What I don't understand is that if God is omnipotent, wouldn't he know in advance that his creation would fail him and they would need to be saved, so why create failed creation that was destined to be saved anyways? So what about all those lives that God created knowing full well that he is creating a life that will suffer eternal damnation? Wouldn't that make him cruel?
It's something that I always found amusing about religion. That religion - in order to mean anything - depends on an idea of free will, but the whole notion of an omnipotent omniscient god that transcends time and space is paradoxical to the idea of free will.
Would you have rather God created a bunch of mindless robots?? Yes he did give free will in the hopes you make the right choice. He did make it easy at least for the last 2000 or so years with Jesus. It was much harder before Jesus.
Okay, I will give it a try. If God had not created man there would not be any microwave burritos. Thankfully he gave us free will to create microwave burritos if we like them or to go to Mexican restaurants for them if we do not like the microwave type. You should thank God for that!!!
I'd rather have an accurate description of our creation and how the universe actually works than attributing it to God in a fallacious way. I like physics. I like reading about particle physics in particular. I like how it can testably explain whether the universe is deterministic or not through quantum mechanics. The answer is it's not deterministic. Since you are made of the very same particles (quarks, electrons) that scientist test on, that means your future is not determined. You have free will. In no way did I have to attribute it to an all knowing God to explain that or throw in sin or opening up to Jesus. Some scientists with very precise instruments and a lot of data were able to test the properties of light and come to these conclusions all within the span of roughly the last 100 years. It's through their efforts and the combined efforts of many other scientists that allow us to have this conversation right now. Absent their resolve in wanting to understand aspects of the universe that were a mystery to us, our quality of life would be drastically different than it is now and we would not be having this conversation. You'd be limited to talking probably to your wife about crazy liberals exclusively instead. I went to private Catholic school up until college. One of my favorite classes was Theology my freshman year. We had to study the Bible. Our teacher explained to us that some words from say the book of Genesis had text made up of an alphabet that did not translate precisely to English. So when you're reading the book of Genesis, you're not actually reading it precisely as it was written by the original author. He talked about what time in history each author wrote their book, if there was more than one author, what their economic status was, their socio-political status, education, their geographical location the time they wrote it, and the political and religious climate of the time that the author injected in their book. He treated it more like a history class and thoroughly explained that when you're reading another author's work, you're not only reading a story, but you're also getting a window into the author's thoughts and concerns. You get an idea over what concerns he was facing at the time and a better understanding of the social climate. That said, no one knows the exact name of any of the authors in the Bible. No one can vet whether these authors were good and just men, truly worthy of writing divine text inspired from a higher power. You're entrusting your very faith to authors you know absolutely nothing about that for all you know could have been really horrible people. You're entrusting that their viewpoint of the nature of God is correct when there's been evidence time and time again that shows the universe is far more complicated than what was written in the Bible. That humans are far more complicated than labeling actions as good and evil. That the idea of morality itself is not in any way a law built in nature, but ideas we use to rationalize human behavior. That we do not possess a soul. And that can be proven too by the way. It can be done with a simple MRI scan and an ability to detect the energy output your body radiates with a high degree of precision. Let's say for instance there is a soul and it has an effect on your moral judgment in your day to day life. We should then be able to detect that by doing an MRI scan of your brain which makes pretty much all decisions over your body. If the MRI scan along with energy detection is only able to pick up say 90% of your brain activity, then you could say that there is a soul or a life force physics can't explain that contributes to your moral decisions. However when we study people's brain activity from a MRI, we find that we can detect 100% of the brains activity when it comes to decision making. Since your brain is doing all the work that means that you don't need a soul to explain your moral judgment. If a soul exist, it in no way contributes to your decision making since your brain is the one doing all the work. Ergo, we have no soul or if we do have one, it does nothing to influence your own moral decisions. Our body in no way violates the laws of physics where the mystical would need to be injected to explain. Since we can already explain that there is no such thing as a soul, we can also safely assume that when you die, that's it. I personally equate death to what it must have been like before I was born. I've no recollection of what I was up to before being born. I can only assume it was just nothingness for me, if there even was a me waiting to be born that is. I think that's what I'll go back into as will you cml and everyone that's ever existed and will exist.
Yes! The bible was never intended as a science document for how the world was created. The creation story in Genesis is actually written as a poem in a way that was a well known format for a type of poetry at the time. Everyone reading it at the time it was written would have known it was poem. That being said, science has its own mysteries that can't quite be explained. Electrons have to rotate 720 degrees to be facing the same direction, not 360. That's a mystery that doesn't quite follow all the norms. Light that is both particles and waves at the same time. Sometimes it acts like a particle and sometimes like a wave. The list goes on with tons of questions that science doesn't know. Things about how to safely cure cancer, etc. Yet these mysteries don't mean science isn't legit. Religion also doesn't actually have to have all mystery explained. Yet it's bizarre to have to compare and contrast religion and science, because they aren't opposites. I think some Christians didn't understand that, and started trying to deny science, and some still do, for some reason. Because the bible was never intended to be a history book, or a science book. As a Christian, I think it's foolish and pointless to try and deny science.
This mystery in bold has been explained and known since the advent of Quantum Field Theory. The whole universe is made of fields. Quark fields, electron fields, Higgs fields, Neutrino fields, etc. It's the vibration of these particle waves that trigger activity in these fields. Your eyes which are great at detecting photons within a certain visible wavelength observe a particle or a part of the wave but not the entirety of it. I can't explain it as well as Sean Caroll does in these lectures so I'll just link them instead. One lecture is 58 minutes. The other is an hour and a half. If you want a great laymen's explanation for quantum field theory and our latest understanding of reality on the microscopic and macroscopic scale, he's my favorite go to guy for that sort of stuff. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RwdY7Eqyguo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> The first 15 minutes is a buildup to explain why the universe is made of fields and waves. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gEKSpZPByD0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> The hour and a half lecture was done at FermiLab a few years back, which has it's own particle accelerator in Illinois. It's not as powerful as the LHC but it's still pretty good. Since his lecture is aimed at an audience of particle physicists he goes a bit more in depth with his explanations of fields, QFT, and the latest cutting edge science that'll hopefully unravel more mysteries. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kW6rR9H9Vu8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> This is an old interview from Richard Feynman but he was the original great explainer of the mysteries of the universe on the tiniest of scales. Sometimes I'll just have a YT video of his on while on the road or on blast through my speakers when I've got chores around the house.
Interesting post. But I disagree a bit on this part. The interpretation of quantum mechanics that the universe is not deterministic is debatable. I think this is the traditional view, but many modern physicists don't subscribe to it (for instance, Sean Carroll who you mention above). Also, I don't think nondeterminism equates to existence of free will, and it need not even be a precondition for it. I think so-called compatiblists would argue that free will exists as a construct at the macroscopic level, like a "chair," and this free will exists even with a fundamentally deterministic universe.
That's true. Not everyone thinks the universe is non-deterministic or correlates it to free will. Like with the Everett's Many World Interpretation, all outcomes that could happen in a future event will happen. You only get to experience a tiny fraction of reality where you experience one future outcome instead of all. I like that in the sense that if I'm experiencing a less than desirable outcome in my life, I can take solace in knowing there's another reality where I'm getting a desirable outcome in theory. Downside is it's not yet testable to see if that theory is right or not. I was using the basis for non-deterministic particles from Bell's Theorem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qd-tKr0LJTM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> I think whatever ruleset the macroscopic world abides by must also fit within the ruleset of the microscopic since that's what we're all made of. If the particles we're made of are really non-deterministic, I think that would also translate to the macroscopic. Whatever the case may be, I think it just illustrates how far more complicated the universe actually is than what was written in the Bible.
Free will is largely an illusion. Most of our actions are from programming we have received - whether it be from our DNA or the experiences early on in life where we learned how to react to different stimuli and those pathways are laid down in our brains. Now, we have the ability to change those pathways if we can recognize our own programming, but for most people that it's impossibly hard to do as it requires you to question who you are.
Any action sequence sufficiently complex appears to be free will to the self, that defines it's own reality, I think. Or maybe every sub-atomic reaction since the Big Bang led up to me typing that.
Super cool. I'm fascinated by this stuff. I'm just such an amateur at it. I could seriously sit there and listen/watch that stuff and feel like my mind is getting such a workout. It's funny because often when I am shown something like this or read something new about this kind of stuff, I'll tell people thinking that of course everyone will be as fascinated by it as I am, but usually they just look at me, completely confused that I'm interested in that stuff. Thanks for posting.
Well if god transcends time and space - then the very idea that he/she/it would "create" something is nonsensical since the act of creation would be an act bound by time and space and thus contradicts the idea of god.
You speak as if you understand the concept of the absence of space and time. You dont, so please refrain from acting like you do.
