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Parts of the New Testament are a pleasure to read ---and what came out of the mouth of Christ is brilliant...The Old Testament other than Proverbs seems to be a history of horrible behavior....so I never bothered with it...I don't want to glorify someone like King David ...who just to get laid by another man's wife - arranged for the death of the husband ....How can I admire such a SOB? You have to cherry pick through section of the OT...and the NT...because a lot of it is garbage...and other parts are divine...To say that the Bible as a whole is the direct word of God....that this compilation of manuscripts are perfect...is utter madness....Much like sections of the Koran..they are corrupt and evil. The truth is born in the heart of man...You know what it is.....the word of God is heard by no man...God does not have a voice...He does not need one.
It all starts off from where you were born. If you know a bit of your parents and grandparents history, you will see factors that led to the ultimate meetup of your parents and your conception. All of these are factors that were outside your control.
Where your dad worked, where you went to church and many other things, if you examine each and every choice you made, there were factors outside of your control. You made a choice based of the variances presented to you at the time. None of these did you have any control over.
It is pretty much like coming to a Tee Junction, you only have two choices, left or right. The road that brings you to your destination the quickest governs this choice. Were there roadworks to the left, you would have to go right and follow the prescribed deviation as set out by the roadworks crew. If you had freewill, you could ignore these choices and inject your own choice.
You chose to be a christian as you were indoctrinated with that belief whether it was your parents doing or exposure by the mere fact your were born in a country where that religions is the predominant one. That choice was presented to you exploiting your fear of the unknown. The one choice suggests eternal bliss, the other annihilation or eternal torment. These are not real choices so the analogy fails somewhat.
Atheism is the conclusion that neither of these choices are valid postulations so no choice has to be made. IOW, there is no substantiated proof of hell nor heaven, just the musings of men and the drone belief of many folk over the eons that places like this exist.
Thus your postulation of freewill to explain away why stuff happens, why folk reject your beliefs is not based on any sound philosophy nor is is based on sound logic.
It all starts off from where you were born. If you know a bit of your parents and grandparents history, you will see factors that led to the ultimate meetup of your parents and your conception. All of these are factors that were outside your control.
Where your dad worked, where you went to church and many other things, if you examine each and every choice you made, there were factors outside of your control. You made a choice based of the variances presented to you at the time. None of these did you have any control over.
It is pretty much like coming to a Tee Junction, you only have two choices, left or right. The road that brings you to your destination the quickest governs this choice. Were there roadworks to the left, you would have to go right and follow the prescribed deviation as set out by the roadworks crew. If you had freewill, you could ignore these choices and inject your own choice.
You chose to be a christian as you were indoctrinated with that belief whether it was your parents doing or exposure by the mere fact your were born in a country where that religions is the predominant one. That choice was presented to you exploiting your fear of the unknown. The one choice suggests eternal bliss, the other annihilation or eternal torment. These are not real choices so the analogy fails somewhat.
Atheism is the conclusion that neither of these choices are valid postulations so no choice has to be made. IOW, there is no substantiated proof of hell nor heaven, just the musings of men and the drone belief of many folk over the eons that places like this exist.
Thus your postulation of freewill to explain away why stuff happens, why folk reject your beliefs is not based on any sound philosophy nor is is based on sound logic.
Your post would be puzzling to a Christian not because such a person lacks the intellectual capacity to, if not agree, at least understand your viewpoint and that of other like minded individuals but because the concept of free will for a Christian is not in the absolute sense as it is with you.
For Christians just because choices are limited by social, cultural, geographical, physical constraints, etc does not mean choices don't exist and hence free will does not exist. It is argued that all choices have prior causes and yes choices do have prior causes. However, for Christians, it becomes a question of how these choices are caused. Christians believe that evil exists that can influence the cause and subsequent choice one makes. Christians also believe that a deity, God, endowed mankind with the ability to think, contemplate the pros and cons of our actions, make sound decisions and know right from wrong so that the choice we make is not made in ignorance of the cause.
The fact that humans, in particular, can reason and carry out philosophical discussions, be influenced by the substance of the thoughts of others, ideas, etc, is one line of reasoning to show that we are more than the sum of the physical.
It all starts off from where you were born. If you know a bit of your parents and grandparents history, you will see factors that led to the ultimate meetup of your parents and your conception. All of these are factors that were outside your control.
Where your dad worked, where you went to church and many other things, if you examine each and every choice you made, there were factors outside of your control. You made a choice based of the variances presented to you at the time. None of these did you have any control over.
It is pretty much like coming to a Tee Junction, you only have two choices, left or right. The road that brings you to your destination the quickest governs this choice. Were there roadworks to the left, you would have to go right and follow the prescribed deviation as set out by the roadworks crew. If you had freewill, you could ignore these choices and inject your own choice.
You chose to be a christian as you were indoctrinated with that belief whether it was your parents doing or exposure by the mere fact your were born in a country where that religions is the predominant one. That choice was presented to you exploiting your fear of the unknown. The one choice suggests eternal bliss, the other annihilation or eternal torment. These are not real choices so the analogy fails somewhat.
Atheism is the conclusion that neither of these choices are valid postulations so no choice has to be made. IOW, there is no substantiated proof of hell nor heaven, just the musings of men and the drone belief of many folk over the eons that places like this exist.
Thus your postulation of freewill to explain away why stuff happens, why folk reject your beliefs is not based on any sound philosophy nor is is based on sound logic.
In your second paragraph, you mentioned I made a choice. Also, you are fully aware that people make bad choices. Sadly some leading to injury and or death. Most of our lives are about choice. We consider then choose. Sometimes it's a slight thought and sometimes it's with deep thought. Sometimes we do things without thinking. No need to ever think if we couldn't choose for ourselves.
Your post would be puzzling to a Christian not because such a person lacks the intellectual capacity to, if not agree, at least understand your viewpoint and that of other like minded individuals but because the concept of free will for a Christian is not in the absolute sense as it is with you.
Freewill must be absolute if you persist in suggesting that folk use this to not choose god or using it as an excuse or deflection to avoid the hard questions.
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For Christians just because choices are limited by social, cultural, geographical, physical constraints, etc does not mean choices don't exist and hence free will does not exist. It is argued that all choices have prior causes and yes choices do have prior causes. However, for Christians, it becomes a question of how these choices are caused. Christians believe that evil exists that can influence the cause and subsequent choice one makes.
Defer to the devil, how quaint. So then the devil has more influence than an omniscient god? You are now using the word choice as this is some kind of free choice? I never suggested that there are no choices just that the choices we make are influenced by other factors outside our control.
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Christians also believe that a deity, God, endowed mankind with the ability to think, contemplate the pros and cons of our actions, make sound decisions and know right from wrong so that the choice we make is not made in ignorance of the cause.
Irrelevant, the choices you make are already predetermined by the external factors outside of your influence. These would only be free if you were able to see the outcomes of either choice before making them. When examined retrospectively, you should see that the choices you made you could not have made them any differently. One thing leads to another and so on.
Quote:
The fact that humans, in particular, can reason and carry out philosophical discussions, be influenced by the substance of the thoughts of others, ideas, etc, is one line of reasoning to show that we are more than the sum of the physical.
Not sure what you are trying to infer here but what you said I do not disagree with. This holds true for other animals too, we just do not observe it that well. By human standards, domestic cats do seem to have their own ideas of when they will suck up to you (usually for food)
In your second paragraph, you mentioned I made a choice. Also, you are fully aware that people make bad choices. Sadly some leading to injury and or death. Most of our lives are about choice. We consider then choose. Sometimes it's a slight thought and sometimes it's with deep thought. Sometimes we do things without thinking. No need to ever think if we couldn't choose for ourselves.
Yes you do choose for yourselves but the choices are governed by circumstances outside of your control. Perhaps you are thinking in terms of not obeying traffic rules or say blowing your entire salary on a huge end of month party and being broke the rest of the month?
Traffic laws are the external influences you have no say in and yes you can choose to ignore them. You already know the potential outcome of say speeding or running a red light. You are either going to have an accident or at least get a fine from a camera. If you speed, you are at a higher risk of doing injury to yourself or others. In both these scenarios, traffic lights and speed limits are determined by other factors such as urban planning or roads that are not safe to travel at high speeds or where kids may be in the road. These are all external influences that force you to conform to said laws that you personally have no control over. Ignoring them and choosing to be reckless by ignoring them is stupid and we all know that.
If you blow your entire salary at the end of the month on a big party and will be broke till the end of the next month, that kinda already stands to reason. You could see this as having freewill but a decision like this already has known outcomes so the choice you make is irresponsible and thus is not indicative of freewill. Not paying your rent, utilities etc, and not having money for food are known factors outside of your control.
In both these examples, you really are forced to abide by the predetermined outcomes that present themselves so this would not be an example of freewill. And of course, how you got here to owning a vehicle, having a job, all circumstances you had no influence over.
This is why the Calvin doctrine of predestination is probably the closest to what we observe in reality. Postulating an elect, this negates the questions of what about them and them when asking what about hell and what about if they never heard etc. I am not saying that it is correct but is closer than Arminianism which espouses the freewill doctrine. Quite ironic that Arminius was a student of Calvin.
So basically, even in the most secular sense, freewill does not exist therefore it has no bearing on any type of eternal destiny.
When you strip away the veneers, the philosophy of life is
"Life's a female dog and then you die" or you can adopt this one.
Life's a journey, enjoy the ride.
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