Francisco

Actually my previous posts will show I've always been using pretty much the same definition you claimed you were using, except for the part that "it has no impact on our free will," which is the basis for a long running dispute between theists and non-theistic philosophers, and the very basis for this whole thread. And thus clearly a bald assertion on your part (and not a caveat usually added by non-theists)..

As to such bald assertions and ad hominum arguments (assuming they are always sins), I would propose that the guilt should be shared equally between us.

As to bowing out, I've been interested in a discussion but not a debate - and I've already said why and commented on what I see as the difference.

And at the risk of seeming to use a further ad hominum argument, I offer the following not as a certainty but as opinion and as explanation of my own position:

I am admittedly an agnostic and have come to terms with living with uncertainty.
But I also feel that makes me more flexible in my ability to learn new things, as one can seldom learn without changing some aspect of our previous opinions and assumptions.

My feeling is that in this particular area, you are much less flexible. What comes through in your posts is that you are one of those persons with faith in a supreme being who have the continuing dilemma of trying to reconcile the proposition that this deity knows what we will do in advance, with him nevertheless advising us what we should and should not do, and with the belief that he will admonish or otherwise punish us for doing what he has ordained that we should not do, on the infinitesimal chance that we will not do what the deity knows we will do, because, as you propose, we theoretically could avoid doing it, and know we could avoid it, even though, paradoxically, we will inevitably do what the deity already knows we will do in spite of his instructions to the contrary (the futility of which he doesn't seem to see as a mitigating factor).

Does that about cover it?

Now perhaps you will counter that my agnosticism is as dogmatic a stance as is your faith. And I will not agree. And you will not change, and I must admit I will resist any such change in my mindset as well.

So the probabilty that we are at an impasse here seems high, and I gave up arguing about religion long ago (or so I thought). I'm sure there are many things you know that I don't, and many things you have learned that I could learn from you in turn. But instruction in religious dogma is not going to be included in that category.