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October 30, 2015 at 11:55 pm (This post was last modified: October 31, 2015 at 12:04 am by ErGingerbreadMandude.)
(October 30, 2015 at 11:48 pm)jenny1972 Wrote:
(October 30, 2015 at 11:37 pm)Irrational Wrote: Fair enough answer. So then when we say we don't know what led to the existence of the laws of nature, it should be an acceptable answer as well. It should not mean that, therefore, God must exist. Because God, after all, suffers the same problems: our ignorance of its origins/causes (assuming God exists, of course).
yes of course its an acceptable answer you shouldnt say you have it all figured out noone does unless theyre religious
i dont think God must exist because of any lack of knowledge about something thats not my reason for believing in God because of a lack of answers from science
Well, as long as someone provide some evidence. The existence of God because of lack of evidence from science is as credible as the existence of unicorn that puked rainbows which formed rules for particles to interact with each other.
The point is, no idea is credible without any evidence, of course you can choose from a variety of ideas to believe in by you shouldn't go "I don't think God must exist..." your thinking should be like "I don't think God might exist..."
You dig?
You shouldn't fixate on an idea because science doesn't have a clue.
Read my topic title for example "Here's why Creatards might be right" it's not "Here's why Creatards must be right".
That's because I don't believe in fixating on an idea, keep an Open mind and have a good day!
Edit:
I do believe in fixating on an idea O.O Just not in this particular case O.O
Edit2:
x*0 = x
October 30, 2015 at 11:55 pm (This post was last modified: October 30, 2015 at 11:55 pm by SteelCurtain.)
(October 30, 2015 at 11:52 pm)Evie Wrote:
(October 30, 2015 at 11:33 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: To be clear---I will never fault someone for being ignorant. There are many topics I am ignorant about.
One thing you'll never catch me doing, however, is proudly remaining willfully ignorant.
For that, a person can earn my deepest disdain.
I would feel that way if I believed in free will.
Sam Harris Wrote:Take a moment to think about the context in which your next decision will occur: You did not pick your parents or the time and place of your birth. You didn't choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome or the development of your brain. And now your brain is making choices on the basis of preferences and beliefs that have been hammered into it over a lifetime - by your genes, your physical development since the moment you were conceived, and the interactions you have had with other people, events, and ideas. Where is the freedom in this? Yes, you are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from?”
Sam Harris Wrote:Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic—in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. There is no telling how much I might change in the future. Just as one wouldn’t draw a lasting conclusion about oneself on the basis of a brief experience of indigestion, one needn’t do so on the basis of how one has thought or behaved for vast stretches of time in the past. A creative change of inputs to the system—learning new skills, forming new relationships, adopting new habits of attention—may radically transform one’s life.
Both quotes from Sam Harris' book Free Will
I don't think free will is a thing, either. But the illusion of it is, at least to our brains, and that makes agency a meaningful construct in society. A society in which we disabuse ourselves of the notion of agency is not one I want to live in.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
PM me your email address to join the Slack chat! I'll give you a taco(or five) if you join!--->There's an app and everything!<---
Nope the illusion of free will isn't a thing either.
The illusion itself is an illusion. There is no illusion of free will. It doesn't even make sense subjectively.
A meaningful construct in society? Sounds like compatabilism... we still need to deter and deal with criminals and the like but we don't have to pretend people are more responsible than they actually are in order to avoid fatalism.
Turtle, free will is a real thing.
Free will means control over one's actions. How can one have control over one's actions before they are born? Or without proper brain development?
Right now I have control over my actions.
I can either pay for Kurkure or steal a Kurkure. Are my choice of actions dependent on previous experiences and dependent on the environment I was exposed to as I grew up? Yes.
But am I free to choose an action which completely contradicts my previous experiences and such? Yes.
Free will. Right?
October 31, 2015 at 12:29 am (This post was last modified: October 31, 2015 at 12:31 am by Edwardo Piet.)
(October 31, 2015 at 12:11 am)pool Wrote: Turtle, free will is a real thing.
Nope.
Quote:Free will means control over one's actions.
Nope free will means free control over your actions, but your actions are not freely controlled because your decisions aren't free.
Quote: How can one have control over one's actions before they are born?
One cannot.
Quote: Or without proper brain development?
Very little control is available without proper brain development, and any control that is available is still not freely controlled.
Quote:Right now I have control over my actions.
Not freely.
Quote:I can either pay for Kurkure or steal a Kurkure.
The ability to do something or not do something is not a free decision.
Quote:Are my choice of actions dependent on previous experiences and dependent on the environment I was exposed to as I grew up? Yes.
Yes, and your choices of actions are very real, but not remotely free.
Will Free Will.
Quote:But am I free to choose an action which completely contradicts my previous experiences and such? Yes.
Your actions come from your previous experiences plus how experiences affect you now. None of this gets you free will. Conta-causal free will is not possible.
October 31, 2015 at 12:37 am (This post was last modified: October 31, 2015 at 12:39 am by Silver.)
I am confused as to why atheists are illogically arguing against free will. Free will is the very definition of choice, choosing a future path by way of going one route over another.
In all honesty, we as atheists do have the free will to believe in anything, even if it as ludicrous as the fictional concept of god, but to outright throw free will out the window because it is too often associated with religion is quite illogical.
Just because I cannot personally conceive of believing in something that is not real does not mean that I absolutely cannot will myself to believe that it is real despite the fact that logic shows it is not real.
The mind is more fragile than for which we give it credit, and anyone for any reason can believe in something for the absolute wrong reasons completely not associated with logic in any way.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
I ask where your evidence for free will is? It's not like I'm being deliberately stubborn and contrary because I feel like a theist if I believe in anything. I'm not desperate for nihlism.
The point is there is no evidence for free will so why should I believe it?
It's contra-causal free will that I am arguing against and the compatabilist notion is naught but definined into existence anyhow. The free will most people think they have is the contra-causal type and that type is logically incoherent and impossible.
Kitan, even if you don't agree on the logical matter, science has already ruled out the contra-causal version of free will... science has shown that our unconscious mind makes all our decisions for us before we are aware of them... sometimes as much as 7 seconds beforehand.
But even if there was no delay what good would that do? It doesn't even make sense subjectively either:
October 31, 2015 at 12:46 am (This post was last modified: October 31, 2015 at 12:48 am by Edwardo Piet.)
(October 31, 2015 at 12:40 am)Quantum Wrote: @Kitan: your arguing is pointless unless all parties specify what definiton of free will they are using...
Contra-causal free will.
Daniel Dennett has impressed me even less when the last free will video he did said free will was man made like money.... he used money as an analogy saying how money is real even if it is man made and artifical... well that's pretty much admitting it doesn't exist. He's just saying it's useful if we believe we have it. A tiny part of me thought he had a chance to win the debate until I saw him finally make it clear that that is what he is actually saying... and now I see why it was so hard to see exactly what he meant before, he kept alluding to it but he's only just spelled it out.
I mean, how is that any different from not conforming to a non-existent thing such as free will and merely dealing with ethics?
Sam Harris has always been consistently clear and ever since I was younger years before I'd even heard of Harris or Dennett I was of the position that Harris is... he just explains it so much better than I have. I feel like he can articulate so well how I've felt for years.
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Free Will.
