(08-08-2023, 03:27 AM)airportkid Wrote:(08-08-2023, 02:17 AM)Dancefortwo Wrote: He gave me another downvote
Run this by him:
10,000 years ago god fashioned two boxes with you in mind. One box is opaque, the other clear. Both can only be opened by breaking them open. Inside the clear box is a gold nugget worth $1,000. Inside the other god either did or did not place a rare opal worth $1,000,000. These boxes will be presented to you on live television. You can either choose only the opaque box, or choose both boxes. 10,000 years ago god knew which choice you'd make. If he knew you'd take only the opaque box, he put the opal inside. If he knew you'd take both boxes, he left the opaque box empty. God thus far has never been wrong. Now, on live television, what choice do you make? The actual contents of the boxes was determined 10,000 years before you were born.
Great analogy. However, it's not just the content of the box and my decision that was predetermined, but all the surrounding decisions and events were predetermined too. They guy who made the box, the finding of the opal, the invention of television and prior to that the harnessing of electricity and so on.
I think of prophecy as an enormous chessboard with millions of moves that are predetermined and everyone must make the correct move for the last denouement checkmate. And according to theists, who love to claim that their god "has a plan", their god MUST win the game so every pawn's decision has to lead to their god winning the game. This is not a free will, free choice gameboard.
Of course, you and I and everyone on this forum know prophecy is bullshit. Any book like the Bible, written over a few hundred years, cannot be prophetic because each successive writer can write the story to post-fit the previous writer's predictions. The new testament is a great example of this.
