Guest fuct> Posted April 8, 2005 Share Posted April 8, 2005 If god gaves us a free will, he could most certainly give us a better one that didn't invlove murder,rape,etc. Why wouldn't he do that. He is god after all he's definitely thought this through,right?Instead we have a free will that allows us to harm each other, why not change that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted April 8, 2005 Share Posted April 8, 2005 Then it wouldn't be free will would it? Its like why did God let the holocaust happen, but really maybe God wanted us to stop it on our own, to help our fellow men and women. Maybe God doesn't want to do everything on his own and wants us to take responsibility for things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest God's Prosecutor Posted April 8, 2005 Share Posted April 8, 2005 So you think you have free will, huh? Ok. Try this experiment. Turn your stove on and hold you hand on the burner for 10 minutes. What? You can't do it? Oh well. So much for free will. Ok, maybe we do have free will, but it certainly isn't perfect free will. Perfect free will is will to action...omnipotence. If an omnibenevolent intelligent designer would limit our ability to injure ourselves, then why would it not similarly limit our ability to injure each other? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Posted April 9, 2005 Share Posted April 9, 2005 Injuring yourself is stupid, especially by fire. Why would anyone want to do that, other than being suicidal and proving that the human body is flammable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sokudo Ningyou Posted April 9, 2005 Share Posted April 9, 2005 If god gaves us a free will, he could most certainly give us a better one thatdidn't invlove murder,rape,etc. Why wouldn't he do that. He is god after all he's definitely thought this through,right?Instead we have a free will that allows us to harm each other, why not change that? Well, first step back and realize that God never intended for us to have Free Will in the first place; He/She/It wanted to keep us dumb and subservient from the get-go. And yet, we were made in His/Her/Its image: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Yes, ok, here we have man. Here we also have man made to tend a garden, along with his mate, and being told they're not allowed to eat from one specific tree in the whole place. Why in the hell is the tree even there? Why bother thinking about it, it's God's Will, after all. He told them they'd die if they ate from the tree of good and evil, only for the ol' snake to tell Eve otherwise: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Ri-ight. So, technically, to have taken the fruit in the first place, Eve had to have some Free Will to go against God's wishes. Just because a snake told her she could do it doesn't mean she would have unless she could think for herself and come up with her own logical answer. If she had no Free Will, she would've just told the snake that God told her no, and walked off, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. Which also begs the question that if we were made in His/Her/Its image, not physically but spiritually or mentally, human beings were meant to have Free Will from the beginning, because God had it. Eating the fruit and having their eyes magically opened to the realization that they're naked and that's bad seems to be nothing more than an excuse to say the humans fucked up instead of a genuine rational to them gaining Free Will. Plenty of people now can walk around nude in the company of others and feel no shame; why would the first two humans suddenly realize their nudity and feel it in the presence of animals and God, simply because of Free Will? It may be God basically saying we can make our own mistakes, but if you sit back and think about it, we could have done that from the very beginning. And if we can do it....so can He/She/It. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dustmouse Posted April 12, 2005 Share Posted April 12, 2005 Even if we do have 'free will' it is a very limited free will, at best. Phenomenologically, we always are making choices. For instance, right now I could either type another word or not type another word. If I do type a word, I have to choose what word, how I want to spell if (correctly or incorrectly), what fingers I want to use to type each letter, and so on. Or I could choose to stop typing. And if I did that I could choose to either just sit here or do something else. I could pick up my mouse and go to another page I have up. Or open something else on the computer. Or stare at the screen. Or close my eyes. Point is, I always have at least two choices - free will to make two choices. But I do not have the freewill to choose beyond the limited sphere of my options. For instance, I cannot choose to turn the tv on without first choosing to either find the remote or get up. And to find the remote I would have to choose to get up too. And to choose to get up I would have to choose to stop typing. It gets rather existential, almost Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merlinfmct87 Posted April 12, 2005 Share Posted April 12, 2005 So you think you have free will, huh? Ok. Try this experiment. Turn your stove on and hold you hand on the burner for 10 minutes. What? You can't do it? Oh well. So much for free will. Ok, maybe we do have free will, but it certainly isn't perfect free will. Perfect free will is will to action...omnipotence. If an omnibenevolent intelligent designer would limit our ability to injure ourselves, then why would it not similarly limit our ability to injure each other? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Pain can be overcome, either through discipline or drugs. Merlin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefranden Posted April 12, 2005 Share Posted April 12, 2005 Will isn't free. I've paid a pretty penny for it, I can tell you! I've the scars to prove it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reach Posted April 12, 2005 Share Posted April 12, 2005 Will isn't free. I've paid a pretty penny for it, I can tell you! I've the scars to prove it! Isn't that the truth? The reality is that there is no such literal thing as "free will." There are limits to what we can do, everywhere we look. Limited options. Limited choices. Limited supply. And not just consequences, but actual, real limits. I doubt my car will do 200 mph either, no matter how much I will it to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin webmdave Posted April 14, 2005 Admin Share Posted April 14, 2005 Even if we do have 'free will' it is a very limited free will, at best. Phenomenologically, we always are making choices. For instance, right now I could either type another word or not type another word. If I do type a word, I have to choose what word, how I want to spell if (correctly or incorrectly), what fingers I want to use to type each letter, and so on. Or I could choose to stop typing. And if I did that I could choose to either just sit here or do something else. I could pick up my mouse and go to another page I have up. Or open something else on the computer. Or stare at the screen. Or close my eyes. Point is, I always have at least two choices - free will to make two choices. But I do not have the freewill to choose beyond the limited sphere of my options. For instance, I cannot choose to turn the tv on without first choosing to either find the remote or get up. And to find the remote I would have to choose to get up too. And to choose to get up I would have to choose to stop typing. It gets rather existential, almost Absolutely right! We only have limited free will no matter how you look at it. So what would be so horrible about an omnipotent, compassionate, loving, merciful god limiting our freewill to include choices that did not include "sin." Just to set the record straight, again, I don't believe in any of this anyway - this is for the sake of discussion... The argument is constantly posited by Christians that without the freedom to rebel against bible-god and end up in hell we would just be robots. But as demonstrated in the above quote and earlier in this thread by others, are free will is already severely limited by physical and emotional barriers that can't be crossed. If a lack of certain choices makes a person a robot, then in some ways we are all robots. For instance, I would love to fly to work today by flapping my arms. I really want to. I can't. That choice is not one of my options. Freewill has limits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eccles1:2 Posted April 14, 2005 Share Posted April 14, 2005 Free Will! Will is innocent! Time to stop denying his parole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philosopher Dave Posted April 16, 2005 Share Posted April 16, 2005 So you think you have free will, huh? Ok. Try this experiment. Turn your stove on and hold you hand on the burner for 10 minutes. What? You can't do it? Oh well. So much for free will. Ok, maybe we do have free will, but it certainly isn't perfect free will. Perfect free will is will to action...omnipotence. If an omnibenevolent intelligent designer would limit our ability to injure ourselves, then why would it not similarly limit our ability to injure each other? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Or you could try this. Turn on your stove and DECIDE if you are stupid enough to follow through with a conceptual burning of your hand. Its a proposition, and the response is your choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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