How do you define what is free will from what is influenced by everything else? And by influenced I mean, what is influenced by causes prior to you even existing, along with causes that effect you each and every second?
I don't see how free will can exist with the aspect of causation being so apparent.
I guess it would go along with what belief a person is. Now if a person believed in reincarnation and there are many beliefs of reincarnation...there is some with limiting free will because of Karma to some extent, and there are some that the person would decide themselves what challenges they would experience in their next life...in the latter case, you still have your free will, but not as we would see it here in our physical life.....This is only a few examples from a few belief systems.
Originally posted by Janus Marius
How do you define what is free will from what is influenced by everything else? And by influenced I mean, what is influenced by causes prior to you even existing, along with causes that effect you each and every second?I don't see how free will can exist with the aspect of causation being so apparent.
In a word: illusion.
Originally posted by Mindship
But then, what about responsibility? If I am only a link in a long chain of causation, nothing's my fault?I think I like this better. renske
Reasonably? Perhaps there is no ultimate responsibility. However, society could not function without individuals retaining some form of accountability.
"Mister Hitler, what made you kill all those people?"
"Wind effect on primordial ooze. I'm not accountable!"
"Yes, sir."
...
That's no way to run the world. Let's put it this way: your dog has no ability to act morally or ethically by his or her own volition; they're instinctual creatures. They make act differently from one another as animals, but this is shaped by experience and environment. If your dog bites another person, it may not be their fault really, but you still discipline them anyways. While people may be shaped by external forces, society (in looking out for itself) has the right to shape individuals who are harmful to others or dangerous.
* regarding: free will... see God's compassion, He did not made us as robots, He gave us free will...
"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing ..."
Deuteronomy 30:19
* God gave us the power of freedom to choose from right or wrong, life or death, blessing or curse... but God gave us a recommendation to what path we should take...
"... therefore choose life , that both thou and thy seed may live:"
Deuteronomy 30:19
* God said we should choose life from death, choose right from wrong, choose blessing from curse...
* here's another... by Saint Paul himself...
"For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another ."
Galatians 5:13
* we have freedom, we have liberty but if we commit ourselves to serve God, we should abide to His laws... 😉
* re: thread topic... what is God? nope... WHO is He?
"God that made the world and all things therein , seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;"
Acts 17:24
* He is the Creator... He deserves praises, worship and thanks... 😉
* as a human, we are very grateful to our parents that gave birth to us and nurtured us from the start... so more gratitude should be given to the Creator of all... and He is God... 😉
Originally posted by peejayd
* regarding: free will... see God's compassion, He did not made us as robots, He gave us free will..."I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing ..."
Deuteronomy 30:19* God gave us the power of freedom to choose from right or wrong, life or death, blessing or curse... but God gave us a recommendation to what path we should take...
"... therefore choose life , that both thou and thy seed may live:"
Deuteronomy 30:19* God said we should choose life from death, choose right from wrong, choose blessing from curse...
* here's another... by Saint Paul himself...
"For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another ."
Galatians 5:13* we have freedom, we have liberty but if we commit ourselves to serve God, we should abide to His laws... 😉
* re: thread topic... what is God? nope... WHO is He?
"God that made the world and all things therein , seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;"
Acts 17:24* He is the Creator... He deserves praises, worship and thanks... 😉
* as a human, we are very grateful to our parents that gave birth to us and nurtured us from the start... so more gratitude should be given to the Creator of all... and He is God... 😉
God gave us free will? What is free will? How is it that God can give us a mind that is "free" but we still fall to manipulation by other human beings? Why is it that God wants us all to be more like he is supposed to be - perfect, loving, compassionate, good, yet he deliberately doesn't make us that way?
And again, the Bible points to predestination several times. How can there be any freedom in a world where predestination occurs?
Originally posted by peejayd
* regarding: free will... see God's compassion, He did not made us as robots, He gave us free will...
Considering thats true....you seem to follow "his" word quite.....welll.....
robotically?
Its as if you're saying...."god gave us free will to not be robots, but he really really likes us when we are robots, going around rectiting and doing exactly what "he" "said."
For someone who hates religion you certainly seem to have alot of questions about it that makes you seem like you are riding the fence on it.
this statement seems as though it could apply to me aswell. I would like to point out that belief or non-belief in a god is just that, a belief. It has nothing to do with religion. A religion is a mob of people who huddle together in attempt to use force in numbers to influence others politically, morally and otherwise. A belief, as in that of a god or not, is merely a thought or opinion contained within each individual person. What other's believe is irrelevant to what is contained within a person's own mind......therefore has nothing to do with religions, a structure based on power by force in numbers.
That said, the actual word "god" is just icky. God has been defined by past cultures as being a supreme being.......with human like character, emotion, etc. As originated and classicly defined, god is merely a human being without a body....
that is just so egotistical it's almost laughable. Of all species on this planet......of all that so closely resemble man in both traits and intelligence.....people somehow feel the need to proclaim themselves somehow better than all other living things by basicly stating god is a human, without a physical body. Humans are animals......flesh, blood and bone........no different than an ox or deer. If there was some omnipontent creater, it surely would be no more like us than any of it's other creations that are so similar to us. "but humans hold dominion over the earth!!!"........yeah, so did giant reptiles we call dinosaurs at one point. Is one to believe that god was akin to a spritiual dinosaur at one point.......only to change his kinship to humans?
As previously stated, the word god is completely misleading. If one states they do not believe in god, they are labelled an atheist. For some reason christians can not fathom a superior form of intelligence existing that is completely different, vastly beyond anything we could ever regard as being similar to human beings.
I touched on this in one of the intelligent design threads. Nutjobs want to believe some bodiless human created the universe which has nothing to do with intelligent design at all, it has to do with blindly seeking acceptance of their own beliefs based on an ancient book written for who knows what purpose by authors whom these people don't even know the names of.......much less anything about the validity of anything written by the nameless/faceless people.
Do I believe in intelligent design? yes. Do I believe in "god"? no. There does seem to be an underlying intelligence at work in our universe......trial and error, natural selection and basic instinct possessed by all known animal life suggest this to me. Not only that, there's the unbelievably complicated interactions between the cycles of the different systems of not only our planet.....but also our solar system and the very laws of physics which compliment each other so perfectly as to allow for everything in existence as is to exist. I believe there is an intelligence at work they we humans could not even begin to define........it would be like the highly-sophisticated societies present in ant, bee, wasp, hornet, etc. species attempting to understand the intelligence which exists in humans and how it lends to world-wide cross culture interactions.
the word for this is ofcourse merely intelligence.....not god. We are but one species of animal on a planet of millions of species of animal........orbiting a star that is but one of hundreds of thousands of stars in our galaxy.......floating through space that exists of an infinite number of galaxies. We are not being watched.......we are not being judged.......we do not have a set moral code given to us to live by.....we were no more created in a creator's image than a tapeworm was. In a thousand years when we reach the technological point of being able to communicate with another intelligent species in our infinite universe we can both be rest assured there is no god........and we can sit, ponder and futily attempt to understand the intelligence that has lended in natural, physical laws and natural, universal cycles and their interactions with one another which allowed both of our species to exist in the first place......much less gain intelligence enough to find one another and begin the conversation in the first place.
intelligence, yes. god, no.
Originally posted by Evil Dead
this statement seems as though it could apply to me aswell. I would like to point out that belief or non-belief in a god is just that, a belief. It has nothing to do with religion. A religion is a mob of people who huddle together in attempt to use force in numbers to influence others politically, morally and otherwise. A belief, as in that of a god or not, is merely a thought or opinion contained within each individual person. What other's believe is irrelevant to what is contained within a person's own mind......therefore has nothing to do with religions, a structure based on power by force in numbers.That said, the actual word "god" is just icky. God has been defined by past cultures as being a supreme being.......with human like character, emotion, etc. As originated and classicly defined, god is merely a human being without a body....
that is just so egotistical it's almost laughable. Of all species on this planet......of all that so closely resemble man in both traits and intelligence.....people somehow feel the need to proclaim themselves somehow better than all other living things by basicly stating god is a human, without a physical body. Humans are animals......flesh, blood and bone........no different than an ox or deer. If there was some omnipontent creater, it surely would be no more like us than any of it's other creations that are so similar to us. "but humans hold dominion over the earth!!!"........yeah, so did giant reptiles we call dinosaurs at one point. Is one to believe that god was akin to a spritiual dinosaur at one point.......only to change his kinship to humans?
As previously stated, the word god is completely misleading. If one states they do not believe in god, they are labelled an atheist. For some reason christians can not fathom a superior form of intelligence existing that is completely different, vastly beyond anything we could ever regard as being similar to human beings.
I touched on this in one of the intelligent design threads. Nutjobs want to believe some bodiless human created the universe which has nothing to do with intelligent design at all, it has to do with blindly seeking acceptance of their own beliefs based on an ancient book written for who knows what purpose by authors whom these people don't even know the names of.......much less anything about the validity of anything written by the nameless/faceless people.
Do I believe in intelligent design? yes. Do I believe in "god"? no. There does seem to be an underlying intelligence at work in our universe......trial and error, natural selection and basic instinct possessed by all known animal life suggest this to me. Not only that, there's the unbelievably complicated interactions between the cycles of the different systems of not only our planet.....but also our solar system and the very laws of physics which compliment each other so perfectly as to allow for everything in existence as is to exist. I believe there is an intelligence at work they we humans could not even begin to define........it would be like the highly-sophisticated societies present in ant, bee, wasp, hornet, etc. species attempting to understand the intelligence which exists in humans and how it lends to world-wide cross culture interactions.
the word for this is ofcourse merely intelligence.....not god. We are but one species of animal on a planet of millions of species of animal........orbiting a star that is but one of hundreds of thousands of stars in our galaxy.......floating through space that exists of an infinite number of galaxies. We are not being watched.......we are not being judged.......we do not have a set moral code given to us to live by.....we were no more created in a creator's image than a tapeworm was. In a thousand years when we reach the technological point of being able to communicate with another intelligent species in our infinite universe we can both be rest assured there is no god........and we can sit, ponder and futily attempt to understand the intelligence that has lended in natural, physical laws and natural, universal cycles and their interactions with one another which allowed both of our species to exist in the first place......much less gain intelligence enough to find one another and begin the conversation in the first place.
intelligence, yes. god, no.
That is an interesting concept.