If I can find an answer to these questions, I will turn back to religion

[Gorgias]

Any actual perfect god would not need humans to come up with defenses and excuses for it. I think it truly is that simple.

Who says God needs us to defend Him?

If God is perfect and complete he cannot be lonely or want for anything. You can’t have it both ways.

No one is saying “God made creation because He was lonely” or “God made creation because He felt incomplete”! Where are you getting that from?!?

If he creates imperfect creatures, merely giving them the option of obeying but knowing they will not, and then punishes them for a trait he gave them, then yes, he is to blame. If something is the cause of everything, they are ultimately responsible for everything.

Ever hear of “primary causation” and “secondary causation”? I’m thinking not. Or, perhaps, you’re just hoping that your children don’t commit a crime, and you get sent to jail – since you’re responsible for them!

I would respond to your claim by asserting that God is responsible for our existence… but we’re responsible for our actions.

Excuses that free will is a gift, and he wanted us to CHOOSE to love him make him sound like someone with a personality disorder, not a divine complete being.

So, not knowing whether you’re married or not, I must ask: what do you want in a partner? Someone who freely chooses to love you? Or would you prefer compelling them to express an emotion toward you?

I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but this kind of looks a bit like troll thread.

I don’t think so. The OP has been back and posted a response. I’m not certain she’s looking for debate or discussion, though – just floating an idea and seeing if she gets back any responses she likes…

I don’t even understand what the two of you are trying to prove anymore.

Hey! You’re not playing the game by the rules! Apparently, you have to respond with a question: “what in the world are you two trying to prove?”

 

[fhansen]

I was raised Catholic and have always been very interested in religion, however I have two problems (with all religions) that I’ve never been able to find a sufficient answer to, which has caused me to become more spiritual than religious. I guess I’m just hoping to find answers to these questions that make sense to me so that I can turn back towards organised religion.

God created us so that we can experience His own sheer bliss and happiness. The source of this happiness is a goodness and love so powerful and beautiful it cannot be imagined, or put into words once experienced. This same love is also the reason that He wants to share this happiness. When we know God we worship Him, because we love Him then; it cannot be helped; He’s that good. And He’s the only thing worthy of that kind of love and attention, rather than all the nonsense we worship here on earth: material possessions, wealth, pleasure, our own glory/pride.

Relationship with and worship of God is simply the right and just order of things; it’s our homeostasis, the “place” where we’re whole. This has everything to do with simple truth and absolutely nothing to do with ego; which is a human trait. God, if anything, is, amazingly, humble in fact. Contemplate this truth: That was God hanging on the cross, willfully suffering an excruciatingly humiliating and painful death in human flesh at the hands of His own creation to prove just how much He loves and is willing to forgive and serve man in spite of our sin. Man’s happiness has always been God’s intention, as the Catechism teaches. Enmity comes from man,. not God. “They hated Me without reason” Jesus says, quoting Psalms referring to Himself and His Father. Then consider this teaching from our Catechism:
399 Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness.280 They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image - that of a God jealous of his prerogatives.281

Jesus came to reconcile man with God by rectifying man’s distorted concept of God when the time was ripe in man’s history, when humanity was mature enough, if only just barely, to receive that light, to begin to accept it. He reveals the Father; He restores the “knowledge of God” that was lost at the Fall when Adam essentially rejected God as God, by disobeying Him and thus denying His authority. We all possess this distorted concept, whether we’re religious or not, until we, personally, begin to see through it. Also consider Jeremiah 31:33-34. This is the basis of the New Covenant, and this brought me back to the faith:
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

 

[Sedona]

Good Morning Liz9182: Good luck with getting past those two issues, because I was stuck on them for a long time. I did work it out to my own satisfaction, and while it didn’t lead me back to religion, it allowed me to explore my own spirituality and to come to my own relationship with God, the world around me as well as with other living things, which is something like religion without the walls. I suspect you are on a similar path, however, the approach as well as the outcomes will likely differ for each person.

As for the purpose in life, I would have to defer to Terence McKenna, who said that the purpose in life is simply the felt presence of direct experience. In other words, we seem to be agents of something that craves experience. And while tightly religious people may say that our purpose is a relationship with God or to serve God, I would argue that if that were indeed the case, well, that too is an experience. We seem to be part of an experience generating enterprise, wherein we serve as apertures through which the singular cause finds ever new ways to experience itself. In my mind at least, it maps well with issue as to why particles are compelled to form into structures that in turn can contemplate particles. It seems that something must want to know itself, but it may not be all that omniscient, and we are likely part of it. Just my thinking on the matter.

With regard to free will, which is what I think your second point gets at, I struggled with that for a long time as well. For many years I was convinced that we had none, but now I have settled on the idea that we have some free will, albeit not as much as many would hold to be the case. The idea that we may have some free will is made possible by the view that time is not linear, and therefore, we are interacting with the past equally with the present and future. When you change something today, it not only changes the future but reaches back to change the past, as well as our recollections as well as verbal, written and otherwise recorded versions of the past. This is a view that offers no particular Eschaton that we are being pulled to. It is the only explanation that in my thinking maps to science as well as practical experience while offering us any free will at all. None of this of course diminishes the validity of the Jungian view that we don’t even have much control over what pops up in our heads or what grabs our attention. It’s a question none of us can answer, but I have become somewhat at peace with my own conclusions on the matter, while at the same time I really haven’t solved anything. I hope that makes sense.

Anyway, this is a great post that brings up a lot of great potential for discussion and thank you for posting it!

All the best

 

[FredBloggs]

FredBloggs:

Sbee0:

The anti free will argument that God’s knowledge of our choices means they must inevitably happen is a common argument and it’s also logically fallacious.

The second argument is merely that there is no evidence for free will. Nobody has ever presented a process by which free will can exist. As far as we can tell, the universe is entirely deterministic at a non-quantum level, and quantum indeterminacy merely introduces chance, it doesn’t provide for free will - so at best our “choices” would be completely random. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we should consider that free will doesn’t exist; and whatever happens is inevitable.

Neither of these two argument is logically fallacious.

Your very life and existence demonstrates the operation of free will. You have agency, the capacity to observe, think, and act in a way that is specific to you.
What did you have for breakfast this morning? Even if you closed your eyes and reached into the fridge, you still made a decision to do that.

I disagree. “It sure feels like I have free will” is not good enough. Our decisions are what our brains do. Our brains are purely physical entities undergoing physical (chemical) processes. We have zero evidence that anything else is going on. Based on what we know, the reasonable conclusion is that our brains perform those processes based purely on physical (ie deterministic) (name removed by moderator)uts. Internal chemical reactions influenced by external stimuli. All deterministic, physical, material.

Experiments have suggested that our brains make decisions sometimes several seconds before we’re aware of them. Those experiments have their critics so they’re not slam-dunk proof… but in any event the problem remains - the concept of dualistic free will does not fit with what we know and can test about the universe.

The only evidence we have of dualistic free will is that it feels like we have it. If we’re honest with ourselves, that’s no more evidence of free will than a feeling of paranoia is evidence that people are actually talking about us behind our backs.

 

[Gorgias]

I disagree. “It sure feels like I have free will” is not good enough.

“It sure feels like I’m thinking” or “it sure feels like I’m seeing that tree” are good enough, aren’t they? And if so, then why not “it sure feels like I have free will”?

Our decisions are what our brains do. Our brains are purely physical entities undergoing physical (chemical) processes. We have zero evidence that anything else is going on.

I would disagree – the evidence we have are the perceptions we experience, and the thoughts we have. They are not physical entities themselves! So… from whence do they proceed? The experience itself is the evidence you claim doesn’t exist! The very thought processes you used in order to compose your post is that evidence!

 

[fhansen]

2. It is a scientific fact that everyone’s personalities and actions are formed by two things 1. Their biology, and 2. Their experiences (nature and nurture), however nobody is personally responsible for these things - meaning that nobody is actually responsible for their actions. Since God is responsible for both the biology of people and for the situations/experiences they have, he is therefore also responsible for their actions and every decision they make. This means that nobody is personally responsible for their ‘sins’, so how can God send people to hell when it is actually HIM who is the one who caused them to sin?

Do you really want to say that man is a mere beast, totally irresponsible for his actions, should never be be held morally accountable? Is our natural moral outrage or righteous indignation against injustices or heinous acts committed against other humans, or animals/nature for that matter, all for naught? Are they really only some chemically induced reaction in our brains, or are humans more than the sum of their parts? Is there a God, to put it another way, who could easily enough have made us to be potentially greater in some way than the rest of the creation that surrounds us?

Do you think it would be an impossibility for God to create man and give him free will?

 

[Wesrock]

goout:

FredBloggs:

Sbee0:

The anti free will argument that God’s knowledge of our choices means they must inevitably happen is a common argument and it’s also logically fallacious.

The second argument is merely that there is no evidence for free will. Nobody has ever presented a process by which free will can exist. As far as we can tell, the universe is entirely deterministic at a non-quantum level, and quantum indeterminacy merely introduces chance, it doesn’t provide for free will - so at best our “choices” would be completely random. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we should consider that free will doesn’t exist; and whatever happens is inevitable.

Neither of these two argument is logically fallacious.

Your very life and existence demonstrates the operation of free will. You have agency, the capacity to observe, think, and act in a way that is specific to you.
What did you have for breakfast this morning? Even if you closed your eyes and reached into the fridge, you still made a decision to do that.

I disagree. “It sure feels like I have free will” is not good enough. Our decisions are what our brains do. Our brains are purely physical entities undergoing physical (chemical) processes. We have zero evidence that anything else is going on. Based on what we know, the reasonable conclusion is that our brains perform those processes based purely on physical (ie deterministic) (name removed by moderator)uts. Internal chemical reactions influenced by external stimuli. All deterministic, physical, material.

Experiments have suggested that our brains make decisions sometimes several seconds before we’re aware of them. Those experiments have their critics so they’re not slam-dunk proof… but in any event the problem remains - the concept of dualistic free will does not fit with what we know and can test about the universe.

The only evidence we have of dualistic free will is that it feels like we have it. If we’re honest with ourselves, that’s no more evidence of free will than a feeling of paranoia is evidence that people are actually talking about us behind our backs.

So your post (and all of your beliefs) are not rational, logical, or intentional, and neither is my response or my beliefs. I’d chastise you for trying to convince us, in such circumstances, but then again, you haven’t tried anything.

The intentionality and information content of thought (or lack thereof as you seem to be arguing… or rather, as a series of chemical events triggers another series of events causes black dots to appear on a white lit background devoid of any intention, informational content, or reason) would be an interesting avenue for discussion on how the qualitative aspects of the mind cannot boil down to purely quantitative, material processes.

 

[mch4970]

Why would God create the entire universe for the sole purpose of having people worship him?

For basically the same reason I had children myself.

meaning that nobody is actually responsible for their actions.

There’s the mistake. My kids are responsible for their behavior. I know they have tendencies to make bad decisions but I expect them to do better. How can I expect that? The expectation comes through mentoring via a relationship.

In both cases, it’s very similar to our calling towards the Father and His ways.

 

[dumbox]

It just occurred to me that your title is conditional, contingent.

Love isn’t conditional/contingent…“I’ll love God through the Church IF…”

 

[Calliope]

I was trying to answer you but I can’t get the quotes worked out here. Sorry, I guess I’ll just let it go

 

[setarcos]

could you elaborate on t his? I believe many people misunderstand what this phrase is actually saying. How do you separate the head from the heart as it is being used? What distinguishes each from the other? Reason and emotion are both aspects of the “head” or mind so what is it that we are referring to when referring to the heart?

 

[Calliope]

Who says God needs us to defend Him?

The behavior of believers who tend to rush to his defense and use terms like “defend the Gospels” etc

No one is saying “God made creation because He was lonely” or “God made creation because He felt incomplete”! Where are you getting that from?!?

I got this from earlier in this thread where people who I took to be believers suggested that God created people because he was lonely. Their word, not mine. I’ve already “defended” the idea that a perfect God would be complete and want nothing.

Ever hear of “primary causation” and “secondary causation”? I’m thinking not. Or, perhaps, you’re just hoping that your children don’t commit a crime, and you get sent to jail – since you’re responsible for them!

I would respond to your claim by asserting that God is responsible for our existence… but we’re responsible for our actions.

If I knew with certainty that if I brought a child into the world it would burn for eternity in hell, and I went ahead and freely chose to bring that child into the world, Yes, I’d be responsible for that child burning for eternity in hell.

God created humans knowing that many would burn for eternity in hell, so yes, he’s responsible. He could have simply not created those people or perhaps simply let them die and be gone, instead he created them knowing they would burn forever.

Claiming that my having a child is the same as God creating all of humanity knowing everything that would happen are in any way synonymous is bizarre.

So, not knowing whether you’re married or not, I must ask: what do you want in a partner? Someone who freely chooses to love you? Or would you prefer compelling them to express an emotion toward you?

Yes, I want a partner who chooses to be with me. I thought we already decided that God doesn’t need anything and is complete unto himself, but ok, I’ll play along that God WANTED someone to decide to love him all on their very own, and created billions of people, many who will burn for eternity, to satisfy that urge. Does that sound like a loving God or like a pathological needy person.

I would like to be freely chosen, but I don’t go out and have some robot partner created to satisfy my urge. I don’t go out and meet a bunch of people then kill or harm the ones that don’t choose me. Clearly that is insane behavior, yet believers claim it’s proof of just how much God loves us, that he lets us freely choose him, or punishes us.

Apparently it’s not enough for God (who needs nothing) to let those who don’t choose him go their merry way, he punishes them for eternity.

 

[Calliope]

Tell me, how does God exist itself, without any other Creator?

I don’t think God exists.

 

[setarcos]

“It sure feels like I’m thinking” or “it sure feels like I’m seeing that tree” are good enough, aren’t they? And if so, then why not “it sure feels like I have free will”?

Feeling as if you are “experiencing” something is not quite the same as having a realized experience. Neuroscientists have created everything from the sensation of having eaten or eating a sandwich to having the memory of an event that never took place in the patience external reality. People can be, are being, and have always been experiencing and made to experience things that aren’t in reality apart from their own self delusional understanding. Yes even the “feeling” of making a self determined decision has been shown to be able to be manipulated. There are so many unknown factors which govern a persons thought producing and decision making process that there is little room left for what most people would consider “free will”. We are not producers of free will, we are reactors to the will we’ve been given.

 

[setarcos]

There’s the mistake. My kids are responsible for their behavior. I know they have tendencies to make bad decisions but I expect them to do better. How can I expect that? The expectation comes through mentoring via a relationship.

Of course they are responsible for their behavior. Their behavior was produced by them but the stimulus to produce the behavior came from elsewhere and there is the rub. The ability of anyone to exercise their own “free will” is contingent upon the stimulus which produced the will to act of which we have no control. We do not “will” our own ability to “Will” our own decisions. We are not born into an equal playing field. Some people have a stronger tendency to resist doing evil while others easily succumb. If everyone had the equal capacity to make free will choices we would be subject to a completely random exercise of wills based on little more than chance circumstance, exactly as if we had no free will. The fact of the matter is…if God exists, he sustains everything and he is in charge of this little show. We are merely made to “feel” as if we are independent entities because that is a part of God’s sustaining will. True free will in humans is a realistic farce.

 

[setarcos]

You cant think God exists. You have to feel God exists. If you don’t feel as if God should exist then either you weren’t made to know this feeling for some reason or you don’t feel he exists because he actually doesn’t. Sadly unless God reaches down with proof we have no way of reaching up in order to prove.

 

[Calliope]

I believe there is order in the Universe, but it is not the God of Christians. Not a being.

 

[Secant]

Others have mentioned these points, but I will try because sometimes seeing arguments presented in different terms can help.

1. God did not create the entire universe for the sole purpose of having people worship him. He is perfect, and does not need worship. He created the universe out of love so that we could exist. Our purpose is eternal joy. Joy is found by seeking what is most fulfilling. It is more fulfilling to help another than it is to take from another. The more good we seek, the happier we are. The better we respect what is good and put it in its proper place, the more fulfilled we feel. Food is a good thing. Not eating enough causes us problems. Overeating causes other problems. It must be in its proper place to give us happiness. As we seek better and better goods, as long as we seek in the right places, we will discover the ultimate good, which is God. When we find the ultimate good, it must still be set in the proper place in our lives. Worship of God, the ultimate good, is what places him in the proper place. As a note, I can worship God in many ways, and they are all, within reason, appropriate. We do not have to constantly recite the Our Father. We give God due respect by treating others around us with respect. We put God in his proper place while teaching our children how to treat their siblings. At work, standing up for a safe work practice instead of the easy option is respecting God. While we are required to give up around one hour a week to do nothing but worship God, there are other ways to give him due deference throughout the rest of our time.
2. You are making a mistake in this statement. Personalities are formed by biology and their experiences. Personalities are not formed only by their biology and experiences. My grandfather was an identical twin. He had the same biology and the same upbringing as my great uncle. So why is it that, with the same upbringing and DNA, these two men were very different? The family stories say that they were different from a very young age on, before they would have had different experiences. I had a pair of friends who were identical twins in school. They grew up together. One liked science, the other history. One liked fashion, the other like motor vehicles. We can look at identical twins who grew up together and we will always see two different people. There is more to just a personality, choices made, and actions taken than simply nurture and nature.

Finally, please remember that God does not send people to hell. God allows people to choose hell. Hell is a place of eternal torment because it lacks everything that is good. This is because God is the ultimate good and when someone denies him, they deny all that is good. Therefore, a choice to deny good means you are left with only evil. God does not wish evil on anyone nor does he force anyone to choose evil. God will not send us to hell. If we are to go there, it will be because we choose it.

Hope this helps.

 

[mch4970]

The ability of anyone to exercise their own “free will” is contingent upon the stimulus

I wholeheartedly disagree with the above and thus disagree with your conclusion below.

We are merely made to “feel” as if we are independent entities because that is a part of God’s sustaining will.

But, I will agree that everything is sustained in and by God and we are called to be more like Him. How are we to do this? Through His grace alone.

 

[FredBloggs]

FredBloggs:

Sbee0:

The anti free will argument that God’s knowledge of our choices means they must inevitably happen is a common argument and it’s also logically fallacious.

I’m not aware of this argument. Is it possible you are conflating two arguments here? Firstly the one that states that if “God” knows we are going to commit an evil action and does nothing to prevent it, that precludes him from being a loving and caring god. That’s not anti free will, that’s an argument against “God” being both all-knowing and good. The only way out of that conclusion is to invoke special pleading.

No, not at all. Maybe you’re just working with a bad/incomplete understanding of goodness and also a bad/incomplete understanding of what we mean by God.

Well instead of just asserting that I lack understanding, perhaps you can explain. Are you saying you would knowingly stand by while your child murdered an innocent? And that you’d still consider yourself a good and moral person?

Or are you saying that your God is somehow exempt from such obligations? Or that “goodness” means something else when it comes to your God. Or is it that your God simply doesn’t have the power to change these outcomes?

The second argument is merely that there is no evidence for free will. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we should consider that free will doesn’t exist; and whatever happens is inevitable.

Neither of these two argument is logically fallacious.

I think if you read the Domican and Jesuit positions on free will, you’d be very surprised to find that what Catholic theologians mean by free will is not what you mean by free will at all.

Ah, so you’re not referring to dualistic free will - where you could choose which stone to pick off a beach, for example. Because that’s the free will I’m referring to. If that’s not what you understand by free will then I apologise for any misrepresentation of your position. I would suggest, though, that that’s what most people understand by free will, and it’s certainly the version of free will that the argument I mentioned earlier rests on. If you’re referring to libertarian free will, I would posit that doesn’t count as free will worth a damn, but that’s a subject for a different thread

And as for evidence, it may not be directly measurable by falsifiable testing, but that doesn’t mean our experience of agency and intentionality is false or doesn’t qualify as evidence.

Well actually it does. If evidence is to be of any use at all, it must be subject to experimentation with consistent results no matter your preferred result. That’s what evidence means. If your definition of evidence is less rigorous than that, then of course you may consider your subjective opinion to be the end of the matter.