(September 4, 2023 at 12:29 pm)LinuxGal Wrote:

(September 4, 2023 at 12:14 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: free will is the mental equivalent of the elevator’s door close button,  or the steering wheel to amuse the young child in the stroller.   it creates satisfying perception of mastery without actually being connected to anything.

Free will solves a number of problems that crop up for believers:

Q. If God is all-powerful and all-good, why does he let evil things happen?

A. The evil-doers must exercise free will when they do evil, otherwise God would be unjust to punish them.

Q. Okay, but what about natural disasters?  Does God give the Earth free will to do those things to us?

A. God allows evil things to happen to test if we still freely accept His Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ as our Personal Lord and Savior even when times are bad.

Q. Isn't God all-knowing?  Why the test?  Why not just look into our minds and read our faithfulness right off the dial?

A. God has free will also, and that is the mysterious way he chose to deal with us.

That rather sounds contradictory to the omnibenevolence thing. If god were truly omnibenevolent, he would not let bad things happen to people no matter what, just like a good parent with their offspring.

Those answers are the result of religious people trying too hard, if you ask me.

Free will also resolves the question of why we feel that when we make a choice, we could have chosen otherwise.

(September 5, 2023 at 12:28 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Free will also resolves the question of why we feel that when we make a choice, we could have chosen otherwise.

it whitewashes the issue, it doesn’t resolve it.

(September 5, 2023 at 12:31 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(September 5, 2023 at 12:28 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Free will also resolves the question of why we feel that when we make a choice, we could have chosen otherwise.

it whitewashes the issue, it doesn’t resolve it.

It's an answer to the question. It might be wrong, but it's still an answer.

Say, were is pishant anyway?

He got banned.   He wanted us to be Catholics, so we did to him as his fellow Catholics had done to him.

(September 5, 2023 at 12:28 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Free will also resolves the question of why we feel that when we make a choice, we could have chosen otherwise.

Not even a two-way time machine could resolve that question, because the act of seeing what you would have chosen to do on one timeline then becomes yet another outside influence in what you eventually, in fact, choose to do on your own timeline.

(September 6, 2023 at 9:03 am)LinuxGal Wrote:

(September 5, 2023 at 12:28 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Free will also resolves the question of why we feel that when we make a choice, we could have chosen otherwise.

Not even a two-way time machine could resolve that question, because the act of seeing what you would have chosen to do on one timeline then becomes yet another outside influence in what you eventually, in fact, choose to do on your own timeline.

The intuitive answer to the question is that we feel that way becasuse we actually could have, but that's just taking the feeling at face value.
The time travel angle is interesting.

We feel we could have because our feelings are highly incomplete perceptions of the constraints we actually operate under, and even given that we still struggle with cognative dissonance created by also knowing we could not turn back time.   so this directly points to the mechanisms for these feeling and perception having evolved to improve our chances of learning from experience to better shape some of the constraints that we can perceive were we to find ourselves in similar future transactions.

You evolved to feel you have free will because such a feeling gives you a slight evolutionary advantage by providing a slightly improved framework in which to learn from your experience.    It is a mechanism for learning.    It is not a descriptive mechanism.

You don’t have free will.  You do have mechanisms for improving your decision making beyond learned conditional reflex through analysis of your experience, we call perceptions created by that mechanism by the misnomer “free will”

I have to say something; if the universe is not made for life, which I do not doubt, at all; then the universe was not made for humans, and thus was not made to have anything to do with the concepts of good and evil, especially how humans view those concepts. Therefore, there is no need for Heaven and Hell, which are based on the concepts of good and evil respectively, for the universe, and with that, there is not even a need for the Devil or even God. The only need for any of those are psychological needs for them, which are not accurate at all. Plus, the user does not need a sentient force or being like God to be created, and I am pretty sure the universe was created without (any) God. If God made the universe as humans say he did, he would have made it for life for sure, especially humans. But the universe is not made for life as it turns out, due to the many harmful things that can harm and kill humans. Heck! Many things on Earth, where we live and is probably the safest place for humans, can harm and kill humans too. That certainly tells a lot, does it not?