What is free will?

@spendius,

And just in what way would you differ from Timmy opinion without presenting a justification for the opposite stance if that is the case on where you stand ? I for one would like to see you make that argument properly even if bottom line I agree that no thing happens without a reason. Are you willingly admitting God is powerless to change anything in his own nature so he can't change anything else ?

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

You do rather declare yourself the victor, Tim, by using "unnecessarily".

neologist might put up a good argument that it was necessary for God to drown the children.

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@Pasture Timmy,

A large number of children have been killed and maimed and rendered orphans and refugees by the foreign policy of western nations. Was that necessary?

And it will continue.

Your "unnecessary" second guesses a putative God. The necessity of maintaining and accelerating our way of life is not second guessing anybody.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

A large number of children have been killed and maimed and rendered orphans and refugees by the foreign policy of western nations. Was that necessary?

It was necessary in that it couldn't have happened otherwise.

spendius wrote:

Your "unnecessary" second guesses a putative God. The necessity of maintaining and accelerating our way of life is not second guessing anybody.

"God" is certainly putative, but was it fair and just to drown the innocent children?
Do you think God drowning the children was necessary in "maintaining and accelerating our way of life"?

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@Pasture Timmy,

I have no idea Tim. I go from moment to moment doing my best to avoid the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and sniffing out honey pots hoping they won't become more slings and arrows.

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@Pasture Timmy,

Once Satan co opted Adam and Eve into his rebellion, all of mankind became under sentence of death. regardless of "innocence".

All those innocent ones you have been mourning have been promised another chance. (John 5:28)

However, I'm not quite so certain about those who seek to impeach God

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@neologist,

1 - People are entitled to question whatever they feel the need to question so long they provide good reason to ask. Mind that good reason is asserted within the questioner own limitations.

2 - "Innocents been given a second chance" does not justify their suffering in the first place, if they are innocent at all. Either, children are judged guilty by virtue of heritage (raises other problems), or children should not be judged at all.

3 - You are yet to properly counter, within you religious frame of reference, the argument that if God is the origin of all things, then God is the origin of evil and thus that evil is necessary.

4 - Another interesting argument regards God's own circumstance, that is to say, the argument that God cannot change his own nature, the very same nature that determines his course of action, once there is nothing beyond God nor beyond his potential. In such light God is powerless. It can be reduced to an abstract place holder, an unfolding program, or a Set, if spacetime is not at a fundamental level.

In resume, either, God is powerless because God is cause and must itself be bound to causation, or God is a collection of things, throughout spacetime, a Set of all that will ever be, n thus equally powerless.

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

Once Satan co opted Adam and Eve into his rebellion, all of mankind became under sentence of death. regardless of "innocence".

Yeah...the story in the Bible about the couple who were refused the knowledge of right and wrong...and then punished, along with all the rest of humankind forever...for doing what the god considered wrong.

Like I said...no sparer of the rod this god.

Quote:

All those innocent ones you have been mourning have been promised another chance. (John 5:28)

Yeah...so it is alright to drown kids, because they will have a second chance.

C'mon, Neo...you are brighter than this.

Quote:

However, I'm not quite so certain about those who seek to impeach God

I would never impeach GOD...if there is a GOD. But if there actually is a GOD...anyone who worships that abomination from the Bible is impeaching the hell out of that GOD.

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The problem with all of these discussions, imo, is that the moment the word 'God' is used, everyone assumes that we're talking about the god of the Judeo-Christian Bible, which, of course, is arrant mythological nonsense. People who claim to be atheists often turn out to be no such thing -- they simply reject the existence of the abomination which both the Torah and the New Testament refer to as 'God' or 'God the Father.' If I had a father like that, I'd probably be guilty of patricide in short order.

Yet I am no atheist. I believe in a life-force which I call 'God' for lack of a better word. I don't refer to it as God the Father or God the Mother because my god, by definition, has no gender. It is not an anthropomorphic cartoon character. It is the force that holds everything together and guides my destiny. And yours. I know absolutely nothing whatever further about this force, this God. But it's there. To deny its existence is to deny my own existence.

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

Once Satan co opted Adam and Eve into his rebellion, all of mankind became under sentence of death. regardless of "innocence".

You're not discussing, you're just preaching.

neologist wrote:

All those innocent ones you have been mourning have been promised another chance. (John 5:28)

Another chance at what, being murdered again by Bible God?

neologist wrote:

However, I'm not quite so certain about those who seek to impeach God

Holy threat noted and filed, lol.

Do you think children born in Afghanistan are just as likely to make it to heaven as children born in America?

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@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

I believe in a life-force which I call 'God' for lack of a better word.
It is the force that holds everything together and guides my destiny. And yours.

Do you believe that this life-force only guides your destiny, or that it controls your destiny completely?

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@Lustig Andrei,

In full agreement regarding an uncaused first cause. Saying anything more on top of that is speculation and often bad one.

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@Pasture Timmy,

The argument against free will is simple:

if there is causation, such that for instance you yourself can cause events, then, you yourself are bound to a chain of causation, n thus are not free.

If there is no causation, and randomness is true, then again you are not the cause of any event, your don't have volition once volition requires you to cause, and again you are not free.

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@Pasture Timmy,

Quote:

Do you believe that this life-force only guides your destiny, or that it controls your destiny completely?

What is the definition of the word "destiny"?

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@Lustig Andrei,

Quote:

Do you believe that this life-force only guides your destiny, or that it controls your destiny completely?

Lustig Andrei wrote:

What is the definition of the word "destiny"?

When you said "guides" your destiny, I'll guess that you mean, controls your destiny completely, that you think the universe is deterministic.

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@Pasture Timmy,

Yah, I think "guides" was not a good word choice.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

The argument against free will is simple:

if there is causation, such that for instance you yourself can cause events, then, you yourself are bound to a chain of causation, n thus are not free.

If there is no causation, and randomness is true, then again you are not the cause of any event, your don't have volition once volition requires you to cause, and again you are not free.

Yes it is simple.
Do you think randomness is true?

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@Pasture Timmy,

No. But then its opinion.
Intuitively speaking randomness points at infinity. My only account of Infinity which makes sense to me is infinity by looping. That is to say Infinity within Finity.
Other true infinity again from my intuition dissolves "contact" to an infinite probability of nothing relating with nothing else. Infinite divergence makes no sense. On the other hand Convergence intuitively points at causation.

If I had to summarize my all philosophy in one word that word would be Unity.

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@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

I know absolutely nothing whatever further about this force, this God. But it's there. To deny its existence is to deny my own existence.

I'm not certain that existence is anything more than an illusion, and if so, a very good illusion.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Now let me explain what I mean with "causation" since the idea is at odds with the first cause having no cause n thus resulting that nothing has a cause on close scrutiny.
There is the simple-minded vision of cause the common one A leads to B that leads to C, n then there is the vision of causation has the logical proportion between things throughout spacetime. In this light everything coexists in an ensemble and there is no actual cause but rather a logos, an order, a proportionality, in events that is elegant so it is indistinguishable from causation. Regularities are bound to the Unity of all reality and to the very fabric of spacetime. From our inner to time n space point of view we call this elegance of relations and regularities cause n effect.

But "causation" is only form in four dimensions...

1 Reply

What is free will?

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