Basic questions

[sturtlaghari]

We are told that a loving God/Allah created us individually and endowed us with an eternal soul and with free will.  We are further told that God is all-knowing and all-seeing.  Still further that how we use "free will" determine whether our individual ultimate fate will be a heaven or a hell.  And further still that God has preordained all good and all evil.  And, moreover, that we are to use the God-given faculty of reason.

According to my reasoning, this is all paradoxical.

How can "free will" operate to alter what has been predetermined?

How can an omniscient God create a person that he purportedly loves, with the foreknowledge -- indeed, His own predetermination -- that the person will suffer as his ultimate fate eternal burning in a hell?

Why would an omnipotent, loving God preordain evil?

Why would an eternal God with no beginning, who has existed for infinite eternities within eternities, decide to create humans for the sole purpose of worshipping him.

Why does an omnipotent God need anything at all, especially the craven worship of lowly humans?

[Man of Faith]

Read on the forum with the URL given in the end of my posts here for answers to your questions. And if you still do not receive the answer from what has already been written you may inquire me there or here.

Wellness to you
Amenuel

[sturtlaghari]

How about ust addressing the paradox of predetermination coexisting with "free will", for starters.  How do you explain that one, please?

[Invalid777]

Hello Sturtlaghari

My faculty of reason, which, according to Islamic doctrine as I understandit, I am encouraged to use fully

Your faculty of reason is dependent on whether or not you chose to adhere to the religious dogma. Islam?s twisted logic encourages to you ?use your faculty of reason? whilst threatening you with eternal torture for ?doubting?. Using your faculty of reason to evaluate and ponder on whether something is acceptable or not will ultimately lead to having doubts. These doubts will in turn develop in to either accepting it as inconclusive OR ignore all doubts and accept it as factual. You just cannot separate doubt with reasoning since reasoning involves evaluation.  If you want me to believe that Muhammad flew on a winged horse through the seven heavens to meet a stationary Allah or Allah speaking to Moses through a burning bush, all without any evidence AND without doubting thus reasoning must go out the window since there is no room for doubting.
As for the threats of hell, what kind of God would threaten you with eternal torture for not blindly accepting a book that he never even wrote but also tell you to use reasoning? Fear is a counterproductive state, so it really makes no sense for you to threaten your creation with eternal torture while telling them to use reasoning and not doubt.

causes me to ask why an all-powerful God who created and loves me uses only ancient human messengers to communicate with me at such distance in time and space, and with the barriers of language and imperfect translations 

Islam claims that the Quran is the last message from God.  This God choses to rely on a human who lived centuries before you to write a book. You are now required to have 100% confidence in the people who wrote the Quran since the Quran you have in your hands today is not the original Quran but a ?copy?. The only way to prove that the Quran you have in your hands today is identical to the one written 1400 years ago is to have the original Quran and make a comparison. You are of course meant to ignore all these factors and blindly believe that the Quran has remained unaltered. IF you do not believe so, then you are a kafir. You have now disbelieved because you have doubts.  You will now be tortured for eternity in hell for this by this same God who proclaims to be the most merciful.

Why does He not reveal himself directly and unmistakably to me, and to everyone else?

Reveal as in what exactly? I do not expect a material object to pop out of nowhere and proclaim itself to be God. I also don?t expect to walk by a burning bush only to hear voices in my head telling me it is God. Frankly, I would need to get my mental health checked if that was the case.  It is a difficult question for me to answer because I do not know this force but what I do know is that it won?t materialize itself and ?speak? to me through a burning bush, torture me for eternity for using my faculty of reason, bully me to blindly believe in dogma, worship a stone cube or jog around two rock outcropping deities 7 times in the Hajj marathon.

[sturtlaghari]

I truly appreciate you comments, which are in accord with my own reason and thinking.

But it becomes more than a question of dogma and personal belief with me, because I hope to marry a very wonderful Quranic lady in Malaysia, which requires recognized certification by the religious/government authorities there of my conversion to Islam as defined by them.

Any advice?

[Invalid777]

We are told that a loving God/Allah created us individually and endowed us with an eternal soul and with free will.  We are further told that God is all-knowing and all-seeing.  Still further that how we use "free will" determine whether our individual ultimate fate will be a heaven or a hell.  And further still that God has preordained all good and all evil.  And, moreover, that we are to use the God-given faculty of reason.

According to my reasoning, this is all paradoxical.

And you?re absolutely right.  It is an issue that I have been pondering for the past few weeks. I?ve been thinking about what free will is and have discovered some inconsistencies regarding this idea of us humans having free will. Free will is when you have the ability to create your future. You are in full control of what you do, your destiny hence responsible for what you do.
Let?s start from my birth. Did ask to become a human? Did I have any say in who my parents were going to be? Where I was going to be born? I did not make any of these choices so where does free will fit here? The person or thing that decided this is responsible for it because he/it decided that I should be created and be placed into this hellhole known as earth. You often hear religious people say ?God doesn?t owe you anything?. Anything bad that happens is because of you and anything good is because of God?s mercy.? ?God is testing you?

Let?s pretend to be God for a moment to get an idea of how much sense these claims makes. Let?s pretend to create a bunch of advanced robots, all have different shapes and sizes. You install two different software?s into them, one to the animals and another to the humans. Unlike animals, humans are aware of themselves.
Since you are all-knowing and all-wise, you know exactly what you are going to do and how everything is going to end. You make no mistakes. Everything you do is intentional and the outcome is known to you before you even do it. You do not need to ?test? or ?try? something because you KNOW everything.

Everything you create is perfect because you make no mistakes. That disabled baby born with no limbs, that child who was born deaf and that child who was born blind. They are all perfect because that is exactly how the Creator intended it to be. No mistake was made.  So why make the child suffer? To ?test its patience?? What is there to even test if you know everything? What did the child do to deserve to be created into this hellhole and suffer? It had no say in it whatsoever so where is the ?free will??

When you install the intelligent software into the robot you call human, you program it to behave in certain ways. You program it to have a sense of arrogance. To be driven by greed. To dominate. To compete with other. In other words, to be destructive.  To add to this, you make 7+ billion of these destructive treacherous creatures and the result is the world that exists today. You now have these creatures doing exactly what YOU programmed them to do. They kill, torture, betray, lie and rape.  You knew exactly what was going to happen when you were programming these creatures and multiplied them but you then go on to claim everything bad is now the fault of the creation. Now how preposterous does that sound? 

This blame game now conflicts with your claim that you are all powerful. If my brother builds a bomb and blows up a house, I am not responsible for him being destructive because I have no control over him. But just imagine you building a bomb and then blaming that same bomb for blowing up. How insane does that sound? The only way for you to claim that it isn?t your fault for that bomb you built to blow up is for you to lose control of it OR not knowing that it would blow up. You simply cannot say that you knew exactly what that bomb was going to do when you built it and then blame the bomb itself for blowing up and destroying things even though that was your intention. To build something destructive. That was your exact intention because you make no mistakes.

Another idea that I?ve been entertaining for a while that corresponds to the dogma pushed by religion is that ?God? is in fact not all-knowing and all-wise. This God is experimenting with his creation. He doesn?t know exactly what is going to happen. Why? Because he is experimenting/testing. He has been successful in creating this intelligence known as human that is advanced enough to move around, think and have feelings. He then multiplies this intelligence. Since he isn?t all powerful, he doesn?t have full control over us, why you ask? Because, he is experimenting because he isn?t all-knowing. He is learning himself. Now he can tell us that we have free will and anything you do is our fault. Since he isn?t perfect and has needs, he tells you that you ought to worship him or else he?ll torture you for eternity.

How can "free will" operate to alter what has been predetermined? How can an omniscient God create a person that he purportedly loves, with the foreknowledge -- indeed, His own predetermination -- that the person will suffer as his ultimate fate eternal burning in a hell?

Free will whereby it is your fault for God to create you to fail and end in hell for eternal torture BEFORE you were even born isn?t free will. That is just a puppet. Why even create them to fail and then torture them for eternity? You knew exactly that this batch of creatures were going to fail because you programmed them to fail(predetermination) and thus end up in hell for eternal torture.  So what just happened here? You didn?t just program your creatures to fail (predetermination), you also torture them for eternity for failing.
These poor humans who were predetermined to burn in hell forever had no choice in them being created or their destiny.  Either God is some insecure hypocrite who doesn?t like being blamed for anything or he has in fact no control over us and we have free will and can decide our destiny thus we are responsible for we do. In that case, you can conclude that free will and God being all-knowing and all-powerful just don?t go together. 

Why would an omnipotent, loving God preordain evil?

I don?t believe God is omnipotent or loving if he did exist. The force that I believe in isn?t God but rather what keeps this hell hole going AKA the universe. Why does it do it? I don?t know. But what I do know is that it has no morals because it created morals.  Morals were developed by humans over time during evolution.  Morals never always existed but is a recent phenomena.  It?s one of the few things that differentiates us from other animals.

Why would an eternal God with no beginning, who has existed for infinite eternities within eternities, decide to create humans for the sole purpose of worshipping him.

Another reason why there really is no God. The God of religion is pretty much comparable to a narcissistic, self-centred hypocritical human. Just like a human, God has needs but doesn?t really want to admit it. He tells you to worship him just after bragging about how all-powerful he is. He needs an ego boost every now and then in order to receive his blessings.  Perform some group gymnastic sessions known as salat while worshiping a stone cube.  Your reward is the Quranic version of Valhalla AKA Jannah where you drink alcohol, sit on couches and receive virgins. Surprisingly the Vikings also believed in Valhalla. A place where you would end up for fighting in their wars. In Valhalla you would sit on comfortable chairs and drink alcohol. 
This God also forgot to address the physically disabled in his last message to humanity(Quran). There is not a single explanation in how disabled individuals are to perform these physical actions such as salat and hajj.    Here is an earlier post I made addressing this laughable worship.  http://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9608172.msg382769#msg382769

[sturtlaghari]

I think humans have evolved to compulsively identify cause and effect.  In their simplest forms, proximate causes are fully apparent: lightning strikes a tree, and the tree burns.  The next question is, what caused the lightning?  Something primitive man could not investigate rationally, so he invented a sky god to cause lightning.  What caused the sky god, then?  Convenient place to stop asking questions.  With more rational, scientific understanding of natural phenomena, the question of more-antecedent causes was pushed back so far that an unseen and unseeable universal cause was propounded: God, the ultimate single cause of all that is.  Of course, as has been pointed out by such people as Bertrand Russell, if we can believe that God is timeless and was not caused, then why can we not as readily believe that the cosmos itself, in its entirety (which entirety certainly is not fully apparent to us), is timesless and without beginning or end.

The notion of free will itself implies first cause in individual human volition. Sso, it amounts to equating human power with the presumed power of God as first cause.

[Bender]

We are told that a loving God/Allah created us individually and endowed us with an eternal soul and with free will.  We are further told that God is all-knowing and all-seeing.  Still further that how we use "free will" determine whether our individual ultimate fate will be a heaven or a hell.  And further still that God has preordained all good and all evil.  And, moreover, that we are to use the God-given faculty of reason.

According to my reasoning, this is all paradoxical.

How can "free will" operate to alter what has been predetermined?

How can an omniscient God create a person that he purportedly loves, with the foreknowledge -- indeed, His own predetermination -- that the person will suffer as his ultimate fate eternal burning in a hell?

Why would an omnipotent, loving God preordain evil?

Why would an eternal God with no beginning, who has existed for infinite eternities within eternities, decide to create humans for the sole purpose of worshipping him.

Why does an omnipotent God need anything at all, especially the craven worship of lowly humans?

Hi and welcome to the forum 

In your questions you assume something and then you question your assumption. Maybe you have to reevaluate your assumptions.
I mean you have created your own paradoxes.

[sturtlaghari]

Hi,

You response is quite vague.  What did I assume?

[Bender]

Hi,

You response is quite vague.  What did I assume?

Hi,

Check every question you asked, and ask your self what is a fact and what is an assumption.
I know a lot of assumptions really look like facts but I am sure that if you give it some time you will recognize the assumptions.

[sturtlaghari]

Perhaps you would be so kind to point them out, since I can't find them.  Thank you.

[Bender]

Perhaps you would be so kind to point them out, since I can't find them.  Thank you.

Hi,

With all due respect, I do not believe that you have pondered on your questions in just 3 minutes.

"How can "free will" operate to alter what has been predetermined?"
You have set up a free will, and you decided that that free will has to operate in predetermined way.
How should that be ever possible?
To me it looks like either we have no free will or a free will who is for real free.
I believe in the last case.

I am sure you can find the flaws on your own on the rest of your questions, just give them some more time then 3 minutes.

[Man of Faith]

I thought of saving some of that time I waste writing the same thing over and over again and why I pointed in the direction of that URL. Well, I suppose I become better each time I try to explain.

Predestination does not innately exist but everything is determined while the timeline is being composed. If someone influential determines something then certain events may be seemingly predestined as the influential person affects future events. It is about being in control inside a shared platform. The explanation for exactly how that works can be rather complicated and it may help having graphical illustrations and a whiteboard.

Free will does exist to a great extent albeit if hit by (one finds themselves within) a so-called prophecy then it can result in involuntary action and they may strive for something they can give no explanation for except "something drives them to it". It is praiseworthy to recognize that something makes them do it as many are not even that, for example, 'Daesh' (ISIS) is following an ancient prophecy by Isaiah without knowing they actually fulfill one of the antagonist sides of it. That is the fate of being controlled unto a deed. If they were more bright-minded and awake they would obviously not have done so for their superior Spirit would have stopped them, but since they are not alive but dead they cannot recognize it. This is the definition of being a real slave to "God".

At least Jesus was able to know his destiny had been controlled by Isaiah when he said "my will is not my own but of the one who sent me" and that was in that he did everything he had been prophesied to do and it was also intended as a sign but also how the world works in reality, through the power of determination which is called faith, faith to have things happen. This is the real definition of faith.

People simply do not understand that as a collective we make up what is "God" and thus there is much willpower involved from multiple directions yet one and the same. So, the most influential beings in the unity have the greatest determination power. They are in control, and they are not the lifeless ones. They are also called Malekat in Arabic which is usually called Angels in English and together they make up what is called Rabb in Arabic. Rabb means morphologically 'Foundation-Giver' when breaking it down letter-by-letter and is kind of universal platform which is also alive in its own right; "Ya Rabb" used in Quran symbolizes that it is a personal address, but it may also be that you address the universe at whole (i.e. everything) in which you are a part.

No matter what, Rabb needs to be a constancy, something that is infinite or else there is no logical explanation. However, beyond this contradicting world it appears the Rabb has a hidden motive of growing truly conscious beings inside of its own image and this is possible to work out through logical deduction. Thus Rabb is expanding through these means and the growth does not lack a purpose like if Rabb had created everything as a mere entertainment to see how things would unravel. I always wondered why Rabb even bothered to create the world until I realized it is to expand by acquiring developed shares.

Wellness to you
Amenuel

[Man of Faith]

By the way, I also use the term "sky man" together with Ahmad Bilal on this forum. It definitely suits the deity in the Pagan cults which have a worldly portrayal of "God" and which is mostly predominant in the world.

Utterly that perception makes no sense of course.

Wellness to you
Amenuel

[Student of Allah]

Shalom Aleikhem Bender,

After a long time. Hope you are doing well.

Hi,

With all due respect, I do not believe that you have pondered on your questions in just 3 minutes.

"How can "free will" operate to alter what has been predetermined?"
You have set up a free will, and you decided that that free will has to operate in predetermined way.
How should that be ever possible?
To me it looks like either we have no free will or a free will who is for real free.
I believe in the last case.

I am sure you can find the flaws on your own on the rest of your questions, just give them some more time then 3 minutes.

I think you misinterpreted his question. He wasn't saying that "free will" itself if predetermined. He was saying that God already KNEW how it'll end for that person. Therefore, rendering free will IRRELEVANT and passing judgement ASININE!  If you still don't get it, let me provide the following example:

- You created a humanoid terminator style robot that makes decisions on it's own (FREE WILL)
- EVEN BEFORE MAKING THE ROBOT you KNEW that the robot will go shoot your mom in the face and kill her
- You make the robot, the robot runs to your mom and shoots her in the face killing her

The robot did it out of it's "free will". However, are you free of guilt? You made that robot knowing what it'd do after booting up. That could be held up in a court of law against you. As long as you confess to having full knowledge in advance and still went ahead with your plan to make the robot, you are partly responsible. In fact, between you and the robot, you had more "free will". You could have chosen not to make the robot and your mom would have been alive. But the robot didn't have that luxury. The robot's fat had only ONE outcome which you have foreseen.

What makes all of this more bizarre is that then you end up being the judge who sentences the robot to torture for it's crime!



@Sturtlaghari

What if God exists and is not good and not all that intelligent or truthful?


Peace
----------------- Student of Allah

[faruk]

What was the question again?

Oh yeah it is in the title I guess "Heaven and Hell: Is it a fair deal?".

Let us look upon FreedomStands, his glorious countenance as he responds *golf silence*:

No. The Answer is No.

Amazing! FreedomStands answered perhaps faster than a Magic 8 Ball! How does he do it? I have the hots for him, that's for sure!

Why is the answer No?

Because it is not fair or just to create things and then threaten them and put them at risk. I am so sorry none of you could apparently think of that yourselves (I don't know if anyone did, I didn't read all the foolish things people were likely to have said with their lips hanging loosely).

Who said God is "fair" by your definitions? God is not "fair" or "just" by normal standards, nor is God as "kind" as you might hope. The proof of that is the ignorant state you mentioned. It is immediately cruel that God has left you in your limited awareness, and you're filled with difficult questions and might even feel lost and astray. Is an of that nice? Why doesn't God simply answer your question? How would you know the answer is right? Many times the confident ones are also delusional (oh you must think that means me!)

Is Heaven fair? No. Is existing fair? Nope. Is Hell fair? Nah. I'm running out ways to say Nein!

Do you think my answer is wrong? Let me know how I can be wrong.

God is the Ignorant one. Oh shoot, what new blasphemy has FreedomStands uttered?

What knowledge did Allah have before Allah created knowledge and information? Or was the "Knowledge" and Information not created, a partner along with God? So that if Pharoah is part of information, that Pharoah was with God from the beginning?

No, God is Pure, the Ignorant One, God knows NOTHING except what God generates, then it is "known" and then it becomes "unknown", and the Knowledge has no stability or eternity. In the beginning was Ignorance and God remains ignorant. What God is ignorant of, has no existence anywhere, that is evident, because if God knows something it exists, and if everything existed you would not be able to move or do anything. Thus all things are based on ignorance, without ignorance there could be no motion or action, and Ignorance is an important attribute of Allah, however despicable it seems to say it.

http://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9607786.msg375541#msg375541

[Bender]

Shalom Aleikhem Bender,

After a long time. Hope you are doing well.

Hi SoA,

I am fine thank you. How are you?

I think you misinterpreted his question. He wasn't saying that "free will" itself if predetermined. He was saying that God already KNEW how it'll end for that person. Therefore, rendering free will IRRELEVANT and passing judgement ASININE!  If you still don't get it, let me provide the following example:

- You created a humanoid terminator style robot that makes decisions on it's own (FREE WILL)
- EVEN BEFORE MAKING THE ROBOT you KNEW that the robot will go shoot your mom in the face and kill her
- You make the robot, the robot runs to your mom and shoots her in the face killing her

The robot did it out of it's "free will". However, are you free of guilt? You made that robot knowing what it'd do after booting up. That could be held up in a court of law against you. As long as you confess to having full knowledge in advance and still went ahead with your plan to make the robot, you are partly responsible. In fact, between you and the robot, you had more "free will". You could have chosen not to make the robot and your mom would have been alive. But the robot didn't have that luxury. The robot's fat had only ONE outcome which you have foreseen.

What makes all of this more bizarre is that then you end up being the judge who sentences the robot to torture for it's crime!

Well I actually heard this reasoning before, but it's the same.
In your example you have decided that God already knew how it will end for that person even before that is in existence.
On basis of what did you conclude this?

Here is my version of the free will, I hope for some feedback, some flaws I overlooked, not only from you but also of course any one else. Or maybe a better theory.

Allah creates whatever He wills, simply because He is Allah. He does what He wants.
He created (and creates) every kind of thing. One of those things is a will who is free from His will in the sense that it can make it's own decisions.
The will has a like an infinite ways to program itself (make decisions). But because of His mercy, He showed/s the will what is behind every code. When you try to use a bad code, you will always get red warnings before you do so. The more evil behind a code the more alarm-bells you will hear. When you want to use a good code you will get encouragement to go on and use that code.
With other words Allah knows what you want to hit (he knows every soul) but He did not program you to hit what He wants, He left that to you. That is your free will.
Allah knows exactly what is in me now but it is me who is writing my own book.

You may say that Allah knows the future so He knows already what I am going to decide, like you explained in your example.
But the future simply does not exist. Only NOW exists, there is no future, except the NOW.
We are thinking in time, but time simply does not exist, it's just an abstract tool we "created" to "count" 2 existing moments. Because everything is in motion we have chosen to count time by the movement of things which are determined in their motion/existence.
It is not that the whole universe from begin to end was already created and Allah is watching a movie he already made, which He knows the outcome of, no we are living in the unvierses creation/evolution.
This what you see (and obviously all the things we do not see or know) that is His creation at prime time and we are NOW living in the middle of it.
What is gone is gone, what has to come He did not create it yet. He did not already created the world of "tomorrow" but "tomorrow" he will create the world of "tomorrow".
I think a lot of things He created are determined, not created yet but determined. That is why we can calculate physical things for the future.
The human soul is different, he gave it the gift to evolve itself in the NOW in a way the soul chooses it self, not determinerend, so we are in charge of our own evolution and we are responsible for the evolution of the planet earth, the place He gave to us to live in. We are in fact the ultimate terminators.
With the difference of course that He still has total control of us, I mean He still can do whatever He wills with us.

I can go on but I guess this is getting boring 

@Sturtlaghari

What if God exists and is not good and not all that intelligent or truthful?


Peace
----------------- Student of Allah

I think then you are talking about shaytaan not about Allah.

[Comrox]

We are told that a loving God/Allah created us individually and endowed us with an eternal soul and with free will.  We are further told that God is all-knowing and all-seeing.  Still further that how we use "free will" determine whether our individual ultimate fate will be a heaven or a hell.  And further still that God has preordained all good and all evil.  And, moreover, that we are to use the God-given faculty of reason.

According to my reasoning, this is all paradoxical.

How can "free will" operate to alter what has been predetermined?

How can an omniscient God create a person that he purportedly loves, with the foreknowledge -- indeed, His own predetermination -- that the person will suffer as his ultimate fate eternal burning in a hell?

Why would an omnipotent, loving God preordain evil?

I personally don't believe Hell is eternal. It can be, but I don't think that's just at all. I haven't gotten the chance to study that subject as well as I would like to.

I'm actually studying St. Augustine right now for a philosophy class. His idea is that evil isn't reality. Evil is not natural. Evil is simply what results from a lack of good. I think good and evil are part of the balancing act.

Honestly I'm not sure I would want to live in a world like this if it was completely good. It's a very difficult concept to wrap my mind around. I wouldn't be who I am without some "evil."

Why would an eternal God with no beginning, who has existed for infinite eternities within eternities, decide to create humans for the sole purpose of worshipping him.

Why does an omnipotent God need anything at all, especially the craven worship of lowly humans?

Who said that God needs anything?

As far as our purpose being worshiping God, I believe that simply we worship/serve God by doing good deeds. Fight against oppression. Be humble. Be grateful. Be generous. Try not to let your material valuables consume you. Be a good person. Etc.

[huruf]

Of course hell is not eternal,neither paradie is eternal. The Qur'an says it time and again, our destiny is to God. We, everything goes back to God. The mystics and sufis know it. The Qur'an says it.

We people when we get into this kind of debates forget that TIME is a human concept a conept tid up with matter. God is not bound by it.

that is why all the talk about pre-destination and the like is useless. It responds to our limits and reflects them, but it is not reality, just a particularity of reality. God is not bound by that.

What amounts to when people in the Qur'an are told that they will stay in hell, khalidoon, is like saying that they will stay there till they rot... I guess they will stay there till they clense themselves of unreality, of the chimera of thinking that their desires are the law of the universe, till they are humbled, till they stop being the shaytans they are and become dust at the feet of the the only real one AlHaqq.

Salaam

[imrankhawaja]

authority. is what all it is if you use free will as authority its quite reasonable . only to Allah belong all the authority and powers. but human being is always very transgressing ignorant .he always wanted to be a God . he use his authority to rule on everything that's what leads towards the powers .history tells us people like hitler and other when they was young they get torture instead of finishing the torture they provoke violence making their ego satisfied. even they forget what promise did they make at the first stage of creation. yes human being is greedy he acceoted this challenge but he forget how hard it is.. y mountains trees and other creation didn't accept this challenge becoz they know its hard. think for a while . now... what special we have what nobody else have . authority we need to thanks allah he authorised us to use all the services and all the things including angels are in our service. but the one who authorise something if you make use of your powers wrongly he will catch you. becoz we accepted this thing at first stage .. 

now see authority links with brain and thinking all depend on this character which is inside us. from our imagination everybody think he is special he never wanted to get insulted from anybody. now he  is using his authority to catch a secret of his creator which is not possible for anybody even angels have some limitations. so what human think he is... he is nothing but a slave he need something ,,, for that something he accept to take that  test... somebody is blind deaf dumb his test is easy at that time(first stage) he know I will get birth as a blind or disable but he took that risk ,,

God dnt need anything any praise from anybody,, Good is already great and ppraise worthy even you say it thousand times or million times,, you said it for your own sake of getting reward hereafter...

now come to the authority hitler and other people killed millions of innocent ... millions people cry due to them just hanging them for one time is the justice.. there you go that y he creates a law.

your free will is nothing but a authority which is unique to humans.. try to understand ..again if you use this authority wrong who is to b blame ... police officer is hired to protect people ,,, law  didn't say them to take bribe ,, if law find out they will definatey fire that officer.

so what you expect from the law of God if you use his authority wrong who is responisible I can write so much but space and time I m stuck in so for clever people ,,, few hints are ok ,, rest of them I cant help to make them understand as they already decided like devil to arrogance its their choice

[imrankhawaja]

and if there is a God ,,, reason and logic tells us he must know past present and future . its doesn't mean he is to blame ,,, due to his superior knowledge he knows what a creation will do who will gona go to hell and heaven.what actions somebody take. I some times realise dejavu.. what does that mean to all of you,,  these are some of the signs if we try to understand we have beginning hence we have creator..

but creator has no beginning otherwise definition of god did not fit in it... he must be out of space time matter otherwise he  is not god..

whenever we try to think about god is it not true we always imagine god with some tyoe of material and visible thing... now everybody in this post think whenever you guys think about God isn't the matter comes in your mind,,, light, water , smoke , whatever comes in the mind is just an ideas nothing else.. so plz dnt put pressure on ur mind who he is,,, look at his signs how all are working in balance,, sun moon everything but its only we humans who make balanced things unbalanced its out  nature we cant help it becoz we want to become god which is not possible...

Allah is above from what they associate with him... just wait examination result cannot be released until the result day otherwise no need for attending class if already somebodyfailed or passed.. ur examination is going on wait for the result day there he will advance ur mind to understand how can somebody be uncreated,,, right  now we have not this ability to understand the nature of god...

[HP_TECH]

We are told that a loving God/Allah created us individually and endowed us with an eternal soul and with free will.  We are further told that God is all-knowing and all-seeing.  Still further that how we use "free will" determine whether our individual ultimate fate will be a heaven or a hell.  And further still that God has preordained all good and all evil.  And, moreover, that we are to use the God-given faculty of reason.

This is all gibberish as long as you do not demonstrate which verses coincide with these generalized statements.
You are paraphrasing mostly. Shows lack of scholarly approach and misunderstanding of the Quran.
"We are told"....No we read. So show us what you have read...if you even have that is. Bring the verses in question don't try to generalize, summarize what you think the Quran is conveying. Post the actual ayaats.
Other than that we will just be disputing about your own understanding of what "You are TOLD" [[Who TOLD you these things??]]

According to my reasoning, this is all paradoxical.

Your reasoning also lead you to believe that generalizing about a topic in the Quran is an appropriate approach.
Also it would help if you indicated which arguments are paradoxical and why?
Your reasoning is very vague.

How can "free will" operate to alter what has been predetermined?

Now, you have ventured out of addressing Quran, you are asking philosophical questions, for which you'd honestly need a different topic altogether.
But to nib the bud...answer this: who says, where do you read or who TOLD you that freewill according to Quran is supposed to alter what has been pre-determined?
As long as you are still addressing the issue in a Quranic perspective, that is.

How can an omniscient God create a person that he purportedly loves, with the foreknowledge -- indeed, His own predetermination -- that the person will suffer as his ultimate fate eternal burning in a hell?

It is because He is Just and not unjust to His Servants, despite Knowing their breasts and their rebellion and hatred towards His Supreme-Self and Authority, He gives them their lifetime to amend and reform and sends them Signs and Messengers and gives them of every example so they perhaps may return.

What is it with you people that not you understand a single statement??

Why would an omnipotent, loving God preordain evil?

This is another philosophical question, which by the way has been addressed and refuted ages ago by ancient theologians and philosophers. Maybe you should study up on a bit of philosophy more carefully.
The Question of Evil has been addressed in philosophy for certain.
But if you are still(which I doubt) interested in a response based on Quranic evidence, then demonstrate those ayaats that you think are indicating what you are assuming. Again unless you specify Quranic evidence we are just going to be arguing about your assumptions on Quran and as I see now philosophical arguments that have been addressed ages ago. So which front are you tackling I see a set of two distinct kinds of questions. You are being a bit sloppy.

Why would an eternal God with no beginning, who has existed for infinite eternities within eternities, decide to create humans for the sole purpose of worshipping him.

Another basic level intro to philosophy question.
Are you taking philosophy 101 by any chance? All these questions are the themes/thesis of famous philosophical arguments haha
This question is actually a mix because you have included a quasi-Quranic statement "sole purpose of worshipping him". Well your entire statements demonstrate lack of scholarly approach.
Man was not the first creation, there were creations before, and the creation of the heavens and the earth were greater than that of man. The malaki are assumed to have been created way before mankind which includes: jinn and then humans.
Where is the ayaat which you are paraphrasing? Is this how you write assay? With no proper citations and paraphrasing? Your philosophy professor might not be too lenient on grading your papers if you continue this way.

Essentially this question shows that you assume that anything that we could possibly do or accomplish benefits Allah in anyway. You are way off target. Anything that you are commanded to do benefits you entirely.
I want you to get serious and actually begin researching and finding these ayaats you are paraphrasing if you truly want to discuss what the Quran is conveying on the subject. [Ill give you a hint it is the (114-63)th surah and (7x8)th ayaat]
You will however see that the verb abada does not solely convey worship, but it conveys servitude/serving/servant.
We are created to serve Allah so that we may grow (zaka) and benefit from His Mercy, Grace, Perpetual Giving. Submitting to His Universal Code of Existence advances us in this growth and it only benefits us. For again if you have understood the Quranic perspective He is Free of need so asking or implying as you have that there is a craving for human worship is blasphemous, unscholarly and dishonest.

Why does an omnipotent God need anything at all, especially the craven worship of lowly humans?

You have just repeated the question above, but rephrased it in a provocative an insulting fashion which exposes your biases and ignorance about Quran. You would only believe there is a crave if you are not well-read in Quran and if your anti-theist biases lead you to such naive conclusions.

Goodluck with your philosophy course