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

[Lincoln]

I have read some of the early writings from both sides of the issue of predestination and I think it is too bad that the opposing sides have become so entrenched. I sdudied the scriptures on my own and pretty much came to the same conclusion as the writer of the article that I posted. In other words, there is a balance and both sides are correct the same way that a blind man is correct in his limited observation of a portion of an elephant.

Has God "chosen" some to perish? From our view in our element of time we can say, no. We can say that because we have not seen the end or the beginning and our choices are based upon the good and evil that we are aware of. Therefore God judges us on what we know. But from God's view of eternity we must say, yes because he knew all about the wrong choices that some would make before he ceated anything. Knowing full well the outcome he went ahead and created anyway. Furthermore, he could have stopped some from doing evil (like when he appeared to Abraham before he killed his son) but HE chose not to intervene (except selectively) even after the creation was in place.

There is no way to escape predestination when we are talking about the Biblical God. But there is also no way to escape accountability because people do evil without God's help and without the benefit of his foreknowledge. When one shakes his fist at God and says; "You made me do it!", God can always say, "How do you know?". Eternity exists as well as time. We are acting out the play that in God's eyes is already finished. We can repent now but God knows that there are walking dead men who will never darken the gates of heaven. In that sense they were chose to perish because they were seen in that state before they were created and before they had done any good or evil (Romans 9).

[Lars-E]

I think that sometimes christians and others try to use human knowledge and logic to understand God. That is what Jehova's Witness do imo. The problem with this is that we elevate natural "revelation" above spiritual revelation. If God has not revealed to us something from the scriptures through the Holy Spirit....we should be careful with developing doctrines.

[Lincoln]

I agree.

[Ramo]

I do not accept that notions of physics must invariably also apply to complex biological systems, including such extremely complex systems as the human brain:

Why not? Biological systems are merely abstracted physical systems.

Until evidence can be shown to back this mathematicaly based notion, evidence in the form of being able to predict, with some sort of high statistical probability, what the action of a human being will be given all that we know about the structure of the brain, the exact wiring and shcematic of the connections between all the neurons, the exact local biochemistry of all of those synaptic gaps, the entire life history, to each individual second of the previous experiences then I can safely continue in my belief in free will sans a soul.

I don't see why prediction is relevant. The brain is far to massively non-linear to predict human behavior to any reasonable degree of accuracy. But so is the universe as a whole. I guess that means, the Universe has a free-will, so therefore there exists a God.

[devilmunchkin]

no to all three
but i like reading fairy tales

[chequita guevara]

I don't accept your dichotmy of free will versus automaton. Humans are mix of free will and determinism.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
Actually, I've always thought the prediction of human behaviour is realtively easy. Profiling people has shown to be a very effective tool, as have advertising and propaganda, diplomacy etc. All rely on the understanding of human beaviour and the prediction of how someone will react.

It may not be 100% predictive in such general terms, but predicting someones behaviour or reaction to a situation is releatively easy. People who think similarly often react the same way to a stimulus - have you ever had the exact same thought/reaction on an event as someone else or had cause to say "I'm on your wavelength"?

Understanding general human behavior does not equal predicting human actions as a way of disproving the possibility of free will. After all, if the things you noted are so good, ad agencies should be all very wealthy and competition limited to a few brand with the biggest ad budgest and no dictatorship should fall if it has control of the media and so forth.

Why not? Biological systems are merely abstracted physical systems.

'Abstracted'? I think that our minimal understanding of the issues of sentience and inteligence compared to our much greater understanding of theoretical physics is a sort of proof of which system is simpler to understand and abstract mathematically.

beings may have will, things don't, no matter the complexity (unless anyone can show me the last major choice the earth or the sun made, far less the universe)

[Japher]

yes to all 3, for sure. i just don't believe in any religions.

[Ramo]

'Abstracted'?

Yes. Biology abstracts large physical systems as simpler biological systems. But deep down, everything is physics. Biology is just a rough approximation of certain physical systems..

I think that our minimal understanding of the issues of sentience and inteligence compared to our much greater understanding of theoretical physics is a sort of proof of which system is simpler to understand and abstract mathematically.

Right, biology does a poor job because it's as abstraction based on physics and biological observations. If you had enormous computing resources, etc. it would work better to treat biologial systems as physical systems.

beings may have will, things don't, no matter the complexity (unless anyone can show me the last major choice the earth or the sun made, far less the universe)

The point was, what does complexity have to do with anything?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ramo


Yes. Biology abstracts large physical systems as simpler biological systems. But deep down, everything is physics. Biology is just a rough approximation of certain physical systems..

I would hardly call biological systems simpler than physical ones. Now you are showing the bias of a physical scientist aganist biology!

[Ramo]

That's not what I'm saying. Biological systems are simpler than physical systems representing the same thing.

[Ramo]

That's the entire point of biology; so that you don't have to look at every little detail like in physics. Biology is an approximation, just like Economics or Chemistry or Geology, etc. are.

[Lincoln]

"But deep down, everything is physics."

I guess you have never heard of information. Everything is NOT physics.

[Ramo]

I guess you have never heard of information. Everything is NOT physics.

How isn't it?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ramo
That's the entire point of biology; so that you don't have to look at every little detail like in physics. Biology is an approximation, just like Economics or Chemistry or Geology, etc. are.

In biology you have to look at every single detail. You can't begin to examine neurobiology and say: fine, skip half the facts, its not necessary.

Having taken both a class on quantum physics and neurobiology and not ebing a sciewnce major at all (hurrah for core requirements) I can say that both demanded a streneous look at the details.

When you study a house made of brics, it is key to understand bircks, their make-up and what they can tolerate: but there is still something more, something no longer based on the bricks, once you create the house, which is why we have both architects and structural engineers. I don't know anyone who would tell me that the study of arhcitecture is simply an simple abstraction of the stury of materials.