Is there a boundary on our free will?

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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cicero117
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Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by cicero117 »

I recently review the topic of cosmogony and of course I had to revisit the creation of human according the Bible, and a question was born;

Man was created according to God's image (imago Dei) and we also inherit His behaviour (imitatio Dei), it is said that before the fall, human have an unblemished moral.

Why is it then human has fall into temptation and thus destroying all that perfect image of God in them.

Most people will answer that this is because God has given them free will, but if in the end God sent his Son Jesus because he knows that once human sins, they won't be able to atone their sins, why not limit their free will so they would not sin?
In the end we will all be "forgiven" anyway..

This also relates to predestination, if human doesn't sin. Will predestination occur?
But it is said that predestination occurs before the creation of human, does that mean that God has set who will be the believer and who's not before Adam has fall into sin, before he was even created?

Does that mean, God knows that we will sin in a way or another?
Impenitent
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by Impenitent »

if there is a boundary it isn't free

what an omniscient being might know is beside the point

-Imp
PeteJ
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by PeteJ »

You cannot protect the idea of a creator God while preserving the idea of freewill.

Best to go back and examine whether either idea makes any sense.
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by Advocate »

The entire record of knowledge discovery is finding that which acts causally and then accepting that fact as a prerequisite for discovering other facts. The very existence of knowledge disproves free will. We find constraints literally anywhere and everywhere we can test - it's what the act of measurement IS. There is literally no sense in which we are free. "Free will" only makes sense as an illusion (delusion for those who accept it as real).

Free will arguments are defeated in precisely the same way as god of the gap arguments.
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Greatest I am
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by Greatest I am »

Advocate wrote: Thu Sep 03, 2020 4:58 pm The entire record of knowledge discovery is finding that which acts causally and then accepting that fact as a prerequisite for discovering other facts. The very existence of knowledge disproves free will. We find constraints literally anywhere and everywhere we can test - it's what the act of measurement IS. There is literally no sense in which we are free. "Free will" only makes sense as an illusion (delusion for those who accept it as real).

Free will arguments are defeated in precisely the same way as god of the gap arguments.
Who chose to reply as you did above if not you making a free willed reply?

The only limit to our free will is set by nature and physics.

I cannot will flying skills into me, but I can jump rather high. That kind of limit.

I also have a little irrefutable test that proves that we all have a limited free will.

Let me know if you need it.

Regards
DL
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Greatest I am
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by Greatest I am »

PeteJ wrote: Thu Sep 03, 2020 11:10 am You cannot protect the idea of a creator God while preserving the idea of freewill.
I think you might be able to do so, if like me, in this case, you see no conflict between god and nature on our evolution.

It gets a bit longer if you wish to pursue this thinking.

===========

Eve was correct in eating of the tree of knowledge and rejecting God.

It was God's plan from the beginning to have Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. This can be demonstrated by the fact that the bible says that Jesus "was crucified from the foundations of the Earth," that is to say, God planned to crucify Jesus as atonement for sin before he even created human beings or God damned sin.

1Peter 1:20 0 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

This indicates that Jesus had no choice.

If God had not intended humans to sin from the beginning, why did he build into the Creation this "solution" for sin? Why create a solution for a problem you do not anticipate?

God knew that the moment he said "don't eat from that tree," the die was cast. The eating was inevitable. Eve was merely following the plan.

This then begs the question.

What kind of God would plan and execute the murder of his own son when there was absolutely no need to?

Only an insane and immoral God. That’s who.

The cornerstone of Christianity is human sacrifice, thus showing it‘s immorality.

One of Christianity's highest form of immorality is what they have done to women. They have denied them equality and subjugated them to men.

------------------------

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

If all sin by nature, then the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin. That being the case, for God to punish us for following the instincts and natures he put in us would be quite wrong.


Psalm 51:5 "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."


Having said the above for the God that I do not believe in, I am a Gnostic Christian naturalist, let me tell you that evil is all human generated. Evil is our responsibility.

Much has been written to explain what I see as a natural part of evolution.

Consider.
First, let us eliminate what some see as evil. Natural disasters. These are unthinking occurrences and are neither good nor evil. There is no intent to do evil even as victims are created.

Evil then is only human to human.
As evolving creatures, all we ever do, and ever can do, is compete or cooperate.
Cooperation we would see as good as there are no victims created. Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are either cooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil at all times.

Without us doing some of both, we would likely go extinct.

This, to me, explains why there is evil in the world quite well.

Be you a believer in nature, evolution or God, we should all see that what Christians see as something to blame, evil, we should see that what we have, competition, deserves a huge thanks for being available to us.

There is no conflict between nature and God on this issue. This is how things are and should be. We all must do what some will think is evil as we compete and create losers to this competition.

Regards
DL

-----------------------
Evolutionary theology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXOvYn1O ... _A&index=9
seeds
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by seeds »

cicero117 wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:14 pm I recently review the topic of cosmogony and of course I had to revisit the creation of human according the Bible, and a question was born;

Man was created according to God's image (imago Dei) and we also inherit His behaviour (imitatio Dei), it is said that before the fall, human have an unblemished moral.

Why is it then human has fall into temptation and thus destroying all that perfect image of God in them....
I like to think of the world religions as each possessing their own unique piece of the “Grand Puzzle” of reality.

In which case, I suggest that the key take-away from the Bible (i.e., its “puzzle piece”) is that God has created a dimension of reality (the universe) out of the living fabric of his very own being...

...(think Berkeleyanism, wherein it is proclaimed that the universe is the literal MIND of God).

To which I furthermore suggest that the idea of man (humans) being created “in the image” of God should be interpreted to mean that God...

(just like any other natural and self-propagating species of being)

...was able to replicate himself (replicate his mind and its full potential) by conceiving his own offspring (the human mind) within himself.

(In other words, think of the universe as being a “womblike” feature of God’s “spirit body,” so to speak.)

All of which implies that death is nothing more than a second and final birth that we all must experience...

(as is stated in the Bible by Jesus himself in his famous assertion: “...Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again...”)

...in order for us to awaken into our ultimate and eternal form (i.e., the same “familial” form as God).

And the point is that the preceding information...

(again, the key “puzzle piece” of the Bible)

...is all we need to know about the ultimate truth of reality that the Bible (in its own limited way) is attempting to convey to us.

In which case, my final suggestion (as it pertains to your OP) is that most of the other Biblical assertions...

(such as the alleged “fall of man” taking place in some mythological garden containing magical trees and talking snakes, for one glaring example, or questions surrounding the issue of “free will,” as another example)

...are nothing more than obfuscating nonsense that can (and should) be ignored.
_______
Last edited by seeds on Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
seeds
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by seeds »

PeteJ wrote: Thu Sep 03, 2020 11:10 am You cannot protect the idea of a creator God while preserving the idea of freewill.
And why is that?
_______
Skepdick
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by Skepdick »

PeteJ wrote: Thu Sep 03, 2020 11:10 am You cannot protect the idea of a creator God while preserving the idea of freewill.

Best to go back and examine whether either idea makes any sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism
cicero117
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by cicero117 »

Greatest I am wrote: Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:01 pm
Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

If all sin by nature, then the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin. That being the case, for God to punish us for following the instincts and natures he put in us would be quite wrong.


Psalm 51:5 "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."


Having said the above for the God that I do not believe in, I am a Gnostic Christian naturalist, let me tell you that evil is all human generated. Evil is our responsibility.

Much has been written to explain what I see as a natural part of evolution.

Consider.
First, let us eliminate what some see as evil. Natural disasters. These are unthinking occurrences and are neither good nor evil. There is no intent to do evil even as victims are created.

Evil then is only human to human.
As evolving creatures, all we ever do, and ever can do, is compete or cooperate.
Cooperation we would see as good as there are no victims created. Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are either cooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil at all times.

Without us doing some of both, we would likely go extinct.

This, to me, explains why there is evil in the world quite well.

Be you a believer in nature, evolution or God, we should all see that what Christians see as something to blame, evil, we should see that what we have, competition, deserves a huge thanks for being available to us.

There is no conflict between nature and God on this issue. This is how things are and should be. We all must do what some will think is evil as we compete and create losers to this competition.

Regards
DL

-----------------------
Evolutionary theology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXOvYn1O ... _A&index=9
Can I interpret the "free will" as;

God knows what will we do but he cannot force us to do the things he know we will do?
So, In a way God knows that we will sin but he cannot force us to sin or to not sin
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by Greatest I am »

cicero117 wrote: Fri Sep 04, 2020 3:00 am
Greatest I am wrote: Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:01 pm
Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

If all sin by nature, then the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin. That being the case, for God to punish us for following the instincts and natures he put in us would be quite wrong.


Psalm 51:5 "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."


Having said the above for the God that I do not believe in, I am a Gnostic Christian naturalist, let me tell you that evil is all human generated. Evil is our responsibility.

Much has been written to explain what I see as a natural part of evolution.

Consider.
First, let us eliminate what some see as evil. Natural disasters. These are unthinking occurrences and are neither good nor evil. There is no intent to do evil even as victims are created.

Evil then is only human to human.
As evolving creatures, all we ever do, and ever can do, is compete or cooperate.
Cooperation we would see as good as there are no victims created. Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are either cooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil at all times.

Without us doing some of both, we would likely go extinct.

This, to me, explains why there is evil in the world quite well.

Be you a believer in nature, evolution or God, we should all see that what Christians see as something to blame, evil, we should see that what we have, competition, deserves a huge thanks for being available to us.

There is no conflict between nature and God on this issue. This is how things are and should be. We all must do what some will think is evil as we compete and create losers to this competition.

Regards
DL

-----------------------
Evolutionary theology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXOvYn1O ... _A&index=9
Can I interpret the "free will" as;

God knows what will we do but he cannot force us to do the things he know we will do?
So, In a way God knows that we will sin but he cannot force us to sin or to not sin
We are forced by nature to compete to be the fittest or cooperate as one of the less fit. Sheep or shepherd. Choose.

I have chosen sheep dog for Jesus.

Regards
DL
gaffo
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by gaffo »

yes, freewill is an illusion.
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by Greatest I am »

gaffo wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 4:34 am yes, freewill is an illusion.
Really?

Whose will, if not your own free will, chose to write what you put?

Now if you would have said we have a free will that is limited by nature and physics, I would have given you a passing grade instead of this, --- fail.

Regards
DL
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by Greatest I am »

cicero117 wrote: Fri Sep 04, 2020 3:00 am
Greatest I am wrote: Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:01 pm
Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

If all sin by nature, then the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin. That being the case, for God to punish us for following the instincts and natures he put in us would be quite wrong.


Psalm 51:5 "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."


Having said the above for the God that I do not believe in, I am a Gnostic Christian naturalist, let me tell you that evil is all human generated. Evil is our responsibility.

Much has been written to explain what I see as a natural part of evolution.

Consider.
First, let us eliminate what some see as evil. Natural disasters. These are unthinking occurrences and are neither good nor evil. There is no intent to do evil even as victims are created.

Evil then is only human to human.
As evolving creatures, all we ever do, and ever can do, is compete or cooperate.
Cooperation we would see as good as there are no victims created. Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are either cooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil at all times.

Without us doing some of both, we would likely go extinct.

This, to me, explains why there is evil in the world quite well.

Be you a believer in nature, evolution or God, we should all see that what Christians see as something to blame, evil, we should see that what we have, competition, deserves a huge thanks for being available to us.

There is no conflict between nature and God on this issue. This is how things are and should be. We all must do what some will think is evil as we compete and create losers to this competition.

Regards
DL

-----------------------
Evolutionary theology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXOvYn1O ... _A&index=9
Can I interpret the "free will" as;

God knows what will we do but he cannot force us to do the things he know we will do?
So, In a way God knows that we will sin but he cannot force us to sin or to not sin
No reply on what I gave you save this idiocy.

To your reply.

Hogwash. You limit a limitless god.

Why can Yahweh not force us when he forces many?

Yahweh, via the bible, says that we have no free will to believe or not.

Read on to see what kind of p**** Yahweh is.

============

Are non-believers doomed by Divine Design?

Scriptures say that God decides if a person will be a believer or non-believer. Those scriptures are shown in this link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byHYeHN4ZUQ

Those quotes seems to really screw up the free will notion that Christians say God gives us.

The free will that God offers is kind of a joke anyway given the number of people whose free will to live is ignored in the billions of adults, children and babies that God is shown to torture and murder in scriptures.

If the bible and Yahweh are to be believed, and as a non-believer, I, of course, cannot believe it, thanks to God, by God’s design and will against me, then why did God deny me belief or faith?

Even more important to believers, might be to answer the question of; did God make you a believer in things that you can only hope exists and can never confirm?

Are you happy with God ignoring or negating your free will to think as you please?

I have assumed that God’s work of creating both believers and non-believers is working. If that is so, and you believers must think it so, just as I as a non-believer cannot think it is working, --- and Jesus said that those with faith could do all he did and more, --- then there is not even one believer or person of faith that has ever existed.

Either the bible and Christianity is all a lie, or there must be some who can do what Jesus did.

What is your choice of those two options?

Is the bible and Christianity a lie, or is God just not creating any people with faith, --- which would make all Christians who say they have faith, --- liars.

I mean no insult here but someone is definitely lying, if we read what is written and look at reality and listen to Christians.

What do you think is the truth?

Is it just for God to create people doomed to hell even if they wanted to believe?

Regards
DL
gaffo
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Re: Is there a boundary on our free will?

Post by gaffo »

Greatest I am wrote: Fri Sep 11, 2020 5:55 pm
gaffo wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 4:34 am yes, freewill is an illusion.
Really?
yep.

pride is one of the 7 btw.



Greatest I am wrote: Fri Sep 11, 2020 5:55 pm
Now if you would have said we have a free will that is limited by nature and physics, I would have given you a passing grade instead of this, --- fail.

Regards
DL
ok, regards, thats your take,

note the one of seven.
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