Christianity

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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

attofishpi wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 1:19 am Alexis, this proves you have read bugger all of my "stuff". I guess if I was a famous artist\poet you would bother!
Still cycling. Back soon.

I was ‘giving you a hard time’. I thought the poem was quite good.
Oh yes, I forgot to ask, what do you mean when you consider yourself Gnostic?
I use gnostic not Gnostic (to distinguish from the veritable historical movement). To have gnostic ideas means that one reads between the lines (of revealed religion) and understands that the experience of God is always very different than what ‘they’ say it should be. There is the ‘surface’ and then there is the depth.
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attofishpi
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Re: Christianity

Post by attofishpi »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 1:23 am
attofishpi wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 1:19 am Alexis, this proves you have read bugger all of my "stuff". I guess if I was a famous artist\poet you would bother!
Still cycling. Back soon.

I was ‘giving you a hard time’. I thought the poem was quite good.
Story of my life!

Yes, I am a slow rider too...you should post at least a couple of photos of the landscape (me thinks).

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 1:23 am
atto wrote:Oh yes, I forgot to ask, what do you mean when you consider yourself Gnostic?
I use gnostic not Gnostic (to distinguish from the veritable historical movement). To have gnostic ideas means that one reads between the lines (of revealed religion) and understands that the experience of God is always very different than what ‘they’ say it should be. There is the ‘surface’ and then there is the depth.
Well, seems we may have more in common than at least I had considered.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 10:49 am Immanuel Can does not differentiate between determinism and fatalism.
Neither does Determinism.

The only difference is the name of the alleged agency that rules out free will: fate vs. material causality. Net effect: same thing.
In a determined world a reasoning reasonable man is more free than an unreasoning unreasonable man.
In Determinism "reason" is not believed to be a causal factor. It's a mere seeming, not a cause of anything. And it can't change anything. It's itself a mere product of material causality.

You've just got it wrong, B.
Belinda
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Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 3:34 am
Belinda wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 10:49 am Immanuel Can does not differentiate between determinism and fatalism.
Neither does Determinism.

The only difference is the name of the alleged agency that rules out free will: fate vs. material causality. Net effect: same thing.
In a determined world a reasoning reasonable man is more free than an unreasoning unreasonable man.
In Determinism "reason" is not believed to be a causal factor. It's a mere seeming, not a cause of anything. And it can't change anything. It's itself a mere product of material causality.

You've just got it wrong, B.
Fate , or the Fates, are forces akin to gods. Fate or the Fates rule what will happen. For believers in fatalism there is nothing you can do to influence future events.

If you believe every event is a necessary event as do determinists you may influence the future but you can't be 100% sure you will get the result you want even if your intentions are good. There is a higher probability you will get the result you want if you are knowledgeable and have sound judgment.
Immanuel wrote:
In Determinism "reason" is not believed to be a causal factor. It's a mere seeming, not a cause of anything. And it can't change anything. It's itself a mere product of material causality.
True, some determinists are also fatalists and fatalism is what you are describing. Other determinists are not spineless fatalists as they use their reason, their common sense, to plan what they will do; God-given common sense if you like.
Walker
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Re: Christianity

Post by Walker »

Belinda wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 10:58 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 3:34 am
Belinda wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 10:49 am Immanuel Can does not differentiate between determinism and fatalism.
Neither does Determinism.

The only difference is the name of the alleged agency that rules out free will: fate vs. material causality. Net effect: same thing.
In a determined world a reasoning reasonable man is more free than an unreasoning unreasonable man.
In Determinism "reason" is not believed to be a causal factor. It's a mere seeming, not a cause of anything. And it can't change anything. It's itself a mere product of material causality.

You've just got it wrong, B.
Fate , or the Fates, are forces akin to gods. Fate or the Fates rule what will happen. For believers in fatalism there is nothing you can do to influence future events.

If you believe every event is a necessary event as do determinists you may influence the future but you can't be 100% sure you will get the result you want even if your intentions are good. There is a higher probability you will get the result you want if you are knowledgeable and have sound judgment.
Immanuel wrote:
In Determinism "reason" is not believed to be a causal factor. It's a mere seeming, not a cause of anything. And it can't change anything. It's itself a mere product of material causality.
True, some determinists are also fatalists and fatalism is what you are describing. Other determinists are not spineless fatalists as they use their reason, their common sense, to plan what they will do; God-given common sense if you like.
:lol:

Just because someone has concocted some highly qualified definition of a word, such as the word determinism, may make analysis and conclusions pertinent to the definition of that word, but not necessarily pertinent to the way things are. Reality cannot be in error because it does not conform to that definition. When reality must conform to concept, then the tail is wagging the dog.

In relationship to the vague concept of “choice” that explains nothing, determinism recognizes what determines action. Period.

This bears repeating, for it will be ignored. Determinism determines what determines action.

When it comes to analysis, choice is simply too nebulous an explanation for what determines action. Choice is too foggy. Too flabby and not up to intellectual rigour. It's quite unscientific.

In any analysis, the human capacity to order the universe is certainly a factor in determining what causes a specific action … particularly an action by humans, some would say even the act of human observation that recognizes so completely that recognition becomes cognition, i.e., a singularity of cause and effect.

There’s a simple, real life example that puts notions of choice into perspective. Advertising. Huge money gets invested in advertising. Why? Because it works. An advertisement can make you “choose” a product in ways you don’t even realize are being purposely, consciously, directed towards determining what you “choose.” Not every time, but more than random chance allows. Much more. How? Because advertising targets specific demographics, that is, a predictable type. What gets predicted? How that type will act in response to the repeated mental stimulus of the advertisement at the moment of truth, which is the moment that a type's plastic communicates with the data base of their probability of stored purchasing credits.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 10:58 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 3:34 am
Belinda wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 10:49 am Immanuel Can does not differentiate between determinism and fatalism.
Neither does Determinism.

The only difference is the name of the alleged agency that rules out free will: fate vs. material causality. Net effect: same thing.
In a determined world a reasoning reasonable man is more free than an unreasoning unreasonable man.
In Determinism "reason" is not believed to be a causal factor. It's a mere seeming, not a cause of anything. And it can't change anything. It's itself a mere product of material causality.

You've just got it wrong, B.
Fate , or the Fates, are forces akin to gods. Fate or the Fates rule what will happen. For believers in fatalism there is nothing you can do to influence future events.
Same with Determinism. It's just "materials" that stand it the place of "fate."
If you believe every event is a necessary event as do determinists you may influence the future
No, actually, you can't.

In Determinist thought, "you" can't, because "you" are not the actual causal agent. Material forces within you and prior to your choice compel everything you do. So there's really no "you" to do them, since no volition of yours contributes anything to the causal chain.

It's like "what B. ate for breakfast" determines which chemicals will be in her body in the morning, and what her mood will be, and what choices she's likely to make. That's an oversimplification, of course, because B. is also shaped by the time the sun rose, the DNA she got from her ancestry, and the beating of butterfly wings 1,000 years ago. But in all case, B.'s present decision is nothing but the confluence and product of those prior material events...and B. herself actually decided nothing. Even her "feeling" that she did was caused by that breakfast, or that DNA or that butterfly, or all of the above.

And her "intentions" are the same: just impersonal products of prior material events. That's Determinism.
Other determinists are not spineless fatalists...

Then they are actually not "Determinists" by definition, even if they (wrongly) imagine they are. To be a Determinist means to believe absolutely that all events are "predetermined" or "fated" by prior events.
Belinda
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Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 1:05 pm
Belinda wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 10:58 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 3:34 am
Neither does Determinism.

The only difference is the name of the alleged agency that rules out free will: fate vs. material causality. Net effect: same thing.


In Determinism "reason" is not believed to be a causal factor. It's a mere seeming, not a cause of anything. And it can't change anything. It's itself a mere product of material causality.

You've just got it wrong, B.
Fate , or the Fates, are forces akin to gods. Fate or the Fates rule what will happen. For believers in fatalism there is nothing you can do to influence future events.
Same with Determinism. It's just "materials" that stand it the place of "fate."
If you believe every event is a necessary event as do determinists you may influence the future
No, actually, you can't.

In Determinist thought, "you" can't, because "you" are not the actual causal agent. Material forces within you and prior to your choice compel everything you do. So there's really no "you" to do them, since no volition of yours contributes anything to the causal chain.

It's like "what B. ate for breakfast" determines which chemicals will be in her body in the morning, and what her mood will be, and what choices she's likely to make. That's an oversimplification, of course, because B. is also shaped by the time the sun rose, the DNA she got from her ancestry, and the beating of butterfly wings 1,000 years ago. But in all case, B.'s present decision is nothing but the confluence and product of those prior material events...and B. herself actually decided nothing. Even her "feeling" that she did was caused by that breakfast, or that DNA or that butterfly, or all of the above.

And her "intentions" are the same: just impersonal products of prior material events. That's Determinism.
Other determinists are not spineless fatalists...

Then they are actually not "Determinists" by definition, even if they (wrongly) imagine they are. To be a Determinist means to believe absolutely that all events are "predetermined" or "fated" by prior events.
Based on my knowledge of dietetics and my forethought to buy groceries I can choose what I eat for the rest of the day and so alter or enhance the effect of breakfast.This is not miraculous it's knowledge and forethought which, combined with the chance that food is plentiful where I am, allow some measure of choice within a deterministic universe. All animals that can learn do likewise although they don't philosophise and theologise about it.

Staying alive in a deterministic universe is hard work which is not helped by superstitious explanations when more effective explanations are available.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 11:06 am Based on my knowledge of dietetics and my forethought to buy groceries I can choose what I eat for the rest of the day and so alter or enhance the effect of breakfast.
A Determinist will deny this.

They will say that your feeling that you "chose groceries" was actually a product of nothing but your body chemistry or brain state at a particular moment, and your body and brain are materials, and like all materials, are webbed into the material-causal chain in purely mechanical, not volitional, ways.

So they'll say, "You're fooling yourself: you didn't choose. Your body chemistry made you choose the things you thought you chose. And something else prior to that, like what you ate before, or how you slept, or what your DNA made you dance to, made your body chemistry be what it was. You, as a supposedly volitional being, were actually no such thing at all: you really had no choice. You were fated to take those groceries, and only those groceries, by the material-causal chain. You're fooling yourself."

Get it?

That's Determinism.

But neither you nor I believe in Determinism, as evident from your description. If YOU "chose," if you are the origin point of a causal chain, then you are no Determinist. They say that's impossible.
Belinda
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Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:14 pm
Belinda wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 11:06 am Based on my knowledge of dietetics and my forethought to buy groceries I can choose what I eat for the rest of the day and so alter or enhance the effect of breakfast.
A Determinist will deny this.

They will say that your feeling that you "chose groceries" was actually a product of nothing but your body chemistry or brain state at a particular moment, and your body and brain are materials, and like all materials, are webbed into the material-causal chain in purely mechanical, not volitional, ways.

So they'll say, "You're fooling yourself: you didn't choose. Your body chemistry made you choose the things you thought you chose. And something else prior to that, like what you ate before, or how you slept, or what your DNA made you dance to, made your body chemistry be what it was. You, as a supposedly volitional being, were actually no such thing at all: you really had no choice. You were fated to take those groceries, and only those groceries, by the material-causal chain. You're fooling yourself."

Get it?

That's Determinism.

But neither you nor I believe in Determinism, as evident from your description. If YOU "chose," if you are the origin point of a causal chain, then you are no Determinist. They say that's impossible.
Yes I do get it, and once I was that sort of strong determinist. Now, I allow that chance is combined with choice to produce actions.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 10:56 am ...strong determinist. Now, I allow that chance is combined with choice to produce actions.
Then you're not a Determinist at all, even if you still imagine you are. Sorry. That's definitional.

Determinism means that things are "predetermined" by forces outside of your "choices" entirely. There's no "soft" or "hard" degrees of that: it's all or nothing, by nature of what Determinism means.
Belinda
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Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 4:39 pm
Belinda wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 10:56 am ...strong determinist. Now, I allow that chance is combined with choice to produce actions.
Then you're not a Determinist at all, even if you still imagine you are. Sorry. That's definitional.

Determinism means that things are "predetermined" by forces outside of your "choices" entirely. There's no "soft" or "hard" degrees of that: it's all or nothing, by nature of what Determinism means.
Maybe your info is correct but you might have provided a reference to a good dictionary of philosophy. Strong, hard , or all the same, there is no Free Will i.e. an intention that's entirely free from causes of it.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 5:30 pm Strong, hard , or all the same, there is no Free Will i.e. an intention that's entirely free from causes of it.
Well, you have to define "cause" when you say that.

Determinism says there are no authentic causes that are not previously merely material. None.

So there are no volitional "causes" of anything. "Choice" only means a link in a chain of material causes...not that you, Belinda, are initiating anything from yourself. Not anything.

Also "free" is ambiguous there. You seem to think it must mean, "devoid of input from anything but volition." But no believer in free will thinks that's what it means. For them, "free will" or better "volition," can include some prior factors -- even material ones -- so long as those factors are not the DETERMINATIVE cause of a particular choice. So long as that's the case, the choice remains, by their understanding, sufficient to merit the label "free choice."

So a choice when you go into the grocery store, and a combination of your stomach acid (material) and your aesthetic preferences (volitional) are involved in your selection of one head of lettuce over another, that is sufficient for people to call that choice "free."

A Determinist has to say that only the stomach acid (or other strictly material precursor) explains why you ended up with that head of lettuce and not another. "You" didn't choose it at all: the materials "chose" it for you.

In short, the Deterministic position is exclusive of free will. The free will position is inclusive of both volition and material causes.
Nick_A
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Re: Christianity

Post by Nick_A »

Let's see if anyone here has thought in a new way. What is suffering? What use is there for suffering? What use was there for Jesus' suffering on the cross? Yet if we don't know, how can we understand the purpose of Christianity?

“The supernatural greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it.”
― Simone Weil
Belinda
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Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 5:40 pm
Belinda wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 5:30 pm Strong, hard , or all the same, there is no Free Will i.e. an intention that's entirely free from causes of it.
Well, you have to define "cause" when you say that.

Determinism says there are no authentic causes that are not previously merely material. None.

So there are no volitional "causes" of anything. "Choice" only means a link in a chain of material causes...not that you, Belinda, are initiating anything from yourself. Not anything.

Also "free" is ambiguous there. You seem to think it must mean, "devoid of input from anything but volition." But no believer in free will thinks that's what it means. For them, "free will" or better "volition," can include some prior factors -- even material ones -- so long as those factors are not the DETERMINATIVE cause of a particular choice. So long as that's the case, the choice remains, by their understanding, sufficient to merit the label "free choice."

So a choice when you go into the grocery store, and a combination of your stomach acid (material) and your aesthetic preferences (volitional) are involved in your selection of one head of lettuce over another, that is sufficient for people to call that choice "free."

A Determinist has to say that only the stomach acid (or other strictly material precursor) explains why you ended up with that head of lettuce and not another. "You" didn't choose it at all: the materials "chose" it for you.

In short, the Deterministic position is exclusive of free will. The free will position is inclusive of both volition and material causes.
I strongly disagree. Determinism does indeed include thoughts as causes.
Prejudices are causes. Confirmation biases are causes. Faith in God is a cause.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 11:35 am I strongly disagree. Determinism does indeed include thoughts as causes.
Nope. It rules them out, absolutely.

That's one of the reasons it's a silly belief. It fails to reflect obvious realities, just as you say.
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