“God has no religion”

I think this illustrates the point nicely

 

If you buy an electronic stuff, the first thing you do is to check whether it works or not before you buy it. Unfortunately people don't treat religion the same way.

 

While the debates on whether God exists or not are certainly interesting, I didn't intend for this thread to be an open discussion about it.

If you have a question considering God's existance, than can you please specify which religion you want the answer from, because every one of those three religions has a different idea.

<Thoughts on Evolution Moved to New Thread>

 

warriorofanart is right guys. Keep it on topic or make a new thread.

 

Anyway I think god made the basis for life and just lets nature take its course.

Not much of a god that is it?

 

Depends if you attach certain moral codes to God's existence and actions.

 

I do what I can

 

I've never heard of a rule that it has to be some overruling deity that controls everything that happens

Try telling that to the fundies!

 

Free will is a moot point and doesn’t serve the purpose it was designed for – to remove responsibility from god.



God would be responsible for everything that can possibly influence a persons choice. He would be responsible for all of the parameters of existence: morality, sin, evil, rape, murder, love, charity and so on. He would be responsible for all the things that we can do, along with all of the things we can't. So even if we had free will our choices would be still be made within, and contingent on the parameters of existence, which god is perfectly responsible for.

 

Human create God so they have something to worship. Without God, they can't find a good execuse to bend their knee.

 

Was Adam and Eve white if so where did all the black people come from?

 

OMG IT'S VOLDEMORT

And for my question:

How do those who believe in the Abrahamic god (or even other gods) justify the paradox caused by his being omniscient, and the supposed existence of "free will?" (which must also have been created by the god).

 

http://www.biblebell.org/mbag/mailbagay.html

I found something interesting near the end of that page on what color they could have been, not that it matters much. Also, Eden is commonly believed to be inbetween the Tigris and the Euphrates, near where Iran and Turkey meet, I believe. Looking at the current inhabitants, I believe it gives credence to the "reddish-brown" thing in the link.

There's often ideas about "the mark of Cain" being dark skin, which a lot of people, for some reason, use as claims for justifying slavery. But a good point made by some guy named Cooper P. Abrams III, is that "...even if one were to take the position that Cain was given the mark of being black, all of his progeny died in the flood and since Noah's sons were Sethites (Genesis 5) the curse would have ended with the flood, rendering the issue moot." (http://www.bible-truth.org/race.htm)

It can be believed that over time (as something to this extent has been proven), as people spread out into their territories, they adapted to the environment over time, thus causing them to take on characteristics fitting to survive in that area. I don't know what timeline everyone uses for the Bible's canon (some say 6000 years, some say 6 billion), so I don't know how developed the people would have become, but I see no reason to say that there weren't genetic changes in skin coloring.

 

Some say that they're only paradoxes to us, because there's no way we can fathom an all-knowing, all-seeing god, and those reasons usually get called cop-outs, so I'm going to try this one.

Going again by Biblical canon (as it's really the only canon of a major religion that I have any real knowledge about) when we look at Revelations, it says that God knows the number of those who will be saved when he returns, which I believe will be 144,000 or something like that. However, it always confused me when he caused the flood due to his regret at making something so evil.

"6:6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
Genesis, KJV"

So how could he know who was going to be saved at the end of the world, but didn't know that his creations would turn out like this? Perhaps the number of the saved (not just during the "end times" but even now) is something he planned beforehand, though it's the person's individual choice to become one of the saved.

On the other hand, even if he does know who will be saved and who won't be, does that necessarily mean that we don't have free will? Say we have two choices, but God knows the future. I pick Choice 1, and he already knew I was going to do that. However, was it not my will to go with Choice 1? If he didn't guide my hand (which I have absolutely no way of knowing), then I would contend that yes, we have free will.

 

It cannot actually be your "choice" to go with Choice 1. Well, you may think it is, but the pre-knowledge of god himself will already have PREDETERMINED your fate.

Perhaps, a better way of putting it is looking at how god was the primordial cause for all of existence, including you, or my own. And as such, all "choices" were begot FROM said creator [god] and as such, how could they be considered choices at all? Well, you could call them "choices" but it is only a word, with no meaning or substance. Or better yet, a lie, facade, or illusion.

If such events did indeed occur and god was in fact how the major Abrahamic [and some other] religions described, then such "free will" cannot co-exist. However, we would have the illusion that we may freely choose. Let us play the hypothetical, in this case, that the Abrahamic god was indeed real, we would not know of, and cannot prove his existence anyway. Which is the case in the real world, our world, already.

This illusion is caused by our inability to perceive or validate god's existence [if he was in fact real].

It is an interesting scenario because I believe whether god actually exists or not, the only realities of the matter would be:

A. God is real. Free will cannot exist, logically. However, every action we take will be perceived as "freely chosen" because of our inability to perceive god in an empirical fashion.

B. God is not real. Free will can possibly exist, as there is no Omnipresent being whose very existence would nullify the possibility of free will [logical paradox]. However one could then argue about the philosophical implications of free will and that it does not exist either, even without a god... [deterministic worldview]

The funny thing I find is, the deterministic worldview of freewill being nonexistent operates in almost the EXACT same fashion as an Abrahamic, religious worldview!!! In both scenarios [if both true], the perception/illusion of free will is there, completely masked by our inability to comprehend/validate either god [religious], nor all initial causations which factor into all of our actions [determinism].

I find it rather amusing that the hardlined philosopher and the religious fanatic may actually have so much in common... food for thought.

PS - I want to point out, that I have no problems with people believing in god(s). Personally, I find such notions immature and childish but that is neither here nor there, and merely my opinion. HOWEVER, I find it annoying, and rather narcissistic that some people will actually claim the existence of their Abrahamic god and free will can logically coincide. The "argument" which claims it would be possible because as humans we are unable to perceive god in some fashion or another is rather flawed and vague, and I oftentimes wonder, even if we cannot perceive god, we do live in this physical plane where there are laws of physics and logical axioms. Unless god were to somehow change the laws that govern this physical plane, we can ONLY apply this type of logic to the problem of free will coexisting with the omnipresent god.

 

einstein must be spinning in his grave. not only does god play dice... the dice are loaded