07-06-2003 19:47									#61
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quote: In answer to the original question, He is here. You are just too blind to see Him.

So god created a bunch of people. And he created some of them to be too blind to see him. Then he sends the "too blind" ones to hell, because they were too blind to see him. Was it their fault?

	07-06-2003 20:16									#62
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quote: Originally posted by juhani_kahvi So god created a bunch of people. And he created some of them to be too blind to see him. Then he sends the "too blind" ones to hell, because they were too blind to see him. Was it their fault?

Absolutely! He created you in such a way as you have a choice. It is you who refuse to open your eyes?

Or do you have no free-will?

	07-06-2003 20:17									#63
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov I thought it was theists who were obsessed with an invisible parent sitting on a cloud spanking his naughty kids?

Which religion is that then? I have never heard of it....

	07-06-2003 20:38									#64
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But the option to choose is merely and illusion, if god is all-knowing and knows how things will end up anyway. If god foresees that I will go to hell, the whole struggle is pointless. God can predict it all. Either god is limited, or there is no free will.

I do not believe in a god. And I do not believe in free will either. In a strictly scientific sense, we are all machines with no ability to control our behaviour, since the brain is an organ like any other organ, and works according to it's chemistry.
IT DOES NOT MEAN that, for example, criminals should not be punished, or that life would be completely meaningless. It means, basically, that we do not have a soul of any kind.

	07-06-2003 21:29									#65
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quote: Originally posted by Lorizael The Bible isn't proof of God's existence, because there are other books out there that claim to be divinely inspired. And even if there weren't any other books making that claim, you would still have to prove that the Bible was in fact written by God.

An interesting point. If you will allow that all "holy books" = I am sure there is a word for it but I can't think of it right now - anyway, all "holy books" are INSPIRED by a divine being (or COULD have been inspired by a divine being) then that would kind of answer this thread.

God has popped up lots of time to explain himself, to gain trust etc. We just haven't been good at the obedience part.

HOWEVER, if you also allow that part of God's power comes from faith (Belief without proof? best definition I know of) then you have a good reason why God doesn't make this belief easy, straightforward, or irrefutable.

Personally, my own take on it is that there's eternal warfare between good and evil. Neither side is ever going to win - it's the battle that's the whole point, the struggle to better ourselves, and bring our own justice into the world.

This belief system doesn't require Gods and devils. The good and evil is within us all.

	07-06-2003 21:36									#66
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quote: Originally posted by juhani_kahvi ... I do not believe in a god. And I do not believe in free will either. In a strictly scientific sense, we are all machines with no ability to control our behaviour, since the brain is an organ like any other organ, and works according to it's chemistry. IT DOES NOT MEAN that, for example, criminals should not be punished, or that life would be completely meaningless. It means, basically, that we do not have a soul of any kind.

There's a paradox in your argument.

If there is free will, then you choose to believe there isn't.

If there isn't free will, then you have been programmed to CHOOSE not to believe there isn't.

How do you explain this choice of yours without free will?

	07-06-2003 22:15									#67
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Where's the paradox?
Being able to do or even THINK whatever we want is just an ILLUSION. My belief in free will, and all my other opinions and thoughts, are not my CHOICES, but a sum of 1) the input my enviroment provides me, and 2) my biological structure, which handles the information I receive.

	07-06-2003 22:39									#68
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So how can people change their mind without free will?

Are they programmed to be indecisive, or do their decisions change on the information available to them?

What about people who are stubborn, who will never change their minds?

I think there's a lot of people out there that your theory doesn't cover very well.

	07-06-2003 22:54									#69
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People are able to change their minds because 1) they receive new information from their eviroment which suggests that their previous opinion was incorrect 2) they think hard and realize something new, or 3) their brain structure changes in a way which alters their opinions.
Of course 1 and 2 require thinking and processing of information. However, this is not free will. The human brain is PROGRAMMED to think and to analyze both the information it receives and the information that already exists. I know that it is possible to affect the way WHAT KIND OF information the brain analyzes, and HOW, but that is not free will. Instead, the selections are based on some other information that the brain has.
3 may sound exceptional and strange, but it is relevant in children.
Some people are stubborn, because they are either born that way, or they have developed a stubborn character because of the information they have received from their enviroment. It may also be a combination of both. Same goes for indecisive people. In some cases, these characters may also be caused by mental illness.

	07-06-2003 22:57									#70
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Cuz it doesn't exist.

	07-06-2003 23:08									#71
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Here's my take on free will.

Most of the time, thought is occurring on a reaction, immediate level.

Deep thought or pondering is more than this. It requires focus of the mind on a particular problem, and other activity gets sidelined - we become "absent minded".

However, the fact that I can change from one mode to another kind of indicates I have free will over when this happens, doesn't it?

Maybe some people don't have it. Or maybe everybody has it and many choose not to use it.

Personally, the day I stop thinking about stuff and learning things, shoot me. I'm already dead.

	07-06-2003 23:18									#72
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quote: Originally posted by juhani_kahvi So god created a bunch of people. And he created some of them to be too blind to see him. Then he sends the "too blind" ones to hell, because they were too blind to see him. Was it their fault?

No but he's god so he can determine what is fair or not.

his house, his rules.

	07-06-2003 23:35									#73
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quote: Originally posted by juhani_kahvi But the option to choose is merely and illusion, if god is all-knowing and knows how things will end up anyway. If god foresees that I will go to hell, the whole struggle is pointless. God can predict it all. Either god is limited, or there is no free will.

Not true. Knowing all things is very different from controlling all things. If God controlled all things, then there wouldn't be any free will. But simply knowing all things does not negate free will.

	07-06-2003 23:45									#74
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Cruddy: No, even that is not controlled by free will. People may change from "normal thought" to "deep thought" because, for example, 1) they are facing a difficult problem that has to be solved, 2) their enviroment does not offer anything interesting to do or 3) they have a mental illness, or 4) they are using drugs.
In situation 1 we first notice and recognize the presence and significance of a problem because our brain has the information that describes what 'problem' means, what is the current problem and how important it is to solve it.
The brain is rarely idle because of it's construction. That is why option 2 happens often. Of course you can choose to start thinking or stop thinking, but that is not free will. That is a decision based on the information you already have, and taking the information you have and your brain structure into account, no other decision could have been made.

After this 3 and 4 should be self-explanitory, if the principle has been understood.
Of course there are a lot more reasons why the brain might go to deep thought. These were just examples. However, all of the reasons are caused by brain functioning instead of some kind of a free will. Same goes for shifting back to "normal thought" from "deep thought".

Understanding this does not have anything to do with stopping to think or stopping to learn things.

	07-06-2003 23:58									#75
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quote: Not true. Knowing all things is very different from controlling all things. If God controlled all things, then there wouldn't be any free will.

Of course to a human it seems like we have free will. But the decision on who goes to hell and who doesn't is made by god, and from god's point of view.
Let me correct myself: It is incorrect to say that our stuggle (whatever struggle that is, doesn't matter actually) would be pointless if god knew everything. However, no matter how hard we try, our everything we do during and after our life is already known. It is a fact, a truth. How could it be changed?

quote: But simply knowing all things does not negate free will.

God KNOWS what I'm going to do next - how COULD I do something else? It is impossible to do anything else than god KNOWS I will do.

Knowing and controlling are indeed different things.
The controller god AFFECTS the world that is under his/her control, making things exactly his/her way.
The knowing god sits passively and observes as everything goes as he originally planned.
Let's assume there is a god, and he created the world. If he is a controlling god, he alters the world while the process is running. If he is a knowing god, he just runs the process without altering it. That is the only difference. But neither of the alternatives offer free will to humans.

	08-06-2003 00:32									#76
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If we are going to further debate about free will, I suggest we make a thread for it.

	08-06-2003 00:47									#77
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quote: Originally posted by juhani_kahvi In a strictly scientific sense, we are all machines with no ability to control our behaviour, since the brain is an organ like any other organ, and works according to it's chemistry.

Not this old theory again...
scientifically speaking it was surpassed something as 70 years ago...
Our brain is NOT a machine in the classical sense, it simply can't be because consciousness can't be explained fully by classical mechanics.

quote: Originally posted by juhani_kahvi The human brain is PROGRAMMED to think and to analyze both the information it receives and the information that already exists

No, brain is NOT a computer, and mind is NOT a program.
Theoretical computer science gave us several interesting proofs of this.

	08-06-2003 01:11									#78
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quote: Our brain is NOT a machine in the classical sense, it simply can't be because consciousness can't be explained fully by classical mechanics.

I sure did not mean that the brain is a machine in the same manner as a car is. And you can forget about classical mechanics, too, since they are not very useful when examining brains. If people thought 70 years ago that the brain is a classical machine, then I'm sorry for them, but don't you dare to do a "straw man agrument" on me.

I wasn't speaking about machines in a physical manner. I ment the concept. Perhaps "program" would be a better word to describe the functioning of the brain.

I DO KNOW that brains do not fuction the same way as computers do. But on a deeper, logical level, it seems necessary that brain works SYSTEMATICALLY: it receives information, processes it according to it's structure and controls the body according to the processed information. The fact that human beings are conscious of their existence does not change this.

	08-06-2003 01:20									#79
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Juhani, Your opinions sounds much what I remember from my philosophy course. Old theorys about what is possible and impossible.
Old theory went: If I was sitting at the moment then it was impossible for me to stand. There were no option that I could have been standing at that same moment.
New theory is that it could have been possible for me to stand instead of sitting.

Did you understood what I ment?

-Blessed be

	08-06-2003 01:23									#80
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This thread is being threadjacked by Finnish people.

	08-06-2003 01:30									#81
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There is not much for me to find from your theories, since you did not tell the reasons why such conclusions had been made.

	08-06-2003 01:31									#82
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When I first read thread's question, I had no answer. But after reading yours I say that God has shown up lots of times for us, but we never listen, we never believe.
Jesus died for us and we didn't believe. What else could God do?

-Blessed be

	08-06-2003 01:37									#83
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Jesus was not the first nor the last religious crackpot to get killed. How are we supposed to ignore the others?

It always bugs me that christians never consider the fact that there are other religions in the world, too, and they cannot be held as less true than christianity.

Also I cannot see how it could be my fault that I don't believe, since I've really tried my very best to form a conception of the world that I could trust into. And I am STILL open-minded and willing to develop that conception.

	08-06-2003 01:37									#84
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Reasons? 'Cos the theory came to my mind when I read your replies. And because your answers sounds to me as stupid as those theories.
Is it or is it not a free will if I decided right now to go to kitchen take a knife and end my life? There is no reasen why I should do it, no explanations. It is against my religion, it is against my own believes, my ethic/moral what ever. I don't know the right word. But still I could do it, I have even think it sometimes.

	08-06-2003 01:40									#85
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I think that most of the relionges are in the end the same. But I also think that this thread isn't a place for me do a novel about my believings and opinions about things...

	08-06-2003 01:46									#86
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quote: Originally posted by Eepa Reasons? 'Cos the theory came to my mind when I read your replies. And because your answers sounds to me as stupid as those theories.

Well That Sounds Very Reasonable.

quote: Originally posted by Eepa Is it or is it not a free will if I decided right now to go to kitchen take a knife and end my life? There is no reasen why I should do it, no explanations. It is against my religion, it is against my own believes, my ethic/moral what ever. I don't know the right word. But still I could do it, I have even think it sometimes.

Oh yes, you can do that without putting a dent in the principle I presented. If you ever do so, then sure there is a REASON for it. And if the reason is because you "choose" to do so, there is a REASON why you want to make that choice, even if you wouldn't know the reason yourself. Some guesses:
-depression
-insanity
or even perhaps
-the urge to prove your own free will

	08-06-2003 01:50									#87
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quote: I think that most of the relionges are in the end the same.

In fact they are essentially different. Buddhism doesn't even have gods. Besides, ANYBODY can make their own religion, and it is no lesser religion than the "mainstream" religions.

	08-06-2003 01:59									#88
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Have I somewhere said that I am reasonable? Or that I am serious with this?...

Well I at least was depressed during winter, but that's not the point. If brains are even some sort of a machine and we have no controll of them then it sound logical to me that they are programmed to keep us alive, same as animals. Their instincts keeps them alive, they are made so. Suecide is no way reasonable, there is no reason why our brains would make such a decicion by themselves.

I said most of. And AFAIK even buddhism is about greater good, about achieve something better, something holy, pure or what ever they called it.

	08-06-2003 02:10									#89
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There are many things in nature which seem stupid at first, like homosexuality (very common among mammals), but are explicable after some more thinking.
Perhaps you know that also lemmings (ahh the computer game ) make mass suicides, and that sick animals show no signs of fear when predators come around. I think suicide is related to these things, although the mental aspects might be different. It is nature's way of ejecting those who might be a threat or a burden to the rest of the society.
I admit that there are a lot of exceptions, ecspecially nowadays when depression is the usual burden of the unusually talented. Suicide, as any natural process, is vague and makes also errors. This may be because the mechanism of suicide is not entirely suitable in modern enviroment.

As for what you said about Buddhism, please see the last line I edited to my post.

By the way, if you intend to be unreasonable, please go away.

Last edited by juhani_kahvi on 08-06-2003 at 02:18

	08-06-2003 02:23									#90
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Tjooh, maybe I just withdraw this conversation, now when I still can say that this has been fun. Before I lose my nerves.
Juhani, If you really want to continue this please do it in Finnish somewhere where it is possible.

Thank you for this and good night. *bows and withdraws*

-Blessed be

Unreasonable? No, I just wanted to discuss a little with you.