(January 9, 2019 at 9:47 pm)Jehanne Wrote:

(January 9, 2019 at 1:27 pm)tackattack Wrote: So Max and Thoreauvian, neithier one of you we actually have no real choice? So there is no free will for either of you?

In my opinion, only atheistic materialists can presume the existence of free will; theists are trapped by fatalistic, divine foreknowledge, which led John Calvin to conclude that even some individuals who die in infancy are predestined to eternal Hell.

How am I trapped by fatalistic, divine foreknowledge?
I believe Coercion negates responsibility. I believe people sin willfully. I believe it is in their nature to sin and yet their desire can be to overcome that sinful nature. I don't see any of that as contradictory, but I'm open to refutation.

(January 9, 2019 at 10:54 pm)tackattack Wrote:

(January 9, 2019 at 9:47 pm)Jehanne Wrote: In my opinion, only atheistic materialists can presume the existence of free will; theists are trapped by fatalistic, divine foreknowledge, which led John Calvin to conclude that even some individuals who die in infancy are predestined to eternal Hell.

How am I trapped by fatalistic, divine foreknowledge?
I believe Coercion negates responsibility. I believe people sin willfully. I believe it is in their nature to sin and yet their desire can be to overcome that sinful nature. I don't see any of that as contradictory, but I'm open to refutation.

Oh, please, that disgrace guilt tripping con game of sin.

The only entity that ever sinned by Christian definition is one that never existed - the Christian god.

Sin is god, god is sin, there is no other sin.

(January 6, 2019 at 3:07 am)Der/die AtheistIn Wrote: Many moderates believe there is no Hell, the story of Adam and Eve is purely metaphorical and that Jesus doesn't suffer for our sins. Then WTF did he let himself get killed? According to the story he had divine powers and would've been able to escape, but chose not to. Some say he didn't fight, because he was peaceful, but if he had magic powers, he could've protected himself without hurting anybody. If he wanted to just teach some lessons, why didn't he leave right away or use some invisible shield or something? Why did he come on earth in the first place? Why didn't he use telepathy to communicate? Why did he leave?

Do these moderates actually believe that Jesus was just human?
There is another thing, my parents are moderates themselves and raised me christian, yet they never told me they interpretation to why Jesus let himself getting killed. They didn't tell me about many concepts of this religion that they believe in. Why? Having a wrong opinion is one thing, but having literally no structure when teaching said opinion to your only child is fucking ridiculous.

There are many layers of traditions and historical facts which developed over decades and centuries, in the establishment of what eventually came to be called "Christianity". 
Originally there were many "Christianities", (see Ehrman's book on the subject). There was no orthodoxy at the beginning. You can actually watch as Christianity was developed by the "Church Fathers" in the councils ... as they argued and voted on things (non-unanimously). The proceedings of the councils are on Fordham University's web site.  

If any of the origin stories have even a kernel of truth, and in fact the Romans executed him, then the reason seems to be that he caused a ruckus in the temple, (the "overturning" of the money-changer tables). 

During the Pax Romana, in occupied cities, execution (without trial) was a "standing order" (no need to get an individual order) to execute anyone who was deemed to be a "trouble-maker". The economy of the city of Jerusalem was entirely built on the temple and religious tourism/ festival celebrations. Jews came from all over to Jerusalem to BUY animals to sacrifice, and PAY the priests to do the sacrificing. It was a HUGE industry. The animals had to be raised, fed, transported, and bought. ALL of Jerusalem depended on the religious tourism. Jerusalem was also an occupied city. Roman coinage/currency was of course in use, BUT it was not acceptable to use Roman money to buy anything in the temple, as it was "tainted". It had to be converted to Hebrew money ... it was ritually necessary for the Jews. Then along comes (if the story is true) this wandering preacher who poses a threat to civil order, and causes a ruckus in the temple over a HUGELY important part of the city's economy. Money. He was summarily executed by standing order, for being a trouble-maker. 
The rest was made up. 

The role of a Jewish messiah, (the "anointed one") was never (ever) to be a substitutionary atonement for sin. Christians (later) turned it into that.  The very early Christians were apocalyptic Jews. They thought the end times were immanent, (including Paul and Jesus). Even the apostles thought so. They asked Jesus in Acts (1:6) "Wilt Thou O Lord at this time reestablish the kingdom to Israel ?" Nothing about sin and atonement. When the young man in Matthew asked Jesus what he had to do to gain eternal life, the answer he was given was "keep the commandments" ... NOT "just you wait, I'll be dying for you". 

The temple was destroyed ... the end times did not come. Then all of Jerusalem was destroyed after the bar Kochba revolt (132-136 CE) and still no end-times. The world-view of the Jews changed radically in this period (the Diaspora) when things did not go well or according to what they expected. Things were ripe for new cults and different understandings.

As far as "the son of god" goes, it's a corruption of the Hebrew understanding of that term.
For a Jew, a "son of god" was simply a pious/righteous man.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articl...son-of-god
Again, Christianity corrupted the original meaning of that general honorific term from Jewish culture.

(January 9, 2019 at 9:03 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Emergence says complex system can possess properties which are not easy to predict from simple statement of properties of its constituent parts.  It does not say complex system can possess properties which can not be predicted from the priories of its constituent parts.

In principle There is nothing free about any emergent property.  Only that the constraints on emergent properties of complex systems are not as easy to deduce from simple statements of the properties of its constituents as simple properties of simple systems.

Emergence is therefore as misused in the argument for free will as quantum mechanics.

I disagree with all three of these assertions. Evolutionary forces act on chance combinations of materials over long periods of time rather than on determined ones. Such chance occurrences happen because the material world operates statistically. Life takes advantage of such chance occurrences to load the dice in its favor, thus leading to the emergence of consciousness and free will. So consciousness and free will are properties which could not be predicted from the properties of simple particles or the rules of physics because they were self-organized rather than determined. At most, they were enabled by taking advantage of the loophole of the statistical nature of thermodynamics, by working as parts of a total system where they benefited by increasing entropy elsewhere.

(January 9, 2019 at 11:28 pm)Thoreauvian Wrote:

(January 9, 2019 at 9:03 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Emergence says complex system can possess properties which are not easy to predict from simple statement of properties of its constituent parts.  It does not say complex system can possess properties which can not be predicted from the priories of its constituent parts.

In principle There is nothing free about any emergent property.  Only that the constraints on emergent properties of complex systems are not as easy to deduce from simple statements of the properties of its constituents as simple properties of simple systems.

Emergence is therefore as misused in the argument for free will as quantum mechanics.

I disagree with all three of these assertions.  Evolutionary forces act on chance combinations of materials over long periods of time rather than on determined ones.  Such chance occurrences happen because the material world operates statistically.  Life takes advantage of such chance occurrences to load the dice in its favor, thus leading to the emergence of consciousness and free will.  So consciousness and free will are properties which could not be predicted from the properties of simple particles or the rules of physics because they were self-organized rather than determined.  At most, they were enabled by taking advantage of the loophole of the statistical nature of thermodynamics, by working as parts of a total system where they benefited by increasing entropy elsewhere.

You are conflating quantum uncertain on quantum scale which are intrinsic to nature of reality as we understand them, with contingent macroscopic uncertainty resulting from achieveable but as yet unachieved macroscopic measurements, or calculatable but as yet uncalculated consequences due to ignorances about the mechanism.

As far as we can tell, quantum behavior is truly statistical.  There really is nothing more than can be said for the possible outcomes other than the statistics,.  There is in principle not any deeper underlying paths and mechanism that would enable you to a priori determine the outcome better than statistics.   There is no looking closer, nor is there anything to see if looked closer, as far as we can tell.

Macroscopic statistical phenomena are totally different.  Statistics of macroscopic pheonomenon is but a rough general description seeking to encompass a full array of specific paths and mechanism that individually uniquely lead to each of the specific outcomes.  It is but a description that glosses over existent but unprobed underlying paths and mechanisms that allow outcomes to be determined better than the statistics.  Look closer, and individual paths and mechanisms can be discerned.  

The probability of evolution only refers to ignorances about which specific creature had which specific properties in what specific environments. These things are in principle knowable even if difficult to determine.   Statistical description merely seek to make the most of it in spite of our addressable but unaddressed ignorances.

The same as free will.   The mechanisms of not just “free” will, but each outcome of free will, is in principle determinable.  The information required to determine the are also in principle determinable.  The fact that they are as yet underdetermined so statistics is the most we can say about them does not make them any less deterministic.

Emergence is nothing but properties of constitutents given full play. Large systems has nothing that is not given to it by its parts. It is still no more, and can’t ever be more, than sum of its parts. But it allows some ways system can sum up to be more apparent. Properties that emerge unpredicted in large system is the result of of constituents individual modeled with too many short cuts, not the result of some mysterious woo that is waiting for there to be enough components in the system to descent upon the observer.

It is true there is a fringe school called strong emergence that says large systems acquire something In principle unpredictable no matter how comprehensively and accurately one models each individual component. But that is really mysticism borrowing words from real science.

(January 9, 2019 at 10:54 pm)tackattack Wrote:

(January 9, 2019 at 9:47 pm)Jehanne Wrote: In my opinion, only atheistic materialists can presume the existence of free will; theists are trapped by fatalistic, divine foreknowledge, which led John Calvin to conclude that even some individuals who die in infancy are predestined to eternal Hell.

How am I trapped by fatalistic, divine foreknowledge?
I believe Coercion negates responsibility. I believe people sin willfully. I believe it is in their nature to sin and yet their desire can be to overcome that sinful nature. I don't see any of that as contradictory, but I'm open to refutation.

Fatalism is the notion that things are going to happen exactly according to some x.  You could go left or right..but..ultimately, you'll end up where you were always going to. Fate is all.

So, people willfully sin..okay.  It's their nature...okay.  They can overcome their natures (dodgy, lol..but ok).  So what?  God knows who's going to heaven and hell before they're even born.  That's your fate, and fate is all. To change your fate would be to disprove gods omniscience. We perceive more choice in this than we actually have, lol. There's no proving omni-god wrong by being on his pre-natal shitlist and then...choosing to overcome your "sinful nature", and ending up going to heaven. Omni-god either knows that this would always happen, or it doesn't (and thus..isn't, as in, isn't omni god at all). You were fated to hell(or heaven), or you weren't. There would be no better demonstration of the reality of fatalism than a being which knew everyone's fate.

Additionally...if you believe that coercion negates responsibility, then you need to have a chat with the author of this world and our "natures"....and the salvatory plan. This is why (and how) such gods trap their adherents into contradictory rounds of fatalism while shifting responsibility to the lowly human worm who most assuredly does not and cannot see the train coming, nor could he jump off the tracks even if he did....and supposing that he could and did by being shown a train hitting him...was he not coerced then, too....and was that always going to happen?

(January 9, 2019 at 4:29 pm)Nihilist Virus Wrote:

(January 9, 2019 at 2:01 pm)Thoreauvian Wrote: That's one argument.  However, not all of our desires are based on unconscious motivations alone.  If I want to do what is reasonable, for instance, I may have to work against what I would prefer to do.

In other words, we have all sorts of conflicting desires and must choose between them.  We do this by consciously considering them, assigning priorities, constraining some while pursuing others, assigning certain times and places for certain desires, or just holding to what seems true and reasonable regardless of what we feel.

You assigned my quote to someone else. Anyway, your points here do not counter anything I said.

Ahhh, I apologize if I did that. Was unintentional.

Sometimes I use a laptop and brush the touchpad wrong and it does derpy things.

(January 9, 2019 at 11:48 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(January 9, 2019 at 11:28 pm)Thoreauvian Wrote: I disagree with all three of these assertions.  Evolutionary forces act on chance combinations of materials over long periods of time rather than on determined ones.  Such chance occurrences happen because the material world operates statistically.  Life takes advantage of such chance occurrences to load the dice in its favor, thus leading to the emergence of consciousness and free will.  So consciousness and free will are properties which could not be predicted from the properties of simple particles or the rules of physics because they were self-organized rather than determined.  At most, they were enabled by taking advantage of the loophole of the statistical nature of thermodynamics, by working as parts of a total system where they benefited by increasing entropy elsewhere.

You are conflating quantum uncertain on quantum scale which are intrinsic to nature of reality as we understand them, with contingent macroscopic uncertainty resulting from achieveable but as yet unachieved macroscopic measurements, or calculatable but as yet uncalculated consequences due to ignorances about the mechanism.

As far as we can tell, quantum behavior is truly statistical.  There really is nothing more than can be said for the possible outcomes other than the statistics,.  There is in principle not any deeper underlying paths and mechanism that would enable you to a priori determine the outcome better than statistics.   There is no looking closer, nor is there anything to see if looked closer, as far as we can tell.

Macroscopic statistical phenomena are totally different.  Statistics of macroscopic pheonomenon is but a rough general description seeking to encompass a full array of specific paths and mechanism that individually uniquely lead to each of the specific outcomes.  It is but a description that glosses over existent but unprobed underlying paths and mechanisms that allow outcomes to be determined better than the statistics.  Look closer, and individual paths and mechanisms can be discerned.  

The probability of evolution only refers to ignorances about which specific creature had which specific properties in what specific environments. These things are in principle knowable even if difficult to determine.   Statistical description merely seek to make the most of it in spite of our addressable but unaddressed ignorances.

The same as free will.   The mechanisms of not just “free” will, but each outcome of free will, is in principle determinable.  The information required to determine the are also in principle determinable.  The fact that they are as yet underdetermined so statistics is the most we can say about them does not make them any less deterministic.

Emergence is nothing but properties of constitutents given full play.   Large systems has nothing that is not given to it by its parts.  It is still no more, and can’t ever be more, than sum of its parts.   But it allows some ways system can sum up to be more apparent.    Properties that emerge unpredicted in large system is the result of of constituents individual modeled with too many short cuts, not the result of some mysterious woo that is waiting for there to be enough components in the system to descent upon the observer.

It is true there is a fringe school called strong emergence that says large systems acquire something In principle unpredictable no matter how comprehensively and accurately one models each individual component.   But that is really mysticism borrowing words from real science.

Actually, the paragraph which you are addressing did not mention quantum mechanics at all.  I specifically stated "At most, they were enabled by taking advantage of the loophole of the statistical nature of thermodynamics, by working as parts of a total system where they benefited by increasing entropy elsewhere."  Your argument that macroscopic statistical phenomena are totally different is unpersuasive, because all you are saying is that if we knew more we would find it all determined.  I'm saying you are unwarranted to jump to that conclusion, and in fact observations about life, consciousness, and free will make what you say unlikely from my perspective.

This is because even simple emergent properties can't be predicted, let alone such more complex properties.  Salt is made from a combination of chlorine, a poisonous gas, and sodium, a metal.  Neither has properties similar to salt, which is important as one of the components which makes life possible.  So no, you have no case for dismissing out-of-hand unpredictable emergent properties. Calling them "woo" and "mysticism" is nonsense. Such odd combinations are fully material. And the idea that life and consciousness were somehow determined to emerge by the laws of the universe is much more likely to be woo and mysticism. That sounds like intelligent design to me.

(January 10, 2019 at 5:11 am)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote:

(January 9, 2019 at 4:29 pm)Nihilist Virus Wrote: You assigned my quote to someone else. Anyway, your points here do not counter anything I said.

Ahhh, I apologize if I did that. Was unintentional.

Sometimes I use a laptop and brush the touchpad wrong and it does derpy things.

It wasn't you. It was Thoreauvian. He credited you with something I said, which I doubt you'd want.

(January 9, 2019 at 10:54 pm)tackattack Wrote:

(January 9, 2019 at 9:47 pm)Jehanne Wrote: In my opinion, only atheistic materialists can presume the existence of free will; theists are trapped by fatalistic, divine foreknowledge, which led John Calvin to conclude that even some individuals who die in infancy are predestined to eternal Hell.

How am I trapped by fatalistic, divine foreknowledge?
I believe Coercion negates responsibility. I believe people sin willfully. I believe it is in their nature to sin and yet their desire can be to overcome that sinful nature. I don't see any of that as contradictory, but I'm open to refutation.

That omnipotent God could not know what it would take to lead a sinner to repentance?

---

(January 9, 2019 at 9:55 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(January 9, 2019 at 9:47 pm)Jehanne Wrote: In my opinion, only atheistic materialists can presume the existence of free will; theists are trapped by fatalistic, divine foreknowledge, which led John Calvin to conclude that even some individuals who die in infancy are predestined to eternal Hell.

Well, you assume theists are also trapped by the need for rigor, accuracy, and internal consistency.

For them truth is what they really really want things to be, evidence is what they chose to label as evidence, and logic is what they assert as the connection between what they say is evidence to what they say is the inevitable conclusion.

People believe in God because of mental and emotional comforts and the social benefits that they derive from believing, the same reasons that people once believed in the existence of fairies.