A flaw with God.

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

Sure. But why does that stop him setting up a random mechanism? Your argument only applies if you assume randomness is actually just the result of hidden mechanistic outcomes.

I can't see why God can't make the decay of an atom random. If He wants, he can hand-decay the atom, or he can leave it to go itself, randomly. He can see the outcome in any case.

cordially,
Scofflaw

No but you are thinking of it within linear time, in that God creates something at point A, and that thing just runs its course external to God to point B where the random event happenes, and continues on to point C.

But God makes point B and C at the same singular instant as he makes point A. He makes the entire space time "object" as one, in one singluar instant. The point where the random outcome happens, B, is not external to the time line that God makes initally.

The time line itself is created by God, so during its creation some how the outcome of B is decided. The paradox is that while creating A, B and C can God create B without actually knowing what he is creating.

Say B can be 1 or 2. When God creates the time line A, B, C, can the actual value of B that God creates be decided by an external influence (ie randomness) from His creation? Can God not know what B actually is when He creates A, B and C?

Zombrex

robindch wrote:

> Theology is such fun, though - entirely unconstrained by fact.

And uncomplicated by logic. Anything you want can be true. Just by believing it!

Amen to that

I mean I've been discussing what God can and cannot do with Scofflaw for a few posts now, mostly for fun since we are both atheists/agnoists, but it does strike you how undefined and unthought out the whole "God" concept actually is. I mean for Scofflaw's position to be true, or for my position to be true, all you have to do is slightly alter the definition of what God is, or reality. If God can be kinda anything you want then treating God as a serious concept within scientific thought, becomes nonsense.

But of course I would never say that to a theist

aidan24326

For humans to have 'freewill', all we need is the illusion of freewill. Whether everything is predetermined doesn't matter once we believe and 'feel' in our minds that we have freewill in our actions. If we don't know all the rules of determinism (we don't) then the system manifests itself in an (at least partly) random way as far our consciousness is concerned.

A problem would only arise if we knew all the rules. But could it make any sense whatsoever to have beings (like us) who understood the system enough to be able to predict their own behaviour? This has fairly obvious paradoxes. A conscious entity like us humans could not function without freewill or at least the illusion thereof. I don't know exactly what I'll be doing exactly 3 hours from now. Maybe the master of the universe knows, but I sure don't, therefore to all intents and purposes I have freewill.