Darth Dane

"quote:
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If we don't have freewill, then you are a robot, which doesn't ring true in my ears....but thats just me. What you choose to enjoy is your business!
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Wauw, my first quotation ...at least here on these boards !


"1. We all have free will on earth. This causes bad things to happen. But we deal with that because free will is better than being a Robot."

well we could choose to avoid teh bad things!?!

"2. God can't come up with any way to restrict Free Will to choices between good things"

God is omnipotent

"3. The goal, of course being to get to Heaven®"

It is?

I thought we were in heaven? I'm confused

"where only good things happen"

If there si only white nothing can be seen! you won't know if you are moving.

"4. Does Heaven have Free Will™?"

I take it you mean do those who are in heaven have freewill.

Yes! If you become ONE with God, then NO, you have submitted your will to that of GOD's. But you have Chosen so.

"5. How did God Figure out how to make Free Will_™ compatible with eternal happiness? (corollary - why doesn't he upgrade Earth to have this feature?)"

well I see earth as Heaven!
And to God creating the universe was as easy as opening your eyes.

"6. Are all inhabitants of Heaven Robots®?"

see above, if you choose to submit your will to that of God's, then Yes you are a robot/instrument of God's will






DD - Freed Spliff

Rhea

**squints real hard **

I'm going to have to think about this - but it seems like you're saying that you're glad for free will so that you can decide to be a robot?

oh, and you're welcome on the quote always a pleasure to drag a poster into a debate, LOL.

Melkor

So in other words, the only path to salvation involves using your Free Will to voluntarily become a slave to the will of a tyrannical, genocidal, inconsistent, incomprehensible, childish lunatic?

Yup. I stand by my original statement. Even if "God" exists, I'd still never willingly succumb to that.

Darth Dane

"**squints real hard **"

Hmm appreciated

"I'm going to have to think about this - but it seems like you're saying that you're glad for free will so that you can decide to be a robot?"

I am saying that if you want to submit your will to that of another, be it a higher power or a friend or government, then you give up part of your free will.

If you want to do Gods bidding (A higher power, yourself is not inlcuded for the sake of argument), then you submit your own will to that of God's.
If you want that, then do it. If not then you retain your freewill.

I of course contest, that there is no difference between that of God's will and that of Mine.

As stated before "Thou art God"


But the choice is important, freewill is an amzing gift, use it wisely

Edit:

"So in other words, the only path to salvation involves using your Free Will to voluntarily become a slave to the will of a tyrannical, genocidal, inconsistent, incomprehensible, childish lunatic?"

Yes it seems silly doesn't it?

"Yup. I stand by my original statement. Even if "God" exists, I'd still never willingly succumb to that."

No, but you're succumbed to that of your own freewill. You are a slave to that (I am being cheeky )





DD - Spliffed

Radorth

I do not take the Adam and Eve and creation story literally as there is not much reason to do so. I don't believe the flood was big enough to drown everybody either. God's plan as I outlined it is not dependent on these being strictly true.

He showed himself to all Israel, and it made absolutely no difference. They weren't atheists, but they were rebellious. Seeing God wouldn't make any difference to someone who is determined to go his own way. It wouldn't make him love God or follow his rules. That comes from experience and failure, and only then if one is fortunate. Besides that, it would be a kind of interference which not all who saw him would appreciate. Many atheists have even said they'd just have a bunch of quetions for him.

Well sure, if you didn't bother to think it through or explain how you would take some responsibility for things that went wrong, or how you could demonstrate perfect love and perfect justice to the world at the same time.

"if they don't behave, drown 'em, or make 'em think like you want them to be."

That's not how you to attract a willing servant. That's how you effectively make a puppet.

Rad

Philosoft

Isn't this just a matter of perspective or circumstance? Essentially what you're saying is, "Boy, I'm glad I'm not a robot." That kind of statement can only be made from an enlightened position. Had we been initially created as robots, with only good states-of-affairs obtaining, we would not long for the existence of "free will."

Is this necessarily true? I don't see a logical contradiction with an all-good-choice universe.

Would Christianity be so successful without the promise of heaven? I am deeply skeptical whenever someone asserts that there are major human decisions, especially ultimate-purpose-types, that are free of any kind of future benefit analysis. This just does not compute with anything I know about human behavior.

I think the point was, are there free willed beings in heaven? If the ability to choose bad things is not present in heaven, this would seem to contradict your #2.

The question was, again, relating to heaven. How can there be a place of eternal happiness that still includes meaningful free will decisions?

This does not follow from your assertion that heaven is a place "we only know hints about, not details." It does not seem you have enough information to make a judgement about what does or does not occur in heaven, especially given your ideas about earthly free will.

Dr Rick

Most of us could do a better job than this:

huh?

There are always alternatives for an omnipotent being

Which rules are those? The ones where he orders us to kill disobedient sons and non-virginal newlyweds? The ones that require us to foresake our parents and castrate ourselves? The ones that forbid the infirm or blind to enter his temples?
Or the ones where he demands virgin war-booty after slaughtering the girls' parents and brothers?

These are tough rules; no wonder he has to threaten eternal torment to make us "willing."

Oh, joy; your god will burn most people in hell for all eternity in his infinite love and mercy.

People are perishing all over the place, many of them quite horribly, and most of them are going to hell by this account. For an omnipotent being, your god sure doesn't seem to have things go the way he wills them very much.

How does this work? And why didn't he just 'insure" this from the start and skip the whole sadistic "long and sorry history" part?

Why the wait? Wasn't the past century bloody enough for him?

Whose rules?!

.

Uh-huh; will you be doing that before or after you share with the world your "unique idea" to eliminate railway crossing deaths and derailments?

It's sick and disgusting and makes no sense

Threatening people with eternal torment is not preservation of free will; it's coercion. Allowing some people to kill and maim others is not preseervation of free-will for the victims. And how exactly do the meek "rule" and do justice and peace prevail without eliminating the "free will" that you say will be preserved? if he can make the earth that way then, why can't he make it that way now?

What a lame plan.

I have a better one: how about creating a nice world where people can't hurt eachother, and no infants die of starvation or in wars, and everyone is happy? An omnipotent god could do this, a loving god would want to do this, and an omnisicient god would know how to do this and still preserve free will.

Rick

Christian

Rhea,

Christians (and Christian theologians) have widely divergent veiws on the nature and role of free will. It's really a philosophical question, and a fairly debatable one. Free Will is a well known argument for explaining evil (and the existence of evil is common reason for not trusting God), which may be why it seems a universal Christian trait to you. There are actually a good number of Christians in my general ball park on this nonessential question.

On question #1:

let the speculating continue ...

Hmmm ... my answer would remain. Not sure where we are missing each other. Let me try again.

Granted, using my definition of "free will."

I disagree. The ability to chose doesn't cause bad things ... bad choices cause bad things.

A hypothetical example: Bob and Joe (first two names that popped into my head) both live in the same town. Joe meets Bob in a dark alley one night, pulls a knife on him, and tells him to fork over all his money. Bob resists. Joe kills him with the knife, takes the money and leaves. I have no idea what you consider as a basis for morality, but I assume we both agree that something evil or bad has occured.

My objection is that free will doesn't always lead to bad things, therefore it's not a useful generalization to blame bad things on free will.

Joe's bad choice necessarily leads to the evil that occured.

Joe's mere ability to choose does not necessarily lead to the evil that occured.

Every single time that a person chooses to commit murder (assuming ability and opportunity) a murder occurs.

But, a murder does not occur every single time that someone possesses the ability to choose to commit murder.

Maybe I'm being to simplistic, but it seems to me that the problem is that morally bad decisions are being made. The mere fact that the entities involved have the ability to make decisions and act on them isn't the problem.

If we have free will (again by the definition I gave), then it is possible for us to choose the morally correct alternative. If we chose the morally correct alternative, the good results (the opposite of bad.) This leads to the conclusion "we all have free will on earth. This causes good things to happen," which is the opposite of what you said.

I'm not a philosopher by any stretch, but I don't understand why evil would be a necessary result of free will. All you need are entities with the ability and the desire to choose correctly every time and you get free will without any evil. Take, for example, God. I don't know any Christian who would deny that God has free will. But God only does good, never evil. That's because He has the ability and the desire to make the morally correct decision every single time. Jesus had free will here on earth but never sinned.

The problem with people here on earth is that they make morally incorrect decisions (that is the sort of creature that we are). The problem here on earth is not simply that people make decisions. Making decisions can be a good thing.

Christians will not be made perfect until we receive our new bodies (Jesus is the only human who already has the improved model, but all Christians will get one similar to His in the future). So in the eternal state Christians are not only remade on the inside ("regeneration") but are also remade on the outside ("glorification.") With both of those advantages we will no longer sin. But that does not mean that our ability to chose between good and evil and to act volitionally no longer exists ... we still have free will. But in our new condition we will have both the ability and the desire to always select and act on a morally correct alternative.

That's basically my thoughts. Is that more clear?

As if we had a choice in the matter.

I'll be back when I can and will reply to all direct questions ... just staying busy in the real world right now.

Respectfully,

Christian

Rhea

Radorth:
Huh?
Of course it takes responsibility for how things went wrong. You don't make _more_ of a bad design. That is taking responsibility. You're omiscient. And you demonstrate perfect love by obviating the need for ANY justice. I demonstrate love to my toddler by limiting his breakfast choices to options that will not result in bad consequences. I remove the option for cavity-accelerating breakfasts. But that doesn't make him a robot. It makes him a free will agent with only good choices.

I admit, I am a little thrown off by answers which say, "But god is NOT all-knowing and he is NOT all-powerful and he is NOT all-loving. That's why he doesn't do things and doesn't know things and causes punishment to innocents" To which I am forced to reply,

"oh. Well then. Okay. And you worship him why?"

On the contrary that _is_ how you get a willing servant. My son does not eat a healthy breakfast because I drilled a hole in his tooth to make him suffer for making a bad choice. He eats a healthy breakfast because he is presented with choices that are appropriate to his mental, logical and moral level. He eats them willingly. Some days he professes a dislike for bagels, other days a dislike for oatmeal. Most days a voracious appetite for any. The point being, he is not a puppet. I merely refrain from setting him up for pain and suffering by keeping his world age-appropriate. Because, by comparison to a 3yo, I _am_ all-knowing, all-powerful and... ALL LOVING.

Radorth

Bad analogy, and it actualy helps prove my case. You CONTROL what he eats so he is not a free agent. He is not a free agent until he leaves your house. Your analogy only apples to toddlers. Try it on a teenager determined to become a free agent.

Right and when he's 18 you can bolt iron underwear on him so he doesn't get women pregnant or lock him in the basement. No, to prevent that you teach him it is wrong and irresponsible, and cut him loose hoping he will obey the truth.

Rad