Do humans have a free will?
-
Pete,
that passage:
"but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears."
ā¦sounds interesting, bat the meaning is different..; being out of context, appears to be alterated!Pretinse text of 1 Corinthians 13:9-11 is (in one Bible version):
āFor we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.āMore precisely, which is in partwill be done away.
Besides that, "perfection" isn't identical w/ "perfect"...!Cornel
-
Ah, Sting. If there was ever a mystic who could look into the future, it's him. I'm deeply sorry, but I find it progressivily harder to take some of the, err, contributions to this thread seriously. I cannot be the only one.
-
@unknownuser said:
Ah, Sting. If there was ever a mystic who could look into the future, it's him. I'm deeply sorry, but I find it progressivily harder to take some of the, err, contributions to this thread seriously. I cannot be the only one.
Thanks for your, err, generous contribution Stinkie.
This was not a direct reference to the topic, as I have written. -
You're welcome. Obviously I wasn't referring to the 'on topicness' of your remark. I was commenting on the vagueness of it. Mystics? Future state? Seeing things as they are, rather than like we imagine they are?
Seriously, why do we still bother, at this day and age, with these kind of concepts? I say we finally do away with all metaphysical horsecr*p and start, yup, seeing things as they are.
Mystics! shakes head in disbelief
-
@unknownuser said:
Seriously, why do we still bother, at this day and age, with these kind of concepts? I say we finally do away with all metaphysical horsecr*p and start, yup, seeing things as they are.
Thanks Stinkie. Now you are talking. I was just referring to Pete's post where he mentioned first time mysticism and expressed same as your attitude.
Why? Answer is quite simple. We are spiritual beings. Leaving this area undeveloped while pushing all industrial and scientific progress forward will result in degrading us to a role of a biological machine, piece of meat. This is something we should not allow. Do you see it different? I am not talking about Christianity only, but all attempts made to keep our spirits their well deserved place in this age of a machine.
Tomasz
-
Again somewhat off topic but never the less related! I viewed
a few more talks on TED and can highly recommending listening
to Karen Armstrong, Neil Yurok and Dave Eggers, save Dave till
last as he is very funny. They are a far better watch than a
lot of the stuff on TV. -
@mike lucey said:
Again somewhat off topic but never the less related! I viewed
a few more talks on TED and can highly recommending listening
to Karen Armstrong, Neil Yurok and Dave Eggers, save Dave till
last as he is very funny. They are a far better watch than a
lot of the stuff on TV.Yes it's an infatigable source of inspiration. I was wondering Mike if you are aware of any other sites like TED?
-
@unknownuser said:
@unknownuser said:
Seriously, why do we still bother, at this day and age, with these kind of concepts? I say we finally do away with all metaphysical horsecr*p and start, yup, seeing things as they are.
Thanks Stinkie. Now you are talking. I was just referring to Pete's post where he mentioned first time mysticism and expressed same as your attitude.
Why? Answer is quite simple. We are spiritual beings. Leaving this area undeveloped while pushing all industrial and scientific progress forward will result in degrading us to a role of a biological machine, piece of meat. This is something we should not allow. Do you see it different? I am not talking about Christianity only, but all attempts made to keep our spirits their well deserved place in this age of a machine.
Tomasz
Why do you think being a biological machine or a piece of meat is 'degrading' in the first place? If you believe your self to be better (by possessing a 'spirit') and later learn that your judgement are based on false premises do you A. readjust your view based on new found evidence? or B cling to old belief for your dear life and called new evidence 'degrading'. It is degrading to the human intellect to choose the later!
-
No, I dont know or another source like TED. Must check though.
-
Cornel
Explain to me how religious people such as your good self exercise their 'free will'? And in what way would Bible quoting be more 'free' than not believing in a supreme deity?
-
Rousing from "TED"...
(Take one free, to receive other two versions, gratis!) - Colossians 2:8:
āSee to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this worldā¦ā
āTake heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the worldā¦ā
āSee that no one shall be carrying you away as spoil through the philosophy and vain deceit, according to the deliverance of men, according to the rudiments of the worldā¦
Itās wasting time to listen a philosopher and a speculant scientist like Dan Dennett!
ā¦A lot of noiseā¦, for nothing! Perhaps some atheists can aford to have āfanā w/ a āfanfaronadeā.
By his intelligence, D.D. magnetizes immediate a lot of people.
Poor D.D.! He tries to explain spiritual āthingsā, based on physical processes ā¦
Vice-versa is logic and simple...
To be intelligent, doesnāt mean to be wise!!Cornel
-
Why would anyone come to the conclusion that Cornel is a good
Christian? I have seen no evidence of this in all the time that
he has been here!I will admit that he is somewhat polite (to a certain extent)
but I see no Christian Spirit in the way he just keeps posting
Bible quotes time after time. He is not even prepared to tolerate
another person's beliefs let alone agree that they have a right
to have their own opinions / free will.I suppose he may think he lives by the Golden Rule,'Do unto others
as you would wish them to do unto you' or words to that effect.
In his case this would mean that he would wish everyone to be of
the same religious beliefs as he. This would mean that a very
large percentage of the human race could never be acceptable!I think he should closely examine the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Let him without sin cast the fist stone! Acceptance and Tolerance
are true Christian values NOT robotically quoting the Bible.He should try listening to Karen Armstrong (on TED) closely as it
might open his eyes about how a true Christian might go about things!
The best way to bring people to your beliefs is by example NOT
pushing them down their throats...... robotically
He seems to be a highly intelligent man but alas I'm afraid he
is not using his intelligence.Mike
-
Chango & Mike,
- At first, the āspiritual worldā determines the āmaterial worldā.
Look to life of Jesus Christ! Continuously, spirituals were first, and materials were resultedā¦
There isnāt a true liberty, without a spiritual freedom going before it!
A person which knows ABOUT God isnāt a spiritual one. To be spiritual a person must know God, must be intimate with God, must communicate with God!
- Regarding Karen Armstrong she's superficial and tendentious! Her religious Books and speeches are āperfumedā and loaded with traditionalism, ethics, and ecumenism. Itās a masked socialism, widely used in the strategy of globalization.
Do you know Jesus Christ position about traditionalism?!
Voila an example:
āā¦ Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition..ā (Matthew 15:6).
(See also other locations such as: Matthew 15:2-3; Mark 7:5, 7:8-9; Galatians 1:14; Colossians 2:8.)Cornel
- At first, the āspiritual worldā determines the āmaterial worldā.
-
@unknownuser said:
Chango & Mike,
- At first, the āspiritual worldā determines the āmaterial worldā.
Look to life of Jesus Christ! Continuously, spirituals were first, and materials were resultedā¦
There isnāt a true liberty, without a spiritual freedom going before it!
A person which knows ABOUT God isnāt a spiritual one. To be spiritual a person must know God, must be intimate with God, must communicate with God!
- Regarding Karen Armstrong she's superficial and tendentious! Her religious Books and speeches are āperfumedā and loaded with traditionalism, ethics, and ecumenism. Itās a masked socialism, widely used in the strategy of globalization.
Do you know Jesus Christ position about traditionalism?!
Voila an example:
āā¦ Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition..ā (Matthew 15:6).
(See also other locations such as: Matthew 15:2-3; Mark 7:5, 7:8-9; Galatians 1:14; Colossians 2:8.)Cornel
Jesus was the original non-conformist. A social revolutionary not willing to accept the status quo. This fact seem to be lost on the Christian Church who became the status quo. Cornel don't let some silly deciple of Jesus cloud your judgement about him. Ignore what they SAY look at what Jesus DID in his life. Its not hard to see he is closer to Che Guevara than the Pope.
- At first, the āspiritual worldā determines the āmaterial worldā.
-
a collection of thoughts:
I believe that our free will is, as chango said, limited. that an ultimate free will is not possible. but it is definitely free enough for me. in fact sometimes it is almost to free; when I have difficulties to decide something, it would be nice to be more dependant, to just know what to do (to not have do decide freely).
Cornel, you understand the bible to be the word of god and base all your argument solely on what this document states. I would be careful with that. there was a moment in my life, when I realised, that books are only written by men, by people like you and me and therefore not always tell the truth (a similar situation of 'growing up' is, when you find out, that your parents are not flawless beings that are invincilbe and can always protect you). the fact that I myself could write a book is proof to me, that taking the truth in a book for granted and not question to a certain extend, is dangerous and careless.
with the example of the bible: it was written many hundrets of years ago and may have been changed by people who abused the "word of god" for their selfish course. the people, who wrote down the word of god where only human, therefore may have altered the original meaning of His word, influenced by their own experiences and believes. so the essence may have survived in the bible, the initial thought.
but I believe, you simply can't use quotations out of such a book to 'proof' something, like a scientist uses readouts of his machines to proof something (I accept the scientists results because repeated tests giving the same results make it very likely to be correct - you can't have such certainty with religious/philosophical texts).chango, I think comparing religion with a virus is a bit too easy. after all we find many viral behavours in human actions. even 'Agent Smith's' idea (Matrix) is true to a certain extend, that humans behave like a virus. at the moment, humans are populating far too fast for their host (earth). and already first attempts of the virus "mankind" to infest other planets were made.
a religion is defined by the fact that more than one person believes in it. therefore each religion's goal is to reach as many people as possible. the behavoural pattern may be viral (spread as much as possible). but the initiative behind it is a positive one most of the time.
The image just sprang to my mind, where scientists use a viral organism, equip it with certain positive attributes (like fighting cancer cells) and inject it into a human body - 'to spread the word'... -
ah, I see. didn't realise that earlier.
by the way: "Justice" could be the next explosive topic here. but not for the next 10 pages...
-
I realise that, thats why I included other values like Justice, Democracy, Communism etc. In reality I am much more neutral to the debate. I like the idea of NOMA (Nonoverlapping Magisteria) advocated by Stephen Jay Gould and in real life I consider my self an Agnostic. However due to the extremity of some of the comments coming from the religious camp I feel obliged to play the 'devil's advocate' as it where and stir things up a little.
-
@plot-paris said:
ah, I see. didn't realise that earlier.
by the way: "Justice" could be the next explosive topic here. but not for the next 10 pages...
I feel I need to clarify my position on religion in order not to engender further misunderstanding.
Religion to me is a self-consistent meaning system that generates its own 'equilibrium' through endogenous set of beliefs. Humans are 'meaning-machines' because our mind is trained through language to understand the world through often linear explainations or 'meanings'. The world we live in is however a 'non-linear and dynamic complex system' that produces emergent phenomena which linear causality cannont explain fully. It is actually only in the last century that science started to engage with nonlinear dynamic systems in any meaningful manner. Witness the rise of Complexity theory, System Theory, Emergence, Chaos Theory, Cybernetics, Cellular Automata, Ecology to name a few. We are beginning to understand how complex entities such consciousness might arise from simple physical constructs such as neurons through structural organization and inter-relation of the neural network. It is true that science actually explains very little of the things that give people meaning in life, however it is heading in that direction!
Religions have the benefit of giving people a consistent set of 'meanings' through which enable them to 'interpret' the world around them or act in a consistent manner. However, the price of consistence is DOGMA (Bible quoting by our very own Cornel is one fine example). It is dogma, and the power structure that arise from dogma that get in the ways of different (I.E. Alternatives Religious or Mystical Revelations) and better (more evidence based, i.e. science) systems of explaining the world and they do so often violently.
As such, I have little or no problems with religious belief or religious people. It is religious dogma and its varioius articulations that gets on my nerves.
-
@mike lucey said:
Why would anyone come to the conclusion that Cornel is a good
Christian? I have seen no evidence of this in all the time that
he has been here!I will admit that he is somewhat polite (to a certain extent)
but I see no Christian Spirit in the way he just keeps posting
Bible quotes time after time. He is not even prepared to tolerate
another person's beliefs let alone agree that they have a right
to have their own opinions / free will.I suppose he may think he lives by the Golden Rule,'Do unto others
as you would wish them to do unto you' or words to that effect.
In his case this would mean that he would wish everyone to be of
the same religious beliefs as he. This would mean that a very
large percentage of the human race could never be acceptable!I think he should closely examine the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Let him without sin cast the fist stone! Acceptance and Tolerance
are true Christian values NOT robotically quoting the Bible.He should try listening to Karen Armstrong (on TED) closely as it
might open his eyes about how a true Christian might go about things!
The best way to bring people to your beliefs is by example NOT
pushing them down their throats...... roboticallyHe seems to be a highly intelligent man but alas I'm afraid he
is not using his intelligence.Mike
Mike Karen Armstrong is a fantastic scholar on World religion. I read her seminal book on Islam and She is able to contextualize origins of the religion without expressly making judgement better than anyone else I've come across without being too academic. Best part for me is how she is able to bring about non-judemental understanding of the rise of Islamic Extremism and interweave the narrative of Colonialism and rise of Wahabism effortlessly. Even more remarkable was the fact it was written before 9/11. Very engaging reading.
Amazing talk also! Thanks for pointing it out!
-
@unknownuser said:
@chango70 said:
Catholicism needs to be transformed, but is a different topic.
No sh*t. It just so happens I saw a tv programme on Nicaraguan abortion laws last night. Turns out women cannot even get a 'therapeutical abortion' over there. 80% chance you'll die if you don't get an abortion? Well ... though luck. Abortion is against God's will.
Mind you, this is a fairly recent evolution: it used to be possible to get a therapeutical abortion. But the Nicaraguan church didn't like that too much.
Like Chango, I have no problem with religion or religious people, it's the religious institutions that scare me. Power and religion - that's never been the best combination. I seriously hope Rome never regains the control it once had 'round these parts.
Advertisement