this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
1345 points (99.1% liked)

News

23601 readers
3436 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Community members in a Tennessee school district want to banish Satan from their children’s halls after the formation of a new club was announced.

The After School Satan Club (ASSC) wants to establish a branch in Chimneyrock elementary school in the Memphis-Shelby county schools (MSCS) district.

The ASSC is a federally recognized nonprofit organization and national after-school program with local chapters across the US. The club is associated with the Satanic Temple, though it claims it is secular and “promotes self-directed education by supporting the intellectual and creative interests of students”.

The Satanic Temple makes it clear its members do not actually worship the devil or believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural. Instead Satan is used as a symbol of free will, humanism and anti-authoritarianism.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (1 children)

God is omniscient and thus knew exactly what Lucifer would do. Angels don't have free will. Lucifer did exactly what God intended. God wanted Man to have free will. Free will requires the choice between good and evil. Man is the "bad guy" as well as the "good guy".

[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 year ago (7 children)

If god is omniscient they would know exactly what everyone is going to choose, nullifying free will entirely

[–] captainlezbian 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

For those downvoting the above, @[email protected] is making a reference to John Calvin, who is considered to be an OG determinist.

(Determinism: The view that God determines every event that occurs in the history of the world.)

[–] CosmicCleric 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If god is omniscient they would know exactly what everyone is going to choose, nullifying free will entirely

Yeah but if God knows every choice that'll be made ahead of time, it doesn't mean he's taking the choice away from the person actually making the choice, they still go through the motion of making the actual choice, and hence, they have free will to make the choice. God just predicted it ahead of time.

[–] Mango 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We need better RNG, clearly. My D&D character should have died by now!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

We need better RNG

This is what happened when you don't seed your RNG.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah but if God knows every choice that’ll be made ahead of time, it doesn’t mean he’s taking the choice away from the person actually making the choice

That argument would only make sense if god wasn't the supposed creator of the universe and everything in it. If god created everything, is omnipotent and omniscient then at the moment of creation she would have known every single event and circumstance in that person's life leading up to making a certain choice and she would have been able to create the universe differently so that a different choice would have been made.

If you set up all the dominoes, you cannot claim the 100,00th domino falling over wasn't your doing because you only tipped over the first one.

[–] CosmicCleric 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That argument would only make sense if god wasn’t the supposed creator of the universe and everything in it. If god created everything, is omnipotent and omniscient then at the moment of creation she would have known every single event and circumstance in that person’s life leading up to making a certain choice and she would have been able to create the universe differently so that a different choice would have been made.

This actually makes my point though.

God knowing everything doesn't mean that God made you make that choice, God let you make that choice, but knew what that choice would be ahead of time.

You still had free will, you still were the one that had the neurons fire off in your brain, and you made the choice. God was able to predict that choice ahead of time with 100% accuracy.

On a side note, I love that you use 'she' for God.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

God knowing everything doesn't mean that God made you make that choice, God let you make that choice, but knew what that choice would be ahead of time.

If she intentionally chose those circumstances to happen so that the choice would be made that way, which she would have to have done being omniscient and omnipotent then that choice being made is 100% her responsibility.

If I put a child alone in a room with a powered on electric band saw, is it the child’s fault for getting their arm sawed off ? They had free will and could have chosen to not go near the saw. Or is it my fault for putting a child in that situation?

[–] CosmicCleric 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If she intentionally chose those circumstances

Why are you assuming she chose them, versus just letting them happen via free will, mapping them out ahead of time, precog style?

If I put a child alone in a room with a powered on electric band saw, is it the child’s fault for getting their arm sawed off ? They had free will and could have chosen to not go near the saw. Or is it my fault for putting a child in that situation?

The childs.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why are you assuming she chose them, versus just letting them happen via free will, mapping them out ahead of time, precog style?

Because she’s omniscient. That’s the problem with making up an all-powerful, all-knowing god. It comes with some inconvenient logical consequences. When she set up the initial state of the universe she already knew exactly how it would play out (because omniscient), she also could have chosen any other outcome (because omnipotent). It had to be a deliberate decision because as an omniscient being it’s simply not possible to claim ignorance of the outcome, and as an omnipotent being she could have chosen any outcome she desired.

The childs.

Do you really believe this or are you being disingenuous because it doesn’t fit your argument?

[–] CosmicCleric 0 points 1 year ago

The childs.

Do you really believe this or are you being disingenuous because it doesn’t fit your argument?

Truly believe it. The child's neurons in the brain fired off, having them explore/examine the saw. You could say the same thing for any object in the room. A child will look at some of them, but not others.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is a great example of why I don't believe free will is a coherent concept outside of religion. It's basically a perk that negates God's omniscience as it applies to you, but if you don't believe in God, it's meaningless.

[–] LemmysMum 4 points 1 year ago

Free will is the ability to be belligerent until death.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah, but that is the point, until Man chose it hadn't happened, it is the precognition paradox. Until the event occurs, what is known is all the possibilities.

[–] Girru00 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's... just like your opinion man.

Then god isnt omnipotent, cause you know, it lacks the power of whats actually to come and is only good at knowing all the hypotheticals. Or may be lacks omnicience, but one could argue that knowing all the possibilities counts.

All that matters is that its lacking something, when it shouldnt

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Spirituality is all opinion man.

But no, it not lacking anything.

[–] Girru00 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Except all morality and empathy

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

How would an explanation of a religious concept have morality or empathy? Words don't generally have Human emotions in my experience.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If there exists a being that experiences time the same way we experience space, do we have any less free will just because the being can continue knowing about it before it happened? The person is making the choice, not the being that knows about the choice.

[–] Touching_Grass 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Is that true. Could he know what we will do but what we do is still our choice without influencw

[–] Zombiepirate 15 points 1 year ago

Take the garden of Eden story.

Did God know that if he put the tree there then the people would eat from it?

Did God have a choice to put that tree there?

Could God have made a world where they did not eat that fruit?

If he picked this possible world out of all possible worlds based on an outcome that he had in mind, then we're just playing out the parts that he assigned for us.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

God is supposedly all powerful and all knowing. God created the universe and everything in it. He did so with the full knowledge of everything that would happen in advance. He chose to do it anyway, despite knowing all the suffering it would cause. And then he chose to create a realm of eternal suffering (either by literal fire and brimstone, or by 'absence of God', it doesn't really matter) for those fleetingly finite-lived humans that he created knowing they would screw up. Less than a hundred years of life in exchange for billions of years of torment. And he created them in a way that is fully capable of realizing how horrible a way to treat someone this is. It's nothing but cruelty of an unimaginable scale. Part of the reason I don't believe the Christian God exists is because I can't accept something that evil. It's too horrifying.

[–] jandar_fett 5 points 1 year ago

Most people that believe or even don't believe don't usually follow it to its logical conclusion like that, but I concur. The opening lines of Richard Dawkin's God Delusion says something similarly.

[–] Heir_Of_Isildur 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If god existed, my driving force would be to kill them

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Like the Klingons. Lol

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

True, if somebody comes from the future and knows what you're going to eat tomorrow morning, that doesn't make it suddenly not your choice. But to add to the other comment, an important point is that he made us all as well. Because if a god creates you according to his grand plan—knowing full well every single decision you will ever make—it is no longer a choice. Every one of your decisions were predetermined from the start.

Something I like to think about is that it is impossible to go against the Christian god's plan. If such a thing were possible, then this god would not be omnipotent nor omniscient. As such, everybody that has ever gone to hell did so because god designed them to.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

How is that a choice. If they know exactly what's going to happen I don't have the power to do anything except for what is going to happen. If you only have an apple at home, you can't get any other kind of food and your gonna die if you don't eat the apple, did you really choose to eat the apple?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My knowing what you shall do in no way invalidates your free will. That is invalidated by the futility of your choices. Totally man made and not to be confused with determinism.

[–] Touching_Grass 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think its still possible that I could freely choose my actions and you knowing what they would be would not invalidate that it was an action I choose based on my own free will.

[–] jandar_fett 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The funny thing about the free will argument is that theoretically if you could build a galaxy powered "super" computer, you could potentially track every single movement of every single particle in the entirety of the universe, so that level or scientific inquiry nullifies free will.

[–] Mango 1 points 1 year ago

That's where it gets interesting though! A set of all numbers cannot contain itself! It's out of control! Call the alphabots!