tronvillain

Given that I consider "free will" to be totally compatible with determinism (whether strict or probablistic) I don't think much of your argument. It is not at all apparent how the existence of God would make our wills any more "free" than they would be without a God.

eh

That's funny, I was just thinking about that the other day. With questions like that, I can see how anyone could go insane. Quite a mystery this brain is, no?

Grumpy

Nor is the existence of God incompatible with determinism; a Deistic God would allow neurochemicals to fall where they may.

hezekiah jones

And so they should, at least until it becomes a subscription service.

Ron Singh

Fallacy of composition.

~Your friendly neighborhood 15yr Old Sikh

Ron Singh

I am Sikh, not a Christian, however I still am a staunch believer of free will. Freewill is merely lack of godliness. Since we are not in godliness (a.k.a heaven), we are relatively godless.
God has no freewill, God can not be what he is not, via the law of non-contradiction. Since God is infallible, a.k.a in complete control of his future (since God is timeless), and we are relatively godless, we have free will. We can will to do what we please, God however can not, since God is unchangable and unmoved.

~Your friendly neighborhood 15yr Old Sikh

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: sikh ]</p>

LinuxPup

Whether God knows what we are going to do or not is irrelevant to free will. There are some theists who think that maybe God has limited knowledge, that is, God does not know what's in store for us, in order to allow free will to exist, but even that doesn't work.

I think Adrian Selby made a good point however, and I think I should change my argument more specifically to: If there is no non-physical "soul", to humans, then there is no free will... if there is no free will, there is no freethinking. So essentially if materialism is true, then one cannot be a freethinker.

Explain how one can think freely if one is not free to do anything?


This was one of the contradictions that I see with the "secular web". That and the front page of infidels.org, where it says "To disbelieve in the gods, as Emma Goldman wrote, is at the same time to affirm life, purpose, and beauty." This is obviously false, because without God there is no intrinsic value of life. There is no beauty, only "blind, pitiless indifference", to quote Richard Dawkins. If what infidels.org claims is true, then you and I have no more value than a grain of sand, so I see their opening statement as an obvious contradiction, and simply foolish.

Liquidrage

To paraphrase one of the posters here I most admire, how can color exist, if atoms, the particles they are composed of, have no color

Fallacy of composition

I think Vorkosigan was making the statement to point out the original comparision was flawed.

And the universe is deterministic with regards to quantum uncertainty. Get over it.

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: Liquidrage ]</p>

hinduwoman

When you say without God there is no intrinsic value you are saying that life is basically worthless anyway. Atheists are saying that to us life has value simply because it is life --- we don't need any fairytale to bolster our egos. So what if there is only "blind, pitiless indifference"? You are still free either to committ suicide out of despair or to enjoy yourself without worrying how Someone Up There is thinking about you.

We do not have any more value than a grain of sand: that is not a problem with me, though it is obviously with you.

Liquidrage

Semantics.

"Freethinker" is a cunstruct of the language it belongs too.

More to the point, thought and will are not the same.

will (wl) n.
1)The mental faculty by which one deliberately chooses or decides upon a course of action
2)The act of exercising the will

thought (thôt) v. tr.
1)To have or formulate in the mind
2)To reason about or reflect on; ponder
3)To decide by reasoning, reflection, or pondering: thinking what to do

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: Liquidrage ]</p>