free will

Do you guys believe in free will?

  • yea free will is very real

    Votes: 22 73.3%
  • nope is an illusion

    Votes: 5 16.7%
  • i dont know

    Votes: 3 10.0%

  • Total voters
    30
  • Poll closed .

JustAsking

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Proscribe means to prohibit. I'm assuming you intended to use the meaning of prescribe in this case.

.If you discard such illogical precepts as mythological poppycock and accept human beings for the intelligent, emotional, social, and most importantly biological creatures that we are, you can understand that there is no cause for such warring with one's own nature. The cause for "good" behavior is a social idea, as is all morality. It has nothing to do with judgement of some intangible soul in an afterlife...this is merely the leverage by which religions have traditionally imposed their standard of morality onto the ignorant and superstitious. It has everything to do with creating and maintaining a viable social order. As such, it's highly subjective and localized within any given society.

I've always been fascinated with the idea of superposition of quantum states, a la Schrödinger's cat, and I tend to believe that such paradoxes would be difficult to conceive in a deteministic universe. When free choice is part of the framework, then every decision represents a branching point in the universe's shape...choose one option, and the resulting reality will be set in one manner; choose another instead, and the result might be completely different. Small perturbations in even the simplest choice might have tremendous and far-reaching effects on manifest reality (the "butterfly effect"). Entire fields of study in nonlinear dynamic systems exist to examine the nature of these phenomena.

If our reality were truly deterministic, such notions would be almost inconceivable....
Hazel,
Yes, I meant to say prescribe in that sentence, but proscribe is actually a better description of most of the religious law. Thou shalt not..., etc.

I love it when you weigh in on subjects like this. I leave some comments that I am all proud of and I come back and find them blasted to bits by a barrage of Hazel-logic. It reminds me that I am alive. But then again, pain always has that capacity.

I have some things to say about the second and third points you made. Briefley, I have to say that I see Paul's theology as barely distinguishable from what a secular humanist would say about the nature of man and morality. The God I believe in is a Grace-filled God and his "judgement" about human induced misery and suffering of others is not that much different than that of a devout secular humanist's judgement.

What I mean is that we are sad when people in general don't measure up to even their own ideals regarding justice and suffering. That self-interest dominates their life and prevents them from doing even what their own personal philosophy would have them do about it. A Grace-filled God knows more about this than any one of us would and can only forgive it all even through his disappointment. So its not that I see the human condition through the fog of some kind of old fashioned Catholic guilt or anything. I see it as a fact of life and I see Paul saying that God sees it that way, too.

I have to run, but I would like to comment on your notion of determinism in a quantum universe later. I have similar thoughts. In fact, I find this thinking in God's answer to Job at the end of the book of Job. Basically, shit happens, and the chain of causality in the universe is too vast for a human to comprehend, so it might as well be non-deterministic. The answer even works for classical physics. God is not a reductionist, it seems.
 

JustAsking

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IAM NOT A CHRISTIAN AND I DONT BELIEVE IN THEIR MAIN DOGMAS BUT
THE WAY YOU REFUTE THIS IDEA USING USING CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE IS BRILLANT

tallbig, thanks for the comments. I think we always assume the Bible is obscure and mostly irrelevant and then we tend to approach it that way. I am no longer afraid of it like I used to be.

I've always thought that Christ wasn't a Christian as much as he was a secular humanist.

I can see how one could think this. I definitely could see why someone would want to think this, and find plenty of justification for it. Before I became an obnoxious Christian, I spent most of my life thinking like a secular humanist. Christ was my hero during that time.

Now I think a modern mainstream Christian would be mostly indistinquishable from a devout and active secular humanist but with the added component that his motivation comes from the Holy Spirit. I hope this doesn't sound too arrogant, but Lutherans believe that when it comes to a person's response to misery and suffering in the world, the Christian response is the same as the secular humanist response, but without faith it is harder for the secular humanist to sustain it than someone with faith.

So Lutheran thought is that the priority is the same as Jesus', says, which is 1) Love God, 2) Love neighbor, and that the second derives its motivation and sustanence from the first. Lutherans worship as a spiritual discipline, not because they think God needs it or demands it.

Jesus' two greatest commandments, "Love God, Love neighbor", are very difficult to distinquish from each other in many contexts. Especially since he follows those two commandments with the parable of The Good Samaritan. So in that regard, I am with you.

Ultimately, though, in order to support the idea that Jesus was only a secular humanist, you would have to ignore big chunks of the Gospel.
 

B_tallbig

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and a Buddhist. :cool:
jesus and the buddha have similar lives in some way but in order to call jesus a buddhist some things must be taking in consideration .

do jesus teach the 4 nobles truths? do jesus teach the 8 fold path?

do jesus teach karma and rebirth ?

jesus teach about resurrection and eternal soul and only one live

the buddha teach about karma and rebirth ( multiples lives) and denies the existance of a eternal soul and also his emptiness teaching that all things exist in interdependence .

and not to forget that buddha denies the existance of a creator god
 

B_tallbig

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tallbig, thanks for the comments. I think we always assume the Bible is obscure and mostly irrelevant and then we tend to approach it that way. I am no longer afraid of it like I used to be.



I can see how one could think this. I definitely could see why someone would want to think this, and find plenty of justification for it. Before I became an obnoxious Christian, I spent most of my life thinking like a secular humanist. Christ was my hero during that time.

Now I think a modern mainstream Christian would be mostly indistinquishable from a devout and active secular humanist but with the added component that his motivation comes from the Holy Spirit. I hope this doesn't sound too arrogant, but Lutherans believe that when it comes to a person's response to misery and suffering in the world, the Christian response is the same as the secular humanist response, but without faith it is harder for the secular humanist to sustain it than someone with faith.

So Lutheran thought is that the priority is the same as Jesus', says, which is 1) Love God, 2) Love neighbor, and that the second derives its motivation and sustanence from the first. Lutherans worship as a spiritual discipline, not because they think God needs it or demands it.

Jesus' two greatest commandments, "Love God, Love neighbor", are very difficult to distinquish from each other in many contexts. Especially since he follows those two commandments with the parable of The Good Samaritan. So in that regard, I am with you.

Ultimately, though, in order to support the idea that Jesus was only a secular humanist, you would have to ignore big chunks of the Gospel.


i enjoy your posts you are a very intelligent person what you said in your post is coherent and logic
 

B_spiker067

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Ultimately, though, in order to support the idea that Jesus was only a secular humanist, you would have to ignore big chunks of the Gospel.

I know and I very much agree. I was just trying to toss out a spectrum out there where on one end you have a Christian and on the other a secular humanist. I was just saying that in many respects Christ could be seen as being just off center (weighted towards) being a secular humanist rather than how many Christians (Paula White, Bennie Hinn, et al) are viewed today. I feel if a person can see beyond the FUD and feel a certain affinity for Jesus as a form of a secular humanist they might better begin to see a Biblical (Son of God) Jesus.

Just be glad I didn't try to say he was a Nitzschean styled existentialist. :)
 

JustAsking

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Smarty pants - I imagine the irony of having a poll on free will was a little lost on the OP. I would have had a poll with one option :biggrin1:

Maybe.

That reminds me of the old Presbyterian joke about determinism. A Presbyterian Pastor fell down the cellar stairs and managed to get up and dust himself off, saying "Whew, I am glad I got that over with."
 

the_reverend

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jesus and the buddha have similar lives in some way but in order to call jesus a buddhist some things must be taking in consideration .

do jesus teach the 4 nobles truths? do jesus teach the 8 fold path?

yes, he "do." the parallels not only between the two men's lives but also their teachings and the Buddhist influence on Christianity (whether directly on Christ himself, as i believe, or on the later traditions of the Church) are all well documented.

do jesus teach karma and rebirth ?

yes. for karma, there's an old saying about reaping and sowing you may have heard about. :wink: as for reincarnation, there are actually a few sayings that could be interpreted as supporting reincarnation. hell, the very notion of being "born again" sounds a lot like reincarnation. Christ talks about Heaven as being an internal spiritual state that you cultivate, in the same way as enlightenment. the only way to obtain that state is to give up notions of self and attachment to the ego and material goods ("it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to get into Heaven"). by giving up that attachment, we can escape from the cycle of Samsara and enter that enlightened state of Heaven/Nirvana. our essential being or soul transcends this physical realm and death is never the absolute end of things.

once again, i have to recommend Thich Nhat Thanh's Living Buddha, Living Christ. probably one of the most important spiritual and philisophical texts i've ever read.

and not to forget that buddha denies the existance of a creator god

well, i never said Buddha was a Christian. :wink:

Just be glad I didn't try to say he was a Nitzschean styled existentialist. :)

now that would be an argument i'd love to see...Christ as the ubermensch. :biggrin1:

"That which does not kill me only serves to make me stronger...so thanks for the boost, Pilate!"
 

B_tallbig

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yes, he "do." the parallels not only between the two men's lives but also their teachings and the Buddhist influence on Christianity (whether directly on Christ himself, as i believe, or on the later traditions of the Church) are all well documented.



yes. for karma, there's an old saying about reaping and sowing you may have heard about. :wink: as for reincarnation, there are actually a few sayings that could be interpreted as supporting reincarnation. hell, the very notion of being "born again" sounds a lot like reincarnation. Christ talks about Heaven as being an internal spiritual state that you cultivate, in the same way as enlightenment. the only way to obtain that state is to give up notions of self and attachment to the ego and material goods ("it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to get into Heaven"). by giving up that attachment, we can escape from the cycle of Samsara and enter that enlightened state of Heaven/Nirvana. our essential being or soul transcends this physical realm and death is never the absolute end of things.

once again, i have to recommend Thich Nhat Thanh's Living Buddha, Living Christ. probably one of the most important spiritual and philisophical texts i've ever read




well, i never said Buddha was a Christian. :wink:



now that would be an argument i'd love to see...Christ as the ubermensch. :biggrin1:

"That which does not kill me only serves to make me stronger...so thanks for the boost, Pilate!"


i will read that book
 

B_tallbig

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Iam still waiting to free will believers to give examples of choices we make free without any influence.