Objection To FreeWill arguments

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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Objection To FreeWill arguments

Post by brimstoneSalad »

revankatal wrote:and I tell you 80% of Christians choose hell.
You among them, I assure you. If there is a god, and he is just, nobody so callous and heartless to the innocent creatures of this world would find a place in heaven.

Remember Genesis?
It stems from an ancient story of a world without death- the most significant part of the story was that man and beast ate the plants of the garden, and not each other.

Any so called "christian" who does not strive to realize the kingdom of heaven on Earth for love of god and his creation is nothing but a poser. All talk, no action. Whenever something gets hard, like doing the right thing, they're too lazy.

Sloth and gluttony will lead you to hell if there is one.


revankatal wrote:By having free will it complicates one of God's characteristics, which is he knows everything past, present, future, EVERYTHING. free will grants us the ability to chose a path for ourselves even if it is away from God. And He does not control this.

-- this is also my theory for ALTERNATE DIMENSIONS: to God there's infinite worlds and realities, every time were faced with a choice it branches out so in one, I'm the atheist and your the christian and in one the owner of this website has a different website, THE CARNIVORE CHRISTIAN. these worlds, these dimensions exist only in God's mind.

In short free will means He doesn't hold us by the neck
I appreciate that you recognize the contradiction between free will, and god knowing the future.

Alternate dimensions are a pretty effective way for an apologist to attempt to resolve that (although it causes problems elsewhere).
I've formulated that argument before (I always play 'god's advocate' with myself), but I haven't heard it offered by an apologist. Did you come up with that, or did you hear it somewhere?
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Re: Objection To FreeWill arguments

Post by DDDx8 »

That might sum it up right there. You should probably consider studying the standard response a little more.
Well, I tried making my argument that objects to a certain form. My argument is only concerned with free will definitions that implies accountability to a God with certain properties. This is my first attempt to put my argument in words, before it was just ideas in my head so of course there are a lot of things that need to be worked out. Studying is not really my thing, open discussions and discourse are but, if I find my self falling in the same holes over and over again....then maybe I'll study. Alright time to get to your objections and other things that spark a response from me.
First, any theist who believes in free will would basically consider "motivation" as you listed, to be the manifestation of the free will- that is, you're basically choosing your motivation, your motivation is your will, and you're free to be motivated about whatever you want.

Establishing motivation as a non-free deterministic factor in will basically negates free will entirely, so the rest of the argument is moot.
Your premise is basically the conclusion, so the whole argument is employing a pretty big logical fallacy
Yeah, I should define my factors of choice, I only gave examples. Its pretty easy to avoid determinism just grant that there are more then one ways something can happen. No, I still need to talk about motivation because if I avoid it someone can come and say exactly what you said. I just need to put it in my own terms and be clear by what I mean by it, because it does seem like it is a necessary factor of choice. All the factor of choice thing is just me trying to understand the effects circumstances have on choices so I do need to be clearer about that and leave no chance of interpretation. I need to work on that more.

I think I just need to define those factors of choice words in my own terms and hopefully I'd be able to avoid "fate of the unlearned" arguments. That way I don't have to read anything thoroughly....yet. I'll keep in mind what you wrote as references of what to avoid when defining my terms.
Ex falso, quodlibet.
From falsehood, anything follows.

If you accept something which is logically contradictory as a premise, even provisionally, no coherent logical conclusion can really be drawn from any argument that follows.

Accepting those qualities which are internally contradictory leads to defeat in any attempt at rational argument. It's not ultimately useful to do so in any argument.
Well, I'm trying to attack certain claims of properties and all I have to do is establish that this is a necessary condition of anything that exhibits these properties under some specific conditions even a God. If they want to do special pleading, or some sort of response like that I'll deal with it when it comes around. But as of now my argument is not really like that yet so....yeah.
Because such a god is inherently illogical, and is clearly not constrained by the bounds of logic and reason. He can make a square circle, and he can do that.

When you accept those provisions, you've already lost because you have accepted that logic and internal consistency is not necessary, and that explanations that involve contradictions are acceptable.


If they go down the route of God being inherently illogical, I'll go down the route of saying that nothing about God, whether it be read, said, heard, or even revealed by God itself can be trusted if that is the case. I'll make a better case for why that is when I need to. So, hopefully the person accepts that God abides by logic or something otherwise It will be a different argument I'd have to present.
If you're going to attack god, go straight for the jugular of the internal contradictions- don't grant it unnecessary latitude and allowances for those internal contradictions to go for some tangential point of minor soteriology that has been otherwise plausibly addressed for centuries.


I think I'm kinda trying to do this, but my argument only works with a God with certain properties and from what I am aware of Abrahamic Gods have the properties I am targeting. But I think I can word it better to make it more generic so I can attack any God with these properties granted and at the same time bypassing whatever other baggage that comes with accepting their god specifically.
I hope that helps.
Yeah, any critique helps I'm glad you took your time to read it all it was pretty long. I will definitely at some point update my argument, clarify things, add stuff, take out stuff, cater to specific counter arguments if I need to. I don't know when I will though, this is my first attempt putting my ideas out so I can only see the problems if people point them out.....or I study, but I don't see me studying much anytime soon.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Objection To FreeWill arguments

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dan1073 wrote:If this god really loved us there would be only one option heaven and there would be no sin created. But since you support the theory of evolution it would be hard to exactly explain to me when sin was created and why god created it in the first place.
Christian apologetics offers a pretty thorough and relatively internally consistent answer for this.

It varies a little, but I'll break down the absolute strongest version of it, like no Christian can do (because they don't understand it well enough to do so):

Hell is being disconnected from god.
Heaven is being connected to god.

These are accepted as fundamental truths of the universe, which god can not change- they are part of god's nature, and the nature of the universe.
This does bring up serious questions about the nature of omnipotence (obviously, it has to be limited by logic and 'god's nature' if god can't change these things at will).

That connection is created by love- but it's a two-way street.
If god loves you, but you do not love him back, there's no connection there; you have to accept the love with love.

Likewise, a fundamental law of reality.

Now it gets more complicated:

Love can not exist without choice. If you choose to love somebody, that is love. If you are forced to do it, it's not real love.

That, again, is considered logically true of the universe.

Therefore:: In order to be saved- go to "heaven" and achieve connection to god, man had to have free will, so he could choose to love god.

The consequence of that, however, is that god had to give man free will, and allow him to reject god- which leads to sin, and all of the bad things in the world that god can't put a stop to, because his interference in the world would inhibit our free will.



There are so many problems with all of this. But you're focusing on something kind of in-between problems; on one of the few things that isn't really a problem in itself.

To have a strong argument, you need to take a few steps up that chain, and address the premises of god's nature, and the very notion of free-will itself; not so much as related to the later items in the discourse which have been thoroughly contrived through ad-hoc processes in response to centuries of criticism and questioning.
The lower down through the process of ad-hoc contrivance, the easier it is for the explanation to change slightly to account for any criticism- and the more work apologists have done trying to get it all to make sense.
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Re: Objection To FreeWill arguments

Post by Neptual »

brimstoneSalad wrote:
dan1073 wrote:If this god really loved us there would be only one option heaven and there would be no sin created. But since you support the theory of evolution it would be hard to exactly explain to me when sin was created and why god created it in the first place.
Christian apologetics offers a pretty thorough and relatively internally consistent answer for this.

It varies a little, but I'll break down the absolute strongest version of it, like no Christian can do (because they don't understand it well enough to do so):

Hell is being disconnected from god.
Heaven is being connected to god.

These are accepted as fundamental truths of the universe, which god can not change- they are part of god's nature, and the nature of the universe.
This does bring up serious questions about the nature of omnipotence (obviously, it has to be limited by logic and 'god's nature' if god can't change these things at will).

That connection is created by love- but it's a two-way street.
If god loves you, but you do not love him back, there's no connection there; you have to accept the love with love.

Likewise, a fundamental law of reality.

Now it gets more complicated:

Love can not exist without choice. If you choose to love somebody, that is love. If you are forced to do it, it's not real love.

That, again, is considered logically true of the universe.

Therefore:: In order to be saved- go to "heaven" and achieve connection to god, man had to have free will, so he could choose to love god.

The consequence of that, however, is that god had to give man free will, and allow him to reject god- which leads to sin, and all of the bad things in the world that god can't put a stop to, because his interference in the world would inhibit our free will.



There are so many problems with all of this. But you're focusing on something kind of in-between problems; on one of the few things that isn't really a problem in itself.

To have a strong argument, you need to take a few steps up that chain, and address the premises of god's nature, and the very notion of free-will itself; not so much as related to the later items in the discourse which have been thoroughly contrived through ad-hoc processes in response to centuries of criticism and questioning.
The lower down through the process of ad-hoc contrivance, the easier it is for the explanation to change slightly to account for any criticism- and the more work apologists have done trying to get it all to make sense.
I see where this argument is coming from, thank you for pointing out my mistakes as I will use this to further enhance my argumentation skills in the future.
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Re: Objection To FreeWill arguments

Post by brimstoneSalad »

DDDx8 wrote: Well, I tried making my argument that objects to a certain form. My argument is only concerned with free will definitions that implies accountability to a God with certain properties.
The problem is, and see my post above for a detailed breakdown, Christians can answer that in any number of ad-hoc ways.
In the process, they come off looking smart (or thinking they're smart, in the very least), and you come off looking ignorant because you didn't RTFM.

You have to nip that in the bud.

I did RTFM, and I'm telling you, this stuff is in there.
DDDx8 wrote: This is my first attempt to put my argument in words, before it was just ideas in my head so of course there are a lot of things that need to be worked out. Studying is not really my thing, open discussions and discourse are but, if I find my self falling in the same holes over and over again....then maybe I'll study.
I was making arguments kind of like that twelve years ago or so. You pick things up over time, sure. And sometimes you do need to fall face flat into a pit, and be humiliated, before you'll get the motivation to seriously study.

There aren't very many competent apologists out there, but a good one would eat you for breakfast.
The holes are there; it would just be a very good idea to step back and go at this from another angle before you meet a competent Christian (rare, but it will happen eventually if you take this on).
No, I still need to talk about motivation because if I avoid it someone can come and say exactly what you said.
No, you need to avoid it, because it's basically part of the Christian definition of free will, and if you treat it like that your whole argument is a straw man:

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

Even a novice will laugh you off the internet for doing something like that.

That's as bad as when Christians deny evolution by trying to bundle in abiogenesis and the origin of the big bang. Evolution has nothing to do with those things- if they had just RTFM they would know that. But they don't, and because of that they look like dishonest idiots (and some of them are, but most of them are just ignorant).

You really have to RTFM.
I just need to put it in my own terms and be clear by what I mean by it, because it does seem like it is a necessary factor of choice.
Of course it is- in reality. But not in Christian world.
This is because "free will" in the religious sense, like souls, isn't a real thing. It's a non-starter.

Like I've said: When, instead of forcing the Christian to step into the real world of logic, you go to where they are in Christian land, predicated on all of those logical contradictions, you lose the ability to have a coherent debate.

You've lost the moment you accept their illogical premises, even for the sake of argument. It's not possible to have a debate where the opponent gets exempted from the rules of logic- you're handing it to them. And more.
I think I just need to define those factors of choice words in my own terms and hopefully I'd be able to avoid "fate of the unlearned" arguments. That way I don't have to read anything thoroughly....yet. I'll keep in mind what you wrote as references of what to avoid when defining my terms.
-_-

It's not a long article. I just read it again in like five minutes right before I posted it for you to make sure it was going to give you what you needed to know.

You can't be this lazy if you're going to be serious about taking on Christian apologists. Knowing the other side's argument is just really basic level stuff.
If they go down the route of God being inherently illogical, I'll go down the route of saying that nothing about God, whether it be read, said, heard, or even revealed by God itself can be trusted if that is the case. I'll make a better case for why that is when I need to. So, hopefully the person accepts that God abides by logic or something otherwise It will be a different argument I'd have to present.
If you can get a Christian to agree that god abides by logic- and that if anything about god's nature is contradictory, then god doesn't exist- then you've virtually won already. They'll backslide fast when they think it will be a problem for them.

Getting them to unequivocally assert that and stand by it is easier said than done, FYI.


But here's the thing: They won't make the argument as transparently as I did. They will instead appeal directly to the qualities of god, and they'll win the argument because you already accepted those qualities as true.

I think I'm kinda trying to do this, but my argument only works with a God with certain properties and from what I am aware of Abrahamic Gods have the properties I am targeting.
The problem is the argument doesn't work with the standard god, because your whole concept is based on a straw man.

But even if it did work, and it was based on the real argument, they have an easy get out of jail free card by appealing to any of the qualities of that god that you already accepted as a premise.

Learn why the principle of explosion is true, and why it's impossible to have a coherent debate after accepting an internally contradictory premise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion

This article is super short and simple. For the love of the flying spaghetti monster, please read it all.

If you don't understand it, tell me and I'll explain. And I can give you examples of how they can appeal to those illogical qualities of god to negate a logical contradiction within your argument.
But I think I can word it better to make it more generic so I can attack any God with these properties granted and at the same time bypassing whatever other baggage that comes with accepting their god specifically.
That's not how logic works. No matter how you word it, if those premises are in there, the argument is DOA.
I don't know when I will though, this is my first attempt putting my ideas out so I can only see the problems if people point them out.....or I study, but I don't see me studying much anytime soon.
It's fine for a first attempt, and I hope you keep trying.

If nothing else, this will be a good exercise for you- if you can follow my advice, study those fallacies, and understand why this argument is broken, you'll learn a lot from the postmortem.

But you are going to have to study a little.

I'm keeping it as simple as possible. I'm not going to tell you to read a book, or the Bible- just the cliff notes so you have an idea of what you're addressing.
I hope you'll consider it.
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