, but I'm not convinced there's actually anything there that wouldn't be theoretically reproducible if it were possible to also recreate the exact conditions. The whole being greater than the sum of the parts doesn't imply that the given parts will produce different wholes each time. They claim that "parts behave differently in wholes", but that doesn't necessarily mean that parts behave unreliably in wholes. Maybe I'm just missing something in there.

[Paleophyte]

So I'm having a bit of an online conversation with a Christian (on reddit/debate a Christian) about those four items in the thread title.  Yeah, I know, having a conversation with a Christian is probably not wise but I like to make Christian actually think about what they believe.  And even if they don't "think", which mostly they don't, at the very least somone lurking and reading what I wrote may have a lightbulb moment. 

Prophecy and "god has a plan" is such a huge thing with Jesus nuts.   They claim Jesus was prophecized in the Old Testament so he and his crucifixion was destined to happen because of the Adam and Eve catastrophe.   If the whole Jesus thing was fated to happen the only way this could come about is if every choice and decision made by every human being (after the Adam and Eve debacle) aligns specifically so it guarantee it's destined end, the crucifixion.       

Free will cannot happen with the Jesus destination. The only way free will could be added in this scenario is if there is as much chance that a prophecy fails as there is that it will succeed, but since the very definition of prophecy is that it's destined to happen failure is out of the question and so is free will.    

As far as I can see this is quite the delimma for Christians.

Whatcha all think?

By the way, this is all hypothetical stuff here.  We all know the Bible is an old book of mythology and tribal stories.

It's actually fairly trivial to resolve. Any sparky deity that has a plan need only set it up to be stochastic. That way the behaviour of any single individual has little to no affect on the outcome. The result is as predestined as air pressure. There's no physical law that specifically states that you won't be sucked off the ground because a vacuum forms above your head but the probabilities of that ever happening are so low that it is never observed. In that light, Jesus would be viewed as the end product of vast human effort, of which he was the first and only success. His lineage and history is only exceptional viewed in retrospect and against the back drop of the billions who didn't make it. Had any one of his ancestors or the people who influenced them zigged instead of zagged he'd have been another historical nonentity and god's son would have actually been a daughter with an Aztec name.

The difficulty for the Christians is that they've mixed Jewish and Hellenic traditions to spawn their peculiar religion and actually like a god that meddles in every last trivial detail. He's the ultimate micro-manager and they don't seem to get the joke that being one more insignificant cog in his machinations utterly devalues their existence.

[Cavebear]

Carlin was ALWAYS AMAZING! He spoke the obvious truth that many did not understand. Yet what he said was SO OBVIOUSLY true it was confusing to many people...

[jerry mcmasters]

that's the pastor's job.

I thought the pastor's job was to fuck all the kids?

Those are the priests, silly.  Pastors are busy banging the church secretaries.

[Minimalist]

You have to keep up with current events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_abu...t_churches


These were equal opportunity fuckers.

And these were just the Baptists.  I wonder what the rest of the jesus-freak bastards were doing.

[Alan V]

They claim that "parts behave differently in wholes", but that doesn't necessarily mean that parts behave unreliably in wholes. Maybe I'm just missing something in there.

Wholes behave reliably by their own rules, which are in addition to the rules followed by parts.  In other words, the parts only dictate what happens up to a point.  So for instance, bottom-up processes determine their necessities, like the need to consume food regularly, but top-down processes choose which restaurant at what time.  

That kind of thing.

[Dancefortwo]

So I thought I'd post my reply to this guy on reddit/debateachristian regarding free will, sin and prophecy and stuff.   

I REEEEEALLY want to thank @Paleophyte for his/her fabulous sentence involving the 'zigzag' analogy which I blatantly absconded with.  Thank you Paleophyte.   I want to give you credit for that.   The quotes in brackets are from the Christian on reddit and my replies are not in quotes.

 "Because humans with free will are within time making their free choices, while God is not, and sees the end results of those free choices."

The end results cannot be free choices when it is pre-known . Everyone has to make the very choices that will align with the "end results". This is opposite of "free will". It's a set-up situation particularly when prophecy is the lynch pin that ties the story together.
Had any one of Jesus's ancestors or the people who influenced them zigged instead of zagged he'd have been another historical nonentity and god's son would have actually been a daughter with an Aztec name.


 

 "...because freely chosen love of God is a greater good than those things that upset you." 

However, it isn't freely chosen. For a choice to be "free" it must be absent of force, threats, coercions or intimations. Can a person freely choose to believe or not to believe in Jesus? Not so long as the threat of hell is there.

A free choice would be to either accept Jesus or not accept Jesus with no consequences for non-acceptance. When consequences are attached to one’s choice, it become extortion because the choice is coerced. To gain adherents to the Christian religion, extortion is the very method they use. It is not a true free choice.

It is a mafia style choice. If you don't comply with the godfather and honor him you'll end up in a cement block under the Brooklyn Bridge. The Mafia and Jesus choices similarly are not freely made when threats of physical violence are involved.

"There aren’t degrees of omniscience. God is omniscient."

Here's the other problem. Your god doesn't just know that there is a possibility that someone will reject him before he creates them. He knows everything. He's omniscient. So he knows for certain before he creates them who will go to hell. Why would a loving merciful god create people knowing that they will, by their own free will, go to hell?

 "For sin.....Sin has concequences."

Justifying the murder of millions of babies in a flood because a distant ancester stumbled in a garden in which trip wires were set up everywhere is one of the most disgusting aspects of Christianity. If your three months old daughter, granddaughter, baby son or baby nephew was drowned because your 8th great grandmother choose to read a book of knowledge, this is something I'd hope you nor anyone else would justify.

When theists rely so heavily on the "sin" factor theists are also purposing the notion that their god is completely incapable of creating beings that can love him and also need not sin. If there are limitations to God’s ability then he is not all powerful.

But alas, you've given it a pass with your mythical god and mass genocide and justify it with "sin". Duly noted.

No civilized court in any civilized country would condemn someone for the misdeeds of their grandparents, much less a 30th great grandparent. Only a uncivilized, backwards country lead by an evil dictator would create such a system. However, religions throws all morals out the window when it comes to their god. The end justifies the means no matter what it is, so killing babies is justified under the Christian religion. Christians always follow the dogma set up by the church. They really have no choice.

[Bucky Ball]

From the non-religious perspective, we're all matter/energy. As best we understand, matter/energy follows predictable rules. Our thoughts and experiences should be explainable as a series of interactions of matter/energy. As such, if it were possible to know all these interactions, it should be possible to predict an individuals thoughts and actions, making free will an illusion. Of course, quantum physics might be enough to make that premise false, but I don't have a solid enough understanding of quantum physics to be certain.

From a materialistic perspective, the top-down causation called free will is still a possibility as a function of the emergent properties of life and consciousness.  Quantum mechanics is not required to explain how this works.

See Reduction and Emergence

Has anyone ever said exactly what these "emergent properties" of life and consciousness are, where we find them explained and agreed on by
those who actually study life and consciousness ? How many are there, exactly, and where are they described ?

[Paleophyte]

So I thought I'd post my reply to this guy on reddit/debateachristian regarding free will, sin and prophecy and stuff.   

I REEEEEALLY want to thank @Paleophyte for his/her fabulous sentence involving the 'zigzag' analogy which I blatantly absconded with.  Thank you Paleophyte.   I want to give you credit for that.   The quotes in brackets are from the Christian on reddit and my replies are not in quotes.

Awww Thanx. Sorry to hear that it sounds a lot like you're talking to a brick wall with this one.