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| Thread: Free will vs 'Fate' |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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veco
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posted December 08, 2010 03:01 PM |
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Edited by veco at 15:03, 08 Dec 2010.
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@Fauch
the closer you are to the speed of light and the more gravity is affecting you the slower the time runs for you - it's called time-dilation.
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Fauch
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posted December 08, 2010 03:08 PM |
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Edited by Fauch at 15:11, 08 Dec 2010.
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like in planet of the apes?
you could also say time runs slower when you are bored, but it's just your perception.
or maybe it is about the aging process being faster or slower, but that wouldn't mean the time is going faster or slower
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veco
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posted December 08, 2010 03:10 PM |
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Edited by veco at 15:17, 08 Dec 2010.
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Elodin
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Free Thinker
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posted December 08, 2010 04:05 PM |
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Elodin, before I do that I wait for your overwhelming evidence for "the future" as in "ONE future" existing "already".
I called your bluff and you could not produce a winning hand.  In reality you have NO PROOF that God can't know the future, despite claiming that there is "much evidence for the general impossibility" that God can't know the future.
Oh, could you please quote where I've said the future exists and whom I said it exists for?
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What you suggest is, that for "god" (if he would exist) creation and time was like a movie (that he has no part in making) which he can rewind and fast forward any way he likes, just looking at it.
God simply knows. He has no need for a fast forward or rewind feature. God's knowledge of an event does not cause the event to occure. There are planty of instances of God pleading with a people to repent but the people refusing to repent. It would be illogical to think God would plead with the people to repent if the people in fact were incapable of repenting.
Time after time the call in the Bible is for "whosoever will" to come to God. If you don't want to come to God don't. You determine the future about you that God sees. You make your own bed and lie in it. There is nothing contradictory about you freely making your choice and God knowing the choice you will freely make.
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In this case you are mistakeing "free will" with "not knowing that we hang on wires".
Again, you mistake the ability to foreknow with causation.
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markkur
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Once upon a time
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posted December 08, 2010 04:30 PM |
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Edited by markkur at 16:35, 08 Dec 2010.
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Either there's no omnipotent and all knowing god or he's an utter snowhole! There's might, how ever, be an not all knowing god, which the bible suggests. That's the whole point with Jesus. It was a way for god to live as a human and understand the burdens of humanity.
I think a lot of folks have problems with that but the thing is have you considered what we would have if that were true? The snowhole part
As a Father myself there were things that I knew that my kids got into. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt sort of stuff but for me to step in would be what? The over-bearing parent that everyone complains about for many very good reasons and of course I would be living my kids life for them and who wants that either?
We would be nothing more than puppets on a string and I am glad it is not that way. Knowing something and controlling others are way different.
I don't look at the commandments any different than I do any other natural law while living in this world. I could deny the law of gravity all I want but if I challenge it and jump off a bridge expecting to fly...I'm still toast. What Christ taught about Love is the laws surrounding one of the best things on this planet, <IMO> and I've never read anything better.
But back to free-will, <IMO> It's called by another word too and it's Freedom. Freedom to live as I choose. Some "Man/Woman" is always the one carrying chains around trying to wrap-up another and it matters very little if you are in church or not.
Most importantly to this thread I think is; Fate is defined in a couple of ways and I think that is the clash here that is not really a clash, instead we're all reading the word used with different correct meanings. I have been using it as "end result" and had not even thought about the 'predestined', 'pre-planned' meaning because I don't use the word that way (never have) and probably because that definition I care little for and don't embrace it. Clearly many do.
I just wish we could have more fun with this stuff than we do at times. I mean c'mon I know the world is not waiting for my next move.
Sorry Shares, long-winded and not all meant for you.
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JollyJoker
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posted December 08, 2010 05:20 PM |
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Oh, could you please quote where I've said the future exists and whom I said it exists for?
God. Look at your posts.
To know the future it must exist; you can't know what's not existing. You might say, to know what happens, it must already have happened, at least for god.
I repeat, this has nothing to do with causation. If God knows that something happens, for the person involved it WILL happen, no matter what, otherwise God wouldn't know it. That means, from the perspective of the person there is just one possible future, the one God already knows. Causation doesn't matter - isn't even a point.
Think movies: if you watch a movie and wind forward, you don't cause what the people are doing in that movie, you just know what they are doing. Back in the movie the acting characters may not know it, but their future is DETERMINED; the way they act, how they decide, and so on. They just follow "their fate". Or destiny. Otherwise you couldn't have looked at the future.
If there is truly free will, then God cannot, MUST not know beforehand what people do which is in line with the Uncertainty Principle and some other effects and observations.
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JoonasTo
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What if Elvin was female?
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posted December 08, 2010 05:34 PM |
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To know the future it must exist; you can't know what's not existing. You might say, to know what happens, it must already have happened, at least for god.
I repeat, this has nothing to do with causation. If God knows that something happens, for the person involved it WILL happen, no matter what, otherwise God wouldn't know it. That means, from the perspective of the person there is just one possible future, the one God already knows. Causation doesn't matter - isn't even a point.
Think movies: if you watch a movie and wind forward, you don't cause what the people are doing in that movie, you just know what they are doing. Back in the movie the acting characters may not know it, but their future is DETERMINED; the way they act, how they decide, and so on. They just follow "their fate". Or destiny. Otherwise you couldn't have looked at the future.
If there is truly free will, then God cannot, MUST not know beforehand what people do which is in line with the Uncertainty Principle and some other effects and observations.
This is what I had in mind with fate.
Not the kind of fate where depending on whether you pick left road or right road you're going to get run over by a bmw or crushed by a giant piano. That's maybe the weirdest kind of meaning for fate I've seen so far.
But the funny thing with that kind of fate is that whether it does exist or not is doesn't matter. Because we don't get second chances to live our life all over again it's just the same if we have free will or abide by fate. It won't change the life we're living anyway. We're going to live this only one way.
If we had multiple takes on the same life however, there it would matter a great deal.
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markkur
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posted December 08, 2010 06:51 PM |
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Because we don't get second chances to live our life all over again it's just the same if we have free will or abide by fate. It won't change the life we're living anyway. We're going to live this only one way.
So you don't believe in 're-starts', "turning-over a new leaf" that sort of thing...can impact this life?
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JoonasTo
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posted December 08, 2010 07:31 PM |
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Turning over a new leaf is still the same life. You can't jump back in time or restart from birth.
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Elodin
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posted December 08, 2010 11:23 PM |
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Oh, could you please quote where I've said the future exists and whom I said it exists for?
God. Look at your posts.
No,sorry, I still don't see where I said the future exists. Quote it please.
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To know the future it must exist; you can't know what's not existing. You might say, to know what happens, it must already have happened, at least for god.
No, knowledge that something will happen is not the same as the event already being in existence.
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I repeat, this has nothing to do with causation. If God knows that something happens, for the person involved it WILL happen, no matter what, otherwise God wouldn't know it. That means, from the perspective of the person there is just one possible future, the one God already knows. Causation doesn't matter - isn't even a point.
God knows your choices. You MAKE your choices. YOU determine your future. Of course there are events out of your control.
But if you get in a car, drive drunk, and run over some little kid it was not fate/destiny/predestination that you would run over the little kid. It was your own stupidity.
You are buiding your future brick by brick. Decision by decision. Action by action. Neglect by neglect. The one determining what your future will be is you.
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Think movies: if you watch a movie and wind forward, you don't cause what the people are doing in that movie, you just know what they are doing. Back in the movie the acting characters may not know it, but their future is DETERMINED; the way they act, how they decide, and so on. They just follow "their fate". Or destiny. Otherwise you couldn't have looked at the future.
Sorry, but life is not Hollywood. There is no film and you are not just an actor. You are living your life. You are making your decisions that determine what the future will be. No one is writing lines for you to repeat.
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If there is truly free will, then God cannot, MUST not know beforehand what people do which is in line with the Uncertainty Principle and some other effects and observations.
Sorry, no, you have said nothing that would indicate that God can't know the future if man has free will. It does not follow that God knowing that you will drink a soda at 12:45 PM on January 2, 2011, while driving to Nurnberg means that you did not have the free will to drink the soda or not to drink it.
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JoonasTo
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posted December 08, 2010 11:37 PM |
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Sorry, no, you have said nothing that would indicate that God can't know the future if man has free will. It does not follow that God knowing that you will drink a soda at 12:45 PM on January 2, 2011, while driving to Nurnberg means that you did not have the free will to drink the soda or not to drink it.
But what if you decide not to drink it? Then god wouldn't be all knowing.
But if god is all knowing that means he knows you will drink your soda ages before. He already knows what you're going to decide. He knows everything you're going to do in your life before you're even born. That means you only have one path to walk on in life. And if there is only one route for you then where's the free will? Just an illusion.
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Fauch
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posted December 09, 2010 02:41 AM |
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what is god and can you prove he exists?
he has to exist to be able to know everything.
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JollyJoker
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posted December 09, 2010 08:26 AM |
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Elodin, you can't just say "no" to everything you don't like. This is a very old Christian philosophic problem. God's definite knowledge of "all times" would determine that knowledge as the definite future for everyone.
Let's take a look at Eve and the apple. Suppose God knew beforehand what the serpent would do and what Eve would do and what Adam would do.
1) Since God knew it as fact before it actually happened (before he actually created everything), there was no way for any of the three to do something different. Of course that doesn't mean, that God MADE them do it. But it DOES mean that there was not even a slight chance for them to decide differently. Not a single slight chance.
2) This makes the actual event meaningless, EVEN AND ESPECIALLY FOR GOD - he knows what happens anyway.
3) It makes His actions incomprehensible - since he has this absolute knowledge he would know beforehand that all his doings would be fruitless, that his people would not obey Him and so on. For an all-knowing creature God's actions are pretty clueless.
4) Morally spoken, it makes God a snow. Since he DOES know everything, if he would "care", if he was a nice and especially a loving god, he would take measures to ensure a nicer world with less agony, pain, sorrow, ignorance and so on.
All this stops being a problem, if God is NOT all-knowing in that DEFINITE sense. God - a hypothetical, supposed God - might know EVERY POSSIBLE future, the whole infinity of possible futures, which would make him all-knowing as well, but in an undefinite, undetermined way, but not THE future. It just doesn't make sensse, on no level.
So the uncertainty principle MUST be valid even for God - or you can kiss free will good-bye, whether you like that or not. God CAN and MUST not know the definite future. He may know every single possible choice and what will result of it, but he cannot and must not know which one will actually materialize.
This, by the way, is so glaringly obvious, that it is trivial to discuss it.
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Coming back to the actual issue of the thread: isn't genetics just altering "chances". Without that gene there is an X% chance that people will betray partner. With that gene there is an x+y% chance, with the gene being just ONE factor in a long series of individual factors.
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Shares
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posted December 09, 2010 08:42 AM |
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Edited by Shares at 08:43, 09 Dec 2010.
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That's the point of Jesus JJ. It was said that God didn't understand humans, and thus he became Jesus so that he could live a human life and both prove that you could live a sinless life and learn to understand humanity. Eve and Adam was long before Jesus. Long before god understood humanity.
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Coming back to the actual issue of the thread: isn't genetics just altering "chances". Without that gene there is an X% chance that people will betray partner. With that gene there is an x+y% chance, with the gene being just ONE factor in a long series of individual factors.
Yes. It's a part of a big chain. What I'd like to know is how big that part is compared to personal experiences.
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Doomforge
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posted December 09, 2010 11:32 AM |
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I like to think that omniscience is knowing all that IS to know. Predicting isn't knowledge.
If you have 1000 elements in a 1000element group, you have all of them. Just because someone conjures up a hypothetical 1001th element doesn't break the fact you have the complete group.
Such is knowing all there is to know (=omniscience) and when someone conjures up something that can't be known, it doesn't mean it's not omniscience.
For me knowing what a sentient, free-willed being will do is "impossible' to know. An omniscient God, still being omniscient, can't "know" that, because it CAN'T be known.
This is obviously not God or religion problem: The word "omniscient" applied to anything makes no sense in our world. Much as the stupid "creating a rock too heavy to lift" wordgame. In all honesty, it's just faulty binary logic - not something that ruins religion.
As for the logic itself - yes it sucks at times. The infamous wordgames are the best at displaying this. Such as "a man once said all people in his town lie. Did he lie or tell the truth" or "a doctor said once he heals only people that don't heal themselves - should he heal himself" where - given that precise info - both answers contradict each other.
Again, it's not "God" - it's that some questions can't be answered with binary LOGIC.
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JollyJoker
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posted December 09, 2010 11:35 AM |
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A streange God, who doesn't understand his creation, don't you think? Somewhat all too ... human. 
Anyway, with perfect knowledge about the future you can't prove anything, obviously - you'd know what heppens, so what you did was based on the knowledge that everything would work as intended. So Jesus - clearly, when you think about his temptation in the desert - makes sense as well only, when God has no perfect foreknowledge.
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Concerning the part in the chain - why would that be equally big or small for everyone? Or even constant?
An inner drive to "risk something" or to be "adventurous" doesn't have to manifest as a tenedency to betray your partner. It may lead to not marrying at all or marrying later, to journey through the world, to have a dangerous job - or everything at the same time. The only thing you can say is, that such a gene WILL manifest itself probably. But how, that's the important thing, right?
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Elodin
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posted December 09, 2010 02:40 PM |
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Elodin, you can't just say "no" to everything you don't like.
I say "no" when you state something as fact and then base your claims off of that. You made a very bold claim that there is overwhelming evidence that it is impossible for God to know everything but you have offered not the slightest bit of evidence for you claim.
You also made the false claim that I said the future exists. I said "no" to your false claim about what I had said.
You also said that in order to know the future the future has to exist. You did not prove your statement. I said no to your unproven statement.
You seem to think that you can just make statments and they should be considered facts but that is not the way things work, unless you are talking to your small child.
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That means you only have one path to walk on in life.
Yes the path that you chose to walk.
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But it DOES mean that there was not even a slight chance for them to decide differently. Not a single slight chance.
THEY decided to eat the apple. God told them not to and they decided to shoot God the finger. At least Adam did.
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2) This makes the actual event meaningless, EVEN AND ESPECIALLY FOR GOD - he knows what happens anyway
Wrong again. God allowed them to chose. They made a choice.
God LIVES each moment of time. He felt the sting of disappointment and the remorse for all the pain and suffering Adam's act of rebellion would cause to all his decendents.
Just because you know the future does not mean that don't experience the things that you anticipated. It is rather silly to say that a husband can't be joyful at his wedding simply because he already knew the wedding was coming and had even rehearsed the lines of the vows before. Yes, silly indeed! Just because you know a loved one is on her death bed with only weeks to live does not mean that when she dies you will not feel pain.
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3) It makes His actions incomprehensible - since he has this absolute knowledge he would know beforehand that all his doings would be fruitless, that his people would not obey Him and so on. For an all-knowing creature God's actions are pretty clueless.
It is not God who is clueless.
I made no claim that anyone, least of all one hostile to the notion of God existing can comprehend God or his actions or that they even want such understanding.
Futhur, as I stated, knowing the future does not mean that God does not live the events that he forsees. He experiences joys and sorrows over our choices. Oh, not all of God's people were disobedient. He has always had a faithful remnant who were "true Jews."
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4) Morally spoken, it makes God a snow. Since he DOES know everything, if he would "care", if he was a nice and especially a loving god, he would take measures to ensure a nicer world with less agony, pain, sorrow, ignorance and so on.
I don't see God as having the moral problem or being the "snow."
God proved his love by beginnning to exist as a human being and letting himself be spat upon, slapped around, and tortured to death by his puny creatures.
So you have falsely judged God.
Oh, God has taken measures to make the world better and one day the world will in fact be perfect because of his actions.
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So the uncertainty principle MUST be valid even for God - or you can kiss free will good-bye, whether you like that or not. God CAN and MUST not know the definite future. He may know every single possible choice and what will result of it, but he cannot and must not know which one will actually materialize.
Simply repeating over and over "It is impossible for God to know everything" does not make it so. Again, you must offer proof whether you like it or not.
God'd knowledge of your choices does not mean that it is no you who is making the choice. You are perfectly free to make choices that God disapproves of.
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A streange God, who doesn't understand his creation, don't you think?
The Bible actually does not say that God does not understand his creation. In fact it says exactly the opposite.
Act 15:8 And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us;
1Ch 28:9 And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.
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So Jesus - clearly, when you think about his temptation in the desert - makes sense as well only, when God has no perfect foreknowledge.
Jesus was the human manifestation of God. Jesus was limited to human knowledge except for the things the all-knowing Spirit revealed to him. As a man Jesus trusted the Spirit and followed him.
Jesus is God living a human life, chosing to sacrifice that human life, and becoming a glorified human being who is God existing as a man.
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JoonasTo
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What if Elvin was female?
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posted December 09, 2010 02:46 PM |
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And once again you completely disregard the actual claim and concentrate on everything else. Marvelous way of debating.
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JollyJoker
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posted December 09, 2010 03:02 PM |
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Elodin, it's pretty simple, actually, because it's YOU, who must simply pick between an all-knowing God like YOU understand him and all-knowingness OR free will.
Since I know you are supporting free will - otherwise all that reward/punishment stuff would be rather pointless -, logic, reason, the wealth of Christian historical philosophic discussion and the physical insights of the last century demand that god's all-knowingness - should he exist - is limited to the potential, not to the factual, since his definite knowledge would just make the "choice" a farce.
I won't repeat the same points over and over again, since it makes no sense. I'm not the first one either. Philosophers have choked on that for centuries, having the same dilemma than you, but there just is no solution for it.
The dilemma has a very simple solution. God may know all possible futures, but "free will" and a couple of other things make sure that not even he can know the definite future. Everything else makes no sense at all and leads to contradictions - but since that's not bothering you in the least, I don't see any reason to continue this.
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Keksimaton
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Talk to the hand
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posted December 09, 2010 05:44 PM |
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I think there might be a very fundamental difference in your understanding of "free will."
JJ seems to be going for "decisionmaking not bound by causal determinism" where as elodin's going for something along the lines of "capability of making decisions for oneself."
So I'll ask you guys, what is free will?
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