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@YouFound_Lxam
Does god have a plan for all things / people / animals / molecules that spans all time?
Free Will
Posts
Total:
53
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@ludofl3x
Yes.
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@YouFound_Lxam
Can you depart from that plan?
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@YouFound_Lxam
I don't think you understand. Free will can't exist without a God.
That right there is the problem; You are putting the cart before the horse.
You begin by defining free will as something that only a God could explain, and then argue because it exists that proves a God exists. That's prima facie fallacious.
Things that do not exist cannot be used to explain other things. So in order to put forward something as a candidate explanation, you have to first prove it exists. To do it backwards as you are trying to do is inherently circular.
If free will is something that we experience, a God is not necessary to explain it as it is inherently part of our natural processes. If it's not something we experience, then what are we even talking about?
If we are just stardust, why does it matter if one stardust, kills another stardust.
The absence of some kind of divine free will does not make us "merely" stardust. We still have emotions, we still have values, we still have goals, we still have the ability to make decisions. Anything we would identify under the definition of "stardust" does not have those qualities.
But even setting all of that aside, this argument is still fallacious. Whether we would or should care about something is irrelevant to the fact of whether something exists. Existence is not subject to how we feel about it.
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@YouFound_Lxam
I'm not sure how that helps in our discussion of free will. If someone is owned by someone else, it would seem implicit that they don't have the right and therefore the capacity to leave of their own free will.Legally, in specific places in the world and in specific time periods in history, you can be owned by another human being, but only legally.I am talking about something that surpasses legality. Think about it like this:A country can control its people, but people can still revolt and take over.Someone can own a slave, but that doesn't nessesarraly mean that the slave can fight back or run away.
If someone puts a gun to my head and tells me to repent, I still have a choice to repent. But is my will free or under duress? Some would say yes. It's your choice to die or not. I think that a slave might have capacity to do something but if it's not legal, then it's not really free. I somehow think we are at cross hairs here.
No offence meant in that, but ownership must mean something. Including the right to transfer. Hence, North Korean people might have the ability to leave, and perhaps that is a sort of capacity, but is it legitimate? AND if its not legitimate, is it therefore free will?No offense taken.Ownership is a legal right to own something. Again the word legal is very important here.We don't even have to use the word legal though. I belive you could say that ownership is one's ability to keep an object or person in one's possession.And the law helps people with that ability to own that thing whatever it is.Also, if you can make any type of decisions by your own will to any extent, that is an example of free will.
I think people can make limited decisions. But is that limited will or free will? What does the free in your definition of free will actually mean?
Hmmm. that's a surprising response. Would you care to explain what you think the difference is between a person who is born in sin, and someone who was not born into sin? Your last question is intriguing. If someone is born into sin, it must mean something. What do think it means?There is no one person not born into sin.It's like going in a pool. You are placed into the water. Think of it like that.So every person that has ever lived has been born into sun, but only one didn't succumb to the sin. That man was Jesus Christ.Being born into sin means that you were born into a sinful world. A world full of sin.
Interesting explanation. I will think about it. But I am not sure I agree with it. The world is sinful. Or is it just humans that are sinful? You've indicated before now, that animals can't sin, since they don't have free will and operate on instinct. What part of the world is sinful that is not connected to humanity? I would suggest that fallen angels are sinful. The devil is sinful. Humans are sinful. I would suggest too that being born into sin is to say that we are born with human nature. A human nature that has been corrupted by the fall. Hence, I would say that all humans are corrupted and will die.
Evidence for this assertion please.Animals know what to do from birth. It's instinct. Animals live their lives off of instinct. Some animals don't even get parental guidance.Humans are very different though.Humans cannot just survive without heavy guidance. And it's not just survival skills that humans have to be guided through. It's morals as well.
Humans do survive though. Often without guidance. True, some die. But so do lots of animals. Lots survive though. Isn't that the point of the survival of the fittest? instinct. Instinct survives. Morals are a different thing. Morals are what we learn from our lives. From our parents, school, culture etc.
Says you? I think it is quite feasible to say rape is an instinct. It occurs within the animal realm all of the time. It is clearly due to the instinct to have sex and reproduce. What makes the animal instinct to rape - distinct from the human sense to rape for whatever reason?Animals have that instinct.Humans don't.
Yes, you've said this before. It would be nice if you could differentiate it more.
Because human emotion and human trauma is more heavy and complex than animals.
Maybe or maybe not. Sex is the instinct. The need to reproduce after yourself. Isn't that part of the image of God?
Rape isn't a human instinct.
I think it is probably true that for most people who rape others, they are animals. And they do what they do out of their own lack of self-control, because of their enormous desire to satisfy their own natural instincts. The moral dilemma is a side matter.
Again this is why free will is only a human trait.Animals will get the instinct to rape and do it.Humans will get that instinct and make the choice.
I think you are falling for a fallacy here. You assume free will in order to distinguish between animal and human acts. And you assume that because of a prior view they have free will. And a moral aspect to their being.
Now animals make that choice to, but it isn't based upon morals its based upon situation.
What do you mean by situation?
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@YouFound_Lxam
Yes
In so much as GOD is an understanding of material development.
Represented in some minds as the work of a humanesque entity.
Or in others as a physical process initiated by the currently unknowable.
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@ludofl3x
Can you depart from that plan?
Yes.
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@Double_R
The absence of some kind of divine free will does not make us "merely" stardust. We still have emotions, we still have values, we still have goals, we still have the ability to make decisions. Anything we would identify under the definition of "stardust" does not have those qualities.
If the universe has no meaning, and we are just the product of only the big bang, then yes, it is logical to identify us under the definition of "stardust.
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@YouFound_Lxam
And god doesn't seem to have taken into account or mitigation and has totally ignored the fact that Eve was indeed deceived by one of his own sons, if the bible is to be believed.Satan want a son, he was an angel.
And the angels were sons of god. learn your bible.
Are you just going to blame all of your bad decisions on other people just because they decived you?
If I commit a crime unwittingly on the deceitful advice of others, then yes I will blame the deceiver.
So you didn't do it, the devil made you do it.
The devil didn't make them do it, did he. He deceived them into doing it. The serpent was a very wise creature and much wiser that these two brand new humans that had only been around for a few (biblical) days. If the bible is to be believed.
It was no one else but god that was the cause of mankind's fall. He is the creator of all things including evil. Isaiah 45:7, if the bible is to be believed.He is. But does that mean he is evil?
Not necessarily, but it make him responsible .
So god had to create a decision for humans in order to give us free will. Him vs evil.
And you have good BIBLICAL evidence for this decision, do you?
Answer me this, who was created first- the Angels or humans?
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@YouFound_Lxam
If the universe has no meaning, and we are just the product of only the big bang, then yes, it is logical to identify us under the definition of "stardust.
What something is made out of is very different from what it is. A car is just a bunch of metal, oil, plastic, and upholstery, but you wouldn't use this verbage to describe a car. That's because there are ideas associated with words, in the case of a car the ability to get us from one place to another is the central idea, but that is absent when you describe it as merely what it is made out of.
This is the fallacy you are engaging in when you argue that there would be no reason to value one another if we're stardust. You're describing people in such a way that leaves out the central idea of what person is and then using the absence of that idea to make your argument sound like it makes sense.
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@Double_R
What something is made out of is very different from what it is. A car is just a bunch of metal, oil, plastic, and upholstery, but you wouldn't use this verbage to describe a car.
Yes. But the car had a designer.
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@YouFound_Lxam
So now we've departed from talking about free will and how its absence reduces human beings to mere stardust, to the argument for intelligent design.
Yes the car had a designer, it's still a hunk of metal, oil, plastic and upholstery.
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@Double_R
So now we've departed from talking about free will and how its absence reduces human beings to mere stardust, to the argument for intelligent design.Yes the car had a designer, it's still a hunk of metal, oil, plastic and upholstery.
But who shaped the metal, gathered the oil, made the plastic and upholstery?
Is it possible for all those things to go into the exactly right place to make a car, from an explosion?
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@YouFound_Lxam
Yes the car had a designer, it's still a hunk of metal, oil, plastic and upholstery.But who shaped the metal, gathered the oil, made the plastic and upholstery?Is it possible for all those things to go into the exactly right place to make a car, from an explosion?
What does this have to do with free will and our value as human beings being subject to it?
If you want to move on and talk about intelligent design I'm fine with that, just acknowledge that you left that argument on the table.
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@YouFound_Lxam
So if God has a plan that you don't have to follow, is he all powerful and all knowing?
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@Double_R
What does this have to do with free will and our value as human beings being subject to it?
I am saying that because we are made with intelligent design that further backs up the fact that we possess free will.
If we are just a product of a cosmic burb, that just happened to create our very intelligent and complex minds, that would mean that we serve no purpose, we have no meaning, we are meaningless, and we don't have a free will.
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@ludofl3x
So if God has a plan that you don't have to follow, is he all powerful and all knowing?
Yes.
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@YouFound_Lxam
So if God has a plan that you don't have to follow, is he all powerful and all knowing?Yes.
How? If he's all powerful and he has a plan, then you don't have free will, just the illusion of it. He's already planned for everything you or anyone else will ever do in their lives. He can't be surprised, because he's all knowing.
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@YouFound_Lxam
If we are just a product of a cosmic burb, that just happened to create our very intelligent and complex minds, that would mean that we serve no purpose, we have no meaning, we are meaningless, and we don't have a free will
How would any of this follow "product of chemistry and time"?
What is the 'purpose' you serve as someone who believes that we're intelligently designed, and how does the latter inform the former?
If you're granted intelligent design, can you advance the ball towards christianity being true? The former in this case does not in any way support the latter.
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@ludofl3x
How? If he's all powerful and he has a plan, then you don't have free will, just the illusion of it. He's already planned for everything you or anyone else will ever do in their lives. He can't be surprised, because he's all knowing.
All knowing and all powerful does not mean that you will use that power and knowledge to change the decision making of humans. He lets humans decide for themselves, and by not interfering with them, that is giving us free will.
He has a plan for us, but that doesn't mean we have to follow it.
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@YouFound_Lxam
If we are just a product of a cosmic burb, that just happened to create our very intelligent and complex minds, that would mean that we serve no purpose, we have no meaning, we are meaningless, and we don't have a free will.
Earlier when asked to define free will you provided the following:
"the ability to act at one's own discretion."
There is nothing about this definition that ceases to be the case if it turns out that our intelligent minds were created by "cosmic burb". "Ability", "discretion", "act"... Each of these qualifiers are observed traits in humans as well as other intelligent species, so according to your definition and the English language, we absolutely do have free will absent any consideration of a god.
The rest of your argument is non-sequitor. Meaning and purpose have nothing to do with the topic of free will. Inserting it in is nothing more than an appeal to emotion, an attempt to justify rejecting any absence of god's role because the prospect is one you don't like. Maybe we don't have meaning or purpose. So what? Not liking this idea has no impact on the truth of the statement.
But it's more than that, the very idea you are appealing to (a lack of meaning and/or purpose) is itself fallacious. Meaning and purpose comes from within. My life has meaning and purpose because I give it so, which stems from that which I value. If you don't value this life absent a god telling you to then the only thing I can recommend is a good therapist.
So what you are actually saying when you argue that we have no meaning or purpose is that we have no externally imposed meaning or purpose. Which, naturally, requires a god. So as I pointed out before, your argument is just a huge question begging fallacy. The only way any of what you're saying works is if we begin with the acceptance of a god as true and work from there, yet a god is the very thing you are convinced your argument proves. If we have to accept a God before the argument can make sense, it doesn't.
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@YouFound_Lxam
All knowing and all powerful does not mean that you will use that power and knowledge to change the decision making of humans. He lets humans decide for themselves, and by not interfering with them, that is giving us free will.
All knowing, all powerful, and the creator of this universe... Is logically contradictory.
If he's all powerful then he has the ability to choose whatever outcome he desires.
If he's all knowing then it's not possible for him to have created anything without knowing what the outcome would be.
If he created this universe, where you are here right now reading my words, then being all knowing and all powerful, he already knew this would be the outcome and chose this version over a version where you skipped over this post.
So according to the laws of logic, he made this choice for you.
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@YouFound_Lxam
In other words, why do we care?
..." In the past decade, scientists have used powerful functional MRI imaging to identify several regions in the brain that are associated with empathy for pain. This most recent study, however, firmly establishes that the anterior insular cortexis where the feeling of empathy originates "...
Fuller talks about how the first word spoken by a human may have been out of desperation. Ex person has perhaps witnessed others die in quicksand, and then one day it happens to them, and yells out to another person walking by ...hey bud/Jack, can you pull me out with a stick?...or YIKES Im Sinking...or Please Help! etc.
Tigers lions, pack of hyenas etc are all situations where desperate times may spur desperate call out warnings of .....DANGER, Will Robinson....
So then it goes back to how did this empathy center come to exist. A mother and her cubs etc.