Hi.
I just wanted to hear all of your thoughts on the argument against a (at least Biblical) god. It simply goes like this:
God is supposedly all-knowing, but a massive part of the belief in a god is that he, in fact, gives everyone free will to do as they please and go about their business with their own faith in their hands. But if god knows you are going to do something...is it possible to not do it? And therefore, does that pretty much remove your free will?
Let me explain;
Lets say you have to pick something for dinner. Lets go with Pasta or Burgers.
If God knows that you are going to pick Pasta, are you capable of picking Burgers? And if not, does this mean that your free-will has been compromised?

Some would argue that God doesn't know what you are going to pick, but knows the possible outcomes, leaving the choice down to you. This is not omniscience. Lets return to our dinner.
If he knows what would happen if you picked Pasta, that doesn't mean he knows you are going to pick Pasta and therefore, he is not omniscient.

A further expansion of this idea of omniscience versus free will is that god is not a kind and loving one. Why? Because if he knows what choices you'll make, then he'll know whether or not you will end up in either heaven or hell and therefore he is putting you on the planet just so you can burn for all eternity, which doesn't fit the description of a caring god.
There are also multiple things in the Bible god could have stopped if he had known they were coming, the most obvious of them probably being Adam and Eve eating the apple.

So this is just the argument. What do you all think?

Quote from Loki

If God knows that you are going to pick Pasta, are you capable of picking Burgers? And if not, does this mean that your free-will has been compromised?

By your logic, if god knows you're going to pick pasta, then that's what's going to happen. That doesn't mean you can't pick burgers, it means you won't.

Frame it as "god knows you will pick pasta through your own free will", and it becomes somewhat less confusing. Not that it's confusing to begin with.

Yes, but think about it;
If God knows what you are going to do and what choices you'll make, then you have a predetermined path (fate, basically) and you therefore don't have any free-will to pick any options that expand beyond that path. The fact that those choices are your pick are void, because they have been predetermined. You can't pick anything else, simply because Gods omniscience tells him about what you are going to pick.
The free will you mentioned is nothing more than an illusion.

What is your conception of free will?

If it's just "being allowed to do this or that depending on your preferences" then free will still exists. Imagine you are given the choice between eating a chocolate bar or ramming it into your eye socket. You are completely free to choose between the two options, but you will always choose to eat it. Free will is doing what you want - it just so happens that what you want is pre-determined by your personality and environment.

True, no eye ramming, but the point is that you aren't actually being given the choice, are you? If you course is pre-determined, which it HAS to be if God knows everything, past, present and future, then you never had the choice in the first place, it's a mere illusion of free will. You aren't choosing with your free will, you THINK you are choosing with free will.

You aren't really responding to anything zed or I have said.

I think the problem that you are having with this concept is that in Christianity it really isn't that you can *do whatever you want* it's that God doesn't actively interfere with the day to day goings of humanity. These really aren't the same thing.

EDIT: I am speaking to Loki specifically

Free will is a really hard thing to get your head around. I mean, even if we live in a deterministic universe (which I happen to agree with), you could still argue for some form of free will; that nothing is preventing you from making that choice or another one.

It seems, to me, that it's actually impossible to conceptualize the other form of free will - being where your choices aren't fundamentally and definitively influenced by anything else, rather there's some separate function that we call "free will" that our mind utilizes in order to form a decision.

If you have a choice between jumping and not jumping, let's say that you then proceed to jump because there's a sharp object hurling towards your feet. Someone says to you "did you have the free will to do that?", you can respectively respond with "yes" or "no" depending on what you view free will as:
1) You say "yes" because nothing prevented you from standing exactly where you are and letting your legs be chopped off.
2) You say "no" because although nothing prevented you from standing still, you were always going to jump due to the causal influence of the blade coming towards your lower legs.

The way we interpret the universe is through cause and effect, therefore the whole idea of "free will" as some sort of function that doesn't rely SOLELY on influence is impossible to think of. That's why I believe in a deterministic universe, but that's also why I don't necessarily think free will does or doesn't exist, as it depends how you see free will.

Ok sorry, let me address them in order;
Exilement: If god did know what you were going to pick...doesn't that mean you are incapable of picking anything else? Think of it in the long run. If god knows everything that's going to happen then you have a set past. If you want to pick the pasta of your own free will, then that's fine, but it has been set for you to do this. Not your free will then, is it? Omniscience can't exist alongside it.
Zed: Yes, you'll probably pick to eat it. But is it a choice? It's been set in stone what you are going to do because god KNOWS what you are going to do, therefore you don't have any choice whatsoever of what happens. There's a difference between predetermining a choice through environment/personality than knowing exactly what is going to happen.
Fusion: Please rephrase that, I don't entirely get what you are saying. Its probably me, I'm kind of slow to pick things up when I am tired.
Automaton: My personal view of Free Will would be making a choice, which is generally closer to 1)

Christians who believe in free will don't necessarily think that you can do anything you want to, just that God will not force you to do something with his magic powers.

Quote from Fusion

Christians who believe in free will don't necessarily think that you can do anything you want to, just that God will not force you to do something with his magic powers.

yeah, he prefers doing things by threats, like all the great religions

Quote from Loki

Zed: Yes, you'll probably pick to eat it. But is it a choice? It's been set in stone what you are going to do because god KNOWS what you are going to do, therefore you don't have any choice whatsoever of what happens. There's a difference between predetermining a choice through environment/personality than knowing exactly what is going to happen.

So what [I]would [/I]you consider to be a choice?

My definition of choice would be the ability to select your own path and choices with no direct future. The ability to choose between A and B freely without any path set in stone of what you are going to do. It might just be me, but that's how I would say it.

Quote from Loki

My definition of choice would be the ability to select your own path and choices with no direct future. The ability to choose between A and B freely without any path set in stone of what you are going to do. It might just be me, but that's how I would say it.

NO, thats NOT a choice because GOD is inflicting his holy agenda on you to choose path B!
because with god, since he knows everything, he knows what you're going to do, its set in stone already, in his pantry full of life stones, that he personally etched out our every day, varying minuscule details of our shitty lives.

Quote from Loki

If god did know what you were going to pick...doesn't that mean you are incapable of picking anything else? Think of it in the long run. If god knows everything that's going to happen then you have a set past. If you want to pick the pasta of your own free will, then that's fine, but it has been set for you to do this. Not your free will then, is it? Omniscience can't exist alongside it.

i think you're confusing "the ability to see into the future" with "forcing the future to follow a certain path"