Humans having children and Hell

[vz71]

You could ask the same question as an athiest. What I mean is an athiest could ask, “why would anyone chose to have children if there is a possibility their child will suffer?”

We have children because it is good. Why did God create us if there was the chance some of his children would go to hell? Because it is good. I suppose you’d have to have your own children to realize what a good thing it is.

In the context of atheism established, you need to clarify what exactly ‘good’ is and why it is preferable.

 

[Nimeniton]

That is a dumb question.

What you do is try to guide your kid from not GOING to a place like that. But yes, in the end, it is their choice.

You won’t cry over them though. Because in heaven we don’t cry, so I would assume that even though it might pain you now, you probably won’t see it that way while you’re in heaven.

Ask your parents the question and see what they say.

Well my dad says that when one dies that is it. The end. There is no hell. My mum disagrees with him. My mother does not want me to go to hell but as an apostate that is where I am bound in her view. It upsets her and she blames herself. She thinks it is because she sent me to mass everyday and we said the rosary everyday and it was too much for me. Actually I liked saying the rosary and retreats etc. It was a question on why we baptised babies and the answer given by the priest that started me doubting. Of course, I do not want my mother to to blame herself. On the other hand I can not lie about what I believe.

I do not think parents bring their children into the world contemplating that they may go to hell. They like to think they will go to heaven. It is hard to see a cute baby and imagine that one day it will be a Hitler or a Stalin. They look like angels but , of course, some disappoint.

 

[vz71]

That is a dumb question.

What you do is try to guide your kid from not GOING to a place like that. But yes, in the end, it is their choice.

You won’t cry over them though. Because in heaven we don’t cry, so I would assume that even though it might pain you now, you probably won’t see it that way while you’re in heaven.

Ask your parents the question and see what they say.

I respectfully disagree. It is a perfectly legitimate question.
I suppose we need to examine why God created us.

We were made to love God. But to be free in this expression of love, we must be free to reject it.

 

[vz71]

What makes you think that the likelihood of going to Hell is far greater than going to Heaven? Probability does not even apply to persons with free will. Each choice we make is unrelated to what choices others make - if it is genuinely ours.

Do you think it would be better if no one had been created?

I think that the free choice is much more complicated then we think.

We have free exercise of our own will, but we also struggle with our own passions.

 

[Nimeniton]

Thanks very much for the apology.
It was a false accusation, and you made good on correcting it.
But to get such, I had to quote specifics and show quite obviously the falsity that was there.
Please provide such and you will have your apology.
.

This is what you said

No, what you gave me was a very generalized “remember the angel quote.”
My apologies if you feel it is too heavy a burden to actually clarify your comments with an actual bible citation.

I submit that the weight of this burden has more to do with the weight of your argument then to do with the inconvenience of clarifying a reference to the bible.

I had provided you with the citation… You said I had not. I understand that you did not remember. But my crime to you was a failure in memory too.Not only that you insinuated that it was a burden to me to cite a quotation when obviously it is not. You will find my messages littered with citations. Do you understand my annoyance now?

 

[Nimeniton]

According to the dictionary, a game consists of “…physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each…”
You did establish rules, and specific goals to win.
It fits the definition.
Now. I completed the game and showed mastery of my own thoughts.
And I have also provided many examples where the conditions set forth in the game are met and mastery of thought achieved in religious life.
This shows a freedom of will over and above any type of human passion that it is claimed we are slave to.
Free will here wins again.
There is no need to play the game again to show this.
.

Ok I accept it is a game in that sense. I was a Buddhist for twenty years and taught meditation for 8 of those years. My experience is that people find it very difficult to master their thoughts. Repeating a phrase is not too hard and one can do it in automatic. However, preventing other thoughts from arising is far more difficult. When one does achieve focus, it seems to just happen rather than be willed. This is my experience. Certainly in everyday experience most thoughts arise unwilled. And the thoughts that are “willed” arise on the basis of unwilled thoughts.

Let me give you an example. I was watching a documentary about a priest who was a pedophile. He described how he was in the process of abusing a child when a thought popped into his head that he should desist. if that thought had not popped unwilled into his head he would not have desisted. In fact that also happened.

 

[vz71]

Earlier you dismissed my arguments with this…

You have done little more than assert your belief.

And now you are seeking to bolster your argument with this…

My experience is that people find it very difficult to master their thoughts.

If you will not accept personal experience as a proper argument, you should not present personal experience as your argument.
Now beyond either personal experiences this thread is replete with examples of free will being exercised.
I can see at least one good example within the past 10 posts of posters here exercising free will over and above their own passions.

 

[Nimeniton]

I have shown repeatedly the very definition of free will.
Let’s go back to the definition to be certain…
Free Will, according to the dictionary is

1*:voluntary choice or decision <I do this of my ownfree will>*
2*:*freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

The rules outlined in the thought game help a great deal here. The mastery of thought shows that these people are able to detach from everyday distraction to accomplish a goal that they want. Free people making free choices. Free will again is shown.

.

It seems that you are assuming that focus is evidence of free will. This does not necessarily follow. Why? Focus can happen when one has not “willed” it. It can fail to happen when one does “will” it. Both of these have happened to me in meditation. Sometimes “willing” focus and focus happens. This shows a correlation but does not prove a cause. One cannot even argue that practice is more likely to make focus occur because it is not uncommon for a beginner to experience focus on their first sit.Therefore I argue that detachment from distraction is not evidence of free will. In fact there is evidence that it can happen involuntarily.

Now let us take your second definition, the dictionary definition. First of all we can agree that it does not say all choices are examples of free will but only those “not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention” The fact that someone has introduced you to the idea of morality or that you were brought up in a good family is a prior cause to any positive actions you do now. There are also many studies that show that abusers have often been abused themselves. Again prior causes. I would argue, therefore that there is not a choice made in our lives that cannot be shown to be influenced by a prior condition.

Now from the very beginning I have argued that one can not freely choose to do what is in one’s worst interests with out something occuring that makes your first definition of free will void. No one freely chooses to be tortured for eternity and it stretches credulity to suggest that they do. You may argue that they deserve to be punished for eternity but that is another matter.

Can you show anyone who has totally believed in hell and freely and happily chose it? In other words someone with full capacity and full knowledge. People tell me that it happens but I have seen no evidence for it.

 

[Nimeniton]

Earlier you dismissed my arguments with this…And now you are seeking to bolster your argument with this…If you will not accept personal experience as a proper argument, you should not present personal experience as your argument.
Now beyond either personal experiences this thread is replete with examples of free will being exercised.
I can see at least one good example within the past 10 posts of posters here exercising free will over and above their own passions.

I would simply say that the desire to do good is stronger than the desire to wrong. if it was the other way around they would do wrong. It is also natural to choose what is best for one. What defies reason is to freely choose what is worst for one.

I do not want to go so far as to say that experience has no value but I would say that personal experience neither my own nor yours, in it self proves anything other than we have had an experience. We can still question the interpretation of that experience. We can have the experience that we have put forward a cogent and water tight argument and yet somebody points out a weakness. My experience leads me to doubt your interpretation of your experience. That does not support my argument but simply explains my disbelief.

 

[vz71]

It seems that you are assuming that focus is evidence of free will. This does not necessarily follow. Why? Focus can happen when one has not “willed” it. It can fail to happen when one does “will” it. Both of these have happened to me in meditation. Sometimes “willing” focus and focus happens. This shows a correlation but does not prove a cause. One cannot even argue that practice is more likely to make focus occur because it is not uncommon for a beginner to experience focus on their first sit.Therefore I argue that detachment from distraction is not evidence of free will. In fact there is evidence that it can happen involuntarily.

Since you have established that personal experience is not proper evidence to back the argument as evidenced in the quote from you:

You have done little more than assert your belief.

I have little choice but to dismiss that argument.
It is based on what “happened to me in meditation.” and is little more then assertion of belief.

Now let us take your second definition, the dictionary definition. First of all we can agree that it does not say all choices are examples of free will but only those “not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention” The fact that someone has introduced you to the idea of morality or that you were brought up in a good family is a prior cause to any positive actions you do now. There are also many studies that show that abusers have often been abused themselves. Again prior causes. I would argue, therefore that there is not a choice made in our lives that cannot be shown to be influenced by a prior condition.

You would have a difficult time explaining the people that rise above their own circumstance. History is replete with such examples.
There are examples of many saints that came to holiness from lives of wickedness.

Now from the very beginning I have argued that one can not freely choose to do what is in one’s worst interests with out something occuring that makes your first definition of free will void. No one freely chooses to be tortured for eternity and it stretches credulity to suggest that they do. You may argue that they deserve to be punished for eternity but that is another matter.

Nevertheless, it is their choice. And the world is full of examples of people choosing the worst possible thing for themselves in spite of better decisions readily available.
Would you argue that a students failure to do his homework is really not his fault?
Agreed, in some instances it may not be. But that would hardly cover all instances of a student choosing to fail rather then do their homework.
Each bad decision - each sin - makes the next that much easier.
For a lifetime of bad choices, the final one is frighteningly possible.

Can you show anyone who has totally believed in hell and freely and happily chose it? In other words someone with full capacity and full knowledge. People tell me that it happens but I have seen no evidence for it.

Thankfully, I cannot name any single individual that is in hell.
The church has evidence of those in heaven, by name. But it only knows through private revelations of the presence of people in hell.
We only know of the decision to be made and the fact of the people there through church teaching.

 

[vz71]

We can still question the interpretation of that experience. We can have the experience that we have put forward a cogent and water tight argument and yet somebody points out a weakness. My experience leads me to doubt your interpretation of your experience. That does not support my argument but simply explains my disbelief.

You can question all you wish, but it is irrelevent to the discussion at hand.

 

[Betterave]

You have to know their actions and their motives, agreed. Your second paragraph presents a difficulty for me. Is it possible to have some criteria to judge whether someone is good or just or are you saying that is impossible or maybe just difficult? I would like us to agree on some criteria, if possible, otherwise I can not take this discussion further. If people say God is good and just they must have judged him by some criteria. It may not be perfect but there has to be something. How else could one tell good from evil?

Yes, of course it’s possible to have a criterion, or rather, it’s necessary. That was implied by what I originally said: “you would have to know what “good” is, as well as knowing what/who God/“God” is, before you would understand that God is perfectly good.” And as I mentioned, this criterion must be applied to the God that one has personally encountered, or to the God that one has understood conceptually, in terms of his nature. The latter presumably applies here, and that is where we note that God is good by definition. Whether he actually exists or not, a perfectly good God is the one we believe in. That is beyond doubt, and so you have to recognize the burdens of proof accordingly.

 

[Betterave]

That is a lie and I find your libelous attitude despicable, as indeed you are. What I asked was that you address points that I have made and not one’s you wished I had made. I would rather not get into a position of attacking each other. But please understand that I will defend myself and that may mean me having to point out your flaws. And I feel that you have already forced me into that unfortunate position. I would appeal to a moderator to interject here.

Thanks for the kind words, Nimeniton, and since you asked for one, I’ll play moderator. First, vz71, I think you have been quibbling. I’m not interested in proving it, just a third party observation. I can understand Nimeniton getting annoyed. Second, it’s rare to get an interlocutor who is as reasonable as Nimeniton, who actually makes reasonable arguments and doesn’t just ignore criticisms of alleged flaws in those arguments, so I think we should treat his (name removed by moderator)ut as valuable here. I don’t think we have any reason to treat his views as the kind of dogmatic nonsense that we often get from posters on these forums (notwithstanding, of course, that there may well be flaws in his views and arguments which do need to be pointed out). Your demanding an apology from him was really not necessary IMHO.

 

[tonyrey]

You have not shown that free will exists.

If free will didn’t exist we would have no guarantee that your conclusions - or those of anyone else - are true!** The truth makes us free but we have to be free to arrive at the truth**. Otherwise all our thoughts are beyond our control…

 

[tonyrey]

Certainly in everyday experience most thoughts arise unwilled.

“most” gives the game away…

And the thoughts that are “willed” arise on the basis of unwilled thoughts.

How would you prove that assertion? If it is based on unwilled thoughts what is it worth?

 

[tonyrey]

I would simply say that the desire to do good is stronger than the desire to wrong. if it was the other way around they would do wrong. It is also natural to choose what is best for one. What defies reason is to freely choose what is worst for one.

But according to you we never choose freely…

 

[Betterave]

To me it demonstrates that one is not the master of one’s own thoughts. With effort one can bring one’s thoughts under control for limited periods of time but still it is dependent on conditions, such as the correct thoughts arising; supportive conditions and support from others. To me this says that free will does not exist.

Well the reply here is quite straightforward: the Church certainly does not believe in a kind of free will that is completely independent from “conditions” - our free will is most certainly conditioned. So Tony’s statement - “Each choice we make is unrelated to what choices others make - if it is genuinely ours” - for example, is clearly contrary to Catholic teaching (not to mention reality!).

I have searched for them (quotes in favour of free will) but cannot find them. Or at least the one’s presented as supporting free will, I cannot see how the argument for free will is supported. But if you know of some convincing quotes please present them.

I don’t know about convincing quotes, necessarily, but James 1:13 comes to mind:

12 Blessed is the man that endures temptation: for, when he has been proved, he shall receive the crown of life which God has promised to them that love him. 13 Let no man, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted by God. For God is not a tempter of evils: and he tempts no man. 14 But every man is tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured.

Concupiscence, of course, is an impediment to the exercise of free will, but it presupposes the existence of the free will which is to be impeded. Same goes for temptation, which is different from compulsion: the former acts upon free will, the latter overrides or destroys it. We could take the specific verses from Paul you mentioned earlier (you choose one to start with if you like) and discuss what they actually imply vis-a-vis free will. We’ll probably get into difficult questions again about what Paul really meant.

Although I looked for quotes supporting free will,I have not felt a strong need to provide “balanced” quotes on the assumption that I was under the impression that Catholic Church believed the Bible to be the word of God and that contradiction within the sacred scriptures is not possible. So, it seemed sufficient to argue that there is a strong argument against free will in the Bible. I have only listed a few of such quotes. There are many more. However, if this is not the position (the Bible cannot self contradict) of the Catholic church or I have presented a simplistic view, I am happy to be corrected.

You have presented a simplistic view. The Bible can of course *verbally *contradict itself and manifestly does. That is why it must be read according to the “analogy of faith,” meaning it must be interpreted as to its intention in particular passages according to its relation to the faith as a whole (where ‘faith’ refers to a set of revealed propositions that we know to be true because God has revealed them to us).

 

[tonyrey]

Well the reply here is quite straightforward: the Church certainly does not believe in a kind of free will that is completely independent from “conditions” - our free will is most certainly conditioned. So Tony’s statement - “Each choice we make is unrelated to what choices others make - if it is genuinely ours” - for example, is clearly contrary to Catholic teaching (not to mention reality!).

You misunderstand me. I stated that “Each choice we make is unrelated to what choices others make - if it is genuinely ours” in the context of probability… It is absurd to suppose that our free choices depend on how many free choices have been made by others.

 

[Nimeniton]

The thread you are seeing and the thread I am seeing are apparently not the same thing.
Message 71 does not contain any quotes from the bible and is actually one of the posts I authored.

Can you quote the post for me?

Well message #71 does contain the quotes on my thread and it is my message. I do not know why we would see different messages for #71. Here is a screen shot of the actual page. img52.imageshack.us/img52/6338/message71.png refers to Exodus 10:16-20

 

[Nimeniton]

Well now that I have a reference to go with, I can proceed.

What exactly is this ‘angel quote’ supposed to prove again?

Is the implication here that he knows he will not get release so he will not ask?
Seems we would have to dig pretty deep into the head of someone else to be able to determine that at all. You are arguing that we do not have free will, but you wish us to believe psychic ability?..
l.

I have not argued that psychic ability is necessary to know this. This is a straw-man. Psychic ability is not required. My experience as a Buddhist minister and that of the prison pastors including the Catholic one was that prisoners would ingratiate themselves with you in order to get early parole. One has to simply observe their behaviour. So you know they would like to leave prison but they never ask can they leave right now because they know the request will be refused. You could check this out with your local prison chaplain.