If there is no free will, how can we be judged for our sins?

Momma Angel wrote:

Nope, just looked in the mirror. My 'self' is not illusion. I was there! C'mon Doktor S, you are now speaking like the "some" that I have spoken to that don't seem to want to take that "final" step into accepting responsibility for your own actions. Now, I don't KNOW that this is 100% true in your case, but it appears to be that way from what I have read.

So tell me Doktor S, who/what made the decision for you to post what you just posted? I'm being serious. I know how simple that sounds, but that's the whole point about this. It is simple. WE make our own choices. WE make those choices based on whatever WE want to base those choices on. I.E., you and I. You have said that you make choices based on what is "beneficial" (probably not the exact word) for you and you alone and don't really consider what it does to effect others? If I am misrepresenting that, please correct me. I make my decisions based on what I feel is the right thing to do (and yes, morally guided by God's laws). But WE, as individuals, make those choices

Quite honestly, MA, I could probably explain this to you all day and you'd still never get it, as your simplistic worldview would be totally unable to accommodate that kind of thinking.
The 'you' you see in the mirror is a construct of your own mind. Your likes, dislikes, preferences, and personality was not chosen by you, but rather arrived at by circumstance. Further, all the 'choices' you make based on all these things which make you you are just an extension of the causes that formed you in the first place.
You do not choose to like chocolate ice cream, factors beyond your control tell you if you do, or if you don't.So when you order that chocolate ice cream cone, it isn't a choice so much as an end result.
You don't control any of it, it controls you.

Freewill is the illusion imagined by the dream that is the superego.

It all makes perfect sense now.
This is something I have been mulling over for a while, and it all seemed to come together in my mind today. An intellectual revelation of sorts, at least the defeat of prior cognitive dissonance.

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Cyracuz wrote:

neologis,

At the risk of sounding like frank, Do you KNOW this?

To me it is a more reasonable explanation than most offered, but still, can we know that it is so?

What else would be the meaning of the word 'repent'?

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Well, I think in the lines of karma, so "responsibility" isn't really in such focus. I believe that all "judgement", or karmic retribution is instantaneous, in the form of reaction. If you cut your palm you will bleed from it.
It's no harder than that, it only gets more complicated as it is applied to abstact understanding and complex ideas such as the nature of the will itself and it's place in the total being.

For myself I cannot accept the idea that we have free will because I think that to talk about will in the context of free or not is irrelevant. It is neither one or the other, and since I cannot always predict how it will be at any given time, to determine this is useless.

Sometimes I do what I want. Most of the time I do what I have to. To me it is more beneficial to make peace with this fact than trying to pin down something that is supposed to be dynamic.

And in making peace with things I prefer to have the true version lest my bubble will burst and I'll have to make my peace anew. Smile

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neologist,
I don't understand your question.. Confused

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There are a number of places in the bible where God proffers a choice. For example, In Isaiah 1: 18-20, we read: "Come, now, YOU people, and let us set matters straight between us," says Jehovah. "Though the sins of YOU people should prove to be as scarlet, they will be made white just like snow; though they should be red like crimson cloth, they will become even like wool. 19 If YOU people show willingness and do listen, the good of the land YOU will eat. 20 But if YOU people refuse and are actually rebellious, with a sword YOU will be eaten up; for the very mouth of Jehovah has spoken [it]."

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So he's saying "submit or be destroyed". Good choice.
I wonder how you'd relate to that if some dictator was standing over you.

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Doktor S,

Let me put it to you this way. I could CHOOSE to take offense at the fact that you seem to think I'm simple-minded, because that is what it appears your words are saying to me.

However, I CHOOSE to not jump to that conclusion about you. And, as far as a construct in my own mind goes Shocked

Since when can you reach out and touch a construct of your own mind? I am flesh and bone. That is not a construct of my mind Doc. Everything contained in that flesh and bone is what I am assuming you are calling the construction. And in the sense that I believe my "morals, spirituality, etc." are always under "construction" then I can agree in that respect only.

So, at the end of it all, WE all choose what WE believe about free will and whether we have it or not. And that, in itself, is FREE WILL. Laughing

And Neo, if I might jump in here for a second? Cyracuz, No! He's saying do right because evil will be destroyed. :wink:

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Momma Angel wrote:

Quote:

And Neo, if I might jump in here for a second? Cyracuz, No! He's saying do right because evil will be destroyed.

Hmm... but if everyone does right, then there will be no evil to destroy...

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Cyracuz wrote:

So he's saying "submit or be destroyed". Good choice.
I wonder how you'd relate to that if some dictator was standing over you.

We all are under a death sentence, anyway, right? So there is more to it than what you are seeing on the surface.

Cyracuz wrote:

Momma Angel wrote:

Quote:
And Neo, if I might jump in here for a second? Cyracuz, No! He's saying do right because evil will be destroyed.

Hmm... but if everyone does right, then there will be no evil to destroy...

In Isaiah 55:11, God declares: ". . . so my word that goes forth from my mouth will prove to be. It will not return to me without results, but it will certainly do that in which I have delighted, and it will have certain success in that for which I have sent it."

Consider the paradise set forth for Adam and Eve: Does the mere fact of their disobedience require the Almighty God to abandon his purpose?

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Momma Angel wrote:

Doktor S,

Let me put it to you this way. I could CHOOSE to take offense at the fact that you seem to think I'm simple-minded, because that is what it appears your words are saying to me.

However, I CHOOSE to not jump to that conclusion about you. And, as far as a construct in my own mind goes Since when can you reach out and touch a construct of your own mind? I am flesh and bone. That is not a construct of my mind Doc. Everything contained in that flesh and bone is what I am assuming you are calling the construction. And in the sense that I believe my "morals, spirituality, etc." are always under "construction" then I can agree in that respect only.

So, at the end of it all, WE all choose what WE believe about free will and whether we have it or not. And that, in itself, is FREE WILL.

And Neo, if I might jump in here for a second? Cyracuz, No! He's saying do right because evil will be destroyed. :wink:

Ya, I didn't think you'd understand, but I gave you the benifit of the doubt.

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"free will" is just another hobgoblin to the simple minded who do not realize the universe is bigger than they are and can't accept such minituration of their egos.

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how so dyslexia?

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"free will" is the escape hatch for those who see no self-defined control over their lives, "At least I have free will and noone can take that away from me" is not unlike "I have angels over my shoulder that look out for me" The myth of free will is the myth of the oppressed. I don't think any enlightened" man would claim free will but rather would claim random probility of events either in his preceived favor or against in the most absurd way (without reason).

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I agree dyslexia.

I find it frustrating how some small-minded people refuse to belive that there's a possibility that free will is non-existent.

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dyslexia wrote:

"free will" is the escape hatch for those who see no self-defined control over their lives, "At least I have free will and noone can take that away from me" is not unlike "I have angels over my shoulder that look out for me" The myth of free will is the myth of the oppressed. I don't think any enlightened" man would claim free will but rather would claim random probility of events either in his preceived favor or against in the most absurd way (without reason).

So, how would you define crime?

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neo wrote:

Quote:

So, how would you define crime?

Society defines crime. By way of laws.

It is a situation of "if and then".

Maybe it comes down to influence.

Some say there is no free will because we are merely responding to influences, wether we see the pattern of events of not.

Others say we have free will, because we have the capacity to influence.

Both are apparently true, and the object for me then becomes to figure out how that might be so...

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Society defines crime as crime because of our pervasive understanding of humans as free moral agents. In our era, exceptions in punishment are often made, rightly or wrongly, to account for psychological limitations. This seems to be a reasonable defining of what it means to have 'free' will.

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neo,

i don't think that defines anything at all, since we are not clear on the reasons for these exceptions.

The human mind requires "reason", and it is not a force operating solitairy, since the mind cannot act, only interact.

The will is not independent, but rather highly intertwined into all other aspects of our existence.

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Cyracuz wrote:

neo,

i don't think that defines anything at all, since we are not clear on the reasons for these exceptions. . .

Nor did I opine as to their reasonableness. I only posted my observation that society seems to have a basic understanding of moral free will.

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dyslexia wrote:

"free will" is the escape hatch for those who see no self-defined control over their lives

Having a free will means that you DO control your own actions, thoughts, etc. and thus you are also responsible for your actions, etc.

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If there is no free will, how can we be judged for our sins?

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