The odd thread name is meant to narrow a bit the concept of random events, future reading and understanding the will of God.
I want to discuss about using means that are assumedly random (throwing a dice being the prime example) to discern the will of a supererior being, a god in most cases.
Now, I want to discuss about the use of these practices by holy men or religious figures, instead of just talking about throwing coins to make any choice. Why is this? I think that as a ritual, this kind of divination was meant to be very limited, you couldn't really ask God to be present in any thrown dice, there had to be used in a proper set up. The Bible itself has several instances of casting lots in order to discern God's will.
I'm interested to have a discussion around the subject, if for example, this is an admission of randomness in the universe or if it's meant to be read as the will of God being absolute. What can you draw from cleromancy if we admit there is something akin to freewill? Do you think current believers of modern religions could get behind this ancient practices? To what extent?
If you're a believer yourself, what would be your sensibility towards religious divination? Do you think it has any place in faith as you experience it? Would you be able to believe in it's fairness if the occasion rose?
Gender: Male Location: Southern Oregon,
Looking at you.
First, I don't think that throwing dice reflects the will of God. Second, the throwing of dice is not really random. The probabilities can be expressed in a graph, and true randomness cannot. The problem is humans, they believe that there is some kind of connection between the throwing of dice and the universe or God. There is a connection (the dice are in the universe), but it is not the connection that we think. In other words, we imagine a connection between things that appear to be random and God, that isn't there.
I read an article once where people after 911 reported noticing 911 on their clocks more than before, and it happened to me too. We all know that 911 only appear on a digital clock twice a day, so what’s going on? It’s the human mind. After 911 there was a new significance to the number. Where before we would have just ignored the 911 on our clock, we know take note. I think this is the same kind of thing that takes place with cleromancy. As we roll the dice over time we begin to notice when the divination was right, but forget the times when it was wrong.
This is true, but in a practical situation an unpredictable outcome might as well be random for the one experiencing it. If there is true randomness in the universe, odds are, we would never notice.
Just to say it's a nitpick of sorts, throwing a dice not being random actually helps the case of a mighty intelligence predicting the result.
Oh, I agree that people misread randomness all the time and that the easiest way to read into this is confirmation bias. You do well it pointing out as some people might ignore the most basic implications of the problem.
Personally I'd like to go further than that. The belief in a divine hand "rigging" seemingly random events admits that the divine hand doesn't rig all events, because people also believe they are free. I think there is a good deal of complications that are born from this, which can also be applied to miracles or divine interventions, but that are much easier to analyse when talking about just throwing a dice.
I think people relate the concept of random with freedom, but it might be me doing generalizations here.
Gender: Male Location: Southern Oregon,
Looking at you.
I think that is due to the belief that the past is set while the future is undetermined. I don’t believe this. If space and time can be brought together into space-time, then time is just another dimension. Why would up be different from down? Likewise, the past and the future should be the same. Either the past and future are undetermined or they are set like a movie. In a movie the now is moving, and it seems that the characters have free will, but we know they don’t. The movie always ends the same. I believe that is analogous to reality. If we could rewind time, we would always make the same choices. And we would be unaware of the rewind.
That cosmology seems pretty solid to me, but by admitting future is set and time is mostly a perception of us, we also give up the concept of pure randomness as a reality. Hence, Maths are totally disconnected of our universe as they can work with a concept that doesn't fit our reality at all. Per any chance you believe that there are dimensions other than our own?
Gender: Male Location: Southern Oregon,
Looking at you.
I like string theory, but it has its problems. There is a new theory out, and I can't find the article, that talks about other universes being the cause of the uncertainty printable in quantum mechanics. If that's true then maybe there is a randomness cause by jostling of other universes at the quantum level. Kind of like playing more then one movie at a time. If the two movies overlap, there could be randomness there. But this is pure speculation on my part.
My position would probably be that if there's prophesy there isn't free will/non-determination as the future and past would be determined, so there wouldn't be a need for divining random occurrences with dice rolls as no occurrences would actually be random.
I don't think that's actually the case, mind you. I think there is randomness and non-determination within the confines of the set values/physical laws of our universe, and there's possibly a means of even breaking those laws with the right resources. Not entirely free will as there are limits in certain circumstances. I guess that I'm a bit of a compatibilist.
I think theists (and I'm generalizing, so apologies to theists who don't actually believe this. This doesn't apply to you, obviously) on the topic of free will suffer from a bit of cognitive dissonance. In some of their world view we can't be free if we can't avert prophesy. It's contradictory. I doubt, though it would be a pleasant surprise to be proven wrong, that there's an Abrahamic Theist (or otherwise) that would assert humanity is capable of making prophesies not occur because God gave us free will. That'd mean that people were capable of proving the Holy Books wrong. I don't see a Christian saying the prophesies in Revelations could be averted by human will.
You made a good point illustrating one of the layers that goes into mixing providence with freewill, oddly enough, I think that there is quite a valid counter-argument -which most believers will never use- that is based in pure statistics.
Say for example that the Abrahamic prophecies could be averted, the fact that they didn't happen at a certain point, doesn't rule out that they will come to be given unlimited time.
The eternal nature of God would explain why he isn't limited by temporal boudaries and can act later on, if that rhymes with freedom. This kind of thinking is not only a perfect cop out as of why the end of the world prophecies are never fulfilled, but it also fits our current knowledge of the universe better than a "fixed date" would, since timeframes are a human invention and don't exist in nature so to speak.
Regarding this thread, I'm disappointed that actual believers didn't gave their opinion on the subject, I think that such probabilistic implications in one's fate is a rather interesting subject and that it speaks volumes of how belief is created and fits in our mind.
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Nov 13th, 2014 01:28 PM
