supernatural things are likely to occur

Author: linate

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#31
Ramshutu
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@secularmerlin
Ever read any of the fighting fantasy books? Failing that - bandersmatch.

The book is written, but you get to make specific choices at specific points along the way that changes the specific narrative, and let’s you chose where that part of the story takes you.

Its all written down for you, but you still have a free choice.

The plan argument I’ve always found pretty weak for this reason. People don’t seem particularly imaginative when it comes to considering the forms in which a divine plan could conceive of.



#32
secularmerlin
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@Ramshutu
So I ask again does the god you are proposing not know in advance what we will do? And again I say that if he dies not he is not all knowing and if he is not all knowing I have my doubts about his ability to track the many possible branching of fate of 8 billion humans to day nothing of the incalculable number of particles and quantum waveforms that make up our local spacetime. And of course if he does know what we will do ahead of time then we do not have any real choice.
#33
Ramshutu
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@secularmerlin
Ian LIvingstone did not know whether 12yr old me would decide to hide and wait for the footsteps to pass (go to section 472), or to discover their owners (go to section 221); yet he knew and planned the outcome of both choices.

So the free choice - and controlling the outcome is largely a non issue. As you say, the problem becomes more one if capability than the whole concept being logically incongruous.
#34
secularmerlin
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@Ramshutu
Has the being you proposed set up a practical infinity of possibilities? Because if he had that is not really a plan.

68 days later

#35
3RU7AL
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@linate
NDEs of atheists - most atheists meet a divine being and more than half of them come back believing in God.
That may be true, but that god is not "YHWH".

Those atheists reportedly move towards a more agnostic position and some adopt a Deistic sort of new-age "one with the universe" belief.

Agnostic =/= Theist (AND) Deist =/= Theist (THEREFORE) since they are not Theists they are still accurately described as Atheists. [LINK]

DEISM IS FUNCTIONALLY IDENTICAL TO ATHEISM.
#36
3RU7AL
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@secularmerlin
Has the being you proposed set up a practical infinity of possibilities? Because if he had that is not really a plan.
Did you make plans for your vacation?

Yes.

What's the plan?

Well, there's a practical infinity of possibilities, anything could happen.

So nothing specific?

711 days later

#37
n8nrgmi
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here is the doctor's washington post article about exorcism