Dude, it's pretty pointless to try and reason with a fanatic... Which JJN clearly is... -_- He/she just reminds me of the priests who "taught" me when I was a kid at school, it's all "you'll be saved if you're good, rot in Hell if you're a sinner" control-freak nonsense which is the stock-in trade of Christian nutters.. They really are ALL the same.....

 

Wow, what a nice argument... I see you have been studyng. It´s a privilege to be considered a fanatic by someone as "tolerant" as you (who have proven hate and intolerance in thousands of posts in this forum). What is your definition of a fanatic??? Anyone who disagrees one of your opinions??? Seems like we have a fanatic out there... We can see how incisive you are with each comment, that you consider an abuse that anyone dares to disagree with you on ANY subject. Sorry, but I´m not taking this... If you want to be ignorant, then be! Nobody is asking for belief, just respect. If you want to say bull$h!t about a doctrine you don´t even know (and therefore look like an ignorant clown), say, but I´m on my right to build a defense.

Now this is LAUGHABLE!!!!!!!! You know as much as christianity doctrine as my dog knows about maths. You could have read the 39 articles of faith of the C of E at least, to pretend you know something.

 

 

 

It´s ok if you want to criticize, but dude... have some basis.

 

m8, i have plenty of basis, from the fact i was IN the church, i saw how it worked, i saw the excuses that were constantly being made for things that dont go right.. i know that you are expected to swallow that carp without question, because as soon as you DO question it...it falls apart!

 

you are typical of someone who refuses to see the truth... 'i have my faith and you cannot disprove it'... :lol: but it doesnt make it a fact!

 

everlasting life?... who wants that?.. that would be hell... ESPECIALLY IT HEAVEN IS FULL OF BLOODY CHRISTIANS! i can think of nothing worse. but seriously.... even the universe doesnt last forever, nothing does.

 

 

 

"XVII. Of Predestination and Election.

Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through Grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity. "

 

what a load of nonsense, just fantasy whitterings from supersticious fools. predestination?... so are we already pre-destined to believe and get saved or not?... so whats the point of 'free will'? whats the point in believing in jc? whats the point in thinking? if its pre-destined then we need do nothing! all this nonsense written for the feeble minded to give their dull little lives purpose... how sad.

 

when someone can come up with something tangible , something that can be proven by the scientific process, something that reasonable thought can justify and NOT meaningless whitterings that have NO basis in fact... then ill listen, hell i WANTED to listen, I DID, i wanted the whole christian package !!! but unfortunately it was all hot air.

 

By the way do atheist believe in predestination??? I mean, not by a superior being, but the universe comes from an explosion and so, everything that happened since then is an idirect consequence of all this stuff, including the earth to be positioned exactly in the place where it must be to permit life to develop here, and then the appearence of our human species... When we make choices, it´s nothing but our brain working out its chemicals but nobody choses the size of their brain or the family they are born. So, an atheist believing in free will, sounds completely "religious" to me. How can there be any "freedom" in the universe, if everything resumes to chemical and physical action-and-reaction golden rule. Of course predestination doesn´t mean you don´t need to do nothing... but in fact, it means even the things you do are predestinated. If predestination is nothing but "fantasy whitterings from supersticious fools", thens this means that Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietszche (all of them SECULAR, if not atheist philosophers, not to mention the fathers of Church who were also genius of our civilization) were all "superstitious fools".

By the way do atheist believe in predestination??? I mean, not by a superior being, but the universe comes from an explosion and so, everything that happened since then is an idirect consequence of all this stuff, including the earth to be positioned exactly in the place where it must be to permit life to develop here, and then the appearence of our human species... When we make choices, it´s nothing but our brain working out its chemicals but nobody choses the size of their brain or the family they are born. So, an atheist believing in free will, sounds completely "religious" to me. How can there be any "freedom" in the universe, if everything resumes to chemical and physical action-and-reaction golden rule. Of course predestination doesn´t mean you don´t need to do nothing... but in fact, it means even the things you do are predestinated. If predestination is nothing but "fantasy whitterings from supersticious fools", thens this means that Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietszche (all of them SECULAR, if not atheist philosophers, not to mention the fathers of Church who were also genius of our civilization) were all "superstitious fools".

 

nope..it wasnt predestination that i was refering to as "fantasy whitterings of suspersticious fools" but the religious texts that so many take as 'the truth', or 'fact' when they have absolutely no basis in science. hence 'scratch the surface and the glareing flaws become obvious'.

 

who says that life on earth via the big bang etc was 'predestined'?... i certainly didnt nor do i think it is!

 

predestination (with regards to our human life) isnt something that can be either proven, nor disproven, but if our lives are pre destined then it takes away from us our 'free will', and NOTHING we can do with our lives will alter its future.

 

personally, i dont believe in predestination, i regard everything in life as practically being made up as we go along. sure some things, our direction, can be aimed for... careers, marriage, etc but until we are processing each and every day i dont think its already ordained by god.

 

another thing.... if all our lives ARE pre-destined it means that murderers, paedos, rapists, all the vile, evil acts that people do have been ALLOWED to happen by god!!! hitler was allowed to kill millions because he was merely following the life that god had already ordained!!! thats barmy!

m8, i have plenty of basis, from the fact i was IN the church, i saw how it worked, i saw the excuses that were constantly being made for things that dont go right.. i know that you are expected to swallow that carp without question, because as soon as you DO question it...it falls apart!

 

Pretty much the same for me as well mate... I dont need to read 39 articles or whatever.. I LIVED through this BS just like you did, so I like you KNOW that it's all just hot air and incredibly flawed superstition, the fact that there was an expectation never to question "faith", and that when things happened which seemed totally contradictory to what was being presented, the excuse was bollocks like "god moves in myserious ways". RIIIIIIIIIIGHHHHT..... -_- Nice get-out clause God's worked in for himself innit...? He'd make a great Lawyer or Publicist....

 

Here's on HUGE contradiction - God supposedly gave man Free Will, yet religious teachings more or less order us never to question God or the teachings of the Church, synagogue, Mosque, whatever, we all have to take things on blind faith alone..... Utter BULLSH!T, the complete OPPOSITE of "thinking for one's self" surely..... <_<

the one that gets me is when you ask why god let little kids or even young adults get cancer etc... " oh hes testing them"!!!

 

what sort of sick fcuk would do THAT?...

 

i might be a sinner but i have more compasion then the supposed god of love...

 

as you say scott, theres always a get out clause when things dont go the christians way... 'its gods will'.... well thats it then innit! pmsl... its abit like dr who's 'psychic paper' ...:lol: get out of jail free... so whats the point in asking god for anything if he bloody well ignores you?.. :lol: "ask and it will be given" .... BULLSH1T!

 

or does this bring us back to predestination?... :lol:

the one that gets me is when you ask why god let little kids or even young adults get cancer etc... " oh hes testing them"!!!

 

Well, in the Gospel According to Glenn Hoddle, they would probably be getting punished for sins committed in a former life, like disabled people.... <_<

 

Besides, absolutely NONE of these religious theories has ever come up with a credible answer as to why if Man is created in God's image, in whose image were the Dinosaurs created...? :lol: :lol: Or are we supposed to believe that the Dinosaurs were part of some "flawed experiment" by God...? If so, why no mention of Dinosaurs in the bible...? Hmmm, could it be because nobody (ie, MAN...) knew about the existence of Dinosaurs several thousand years ago....? The Bible/Koran, etc, "handed down from God" is it...? Bollocks.....

 

personally, i dont believe in predestination, i regard everything in life as practically being made up as we go along. sure some things, our direction, can be aimed for... careers, marriage, etc but until we are processing each and every day i dont think its already ordained by god.

 

another thing.... if all our lives ARE pre-destined it means that murderers, paedos, rapists, all the vile, evil acts that people do have been ALLOWED to happen by god!!! hitler was allowed to kill millions because he was merely following the life that god had already ordained!!! thats barmy!

 

So, do you think when you throw a rock somewhere, the rock choses where it´s going to fall??? Or the place where it falls is determined by the strenght you used, the direction, the wind, the weight of the rock, etc???? The same goes with your brain. You have the apperence of "making choices", but if you chose yes or no, white or black, it´s all because of chemical reactions happening inside of your brain, that you have absolutely no control of it. So when there was the big explosion (IF there was, because science changes its views all the time) none of the atoms coming from there "chose" where they were going to be. They were just distributed acording to the rules of nature, acording to their weight, the attraction, the strenght of the explosion, etc. In physics nothing is aleatory. And our brain is nothing but an ultra-complex physical machine. We don´t understand exactly how it works, but it´s all beyond our control, wether you believe there is a God or no... You don´t chose to live under the rules of gravity, for example. You don´t chose to live under the time passing... Who wouldn´t want to stop time during a good moment? Or be young for 50 years? But no, we can´t do nothing about it. So I say, if you had a bad education (you didn´t chose the family you were born in!), and a brain that will make you pick the wrong decisions (you didn´t chose the physical structure of your brain!), you might be a criminal... There´s no such thing as free will. You´re working with the assumption the christianity teaches free will, but it doesn´t (or at least it shouldn´t). The Bible doesn´t teach men have ANY control over their destiny or wether they are going to be good or evil. Atheists agree with this, except the part where it says it´s all determined by God. Atheist believe it´s determined by... nothing.

 

So, do you think when you throw a rock somewhere, the rock choses where it´s going to fall??? Or the place where it falls is determined by the strenght you used, the direction, the wind, the weight of the rock, etc???? The same goes with your brain. You have the apperence of "making choices", but if you chose yes or no, white or black, it´s all because of chemical reactions happening inside of your brain, that you have absolutely no control of it. So when there was the big explosion (IF there was, because science changes its views all the time) none of the atoms coming from there "chose" where they were going to be. They were just distributed acording to the rules of nature, acording to their weight, the attraction, the strenght of the explosion, etc. In physics nothing is aleatory. And our brain is nothing but an ultra-complex physical machine. We don´t understand exactly how it works, but it´s all beyond our control, wether you believe there is a God or no... You don´t chose to live under the rules of gravity, for example. You don´t chose to live under the time passing... Who wouldn´t want to stop time during a good moment? Or be young for 50 years? But no, we can´t do nothing about it. So I say, if you had a bad education (you didn´t chose the family you were born in!), and a brain that will make you pick the wrong decisions (you didn´t chose the physical structure of your brain!), you might be a criminal... There´s no such thing as free will. You´re working with the assumption the christianity teaches free will, but it doesn´t (or at least it shouldn´t). The Bible doesn´t teach men have ANY control over their destiny or wether they are going to be good or evil. Atheists agree with this, except the part where it says it´s all determined by God. Atheist believe it´s determined by... nothing.

 

thats the biggest load of nonsense youve ever posted m8.

 

of course the rock goes where its thrown, because it was thrown deliberately and it follows the laws of physics. science can demonstrate , it can measure and therefore predict exactly what will happen, THE ROCK DOES NOT HAVE FREE WILL, IT HAS NO BRAIN, IT IS ON A ONE WAY COURSE so it cannot do anything else. we can, we have a brain and a thought process...mind you so many of you religious types surrender your thought patterns, closes your brains, and allow some writings to tell you what to do!

 

so you think you robotically follow what your chemical reactions in your brain say and YOU have no input?.... no such thing as free will? wtf does GOD want with a cabbage?... if you have no personality, what possible use would your god have for you?... its all bollox..

 

ive never argued against the concept of a 'god' , just one depicted crudely be religions because if 'it' exists (though i strongly suspect its a natural phenomenon, like gravity a law of nature), then religions are miles off the mark.

 

... natural laws are constant, but living entities themselves are random. thats life.

 

 

 

So, do you think when you throw a rock somewhere, the rock choses where it´s going to fall??? Or the place where it falls is determined by the strenght you used, the direction, the wind, the weight of the rock, etc???? The same goes with your brain. You have the apperence of "making choices", but if you chose yes or no, white or black, it´s all because of chemical reactions happening inside of your brain, that you have absolutely no control of it. So when there was the big explosion (IF there was, because science changes its views all the time) none of the atoms coming from there "chose" where they were going to be. They were just distributed acording to the rules of nature, acording to their weight, the attraction, the strenght of the explosion, etc. In physics nothing is aleatory. And our brain is nothing but an ultra-complex physical machine. We don´t understand exactly how it works, but it´s all beyond our control, wether you believe there is a God or no... You don´t chose to live under the rules of gravity, for example. You don´t chose to live under the time passing... Who wouldn´t want to stop time during a good moment? Or be young for 50 years? But no, we can´t do nothing about it. So I say, if you had a bad education (you didn´t chose the family you were born in!), and a brain that will make you pick the wrong decisions (you didn´t chose the physical structure of your brain!), you might be a criminal... There´s no such thing as free will. You´re working with the assumption the christianity teaches free will, but it doesn´t (or at least it shouldn´t). The Bible doesn´t teach men have ANY control over their destiny or wether they are going to be good or evil. Atheists agree with this, except the part where it says it´s all determined by God. Atheist believe it´s determined by... nothing.

I'm with Rob on this, what a load of tosh you spout sometimes.. Physics and mathematical algorythms will determine where a rock will fall. The greatest mysteries of life, the universe and nature WILL be eventually solved by mathematics NOT by some religious rubbish which has no credible answers to give, mathematics is the universal language, not faith.....

 

People can fight against their upbringings and destinies, NOTHING is set in stone, the only people with genuinely no control over their actions are the mentally disturbed, the clinically depressed and the psychotic (which, again, happens most of the time because of bad or depraved upbringings), and there are clearly defined MEDICAL and PSYCHOLOGICAL reasons why this happens to people, it has fukk all to do with "faith" or "religion"..... -_- What kind of "God" afflicts people with this sort of thing...? NO GOD does, get the point....? The Existentialists were right, if "God" allows such things to happen, then no "God" exists, it's randomness, nature, chaos....

I'm with Rob on this, what a load of tosh you spout sometimes.. Physics and mathematical algorythms will determine where a rock will fall. The greatest mysteries of life, the universe and nature WILL be eventually solved by mathematics NOT by some religious rubbish which has no credible answers to give, mathematics is the universal language, not faith.....

 

So you contradict yourself... If mathematics can solve anything in the universe, then EVEN what makes a person chose good or bad, wrong or right, has a mathematic reason, an equation. It´s probably too complex for humans to calculate it, but it doesn´t change the fact it´s determined in nature. You are a product of a series of factors, even your ideas, it could all be arranged in an equation, there is no control over the future cause it´s determined by equations.

 

As Schopenhauer said: "a man can surely do what he wills to do, but cannot determine what he wills"

 

It´s pure maths! No religion or superstition has anything to do with this. Free will, by the way, is a belief that have absolutely NO rational basis.

 

(...)

On the most basic level, what goes into making you act? The search begins with the premise that all of your faculties, senses and perceptive powers reside in your brain and nervous system. This seems a safe premise, for we are no longer capable of making choices or taking actions that could be considered by anyone an expression of our will when our brains no longer function. We are inert when dead.

 

Each of us is born with a brain that has its unique and innate proclivities, capacities, strengths and weaknesses. The brain has an unconscious portion that regulates at the least such things as digestion, heartbeat and respiration. It also regulates hormone production. The chemicals and electricity in the primitive part of our brains react to sensory experiences, both on a hard-wired level (suck on nipple) and as we learn from experience (biting leads to an unpleasant response). It is likely that childhood traumas have a lasting effect on the unconscious, and even on brain chemistry. Factors such as brain chemistry, hormones and unconscious memories that may be stirred up by present day situations all have an effect on our feelings, thoughts and behaviors -- effects that in many (perhaps most) cases may be unknown to the person experiencing them. These factors are not within our control and certainly are not the result of our own deliberate making.

(...)

 

Is it credible that some part of us (our free will) permits us to act free of our determinants in at least some instances? If so, how and why doesn't everything in the universe -- atoms, cells, dogs, cars -- possess this unnatural quality? For free will is unnatural, or perhaps more accurately supernatural or magical as its existence would violate the law of causation.

(...)

 

source: http://www.determinism.com/05042002.shtml

 

"In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity."

- Baruch Spinoza

 

 

"Everything happens through immutable laws, ...everything is necessary... There are, some persons say, some events which are necessary and others which are not. It would be very comic that one part of the world was arranged, and the other were not; that one part of what happens had to happen and that another part of what happens did not have to happen. If one looks closely at it, one sees that the doctrine contrary to that of destiny is absurd; but there are many people destined to reason badly; others not to reason at all others to persecute those who reason."

- Voltaire

http://www.determinism.com/quotes.shtml

Edited June 9, 200817 yr by Janet Jackson´s Nipple

So you contradict yourself... If mathematics can solve anything in the universe, then EVEN what makes a person chose good or bad, wrong or right, has a mathematic reason, an equation. It´s probably too complex for humans to calculate it, but it doesn´t change the fact it´s determined in nature. You are a product of a series of factors, even your ideas, it could all be arranged in an equation, there is no control over the future cause it´s determined by equations.

 

As Schopenhauer said: "a man can surely do what he wills to do, but cannot determine what he wills"

 

It´s pure maths! No religion or superstition has anything to do with this. Free will, by the way, is a belief that have absolutely NO rational basis.

 

youre going bonkers m8...

 

scott was clearly refering to the laws of physics / math in determining where the rock will fall.... and how the workings of the universe will one day be solved, he did NOT say that peoples free will will be solved by a mathematical equasion.

 

"a man can surely do what he wills to do, but cannot determine what he wills"

 

yes he can!!! he can make a rational reasoned decision based on thought as to what he will or will not do! man is NOT a slave to his predispositions, you do NOT have to act on will, you can overcome it .

 

you read too much carp m8, you ought to take time to think for yourself and not be sooooo willing to swallow other peoples regurgitated, second hand, and not always RIGHT, thoughts.

 

and answer me this.... if man is a slave to his predetermined , preordained, life style... that means that god condoned paedophillia, rape, murder, evil.... he must have created people that way, so evil is all gods fault! :lol:

 

 

 

yes he can!!! he can make a rational reasoned decision based on thought as to what he will or will not do! man is NOT a slave to his predispositions, you do NOT have to act on will, you can overcome it .

 

you read too much carp m8, you ought to take time to think for yourself and not be sooooo willing to swallow other peoples regurgitated, second hand, and not always RIGHT, thoughts.

You´re going round in circles. Human thought is nothing but reactions happening on brain cells... It´s determined by physics, chemistry. It´s not scientifical or rational to think that the future can be "changed". For someone who read Richard Dawkins, it´s pathetic to call Spinoza and Voltaire "carp". That is pure maths: every minimal move in the universe is determined by equations. Even the movement of small particles reactin on your brain cells that make you chose "yes" or "no".

 

and answer me this.... if man is a slave to his predetermined , preordained, life style... that means that god condoned paedophillia, rape, murder, evil.... he must have created people that way, so evil is all gods fault! :lol:

This is no valid argument. We are not discussing the existence of God, but wether things are predeterminated or not. The fact that this is not desireable doesn´t mean it cannot be truth. Determinism is not a religious theory taken from christianity or any other religion... in fact, its biggest exponents were atheists. I can understand someone who is superstitious or religious to believe in free will (even tough I don´t believe it myself), but it sounds completely out of tune to hear that from an atheist. It was a materialistic slogan that only two things exist in the universe: atoms and empty spaces, and the rest is only opinion. So how in a world build of matter ruled by physics can there be any type of "free will". The existence of free will would violate very basic laws of nature, such as the law of causation. Every effect has a cause.

You´re going round in circles. Human thought is nothing but reactions happening on brain cells... It´s determined by physics, chemistry. It´s not scientifical or rational to think that the future can be "changed". For someone who read Richard Dawkins, it´s pathetic to call Spinoza and Voltaire "carp". That is pure maths: every minimal move in the universe is determined by equations. Even the movement of small particles reactin on your brain cells that make you chose "yes" or "no".

This is no valid argument. We are not discussing the existence of God, but wether things are predeterminated or not. The fact that this is not desireable doesn´t mean it cannot be truth. Determinism is not a religious theory taken from christianity or any other religion... in fact, its biggest exponents were atheists. I can understand someone who is superstitious or religious to believe in free will (even tough I don´t believe it myself), but it sounds completely out of tune to hear that from an atheist. It was a materialistic slogan that only two things exist in the universe: atoms and empty spaces, and the rest is only opinion. So how in a world build of matter ruled by physics can there be any type of "free will". The existence of free will would violate very basic laws of nature, such as the law of causation. Every effect has a cause.

 

 

im surprised that you believe this nonsense.... you are totally ignoring that whilst the mechanics of the human brain IS chemical /electro chemical reactions it does NOT explain a persons persona, their personality, their soul, or their thoughts and likes/dislikes. if what you say is right then we would all be the same! :lol: everyone would be a clone of eachother with no personal traits. this is simply wrong, even from a christian point of view! ... what would be the point in a god creating that?..

 

conveiniantly like every other difficult question the christian sidesteps the fundamental question. again, if everything is pre-ordained by god then why does he allow, create evil people?.

 

free will does NOT go against natural law...:lol:.... you really seem to have a very poor grasp on what a human life is, plus your inability to seperate what is random from what is factual is astonishing. the laws of nature apply to everything physical, there is NO law of nature that determines human action, human thought, THAT is what sets us apart from every other living organism on earth. human beings are clearly free to think and act as they seem fit. thought is not in the physical world, and although the human body works within the laws of nature, thought IS allowed more freedom.

 

you view that paints humans as nothing more then animals with no control or responsibility for their lives is worrying.... i can understand the concept of a 'god' wanting 'good' people to live with him (although its bollox), i cannot accept the concept of a 'god' creating and pre-determine a speciese of people and making them into robots just to exist for a while, to join him or not, to create 'good' robots and to create 'evil' robots whos only aim is to hurt people.... thats the biggest load of twaddle ive ever heard but is what YOU are suggesting life is about.

It´s pure maths! No religion or superstition has anything to do with this. Free will, by the way, is a belief that have absolutely NO rational basis.

 

My friend, you operate FREE WILL every time you CHOOSE to log into Buzzjack, unless you actually believe that God is somehow "telling" you to do so..... -_- Are you honestly trying to say that people are "pre-determined" to go on an Internet site to chat about music, films, politics, etc..... Rubbish.... Is it "pre-determined" that I'll like Hard-core Metal music as opposed to mainstream Pop, was it "pre-determined" for me to completely reject the teachings of the Catholic Church...? Again, nonsense, it was something that I arrived at ON MY OWN.....

 

Spinoza and Voltaire were living in completely different times, completely different societies (times completely dominated by the Church and Feudal Monarchies by the way, where to speak against God or King was punishable by death, so not surprisingly not many people DID speak out...), and there was little or no awareness of what we now understand as Psychology, Behavioural Science or of mental illnesses which DO affect people's choices and free wills.... But these illnesses are not "pre-determined", they are caused by completely external environmental factors....

 

Spinoza, Voltaire and Decartes (who said "I think, therefore I am") did the groundwork, but their works have either been discredited by others who came along and saw the flaws in their theories, or have been taken apart, studied and mashed out of all recognition.. At the end of the day, these Philosophers, clever as they were, were only expressing an OPINION (and not a particularly scientific one..) like anybody else.....

im surprised that you believe this nonsense.... you are totally ignoring that whilst the mechanics of the human brain IS chemical /electro chemical reactions it does NOT explain a persons persona, their personality, their soul, or their thoughts and likes/dislikes. if what you say is right then we would all be the same! :lol: everyone would be a clone of eachother with no personal traits. this is simply wrong, even from a christian point of view! ... what would be the point in a god creating that?..

So you´re kinda admiting you believe in some "supernatural" powers... Soul??? Well, we are not all the same for the following reasons: we have different DNA; we have been raised in different ambients; we had different experiences trough life. Scientifically, that´s the only thing that makes the difference between persons, good or bad. The rest, is in the camp of religion or supersticion.

 

conveiniantly like every other difficult question the christian sidesteps the fundamental question. again, if everything is pre-ordained by god then why does he allow, create evil people?.

Well, this question isn´t really necessary because determinism doesn´t require the existence of God. So I could simply answear that with "God doesn´t exist". However, if you want to know the answear from a biblical point of view, God creates evil because he wants to. For example, it´s written in the Bible that God predestinated Judas to betray Jesus, and predestinated his death in the cross.

 

free will does NOT go against natural law...:lol:.... you really seem to have a very poor grasp on what a human life is, plus your inability to seperate what is random from what is factual is astonishing. the laws of nature apply to everything physical, there is NO law of nature that determines human action, human thought, THAT is what sets us apart from every other living organism on earth. human beings are clearly free to think and act as they seem fit. thought is not in the physical world, and although the human body works within the laws of nature, thought IS allowed more freedom.

Well, but what is the scientific of philosophic basis of this??? If the universe is only matter an energy, then EVERYTHING is submitted to the laws of nature. If there is anything that is not submitted to the laws of nature, then by definition, this is SUPERNATURAL.

My friend, you operate FREE WILL every time you CHOOSE to log into Buzzjack, unless you actually believe that God is somehow "telling" you to do so..... -_- Are you honestly trying to say that people are "pre-determined" to go on an Internet site to chat about music, films, politics, etc..... Rubbish.... Is it "pre-determined" that I'll like Hard-core Metal music as opposed to mainstream Pop, was it "pre-determined" for me to completely reject the teachings of the Catholic Church...? Again, nonsense, it was something that I arrived at ON MY OWN.....

 

Spinoza and Voltaire were living in completely different times, completely different societies (times completely dominated by the Church and Feudal Monarchies by the way, where to speak against God or King was punishable by death, so not surprisingly not many people DID speak out...), and there was little or no awareness of what we now understand as Psychology, Behavioural Science or of mental illnesses which DO affect people's choices and free wills.... But these illnesses are not "pre-determined", they are caused by completely external environmental factors....

 

Spinoza, Voltaire and Decartes (who said "I think, therefore I am") did the groundwork, but their works have either been discredited by others who came along and saw the flaws in their theories, or have been taken apart, studied and mashed out of all recognition.. At the end of the day, these Philosophers, clever as they were, were only expressing an OPINION (and not a particularly scientific one..) like anybody else.....

 

Ok, but where is the scientific or philosophical basis for free will? Of course I "chose" to join in Buzzjack, but even my choices are determined a logical sequence happening in my brain, which I have no control of. Spinoza and Voltaire did live in a different world, but their opinion in determinism remain reliable for modern scientist/philosophers. People still couldn´t find any reasonable explanation for free will outside of the field of religion/supersticion. Stephen Hawking has said that, either the universe was created by a God or no, everything that happens in the universe is determined by the laws of science, so people are not masters of their destiny.

 

You mention psicology and behavioural science... but it is exactly from those sciences that have raised some of the biggest contributions to this idea. What is behavioural science if not tryng to understand human behaviour, finding reasonable explanation for it? If there was such thing as "free will" then there would be no need for psicology, cause human choices would be aleatory and it wouldn´t be possible to build a science to explain/predict it.

 

Is it "pre-determined" that I'll like Hard-core Metal music as opposed to mainstream Pop, was it "pre-determined" for me to completely reject the teachings of the Catholic Church...? Again, nonsense, it was something that I arrived at ON MY OWN.....

Your musical preferences and opinions on religion belong to your personality. This personality was inherited from your DNA and the experiences you lived. That´s what psicology says.

Since ancient times, the origins of human behavior have been attributed to hidden or mystical forces. The Greek philosopher Democritus speculated, for example, that objects in our world consist of atoms; included among these "objects" was the soul, which was made of finer, smoother, and more spherical atoms than other physical objects. He rejected the concept of free will and claimed that all human behavior results from prior events. Some philosophers have advanced the argument that human behavior is deterministic, although most have resisted the idea that human beings merely react to external events and do not voluntarily select behaviors.

 

There is a clear dilemma in explaining human behavior through psychological principles. On the one hand, if psychology is a science of behavior, then there should be laws allowing the prediction of behavior, just as there are gravitational laws to predict the behavior of a falling object. On the other hand, objections have been raised by individuals who believe that humans control their own behaviors and possess free will. Part of the controversy relates to the concept of the mind and body as separate entities. In this view, the mind may not be subject to the same laws as the body. Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) attempted to make the distinction between determinism and indeterminism by suggesting that psychological processes could be creative and free, whereas the physiological processes in the brain were deterministic. This argument does not solve the problem for psychology, however, because psychologists consider mental processes appropriate for study within a scientific framework, thus subject to scientific laws.

 

Other psychologists like William James, who was interested in religion and believed in free will, recognized this conflict but was reluctant to abandon the concept that behaviors were not free. At one point, he suggested that mind and body operated in tandem, whereas on another occasion he concluded that they interacted. Clearly, James struggled with the issue and, like others, was unable to resolve it. The behaviorists were the most obvious proponents of determinism, dating back to John B. Watson, who claimed that environment was the single cause of behavior, and who made one of the most famous deterministic assertions ever: "Give me a dozen healthy infants . . . and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take anyone at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select-doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant, chief, and, yes, even beggar man and thief."

 

The psychologist with the greatest influence in this area, however, was B. F. Skinner. He adopted a stance called radical behaviorism, which disregarded free will and the internal causes of behavior. All behavior, Skinner maintained, was determined through reinforcement contingencies, that is, the pattern of reinforcements and punishments in an individual's life. Although critics have claimed that Skinner's concept of determinism denied people of their humanity, he maintained that his approach could actually lead to more humane societies. For example, if people were not responsible for negative behaviors, they should not be punished, for they had no control over their behaviors. Instead, the environment that reinforced the unwanted behaviors should be changed so that desirable behaviors receive reinforcement and increase in frequency.

 

Sigmund Freud defined determinism in terms of the unconscious and contended that behavior is caused by internal, mental mechanisms. In some ways, Freud was more extreme than Skinner, who acknowledged that some behaviors are not predictable. The main difference between Freud and Skinner involved the origin of causation; Freud believed in underlying physiological processes while Skinner opted to focus on external causes. Thus, even though Freudians and Skinnerians differ on almost every conceivable dimension, they have at least one commonality in their reliance on determinism.

 

Those scientists who believe that behaviors are determined have recognized the difficulty in making explicit predictions. Thus, they have developed the concept of statistical determinism. This means that, even though behaviors are determined by fixed laws, predictions will never be perfect because so many different factors, most of them unknown, affect actions, which result in generally accurate predictions. The recently developed theory of chaos relates to making predictions about complex events such as behaviors. This theory suggests that in a cause-effect situation, small differences in initial conditions may lead to very different outcomes. This theory supports the notion that behaviors may not be completely predictable even though they may be dictated by fixed natural laws.

 

Further Reading

For Your Information

Doob, Leonard William. Inevitability: Determinism, Fatalism, and Destiny. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g269...0/ai_2699000094

So you´re kinda admiting you believe in some "supernatural" powers... Soul??? Well, we are not all the same for the following reasons: we have different DNA; we have been raised in different ambients; we had different experiences trough life. Scientifically, that´s the only thing that makes the difference between persons, good or bad. The rest, is in the camp of religion or supersticion.

 

Well, this question isn´t really necessary because determinism doesn´t require the existence of God. So I could simply answear that with "God doesn´t exist". However, if you want to know the answear from a biblical point of view, God creates evil because he wants to. For example, it´s written in the Bible that God predestinated Judas to betray Jesus, and predestinated his death in the cross.

Well, but what is the scientific of philosophic basis of this??? If the universe is only matter an energy, then EVERYTHING is submitted to the laws of nature. If there is anything that is not submitted to the laws of nature, then by definition, this is SUPERNATURAL.

 

i admit that we dont know or understand what caused the universe to come into existance, and that whatever 'nature' really is is something beautiful, huge, profound, and is much much bigger then we can fathom. this is why all religion is nonsense, because it doesnt know how things work, just what the universe is, or mans role in it.

 

oh so you can use science to prove or disprove whatever you want to until you switch to believing in the bibles version of things! NOTHING in the bible has any basis in science, so ignore it!

 

so god allows evil... :lol:.... heck he even creates evil... :lol: ... that is totally the opposite to what the christian church preaches! how tf can christianity work in your world?.. everybody is a pre-programmed robot to live a life either good or bad and those he created to be wanted he will have with him in heaven.... m8, you are utterly bonkers.

 

yep it might be boardering on the supernatural (outside nature, or what we know about nature), everyone has an individual personality, a brain, FREE WILL, and will do and act accordingly to the way their environment and dna has influenced them. i dont understand why you think theres a discrepancy between human tought and the laws of physics... as i understand you, you are saying that everything in the universe is subject to the laws of nature/physics.... yes they are, but we also have personality , and we cannot explain by the laws of nature our individual personalities, our tastes in life, what we like and dont like... the human spirit IS a free willed entity, living in a physical world. science cannot explain love, taste, emotions, but they sure as hell exist!

people are not masters of their destiny.

 

Really, tell that to Ghengis Khan, Alexander, Julius Caeser and just about every other conqueror that shaped and influenced the world according to THEIR WILL.... These individuals, these great historical leaders were almost certainly masters of their own destiny to a very significant degree, to say otherwise is nonsense....

 

The only thing that they couldn't control was the manner of their own deaths...