Do you believe in Free-Will, the Soul, and God?

[Rogan Josh]

I am curious to see if there is any correlation between whether or not people believe in the concepts of 'free-will', the 'soul' and 'God'.

Let me make my definitions of the terms a little clearer.

Free-will: by this I mean, the ability of you personally to determine your own actions. Do you believe that you are a sentient entity who can make decisions (and have independent thought) or do you believe that your actions are completely constrained by the physical state in which you find yourself. (in other words, your brain works in a fully (perhaps quantum mechanical) deterministic way, just like any other physical object).

Soul: Do you believe that there is any part of yourself which is in any way separate from your physical body? Or are you simply the sum of all your cells, neurons and whatever which we traditionally think of as your 'body'.

God: By 'God' I mean an omnipotent being who is sentient and capable of making descisions - so I do not include some philosophical princile or scientific law etc. It need not be the Christian God however.

[DRoseDARs]

Wow, first one to vote.

Free-will? Yes.
Soul? Yes.
God? Yes.

Judeo-Christian? Hell no.

[Ramo]

No, no, and no.

[Urban Ranger]

Freewill, yes. Other superstitious stuff, no.

[Urban Ranger]

But there is no QP deterministic way.

[Ramo]

Well, you can view your brain as a massive feedback system. I think freewill implies a seperate "you" that's not affected by the physical world; i.e. a soul.

[Aeson]

I don't believe in freewill or God (in any religious sense). As for the soul, I think we (and all matter) operate on levels we haven't yet observed, as well as those we have observed. I would say that the soul is just that part of ourselves we don't yet understand physically, but it does exist.

QP when applied to freewill might as well be deterministic. We don't control our decisions on that level. If decisions are influenced on the quantum level, than it can't really be freewill, as it's out of our control.

[Jon Miller]

yes
no
yes

Jon Miller

[Kepler]

I believe I'd qualify your definitions somewhat if I had written the poll, but I'll vote within your limits so all the votes are describing the same apples.

Free will: yes
Soul: no
God: no

My main problem is soul. Any meaningful definition of the self for me includes the interconnections of that self with others. Man separate from his emotional dependency upon and influence on others is not the same sort of "self" that we observe running around in a social environment. When my physicality ceases to function as a living person, there's a part of me that goes on in all the ways I've influenced those whom I love. I don't believe in the religious literalism of an existential part of identity that is yet not physical, however. Since I think that's implied by your definition, I voted no, but according to my definition yes we clearly have souls.

Free will has the usual quasi-quantum muddle about determinism (IMHO, a classic case of mistaking the map for the territory), but even if that's right then it's still statistical so I choose to call the aggregation of statistical influences free will, and the heck with the man who says oytherwise.

God isn't a sentient being. If all sentient beings disappeared from the universe, God would disappear as well. That is, God is a figure of speech for all the "why" questions and answers implied by self-aware existence. Since you meant an actual being with an actual non-theoretical existence indepedent of us when we talk about God, then nope -- to me that's a well-meaning and socially-useful Tooth Fairy.

[Buck Birdseed]

I've yet to find any decent argument for determinism or god, and frankly the existence of the soul I believe to be outside the realm of Philosophy.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Ramo
Well, you can view your brain as a massive feedback system. I think freewill implies a seperate "you" that's not affected by the physical world; i.e. a soul.

I agree with this statement. I think that free-will implies the existence of a soul. Ramo and I then differ in the starting assumption - since he does not believe in free-will he need not believe in a soul, whereas I do believe I have free-will, so I must have a soul.

BTW quantum physics is deterministic in the sense that all the probabilities of things happening are definied/fixed by the initial conditions. There is no way a purely physical object (ie. one that obeys the laws of quantum mechanic itself) can effect the evolution of the system.

[GeneralTacticus]

I do believe in free will.

I don't believe in God.

I don't believe in a soul or any kind of extraphysical part of me, but I do believe in a sense 'I' that makes me self-aware, rather than simply giving the appearance of being so.

[Alexander's Horse]

I believe in Jessica Alba, beer and my own infallibility.

[bondetamp]

I think Ramo said it well.

There's no more reason to believe in free will than there is to believe in a god or in a soul. One could argue that all three of these assumptions are made on a basis of whistful thinking, making us feel more special and less alone in the universe.

I still act as if I had free will, though, but it how could I not?

[SuperSneak]

I believe in all of those things and more.
However, my belief system is extremely complex and we'd be here for days trying to make it clear, so, let's just leave it at:
"I'm watching, and I'm not sure I'm too happy with what is going on here!"