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free will27% Voted for by Energizer Bunny, TeChNoWC, pnktrky.
if I know what your next action on any given situation will be before hand how does that mean you did not have the free will to choose it as long as I did not affect your decision???
Knowing about your decision before hand has nothing to do with whether or not you have free will.
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My Choice18% Voted for by Sokarjo, Oral Fixation.
I choose not to follow the christian god, or any other god, whether or not they exist. I believe that those who declare you have free will, but that 'god' forsees or directs your future, are spouting absurd, contradictory nonesense. To the christian, for instance, if you choose wrong you go to 'hell'. What kind of 'choice' is that? It's as if you are saying there are no right or wrong answers on a test, but if you pick one, you pass, and the other, you fail. It DOESN'T make sense!! I'm sorry folks, but there's no need to get philosophical on this one... it should be common sense. Either you have free will to make choices, or some invisible diety controls your future. It's pretty much black-or-white. You can't have both. You can't believe that 'god' holds your destiny in his hands, but that you have free will. It just doesn't work. So my choice? Let 'god' rule the ones who can only follow... as for me, I'll think for myself.
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UnderstandingVoted for by Auxiliar.
Until we can truly differentiate the mark of the individual's psyche and the signature of the Creator, the debate is moot. I do not believe that there is a way to tell the two apart. In Genesis, He forces everyone building the Tower of Babel to be unable to understand one another, without their knowing. Exodus tells us that God can harden the heart of the Pharoah and elsewhere has compelled soldiers drink from rivers like dogs, each time without letting them know what exactly has happened. God emboldens and frightens not only through His acts, but may also do so through manipulating our emotions.
In terms of free will, one may indeed have a free will. So free in fact that it may forget what it will. Such freedom is necessary for psychic health, and indeed to the lifeblood of the will. The foodstuffs of the free will keep it from remembering why it does what it does and reduce these desires to something that may be completely different. Nietzsche, the first Antichrist Himself, has said this time and again in His writings, nebeneinander. And, unfortunately, there is no reason to believe that this repression is due to the will, and it is decidedly undecided as to where the repression of memory and the omissions from consciousness originate.
Renaissance humanists didn't see the difference (in as far as my rudimentary knowledge of the period has shown me), and I don't think we ever will, either.
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PerspectiveVoted for by Philosophical-Pug.
It's all a mattter of perspective. We act in the way that we think is best, while being ignorant of the bigger picture. However, if viewed from the point of view of god/divine plan/nature etc. it can be seen that our actions follow the pattern perfectly. For example, to yeast fermenting sugars in a brewery they are just being yeast, doing what yeast do, unaware that they are actually following our plan to make beer. They have free will on one level to be yeast, but on another they are intimately connected to the plan of the almighty Brewer.
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Free Will vs. God's Ultimate PlanVoted for by TheWiseOne.
I often hear about how "god" has given us free will to choose what to do, what to believe, and ect..; however, people often will reference "God's" ultimate plan, for example, when someone dies people will say that there god wanted that to happen and it is part of his plan. This is where the question errupts, how it is possible to part of God's ulitimate plan where god chooses when we live and die, but still have free will. Kind of contridictories..... (maybe the catholic church just likes to do that.. ha.)
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People Need A BlanketVoted for by lod .
People cant deal witht he fact that the things they do are on them. They want someone to blame, good or bad, and religion gives them that.
"My wife didnt die because she smoked 2 packs a day, she died because that was gods plan."
People cant take responsibility for their own actions.
There are 2 things that human beings as a whole cant comprehend.
Forever and nothing. Forever as in distance, or as in time. Because we live for such a short time we never get to experience what 1000 years is. So when people hear that we evolved from primates, they automatically assume that monkeys are the only primate and that it happened in a flash. Like one day were pirmates the next were human. They cannot comprehend the millions of years in between the 2. The second half of forever is the eternity of space. Because we live on a planet we are so defined by its limited space. We cannot comprehend something that goes on forever because we will never experience it for ourselves.
Nothing is another thing that we are unable to experience for areselves and therefore cannot comprehend it. When we die we are dead. There is nothing. People faced with that fact will deny it because they cannot comprehend what not existing will be like. When you sleep your body shuts down many of its systems to allow the body to repair. Sleep is the closest thing to death you will experience and live to tell about it.
When a loved one dies is it easier to think there in a better place? or to realize that they are gone forever and that they have DIED. As in does not exist in any form any more. Of coarse it is easier to believe in god and heaven and the devil. When a loved one does something wrong, is it easier to believe that he was controlled by the devil to do his bidding? or that he is just a bad person, or that he made a mistake? The easier choice is almost always not the right one.
If you have read this entire thing thank you. Regardless of how you believe.
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