Predestination is an act of the God of Abraham

Is your question based on your first statement, ' God has no hand in this'?

Quantrill

 

Whatever, dude.

I did not launch a personal attack by presenting the default model of a loaded question and you bloody well know it, Incorporeal. You're simply pretending so that you can dodge the issue. It's so sad.

 

Did you not see the question mark?
My first question, in response to your statement "Once God is involved, then 'fate' is not", is:

God has no hand in this? (fate)

My second, follow-up question:

Then why do Christians pray to their god for specific outcomes and thank him if things turn out well?

 

God certainly has a hand in this, but I as a Christian do not call it fate. Fate is used more times than not as contrary to God.

Christians pray because God wants us to pray. Christians pray to know God and communicate with God. Christians pray to know the will of God in a matter.

God does not tell us how everything is going to go. We trust Him and turn to Him concerning our daily lives. God has established prayer for us that we can communicate with Him and give Him our desires and petitions. Does He know how it is going to go, yes. But we don't.

So, if we pray cocerning a matter, and it goes the way we would like it to go, then we give Him thanks, and recognize His hand in it. If it doesn't go the way we would like it to go, we give Him thanks, and recognize His hand in it.

Quantrill

 

Predestination and "freewill" are hard to reconcile, and are probably one of the mysteries of God (Deut 29:29), but having said that I'm pretty much "all in" on Him choosing me before the foundations of the earth, which I consider to be predestination.

 

Indeed He is the One who chooses. I am more inclined to call that your 'election' rather than 'predestination', though I know you and others mean the same thing.

My understanding of Scripture is that 'predestination' has to do with we who are Christians, being predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. Which invovles our many experiences and walk with God in this life.

Quantrill

 

Thank you for this sincere answer.

Personally, I wouldn't thank any god for having had a hand in the beheading of Nick Berg, for example, but each to their own, I suppose.

 

Quite welcome.

But neither do you thank God for your daily food at every meal.

Quantrill

 

I also consider it the doctrine of election, I just used predestination since that was in the poll.

 

Just because I deny God that doesn't mean that I'm incapable of reading the Bible or knowing what Believers believe to be true about it.

You don't have to assume something exists in order to have a philosophical debate about it. We could say "If pink unicorns exist, then they would be horned horses that are colored pink". Something doesn't have to be assumed to be real in order for you to debate its properties and those properties' philosophical consequences.

As for my vote, I deny all forms of omniscience, but IF the Christian God were real, then all things would be predestined, because that is the effect of omniscience.

 

Rephrase the question, leaving any personal relations out of the question. Then it will not be a personal issue involving any deceased member of my family. The questions I posed was one involving 'belief',,, not physical action.

 

Then answer the other two questions:

"If you deny the existence of God, then by what means do you use to validate any statement relative to God other than your denial of the existence of God? In other words, how is it possible for you to judge something that you deny even exists? "

What would you KNOW about omniscience if you deny God? Do you know of any man/woman/child that is omniscient? What standard do you use to validate a definition of omniscience?

 

I did leave out any personal relation and I demand an official apology from you for the accusation that I didn't. This is gravely insulting.

 

Where did you rephrase the question? Provide a link please.

 

So according to predesination god picks random people and senteces them to hell.
Got this right didnt I?

 

That all depends on what definition you are applying to the term "predestination". You decide.

 

Predestination means that your entire life is already decided by god before you are born, and nothing happens that he does not intend, include someone not being saved, or a child being raped and murdered. It means that your destiny is pre-determined and that you have aboslutely so control over it.

It contridicts the idea of free-will which is a common beleive in all abrahamian religions.

 

Because God's followers have a book that portends to describe it. Using that information, I am capable of judging this being from a philosophical standpoint.

And from a philosophical standpoint, the God of the Bible is an evil being.

Omniscience is a philosophical concept. It describes the state of being aware of everything and every event, past, present, and future.

I don't have to believe that something is omniscient in order to understand what omniscience means, to have an opinion of it, and to have a debate about it.

 

Then what you are judging is the things that you have read... not the God of the Bible... you are simply judging words from other people. Hmmm. Interesting.

Based on what ? Words written by someone? Why do you want to judge someone or even God based on things that you have read? Have you ever experience God in your life?

In other words, it describes some of the attributes of the God that is mentioned in the Bible. Is that description the entirety of God?

Then glorify yourself and proclaim all that omniscience is.

 

Then you are arguing in favor of 'free will'?

 

If that's your point, it is a devastatingly stupid one. But that's neither here nor there since my argument has never had anything to do with God at all. It is with the direct contradiction between omniscience and free will. It does not matter who or what that omniscient being is. An omniscient turtle presents the same contradiction.

A logical contradiction is a logical contradiction regardless of whatever opinions anybody may hold on any particular unrelated subject.

Who cares? God is irrelevant to the direct contradiction between omniscience and free will.

Now... I realize that direct contradiction is not irrelevant to God... but that's your problem, not mine.

 

Apology not accepted.

 

So you say. Where is the empirical evidence to support your claim?

Such as the opinion that you just made.

Once again. Where is the empirical evidence to support your claim of the irrelevance of God in relation to omniscience and free will?

Time will tell.

 

So the Bible does not describe the God of the Bible? That is seriously what you are arguing?

How can I experience something that doesn't exist?

My belief that the Christian God is evil has to do with what the Bible says about Hell, Salvation, and treatment of people (for instance commanding that rape victims should marry their attackers).

No, but since this thread is about predestination, the only aspect of God that matters is its Omniscience, which the Bible describes.

I already did. Omniscience is knowledge of everything, past, present, and future. It's a philosophical concept that predates Christianity and that is also present outside of it.

 

I believe that god created humans but rarely interferes. We have free will and can choose to go against his wishes...

If this wasn't true than adam and eve would not have eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledghe, since they would have been unable to disobey god.