Ellen Brown
Well-Known Member
Christians are fond of the idea of Freewill. I'm suspecting that idea is a fantasy.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Free Will as Nonsense.
- Thread starter Ellen Brown
- Start date
shmogie
Well-Known Member
It is not
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I definitely agree with you. There is no such thing as free will.
Maybe free reign, but not free will.
Why? What is free will to you?
Got to define what it is. Some concepts are, some are not.
Specifically Christian free will, the ability to choose between doing right and wrong? Our entire legal system is based on free will being a reality. Do you believe you can decide not to do something bad?
Maybe Christianity has a confusing concept of the mechanics of free will in the face of an all powerful, all knowing God , but it comes down to IMO, can you choose between doing good and evil?
Why should reign be free, but not will?
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
What is free will other than the ability and freedom to chose what is best for them? Why is it wrong for a person to have freedom to chose A over B?
Ellen Brown
Well-Known Member
I was just "kicking the bear" to stir up some righteous indignation. My own premise is that we can make individual decisions, but our tendencies are perhaps inherited, and perhaps we are even bred to a 'blood line" to produce certain tendencies? One of the reasons I am mulling this over are the presence of all the different races. I'm questioning that we all came from little old Adam and Eve?
Part of that may be due to the the cruelty of "The Bible is the Pure, Inerrant Word of God" crowd that badgered me when I was young. To me it now seems so clear that there is a great deal more going on than that.
The Anointed
Well-Known Member
He is the FIRST and the LAST
The BEGINNING and END
The ALPHA and OMEGA
The FATHER and SON.
He does not exist in only three dimensional space or three dimensional time. He exists in Space-Time.
Being the Omega, he knows everything that you have done in his past according to your own free will, and as he is one with the Alpha in space time, [The Son who the Father has become] he therefore knows everything that you will do in the future, according to your own free will.
Have you never experienced a mental merging [visitation] from one of your future descendants, who, according to your concept of one direction linear time, does not yet exist.
Come travel with me on a journey through time Not in some capsule but in our own minds To the innermost sanctuary will we descend To that single cell from which we began In the Holy of Hollies where all are one Where all of space and time is joined We’ll mingle there with other minds From other lands in other times Minds of the past who seem dead and gone And minds of the future who are yet unborn For they in their times whether here on this world Or some distant planet to which they’ve been lured Will enter their innermost sanctuary too And perhaps in there they might merge with you Ah! To travel through space in the wink of an eye Merged with a child from some world way up high Now, if this be but madness then madness it be But come my mad brothers, come----follow me!
.
Ellen, I don't believe in free will at all!
I will agree that Libertarian Free Will is a fantasy, but there is more support among scientists for a compatibilist concept of human will, which is compatible with determinism. Dennett proposes a version of this that I do not fully agree with, but it is a good start for understanding alternatives to Libertarian Free Will.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Some country dont have as much free will as other countries do. I dont know about other countries, but ideally Americans have free will insofar we have rights to speak on our own and others behalf. We have freedom of religion and freedom to vote. Some freedoms we are still working on and others have been inacted for a long while.
If free will you mean morals, our government dictates the morals in regards to law. So, in that sense, we dont have free will. Then, we also have the will or voluntary decision to break the law.
Our religious morals tell us what is right and wrong but we have free will to chose which morals we will follow. No one is forced to follow a given faith. They may feel like they are or guilt because of whatever means. Free will can be restricted or taken away.
But as nonesense. Maybe other countries see it as so because of religious custums and ethics but not where I live. Its not nonesense. We have holidays to celebrate our free will.
Unless there is another distinct definition, what other definition can free will be but the freedom to act volunteerly for our or anothers behalf?
If free will you mean morals, our government dictates the morals in regards to law. So, in that sense, we dont have free will. Then, we also have the will or voluntary decision to break the law.
Our religious morals tell us what is right and wrong but we have free will to chose which morals we will follow. No one is forced to follow a given faith. They may feel like they are or guilt because of whatever means. Free will can be restricted or taken away.
But as nonesense. Maybe other countries see it as so because of religious custums and ethics but not where I live. Its not nonesense. We have holidays to celebrate our free will.
Unless there is another distinct definition, what other definition can free will be but the freedom to act volunteerly for our or anothers behalf?
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
The idea that people have no culpability morally is utter nonsense. The genes did it is a childish rant.
Many scientists seem to think they have full grasp on what a being is or is not according to physics and evolution alone.
They undermine moral realities by saying we have no choice in any matters, only the seem of it. Where is the extraordinary evidence for such a thing? Its philosophical nonsense attached to a scientism world view.
One need only to examine their own subjective experience objectively to realize that they have full freedom of will to decide who they are going to be as people. No one is deciding for you what to love and what to hate, or at least they shouldnt be.
There is a long list of different kinds of freedoms, and free wills. Your will is yours and yours alone. You may or may not act on your will, but your will is entirely yours. Its inner subjective freedom.
I cant believe the spinelessness of people to tell people they are totally determined and it has nothing to do with themselves. It is spineless.
I suppose science will find it evident that all people must be totally slave to the State run by the magisterium of science.
Go ahead America urinate your freedoms away. Sacrificing freedom for security lacks courage and will cost you your freedoms.
Many scientists seem to think they have full grasp on what a being is or is not according to physics and evolution alone.
They undermine moral realities by saying we have no choice in any matters, only the seem of it. Where is the extraordinary evidence for such a thing? Its philosophical nonsense attached to a scientism world view.
One need only to examine their own subjective experience objectively to realize that they have full freedom of will to decide who they are going to be as people. No one is deciding for you what to love and what to hate, or at least they shouldnt be.
There is a long list of different kinds of freedoms, and free wills. Your will is yours and yours alone. You may or may not act on your will, but your will is entirely yours. Its inner subjective freedom.
I cant believe the spinelessness of people to tell people they are totally determined and it has nothing to do with themselves. It is spineless.
I suppose science will find it evident that all people must be totally slave to the State run by the magisterium of science.
Go ahead America urinate your freedoms away. Sacrificing freedom for security lacks courage and will cost you your freedoms.
MonkeyFire
Well-Known Member
You need both willingness to God, and free will.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
As I understand things..
Free Will would suggest an absence of boundaries hence the term. Like choosing without penalty either way.
Free rein is freedom within a set of boundaries that limit that freedom. Like choosing, but one is without penalty and the other carries a penalty.
I operate on the premise that I have free will, but I do not definitively know that I have it. Just as I do not definitively know that I do not have it. I think that I have free will. Perhaps that is all it takes.
We are the product of our biological and social history and we make choices by the hundreds daily. Even when the decision making process is so natural and carried out without much active analysis or thought to the mechanisms of the process itself.
Perhaps I am only lying to myself, but, if so, that is my choice. The alternative seems rather depressing.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Will is the capacity to act decisively on one's desires.
Free will is to do so undirected by controlling influences.
Free will is to do so undirected by controlling influences.
As for free will's place in Christianity, it's required to make sense out of sin and salvation. And this is why, other than a personal need to protect one's feeling of self autonomy, Christians ardently defend it. So even if a Christian was convinced that, logically, free will made no sense, they would still be obligated to fight for it to preserve their faith. Hardly an admirable intellectual attitude, but there you are. Again, a case of need triumphing over rationality.
.
Last edited:
MonkeyFire
Well-Known Member
Is total free will better than dissidence to YHWH. Only sith deal in absolutes.
It's called free will, not freedom from consequence. No choice can be without consequence, or it's not a choice at all.