Free will. Free will? [Archive] - SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

Skybird

03-13-13, 08:34 AM

Exciting thing. Isd there a free will, are we free to decide? Or not? What are the consequences of any of the two possible answers? An american writer I just have read getting quoted with this: "Of course I believe in free will - I have no other choice than to believe that!"

By now I am out of contact with psychological research, for the most at least, and neuropsychology never was one of my primary interests anyway. But I know that since some time they can scan the brain and understand brain activity patterns in parts of the brain that precede the display and announcing of intention and behavior by seconds.. In other words: the brain already has flipped switches before you become aware of your "free will's" choice or decision for this or that option. Your brain already has decided . seconds before you even get the idea that now by your "free will" you have decided something, have made a choice. Sorry, but neuroscientists have busted this idea. The brain decided, and later the "free will" follows.

In other words, I camp with those claiming that free will is an illusion.

This is a big, tough pill to swallow. However, this must not be a reason to turn fatalistic or to give up trying to differ between right and wrong, good and evil. The following essay I found to be very insightful and humane. I like what he says and I like the way in which he says it.

Life Without Free Will (http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/life-without-free-will)

The author is philosopher and neuroscientist himself.

Sailor Steve

03-13-13, 09:58 AM

Armistead

03-13-13, 10:26 AM

They're 1000's of factors that form our brains, enviroment, culture, education, religion, genetics, etc. Our choices and will aren't totally our own for sure.

geetrue

03-13-13, 10:58 AM

Nice article. Even ignoring psychology, Free Will is something thinkers great and small have discussed since there have been thinkers. I myself could write on the subject for hours, or at least a lot of minutes. I do like the comment you quote.

I think you should give it the old college try Steve, seriously.

You think you can, therefore you should ... what happens after you have collected your thoughts is up to fate and a publisher. Don't go the wiki route though.

Look at all of the time you already spend reading or absorbing life itself when you could be writing and sharing your soul.

Writing is like a race worry about the finish line when you get there.

I use to be a writer, but I have fallen by the wayside so to speak, in my good days I found that you have to keep at it ...

four or five pages a day, precept upon precept, rule upon rule, inch by inch is a cinch, yard by yard is hard.

Back to sky's wonderful topic, "free will" this is a great history leason for how the United States came into being and then fighting for it's freedom from England.

by the way sky I thought the was about LSD and free will ( LSD is not for me nosiree), but you had a typo of isd in the first sentence lol

Sailor Steve

03-13-13, 11:35 AM

I meant I could write all that right here, boring everybody to tears, if not to death. Write a book? No desires in that direction.

Of course getting paid to bore people is tempting. Mostly I just write music.

Tribesman

03-13-13, 12:07 PM

They're 1000's of factors that form our brains, enviroment, culture, education, religion, genitals, etc. Our choices and will aren't totally our own for sure.

That works

Betonov

03-13-13, 12:11 PM

But if my brains does the decision before me, without direct influence and completely on its own, that still makes it ''my free will'' since we are talking about MY brain working FREELY :hmmm:

Tchocky

03-13-13, 01:01 PM

Sailor Steve

03-13-13, 01:17 PM

The deeper question is whether your decision was really yours. I fall in love, I decide to get married. My free will or not? Could I have fallen in love with someone else? Could I have married someone else? Why did I decide on this person and not another? I can claim I made the choice on my own and of my own will, but did I really? I regret mistakes I made in the past, but could I have done it differently? If I could have, why didn't I? If I couldn't have, where is the free will? Am I trapped in a life not of my own making? If that's true, then I truly am trapped. If not, then why can't I get it right? If I have free will, why didn't I do it better? If I don't, why not? Even everyday decisions are influenced by outside factors. It's warm enough today, so I'm going for a bike ride. Why don't I ride when it's colder? Because I don't like the cold? Is that true, or is it just an excuse to avoid riding? Am I riding today because I like to ride when it's warm or am I forcing myself to do something I don't really enjoy because I've convinced myself I should?

I've had the money for a car for several months now, yet I still don't have a car. Is that because I haven't found one that suits me? Is that just an excuse because my last car was wrecked due to a mistake on my part, and I'm secretly afraid to own one again? Should I just find the cheapest car that runs and call it good? Should I wait until just the right one comes along? Do I really have any say in the matter at all? Will my final choice be made through free will, or will I just accept what fate gives me and pretend it was my choice.

And that's just scratching the surface.

Armistead

03-13-13, 01:25 PM

I don't see how there is a difference between our "free will" and our brain.

Usually it's a religious question. Most religions teach that sin or evil was allowed by God to give us free will so that we could decide to choose him or not. This works with the hell doctrine, that if we go there, it's our own choosing. The problem with that is do we as failed human beings with many human factors that effect us really have free will to make the right choice. It's our brain, but it was shaped and indoctrinated to believe what it does.

geetrue

03-13-13, 01:25 PM

Your brain already has decided . seconds before you even get the idea that now by your "free will" you have decided something, have made a choice.

Sorry, but neuroscientists have busted this idea. The brain decided, and later the "free will" follows.

In other words, I camp with those claiming that free will is an illusion.

This is a big, tough pill to swallow. However, this must not be a reason to turn fatalistic or to give up trying to differ between right and wrong, good and evil.

free will can be made captive by others thoughts, but where do those thoughts come from?

I disagree completly with this expert opinion in favor of my own free will thinker Oswald Chambers:

The first great psychological law to be grasped is that the brain and the body are pure mechanisms, there is nothing spiritual about them; they are the machines we use to express our personality.

We are meant to use our brains to express our thought in words, and then to behave according to the way we have thought.

A man’s spirit only expresses itself as soul by means of words; the brain does not deal with pure thought.

No thought is ours until it can be expressed in words. Immediately a thought is expressed in words, it returns to the brain as an idea upon which we can work.

Chambers, Oswald: The Moral Foundation of Life : Hants UK : Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996, c1966

Oswald goes on to say that these real thoughts come from the heart, the soul of man not the brain.

Sailor Steve

03-13-13, 01:29 PM

Usually it's a religious question. Most religions teach that sin or evil was allowed by God to give us free will so that we could decide to choose him or not. This works with the hell doctrine, that if we go there, it's our own choosing. The problem with that is do we as failed human beings with many human factors that effect us really have free will to make the right choice. It's our brain, but it was shaped and indoctrinated to believe what it does.
That's one of the ones I really enjoyed at the Catholic High School I attended. The Augustinian priests there were very open in their discussions.

God may have given us free will, but if he already knows the outcome then how is our decision our own? The difference between predestination and foreordination is as big as the universe, yet so tiny it's only a word or two away.

Sailor Steve

03-13-13, 01:31 PM

No thought is ours until it can be expressed in words. Immediately a thought is expressed in words, it returns to the brain as an idea upon which we can work.
Then maybe it's a good thing I talk to myself so much...
:rotfl2:

Betonov

03-13-13, 01:31 PM

God may have given us free will, but if he already knows the outcome then how is our decision our own? The difference between predestination and foreordination is as big as the universe, yet so tiny it's only a word or two away.

He knows the outcome, but doesn't change/control our will

Sailor Steve

03-13-13, 01:32 PM

He knows the outcome, but doesn't change/control our will
That's my take on it as well, and that's the difference between predestination and foreordination. Still, it's made for some fun discussions over the years. :sunny:

Armistead

03-13-13, 01:52 PM

He knows the outcome, but doesn't change/control our will

The bigger question is, what is our will and how free are we to decide it? Which goes to he created evil for a purpose to make us failed beings, but still our eternal fate rest on our decisions. Also seems that most don't choose God willingly, but simply out of fear of being tortured by him for all eternity, so in that, fear as a factor plays a role in our decision. I could say I'm in love with a girl, I could place a gun against her head and tell her if she doesn't say she loves me, I will shoot. She will say she loves me out of fear.

Simply, they're many factors in our make up, not of our choosing, that makes us choose one way or the other. Is that true free will?

Takeda Shingen

03-13-13, 01:55 PM

Thomas Aquinas give the commonly-held Catholic answer. Here's a good synopsis for those of you not willing to read the entire Summa Theologiae.

http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/freewill.html

August

03-13-13, 02:03 PM

The deeper question is whether your decision was really yours. I fall in love, I decide to get married. My free will or not? Could I have fallen in love with someone else? Could I have married someone else?

Why did I decide on this person and not another? I can claim I made the choice on my own and of my own will, but did I really? I regret mistakes I made in the past, but could I have done it differently? If I could have, why didn't I? If I couldn't have, where is the free will? Am I trapped in a life not of my own making? If that's true, then I truly am trapped. If not, then why can't I get it right? If I have free will, why didn't I do it better? If I don't, why not? Even everyday decisions are influenced by outside factors. It's warm enough today, so I'm going for a bike ride. Why don't I ride when it's colder? Because I don't like the cold? Is that true, or is it just an excuse to avoid riding? Am I riding today because I like to ride when it's warm or am I forcing myself to do something I don't really enjoy because I've convinced myself I should?

I've had the money for a car for several months now, yet I still don't have a car. Is that because I haven't found one that suits me? Is that just an excuse because my last car was wrecked due to a mistake on my part, and I'm secretly afraid to own one again? Should I just find the cheapest car that runs and call it good? Should I wait until just the right one comes along? Do I really have any say in the matter at all? Will my final choice be made through free will, or will I just accept what fate gives me and pretend it was my choice.

No pretending involved, it was your choice. Based on your life experiences and other outside factors you might lean one way or the other but in the end you still have to decide which road to take.

Armistead

03-13-13, 02:21 PM

No pretending involved, it was your choice. Based on your life experiences and other outside factors you might lean one way or the other but in the end you still have to decide which road to take.

Yes and no. I think for many, they suffer so many previous factors that have effected their thinking process, they often make poor choices. I can't remember who said it, think a monk, "give me a child until 12 and I will have him for life." It often happens an abused child that hates the person that abused them becomes an abuser as an adult. A child that grows up surrounded by hate, seldom grows up to make a choice of love. We teach that as adults we have to make correct responsible choices, but it's not that simple.

We also know whatever religion your culture teaches, you will most likely follow it. If you or I was born in Iran, there is a 90% chance you will be Muslim, born in India or China, 90% chance to be Hindu or Buddhist.

August

03-13-13, 02:42 PM

Yes and no. I think for many, they suffer so many previous factors that have effected their thinking process, they often make poor choices. I can't remember who said it, think a monk, "give me a child until 12 and I will have him for life." It often happens an abused child that hates the person that abused them becomes an abuser as an adult. A child that grows up surrounded by hate, seldom grows up to make a choice of love. We teach that as adults we have to make correct responsible choices, but it's not that simple.

Sounds to me like you think having free will means always making the "right" choice. Well part of having free will means being able to make the irresponsible choice, to marry the wrong woman, make the bad investment, heed bad advice or hang out with the wrong crowd.

Only if one completely removes a persons ability to choose then they still have free will to decide which option they will take.

Cybermat47

03-13-13, 03:48 PM

But if my brains does the decision before me, without direct influence and completely on its own, that still makes it ''my free will'' since we are talking about MY brain working FREELY :hmmm:

That's exactly what I was thinking! :up:

Skybird

03-13-13, 04:26 PM

Free will in the context talked about by Harris, and in the context I usually base on, means not more and not less than the assumed freedom of man to chose between two or more alternatives. I would not go any further than this, because going further means, as I see it, to step on slippery ground.

Do we form such choices outside any brain context? Well, take away the brain, and what you are left with is a bunch of meat.

If there is the freedom to make a choice in the above meaning, thehn the question is: what is it that has this freedom?

If on the other hand the brain forms - by a pattern of complex predetermination, if you want - the decision on what the organism does, chooses, prefers next, and then afterwards the organism starts to interpret this as its "free decision" that was made without and outside of that pattern of complex predetermination: then this obviously has consequences for the way we understand ourselves, think of ourselves, and define ourselves.

On a sidenote, there is a comparable discussion, since the dawn of psychology and psychophysiology as academic disciplines in the 19th century: the relation between body and emotion. Does the body cry and produces tears in the eyes, because the person feels sadness - or does the body produce the emotion named sadness because it cries and produces tears in the eyes? When I started to study psychology in the early nineties, this question still was not finally answered.

Both issues - free will and emotions - obviously are closely linked to brain. Without a brain there is neither the one nor the other. The brain is what creates our conscience and our awareness. Our ego, our identity, our "self" - it results from brain's activity. Without brain, no "person", no individual.

I once heare dsombody saiyng "The brain is the greatest adventure for man in the entire universe". I full-heartly agree. Even the depth of space and the unembracable and unimaginable size of the universe - are conceptions formed in iur brains, and whether these conceptions have anything to do with somehign that we usually claim to be "outside" the skin's border of your bodies - the world beyond ourselves, we cannot even say for sure. I tend to consider it possible that space travelling also is a form of mind travelling since it is our conceptions of what we think "Space" is that we are dealing with. The inner space of mind, the outer space of stellar space - can we really be sure that it is two entities our qualities that meet here, the one observing and being aware of the other?

If one asks whether there is a free will, then the question necessarily arises: who is it who thinks to have a free will? And if one tends to answer that with something like that all that is just an immaterial condensate of physical variables and neural processes, a residual only, then the next question would be: what function for the organism does it serve, why is it there? Is the illusion of a free will maybe of any advantage for the organism that is not that naturally apparent to the eye?

Skybird

03-13-13, 04:38 PM

Betonov, does the brain really ever work free of any previous inputs and experiences?

We all are products of our past.

frau kaleun

03-13-13, 07:35 PM

But if my brains does the decision before me

Silly man wabbit, thinks it's his brain making the decisions. :har: :O:

Sailor Steve

03-13-13, 08:19 PM

No pretending involved, it was your choice.
You miss the point entirely, which was the question of how you know it was your choice to make. Are we really free to make that choice at all. It's one of the great philosophical debates of history. To say you believe one way or another is fine, but to couch it as a definitive answer indicates that you are convinced of something you don't really know.

The reason the debate has gone on for so long is that no one yet has come up with a provable definitive answer. There is nothing here but opinion. Mine happens to agree with yours, but that's still all it is.

As Joseph Joubert put it: "It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it."

August

03-13-13, 10:32 PM

You miss the point entirely, which was the question of how you know it was your choice to make. Are we really free to make that choice at all. It's one of the great philosophical debates of history. To say you believe one way or another is fine, but to couch it as a definitive answer indicates that you are convinced of something you don't really know.

The reason the debate has gone on for so long is that no one yet has come up with a provable definitive answer. There is nothing here but opinion. Mine happens to agree with yours, but that's still all it is.

As Joseph Joubert put it: "It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it."

Bunch of hogwash if you ask me. Questioning your existence is a road that only leads to insanity.

Spoon 11th

03-14-13, 01:55 AM

Nature rather than nurture is responsible for creating your personality, according to a study of twins which found that character is something you are born with.

Researchers from Edinburgh University studied more than 800 sets of identical and non-identical twins...

...the researchers found that identical twins were twice as likely as non-identical twins to share the same personality traits, suggesting that their DNA was having the greatest impact.

Genetics were most influential on people's sense of self-control and also affected their social and learning abilities and their sense of purpose.

"The biggest factor we found was self control. There was a big genetic difference in [people's ability to] restrain themselves and persist with things when they got difficult and react to challenges in a positive way."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9267147/Its-nature-not-nurture-personality-lies-in-genes-twins-study-shows.html

And here's skeptic's interpretation what the bible says about free will:

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/free_will.html
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/free.html

Skybird

03-14-13, 06:47 AM

Let's leave bible and stuff like that out of this thread, else it will become ugly fast.

Skybird

03-14-13, 06:48 AM

Silly man wabbit, thinks it's his brain making the decisions. :har: :O:
:D :D

Catfish

03-14-13, 08:08 AM

Free will. Free will?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N03Cy76Gxqs

sry for derailing, but you saw it coming and it all is kismet, you know :oops:

Takeda Shingen

03-14-13, 08:46 AM

Let's leave bible and stuff like that out of this thread, else it will become ugly fast.

Humanists took the discussion of free will from the Catholic philosophers, like Aquinas. It is simply a substitution of "Inner Urge" from "God". You can't have a discussion without the origins of the discussion. No advocacy of religion is being discussed, only summarry for academic purposes, just as one must appreciate the genius of J. S. Bach's St. Matthew's Passion regardless of their religiosity.

Sailor Steve

03-14-13, 09:07 AM

Bunch of hogwash if you ask me. Questioning your existence is a road that only leads to insanity.
Or possibly stems from it.

On the other hand it can be argued that not questioning your existence, you motives or your sanity leads to hubris. Or stems from it.

August

03-14-13, 09:52 AM

Or possibly stems from it.

On the other hand it can be argued that not questioning your existence, you motives or your sanity leads to hubris. Or stems from it.

Anything can be argued, that doesn't make it true or likely.

geetrue

03-14-13, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by Skybird http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/smartdark/viewpost.gif (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=2025099#post2025099)
Let's leave bible and stuff like that out of this thread, else it will become ugly fast.

It's your thread man ... :yep:

you want to leave the bible out?

I think it is for the same reasons that you have left it out of your life

if that's what you want then that is what you will get

I think it's not the bible that you are afraid of ...

it's the truth that is available in the bible

Let me leave you with this example of what St James the brother of Jesus
said,

"The body is dead without the spirit"

another example: what if a dog bites you?

did that dog have free will to bite you?

did you step into that dogs yard triggering something in that dog to bite you?

So you stomp the poor thing killing it in the process and now that dog is dead proving that the body is dead without the spirit.

All things are spiritual ... God is a spirit

Now I'll leave the bible out of your thread ... "it's your thread man"

by the way if you have three lighthouses in a row ...

do you get egg roll? :woot:

Takeda Shingen

03-14-13, 10:33 AM

Well my agument is now dead, at least as it pertains to SubSim, and this immediate thread. At least I have Bach to keep me company.

Skybird

03-14-13, 10:36 AM

It's your...
(...)
... egg roll? :woot:

Sigh.

Free will in the context talked about by Harris, and in the context I usually base on, means not more and not less than the assumed freedom of man to chose between two or more alternatives. I would not go any further than this, because going further means, as I see it, to step on slippery ground.

Do we form such choices outside any brain context? Well, take away the brain, and what you are left with is a bunch of meat.

If there is the freedom to make a choice in the above meaning, then the question is: what is it that has this freedom?

If on the other hand the brain forms - by a pattern of complex predetermination, if you want - the decision on what the organism does, chooses, prefers next, and then afterwards the organism starts to interpret this as its "free decision" that was made without and outside of that pattern of complex predetermination: then this obviously has consequences for the way we understand ourselves, think of ourselves, and define ourselves.

Really that difficult...?

Skybird

03-14-13, 10:48 AM

Or possibly stems from it.

On the other hand it can be argued that not questioning your existence, you motives or your sanity leads to hubris. Or stems from it.
It's not about whether I exist or not. I think on this issue, therefore I am. Obviously, something does exist there for sure, and obviously it is in any kind of relation to what we consider to be ourselves.

The issue is: what is it that thinks it is free to decide? It is "us". But is our understanding of ourselves rally in congruence with the reality of our nature and essence, or do we think about ourselves in illusive concepts that hold no truth,. no substance? In the end: what is the nature of ourself - or better: of our self? Is it really that independent as we usually think it is? Or are we more predetermined by factors that we usually comfortably tend to not wanting to become too aware of? Free will yes or no - obviously it touches on some of the most profound issues onthology fights with with since the first people started to think.

I began with that essay by Harris. I just made some steps beyond what he reflected about, which was primarily the question on ethical behaviour.

geetrue

03-14-13, 11:42 AM

"Free will"

what triggers the voluntary responce?

soul :yep:

August

03-14-13, 11:47 AM

"Free will"

what triggers the voluntary responce?

soul :yep:

This is just Skybirds way of saying that when he advocates mass murder it's not his fault. :yep:

Sailor Steve

03-14-13, 12:44 PM

Anything can be argued, that doesn't make it true or likely.
I try to be polite in my phrasing. It's much nicer than just saying "Damn, you're arrogant!"

You don't like actually discussing things much, do you?

Sailor Steve

03-14-13, 12:52 PM

It's your thread man ... :yep:

you want to leave the bible out?
This was meant to be a discussion about free will. You would rather use your time to proselyze and judge based on the Bible. That's fine, but do you have any opinion about free will? That is the topic, after all.

Sailor Steve

03-14-13, 12:54 PM

At least I have Bach to keep me company.
I spit on you modernists and you're newfangled polyphonic music. I'm listening to Hildegard von Bingen today. :O:

August

03-14-13, 12:56 PM

I spit on you modernists and you're newfangled polyphonic music. I'm listening to Hildegard von Bingen today. :O:

You should follow your own advice to Geetrue in the previous post. :O:

Sailor Steve

03-14-13, 01:09 PM

You should follow your own advice to Geetrue in the previous post. :O:
I said my piece on free will, and more besides. Besides that, I blame Tak. he started it!

Here's a free will question for you: In the old days of arranged marriages the choice of whom we would marry was made for us. It was made for political, social or personal reasons, but it was a conscious choice no matter who made it. Today we mostly marry for love. You chose who you would marry. Why did you choose her? Was it because you decided she would make a good mother for your children? Was it because she was of the same social rank as you? Was it because you were interested in the same things?

More likely you fell in love. Barring the alternate discussion of whether love or even physical attraction is spiritual, emotional, or chemical, why did you fall in love? Did you have any control over it? Could you have fallen in love with someone else? Probably, but you didn't. Was that a conscious choice? So you asked her to marry you because you were in love and couldn't imagine spending your life with anyone else. So where was the free will in that?

Same with divorce. People manage to fall out of love. They can choose to remain married in spite of that, but the choice is now to remain miserable or to admit that you aren't who you were. Yes, you get to make a choice, but only between two evils. Is that really a choice at all. You have to make a decision, but free will has less to do with it than acceptance of not-so-nice fate.

It's the same thing with my car. I can't afford any car I want. If fate drops a car in my lap that I both want and can pay for then I'll try to grab it. Two perfect motorcycles have come along in the last week, but somebody grabbed them both before I could. I'll probably end up accepting a compromise, buying a cheap car I don't want. That is indeed my choice, but based on what? I really have no choice in the matter at all.

So where is the free will?

August

03-14-13, 01:22 PM

I said my piece on free will, and more besides. Besides that, I blame Tak. he started it!

Here's a free will question for you: In the old days of arranged marriages the choice of whom we would marry was made for us. It was made for political, social or personal reasons, but it was a conscious choice no matter who made it. Today we mostly marry for love. You chose who you would marry. Why did you choose her? Was it because you decided she would make a good mother for your children? Was it because she was of the same social rank as you? Was it because you were interested in the same things?

It could be all or none of those things.

More likely you fell in love. Barring the alternate discussion of whether love or even physical attraction is spiritual, emotional, or chemical, why did you fall in love? Did you have any control over it? Could you have fallen in love with someone else? Probably, but you didn't.Yes I did.

Was that a conscious choice? So you asked her to marry you because you were in love and couldn't imagine spending your life with anyone else. So where was the free will in that?You're making a lot of assumptions here Steve. I married my wife at age 49. She isn't my first love and yeah I can well imagine spending my life with someone else.

Same with divorce. People manage to fall out of love. They can choose to remain married in spite of that, but the choice is now to remain miserable or to admit that you aren't who you were. Yes, you get to make a choice, but only between two evils. Is that really a choice at all. You have to make a decision, but free will has less to do with it than acceptance of not-so-nice fate.

So you admit that free will exists even in a Hobsons choice.

It's the same thing with my car. I can't afford any car I want. If fate drops a car in my lap that I both want and can pay for then I'll try to grab it. Two perfect motorcycles have come along in the last week, but somebody grabbed them both before I could. I'll probably end up accepting a compromise, buying a cheap car I don't want. That is indeed my choice, but based on what? I really have no choice in the matter at all.

So where is the free will?It's mentioned repeatedly throughout your post. Just because you're limited by reality to choices you find objectionable doesn't mean you don't have a choice at all.

geetrue

03-14-13, 01:32 PM

This was meant to be a discussion about free will. You would rather use your time to proselyze and judge based on the Bible. That's fine, but do you have any opinion about free will? That is the topic, after all.

I am shocked that I have been accused of this, by the way you spelled the word wrong, you left out the t and the i. (proselyze is spelled proselytize)

Yes I have let my light shine on you, but I have not judged you to be found unworthy of redemption lol

Discernment is a better word ... I have discerned your needs

In the beginning was the Word and the word said, "Let there be light" :know:

Sailor Steve

03-14-13, 01:36 PM

You're making a lot of assumptions here Steve.
I'm not making any assumptions at all. I'm merely asking questions, and pointing out that things aren't always as cut-and-dried as you seem to see them.

So you admit that free will exists even in a Hobsons choice.
From the very start I said that my opinion was the same as yours. I do indeed believe in free will. I also said that it's just opinion, and that there are many opinions on the subject and always have been. Where we disagree is that I believe my opinion to be no more valid (or invalid) than any other, whereas you seem to believe that your opinion is fact, and that's that.

It's mentioned repeatedly throughout your post. Just because you're limited by reality to choices you find objectionable doesn't mean you don't have a choice at all.
Maybe we should submit a thesis on the subject. "After thousands of years of debate, August says we absolutely have free will, and the discussion is henceforth closed."

I like discussing philosophy, and you apparently don't. I can accept that. :sunny:

Sailor Steve

03-14-13, 01:42 PM

I am shocked that I have been accused of this, by the way you spelled the word wrong, you left out the t and the i. (proselyze is spelled proselytize)
Thank you. This is why, contrary to popular opinion, I don't go after people's spelling. I do it too.

That said, you did indeed not talk about free will at all, but chose rather to preach your faith.

Yes I have let my light shine on you, but I have not judged you to be found unworthy of redemption lol.
No, you expressed your belief. I'm still waiting for you to show any evidence that there is a God at all. You never answered that question since the last time you did this.

Discernment is a better word ... I have discerned your needs
You know nothing of my needs. I used to believe as you do, and found that belief lacking.

In the beginning was the Word and the word said, "Let there be light" :know:
If you're going to quote the Bible, you should at least quote it correctly. You're wrongly combining two different scriptures, and then trying to show superiority with a smug intellectual smiley. All you're showing with that is ignorance.