Originally posted by Shakyamunison
But you don't know the will of God. You only think you do. God is beyond all understanding. You will not find God in any holy book. The will of god you see is only your own will.
God's will is for the Buddhist to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation from sin. Then, the former Buddhist can enter Heaven.
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
That is your will, not the will of God.
John 6:29
Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He sent."
1 John 3:23
And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the Name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.
Acts 10:43
To Him all the prophets witness that, through His Name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.”
Originally posted by JesusIsAlive
[B]John 6:29
Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He sent."1 John 3:23
And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the Name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.Acts 10:43
To Him all the prophets witness that, through His Name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.” [/B]
Why believe the bible? Why not believe the Koran? You can't find God in a holy book.
Originally posted by darkfan76So basically nothing to do with my post and answering nothing, if God is all-knowing and timeless then he is judging us based on what he already knows what we will do. Plain and simple.
Hard to try to see things through God's eyes? Isn't it? Specially considering that he is our creator and gave us the free will to act as we want, but also established a certain path to be followed to return to him. Why doesn't he allow us anything that we want? It could seem pointless to do anything when you know how it is going to end for us, but not really, remember Love is only God's motivation and he has intervened in the history of mankind to show us that, but a positive and active is always required from us, using our freedom.Even though I don't like Jim Carrey too much, the movie "Bruce all mighty" is very illustrative about how we very often make judgements about God and the concepts we usually handle about him, his motivations, about his relationship with mankind, etc. Take care!
Originally posted by PITT_HAPPENS
So basically nothing to do with my post and answering nothing, if God is all-knowing and timeless then he is judging us based on what he already knows what we will do. Plain and simple.
yes, plain and simple. He know what you did, what you do now, and what you will do.. Still you are the one who decides to do it. Not him.
Originally posted by darkfan76You keep missing the point, in the eyes and perception of man, key word man we have free will. Why is this, because we as man are not all-knowing and timeless so our fate is up to us but that is only a perception because mans perception is limited however God’s is not according to the Bible. Man is nothing more than an atom in the universe which God is supposed to have created, everything is dependent on one another as a whole so when God created everything it was already predetermined as to what and how long because he already saw it from beginning to the end.
yes, plain and simple. He know what you did, what you do now, and what you will do.. Still you are the one who decides to do it. Not him.
Originally posted by JesusIsAlive
[B]John 6:29
Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He sent."1 John 3:23
And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the Name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.Acts 10:43
To Him all the prophets witness that, through His Name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.” [/B]
Matthew 23:27-28Woe to you! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
So you, too, outwardly proclaim to be righteous, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
my first post was missed or ignored or something, but now that we've reached the topic of "choice" it comes to this... if god exists then it is more likely that our destinies are chosen for us... but if choice exists AND god exists that would mean he would have to make EVERY choice as well, he can't just say "Okay you have free choice", because it wouldn't work we would just sit around and die because there would be no choices to choose from. Since in all likeliness he does not exist we would have the ability to make our own choices and free will would be the more likely thing to exist, due to a greater force (other than scientific forces) not directly controlling our lives (direct like but not limited to the inevitability of death)
Now doomed that we are to have been given free choice (in your view) then god gave us the choice to be sinners he decided that we would be ABLE to sin, if he didn't want us to be then he would not have given us such and ability, you may say "but it is human nature" but you also say "god is beyond human nature" and thus he decides what human nature is, he also gave us the choice to be christians as well as MANY other religions if he wanted to save us all he would only have made Christianity be the only religion in the history of the world rather than watch his creations dwindle in different religions and have polytheism, also for a good while there were sacrifices to gods that didn't exist and he destroyed all our people for sinning while in his "order" (I refer to the flood of course), now to free him from the pressure of giving us those choices and put another one on, he gave us our personalities which would influence what we would choose, thus making christianity an impossibility to many people, now pushing that aside, he also gave us the choice NOT to believe which gave us the possibility also with our personalities never to follow any form of him if that is the goal of other religions, effectively making it impossible for some to reach heaven, which makes god a very foolish being and not worth following because he was obviously influenced by some other force...
If destiny is the path he chooses for us then we are doomed, he has made it destiny that MANY humans will NOT be saved making it painfully obvious the bible is filled with lies, either that he wants to save everyone or that others will not be saved from their sins, which again either makes him very cruel or incredibly stupid.
Key points/Summary (since most probably wont read any or very little):
1. free choice with a god is highly illogical, more so than having a god
2. destiny with a god is much more likely but destroys the bible as accurate
3. if the bible is accurate with a god, then god is... with all bluntness in use... retarded
4. gods existence is incredibly unlikely from just the logic of the above
Originally posted by Jbill311
We have to act as though free will exists don't we?
No. We just act as if we make our own choices. Which we always do. It is most likely that God cannot tell the future, because it doesnt exist yet, and it is even more likely that God himself does not exist.
Every human being is responsible for his or her own choices.
Originally posted by Jbill311
otherwise we couldn't punish criminals, because god made them do it. we couldn't praise heroes, because god made them do it.
That doesn't make sense to me.
We choose to punish and praise people. How can we imagine that the people we punish or praise didn't have a choice, when we conciously make the choice to punish or praise them ?
Originally posted by Goddess Kali
No. We just act as if we make our own choices. Which we always do. It is most likely that God cannot tell the future, because it doesnt exist yet, and it is even more likely that God himself does not exist.Every human being is responsible for his or her own choices.
That doesn't make sense to me.
We choose to punish and praise people. How can we imagine that the people we punish or praise didn't have a choice, when we conciously make the choice to punish or praise them ?
I think you misunderstood me. I don't think god makes our choices for us. I meant to say that even if it did, we would still have to act the same way we do now.
Originally posted by Jbill311
I think you misunderstood me. I don't think god makes our choices for us. I meant to say that even if it did, we would still have to act the same way we do now.
If God made choices for us, then we would punish or praise according to God's decree, and not out of our own free will.
Do you understand ?
To act as if we have free will, going on our own choices, pretty much eliminates the possibility that god controls our actions, much less that this entity knows the future already.
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
If god knows all that I will do, then the future is determined, and I have no free will.
God doesn't "know the future". At least as we could imagine such a thing, since we are limited in time. God is timeless. In eternity there is not time. Eternity is an eternal "today", in which our past, present, future are unfolded and read by God as book's pages at the same time.
Again, knowing that something is going to happen, that doesn't make God the cause that we act as we do. He's the reader, he certainly has written some lines himself for the good of mankind, but we are the main writers of the books of our own lives.
I know how disturbing is for atheists the thought of an omniscient god and its implications in the free will. My opinion, is that there is not contradiction. God creates all of us for love, but doesn't program us for loving him or each other. He doesn't create some for Heaven and other for hell, but we are free to choose the path to follow in our lives and accept the responsibility and consequenses of our decisions, even denying God, question him, loving him, etc. that's free will and both believers and atheist make use of it all the time.
Did God know I was going to post this? Yes. Did he made me do it? No. He respects my free will and I was the one who decided to write it. You won't see God "possessing" anyone.
Originally posted by darkfan76
God doesn't "know the future". At least as we could imagine such a thing, since we are limited in time. God is timeless. In eternity there is not time. Eternity is an eternal "today", in which our past, present, future are unfolded and read by God as book's pages at the same time.Again, knowing that something is going to happen, that doesn't make God the cause that we act as we do. He's the reader, he certainly has written some lines himself for the good of mankind, but we are the main writers of the books of our own lives.
I know how disturbing is for atheists the thought of an omniscient god and its implications in the free will. My opinion, is that there is not contradiction. God creates all of us for love, but doesn't program us for loving him or each other. He doesn't create some for Heaven and other for hell, but we are free to choose the path to follow in our lives and accept the responsibility and consequenses of our decisions, even denying God, question him, loving him, etc. that's free will and both believers and atheist make use of it all the time.
Did God know I was going to post this? Yes. Did he made me do it? No. He respects my free will and I was the one who decided to write it. You won't see God "possessing" anyone.
You quote me, but leave me out of your post? 😕
Past and future are happening now in the present. Free will is relative and omnipotence does not exist. God is transcending, not omnipotent.
Originally posted by darkfan76If God doesn’t know the future than he is not all knowing or timeless hence the point of the debate, you point that God is just the “reader” is incorrect because he is also the writer, publisher and distributor. This means before he created everything he would know how, why and when everything would happen, if he didn’t then he is not all knowing.
God doesn't "know the future". At least as we could imagine such a thing, since we are limited in time. God is timeless. In eternity there is not time. Eternity is an eternal "today", in which our past, present, future are unfolded and read by God as book's pages at the same time.Again, knowing that something is going to happen, that doesn't make God the cause that we act as we do. He's the reader, he certainly has written some lines himself for the good of mankind, but we are the main writers of the books of our own lives.
I know how disturbing is for atheists the thought of an omniscient god and its implications in the free will. My opinion, is that there is not contradiction. God creates all of us for love, but doesn't program us for loving him or each other. He doesn't create some for Heaven and other for hell, but we are free to choose the path to follow in our lives and accept the responsibility and consequenses of our decisions, even denying God, question him, loving him, etc. that's free will and both believers and atheist make use of it all the time.
Did God know I was going to post this? Yes. Did he made me do it? No. He respects my free will and I was the one who decided to write it. You won't see God "possessing" anyone.
He may not have “made” you write the post but by creating everything and you he knows that he set it in motion and would already know the results. If you knew that with 100% certainty that someone was going to kill someone else and you did nothing to prevent it wouldn’t you be responsible as well? You didn’t make the other person kill and you didn’t have any control but by your lack of action wouldn’t that make you responsible for the death of the other that you didn’t prevent something you knew with a 100% certainty?
Originally posted by PITT_HAPPENS
If God doesn’t know the future than he is not all knowing or timeless hence the point of the debate, you point that God is just the “reader” is incorrect because he is also the writer, publisher and distributor. This means before he created everything he would know how, why and when everything would happen, if he didn’t then he is not all knowing.He may not have “made” you write the post but by creating everything and you he knows that he set it in motion and would already know the results. If you knew that with 100% certainty that someone was going to kill someone else and you did nothing to prevent it wouldn’t you be responsible as well? You didn’t make the other person kill and you didn’t have any control but by your lack of action wouldn’t that make you responsible for the death of the other that you didn’t prevent something you knew with a 100% certainty?
Clarifying, of course he knows, I said God doesn't "know the future" the way we can understand or imagine it.
The problem is that you are thinking of God, and you think of another person, like you and me, and you are trying to understand him. We cannot at least not 100%.
About God's resposability in our good or evil acts: That's the point. He's not. We are. Intervening would be a violation to our free will, and he respect always our free will, even knowing the mistakes and evil we are going to do, because we choose to do it.
That doesn't mean he doesn't intervene from time to time, but leaving the active role to us. He has given us a conscience of good an evil, which many of us decide to ignore. For believers he has reveal himself to mankind through history and has taught us the path we should follow, however many of us decide to not follow that path.