Is there anything that we can do?

[zEsTyTuRtLe]

If life is predetermined then why do we even do anyhting?If God already has his plan and knows exactly what will become of us then why should we even do anyhting?And why did God give us freewill and not angels?Why is he letting us shun him which more and more people are doing, why didn't he force us to love him as he does angels?And how can it truly be that satan rose against god w/ 1/3 of the angels and is now in hell. if he was an angel how could he question god since he supposedly had no freewill and God made it so all of the angels loved him how could so many turn against him?

By the way I'm not trying to be rude about this. After re reading this I see that it looks as though I was trying to be a bitch but I can think of no other way to get my point across.And maybe I'm wrong and one of you or many of you will correctme, maybe some of you will agree with me who knows?

[noraa_boy]

We do things because we are caused to do them. We are slaves to cause and effect and we are subject to the natural laws.

I'm not sure if the angels had free will. Satan rebeling might just have been caused by his jealousy when the Christian god made man.

I for one don't believe in free will. If creation or the big bang had started with the exact same conditions, then everything would play out the same. The randomness introduced by quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principal(Don't quote me on this. I profess to not having much knowledge about it) is not really free will. Well, that's what I think anyway.

[This message has been edited by noraa_boy (edited 01-06-2004).]

[icantthinkofaname]

i don't really agree with you there mate. i am in full favour of quantum mechanics and its implications. the uncertainty principal says that a particle is unsure in 4 areas time, energy, position and momentum. i don't like causality; chance is everything, beta decay occurs completely randomly as a simple example. i personally don't believe there is any underlying system that dictates this, only chance. u can sub-divide particles as much as you like to try and find out why something happens but then you just get one long infinite sequence when you try to answer the question "so we know that that makes that happen, but what does that which makes that happnen make that happen?" the power of quantum mechanics is emense and i don't know much about it (in terms of the maths), not being educated in the subject (me being only 14), even einstein rejected it!

[noskillz]

We dont have free will.

Everything we think is electrical impulses and chemicals, not a soul.



Angels, on the other hand are said to be an ethereal being on another plane of existance. If they exist they have free will.

[This message has been edited by noskillz (edited 01-06-2004).]

[noraa_boy]

icantthinkofaname:

Like I said, randomness does not equate to free will, at least, that's what I think.

Also, I don't think that is such a thing as randomness. It's only a pattern that we haven't found out yet. We can complicate this by throwing in the Christian god - an omniscient and omnipotent being. Is the concept of randomness and chance relevant or existing when such a being exists?

Before we have a discussion on free will, we should first define it. I'm not too sure about this one. Anyone got ideas?

Even if we had a soul, I'd imagine that my soul would be following rules when making decisions as well. If not, then it would be just acting randomly.

[This message has been edited by noraa_boy (edited 01-06-2004).]

zesty turtle, which denomination of christianity are you talking about, because many of those seem to come from different denominations, not just one because they contradict. BTW God wanted us to have Faith, he doesn't need us to love him, he wants us to because its for the better of the soul.

[LostCause]

No. 1: "If life is predetermined then why do we even do anyhting?"

- Because even if someone/thing knows what's going to happen, you don't.

No. 2: "And why did God give us freewill and not angels?"

- Biblically and technically speaking, he hadn't thought of it yet.

No. 3: "Why is he letting us shun him which more and more people are doing, why didn't he force us to love him as he does angels?

- What is the point of having free will if all your choices are the right choice. God gives us free will to choose him or not to choose him with the belief that we will choose him anyways.

No. 4: "And how can it truly be that satan rose against god w/ 1/3 of the angels and is now in hell."

- Lucifer was god favorite angel and they were/are very close. God asked Lucifer about his "opinion" on humans (creatures with free will) and when Lucifer said that they weren't worthy and challenged gods word god granted him his own domain and gave him 13 angels.

Cheers,

Lost

[noraa_boy]

LostCause:

What is the point of having free will if all your choices are the right choice. God gives us free will to choose him or not to choose him with the belief that we will choose him anyways.

What's the point of the Christian god giving us free will if he already knows our decisions and can proceed with the consequences?

In Heaven, won't our choices be always the correct ones? I guess we are robots with no free will there.

Perhaps God only really needs us to have free will when deciding whether we want to be his obedient toys or not.

Then again, I'd argue that we don't have free will in that case anyway - our brains would just be weighing out the choices and the consequences before making our decision, something which I think the sub-conscious does way before our conscious mind takes credit for it.

[This message has been edited by noraa_boy (edited 01-07-2004).]

[LostCause]

quote:Originally posted by noraa_boy:

What's the point of the Christian god giving us free will if he already knows our decisions and can proceed with the consequences?

In Heaven, won't our choices be always the correct ones? I guess we are robots with no free will there.

Perhaps God only really needs us to have free will when deciding whether we want to be his obedient toys or not.

Then again, I'd argue that we don't have free will in that case anyway - our brains would just be weighing out the choices and the consequences before making our decision, something which I think the sub-conscious does way before our conscious mind takes credit for it.

[This message has been edited by noraa_boy (edited 01-07-2004).][/b]

I, personally, do not adhere to any religious faith and I'd like to make it very clear, right here, that I do not believe in a Christian god. In fact, I don't even really understand all Christian concepts. However, I have studied them and tried my best. I am answering Zestys questions, the best I know how and I'm not trying to take sides here.

To respond to your rebuttal:

No. 1: What's the point of the Christian god giving us free will if he already knows our decisions and can proceed with the consequences?

- I personally don't believe that god is conscious in the kind of way we are. So, perhaps he is aware of what will happen and what we'll do, but he is also unaware of it at the same time.

In short: I don't know. And I'm perfectly okay with that. You don't have to know to believe.

No. 2: In Heaven, won't our choices be always the correct ones? I guess we are robots with no free will there.

- I've recently had the question of "If we go to a Christian heaven, when we die, do we become angels without free will or do we become something else. A different breed of spirits." which I think, somewhat parallels your question.

Again, in short: I don't know.

No. 3: Perhaps God only really needs us to have free will when deciding whether we want to be his obedient toys or not.

- Perhaps. In fact, if you read the bible, it basically states that god just gave us free will to make sure we'd come back to him. Apparently he was not pleased with the angels because they had to love him and he created us to make sure the angels really did love him.

No. 4: Then again, I'd argue that we don't have free will in that case anyway - our brains would just be weighing out the choices and the consequences before making our decision, something which I think the sub-conscious does way before our conscious mind takes credit for it.

- Alright, you don't believe we have free will. So, realize that that's the point of view you're coming from. But, since there's no proof one way or another, except the fact that others don't agree and know that others disagreement doesn't make you unable to believe.

Sounds like you've given this some thought and have an educated idea of what it is you're believing, so I'm not discrediting you or anything.

I just want everyone to be able to voice their opinions without feeling attacked. Dig?

Cheers,

Lost

[noraa_boy]

Originally posted by LostCause:

I, personally, do not adhere to any religious faith and I'd like to make it very clear, right here, that I do not believe in a Christian god. In fact, I don't even really understand all Christian concepts. However, I have studied them and tried my best. I am answering Zestys questions, the best I know how and I'm not trying to take sides here.

Fair enough.

- I personally don't believe that god is conscious in the kind of way we are. So, perhaps he is aware of what will happen and what we'll do, but he is also unaware of it at the same time.

In short: I don't know. And I'm perfectly okay with that. You don't have to know to believe.

He's unaware and aware at the same time? Perhaps he exists and doesn't exist at the same time.

I don't profess to knowing anything at all. But unlike you, I try not to believe. I am an agnostic because I refuse to take the leap of faith, something which is intellectually bankrupt for me.

- I've recently had the question of "If we go to a Christian heaven, when we die, do we become angels without free will or do we become something else. A different breed of spirits." which I think, somewhat parallels your question.

Again, in short: I don't know.

Fair enough. But would you please hazard a guess to add something to this discussion?

- Perhaps. In fact, if you read the bible, it basically states that god just gave us free will to make sure we'd come back to him. Apparently he was not pleased with the angels because they had to love him and he created us to make sure the angels really did love him.

Are you saying that the angels had no free will and that they were forced to love the Christian god? How then could Satan have rebelled?

Again, why would he need to be sure that the angels really loved him? The Christian god is often depicted as being omniscient - he already knows everything. If you deny that, discussions of the Christian god will only be more complicated.

To be fair, I haven't read the whole bible and I intend to go through the whole thing this year.

- Alright, you don't believe we have free will. So, realize that that's the point of view you're coming from. But, since there's no proof one way or another, except the fact that others don't agree and know that others disagreement doesn't make you unable to believe.

Why should I believe when I can reach a logical conclusion instead? Granted I am not 100% sure(because there might be new discoveries), but there's no faith involved. It's a conclusion that I have reached based on the information I have.

Do you disagree with me when I say that we don't have free will? If so, I'd be more than happy to hear your thoughts and have a discussion about it.

I just want everyone to be able to voice their opinions without feeling attacked. Dig?

You must be very sensitive to have felt that you were being attacked. I like to think that I'm a nice guy, and I acknowledge that I'm probably completely ignorant. That's why I try never to make a definite statement, but to pose my thoughts as questions with liberal helpings of "I think"'s and "perhaps"'s.



[This message has been edited by noraa_boy (edited 01-07-2004).]