pugsrule wrote:
I'm not a religious person, but if I'm not misinformed, God gave man/woman free will, meaning that nothing is preordained or written in advance. In other words, our choices determine how we live our life and what becomes of it.
Assuming that the Christian conception of god is the accurate conception of god, let alone there not even being a metaphysical being currently or previously being in existence, god does know everything that will ever happen, and cannot be wrong about it.
pugsrule wrote:This is not religious gobbledygook, it is supported by quantum mechanics (QM). Prior to the many-worlds theory of QM, "reality had always been viewed as a single unfolding history. Many-worlds, however, views reality as a many-branched tree, wherein every possible quantum outcome is realized" (wikipedia).
This is irrelevant. Whether or not there are alternate realities, or just one, if the Christian conception of god is accurate, he'd know everything in all realities, and the same argument I made previously would still stand.
pugsrule wrote:God "might know the outcome of every game for the rest of eternity", but does that inhibit the "players" from trying their best, specially in light that we all have free will and our own actions determine our future? To use an analogy, it's like Biff in Back to the future knowing the results of the games in the future.
Trying their best, no. It actually requires not that they try their best, but rather that they try the exact amount that god already knew they were going to try, resulting it the exact things happening that he already knew were going to happen. I don't know anything about Back to the Future, but praying to the single entity in the universe that already knows the unchangeable outcome of something to change it, is stupid no matter how you slice it.
To simplify it, let's try an analogy. Let's say you and a friend want to determine who gets to go first in a game you've invented, so you ask me to flip a coin for you. As I flip the coin, you call heads. Per standard casual coin flipping rules I catch the coin in my right hand and flip it onto the back of the other where I take a peek at it, but do not yet show you or your friend. Because I am honest and fair, and have no vested interest in whether you or your friend get to go first at Ultimate Flame Ball, and have both of you looking right at my hands, I can't and won't cheat to change the outcome of the coin flip. At this point, you beg me to change the coin flip so that you are the winner of it, even though I'm right in front of you both, I already know what it is, and can't do a single thing about it even if I wanted to. Your begging is: A. Useless B. Stupid C. Annoying D. All of the above. The correct answer, of course, is D.