Do we have freewill ? is it biblical ?

OIC. I've said the same thing!

Take the statement of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 25:31 to end.

Jesus talks about the requirement for his followers to actively search out the needy (in hospitals, in poor houses, in prisons) and providing them with their needs.

As an atheists, I see that as a solid precept.

For Christians, that is a direct order from God - stating that failure gets you eternity in hell even if you are a staunch believer in god.

We see Gandhi's philosophies (though he didn't threaten hell, obviously).

There are various philosophies. I don't believe their direction on morality, etc., can be ignores simply because the philosophies have or don't have some connection to some god.

 

LOL!

 

Sorry but charts aren't reality. Especially when hundreds of thousands of years are missing in chunks, no eyewitnesses, no testimony, no sign of any type to signify transition to man, and not a single mention of any of it by any civilization of man throughout the entire history of man. The entire thing is speculation, theory, and deduction.

 

I just thought you might be interested in what is known.

 

I think I have the ultimate answer here:

Either we have free will which allows us to debate about it, or we don't, and we are programmed to debate about it.

 

Thanks for your consideration. I have faith in a God I know, similar to how you believe that turning the faucet handle will give you water because you know.

 

I appreciate that. But imo, it isn't what they know. It's what they think about what they gather.

 

Not based on Hebrews 11:1. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

When we turn a faucet we know water will come out based on past experience. When we encounter a tap for the first time, we check to see if there is water there.

Faith is about having hope for something for which there is no evidence, unless of course we are a person such as yourself who has had a personal experience which provides evidence (although it is evidence that cannot be considered by anyone but you).

 

Thanks but I will stick with what I said to the poster in context with our exchange.

 

Why?

 

What do YOU think about what they gather?

 

Freewill does exist and it existed in heaven and the devil had it and he decided and God has freewill in heaven.

 

According to the scripture, a full one third of the hosts of heaven followed Lucifer, rebelled and made war against God with a full knowledge of what they were doing. It wasn't an oops. Neither were they fooled into it. It was mutiny of the highest order for no reason other than a selfish lust for glory. I can't fathom such a thing. It's like murdering your Dad to marry your Mom...very twisted.

 

DNA is evidence of evolution.
Just as DNA today can tell if you are closely related to another person, DNA can tell us who our (as in mankind) ancestors were. We have Neanderthal DNA, a subspecies of humans that is now extinct.

 

Science does not set out to refute religion. Science sets out to discover what is true. Religion is just collateral damage.

 

Since I have been deceased, albeit temporarily, I can tell you that I was not punished despite doing many things that my parents and Sunday School teachers told me are verboten. I also learned during my brief vacation to the other side that we live many lifetimes, and by many, I mean virtually countless amounts, and not always on this rock, and not always as a member of the homo sapiens species that exists on this rock.

It is true that our 'decision space' is usually limited. For example, I would love to get up and walk to the bathroom to relieve myself, something that not so long ago I took for granted. But having become disabled in late 2017, depending on precisely what date you want to use, and there are multiple options, getting up and walking to the bathroom (or anywhere else, for that matter) is no longer within my decision space, because I'm physically incapable of doing so.

But I am capable of getting into my wheelchair and going, well, pretty much anywhere, as long as it's about 20 miles or less away from where I am now, as that is as far as it can go. Then again, I can choose to take the charger with me, make a pitstop to fill 'er up, and then go an additional 20 miles.

But consciousness in not the end result of a deterministic chemical reaction in our brains, as our brains do not develop consciousness, they merely allow our bodies to connect to it, which exists somewhere outside of this time and space.

Someone reading this, is either currently deciding, or already has, whether or not they are going to respond to this rambling post. That is free will in action. And neither choice is 'wrong', or something that will result in eternal damnation, as it is something that does not exist. That is not to say that our consciousness does not survive our physical death, as I am a firsthand witness to the fact that it does. Only that the choices that consciousness makes, while constrained within the realm of the possible, is nonetheless our choice.

 

History is told by the winners. Think of it this way. My wife was previously married to a man that physically and emotionally abused her. She finally left. To this day her children, who stayed with their dad most of the time, still do not believe that he ever abused her. So why can't that apply to the situation here? Satan and the others left to avoid abuse, but those who stayed are told there was no abuse. I'm not claiming that is what happened. Only pointing out that it is very easy to fathom.

 

It's more likely that people lie and do evil, than can God.

 

Very insightful, thank you very much.

 

As noted, that wasn't intended as what is actual. It is only to show that it is rather easy to comprehend how such a thing can be done.

 

You got to choose to have healthcare. Great!

But, there are those who need specific life giving healthcare and are not allowed to because the government disallows it - even though doctors say it is needed.

There are also parents who want to bring up their kids in a particular religion of their choice, yet the government school hires instructors that teach that the kid's religion is a lie, and that the kid need to follow a different religion.

We also have the state deciding that individuals are expressing sexual orientation that is invalid. That is obviously detrimental to those who do have that sexual orientation - both direction and through the government teaching others to hate their orientation.

These and others are serious encroachments on freedom, enforced by our various levels of government.

 

It’s not a problem for science at all. Science progresses without answering the ‘why’ of things.Why ask Why? She have great pontificators willing to tell you why with a range of baseless speculations.

 

I have kind of wondered whether physical reality might be a representation of some deeper hidden reality.
So while it might seem as if everything in physical reality is predetermined, in reality it might not be.

If you want to talk about the actual science, on an instinctive and logical we would assume that everything would be predetermined. However, observable experiment (science) cannot really precisely answer this question at this point in time. There is a certain statistical randomness. Now, hidden in this randomness is even more predetermination, which strangely is determined as much by what will happen in the future as what has already happened in the past. (So a sort of fate very much exists) But we simply don't know for sure that all of this randomness is connected to predetermination.

Now, it is true that statistical randomness may not be the same thing as "free will".

Free will is kind of a psychological concept. How to react with the knowledge that everything may likely be predetermined. We have choice, but that choice is already predetermined. The question that the free will concept raises if why act when our actions are already determined? But I think that's actually a logical fallacy. The reason to make a decision has to do with effecting an outcome, but we need to more precisely define what "effecting" means in that statement. It almost brings up a Buddhist philosophy, asking precisely what it means to desire good and bad.

 

The argument against free will is that God knows what will happen, therefore nothing different can happen. But I don't really see that as relevent, because WE don't know what will happen. God just knows what choices we WILL make. We still make those choices.

 

Are you referring to having either an addadicktome or dickectomy surgery? Yeah, no, under no uncertain terms should anyone under the age of 18 ever be allowed to do that, and I would personally recommend waiting until the age of 25, when our brains finally become fully adult. Until relatively recently I was okay with doing hormones and the like under the theory that it was reversible, but I think it's important to allow a child to have a natural puberty cycle, so I've changed my mind on that as well.

The best religion is no religion, and I say this as a person who has actually seen the afterlife. Still, it has no business being in public schools, who are mandated, as is all of government, to remain neutral in that regard. But I think forcing religion on a child is borderline abusive, especially when I remember (and shudder) what my grandparents said to scare the ever-loving $hit out of me when I was in kindergarten FFS.