Does Free Will actually exist? Is there a way to tell?

[Godscreated]

Foreseeing a persons actions doesn't in any way mean said person did not make a free choice.

It depends on how you define free choice, but that's beside the point. The relevant point is that the creator, in his function as the creator, has then predetermined this choice.

That's the most unreasonable thing I've heard, you haven't shown why He has to create beings with a predetermined future. He sees all things and that by no stretch of the imagination means predestination. I can see if certain people stay on the path they are according to the scriptures they will go to hell, does that mean I have predestined them to go to hell. By no means, I couldn't do that for a number of reasons, mostly because I desire that no one go to hell, if that's my desire then how much more is it God's desire, because He loves everyone.

GC

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GC, before I was conceived, did god know what my final eternal destination would be?

If you can't determine that from what I've written, it want do me any good to tell you. I'll ask you this however, since it seems you haven't read my posts. Why would God give commandments we couldn't follow because we have a predetermined life.

GC

[h4ym4n]

It's a simple yes or no GC

Did God, before I was conceived, know what my final eternal destination is?


Yes or no GC?

[Alex K]

YOU are telling us that He creates us with a predetermined future. Why do you want ME to explain why?

That's your picture:
Step 1: He creates us
Step 1b: He knows our future
Step 2: We live our life

Ergo he creates us with a predetermined future.

[The Grand Nudger]

Since free will on this site is exclusively discussed with religion in mind I'll address it that way.

You clearly haven;t read many of the conversations we have regarding free will. It's -rarely- discussed with religion in mind. Religion is a useless addition to the discussion.

Just because a moral system dictates the way one should act doesn't mean one has to responded to it. If one is commanded to be a suicide bomber, commanding one first of all says the one has a choice, the choice can be accepted or rejected.

Can it, I think you've assumed something that is precisely the point of contention.

God commands through the scriptures one should not practice homosexual acts, that doesn't mean there are no homosexuals, to the contrary, a commandment wouldn't be necessary if there were none. One has the right to accept this command or reject it.

Does one?

The law of this country and the law in scriptures say do not murder, one has the choice to or not murder,

Oh?

people are not destined to be murders, if they were why would there be a command not to murder.

Because the people who wrote your fairy tale didn't understand much about the dirt under their feet, let alone the human mind?

If we knew people were predestined to murder or not there would be no need for the command. Commandments and law says free will exists.

Wow........that was fucking idiotic.

I could command you not to engage the warpdrive on your Honda......but that doesn't mean that your Honda actually has a warp drive.

He sees all things and that by no stretch of the imagination means predestination.

Actually...that's exactly what it means...unless, of course...god can be wrong, that some of the things god can see aren't actually real or will never happen. What do you think?

I can see if certain people stay on the path they are according to the scriptures they will go to hell,

Are you god? Can you see all things? Or, are you just guessing.....

does that mean I have predestined them to go to hell.

Nope...but do you want me to compare you to god...and draw similarities between you...because I can do that all day long. You clearly are "god", or, at least you clearly are the god that you describe.

if that's my desire then how much more is it God's desire,

Yeah.........my point exactly.

because He loves everyone.

Because "god" is a proxy for your thoughts and desires, but also, all of the things you might feel a hint of shame for if you owned up to as being all your own.

[Faith No More]

Leave it to GC to sprinkle Jesus all over what could have been an intriguing, religion-free conversation.

And of course, there is no quicker way to ruin a discussion about a complex topic than to have an intellectual heavyweight like GC get involved.

[FreeTony]

It doesn't stop there though. An omnipotent omniscient being designing the universe knows the exact outcome of any design he comes up with.

God would have known the exact state of the universe and the human beings in it for all of eternity. So he wanted the Fall to happen. He wanted to have to drown almost the entire human race. And he wanted to have to sacrifice himself to himself, because he had designed humans in a way that they would sin.

No matter how much Theists try and get around this, normally by just ignoring it, they cannot.

Any omnipotent being that punishes its own designs for their faults is just ridiculous, free will or not.

[robvalue]

Yup, if you go and bring god into something, we'll take him out :p

[Angrboda]

I think Michio Kaku is wrong. Determinism doesn't require that the future be predictable in practice. Our ability to predict the future is irrelevant to whether our future is determined.

I'd say nobody knows if we have free will or not. We probably won't know for sure until we know more about how the brain makes decisions. I lean in favor of hard determinism, but that's largely an argument from ignorance. And compatibilism, which I'd define as redefining free will to make it fit with determinism, has some appeal in its ability to make sense of plain talk of free will. But nobody really knows.

[Creed of Heresy]

Godschild, I have one simple question:

“Can omniscient God, who
Knows the future, find
The Omnipotence to
Change His future mind?”

[quoted from Karen Owens]

Stop deflecting the OP is about man's free will.

GC

It's not deflecting. If you lack the ability to comprehend the relevancy, that's not my problem.

Think about what it means. Give it some thought.

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Hey guys. I know I've chosen to post this question, but how do I know if whether or not I have been preprogrammed to post this? It's not like I can go back in time to rethink my decision and choose another option. Does free will actually exist? Are all our actions just a product of time? Is there a way to actually test if whether or not we have free will? Thanks a bunch.

This is probably a stereotypical question (maybe even viewed as dumb by some), however I want to know what your thoughts are on the subject anyway.

Depends. If you believe in pre-determination, then no, free will doesn't exist.

If you believe in self-determination, then...no, free will doesn't exist.

That second one may throw you for a loop, but bear with me. We're not exactly rational creatures. We're KIND of rational, to the extent that, at least, we can rationalize. But we cannot be purely rational. We are slaves to our hormones, the glands that surround our bran and fill our body; the stuff that gives us emotion clouds our judgment and makes us act in ways that are self-contradictory, illogical, harmful... But at the same time, they also drive us to do the opposite, to act in self-confirming, reasonable, and beneficial ways. The problem is, it's never one or the other; it's always some mix of both.

What we call "self-awareness" is cluttered by our subconscious always directing what we do and how we do it, and worse, we can't really excise that subconscious. We are aware of its existence but we are unaware of its effect on us because...well, it's our subconscious. It's the rear-most part of the brain, the most primitive part of our brain, the same general region that keeps our hearts pumping. You can no more mentally will your heart to stop than you can will your mid-and-rear brain to stop sending chemical impulses to interfere with your frontal lobe's processes.

We are slaves to ourselves. Just some of us have longer chains. The shorter the chains, metaphorically-speaking, the more delusion takes hold. The longer the chains, the less we have to obey primitive function and can struggle better against delusion. If the chains are too short, you end up with self-delusion.

Good examples of the lattermost are Drich, Godschild, Professor, your average evangelical redneck, etc....

As far as the concept of free will in philosophical terms goes... Frankly, I don't care about that. I can only operate in the realm in which I perceive. I no more consider the existence of predetermination or the possibility I am a brain in a jar in a lab somewhere than I try to visualize what a world made of eleven dimensions looks like.

Cogito ergo sum. That's good enough for me.

[professor]

C of H, no one can answer your question.
I think you guys get hung up on your definitions of omnipotent, omniscient.
There are things an unchanging God can not do, like lie, or go against His nature.
Seems to me you want an out.
To be able to say: "It's not my fault, I am simply pre-programed".
Much like:
"It was the serpent" /
"The woman YOU gave me gave me.."
But using the naturalistic jargon of today.
Same tune- different words.