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it matters because it determines who you become in the process.
your choices (including all that you choose to think, speak, feel, and act) determine how your life progresses, and how you advance and develop, at the human level, and also at the soul level.
the goal is for you to grow into your best self; also to recognize your relationship with Divinity.
what is your understanding of free will, and its purpose?
But wouldn't the "ultimate Creator" of everything have determined who you become, even how many hairs you would have? Didn't that God determine how your parents would mate, and whether he would let this or that happen. Then if there is a "free-will" but it is held hostage to unfair power-play stipulations, doesn't that make it "hostage will"?
Quit the opposite. Mankind blames God for its own behavioral problems.
Case in point: Gen_3:12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
The way things are is because you......blaming God. Personal responsibility? Out the door.
The reason things are the way they are is because you, yourself are as gods. (Lower case g)
We are like worms before God (I've heard it said by Christians)... should a worm take personal responsibility for how it was designed? The reason things are the way they are is because of the Management of Nature. Ultimate responsibility rests with those highest in authority, the buck stops at ultimate creator (who by default is the ultimate instigator that couldn't live with himself by himself and desires praise and worship at the threat of punishment and painful neglect).
But wouldn't the "ultimate Creator" of everything have determined who you become, even how many hairs you would have? Didn't that God determine how your parents would mate, and whether he would let this or that happen. Then if there is a "free-will" but it is held hostage to unfair power-play stipulations, doesn't that make it "hostage will"?
you picked it: all of it, your parents, your family, your economic status, your challenges, your obstacles, all of them are custom designed by you at the soul level prior to this incarnation, to give you exactly the circumstances needed for you to grow and advance
as long you feel any thing is "unfair," as long as you blame others for anything, including blaming God, then you are not taking responsibility for your own life. stop being a victim.
do you really believe that? or are you being flippant?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hannibal Flavius
That's an issue that really bugs me, freewill.
Sometimes I am convinced that there is no such thing and if there is no such thing it means that everyone was assigned to already do what they do and the whole thing is just growth, and then I say,'' naa.''
I think that Joseph and David could have had no other life and then there is the saying.
I don't know, it gets me, Is there really freewill?
I could go either way.
Your best post yet. This was thrashed out on my former Forum, and this is where we got to and does seem to be not to fr from where secular thought at least stands on Free will. (1)
Free will when you look at it, is a rather illusory human convention. As is solid matter, luck, and ..uh....well, I was going to say good and evil, but they at least have a basis in fact as what is good for us as humans,
Illusions, but as Einstein said, remarkably convincing ones ( I say it is a reliably repeatable illusion and thus works well as "Reality"). Matter is made of nothing pretending to be something. So it is valid as well as convenient to pretend that it is "Solid".
There is, of course, no such thing as "Luck" though there are random factors rhat may or may not operate in our favour. And attempt to influence them may be be practical,like buying morre lottery tickets to increase the chances of winning, or stepping on the cracks in the pavement to propitiate the Hidden forces of the beyond.
What we do is always conditioned by factors and reasons.Our actions are not cin flipping but conditioned by reasons, though we don't know what most of the are. Habit, preference, genetics, education, reaction to environment. Even how we are feeling. Free will is an illusion, but it is very convincing and we do f course have a capacity of coming to conclusions and decisions. Just as animals do, except that we can reason in a way they can't.
The purpose of free will in that sense is to enable us to handle our environment so as to enable us to survive and prosper as Australopithecus didn't have much else going for him but his smarts. And didn't we make a fist if that. We have probably slowed our adaptation to nothing because we adapt cconditions to suit ourselves.
So you may be wondering what this has to do with free will when the religious bring it up. Nothing at all. It is our reasoning and the way we use it n society is to reduce social friction. But the way it gets used is when we get the problem of evil. This is God's creation. He made, and is responsible for it. There are things in the world that are so bad that it is impossible to believe that a god who cares a damn about what he hat made would just leave it to go on being bad.
This isn't the ultimate plan with redemption and so on. This is about bad stuff going on right now. This has various excuses. Learning curve, we deserve i, God can do whatever he likes and the favourite is "Free will". This means that our power of choice becomes a prime directive and Gd, while wringing his invisible hands while having to remain powerless to intervene (2) and thus God is relieved of the responsibility to put anything right. That is what I means when I say that Free will is an apologetics gimmick that serves only one purpose - to make us responsible for everything rather than God.
(1) which is the decision and choice making ability humans have. It does not mean (as some have mistakenly argued) th ability to do whatever one likes, and since in practical terms we can't (we can't fly unaided, or grow extra heads, no matter how much we would like to) our 'will' is not 'free'. That isn't it at all, but the ability to decide with an element of choice not merely a reaction to conditions and instinct. In fact I argue that it is, but it is so developed that it isn't apparent.
(2) in any way other than scriptural inspiration, winning goals and lost car -keys.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-19-2016 at 04:11 AM..
This is God's creation. He made, and is responsible for it. There are things in the world that are so bad that it is impossible to believe that a god who cares a damn about what he hat made would just leave it to go on being bad.... God is relieved of the responsibility to put anything right. That is what I means when I say that Free will is an apologetics gimmick that serves only one purpose - to make us responsible for everything rather than God.
that is a childish spoiled view
it would be like a grown adult saying that your parents made you so they are responsible for you. so you refuse to get a job and act like an adult, and instead stay in the basement of your parents house when you're 30 watching TV and playing computer games all day because you didn't ask to be born.
an adult takes responsibility for their life, and does not sit around blaming others, including blaming god
you picked it: all of it, your parents, your family, your economic status, your challenges, your obstacles, all of them are custom designed by you at the soul level prior to this incarnation, to give you exactly the circumstances needed for you to grow and advance
as long you feel any thing is "unfair," as long as you blame others for anything, including blaming God, then you are not taking responsibility for your own life. stop being a victim.
You would have to give me very good reasons to believe that the conditions we were born into were picked, chosen and deigned by us. Not least because we know nothing of it after we are born, so the 'Us' that chose all that is effectively somebody else, so 'we' are still not responsible for it. And a god is still in charge of an even more unfair system than the Free Will and 'Prime Directive' on Faith way of passing the buck to humanity for the way things are.
So whichever way you try it, Free Will does not get god off the hook, nor does reincarnation. The only way He gets off the hook and we become truly Responsible is if God vanishes.
You would have to give me very good reasons to believe that the conditions we were born into were picked, chosen and deigned by us. Not least because we know nothing of it after we are born, so the 'Us' that chose all that is effectively somebody else, so 'we' are still not responsible for it. And a god is still in charge of an even more unfair system than the Free Will and 'Prime Directive' on Faith way of passing the buck to humanity for the way things are.
still blaming others, still not taking responsibility
your soul knows exactly why you chose to be born into these conditions
the part of you that refuses to connect with your soul, or even admit that you have one, is the part that would rather blame others than take responsibility for your own growth and advancement
the places in your life that are most uncomfortable for you, the challenges, the problems, the obstacles, the difficulties.....that's where the potential for growth is. look at the places where you blame others, where you resist taking responsibility and reject self-improvement.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 06-19-2016 at 04:40 AM..
it would be like a grown adult saying that your parents made you so they are responsible for you. so you refuse to get a job and act like an adult, and instead stay in the basement of your parents house when you're 30 watching TV and playing computer games all day because you didn't ask to be born.
an adult takes responsibility for their life, and does not sit around blaming others, including blaming god
And the parents lock you in the basement and torture you for the rest of your life because you didn't listen to them? Or, if you visited them and the dresser fell on you they'd simply say 'nothing to do with us. He made his own decisions'. The hellthreat (without which, heaven really loses its' appeal, when you think about it) fails, and the Free will argument works well enough if we are truly on our own, but the parents are there and they ARE responsible, especially in you are living in their basement (as we apparently live in God's) and when we fall down the steps the parents stand at the top wringing their hands bu powerless to help because we decided how to live. If we get a disease, they won't help, because it is our choice how we lived? That's just stuff you can lay at he door of humanity. There are natural disasters, and Tsunamis and Katrinas have asked some serious questions of the God -believers.
Free will does not get God off the hook any more than 'We had it coming' or 'Just showing us that he's there'.
your soul knows exactly why you chose to be born into these conditions
the part of you that refuses to connect with your soul, or even admit that you have one, is the part that would rather blame others than take responsibility for your own growth and advancement
the places in your life that are most uncomfortable for you, the challenges, the problems, the obstacles, the difficulties.....that's where the potential for growth is. do you blame others or do you take responsibility and seek self-improvement?
My soul (whatever that is supposed to mean) knows nothing of the kind. And neither is that the case with anyone else I have spoken to. Thus even if your claim was true, the person who made the decision about how we would be born wasn't in any comprehensible way Ourselves at all, but someone else.
So in addition to God still being responsible for the whole thing, we have a lot of disembodies souls that are screwing things up for us.
How is that our fault? How is God or these pre -birth souls not responsible and we are? I'm not whining or complaining, but just identifying who is really responsible and who really isn't, and for what.
The Learning Curve excuse doesn't really work either. What lessons can be learned from natural disasters? Only one, that it is us vs, nature and we are on our own.
And the parents lock you in the basement and torture you for the rest of your life because you didn't listen to them? Or, if you visited them and the dresser fell on you they'd simply say 'nothing to do with us. He made his own decisions'. ... the parents are there and they ARE responsible, especially in you are living in their basement (as we apparently live in God's) and when we fall down the steps the parents stand at the top wringing their hands bu powerless to help because we decided how to live. If we get a disease, they won't help, because it is our choice how we lived?
i'm not talking about a 4-year old. I'm talking about a 30-year old.
can you not see the difference?
why are you keeping yourself infantilized? [="treat (someone) as a child or in a way that denies their maturity in age or experience"]
and as mature adults, yes our health is our responsibility too.
what a bizarre conversation....
you deny god exists, but at the same time blame god for the horrible things humans do.
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no such thing as "Luck" though there are random factors rhat may or may not operate in our favour. And attempt to influence them may be be practical,like buying morre lottery tickets to increase the chances of winning, or stepping on the cracks in the pavement to propitiate the Hidden forces of the beyond. 
