"Free will was given to man by god."

[Immanuel Can]

IC, the word "always" is not the issue. Think more broadly, and you will see.

It's the only word you could take issue with, in that statement.

Would you venture instead that Leftists "rarely" think of conservatives as uncompassionate? Would you say "never"? Pick what you like, and either way, I think you're going to be pretty obviously wrong. If it's not "always," it's certainly "much of the time."

And "uncompassionate" is the LEAST slander they regularly float against conservatives. You will be familiar with such terms as "oppressor," "racist," "sexist," "homophobe," "Islamophobe," "capitalist," "misogynist," "propagandist" and even "Nazi" -- all of which are thoroughly unjustified, in most cases, but are regularly trotted out from the Left in order to suppress criticism.

You've heard them all.

Unless you've been living under a rock, that is...

[Lacewing]

IC, the word "always" is not the issue. Think more broadly, and you will see.

It's the only word you could take issue with, in that statement.

Simply the statement "Leftists think that Conservatives are "uncompassionate," says enough, as your claim. And I responded to that.

And "uncompassionate" is the LEAST slander they regularly float against conservatives. You will be familiar with such terms as "oppressor," "racist," "sexist," "homophobe," "Islamophobe," "capitalist," "misogynist," "propagandist" and even "Nazi" -- all of which are thoroughly unjustified, in most cases, but are regularly trotted out from the Left in order to suppress criticism.

Are you suggesting that there is some kind of exclusive situation where "the Left" is launching unjustified claims at "conservatives"? While you appear to do it yourself, the other way around?

Would your claims/arguments become pointless if you were to acknowledge a more balanced overview?

[Immanuel Can]

Are you suggesting that there is some kind of exclusive situation where "the Left" is launching unjustified claims at "conservatives"?

No. I'm only saying that "uncompassionate" is one of the most common slanders they float.

And it is.

But you know that. You don't like it being pointed out, maybe, but you know it's true. Just search the words "uncompassionate" and "conservative," and you'll find lots of examples. QED.

[Lacewing]

Are you suggesting that there is some kind of exclusive situation where "the Left" is launching unjustified claims at "conservatives"?

No. I'm only saying that "uncompassionate" is one of the most common slanders they float.

So you're a slanderer against slanderers?

[Immanuel Can]

Are you suggesting that there is some kind of exclusive situation where "the Left" is launching unjustified claims at "conservatives"?

No. I'm only saying that "uncompassionate" is one of the most common slanders they float.

So you're a slanderer against slanderers?

You should look up the word "slander." One of its requisites is that the accusation cannot be true.

[Lacewing]

No. I'm only saying that "uncompassionate" is one of the most common slanders they float.

So you're a slanderer against slanderers?

You should look up the word "slander." One of its requisites is that the accusation cannot be true.

So you know you're talking nonsense?

[Immanuel Can]

So you know you're talking nonsense?

The accusation is true. Like I said, do the Google search, and you'll know for sure.

[Lacewing]

Are you suggesting that there is some kind of exclusive situation where "the Left" is launching unjustified claims at "conservatives"?

No. I'm only saying that "uncompassionate" is one of the most common slanders they float.

And it is.

But you know that. You don't like it being pointed out, maybe, but you know it's true.

No, that has not been my experience at all, so stop putting projections on me. None of my friends say such things either. So, whatever avenues of information you are using, are not the whole picture. I have friends who are Republicans. I live in an area FULL of Republicans. I like and care about them as people, and they like and care about me. Can you imagine such a thing?

Your blanket claims about how Leftists feel about Republicans is not true from a larger perspective -- which is a perspective that apparently does not serve the stories you want to tell and spread. You are perpetuating destructiveness and divisiveness -- and doing what you complain that others are doing. Do you really not see it?

Are you able to see people and listen to them without applying labels to them -- labels which could cause you to shut your mind and put them in a box? If not, are you not limiting your awareness only to that which you control and hold dear, which is surely very small compared to what is actually possible?

[Immanuel Can]

No, that has not been my experience at all, so stop putting projections on me. None of my friends say such things either.

Your personal experience is irrelevant to the question. You said that the left doesn't call the conservatives "uncompassionate." They do, and they do it loudly and often. If you checked, you know. If you didn't, then I guess you may remain oblivious. Either way, it matters nothing to the truth.

But you know that. You're just doing "drama" again. It's boring. I'm not bothering to play.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can addressing Henry Quirk wrote:

And she's arguing with you, which means she's trying to change your mind...but you can't change it, poor soul, because it's 'locked in' by Determinism. You could no more believe her and change your mind than you could change the colour of your eyeballs...but she's still telling you to change your mind.

"Locked in " relates to the extent to which Henry may be able to change his mind according to reason and increased knowledge. The whole mighty complex of causes and effects does constrain Henry as it does all entities, however Henry as a human being is characterised by ability to learn new ideas and practices within the constraints of possibility.

Henry, and even Biblical literalists like yourself, might possibly become less certain and more open to new knowledge and new ideas in a manner that is not possible for bits of rock, viruses, and the more instinctive animals..

[Immanuel Can]

"Locked in " relates to the extent to which Henry may be able to change his mind according to reason and increased knowledge.

You've misunderstood what "Determinism" means, B. It does not allow for "minds" to be causal agents, and it doesn't allow for any "change" not obligated by prior causes.

Minds cannot change, according to Determinism. What seems to us like "minds" and "change" are just the mindless playing out of previous forces. Minds are brains, and change is just the inevitable movement of forces in the direction they were predetermined to go anyway. Anything more is a delusion, according to Determinism.

Henry, and even Biblical literalists like yourself, might possibly become less certain and more open to new knowledge and new ideas in a manner that is not possible for bits of rock, viruses, and the more instinctive animals.

Determinism says this is not possible. There is no "might," because things always "become" only what they were going to "become" anyway.

If Henry were going to change his mind, he would be obligated by physical forces to do so, and so will do so. If he were not predetermined to do so by physical forces, he CANNOT. No "being open" is going to change that: "being open" is a delusion. The only thing a person is "open" to is being moved in the causally-dictated direction.

And there is no difference, in this regard, between Henry or me, and rocks, viruses and animals. What is "possible" for them is all that is "possible" for us. All are equally predetermined. Any other belief is just a weird delusion you were "caused" to have, because you also are simply in complete thrall to causal forces.

(P.S. -- The fact that you don't believe all this tells me you actually do believe in at least some measure of free will. You just don't presently know you do, apparently. I'm just explaining to you what Determinism requires of you, if you really want to believe it.)

[henry quirk]

Immanuel Can addressing Henry Quirk wrote:

And she's arguing with you, which means she's trying to change your mind...but you can't change it, poor soul, because it's 'locked in' by Determinism. You could no more believe her and change your mind than you could change the colour of your eyeballs...but she's still telling you to change your mind.

"Locked in " relates to the extent to which Henry may be able to change his mind according to reason and increased knowledge. The whole mighty complex of causes and effects does constrain Henry as it does all entities, however Henry as a human being is characterised by ability to learn new ideas and practices within the constraints of possibility.

Henry, and even Biblical literalists like yourself, might possibly become less certain and more open to new knowledge and new ideas in a manner that is not possible for bits of rock, viruses, and the more instinctive animals..

For me, the issue is black or white: I am a free will or I'm a robot. I accept no gray.

I am a shameless incompatibilist. I am a free will.

[Belinda]

I wish I knew how to draw diagrams here. I would draw a diagram that showed how the multiplicity of interlinked causes result , not in one single effect, but in a multiplicity of effects.

The difference between the human and the rock with regard to the multiple effects of multiple causes is the rock has no knowledge of its choices therefore it has no choices. However the human has the knowledge of available choices***. Even the poor prisoner locked up, shackled and condemned to death can choose to breathe or not breathe. When the human individual is moribund and helpless then he lacks choices.

*** "available choices" I wrote. There would be no choices if we knew the future. But we don't know the future. Such freedom as we have is not because of so-called 'Free Will' but because we men are free to choose from what we take to be available options and choose we do at our own peril. It is only after the event that we know such and such options were not viable.

Please recognise the important difference between causal determinism and fatalism. Fatalism is a species of causal determinism but fatalism is not a good idea as fatalists presume that in theory the future is predictable. But the future is not predictable due to the impenetrable chaos of past and present events.

As you will know. Immanuel , your God is said to be omniscient and the uniquely omniscient being. This quality of God makes him supernatural and, in a way of speaking, better more perfect than any man could ever be. Whether or not I believe such an omniscient being exists, the fact I can imagine such a being helps me to see how inadequate we are to know all time past and future.

[Immanuel Can]

The difference between the human and the rock with regard to the multiple effects of multiple causes is the rock has no knowledge of its choices therefore it has no choices. However the human has the knowledge of available choices***.

Then you are no Determinist, no matter what you might think. In Determinism, there is neither the possibility of genuine choice -- nor even of "knowledge" per se, since cognition, like everything else, is simply "caused." So thinking is not indexed to TRUTH, but to CAUSALITY. There is absolutely no guarantee that what is "caused" to happen inside a person's head bears any link to objective truth. There is only cause-and-effect. So you don't "know" things that are not fated to be known, and "knowing" them is not related to reality or truth but is yet another blind product of cause-and-effect.

Please recognise the important difference between causal determinism and fatalism. Fatalism is a species of causal determinism but fatalism is not a good idea as fatalists presume that in theory the future is predictable.

This is incorrect. "Fatalism" is a species of resignation. It does not require that the person in question predicts or knows the future: only that nothing but the fated future can possibly occur (whatever it is), so there is no point in trying to influence it.

Determinism is fatalistic, if it's understood and applied. Fortunately for many Determinists, they (like you, unfortunately) "taxicab" their beliefs -- they take them only as far as they feel comfortable going, then try to "jump out and pay the fare at that point," instead of going to their inevitable, logical destination. At destination, Determinism is Fate.

We may celebrate your humanity, expressed in your visceral refusal to FULLY believe Determinism, and thus to escape the Iron Cage of Fate. But we can lament your logical inconsistency in trying to believe in two rationally incompatible things at once.

[Nick_A]

"Free will was given to man by god." This I often hear from theists. I searched the bible and found no support for this from the word of the supposed god.

So this is inference? Or did I miss something.

Will Guffo or somebody else please tell me where the idea of "free will" emerged in christian thinking, and what Christians use as explanation to it in the bible?

"God...does not constrain the will. Rather, he sets it free, so that it may choose him, that is to say, freedom. The spirit of man may not will otherwise than what God wills, but that is no lack of freedom. It is true freedom itself." Meister Eckhart

Nature is a living machine; it is a collective creature of REACTION responding to universal laws which sustain the cycles of creation. Man is capable of conscious ACTION and the conscious evolution which follows the inner path of being which leads to our source

1 Corinthians 10

13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

It seems we have a choice but only a rare few are capable of actualizing it.