Does god have free will?

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Can I borrow your telepathic helmet? I'll make a killing in Vegas.

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If this is really where you want to focus your questions, then sure go ahead.just make sure to polish it before returning it.

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But I have read the bible it's more seem to make less sense each time.

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A good way to go about this is to ask your question, I will provide you with the scripture and verses to support the answer. I won't tell you the answer, you read it for yourself and then lemme know if that makes sense. That way you don't feel that I've fed you the answer or that is how I "interpreted" the answer for you. I tried reading the Bible once, looking for loopholes & stuff and it really made no sense. I think it was too much 19th century, didn't really understand much of what was said...it was pretty much the last time I tried reading it, up until March of Last Year. Now everytime I read it...Whoa! Seems like I've wasted a greater portion of my life by not looking into it sooner. Now I make the most of my remaining years here."Happy is the man who finds wisdom, And the man who gains understanding" -- Proverbs 3:13

I'm not really sure how to answer that one - I don't believe we have souls, I don't believe that there is an afterlife, I don't believe in marriage, I don't believe in the bibical jesus.I can't think of a question I really need an answer for at the moment? (well not one I don't already have an answer for).This message has been edited by Charles Knight, 10-13-2004 01:20 PM

Uh,, how about where to find the cheapest place to spend your consumer dollars?
*edit to add.. my bad I mean pounds.This message has been edited by 1.61803, 10-13-2004 01:36 PM

good point - I'm after an external DVD-burner at the moment...

This is ome I never understood,Why did God invent evil?He created everything thus he created all that is bad. The devil, pain, suffering, hunger, death, etc.Why did he bother?I guess what I'm really asking is what was gods purpose for creating everything?

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I guess what I'm really asking is what was gods purpose for creating everything?

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I think the King James Version says it best;
Revelation 4:11 "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."He created us & all things for His pleasure, this is also stated again in: Colossians 1:16
"For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him."Evil has to do much with Free-Will, like this Topical Threat.
In Genesis, as God created things He would say "And it was Good" to show satisfaction in His creation. It was because of "the fall of man" (Adam/Eve & Apple) that we have pain, suffering, hunger, death etc., Lets look at how things were before. Even before the Fall, Adam still had to work, but what made it "Paradise" is the peace and joy he had in knowing and having fellowship with God. So even paradise back then required yard work. But when your with the one you love, doesn't really matter what your doing...Genesis 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.Later God gave Adam a helper comparable to him (Eve) she would ultimately complete him and they were joined together as Husband and Wife. In Gen 2:25 speaks of them both being naked and were not ashamed. This is also the innocense they shared in their love for one another. When both were naked and in love without Evil, there was nothing to be ashamed about.Genesis 3 explains how God passed judgement in several ways:
:16 "I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In pain you shall bring forth children. You desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.So here we see that women now endure the pain of being pregnant, and the pain suffered at labor during conception. Also, the word used for "desire" that you shall have for your husband is teshuquh. That means "to seek control." So now the women has pain during labor and seeks to control her husband. At the same time, the husbands desire is now to rule over the women, where before it was equal between the two. Yes, both men & women were created as equals in God's eyes.What about that Paradise and Yardwork? Genesis 3:17-20
Then to Adam He said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, "You shall not eat of it':"Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground,For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return."That and he also drove them out of Paradise to fend for themselves, so everything was picture perfect as God Intended for us from the beginning. We had paradise, We were married to our best friend and equal and we had fellowship with God. After the Fall man was kicked out of paradise, God no longer had fellowship with man, husband and wife now seek to have their own way, and we have diseases, deaths, pain & suffering etc. So all this mess in the world is not from what God intended, but a product of man's inability to follow God's command. *whew* Sorry for the long post, but lemme know if that answers your question..if not I could focus and pinpoint a specific example etc.,

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It was because of "the fall of man" (Adam/Eve & Apple) that we have pain, suffering, hunger, death etc.
  —asciikerr

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And thus arises the Adam & Eve paradox. The reason atheists usually don't use the bible to support their objections about your god's existence is because the bible presupposes your god's existence. It begins already with the assumption that the reader knows what the word "god" means, and many atheists have yet to comprehend what exactly the word means (and I believe christians don't know what it means either, they just think they do, yet their arguments crumble the moment they begin to give this entity attributes). You can try to tell them they're putting god 'in a box' yet you're the ones trying to demonstrate that there is one, yet the only way to do so is by putting it 'in a box'. Go figure. Anyway - the adam & eve paradox I posted on a different thread but will post it here again for you:In the first chapter of Genesis, God created Adam and Eve - the very first humans on planet earth. He gave them a nice big garden to play in - and it was called Eden. Wether it was the kind of garden you grow carrots and beets in or the kind you grow flowers and itchy things in, the Bible isn’t clear. We know it had trees in it, so I’m led to believe it was a facy-pants garden, probably like the ones you see behind mansions, and there was a harp always playing in the background, too. (Being sarcastic for those 100% serious minded folk out there).
Anyway, God told Adam and Eve that they could eat fruit from any of the trees in the garden except for fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Now, by the name of it, the tree of knowledge of good and evil represents knowledge of good and evil right? That means, basically, that you would know what is good and what is evil if you ate the fruit from it (hense the term knowledge of good and evil).
So the fruit was eaten by Adam and Eve and God not only punished them for their ‘sin’ but also the ENTIRE human race! Talk about bad news!
But there’s a catch...
Before the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil was eaten, if Adam and Eve knew they were doing something wrong, then they would already posess knowledge of good and evil, and because God knows everything, He would know that they would not be tempted to eat from the tree since they already posess what the tree provided, and have nothing to gain by eating from the tree. So God’s test for Adam and Eve’s righteousness seems a bit weak, sort of like tempting a lotto player with yesterday’s winning numbers.
However, if Adam and Eve didn’t posess the knowledge of good and evil, then they did not know that disobeying God was a good thing or a bad thing, it was just a thing. So if God punished them for something that they didn’t know was wrong, God was unjustified in His punishment. God told them not to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which, when a person has no idea what good and bad are, equates to saying something along the lines of blah blah blah.Below you’ll find the argument in Logic format:Let M = Adam and Eve
Let K = knowledge of good and evil
Let E = the action of disobeying God and eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil
Let I = the benefit of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil
Let J = justified punishmentM∃K→~E∴~I
∴~JM~∃K→E∴I
∴~JIf J is some other type of J, say a 'divine J that no human can comprehend' (a common christian fallacy - argument from ignorance), then J is an empty set and carries no meaning.J¹= divine justification beyond human comprehensionJ¹=J∨≠J∴J∅The argument fails any way one looks at it. God can not exist as described in the bible - unless this god is irrational, in which case it does not (in our own standard) deserve reverence. This assumes, of course, that this god actually exists.I feel that the counter to this argument will begin with something like, "you atheists are so..."

No...the argument will be that God's ways are not man's ways.Man can not comprehend God nor can man assign the rules of logic to that which trancends logic.

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However, if Adam and Eve didn’t posess the knowledge of good and evil, then they did not know that disobeying God was a good thing or a bad thing, it was just a thing. So if God punished them for something that they didn’t know was wrong, God was unjustified in His punishment. God told them not to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which, when a person has no idea what good and bad are, equates to saying something along the lines of blah blah blah.

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God certainly gave them free reign over all dominion and over every type of food except for the Tree of Knowledge. He made it clear that when they did eat of it they would die. Eve, being a woman that you say knew no good or evil did understand simple instructions as she repeated them to the serpent. Genesis 3:2-3
And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, "You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die."' Genesis 2:16-17
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."So in any case, they were certainly aware of what things would happen but certainly not to the extent of what God did. Just as 1.6 mentioned, our ways are not God's ways and vice versa. Even when Jesus was being nailed on the Cross, He prayed for who refused to accept Jesus because it was apparent they were clueless in that entire ordeal.Luke 23:34
Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do."

{qs=1.61803Man can not comprehend God nor can man assign the rules of logic to that which trancends logic[/qs]Then by our defenition of coherence and logic, god is neither, in which case, there are no christian theists - only agnostics and atheists since by your defenition of god (beyond logic/human conprehension) it cannot be defined - god is an empty set - a word without meaning or explanation.

Hi, LOL, you mean you need a supreme being to tell you that?I mean there is just no way on earth that the common guy on the street could have made this conclusion at all is there, it really has to be a superior being that works that one out!Why do so many Christians use the Bible as a gimmick?Brian.

what does 'free reign over all dominion mean'? Do you mean free reign/dominion over everything? In that case, no, god did not give man free reign/dominion over everything. If you'll look carefully, man did not start eating meat until after 'the fall' - before that, A&E were told in Gen 1:29:

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Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

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Notice god does not menion animals shall be used for meat. In the previous verse, God said they can...

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have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

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. The hebrew word used for 'dominion' here literally means 'shepherd'. A&E were 100% vegetarian, but that's beside the point - and all assumes the story is true anyway.God told them that they would die if they ate of the tree - and did it come true? Well, it depends on how one looks at it. If by 'die' god meant spiritually, why doesn't it say so? If it meant by old age, or disease, or accident, then god surely favoured A&E, the authors of 'original' sin to a degree far greater than has been given to any modern human, as adam lived well past 900 years! This goes back to my original concept of god being unjust.The concept of knowing what is wrong and what is right is the point of the A&E paradox - even when threatened death, adam & eve still could not have known what was right and what was wrong since they had not gained knowledge of what both were - and any type of threat would be moot to deter their concept of right & wrong. Adam & Eve had no concept of why disobeying was 'wrong' and obeying was 'right', but were still held accountable (as are we supposedly). This puts god in a tight fix - either he is a tyrant, knowing beforehand what was to happen; or he is irrational, which is a fancy word for 'crazy'...

Good point brian and I'm glad you brought this up.This takes us into the realm of where christians get their morals/ethics and where everyone else gets theirs. Often, christians will back themselves up into a corner by saying they follow certain rules because the bible says so - not because it's inherently wrong or immoral. This is scary, as it implies that these persons would not know the difference between right and wrong if there were no bible to guide them. Try to picture Al Quaida and why they feel justified in beheading American/Brittish/S Korean 'infidels'...

Hi Chuck, Well, when we consider that the Christian 'Holy War' concept is based on the fictional conquest narratives we see a blatant case of double standards.Do you recall the overturning of the murder conviction of Lieutenant William Calley by Judges Roert Elliot in 1974?The American troops led by Calley slaughtered unarmed old men, and women and children, some even raped and tortured civilians before killing them. Calley saw a baby crawling away from a ditch of critically wounded villagers, grabbed the baby by the leg threw it back in the ditch and shot it.Judge Elliot actually quoted from the Bible when he overturned the conviction stating that 'war is war and it is not at all unusual for innocent civilians to be numbered among its victims. It has been so throughout recorded history. It was so when Joshua took Jericho an ancient Biblical times'.A murderer acquited based on the morality of a work of fiction, absolutely disgusting.Brian.