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Post by clusium on Sept 20, 2021 18:15:44 GMT
God DID Intervene in that particular situation. As you said: The guy went to jail. That only happened because humans have free will. Or this is another of those things where something good happens: God did it. Something bad happens: human free will. Both.
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Post by rizdek on Sept 20, 2021 19:25:14 GMT
That only happened because humans have free will. Or this is another of those things where something good happens: God did it. Something bad happens: human free will. Both. Do humans who apprehend bad guys and/or keep a bad guys from hurting others interfere with free will.
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Post by clusium on Sept 20, 2021 20:12:48 GMT
Do humans who apprehend bad guys and/or keep a bad guys from hurting others interfere with free will. They are doing God's Work.
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Post by rizdek on Sept 20, 2021 20:40:54 GMT
Do humans who apprehend bad guys and/or keep a bad guys from hurting others interfere with free will.They are doing God's Work. That's not what I asked. Do they interfere with free will?
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Post by clusium on Sept 20, 2021 20:54:23 GMT
They are doing God's Work. That's not what I asked. Do they interfere with free will? No. They are exercising their own freewill to do what is right: In other words, follow God's Laws.
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Post by rizdek on Sept 20, 2021 20:59:13 GMT
I am not sure that follows. Human LE frequently stop crime before it happens...act on clues/hints to prevent it, or intervene during the process. Are THEY interfering with freewill? Or are they just intervening on behalf of the victim/society? I say they are NOT interfering with free will, the person exercised his free will to try to commit a crime. They merely thwarted the action not the will. And a God somehow extracting a victim out of that situation does nothing to the person's free will who chose to (try to) inflict this obscenity.
Furthermore if someone believes in a pleasant, sin free after life but WITH all occupants having moral free will, there must be a way for God to make that happen.
If action is innately prevented, then free will to action is pointless. I think it's rather obvious, and we see this with natural disasters, that nature and the universe are ambivalent to the creatures which live in it. And it's not only creatures on earth who are challenged by free will. Lucifer was an angel whose free will forced his fall from heaven. So the order of the universe is that there is both good and evil. So yes, humans are free to steal, rape and murder. But we all know that, right?
I don't think that's the cosmic plan. A third of the angels were cast from heaven and became demons. Angels and spirits can do evil. So it's quite obvious free will is eternal.
I wasn't talking about innately being prevented, but through the act of someone else.
If a LE physically stops someone from doing something wrong...like punching someone in the face...is he actually interfering with person's will to do wrong, or just interfering with the action itself by physically stopping him as he's trying to punch? Seems to me the person can still have the will to hit someone even though he is stopped by someone else.
One might say their will to do something they are prevented from doing is pointless...but that's not the issue. IS it (the will to do wrong) still there? IS the person still responsible for their free will? The person still wills to do it even if he's stopped. He might be frothing at the mouth, struggling to hit..his will is still very much free even though his actions are curtailed. The evidence of that would be that if, for some reason, the cop lost his grip...the person's free would still make him continue trying.
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Post by rizdek on Sept 20, 2021 21:00:58 GMT
That's not what I asked. Do they interfere with free will? No. They are exercising their own freewill to do what is right: In other words, follow God's Laws. I'm not talking about the LE officers free will. I'm talking about the person they apprehend. IS their free will interfered with? The answer it still no. Preventing someone from doing something is not interfering with their 'will' to do it.
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Post by moviemouth on Sept 20, 2021 22:03:11 GMT
I see no reason to believe God exists or that He has been represented accurately if He does exist.
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Post by gadreel on Sept 20, 2021 22:03:48 GMT
God is not directly involved in the world, it never was. Miracles are wishful thinking. For all intents and purposes, would you say your conception of the world is any different from an atheist's? Yes, in terms of metaphysics I believe that the universe is best described as if it was created intelligently, that is to say an intelligent force put it in motion, I also happen to talk to god on a personal level which has no rational explanation, but it makes me happy.
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Post by moviemouth on Sept 20, 2021 22:06:35 GMT
For all intents and purposes, would you say your conception of the world is any different from an atheist's? Yes, in terms of metaphysics I believe that the universe is best described as if it was created intelligently, that is to say an intelligent force put it in motion, I also happen to talk to god on a personal level which has no rational explanation, but it makes me happy. So do you believe you are actually talking to God or are you admitting you just like to play make believe, because it makes you feel good? I am honestly just curious and I like talking about this stuff. At best I think someone can get to a non-intervening being that created the universe. I don't believe this is the cause of the universe, but I can understand why people latch onto the idea.
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Post by moviemouth on Sept 20, 2021 22:13:57 GMT
Again, I’m not an Atheist. I’m not here to push an agenda or cause hate and arguments. One thing that bothers me is when kids get raped and murdered by a grown man. I worked at a prison. I counseled a guy who told me after he raped a little girl, he put her in a hole under his basement and handed her her little stuffed bunny before he shut her in. She died in that hole after he boarded it up. How does God let that happen. I know theologically you’ll say “we were born in sin, so nobody is innocent. The rain falls on the just and unjust.” However, if God intervenes in some peoples lives in the Bible. Then why not in a situation like that? Free will is the most prominent answer that apologists will give, though there are obvious issues with this. You point out one of them in the part I put in bold. If God is intervening in random people's lives and created a specific universe with rules of how things work and knows everything and has infinite capabilities, then free will is kind of out the window. I am a determinist, so I don't believe free will exists anyway. The illusion of free will exists. Neuroscience has suggested that all our decisions are made before our conscious mind is even aware of them. What you are referring to is the problem of evil and this is a problem for the believability of the existence of the God of classical theism. That is if someone believes the Christian God to be all loving. In theory God could exist and be malevolent, which would make a ton more sense. I am a non-believer/atheist, an anti-theist (depending on what definition you use) and an apatheist depending on the God claim.
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Post by OpiateOfTheMasses on Sept 20, 2021 22:36:49 GMT
Why do you think God would be compelled to act on behalf of rape victims? What part of your Bible suggests that God cares about people being raped enough to intervene in it? He can't intervene or the whole concept of free will becomes null. Satan's plan was to force humans to obey. That was rejected by God. Hence you have evil. There is no way to have free will and to make humans responsible for their actions, and yet also have god intervene in our daily affairs.
Would you prefer a universe where you have no free will? With free will you also get the fact that children or anyone might face horrendous torture and death.
So how come he (sometimes supposedly) intervenes when someone asks him to? Wouldn't the whole edifice of freewill come crashing down then? Or are you saying that all the prayers that are supposedly answered with miracles actually aren't and people just make that up? And if the victim of some appalling crime prayed for "divine intervention" wouldn't that go pretty high to the top of the list of things-God-should-look-at-straight-away and perhaps someone wanting to getting their injured leg sorted out (or whatever) could wait a bit? It's almost like the "rules" for this are just being made up as you go along...
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Post by moviemouth on Sept 20, 2021 22:41:26 GMT
He can't intervene or the whole concept of free will becomes null. Satan's plan was to force humans to obey. That was rejected by God. Hence you have evil. There is no way to have free will and to make humans responsible for their actions, and yet also have god intervene in our daily affairs.
Would you prefer a universe where you have no free will? With free will you also get the fact that children or anyone might face horrendous torture and death.
So how come he (sometimes supposedly) intervenes when someone asks him to? Wouldn't the whole edifice of freewill come crashing down then? Or are you saying that all the prayers that are supposedly answered with miracles actually aren't and people just make that up? And if the victim of some appalling crime prayed for "divine intervention" wouldn't that go pretty high to the top of the list of things-God-should-look-at-straight-away and perhaps someone wanting to getting their injured leg sorted out (or whatever) could wait a bit? It's almost like the "rules" for this are just being made up as you go along... That is a good way to put it. I can't comprehend how anyone can believe any of this God stuff.
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Post by amyghost on Sept 21, 2021 12:42:52 GMT
Everything concerning the whole Christoid conception of 'God' bothers me. Yeah, i mean if there is actually a God, there is no reason to belive that God is as the Christians belive. Insofar as I can be persuaded to believe in the existence of some manner of higher consciousness, higher power, overarching cosmic intelligence, or what-have-you, I very seriously doubt it would resemble anything even remotely close to the deity imagined by Christianity--or the deities of any other religion for that matter, as they're all imagined by and are products of the loopier recesses of the human mind.
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Post by Winter_King on Sept 21, 2021 12:51:35 GMT
That only happened because humans have free will. Or this is another of those things where something good happens: God did it. Something bad happens: human free will. Both. How can it be human free will if God is directing humans to do good? Are humans responsible for their actions or God is?
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Post by clusium on Sept 21, 2021 14:22:21 GMT
How can it be human free will if God is directing humans to do good? Are humans responsible for their actions or God is? The people do the Will Of God, & the Holy Spirit Gives them the Means to do so.
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Post by rizdek on Sept 21, 2021 19:45:30 GMT
Again, I’m not an Atheist. I’m not here to push an agenda or cause hate and arguments. One thing that bothers me is when kids get raped and murdered by a grown man. I worked at a prison. I counseled a guy who told me after he raped a little girl, he put her in a hole under his basement and handed her her little stuffed bunny before he shut her in. She died in that hole after he boarded it up. How does God let that happen. I know theologically you’ll say “we were born in sin, so nobody is innocent. The rain falls on the just and unjust.” However, if God intervenes in some peoples lives in the Bible. Then why not in a situation like that? Free will is the most prominent answer that apologists will give, though there are obvious issues with this. You point out one of them in the part I put in bold. If God is intervening in random people's lives and created a specific universe with rules of how things work and knows everything and has infinite capabilities, then free will is kind of out the window. I am a determinist, so I don't believe free will exists anyway. The illusion of free will exists. Neuroscience has suggested that all our decisions are made before our conscious mind is even aware of them. What you are referring to is the problem of evil and this is a problem for the believability of the existence of the God of classical theism. That is if someone believes the Christian God to be all loving. In theory God could exist and be malevolent, which would make a ton more sense. I am a non-believer/atheist, an anti-theist (depending on what definition you use) and an apatheist depending on the God claim. Sounds like you and I have both given this a lot of thought.
Me? Nigh unto 50 yrs ruminating on multiple facets of god-belief and why some people are so very absolutely convinced God exists and not ONLY that God exists but that they know enough about said God to organize their lives around that belief, vs others...like me who started my path away from a solid Christian God belief in my teens to pretty much having to admit to myself at around 30-35 that I simply had no more god-belief in me. Yes it took more than a decade. It felt like a falling away of something, shedding unexamined assumptions as I found them unsupported. I was exposed to a lot of apologetics from various sources...books, articles, discussions, well-meaning staunch theistic relatives, but I never found a way to renew the god belief.
Anyways one of the issues I pondered was evil and suffering and the specific question, why wouldn't a good god intervene when people are in trouble. Of course the issue of 'freewill' comes up...ie 'if God intervened that would interfere with freewill.'
But obviously that isn't true. There are many ways God could intervene/help with someone in trouble that doesn't involve bending anyone's 'freewill.'
First...there's the problem of someone in trouble just through random circumstances...nothing to do with free will. Someone is out hiking, gets lost, gets hurt and dies in the wilderness NOT because of anyone's free will but because of mistakes/miscalculations/natural disasters. Their will is that they very much want to be rescued or escape from their situation. This would also include natural disasters, disease and deformities. Helping in those cases need not interfere with anyone's 'freewill,'
Then there's the case where someone is trying to, or actually is, harming someone else...ie a rape, murder, abuse, etc. The common rejoinder to someone asking why God doesn't intervene is that the perpetrator has 'free will' and God chooses not to influence people's will and then they lay out a litany of reasons why not. The material point is that a god could 'interfere' in any number of ways that have nothing to do with free will. Simply removing the victim from the situation leaves the attacker's will very much intact. Making the bullet disintegrate as it's traveling through the air does nothing to the shooter's WILL to shoot someone. In the tragic case in the OP, once the scum locked up the child...God could've simply...rescued her and put her in a safe situation. In fact, it seems by NOT helping he's very much interfering with the will of the victim. They want to be rescued.
No one who tries to defend God's inactivity in these situations can answer those examples.
The problem is I don't think people really believe God DOES these kinds of really miraculous miracles. They're so used to them never happening they've simply given up. Probably as children they wondered, but the various rationales were delivered from people they looked up to until they finally succumbed to the fact that he doesn't magically whisk people out of danger or grow back limbs or physically alter material to prevent damage. They were told to and became accustomed to 'defining' miracles as the nondescript equivocal...
'god helped me get over my headache before my lunch date' or
'I was late leaving for work and God helped me get all green lights' or
'God helped me get a good grade on my exam after I studied for hours and hours' or
'I had some test come back positive, so I prayed and the next time the test came back negative.'
I have heard preachers expressly implore people to 'find' miracles in every day events. He was, for all intents and purposes, asking people to invent miracles in their everyday lives. It's almost like I believe God...if he existed...would have a lot more power than they believe their God has. Maybe thems the folks what become atheists...people like me who really believe if there was a God he should have actual miraculous power and use it to help people, if he cared to. And if he doesn't care...what's the point? Why seek to interact with an indifferent God? I may be better off totally ignoring him than fabricating reasons to believe in him.
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Post by gadreel on Sept 21, 2021 20:02:29 GMT
Yes, in terms of metaphysics I believe that the universe is best described as if it was created intelligently, that is to say an intelligent force put it in motion, I also happen to talk to god on a personal level which has no rational explanation, but it makes me happy. So do you believe you are actually talking to God or are you admitting you just like to play make believe, because it makes you feel good? I am honestly just curious and I like talking about this stuff. At best I think someone can get to a non-intervening being that created the universe. I don't believe this is the cause of the universe, but I can understand why people latch onto the idea. I dont really believe I am talking to god, but asking god for favours and being grateful for what I have. Especially gratitude, evidence shows being grateful to an outside source is therapeutic the whole creation thing is not a belief in God per se, but my thoughts that the way to describe how the universe works makes most sense if we treat the universe as if it was intentional.
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Post by moviemouth on Sept 21, 2021 20:17:10 GMT
Free will is the most prominent answer that apologists will give, though there are obvious issues with this. You point out one of them in the part I put in bold. If God is intervening in random people's lives and created a specific universe with rules of how things work and knows everything and has infinite capabilities, then free will is kind of out the window. I am a determinist, so I don't believe free will exists anyway. The illusion of free will exists. Neuroscience has suggested that all our decisions are made before our conscious mind is even aware of them. What you are referring to is the problem of evil and this is a problem for the believability of the existence of the God of classical theism. That is if someone believes the Christian God to be all loving. In theory God could exist and be malevolent, which would make a ton more sense. I am a non-believer/atheist, an anti-theist (depending on what definition you use) and an apatheist depending on the God claim. Sounds like you and I have both given this a lot of thought.
Me? Nigh unto 50 yrs ruminating on multiple facets of god-belief and why some people are so very absolutely convinced God exists and not ONLY that God exists but that they know enough about said God to organize their lives around that belief, vs others...like me who started my path away from a solid Christian God belief in my teens to pretty much having to admit to myself at around 30-35 that I simply had no more god-belief in me. Yes it took more than a decade. It felt like a falling away of something, shedding unexamined assumptions as I found them unsupported. I was exposed to a lot of apologetics from various sources...books, articles, discussions, well-meaning staunch theistic relatives, but I never found a way to renew the god belief.
Anyways one of the issues I pondered was evil and suffering and the specific question, why wouldn't a good god intervene when people are in trouble. Of course the issue of 'freewill' comes up...ie 'if God intervened that would interfere with freewill.'
But obviously that isn't true. There are many ways God could intervene/help with someone in trouble that doesn't involve bending anyone's 'freewill.'
First...there's the problem of someone in trouble just through random circumstances...nothing to do with free will. Someone is out hiking, gets lost, gets hurt and dies in the wilderness NOT because of anyone's free will but because of mistakes/miscalculations/natural disasters. Their will is that they very much want to be rescued or escape from their situation. This would also include natural disasters, disease and deformities. Helping in those cases need not interfere with anyone's 'freewill,'
Then there's the case where someone is trying to, or actually is, harming someone else...ie a rape, murder, abuse, etc. The common rejoinder to someone asking why God doesn't intervene is that the perpetrator has 'free will' and God chooses not to influence people's will and then they lay out a litany of reasons why not. The material point is that a god could 'interfere' in any number of ways that have nothing to do with free will. Simply removing the victim from the situation leaves the attacker's will very much intact. Making the bullet disintegrate as it's traveling through the air does nothing to the shooter's WILL to shoot someone. In the tragic case in the OP, once the scum locked up the child...God could've simply...rescued her and put her in a safe situation. In fact, it seems by NOT helping he's very much interfering with the will of the victim. They want to be rescued.
No one who tries to defend God's inactivity in these situations can answer those examples.
The problem is I don't think people really believe God DOES these kinds of really miraculous miracles. They're so used to them never happening they've simply given up. Probably as children they wondered, but the various rationales were delivered from people they looked up to until they finally succumbed to the fact that he doesn't magically whisk people out of danger or grow back limbs or physically alter material to prevent damage. They were told to and became accustomed to 'defining' miracles as the nondescript equivocal...
'god helped me get over my headache before my lunch date' or
'I was late leaving for work and God helped me get all green lights' or
'God helped me get a good grade on my exam after I studied for hours and hours' or
'I had some test come back positive, so I prayed and the next time the test came back negative.'
I have heard preachers expressly implore people to 'find' miracles in every day events. He was, for all intents and purposes, asking people to invent miracles in their everyday lives. It's almost like I believe God...if he existed...would have a lot more power than they believe their God has. Maybe thems the folks what become atheists...people like me who really believe if there was a God he should have actual miraculous power and use it to help people, if he cared to. And if he doesn't care...what's the point? Why seek to interact with an indifferent God? I may be better off totally ignoring him than fabricating reasons to believe in him.
This is a lot. I want to respond to all of it, but it will take me a bit. I'll start by saying I was never a true believer (I was "agnostic" until my mid '20s) and the the more I learned, the more none of it made sense to believe anymore. I am not 100% convinced that a God doesn't exist though, as that requires a level of knowledge that nobody has. Anyway, there are all sorts of issues starting with the story of Adam and Eve. God comes off like an abusive unclear parent even when it comes to that story. He knows there is going to be a deceiver that is going to fool his own creation into disobeying him and he let's it happen. Not to mention that before they ate from the tree it is unclear whether they even understood that disobeying was evil or why it was evil, considering they would have had eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil to really understand what evil was. If you read the Bible God comes off like the biggest fuck up and keeps making mistakes and then has to rectify them and then. It is almost a comedy of errors. I do believe there are many theists who fully believe stuff like prayers work and miracles, but they believe because they have been isolated from any information that would go against what they are told is true. There are also stories from the past that are convincing at first glance, such as the Miracle of Fatima. Once you start reading about psychology is part of when stories of miracles start to fall apart.
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Post by moviemouth on Sept 21, 2021 20:22:16 GMT
So do you believe you are actually talking to God or are you admitting you just like to play make believe, because it makes you feel good? I am honestly just curious and I like talking about this stuff. At best I think someone can get to a non-intervening being that created the universe. I don't believe this is the cause of the universe, but I can understand why people latch onto the idea. I dont really believe I am talking to god, but asking god for favours and being grateful for what I have. Especially gratitude, evidence shows being grateful to an outside source is therapeutic the whole creation thing is not a belief in God per se, but my thoughts that the way to describe how the universe works makes most sense if we treat the universe as if it was intentional.
I find it is best not to assume the reason for the Universe. It is an unanswerable question and not knowing has never really bothered me. When it comes to that it is "I have no idea." That is just me though. I know many people need an answer, whether it is true or not. The unknown can be very scary. As for talking to "God" being therapeutic and you treating it as just a comfort thing that you don't actually attribute to a God, that I understand. That isn't crazy to me and makes sense considering how our brain operates.
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