3RU7AL

Intelligence is only one aspect of moral culpability. You might add emotional stability, knowledge and ignorance, intent and other attributes that I can't think of off hand.

(THEN) intelligence is proportional to moral culpability.

Intelligence is only one aspect of moral culpability. You might add emotional stability, knowledge and ignorance, intent and other attributes that I can't think of off hand.

The ability to make a choice exists apart from moral culpability but moral culpability requires choice.

...not philosophy based...

Emotion is just one component that distinguishes a human from a computer. Humans also have varying degrees of intelligence and capacity for rational thought giving some a greater ability to make a rational choice than others meaning freewill is a sliding scale.

A newborn infant probably has probably little or no freewill.

An adult with a normal functioning brain has much more.

An adult with a minor cognitive disability has less but not none.

Etc.

That is true only if you consider the final result. It is false If you consider the other variables that human brains have at their disposal such as emotions.

Is this supposed to be an argument for something?

Because free will is choice.

That is actually what it means.

You yourself confess free will.

When is pure mathematics not philosophy and vice versa?

At what point does thought become philosophy?

Or; when is thought not philosophy?

In fact; doesn't it all boil down to data processing?

The vid is a bit lawyer-oriented, not philosophy based, but the issue is a good one!

Historically, probably only high status adult males of a given ethnicity could be confident they had full rights.  

You continue to conflate "choice" and "freewill".  Spiders can make choices, DO YOU BELIEVE SPIDERS HAVE FREEWILL?

Please answer "Yes" or "No".

MAYBE

And that really sums it up.

If it is caused it is not free and if uncaused it is not willed.

Given the attention free will has received from philosophers, you'd have thought there was more to it...

3ru7al is defining free will in such a way as to be impossible.

At the same time is not talking about a free will that anyone believes in.

He is taking "freewill" in a far too literal sense. Then he mocks the idea by asking if spiders have free will(which truly is irrelevant). 

All of this is very dehumanizing really.

Certainly, you can use your free will to bind yourself to all manner of causal influences. You can also use your free will to bind yourself to other causal influences.

But hey, if someone wants to believe that they have no other choice than to be who they are, I would say that this is in fact their choice to make.

They don't have to be trapped. And if they want to say that me telling them this is what caused them to make different choices, I will throw my arms up in the air and say what I have been this whole time...This debate is absurd.

Caused events are incompatible with freewill.

Uncaused events are incompatible with freewill.

Freewill can be neither caused or uncaused or any combination of the two.

This is nonsense.

I don't think caused/uncaused is what matters.  What matters is whether the cause of the choice is 'self' or 'non-self'.  

As I said, this debate is absurd. I do think that your bias is what is causing you to dismiss evidence as non-existent. 

The fact that you experience the ability to choose is an evidence.

That is not an evidenced that can be dismissed simply through mental gymnastics.

Also, you are the one asserting that choice is uncaused. Obviously, I don't believe that chouce is uncaused, because I believe God is the uncaused cause of everything.

Is that what you find comforting about free will, or is it just the rest of us who find it comforting?

As I see it, the puzzle of free will is not really seperable from the puzzles of consciousness and self.  

Which is not a useful thing to say. I admit.   But I hope no-one expected a solution!

I wonder why you said 'comforting'!

It's not quite a fiction because I can ask questions such as what is the  minimal set-up that can support free will. 

Dry leaves do not manifest free will, humans do.

Is the self a fiction or the one thing we can be certain about as Descartes held?

So deism/theism.

Hypothesis or theory?

Insane or battle tested?

Give me a clear explanation of the difference between hypothesis and theory and I will promise not to conflate in future.

I am not very interested in the phenomenon that bru calls free will.  The free will I am interested in is concerned with the role of self.   I want my actions and choices to be determined, not random!  Specifically, I want my choices and actions to be determined by my desires or preferences.

I am not worried that I 'can't choose my preferences' - it is imo more significant that I do have prefernces and can choose to act on them - because leaves in the wind can't do either.   

I get why I am like a leaf blowing in wind - but how I different is more interesting!

If the atheist has rationally justified grounds for believing that God does not exist, but has no rationally justified grounds for believing God DOES exist, and the atheist still considers themselves to be in group (A), then they are irrational. It is irrational to have evidence supporting disbelief and no evidence supporting belief while still neither believing nor disbelieving the in the existence of God since the most rational approach is to base your beliefs on the preponderance of the evidence.

[1] Decipher the most basic difference between theism and atheism. 

[2] Define the word "God" in a way that would satisfy the minimally required difference between theism and atheism so that if one were true, the other would be false.

[3] Establish whether the atheist :

(A) neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of God or 

(B) whether the atheist disbelieves in God, as they cannot hold both positions simultaneously.

If the atheist is in group (A), then they don't have a stance on the issue that would require any rational justification as to whether God does or does not exist.

If they had a rational justification for believing that God does not exist, then this would warrant disbelief and the atheist would not be in group (A) because in order to be in group (A) the atheist must *not disbelieve* in the existence of God.

Once again this was more about word play.

But I was suggesting, that scientific fact is more reliable than theoretical assumption. Given both the changeability and variability of theory. 

If you are really curious about critical thinking, you can find sources that describe it. I would agree with most of them. If I tried to go into details, it would turn into a treatise. Let's just say that critical thinking is the conscious attempt to reason and evaluate information in an unbiased, logical manner. Many things go into it, including a balance between skepticism and open-mindedness, knowledge of the methods of reasoning (deduction, induction, abduction), use of logic, ability to recognize and avoid formal and informal fallacies, willingness to follow evidence wherever it may lead, and ability to communicate precisely.

So what makes you think a person "can reach the same conclusion that would be reached by someone who was truly objective" if you have no way of verifying such a statement?  Is this a purely faith-based opinion?

I did not say there was never way to verify such a statement.

There are many cases where observation verifies a conclusion. We conclude that a certain man committed a murder based on circumstantial evidence. Later, this is verified when a video surfaces of them committing the murder. We conclude that a person missing in the Antarctic for a month is dead. Later, it is verified when we find the body.

If there is no punishment (there is currently none) then what is the point of the law existing?

Dismissing evidence does not negate it.

I find it amazing that you say there is no evidence for free will when the fact that you are choosing to post on this forum is clearly evidence, whether or not it constitutes proof to you.

I think you really have to make an active effort to ignore reality to maintain that there is no evidence.

I agree with your first sentence but disagree with your second sentence. If you claim X does not exist, all you have to do is show evidence that X does not exist. 

I was suggesting, with the help of a few isms, that scientific understanding is probably more reliable than unverifiable theistic dogma.

https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766

I already said what I mean by humans being capable of making objective judgments. I mean they can reach the same conclusion that would be reached by someone who was truly objective.

How do you quantify the gap between a sort-of-objective statement and a "truly objective" statement?

I don't. I know of no way to quantify difference in meaning.

Scientifically expounded realism and constructive truisms easily negate fickle humanism.

DEISM IS FUNCTIONALLY IDENTICAL TO ATHEISM.

Admitting that God exists is not atheism.

And so, from our vantage point, atheists are either ignorant of or in denial of their gods.

Not really pagans are non Christians, atheists have no believe in gods. Most atheist witches call themselves pagan. Those who think the gods are non existent and  nothing more than concepts but engage in a ritual practice for cultural reasons call themselves pagan. 

As I said, belief is irrelevant. From our perspective, atheists are simply in denial of the gods they worship. The way we understand and have always understood gods, they are pagans. 

I am not going to listen to you if you say "No true scottsman" at me while falsely equating my religion with that of those who don't share my religion.

They are not with the church. They are heretics. You are wrong, and making an identity fallacy.

It is logically impossible to be an atheist AND simultaneously believe in (much less worship) satan

Belief has nothing to do with it. Atheists don't think they have gods either, but we know they do. Most atheists are pagans.

Hopefully this isn't taken the wrong way, given the nature of the context of your discussion.  It should almost go without saying that it wouldn't be an inappropriate policy that a doctor who doesn't value human life could have their license revoked. 

There are nice and friendly atheists, but atheism is still abominable, wicked, and satanic. 

The Ultimate Reality exists. To be uncertain about this is foolish.

The hatred that atheists express in so many ways, combined with historical precedent of atheist [secular] governments treating religion other than state worship as an infection comparable to lice.

The actions of nominal "Christian" heretics is not represenative of true Orthodox Christianity.

In addition, The Church is not intended to be a secular authority, in fact, caeseropapism is a heresy, so theocracy or more accurately clericocracy is fundamentally an anti-Christian idea.

There is no such thing as a crusade or Holy war in Orthodoxy.

No but being atheist doesn't make you one either. You people prove that every post.

Atheism to us is utter foolishness,

...and it is the justified opinion...

...of many, including myself, that when they seize power they are going to try to kill us off.

It is not true that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

I agree.  That adage is downright misleading!   I'd accept 'absence of proof is not proof of absence'.

You have no proof gods are a lie. I have never told me kids that because my gods aren't like that. When you can respond without your bigot bs let me know. 

Until you accept a religion or gods you are an atheist. All theists were once atheist. Your lack of honestly is sick. 

Interesting fact, about a third of all Orthodox Priests in the United States are converts. In The Antiochan Church, which is the church I belong to, around 70% of our priests are converts.