What causes people to choose what they choose?

[John53]

This is called appealing to ridicule. Appeal to relevance.

A lot of people engage in it.

Ridicule of what?

 

[firedragon]

Ridicule of what?

Appeal to ridicule is a logical fallacy. Similar to appeal to relevance.

 

[John53]

Appeal to ridicule is a logical fallacy. Similar to appeal to relevance.

Repeating the same explanation doesn't help me understand

 

[firedragon]

Repeating the same explanation doesn't help me understand

To ridicule a point of view is to disparage or make fun of it. When someone uses ridicule as part of an argument, he or she commits an appeal to ridicule, which is a fallacy of relevance. Your post was the ideal example.

 

[John53]

To ridicule a point of view is to disparage or make fun of it. When someone uses ridicule as part of an argument, he or she commits an appeal to ridicule, which is a fallacy of relevance. Your post was the ideal example.

That was easily understandable, thank you. But I disagree, I was offering my opinion as an atheist there was no intention to ridicule.

 

[firedragon]

That was easily understandable, thank you. But I disagree, I was offering my opinion as an atheist there was no intention to ridicule.

What I am saying is John, when someone has a proposition for a discussion within the paradigm of Gods existence, it is logically fallacious to make a commentary of "a non existent God" within your argument which is a whole different argument altogether. In that case you should first address the existence of God separately and then emerge to this discussion. Otherwise it is just a remark of ridicule. I am not saying you intend to ridicule someone. These are formal terms to describe an informal fallacy. Your comment "nonsense excuse for an absent super being" is not an argument in relation to her OP, but is described as an appeal to ridicule.

 

[Nimos]

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.

I think what might confuse you with my explanation is the role God plays. In theory we can throw God out of the setup and it would be the same.

Lets imagine that I have the ability to tell the future and im always right, meaning I have perfect foreknowledge.

You come to me and ask if you will buy a red car in the future? To which I tell you that you will.

This would mean that you would buy a red car in the future. I didn't make that choice for you or forced you to do it. But given the rules in this setup, it requires you to do this.

Which again are: I have the ability to tell the future and im always right, meaning I have perfect foreknowledge.

If you ended up not buying a red car, then clearly I wouldn't always be right or have perfect foreknowledge. So if we want to insist on me having these abilities, then you have to do what I tell you, you will do.

The only difference between this example and replacing me with God, is that God doesn't tell you what your future is, but simply him knowing it, will result in the exact same situation as with me telling you, there is no difference.
Whether you know about it or not, doesn't change anything, because again, the only thing that is important in this setup is for me to "always be right", otherwise I simply couldn't be said to have perfect foreknowledge.

So simply me or God knowing what you will do, doesn't mean that we are forcing you to do it. But the claim of having perfect foreknowledge does.

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.

These topics are interesting

 

[Nimos]

It is our perception that the future "has not happened yet".
For God, His perception is that the future has happened already. It is as if this universe is like a bottle in a time warp, in which we are oblivious to. We consider our perception of time as the only one possible .. as absolute.

Our choices aren't made until we make them, as far as we are concerned .. God's ability to see the future does not change this.

But in that case, there wouldn't be any free will.

 

[John53]

What I am saying is John, when someone has a proposition for a discussion within the paradigm of Gods existence, it is logically fallacious to make a commentary of "a non existent God" within your argument which is a whole different argument altogether. In that case you should first address the existence of God separately and then emerge to this discussion. Otherwise it is just a remark of ridicule. I am not saying you intend to ridicule someone. These are formal terms to describe an informal fallacy. Your comment "nonsense excuse for an absent super being" is not an argument in relation to her OP, but is described as an appeal to ridicule.

It's on ongoing discussion over many days from a previous thread, everything including the kitchen sink has been addressed.

 

[viole]

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.

Correct, otherwise watching a documentary about young Hitler, and knowing perfectly well what he will do, would entail he had no free will to do what he did.

I never found the arguments "God knows what we will do, ergo we have no free will" particularly compelling.

ciao

- viole

 

[firedragon]

It's on ongoing discussion over many days from a previous thread, everything including the kitchen sink has been addressed.

Lol. Okay okay.

 

[firedragon]

But in that case, there wouldn't be any free will.

Not really. Just that, God may have knowledge of all the variables. That is said conceptually.

 

[KWED]

If I believed in such a God, I would choose option B, because just because someone knows what I'm gonna do, does not mean I don't have the free will to do something else if I chose to.

This paradox necessarily involves a god who is infallibly omniscient (his knowledge of future events cannot be wrong).
Therefore you cannot choose something other than what god knows you will choose, or that would mean god was wrong, which is impossible.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..I disagree, I was offering my opinion as an atheist there was no intention to ridicule.

You merely dismissed my explanation as "an excuse", and rather than attacking the argument, you resort to the usual "I have no proof" routine.

Proof of God's existence beyond time is besides the point .. it is a refutation of the argument that free-will is affected due to the future being known.
If you don't accept an explanation of what I think God is, then you have no business in discussing how free-will is not affected by His omniscience.

 

[KWED]

I've chosen not to post in this thread.

I knew you were going to do that.

 

[Secret Chief]

I knew you were going to do that.

So did I

 

[KWED]

People have free will.

But they choose beliefs that make them comfortable and then they understand reality in terms of these beliefs. This means the beliefs they choose guide almost all of their acti0ns almost all the time. It guides future choices as well.

People are always free to change their beliefs but few do. Science progresses one funeral at a time because people don't often change any significant beliefs.

The OP is about the paradox raised by an infallibly omniscient god. If said god already knows (before the universe even existed) every choice we are going to make, and his foreknowledge cannot be wrong, can we have free will?

 

[KWED]

You know my answer because we've been discussing it in another thread for days (maybe weeks, feels like weeks).

So my question is, why start another thread on free will? So we can go over the same stuff for the 200th time?

Because that was what god knew she would do, so this new thread was inevitable, even before the universe existed. She could not have made any other choice or it would have proved god wrong.

 

[KWED]

In this case nothing is forcing us to make a choice, what you would experience is the illusion of choice. I think you can compare it to riding on a train and you are looking at the tracks. And every time you get to a train shift you believe that you are the one that chooses which way the train goes. But in fact the train will simply follow the shifts.

Given that God is omniscient simply means that he knows how all the train shifts are and where the train will end up. So again, there is no causes for the choice, they are predetermined and is simply an illusion.

Nicely put.

 

[Nimos]

Not really. Just that, God may have knowledge of all the variables. That is said conceptually.

If God know you will buy a red car, will you buy a red car then?