God Endowed Humans with Free Will?

[henry quirk]

Freedom implies one is bound, there is no escape from either concept in knowledge, aka in knowing.

no...freedom is self-direction and self-responsibility...that is, bein' free isn't about bein' free of sumthin', but bein' a free will


No man in this incarnation is free Henry, no matter how much you want to believe he is.

no..I'm free, you're free...even the poor unfortunate who is leashed is free...if he weren't why would he take such offense at bein' leashed?

no, the slave knows the leash, on his neck, is wrong...he never accepts it...he tolerates it till he be free of it...he's always on the lookout for the chance cast it off

[RCSaunders]

Whenever human beings intentionally harm other human beings, it is unjust,

I would say so. But you don't seem to have any basis to conclude that, RC, so far as I can see. You don't believe there's an ultimate standard of justice, do you?

I do have a basis for what I call justice, but in this case, you are right.

I was thinking too narrowly, which I'll explain.

I wrote earlier, "Reality does not care why you did a wrong thing: ignorance, defiance, laziness, or yielding to some irrational impusle, the consequences (justice) are the same." Whatever the consequences of one's choices and actions are, as determined by the nature of reality, is justice; whether those consequences are the benefit of our right choices and actions or a loss due to our wrong choices and actions.

I regard anything that interfere's with the natural consequences of one's choices and actions injustice, and the only thing I regard as interference is the behavior of another human being. In most cases, that interference is negative, standing in the way of another individual's good and benefit from his right choices, i.e. causing harm to another individual that would otherwise not occur, therefore, and injustice. Of course, in this day and age, the opposite kind of injustice is perhaps the most common, people being rewarded for their failures (wrong choices and actions) and others being forced to clean up after others failures (saving drug addicts).

Giving someone the unearned is just as unjust as taking away the earned from those who have produced it.

For you, it could be just like the earthquakes: neither just nor unjust. Whether a man is killed by a bullet or a piece of debris from a tornado seems merely contingent. What makes the former unjust and the latter neutral or even just?

Reality is neither just or unjust. Justice only pertains to human actions. A tornado has no moral value, positive or negative. The behavior of a man with a gun does.

[Immanuel Can]

I'll start at the end, if I may.

Reality is neither just or unjust. Justice only pertains to human actions. A tornado has no moral value, positive or negative. The behavior of a man with a gun does.

Okay. I see your distinction, RC. You believe in what are called "human evils," or "human injustices," but not in what some people call "natural evils" or "natural injustices." In your explanation, it seems you feel what is "natural" is always justified...or more correctly, that whatever is a product of nature is not a fit subject to characterize as a moral issue. This seems confirmed by your statement,

I regard anything that interfere's with the natural consequences of one's choices and actions injustice, and the only thing I regard as interference is the behavior of another human being

You also write:

Giving someone the unearned is just as unjust as taking away the earned from those who have produced it.

I can see there are situations in which that's right. If one rewards laziness, foolishness, lack of imagination or a refusal to work, one is actually crippling the person you're rewarding. You're cultivating bad character and dependency in them, and you're teaching them that their own efforts and actions count for nothing. Fair enough.

What I'm less certain about is this:

Whatever the consequences of one's choices and actions are, as determined by the nature of reality, is justice; whether those consequences are the benefit of our right choices and actions or a loss due to our wrong choices and actions....In most cases, that interference is negative, standing in the way of another individual's good and benefit from his right choices, i.e. causing harm to another individual that would otherwise not occur, therefore, and injustice. Of course, in this day and age, the opposite kind of injustice is perhaps the most common, people being rewarded for their failures (wrong choices and actions) and others being forced to clean up after others failures (saving drug addicts).

It seems to me that if "nature" (or "natural consequences," let us say) were perfectly just in themselves, this would be right. The appropriate consequences would follow from good action, and the appropriate consequences would follow from bad action.

But is this the way the world actually works? Is virtue inevitably rewarded and vice greeted with the due consequences of vice? I think it's a hard sell to convince anybody who's lived here long that that's how it is. Sometimes the consequences we get are not what we deserve, but either byproducts of something we never intended, or even directly opposite to what we would expect for our actions. To put it simply, the wicked thrive and the righteous get pushed into the gutter...at least, that happens as often as the consequences fit the choices made.

But maybe I've misunderstood that point. I'll await your thoughts on that.

[attofishpi]

Since your supposed-God is omnipotent, surely God could have created humans with limited freewill without any potential to commit evil,

LMFAO - robots we are (yoda).

You are desperate thus resorting to rhetoric and equivocation.

A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer— capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot

A supposedly powerful God with omnipotence will naturally create humans with limited freewill that will not commit evil acts. What is so robotics about this?

..that just sums up your lack of intelligence.

such that God will spontaneously avoid ending up as against nor contradicting his intrinsic nature of omnibenevolence and omni-Good.

Let me just put things into perspective for you.

God - as Christ - went to his death to prove the control that God has over ALL matter at the sub-atomic binary scale.

He also warned us of consequences of events should we not live up to the WORTH of THAT sacrifice. (where is OMNI-GOOD there btw - idiot)

Regardless, it is not logical and it is contradictory for a supposed God with omnipotence, omniGood and omnibenevolence to have created humans that will commit evil acts.

It is so irrational and contradictory for a supposed-God with omni-benevolent nature to plan with sufficient reason to create humans with absolute free will such that they have a choice where that God can test their loyalty, goodness [no evil] and devotion to God.

Idiot. (read above - you are full of contradictions)

Where are my contradictions in the above statement?

The alternative and more realistic views which are psychologically based, are that God is an illusory idea conjured as a consonance to relieve the existential dissonance.

That is because, as an idiot, you think you are superior in log.ic to those that believe in what Christ did, and his me.sage

What I am relying upon is based on what is verifiable and justifiable as real.
If what you claim cannot be verifiable and justifiable as real, then it is false, i.e. your supposed God is false.

You quite simply R != to being worthy of my TIME.

For an eg :- You continue to insist that GOD must be OMNI-GOOD and yet GOD apparently insisted we will BURN in a fire for all eternity.

U R just a pile of ridiculous contradictory bollocks picking shit from a buy-bull where you still contradict your own statements.

I'll give U one more shot. WHERE R U GETTING ALL THIS "OMNI" STUFF FROM - STATE YOUR SOUCE(S).

[Veritas Aequitas]

...equivocating humans with 'robots'.

You're not familiar with the metaphorical use of the word "robot" to designate an entity that is mobile/function-performing but devoid of volition? Well, now you know it.

Understanding the metaphor now, would you think it was better for God to make entities that, like humans, possess volition, or like robots, that merely move and function but do not possess any volition?

I disagree with the metaphor of 'robot' to be used for humans especially in this case, which is merely rhetorical and deceptive.

I insist, logically a supposed omnipotent God with omnibenevolence will spontaneously and naturally produce humans with volition but with the exception the humans do not commit evil at all, such that your supposed God do not go against its benevolent nature.

The point is your supposed God when claimed to be benevolent, that is a limiting factor which must be complied with.
Otherwise your supposed God should not claimed to be omnibenevolent.
But because your supposed God must be an ontological God, it must be omnibenevolent.

Point is your supposed God is such a logical mess is because your supposed God was never real in the first place.

The reason and fact why the idea of God [illusory] emerged to the theists consciousness is for the purpose as a consonance [a very effective one] to deal with the inherent existential dissonance.

As such, if you are a rational person, it is critical you understand the above fact within your psychological being,
then you don't have to waste time and being in a state of anxiety [subliminally] to twist and turn with all sort of excuses to justify a logical impossibility that your supposed God is real.

You can still be a theist in believing in your supposed God to deal with the existential dissonance, but you have to be intellectually honest, your supposed God is an illusion [fantasy], not a real entity.

Btw, illusions and fantasy are useful to humans for various psychological reasons, e.g. a sexual fantasy is useful to enhance sex, fantasies are useful as a creative tool, etc. So the idea of God recognized as useful illusion is no shame.

However there are many alternatives [spiritual, religious, self-development programs] to soothing the inherent existence dissonance without having to resort to illusions nor fantasies, but rather addressing the existential dissonance direct and rationally.

[Veritas Aequitas]

LMFAO - robots we are (yoda).

You are desperate thus resorting to rhetoric and equivocation.

A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer— capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot

A supposedly powerful God with omnipotence will naturally create humans with limited freewill that will not commit evil acts. What is so robotics about this?

..that just sums up your lack of intelligence.

Let me just put things into perspective for you.

God - as Christ - went to his death to prove the control that God has over ALL matter at the sub-atomic binary scale.

He also warned us of consequences of events should we not live up to the WORTH of THAT sacrifice. (where is OMNI-GOOD there btw - idiot)

Regardless, it is not logical and it is contradictory for a supposed God with omnipotence, omniGood and omnibenevolence to have created humans that will commit evil acts.

Idiot. (read above - you are full of contradictions)

Where are my contradictions in the above statement?

That is because, as an idiot, you think you are superior in log.ic to those that believe in what Christ did, and his me.sage

What I am relying upon is based on what is verifiable and justifiable as real.
If what you claim cannot be verifiable and justifiable as real, then it is false, i.e. your supposed God is false.

You quite simply R != to being worthy of my TIME.

For an eg :- You continue to insist that GOD must be OMNI-GOOD and yet GOD apparently insisted we will BURN in a fire for all eternity.

U R just a pile of ridiculous contradictory bollocks picking shit from a buy-bull where you still contradict your own statements.

I'll give U one more shot. WHERE R U GETTING ALL THIS "OMNI" STUFF FROM - STATE YOUR SOUCE(S).

I never ask you to give me time. It is up to your and my discretion to 'trade' posts.

I have already argued extensively how your supposed God must be omni-whatever all over.

1. Generally the point is your supposed God must be an ontological God, i.e. a Being than which no greater can be believed/conceived.

2. If your God is not an ontological God then it will leave room for your God to be an inferior God to another superior God claimed by others, e.g. the Islamic God.

3. If your supposed-God is inferior to another God, then the most superior God will be more powerful and thus can kick the arse of your supposed God.

4. No theist would be want their God's arse to be kicked by another God which is more superior.

5. That is why all theists in the know [not blind and ignorant] will have to claim their supposed God is an ontological god so that there will be no God which is greater than their GOD, i.e. a Being than which no greater can be believed/conceived.

6. An ontological God a Being than which no greater can be believed/conceived, will have qualities no other God can overcome or be greater. These qualities will thus have to be OMNI-, i.e. the maximum none can overtake.

7. Therefore your supposed God has the quality of benevolence, it has to have be omnibenevolent.
Whatever positive quality your supposed God possessed it must be prefixed with 'OMNI'.

8. Since your supposed God is omnipotent and has to be omnibenevolent, it will have the power to maintain its omnibenevolent qualities and not corrupt it with creating humans who are capable to committing evil.

9. But since in reality, humans supposed created by God are committing evil and violence, therefore your supposed omnipotent God with omni-benevolence cannot exists as real in the first place.

[attofishpi]

You are desperate thus resorting to rhetoric and equivocation.


A supposedly powerful God with omnipotence will naturally create humans with limited freewill that will not commit evil acts. What is so robotics about this?

..that just sums up your lack of intelligence.

Regardless, it is not logical and it is contradictory for a supposed God with omnipotence, omniGood and omnibenevolence to have created humans that will commit evil acts.



Where are my contradictions in the above statement?


What I am relying upon is based on what is verifiable and justifiable as real.
If what you claim cannot be verifiable and justifiable as real, then it is false, i.e. your supposed God is false.

You quite simply R != to being worthy of my TIME.

For an eg :- You continue to insist that GOD must be OMNI-GOOD and yet GOD apparently insisted we will BURN in a fire for all eternity.

U R just a pile of ridiculous contradictory bollocks picking shit from a buy-bull where you still contradict your own statements.

I'll give U one more shot. WHERE R U GETTING ALL THIS "OMNI" STUFF FROM - STATE YOUR SOUCE(S).

I never ask you to give me time. It is up to your and my discretion to 'trade' posts.

I have already argued extensively how your supposed God must be omni-whatever all over.

1. Generally the point is your supposed God must be an ontological God, i.e. a Being than which no greater can be believed/conceived.

2. If your God is not an ontological God then it will leave room for your God to be an inferior God to another superior God claimed by others, e.g. the Islamic God.

3. If your supposed-God is inferior to another God, then the most superior God will be more powerful and thus can kick the arse of your supposed God.

4. No theist would be want their God's arse to be kicked by another God which is more superior.

5. That is why all theists in the know [not blind and ignorant] will have to claim their supposed God is an ontological god so that there will be no God which is greater than their GOD, i.e. a Being than which no greater can be believed/conceived.

6. An ontological God a Being than which no greater can be believed/conceived, will have qualities no other God can overcome or be greater. These qualities will thus have to be OMNI-, i.e. the maximum none can overtake.

7. Therefore your supposed God has the quality of benevolence, it has to have be omnibenevolent.
Whatever positive quality your supposed God possessed it must be prefixed with 'OMNI'.

8. Since your supposed God is omnipotent and has to be omnibenevolent, it will have the power to maintain its omnibenevolent qualities and not corrupt it with creating humans who are capable to committing evil.

9. But since in reality, humans supposed created by God are committing evil and violence, therefore your supposed omnipotent God with omni-benevolence cannot exists as real in the first place.

U Really R just an attention seeking muppet to actually open a new thread without the SOURCE i asked 4.

..well then.

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=31788

[Immanuel Can]

I disagree with the metaphor of 'robot'

So you don't know how a metaphor works...that's no skin off my nose.

I'm bored with your lack of understanding.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I disagree with the metaphor of 'robot'

So you don't know how a metaphor works...that's no skin off my nose.
I'm bored with your lack of understanding.

I stated I do not agree with your rhetorical use of the 'robot' metaphor for this specific argument.

There is no way you can eel your way with this Problem of Evil which is a contradiction to the existence of your supposed omnipotent God with omnibenevolent qualities.

[attofishpi]

I disagree with the metaphor of 'robot'

So you don't know how a metaphor works...that's no skin off my nose.
I'm bored with your lack of understanding.

I stated I do not agree with your rhetorical use of the 'robot' metaphor for this specific argument.

There is no way you can eel your way with this Problem of Evil which is a contradiction to the existence of your supposed omnipotent God with omnibenevolent qualities.

FFs:- THIS IS YOUR LATEST PROJECTION ON IT:- viewtopic.php?f=11&t=31788

Free will - or PROGRAMMITACLY CONTROLLED - ERGO ROBOT.

DEAL WITH IT THERE U STUPID KUNT (sorry RL)

or

STOP THREAD SPAMMING.

[Immanuel Can]

I disagree with the metaphor of 'robot'

So you don't know how a metaphor works...that's no skin off my nose.
I'm bored with your lack of understanding.

I stated I do not agree with your rhetorical use of the 'robot' metaphor for this specific argument.

That is an utterly insignificant objection, since the word in a metaphor can always be exchanged for its literal meaning. So you can simply drop the metaphor, substitute the words "non-volition-having-being" and answer the question.

Or you can run away from the question again. Those are your options.

[bahman]

I believe the 'Problem of Evil' is a silver bullet that will kill off the argument 'God exists as real'.

However as a defense mechanism to maintain consonance from dissonance, theists will come up with all sorts of twists and turns to deflect and eel their way through, example below;

Because your supposed God is omnipotent to the extent he is capable of creating the fine-tuning of the universe to perfect precision,
then GOD should be able to enable fine-tuning to the humans he created
such that there is no possibility of abortion, murder, torturing babies for pleasure or other evil acts.

All this is true, but begs the question completely.
"The question is not COULD God do these things," but rather
"What are the logical consequences if He were to do so?"
In the same way, we could ask "Could God have not created any humans in the first place, and the answer is obviously, "Yes."

But that's a totally uninteresting question here: the important one, is
"Since human beings exist as free will beings, what are the implications of that?"

If a supposed omni-compassionate with omnipotence can create such a perfect fine-tuned universe, then such a GOD would have no problem creating humans WITHOUT the possibility of committing evil acts without any negative consequences at all.

Instead of addressing the logical possibility of the above, IC twisted, turned and deflected to asking and implying the following,

• Since human beings exist as free will beings, ..
  (it is assumed GOD exists and created humans with absolute free will)
  Humans has the free will to commit evil,
  As such, God has nothing to do with humans' free choices to do evil,
  Thus, the Problem of Evil [contradiction] do not apply,
  Therefore, God exists.

The above deflection is based on speculation.
What is needed is we should ground our argument on facts, i.e.

What is more critical question is this;

• 1. Humans exists [empirical fact].
  
  2. Humans are endowed with an existential crisis, a cognitive dissonance [psychological fact]
  
  3. Humans [theists] conjured [ASSUME] an all-powerful GOD [illusory] as a consonance to resolve the dissonance. [speculation]
  
  4. To maintain the consonance, theists speculate humans are given absolute free will. [speculation]
  
  5. Thus there is no problem of evil, i.e. God exists as real.

As such your conclusion begs the question, i.e. you merely assume [3] God exists in giving absolute freewill to humans [4].

If we resolve the fact of the existential crisis and cognitive dissonance [2] like Buddhism and other non-theistic spirituality and philosophies, there would be no need for a belief in a God [an illusion] and wrestling with the Problem of Evil.

The Problem of Evil applies to Good God.

[RCSaunders]

I'll start at the end, if I may.

Reality is neither just or unjust. Justice only pertains to human actions. A tornado has no moral value, positive or negative. The behavior of a man with a gun does.

Okay. I see your distinction, RC. You believe in what are called "human evils," or "human injustices," but not in what some people call "natural evils" or "natural injustices." In your explanation, it seems you feel what is "natural" is always justified...or more correctly, that whatever is a product of nature is not a fit subject to characterize as a moral issue. This seems confirmed by your statement,

I regard anything that interfere's with the natural consequences of one's choices and actions injustice, and the only thing I regard as interference is the behavior of another human being

You also write:

Giving someone the unearned is just as unjust as taking away the earned from those who have produced it.

I can see there are situations in which that's right. If one rewards laziness, foolishness, lack of imagination or a refusal to work, one is actually crippling the person you're rewarding. You're cultivating bad character and dependency in them, and you're teaching them that their own efforts and actions count for nothing. Fair enough.

What I'm less certain about is this:

Whatever the consequences of one's choices and actions are, as determined by the nature of reality, is justice; whether those consequences are the benefit of our right choices and actions or a loss due to our wrong choices and actions....In most cases, that interference is negative, standing in the way of another individual's good and benefit from his right choices, i.e. causing harm to another individual that would otherwise not occur, therefore, and injustice. Of course, in this day and age, the opposite kind of injustice is perhaps the most common, people being rewarded for their failures (wrong choices and actions) and others being forced to clean up after others failures (saving drug addicts).

It seems to me that if "nature" (or "natural consequences," let us say) were perfectly just in themselves, this would be right. The appropriate consequences would follow from good action, and the appropriate consequences would follow from bad action.

Our difference here, IC, is that you use the word, "just," as though it had some intrinsic meaning separate from consequences, or at least, natural consequences, and I regard natural consequences as what defines justice.

But is this the way the world actually works? Is virtue inevitably rewarded and vice greeted with the due consequences of vice? I think it's a hard sell to convince anybody who's lived here long that that's how it is. Sometimes the consequences we get are not what we deserve, but either byproducts of something we never intended, or even directly opposite to what we would expect for our actions. To put it simply, the wicked thrive and the righteous get pushed into the gutter...at least, that happens as often as the consequences fit the choices made.

Yes, that's the way the world actually works, but almost nobody likes it. It's much easier to blame all the, "bad," things that one experiences on an, "unjust, unfair," world, then to take responsibility for all one's choices and actions.

Life is hard and requires one to use all their abilities all the time to be and achieve all they can, to learn all they can, to develop every ability and skill they can, to work and produce all they can of value that their life requires, physically and psychologically. But there are no guarantees, except the guarantee that doing less than one's best means certain failure.

This is what I meant when I wrote: "Reality does not care why you did a wrong thing, ignorance, defiance, laziness, or yielding to some irrational impusle, the consequences (justice) are the same." By, "wrong," thing, I mean any choice or action made in contradiction of the nature of reality itself, of the laws of physics and the biological and psychological requirements of one's own nature. To defy any law of physics (like gravity or fire), to fail to nourish one's self properly (or to poison one's self), to not use and develop one's body, to not learn all one possibly can, to not think as well as one can about every choice, and to not work to produce all one can are all, "wrong," things; and to do anything that prevents one from being able to do those things is a, "wrong," thing.

Perhaps the most common, "wrong," thing most people do is to make their choices based on the belief that they have a right to a good life and when they discover life is difficult and problematic and that everything requires effort and often discomfort, they feel life is, "unjust," and their failure and suffering is not their fault--but it is always their fault.

Does anyone ever suffer anything that is it not their fault? Of course. We all do. They are not injustices, they are simply facts we must learn to deal with, if possible, and overcome, not excuses for more failure, which is how most people deal with them.

Life is tough. It is the means and potential to all good things and achievement, but it all has to be won by one's constant effort. Those of us who know what life is, what its potential is, regard no difficulty or hardship to high a price for the joy of a life of success, achievement and happiness, and that anything less is not a life worth living.

No one has to live that way, but they deserve what they get, and, however bad or cruel it seems, it is justice. Most of mankind refuses to live as their nature's require and go through life, blaming a cruel and unjust world for all their problems which are ultimately of their own making.

[Immanuel Can]

I regard natural consequences as what defines justice.

No, I fully understand that you do. I've got your point. However, I think the concepts are, for most people, quite distinct.

Yes, that's the way the world actually works, but almost nobody likes it. It's much easier to blame all the, "bad," things that one experiences on an, "unjust, unfair," world, then to take responsibility for all one's choices and actions.

That can be true. But is it always true?

I think that the reservation that people will have is that sometimes you are not the cause of your own misery. Lord knows, on many occasions other people may be the cause of one's misery. At other times, the cause seems impossible to find, as when a triathlete who has only eaten organic food and has kept himself in tip-top shape is suddenly smitten with cancer, while a pipe-smoking, hard-drinking octogenarian lives on unperturbed.

In other words, I'm 100% for people accepting responsibility for consequences they cause; I'm not so sure you'll find it an easy sell to say that all consequences are so tidily related to personal choices.

[Veritas Aequitas]

So you don't know how a metaphor works...that's no skin off my nose.
I'm bored with your lack of understanding.

I stated I do not agree with your rhetorical use of the 'robot' metaphor for this specific argument.

There is no way you can eel your way with this Problem of Evil which is a contradiction to the existence of your supposed omnipotent God with omnibenevolent qualities.

FFs:- THIS IS YOUR LATEST PROJECTION ON IT:- viewtopic.php?f=11&t=31788

Free will - or PROGRAMMITACLY CONTROLLED - ERGO ROBOT.

DEAL WITH IT THERE U STUPID KUNT (sorry RL)

or

STOP THREAD SPAMMING.

This is what I meant by that the idea of God is a very effective consonance to deal with the inherent existential dissonance.

Look! all I did was to provide logical and rational argument and for that you seem to be very offended and got riled up and throwing vitriols.

Why you are so worked up is because your theistic consonance [security blanket] is being threatened at the unconscious level. Some theists will also killed those who trigger and shake that theistic consonance.

Wake up! this is only a discussion with words, why poison yourself [excreting cortisols] with throwing vitriols.
You should provide counters why my premises are wrong or not valid.