I need some atheist opinions

[Eric1958]

Good luck in your quest. As to your question, it does tend to presuppose that God would let you see the answer. He, of course, wouldn't.

Another way of looking at omniscience would be to think of it as a casino owner. In a casino, the house knows that over time their slot machines will bring in say for instance eight percent return. You could call this omniscience if you were defining it broadly enough. They don't know how each person will do, or even how much they'll make in a given day. But they know they can set the machines up in such a way that over time they will receive $8 for each hundred that are put in their machines.

For my part I've found it impossible to believe in or even respect a god who would create us, pretend to love us, but send us to an eternal pit of hell for not choosing the right god to believe in. Not all Christians believe that, but many do. The god we end up accepting is so often the god of our family, friends and culture that it all seems ridiculous to me.

[La Dolce Vita]

Who says I even believe in free will? :P

I'm just saying free will isn't compatible with someone who knows everything. You cannot at the same time know everything that's going to happen and give other people the ability to choose what's going to happen.

The idea of religious free will is that I can pick my path in life. But how can I choose anything, if there's someone who already knows what's going to happen?

It's a bit like saying characters in a book have free will. The story is already written and nothing they do can change anything. They don't have free will. They just do what the great mind that knows all tells them to do. On the other hand, improvisational theater gives its characters free will, which is why nobody can predict how the show will go. But you can't have both.

It's actually really simple. Though you have the choice to do something, given the information/experiences you have + emotional state, etc. you can really only do one thing in a certain situation. Even if you could play it back, unless you give yourself new input or new information you'll do the very same thing. So with the modern understanding of how "free will" works it is "possible" for someone to know everything you'll ever do without affecting your free will.

In most theistic religious dogma it's impossible however - as the deity is the creator/author and therefor wrote your path when creating you exactly the way it did. If there's also a hell and it creates you knowing you'll go there you can also question it's morality (though tons of gods have been shown to be evil, sadistic pricks even by their own doctrine). However, that aside, as long as you/your brain is what's selecting your choices you could have "free will", or perhaps better phrased "independent will" at the same time as someone/something could know everything you'd ever do.

[NeoLogic26]

although my logic may be correct, God is above and beyond logic, that He does not have to play according to the human laws of logic. Apparently he makes His own rules.

This is the part where you say farewell and move on to more intellectually stimulating pursuits. No amount of philosophy or logic is sufficient to answer a question you might have when they can arbitrarily move the goalposts like that. I hate to say it, but I foresaw what their answer to your line of questioning was going to be. I've been there myself. Good luck sorting through your own thoughts and beliefs, Eric.

[FrankDK]

> But I still wouldn't be making the decisions if they're already decided for me. At best I'd have the illusion of free will.

There's a difference between decisions already being decided for you, and someone knowing what decisions you will make.

I believe we only have the illusion of free will, however.  The brain is a deterministic mechanism, and it is what does our deciding for us.  It gives us the illusion of making a conscious decision, but current neurophysiological evidence shows pretty clearly that the brain decides before we have the feeling of making up our minds.

Frank

[Plu]

There's a difference between decisions already being decided for you, and someone knowing what decisions you will make.

Like what? (Again, I don't believe in biblical free will either, but if we assume that it's real)
How is there any option of being able to freely decide, if the choice you are going to make is already set in stone (which would be a requirement for someone to reliably determine what choice you're going to make)

I mean; sorta-kinda accurate predictions is one thing, but definately knowing would require that I cannot deviate from the path he knows of at any time, otherwise he couldn't be certain. And if there's only one path to take, I don't have any choices to make.

[La Dolce Vita]

There's a difference between decisions already being decided for you, and someone knowing what decisions you will make.

Like what? (Again, I don't believe in biblical free will either, but if we assume that it's real)
How is there any option of being able to freely decide, if the choice you are going to make is already set in stone (which would be a requirement for someone to reliably determine what choice you're going to make)

I mean; sorta-kinda accurate predictions is one thing, but definately knowing would require that I cannot deviate from the path he knows of at any time, otherwise he couldn't be certain. And if there's only one path to take, I don't have any choices to make.

Because your wiring is set up in such a way that the question of wether "free will" exists is highly debateable. It's your brain, not your concious self that makes the choices. You are still making "choices", but "you" work in such a way that your logic, compassion, patience, temper, etc. will only produce one result based on the info you have and the mental state you are in. This would presumably be true regardless if your concious self was 100% in control of your choices. You are you, and what you like, feel and are like will decide what you do in any given situation.

In other words, you (if "you" includes your brain) makes the decisions/choices, and yes, you genuinly make them - but unless you had different info/was in a different mental state you'd have made the same decision in that scenario every time.

As long as whatever knows everything you will ever do did not contribute (in any way) to your thought process or situations your choices will be 100% independent of it - and therefor your own. Wether or not we'll describe this as free will is another question entirely.

[laocmo]

This is the part where you say farewell and move on to more intellectually stimulating pursuits. No amount of philosophy or logic is sufficient to answer a question you might have when they can arbitrarily move the goalposts like that...... Good luck sorting through your own thoughts and beliefs, Eric.

How right you are Eric! I was like that at one time way back before I became brave enough to question some of the things I was forced to memorize as a kid in religion class. Once I admitted to myself that some belief I had learned was dead wrong, and admitting that was the scariest thing I ever did,(expecting a bolt of lightening to take me at any minute), I found that it was refreshing to look at things rationally and not believe them just because I was told to. I can never go back. But to this day I feel a bit of trepidation because back then I was warned that my pride and arrogance in not blindly accepting all I had learned might someday lead to my damnation.

[Plu]

But to this day I feel a bit of trepidation because back then I was warned that my pride and arrogance in not blindly accepting all I had learned might someday lead to my damnation.

The religious have had thousands of years to perfect the art of keeping people in line. They're really good at it. Expect it to occasionally sting.

Just remind yourself: 2500 years of searching, 0 evidence.

[FrankDK]

> Like what? (Again, I don't believe in biblical free will either, but if we assume that it's real)
How is there any option of being able to freely decide, if the choice you are going to make is already set in stone (which would be a requirement for someone to reliably determine what choice you're going to make)

> I mean; sorta-kinda accurate predictions is one thing, but definately knowing would require that I cannot deviate from the path he knows of at any time, otherwise he couldn't be certain. And if there's only one path to take, I don't have any choices to make.

If some creature or machine existed outside our space and time, and could look at the future, then it would know what decisions you were going to make.  It isn't set in stone; you can make any decision you want.  But the creature or machine would know what decision you are going to make.  

The ability to see the future implies all kinds of seeming (and maybe real) paradoxes, and this is one of them.  Suppose I had such a machine, and said that I could predict what you would order at a restaurant.  I would turn on the machine, check on your choice, write it down, and put the note in an envelope.  When we got there, and you made your choice, I could produce the envelope with the correct prediction inside.  However, I couldn't tell you in advance, because then you would order something else.

The question that remains is, if I did tell you, and you changed your mind, would I have gotten the correct view the first time I used the machine, or would the future be changed?  The only solution for this is if I never tell you what the machine indicated, or if I lie about it.  Once you as the actor know what actions you are predicted to take, it would be easy to vary from that path.

Frank

Frank