I must confess the links turn into an unintelligible load of waffle to my brain but it still doesn't answer the question of why bother when he knows the results! Cut out the middle part and get on with paradise. Life has no point under your system.
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What causes people to choose what they choose?
- Thread starter Trailblazer
- Start date
I must confess the links turn into an unintelligible load of waffle to my brain but it still doesn't answer the question of why bother when he knows the results! Cut out the middle part and get on with paradise. Life has no point under your system.
Well, that's good, glad you have a test. I never got covid and I am not vaccinated.
I'm triple vaxxed and have a covid scare at least once a week. It's beginning to interfere with my my monthly brain tumour scare.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I agree.
I agree.
I agree, those two are not the same.
Sorry, other than what I agreed with above I do not understand what you are trying to say because I got lost in the formulas.
Do you have a main point or a conclusion?
Nimos
Well-Known Member
Fair enoughSorry, other than what I agreed with above I do not understand what you are trying to say because I got lost in the formulas.
Do you have a main point or a conclusion?
What I was trying to illustrate were that in order for God to have foreknowledge, he must obviously know what you are going to choose before you do.
But if that is the case, then your choices are already decided otherwise God couldn't know them.
Therefore:
"God knowing your choices" must come before "You making your choices"
Therefore whenever you make what appears to be a free will choice, God already knew that you were going to choose that, which makes it predetermined. So the choice you make is nothing but an illusion. Because you have to choose what God knows as written above. "God knowing your choices" must come before "You making your choices"
So even though you might think that you can choose between A, B and C. You can only actually choose what God knows you will choose, which could be A for instance.
Therefore it doesn't matter how many options you have, you could have from 1 to 100000 options, but if God knows you are choosing option 765, that is what you will choose and therefore you only have 1 option, all the other options are merely illusions of what you think you could have chosen.
Does that make it more clear?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Sorry, I guess I did not understand your question. It sounds like you are asking me why we have to live through hell (this world) if we are all going to end up in paradise.
The short answer to that is that we have to make our way to paradise, it is not automatic.
So not everyone will end up in paradise, not unless they did what was necessary to get there.
The purpose of living through this physical reality is to acquire the spiritual attributes that will be necessary to enter paradise. That is explained in this book:
The Purpose of Physical Reality
by John S. Hatcher
Why do spiritual beings--human souls--begin their lives in the physical world? According to well-known Baha'i author, scholar, and educator John Hatcher, the world is a classroom designed by God to instigate and nurture mental and spiritual growth. The Purpose of Physical Reality examines the components of this classroom to show how everyday experience leads to spiritual insight. Viewing life in this way, we can learn to appreciate the overall justice of God's plan and the subtle interplay between human free will and divine assistance in unleashing human potential. The idea of physical reality as a divine teaching device not only prepares us for further progress in the life beyond, it also provides practical advice about how to attain spiritual and intellectual understanding while we are living on earth.
https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Physical-Reality-John-Hatcher/dp/1931847231
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I am not vaxxed at all and I was never afraid of covid even when it was running rampant.
No what I want to know is why God (if he exists(it's getting tiresome typing this everytime)) bothered with creating the universe when he could have just sent the winners direct to paradise with memories of what they did? If for instance I was going to build a carport but I knew that it would blow down in 6 months time I wouldn't bother doing it.
And probably more importantly... why is God(if he exists) bothering at all? Seems like we're just pets of some evil genius.
Free willed it away? It's running rampant now, it's just not news anymore but try and get surgery done. It's not a good time to have a medical emergency.
ppp
Well-Known Member
Position C: we don't have free will whether there is a god or not. We live in a macroscopically mechanistic universe where we are aware of our environment, wants, tendencies and capabilities, have little ability to directly affect any of them. As such, we are mostly observers.What causes people to choose what they choose?
Is free will the cause of human actions or is there another cause?
If free will is not the cause, what is the cause human actions?
I am not suggesting that free will means that we can choose anything we want to choose because free will has many constraints, but if humans have no volition and we never chose to do anything how would anything ever happen in this world?
(Please note that many things happen to us in this world that were not chosen by us and we are compelled to endure them (e.g., death, sickness, job losses, injuries and misfortunes). I believe those are fated/predestined by God, but that is another subject altogether.)
I am asking what causes human actions that are chosen, what causes us to choose them.
I am not asking what causes things that happen to us that are beyond our control.
Position A: Some people say that if God is omniscient and knows everything that will ever happen in the future that means we do not have free will because we can only make one choice (x), the choice God knows we will make. If we can only make one choice (x) what is causing us to make that choice? Is God’s foreknowledge of what we will choose (x) forcing us to choose x? If God’s foreknowledge is not forcing us to choose x, what is causing us to choose x?
Position B: It is my contention that God knows the one choice we will make and we will make that choice, but before we make that choice we have free will to choose from more than one option (x, y, or z). Whatever we choose will be what God knows we will choose because God has perfect foreknowledge. As such, whether we had chosen x, y or z, God would have known which one of those we were going to choose.
Which position makes the most sense to you? Do you hold position A or B, or do you hold another position?
Please explain your position and explain why you hold it.
Thanks, Trailblazer
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
People always choose their highest heart priority and desire. So we only have free will when the heart and heart's desire is aligned with peace and virtue. When the heart is aligned with lesser, other things besides virtues, then the heart is slave to those cares and desires, and they become vices. Vice will is slave will. Free will is in the virtues.
I think what people choose to do is all about what the heart takes to. What the heart takes to is who a person becomes.
So like gaining knowledge of what the virtues are all about can liberate a person. The liberation comes from within and without. Living the truth of those, one lives fulfilled and isn't running around seeking fulfillment from others, or in things. They find peace and freedom from within.
So vices like greed, and selfish hedonism can take their toll on a person who is slave to those things. But the virtues liberate the soul.
I think what people choose to do is all about what the heart takes to. What the heart takes to is who a person becomes.
So like gaining knowledge of what the virtues are all about can liberate a person. The liberation comes from within and without. Living the truth of those, one lives fulfilled and isn't running around seeking fulfillment from others, or in things. They find peace and freedom from within.
So vices like greed, and selfish hedonism can take their toll on a person who is slave to those things. But the virtues liberate the soul.
Brian2
Veteran Member
Some people are not aware of all the threads that have begun and are running in the back ground of RF.
Some times a different approach can bring new insights and different conclusions.
But of course it can be wearisome to go over the same stuff again, and again and again at infinitum.
idea
Question Everything
Not experience? Nature/Nurture, our DNA made us do it, or our environment made us do it. I've never heard anyone say nature/nurture/mind. It's just nature/nurture.
Or I was grumpy.
idea
Question Everything
I thought you agreed no one is an island, that we are all connected? Not unless their parents brought them up right, not unless they had supportive teachers, not unless they had political and economic stability - walk a mile in another's shoes, we are products of our connections and environments.
No one chooses their parents, the country they were born into. No one chooses the religion they were raised with. Not individual choices. Group community environment ...
Attribution error.
rational experiences
Veteran Member
We say we are not slaves of another human who forced trade invention rich man civilisation building.
We say we own life freely created by chosen human sex.
Theists human invent science sacrificed biological life. Just humans who theories God. Ignored.
A human natural spiritual self defines a teaching against star sun theism nuclear. By humans as you cannot discuss a whole topic in one word only...and to define variations you live seeing them first.
Ignored
Gets murdered. Not once but many times. Only organised group followers claim the one man advice is real. When many humans have died sacrificed fighting the right human rights free life on earth.
So you say as a natural human defended rights they used and had to use science advice. Yet science is wrong.
To have followers ignore why they got murdered who now do not honour the man. They review his word used. Using referencing science not the man.
Murdered arguing the science advice was incorrect as life is free not a slave or science sun star thesis is not involved.
Ignored as you follow group egotism and not honour the man murdered by the history scientist rich men.
Therefore when you reuse science terms are you the sacrificed man arguing against science or do you defend sciences worded references?
And don't forget science is defined by nations DNA expressed patented human thoughts in trade.
We say we own life freely created by chosen human sex.
Theists human invent science sacrificed biological life. Just humans who theories God. Ignored.
A human natural spiritual self defines a teaching against star sun theism nuclear. By humans as you cannot discuss a whole topic in one word only...and to define variations you live seeing them first.
Ignored
Gets murdered. Not once but many times. Only organised group followers claim the one man advice is real. When many humans have died sacrificed fighting the right human rights free life on earth.
So you say as a natural human defended rights they used and had to use science advice. Yet science is wrong.
To have followers ignore why they got murdered who now do not honour the man. They review his word used. Using referencing science not the man.
Murdered arguing the science advice was incorrect as life is free not a slave or science sun star thesis is not involved.
Ignored as you follow group egotism and not honour the man murdered by the history scientist rich men.
Therefore when you reuse science terms are you the sacrificed man arguing against science or do you defend sciences worded references?
And don't forget science is defined by nations DNA expressed patented human thoughts in trade.
First, I see no way to escape from theological determinism. An omnipotent, omniscient, perfect God made the universe, perfectly and exactly knowing everything without exception that would happen as a consequence of [his] making it this way, that way or the other way.What causes people to choose what they choose?
Is free will the cause of human actions or is there another cause?
If free will is not the cause, what is the cause human actions?
I am not suggesting that free will means that we can choose anything we want to choose because free will has many constraints, but if humans have no volition and we never chose to do anything how would anything ever happen in this world?
(Please note that many things happen to us in this world that were not chosen by us and we are compelled to endure them (e.g., death, sickness, job losses, injuries and misfortunes). I believe those are fated/predestined by God, but that is another subject altogether.)
I am asking what causes human actions that are chosen, what causes us to choose them.
I am not asking what causes things that happen to us that are beyond our control.
Position A: Some people say that if God is omniscient and knows everything that will ever happen in the future that means we do not have free will because we can only make one choice (x), the choice God knows we will make. If we can only make one choice (x) what is causing us to make that choice? Is God’s foreknowledge of what we will choose (x) forcing us to choose x? If God’s foreknowledge is not forcing us to choose x, what is causing us to choose x?
Position B: It is my contention that God knows the one choice we will make and we will make that choice, but before we make that choice we have free will to choose from more than one option (x, y, or z). Whatever we choose will be what God knows we will choose because God has perfect foreknowledge. As such, whether we had chosen x, y or z, God would have known which one of those we were going to choose.
Which position makes the most sense to you? Do you hold position A or B, or do you hold another position?
Please explain your position and explain why you hold it.
Thanks, Trailblazer
And [he] made it this way, which means that [he] intended from the start for each person to act exactly as they do and there is no possible way for anyone to vary, even by the width of a quark, from what God perfectly foresaw and intended and causatively brought about.
(Alternatively, God is NOT omnipotent, omniscient or perfect and is in the dark about most things.)
Second, I see no escape from scientific determinism. We've evolved to think and feel we own our decisions, and our system of justice takes it for granted that people very largely own theirs, and are responsible accordingly. But there's no way we can make decisions independently of the decision-making processes in our evolved brain.
Third, I've never heard a description of God that explains how God doesn't have exactly the same problem.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I agree.
God knows what all our choices will be BEFORE we make them because God is all-knowing. God does not have to WAIT for us to make a choice in order for God to know what that choice will be because God has always KNOWN everything we will ever choose.
You can only choose what God knows you will choose, but you can choose between A, B and C and whichever one of those you choose will be the choice God knew you would make.
As I said in a previous post to you, predetermination and foreknowledge are not the same. God already knows what you are going to choose before you make your choice because God has perfect foreknowledge, but God's perfect foreknowledge does not determine what you will choose. YOU determine what you will choose by choosing it.
If a choice was predetermined by God then you would have to make that choice, but such is not the case. Some things are fated/predestined to happen to us as I said in the OP, so they are predetermined, but that is a different subject.
Yes, I understand your position but I do not fully agree with it.
I knew I was going to be sorry I started this thread.
But for some reason I was compelled to do it even though I knew the risk.
And God did not stop me because I had the free will to choose.
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Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Then no wonder my house and yard is a complete mess since my heart belongs to the cats.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Yes, I agree with all of that but that does not mean that everyone is in exactly the same spiritual state after they die. However, I believe that God will take everything into account, and we are not responsible for what was beyond our control, like what kind of parents and teachers we had, what genes we inherited, and what country and city we were born in.
To those whom much is given much is expected.