Do humans have a free will?
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There is no definitive New Testament in terms of being the "Truth" as opposed to erroneous. The N.T. canon is simply those books that Athanasius of Alexandria decided ought to be included (from a much larger selection) in AD 367. This decision was given further weight by virtue of the same limited number of books being repeated by the Pope about 20 years later.
It's simply an anthology; whether you add a few more texts that were edited-out or miss out a few of the ones that are included has no bearing on its veracity.
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@sorgesu said:
Oy Vey!,
Signed Yeshua of Nazareth.
Susan, I only have an idea at what this means 
Cornel, I simply cannot understand what you write. Could you
put your answers in plain English that will be able to understand.Alan, looks like you went to Sunday School. I 'ducked out' of
a lot of it BUT I was an Alter Boy, would you belive?Mike
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Cornel,
I don't think I am going to get anywhere with this debate as I
am unable to understand the terms and way you have of speaking.
This is a pity, but not to worry, I presume we will find out
truth sometime in the future? I'm quite looking forward to itDo you partake in a drink? If so you might can to have a look
at the 'My Corner Bar' topic? I imagine it will, in time, feature
many of the drinking troughs that members frequent. -
Susan, I could not resist looking up what it meant, 'Oh My God!'
I also ran a search on Yeshua of Nazareth and low and behold,
wouldn't you know it, he is on Facebook!,
http://www.facebook.com/people/Yeshua_De_Nazareth/781483426
and there is even a Susan listed as one of his friends that
looks a little like you!
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..... and he lives near you. Come on! Spill the beans Susan?
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Why is Philemon part of the Bible? It is just a personal letter From Paul to Philemon about a runaway slave. It has no Moral message or teaching whatsoever. The Song of Solomon is a love poem. . .amd believe me Solomon had a lot to sing about!
Point is, the Bible is the Word of God, Just not the Whole Word. Read the Book Of Mormon.
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Mike you are so funny. He lives at the opposite end of the country near me, but sure, whatever you say.
Just to hit you over the head with it "Jesus" was not Jesus's name. That is Romanized. He was Jewish and his name was Jeshua but I wrote it the way it is pronounced. I signed as though I were he, a good Jew to the end. -
Mike,
- To simplify the answer for your questions:
“Christianity is based on what we have in the bible or is it
just the second part of the Bible?
Judaism in not the 'true' religion so why was Christianity
started by his followers?”
…I tell you that in New Test. ‘is discovered’ Old Test. and in Old Test. ‘is hidden’ New Test..
They are inseparable!
All denominations, that add or subtract something (not only written text) to/from The Bible, are erroneous!- For this questionable ‘motive’:
“As regards animals not having souls / spirits. I can see no
reason why they would not have one if they actually exist in
the first place. Have you a reason for saying this?”
… my proposal is to start using a dictionary…! Are there animals related w/ “souls/spirits”?!
Is "the soul" equivalent w/ "the spirit"?!!..., because we have tu use the same 'language' in explaining...
Cornel - To simplify the answer for your questions:
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BTW Mike, to make it abundantly clear about "Oy Vey" in context of the discussion that preceded, :
translated by Random House Unabridged Dictionary as being "used to express dismay, pain, annoyance, grief, etc
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Yeah, Susan I did see that but, 'Oh My God' is much the same.
No word from Cornel, I wonder is he is taking some pics of
his local pub? -
"word from Cornel", my friends,
To have a free will, you must know which are the ‘components’ of human beings.
For many of you,the soul is identical with the spirit, but (a big but!) they aren’t the same …!?Behold a few examples, to see that they are different ‘representations’ (notions):
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“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of souland of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”(Hebrews 4:12)
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“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and souland body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
(1 Thessalonians 5:23) -
"Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soulis well pleased. I will put my Spiritupon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.”
(Matthew 12:18)
Just think of them!
Re. the Cross, when Jesus said, “”Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" And having said this he breathed his last.” (Luke 23:46)
… can you comprehend the sense of the term “spirit”??!You cannot…, but you declare that animals have spirit, like yours?!!
(Congo70 wrote: "Bravo! Its worse than having a brain tumor.")Cornel
(P.S.: Mike, practically you were in attendance for a “word from Cornel”, for your amusement, weren’t you? Perhaps your soul and spirit will became more important…!?!) -
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Nice try, Jakob...would have been very interesting indeed: pity!
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But, damn the risk of foolishness, I do think humans have free will...and animals too!
One may be hard-wired and soft-wared to have no control over wanting to gut one's neighbor (like the fish he is :`) every time he speaks, but doesn't the choice (for most of us) of not acting on those "instinctual" and/or "programed" thoughts prove the concept free will...or we all just walking timebombs looking for the right, or wrong, trigger?
I watch my cats "choose" all the time. Watch them decide to ignore instinct...which is greatly rewarding, to pursue another course of action...one producing no apparent reward at all. Free will? I think so!
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@alan fraser said:
Seriously, I do believe we have free will. You can test it empirically by making some minor decisions..."Do I choose A or B?" You then need to run that choice threw a few filters to ensure that you didn't arrive at it by the coercion of being predetermined to make such a choice in the first place...do you accept the result, do you perversely switch to the other choice, or do you toss a coin. You could do this several times, making snap decisions which filter to apply...or whether to apply one at all. The final result will be the result of a free will decision. It may be over something inconsequential but all you are doing is proving the concept.
Wouldn't being both the test subject as the, errrrr, tester compromise the validity of the experiment to some extent? Besides that ... a peer group of one?
Wouldn't that make the experiment, what's it called, rationalist (Descartes) in nature, rather than empirical?
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Yes it would, which is why you can run around in circles forever. Unfortunately, as free will is an entirely internal process, the subject is the only one that can actually determine whether they are exercising it or not. An external tester can determine responses, but has no way of determining whether such responses are biologically/sociologically/environmentally determined or are genuinely the result of free will.
There are debates on free will all over the Net...even in physics forums. No one has yet come up with a definitive yes or no, it's all anecdotal. -
@unknownuser said:
- Re. “animals", at first, they have no spirit…!
What a load of hooey!
My animals show more soul and spirit than most "humans" and sure as "hell" don't go around quoting religious text before committing acts of mass genocide & other atrocities. -
Get my name right.
It's Yessua bar Youssef. Oy Vey!
Seriously, I do believe we have free will. You can test it empirically by making some minor decisions..."Do I choose A or B?" You then need to run that choice threw a few filters to ensure that you didn't arrive at it by the coercion of being predetermined to make such a choice in the first place...do you accept the result, do you perversely switch to the other choice, or do you toss a coin. You could do this several times, making snap decisions which filter to apply...or whether to apply one at all. The final result will be the result of a free will decision. It may be over something inconsequential but all you are doing is proving the concept.
Ultimately it's one of those circular arguments, like asking "Do I exist or do I only think I exist?" that Descartes wrestled with.Cornel, I'm afraid I simply don't buy the "Inspired by God" reasoning. I'm not going to indulge in more history, but those decisions made way back then had far more to do with maintaining the status quo, preventing religious schism and shoring up a collapsing Roman Empire than they did about anything else. It's classic case of history being written by the victors...or in this case by those who's views and ideas prevailed...not because they were inspired by God, but because the political establishment of the time threw its weight behind them.
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If animals don't have a spirit and man does, I'd be very interested in hearing about at precisely what point in human evolution he acquired one...and it better not involve any magic spells, fairy dust or conjuring tricks.
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Alan, I doubt Cornel believes in evolution.
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@solo said:
Another question I had as a kid was when an infant dies they are said to go straight to heaven, now if God knew that was going to happen and as the religious instructors say that the baby was innocent and free of sin, was this to get more angels or test the parents?
Sorry to refer back to a quote from the first page of this topic (and go a little off topic), but I remember debating this issue with my Christian Summer Camp group leader when I was 15: in one discussion he explained that a part of a Christian's duty was to spread "the good word" ensuring as many souls would enter heaven as possible (which seems after all to be the ultimate goal of Christianity). In the following day's discussion he explained the infant death situation which Pete questioned above. I just couldn't follow the logic: God granted us free will and so to ascend to heaven we must choose to become Christians, but as babies are recognised even by Christianity to lack the cognitive skills to make such a decision they get a "free pass" into heaven? So at what point does this "free pass" expire? 1 yr old, 5 yrs old, 18 yrs old? As Pete asked, wouldn't this mean that infant deaths are actually a boost to the "heavenly statistics"? Then my inquisitive teenage mind hit on a major contradiction between the two day's teachings: I asked our group leader, "You said yesterday that it is a major part of every Christian's duty to teach others the "one true path" so thay they may enter heaven when they die?" He agreed. Then I asked again about the "free pass" rule for infant deaths and he said yes, babies automatically ascend to heaven. So then I asked what if a person, who regarded themselves as a Christian decided that their only purpose in life was to "help" as many other souls ascend to heaven as possible and that the simplest and most effective way of doing this was to murder infants, then wouldn't the "evil" act of murder contradict the "good" act of getting more souls into heaven? My group leader replied that, of course murder is inherently an evil act, so regardless of any positive outcome the perpetrator could not be said to be a Christian and would therefore burn in eternal damnation. Then I asked the final logical question: If someone KNOWS that they will go to hell for eternity for the murder of infants, but weighing this fact up against the benefit of all these souls ascending to heaven they decided to carry out the massacre anyway, haven't they then made the ultimate sacrifice for others? I never did get a straight answer from the poor guy, he just kept saying, "but murder is evil". I knew that, but I didn't need a book to tell me.
"Without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."- Steven Weinberg
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