Religious arguments and analogies that really bother you

[DrZoidberg]

It's worse than that. What is free? From what is it free? In what way is it free? It's just a phrase that sounds profound without actually being it. All philosophers have known this since the 18'th century. It died with Descartes. Which is why they haven't discussed it since then. Whenever modern philosophers say they're discussing free will they in reality have cleverly disguised another (actually interesting) issue within it. Which is why they start by defining it, (ie defining what is free, from what it is free and in what way it is free). But each set of definitions belong to an entirely different conceptual universe. So they're not really having a debate or settling the issue. The only reason they at all claim they're discussing free will is because it's a phrase that helps them get attention and sell books. It's a phrase that works really well on philosophical illiterates. Which is most people. So they keep doing it.

<snip>

Not being well versed in Descartes and the philosophy gang from the 18th century I don't know that I've been exposed to this knowledge all these folks have had for all this time. Guess I fall into that category described as "most people," the philosophically illiterate.

But in my lay opinion it seems fairly straightforward.

I explain why it isn't straight forward in the very post you are answering. I'm not sure what you reject in that explanation?

Free will would be that condition in which every life form on this planet capable of abstract thought evaluates circumstances and makes decisions.

What is deciding? Is it the abstract thought that decides? Why is abstract though relevant? If the agent evaluates a situation and always takes the one that is in it's best interest, is it still free? If you answer that then you'll know in what way it is free.

Predestination would be that condition in which this evaluation and decision making process is already programmed in by an agent (which could be sentient or non-sentient).

As the predestinationalist said after falling down a flight of stairs, "Whew, I'm sure glad that's over with."

The dichotomy isn't free or predestined. The dichotomy could be lots of things. Free or free in some other way. Or free or random. Often when people debate free well they usually start by defining the dichotomy. This is why I refrain from calling it a discussion. It's not. It's a bunch of people who have already made up their minds who beat everybody else over the heads with their pet theory. And everybody in this discussion is always correct. The goal posts are on wheels.

 

[Atheos]

Fine. But everybody else is wrong then. I'm right about this and my goalposts are firmly planted in solid concrete.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Fine. But everybody else is wrong then. I'm right about this and my goalposts are firmly planted in solid concrete.

A dead giveaway is that people discussing this often use overly long and complicated words. If they really had a clue what they were waffling about they could say it simply. But they can't. Because that would reveal how vague it all is.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Fine. But everybody else is wrong then. I'm right about this and my goalposts are firmly planted in solid concrete.

The problem of free will is still a hotly debated issue. Both in theology and philosophy. The ancient Greeks hotly debated this, as did the ancient Jews.

Augustine tried for decades to square free will with God's foreknowledge of future events and notoriously gave up. The battles between Augustine and Pelagius still rattle through theology. The Catholic church decided that we had free will, but many protestant denominations deny that. Then there are attempts to deal with this issue that are point of debates among compatibalists and incompatibalists. Can God foreknow the future and we still have free will? This is still hotly debated. Arminians vs Calvanists and on and on.

Plantinga's Free Will Defense has been hotly debated and still is.

It's not a simple issue to delve into quickly in a few google searches.

 

[Lion IRC]

It's worse than that. What is free? From what is it free? In what way is it free? It's just a phrase that sounds profound without actually being it.

You know that the term "free will" is a tautology. All will is free by definition.
Volition is either free or it's not called volition.
If it's compulsory then you haven't freely chosen it.

If God compels us to be good without the option to choose otherwise, then there is no "will" (volition, want, intent, desire). In that case God doesn't need foreknowledge of what we are going to choose because we aren't going to 'choose' anything.

But we self-evidently CAN choose to do the opposite of what God wants. And whether or not God elects to look into the future to see what we will choose is irrelevant. God can know the future if He wishes, or He can choose not to know in much the same way we choose not to fast-forward thru a movie to learn the ending.

Basically, God is the good. His goodness just is. And it's merely the ontological (potential) of evil that arises insofar as we might choose anything other than the good. If good didn't exist there would be no such ontological thing as the potential opposite of good.

And why would God create beings in His own likeness, with free will - the ability to choose?
The answer is why shouldn't He? What does God have to fear from any such beings?
God doesn't need to know in advance what their free will choices will be.

He can cope with any contingency.

God knows that everything will be alright in the end. And He is patient.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, a big thanks to your God from all the child rape victims who are happy to know that it will all work out in the end and everything was worth it. His patience and lack of desire to intervene in order to spare himself from learning spoilers is inspiring to them.

 

[LordKiran]

Doesn't free will imply that there was a path we are meant to go down but are free to deny? I'm pretty sure that's what people mean when they say it. What that path may or may not be is another can of worms entirely though.

It's worse than that. What is free? From what is it free? In what way is it free? It's just a phrase that sounds profound without actually being it. All philosophers have known this since the 18'th century. It died with Descartes. Which is why they haven't discussed it since then. Whenever modern philosophers say they're discussing free will they in reality have cleverly disguised another (actually interesting) issue within it. Which is why they start by defining it, (ie defining what is free, from what it is free and in what way it is free). But each set of definitions belong to an entirely different conceptual universe. So they're not really having a debate or settling the issue. The only reason they at all claim they're discussing free will is because it's a phrase that helps them get attention and sell books. It's a phrase that works really well on philosophical illiterates. Which is most people. So they keep doing it.

Nah, the term free will is truly empty. The reason why we care so much about it is that we have inherited Roman jurisprudence as a basis for our criminal justice system, and the terminology that goes with it. They (and we) start by asserting free will. This is a purely legal technical term which has little to do with philosophy. It's a pragmatic compromise that just solves so much when trying to work out who is to blame. Any alternative would be a legal nightmare allowing cases to drag on indefinitely. The insanity defense was used even in the ancient world. Yup, lawyers have been full of shit in every age.

It's pretty obvious that the Christian idea of free will is inherited from Roman jurisprudence. Because they use it in the same way. But when lifted from law to philosophy it just becomes dumb.

I would argue that in the context of christian theology, 'free will' refers either to self-determination, or to be free from god's commandments. Granted this is speculation on my part but it makes sense when you consider the position of the new testament in regards to the old.

 

[LordKiran]

It's worse than that. What is free? From what is it free? In what way is it free? It's just a phrase that sounds profound without actually being it.

You know that the term "free will" is a tautology. All will is free by definition.
Volition is either free or it's not called volition.
If it's compulsory then you haven't freely chosen it.

If God compels us to be good without the option to choose otherwise, then there is no "will" (volition, want, intent, desire). In that case God doesn't need foreknowledge of what we are going to choose because we aren't going to 'choose' anything.

But we self-evidently CAN choose to do the opposite of what God wants. And whether or not God elects to look into the future to see what we will choose is irrelevant. God can know the future if He wishes, or He can choose not to know in much the same way we choose not to fast-forward thru a movie to learn the ending.

Basically, God is the good. His goodness just is. And it's merely the ontological (potential) of evil that arises insofar as we might choose anything other than the good. If good didn't exist there would be no such ontological thing as the potential opposite of good.

And why would God create beings in His own likeness, with free will - the ability to choose?
The answer is why shouldn't He? What does God have to fear from any such beings?
God doesn't need to know in advance what their free will choices will be.

He can cope with any contingency.

God knows that everything will be alright in the end. And He is patient.

I take issue with some of your base assertions. How do you know we actually have free will? You might make decisions for yourself, but that doesn't rule out predetermination. In fact you even acknowledge this when you say that god can fore-see the future if he wishes. Well if the future wasn't set in stone there would be nothing for god to see because it hasn't happened yet and does not actually exist. The future in logical terms is just an idea. It doesn't actually exist in tangible means. For the alternative to be true would require that what happens in the future to be what actually happens, otherwise it's not actually 'the future' at all.

In other words, basic logic and reason disproves either god's omniscience, or the theological concept of free will. Pick your poison, Lion.

 

[bilby]

It's worse than that. What is free? From what is it free? In what way is it free? It's just a phrase that sounds profound without actually being it.

You know that the term "free will" is a tautology. All will is free by definition.
Volition is either free or it's not called volition.
If it's compulsory then you haven't freely chosen it.

If God compels us to be good without the option to choose otherwise, then there is no "will" (volition, want, intent, desire). In that case God doesn't need foreknowledge of what we are going to choose because we aren't going to 'choose' anything.

But we self-evidently CAN choose to do the opposite of what God wants. And whether or not God elects to look into the future to see what we will choose is irrelevant. God can know the future if He wishes, or He can choose not to know in much the same way we choose not to fast-forward thru a movie to learn the ending.

Basically, God is the good. His goodness just is. And it's merely the ontological (potential) of evil that arises insofar as we might choose anything other than the good. If good didn't exist there would be no such ontological thing as the potential opposite of good.

And why would God create beings in His own likeness, with free will - the ability to choose?
The answer is why shouldn't He? What does God have to fear from any such beings?
God doesn't need to know in advance what their free will choices will be.

He can cope with any contingency.

God knows that everything will be alright in the end. And He is patient.

It is FAR from evident that you have any way of knowing what god wants, or even whether there is a god to have wants.

It is self evident that we can choose to do the opposite of what the authors of various holy books want; but that's really not an impressive feat.

'Free will' is probably a meaningless concept, but even if it's not, it has fuck all to do with any gods. Gods are an hypothesis that adds nothing useful to any discussion.

 

[Lion IRC]

...I take issue with some of your base assertions. How do you know we actually have free will? You might make decisions for yourself, but that doesn't rule out predetermination.

I think talking about the 'illusion' of free will is code for saying you believe in determinism.
...or as I call it, the illusion that everything is causally predetermined.

We can put the words 'illusion of' in front of anything we want to dismiss or undermine. The illusion of reality. The illusion of patterns/design. The illusion of autonomous, consciousness. The illusion of free will. We can't believe our own eyes. It's just the illusion of evidence. If we are going to call stuff a metaphysical illusion then anything's possible. It's a philosophical Alice in Wonderland.

No. I think that reality is real. And I think free will - the opposite of compulsion - is really possible. In fact freedom of will, freedom of autonomous thought is more real than any other supposed freedom. Even the person in chains still has freedom of will. It's the one freedom they can't take away from you.

So the only question remaining in reply to your post is whether it's possible for God to correctly guess what your future choices will be without violating that actual freedom of thought/will which God gave you.

I think that (theologically) it's very easy for that to be the case.

1. God doesn't need to know in advance what you will choose. He might be able to 'fast forward to the end of the film' and know what you will choose. But He doesn't have to or need to and quite feasibly He might not even want to.

2. Think of a card trick where the magician has the ability to tell you which card you picked. You truly think that the choice of cards you made was free and yet the trick shows that under certain circumstances it is possible to predict the card.

3. This is God we are talking about. So it's quite possible/plausible to extend to Him the miraculous ability to do things which we can't fathom. If God can selectively predict what our free choices might be, then that can simply be accounted as a miracle rather than an exercise of His mind control over our choices. In other words, God could correctly guess what our free choices are and - by pure luck/magic - He could be correct 100% of the time. What we call foreknowledge could just as easily translate as a 100% success rate in God's correctly answering what our choice might be and He is just answering off the top of His head. If I ask God, what choice am I going to make in the next 5 minutes and God says the very first thing which pops into His mind, should we be surprised that He is always right?

 

[bilby]

I think talking about the 'illusion' of free will is code for saying you believe in determinism.
...or as I call it, the illusion that everything is causally predetermined.

We can put the words 'illusion of' in front of anything we want to dismiss or undermine. The illusion of reality. The illusion of patterns/design. The illusion of autonomous, consciousness. The illusion of free will. We can't believe our own eyes. It's just the illusion of evidence. If we are going to call stuff a metaphysical illusion then anything's possible. It's a philosophical Alice in Wonderland.

No. I think that reality is real. And I think free will - the opposite of compulsion - is really possible. In fact freedom of will, freedom of autonomous thought is more real than any other supposed freedom. Even the person in chains still has freedom of will. It's the one freedom they can't take away from you.

So the only question remaining in reply to your post is whether it's possible for God to correctly guess what your future choices will be without violating that actual freedom of thought/will which God gave you.

I think that (theologically) it's very easy for that to be the case.

1. God doesn't need to know in advance what you will choose. He might be able to 'fast forward to the end of the film' and know what you will choose. But He doesn't have to or need to and quite feasibly He might not even want to.

2. Think of a card trick where the magician has the ability to tell you which card you picked. You truly think that the choice of cards you made was free and yet the trick shows that under certain circumstances it is possible to predict the card.

3. This is God we are talking about. So it's quite possible/plausible to extend to Him the miraculous ability to do things which we can't fathom. If God can selectively predict what our free choices might be, then that can simply be accounted as a miracle rather than an exercise of His mind control over our choices. In other words, God could correctly guess what our free choices are and - by pure luck/magic - He could be correct 100% of the time. What we call foreknowledge could just as easily translate as a 100% success rate in God's correctly answering what our choice might be and He is just answering off the top of His head. If I ask God, what choice am I going to make in the next 5 minutes and God says the very first thing which pops into His mind, should we be surprised that He is always right?

View attachment 9378

When a magician does a card trick, he doesn't predict the card; he knows what it is because it's the card he forced you to take. He might mislead you into thinking you had a choice, but that's misdirection - the trick works because he doesn't give you a choice at all.

With god, all things are possible. That you can't see that this makes god a completely useless hypothesis is a sad indictment of the education you have been provided.

 

[LordKiran]

I think talking about the 'illusion' of free will is code for saying you believe in determinism.
...or as I call it, the illusion that everything is causally predetermined.

We can put the words 'illusion of' in front of anything we want to dismiss or undermine. The illusion of reality. The illusion of patterns/design. The illusion of autonomous, consciousness. The illusion of free will. We can't believe our own eyes. It's just the illusion of evidence. If we are going to call stuff a metaphysical illusion then anything's possible. It's a philosophical Alice in Wonderland.

Whether or not free will is an illusion has little to do with my point actually. My point was that:

A. you don't actually know if you have free will or not.

and B. you can't possibly ever know.

No. I think that reality is real. And I think free will - the opposite of compulsion - is really possible. In fact freedom of will, freedom of autonomous thought is more real than any other supposed freedom. Even the person in chains still has freedom of will. It's the one freedom they can't take away from you.

This is precisely what I mean. You THINK reality (Such as you conceive and perceive of it which is honestly a rabbit hole we don't need to go down) is real. You THINK you have free will. And you might, but you can't ever possibly be truly certain.

1. God doesn't need to know in advance what you will choose. He might be able to 'fast forward to the end of the film' and know what you will choose. But He doesn't have to or need to and quite feasibly He might not even want to.

The fact that the 'end of the film' even exists in the first place is indicative that you don't have free will. If the end of the film does exist, and through your supposed 'free will' you averted the film ending, then in reality it was never truly the ending of the film in the first place. Get it?

2. Think of a card trick where the magician has the ability to tell you which card you picked. You truly think that the choice of cards you made was free and yet the trick shows that under certain circumstances it is possible to predict the card.

Bilby already handled this one for me, so SKIP!

3. This is God we are talking about. So it's quite possible/plausible to extend to Him the miraculous ability to do things which we can't fathom. If God can selectively predict what our free choices might be, then that can simply be accounted as a miracle rather than an exercise of His mind control over our choices. In other words, God could correctly guess what our free choices are and - by pure luck/magic - He could be correct 100% of the time. What we call foreknowledge could just as easily translate as a 100% success rate in God's correctly answering what our choice might be and He is just answering off the top of His head. If I ask God, what choice am I going to make in the next 5 minutes and God says the very first thing which pops into His mind, should we be surprised that He is always right?

If god can do anything, can he make a boulder he can't lift? Is the divine somehow immune to logical paradoxes?

Also Omniscience isn't really about 'being right.' A blind, deaf, and dumb fool can by sheer luck, be right in every answer he ever gives or in every decision he ever makes. It doesn't make him omniscient, because omniscience is about always Knowing what the answer will be, and not just guessing and miraculously being right.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It's worse than that. What is free? From what is it free? In what way is it free? It's just a phrase that sounds profound without actually being it.

You know that the term "free will" is a tautology. All will is free by definition.
Volition is either free or it's not called volition.
If it's compulsory then you haven't freely chosen it.

If God compels us to be good without the option to choose otherwise, then there is no "will" (volition, want, intent, desire). In that case God doesn't need foreknowledge of what we are going to choose because we aren't going to 'choose' anything.

But we self-evidently CAN choose to do the opposite of what God wants. And whether or not God elects to look into the future to see what we will choose is irrelevant. God can know the future if He wishes, or He can choose not to know in much the same way we choose not to fast-forward thru a movie to learn the ending.

Basically, God is the good. His goodness just is. And it's merely the ontological (potential) of evil that arises insofar as we might choose anything other than the good. If good didn't exist there would be no such ontological thing as the potential opposite of good.

And why would God create beings in His own likeness, with free will - the ability to choose?
The answer is why shouldn't He? What does God have to fear from any such beings?
God doesn't need to know in advance what their free will choices will be.

He can cope with any contingency.

God knows that everything will be alright in the end. And He is patient.

This is just word sallad. None of the above means anything. It's just nonsense. I couldn't find a shred of actual information in it. The above doesn't inform me one bit what you actually believe or don't.

 

[Learner]

Come on chaps, not all is that bad with loving Christians.

 

[Learner]

When a magician does a card trick, he doesn't predict the card; he knows what it is because it's the card he forced you to take. He might mislead you into thinking you had a choice, but that's misdirection - the trick works because he doesn't give you a choice at all.

Yes we can understand this from a human's perspective of another human being doing the card trick.

With god, all things are possible. That you can't see that this makes god a completely useless hypothesis is a sad indictment of the education you have been provided.

With "All things are possible with God". How reasonable is it really from a perspective of a human being to believe he would be capable of making the card trick example the same example with the notion of "all things are possible"? Yet we are puzzled and baffled with a fascinating list of self contradictory paradoxes in the universe .

 

[bilby]

Yes we can understand this from a human's perspective of another human being doing the card trick.

With god, all things are possible. That you can't see that this makes god a completely useless hypothesis is a sad indictment of the education you have been provided.

With "All things are possible with God". How reasonable is it really from a perspective of a human being to believe he would be capable of making the card trick example the same example with the notion of "all things are possible"? Yet we are puzzled and baffled with a fascinating list of self contradictory paradoxes in the universe .

I do not understand your question.

And I rather suspect that you do not either.

Do you understand that that which can explain anything, explains nothing?

The value of any useful hypothesis arises from the fact that it is falsifiable - by being falsifiable, it also becomes predictive. Any hypothesis that can explain anything, can be neither falsifiable nor predictive, and an hypothesis that is not predictive has no value.

 

[Learner]

I do not understand your question.

And I rather suspect that you do not either.

Do you understand that that which can explain anything, explains nothing?

The value of any useful hypothesis arises from the fact that it is falsifiable - by being falsifiable, it also becomes predictive. Any hypothesis that can explain anything, can be neither falsifiable nor predictive, and an hypothesis that is not predictive has no value.

Applying the human logical sense of "freewill" to an "all things possible" entity with the eroneous assumption this would be impossible for such an entity to give because its self-contradictory to our own human minds. It would only be just another fascinating paradox amongst others which would have at least some "value" of interest, in the context imo.

 

[Kharakov]

All things possible, including the ability to limit itself without being limited by itself.

Your hypothetical God sounds a lot like the one that gives signs to the homeless guy who lives under the bridge near the megachurch.

It sends him signs in the patterns of bird flights, and the shape of the wet spot under a drip from a crack in the bridge. I forget exactly what he told me about the all powerful God that can make anything possible, but it was something about sapphires, birthstones, planetary alignments, and birds being his dead grandparents.

It's amazing what Jesus can do!

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

All things possible, including the ability to limit itself without being limited by itself.

Your hypothetical God sounds a lot like the one that gives signs to the homeless guy who lives under the bridge near the megachurch.

It sends him signs in the patterns of bird flights, and the shape of the wet spot under a drip from a crack in the bridge. I forget exactly what he told me about the all powerful God that can make anything possible, but it was something about sapphires, birthstones, planetary alignments, and birds being his dead grandparents.

It's amazing what Jesus can do!

Mental illness is the genesis of all religion.

 

[Kharakov]

I'm pretty sure greed plays a role as well.