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Goodbye Jesus

Absolute Free Will


Edgarcito

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5 hours ago, WalterP said:

 

To answer that question in the context of biblical Christianity we would first have to define what is meant by god's omniscience.

 

 

In the context of biblical Christianity...

 

OK, by the book.

The questions "What would god do" or "What did god do" comes to mind. All we can know is what he did, by the book that is.
"Let their be light and there was light."

Now what is he going to do? Continue, quite, ponder, destroy the light, change the light? He has a choice, sure, but he forced himself to make a choice. No more freewill. After his first act of creation - specifically the creation of Lucifer (light) god's freewill is gone - by the book that is.

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6 hours ago, Edgarcito said:

One step at a time please.  

 

So in A&E's case, they were essentially blank slates outside two influences, God and the serpent.  

 

For the thought process, I am ignoring any potential bias brought through creation itself.... what would amount to a God bias.  My question again, is, did absolute free will exist at this point (innocence).

 

The definition from the video is 'having the ability to do otherwise.' 

 

So with A&E, did they have the ability to do otherwise? Or was it all predestined to happen just as it did, just as it was foreknown? 

 

We find claims later suggesting that the plan of salvation from the fall of man was conceived BEFORE the creation of the world. That means conceived before the creation of A&E. If the bible is correct and the plan of salvation was there before the creation of the world then it would seem that A&E had no such ability to do otherwise. 

 

But we're thinking in linear time terms. 

 

If it was all foreknown because the past, present, and future coexist and all-knowing ties into the non-linear reality of past, present, and future, again, the result is the same. They could not do otherwise because it was already done just as it is. No changing anything. No actual freewill choices in the situation. 

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4 hours ago, Extant said:

If a definition is given for free will, doesn't that create limitations in free thought? And don't we think based on everything we've learned and experienced, which means our yes or no answer has already been influenced by other people?

 

Yes, which is part of the reason I don't think absolute free will exists. It can't. I'm not even sure if an omnipotent omniscient God has absolute free will, but regardless we humans don't.

 

We already know that we don't choose our beliefs'. Therefore in just that one aspect of our lives we don't have free will. If anyone does think we can choose our beliefs' then I challenge you to believe the moon is made of green cheese. You can't because you already have enough knowledge to know the belief is asinine. 

 

But at the moment I'm still not sure what Ed means when he says absolute free will. I think there is some form of free will, just it's not absolute. 

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1. Free will is tricky to define bk it also needs to define what an "agent" is. You can think there is no real individual self, for example. 

2. I do not think living as though we have free will is the best thing. That can just be a bias. Bk if I accept that every agent is determined, that can free me from excessive resentment, guilt or retribution. Plus I still do not know the future so I still think, deliberate, etc. In my case, a world without free will seems makes me more peaceful. 

3. One way some Christian mystics view free will is more a addiction model. Like your will naturally gravitates toward good, in their case God. Sin and passions derail that so that you must cleanse it. To be "free" from sin. It is akin to a purified mind, enlightment, etc. Some of them like Isaac the Syrian seemed to have believed that this will hapoen to everyone and that Hell is just a purifying mechanism. So it is not about the ability to neutrally choose A or B but your inclination for good that is corrupted ( sin as failed mark). That does make more sense to me I think. The neutral ability to choose otherwise seems self contradictory. 

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I don't think debating "absolute free will" is going to answer if absolute free will exists. We certainly have will power and it seems as though the biggest effort from established authorities is to give that power to them - whether it be governments or organized religions, or to the gods of those religions, and that would require faith - blind faith. Why they want that power is something they need to answer first - before asking, expecting, or demanding that people do so. History shows what they do with it.

 

 

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Free Willy exists, absolutely. 

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The new Adam and Eve thread. yay.

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You have always exercised free will, always done as you chose. That doesn't mean you always liked it. Sometimes you chose a lesser evil, sometimes you chose to obey another in order to avoid negative consequences of doing otherwise; but YOU always made the choice. But that's real life, not the Biblical scenario where arguments can be made for predestination and other magical scenarios.

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I think Alex in the video takes kind of a false dilemma approach to it... you either want to do something or you are forced to! Guess there's no in between? No other choices? 

 

You know maybe I would pick chocolate chip mint ice cream 99 times out of a hundred but maybe that 100th time I get a flash of cleavage from behind the counter and I say Rocky Road! 

 

Maybe Alex needs to get obliterated on whiskey and his friends can tell him about the stuff he cant remember doing the night before. Did he want to do those things? :) Was he forced to?  

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Whether or not we have free will is interesting think on, but appears to only have meaningful relevance if one of the participants takes the position we should simultaneously hold free will + some being has omniscience, as opposed to belief, but actual knowledge, as though those future events are as unalterable as the past.  Those two positions are mutually exclusive.

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I think free will has the same issues as the rest....that it supposes we understand a definition of "will"....which is defined by experience on some level.  I do think it interesting that Adam and Eve were essentially "experience-less" in the story, that free will would have been more an unbiased situation.  No ancestors, no evolution, no moral ground to define "will".  Simply a simple choice. 

 

Seems like Eve opted for the deceiver , but recognized the qualities of Gods as something she desired...  Then you have to ask whether she understood what she desired, and we have surmised she didn't.  So she was open to suggestion and open to qualities she didn't understand, she chose....  To me this suggests free will, free from the subjective and objective.  (I believe Walter and I actually agree on this point).

 

I made need another golf ball....this one liable to be headed towards the water...lol.

 

Ahh well, forge ahead.

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4 hours ago, midniterider said:

The new Adam and Eve thread. yay.

You sure are a sour bastard these days....worse than me....what gives.

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23 hours ago, WalterP said:

Edgarcito,

 

I don't know if this will help, but I think it needs saying.

 

 

Even if Adam and Eve did have what we might call absolute free will before they disobeyed god, what does that matter to us, today?

 

According to scripture every human is descended from them and so everyone is NOT in the same innocent state they were in before they sinned.

 

Therefore, nobody has absolute free will any more.

 

That state of innocence died when they sinned.

 

So, scripture itself is telling us that we don't have absolute free will.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, I think we agree, remarkably....someone make note.

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35 minutes ago, Edgarcito said:

You sure are a sour bastard these days....worse than me....what gives.

 

Yeah, time to take a break , probably. I'm getting bitchy. 

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37 minutes ago, Edgarcito said:

Yes, I think we agree, remarkably....someone make note.

 

Edgarcito,

 

If we agree that scripture tells us that we don't have free will, could you please explain why you think its important that Adam and Eve did have it?

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

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1 hour ago, Edgarcito said:

I think free will has the same issues as the rest....that it supposes we understand a definition of "will"....which is defined by experience on some level.  I do think it interesting that Adam and Eve were essentially "experience-less" in the story, that free will would have been more an unbiased situation.  No ancestors, no evolution, no moral ground to define "will".  Simply a simple choice. 

 

Seems like Eve opted for the deceiver , but recognized the qualities of Gods as something she desired...  Then you have to ask whether she understood what she desired, and we have surmised she didn't.  So she was open to suggestion and open to qualities she didn't understand, she chose....  To me this suggests free will, free from the subjective and objective.  (I believe Walter and I actually agree on this point).

 

I made need another golf ball....this one liable to be headed towards the water...lol.

 

Ahh well, forge ahead.

 

Edgarcito,

 

If "will" is solely defined by experience then Adam and Eve had no "will" of their own at all.

 

That's because they had no experience of moral decision making.

 

And god didn't install a moral compass within them.

 

Even if he had provided them with tuition and moral guidance they couldn't have understood any of his lessons.

 

The same goes for having ancestors or evolution to give them moral guidance.

 

All such efforts to educate or inform them about morality would have failed.

 

Why?

 

Because their moral sense was locked up, out of reach, in the fruit of the forbidden tree.

 

They had no "will" derived from experience and no "will" derived from any inner sense of right and wrong.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, WalterP said:

 

Edgarcito,

 

If "will" is solely defined by experience then Adam and Eve had no "will" of their own at all.

 

That's because they had no experience of moral decision making.

 

And god didn't install a moral compass within them.

 

Even if he had provided them with tuition and moral guidance they couldn't have understood any of his lessons.

 

The same goes for having ancestors or evolution to give them moral guidance.

 

All such efforts to educate or inform them about morality would have failed.

 

Why?

 

Because their moral sense was locked up, out of reach, in the fruit of the forbidden tree.

 

They had no "will" derived from experience and no "will" derived from any inner sense of right and wrong.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But that doesn't answer the question you asked prior....let me consider it thx.

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1 minute ago, Edgarcito said:

But that doesn't answer the question you asked prior....let me consider it thx.

 

True.

 

Please take whatever time is needed.

 

My second post can wait.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

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1 hour ago, Edgarcito said:

I think free will has the same issues as the rest....that it supposes we understand a definition of "will"....which is defined by experience on some level.  I do think it interesting that Adam and Eve were essentially "experience-less" in the story, that free will would have been more an unbiased situation.  No ancestors, no evolution, no moral ground to define "will".  Simply a simple choice.

 

The choice was to obey or not, wasn't it? Can't it be inferred she had freewill to choose because in the book she did? So really, having knowledge of good and evil isn't the reason so much evil exists now (there was a whole tree of it already in existence) - it was that she disobeyed and that infers the lord ordered them to give up their freewill, and that's another way to know they had it.

 

Since you brought up ancestry, the first kid she spit out was killer and a liar - by the book. Where in Cain's ancestry did a killer exist? Adam wasn't a killer. Eve wasn't a killer yet the blood of a killer and liar ran through Cain's veins. 

 

Maybe this is getting off-topic, but bloodlines become important very fast in Genesis. (Genes - Genesis, her seed his seed, and so forth).

...isn't a "tree" symbolic for a bloodline or a people in the Bible? And isn't "knowing" symbolic for intercourse? If neither Adam nor Eve were killers, and Eve was the mother, that leaves you-know-who as the father because later you-know-who is described as a the god of this world, so he had knowledge of good and evil in his veins, and Seth was the first child that is said to be made in Adam's Image. Neither Cain nor Abel are described like that. You know the old saying Edgarcito ...every word in the Bible

 

Sorry if I got off topic.

 

 

 

 

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19 minutes ago, Extant said:

 

The choice was to obey or not, wasn't it? Can't it be inferred she had freewill to choose because in the book she did? So really, having knowledge of good and evil isn't the reason so much evil exists now (there was a whole tree of it already in existence) - it was that she disobeyed and that infers the lord ordered them to give up their freewill, and that's another way to know they had it.

 

Since you brought up ancestry, the first kid she spit out was killer and a liar - by the book. Where in Cain's ancestry did a killer exist? Adam wasn't a killer. Eve wasn't a killer yet the blood of a killer and liar ran through Cain's veins. 

 

Maybe this is getting off-topic, but bloodlines become important very fast in Genesis. (Genes - Genesis, her seed his seed, and so forth).

...isn't a "tree" symbolic for a bloodline or a people in the Bible? And isn't "knowing" symbolic for intercourse? If neither Adam nor Eve were killers, and Eve was the mother, that leaves you-know-who as the father because later you-know-who is described as a the god of this world, so he had knowledge of good and evil in his veins, and Seth was the first child that is said to be made in Adam's Image. Neither Cain nor Abel are described like that. You know the old saying Edgarcito ...every word in the Bible

 

Sorry if I got off topic.

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting thoughts, Extant.

 

So what about Genesis 4 : 1 in the King James Version?

 

 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.

 

And in the original Hebrew?

 

https://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/4-1.htm

 

https://biblehub.com/hebrew/3045.htm

 

According to these sources Adam had (carnal) knowledge of his wife Eve.

 

Since this is what the text says, surely your point about Cain being the child of the serpent contradicts what's actually written?

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Oh and there's another anomaly, Extant.

 

If Seth was the very first child of Adam and both Cain and Abel were the serpent's, how is it that god looked with favour upon Abel?

 

Surely if both had the blood of the serpent in them then both of them would be liars and killers?

 

If I'm following your logic correctly?

 

Sorry if I'm not.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

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1 hour ago, WalterP said:

And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.

 

I always wondered about that. Why the "I have gotten a man from the Lord" part? Technically, just because it says Adam had sex with Eve, it doesn't necessarily mean she conceived a baby with him. It does specifically say she got a man from the lord though.

 

1 hour ago, WalterP said:

If Seth was the very first child of Adam and both Cain and Abel were the serpent's, how is it that god looked with favour upon Abel?

 

Surely if both had the blood of the serpent in them then both of them would be liars and killers?

 

He actual looked with favor on both (you know - the he loves everyone thing). It wasn't until Cain did his todo there was a problem. You'll notice he doesn't do anything to stop bad things from happening. He didn't stop Eve. He didn't stop Cain. When I was around sixteen or seventeen my stepfather came home early in the morning after drinking all night. He went and got his gun and I asked what are you doing - he was going to kill his boss. I stopped him. Should I have let him kill his boss and let the cards fall where they may? Was I wrong stopping him? If I didn't stop him, would I have been and accomplice? Should I have strived to be more like the lord god of the Bible?

 

Abel was dead. Who knows. He might have grown up to be a killer. He offered an animal sacrifice. Today if a parent sees their kid mistreating or killing animals an alarm bell goes off.

 

Back to the whose your daddy for a moment because of its biblical importance. Cain fathers two sons - one was the father of all who played the harp, and one was the father of all who lived in tents. King David played the harp and Israel lived in tents. Cain offers the first fruits. Jesus claims to be the root and the offspring of David. The root of a tree is the first thing that grows, and a tree is symbolic for a bloodline in the Bible. Jesus offers the first fruits. Coincidence?

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10 hours ago, florduh said:

You have always exercised free will, always done as you chose. That doesn't mean you always liked it. Sometimes you chose a lesser evil, sometimes you chose to obey another in order to avoid negative consequences of doing otherwise; but YOU always made the choice. But that's real life, not the Biblical scenario where arguments can be made for predestination and other magical scenarios.

I disagree. Fully. I think free will is a magical superstition, unsuppirted and contradicted actually by argument and secular science.

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6 hours ago, Extant said:

 

I always wondered about that. Why the "I have gotten a man from the Lord" part? Technically, just because it says Adam had sex with Eve, it doesn't necessarily mean she conceived a baby with him. It does specifically say she got a man from the lord though.

     I would look at Sarah and Rachel who are both also in Genesis.  In the case of Sarah we have: 16:2 so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her” and Rachel there is: 30:2 Jacob became angry with her and said, “Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?”  They're telling us god prevents conception.  The evidence for this, is in the previous chapter: 31 When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless.  And then later on in the chapter 30: 22 Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and enabled her to conceive. 23 She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.”  And we know the story of Sarah having Isaac when god finally lets it happen.

 

     So it would appear that god played a role in all conceptions.  If he didn't allow it to happen then you did not conceive.  In this case Eve would require god to help to have a child.

 

          mwc

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, mwc said:

     I would look at Sarah and Rachel who are both also in Genesis.  In the case of Sarah we have: 16:2 so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her” and Rachel there is: 30:2 Jacob became angry with her and said, “Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?”  They're telling us god prevents conception.  The evidence for this, is in the previous chapter: 31 When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless.  And then later on in the chapter 30: 22 Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and enabled her to conceive. 23 She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.”  And we know the story of Sarah having Isaac when god finally lets it happen.

 

     So it would appear that god played a role in all conceptions.  If he didn't allow it to happen then you did not conceive.  In this case Eve would require god to help to have a child.

 

          mwc

 

 

 

 

Ah... the lord as the fertility god - like Sobek.

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