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Sometimes I think it is better to be honest and say, "I don't believe there is a God..."
Then, hedge your bet, and if you're wrong, simply be kind to people....if
there is an Afterlife, a Life Review, maybe reincarnation...hey, you're
WAY ahead of a lot of people...Muslim, Jews, other atheists....just be a good person.
Do no harm.
That's not so hard, come on.... Life is so easy...don't worry , be happy,as Meher Baba said....not. Bobby McFerren.
Well, we'll have to agree to disagree as to A&E. They were offered a choice by God, their Creator, to accept His Divine Love in order to obtain immortality. Because they "disobeyed" the request, it still doesn't mean they had no choice. As for the story of the snake and the apple, they are pure symbolism and did not happen.
This is really a stupid statement, not often I say that.
Why lead off with a premise that you later want to deflect as symbolic? I have heard all the woo trying to keep this story relevant but is no more than conjecture. It adds zero yo the discussion when you want to move the goalposts midstream.
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There was never any fruit involved, unless you want to characterize their "pride" and "vanity" as fruit.
This has nothing to do with the topic
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Well, were they kicked out of the garden? If they would have accepted God's offer by using their free will for which He gave them, then there wouldn't have been any need to till the fields. The reason for that was their spiritual powers were removed and they became more humanized and, hence, the need for food as we know it, rather than spiritual food which was theirs in the beginning.
Now you are just making stuff up
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As I said, free will is a gift given to us by God... not man. I was just using examples of how men, who in their desire to control us through government regulations, etc., limits that gift of free will.
No, you admitted limitations and as such you admitted free will is not what you asserted.
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As to the rest of your comments, well, we live in an imperfect world unfortunately. Thanks for your thoughtful response.
I was expecting better, but this is a topic that deflects easily.
The whole purpose of this thread is to demonstrate to theists that the willy nilly assertion of free will in other discussions actually means nothing and is mere biblespeak to avoid tough questions. Unless you can articulate your thoughts effectively, this should never be used. It convinces no one.
Boy, if I create my own God...."He' is quite somehing!!!!!
"He" is everywhere, even in the spaces of nothingness between the sparkles of
Paisley kaliedoscope colored lights I see with my eyes shut...in the protons and the spaces
between the electrons' orbits....He hides in every molecule and each molecule is a world
of its own that He is in...
He is aware if every root of every plant living, feeling them burrowing down
Into the dakk moist soil for nutrition, at the same time they all are stretching, maybe thru concrete to reach
the Sun and is each chemical as each plant in the ocean and on Russian mountains does its photosynthesis
turning C02 to 02, etc. None of this would exist without this Source or Creator.
He is right now sustaining a planet in a galaxy we haven't discovered yet with 150 billion
Suns like ours, but most 50xs larger, that hides in a cluster of 10,000 other galaxiers as viewed from Earth hiding
behind my thumbnail as I hold it to the sky. As I turn in another direction holding my thumb out He is sustaining 150 billion more Suns
in one galaxy in another cluster of 10,000 galaxies...all hidden by my thumbnail.
He is maintaining such a force on this planet that it takes megatons of rocket fuel to lift a rocket and break it's hold.
And all while saying this, that is only the God I have made in my imagine in the THIRD
Dimension! He is maintaning souls and planets galore in Astral Worlds at a frequency beyond our
Electro magnetic spectrum...way beyond gamma rays. None of this would exist or be maintained consciously without this Being, God, Spirit.
He is digesting my food and breathing me and you right now, squirting out so many chemicals in our bodies, pinching so many
sphyncter muscles and closing all the valves in every living creaturr on Earth.
Free will does not mean complete license to do whatever without consequence. This absurd straw man seems to arise whenever the topic arises.
It seems everything you disagree with you label as a strawman. You really should look up what a strawman is. I offered multiple options for this discussion yet you as always do not read the premise and get a hissy fit. Either contribute or stay off this thread. /rant
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Everything is limited. We live in a bounded and constrained reality . . . that is not optional or subject to caprice. That does not mean we have no free will within those bounds and constraints! It simply means free will to do whatever and accept the consequences . . . good or bad.
Which is a word salad and explains nothing.
I know you can do better than this. Please do not redefine definitions as you go along as is your style.
Here is the OP
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Originally Posted by SeekerSA
We so often hear the excuse in discussions that we have free will which is supposed to explain away inconvenient questions. Most of you know that I do not believe in this concept and playing semantics using choice instead of will really does not alter the reality we find ourselves in.
I will lead off with this premise.
We do not have free will as most of what we experience is life is circumstantial. We are not able to determine our destinies as we really do not have a crystal ball.
Cause and effect does come into play but how much of the cause are we able to control? The concept of free will infers we are free agents when the simplest secular things like obeying traffic laws are essentially choiceless. When it says speed limit 55MPH you are obliged to conform to that or suffer the consequences. Sure you can ignore it and speed. The consequences would be a fine, endangering yourself and others, losing your licence or getting demerits and so on.
In this simplest of traffic laws, we are required to become conforming drones. Behind the scenes there may or may not be justification for said laws; lets assume there is justification.
The deterministic POV one can explore from the place your were born, major life events and the choices you made. How much of that was under your direct control? Or did you merely make a choice on those available to you at that time?
The religious component here would be predestination aka Calvinism or "free-will" aka Arminianism. Both of these doctrines are supported (supposedly) by the same bible.
How many eat out places are you able to order stuff not on the menu?
Free will does not mean complete license to do whatever without consequence. This absurd straw man seems to arise whenever the topic arises. Everything is limited. We live in a bounded and constrained reality . . . that is not optional or subject to caprice. That does not mean we have no free will within those bounds and constraints! It simply means free will to do whatever and accept the consequences . . . good or bad.
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Originally Posted by SeekerSA
It seems everything you disagree with you label as a strawman. You really should look up what a strawman is. I offered multiple options for this discussion yet you as always do not read the premise and get a hissy fit. Either contribute or stay off this thread. /rant
You do not get to decide who posts or doesn't post in this or any other thread, Seeker. A straw man is a weak and unrepresentative version of an argument. Unbounded and unconstrained choice without consequence is NOT the definition of free will. Freedom from situations, circumstance and caprice is not the definition of free will. Yet your post and examples exemplify those definitions. Did you even read what you posted?
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Which is a word salad and explains nothing.
That you do not recognize it as a contribution to the discussion suggests you have a reading comprehension problem.
Free will does not mean complete license to do whatever without consequence. This absurd straw man seems to arise whenever the topic arises. Everything is limited. We live in a bounded and constrained reality . . . that is not optional or subject to caprice. That does not mean we have no free will within those bounds and constraints! It simply means free will to do whatever and accept the consequences . . . good or bad.
Here again you are describing the "freedom of choice" where one gets to choose what course of action they may take based on the given parameters. Then any and all actions have their consequences, so there is a price to pay for these actions.
Free Will, would imply no price to pay at all, hence the definition of "free". If there is a price to pay then the action is not free, so we can then dispense with the word "free".
Free will does not mean complete license to do whatever without consequence. This absurd straw man seems to arise whenever the topic arises. Everything is limited. We live in a bounded and constrained reality . . . that is not optional or subject to caprice. That does not mean we have no free will within those bounds and constraints! It simply means free will to do whatever and accept the consequences . . . good or bad.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
A straw man is a weak and unrepresentative version of an argument. Unbounded and unconstrained choice without consequence is NOT the definition of free will. Freedom from situations, circumstance and caprice is NOT the definition of free will.
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Originally Posted by Terryj
Here again you are describing the "freedom of choice" where one gets to choose what course of action they may take based on the given parameters. Then any and all actions have their consequences, so there is a price to pay for these actions.
Free Will, would imply no price to pay at all, hence the definition of "free". If there is a price to pay then the action is not free, so we can then dispense with the word "free".
Nonsense. That is NOT the definition of free will . . . it IS the straw man definition of free will I referred to in the above posts. Your version is impossible and pointless to argue about.
Okay, well, nobody has to love God... how about like? How about acknowledging His existence even if you don't go along with Him.
I do not get what you mean by this or how it relates to the question of free will.
Is there any way to determine whether or not we have free will? It does not seem likely because we have no comparative intelligent species with which to work, we are the entire data base, one solitary example of seeming free will. Then the argument may be advanced that we are programmed to believe that we are making free choices when we are actually just following the programming. And if that was the case, we would not be able to tell that it was.
So while I would not argue that it is definitely this or that, my general guess is that what we perceive as free will does exist, but in a more limited form than we believe. I suspect that some choices which seem very different in nature and circumstance from each other, may well be decisions made as a consequence of a single driving mechanism. That is to say that the reason this man chose that wife and the reason he chose that car, may be the same reason, just in different manifestations.
Nonsense. That is NOT the definition of free will . . . it IS the straw man definition of free will I referred to in the above posts. Your version is impossible and pointless to argue about.
Mystic, what you are trying to do is redefine words.
The term "Free Will" is comprised of two distinct words "Free" and "Will".
The definition of "Free" "without cost or obligation"
The definition of "Will" "The mental faculty by which one deliberately chooses or decides upon a course of action."
What I'm am say here, is if you deliberately choose a course of action that requires a cost or obligation then it isn't free, and all actions come at a cost, no matter how small, it's called cause and effect.
Now if you choose to create the word "freewilll" then feel free to give it the definition you choose.
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Life is so easy...don't worry , be happy,as Meher Baba said....not. Bobby McFerren.
