The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qsJfahQ-sk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qsJfahQ-sk)

As you know I've been on a spiritual quest for the last year and a half trying to find the meaning of life.

I have researched miracles, but for nearly all of them, I've found natural explanations.

This one I can't find one for

The miracle happens at the 3:05 mark

The bread literally pops into the air.

You can clearly see the bread is not lying on the bread below it.  It is clearly levitating on its own.

The footage could not have been altered because there are many other videos of this on youtube.

Is there a natural explanation for the cause of this?

Looks to me like the edges of the bread popped up and the center was still touching. Other images in the video seem to show this better. Watch the video around the 8 minute mark. You can clearly see the bread with the edges raised from the middle and again around 9:16 into the video. As Miracles go this one is pretty lame as none of the priests even react to this "miracle". I think you're seeing what you want to see and nothing more.

Parlor tricks

Rather than address this particular video, I'd like to address the thinking behind it.

If you are impressed by a small piece of bread levitating, how about an entire person (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6CNvFnlPL0&t=87s)?   Or what about this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqpVep7Z7C4&t=71s), where a man clearly uses teleportation magic on some coins?  Or this obvious violation of the laws of physics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE&t=91s)?

Remember, if you cannot explain ALL of these things, it means whatever god the performer believes in is indisputably true.

When I saw the title, I thought it was a reference to the guy who walked out of the Air India crash.

This is pretty insignificant in comparison.

Watch an episode of America's Got Talent and those magicians will make you believe in magic. They would have ruled the world in medieval times. hahaha

The mentalist guys always blow my mind. Although I do realize they have a system, it's impressive to see. I love when they do it in NFL meeting rooms as well.

Oh wow, look a magic trick from the 3rd grade talent shoe LMFAO.

On an off note, I fail to see how miracles, blessings, and answered prayers could even exist. God expicitly gives us free will, which would be pointless if those things existed.

What does that even mean? People choose to ignore it and make excuses but God still performs miracles, blesses people, and answers prayers and always has. We have free will to come to Him and we have free will to ignore Him and be our own god. Neither negates His presence in the lives of those who belong to Him.

I've said this before but I knew missionaries with New Tribes. One particular missionary was a young man when they made contact with a tribe in South America. The tribe attacked them with seven-foot-long arrows arrows and spears injuring several missionaries. Alan was the one who had to run for help. Long story short they ended up integrating with the tribe, learned their language, created a written language for them and taught them about Jesus.

I say all of this because Alan is one of the most blessed people I had ever been around. As a retired missionary he didn't have much money but if his motor blew up in his car that afternoon a stranger would drive by and ask him if he knew anyone that needed a car and they would give it to him. God is always taking care of him.

How can free will really exist if God changes outcomes with miracles, blessings, and answered prayers?

I can still choose to accept the blessings or even if I came to Him in the first place. I really fail to see the correlation that Him answering prayers eliminates free will. In your mind does a person giving a gift to another eliminate their free will as well?

So a few things here.


Theologically speaking, if god is all knowing, then he'll know exactly how someone would accept or decline a "gift" when given. That's the correlation you're missing.  Unless of course god isn't all knowing or omnipotent.


Repulsive. This is the epitome of narcissistic behavior. The sheer gall to think that these people are somehow better cause Alan tried to indoctrinate them.

Religion doesn't improve anything. It's a leech on the body of civilization. It takes and steals and molests and provides nothing but the placebo of comfort.

God is all knowing. He knows who will be saved by coming to Him and those that will choose to ignore Him. It doesn't mean he makes either happen simply by knowing something. The Bible says He knows us even before He formed us in our mother's womb.

It may cause some inconvenience here on earth but a right relationship with God will last for eternity. Eternity is much longer than 80 years if you didn't get it.

According to the Bible, God created Satan with the full foreknowledge of everything he would do.  He could have chosen not to create Satan, saving trillions of humans from literal eternal torture.  Or he could have created a Satan that would be his most loyal lieutenant; one who would never consider betraying him.  He intentionally chose to create the Satan we got.

God also could have created Eve to have a more submissive personality; one where she would never have considered violating the rules and eating the apple.  Or he could have created a violent, malicious Eve that murdered Adam, or anywhere in between.  With the full spectrum of infinity before him, he chose to create the exact version of Eve that we got; the one he already knew would decide to eat the apple.

An omniscient creator cannot roll dice or create a random soul.  Every personality of every human is precisely the personality that God chose for them; God could have made a kind and compassionate Hitler, or a mean and cruel Mother Teresa.  He intentionally selected and assigned their personalities, creating them to be as they were.  Whatever "free will" you may have is constrained by your ability to make decisions... decisions controlled by the personality assigned to you by God at your creation.

I am not a religious man but I think a person needs to research anything they want to argue against. The forbidden fruit is never identified in the Bible. It may be an apple or it could have been several other things.

Now, an omnipotent creator seems to take away the possibility of free will by definition. The being may think they have free will and are making their own decisions but if a creator already knows the outcome then no decisions were really made.

I still think you guys are confusing  "knowing" with "creating" them to be this way. You can't have free will if you are forced to do. You can't love without the choice to not love.

Ultimately, we cannot know for sure why God created Satan, knowing he would rebel. It’s tempting to assume that things would be “better” if Satan had never been created or to declare that God should have done differently. But such assumptions and declarations are unwise. In fact, to claim we know better than God how to run the universe is to fall into the devil’s own sin of promoting himself above the Most High (Isaiah 14:13–14).

There's a "women" joke about Eve that says she had everything. A beautiful world, all she could eat, live forever with a strong relationships with the creator, etc. and yet it still wasn't enough.

That's not "confusion"; it's simple, unavoidable logic.  God has the ability to create any version of Eve he wants, and he chose to create the one that would eat the apple fruit.  You seem to think God is somehow picking a "random" version of Eve, but there is no such thing as "random" to an omniscient being; out of all possible versions, God specifically and intentionally selected the one we got.

To say this is just to say that we have the reality the Most High intended us to have.  Who are you, a fallible human, to say your proper place is not spending eternity in hell?  If trillions of souls were created with a predestiny of eternal torture, well, it's just not our place to second-guess the Holy Creator.

Again, to the extent Eve was flawed, God intentionally gave her those flaws.

This kind of nitpicking over semantics is pretty silly when the Bible wasn't even originally written in English and we're talking about translations.  For example, the first woman's name was not "Eve"; that's simply an English translation of her name.

Man now that is truly a miracle. Is there any info on how?

He gave her the ability to have those flaws when he gave her free will. She chose to do that. If she didn't have free will she would have been a robot and only did what she was created for. The "choice" is free will. Your choice is not to believe and be your own god. God didn't create you not to believe in Him. He created an opportunity for love. It's not the same no matter how many times you say it.

I have never understood something:

How can God know what you're going to do before you do it (which means that the decision is pre-ordained) but then also say that you have free will?  Aren't those two ideas at odds with each other?

Exactly. If God already knows the outcome then the person never had a choice,  just the illusion of having a choice.

Which is kinda true of brain chemistry.  If our brains are organic computers, a "choice" is just output based on whatever input is coming in.  So, maybe free will, in general, is an illusion.  Could you ever have made a choice that you didn't make?

The religious minded will never accept this. The ramifications lead to extremes that they don't want to consider and disproves their religious theory altogether.

If god is all knowing and all powerful then by using logic, god cannot be benevolent. In order to be all good, god has to either not be all knowing, in which case he's just guessing at outcomes, or he cannot be all powerful in which case the limited powers he has are his best attempt at being good.

Because if god is all powerful and all knowing, then he's a mass murdering pedophile and i'm not on board with that being any sort of good.

Of course, the more likely scenario is that god is made up by humans in order to dangle a carrot and use a stick to keep populations in line.

Predestination would be the only theology that makes any sense if God is truly all knowing and all powerful.

Your decision-making process - your personality - defines how you make choices.  That personality is assigned to you by God.

People like CF seem to believe that God is "randomly" giving out personalities, instead of intentionally selecting them for each person.  But that's impossible; nothing can be "random" to an omniscient creator.  Out of the infinite spectrum of personalities, you have precisely the one God selected for you, and you make your choices based on it.

Again, God could have created a murderous Eve, or an obedient Eve, or a lazy Eve that would never have gotten up in the first place, and all of them would equally possess "free will." God specifically chose to give Eve a curious, rebellious personality, with the full knowledge of what would result.

LOL ... honestly ... it's not a difficult concept. I may know my kids are going to do stuff that is wrong but it doesn't mean I caused it. It's their free choice to disobey me. No difference here. Creation to have free will is knowing some will make wrong choices. You cannot have love without the choice to love. Some will choose love and others won't.

you aren't an omniscient creator

Well technically, if God knows everything that's going to happen, he already knows if I'm going to heaven or hell. Correct? If that's the case, then my free will and decisions don't matter at all. Because if where I go when I die is already predetermined, it's a moot point. If God knows that someone is going to hell, then what's the point of trying to go to heaven?

You would be amazed at the amount of Christians I know that preach God, Bible, and Jesus, when in reality their life is lie, cheat, steal, and maniupulate. In my experience, in general, the majority of Christians use their religion as an image and self esteem booster to cover up for their shame and fragile ego.

Ultimately, God's decision to create Satan makes the free will question even less important.  There's no reason Satan needed to exist, which leaves Christian apologists in the position of "Who are we to question the Most Holy?" And once you've fallen back to that bunker, all bets are off.

So what if humans don't actually have free will and trillions were created just to be sentenced to hell?  It's not our place to question God's plan.

Not only will many people in church will go to hell but many pastors, priests etc. will join them. Many people go through the motions without ever surrendering to Christ.

Matthew 7:Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20So then, by their fruit you will recognize them.

21Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’

23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’

With that said many people who live very dark lives end up getting saved so it's hard not to be available for everyone. Kat Von D and Russell Brand are two I bet most people would have thought lost causes. God doesn't share who is and isn't a lost cause.

God himself said not to question Him.

Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The question of sin is the most obvious thing I know of. Our idea of sin as an action but Jesus said if you think or desire a sinful act it is a sin.

Matthew 5:27-28 NIV

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery. 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Which illustrates exactly what I'm talking about. It's best that "ALL" religious people keep it to themselves and not try to "recruit" people. Since as you say, many of them will burn in hell and there's no way to know which one's. Then it's best to not take any of them seriously. It's like used car salesman shit. In my experience, the more someone talks about or pushes "God, Jesus, Bible", the faker they are as a person.

If God himself said not to question him, why does it matter if we have free will or not? What difference would it make if Eve was specifically created to doom all humans?

Christians need free will to exist because it is obviously immoral to punish someone for something they have no control over.  But that doesn't matter if we're not allowed to question God's morality in the first place!

If God's plan is for trillions of souls to be predestined for eternal torture, who are we to question it?

That is so not true. If someone thinks people will perish in a burning hell why would they not tell people? Would you not warn people if you thought you could save them from something? I get there are over the top people who are preaching the gospel. I also know there are many people who do it for the wrong reasons. If they are condemning homosexuality without condemning cohabitating then they have definitely missed the mark. Society's changing standards are not God's standards. If these are the only people you have ever met then you haven't met many Christians. While there are sinners and hypocrites in church because we all are, many of us are trying the best they can. There are a ton of what you would consider good people in the Church.


I get you are a progressive liberal where you like to pretend anything you do is someone else's fault but they are not predestined by God to do this. They choose to separate themselves from the will of God. You can change your mind and follow Him at any time. Plenty of atheist's spend a lifetime bashing the "silly man in the sky" but eventually decide to investigate and end up having a change of heart.

With a omniscient, omnipotent god, this is literally impossible, unless it is gods will that they separate themselves.

and this by the way:

is alot like the super hot girlfriend i had in middle school, but you'd never meet her, you now .. cause she lives in canada.

Because it's no one's job to save me from hell. God gives everyone free will to make their own decisions. Which in turn leads to accountabilty for those actions. If someone's faith is solely based on fear of eternal damnation, it cannot be considered true faith. In that case it would be considered maniupulation. If God, heaven, or hell actually exist, it's up to each and every individual to make that decision. Not to be poked, prodded, and manipulated by a group of people (Christians) looking for validation and atterntion, most of whom are going to hell themselves (if it actually exists). Hypocrisy at its finest. Since as you say, "We're all sinners", then the following quote seems fitting for most Christians. "First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye."

Also, I've met and been involved with many Christians, literally thousands. And while I cannot make a blanket statement about "all" Christians. I can say that most Christians show you what they want you to see. Narcissism and cluster B traits run rampent within the Christian community. No telling how many Christians I've known who seem like good people, only to find out later all the shady shit they do behind the scenes. Not to mention, every Christian woman I've ever been involved with (quite a few) was a serial cheater LMFAO

I don't take exercise advice from obese people, I don't take financial advice from broke people, and I don't take religious advice from people who can't follow the rules of the very book they're peddling. If I somehow find God one day, I'll find him myself. I'm fairly conservative and just calling it like I see it.

All of us are guilty of this one at some point in our lives.

We are all guilty of pretty much everything. That's why we need a Savior because we will never been good.

I agree with a lot of the principals of the Bible. However, I totally disagree with this one. Everyone looks at and/or has fantasies  about people they find attractive. Not everyone cheats or commits adultry. The two are not the same, not even close 

God knows your final destination long before you are born.  You say you can "change your mind at any time," but if God knows you are going to hell, to "change your mind" would mean that God was mistaken... which is impossible.

You simply reject that straightforward logic because admitting it to be true would mean your God is glaringly unjust in punishing people for decisions they were created to make.  As I said before: Satan did not have to be evil; God chose to make him that way.  And your only rebuttal to that is "We cannot question God's will."

Not at all. I'm saying you can be Charles Manson and then actually repent later in life and be saved by God's Grace. It just isn't a secret to Him that it was going to happen. It also isn't a given that tomorrow will happen for any of us.

LOL ...  you can accuse me of a lot but I'll admit it. I'm kind of glad I can't, nor can any genius here on earth, figure everything out. I love that God is much wiser than me and has proven it time and time again. It actually brings comfort and makes it easier to follow Him when I clearly do not understand the why.

^ I'm not trying to be difficult, but I just don't understand how that's anything except for the illusion of choice.  It's like saying a computer chose to do a thing it was programmed to do.

I don't have a dog in the fight since I believe all of this God nonsense is total poppycock regardless, but in terms of the logic to get you to a position, if your choice is predetermined, is it really a choice?

If the future is already known and unchangeable, you don't have a choice.  You are simply doing what you were created to do; whatever decisions you think you are making are already built-in.

You are a prisoner of the mind that you have; a mind that was given to you by God.

I think there's a BIG difference between seeing into the future and knowing what will happen and causing the outcome. I think it's very possible to know that the Dolphins will win the 2026 Superbowl without having CAUSED the Dolphins to win the 2026 Superbowl.

I don't believe that God pre-determines what I will do, he simply can see the future where I have already made the choice. I still make the choice in the present, God doesn't make the choice for me, but he can see the future and what choice I will make. There's a big difference.

Consider the back to the future movies. If you are Marty and go back in time you know what will happen in the future even though it hasn't happened yet. That doesn't mean that Marty causes those things to happen, he simply knows what will happen.

Really?  Can you explain how it would be possible to know that?


This seems to require a fantasy where where a future exists which hasn't happened yet.


This is exactly the point.  Back to the Future is a fictional story that doesn't actually follow the laws of nature as we understand them.  And even in that universe, characters can make multiple choices which result in very different timelines.

Not if you created every atom in the entire universe and set it on its defined path.

When God is creating souls, he knows what the destination of that soul will be.
He also knows that if he created them slightly differently - e.g. a little more reckless, or a little more cautious - how that change would affect the outcome.
He chooses to make everyone exactly as they are, with the knowledge and intention of how their life will go.

Back to the Future is a horrible example. Marty absolutely made things happen, he changed the course of events. The exact opposite of predestination. You are actually helping make our case.

Existing in a different timeframe. Our predecessors didn't know a lot of things that we know. Why wouldn't someone from the future know many things that we don't know now? Just because they know the past, doesn't mean they caused the past, they merely are looking back on what occurred. For them, it's not the future, for them it's the past.

All that is required is someone that exists outside of our timeframe.

It was only an analogy to help you understand, it's not what I believe. What we know to be the laws of nature are evolving constantly and what we perceive as the laws of nature might be very different from what my God perceives. The fact I don't understand it doesn't really mean much, I can imagine a God that does understand.

There are not multiple choices, merely multiple timeframes. I live in a different timeframe then my parents. I can look back on the choices they made and know what they are. They had free will to make those choices, but now I know what choices they made. Anyone outside your timeframe can look back in time to see the choice that someone else made in their timeframe. It's only necessary that they exist in that person's future. I believe God exists in all time frames including my future.

It's only an anology to help you understand about timeframes. I'm not suggesting it's the same thing, I'm not suggesting that God can go back in time and change the past, he doesn't. I'm merely trying to help you understand that changing the timeframe changes how you perceive things. In a different timeframe what's the future for you is the past for someone else and someone in your future absolutely would be able to know the choices you made in their past. They can't change them and they certainly didn't cause them, but they would know what they were. That's what I believe my God knows.

In Back to the Future, the future is not set in stone and your actions change it.
In the Bible Cinematic Universe, the future is already known (by God) and unchangeable.

And once more, importantly: God made people the way they are with the knowledge of which future that would create.

I don't believe that my God defined my path or the path of all substance for that matter. He created it, but he did not define it's path.

Because he's there when that soul reaches it's destination. It doesn't mean that God chose that destination for him.

Is this your belief? It's not mine.

It's only an analogy, I didn't offer it up as an explanation of God, only how different timeframes affect your perception.

He knows because he exists in all timeframes, so yes he does know what the future is and no he can't change it. It doesn't mean he caused it to happen that way, he only knows how it turned out after it happened.

Having the knowledge of how it turns out is not the same thing as creating it to turn out in that way. You are fundamentally rewriting the belief system of many people including mine.

Do you believe your God is all-knowing?  If so, what you say is logically impossible.

When an omniscient creator makes an atom, he cannot place it "randomly" or give it a "random" trajectory.  When he creates an atom, he necessarily knows the precise future position of that atom for every moment of its existence, based on where he creates it and what initial velocity he gives it... because he also knows the precise position and velocity of every other atom in the universe, and therefore necessarily knows how those other atoms will interact with the atom he just created.  For all eternity.

So you say. Knowledge does not equal cause for me. You are free to believe what you want. As I have said, I have knowledge of things that have happened in the past. I didn't cause them to happen, so obviously knowledge does not equal cause. It's not logically impossible for me.

This is your definition of all knowing. It's not mine and not for most of the people that believe in God in my humble opinion. I'm not trying to convince you, I'm simply stating my belief.

By the way, I describe my God as omnipresent, not omniscient. It's a subtle but important distinction.

If you do not believe your God is all-knowing (i.e. "omniscient"), you aren't talking about the same thing as the rest of us.
I would also say that you aren't talking about the God of the Christian Bible (who is omniscient), but whatever.

I don't claim to be of any particular denomination although I was raised Catholic. I also don't believe you have to be of a particular denomination to believe in God or talk about the subject. If you are going to limit the talk to just your definition of God, I guess that does skew the subject matter quite a bit towards your own beliefs.

For the record, I believe omnipresent is an all-knowing God, just not the exact same definition that you understand all-knowing to mean which is why I mentioned it. If you exist everywhere at all times, then you know everything that's ever been which for me is all-knowing. I believe God has been described that way many times.

So if he sees a future that he can't change, but is absolute. Then what's the point of doing anything? If God can't change my future, I sure as hell can't

Also, miracles, blessings, and answering prayers would be changing it. Any active outside intervention changes something, no matter how minute.

You have joined the wrong discussion.  We have been talking about an all-knowing creator this whole time:






---
Everyone but you is talking about an omniscient creator that knows literally everything.

Fau Tiexeira, Dave, Phishfan and Denver2 all mention God (sometimes referred to as an all knowing God) in your quotes. You're the only one that mentioned an omniscient creator in your quote which I pointed out is different from my understanding of an all-knowing God, but since you seem to object to my presence in the conversation, I'll bow out and let you continue on the discussion without me. Carry on.

Strictly speaking, that's not changing the future, because God already knows when he is (and isn't) going to intervene.

It just means that prayer is pointless, because God is going to act according to his plan whether you pray or not.

It changes the outcome of my free will decisions. If I'm irrisponsible with money and God blesses me with some kind of winfall. It changes the outcome of my free will decision. If I decide to chain smoke and get cancer and God miraculously cures my cancer. It changes the outcome of my free will decision. Most of the Christians I've dealt with have had a problem with self awareness, accountability, and anywhere from being slightly delusional to full on quacktown delusional. Having said that, I do know quite a few Christians that are good people. And they aren't trying to recruit and sell their PERSONAL relationship with God to me or other people.


*For forum members in this discussion, I don't know you personally. Therefore, my views don't necessarily apply to you.  

Well, you never had "free will" in the first place, because God decided your entire life's path (including his interventions/blessings/cures) billions of years before he got around to creating you.  That's the point.

Only if he's real. Otherwise we all have free will to somewhat determine our outcomes. I have yet to see any credible evidence of this all good and all powerful being. I'm sure I'll expire before I have any confirmation that such a being exists. Oh well, at least I've seen grainy photos of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster though.

Oh, of course there is no real "omniscient creator," since we do have free will.
The argument that free will cannot exist if the God of the Bible is as described is used as evidence that said god does not exist.

Maybe a better example:  I can see into the future and and know that on Sept 21,2025 there will be a solar eclipse in the southern hemisphere.  I am not going to cause the eclipse and I am powerless to prevent the eclipse.  At one time humanity did not the possess the ability to make such a prediction. 

In the past century man's ability to predict the weather has improved greatly. Maybe at sometime in the future we will be able to perfectly predict the path of a hurricane. That is much more likely than us developing the ability to alter the path of a hurricane. 

I can even sometimes predict human behavior. Does my knowing that every morning my neighbor will walk her dog at 7:34 am mean that she doesn't have the free will to walk her dog at 7:33 or 7:35 or not at all?  Does she lack free will or does she just prefer routine?

This is a false premise.  You cannot see into the future.  You are making a prediction based on known data.  That's not the same thing.

Sorry to interject again, but Hoodie is making another analogy. Hoodie is not claiming to be a God. However, if there were a God that could exist in a different timeframe than our own and if for him all of the events that will occur for us have already occurred for him (making him all knowing), then he would be looking back at what had happened, not looking into the future at least not for him. My God has already witnessed the solar eclipse that happens on Sept 21, 2025 and all of the subsequent solar eclipses that will happen after that one as well as all the ones that occurred prior to that one. That's the God that I propose and that proposal does not preclude free will.

Again I want to clarify I'm only stating my beliefs. I'm not here to change anyone's mind or argue about it. Everyone is free to have their own opinion, this is just mine. I would like to say though that I'm not the first to propose this God, he has been proposed many times for centuries.

Making an accurate prediction based on known data is seeing into the future.  If given enough data and a proper model I could predict the exact paths of hurricanes, earthquakes, which people will commit murder, who will get cancer, and who will become a drug addict, but we don't currently possess the that ability, that does not mean a more intelligent being does not. 

Y'all are making a false equivalence between predicting the future and creating it.

Even if you (a human) can predict solar eclipses with perfect accuracy: you didn't create the earth and sun!  You didn't put them into motion!  If you are an all-knowing creator, and you created the sun and planets with a given initial velocity, with your perfect understanding of physics you chose when every eclipse would happen - forever - when you set everything in motion.

LOL ... pot calling the kettle black don't ya think. You keep saying if He created it He made them do it like it's a fact. It's your opinion based on nothing but your opinion. That's not what the Bible teaches so I do not believe that at all. He created us to be with Him, and gave us free will to love. Those that choose not to love Him and love only themselves can only do so because they have a choice.  If no one had the opportunity to say no then it wouldn't be a choice. It would be a robot and robots don't can't love.

CF, you believe that the people who choose to love God do so out of free will, right?  They aren't "robots."

If God knew billions of years ago exactly which humans would and would not choose to love him, why doesn't he just not create the ones that he already knows will choose to damn themselves to eternal torture?  That doesn't interfere with "free will" at all, nor does it create "robots."

Oh, right... we can't question God's plan anytime logic would require an answer to unnecessary suffering.

Many secular philosophers don’t believe in free will as well, and i tend to agree with them .

You can't have one without the other. If Adam and Eve never had a choice to do something against God they would have never actually had a choice. From that time on evil has existed and suffering and hardship are a part of life in this fallen world. Jesus said that while bad things happen to everyone, including both the righteous and the unrighteous, believers can find peace and hope in him, as he has overcome the world. Jesus also taught that God can use suffering for good and that believers should not be surprised by trials. If everyone was good no one would grow.

You can't have one what without the other?  Be specific.

The point you have been making this whole time was specifically that just because God knows what your choice will be, that doesn't mean you weren't the one that made it freely.  So how is it "removing choice" to simply not create all the people who will make choices that get them sent to hell?

There are an infinite number of souls that have not been created, and at least some of them would make choices that get them to heaven.  God regularly decides which souls to create and which souls not to create, and God knows exactly which of those souls will choose hell and which will choose heaven.  Yet instead of choosing to create only the souls that will make it to heaven, he chooses a mix.  Why?

You can't use logic to defend that kind of obvious immorality.  "We can't question God's plan" is your only real answer.

I fundamentally disagree with this statement to the point that it's not worth discussing.

If you do not have the choice to not love God then everyone would be robots. Sin, or in this case choosing the forbidden fruit would not have been a choice if it wasn't there. We all fight against flesh and spirit. The flesh wants to do its own thing while the spirit is always needing God to fill the void. It's our choice which one we make. The fact He already knows what we will choose is not forcing us one way or the other.

That's kind of what I believe.  We are essentially organic computers that cannot break beyond our programming.

You are arguing that evil must exist in order to be able to "choose" good.  This is not the position of a perfectly good creator.

Furthermore, there are all sorts of choices (literally: an infinite number) that we "don't get to make" because God never creates them for us.  For example, we can't fly (or otherwise travel) to Heaven while alive, so we don't have the choice of whether or not to try to attack heaven.  That's a good-vs-evil choice that we are simply not allowed to make.  Does that make us all robots?

I mean....kinda????  We are organic computers.  Even taking God out of the equation, we have algorithms that run our decision-making.  We give output based on a bunch of input, all of which is out of our control.  So, it's not all that different.