no offense, i use to go to yahoo atheist v christians all the time, because i like to debate this as well. and believe m, compared to them, you're being very repectful

Well, the difference here is that god supposedly knows with divine certainty. Which is different than the knowledge my friend has. Take these two scenarios:

Scenario 1:

You are born, you go through life, then one day as you are crossing the street you get hit by a car and die.

Scenario 2:

You are born, you go through life, then one day you get a message from god in a fortune cookie that says: "You will be hit by a car and die tomorrow while you are crossing the street."
You do everything you can to avoid the street. You stay home, watch TV ... then you fall asleep. You wake up in the middle of the road (sleepwalking?? You've never done that before!) and you get hit by a car and die.

The second scenario is almost the same as the first ... the only difference is you shared in god's knowledge for a brief time. But you were still unable to change your fate. (Assuming that god never lies, and is never wrong). If god knows your life, from beginning to end, then you are destined to live that life ... you cannot change it. The fact that you are ignorant of what god knows gives you the illusion that you have free will. But if you had god's knowledge of ONLY your life, that illusion would disappear. You would go through your life, knowing everything that would happen, being completely unable to change any of it.

I disagree. EVERYONE and EVERYTHING has a meaning for life. I can't say what that meaning is but they do have it. If they are ment to die, they should. If I baby died inside a mother, it still had a reason for those days of being there. It the killer killed the child, then that was ment to happen. Even though it may be hard for some to accept the fact that a death of a child or love one (or anyone/any thing) was ment to happen, it was. Nothing just happens. Nothing was a mistake. Everyting that happens was ment to happen.

Good point here. Suppose there is a purpose for everything, even the sufferring of infants. Maybe to teach us to love more? Who knows. I'll have to think about this some more.

Actually, I do disagree. Here's why...

I believe that we do have free will. (Even with an omniscient God.) To take that away, even if it is something like what you used in your example, would be you inflicting your will on to others, which is a step backwards, in my opinion. You would be removing something that you don't agree with, and while it is admittedly something that very few people actually do agree with, it is still not for you to decide. Free will, my friend, free will.

How about if I don't agree with abortion. (Which is also, IMO, the killing of a child.) I could just implant everyone's brain and say no more abortion's for anyone. Would that be right for me to do? No. It's not up to me to decide what's best for everyone else, it's up to them to decide for themselves.

Okay. I concede that point. BUT: If I was god, I wouldn't give men nipples! And I wouldn't give them an appendix. That thing does nothing but get infected and threaten people's lives. :)

I like this God.

Let me paraphrase what I get out of this... "If you had God's knowledge, then you would know your course of predestination."

Well, that's partially true. If you had God's view of the universe and complete absense of time, then yes, you would be able to see how things will end up for you, but once again, it will only be because you are seeing all of time at once.

Yes, you would know your course of predestination AND would be unable to change it. The difference, when it comes to free will, lies in what you know and what you don't know. It wouldn't feel like free will if you had god's knowledge of your life. But you don't, so it feels like you have the power of choice. But the idea is that the knoweldge is there! Only, you don't have it. God does. Here's the thing:

You say: "I have free will. Just because God knows the choices I will make, does not mean I still do not have the choice. Choice = free will."

I say: "You don't have free will. Because god knows the choices you will make, they aren't really choices at all ... you just think they are."

And I'm afraid we may have to leave it at that.

Alrighty y'all...

Good conversation/debate! But I'm tired, so I'm going to bed now.


P.S. LOL @ erasing men's nipples. Who needs 'em?