Christianity

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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Harbal wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 4:53 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 4:47 pm No, that doesn't follow, for two reasons.
I had a feeling there would be a quick response to that last post of mine. :)
Happy not to disappoint. I like to live up to my billing. :lol:
Nick_A
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Re: Christianity

Post by Nick_A »

Harbal wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 4:44 pm
Nick_A wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 4:23 pm Since humanity as a whole lives as you describe and Plato called the beast, is it surprising that humanity reacts as described in Ecclesiastes 3 concluding as war? A creature of reaction doesn't have choice.
You may think my whole approach to life is wrong, Nick, but at least I am trying to figure out what it's all about for myself. I don't think I could get much satisfaction out of trying to live it in accordance with the words of Plato, or Simone Weil, or the Bible. I can't even see any point in trying to. :?
You've come a long way Harbal. I remember the days when your chief aim was to destroy what you didn't understand. Now you approach it with an open mind and I have the highest regard for your efforts.

Never blindly believe. It is as harmful as blind denial. Verify it in yourself. Does it exist in you. That is how we can know. It is not easy. Most don't have the courage to look inside. But for those who can, it leads to understanding.

"Do you wish to know God? Learn first to know yourself." - Abba Evagrius the Monk.
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Harbal
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harbal »

Nick_A wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 5:13 pm
You've come a long way Harbal. I remember the days when your chief aim was to destroy what you didn't understand.
Yes, my past behaviour did leave a lot of room for improvement, didn't it? :?

Actually, Nick, it is to your credit that you are prepared to have anything to do with me. :)
Nick_A
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Re: Christianity

Post by Nick_A »

Harbal wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 5:19 pm
Nick_A wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 5:13 pm
You've come a long way Harbal. I remember the days when your chief aim was to destroy what you didn't understand.
Yes, my past behaviour did leave a lot of room for improvement, didn't it? :?

Actually, Nick, it is to your credit that you are prepared to have anything to do with me. :)
Old Russian saying: "All things blow over in time" All that matters is how you are now.
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Lacewing
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Re: Christianity

Post by Lacewing »

Nick_A wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 5:37 pm
Harbal wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 5:19 pm
Nick_A wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 5:13 pm
You've come a long way Harbal. I remember the days when your chief aim was to destroy what you didn't understand.
Yes, my past behaviour did leave a lot of room for improvement, didn't it? :?

Actually, Nick, it is to your credit that you are prepared to have anything to do with me. :)
Old Russian saying: "All things blow over in time" All that matters is how you are now.
Harbal, I think you've been brilliant every step of the way. So funny and thoughtful. Lately you've seemed more patient (?) perhaps. But that doesn't diminish the appropriateness of your past sarcasm, which has been hilarious. We all have many ways of expression available all the time, I think -- along with phases or shifts we might go through. I think it's all good, as it bounces off of each other for the betterment of all. My perspective is that we're already one with the source and we're just playing things out on this stage because it's creative and entertaining.
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Harbal
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harbal »

Lacewing wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 5:58 pm
Harbal, I think you've been brilliant every step of the way. So funny and thoughtful. Lately you've seemed more patient (?) perhaps. But that doesn't diminish the appropriateness of your past sarcasm, which has been hilarious. We all have many ways of expression available all the time, I think -- along with phases or shifts we might go through. I think it's all good, as it bounces off of each other for the betterment of all. My perspective is that we're already one with the source and we're just playing things out on this stage because it's creative and entertaining.
Thanks, Lacewing. I think we should all strive to be better people, but you can rest assured that the old me hasn't completely disappeared. :)
Belinda
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Re: Christianity

Post by Belinda »

Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 3:38 pm
Harbal wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:45 am
Belinda wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 10:47 am My first paragraph means that I did not invent any of my ideas.All my ideas come from others who I choose to follow.
That is probably how most of us come to have most of our ideas. That's fine, but I'm more cautious when it comes to following. I have a limited knowledge of the great thinkers, but one thing I have noticed is that even those with the most brilliant ideas often seem to come up with the occasional clanger, so I tend to be more of a cherry picker when it comes to ideas.
Well, B.'s channelling a kind of Determinism there. "All my ideas come from others," she says. Well, where do "others" ideas come from? Still "others"? Where do the original ideas come from, then? At some point, we have to think somebody thought of something for the first time. Not everybody is a follower. Not everbody even can be. Somebody had to come first.

Additionally, of course, we have to observe that people often change their minds. Somebody raised in a Muslim country entirely, like Ayan Hirsi Ali, becomes an Atheist. How is that even possible, if "all [her] ideas come from [the] 'others' [around her]"?

So I think that's lazy thinking. Sure one can see oneself, believe oneself, and treat oneself as if one is nothing more than a product of the choices of others. But that's also a choice...a choice to be irresponsible, unthinking, lazy or influenceable. And one could choose otherwise.
I asked a trained philosopher about my problem and he recommended me to live as if I am free to choose how to live.
Well even those who don't believe in free will still have to live as if they have it.
Right. Which is one of the things that shows us that Determinism is false. If it were the truth, it would be impossible to live any other way but Deterministically. But in point of fact, it's living Deterministically that turns out to be impossible, and living as if choice exists that is unavoidable. How would such a situation even happen, if the world itself were strictly Deterministic?

But this "trained philosopher" got Sartre wrong, I would say. Sartre said we are "condemned to be free." Those are his words. And he means that the one thing about which we have no choice at all is whether or not to make choices. Even the choice to make no thoughtful, reflective decisions ourselves, and merely to trust in and coast on whatever "others" tell us is, itself, a choice. One has simply chosen not to take responsibility for oneself. And one is, in Sartre's view, not fully human until one steps up and makes one's choices deliberate for oneself. That's what he means when he says, "existence precedes essence." (His words, again.) It means you're not fully alive, not being what a human being really is, if all the time, you're lateralling your choices to "others."

So choices are, again, inevitable. And Determinism is false.
I am a determinist, Immanuel, in the sense that every event was, is, and shall be a necessary event, world without end ,Amen.

The "somebody" that has to "come first" did not come first in time, but is the ever present ground of being, which you call God and I call Nature.

You are correct about Sartre's existentialism.This is why I who am a determinist have to live as if am free to choose and take responsibility for my decisions. After all, determinism does not imply that I know the causes everything. Far from it! What this means for me in everyday life is I choose and take responsibility for my choices but try to understand that people who don't think like me are caused to think otherwise than I. If someone else's belief seems to me to be immoral or incorrect I will say so without blaming the person for holding their wrong belief. This is hard to do in the case of someone whose action is the immediate cause of mega suffering, but in conscience is what we all ought to do.

I don't worship the sort of deity who punishes people as if they themselves originate bad beliefs. When a man knows exactly what suffering he causes and persists in his behaviour a determinist will sort of be like "Sorry but your behaviour and lack of contrition is too dangerous for us to tolerate so we must lock you up . We will try to make prison as pleasant as possible but we cannot allow you to be a free man."
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 6:47 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 3:38 pm Well, B.'s channelling a kind of Determinism there. "All my ideas come from others," she says. Well, where do "others" ideas come from? Still "others"? Where do the original ideas come from, then? At some point, we have to think somebody thought of something for the first time. Not everybody is a follower. Not everbody even can be. Somebody had to come first.
I am a determinist, Immanuel, in the sense that every event was, is, and shall be a necessary event, world without end ,Amen.

The "somebody" that has to "come first" did not come first in time, but is the ever present ground of being, which you call God and I call Nature.
Well, let's see how that explanation would go.

In the beginning was Nature, and Nature taught the first person the "idea" that he/she would launch out, that "others" would also pass on, and Belinda would eventually believe...

How did "Nature" teach this alleged "first person" the "idea" that he/she was going to become the conduit of? Tell me the specifics of that.
You are correct about Sartre's existentialism.This is why I who am a determinist have to live as if am free to choose and take responsibility for my decisions. After all, determinism does not imply that I know the causes everything. Far from it!
Nobody suggested otherwise. What you do or do not know is, under Determinism, utterly irrelevant. Your "knowing" doesn't change any action.
What this means for me in everyday life is I choose...
No, it means you do not "choose." Rather, you only are compelled by the chain of cause-and-effect in exactly the only way you ever could be.
...and take responsibility for my choices...
No, you cannot.

For you are not "responsible," and not "response-able" at all. You had no choice. You did not respond. And there is no agency called "you" to have done it. Determinism means that Belinda is a dumb terminal on a chain of cause-and-effect that makes her into whatever she is. Period.
...If someone else's belief seems to me to be immoral or incorrect...
It cannot be. Not ever. It can only be whatever cause-and-effect fated it to be, which is neither wrong nor right, but just IS.
...in conscience is what we all ought to do.
No, there are no "oughts" in Determinism. There are only the "is's". Whatever the pedophile did, that's what he had to do; and it's nonsense, then, to say he "ought not" to have acted like a pedophile. Belinda was predetermined to be a non-pedo. He was predetermined by forces utterly outside his control, the forces of cause-and-effect, to be a pedophile. He never had a choice. And neither did Belinda.
...a determinist will sort of be like "Sorry but your behaviour and lack of contrition is too dangerous for us to tolerate so we must lock you up ."
The Determinist has no right or legitimacy in doing so. He/she only did what he/she could not help doing. And he/she did not choose, believe or act in any way but the way he/she was fated to do.

And there is no such thing as morality, anyway. There is only the almighty "is."
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Harbal
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harbal »

Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 7:26 pm

For you are not "responsible," and not "response-able" at all. You had no choice. You did not respond. And there is no agency called "you" to have done it. Determinism means that Belinda is a dumb terminal on a chain of cause-and-effect that makes her into whatever she is. Period.
I can't see the wisdom or the value in being so rigid in your views, but it must work for you somehow. Were you always like that, or did God do it to you?
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Re: Christianity

Post by Dubious »

Harbal wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 4:24 pm If we accept the priciple of cause and effect, then we can't really avoid the conclusion that the world is deterministic to some extent.
The world may seem deterministic to us who think in terms of cause and effect regarding nearly all events but in nature there is nothing so deterministic as cause and effect. In a sense, to be deterministic, it must already be predetermined that discrete causes produce the expected effects. There isn't a single equation in all physics which incorporates that as a paradigm.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Harbal wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 8:11 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 7:26 pm For you are not "responsible," and not "response-able" at all. You had no choice. You did not respond. And there is no agency called "you" to have done it. Determinism means that Belinda is a dumb terminal on a chain of cause-and-effect that makes her into whatever she is. Period.
I can't see the wisdom or the value in being so rigid in your views,...
They're not my views. I'm explaining what Determinism implies is the case.

I don't believe Determinism is true at all, so I don't believe the above. But Belinda is going to have to, if she hopes to remain consistent with her Determinism.
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Harbal
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Re: Christianity

Post by Harbal »

Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:08 pm
I don't believe Determinism is true at all, so I don't believe the above. But Belinda is going to have to, if she hopes to remain consistent with her Determinism.
Isn't it up to Belinda to determine what exactly she believes? Why should she be limited to the choices you want to impose on her?
BigMike
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Re: Christianity

Post by BigMike »

Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:08 pm I don't believe Determinism is true at all, so I don't believe the above.
Determinism means being in line with the six conservation laws of physics: energy, linear momentum, angular momentum, electric charge, color charge, and weak isospin. These quantities are conserved since they only "change hands" between particles and objects through four basic interactions, which are gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Conserved quantities are thus never created or destroyed, they just pass around from one thing to another.

Do you mean to say that these basic laws are wrong?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

Harbal wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:17 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:08 pm
I don't believe Determinism is true at all, so I don't believe the above. But Belinda is going to have to, if she hopes to remain consistent with her Determinism.
Isn't it up to Belinda to determine what exactly she believes? Why should she be limited to the choices you want to impose on her?
Oh, I'm not. Rationality is.

It's up to rationality to identify what makes sense in view of what one has already declared one believes. If one says, "I'm a Determinist," then that position comes with certain rational corollaries that one simply cannot escape.

One thing is that you also have to believe that "choice" is utterly impossible, "volition" doesn't exist, "human agency" is a myth, and there is no causal power in human "will."

Other things that fit Determinism is that whatever happens is the only thing that ever could have happened, that there's no such thing as what you "ought" to have done (hence, no morality), and that whatever is, is good...or at least, is not morally bad.

You also have to accept that no human bears any responsibility, because they have no response-ability (meaning, no "ability" to "respond"). And you have to think that we're all just pointlessly playing out the very singular program of strict cause-and-effect that was really predetermined for us the very second this show we call "existence" began.

All absurd things to believe, I agree. But once one has declared oneself a Determinist, they all follow as surely as dawn follows dark.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Christianity

Post by Immanuel Can »

BigMike wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:30 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:08 pm I don't believe Determinism is true at all, so I don't believe the above.
Determinism means being in line with the six conservation laws of physics: energy, linear momentum, angular momentum, electric charge, color charge, and weak isospin.
No, it doesn't actually. It means the metaphysical claim that these things are all that exist, and all that can have any effect so far as causality goes.

Non-determinism also believes in physical laws. It does not at all deny they exist and work, nor does it need to. But non-determinism holds that human beings, their volitions and their choices, are also causal agents, capable of inititating particular effects and actuating alternative outcomes.
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