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Yes, we all have choices to make in life. It appears to us that all choices are freely made. But if we really stop to think about it, what caused us to choose A over B?
I agree that free will is an illusory concept. We have freedom of choice within constraints of consequences / knock-on effects of various choices, conflict with the choices and desires of others and of society, and the "givens" of the causal chains that we stand at the end of in any given moment.
On the other hand I don't see this as a Bad Thing. We are finite, mortal beings with finite intellectual and perceptual equipment. I don't know that we need that many choices to feel fulfilled. In fact, living within one's true scope is one of the secrets to contentment.
Many young people for example have rather grandiose, world-changing fantasies. But not everyone has the raw intelligence, talent and luck of a Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. Most of us don't leave our mark on the whole world in ways that are long remembered; indeed, Jobs and Musk themselves will be but footnotes in history at best in another hundred years. My stepson wants to be the next Slavoj Zizek, for instance, and he obsesses constantly about how to get into the best grad schools and is not content to write undergrad papers that will not one day be unearthed by historians as neglected nuggets of brilliance. But he is slowly figuring out that back here in the Real World he will likely end up lucky to be an adjunct professor of philosophy at a community college. The next step is for him to understand that there's nothing to prevent him from deriving tremendous pleasure and fulfillment from exactly that. Most of us toil away in obscurity (I certainly do) and are pretty much fungible commodities, at least professionally. And that's okay. We are mortal beings and our scope is the mundane. And that is just fine.
We humans think we have something to prove when all we have or really need is just the life we have and to live it and embrace it fully.
We humans think we have something to prove when all we have or really need is just the life we have and to live it and embrace it fully.
I have already gained my immortality by writing posts here on City-Data.
Yep.
This site will never go down and our posts will be studied endlessly by future grad and post-doc students from now until the last ember of the last dying red dwarf star finally fizzles into its ultimate demise.
There will be college courses dedicated to the study of our threads, including this one, and only a lucky few will manage to score a seat.
At the registration building of a major university, c. 4729:
Student A: Haha! I got it! I got the last seat for "Shirina and Militant Atheism 549!"
Student B,C,D,E,F,G .... Z: *sigh* "Guess I'll take it next semester ..."
Student 1: "And I just snagged the last seat in "Mordant and God's Non-Existent Plan for Your Life 577!"
Student 2,3,4,5,6,7,8, .... 457: "Dammit! Does that mean the only classes left are the ones about the fundamentalists?!?!?!"
Our immortal postings are far more lasting than simply knocking up your wife or being a wife and having some kids ... no one will even know your name in a couple of generations. But here, on City-Data, we will all be ...
I have already gained my immortality by writing posts here on City-Data.
Yep.
This site will never go down and our posts will be studied endlessly by future grad and post-doc students from now until the last ember of the last dying red dwarf star finally fizzles into its ultimate demise.
I have already gained my immortality by writing posts here on City-Data.
Yep.
This site will never go down and our posts will be studied endlessly by future grad and post-doc students from now until the last ember of the last dying red dwarf star finally fizzles into its ultimate demise.
There will be college courses dedicated to the study of our threads, including this one, and only a lucky few will manage to score a seat.
At the registration building of a major university, c. 4729:
Student A: Haha! I got it! I got the last seat for "Shirina and Militant Atheism 549!"
Student B,C,D,E,F,G .... Z: *sigh* "Guess I'll take it next semester ..."
Student 1: "And I just snagged the last seat in "Mordant and God's Non-Existent Plan for Your Life 577!"
Student 2,3,4,5,6,7,8, .... 457: "Dammit! Does that mean the only classes left are the ones about the fundamentalists?!?!?!"
Our immortal postings are far more lasting than simply knocking up your wife or being a wife and having some kids ... no one will even know your name in a couple of generations. But here, on City-Data, we will all be ...
Immortal.
A thousand years from now all of the greatest universities will be teaching what I've written on these boards and will see that I was so far ahead of my time that very few believed or understood me and even disparaged me.
I have already gained my immortality by writing posts here on City-Data.
Yep.
.........
Our immortal postings are far more lasting than simply knocking up your wife or being a wife and having some kids ... no one will even know your name in a couple of generations. But here, on City-Data, we will all be ...
Immortal.
Where can I get some of what you and Eusebius are smoking?
A thousand years from now all of the greatest universities will be teaching what I've written on these boards and will see that I was so far ahead of my time that very few believed or understood me and even disparaged me.
Isn't there a Rapture, Tribulation and second coming somewhere along the way BEFORE we get there?
Sure, finding errors and contradictions in the bible is easy. What would posting them accomplish?
Educate people.
You'll never see that addressed in "bible study."
You do stand for education, empowerment and enlightenment, do you not?
Quote:
Originally Posted by nateswift
Never mind, it has nothing to do with the OP. Just a trolling post.
You can't refute it, so you label it. That's cute.
It has everything to do with the OP. A god that contradicts himself and can't even follow his own plan, doesn't have much of a plan for you.
I won't even get into god's plan inducing and encouraging evil.
I'm sure women who were brutally raped and murdered, then had their bodies dumped in the woods wrapped in a Glad® trash bag will be comforted to know they were part of a plan.
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