Epicurus' riddle

[prometheus11]

Please show how free will is "most evident?"

And please explain how a victim tied up in a room with a gun to her head has ANY free will AT ALL.

Thanks.

 

[prometheus11]

Supposing "free will" is a force. (No idea how that might be proved!!). When does a baby acquire it? Certainly infants have no way to choose or direct their own life.

 

[sojourner]

Please show how free will is "most evident?"

And please explain how a victim tied up in a room with a gun to her head has ANY free will AT ALL.

Thanks.

No outside, intelligent and controlling force is at all evident in the act of choosing. If so, perhaps you'd like to present it, along with your Very Own Fantastc Plan for ordering the world such that love not be freely chosen. You've failed in that department too. Maybe we should retitle the thread "Prmoetheus' Gallery of Failed Proposals."

Again (for Those of You who didn't read my posts the first time): Free will is an ability to choose preferences -- not an ability to act upon them. Victim chooses to not be held captive in terror. That's free will. Period.

 

[sojourner]

Supposing "free will" is a force. (No idea how that might be proved!!). When does a baby acquire it? Certainly infants have no way to choose or direct their own life.

Babies, though, do make choices based on their experience. "I wanna eat!" is free will. "I'm not gonna suckle this breast" is free will. The Victim (above) is tied up and terrorized against HER will. Haven't you ever heard that term? A baby may be forced to undergo a diaper change against HIS will.

 

[prometheus11]

Nope. I don't buy it. Nice try.

You're saying that free will is SOMETHING that God gives. Thus it's a force or thing in your psychology.

You can't demonstrate that it's either. And you fail to demonstrate how a powerless individual has any free will. So you have continuously and relentlessly failed in every statement and at every turn. Tough luck. Obviously your ego is hurting, so you're lashing out, but it's not in my nature to be offended by the misinformed ignorance of those with no other recourse than to insult and ad hominem.

Which would you say is more obvious: free will or the sun moving in an arc across a dome of sky over a flat earth?

 

[prometheus11]

Babies, though, do make choices based on their experience. "I wanna eat!" is free will. "I'm not gonna suckle this breast" is free will. The Victim (above) is tied up and terrorized against HER will. Haven't you ever heard that term? A baby may be forced to undergo a diaper change against HIS will.

Terminology utilized isn't proof. If it was unicorns and leprechauns would exist because of their names existing.

A hungry baby does not have free will to refuse food. Duh.

 

[prometheus11]

. The Victim (above) is tied up and terrorized against HER will.

So the free will your God gives is so fragile that any other person with free will can take away another's free will with a gun and a length of rope??

Wow! Seems like you just proved me right. God honors the free will of a tyrant over the powerless. What a d!ck of a god.

 

[Mycroft]

If God makes the rules, then he could find a way to get what he wants without losing any souls through providing free will. As it is, YOU state that he MUST use free will and that the gift of free allows people to reject God.

I never said that gods perfect will was to control us. (Are you projecting?) I said that God giving free will to people costs him many humans.

I assume that if God makes the rules, he could bring humanity out of its state of "infancy" without free will and without losing any souls.

You keep limiting your god. Saying what he must do and what he must have in order to do something else or other. I didn't know your god was so weak that he had to follow rules.

If we had no free will, we'd be North Koreans.

 

[prometheus11]

If we had no free will, we'd be North Koreans.

If we had free will, we'd be billionaires.

 

[sojourner]

Nope. I don't buy it. Nice try.

You're saying that free will is SOMETHING that God gives. Thus it's a force or thing in your psychology.

You can't demonstrate that it's either. And you fail to demonstrate how a powerless individual has any free will. So you have continuously and relentlessly failed in every statement and at every turn. Tough luck. Obviously your ego is hurting, so you're lashing out, but it's not in my nature to be offended by the misinformed ignorance of those with no other recourse than to insult and ad hominem.

Which would you say is more obvious: free will or the sun moving in an arc across a dome of sky over a flat earth?

If, as the theological construction says, God created us, then God created us with all our attributes -- including free will. It is a force, or an impulse, because it compels us. It doesn't have to be objectively demonstrable.

I can't imagine why you think I'm arguing for a flat earth. The flat earth concept has nothing to do, either with me, or with the argument at hand. Personally? Free will is more obvious.

 

[sojourner]

Terminology utilized isn't proof. If it was unicorns and leprechauns would exist because of their names existing.

A hungry baby does not have free will to refuse food. Duh.

Sure it does! It may not have the power to refuse food, but that's a different issue. There's a reason for the terminology; it's not arbitrary.

 

[sojourner]

So the free will your God gives is so fragile that any other person with free will can take away another's free will with a gun and a length of rope??

Wow! Seems like you just proved me right. God honors the free will of a tyrant over the powerless. What a d!ck of a god.

I think we're done. Not providing further fodder for your vitriol. And you accuse me of ad hominem. Splendid hypocritical job, that.

 

[prometheus11]

You can't prove free will exists and you can't prove god exists, and both are equally invisible and undetectable.

Reread my question about flat earth and the sun rotating around us rather than the opposite. It was about an idea that seems apparent. I'm saying they free will is exactly as "apparent" as a flat earth with a dome of sky above and the sun moving in an arc within that some. That view was proven horribly wrong. Point being, just because humans think something is apparent doesn't mean it is.

Free will makes as much sense as a flat earth did when we didn't know better. It's assumed but not proven.

 

[prometheus11]

I think we're done. Not providing further fodder for your vitriol. And you accuse me of ad hominem. Splendid hypocritical job, that.

What vitriol?

If you can't answer the issues and want to slink away, go ahead. It's what I expected, anyway.

 

[prometheus11]

Sure it does! It may not have the power to refuse food, but that's a different issue. There's a reason for the terminology; it's not arbitrary.

Again, you can't prove a baby has free will. You can't prove free will exists. All you have done is prove that what you consider "free will" can only be exercised to the degree that someone has power to do so. Falderal, really.

 

[sojourner]

You can't prove free will exists and you can't prove god exists, and both are equally invisible and undetectable.

Reread my question about flat earth and the sun rotating around us rather than the opposite. It was about an idea that seems apparent. I'm saying they free will is exactly as "apparent" as a flat earth with a dome of sky above and the sun moving in an arc within that some. That view was proven horribly wrong. Point being, just because humans think something is apparent doesn't mean it is.

Free will makes as much sense as a flat earth did when we didn't know better. It's assumed but not proven.

I never claimed that God exists. The eath being flat doesn't seem all that apparent to me.

 

[prometheus11]

You're not following. Read for comprehension.

You are claiming free will exists because it JUST SEEMS APPARENT, but you have no other reason than that.

Without any science concerning the earth being round or the earth revolving around the sun, it would JUST SEEM APPARENT that the earth was flat and the sun went round the earth.

In other words, things seeming apparent has no bearing on the truth.

In other words, there is no viable reason to believe in free will

 

[sojourner]

Again, you can't prove a baby has free will. You can't prove free will exists. All you have done is prove that what you consider "free will" can only be exercised to the degree that someone has power to do so. Falderal, really.

Correct. "Free will" and the "exercise of free will" are two different things.

 

[prometheus11]

Correct. "Free will" and the "exercise of free will" are two different things.

Like unicorns and leprechauns.

 

[sojourner]

You're not following. Read for comprehension.

You are claiming free will exists because it JUST SEEMS APPARENT, but you have no other reason than that.

Without any science concerning the earth being round or the earth revolving around the sun, it would JUST SEEM APPARENT that the earth was flat and the sun went round the earth.

In other words, things seeming apparent has no bearing on the truth.

In other words, there is no viable reason to believe in free will

Psychological science, though, does assert that we are self-determined. Just as astrophysics asserts that the earth is round.