Do humans have a free will?

plot-paris

"To be or not to be, that is the question" William Shakespeare

weird, all these philosophers/writers just assembled the same words to sound intelligent

solo

chango70

wow, this thread progresses fast (took me the best part of an hour to catch up this morning )

Chango: I have to thank you. two of your posts, firstly your clarification about your understanding of religion and secondly the excerpt of wikipedia's definition of "free will" were illuminating.

to describe your idea of religion in other words:
it is a way for us humans to comprehend the non-linear workings of the world with our linear minds. so basically it is like Vray - a biased renderer makes it possible to render an image faster than an unbiased render engine. and for our brain is not fast enough for unbiased, an engine like Vray (religion/philosophy) is a great solution. that means, it can help us getting a better image output with the hardware available and therefore can be a positive thing.

the example of a chess game to understand the illusion of a free will, that arises when you create an 'unlimited'(too much for our comprehension) number possibilities with a limited set of rules, was very helpful and the final piece I needed to to understand.

thank very much again. at last I got a satisfying answer (and more important: explanation!) for the initial question of this thread!

I am really flattered that you find my thoughts useful. Interesting analogy with Vray! (very imaginative!) I do however think that Vray analogy is probably better applied to the scientific methodology as they are both mathematical models that can create approximations of the real world. Just like algorithms get better, so can scientific theory. Religion on the other hand, to expound from your analogy would be more like impressionist paintings. Impressionism doesn't hold accurate rendering of the world as a priority. It is an AESTHETIC INTERPRETATION of the world that creates it's own self-consistent value system of what is good or bad. Better impressionist painting is not dependent on creating more fedelity. To use a concept from system theory it would be described as a 'closed system' with and endogenous set of rules. Religion is not so different in this respect. I like to think of religion as an aesthetic and ontological interpretation of the world that doesn't really have much to offer when it comes to explaining the real world (material world where things obey rules) but has tremendous value when it comes to personal worlds (psychological).

chango70

@mike lucey said:

“To be is to do”–Socrates.
“To do is to be”–Jean-Paul Sartre.
“Do be do be do”–Frank Sinatra.

chango70

@unknownuser said:

Chango wrote:
“…the price of consistence is DOGMA (Bible quoting by our very own Cornel is one fine example).”

No, Chango,
it’s not a “dogma”, it’s just a ‘habit’. To be dogmatic, I have to be characterized by an authoritative, arrogant assertion of unproved or unprovable principles. I use The Word of God because it’s proved, trusted and unghangeable.
How are your words, Chango?! Tomorrow, with conventional large smile you are able to tell me: sorry Cornel, I changed my mind…!

Chango wrote:
“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.”

My questions: A) What was wrong in Jesus life?! B) Jesus must be closer to the Pope or vice-versa?!

…because I ‘said’before:
“. Regarding Karen Armstrong she's superficial and tendentious! Her religious Books and speeches are ‘perfumed’ and loaded with traditionalism, ethics, and ecumenism. It’s a masked socialism, widely used in the strategy of globalization.”

Chango wrote:
“ 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 …”

Chango,
I read a lot, during many decenniums, about religion and philosophy. I recommend you to study complete works of at least an author sach as Mircea Eliade (thirty years as director of History of Religions department at the University of Chicago). Behold a partial list of his works:

The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion;
A History of Religious Ideas, vol. I, From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries;
A History of Religious Ideas, vol. II, From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity;
The History of Religious Ideas, vol. III, From Muhammad to the Age of the Reforms;
Encyclopedia of Religion (seventeen volumes)
Patterns in Comparative Religion;
The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion;
Myths, Dreams and Mysteries: the Encounter between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities;
Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism;
Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy;

Cornel

LOL Cornel here is a definition on dagma:

"Dogma (the plural is either dogmata or dogmas, Greek δόγμα, plural δόγματα) is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization, thought to be authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from."

That, I am affraid in my humble opinion is how your arguments tend to come across as the definition stated above. Do you dispute the fact that you think the Bible is authoritative?

Plenty of things were wrong in Jesus's life time, foreign occupation, social and political injustice, marginalisation of whole sector of society, corruption, misuse of power to name just a few.
Karen Armstrong may not be the most immaculate scholar on religion but her semi-insider status allows her to bridge the critical gap between academic theology and popular understanding. I don't have time for someone like Mircea Eliade because ultimately religion doesn't interest me that much. However that is not to say I don't appreciate the effort and scholarcism that went into such undertaking as the list you mentioned.

I have full respect to scholars such as Mircea Eliade and have come across Patterns in Comparative Religion in my reading (he is one of the founders of comparative Religious study). From you utterances I find it difficult to believe that you have read his body of work, infact any of it. In order to carry out any scholastic endeavour one need to have certain 'critical disjunction' from the subject matter at hand. Even the titles suggest a pan-historic and BROAD scope in his studies on religions and identification of common patterns in world religions. Your utterance betray an extremely narrow focus which anyone with knowledge endowed by reading someone like Mircea Eliad would not behave. One other thing. Many of Mircea Eliad's writing are quite out of date. Our understanding of world religions have moved a long way since 1950s in the days of anthropologists like Evans-Prichard used to rule the roost.

cornel

Guys,
I’m not a member of any church, theological club, spiritual association, transcendental group or other kind of religious or mystical organiation, so, be patient about your convertion! I’m not dangerous - I’m not a traditionalist and I have no preconceptions.

Rumors!?!
Be serious and responsible! It’s your personal need and interest to become a born again person, I have no a trap for you…!

Human ‘heart’ is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Only God.
Because of that, a wise person, will try to obtain a better will than his/her will… How come?!
It is God which worketh in us both to will and to do. A free will must be applicative, not only an ‘aesthetic’ think. Without God we can do nothing, for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.
Be prepared to meet God! Are you in peace whith Him?!
No one can approach to living God, The Father, but by living Jesus Christ, His Son; He is both, the ‘way’ and the ‘door’: by Jesus if any person enter in, he/she shall be saved.

Hurry up!
...while it is said TODAY; if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart!
Tomorow, (even next minute) is not ours…!

Cornel,
(one who received plenty of God’s mercy.)

cornel

Chango wrote:
“ Plenty of things were wrong in Jesus's life time, foreign occupation, social and political injustice, marginalisation of whole sector of society, corruption, misuse of power to name just a few.”

…, but my question was: “What was wrong in Jesus life?”
(not in Jesus life time…)

Mike put me a question regarding which languages I know.
I know more than many, but I prefer to be reproached…
(to become a proverb…) only in English!

plot-paris

@unknownuser said:

…, but my question was: “What was wrong in Jesus life?”
(not in Jesus life time…)

well, if we believe the interpretation of the bible the film "Dogma" comes up with, it was quite a shock for Jesus, when the Metatron told him, that he (Jesus) was Gods child and was going to be crucified with the age of 33. took him quite a while to accept this fact.
and his only serious relationship with a woman (that we know of) was with a prostitute - surely he didn't hear many kind words about that either...

I think these are quite some things to cope with in life.

Mike Lucey

Thanks for sharing this with us Cornel. You are becoming
more human by the minute

You tell us that you are not part of any particular Church!
I am surprised to learn this in one way and in an other way
not. I take it then that you regard to Bible and a Handbook
for life? Not a bad handbook to go by

Regarding the languages thing, I was just curious to learn
what nationality you were, nothing more.

Plot,

About Mary Magdalene. I was brought up to believe that she
was a prostitute as you state. But we are now seeing theories
that she may have not been such. She might have been the lead
apostle and she demoted to a much lessor level by the Church
for their own obvious reasons. Not too many women hold positions
of importance in the Christian Churches .... but its changing

plot-paris

well, most important is, that dear Jesus had some fun in his very short life

david_h

@unknownuser said:

About Mary Magdalene. I was brought up to believe that she
was a prostitute as you state.

I never understood that thinking. .. No where, and I mean NO WHERE in the scriptures does it say that the woman "Taken in Sin" to be stoned (or any Sinful woman for that matter) was Mary Magdelene. Where did that come from? In fact, Mary Magdelene must've been extremely righteous and spiritual. She was the first to see the Ressurected Christ!

cornel

Yes, Jakob,
“that dear Jesus had some fun”:

Jesus Christ went about all the cities and villages, teaching and proclaiming the Good News (the Gospel) of the God’s kingdom and curing all kinds of disease and every weakness and infirmity.

People brought Him all who were sick, those afflicted with various diseases and torments, those under the power of demons, and epileptics, and paralyzed guys, etc., and He healed them.
"It is more blessed to give than to receive!"

Jesus replied to those who weren’t sure if He is Messiah, The Son of God, to look to his work, to see that the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed (by healing) and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have The Word of God preached to them.

Beside that Jesus mentioned:
“Blessed (happy, fortunate) is he who takes no offense at Me and finds no cause for stumbling in or through Me and is not hindered from seeing the Truth”.

Cornel

chango70

In order to say we have so called 'free will' we have to conceive of the priori which is a choice making individual unhindered by external constraints. That is all fine and dandy until you realise that the choices avaible to you in the first place are created by the very constraints that are of historical, social, political, economic and genetic formation. Sure you can go against those constraints but the 'horizon' onto which you make your choices still takes precedence in shaping whatever choices people make. So NO we don't have 'free will' in an absolute sense, but we do have it in a limited sense.

chango70

@unknownuser said:

@chango70 said:

There is this wonderful talk by Dan Dennett on Dangerious Memes http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_dennett_on_dangerous_memes.html which applies to all religions and ideologies. Religion is like a virus or parasite.

Chango, thank you for the link. It was really inspiring to listen to this man. Your problem is that you just hear what you want to hear, not what he said.

He was relating to ideas that are being misused or abused. This the reason why they can be dangerous and work like parasites. Listen to it once again. He is not talking about religions in general, but those misinterpretations that are toxic.

Tomasz

I am not sure where you get the misinterpretation of religion part from. The misinterpretation he was talking about was about MEMES and being responsible about what he says about MEMES and its potential misuses! He wasn't talking about misrepresntation of religion!??? He was talking about the spread of Memes as units of ideas (like genetic package of information) and it follows evolutionary rules. Memes that are dangerous include any one that goes against our biological imperitive. Like the Lancet Fluke (commandering ant to be eaten by sheeps so it can survive in a sheeps stomach) and Islam (meaning surrender) i.e. ideas that hijack our brain! I.e. most people have it! Including Freedom, Justice, Truth, Communism, Capitalism, Catholicsm, and Islam. Maybe you should watch it again. Hearing what you want to hear seems to be your problem too. I bet you $100 if you ask Dan Dennett or Richard Dawkins they will tell you religions are like viruses. Trust me, I met the man (Both Dan and Richard at different lectures).

cornel

A simple deduction… about “that dear Jesus”:

In The Old Testament, it’s written about Jehovah (IHVH in Latin, YHWH in English):
“The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)
In New Testament it’s written that there ar only “One Lord and one faith” (Ephesians 4:5) that are true.

Who is that Lord?!
Voila the enigma:
“… there is God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Corinthians 8:5)

The Bible tells us that “everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” (Joel 2:32, Acts 2:21 & Romans 10:13)

What is the resulting conclusion?!:
Who calls on the name of Jesus Christ shall be saved!

Cornel

solo

@unknownuser said:

What is the resulting conclusion?!:
Who calls on the name of Jesus Christ shall be saved!

Saved from what?

cornel

"Saved from what?"

Behold just a short example!:

The Savior drew us up, out of a horrible pit, a pit of tumult and of destruction, out of the miry clay (froth and slime), and set our feet upon a rock, steadying our steps and establishing our goings.
Also, He has put a new song in our mouth, a song of freedom, a hymn of praise to living God.

Many shall see and fear (revere and worship) and put their trust and confident reliance in The Lord!

Cornel
P.S.: I can be more 'prosaic', if necessary...!

Mike Lucey

Susan, your current facial expression suits the argument you are
putting forward

I am now going the exercise my free will and uncheck the subscribe
box .... best of luck with it guys

cornel

Susan,
You are right: “The Lord is ONE” (as I said before..)

In The Bible , there are approx. 330 total names and expressions for The Lord, including circa 100 direct names and approx. 30 very repeatable names.
All 66 Books of The Bible are pointing to The Lord.
Those 30 names for example (or just “3 or 2”) don’t mean that there are a few or many Lords.
…“resulting conclusion”: Christians are monotheistic.
Regarding your ideea: “How about , God is None.”,
is not applicable to me.

My God said about Himself: “I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14).
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, said the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8)

Preffered name for The Lord is Jesus Christ:
“And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:8-11)

Cornel

plot-paris

I once heard that the founder of Antroposophy, Rudolf Steinder (quite a clever man), hat this theory that in the hierarchy of heaven the chirstian god is only a rather unimportant little fellow, delegated to communicate with us (so its like if you write a mail to Google, it is rather unlikely that you get a direct response from Larry Page or Sergey Brin).

I have no references for that, nor any deeper knowledge (I only recall a discussion about that). but I like the idea behind it. it is a bit arrogant of us humans to expect our god to be the most important one in heaven. why should the highest lord bother to care about some human's wishes, when he has to run the whole company (universe)...