Determinism vs. Free Will

guys, please stop, your confusing me. Plus were trying to find a link between Free  Will and Determinism. I agree with what your saying, people are more likely to do something, or atleast it seems that way. But that sort of information is a given in this cercumstance.
we want to know why something occures, not what it looks like the chances are. sorry. Anyway, going by what people are saying, if you want to no the choice someone is about to make, you can take every atom from their body and near them, shove it in a computer with every mathamaticall equation for the entire universe and you can work it out. then it takes out most of the probabilities (dahm Haizenburgs). I take it you know what i mean.

Originally posted by Knights No, it is not HistoryPoi. We can choose to go against or go along with the 'set of rules' you speak of, and endless variations in between. This is free will. We do not have to follow any 'set of rules' even if they are there, we choose for ourselves what to do.

Okay, to get my opinion straight:

God is all powerful; He created time itself.
He knows the future perfectly - not only that, but has planned it out.
Humanity has the illusion of free will in that it makes its decisions for itself, being completely unrestrained in what it does.
However, anything it does is exactly how God planned it.
This is usually called 'predestination' or 'foreordination'. If somebody religiously objects to this I can back it up with verses from the Bible.

Janus: I agree that God is omnipotent, yet I'm not convinced that His omnipotence means that he really has designed our future. His omnipotence means that he can design our future, He is capable of doing so, but that doesn't mean he actually did so.

Originally posted by JanusRook His omnipotence means that he can design our future, He is capable of doing so, but that doesn't mean he actually did so. But God exists outside of time, so he simultaneously exists in the past, present and future, which means that everything that will happen has all ready happened in the eyes of God. God knows everything, yet He allows me to choose, to walk my own path. Yet this just goes to prove the illusion of free will. Are your choices really separate from God's plan? If you reach a crossroads do you turn right because you chose right or because it was pre-ordained you would choose right? You could have chose left but you didn't which means that turning right is the only reality. But my point remains the same as long as we have Atheists. People are atheists because they reject God because there is no proof of his existence. I'm sure that if an atheist dies and first hand witnesses an afterlife and God, they would quite quickly stop becoming an atheist.

This isnt about relgion! and choosing to believe in  god is a choice made by free will. Wow, good point everyone, im glad we established that. So becuase u choose something destroys determinism. NO! so this isnt wat its about!

Did God plan every second of our lives? Of course he could, being omnipotent, yet the question is whether he has done so. Personally, I believe not.

This is the point where I believe we are somewhat in agreement. The thing is to me, it doesn't matter if God controls our lives because of God's timeless nature, he exists far far in the future after we are all dead, and thus all of our actions have been completed.

It is like us knowing that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, could he not have crossed it, of course but that is not how we know history so in our eyes Caesar's actions cannot be changed. If we existed in all times like God, we would simultaneously exist at Caesar's birth, could God have stopped Caesar at any point in the meantime, of course but he chose not to.

This is what I mean when I say determinism. In fact upon further reflection determinism and free will could exist as the same thing. You could say that Caesar's choice was his own and God allowed it. But you could also say God's influence upon Caesar throughout his existence forced Caesar to complete the action. The end result is the same, and so are the processes that led to the result.

And regardless of what Atheists would believe in after death, the point in this debate is what they do alive.

Death is just a continuation of life by other means.

After all when we experience our resurrection we are going to be united body and soul so really we're just resting.

Originally posted by Janus In fact upon further reflection determinism and free will could exist as the same thing. You could say that Caesar's choice was his own and God allowed it. But you could also say God's influence upon Caesar throughout his existence forced Caesar to complete the action. The end result is the same, and so are the processes that led to the result.

I've led that sort of argument before myself.

Originally posted by HistoryPoi This isnt about relgion! and choosing to believe in  god is a choice made by free will. Wow, good point everyone, im glad we established that. So becuase u choose something destroys determinism. NO! so this isnt wat its about!

What is it about then? Its pretty hard to separate religion and determinism.

The fact that there are Atheists is to me evidence of the free will. What happens after death is really irrelevant to this example, I think.

I don't since I believe that people can be with God in death even though they may not have been with him in life. Back to determinism though, do atheists exist because they freely chose it, or does God's influence allow atheist thought to propagate because some time in the future it will be necessary for atheists to exist in the world to fulfill God's plans?