Free will & omniscience...

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If free will necessitates the ability to ponder decisions and one can only ponder a decision if one does NOT have prior and certain knowledge of the events surrounding or which are caused by the decision made, then how can God himself have free will?
Let's say God exists and created humans(and the universe and everything else). Did he have to make a decision as to whether he would do such or was he just following the course he knew he had to because of his omniscience? If God chose to create us, out of love or boredome or whatever, then he could not have KNOWN we would exist!

Either God is omnniscient or he(and we) have free will.

I am a nontheist for the record and I firmly believe in free will. I see nothing that warrants the inference of predeterminism/fate.
One more caveat: I posed this question from the perspective of whether or not God himself could have free will in order to avoid the sand trap of someone cheerfully exclaiming "Hey, just cause God knew what I would decide doesn't mean I didn't make the decision!". I think it fairly safe to say that God could not have granted us what he himself could never know.

 

Well, your inference appears to be a valid construction, but none of the premises is correct. Free will is in being able to choose, making a more or less conscious decision. The "conscious" part explains why we have it and animals, which also make choices, don't. That's because they don't weigh up anything in a conscious way.

God is omniscient but this doesn't mean He's predetermined to make certain specific decisions in certain specific situations. He knows of His choice beforehand, but the knowledge comes from precognition of facts, in this case certain specific decisions, which are dominant here. Consequently, if God would change a decision with regard to the future, the knowledge would adjust accordingly. However, as God is also almighty and eternal, it's not really a question of future decisions, if a decision made in present is binding in the future.

Knowing the exact effect of a given choice is a much lesser problem. Actually, freedom of choice can be only fuller when one knows the consequences of each possible option. E.g. when you play BG2 the Nth time, know dialog.tlk by heart and remember virtually all enemy locations, strengths and weaknesses, are you making a choice any less? Is your choice any less free? And you have full knowledge of current circumstances and the future effects of your decisions.

[ January 16, 2004, 10:40: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

Sure they do! They do not possess the abstract thinkiing skills that we do(at least no other species we know of does) but they still mae decisions comparable to own. Animals had morals long before we did for example(a cursory study of evolutionary biology and paleontology will reveal this).
In any case you still haven't gotten around the paradox yet. Either God KNOWS what happened after he did whatever 20,000 years from the dawn of time OR he merely suspects or has the same level of omniscience that we do(able to evaluate possible decisions and possible consequences). He cannot have both.

He would have to be if he were omniscient. If he KNOWS that he will banish Adam & Eve fromn the garden then he cannot choose otherwise when the time comes without invalidating his supposed knowledge.

Then we are ALL omniscient. I "knew" I would be signing off 20 minutes ago but my knowledge has now changed.

So he DOES make decisions then(in "the present")? Then he cannot KNOW what his action would be if he had to decide what he would do.

The paradox is there like one of those inflatable punching clowns.

We are not talking about consequences of POSSIBLE actions. We are talking about CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE of what is, has been and will be(omniscience). Either he KNOWS, 40 billion years ago that humans would exist and therefore when the time comes he simply does as he already knew he would OR he must ponder whether to create humans(and cannot KNOW they would be created).

False analogy. I do not have certain knowledge that I will play the game at all, hence my pondering as I boot up my PC. If I DID KNOW I would be playing BG for the ninth time then that knowledge is set in stone and I cannot change it without rendering it as non-knowledge.

And still the paradox remains...

 

First of all, I'm an atheist but if there was a a god and he was Omniscient, then he would know everything. Everything that has happened, that is happening, that will happen. Of course you can have free will with that. If I videotape you going to the fridge and watch you pick a drink out or watch it later, my knowing that you did the act had nothing to do with what you picked out. I simply observed it. There is a difference between Sound logic and Valid logic.

 

jschild: Read that last paragraph or so of mky OP. Specifically, the part about why I confined my points to whether God HIMSELF can have "free will" AND omniscience. Your post is EXACTLY what I was trying to avoid getting bogged down in.

In any case your analogy would only hold water if you were to possess such a videotape BEFORE I actually did whatever was on the tape. In other words, if it were an immutable fact that I would get out of bed at 11:00 and walk to the fridge for a glass of ice water, then I could make no other decision without invalidating that foreknowledge.

In this case the decision-making process can never precede the omniscience.


God would effectively have a video tape of ALL that has happened or will happen. He is watching the tape of me walking in front of a school bus on my way to the bank and getting killed right now. On his video tape this happens at 3 pm exactly a year from now.
I do not get to make the decision of whether I will walk to the bank until exactly a year from now. In order for me to have free will I must be able to, AT THAT TIME decide "I am not walking anywhere today. I will sleep in." or any of thousands of other decisions. If I cannot choose to do these things...if my actions are set in stone before I even exist, then God can be omniscient but I, nor he can have free will.

But let's get back to God's free will for a minute.

God knows all that will happen(in this hypothetical since we are both atheists) correct? If he KNOWS these things then they are immutable FACTS, correct? One can only be pondering a decision if one is NOT already certain of what one will do/choose, correct?
Therefore God, HIMSELF(not us on a videotape, not you...not me, but God) cannot have EVER ponder ANY decisions.

 

RuneQuester, this is time-consuming. Why cannot you simpy call people names like everyone else?

No doubt you wish to avoid being bogged down in this statement, because it is true and you cannot, and have not, argued against it.

Perhaps you would know of this better if you knew more of, or had experince with, pregocnition.

If I predict that someone will do a thing, I do not force them to do it. You are confused about time. Prophecy, even intuition, happens through our connection with an existence in which we are all one. Everything, including time. Spirit is all one, thus I can know what you are thinking, time is no different, thus I can know what you are thinking before you have thought it. At that very time which you are thinking, you have as much free-will as you have always had, fate does not discredit free-will, it simply means we have the choice, and we will decide a certain course of action.

Pondering is always available to you, I would just be awrae of what you have pondered, what you eventually decided. The videotape provuides this example perfectly, as what is infinite, God, does not percieve things in the same manner in which we do. To think that God possesses a mind constricted by what is only half of God, is flawed. This material world, the flowing of time, is but an aspect of God, it does not describe the Absolute.

If a mortal can have precognition, and this does not refute the free-will of those involved, then What Is cannot destroy it.

God is omniscient because we are a part of Him. Anything we know is known, and as time has no meaning in the infinite, then there is no difference between what we have done, and what we shall do.

Not all concioussness is the same. Animals are concious, but not in the same manner as are we. As is a tree, or a rock, or an atom. All these things are concious. This does not necessitate apperception. Nor does it mean that all beings that posess apperception think or percieve in the same manner.

Knowledge of these different states of mind may be grasped. As we exist in the most distict form, we also have our being in all others.

You cannot talk of free-will and God it is correct. Free-will is a leser concept, something finite, it pre-supposes fininity. This does not mean that no life higher than ourselves can posess it, none of them are absolute, so none would be omniscient. However, this point is irrellevant.

If I am able to prophesise my own future, this does not mean that my free-will is lacking. It is knowledge of a decision, that is all. You have still made that decision. The fact that it is known with all certainty only means that despite whatever choices you would later make, for some reason you would come to that conclusion, it does not mean that the decision was not yours, nor does it mean that you were not free to choose otherwise, you simply chose not to. If you had of chosen otherwise, you would have pre-cogntion of that instead.

There is neither creation nor detruction;
Neither destiny nor free will;
neither path nor achievement;
This is the final Truth.

 

I am new here so I do not know how "everyone else" does things, but I am not into tossing ad hominems around in general adn certainly not without cause to do so. Why would anyone bother communicating with me at all here if I were to do such things???
Also, I read the rules of conduct thing before I started posting and I am fairly certain there are prohibitions against such behavior.

Wrong on all counts!

1)I clearly stated the intent and purpose of the threa in my OP(read it) and I am no more obligated to get bogged down in that sandtrap than I am to defend myself against charges of being a nazi war criminal or to disprove the existence of Sasquatch in this thread. You are welcome to start your own thread wherein you discuss free will as it pertains to humans exclusively. I will probably not join you there because I already saw that film a dozen times at least in the last year alone .

2)I DID contend that position in my second post in this thread as an aside.

Certainly! If such a thing as precognition existed, and I had that sort of ability, I would not be a skeptic(on that one issue at least)! But that is neither here nor there.

You are certainly keen on the bald assertions aren't you? If you can know what I am thinking before I think it then prove it. Perform this precognition in a controlled experiment and I gaurantee you one million dollars, courtesy of the James Randi Educational Foundation!

See this is what I was trying to avoid. Someone making a bunch of groundless assertions and sweeping statements, my answering them, that guy misunderstanding the whole reply and tossing strawmen and other fallacies back at me ad nauseum.
Can you answer the challenge put forth in the OP(original post)? Can you explain how God, as an omniscient being could have free will? If not then perhaps we will run into each other again in a different thread...'til then *waves*!

Wrong again. We ARE animals! Homo sapiens are primates to be specific(decended from miocene apes) and the only signifigant difference in the way we use our minds and the way most, if not all otehr species do is that we have these great abstract thinking skills(another bi-product of our evolutionary developement). Other animals, like orangutangs, are self-aware but they cannot reflect on nuances of a Picaso painting or perform binary arithmetic.

Wrong again! Rocks and trees are not sentient, though such ideas make for good tales.

So you took all that time, chastised me, beat around the bush and argued against everything BUT the position I laid out in my OP just to finally AGREE WITH ME?!? I do not care what you think of the relevance of my point. I think it very important because the overwhelming majority of theists still hold to this concept of the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God who is to be given all praise and glory and not held accoutable for any of the bad stuff! And why??? Because he allegedly gave us free will which somehow puts the blame at our feet.
Illuminating the paradox that exists in the concept goes a long way toward the progress of humanity.

Now stop and think about that for a minute. YOU are the omniscient. You have foreseen that YOU will surf over to the Baldur's Gate boards for a while on Wednesday. Now when Wednesday comes, can YOU decide to not log on or visit the BG boards that day? If so then your earlier "prophecy" was a false one and you did not "know" any such thing., if not then you have no free will.

 

You have not listened to a thing I have said, and torn apart individual statements which hold very little meaning taken away from the entire argument. Did you even read the entire response before you replied?

What is more, you counter every statement with a theory of your own. You cannot say whether men are animals or not, it is what you have been told, so you believe it.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt, assume you are interested in a discussion and not merely arguing against anyone who disagrees...

I say you had not argued against the statement because to me your basic premises were wrong, so you had not answered the questions you had asked.

Precognition is relevant, because my discussion lead towards the result that certain knowledge of a thing does not destroy free will. As you belive in free will in humanity, the existence of precognition, or even clairvoiyance, within humans, can be like applied to other areas. I was also trying to explain how I understood the mind of God to work, not simply to argue with you for my own enjoyment. Why do you suppose you know more of God than those who devote their entire lives to such knowledge?

I have had experience with psi, as I said in another thread, so I know, as well as any of us can truly know anything, that you are wrong, it does exist, and is relevant. I also did not lay claim to powers of precognition within myslef, for the record.

Neither myself, or any of those I know, are interested in prostituting ourselves for your money.

So based on this, and my life experience, and that of those whom I know, my assertations are neither bald nor groundless. Are you actually interested in hearing whatever anyone has to say except yourself?

Now I have previously discussed the question of the classification of man. You cannot say that you are more correct than am I.

So then, if you have not studied these things -or else you might discuss them differently- what makes you so sure you know the nature of the mind? I will say this with full certainty, my claim has more credence, more support even (as if that were relevant) than your own. You cannot explain the existence of the things you have refuted, yet I know exist -again, as well as any of us can know anything- through your own explanations. If all your beliefs can not account for so much, why hold to them so tightly?

And yet you continue, you say, with no reason whatsoever for what you have said, that rocks hold no conciousness. Have you been a rock? Do you remember? Then you cannot say, for as I said, not all conciousness is the same as our own.

But I say this all only in defense of what I have said, and in defense of the process of thought in general. You seem to be apalled that I agree with you. Well, I do not. I merely stated that God cannot have or not have free will. To talk of such a thing, or its absence, is pointless. It would be as if I asked you whether the colour red could be used as a chair.

But we do have free-will, and God is absolute, that is what defines God. Love and good is merely how we explain the experience of this. If you disagree, tell me why, for what reason. Tell me what there is that proves or dis-proves any such idea. According to the methods you have displayed, neither can be done. If you would discuss philosophy, then think like a philosopher.

The progress of humanity would go further if they stopped acting with resentment and took responsibilty for their actions, and if they maybe, just maybe, thought that they weren't the greatest thing in the universe, that there are things more important than their pettiness.

You have concluded nothing here, why is it that knowledge of a thing means we cannot have free-will? I allready explained why this is not so, but you have ignored it, it seems.

For a start, I cannot be omniscient, for I am finite. Omniscience requires everything and everywhen, or else it would not be 'all'.

But if I did have the ability of prescience, and somehow predicted a future event, the fact is, it is not that I cannot decide differently, it is that I will not. My choice, and it amounts to the same knowledge. If I would choose differently, then I would not have knowledge of such a thing, or I would have knowledge of a different outcome.

Cannot and will-not are completely different things, this is not a hard concept to define.

[ January 17, 2004, 16:37: Message edited by: Manus ]

 

Agnosticism is the only logical position one can take with regards to the possible existence of a God, since clearly He (if He exists) is withholding the proof of his existence. Therefore, to think about anything in terms of 'God' is at best a mere mental exercise and at worst, a waste of one's brief existence.

What good does 'knowing' anything about God bring? What is your aim in thinking about how God sees us, the universe and everything? By definition, we are all so much less than God (if He exists at all) that none of us could possibly know how much (or more to the point, how little) we have discovered about Him, were we to discover *anything* about Him. Ergo, such efforts are doomed to be fruitless beyond the discovery that the endeavour was fruitless - which should be obvious! If it isn't already obvious, perhaps you lack the intelligence for really deep thought, or the wisdom to best know your limitations.

You say that animals have morals and that any search of this and that will prove this. This demands that we should go forth and try to research your statements, before we can appreciate your comments. If this is so, we are currently too ignorant to appreciate your insights and your continued posts are also doomed to be fruitless unless you bring these facts *to us*. I myself have done some study in this field and I have yet to find any evidence of animal morals.

You also say that you believe in free will. I am inclined to ask if you have ever read any of Eric Berne's books e.g. What Do You Say After You Say Hello? or The Games People Play? Eric Berne was a doctor of psychology who founded Transactional Analysis (a breakthrough and extremely influential form of psychotherapy). In What Do You Say After You Say Hello?, he proposes his script theory, which basically means that we *all* create scripts for ourselves before the age of 6, which predetermine our lives from that point onwards. He has concluded that without extensive psychotherapy, none of us will ever have free will. Some people have good scripts i.e. 'winner' scripts; these people are the least likely to feel they have a problem or have no free will. Some have 'non-winner' scripts and might feel held back in some way from achieving their desires, and some unfortunate individuals have 'loser' scripts and they continually find themselves battling the world, terrible misfortunes, meeting the wrong people, not getting the breaks etc. If these people get therapy, they may come to realise the part they *themselves* play in their own downfall. Ask yourself this: are you where you want to be, right now? If not, and we *do* have free will, why not? I currently attend a therapy group; I have sat and thought 'what am I doing here?' If I have free will, I wouldn't be here, since I don't want to need help from therapists. I *want* to be happy and fulfilled. Ergo, I cannot have free will because I am somewhere I don't want to be! Why does the alcoholic continue to drink when he knows it is destroying his life? The answer is that he has no free will. Why did I believe in God when I was 20? I realised it was simply because I was *taught* by my father to believe in God - so I stopped believing in Him. I have come to regain a level of faith i.e. I am now an agnostic instead of an atheist, but (I *think*) this belief is *my own*. Or is it merely a statement in opposition to my father's position?

I hope I have convinced you that the free will concept is not as simple as you seem to think. Eric Berne was nobody's fool and his 30 plus years at the top of his field of human behaviour, of helping people to find happiness and contentment convinced him (and me) that most of us *don't* have free will and perhaps never can have it.

**********************
Manus, you say you *know* that psi are real, indeed that you have experience of the paranormal. I am interested to know more because I think anyone who believes such things is deluded by gaps in their knowledge and experience.

Paranormal simply means 'beyond normal explanation'; since any explanation is only as good as the source of explanation used, it is quite feasible that there was in fact a perfectly logical explanation of the occurrence. If your own mind (and those of other witnesses) cannot come up with an explanation, the experience will be relatively paranormal. A television picture would be 'paranormal' to natives from the depths of the Amazonian jungles and even their wisest tribesman would be unable to explain it but this wouldn't make it inexplicable per se.

A truly open mind wouldn't label anything as paranormal. It would seek the explanation or at least accept that the explanation exists. There is *nothing* that has no explanation.

[ January 17, 2004, 18:41: Message edited by: keldor ]

 

keldor, you may be mixing the posts up a little, anyway, I'll answer everything you have said regardless.

God cannot be withholding proof of existence or else no-one would have any reason to belive God exists, or even think of such a notion.

You come from the perspetive that this solitary life is all that is important, and that we can never become anything more.

My belifs tell me otherwise, and it is this very belief which causes me to make the most of this existence, and to know that such thought is not fruitless, it is intended and perhaps one of the most fruitfull things we can devote ourselves to.

I say one of, that's important, don't over-look it.

Now, it wasn't I that said animals had morals, so I am glad we agree on that.

Now, as to Eric Berne. While I suspect that 30 years of study does not amount to the centuries, millenia, devoted to this by even a single one of the groups which would agree with me, let alone them all combined, I do understand your faith in his theories.

Habitual patterns are just that, habit. It only means we are too lazy to bother changing.

How nice to know he thinks fulfilment of our desires is of pivotal importance. I guess his desire is for us all to pay for pyschotherapy, which means that humanity has been severely handi-capped for all of our existence. OK I guess all those guys were just too stupid to notice.

He also seems to say that we do have free-will, but only if we remove whatever pschological blocks are hindering us. This can be done with many different techniques, meditaion springs to mind, but he isn't saying that no free-will exists, only that a lot of people refuse to acknwledge it. Or at least it seems that way from what you are saying.

But he has a point. We play that part in our downfall. This is free-will, we have chosen those circumstances in our lives because we do them, we may stop at any time.

Free-will does not mean you can do things outside of yuor abilities either, it means that any option attainable to you is available to you.

But you do have free will. You are not happy, and yet you decide to stay there. That is not a lack of free-will, it is a lack of common sense.

An acholoic has free-will, he is simply physically or psychlogically dependant. More habits he is too lazy, or too weak of will, to overcome.

Contentment is also a choice. If you choose to want less, to be satisfied, then you shall be.

I am sure that people doing things they do not want to are hampered by what has come before them, we decide things based upon what exists in our past. This does not mean that the decsion is not there, it always is, we have just not yet chosen to take it.

Now, psychotherapy may help, but in my opinion only encourages sloth and dependance, you are simply changing one crutch for another. If no other options seems available then I guess it may be better to do so, but this is not always the case, and there is little one can do for us that we cannot do for ourselves, in time.

None of this means that there is no such thing as fate.

Edit:Besides, if we had no free-will, we would not be able to think of other possibilities, that is an action in itself, I can't belive that I didn't mention this before.

Besides, I really, truly, fail to see how knowing what you are going to do menas you have no free-will.

If I decide, without any doubt, to pick up an object, a thing I am perfectly capable of, is my free-will destroyed the instant before I do it? No. I made that decision myself. Thus it is ridiculous to talk of something not having free will simpy because it has made a decision. That is what free-will is all about.

I should have realised that earlier and saved us some trouble.

[ January 17, 2004, 19:10: Message edited by: Manus ]

 

God cannot be withholding proof of existence or else no-one would have any reason to belive God exists, or even think of such a notion

So no one could concieve of god if there was no god - I find that hard to accept. So "A Tale of Two Cities" must of existed or else no one would have a reason to have thought of it and wrote it?

Edit: Also I guess the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy exist by your reasoning.

 

Not necessarily exactly as described, but all of the components within do.

God is a component itself, like a man within that book.

Besides, that is not the point.

It is not merely the belief in a God, but all the attained knowledge concerning God. You may not believe it, but many people do, they have no doubt of a reality higher than this, and of other beings which dwell there. If God was concealing His existence -as if that is possible, we are God- then do you not think an all-powerful being would be able to conceal itself?

Even a mis-interpretation is a lack of concealment.

Please, this is silly.

 

Well, I agree this is silly. If God is all-powerful then he can conceal himself. If he cannot conceal himself then he is not all-powerful, ergo God is not All-powerful. And I never argued that people do not believe in god nor that they should not believe in god. And you still haven't supported your reasoning.

 

I never said that He couldn't conceal himself, I said He wouldn't.

What I said which you perhaps misinterpreted was that it was impossible to talk of such a thing. Might as well talk of concealing your own nose from yourself. You can cut it off, you can pretend it doesn't exist, you can not have a clue about what that thing on the front of your face is, but it is still there for you to see.

 

I've had several such threads today, so please forgive me ignoring arguments exchanged individually between previous speakers. Let them speak for themselves, I'm too tired to defend more than one point of view at one time

I see your point. Well, we differed in definition of conscious choice. Animals don't make choices at levels comparable to our own, but on external levels there is similarity. In plain English, it doesn't look much different. And yes, they had sort of morals before we formed. Not so long ago, I even spoke in favour of that in some thread here. When we have a group, some standards of behaviour inevitably appear, hence it's not a long time before laws appear and morals.

Well, that's not right. I understand your point, again, but I can't agree with it. Basically, for me, knowledge isn't the same as evaluation or speculation. We can only speculate, no matter what. We don't see the future. God surely can evaluate something if we can, doesn't He? But, as He knows, He doesn't have to evaluate. He doesn't have to suspect anything.

A paradox exists here, but not the one you're speaking about.

The paradox is that God can change His decision, no matter what, He's not magically bound by it, but He will inevitably know beforehand of the change. As it's not like the knowledge is sent back in the past, we must conclude that the knowledge of change exists prior to the change. So God would know of any change of change of change and so on and so forth.

It looks like just one big "now". AFAIK, that's also how theologists see it. It wouldn't be so stupid, because if God's eternal, then He's above time. So it would indeed be "now" that matters. That's the paradox

Another thing is that we are not gods. Therefore, if there is a god, such an entity is, well, above us. A higher level of being and a higher level of consciousness. If we assume that God is a god, we must therefore agree He's on that higher level. It casts a great doubt on whether we can understand Him or not and makes it certain we can't understand Him fully (after all, we can't understand ourselves or one another fully). If we add the quality of being almighty and omniscent, we can wave goodbye to the possibility of understanding God by virtue of the obvious fact that we're neither almighty nor omniscent.

You see, that's what I speak about above. There's not really a need to invalidate anything. True omniscence grants perfect precognition and perfect foreknowledge no matter what happens later and therefore everything is known before it happens, including changes. Therefore, God may do something He wouldn't have known about beforehand no more than He can create a square circle or a valid false implication from true premise

That would be prescient, not omniscent. Possessing some knowledge of the future, but not knowing how it all will go and not having known beforehand of the change you made. You don't know anything about a random other member signing off. Besides, you didn't really know you would be signing off. You were only aware of having an intention of signing off and there being a strong chance it would happen. If you died in the middle of the process of signing off, it wouldn't invalidate your knowledge. It would testify that you had no aforeknowledge per se as to the event.

For God there are no chances, He just knows.

It's only false when you interpret it this way. However, you have full knowledge of what is behind the corner, what are your awards to get, what are the odds, everything. You've read the specs, you know all, there's no other way. So, do you make a choice any less? You know exactly what will happen and you decide between two valid alternatives. It is still a choice. However, you don't have foreknowledge as to the choice you will make.

It's a bit like with principles. You know what you would or wouldn't do and you still technically make a choice even if everyone knows, together with you what your choice will exactly be.

So, it looks like God makes choices, but He's always known what all His choices ever will be. It's been suggested in the Bible in this exact shape, even though I can't provide you with links to exact places, and it can be inferred from lots more places. Functionally, it looks like predetermination, but it's only on the effect side, without a similar causational relation (God is on the top of hierarchy of beings, so He makes His decisions totally on His own).

That's what can be said on limited human level. I make no claim to understand how God's mind works

 

Manus, I have not taken anything you said out of context. I have quoted you verbatim. I break down the post-quotes into manageable chucnks, dealing with one argument or point at a time(just as YOU DO) because it is beyond ridiculouys to expect me or anyone else to memorize your long-winded, meandering rants and tantrums.
You need to chill out and relax a bit guy. It's just a friendly debate .

I always read the things I am replying to(or my responses would make a lot less sense I think).

First of all, when you say theory, what you mean to say is hypothesis. A "theory" is not an "unproven idea" or a "wild hunch". In science a theory is an explanation of a known fact/observed phenomenom. Theories are not rungs on a ladder of increasing certainty. We STILL have the theory of gravitation which explains the law of gravity. We have the theory of evolution by natural selection to explain the observed phenomenom of evolution.

Second, paleontologists have found that many dinosaurs had suffered injuries(bad breaks etc.) that if not for the pack caring for and nursing them back to health, would have killed them. Instead they lived long enough to die of other causes(often natural). If these packs of dinos were not displaying some developed morals they would have left the broken-legged t-rex(or whatever) behind while they sought out food.
Humansd have morals because we are animals that have devloped them(just like bears have fur because that is how they devloped in their environs).
This is not something a pulled out of my nether-regions. As Chev alludes to below it is pretty common knowledge amongst biologists/paleontologists and the like.

I am trying to give YOU the same benefit but your continued misunderstandings, strawmen and ad hominems are rapidly convincing me otherwise.
I am not some bitter, angry, crochety or argumentative person(in the sense of someone just itching for a fight) and what you are doing here is called the ad hominem fallacy. Instead of understanding and addressing the points and arguments I make, you attack my person or insinuate that the reason I do not agree wiht you is a character flaw. Like a politician who argues "I will not consider taking economic advice from my opponent who can't even keep his marriage together!".

I had not answered the questions I had asked??? What premises do you disagree with and why?

Precognition IS relevant. It is arguably the crux of the issue! However you have made no valid arguments in support of your position. You have simply asserted beliefs as facts without ofering evidence or even rational argument to indicate such. Your whole argument is rooted in presupposition and circular reasoning as far as I can tell.

See this is another unanswered point of contention I have. When it comes to apparently nonsensical attributes assigned to God, I am told that these are only nonsensical because we are unable to understand God, since he is on a whole 'nother plane/level. Then you turn around and claim to have some understanding of the mind of God!?
According to Occam's razor I must evaluate your claims and your explanations and FIRST try to eliminate the possible explanations which do NOT unecessarily multiply entities(eg. Someone claims that gremlins cause engine breakdown in automobiles. Before I can accept this as true I mkust eliminate the possibility that car engines can break down due to simple wear and tear or improper maintainence etc.).

Now I have likewise taken great pains here to try and make sense of and comprehend your offerings. Thus far I am left with several explanations which do NOT unecessarily mutiply entities and cannot be eliminated as being unlikely or impossible. In short, it sounds more like the desperate rationalizations of someone who wants very badly for his God to be real and for others to aknowledge this. The explanation that he IS in fact a real, independently existing entity and your understanding of him is more or less accurate, seems about as likely as Wile E. Coyote being a real coyote.

This is all a bit off topic but I am trying to get this thing to a point where we can discuss WITHOUT the insults, slurs and unfair insinuations.

I have NEVER in this thread or any other done any such thing. WHat you are doing here is engaging in hyperbgole and more strawman tactics. I can undertsand making such a mistake once or twice but after several times I begin to suspect I am not dealing with a completely honest and scrupulous individual.

Another unqualified assertion(again www.datanation.org/fallacies ). Youy are stating that I am wrong for aknowledging that no evidence exists in supoport of psi/telekinesis/telepathy etc. adn the only thing you offer to back this up is a vague anecdote(which is not admissable as evidence in an existential debate)?!?

Sounds cliche' but...prove it!

So donate the money to world hunger or some other charity. Hell, donate it to psychic reasearch! It is the same thing everytime:

Joe Psychci:" Psychics are real!"

Joe Skeptic : "Really? Why do you say that?"

Psychic : "I have experience with psychic abilities! I know!"

Skeptic : "Can you demonstrate these abilities under controlled conditions?"

Psychic : " I don't have to answer to YOU!

Skeptic :" But YOU were the one who came up to me and claimed..."

Psychic :"Shut UP! ALL of you skeptics are *expletives deleted*"

Is it really so beneath you or trying for you to demonstrate these psychic abilities?

Your assertions here are what are known in formal debate as "Groundless assertions" or "bald assertions" because they lack supporting evidence by which the listener/skeptic/dissenter can scrutinise adn evaluate your assertions. We are forced to either take your word for it or dismiss the whole thing out of hand.

Get back to this later. I gotta run.

 

Manus, I was writer to the original poster in the first part of my post (which was about free will and God). It was he who said that animals have morals, which, for the benefit of the poster who has since said that he believes this to be true, is completely false.
Morals are *codes* of conduct; while it is true that animals have patterns of behaviour, patterns of behaviour are not *codes* of behaviour. Laws often enforce human morality. Do animals have laws? Does an animal ever get judged by others *of its own species* as a code, moral, or lawbreaker? I would simply ask anyone who thinks animals have morals to illustrate it for me.

Manus, God (if He exists) *does* conceal Himself from us! You are confusing your *belief* (and that of millions of others) as proof, which is simply specious. Belief is an opinion; a judgement not founded on certainty or proof. It isn't even a *theory* since religious people don't seek to prove God's existence - by definition, they wouldn't do such a thing because they already believe He exists *without* proof!

Put simply, God works on the faith system (which makes sense from at least one point of view i.e. if He asks them to have faith (as Jesus has reputedly said He did) then why should He help those who don't?). Incidentally, from another point of view, this is pretty rough justice since He himself made us all, and He made me sceptical of Him. Why should an 'all good' God leave me flapping in the wind, because He chose to make me unable to have faith in Him? Furthermore, surely by making me the sort of person to speak out, He has made me an enemy of Himself! I am effectively a Devil's advocate, denouncing God's existence (of course, the religious can tell themselves that this is one way by which God tests the faith of His flock! Indeed, why would anyone need to have faith in God if everything was good i.e. there have to be terrible floods and so on for anyone to need to pray for God's deliverance? This seems like a self-supporting principle to me, and thus, logically, further undermines the concept of His existence).
Not to digress, there is no *proof* of God, *anyway*, so why wonder about whether He has free will or not? As has been said, if we supposed He *did* exist, we cannot even begin to know Him.

You (Manus) have said that 'we' are God. What do you mean by this? It's important for us to know your terms if we are to understand you because it seems to me you have a *personal* interpretation of God and what He is, that is very different from the notion of the bearded wise man sitting on a throne in a place called Heaven and the idea of a Holy Ghost as a spiritual connection between all believers. As far as I understand it, the Holy Ghost isn't the believers themselves, or indeed a force that somehow is generated by them, but is actually a power of God's, a separate entity of His and *Him* that can pass into people as He sees fit.

Please note, I don't mean for one second to challenge your beliefs, merely that there is proof of God.

Further to Eric Berne, he doubted free will even to those who have had therapy. He questioned his own free will. It is so very clear that our parents or guardians influence us when we are growing up and even then we can be influenced by our peers etc. Advertising has been shown by market research to work. *Feeling* like you have free will isn't the same thing as actually *having* it! I have decided to go down to the local shop to buy myself some doughnuts and when I got to the shop I changed my mind and bought a Cornish cone. Can one be certain that this was entirely free-will or a decision made by the 'ghost in the machine' - the same ghost that locks the car keys inside the car on a day when deep-down, you really don't want to go to work? And what if the shop is shut? Where is my free will then? To break into the shop would be free will but my morality kicks in - but who made the rule up about theft and breaking and entering being wrong, that he stays me from doing this? I'm sure it's a more complicated concept than many think.

Finally, you compare Eric Berne's 30 years to thousands of years research of any one of the groups who agree with you. What are you talking about please? Also:

Quote: How nice to know he thinks fulfilment of our desires is of pivotal importance. I guess his desire is for us all to pay for psychotherapy, which means that humanity has been severely handi-capped for all of our existence. OK I guess all those guys were just too stupid to notice.

This is insulting to the memory of a man you clearly know next to nothing about, who devoted his life to helping people. I bet you enjoy music and see nothing wrong in the likes of Madonna making millions of dollars from the likes of you who buy it from them, but you begrudge Dr. Eric Berne from earning a living while trying to rid people of their demons, having spent the necessary years to become qualified in the first place. How cynical and hypocritical of you. It is also insulting to label his patients as ‘too stupid to notice’. Furthermore, it is astonishing that you say that, *in your opinion* psychotherapy only encourages sloth and dependence. What, I wonder, is the depth of your experience of therapy patients to make such an inflammatory statement.

Runequester: what's a 'nontheist'?

[ January 18, 2004, 19:10: Message edited by: keldor ]

 

???
Sounds like the "You're more wrong than I am!" and AGAIN, an unqualified assertion. How am I wrong about man being an animal? Where is the reference to the evidence which supports your posiition?

I have not studied what things? I am not sure what you meant by that last question(on the nature of the mind). Please clarify.

Which one and how so? Also I have made no claims here. I have only dissented from YOURS.

What beliefs am I holding onto so tightly in your estimation? Again, i think you are holding onto a strawman mischaracterisation of me.

I have not inspected every car in the world either but I can safely say that no street legal automobiles exist which are made of gelatin and run on wishes or marshmallow creme as fuel.
Likewise, I know enough about the human brain and how it operates to say that rocks do not have them. Since I am unaware of ANYTHING which has a mind which does not also have a brain, I conclude that rocks are not sentient. YOU make the positive claim that they are so YOU must prove it.

Why would anyone be appaled at being agreed with unless it were, for example a pacifist who found that nazis were agreeing with some position he held?

Then you agree with me since my position was that an omniscient God could not have free will.

Disagree but if you think so then you are welcome to NOT jump into the thread which doesn't apply to YOUR god-belief and you can choose NOT to chastise, insult and tell everyone else they are wrong without demonstrating HOW they are wrong.

Your analogy is false because the color red is not a material object that could be used as a chair but free will IS relevant to certainty of knowledge.

Now Chev' below offers what I think is at least a well thought out response and worthy of consideration. I am STILL thinking about what he posted and trying to decide on what I think about it. I am not yet ready to assent to his position but he at least a worthy counter/rebuttle.

You have, thus far only offered logical fallacies and vague, sketchiuly defined notions and concepts.

Disagree with what?!? First of all you assert that we have free will. I happen to agree. Then you go on assigning amorphous qualities to a god who I have no reason to think exists in the first place! Then you state the "love and good is merely how we explain the experience of this". I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. Love is an emotion(sort of, but that is another discussion) and good is a man made and subjective construct(like "virtue" or "perfection") and cannot be defined objectively.

Clear enough for you?

You can't have been doing this very long. Why don't you visit some of the philosophy boards on the net(I frequent many under a different handle) and spout these misconceptions. I PROMISE you you will be made keenly aware of your errors.

Thus far you have asserted the following falsities:

*Einstein, Asimov and James Randi were all theists(still haven't admitted to being wwrong or offered apology). Again you can do a search for the words Asimov _ atheism, can visit www.randi.org etc. to reveal your errors.

*Buddhists are not only theists in your world but POLYTHEISTS!!! A quick visit to Belief.net(where I am also a frequent participant) or any philosophy boards will expose this as nonsense.

*Assertions not backed with evidence to support them and not generally accepted as true by those whose field of study/occupation are NOT groundless! A visit to any site concerned with logic and debate will take care of this one for you.

And so on...

Strawman. No one knows better than the atheist about taking responsibility for our actions since we have no gods or devils to blkame for our behavior. WHen we give to charity we get no recognition or rewards(beyond feeling good about doing good). They never name hospital wings and the like after atheists even though we contribute sizeable donations and time to their construction/establishment.
We do not lack belief in gtods out of "pettiness" or "arrogance". We do not(in general) considered ourselves to be the "greatest thing in the universe"(I don't even know how one could determine what the greatest thing was!?).

I did not ignore it...I refuted it. You did not provide any valid arguemnt in support of this position. Only insults and dodges, erroneous misconceptions and fallacies.

I do not think ANYTHING can be omniscient but I am open to any evidence you may have to the contrary. So...?

In any case you are simply dodging again. I asked you a hypothetical: Put yourself in the shoes of someone who KNOWS(that is has immutable, factual knowledge of) of a future evnet taking place in which he/she makes a decision and then tell me how you could still ponder that decision and change your mind when the time came without invalidating your knowledge. It is a simple request unless I am correct and the paradox prevents this.

Now you are running in circles and making my point for me.

So you are now saying that God COULD somehow change his mind and, for example, NOT create the universe even after he had prior and certain knowledge that he would do so? How can he do this without rendering the knowledge as false in the first place?

 

You are mistaken and this is quickly turning to semantics. Many animals exhibit codes of behavior very similar to our own. Many apes(chimps especially) will exile or even enfore the death penalty agaisnt a member of the pack who violates their rules. I am without my reference books at the moment so going from memory(but you can look all this up online) but everything from eating out of turn to murder has uniform punishments amongst chimp families.

What you call "patterns of behavior" ARE morals in that there is reasoning involved "You do this which threatens the tribe and we punish you by doing *this* which deters others from doing what you did".

Yes. They are not written laws but laws all the same. But laws do not equal morals. It is illegal to snoke marijuana in the U.S.. Is it immoral? It is illegal to drive without a seatbelt but is it immoral? a group of friends ship[wrecks on an island will not have laws(not right away at least) but they will have or develope morals if they are to survive at all.

Yes. Happens all the time in the animal kingdom. Lions, tigers, bonobos, chimps, baboons, gorillas, wolves etc....all have moral codes which they judge others of the species by.

Because to do this is to behave no differently than the worst oriental despots. If Geroge Bush says "Everyone is is not a member of my church can go jump off a bridge for all I care!" we will rightly criticise him for it. I think it only consistent that we hold God to the same degree of accountability(assuming such a thing exists in the first place of course).

But it would be a very ineffective "test" because you cannopt simply flip a coin and choose whether you believe or not. If you do not hear anything which makes the claim sound sensible then your conversion will be a false one anyways.
Ever wonder why you don't find many who believe in the pentacostal God who were born and raised in India or why you find almost no worshippers of Vishnu who were born and raised in Arkansas? If any gods had rational arguments for their existence then indoctrination would be a far less important factor in determining what theistic beliefs one has.
As it stands, geography is probably the MOST important factor in this determination.

Agreed. I accept that I have free will because given the options and the arguments for both free will and determinism, free will makes more sense to ME. I have never stated that "determinsim was wrong" or any such thing. My point has always been that there is a paradoxial flaw in the logic of SOME theists(actually the majority) who assert that God can "know" something about an action he has taken in the future adn still change his mind about performing said action without invalidating the earlier "knowledge".

Nontheist = atheist(or specifically "weak atheist"). Michael Shermer of the Skeptics Society refers to himself as a 'nontheist' because he feels that most have a misconception of what atheism is and therefore the term "atheist" carries too much negative baggage.

 

I learn from discussion and debate, therefore I do not consider such things a waste of time.

I AM an agnostic-atheist. You present a false dichotomy above as if one can only be either or.

I listen to theists. I listen to their claims, which, if true, would be very important indeed. My mind evaluates the claims and evidence offered and decides whether it sounds sensible. Since the claims(and evidence offered) do not pass the test of critical examination/skepticism, i can only conclude that they are not likely. HWen my lack of assent to the claims is continually challenged, the claims themselves bear further scrutiny and exposiition of the gaping holes of their logic. If theists were content to just be theists and treat everyone fairly, I would have little reason to ever think much about these things, let alone get involved in tiresome debates.

I guess Manus was right about one thing: The SOP around here seems to be tossing insults/ ad hominems. Your comment above sounds pretentious and childish. Are you claiming that you have the "intelligence for really deep thought"? What do you consider to be "deep thought" and how do you measure my(or anyone's) intellectual capacity for such?

Normally I would have provided you a list of references which may or may not have been looked at and I apologise for not doing so. I am at the tail end of moving into a new house and things are chaotic around here.
There is nothing wrong with ignorance. I am ignorant of a great many things(nanotechnology, culinary arts, Celtic music etc.). That you did not know as much as you apparently thought you knew is not a crime.

HOWEVER, willful ignorance is another matter. You have a choice now to either go reasearch what zoologists, biologists adn behavioral scientists have to say about animals and morals OR you can become indignant at my comments and toss more insults my way and remain ignorant of this knowledge.

Again, this is rather common knowledge in the fields of biology and the behavioral sciences. All I can say is...more study!

No, i have not but I AM familar with his work to a degree.

Couple of notes here. You sound very enamoured of this fellow and that is fine. We all have our heroes. However you are sort of arguing an appeal to authority here, which is a no-no(eg. Like me stating Richard Dawkins outlined in his most recent thesis how theists can never be intelligent because their belief in gods is irrational!". The obvious theistic response would be "who cares what he thinks?!?).

From hat you have posted here I am not convinced that no one can have free will without extensive therapy but I am not saying it is not possible.

I point you towards Gould's "Contingency theory". In short there are countless mitigating factors which go into "why" something happens or doesn't happen. If we were to "rewind the tape" of Earth's history back to the Jurassic era adn let it play over from there, humans would not likely evolve at all.
Where I am right now has more to do with circumstances beyond my control than it has to do with my decision-making ability and aslo, no matter WHERE you are at any moment you can ALWAYS say you would like to be someplace else(i.e. better). A hollywood actor wants to be a grammy winning actor or the President wants to be a GREAT president who achieves world peace etc.

You don't say... (sorry, just getting you back for the "You must not be intelligent..." comment).

Your logic is not sound here. If you were the only creature on the planet then maybe there is nothing preventing you from being the exclusive determiner of where you are. BUT...you have parents, friends, enemies, total strangers, natural disasters etc., all of which have their own goals or courses which will have an effect on YOU.

Speaking as a recovered alcoholic( No I am not a fan of AA though I was a member for years), there are many reasons why and this thread is probably not the place to get into them all. Basically emotional and psychological issues as I do not think alcohol has physically addicting properties.

Sure he does but your analogy does not work. It is like saying "Why doesn't that prisoner escape if he doesn't want to be there?He has no free will!".

Again, agnosticism is NOT a rung on a ladder from "Believe wholly!" to "There is no God!". Agnosticism is the conviction that knowledge of God's existence is not obtainable. AN agnostic can be either an atheist or a theist. I am an agnostic atheist in that I do not believe in the existence of supernatural gods or worship natural ones(idols, divine emporers, the sun etc.) AND I do not think that we could ever know of God's existence even if he did so the question is insoluable.

Why do you believe that I think free will is a simple concept?

I wouldn't know if he were a fool or not. I would wondert how any determinist gets anything done though? Why feed your children? If they starve to death then it was fated to happen and beyond your control right?

"Paranormal" usually describes phenomenae that is in violation of known physical laws or contradicts logic. Paranormal claims are extraordinary claims and therefore must be supported by extraordinary EVIDENCE. This is why anecdotal evidence is sufficient for ordinary claims(eg. "I have a tree in my yard") but NOT submissable for extraordinary claims( eg."I saw a ghost!"). We observe trees growing in yards everyday. Another tree growing will not violate physical laws or force us to throw out 2,000+ years of science/observation/experiment.
Ghosts or psi or magic must pass the test of Occam's razor in that we cannot accept these things as valid explanations until we can rule out the "simpler" explanations such as lieing, self-deception, misperception, delusion etc.