morality == religion? Sez who?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kucinich

Originally posted by Urban Ranger Suppose at time t you have encountered Event R. Even though it appears that you might have actions A₁...A_m to choose from, eventually your choice would be A'. Suppose that the Judeo-Christian god is omniscent, he would certainly know about this. Since your choice is known before hand - acutally has been known since God created this universe - what exactly is your choice? None.

Of course you had the choice. It was your choice. Just because you were such a person that would make that choice, doesn't make it not your choice.

It is not a choice if what you would pick has already been determined beforehand.

[Verto]

I disagree. Your choice is still there, even if God's knowledge of you is so complete that he knows which decision you will make.

[Kontiki]

Actually, your choice is invalidated from the referrence point of God - which is the whole point. The Christian standpoint is that you have free will whereby you can choose to do good, serve God, etc. or choose to sin and go against God. If God already knows which choice you will make before you actually make it, your "choice" isn't one at all from his perspective.

[Urban Ranger]

Exactly Kontiki.

For those who still don't understand, consider an actor and a script. An actor in a film might appear to have choices, but his actions merely follow the script.

[Agathon]

believers have been saying that God is incomprehensible

If this is true, isn't religion incomprehensible, and therefore meaningless?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Elok
And believers have been saying that God is incomprehensible from day one, but your side always counters that we're just full of crap, and stonewalling to control human minds, and so on, and so forth...

If God is incomprehensible, you are merely speaking gibberish when you speak of this entity. The sounds are there but there is no meaning. Nobody is going to be convinced by gibberish.

As a result, theologians have been trying to construct proofs of YHWH based on logic.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Why is it a generalisation? Sure, some "utilitarians" don't mind giving up freedoms they don't cherish, but that isn't the deal they've signed onto by being utilitarians. Other people also get to decide which freedoms they have to give up based on their reading of the community's needs. For example, say the community says it will be better off if pot is illegal. The utilitarian who doesn't cherish the use of pot may give up that freedom without a complaint. But what if the community says religion has caused alot of strife and should be banned and the utilitarian is religious?

Some utilitarians WILL give up religion if it is best for the happiness of the community to do so, which was my entire point if you actually read my post (I never said 'give up freedoms', I say 'give up individual happiness' which are things they themselves cherish). And yes, you are generalizing. Very much so. Firstly you never addressed the Mill utilitarians who believe the best for the community's happiness is to give as much liberty as possible for all the individuals.

[Verto]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Actually, your choice is invalidated from the referrence point of God - which is the whole point. The Christian standpoint is that you have free will whereby you can choose to do good, serve God, etc. or choose to sin and go against God. If God already knows which choice you will make before you actually make it, your "choice" isn't one at all from his perspective.

As far as you are concerned, your choice is just that; although God may not what we would do in a given situation, we need to make that decision for ourself; few would want to be judged for decisions they didn't make.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
It is not a choice if what you would pick has already been determined beforehand.

Yes it is! You chose. Maybe God chose to make you such a person that you would make that choice, but that doesn't mean that God made your choice.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
If this is true, isn't religion incomprehensible, and therefore meaningless?

I thought we'd realized that already

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Verto


As far as you are concerned, your choice is just that; although God may not what we would do in a given situation, we need to make that decision for ourself; few would want to be judged for decisions they didn't make.

"As far as I am concerned" is completely irrelevant in the context of Christianity and free will - as long as you assume an omnipotent God. The whole point of free will vis-a-vis Christianity is that we have been given the capacity to choose a righteous path or sin. From this, God will judge us and deem whether we are worthy. But if God knows from the the get go every decision we will make, any real time choices you make have no bearing on God's decision - he already knows the outcome.

Put another way, God knows every choice you are going to make from the day you are born to the day you die, so he already has all the necessary information to judge you before you take your first breath. So here's the dilema - if God has perfect foreknowledge of your actions, how can any "choice" you make have any impact on how he judges you when you die?

[Elok]

Theologians don't "reinvent" God in terms of apparent human logic, only describe him in those terms. Theology is mostly analogy. But at a certain point all analogies break down, when there is no comparable known to stand in for the unknown. Beyond that point, God may be called incomprehensible.

And God makes decisions not on what you do so much as who you are. What you have chosen to make of yourself. His foreknowledge of your choice does not anull its existence. Nor does it make free will irrelevant. Even in an open-and-shut trial with an airtight case, where everybody knows the defendant is guilty, it's still important to go through the trial for its own sake. The defendant cannot say he wasn't given a chance.

Not to mention that, again, you're all assuming determinism...the point of a living, thinking being is that it can grow beyond what it was made to be.

[Kuciwalker]

Actually, a stochastic universe wouldn't be any better for free will. It'd probably be worse, depending on how random.

[Az]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Utilitarianism sacrifices your happiness for the sake of the community but that leaves utilitarians in a bind when the happiness being sacrificed is their own

Btw, that's quite a generalization. There are many utilitarians who wouldn't mind giving up some individual happiness for community happiness. Besides there isn't only kind of utilitarianism... Mill's is based on human liberty.

Reminds me of the time that Berzerker tryied to argue that I have to donate all of my organs or something, to keep up with my ethics.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Agathon


If this is true, isn't religion incomprehensible, and therefore meaningless?

What other pursuits give men carte blanche to wear gaudy frocks, ridiculous hats and swing burning handbags?

In public?