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Answer to the Problem of Evil

bruto said:
Of course the unforced choices were not forced, but is that all that free will is?
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Yes. Either all choices are made by God or there is free will.

bruto said:
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.
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Free will doesn't mean freedom from the consequences of your choices.
 
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psionl0 said:
Yes. Either all choices are made by God or there is free will.

.
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That would only be true if you had a way of knowing that God didn't make you make a particular choice.

Do you think that you would be able to tell if God did intervene I your choice?
 
psionl0 said:
There is no such rule.
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Yes there it's called logic.

Just because you aren't aware of the manipulation doesn't mean that your choice was free. On the contrary: the more transparent the constraints of choice are, the more freely you can choose within those constraints.

The fact that God can, unbeknownst to you, change your will means that you should be suspicious of every choice you make and can never be certain that it was you who made a decision.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Yes there it's called logic.

Just because you aren't aware of the manipulation doesn't mean that your choice was free. On the contrary: the more transparent the constraints of choice are, the more freely you can choose within those constraints.

The fact that God can, unbeknownst to you, change your will means that you should be suspicious of every choice you make and can never be certain that it was you who made a decision.
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Aaaannnndd ... You are back to if one choice is forced then all choices are forced.

You can't have it both ways. Assuming that God makes the majority of the choices for people (which is not biblical) that still means that the remaining choices were made by people of their own free will. Ergo God gave people free will.

Note that even if you are unaware whether a choice is made by you or by God, that doesn't mean you don't have free will - unless you want to maintain the illogical position that God doesn't make all choices for a person but free will doesn't exist.
 
psionl0 said:
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.
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Don't be so hysterical and try to articulate your replies.

I know you think you are the centre of the universe and the godthingy exists just because there's a tradition with people believing it exists, but that doesn't make it real and some kind of default so you can try to mock any position on the contrary.

I mean, you are usually good at manipulating the coversation and waltzing away your weak points, but here you are in cement mixer mode thinking what you believe is real and evident. Feel free to prove first that your godthingyallmightythingymagig really exist and, by the way, learn what free will mean in the real world, away from the fantasies of assorted dime-a-dozen theists like Emre or yourself.
 
shuttlt said:
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.
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You're absolutely right in that. Emre linked their long-winded op'ed named "destiny and free will" within the solitary forum post they're offering here for discussion.

But I mainly meant free will in the misty way psionl0 uses it, as she/he has taken the centre scene is this thread and won't handle it back to Emre until bored here.
 
I'm not sure I've really seen psionl0 define it either. It's meaning is typically obvious until one things about it for 30 seconds, then the obvious notion starts to look incoherent and we must mean something else.
 
And, shuttlt, if you need any evidence of that, I can offer this. Apparently what matters is "imagination"...:rolleyes:

psionl0 said:
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.
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ftfy.

Whether free will can exist or not in a deterministic universe is a scientific argument and has nothing to do with the imagination.
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shuttlt said:
I'm not sure I've really seen psionl0 define it either. It's meaning is typically obvious until one things about it for 30 seconds, then the obvious notion starts to look incoherent and we must mean something else.
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Well, if that individual discussed the topic bonafides it would be true, but exploiting that very same incoherence for the sake of forum brawling seems to be her/his goal.

But I certainly share your opinion on
the matter. Free will works as long you don't reflect about it.
 
When discussing free-will, people tend to ignore the "will" part. "Will" is a biological function that can only exist in a deterministic universe. If the universe was random, how can we talk about "will" or "choice"? But in a deterministic universe, will becomes one of the factors that determines outcomes. After all, how can one choose other than what they do in fact choose?

Daniel Dennett is an atheist philosopher who is a compatiblist. That is, he believes that free-will and determinism are compatible. He discusses it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joCOWaaTj4A
 
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psionl0 said:
You can argue that there are no gods therefore there is no evil if you wish but then it wouldn't make sense to ask for an answer to the problem of evil.
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I'm sure I could - but of course I didn't so as usual a non sequitur to what was actually posted.
 
aleCcowaN said:
Don't be so hysterical and try to articulate your replies.

I know you think you are the centre of the universe and the godthingy exists just because there's a tradition with people believing it exists, but that doesn't make it real and some kind of default so you can try to mock any position on the contrary.

I mean, you are usually good at manipulating the coversation and waltzing away your weak points, but here you are in cement mixer mode thinking what you believe is real and evident. Feel free to prove first that your godthingyallmightythingymagig really exist and, by the way, learn what free will mean in the real world, away from the fantasies of assorted dime-a-dozen theists like Emre or yourself.
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Your translator is clearly on the fritz. This pile of rule 12 violation didn't address a single word that you quoted.

Of course, in order to address the post, you would have to understand it and clearly you don't because you are not the legend in your own mind that you think you are.
 
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