Lucky Number 400. Actually, I believe the point of that particular doctrine was that God already knew what would happen; thusly you having reformed your life would already have been taken into effect. This makes the concept of free will quite odd due to the fact that since you don't know the outcome, it doesn't affect you -- giving you a sense of option in your own mind. Another question: Does the Free Will of one detract from the Free Will of another?
God knows what will happen before it happens, but it does not mean He makes it happen. We appear to have free will because we don't know what is going to happen.
Well if we are going to jump into the land of religious and philosophical beliefs, might as well jump in with both feet. I believe that there is something within all of us. Call it a soul, a spirit, or just plain old consciousness, something is definitely inside of us. Personally I believe the soul (using that for the sake of having to create some fancy new word, it works just fine ) wanders to a new body, whether it be here on Earth or on some distant planet trillions and trillions of miles away in another galaxy. Sure sounds better than the religious belief of: Were you good? Yes. Ok you can worship me forever. Were you bad? Yes. I love you, but you must suffer for all eternity. By the way I let you suffer because I love you! Not that simple in my opinion, but there really is no way of know what happens to the non material part of us. Hell perhaps the thing that makes us, us is simply a complex series of nerochemical reactions. Now that sounds absurd, but perhaps one day we could keep the essence of who we are in fancy jars. Since nobody has come back from the dead in the real since of the word, we will never really have a definitive on this perplexing predicament.
The soul is essentially a representation of sense of self, consciousness life. Of the "I" that arises from the more complicated parts of our brain.As a result our cultures are naturally drawn to depict this. And drawn, as we do, to make it special. It also is connected, because of it's nature as a sort of core energy or essence, to whatever afterlives or soul-streams the cultures believe in. The soul one of the most universal concepts in folklore and mythology. Everyone has some version of it. At least a vague conception of this idea. Some vague idea that our conscious life is more than just the product of our functioning. I love folklore and mythology.
So he just gives tacit approval for the rape and murder by creating the concepts and letting them run wild. If you were to create a mad bloodthirsty mutant once our genetics technology is more advanced, wouldn't you feel at least a tiny bit responsible if you let it loose and it started killing anything it came across? Wouldn't you have a sense that saying "the mutant is evil" while knowing you could be doing more to stop it is hypocrisy? Because god can do anything, can't he? So he can do whatever it takes, in any number of ways, to stop all "sin" and suffering.
What is that famous line in the Matrix, oh yeah I remember now: There is no spoon. I just bent a bear. What? There is no bear? Shit! Then what the hell did I just bend, and was it of importance?! (don't eat me @halisme)
I was raised strictly missionary Baptist, and my family was extremely dogmatic. So I grew up believing in souls and heaven and God. Now I don't know what to believe anymore, and I think that's just another part of being human. I do somewhat believe in ghosts, and have had some experiences, so I guess that means I believe in souls. Although some theories say ghosts are more of an energy recording being played back over and over than an actual intelligent being. The same way you can store and recall information in things such as batteries and quartz crystals, some believe the earth is just one big electromagnetic battery that stores information and has data leaks.
