Free Will vs Determinism

[Belinda]

Immanuel can wrote:

Immanuel Can, your faith in a Supreme Being Who intervenes in nature is not a lot of use for making this world a better place.

Oh, man...is that ever empirically untrue!

Yes, well religion has caused a lot of good to happen.The evil caused by organised religion far outweighs the good. Humanism is as able as organised religion to provide a framework of ethics which is indistinguishable from the best of religious ethics.

...an interventionist God.

I don't know what you mean by "interventionist." It's certainly not the adjective I would have chosen. I think you're imagining my position...but getting it wrong somehow. Maybe you can explain.

Is it your supposition that I believe things like that if it thunders, then that's God rumbling? Or do you have a more sophisticated meaning behind "interventionist"?

Yes, that would be one supposed intervention. I meant more like intervening in history so that some human event would have been otherwise if God had not intervened. I unbelieve all such supposed interventions as well as the thunder one that you suggested.

This world is in bad trouble and you ought to take god more seriously than you do.

We all ought to. But what's that to the point? You have no knowledge of how "seriously" I take anything.

If you believe that God will step in and sort out this wicked world you are relinquishing part of your responsibility as an adult and able human. Saint Teresa (of Avila if I remember ) *(see footnote) described how we are the hands of God ' implying that God needs us to get things done.

If you persist in believing in an interventionist god you will fail to act as a fully responsible adult.

Again, I don't know what you mean by "interventionist," but this statement is weak stuff by any account. I don't know any Theists who behave in the way you seem to think they do. Some may exist, I suppose; but I've never seen them, and I'm certainly not them.

An interventionist person is one who intervenes. An interventionist theory is to do with someone or something intervening. Please see my reply to your "if it thunders, then that's God rumbling?"

God is not as magically powerful as you make out.

What did I "make out"?

I call it a magical idea that God can and does intervene in man's affairs. You seem to claim the He does intervene.

Humans need to discover and support the immanent god.

If you think it's a god, and yet it needs your "support," then it certainly isn't the Supreme Being. Moreover, if God were totally immanent, then human beings wouldn't "need" any God at all. That really isn't adding up, Belinda.

[/quote]

I do have problem with this. As you say , it's certainly not the Supreme Being. In order for my idea to add up to my satisfaction I think that I have to believe in at least two gods. I do of course stress that by "gods" I don't refer to literal Beings, but to aspirations and basic axiomatic beliefs about existence. The basic axiomatic belief I refer to is that undoubtedly something is happening and what is happening is not all in the mind.
However an entirely immanent god is much needed as what we may aspire towards.

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*Teresa of Avila wrote: “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

[thedoc]

It seems that most Agnostics and Atheists fail to distinguish between "can" and "will", they claim that they don't believe because God doesn't do a particular thing, they fail to understand that perhaps God has chosen not to do that thing that they are looking for. Theists believe that God has granted "free will" to humans and yet Atheists and Agnostics seem to believe that God will preform some act on demand just for them, as if God does not have free will. Is God to be less than man? There seems to be a great deal of confusion that just because God does not preform some act to convince the skeptic, then God does not exist. Why should God fix the world that man has messed up, especially when the men who messed it up, then deny God's existence by saying that they want God out of their lives.

[Arising_uk]

...Theists believe that God has granted "free will" to humans ...

Does this mean your 'God' doesn't know what you're going to choose?

[Immanuel Can]

Yes, well religion has caused a lot of good to happen.

I wouldn't say that of ALL religions. Some cause good...some, not so much.

They're different.

Humanism is as able as organised religion to provide a framework of ethics which is indistinguishable from the best of religious ethics.

Humanism is just a secularized but irrational form of Judeo-Christianity. It's the ethics, minus the groundwork of belief that make the ethics rational.

I meant more like intervening in history so that some human event would have been otherwise if God had not intervened. I unbelieve all such supposed interventions as well as the thunder one that you suggested.

Not every "intervention" is equal, though. I know of nobody other than Determinists who believe that God intervenes at every moment, and nobody but perhaps Pantheists and polytheists who still think God makes the thunder.

But if a Supreme Being existed, what would be the reason why you would suppose He could not "intervene" at any point? After all, as a starting point isn't creating a universe an "intervention"? If you took that as possible, what would stop you imagining God could periodically choose to intervene at some other point? What principle would prevent Him doing so?

Saint Teresa (of Avila if I remember )

I don't. But the problem is not one of "remembering" but of accepting as authoritative. I'm not a Catholic.

Not unless "catholic" means, "someone addicted to cats."

[thedoc]

...Theists believe that God has granted "free will" to humans ...

Does this mean your 'God' doesn't know what you're going to choose?

Omniscience is not the same as determinism, just because God knows what we will choose, does not mean that our choice is not free.

[thedoc]

I don't. But the problem is not one of "remembering" but of accepting as authoritative. I'm not a Catholic.

In most Christian theology catholic means universal so in the creed Lutherans are talking about God who is for everyone, as opposed to the Catholic church which is based in Rome and follows the dictates of the Pope.

[Immanuel Can]

In most Christian theology catholic means universal so in the creed Lutherans are talking about God who is for everyone, as opposed to the Catholic church which is based in Rome and follows the dictates of the Pope.

Well, yeah. And on top of that, the mainline churches talk of "saints," but a lot of Christian churches don't -- or else they use the word only the way the Bible uses it, not the way Catholicism does. Catholicism and its ilk regard them as mediators to whom they can pray. Nobody else thinks that.

Veneration of saints is not a universal activity. And "saint" Teresa is not a universal authority...not even close.

[Arising_uk]

Omniscience is not the same as determinism, just because God knows what we will choose, does not mean that our choice is not free.

How? If you are saying 'it' knows what you are going to do then you cannot be but determined to do it and hence you have no freedom at all.

[thedoc]

Omniscience is not the same as determinism, just because God knows what we will choose, does not mean that our choice is not free.

How? If you are saying 'it' knows what you are going to do then you cannot be but determined to do it and hence you have no freedom at all.

It's like arguing with a rock. You limit God to human expectations when there is no reason to expect God to live down to human capabilities.

[Arising_uk]

It's got nothing to do with human expectations, that's just a cop-out. If your 'God' is all knowing then 'it' knows everything and as such it knows what you are going to do and if this is the case then you will not be able to do anything else, so you are determined. If 'it' doesn't know everything then it is not omniscient, no problem there but I thought this was a feature you claimed for your 'God'? You could say that 'it' knows everything but has decided to forget it but that won't change the fact that it still knew and as such you're still determined to do it.

[ForCruxSake]

It's like arguing with a rock. You limit God to human expectations when there is no reason to expect God to live down to human capabilities.

The day that God makes Himself clear as to what His precise position (and angle with regard to us) is, many of these arguments will be cleared up. Until then, all that anyone has is human interpretation and narrative sharing about who, and what, He is, and all of it up for debate.

He will always be 'limited' by interpretations of Him, even by those who seek to exalt Him.

None of this goes away until He appears to everyone, particularly to the atheists, and I have a strong hunch that that is never going to happen. So you're just going to have to find a better way to deal with the rocks.

[Belinda]

For goodness sake Immanuel! Just because Teresa of Avila was a Catholic doesn't mean that she speaks rubbish.You should try to loosen up.

Immanuel Can wrote:

(Belinda wrote)

Humanism is as able as organised religion to provide a framework of ethics which is indistinguishable from the best of religious ethics.
Immanuel replied)
Humanism is just a secularized but irrational form of Judeo-Christianity. It's the ethics, minus the groundwork of belief that make the ethics rational.

Humanism is more rational than God-beliefs, because Humanism is historically Protestantism which has turned into a more adult belief structure.
The "groundwork of belief" you mean is superstition.

[Immanuel Can]

The "groundwork of belief" you mean is superstition.

It is that assumption that has deprived Modern ethics of groundwork. And that means that "Humanist ethics" are floating, without any reasonable explanation for why they ought to be believed or practiced.

I'm not the only one who thinks so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwi9Q9apHGI

[Arising_uk]

And a reasonable explanation is that there's a being in the sky who will be judging you after death is it?

Can any theist explain why people appear to have acted morally and had ethics before their 'God' and 'it's' judgement existed?

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

(Belinda wrote)

The "groundwork of belief" you mean is superstition.

(IC wrote)
It is that assumption that has deprived Modern ethics of groundwork. And that means that "Humanist ethics" are floating, without any reasonable explanation for why they ought to be believed or practiced.

[/quote]

Yes. Some atheists don't much like being anchorless: Some other atheists do like being anchorless. Whatever: at least atheists have reason for map and ordinary human kindness for compass. The rowing is hard work but what the hell!