POLL: A shared existence?

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Just so I know who's who; a quick question upon something fundamental.

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 43 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: A shared existence? (43 votes.)

A shared existence? (Choose 1)
* I am subject to the universe and its law. - creation of which one is a tiny part with a life ordained. - - 23% (10)
* I am completely autonomous. - however the universe came to be I have free action. - - 77% (33)

 

I believe that the universe and everything was created by God, but we have free will, and may choose to do whatever we please. We are given commandments but are not compelled to obey...

 

yeah, ditto.

 

I believe God created the world and is still active in it, which doesn't preclude evolution and may even support it (supposing evolution is still going on). Actually, God is a strange person who on occasion lights up wet stones but normally comes in a gentle breeze rather than a hurricane, so evolution has something in common with God's ways. We have been given free will. Not for its own sake, however, so we have laws. The universe has laws, the world on Earth has. Societies have. After all, could we even have laws without free will? Laws like in physics - law of gravity, law of thermodynamics etc, that's all. I believe man is not the lord of himself in the universe, although he may well try and reach for this position - and face the consequences. This is, again, an aspect of free will. God doesn't go for meagre average, He wants to be the ultimate lord - one obeyed without any compulsion. Hence we can choose. Just my two cents.

 

Bah.... 42

 

Personally, I think that the universe came into creation through pure random chance, and that the gods came to exist through equally random chance. I think that everybody has free will, for if we did not have such, and were instead slaves to the will of the God/Allah, or to the will of my Ásatrú gods, or to the Hindu gods, or so forth, that we would always do exactly as they wanted. But the truth is that because we are all humans (or at least most of us are), we don't always do as the deities we worship want us to do, because if we did, then not only would life be extremely boring, but also, there would be no need for people to spread the gospel of their faith, because everybody would be the same faith anyway, assuming there is a True Faith, which there isn't. We will always have the capacity within us to go with the will of our gods, to go against it, or somewhere in between, obeying sometimes, disobeying at others, and I think that the gods understand that. They understand that because we have free will, we won't be perfect, and that because we can think autonomously, we will make some mistakes that we may not be proud of. This is all merely my humble opinion, of course. On a side note, I'm curious: wouldn't this topic make slightly more sense to be in the Alley of Dangerous Angles?

And what is this business with 42? Did I miss something? Is it an inside joke from before I joined the boards?

 

I didn't know that anyone still have interests in these gods - Ásatrú Týr and Odin (Norway) or Lugh, and the Fire Lord(Ireland).

I think the universe is a thing too complicated due to our 'earthly ways', where even the brightest person cannot fathom the ways or the reasons of our Lord.

[ March 15, 2005, 15:21: Message edited by: Cesard ]

 

*sigh*

The answeeer to life,universe and everything: 42

Read your Adams, people...

 

@Ara: I got that, I was thinking exactly the same thing...

 

I can't really say I believe or disbelieve...and don't hold anything against me for saying this, I mean no disrespect...I really don't care if there is or isn't a God, it really wouldn't affect the way I live my life if there was or wasn't because I am who I am.

As to the laws, and free will...I think we have free will, for reasons similar to Fara, we don't always do what the Deities would approve of, and thats if we interpret the texts from each religion correctly...but then again, the fact we don't always do what one God wants points towards there being many, if that is what you believe, or none if you don't.

Sorry I digress a little, but I'm writing things as they come into my head...I like the idea of fate and things like that, but thats just cos I read too many books! Each choice you make takes you down another path to the next cross roads where you make another choice...it just appeals to my imagination. But when it comes down to it I think we have free will, but are governed by laws, because if we weren't we'd be able to weird and wacky things...not that I'm saying we can't but hey, thats another matter entirely.

Anyway, thats my bit...

 

@Gnarfflinger:

Yes, but if we don't obey, we get punished, right? Can you call that fair? We have the right to chose our path, but if we chose the wrong path, we get punished. I cannot agree with this. This is the problem with Christianity.

@chev:

This God I can not call a good God.

@Fara:

In my oppinion the short-as-possible deffinition of 'worship' would be to 'do as the one you worship tells you'. Nothing more.

This is the part of religion that pisses me off most! Why in Whoever's name do YOU or anyone else have to 'spread the faith'? Can't you just worship who you want and let the guy next door worship who he wants! Don't try to impose your faith upon others! If this simple rule would be understood by everyone, there woudn't be any more religious coflicts in the world!

Is anyone EVER proud of mistakes?

This is the thinking of a 'to-deny-the-posibility-of-evolution' type of guy


My oppinions about 'The Supreme Force' are these:
- There may be a Supreme Force in the universe.
- I cannot deny and I can not prove the existence of a Supreme Force (be it God, Buddha, Allah or whoever)
- I belive in the free will of man. It may be the only thing that man truely has, or it may not.
- The existence of a Supreme Force may or may not change my life.

You probably think that I don't care. But no, I do care. It's just that all of this Supreme Force thing doesn't influence my life at all. (Or maybe it does ) The point is that as I always said and always will say: Everything is possible including imposibility Think about this last sentence, if you want to of course.

 

42 -- can't wait for the movie this summer....

I also like a quote from Kurt Vonnegut, Sirens of Titan:

'If God exists, he doesn't care.'

 

Well, there are several aspects in this discussion.
One is the thing with "free will". I spent a whole night discussing with some friends if everything (universe, your behavior, EVERYTHING) is predetermined OR if there is a free will.

So three words to this part of the topic:
First, "Free Will" and "being predetermined" are not the two opposite sides of a medal.
The opposite of "Free Will" is "compulsion"
and the opposite of predeterminism is indeterminism. This leads to the question if you could feel the free will but beeing predetermined.

Second, Some people say that Physics show us the predeterminism. This would apply with laws like newtons and so on, but heisenberg told us better: The "Unschärferelation" deals with Probabilities, leaving place in the Universe for "Fate" "Caos" "Luck" and all that.

Third thing is actually more practical: A Friend of mine said he couldn´t live with the knowledge that his life is completely predetermined by whatever. (God, Fate...). Because if he wouldn´t take pain over something.

@Kelvon: Yeah, similar to: I´m indifferent to everything even Indifference.

 

Want to do evil without consequences? Would that be fair?

I don't get you. Really. Compulsion is bad. Lack of compulsion is bad. So what's good for you?

And I really can't understand why God is evil for wanting to be obeyed out of free choice rather than by compulsion. I would think it's good to give people choice without forcing them to obey.

Basically, you are claiming that God is evil for not giving choice and that God is evil for giving choice. Something doesn't work in this logic.

 

Basically who says what is good and what is evil?

There simply is no objective Authority. Only rules that work for a civilisation and not.

I know this leads far away from the topic but I had to say it

 

But where does civilisation originate? Did someone at some point invent conscience? How comes there are some ground rules common for all or almost all cultures?

 

Random thoughts from a sleep-depraved man:

An important aspect of chaotic systems is that their behavior quickly becomes unpredictable. A tiny shift in the initial state can mean a completely different universe later on.

I like the coin-tossing example: we know the initial state of the coin, we know the momentum we give it, yet we can't predict on which side it will land.

What if 'free will' were just reassuring words to soothe our ignorant minds. What if free will just meant: "we can't hope to predict how it will go, so let's just say it will go the way we want it to go."

Picture us sentients as tossed coins convincing themselves that they control their destiny. (or some gods control their destiny)

Or something...

 

@ Oxy:
Exactly. It frightens me too. Think of "The game of life" and such... Life could be something right between chaos and order.

@chev: civilisation? some guys joined up to survived against some guys, and in each group rules came up ...
It´s like you said ALMOST every culture. And the differences are still point of discussion.


Imanuel Kant came up with a try to describe "the good", but again in relation to other humans. Therefore the authority is only you/the person itsself. (I mean the "kategorischer Imperativ" I don´t know the translaton, anyone who heard something about kant knows what i´m speaking of)

 

@ Tillix:
You mean the Categorical Imperative.

Kant's formulation of ethics is interesting, because it is so fundamentally lawful, as we AD&D'ers might imagine it - a good person is one who simply follows "the Law". You might ask: "which Law?" The answer is the Categorical Imperative.

Ok, but what is this Imperative? To understand this, one must look at the way Kant looked at people and their decision making processes (it is also important to note that Kant was a "soft determinist"; strongly for predictable scientific laws, but with human choices entirely independent of that). He said that humans, when faced with some moral dilemma, made choices based on some "maxim". The Categorical Imperative states: choose only that maxim you would see adopted universally.

For example: you're driving happily along a country lane, when someone cuts you up at 100 mph. Do you:

a) chase the ****er down, pull him over and shoot him in the kneecaps,

or

b) continue pootling along.

Under the categorical imperative, the right answer would be b). Note that, according to Kant, the categorical imperative is always "right", even when the consequences are bad.

In the above example, assume we chose b). What if, the next day, that bad driver killed a kid? Should you have done a), and saved the kid's life? Still it says no.

That is both the beauty - and the flaw - of Kant's argument. Although once the law is determined, everything's much more simple (as opposed to say, utilitarianism, where you're supposed to weigh the pros & cons of every action) it can also be made to look an ass.

It is central to Kant's notion of a Good Will (i.e. that which follows the Law, for the sake of following it) is entirely independent of consequence.

That may not be the best explanation of it, but it is the best I can manage at the moment...

P.S. And if your just thinking: "That's really stupid; why have a law that says 'To be good, follow the Law!'..." Join the club!