rainbow walking

Quote]
Originally posted by rainbow walking
Uh...no. You just need to re-read the argument. If you would care to point out which propositions fail and why, I'll be more than happy to address your concerns. [/quote]


I don't understand what it means for a proposition to fail. What I said was that the conclusion (which I quoted) is not entailed by any of the preceding steps. It is a non sequitur. In an argument the conclusion is supposed to follow from the premises by the rules of logic. Yours does not.

Then let me rephrase my request. Can you show me from which propositions the conclusion fails to follow?

rainbow walking

Biff: Free Will is the bases of a FWD. Genesis contradicts your FWD, we didn't stray at all your entire premise is flawed.

rw: Just to summarize: Your objection to my FWD appears to be based on your assertion that man acquired freewill from the serpent, rather than god.

So you’re not contesting freewill as a viable concept, just my claim that god is the originating source.

First let’s deal with the question of original source:

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Genesis 2: 8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Genesis 2: 7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made

It should be clear from this that the original source of all the components necessary to freewill was this god. The process by which man came to acquire freewill was not covered in my FWD nor do I find it necessary to include it in the premises to sustain the argument.


Your objection is duly noted.

One of the assumptive propositions in my FWD is that this god created everything that exists. None of my propositions make any claims as to the process of how man came to acquire freewill.


So your objection, while interesting and worth exploring, fails to demonstrate why, as you said, “my entire premise is flawed”.


You also appear to be basing your objection to my FWD on the argument that the knowledge of good and evil, along with the consequent “freewill” such knowledge engenders, is something that this god does not want man to have.

This argument does warrant further exploration as the conclusions that could be drawn from it might have some bearing on my FWD.

Rather than continuing this game of tag in the Garden of Eden my response need only appeal to this god’s omnimax attribute of omnipotence to resolve the argument. If it were true that this god did not desire that man have freewill, man would not have freewill. An omnimax god would have no problem seeing to that.

Since man has freewill, irrespective of the processes involved in its acquisition, it was therefore part of this god’s purpose for creating man, that man have freewill.

rainbow walking

RW: You can't be serious about God using reverse psychology on us?

Nehemiah 9:13
"You came down on Mount Sinai; you spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good. "


Ezekiel 20:25
"I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by; "

So we have to differentiate, being mere humans, which of God's laws are for real and which ones he gave us on purpose that were not good, and which ones are actually reverse psychology?
That exhausts me just to think about!

rw: We’ve progressed beyond the need to rely on this god for laws so don’t sweat it.

SRB

All of 'em. It fails to follow from every single one of the propositions before it (and any combination of them). Can you list the precise ones from which it is SUPPOSED to follow?

SRB

rainbow walking

All of 'em. It fails to follow from every single one of the propositions before it (and any combination of them). Can you list the precise ones from which it is SUPPOSED to follow?



I already have listed them. If you think my conclusion fails to follow from them, I'll take your word for it that you think this. It would help me tremendously if you show me the failure instead of just asserting it as though I'm suppose to understand what you're talking about. I haven't learned to read minds just yet...but I'm working on it

While I'm not above correcting any erroneous propositions I need to know more than just, "they fail to lead us to the conclusion I've articulated". I need to know how they fail, in what respect they fail, the cause of their failure, (lack of clarity, coherence, improper assumptions...)

SRB

I already addressed this. Your argument is invalid. The onus is on you to give some reason to think your argument is deductively valid, but you have not done this. The reason your argument is invalid is the same reason any such argument is invalid: the premises could be true and the conclusion false.

At a bare minimum you need to firstly identify the essential premises which are supposed to entail the conclusion (preferably in a short list). A premise is something that is expressible by a single declarative sentence. Exactly how many premises are there supposed to be in your argument? Seven? Or are there more? Please give the number and list the relevant premises, one after another. Secondly, on request you should be able to name the rules of inference which get you from your premises to your conclusion, or at least demonstrate a clear chain of intermediate steps which connect each of your premises to your conclusion. Your first post wasn't anything like that.

SRB

rainbow walking

I already addressed this. Your argument is invalid. The onus is on you to give some reason to think your argument is deductively valid, but you have not done this. The reason your argument is invalid is the same reason any such argument is invalid: the premises could be true and the conclusion false.

At a bare minimum you need to firstly identify the essential premises which are supposed to entail the conclusion (preferably in a short list). A premise is something that is expressible by a single declarative sentence. Exactly how many premises are there supposed to be in your argument? Seven? Or are there more? Please give the number and list the relevant premises, one after another. Secondly, on request you should be able to name the rules of inference which get you from your premises to your conclusion, or at least demonstrate a clear chain of intermediate steps which connect each of your premises to your conclusion. Your first post wasn't anything like that.


rw: Alright, let me see what I can do to accomodate you. It may take awhile...so be patient.

Biff the unclean

RW: So your objection, while interesting and worth exploring, fails to demonstrate why, as you said, "my entire premise is flawed".
You seem quite adroit at missing my point, so let me try again. This time I shall try to state it as clearly as I possible can.

My opinion is not that FW is an attained condition, but rather the natural condition of all life. God does not over ride man's free will because there is no God.

The flaws I am pointing out in your "FWD for the presence of evil' are all based on your own religious system and not on my beliefs or lack there of.

You contend that you take into account the God of the whole Bible, both the OT and the NT. Then you proceed to ignore the God of Genesis.

The FWD is that God gave man FW and so honors this FW that he takes no hand in combating the evil we see in the world.

There is no FW without the ability to make moral choices. You cannot make non-arbitrary choices without the knowledge of right and wrong.

God does make this knowledge available in a magic fruit. God does make the serpent. But you ignore that God forbids man this knowledge. When man steals this ability all of creation is severely punished for the act. You cannot represent God as willingly giving free will to man. If you represent this story as mere allegory you completely absolve the need for a savior. If Eden is only allegory Jesus the Christ becomes only a ridiculous petty criminal.

You claim that God honors man's FW. However the God of the OT saddles man with an ever increasing number of laws. And Laws, by their very nature, demand that the person not exercise their FW on pain of punishment.

Since the God of Genesis did not want man to have free will and does so much to stop the exercise of it, and since the God of the NT introduces the new concept of Hell eternal; you have no case to declare that evil exists because God is honoring FW. God cannot honor FW and dictate Laws and punishment at the same time. If Jesus was telling the truth that the only way to the Father was through believing in himself then there can be no honoring of FW by God.

The only way to support your religious stories in the face of the real world is to change the stories themselves. And that is what your FWD is doing. But when you change them you are no longer supporting the original stories. This should be enough to show you that your entire premise is incorrect. Back to the drawing board with you.

rainbow walking

Rw: O’kay, thank you for those clarifications. Let’s examine your postulates again in light of these clarifications.

Biff: My opinion is not that FW is an attained condition, but rather the natural condition of all life. God does not over ride man's free will because there is no God.

The flaws I am pointing out in your "FWD for the presence of evil' are all based on your own religious system and not on my beliefs or lack there of.



Rw: The “flaws” you point out are based on your skewed interpretation of those mythological statements…and nothing more. You have demonstrated quite convincingly your propensity to take the literal interpretation when it corresponded to your already opinionated view, and to back judiciously away from that interpretational perspective, when it did not.

Biff: You contend that you take into account the God of the whole Bible, both the OT and the NT. Then you proceed to ignore the God of Genesis.


Rw: Not true. I take a different interpretational path than you. That is all. I place emphasis on different aspects of the myth than you. That is all. Your interpretational perspective derives from focusing entirely on what it says verbatim, when it serves your purpose. My interpretational perspective attempts to make inferences from what it does say.

Biff: The FWD is that God gave man FW and so honors this FW that he takes no hand in combating the evil we see in the world.


Rw: Then why initiate laws to help guide those choices, if he, as you say, did nothing at all? You need to make up your mind whether this god did nothing or did something, but you don’t like how he did it.

Biff: There is no FW without the ability to make moral choices. You cannot make non-arbitrary choices without the knowledge of right and wrong. [/b]


Rw: And your opinion that A & E made an arbitrary choice remains just that, your opinion, derived from your interpretational perspective, and is flawed. You have shown only that that is the conclusion that you have drawn using your interpretational perspective. You have not shown that this is the only one, nor the correct one. It leaves many unanswered questions and finally concludes with a skewed opinion for which you blame its authors poorly written narrative.

Biff: God does make this knowledge available in a magic fruit. God does make the serpent. But you ignore that God forbids man this knowledge.


Rw: And you ignore the attributes of this god. If it was his will that man not gain access to this fruit, man would have never gained access to it. What this god did not do was physically prohibit man’s access. He wanted that access to be a matter of choice. Why you cannot see this is beyond me. He wanted man to WANT to be like him. WANTS, what we want and desire, are derived as choices and become our normative values. What was the deciding argument the snake proferred that convinced Eve to take a second look? “And ye shall be as gods”

Biff: When man steals this ability all of creation is severely punished for the act.



Are you sure “punishment” is the correct value assignment? When you put a man out of a plush garden created by someone else, he’s going to discover the ground produces more weeds than garden products, seemingly of its own volition. He’s going to discover that procreation involves painful childbirth. He’s going to discover that he’s dying sooner or later. These are the curses of life, the inevitability of discovering them made it necessary for there to be in place an explanation. So a god taking the blame upon himself for that which could not be avoided was sheer genius.

Biff: You cannot represent God as willingly giving free will to man.


rw: Man was created with freewill. It took a series of carefully orchestrated events to get him started down a path of exorcising it as judiciously as possible.

Biff: If you represent this story as mere allegory you completely absolve the need for a savior. If Eden is only allegory Jesus the Christ becomes only a ridiculous petty criminal.

rw: Or just a continuation of the allegory.

Biff: You claim that God honors man's FW. However the God of the OT saddles man with an ever increasing number of laws. And Laws, by their very nature, demand that the person not exercise their FW on pain of punishment.



rw: Yes, it does, but it does not stop man from exorcising his freewill. It provides a basis for man to learn that some choices carry a higher price than others. Normative values and free moral agency.

Biff: Since the God of Genesis did not want man to have free will

rw: A conclusion derived by your skewed interpretational perspective.



Biff:and does so much to stop the exercise of it,



rw: Then you are advocating complete lawlessness is the only way freewill can function?

Biff: and since the God of the NT introduces the new concept of Hell eternal; you have no case to declare that evil exists because God is honoring FW.

rw: Allegory Biff, all allegory. But then you will argue, if it’s all allegory there’s no truth to it. Perhaps you are right…or perhaps there is much needed truth, couched within its metaphors, yet to be discovered. I take this position. As I said, you are entitled to your opinions. The truth may not be anything remotely akin to either of our positions. But if we don’t explore every possibility, we are not scientists and theologians. We are not exorcising our freewill to its fullest potential. Thus we have these arguments and discussions, and who knows what will come of it.



Biff: God cannot honor FW and dictate Laws and punishment at the same time.

rw: From this we can reason that the American constitution does not honor man’s freedom either.


Biff: If Jesus was telling the truth that the only way to the Father was through believing in himself then there can be no honoring of FW by God.


rw: Yet people are still free to decide if JC is telling the truth or not. Establishing a path to this god is not a dishonoring of freewill if the choice of whether to follow that path is made available…as a choice.

Biff: The only way to support your religious stories in the face of the real world is to change the stories themselves.

rw: Conflict and change. Such is the way of life. Man, saddled with the freewill obligation to self determination can have it no other way. And that is my FWD. That they have become religious in nature is unfortunate but also an exorcising of man’s freewill.

Biff: And that is what your FWD is doing.

rw: No more so than your rebuttals of it.

Biff: But when you change them you are no longer supporting the original stories.

rw: You mean the current orthodox interpretation of them. I once did. I’ll never make that mistake again.

Biff: This should be enough to show you that your entire premise is incorrect.

rw: Only from your opinionated, interpretational perspective Biff.

Biff: Back to the drawing board with you.

rw: This is true because some of the propositions in this version do not lead to the conclusion I’m reaching for. Look for my new and improved version to be hitting the shelves soon. Thank you for your participation and contributions to my efforts. They are appreciated. And I mean that.

Biff the unclean

Rw: The "flaws" you point out are based on your skewed interpretation of those mythological statements…and nothing more. You have demonstrated quite convincingly your propensity to take the literal interpretation when it corresponded to your already opinionated view, and to back judiciously away from that interpretational perspective, when it did not.

The only part that I had to back away from is the blatant contradiction in the story where Eve decides that the fruit that will give her the "knowledge of good" is "good" just before she eats it.

I place emphasis on different aspects of the myth than you.
And completely ignore the parts of it that you don't like.

Your interpretational perspective derives from focusing entirely on what it says verbatim, when it serves your purpose. My interpretational perspective attempts to make inferences from what it does say.
Huh?

Then why initiate laws to help guide those choices, if he, as you say, did nothing at all?
Then where is FW if there are "Laws?"

You need to make up your mind whether this god did nothing or did something, but you don’t like how he did it.
You need to understand that I am arguing that your FWD falls apart on the very Theistic grounds that it attempts to support. I on the other hand think that the whole thing is a silly folk tale.

And your opinion that A & E made an arbitrary choice remains just that, your opinion, derived from your interpretational perspective, and is flawed.
And what is so hard and flawed an interpretation about something that is specifically called "the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil"?

You have not shown that this is the only one, nor the correct one.
I've taken it straight from the text. I have not given the characters motives other than those stated in the texts, as you insist on doing.

If it was his will that man not gain access to this fruit, man would have never gained access to it.
Now you are giving God attributes that the story does not.
What this god did not do was physically prohibit man’s access. He wanted that access to be a matter of choice. Why you cannot see this is beyond me.
I cannot see this because I don't have your religious bias. I can only treat this as a story and judge it by the stated actions and the stated motives of the characters in that story.

He wanted man to WANT to be like him. WANTS, what we want and desire, are derived as choices and become our normative values. What was the deciding argument the snake proferred that convinced Eve to take a second look? "And ye shall be as gods"
And what did it mean to "be as gods"? It meant being able to tell the difference between good and evil.

Are you sure "punishment" is the correct value assignment?
Let's see, eternal damnation for everyone descended from these two, the ground blasted, life long toil, pains of childbirth, DEATH, eating dust…yeah, sounds like punishment to me.

When you put a man out of a plush garden created by someone else, he’s going to discover the ground produces more weeds than garden products, seemingly of its own volition.
Now you are talking about a flawed creation. A God who is a duffer.
He’s going to discover that procreation involves painful childbirth.
One of the punishments that you said didn't happen.
He’s going to discover that he’s dying sooner or later.
Another of the punishments.
These are the curses of life, the inevitability of discovering them made it necessary for there to be in place an explanation.
Curses in punishment for disobeying God.

So a god taking the blame upon himself for that which could not be avoided was sheer genius.
Huh?

Man was created with freewill. It took a series of carefully orchestrated events to get him started down a path of exorcising it as judiciously as possible.
So God, instead of being omni-benevolent is actually a God who sets up a world specifically for these terrible things to happen. This also contradicts the FWD because it presents God as a monster.

Yes, it does, but it does not stop man from exorcising his freewill.
Freudian slip?
It provides a basis for man to learn that some choices carry a higher price than others. Normative values and free moral agency.
Not according the Genesis. You just make this stuff up as you go along and then claim that I'm skewing the bible.

Then you are advocating complete lawlessness is the only way freewill can function?
Yes. The only purpose of law is to stop you from exercising FW. I'm not the one who is saying that that is a bad thing. You are the one making a FWD.

But then you will argue, if it’s all allegory there’s no truth to it.
Oh there might be "truths" to it. What I'm arguing is that there are no "Facts" to it.

From this we can reason that the American constitution does not honor man’s freedom either.
The American Constitution puts strict limits on your freedom.

Establishing a path to this god is not a dishonoring of freewill if the choice of whether to follow that path is made available…as a choice.
No, it just brings us back to God the monster.

Biff: But when you change them you are no longer supporting the original stories.

rw: You mean the current orthodox interpretation of them. I once did. I’ll never make that mistake again.
You complain again and again that I don't have the correct interpretation and then have the nerve to boast that you are correct while Orthodoxy isn't. I find that just a touch hypocritical.