A question to all non-Christians

No people wouldn't question that, but would you suddenly lose your curiosity with the rest of the world is what I am saying. As in would you find discover of how a black hole works and such things to still be something your curious about or not?.

Basically was my point.

True true but he could have aged the earth 30 million years in-between his days or whatever else. A day to God could be 30 million which would make the passage still true.

Yeah it could have but it would have had to been an entire city according to the amount found on the report.

Well its your soul, you can do with it what you like. That is if you believe in the human soul at least.

 

Surprisingly, at the moment, we do know almost everything about Black Holes, except for after a certain stage called the event horizon, after which it is impossible to discover what happens, because no apparatus will be able to transmit any more information once it's crossed into this zone. But to answer your question, we would already know how they work. The explanation is that the omnipotent god makes them work, because he's all powerful.

How can that be your point? You say that refraction could have been invented in an instant but you agree with me that it can't not exist.

We've already discussed the day topic. Days need a celestial body to exist. The celestial body referred to in the Bible is Earth. Therefore it should be counted in Earth days, which are equal to 24 hours. Measuring days without a planet is like measuring the length of a line that doesn't exist. You can't measure it to begin with.

I wouldn't be surprised if most battles in those days were large scale ones. Generally speaking, the main thing in your favor when fighting in those types of wars is numbers.

It depends on what you mean by soul, there are a lot of definitions.
Interestingly enough, a friend at school once said to me that he reckoned that we don't have control over our lives because they're just a series of chemical reactions. It might be a bit hard to understand at first, but there is truth behind it. However him saying this didn't influence his faith as a Christian.

 

As I said I realize we know a great deal about a lot of the universe, and I know that if God did decide to make himself manifested to all of us that his all-mighty power would explain everything. But my question is to you personally, would you lose all your interest in knowing how things work?

Sorry thats my fault I wasn't specific. I was referring to the fact that its your word against mine.

Well yes we discussed that, but that's not what we are talking about now. Right now we are talking about perspective, I am just saying that in God's perspective maybe a day to him is 30 million years to us.

Generally speaking yes it was numbers, but then again remember the Spartans. After numbers though technology, tactics and strategy also played their part back then. Most important after numbers would probably be technology, such as in a battle where both sides have equal numbers but one has better tech, the people with the better tech usually win depending of course on the tactics and strategies implemented.

This is slightly off topic but have you ever played Rome Total War?

Your friends statement has some truth behind it but not all interactions in life can be explained chemically, such as moral decisions over whats right and wrong. Memory and decisions based on memory can't really be explained chemically speaking, at least not at the moment so

 

If you knew everything about how a car worked, would you still be interested in how it worked? The answer is yes, but you wouldn't keep on studying how it worked. People would still have an interest in it, but they wouldn't be curious about it. In short, if god proved his existence and we now knew how everything worked, we wouldn't be curious but we'd still be interested.

We've also talked about perspective. But, if one day to god is thirty million years to us, what are those thirty million years made up of? Days. It's like saying one minute is equal to ten minutes. However if thirty million years to us feels like a day to god, that just perspective of time. Kinda like how time seems to pass quicker when you're having fun. It doesn't actually pass quicker, it just seems to.

True, but it costs a lot to equip an army with the highest quality shields, weapons, etc. It is much more cost effective to the rulers to send more soldiers who have bad equipment into battle than it would to send less soldiers who have better equipment. This resulted in a lot of large scale battles.

I haven't played it, but I've heard it's a good game.
Also, I haven't learnt about the Spartans through watching '300' either, in fact, I haven't even seen the movie at all. However it's a popular topic in my Latin classes and I did an assignment on the Battle of Thermopylae in Year 7 History. They did actually have a lot more than three hundred soldiers, but it's true that only three hundred of them were Spartan (I assume they only have the Spartans in the movie).

You're right, not all of it can be explained chemically because we don't completely know how the brain and nervous system works. However it is true that the brain almost completely works off impulses so it is entirely possible that these impulses are triggered rather than decided by the person, so instead of 'deciding' moral decisions, your choice is actually just the result of these strings of impulses.

 

Well lets say there are a lot of things you know nothing about would you then still be curious or just interested?

Well that still works then, because if we take it in that way then in the bible it was written from God's perspective meaning that the days he described were in his perspective of days. Ergo each day described in the bible would represent 30 million years (or whatever the number might be).

True but if a nation could support the costs of a large army with better equipment then it would still be more beneficial to get said better equipment. Especially since the nation with better support would also more than likely have better trained soldiers.

Again I know it wasn't just the 300 Spartans (I just browse through Greek history and mythology now and then), there were a few thousand other Greek soldiers as well but of the militia variety and very poorly trained compared to the Spartans. Surprisingly though 300 was pretty accurate, aside from the mythological monsters and such, as there were the 300 Spartans along with an army from some other Greek nation. It had some pretty good dialog to if your not just in it for the blood and gore.

Yeah but as a Christian I couldn't believe that the human psyche is made of impulses because then we wouldn't have free will which is one of the corner stones of my belief.

 

If I have an explanation for how everything worked, I would obviously no longer be curious. That's not to say that I wouldn't still be interested by them, I just wouldn't be curious as to how they work.

That still doesn't work, because even if by god's perspective it took thirty million years or whatever, it would have still only taken six days. All the perspective stuff just means that god would have been bored while doing all this.

Not all nations would be able to support a large army with better equipment. That's why they tend to have even larger armies with poor equipment. Regardless, the bones in the Red Sea could have quite possibly, been the result of an ancient battle.

Apart from the three hundred Spartans, think the other soldiers were mainly Thespian recruits and Spartan slaves, so there were actually more than three hundred Spartans, it's just that the rest were slaves. Also, when you say that it's pretty accurate, my Latin teacher strongly disagrees.
Most of the good dialog has come from historical sources. After I told him I had not seen it, a friend of mine kept on telling me how cool the movie was and how awesome the dialog and action was. He gave the example of the line (I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it's along the lines of...) 'The Persians can block out the Sun with arrows!' 'Then we shall fight in the shade'. The funny thing was that I remembered this line from my assignment on The Battle of Thermopylae and told him that it had actually been said, so it didn't actually attribute anything to the movie.

I thought fate was part of the Christian beliefs.

 

Really? Well I applaud you then because I am fairly certain that I would still be curious.

Well I'm not sure if God gets bored but then it does work.

Not all but some as in Rome or Persia, not sure if Persia had better equipment though mostly numbers. But yes the bones could definitely been from battle but I don't think a battle could explain why they were at the bottom of the Red Sea decked out with armor and chariots and whatnot.

When I say pretty accurate i am mostly referring to some minor dynamics with the Senate, otherwise the implementation of the Phalanx and the slight corruption within the governing parties.

A quote I really like in the movie takes place when the Spartan army meets up with the Thespian army (Thespian does ring a bell in this situation). The Thespians in the movie had heard about the Spartan's movement to defend the coast so they had just joined up and explained this when the Thespian army commented on how the they thought that the Spartan's would bring many soldiers and king (I forget his name) responds by asking three or four of the Thespian what is their job. They respond thus: "I am a blacksmith", "I am a carpenter", "I am a farmer." king T-something then asks his army what their occupation was and they responded in unison: "WARRIORS OF SPARTA!" then king T-something says to the Thespian commander: "It looks like I brought more soldiers than you."

Sorry that was really long but I do rather like it because it actually rings true mostly because Spartan's were trained to be warriors from birth, so strong was their military in fact that Sparta didn't have walls around their city for a long time. I think that's how I read it anyway its been a while though so I'm not sure if I am absolutely correct here.

That is an interesting misconception really. You see we believe God knows what is going to happen but we still have a choice in regards to what is going to happen. So we are given the right to chose how we live, but God already knows what we are going to do.

On the flip side if you accept God into your life fully then he will tell you what he plans for you. So it is free will but God still has the omniscience going for him so he knows whats going to happen either way.

I just said the same thing three times but o well.

 

If you know how something works, why would you be curious? You'd still be interested, but why curious?

That wasn't really the point of my comment, I was just tying it in to how people's perspective's of time is not always constant.

Why can't the Red Sea have swollen and washed in all of the bones? Or why couldn't the bodies, etc, have been dumped in the Sea? It'd be much quicker than cremating/burying each body. Also, where did you actually hear that there were remnants on the seabed?

I'm not saying that the Spartans weren't strong, I'm saying that most battles in those times were large scale battles, Including the Battle of Thermopylae, because of the number of Persians.

If an omniscient god knows what is going to happen, then no matter what, there isn't anything we can do to change it. Whatever choices we make, they will lead us to what the god foresees. We may feel like it is we who are in control, but if we are destined to make those choices, then how isn't that fate?

 

ItzaHexGor and don_bocci
How much minerals have you two gained of this?
And to say my opinion, i agree with IHG. The reasons "god" was created from human brains was because of the need of hope. What would you do when you was dying? Would you just say: Ok im gonna die bye bye; or would you say: I will be born again.
Im feeling so sad know, need to hear what a wonderful world again

 

Actually furrer we haven't gotta one cause this is in space junk.

Because you wouldn't really knew how it worked you would just know that it does.

True but if we take the specific passage of creation as in God's perspective then it would work. But your right time is relative otherwise if you don't declare a domain.

I'm not saying that it couldn't have just been a battle or whatnot I'm just saying that it is a possibility that it was in fact the army that was chasing the Israelites out of Egypt. Well I heard it from a friend who read it in some article or another.

Oh I know, I just liked that quote is all and Sparta's history in general. But yes many battles were large scale back then.

Well God knows what your going to do, that doesn't mean he is going to tell you what your going to do, so technically since you don't know what is going to happen you still retain your free will. It would be absolutely different if God told you what you are going to do because then we would know our fate which almost creates a paradoxical situation.

 

But you would know how it works, because you'd know that god makes it work. As you've said, god doesn't have to have reasons behind why everything happens, it just happens. You'd know that, so you wouldn't be curious.

If god knows what you're going to do, then that is fate. Even if he doesn't tell you, you're going to make those decisions and there is no possibility in you not doing so. If god tells you what's going to happen to you, then one of two things would happen. Firstly, if you just sit back and accept it as fate, then whatever you've been told is obviously still going to happen. On the other hand, if you try to resist it and change the future, then you'll end up making a whole lot of other choices, ultimately leading to what god told you was going to happen in the first place, and the only thing that made it happen, was you trying to stop it.
There is an old story of Oedipus Rex, where when a child, called Oedipus, is born, it is forseen that he will end up sleeping with his mother and murdering his father. To prevent this, the mother and father abandon him, but he's taken in by a stranger, who raises the baby by himself. When Oedipus grew up he set out to find his biological parents. He leaves home and while traveling, gets into a dispute with another traveler, which results in them fighting, and Oedipus ends up killing the traveler. Later in the story he Thebans have declared his as the King of Thebes (hence Oedipus Rex) and have also given him a widow to have as his own. After they've had several kids together, Oedipus meets the stranger who raised him. The stranger tells him that he knows who his real parents are, and that (if you haven't figured it out yet) the father was the traveler he killed and his mother was the widow he married. It turned out that the only reason he fulfilled the prophecy was because his parents tried to stop it. By the way, the story ends after Oedipus has gouged out his eyes and his mother has killed herself.

 

The funny thing is I am not arguing with you I in fact absolutely agree. You sound like a Christian .
But I know you only say that if God revealed his presence then you would no longer be curious. Its true but it wouldn't make it easy cause we still have our free will.

I have heard that story, not that one specifically but ones like it.

I think our problem here is that we have two very different definitions of fate. Yours is probably the dictionary definition: something that unavoidably befalls a person. Which is true but only God knows your fate which makes all the difference and is why you still retain your freewill.

 

Free will doesn't have anything to do with curing human curiosity. If god revealed himself and showed us how everything about everything works, we would no longer be curious.

If god knows our fate, then it doesn't matter whether we know about it or not, fate still exists. Freewill may appear to exist, but in actuality we wouldn't have any choice in what we're going to do.

 

I entirely agree with Itza on that last bit.

 

There is no such thing as free will anyway and to think there is, is deluding oneself. You don't need to be religous to figure this one out. Think about this, if someone is put in an identical situation multiple times when there is absolutely no difference (not even a difference on the molecular level), do you think there person will ever make 2 different decisions? Just take a look at some math if we know exactly how a system works and the exact initial conditions we can perdict what will happen off into infinity. Free will comes from the idea that we can make a choice, but if given indentical circumstances (again completely identical) and we always make the same choice are we really making a choice?

There is some philisophical stuff for you guys to mull over atm however I am tired and in desperate need of sleep so good night.

 

C'mon lord it is only 11 pm where you are.

 

I don't agree with that. For that to work, both scenarios would have to be offered simultaneously, otherwise it would be affected by personal experiences. For example, if you offer someone some food, and they accept and dislike it, if you offer it to them in the exact same situation, they won't accept it in the first place. If that parallel doesn't suit because the person already knows the outcome, here's another one. A stranger offers some food to someone, and they accept and eat it. A few days later, the person who accepted the food hears of stories about strangers handing out drugged or poisoned food. If that person is then offered food by a stranger in the same circumstances, they won't accept it.
The only way to get two absolutely identical situations, is to have them happen simultaneously, which nullifies the your statement.
A proof that free will does not exist could be that if someone acts upon a roll of a dice, flip of a coin, result of a random number generator, etc, the result will be completely random. If they try this again, then they will not get the exact same result and will act accordingly. I guess it could be argued that on a molecular level, under the exact same forces, variables, etc, they will get the same result, but working on a molecular level is insignificant.

 

Pre-determined fate can not exist if free will exists.

because the existence of free will would allow you to chose your own fate

Free will can not exist if a predetermined fate exists.

because if your life was predetermined then you wouldn't have the free will to change it

In the beginning Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge and in doing so they were bestowed the ability to determine what was right and wrong.

Heres your bible verse for you

This is the serpent tempting the women (Eve)

Genesis 3:5

" 'No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God who knows what is good and bad.' "

There would be no reason to be have the ability to judge what is good and bad without having the ability to act and that judgment.

Now you take in the consideration that God always wants us to do good always and forever, then if he determined our fate we would always do good. But that is obviously not the case. As humans do things that are wrong (sin) all the time. And the reason we can is because we have the free will to chose what we want to do.



Ok LK to break your example:

Of course nothing would change if every single detail was the same because every detail being the same would include the reasoning the said someone was using to make their decision in which case would always be true. So if you are going to try and disprove Free Will find yourself a better example.

Also life isn't math, life has math but is not defined by it. You go ahead and try to make a mathematical equation that can create an accurate rendition of a human life. You can't there is absolutely way to many variables, an infinite amount to be precise, so to try and prove fate though a mathematical equation, a true proof, would be impossible to create by human minds.

I am going to ask that you also don't make statements like this:

For two reasons:
First you make a statement sound like fact when you don't have legitimate proof.
Second you used this statement to attack people like me who do believe in free will.

Be considerate please, I don't attack you. I ask for the same respect in return.

 

don_bocci. You say that you believe that there is free will as well as fate, but you have admitted that they cannot both exist. No matter what the Bible says, they are two conflicting beliefs.
Also, although I'm with you on this free will topic, LordKerwyn isn't trying to attack anyone. I can relate to him saying "There is no such thing as free will anyway and to think there is, is deluding oneself." because I feel a similar way about other things. He has said this similarly to how I said I feel religious people are becoming more and more ignorant (although maybe ignorant wasn't the word I was looking for) each day. That's just our opinion. Just because something is said that could be considered as an attack, it doesn't mean that it is.

 

I believe in a fate in which you can create for yourself. Not in a fate that is predetermined.

Fate is in by definition the outcome of your life, or at least that is the context in which I was using it. With that clarification I believe there are no contradictions now correct?

And maybe attack isn't the correct word but still under the circumstance he was basically calling me along with most Christians deluded.

He said that those who do believe in free will are deluded.
I believe in free will.
He knows I believe in free will.
Therefor according to him I am deluded.

I would not consider that a friendly statement, would you?