Scientism

[BidenPresident]

I do not think the concept of free will is coherent. But it needs to be defined specifically. Saying yes free will, no free will is pointless.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Free will got associated with Saint Augustine, so there probably is some religious overtones.

After reading this post, I had a choice to compose a written response or not.

A lot of cultures seem to have Origin stories about how man came to be. Dogs and other critters never wonder about it. Many human cultures in the past did the same. They were in harmony with nature using their intelligence to eke out an existence. Homo sapiens sapiens go back about 300,000 years. Some like myself, believe modern thinking man goes back 30,000 years. Using those 30,000 years compared to our written history, about 10,000 years leaves a gap of 20,000 years. Considering how far we've come the past 3,000 years, I'm curious what took so long.

One answer could be changes in the mind itself. How we think, which can't be seen in genetics. History can tell their experiences and eventual behaviors, but it's harder to see their mindsets based solely on results.

 

[Cypress]

A lot of cultures seem to have Origin stories about how man came to be. Dogs and other critters never wonder about it. Many human cultures in the past did the same. They were in harmony with nature using their intelligence to eke out an existence. Homo sapiens sapiens go back about 300,000 years. Some like myself, believe modern thinking man goes back 30,000 years. Using those 30,000 years compared to our written history, about 10,000 years leaves a gap of 20,000 years. Considering how far we've come the past 3,000 years, I'm curious what took so long.

One answer could be changes in the mind itself. How we think, which can't be seen in genetics. History can tell their experiences and eventual behaviors, but it's harder to see their mindsets based solely on results.

For whatever reason, we are capable of reason, complex language, and abstract thought.

It's hard for me to conceive of ourselves as meat puppets. I don't even neccesarily see a dolphin as a meat puppet.

When it comes to the human mind, we are the only species ever to have existed on Earth which is capable of percieving a rational order, a mathmatical scaffolding, and an organizing principle underlying the cosmos. And it's possible we are the only life in the universe to percieve it. That is pretty remarkable.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Free will got associated with Saint Augustine, so there probably is some religious overtones.

After reading this post, I had a choice to compose a written response or not.

Probably? Without free will, how do you rationalize, as a Christian, Jesus coming back to earth and throwing non-believers into a lake of fire? How do you condemn people to eternal torture for sins?

I didn't see what an alleged second coming of Jesus has to do with free will

Dante's conception of hell was a work of literature, and even there the virtuous pagans were not sent to hell, they had a comfortable afterlife in limbo.

The Dante version of hell is not universally, maybe not even widely accepted in world Christianity.

It doesn't. Now people have a choice to decide if Mode is running or simply revealing his anarchistic anti-Christian side common to American teenagers and 20somethings. The "not packing a full suitcase" theory is still an option.

Dante's Inferno is a classic which Star Trek even quoted. Still doesn't mean it's "Christian" or from the Bible. LOL

 

[ZenMode]

I didn't see what an alleged second coming of Jesus has to do with free will

Dante's conception of hell was a work of literature, and even there the virtuous pagans were not sent to hell, they had a comfortable afterlife in limbo.

The Dante version of hell is not universally, maybe not even widely accepted in world Christianity.

How do you hold people eternally accountable for their beliefs, in other words not believing in God, if their beliefs aren't the result of free will, but the results of influences over which they have no control?

 

[Dutch Uncle]

How do you hold people eternally accountable for their beliefs, in other words not believing in God

, if their beliefs aren't the result of free will, but the results of influences over which they have no control?

You can't. Why would you?

Another non sequitur from you today, Mode. First, people aren't legally held accountable for their beliefs in the United States. Monarchist, Despot and other authoritarian states can try to do enforce such laws. Iran, North Korea, Russia and China being notable examples.

Second, no one except you is attempting to make that claim. People have independence of original thought. Free Will. Are you in your teens? You seem determined to keep repeating your same lame attempts to dodge responsibility for your actions regardless how many times other people prove you wrong.

You're free to believe you can shoot up a church full of Christians, but if you act upon that belief, you will be held responsible...regardless if you believe it's not your fault.

If you cheat on a loved one, it's their choice to hold you accountable by their standards, not yours. Your choice was to cheat on them. Their choice how to react to your behavior.

 

[ZenMode]

You can't. Why would you?

Another non sequitur from you today, Mode. First, people aren't legally held accountable for their beliefs in the United States. Monarchist, Despot and other authoritarian states can try to do enforce such laws. Iran, North Korea, Russia and China being notable examples.

Second, no one except you is attempting to make that claim. People have independence of original thought. Free Will. Are you in your teens? You seem determined to keep repeating your same lame attempts to dodge responsibility for your actions regardless how many times other people prove you wrong.

You're free to believe you can shoot up a church full of Christians, but if you act upon that belief, you will be held responsible...regardless if you believe it's not your fault.

If you cheat on a loved one, it's their choice to hold you accountable by their standards, not yours. Your choice was to cheat on them. Their choice how to react to your behavior.

"Thought crime", aka beliefs, is the ENTIRE basis for sending people to hell for not believing in God. If you don't have free will, and therefore can't be held accountable for your lack of belief in any god, what's the basis for Jesus hurling non-believers into a lake of fire?

 

[Dutch Uncle]

"Thought crime" is the ENTIRE basis for sending people to hell for not believing in God.

If you don't have free will, and therefore can't be held accountable for your lack of belief in any god, what's the basis for Jesus hurling non-believers into a lake of fire?

It's not the law, so it's your choice to believe or not. Is this another teenage-level anti-Christian atheist rant?

Correct, hence the choice. I didn't know Jesus did that. Do you have a quote or reference? If factual then it proves Jesus existed.

That said, since normal people do have free will, it's a moot point.

 

[ZenMode]

It's not the law, so it's your choice to believe or not. Is this another teenage-level anti-Christian atheist rant?

Correct, hence the choice. I didn't know Jesus did that. Do you have a quote or reference? If factual then it proves Jesus existed.

That said, since normal people do have free will, it's a moot point.

Right, Christians have to believe in free will, as I said earlier. If we don't have free will, then how do you hurl non-believers into the lake a fire in hell? If we don't have free will then how do you hold people accountable for sins?

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Right, Christians have to believe in free will, as I said earlier.

If we don't have free will, then how do you hurl non-believers into the lake a fire in hell? If we don't have free will then how do you hold people accountable for sins?

Yes. I suppose in a teenage mind, that equates to Free Will being strictly Christian thing.

Again, where does it say that, Mode? Are you unable answer or are you just refusing to do so? Prove to me Hell exists and then we can discuss it. Free Will exists regardless if Christianity exists or not. Free Will isn't dependent upon religion. It's a matter of science and the mind....for normal people. Wackadoodles, not so much.

 

[Cypress]

How do you hold people eternally accountable for their beliefs, in other words not believing in God, if their beliefs aren't the result of free will, but the results of influences over which they have no control?

I'm assuming you gathered tidbits of info about Christianity from some obscure atheist blog.

Free will in Saint Augustine's view had nothing to do with damnation.

Augustine subscribed to the doctrine of predestination. We are supposedly already predestined for salvation or damnation since before we were even born, since the beginning of time in fact, and nothing we do changes that.

To Augustine, free will was an explanation for theodicy - the problem for why there is evil and suffering in the world. The reason, according to Augustine, is because God imbued us with free will rather than making us meet puppets, and therefore we have the freedom to choose either righteousness or depravity.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I'm assuming you gathered tidbits of info about Christianity from some obscure atheist blog.

Free will in Saint Augustine's view had nothing to do with damnation.

Augustine subscribed to the doctrine of predestination. We are supposedly already predestined for salvation or damnation since before we were even born, since the beginning of time in fact, and nothing we do changes that.

To Augustine, free will was an explanation for theodicy - the problem for why there is evil and suffering in the world. The reason is, according to Augustine, is because God imbued us with free will rather than making us meet puppets, we have the freedom to choose either righteousness or depravity.

Exactly: freedom to choose. Origin stories often include why mankind was made, but that doesn't negate our ability to choose.

For some reaons, Mode is wrapped around the axel linking Christianity and Free Will as if Free Will was dependent upon Christianity.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/free-will
free will

A prominent feature of existentialism is the concept of a radical, perpetual, and frequently agonizing freedom of choice. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80), for example, spoke of the individual “condemned to be free.”

The existence of free will is denied by some proponents of determinism, the thesis that every event in the universe is causally inevitable. Determinism entails that, in a situation in which people make a certain decision or perform a certain action, it is impossible that they could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did. Philosophers and scientists who believe that determinism in this sense is incompatible with free will are known as “hard” determinists.

In contrast, so-called “soft” determinists, also called compatibilists, believe that determinism and free will are compatible after all. In most cases, soft determinists attempt to achieve this reconciliation by subtly revising or weakening the commonsense notion of free will. Contemporary soft determinists have included the English philosopher G.E. Moore (1873–1958), who held that acting freely means only that one would have acted otherwise had one decided to do so (even if, in fact, one could not have decided to do so), and the American philosopher Harry Frankfurt (born 1929), who has argued that acting freely amounts to identifying with or approving of one’s own desires (even if those desires are such that one cannot help but act on them).

 

[Cypress]

It doesn't. Now people have a choice to decide if Mode is running or simply revealing his anarchistic anti-Christian side common to American teenagers and 20somethings. The "not packing a full suitcase" theory is still an option.

Dante's Inferno is a classic which Star Trek even quoted. Still doesn't mean it's "Christian" or from the Bible. LOL

The certainty that free will and choice do not exist based on fanciful speculations regarding neurochemistry strike me as a form of scientism run amuck.

I think it's official doctrine in some Christian denominations that there is is a place between heaven, and the hell of damned where the virtuous pagans and unbaptized infants go. I don't think very many people want to believe the truly righteous pagan or unbaptized infant deserve eternal damnation.

On the other hand, as a metaphysical construct, I am perfectly okay with the thought of Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin receiving damnation. That's a perfectly natural human response, and it's probably why religions like Buddhism and Hinduism have their own versions of hell.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

The certainty that free will and choice do not exist based on fanciful speculations regarding neurochemistry strike me as a form of scientism run amuck.

I think it's official doctrine in some Christian denominations that there is is a place between heaven, and the hell of damned where the virtuous pagans and unbaptized infants go. I don't think very many people want to believe the truly righteous pagan or unbaptized infant deserve eternal damnation.

On the other hand, as a metaphysical construct, I am perfectly okay with Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin receiving damnation. That's a perfectly natural human response, and it's probably why religions like Buddhism and Hinduism have their own versions of hell.

The denominations are free to believe as they will, but they are spinning that from single verses in the Bible or out of thin air.

Militant Atheists tend to cherry-pick the Bible and Christian beliefs for their own agenda just like the Holy Rollers do. It's not science, it's opinion....usually heavily emotionally-laced too.

As for Hell; I see it more as a choice than as punishment. How can an all-merciful, all-knowing God condemn people to pain? IMO, people have a choice to move towards God's light or go play in the darkness with the darkness being "hell".

 

[Cypress]

The denominations are free to believe as they will, but they are spinning that from single verses in the Bible or out of thin air.

Militant Atheists tend to cherry-pick the Bible and Christian beliefs for their own agenda just like the Holy Rollers do. It's not science, it's opinion....usually heavily emotionally-laced too.

As for Hell; I see it more as a choice than as punishment. How can an all-merciful, all-knowing God condemn people to pain? IMO, people have a choice to move towards God's light or go play in the darkness with the darkness being "hell".

It doesn't have to be written down in the pages of the bible. The bible is considered the sole authority in the Protestant tradition. And even that is questionable in practice. Protestants are a minority of world Christianity.

Church teachings, church tradition, and eccelsiatical authority are just as authoritative as the bible in Catholicism and Orthodoxy.


You're right about cherry picking. Both holy rollers and hard core atheists do it. A balanced view is available to those who makes the effort to take classes or read books by reputable historians of religion.

The concept of hell as a suite of torture chambers remains in the popular imagination because of movies, Dante, and Medieval Christianity I think.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

It doesn't have to be written down in the pages of the bible. The bible is considered the sole authority in the Protestant tradition. And even that is questionable in practice. Protestants are a minority of world Christianity.

Church teachings, church tradition, and eccelsiatical authority are just as authoritative as the bible in Catholicism and Orthodoxy.


You're right about cherry picking. Both holy rollers and hard core atheists do it. A balanced view is available to those who makes the effort to take classes or read books by reputable historians of religion.

The concept of hell as a suite of torture chambers remains in the popular imagination because of movies, Dante, and Medieval Christianity I think.

Each religion is free to have their own beliefs and rituals. The point here is that the militant atheists love to cherry-pick with their complaints instead of see their target as a whole. Notice too that US atheists mainly attack Christians, not Jews and Muslims. They don't take a "balanced view" as you suggested.

 

[Cypress]

Each religion is free to have their own beliefs and rituals. The point here is that the militant atheists love to cherry-pick with their complaints instead of see their target as a whole. Notice too that US atheists mainly attack Christians, not Jews and Muslims. They don't take a "balanced view" as you suggested.

My theory is that some people were traumatized from having their parents drag them to some Fundy fire and brimstone church, and then carried a grudge the rest of their lives.

Honestly, I would probably be spooked getting dragged to a Pentacostal service!

 

[Dutch Uncle]

My theory is that some people were traumatized from having their parents drag them to some Fundy fire and brimstone church, and then carried a grudge the rest of their lives.

Honestly, I would probably be spooked getting dragged to a Pentacostal service!

Possible. A "Carrie" sort of thing? LOL Most, IMO, are simply immature, angry and rebelling against their parents...while still mooching off of them by living in the basement.

I've been to a few different denominations plus watched the Televangelists. I never felt traumatized but did go through an atheist period in my early teens. It was a progression from average Sunday school student to atheist mainly due to reading Science Fiction and recognizing that most literal Biblical claims did not match up with reality.


FWIW, I also went through a conspiracy theorist period in my later teens, especially UFOs and alien visitations. LOL

 

[Cypress]

Possible. A "Carrie" sort of thing? LOL Most, IMO, are simply immature, angry and rebelling against their parents...while still mooching off of them by living in the basement.

I've been to a few different denominations plus watched the Televangelists. I never felt traumatized but did go through an atheist period in my early teens. It was a progression from average Sunday school student to atheist mainly due to reading Science Fiction and recognizing that most literal Biblical claims did not match up with reality.


FWIW, I also went through a conspiracy theorist period in my later teens, especially UFOs and alien visitations. LOL

I wonder if there are demographic studies on atheists, proving their average age is 24, or whatever?

On the other hand, I suspect Donald Trumpf is an atheists. Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens were atheists.

The term atheist might be so amorphous that a meaningful statistically robust demographic study could be problematic

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I wonder if there are demographic studies on atheists, proving their average age is 24, or whatever?

On the other hand, I suspect Donald Trumpf is an atheists. Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens were atheists.

The term atheist might be so amorphous that a meaningful statistically robust demographic study could be problematic

Yes, there are studies: https://www.pewresearch.org/religio...dy/religious-family/atheist/age-distribution/

Mostly young, male, Euro-American, single and broke. LOL

Trump worships money. Dawkins and Hitchens were militant atheists who also made money off of young atheists. While I believe they are atheists, they were motivated to stay so for financial reasons. Kinda like Ann Coulter playing a radical RWer for money.

Atheists waffle on the definition to inflate their numbers similar to LGBTQ puffing up their numbers with any woman who "kissed a girl", i.e. had a homosexual experience regardless of their present preferences. Example, some Atheists include Buddhism or believe in an afterlife. It's one thing to say "I don't believe in the God of the Bible", but it's another thing to say there is no such thing a God, there is nothing beyond the physical universe and/or "when you're dead, you're dead".

I lean toward panentheism.