EPTI believe in God because I am simply a by product of this Universe.My entire life, my intelligence, my personality and whatever else that makes me is a infinitesimal form of this Universe. If this Universe is the highest plane of existence then it is God.
Free Will and Religion - Page 23
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Yes, this is a thread on TL that involves religion, but I hate to think that our policy should be to blindly close every such thread. Sam Harris is a writer whose books are both insightful and have sparked many good discussions in the past and as long as the thread doesn't derail I'd like to leave it open. This should be the basic premise for every such thread, no matter how high the odds of it derailing. In that light, these posts that just predict the downfall of this thread (whether it be pre-determined or not) are 1) Not contributing to the discussion 2) Backseat moderating 3) Annoying 4) Actually contributing towards derailing it. I'll keep 2 daying people for this. | ||
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KingAce
United States471 Posts
I believe in God because I am simply a by product of this Universe.My entire life, my intelligence, my personality and whatever else that makes me is a infinitesimal form of this Universe. If this Universe is the highest plane of existence then it is God. | ||
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Imbaman
Singapore15 Posts
[B]On March 06 2012 13:44 Stratos_speAr wrote:[/B} When you have everything that constitutes a working human brain. You're oversimplifying everything and essentially saying we are all the exact same substance, which isn't the case. Yes, everything is made of the same general set of particles, but different combinations produce different results. I see a lot of posts in this thread saying that your environment or your genetic design is what determines how you decide things. However, I would look at these more like influences on how you think and not determining factors. Can those of you that think there's no free will explain why we feel the feeling of indecision, conflict over a decision, apathy, or the endless examples of someone going completely against reason, nature, or nurture when they choose something? Also, I feel like arguing that we have no free will can fall into the trap of just saying, "Well you were predetermined to do that" since you can never really disprove that idea. Basically the concept goes back to the fact that currently scientific understanding is that every thing in the universe, including our brains/bodies behave according to action/reaction or cause/effect, and therefore if someone knew the conditions of every particle/force/whatever, they would be able to tell what would happen next. These physical laws also apply to our brains/neurons chemical/electrical signals, which is how neuroscientists are able to invoke actions/emotion/thoughts into people/animals by applying electrical shocks. Genetics and environment are just some of the bigger factors that determine our actions, but like the butterfly effect, even the smallest things may have been a factor. So using the comparison of our brains to super computers, even computers take time to process information to come to an output (decision), leading to indecision. If a computer was programmed to have apathy under certain conditions, it would be able to have apathy, like by if there were 2 equally good outputs, it would choose one by random. | ||
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sluggaslamoo
Australia4494 Posts
On March 06 2012 15:32 Imbaman wrote: Basically the concept goes back to the fact that currently scientific understanding is that every thing in the universe, including our brains/bodies behave according to action/reaction or cause/effect, and therefore if someone knew the conditions of every particle/force/whatever, they would be able to tell what would happen next. These physical laws also apply to our brains/neurons chemical/electrical signals, which is how neuroscientists are able to invoke actions/emotion/thoughts into people/animals by applying electrical shocks. Genetics and environment are just some of the bigger factors that determine our actions, but like the butterfly effect, even the smallest things may have been a factor. So using the comparison of our brains to super computers, even computers take time to process information to come to an output (decision), leading to indecision. If a computer was programmed to have apathy under certain conditions, it would be able to have apathy, like by if there were 2 equally good outputs, it would choose one by random. It would be interesting if we eventually had a set of inputs to create an predictable output consistently to disprove the theory of free will as clear as black and white. For example if we knew the exact methodology and prerequisites of bringing up a child wanting to become a fireman and determine the exact hobbies and foods he liked. Currently the closest we have is marketing and politics. | ||
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shinyA
United States473 Posts
On March 06 2012 11:07 fishjie wrote: Some further thoughts. Why do christians argue that their god wants free will? 1) tons of bible verses go against this. hardening pharaoh's heart on purpose. "esau i have hated, jacob i have loved". judas being foretold as the traitor. so on and so forth. 2) an omnipotent creator cannot allow free will. if he is not powerful enough to control his creation, but instead gives them freedom, by definition he does not have power over them. the two are mutually exclusive. humans may have the illusion of free will, but god has the ability to coerce them to do anything. it is not truly "free". if god does not have this ability, he is not all powerful. 3) free will cannot coexist with an omniscient creator. by very definition an omniscient creator knows everything that will happen ahead of time, therefore nothing we do is of our own free will, because it is already known. Finally, I'll conclude with some Epicurus, because the Problem of Evil has already been brought up in this thread, and apologists have already tried to respond. Apologists have struggled centuries with this, but of course there is no good answer. If god knew adam and eve were going to eat the apple, he never would have put them in the garden. then to burn all their descendants in hell forever, despite knowing it was going to happen is just asinine. God created our Universe and thus created all of the laws of our Universe, time being one of them. God is not restricted or bound by time, he is outside of it. When you think of God as all-knowing and think on the fact that he knows what will happen you think of this as if a human, who lives under the laws of our Universe, would know but God - being above the laws of our Universe that he created - doesn't see things in the same timeline that we would. It's quite simple and logical that God would see the timeline itself all at once, not as if he were in this second of our timeline looking onward. As for the Epicurus quote/argument...saying that no apologist has ever had an answer to this is just ignorant. It's one of the most basic arguments that has been answered a billion times. For you to assume that there is an objective evil then you have to assume there is an objective moral code but without God ( or a 'moral code giver' ) there cannot be an objective evil. If you try to say that the evil referred to is subjective then it's not really evil and not worth arguing. For there to be good there has to be evil, if there were no evil there would be no free will. If God came down to earth, announced himself and got rid of all evil then we would have no free will. We would just be worshipping machines with no choice in the matter. It reminds me of something like this: 1.If there is no God then there is no absolute morality 2.If there is no absolute morality then morality must be relative 3.If morality is relative then evil is only a stance and thus does not really exist 4.If there is no evil then the entire problem of evil fails because of the lack of evil So in a way you prove God's existence in your argument trying to refute it. EDIT - and on a side note, if God is able and not willing to prevent evil that does not make him malevolent, by any definition of the word. | ||
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reincremate
China2210 Posts
On March 06 2012 15:28 KingAce wrote: I am kind of confused here. I believe in a God. But to do so is to affirm that the universe is deterministic. I think we have limited free will. But our entire lives are predetermined.Belief in freewill and true randomness is usually a factor of ignorance. If we can't predict a pattern or system, if we can't understand how it functions we infer it to be random. I believe in God because I am simply a by product of this Universe.My entire life, my intelligence, my personality and whatever else that makes me is a infinitesimal form of this Universe. If this Universe is the highest plane of existence then it is God. That doesn't seem anything like the conventional definition of God as an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent agent. | ||
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0neder
United States3733 Posts
On March 06 2012 11:07 fishjie wrote: There are many verses in the bible that seem incomplete, or off-kilter, especially the oldest ones. As a Mormon, I believe the Bible is true, as far as it is translated correctly. A few verses, such as God hardening Pharoah's heart are inconsistent with the vast majority of scripture supporting the principle of individual agency, and may be mistranslations that are sure to come up after thousands of years.Why do christians argue that their god wants free will? 1) tons of bible verses go against this. hardening pharaoh's heart on purpose. "esau i have hated, jacob i have loved". judas being foretold as the traitor. so on and so forth. 2) an omnipotent creator cannot allow free will. if he is not powerful enough to control his creation, but instead gives them freedom, by definition he does not have power over them. the two are mutually exclusive. humans may have the illusion of free will, but god has the ability to coerce them to do anything. it is not truly "free". if god does not have this ability, he is not all powerful. I think you're being simplistic and overly abstract here. Omnipotent may not mean the power to do anything. God must still abide by natural and eternal principles that give him his virtue and power. However, even if he could, that does not mean he would want to control his children, beyond teaching them, guiding them, and letting them choose for themselves to trust him fully.3) free will cannot coexist with an omniscient creator. by very definition an omniscient creator knows everything that will happen ahead of time, therefore nothing we do is of our own free will, because it is already known. I don't think your conclusion is makes sense here. God is a parent, who wants His children to learn and grow. He teaches them correct principles and allows them to learn for themselves, just like any parent. The loving decision to allow agency to a child does not mean that a wise parent with experience cannot see the pitfalls ahead, nor would a wise parent always prevent them from occurring. Finally, I'll conclude with some Epicurus, because the Problem of Evil has already been brought up in this thread, and apologists have already tried to respond. Apologists have struggled centuries with this, but of course there is no good answer. If god knew adam and eve were going to eat the apple, he never would have put them in the garden. then to burn all their descendants in hell forever, despite knowing it was going to happen is just asinine. This final point has some assumptions that I question the validity of: 1 - Eating the fruit was bad, and God did not want it to happen 2 - Everyone's going to hell because of it 3 - God allowing his children to make mistakes is bad 4 - God acts independent of natural moral laws, such as the law of agency I have more thoughts to share regarding a Christian (and some uniquely Mormon) perspectives on religion and free will. I'll try to share them sometime in the next day or two. | ||
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ClanRH.TV
United States462 Posts
On March 05 2012 21:37 paralleluniverse wrote: ... I simply cannot see how free will can fit into what we know about the universe. The universe is governed by the laws of physics, therefore there is no scope for free will to exist. Everything in the universe, and hence every thought and action made by a human is simply the motion of particles obeying certain laws. Therefore, free will does not exist because we cannot choose how the particles that constitute our body move, they move in accordance with the laws of physics. Random or deterministic, it doesn't matter, because we cannot exert influence nor make choices independent of the motion of particles that are dictated by these laws in either case. I appreciate the simplistic way that you've approached this topic, but unfortunately things are not this cut and dry. I am certainly not qualified to be discussing quantum mechanics and matters of the such, but what I can tell you and what others will tell you is that there are still gaping holes that need to be reconciled before we can start drawing vast conclusions like you have here. Keep in mind that it is the theory of quantum mechanics, not a law. Good discussion though. | ||
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pirsq
Australia145 Posts
A useful analogy is object-oriented programming. In coding up a game like starcraft, for example, one might define a "Marine" object to represent a marine, and methods like "Marine.IssueMoveCommand()" or "Marine.PlayDeathAnimation()" to pretend the marine really is a unit with commands that can be issed to it. On the most fundamental level, your computer is still executing a sequence of instructions to move bits of data around, and has absolutely no idea what a marine is, much like how the universe has no idea that a particular collection of particles might represent a dog. However, on the descriptive level, it is extremely useful for humans to think about it that way. | ||
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farside604
Canada127 Posts
In response to this Plantinga offers the "free will defense" that says that there exists evil in the world because the greatest good that god could give us is free will and to interfere with that would cause more harm than any evil we could bring upon ourselves. What does everyone think of this? Does Plantinga's free will defense successfully counter the logical problem of evil. (It might be a good idea to look up the entire agument by Alvin Plantinga which is usually referred to as the "free will defense" and is quite well known) | ||
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Akta
447 Posts
On March 06 2012 15:10 Don.681 wrote: Can try to give honest short answers.Maybe we should focus on answering a specific question, like: "The last time you ordered food, did you use free will or not?" 1. Explain your train of thought 2. Explain what you think happened in your brain 3. How would a scientist/philosopher/pastor explain what you just did? 1) I don't remember the train of though from last time I ordered food and I probably don't really think much about it anyway. 2) I assume the actions were mainly based on reactions in the brain related to when and what I ate last time and many other factors like that, which resulted in ordering the food and the type of food I ordered. 3) Should depend on person. Most scientists and philosophers probably have about same view as I do and a lot of pastors probably do as well. While some would likely argue that there is no explanation, and so on. | ||
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lowreezy08
United States143 Posts
On March 05 2012 21:37 paralleluniverse wrote: Sam Harris is releasing an ebook on Free Will tomorrow. http://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Sam-Harris/dp/1451683405 http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-illusion-of-free-will To preempt that, I felt that I should write down my own thoughts on free will. I simply cannot see how free will can fit into what we know about the universe. The universe is governed by the laws of physics, therefore there is no scope for free will to exist. Everything in the universe, and hence every thought and action made by a human is simply the motion of particles obeying certain laws. Therefore, free will does not exist because we cannot choose how the particles that constitute our body move, they move in accordance with the laws of physics. Random or deterministic, it doesn't matter, because we cannot exert influence nor make choices independent of the motion of particles that are dictated by these laws in either case. As with everything in the universe, every thought and action made by a person is not a result of free will, it's a result of the laws of physics acting on particles. Not even the intrinsic randomness of Quantum Mechanics saves the free will hypothesis, as this would imply that your thoughts and actions are caused by fundamentally unpredictable random processes. If so, then they are the result of a universal RNG, thus they would still not be free. The only reason theologians and religious people latch on to the completely unscientific notion of free will is to "explain" why bad things happen. If God is good, then why did he let the genocide in Rwanda happen? Why does he not intervene in the the mass-murder being conducted by the Syrian government, as we speak? Why is there evil in the world. Because God gave us free will, allegedly. This is then neatly tied into the Original Sin myth, whereby Eve exerted free will and chose to eat from the Garden of Eden, and this frivolous reason somehow necessitated that Jesus die on the cross. Religions abuse this nonexistent notion of free will in an attempt to explain away the gaping flaws of the God hypothesis and the existence of evil. god IS good, but that doesn't mean we always are. Should we just be little robots running around with an already set path for us so we do no harm to anyone? We are our own souls, we control our own actions, we decide which path to take, everything we do influences the people around us. This is a test. If god wanted to he could vanish everyone that waged war, but he loves/believes in every one of us no matter how bad the sins we've committed. You're basically stating, "why does the lord let me and others have a brain that can think about greed, power, violence, etc...". | ||
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gyth
657 Posts
On March 06 2012 13:52 Don.681 wrote: What then makes the specific composition of a human brain special form other compositions? Is this exclusive to human brains? How about other animal's brains? When exactly from sperm/egg to Adult brain is free will attained? ~18 months from birth for humans. Mirror Test It might not be "free will" but it is a point when a group of atoms starts to behave qualitatively differently than another similar group of atoms. Self aware and self modifying makes the system less deterministic in a practical sense. The GM usually knows what the chaotic neutral rogue will do, but is often surprised by what the lawful good paladin chooses. | ||
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ThePol002
Canada90 Posts
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gyth
657 Posts
I've been reading through the thread and it looks like there is some talk about god's usuall attributes: omnipotence, omnibenvolence, and omniscience. From these three attribute come the Problem of Evil which says that if god is indeed all these three things then why is there evil? Another way to frame the question is "Does scarcity have any utility?". I would argue it is exactly scarcity that gives life meaning. If everyone had everything then choice wouldn't matter, but we don't, so it does. | ||
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Pusekatten
Norway234 Posts
And then be able to see into the future? | ||
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zobz
Canada2175 Posts
On March 06 2012 17:31 gyth wrote: Another way to frame the question is "Does scarcity have any utility?". I would argue it is exactly scarcity that gives life meaning. If everyone had everything then choice wouldn't matter, but we don't, so it does. Then what does heaven have to offer? | ||
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ControlMonkey
Australia3109 Posts
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Ferric
United States22 Posts
There is no law of physics that can be derived from this except to describe the path electrons are taking through my brain. And if we want to derive these laws, we have to understand the basis of physics, which we as humans use to interpret physical events in the universe, aka modeling. We understand that energy follows a squared relationship from empirical data (specifically a ball falling into clay), and from this empirical data we derived a gravitational constant. We understand the motion of an electron based on our understanding of conduction. Because of these observations we generate mathematical models that best fit our interpretation. Why do you think constant like magnetic permeability exists, and why similar constants are present in almost all physical laws, the answer is we observe them empirically through well controlled experiments, and we use these constants to solidify our mathematical models (which we refer to as laws). All of that said, as a human you understand the idea of control. It is easy for you to not commit an action. And in this context there is no flow of electrons, and thus no laws of physics at play. At any given instant you are not executing an infinite possibility of actions. And in this regard you are still controlling your actions (or lack thereof). For instance, I am not smoking, I told myself years ago that I would not, and up until now I still have not. A choice was made, execution was had, and the action persists, but my brain is not devoting any energy to the pursuit of not smoking (at least until these last few seconds I guess). | ||
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somatic
Australia34 Posts
On March 05 2012 21:37 paralleluniverse wrote: The only reason theologians and religious people latch on to the completely unscientific notion of free will is to "explain" why bad things happen. If God is good, then why did he let the genocide in Rwanda happen? Why does he not intervene in the the mass-murder being conducted by the Syrian government, as we speak? Why is there evil in the world. Because God gave us free will, allegedly. This is then neatly tied into the Original Sin myth, whereby Eve exerted free will and chose to eat from the Garden of Eden, and this frivolous reason somehow necessitated that Jesus die on the cross. Religions abuse this nonexistent notion of free will in an attempt to explain away the gaping flaws of the God hypothesis and the existence of evil. As with most people (most religious people included) your misunderstanding of the the bible's message is causing your hatred towards it/reproach upon it. I have recently been studying with a group of bible student's (which exact denomination i will try to keep unmentioned because i fear my own lack of understanding on the matter may cause reproach upon their organisation) and will try enlighten you on the situation. Not so much on the free will part of the discussion, i have not read any of the comments yet but will assume my view has been mentioned already. Something along the lines of - if a thought pops into my head it is my choice whether i act on it or not. That choice is me exercising free will. "If God is good, then why did he let the genocide in Rwanda happen?" As you mentioned it is tied in to the Adam and Eve scenario. What essentially happened there was Adam and Eve choosing not to follow God's law's and hence live by their own rules. The consequence is that God is now allowing humans and Satan to have their chance to prove they can rule themselves it is not until when all is lost that He will step in and save the righteous. So i guess technically you are right he is ALLOWING it to happen but it is Satan's influence and humans that are CAUSING it to happen. He gives all the opportunity to learn about Him and try to correct their ways and as reward eternal life. Unlike many religious organisations that will say it was God's will that those things happen the truth is that he is merely allowing it to happen so His purpose for further down the track can be fulfilled.If i were a better student/more experienced teacher I could site scriptures pertaining to these facts, i guess i can try dig them up for anyone if they are truly interested. "Why does he not intervene in the the mass-murder being conducted by the Syrian government, as we speak? " If he were to intervene any time something bad happened he would be prolonging the existence of Satan's reign over the Earth, by waiting he is settling the issue at the fastest pace possible once and for all, while giving every body the chance to redeem themselves by giving His word, the bible. Most of the gaping flaws you mention are a product of the teachings of the popular churches whose teachings have been combined with pagan beliefs (beginning during the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine.) and NOT from what the bible actually teaches. From what I have seen over my three or so years studying the bible, the logic is flawless. Much more so than any other human construct I have witnessed in my 27yrs on the Earth (examples such as national/international policies, movies, video game balance etc). I can guarantee many of your conceptions of what the bible actually teaches will be incorrect, as mine were before I began to study. Some examples are the existence of a "Hell", the holy trinity, immortality of the soul and God ruling the world at the moment rather than Satan as i already mentioned. If it adds anything to my credibility, not that it should in my own opinion, i have a degree in Engineering. Hopefully this will mitigate any derogatory comments about me being uneducated and having blind faith. On that note i do NOT have 100% faith in the bible, i have not decided to be baptised yet and am far from knowing enough to convince my self that it is correct. All i can say is that it deserves alot more credit than what is commonly given to it. ***edit*** After reading some of the comments and contemplating the topic a little more it has some interesting implications towards religion, in that if you are willing to accept that we do not have free will, or at least do not understand it, then you may be willing to concede that if a spirit being that was greater than us was to exist it could have influence over our behaviour, or, "will". | ||
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[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
On March 06 2012 08:18 Falling wrote: Like right now. You chose to respond to me. You chose to type certain words. Even if you were reacting to stimuli, there was nothing compelling you to 1) read 2) respond by typing 3) respond coherently. And furthermore respond to an argument about how the nature of the universe works. I chose to response. But who or what is me in this sense? As I saw your posting, I read it because of the hammer which caught my attention. Then I remembered that I had a similar discussion that day. So it felt easy to get into the discussion since I already had my arguments thought out. What is that "me" which decides what to do? It's my brain which reacts depending on sensory input and memory. "I" itself is an illusion I think. I am a life form with a neuronal net able to create a map (an image) based on sensory data input and locate myself in it. My nerve center (brain) is able to use the concept of "Me" in opposite to "You" or "them" because this makes it easier to interact with the world. On March 06 2012 08:18 Falling wrote:It's not a freedom from physical laws so much as there is a conscious will that is able to make decisions- and we can learn a lot about the brain from brain activity. We can tell that you are dreaming based on brain activity, we can tell that you are thinking. But we actually have to talk to you to find out what the dream was or what you were specifically thinking about. We react to stimuli, our body operates within physical laws, we have fight or flight responses. All true. But we also discover, create, theorize, choose to play a video game, choose to create a video game, choose to hack a video game, choose create art, choose to appreciate art, choose to critique art, or choose to vandalize art. I think the feat of theorizing is a process of evolutionary brain development. It helps us with pattern recognition and improves the quality of our predictions of the future. It enables us to build better shelter and do things with lower energy requirement. Art and its appreciation is probably a byproduct of our mind abilities. We can discern a healthy, fertile woman (which provides good genes) from women who are less likely to provide us a fit offspring. We can see color because it helps no navigate in the environment and look for food. I guess those kinds are the source of our aesthetic sense. This idea is backed up by early art (fertile woman carved in stone found in Africa, idealized athletes created by ancient Greek carvers.) I agree that we have much higher capabilies to suppress a need in favor of a desire than animals have. But does it mean that we have free will? Desire (I rather play another game of SC2 instead of finally making me something to eat) often favors an experience over a time-consuming caretaking about one's needs. But we are dependend on having experiences since we are bad at surviving naked and without shelter and without careful food planning. Without desire to have experiences we learn little new. Our ability to actually have desires which trump needs (at least for some time) could be seen as an evolutionary development. Some guys devoted their life to science, or art, or other things and forfeit an easy, convenient life. Otherwise we wouldn't be were we are now. Since we are social beings, the concept of free will is useful, too. If someone does good or bad to us, we rather see it as his free will so that we can react accordingly (cooperate with him or punish him.) On March 06 2012 08:18 Falling wrote:If we have a concept of free will despite there being no free will than it is a very powerful delusion. It's impossible to even go to work without operating under the assumption of free will. When the alarm goes, will you hit snooze? When you get up what will you wear, what will you eat? Will you eat? Will you go to work at all? Will pick the shortest route, will you speed? Will you run a red light or stop? Will you drive in the opposite lane? Will you drive on the sidewalk? Will you drive off the bridge? Hundreds of decisions, some of them rote, some based on the past, some of them more urgent. And if any point you stop to try and explain how this is all deterministic/ random/ instinctual then you have made the choice to stop and think about how it is all deterministic/ random/ instinctual. And then you can choose to think about how you are thinking about your thinking... The concept of free will so dominates the way we live our lives that it would be impossible to function without it. And if it is a delusion then it is such a great delusion, that we have no reason to trust any other of observations of sight, smell, etc because it is all filtered through this entirely deluded brain of ours. So we have no way knowing whether our universe is deterministic because our means of knowing is faulty. And certainly something like emotions can be faulty. But my argument that this is SUCH a great delusion that it throws our entire thought process into question. As Sam Harris pointed out in the piece I read (which is not from the book "Free Will"), the absence of free will doesn't mean one would stay in bed all day and wait what happens. The more time passes, the more will is needed to continue staying in bed instead of go up, eat something and so on. What will I eat? Most times my body senses tell me what I will eat. The body can sense what he needs and choose accordingly. Then I think "oh, I have the appetite to eat that now". I could have chosen otherwise, against my needs. But to do this I need to have a certain state of mind which allows me to forget about my needs because another desire has more priority right now. How does such state of mind come to me? I think the answer is "it's in my genes". Through evolution I got a brain which is willing to sacrifice mundane pleasures for a long-term goal. | ||
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