As far as the omniscience thing, it's fairly straightforward. Imagine a decision point with only two outcomes: A and B. Free will says that there is a finite chance a person will choose A or B. Many will argue, on the other hand, that an omniscient God knows with certainty whether that person will choose A or B. If that is the case, though, that means there is a 100% chance the person will choose one answer and a 0% chance the person will choose the other--in short, free will cannot operate because the person can make only one choice if God is correct. If God already knows the answer, everyone's lives are scripted and there are no real choices to be made; if people have real choices, it means that God cannot know the answer in advance with 100% certainty.
It's kind of a Heisenberg thing: knowing the answer in advance forces the choice.
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As for the ridiculous, "If you're not willing to explain quantum mechanics in sufficient detail that I believe you, then you aren't arguing correctly," that's just stupid. The correct response is to realize you're not qualified to be arguing the point, and go study if you think you're right anyway.
Newtonian physics is deterministic, and there's a reason it's been quite some time since anyone thought the universe was essentially Newtonian.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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Peanut butter ass Shaq Azakias booooze lime pole over bench lick:
'Sage, how is omniscience and free will incompatible? I know that sounds like a dumb question, but wouldnt omniscience be the ability to know all possible outcomes, and free will would be to choose the outcome that is most natural?
No, in order to be omniscient, an entity would also have to know which outcome will be chosen. Otherwise, that's something the entity didn't know, and that violates the definition of omniscience.
Hell, it isn't that hard for regular people to know all possible outcomes. The information just isn't useful in most cases.
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From what little I can glean about quantum physics (which admittedly is not much) it seems like when you think you have a fact nailed down, it turns around and does something completely 180 from what it was doing before. Do you have to abandon conventional thinking to understand things at a quantom level?
Yes, you do have to abandon traditional thought to understand quantum mechanics, but it's extremely difficult to explain how. Honestly I recommend looking up "Quantum Mechanics" and "Quantum Entanglement" in wikipedia.
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And on a somewhat similar note, I just heard about some mathematical problem or theorum being solved. It is truly possible to come up with a mathematical problem that cannot be solved readily, whether by computer or human mind? And if so, how is that possible? It seems to me that since math is based on logic, there would always be a logical next step to take, so to speak... so how could it be unsolvable?
Well, what do you mean by "readily"? There are swarms of mathematical and scientific problems that are not "readily" solved. The reasons why are as diverse as the problems themselves. As a species, our knowledge of math and science is incomplete. There is always a next logical step but we don't always know what it is.
