Quote from: reaperi guess you don't believe in the holy spirit, to each his own.Quote from: dahangand you do? i thought you were a theist, but not a christian???or do you like this idea that man created as well???i believe in a personal god of mankind. one that can read your mind, and destroy/alter/create the "universe". and by believe, i mean i think it's likely such a god exists. i do not believe in the holy spirit, i haven't been to church in ten years; the bread sucks, the wine sucks, only eighty year old women - why go?
i guess you don't believe in the holy spirit, to each his own.Quote from: dahangand you do? i thought you were a theist, but not a christian???or do you like this idea that man created as well???
and you do? i thought you were a theist, but not a christian???or do you like this idea that man created as well???
Quote from: Whirlingdervish(Q2C)"how can we have free will, if God knows what is going to happen to us?"My having knowledge that my son would end up in jail if he continued to behave in a certain way in no way infringed on his "free will" to continue the behavior that ended up with him spending 2 1/2 years in a federal pen in Texarkana. He had the "free will" to behave however he wanted, regardless of my knowing what was going to happen to him.
"how can we have free will, if God knows what is going to happen to us?"
do you think i misquoted stephen hawking when he says that this universe is extremely improbable(paraphrased).
Hmm, sorry. Missed this somehow. I've just searched "all posts by reaper" for the word "hawking" back to January 16th and I still missed it. Can you give me a link to the post, or tell me chapter/page/book again? Thx.
i don't think he would like to rephrase his ideas like this:IF there is a godTHEN we can't say if what happens before the big bang relates to what is happening afterQuote from: quadzBut that's the goofy Flying Spaghetti Monster territory again. That's the "you can't prove the Universe wasn't created three seconds ago" territory again. It completely ignores the fact that the Universe appears to operate according to fundamental laws, and does not appear to deviate from these laws. So it doesn't matter if the Flying Spaghetti Monster "could have" magically made something that happened before the Big Bang relate to something after. All evidence points to: No. Ignoring all the evidence is like betting against the sun coming up tomorrow. Sure, it's possible it MIGHT not come up. But that's not the way to bet.
But that's the goofy Flying Spaghetti Monster territory again. That's the "you can't prove the Universe wasn't created three seconds ago" territory again. It completely ignores the fact that the Universe appears to operate according to fundamental laws, and does not appear to deviate from these laws. So it doesn't matter if the Flying Spaghetti Monster "could have" magically made something that happened before the Big Bang relate to something after. All evidence points to: No. Ignoring all the evidence is like betting against the sun coming up tomorrow. Sure, it's possible it MIGHT not come up. But that's not the way to bet.
Quote from: quadzHmm, sorry.
Hmm, sorry.
Quote from: QuakeDuke on January 25, 2007, 05:59:49 PMQuote from: Whirlingdervish(Q2C)"how can we have free will, if God knows what is going to happen to us?"My having knowledge that my son would end up in jail if he continued to behave in a certain way in no way infringed on his "free will" to continue the behavior that ended up with him spending 2 1/2 years in a federal pen in Texarkana. He had the "free will" to behave however he wanted, regardless of my knowing what was going to happen to him.but if you truly "knew" he was going to jail, then he could not avoid it. with your son not being able to avoid it (no matter how hard he tried to), he does not have the freedom to change his future. if he did change his future, then you didn't "know" he would go to jail. free will implies an unseen future, so an all knowing god and free will are mutually exclusive.
I did notice that you seemed to have appeared to "stop" at a couple points in the chapter (such as the above), when Hawking continued on with reasoning about why you didn't necessarily need to stop there.
One possible answer is to say that God chose the initial configuration of the universe for reasons that we cannot hope to understand. [[reaper: WHY ARE YOU STUCK HERE!!! ]] This would certainly have been within the power of an omnipotent being, but if he had started it off in such an incomprehensible way, why did he choose to let it evolve according to laws that we could understantd? The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events to not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired. It would only be natural to suppose that this order should apply not only to the laws, but also to the conditions at the boundary of space-time that specify the initial state of the unvierse. There may be a large number of models of the universe with different initial conditions that all obey the laws. There ought to be some principle that picks out one intial state, and hence one model, to represent our universe.
Quote from: DaHanG on January 25, 2007, 06:13:09 PMQuote from: QuakeDuke on January 25, 2007, 05:59:49 PMQuote from: Whirlingdervish(Q2C)"how can we have free will, if God knows what is going to happen to us?"My having knowledge that my son would end up in jail if he continued to behave in a certain way in no way infringed on his "free will" to continue the behavior that ended up with him spending 2 1/2 years in a federal pen in Texarkana. He had the "free will" to behave however he wanted, regardless of my knowing what was going to happen to him.but if you truly "knew" he was going to jail, then he could not avoid it. with your son not being able to avoid it (no matter how hard he tried to), he does not have the freedom to change his future. if he did change his future, then you didn't "know" he would go to jail. free will implies an unseen future, so an all knowing god and free will are mutually exclusive.Do you truly not understand what I said? I would think simple logic would explain the concept. Knowledge of the end result of someones action does not mean that person cannot change the end result. What the heck do you think free will consists of? Free will does not imply an unseen (assuming by unseen you mean unknowable) future. Free will implies making choices, and to make "good" choices you're going to have to "know" the results of actions good or bad. You are free to choose your behavior which will change your future positively or negatively depending on what the behavior consisted of, such as breaking the law (a bad example since these days no one is held accountable for their actions anyway). Perhaps this might help. We can "know" if a person in school doesn't do the work, study, attend class (provided the school isn't one of the gutless wonders (many schools these days) that pass everyone so no one will feel "slighted" in some way even though they really didn't make an effort) you aren't going to get a degree. One of the problems with society today is the attitude of no accountability for actions - I deserve what I want regardless of whether or not I do one dang thing to achieve it or not - YOU owe it to me. Sheesh. An all knowing god and free will would only be mutually exclusive if god did not allow a person to make their own choices and reap the consequences for said behavior because he knows the end result of the behavior. The concept you are talking about is predestination and is a whole different subject altogether. Predestination and free will are mutually exclusive.QD
"There ought to be some principle that picks out one intial state, and hence one model, to represent our universe." - where is it?
Where is it???
when stephen hawking starts making shit up about how god does things
You are somehow able to determine what God can or can't do better than someone else?
Do you still believe that god _needs_ to form each lightning bolt?
Quote from: quadzYou are somehow able to determine what God can or can't do better than someone else?that's close to the point i was making.