Philosophy Discussion Forums

Nitai wrote: ↑February 21st, 2021, 11:27 am God knows how you will react according to you conditioning but you can go beyond you conditioning by Love of God, then it really becomes interesting, for Him and for you.
So you have Free will to either choose your conditioning or to choose to know and Love God.

Ah so, sounds like you agree omniscience doesn't exist, good pickup.

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 21st, 2021, 4:48 pm

Nitai wrote: ↑February 21st, 2021, 11:27 am God knows how you will react according to you conditioning but you can go beyond you conditioning by Love of God, then it really becomes interesting, for Him and for you.
So you have Free will to either choose your conditioning or to choose to know and Love God.

Ah so, sounds like you agree omniscience doesn't exist, good pickup.

God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.
That's why He can choose to let you the free will to Love.
You can know what your kid is preparing to cook for you at your birthday but you prefer let the surprise to please her, that is called Loving relationship and that is what God is looking for.

Nitai wrote: ↑February 22nd, 2021, 3:14 am God knows how you will react according to you conditioning but you can go beyond you conditioning by Love of God, then it really becomes interesting, for Him and for you.
So you have Free will to either choose your conditioning or to choose to know and Love God.

Your assertion doesn't address the question posed by the subject line of this thread: "If God is all-knowing, then how can I have free will?"

Please consider the point I made 10 days ago: "Since God has foreknowledge of all of my future choices, God certainly knows what I'm going to choose to eat for dinner tomorrow (or whether I'll choose to eat dinner at all). Being omnipotent, God also has the power to tell me today what my choice tomorrow is going to be. Assume that God does tell me today. Can I now change my choice while there's still time? If I can't, then I don't have free will. If I can and do change it, then God was misinformed."

What's your analysis of that one?

Incidentally, my example didn't have to include the element of "free will", the meaning of which can be debated. I put it in there because that's what the thread is about. Even the strictest determinist surely will concede that people make choices, regardless of how "free" those choices may be or whether they're free at all. It seems clear that if, after certain events have been set in motion toward a specific "unfree" choice being made, an all-seeing super-magician disrupts the chain of causation by telling the chooser what the latter is about to choose, the chooser can then change his mind. Causation simply works that way. The Big Reveal then merely forms part of a deterministic chain leading to a different choice, contradicting the assumption either that the final choice had already been accurately foreseen before the Big Reveal or that it was in fact accurately revealed. So the basic problem isn't the combination of free choice and God's foreknowledge. God's supposed foreknowledge, combined with his ability to tell people what their choices are going to be (a power that doesn't even require God to be omnipotent) is problematic in and of itself.

All of this could be avoided by simply conceding that "omniscience" means nothing more "knowing what can be known," and that final choices cannot be known if God has the capacity to tell people ahead of time what their choices are going to be. But I seriously doubt it's possible to get any religious fundamentalist to concede this obvious point.

Nitai wrote: ↑February 22nd, 2021, 3:14 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 21st, 2021, 4:48 pm

Nitai wrote: ↑February 21st, 2021, 11:27 am God knows how you will react according to you conditioning but you can go beyond you conditioning by Love of God, then it really becomes interesting, for Him and for you.
So you have Free will to either choose your conditioning or to choose to know and Love God.

Ah so, sounds like you agree omniscience doesn't exist, good pickup.

God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.
That's why He can choose to let you the free will to Love.
You can know what your kid is preparing to cook for you at your birthday but you prefer let the surprise to please her, that is called Loving relationship and that is what God is looking for.

Uummm... in your analogy what is the nature of the surprise, is it actually a surprise?

Don't strain yourself trying to make the internal inconsistency of omniscience and omnipotence logical.

Nitai wrote: ↑February 22nd, 2021, 3:14 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 21st, 2021, 4:48 pm

Nitai wrote: ↑February 21st, 2021, 11:27 am God knows how you will react according to you conditioning but you can go beyond you conditioning by Love of God, then it really becomes interesting, for Him and for you.
So you have Free will to either choose your conditioning or to choose to know and Love God.

Ah so, sounds like you agree omniscience doesn't exist, good pickup.

God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.
That's why He can choose to let you the free will to Love.
You can know what your kid is preparing to cook for you at your birthday but you prefer let the surprise to please her, that is called Loving relationship and that is what God is looking for.

Does God also take pleasure in a mother dog who knows her puppy is about to playfully pounce on her, but pretends not to notice to let the game happen?

Logically, if God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, then that is the awareness, potency and presence of each being combined, not perception from without.

I can see that all of your answers are like an infinite regress because the focus is on the omniscience of God separate from Him.

It's seems like if you speak of God like a Machine.

If we don't understand the Subject how is it possible to progress in this discussion ?
That is why I came to put back the Subject in the center and gave some clarification on Him.

In all respect I want to say that Philosophy can have the problem to make us addict to arguing but the point is not to be right but to find the Truth, if not better to make a website called onlinsophistclub.
I beg your pardon if that sound strong but I need to be clear before I engage more seriously in the conversation.
If you are ardently and sincerly knocking for truth I'm in.
I apologize also for my brocken english, it is not my mother tongue.

Nitai wrote: ↑February 25th, 2021, 5:38 amIt's seems like if you speak of God like a Machine.

If we don't understand the Subject how is it possible to progress in this discussion ?
That is why I came to put back the Subject in the center and gave some clarification on Him.

The idea of God as a machine is more realistic than the idea of a God referred to as "Him". God as a "man spirit" is an obviously fantastical notion that has for too long been given a free pass due to tradition.

As adults in the modern age, surely it's time to put away childish things and face up to actual reality. Positing God as a man-spirit that looks after us is an idea that should have been put to bed two thousand years ago. If Constantine had not gone mad, it may have done.

One day, while he was in front of his tent with his officers and troops around him, he had a vision of an enormous cross of fire in the heavens. On one side of the cross were the words, in the Greek language: “By this, conquer.” The words are sometimes given in the Latin form In hoc signo vinces, the translation of which is “By this sign thou shalt conquer.”

https://classicallatin.org/exordium/con ... n-312-a-d/

If Constantine had not misinterpreted standard natural phenomena, being so obsessed with himself that he thought the Sun and clouds themselves spoke to him personally, then Christianity may well have drifted into obscurity, like so many of the other crazy cults going around in the Iron and Bronze Ages.

The "Him" you refer to is a myth, a misrepresentation of reality, which at the largest scales is neither personal nor gendered.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑February 25th, 2021, 6:32 pm

Nitai wrote: ↑February 25th, 2021, 5:38 amIt's seems like if you speak of God like a Machine.

If we don't understand the Subject how is it possible to progress in this discussion ?
That is why I came to put back the Subject in the center and gave some clarification on Him.

The idea of God as a machine is more realistic than the idea of a God referred to as "Him". God as a "man spirit" is an obviously fantastical notion that has for too long been given a free pass due to tradition.

As adults in the modern age, surely it's time to put away childish things and face up to actual reality. Positing God as a man-spirit that looks after us is an idea that should have been put to bed two thousand years ago. If Constantine had not gone mad, it may have done.

One day, while he was in front of his tent with his officers and troops around him, he had a vision of an enormous cross of fire in the heavens. On one side of the cross were the words, in the Greek language: “By this, conquer.” The words are sometimes given in the Latin form In hoc signo vinces, the translation of which is “By this sign thou shalt conquer.”

If Constantine had not misinterpreted standard natural phenomena, being so obsessed with himself that he thought the Sun and clouds themselves spoke to him personally, then Christianity may well have drifted into obscurity, like so many of the other crazy cults going around in the Iron and Bronze Ages.

The "Him" you refer to is a myth, a misrepresentation of reality, which at the largest scales is neither personal nor gendered.

It is only in a very technological society where impersonalism reign that we can hear such absurdity.

When we never had any spiritual experience we cannot really understand what God means. We may conceptualize but that theorizing is only speculative; in any science there is the experience side if not it is not valid. For as long human have being around, there is peoples with very very high qualities (ethics which is the barometer of philosophy) throughout all side of the planet, in all cultures who had the same experience of a Personal relationship with the divine and share it, and now because we have some gross perverted technology we think we know more and better of reality ? Look at the qualities and the way of life of modern man (and even of philosophers and scientists) to see that we are not progressing toward any part of reality, it is obvious.

It is not because some culture misrepresented and did things in the name of God since 2000 years that we need to be adverse to the idea of a personal deity.
We need to do a serious and sincere investigation, if not we are just playing our egotistic conditioning in the name of Philosophy.

I don't see any argument here but we can start with a philosophical search;

God being the source of everything is the cause of all causes isn't it ?

Nitai wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 11:25 am

Sy Borg wrote: ↑February 25th, 2021, 6:32 pm

Nitai wrote: ↑February 25th, 2021, 5:38 amIt's seems like if you speak of God like a Machine.

If we don't understand the Subject how is it possible to progress in this discussion ?
That is why I came to put back the Subject in the center and gave some clarification on Him.

The idea of God as a machine is more realistic than the idea of a God referred to as "Him". God as a "man spirit" is an obviously fantastical notion that has for too long been given a free pass due to tradition.

As adults in the modern age, surely it's time to put away childish things and face up to actual reality. Positing God as a man-spirit that looks after us is an idea that should have been put to bed two thousand years ago. If Constantine had not gone mad, it may have done.

One day, while he was in front of his tent with his officers and troops around him, he had a vision of an enormous cross of fire in the heavens. On one side of the cross were the words, in the Greek language: “By this, conquer.” The words are sometimes given in the Latin form In hoc signo vinces, the translation of which is “By this sign thou shalt conquer.”

If Constantine had not misinterpreted standard natural phenomena, being so obsessed with himself that he thought the Sun and clouds themselves spoke to him personally, then Christianity may well have drifted into obscurity, like so many of the other crazy cults going around in the Iron and Bronze Ages.

The "Him" you refer to is a myth, a misrepresentation of reality, which at the largest scales is neither personal nor gendered.

It is only in a very technological society where impersonalism reign that we can hear such absurdity.

When we never had any spiritual experience we cannot really understand what God means. We may conceptualize but that theorizing is only speculative; in any science there is the experience side if not it is not valid. For as long human have being around, there is peoples with very very high qualities (ethics which is the barometer of philosophy) throughout all side of the planet, in all cultures who had the same experience of a Personal relationship with the divine and share it, and now because we have some gross perverted technology we think we know more and better of reality ? Look at the qualities and the way of life of modern man (and even of philosophers and scientists) to see that we are not progressing toward any part of reality, it is obvious.

It is not because some culture misrepresented and did things in the name of God since 2000 years that we need to be adverse to the idea of a personal deity.
We need to do a serious and sincere investigation, if not we are just playing our egotistic conditioning in the name of Philosophy.

I don't see any argument here but we can start with a philosophical search;

God being the source of everything is the cause of all causes isn't it ?

You are free, of course to believe whatever you want. But I am always amazed why those who believe in the metaphysical try to engage on the playing field of the physical, where they are bound to lose, by definition. If they stayed on the metaphysical plane, where science does not apply, they could have free rein.

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 1:29 pm

Nitai wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 11:25 am

Sy Borg wrote: ↑February 25th, 2021, 6:32 pm

Nitai wrote: ↑February 25th, 2021, 5:38 amIt's seems like if you speak of God like a Machine.

If we don't understand the Subject how is it possible to progress in this discussion ?
That is why I came to put back the Subject in the center and gave some clarification on Him.

The idea of God as a machine is more realistic than the idea of a God referred to as "Him". God as a "man spirit" is an obviously fantastical notion that has for too long been given a free pass due to tradition.

As adults in the modern age, surely it's time to put away childish things and face up to actual reality. Positing God as a man-spirit that looks after us is an idea that should have been put to bed two thousand years ago. If Constantine had not gone mad, it may have done.

One day, while he was in front of his tent with his officers and troops around him, he had a vision of an enormous cross of fire in the heavens. On one side of the cross were the words, in the Greek language: “By this, conquer.” The words are sometimes given in the Latin form In hoc signo vinces, the translation of which is “By this sign thou shalt conquer.”

If Constantine had not misinterpreted standard natural phenomena, being so obsessed with himself that he thought the Sun and clouds themselves spoke to him personally, then Christianity may well have drifted into obscurity, like so many of the other crazy cults going around in the Iron and Bronze Ages.

The "Him" you refer to is a myth, a misrepresentation of reality, which at the largest scales is neither personal nor gendered.

It is only in a very technological society where impersonalism reign that we can hear such absurdity.

When we never had any spiritual experience we cannot really understand what God means. We may conceptualize but that theorizing is only speculative; in any science there is the experience side if not it is not valid. For as long human have being around, there is peoples with very very high qualities (ethics which is the barometer of philosophy) throughout all side of the planet, in all cultures who had the same experience of a Personal relationship with the divine and share it, and now because we have some gross perverted technology we think we know more and better of reality ? Look at the qualities and the way of life of modern man (and even of philosophers and scientists) to see that we are not progressing toward any part of reality, it is obvious.

It is not because some culture misrepresented and did things in the name of God since 2000 years that we need to be adverse to the idea of a personal deity.
We need to do a serious and sincere investigation, if not we are just playing our egotistic conditioning in the name of Philosophy.

I don't see any argument here but we can start with a philosophical search;

God being the source of everything is the cause of all causes isn't it ?

You are free, of course to believe whatever you want. But I am always amazed why those who believe in the metaphysical try to engage on the playing field of the physical, where they are bound to lose, by definition. If they stayed on the metaphysical plane, where science does not apply, they could have free rein.

Because God is physical ?
Free will is physical ?

Science in the term of theory and experience have it's part in metaphysics it is me who am amazed that some people seems to not know it.
And what is even more amazing with this people is that they use this metaphysical "tool" of the consciousness to do their physical science to say that.

If such view would not have such terrible consequences in the world we live in, it would be funny.
This dichotomy is not healthy.

Anyway can we come to real discussion;

God being the source of everything is the cause of all causes Is it correct to say that ?

Nitai wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 2:27 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 1:29 pm

Nitai wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 11:25 am

Sy Borg wrote: ↑February 25th, 2021, 6:32 pm
The idea of God as a machine is more realistic than the idea of a God referred to as "Him". God as a "man spirit" is an obviously fantastical notion that has for too long been given a free pass due to tradition.

As adults in the modern age, surely it's time to put away childish things and face up to actual reality. Positing God as a man-spirit that looks after us is an idea that should have been put to bed two thousand years ago. If Constantine had not gone mad, it may have done.




If Constantine had not misinterpreted standard natural phenomena, being so obsessed with himself that he thought the Sun and clouds themselves spoke to him personally, then Christianity may well have drifted into obscurity, like so many of the other crazy cults going around in the Iron and Bronze Ages.

The "Him" you refer to is a myth, a misrepresentation of reality, which at the largest scales is neither personal nor gendered.

It is only in a very technological society where impersonalism reign that we can hear such absurdity.

When we never had any spiritual experience we cannot really understand what God means. We may conceptualize but that theorizing is only speculative; in any science there is the experience side if not it is not valid. For as long human have being around, there is peoples with very very high qualities (ethics which is the barometer of philosophy) throughout all side of the planet, in all cultures who had the same experience of a Personal relationship with the divine and share it, and now because we have some gross perverted technology we think we know more and better of reality ? Look at the qualities and the way of life of modern man (and even of philosophers and scientists) to see that we are not progressing toward any part of reality, it is obvious.

It is not because some culture misrepresented and did things in the name of God since 2000 years that we need to be adverse to the idea of a personal deity.
We need to do a serious and sincere investigation, if not we are just playing our egotistic conditioning in the name of Philosophy.

I don't see any argument here but we can start with a philosophical search;

God being the source of everything is the cause of all causes isn't it ?

You are free, of course to believe whatever you want. But I am always amazed why those who believe in the metaphysical try to engage on the playing field of the physical, where they are bound to lose, by definition. If they stayed on the metaphysical plane, where science does not apply, they could have free rein.

Because God is physical ?
Free will is physical ?

Science in the term of theory and experience have it's part in metaphysics it is me who am amazed that some people seems to not know it.
And what is even more amazing with this people is that they use this metaphysical "tool" of the consciousness to do their physical science to say that.

If such view would not have such terrible consequences in the world we live in, it would be funny.
This dichotomy is not healthy.

Anyway can we come to real discussion;

God being the source of everything is the cause of all causes Is it correct to say that ?

Your syntax is a little difficult for me to follow. Are you proposing that gods are physical and science is partially metaphysical?

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 3:12 pm

Nitai wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 2:27 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 1:29 pm

Nitai wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 11:25 am


It is only in a very technological society where impersonalism reign that we can hear such absurdity.

When we never had any spiritual experience we cannot really understand what God means. We may conceptualize but that theorizing is only speculative; in any science there is the experience side if not it is not valid. For as long human have being around, there is peoples with very very high qualities (ethics which is the barometer of philosophy) throughout all side of the planet, in all cultures who had the same experience of a Personal relationship with the divine and share it, and now because we have some gross perverted technology we think we know more and better of reality ? Look at the qualities and the way of life of modern man (and even of philosophers and scientists) to see that we are not progressing toward any part of reality, it is obvious.

It is not because some culture misrepresented and did things in the name of God since 2000 years that we need to be adverse to the idea of a personal deity.
We need to do a serious and sincere investigation, if not we are just playing our egotistic conditioning in the name of Philosophy.

I don't see any argument here but we can start with a philosophical search;

God being the source of everything is the cause of all causes isn't it ?

You are free, of course to believe whatever you want. But I am always amazed why those who believe in the metaphysical try to engage on the playing field of the physical, where they are bound to lose, by definition. If they stayed on the metaphysical plane, where science does not apply, they could have free rein.

Because God is physical ?
Free will is physical ?

Science in the term of theory and experience have it's part in metaphysics it is me who am amazed that some people seems to not know it.
And what is even more amazing with this people is that they use this metaphysical "tool" of the consciousness to do their physical science to say that.

If such view would not have such terrible consequences in the world we live in, it would be funny.
This dichotomy is not healthy.

Anyway can we come to real discussion;

God being the source of everything is the cause of all causes Is it correct to say that ?

Your syntax is a little difficult for me to follow. Are you proposing that gods are physical and science is partially metaphysical?

Science is not the monopole of physics, it is an universal method.


From where is everything coming from ? from an unique source isn't it ? This unique source we call it God.
I suppose everyone accept that ?

Nitai wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 11:25 am

Sy Borg wrote: ↑February 25th, 2021, 6:32 pm

Nitai wrote: ↑February 25th, 2021, 5:38 amIt's seems like if you speak of God like a Machine.

If we don't understand the Subject how is it possible to progress in this discussion ?
That is why I came to put back the Subject in the center and gave some clarification on Him.

The idea of God as a machine is more realistic than the idea of a God referred to as "Him". God as a "man spirit" is an obviously fantastical notion that has for too long been given a free pass due to tradition.

As adults in the modern age, surely it's time to put away childish things and face up to actual reality. Positing God as a man-spirit that looks after us is an idea that should have been put to bed two thousand years ago. If Constantine had not gone mad, it may have done.

One day, while he was in front of his tent with his officers and troops around him, he had a vision of an enormous cross of fire in the heavens. On one side of the cross were the words, in the Greek language: “By this, conquer.” The words are sometimes given in the Latin form In hoc signo vinces, the translation of which is “By this sign thou shalt conquer.”

If Constantine had not misinterpreted standard natural phenomena, being so obsessed with himself that he thought the Sun and clouds themselves spoke to him personally, then Christianity may well have drifted into obscurity, like so many of the other crazy cults going around in the Iron and Bronze Ages.

The "Him" you refer to is a myth, a misrepresentation of reality, which at the largest scales is neither personal nor gendered.

It is only in a very technological society where impersonalism reign that we can hear such absurdity.

Only on an unaccountable web forum will people make a statement about "absurdity" as a flat fact without explanation.

So you see it as necessary to see God as male? That would seem to say more about you than it does about God. Do no need many non-gendered entities to be male for you to care about them?

Nitai wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 11:25 amWhen we never had any spiritual experience we cannot really understand what God means.

I have had spiritual experiences. They were the most profound moments of my life and changed everything for me. Perhaps it's you who is speaking only from theory?

The experiences made crystal clear to me that your "man God" - the fellow that you refer to as "Him", and who damns the wicked to Hell - is ridiculous, just a childish relic of ancient superstition.

Come on, Nitai, you have to at least admit that the idea of a gendered God is silly in this day and age, like believing in pixies living at the bottom of your garden. After 2,000 years of learning surely we can do better than that.

An actual spiritual experience (as opposed to Christian-style wishful thinking) should leave one clear that there is no anthropomorphic God, that there is no judgement, only unconditional love. They make clear that there is no "male" God, a casually sexist notion that has persisted for far too long. There is a problem with the world today where those who can avoid being made unaccountable simply make claims based on what they what rather than what appears to be true. This dynamic must be successfully challenged for societies to move forward.

Nitai wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 3:23 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 3:12 pm

Nitai wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 2:27 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 1:29 pm

You are free, of course to believe whatever you want. But I am always amazed why those who believe in the metaphysical try to engage on the playing field of the physical, where they are bound to lose, by definition. If they stayed on the metaphysical plane, where science does not apply, they could have free rein.

Because God is physical ?
Free will is physical ?

Science in the term of theory and experience have it's part in metaphysics it is me who am amazed that some people seems to not know it.
And what is even more amazing with this people is that they use this metaphysical "tool" of the consciousness to do their physical science to say that.

If such view would not have such terrible consequences in the world we live in, it would be funny.
This dichotomy is not healthy.

Anyway can we come to real discussion;

God being the source of everything is the cause of all causes Is it correct to say that ?

Your syntax is a little difficult for me to follow. Are you proposing that gods are physical and science is partially metaphysical?

Science is not the monopole of physics, it is an universal method.


From where is everything coming from ? from an unique source isn't it ? This unique source we call it God.
I suppose everyone accept that ?

Do you get out much? Uummm... No, not everyone labels the unknown source of "everything": god.

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 28th, 2021, 3:43 am

Nitai wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 3:23 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 3:12 pm

Nitai wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 2:27 pm

Because God is physical ?
Free will is physical ?

Science in the term of theory and experience have it's part in metaphysics it is me who am amazed that some people seems to not know it.
And what is even more amazing with this people is that they use this metaphysical "tool" of the consciousness to do their physical science to say that.

If such view would not have such terrible consequences in the world we live in, it would be funny.
This dichotomy is not healthy.

Anyway can we come to real discussion;

God being the source of everything is the cause of all causes Is it correct to say that ?

Your syntax is a little difficult for me to follow. Are you proposing that gods are physical and science is partially metaphysical?

Science is not the monopole of physics, it is an universal method.


From where is everything coming from ? from an unique source isn't it ? This unique source we call it God.
I suppose everyone accept that ?

Do you get out much? Uummm... No, not everyone labels the unknown source of "everything": god.

 I am more and more understanding the sentence of my teacher who said that people are more interested in playing with words then finding the truth.


Look I don't mind how you call «it».
What I try to convey here is that there is a starting point, there is a source and everything we are and everything we are experiencing here came originally from that source.
Call it God, Big Bang or the great unknown according to your own experiences. The fact is: there is a source which is the source of everything, right ?