[Freestyler]

Now this is the mashada I like , kenyans coming together and arguing out facts and points interllectually without all that tribal/stupid shyyt that make this site look like a crack house/weed den.keep it up people.black power!!


well wat exatly is happening mashadites have all of a sudden turned philosophical overnite,threads like "is time an illusion" and now this...lol


my take is human beings have free will,Angels dont.Thats why we do shyyt anytime we feel like.I dont really believe in predestiny coz that would render all religions worthless.

[KEMINOKANA]

>Kemi answer me this one question:
>
>Before he created me, God said I will die on (mm/dd/yyyy) no
>matter what I do I will die on that day. I can't chose to not
>die and say 'hey can I go to my daughter's wedding the next
>day?'
>Do I have free will in that case or am I predestined?

Milanya, if we had free will to live, we'd all want to live eternally. Secondly, according to my understanding of the bible, free will ONLY pertains to two choices: Going to heaven or hell and nothing else. Read your bible again.

But have you heard of the king that was so sick and he was going to die but begged God to give Him extra days and He did?

[Msoto]

>>God knows what he's going to do and yet He does it.
>>Can He help it?
>
>Reggie,
>
>there's a school of thought that holds that even god has no
>free will. Here is something I plagiarized from
>http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/god_...free_will.html that
>explains this notion.
>
>1. AN OMNISCIENT (ALL-KNOWING) BEING DOES NOT HAVE FREE WILL
>
>If you are all-knowing, you know your future actions, what
>choices you will make, and you cannot change them otherwise
>your knowledge would be wrong, and you wouldn't be
>all-knowing. An omniscient being has no free will to choose
>actions; all its actions are predetermined.
>
>If you knew a decision you are going to make in the future...
>what would it mean? You would have no free will to change that
>choice. No option, no choices... based on the fact that you
>know its going to happen, it is predestined and no amount of
>strong will can change it. The further in the future the
>predicted choice is, the less free will you have to change it!
>Well imagine if for infinity you'd always known exactly what
>choices you were going to make, and that you could never be
>wrong. You would never have had any free will in any choice,
>ever!
>
>In effect God is an observer. An omniscient being has no free
>will - its entire future is set out and it has no choice but
>to follow its predestined path.
>
>
>2. A PERFECT GOD HAS NO FREE WILL
>
>Out of the possible options in a situation God always makes
>the best choice because it is perfectly benevolent. It cannot
>do something that is less moral or "good" than something else,
>because that would not be perfectly good, but merely
>second-best good. In every situation, God only has one choice:
>The most moral/good one. God does not have free will. It can
>make no choices, there are no possibilities for an
>omniscient-benevolent God to choose from. In order to give God
>its free will, we would have to take away its omniscience -
>its all-knowing nature - or take away its benevolence.
>
>When people say that God has free will, they must also mean
>that God is imperfect. If God is not perfect then it becomes
>possible for God to choose a less-than-perfect action. If God
>is not imperfect, then, it is impossible for god to perform
>imperfect actions. Therefore God has no free will.
>
>
>3. A MORAL GOD HAS NO FREE WILL
>
>God, as the ultimate creator, created goodness. God is also
>said to be a perfectly good benevolent God. This means that
>God fulfils every possibility of the goodness it has created.
>It is the be-all and end-all of goodness, perfectly good and
>unerringly good. If God was not 100 percent perfectly moral,
>God would not be perfect. This results in a complete lack of
>free will for God.
>
>God knows the nuances and complexities of every situation. God
>knows which actions are optimal, it knows which actions are
>perfectly good. Only God, I would guess, is capable of
>performing actions that are perfectly good. And it does so
>unerringly, constantly, because it itself is perfectly good
>and never errs. It is all-knowing and perfectly good. But, the
>problem is for free will, in any situation, of all the
>possible things God could do, God does the perfectly morally
>right one. It never chooses an inferior course of action
>because it is perfect. If it acted imperfectly, it would not
>be perfect.
>
>So, in any situation, a perfectly moral God has no choice: It
>must carry out what action is most good. God, in creating
>goodness, and being perfectly good, is completely limited to
>only a set, predetermined series of actions. In any situation,
>at any point in time or out of time, God has no free will: It
>must robotically and automatically carry out the precise
>action that is perfectly good.

A believer will hold that they can never understand God. All these statements are drawn out from a perspective that one can understand God. Thats why they are "believers" ATLian....and you are not.

[Msoto]

>Kemi answer me this one question:
>
>Before he created me, God said I will die on (mm/dd/yyyy) no
>matter what I do I will die on that day. I can't chose to not
>die and say 'hey can I go to my daughter's wedding the next
>day?'

You assume that you know the day. Do you?
Why do you assume that you will have pressing matters that you may not be prepared to die at that time?
What if you are terminally ill for cancer and thats what you want? Will you still be asking God to give you life and continue suffering or take it away?
Why do you assume that because (mm/dd/yyyy) exists that you will die your life will be less worthwhile.....that so many things you could do you wont be able to do?

Can you see strings...point at coincidences throughout your life that show a pattern? Perhaps fibonacci sequence/gaussian sequence/etc...that can then lead you to say YES...EUREKA!!!!...look at what I have discovered my life is pre-destined...now on this and this day I will pass away.
It is simply a matter of belief...you can choose either to see it as that or not.

Isnt that why you are arguing right now...feeling that your life is limited? Doesn't this argument you are having right now contradict your feeling that we have no influence on our own decisions...based on our understanding of how we function?

This does not mean that God is not aware of our decisions that we have made or will make...or are making.

>Do I have free will in that case or am I predestined?
>Life's not a garden so don't be a hoe

How about you are both...pre-destined...because God knows the decisions you will make...have made....he is omniscient. And free-willed because from your limited perspective of life you see that whatever you have wanted/desired/done has impacted directly in your life...from your own perceptions you are drawing your own string.

What does it take to think that you are both pre-destined and free-willed. Belief. If you believe in God why then would you attempt to think that anything is contradictory? that things are not going as planned? Are you in any position to hold such a view with your limited sentience?

[Msoto]

>
>Now this is the mashada I like , kenyans coming together and
>arguing out facts and points interllectually without all that
>tribal/stupid shyyt that make this site look like a crack
>house/weed den.keep it up people.black power!!
>
>
>well wat exatly is happening mashadites have all of a sudden
>turned philosophical overnite,threads like "is time an
>illusion" and now this...lol
>
>
>my take is human beings have free will,Angels dont.Thats why
>we do shyyt anytime we feel like.I dont really believe in
>predestiny coz that would render all religions worthless.

Perhaps you are pre-destined not to believe in pre-destiny....how can you be certain that isnt the case?

[m kenya]

Good points msoto..
but milanya (i think) asked a good question, if God knew, before he created me, that i would die a sinner, and go to hell. and he went ahead and created me anyway? Isnt that being sadistic???

Someone please answer this (TM invited), what happens to those die hard moslems, buddhists, hindust, monks, who DONT PRETEND, to even know Jesus Christ. Everyone on mashada i think went to sunday school when young.
What of these guys, what happens to their souls when they UNAPOLOGETICALLY worship those things they worship.? Why would God want whole nations (ala middleast, mongolian, india) to go to hell?? Coz they believe in Muhammad? Why did He create them in the first place??????
somembady answer me.

[Msoto]

>It is hard to think outside of the religious box - I have
>tried to let go of fear and do it. How can I ever understand
>my faith if I cling blindly to it? If you want something to be
>true really badly you will find ways of justifying it.

In short its not...what limits thinking is when people begin "quoting" texts endlessly to try and justify and replace thinking.
You must question...and as you question..you must brace yourself for controversies.

>Questions to ask oneself about predestination and omniscience
>from wikipedia:
> 1. Is God's predestinating decision based on a knowledge of
>His own will, or does it arise from a knowledge of whatever
>will happen?

Can it be both and not exclusively one or the other?

> 2. How particular is God's prior decision: is it concerned
>with particular persons and events, or is it limited to broad
>categories of people and things?

Who knows? How can you say one and not the other? To say so would mean that perhaps he has LIMITATIONS. He is omniscient so how can he be broad and yet specific...or specific and not broad...why cannt he both be broad and specific?

> 3. How free is God in effecting His part in the eventual
>outcome?

Unless you understand God...or your sentience level is close to God's you cann't ascertain the level of "freeness" that God would exhibit to do so...will be to cap...on what "freeness" would mean to God. How can I a lower sentience being now what "freeness" means to God and attribute a cap...say maybe 80%...70%...by doing so isnt he then not Omniscient?

>about man's will:
> 1. Assuming that an individual had no choice in who, when
>and where to come into being: How are the choices of existence
>determined by what he is?

He makes the choices on his own. Arent we arguing out in this forum right now. Aren't we seeking to determine who we are and listening to different view's ATLian's skepticism...Peter MauMau's scriptural insights...etc? Isnt that in itself demonstrating that as we see ourselves we are free-willed...or what does free-will really mean? Doesnt it mean knowing that your decisions have been made for you and being aware what those decisions are? Arent we for instance all aware that we will die...does that make us all fear living because we know we will die?

> 2. Assuming that not all possible choices are available to
>him: How capable is the individual to desire all choices
>available, in order to choose from among them?

Does one need to have unlimited choices to choose what may be the most valuable to him..a human being? A human being is LIMITED in sentience...if perhaps he received a LIMITED choices..that equates his/her sentience level...isnt he then experiences the multitude of as many choices as he can handle...and which can be viewed from his perspective as large enough to almost be unlimited?

> 3. How capable is an individual to put into effect what he
>desires?

If you want to write in mashada....do you write in mashada do your hands type on the keyboard what you want to say...or do you end up realizing...that what you have written is not what you thought? Not that of course you want to be politically correct when writing threads and responses...but that God you feel prevented you from writing what you wanted.

You choose what to believe. You choose how to live your life. You choose which desires come into fruition. I choose to believe in God. I choose to believe that he is omniscient that everything that I decide he already knew....his knowing doesn't take away from me making the decisions that I make. The decisions I feel from my limited senses of perception are mine alone. Of course God is also aware that I feel as I do.

>Some philosophers argue that man has free will, and that his
>free will is predestined to lead him to God. However, man gets
>enslaved in sin and loses his free will

Perhaps that is how life is. Who knows what the truth really is?

[milanya]

One argument I've heard is that God has predestined all things temporal; but not things that are eternal.

For some reason the free will argument leads into the theory of a clockmaker God. Did Gid set all things in place and that sit back and watch the reactions and consequences?

It is interesting how whenever you try and argue something out on mashada people go and attack YOU as a person instead of the points of your argument.

Also, I think it is ridiculuous to yell at people for quoting a source for an argument. That is how scholars do it, you research and then from your reseacrh you base your arguments. People don't complain when someone cites the bible, but as soon as you use an outside source it's wololololol? This is where Christians fail to reach other people, instead of trying to understand where they are coming from, you shove a bible that they don't believe in into their faces. First, you dissect why whatever they believe in is wrong; then you acquaint them with the bible.

Nobody has made any comments about the verses I quoted from the bible that have to do with predestination. So yes, Kemi, I do read the bible. I'm just playing the Devil's advocate.

[KEMINOKANA]

Milanya,

It is difficult to argue with devils' advocates. Reason being, no matter what evidence is brought forth, they'll still be devils' advocates. As I said before, even Eve couldnt stand the devil's enticing arguments. I like to argue with people seeking understanding and not pseudo philosophers testing their intelligence on my faith. You've said that you dont want to blindly follow religion and my answer is that you are free to do so. So many vices nowadays are norms because people have been made to believe that they arent vices. But any christian would tell you that they are christians by faith- believing in what they havent seen. Pagans think that is 'lacking intelligence' and they are free to do so.

To me, the questions in regards to free will and predistination have been answered here. The problem is that minds are overcrowded by paganic spirits to understand. And I believe that answers to biblical enigmas lie within the bible(in some cases not) and not webpages of pagans. You cant look for the living among the dead.

I'll be back with a sober answer to ur question(s)

[milanya]

Kemi,
Do you understand what the role of a devil's advocate is in an argument? 'the devil's advocate' does not mean one who supports the devil, rather it is an expression that means the person in an argument who takes a skeptical view at the proceedings and looks for possible holes in an argument, without necessarily letting his/her personal opinion get in the way.

God does not want us to blindly follow religion. There are aspects of faith that are based on believing without seeing, but there are factors that we can argue on and interpret and make informed decisions. Choosing to believe something just because it is a part of your church without questioning it is blind faith. Faith should not be devoid of reason.

As for pagan webpages, one day you will be faced with the task as a Christian to evangelize someone who has not had the privilege to study the bible or any aspect of faith. I am not a proponent of evolution, but when I argue with an evolutionist, I read his argument and point out the holes in his argument. I do not start telling him "you are wrong because Genesis 1:1..."what good will that do if he doesn't believe in the bible?
As I said before, this is where Christianity will fail to convert others, because you do not try and understand their pagan ways and explain why they are wrong before you show them the light. You basically almost speak another language and expect them to understand
The same thing that got the missionaries in a pickle. Instead of studying the locals and their ways tehy just arrived and started breathing fire and brimstone. The same reason Christianity has had a difficult time in Japan. The missionaries realized they have to study THEIR religion, THEIR culture, their pagan ways so they can understand them better and spread the word effectively.







>
>To me, the questions in regards to free will and
>predistination have been answered here. The problem is that
>minds are overcrowded by paganic spirits to understand. And I
>believe that answers to biblical enigmas lie within the
>bible(in some cases not) and not webpages of pagans. You cant
>look for the living among the dead.
>
>I'll be back with a sober answer to ur question(s)


Life's not a garden so don't be a hoe