Subject:
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Re: Nature of man (was Re: Problems with Christianity)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 20 Dec 2000 09:02:32 GMT
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Viewed:
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712 times
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Dave Schuler wrote:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Brown writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Tom Stangl writes:
> > > But according to others in this group, man doesn't HAVE free will - God knows
> > > everything anyone will do from cradle to grave - where is the free will in
> > > that?
> >
> > Well, I can't speak for others, but here is one take on it. (and I haven't
> > thought this through overly much, so it may have holes...)
> >
> > I don't see a contradiction.
> >
> > If I choose to (X), or to not (X), how does God knowing ahead of time which
> > I will choose affect my making the choice? The position that God's
> > knowledge of my choice will affect my choice implies that God is dictating
> > my choice to me ahead of time, which, AFAIK, isn't happening.
>
> Right, but Tom isn't just saying that God decides in advance which way we'll
> turn out; Tom is asserting, I believe, that in order for the outcome of an
> event to be known in advance with absolute certainty, that event must be
> pre-set in some way, and therefore freewill is an illusion. I'm not talking
> about knowing a range of probable outcomes, but rather the unquestionable
> certainty that God would have. Again, I'm not saying that God is choosing my
> future course for me, but in order for that future course to be absolutely
> known now, it must already be set, so my free will is irrelevant.
Yep, that about pegged it. If you believe in an omniscient, omnipotent God, you're
kidding yourself if you don't think the ENTIRE game is rigged from femtosecond one
to the end. Free Will is nothing but an illusion in that case.
Personally, I'd rather not believe that.
<donning firesuit>
I think we DO have free will, and DON'T need a crutch to exist in daily life (*I*
don't at least, and get tired of being told I MUST need one, because the one
preaching to me needs one).
I also believe good and bad are inherent within us, we choose which "wins" at each
decision branch we come to. Our Free Will decides which choice we make (not some
Clockwork God that designed every detail of the mechanism and set it off to run,
knowing every tick of the clock until it winds down) at each branch, and religion
can have absolutely NOTHING to do with the overall goodness/badness of each person.
I believe being "moral" does not require some book telling us what is "Moral". We
can certainly choose one if we wish, but being an annoying ass and refusing to stop
pushing our religion of choice upon others when asked to desist would be "Immoral"
in MY book, if I were to write one, at least.
There, I've summarized my answers to the last several weeks in one post ;-)
--
Tom Stangl
***http://www.vfaq.com/
***DSM Visual FAQ home
***http://ba.dsm.org/
***SF Bay Area DSMs
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