Free Will

[Winston Smith]

You're doing that whole circular reasoning/confirmation biases thing again. Not to mention pre-determination biases. Religous figures from the Pope to the Dali Lama except evolution basics.

[basics]

You're doing that whole circular reasoning/confirmation biases thing again. Not to mention pre-determination biases. Religous figures from the Pope to the Dali Lama except evolution basics.

Winston Smith,

Yes they do, but then they are after all only religious.

[Winston Smith]

Winston Smith,

Yes they do, but then they are after all only religious.

Your whole notion that only you and yours have faith is actually kind of insulting you know.

[basics]

Your whole notion that only you and yours have faith is actually kind of insulting you know.

Winston Smith,

Well, Jesus taught us that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and the whole process of becoming one with Him is built upon these three Names. Paul expands that by telling us what each mean both for the legalist and the believer. But the core comes down to being born again, why? Because no man can enter heaven unless he is born again and that of the Spirit of God finalising the conversion procedure. Then and only then is the Faith of Jesus Christ imputed to a recipient of new life, Paul telling us that " Now the righteousness of God is being revealed by Faith of Jesus Christ " and " is unto all and upon all them that believe." So, it is a pretty exclusive role that is played out when people are brought to Christ.

The offer is open to anyone, everyone, and that's where the " unto all " comes in but it is only applied by God to them that seek Jesus by being born again, hence the " upon all." Once it is " upon " any that Faith becomes a surety that the recipient will rise again like He did, to eternal life. So, when Paul writes that there is only One Faith, One Lord and One Spirit of God that applies only to them that are born again because Jesus told us that this was the only way into heaven, Him being that way. But Jesus also told us that through two distinct parables wherein interlopers would permeate the church looking to be the same yet not being so at all. It has been those interlopers who now outnumber the true church of Christ.

For example, all those denominations that sprinkle babies and adults with so-called holy water and then call them Christian are committing a grave error and we can see this in the numbers from these systems who are falling away. They fall away because they never had the Faith from Jesus Christ in the first place. This is a distinction that reads all through the Old Covenant as well as the New. The Jews were the typical example of a people who should have been Holy but weren't because they lacked Faith and this we find today in most systems because they too have the outward look of religion yet lack the one thing that makes them Christian. Paul tells us that they worship another Jesus, another God and by another Spirit. Having come from one of these systems, I know it can be assumed to be insulting if you're on the receiving end but the most exhilarating experience one can have is in the moments when one gets regenerated, one is born again. It throws open a whole new way of life in Christ Jesus.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

No, but we think that we do. Everything is really just decided by a sequence of events and, knowing the correct triggers, human behaviour is actually completely predictable. It would however require a really sophisticated super computer to achieve this.

[Iskar]

No, but we think that we do. Everything is really just decided by a sequence of events and, knowing the correct triggers, human behaviour is actually completely predictable. It would however require a really sophisticated super computer to achieve this.

More like... new physics? Unless you have a (nobel-prize worthy) way around the indeterminism of quantum theories up your sleeve the predictability of human behaviour is just a vain, unsupported claim.

[Himster]

the predictability of human behaviour is just a vain, unsupported claim.

Free will is even more vain, in every sense of the word.
Check mate.

[Iskar]

[Himster]

Disqualification for going off piste, metaphysics is so far off piste that the mad hatter has invited us for tea and crumpets. Also double hitting can get you a yellow card, like a boxer throwing a punch after the round is over, most ungentlemanly.

[PointOfViewGun]

No, but we think that we do. Everything is really just decided by a sequence of events and, knowing the correct triggers, human behaviour is actually completely predictable. It would however require a really sophisticated super computer to achieve this.

If you truly believe that why continue living your life as if the opposite is true?

[Phier]

No, but we think that we do. Everything is really just decided by a sequence of events and, knowing the correct triggers, human behaviour is actually completely predictable. It would however require a really sophisticated super computer to achieve this.

This gets into fuzziness but perhaps the universe has a sort of random number generator, meaning at some very fundamental level, predictability is impossible.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

More like... new physics? Unless you have a (nobel-prize worthy) way around the indeterminism of quantum theories up your sleeve the predictability of human behaviour is just a vain, unsupported claim.

For now it is more in the realms of philosophy or meta-physics really.

[Gaidin]

This gets into fuzziness but perhaps the universe has a sort of random number generator, meaning at some very fundamental level, predictability is impossible.

Given we require probabilities to say where electrons are with any exactness...

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

Thing is the ideas of free will and pre-determination are as old as the cavemen. I can from good sources tell it started this way:

Caveman #1: - Don't go play with that mammoth, it's gonna stomp you to a pudding!
Caveman #2: - you, I can do whatever I want! (ie free will)
*Mammoth stomps Caveman #2 to a pudding.
Caveman #1: - That's the only way it could really end up for that idiot! (ie pre-determination)

I would say the theory free will pre-dates the theory of pre-determination by about 10 minutes, or as long as it takes for a mammoth to stomp a human to a pudding.

[Gaidin]

Thing is the ideas of free will and pre-determination are as old as the cavemen. I can from good sources tell it started this way:

Caveman #1: - Don't go play with that mammoth, it's gonna stomp you to a pudding!
Caveman #2: - you, I can do whatever I want! (ie free will)
*Mammoth stomps Caveman #2 to a pudding.
Caveman #1: - That's the only way it could really end up for that idiot! (ie pre-determination)

I would say the theory free will pre-dates the theory of pre-determination by about 10 minutes, or as long as it takes for a mammoth to stomp a human to a pudding.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

That's what she said. Or rather Cavewoman #4 that observed the whole thing.

[Yayattasa]

This gets into fuzziness but perhaps the universe has a sort of random number generator, meaning at some very fundamental level, predictability is impossible.

Welcome to 20th century quantum physics.

[MaximiIian]

All living beings have freedom of choice in their actions; but the nature of mortality stills bind us to an eventual end: the inevitability of death and closure. I believe in 'fate' in the same way that the ancient Greeks and Romans did, which is different from how the concept is depicted in pop culture: fate is not rigid, but flexible. It isn't the hard determination of a life-path, but the apportionment of consequences to our actions and behaviour, up to and including death.

[conon394]

conon394,

When God created all things He did so by their kind so just as we have different types of dogs, horses, even chickens, they are all inside the kind that God made. So. when He raised the land He set about making every type of herb etc to abound over it. He is the Common Creator. And when He had finished everything was up and running so that we could enjoy the fruits of His labour. It just happens that if Adam had cut down a tree and counted the rings he would have seen it to be much older than what it actually was because it was made mature. The same goes for most probably everything He made in those six days. Why even Adam and Eve were mature adults when he made them.

But you must admit that is simply your sincere belief - not a fact or something that can be demonstrated in any way.

But as for DNA it doesn't evolve, it mutates and adapts and the most prominent characteristic of it is that it was Designed, not by chance as even Crick admits but by our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. And the reason it mutates is because of the curse God placed on all creation as a result of Adam's mistake. So much for the advancement of the fittest because in the end everything dies.

Umm perhaps everything dies because that how life works... And you already have fallen into the the trap of your picture - there is no progression to perfect there is just random mutation and the most not unfit survive.

If evolution is the ultimate in advancement why has everything got a sell by date attached?

No need to

Because A: Its an observable fact
Because B: You again misapprehend that Evolution Theory proposes a liner progression of improvement to nirvana.

And the reason it mutates is because of the curse God placed on all creation as a result of Adam's mistake. So much for the advancement of the fittest because in the end everything dies.

A capricious punishment for the sins of two people - not a very nice god really. Honestly for all its convoluted nature the Classical religion of the Greeks makes more sense - Its logical - Its gods are capricious and sometime cruel the origin of the universe is based on remote disinterested beings - it makes a lot better story at explaining the observable world.

Had God not made things at creation mature and up and running would things be any different today? Not at all because we'd still have coal, diamonds, stalactites etc even after just six thousand odd years of existence.

How do you get 6000?

Just curious I mean can you describe that rational in detail

It just happens that if Adam had cut down a tree and counted the rings he would have seen it to be much older than what it actually was because it was made mature.

But you demonstrate how tree rings form with a few years a cutting them down and its not like they have hundreds of rings in one year.

Why even Adam and Eve were mature adults when he made them.

According to a single not very impressive source

[basics]

conon394,

But it is demonstrated by the fact that each animal, bird, fish is distinctly of its own kind, there never having been found a transitional of any sorts. Now isn't that how God tells us in the bible and if so it is not just my opinion, rather the opinion of God and all who have followed Him ever since?

Well, if men die because of Adam's default it certainly wasn't meant to be that way. He could have rested on God's word with Eve and never have died at all. Your remark about only the fit surviving flies in the face of your previous remark because everything dies so the fittest are not exempt. May I say that there may well be random mutation but in most cases it never enhances life, rather the opposite. In effect these mutations are making life harder to deal with, death still around the corner. So, consider what God offers when He says that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you will have eternal life. Is that not better by far than accepting that life just works at being life?

No, evolution is not an observable fact. As for its so-called promises, it has none. It's you guys in the sciences that are giving it the Nirvana effect with all the falsities that have been set in stone by men and women determined to place God as a nothing.

Of course to the unbeliever it is always good to blame God for Adam's weakness. But, if God was that nasty, why would He come in the flesh as Jesus Christ to pay the price of sin for anyone who would believe on Him?

From Adam to Jesus or those alive at the time of Jesus we know that the Jews kept impeccable records of lineage and adding the 2,000 odd years since his death we come to a figure of 6,000 odd years.

When God made trees and all the other things He made them mature so that the planet was an up and running entity. Therefore if Adam had cut down a tree it would have had rings that outnumbered its days on the planet.

No, it's not a single unimpressive source as Moses wrote of it. Jesus wrote of it. Jude wrote of it as did others. Adam was made or created and then put into the garden to tend it and the animals, hardly something One would have a little babe doing don't you think?