Trump's Christian supporters are unchristian

[JimL]

It's very simple:

No, you are very simple minded.

I can make whatever choice I want, and God knows whatever choice I will make.

You can't make any choices you want because you are determined to choose that which was known you would choose before you even existed. Just answer the question for yourself; how is it that your future was known prior to you existing, and, though I won't be holding my breath, a light might possibly come on in your head.

[JimL]

Logic alone is no guarantee of correctness. Anyone versed in mathematics or philosophy knows this.

Logic applied to presumption based in ignorance has no more authority than the meaningless babble of a baby.

Jim

Faith is a powerful thing, isn't it Jim?

[JimL]

How do you know?

Doesn't matter. If you are working on the opposite assumption, i.e. that the future exists in the same sense as the past having already occured, then you still wouldn't have free will because both the past and the future, all of time, would have existed since the beginning of time. B-theory of time Sparko. I know your familiar with that.

[Sparko]

When did I "freely choose" given that the omniscient deity has known for all eternity, before I even existed, what I would choose?

When you made the choice.

Where the person who knows what your freewill choice is located doesn't change anything. If the person with the knowledge is in the future, in the present or in the past, they still have the knowledge and you still freely chose the action. Them moving about in time or being outside of time changes nothing from a logical point of view. Their knowledge is always based on what you actually choose.

Logically it is:

1. You choose to do something
2. That caused X to know what you did.

The location of X doesn't even factor into the equation.

[JimL]

When you made the choice.

Where the person who knows what your freewill choice is located doesn't change anything. If the person with the knowledge is in the future, in the present or in the past, they still have the knowledge and you still freely chose the action. Them moving about in time or being outside of time changes nothing from a logical point of view. Their knowledge is always based on what you actually choose.

Logically it is:

1. You choose to do something
2. That caused X to know what you did.

The location of X doesn't even factor into the equation.

How many times do you have to hear that if all of time exists, then it has always existed since time began, which means that no actual change takes place within it, before it sinks in?

[oxmixmudd]

Faith is a powerful thing, isn't it Jim?

Yes it is. But that isn't the issue here. I am arguing simply the intellectual case, my beliefs in the matter are not even in sync with the argument I'm making. My argument stems from what the situation is as I see it logically, intellectually. However, you will keep telling yourself that the only reason I don't get what you are saying is because my belief is blinding me to your way of thinking, and so, as I've already said, this conversation can go nowhere. On to other topics - at least as far as you and I are concerned.

Jim

[oxmixmudd]

That doesn't work, Jim.

If you can make a different choice, then God can be wrong.
If God can't be wrong, then you can't make a different choice.

It doesn't matter if you never do make a different choice, the suggestion that you could leads to a suggestion that God could be wrong.
Unless you concede that God can be wrong, your argument fails.

I don't think so Roy. I gave the proper condition. And yours is an oversimplification and thus loses the subtlety that is critical. I won't make a different choice unless the circumstances are altered. And for God not to have already factored that into what He knows, those circumstances have to be able to occur without his prior knowledge, which means that to show my free will, one must assume a priori infallibilty is false. It is not proven false, it is an initial condition.

the difference is: are my choices controlled. You are conflating the fact I won't make a different choice with I can't make a different choice. I can make a different choice, but I won't. My will is what is driving the choosing, not God's knowledge.



Jim

[JimL]

Yes it is. But that isn't the issue here. I am arguing simply the intellectual case, my beliefs in the matter are not even in sync with the argument I'm making. My argument stems from what the situation is as I see it logically, intellectually. However, you will keep telling yourself that the only reason I don't get what you are saying is because my belief is blinding me to your way of thinking, and so, as I've already said, this conversation can go nowhere. On to other topics - at least as far as you and I are concerned.

Jim

Well, we both know that's not true, you have clearly stated that we can't understand god therefore our logic doesn't matter. But, so be it, if you're done, you're done.

[oxmixmudd]

Well, we both know that's not true, you have clearly stated that we can't understand god therefore our logic doesn't matter. But, so be it, if you're done, you're done.

Nice try

On to other things.

[Mountain Man]

Just answer the question for yourself; how is it that your future was known prior to you existing...

As we've repeatedly explained to you, Jimmy, God essentially looks at your future the way you look at someone's past; your knowing what someone chose to do does not mystically deprive them of freewill.

To put it another way, I can make whatever choice I want, and God knows whatever choice I will make.

[JimL]

As we've repeatedly explained to you, Jimmy, God essentially looks at your future the way you look at someone's past; your knowing what someone chose to do does not mystically deprive them of freewill.

To put it another way, I can make whatever choice I want, and God knows whatever choice I will make.

As I have repeatedly explained to you MM, is that if god looks at our future the same way that we look at our pasts, then that future already exists, and always has existed since time began, period. It's called the B-theory of time, in which free will doesn't, and logically, could not, exist. This logical fact never seems to sink in with any of you which is hard to explain as even a child could understand that concept.

[Sparko]

How many times do you have to hear that if all of time exists, then it has always existed since time began, which means that no actual change takes place within it, before it sinks in?

JimL, for the sake of argument, assume that all of time exists - the B theory. And yesterday let's say you ate waffles for breakfast. WHAT exactly caused you to eat the waffles in the B theory of time since you think you have no free will?

Explain the exact mechanism of what caused you to decide to eat the waffles, instead of say, pancakes or skipping breakfast?

[JimL]

JimL, for the sake of argument, assume that all of time exists - the B theory. And yesterday let's say you ate waffles for breakfast. WHAT exactly caused you to eat the waffles in the B theory of time since you think you have no free will?

Explain the exact mechanism of what caused you to decide to eat the waffles, instead of say, pancakes or skipping breakfast?

Put on your thinking cap Sparko. If all of time exists and has always existed then nothing within time changes since the beginning time. Think of a that film strip of yours in which each clip in the film stands for a different moment in time, but all the moments exist together as one whole unchanging film. In the B-theory universe if yesterday I'm eating waffles for breakfast then yesterday I've always been eating waffles for breakfast.

[Sparko]

Put on your thinking cap Sparko. If all of time exists and has always existed then nothing within time changes since the beginning time. Think of a that film strip of yours in which each clip in the film stands for a different moment in time, but all the moments exist together as one whole unchanging film. In the B-theory universe if yesterday I'm eating waffles for breakfast then yesterday I've always been eating waffles for breakfast.

On my film strip it only records the free will actions of the people in the film. It doesn't cause them.

So what if you have always been eating waffles yesterday morning. You didn't answer me WHY you would have chosen to eat them.

Do you regularly do things without thinking or choosing?

Wait, that was a trick question. don't answer it.

[Mountain Man]

As I have repeatedly explained to you MM, is that if god looks at our future the same way that we look at our pasts, then that future already exists, and always has existed since time began, period. It's called the B-theory of time, in which free will doesn't, and logically, could not, exist. This logical fact never seems to sink in with any of you which is hard to explain as even a child could understand that concept.

Yes, that future exists because of the freewill choices that we will make.

See, the problem with you going on about "B-theory of time", a concept which you seem to barely understand, is that you've never connected the dots to explain exactly how that would deprive us of freewill.