Free Will, what role does it have? Im confused.

[Bºx]

I am at a stage where I neither believe nor dis-believe in the existance of God, so I am an Athiest, but also a Thiest. I sit in the middle of this broad belief spectrum. As should every human who is unable to prove the existance in more ways than belief, but thats another debate!

In a round-a-bout way, I believe that there is a God, I also believe that there isn't a God.. as we Humans have created him from our own perception, and our own mind is within the realms of human knowledge and understanding, is God?. Yet we have no concrete evidence to support the perception in which we believe.

A Teleological way of thinking would be to say that for everything that is created there is a designer who creates it. Anything that can be done, can be undone. And anyone who lives, dies. Everything as we know it has a starting point and an ending point, this applies to anything and anyone. Does this apply to religion?

Does the starting point of religions begin with physical evidence that is pasted through the ages?
Was there actually a real God who spoke, guided, and taught the people of Earth the ways in which he wanted them to be. Or do we make up this impossible vision of how we want to live and in our eyes we have to match up to a superior being, whether this being exists in fable, myth, or Religion?

I have theorised over this for years and am still no clearer as to what I need to know in order to believe or disbelieve.

We as a race believe in many differant aspects of God and religion, a lot of people believe outright that a Monothiest God rules the entirity of existance and everything we know, as we know it. This translates into much of our society, in which Christianity, Catholics, and the other religions we face daily fall into place. This means that God, is God, and there is no disputing the fact in a Dogmatic sense. Which I find very, very hard to swallow.

Is it really that simple?

God is God and cannot be questioned for he is the creator and the creator knows all, I am but one man with idealism, so, how dare I question the structure of life and law, I accept it, and take it for what it is, and believe that I am essential to the cosmos and the cause that has reason, which is not yet known. I cant just believe this, for Christianity and other dilluted religions are separating themself from the truth of God.
Which is; if there is a God then there is nothing that we can do to ever separate us from him and sitting in a church week after week shows us nothing but dedication to a cause weaker than one of searching.

Which brings me to my point of free will, if we have free will then there is no way way for God to intervene on our will..we have no boundries as to what we can think or do, we can believe in the devil if we want to as that is what God gave us > the option to think freely and to express if not impose ourselves as we see fit. If he wanted us to believe in him fully then he wouldn't have given us the option to think otherwise.
If it is universally true that we are the Children of God, then why does he not act upon his power? why does he not fix the broken things in life? Is it a test for us to struggle our way through life to realise that the creator made it this way? i dont think it is.

Rationalism is a branch of philosophy where the truth is determined by reason. So naturally, Religion is unrational as there is no reason to believe in a God that gives us the option to not believe in him!

And so the Ontological argument goes; There is no greater attempt at creating a perfect God in our minds. As nothing greater than God can ever be concieved of, therefore, he exsits, but creating such perfection mirrors the opposite of perfection, evil! I know this is a very western approach to it but I cant think of any other way to approach it.


So, what's up with free will... Can it be if we are allowed to choose against a creator, or is this a way in which the answer is perfectly hidden.

*pop*

[Opivy]

Well the answer to alot of those questions will take alot of physical evidence...

Originally Posted by Bºx

Rationalism is a branch of philosophy where the truth is determined by reason. So naturally, Religion is unrational as there is no reason to believe in a God that gives us the option to not believe in him!

I don't get this part.. Just because god gives you the free will to disbelieve in him doesn't make believing in him unrational.

I believe we are just a great mind, and this mind is god.. It is everything.

Imagine making a choice... Let's say, a bad one.. You decide to steal a bike maybe? Okay, well you cut the chain off and hop on this bike to ride off.. If you have any sort of a conscience at all most likely you thought about how it was wrong.. Thats where free will came into play.. God is that thought within your head as well, so it has already been experienced. It's only up to you to choose a path,

[Peace Pipe]

We judge rationality from the proof we are given in the reality we remember. We don't know what happens before or after death. So we base all reason off of what we can learn in the lifetime we are aware of.

So we asume that either there is nothing after or before this lifetime, or that there is another lifetime that we are just not aware of.

The nature of humans isn't to accept uncertainty, we fear uncertainty more than anything. We can't accept that there is an afterlife but not know what it is. So we create an afterlife, or what we think it will be. It is very easy to accept monotheism because it solves all uncertainty and gives reason for all things we can't explain, we hate hate what we can't explain. Think about it, have you ever been told after getting in trouble that you will be told your punishment later? The uncertain fear of the worst is far worse than the punishment could ever be, its the same thing with life and death.

But with the rationality we have learned in this lifetime monotheism becomes absurd, not impossible, just not imaginable, what we can't imagine we think is absurd. 100 years ago if we told people we have a small metal box that could hold thousands of songs in it they wouldn't think it's possible, not because it couldn't happen but because they can't imagine it. What we can't imagine or reason we can't accept without giving into ignorance.

People won't accept what they can't understand. We don't believe what doesn't make sense. So when people refuse to be ignorant they accept the worst case scenario, because in general it does make sense. That's where atheism comes from.

In my opinion atheism is an extreme that I can't disprove. I understand why people believe it and I can't prove it wrong, but I think it is wrong. I don't think there is a grey haired man deciding our fate in the sky, but I feel there is a source of existance that created everything. I don't have details because there's no way I could know, but it's my belief, I don't know if there is a formal monotheistic afterlife (I doubt it.) But who knows.

[CamBo]

did you just read A Clockwork Orange?

[Bºx]

That Clockwork Orange thing aimed at me?

No I seen it years ago. Bloody good film as well.

[Ganjics]

Let me correct you man. You're not athiest, thats when you don't believen god because he did something wrong or hurt your family, stuff like that. You're an Agnostic, just like me. Thats when you don't believen god or the devil. I do believen god, but just not the super powerful guy he was.

[TheColonel]

Originally Posted by Peace Pipe

The nature of humans isn't to accept uncertainty, we fear uncertainty more than anything. We can't accept that there is an afterlife but not know what it is. So we create an afterlife, or what we think it will be. It is very easy to accept monotheism because it solves all uncertainty and gives reason for all things we can't explain, we hate hate what we can't explain. Think about it, have you ever been told after getting in trouble that you will be told your punishment later? The uncertain fear of the worst is far worse than the punishment could ever be, its the same thing with life and death.

Well said.

To take this a step farther,

I'm not sure why, but we tend to personify the things we dont understand. The things we cant explain seem to manifest in the brain of the human as a creation of some sort of a human form (ie. god). As alluded to earlier, many people see god as an old white bearded dude in the sky watching over us. Obviously not everyone sees god this way, but generally the concensus is that god is like a person.

It is then pretty convenient to use the idea that we were infact created in his image. This gives us a feeling that we indeed have a part of god in all of us, yet we are in debt to him for our creation and therefore must serve his will in our life in order to achieve a pleasant afterlife.

if this is something you believe; that religous insitutions are creatively crafted entities designed to condition mass groups of humans to think alike (and just to be fair, i havent said that any of this is positive or negative), then free will is a reality. Its way too convenient for a person in a high place to say that every move you make and every thought you have is predetermined by an "all knowing" entity. that though seems to contradict the social "elietism" that many religous believers have.

Again i'm generalizing here so please dont take this to heart. Unfortunately most discussions of philosophy all seem to, when boiled down to the most concentrated point, deal with the existance or non-existance of a higher power. That can really take the fun out of a philosophical discussion.

[Liquidtruth]

Free will is the most important aspect of life. The ability to choose is a birth-right. However, I allow for the possibility of the future being written... I however, do not believe that infringes upon free will.