• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Answer to the Problem of Evil

shuttlt said:
Has "free will" been defined in this thread? It seems like something different is being intended by the term in recent posts than in the OP.
Click to expand...
Have you got a definition of "free will" that would render the discussion in this thread moot?
 
sphenisc said:
Apparently. It's your claim, you explain what you meant.
Click to expand...
"We have no free will" is your claim, not mine.

The Great Zaganza said:
Yes
Because you can't exercise free will if you can never sure if God made you do something for not.
Click to expand...
How frequently would one's free will have to be overridden for this to be true? Hourly? Weekly? Once every billiion years?
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Umm. Yes. If the god entity existed.
Click to expand...
That is a long stretch.

Assuming that you really believe this then it means that your argument is that there is no such thing as free will. God programmed everybody to do whatever they do.

Have you got a biblical reference for this position or are you just making up your own story?
 
Before we disprove free will, have we defined it yet? I'm not at all sure that the same idea of free will is being argued about as was put forward in the OP.
 
psionl0 said:
That is a long stretch.

Assuming that you really believe this then it means that your argument is that there is no such thing as free will. God programmed everybody to do whatever they do.

Have you got a biblical reference for this position or are you just making up your own story?
Click to expand...

Isaiah 45:7 King James Bible
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
 
psionl0 said:
You can stop right there. The assumption is that God created people with free will. He didn't program people to be thieves, rapists or murderers. Those are choices that people are free to make or not make entirely of their own volition.
Click to expand...

How convenient! As a matter of necessity you now invented a godthingy that "creates" hollow people ready for them to program their own nature through a now convoluted process called "free will".

As I already said "free will" is an invention born in the need for the deity to go scot-free for the evil in the world. You're just one of many tailoring "free will" according to your rhetorical needs. You simply failed.
 
shuttlt said:
Before we disprove free will, have we defined it yet? I'm not at all sure that the same idea of free will is being argued about as was put forward in the OP.
Click to expand...

The theist side of this discussion has chosen to call free will the ability to choose. Goddygod gave free will to Montoto and Montoto freely chose to be a child rapist.

That's not the way it works. Computer programs make choices. Any machine with a slot to insert loose change makes choices. That's not the point. "Free will" suppose the ability of having chosen differently provided all the circunstances are the same.

We should start to pile up here all the studies done on the matter of people and their "choices". Even discussing how magicians exploit the seamingly free choices of volunteers in their acts. This universe isn't hard deterministic but it's apparently highly deterministic and that leaves little room for a "free" to go together with our "choices".
 
aleCcowaN said:
The theist side of this discussion has chosen to call free will the ability to choose. Goddygod gave free will to Montoto and Montoto freely chose to be a child rapist.

That's not the way it works. Computer programs make choices. Any machine with a slot to insert loose change makes choices. That's not the point. "Free will" suppose the ability of having chosen differently provided all the circunstances are the same.

We should start to pile up here all the studies done on the matter of people and their "choices". Even discussing how magicians exploit the seamingly free choices of volunteers in their acts. This universe isn't hard deterministic but it's apparently highly deterministic and that leaves little room for a "free" to go together with our "choices".
Click to expand...
I'm not sure that this is exactly true. The OP's link contains the following statement:

"Since Allah Almighty knows who will do what with their free will and what their character will be like even before they are created, "

It looks like we are talking about a type of free will where your choices are predestined, much in the manner of a computer program.

The issues of determinism and free will were known to Aristotle. I don't know about Islam, but this was integrated into Christianity in the first millennium.
 
psionl0 said:
"We have no free will" is your claim, not mine.


How frequently would one's free will have to be overridden for this to be true? Hourly? Weekly? Once every billiion years?
Click to expand...
If it's possible, then how often the possibility is exercised is irrelevant. If God can override free will and can decide when to do it, then he may treat us to an arbitrary period during which we can act as if we had it, and in which our actions are identical to those of one who has it, but it's a dispensation. It's not real free will. We're characters in a story of which he is the editor.
 
When I haven't been to the barber in a while, my hair starts rucking up in back. Not much, it's just a wee frill.
 
In doing my search for the verse in my previous post I came upon this one in 1 Samuel 18:

10 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul's hand.
Click to expand...

You can't make this **** up - well I guess some one did.


:bunpan
 
aleCcowaN said:
How convenient! As a matter of necessity you now invented a godthingy that "creates" hollow people ready for them to program their own nature through a now convoluted process called "free will".

As I already said "free will" is an invention born in the need for the deity to go scot-free for the evil in the world. You're just one of many tailoring "free will" according to your rhetorical needs. You simply failed.
Click to expand...
The failure is all yours.

If the "godthingy" is purely born of the imagination then there is no rule that says you can't imagine that this "godthingy" created people with free will.

You need to deny free will so that this imaginary "godthingy" can only be described as evil.
 
bruto said:
If it's possible, then how often the possibility is exercised is irrelevant makes all the difference in the world.
Click to expand...
ftfy.

It is ridiculous to say that during their life, somebody made 1,000,000 unforced choices and 1 choice was forced therefore all 1,000,001 choices were forced.
 
aleCcowaN said:
The theist side of this discussion has chosen to call free will the ability to choose. Goddygod gave free will to Montoto and Montoto freely chose to be a child rapist.

That's not EXACTLY the way it works.
Click to expand...
ftfy.

Whether free will can exist or not in a deterministic universe is a scientific argument and has nothing to do with the imagination.
 
psionl0 said:
ftfy.

It is ridiculous to say that during their life, somebody made 1,000,000 unforced choices and 1 choice was forced therefore all 1,000,001 choices were forced.
Click to expand...
You miss the point entirely. Of course the unforced choices were not forced, but is that all that free will is? If a god is watching you and proven to be willing and able to intervene, you are acting at his sufferance. Your actions might seem free, and might be the same as what you would do if you were free, and you might be led to believe you are free and might act as you would if you were, but if there is a god that can, at his discretion, intervene, then your freedom is a fiction, even if it's a very skillful, well engineered, and believable one.

If there's a law I have no desire to break, and if I live my entire life without breaking it, I can be effectively free, and behave as if I were free, but it's conditional.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom