well the example of violence you gave certainly doesn't seem to stand outside of issues of attraction
Why did we get free will?
- Thread starter Betrayer0fHope
- Start date
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
If God is all powerful shouldn't he be able to make us love him?? Who said you couldn't love someone if you were forced to, complete bullshit, and even if that were true then God could use his all-powerfulness(holy fuck, thats actually a word) to change humans so they COULD be forced to love...
EDIT: my post was also addressing the post every other person in the world(or at least this page) is talking about.
EDIT: my post was also addressing the post every other person in the world(or at least this page) is talking about.
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If free will is an illusion then everything you say on the issue is moot.
Not that I'm a believer in fate or destiny... but what if everything is set in stone from the moment the universe is created?
Both you and I wouldn't know it, but our life would follow one path no matter what we 'choose'.
Love is just something that helps mammals stay together whilst a long rearing process is underway. I hate to be a pessimistic atheist here, but evolution is very mechanical that way - even with emotions.
You can't, but my point was you can't force yourself to love someone or stop loving someone either.
love requires that one comes forward from one's own sweet will - if you declare that love exists within fully deterministic paradigms I would argue that you rather have commerce, not love.
Of course you can "make" someone love you; it's just that it can take considerable effort and time.
If you are really interested in someone loving you, then you will do everything in your power to make yourself into the sort of person that the other person would love and find irresistible to love back.
When we seek to win someone's love, this is the way we tend to go about anyway - by consciously or subconsciously changing ourselves into the sort of person we think the other person would love.
However, we sooner or later give up on those pursuits - because we find that no human is worthy of such an endeavor.
Of course you can, but again, it can take considerable effort and time - which is why it seems you don't have any choice in the matter.
Love is a matter of actions, a matter of what you do - from buying someone flowers to thinking of them. Actions can be controlled, more or less immediately.
Beginning to love someone means you take up these actions; ceasing to love someone means giving up those actions.
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
This describes love perfectly.
Free will...
What does it mean. You have all right to do what ever you so may please but if indeed your peers find it not of their taste they may do to you whatever they please. As such sanity is an illusion because to be sane you bust first be insane. Free will comes to all to do what they wish and as they wish. Jesus had free will to make what is, is! So as such so may you.
What does it mean. You have all right to do what ever you so may please but if indeed your peers find it not of their taste they may do to you whatever they please. As such sanity is an illusion because to be sane you bust first be insane. Free will comes to all to do what they wish and as they wish. Jesus had free will to make what is, is! So as such so may you.
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
Do you think that there is more than one form or degree of love?
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
"He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes." - Siddhartha Buddha
Cannon, do you think the above quote is true?
Cannon, do you think the above quote is true?
I have the woes of all celestial events on my mind every day, and as such I am ready to deal with 6.5 billion people dying.
I have come to terms with many things. Could you witness the world coming to an end? This now goes to Jesus who guarentees life to all even after death. This does not mean supernatural living, but a paradox. This means that you forever in the repeating time line, which started 2000 years ago and goes until about 2012, will forever repeat. Jesus goes back in time, sacrifices himself to make it so that the time-line repeats for ever. Understand. This is the paradox of life.
As such, I love all
I have come to terms with many things. Could you witness the world coming to an end? This now goes to Jesus who guarentees life to all even after death. This does not mean supernatural living, but a paradox. This means that you forever in the repeating time line, which started 2000 years ago and goes until about 2012, will forever repeat. Jesus goes back in time, sacrifices himself to make it so that the time-line repeats for ever. Understand. This is the paradox of life.
As such, I love all
Why ask the question as though you are asking as a theist, when in fact you are not a theist?
Anyway.
For one to choose God one must have the ability to reject God.
So God must be desiring people who have chosen Him. Our choosing must then be very important to Him.
All Praise The Ancient Of Days
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
You seem to have chosen the narrow path, which is very admirable.
I do not think either God or love have much to do with rational discussion of the question about free will being real or only an illusion, but the above comment, intended to show that love implies free will*, ironically is an excellent example of behavior conditioning.
I.e. modify the environment of an organism to reward the behavior desired and/or punish the behavior not desired. To some degree conditioning does work on all creatures, but may have less predictable results on complex creatures like humans than on simple creatures like amebas. Even some machines that man has made are adaptive to their environment and thus can be "conditioned." (Robots sent to distant planets are perhaps the most advanced forms of adaptive machines, but one could argue that the computer I now use is much more adaptive to its enviroment, mainly my key strokes.) Others are not adaptive but “hard wired” to have set responses to their environment. (Street lights that come on when it gets dark etc.)
Surely the fact that some woman can be conditioned to love you does not imply she has free will. If anything, this fact is an argument for the opposite POV, as CutsieMarie89 suggests in the post Greenberg is replying to.
SUMMARY: creatures exhibiting predictable modified behavior due to conditioning of its environment is strong argument AGAINST the existence of free will, not for the existence of free will. Let try to be more logical and think clearly. Also, let’s try to get back to the subject, which has little to do with the existence, or not, of God and how love occurs or what love is, IMHO.
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*Greenberg is not very explicit in stating his intentions / POV, but he is replying to and arguing against CutsieMarie89's POV:
CutsieMarie89's comment was:
"It seems to me that in certain cases. Love is an argument for the side that freewill does not exist."
Thus I think Greenberg thinks fact that love can be "earned" is evidence of free will. CutsieMarie89's logic is more correct.
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There is only assumption, no logic here. See post 56 for more details, such as:
" ...If God wants some men {in heaven}, it seems to me that he would prefer the more rational, less gullible, ones. I.e. anyone who believes in things for which there is no evidence would be excluded from Heaven. Only the ones that do not believe, or at least doubt, that unicorns or god, etc. exist would be allowed in.
Perhaps God would prefer those with an open mind on these "no supporting evidence, but possible" things, more than those who waste their allotted time on Earth by praying to unicorns or other things with no supporting evidence.
I.e. it seems most likely to me that heaven is reserved for us agnostics. ..."
In answer to thread's question:
I doubt we have genuine free will, but if we have it, then I think it was selected for as we evolved. Thus, on the average, at least in the past, it helped reproduction of those with more free will than those without much.
For many years genuine free will seemed to me to be inconsistent with known facts about how nerve impulses control the body and all its thoughts,* as these impulses are governed ONLY by the natural laws, which are reasonable well understood now and described as chemistry and physics; However, I have posted a description of how genuine free will might be consistent with those laws at:
See:
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1294496&postcount=52
For details why I think this, and evidence supporting this non-standard POV.
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*The existence of an immaterial "soul" or "spirit" could escape those laws but if made by some greater spirit (God) then that would not be genuine free will. That would be "by grant" free will, which could be cancelled or controlled by that greater spirit. I.e. men would only be able to do what was permitted, not truly free agents to make choices, independent of the granting authority. Also, as discussed in post 56 of this thread, I do not believe in anything for which there is no evidence that it exists. Some of these things may exist if they are not self contradictory. Some may even be likely. For example, somewhere in this vast universe at some time, there may be large, strong, four-legged creatures with a single horn protruding from the foreheads plowing fields for some "farmer creature" - I.e. unicorns probably do or have existed.
Likewise, there are more possibilities for "N" Gods to exist that the Jew's N = 1 case. (Christians are a little confused on this issue - many tend to think N = 3.) I have open mind of the existence or not of god(s) but the N > 1 possibility (such as the ancient Greeks and Romans believed) appears more probable than the Christian POV.
I doubt we have genuine free will, but if we have it, then I think it was selected for as we evolved. Thus, on the average, at least in the past, it helped reproduction of those with more free will than those without much.
For many years genuine free will seemed to me to be inconsistent with known facts about how nerve impulses control the body and all its thoughts,* as these impulses are governed ONLY by the natural laws, which are reasonable well understood now and described as chemistry and physics; However, I have posted a description of how genuine free will might be consistent with those laws at:
See:
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1294496&postcount=52
For details why I think this, and evidence supporting this non-standard POV.
------------
*The existence of an immaterial "soul" or "spirit" could escape those laws but if made by some greater spirit (God) then that would not be genuine free will. That would be "by grant" free will, which could be cancelled or controlled by that greater spirit. I.e. men would only be able to do what was permitted, not truly free agents to make choices, independent of the granting authority. Also, as discussed in post 56 of this thread, I do not believe in anything for which there is no evidence that it exists. Some of these things may exist if they are not self contradictory. Some may even be likely. For example, somewhere in this vast universe at some time, there may be large, strong, four-legged creatures with a single horn protruding from the foreheads plowing fields for some "farmer creature" - I.e. unicorns probably do or have existed.
Likewise, there are more possibilities for "N" Gods to exist that the Jew's N = 1 case. (Christians are a little confused on this issue - many tend to think N = 3.) I have open mind of the existence or not of god(s) but the N > 1 possibility (such as the ancient Greeks and Romans believed) appears more probable than the Christian POV.
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