god is supposed to be omniscient and omnipotent right? therefore he fortold that eve would be tempted by the snake. so he wanted them to fail, making us be kicked out of paradise.
my next thought: free will is a joke.
let me explain: god can see the future therefore he knows what you will do. you cant change what your going to do because it is oing to come true. therefore free will is an illusion
Free Will is not entirely free. There are conditions (desire, influence, and necessity) which determine your choices. God or no God, destiny or chance, Free Will isn't entirely Free to begin with.
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Re: did got set humans up to fail?
I will give you the simple answer: no one can understand the true nature of reality. We can learn more and more over time, but we will never be completely right. The people who write the bible did not understand the true nature of God, but they thought they understand some small aspect, and they wrote it down. They were wrong, just like we are wrong.
If you read through the Bible, there are instances where it does seem that God will test someone by making the circumstances such that it is almost impossible to prevail or stay loyal to God (story of Job for example).
However, I think these are stories about Human Limits, and I think the message is supposed to be that we have the ability to endure anything if we keep a strong Faith in God.
A controversial message, but a nice one I think. What I would personally derive from that is that the human mind is very powerful, and the mind exceeds the body. If one's will is that strong, than he or she can endure or surpass nearly anything circumstance has to offer.
As for the Adam and Eve story....I personally feel it is completely flawed. God allowed the serpant to tempt Adam and Eve. God put the Tree of Knowledge there, when he should have located it somewhere else. God tested his first creations, wanting to know how loyal they really were- an egotistic entity indeed.
Secondly, for the mistake of eating the fruit, God cast upon Adam and Eve an eternal punishment.....life of hardship, having thier hardships pass upon thier children and thier children (personally, I don't know how Cain and Abel had kids)
*I do not feel a child is responsible for the "wrongs" of his or her father or mother.
The story of Adam and Eve, is too similiar to Pandora's Box, and thus, irrelevant to me.
Let us suppose that God is wholly omniscient--He knows everything, including the future. Thus, God has known from the beginning--as much as He has a beginning, considering He is without one--everything that mankind has done and will do. Furthermore, God has known everything that He has done and will do.
Let us further suppose that the "omniscience paradox" applies to God. Because of this, humans are totally without free will. However, since God's omniscience applies to Himself, God too is bound by the omniscience paradox--God cannot go against what God has always known that He will do. Therefore, God lacks free will.
What does this mean? Well, for one thing, it entirely negates the argument about God being unfair for throwing people into hell; God lacks free will, so He cannot do anything but throw people into hell. Additionally, it negates pretty much any argument against God on the basis of "omg he's mean!1!"
Welcome to failure. Our inability to control our destinies makes me smile, as I'm not to blame for my actions.
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Gender: Male Location: Southern Oregon,
Looking at you.
If you are right, there is something that god cannot do. That is to go against "his" destiny. Then that means that god is limited in some way, and is not omnipotent.
This is true. It would require a paradigm shift in the nature of God, but it would certainly get rid of most of the arguments against the existence of God.
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Nov 7th, 2007 12:21 AM
