Reece101

That 'sounds right, but,

Religion 'speaks of what material is doing, and ought to do, 'why it does, why is should, what is useful, 

And arises 'out of material conditions.

Though I'm likely confusing myself somehow.

Would the concept of a 'door be a social construct?

Plato's Forms pop to mind,

And suddenly a 'lot of things related to humans, sound a bit like social constructs.

Friendship, enemies, borders.

I say this, because I vaguely remember people handwaving concepts as social constructs, but something being a social construct, does not make it lack meaning or relevance to groups or individuals, I'd think.

Not make it good or bad in itself, simply by being a construct.

Therefore, knowledge known by one person, and ignorance by another person means that the latter's life is determined by the former? That's not even true among ourselves as a mortal species. That implies a slavery of the latter to the former, and that is not an absolute, either. The difference is not the knowledge, but the experience coupled with that knowledge that makes God who he is; enhanced by wisdom [knowledge + experience].

God has already been through a complete mortal life; he did not start as a god, but grew into one, as we will ultimately grow. As we are now, God once was; as God is, we may become, dependent on our choices made in mortality to be obedient to God, or not.

It is precisely the same situation in comparing a parent to a child. A parent may teach a child that to touch a hot stove is going to hurt, badly, or that avoiding touching the hot stove while still making use of it will not hurt. The parent knows by experience what will happen when the child does touch the hot stove, while the child knows by education, but lacks the experience. The child may choose either action, and will reap the result, but the result is not forced by God or by determinism.

It's a simple matter that, even to child, once of an age of accountability, i.e., the child is aware of right action and wrong action, generally, but in earlier years, that knowledge of good and evil is a bit vague. Mistakes are made, and sometimes those mistakes have tragic results. But we observe that, whether we are responsible for our actions, or not, the consequences of our actions are, in vthe high majority of cases, allowed to proceed without God's intervention.

You see, we complain that God is omnipotent, and makes things happen to us without our choices, and we complain that he does not act omnipotently if we get ourselves into trouble except in vary rare exceptions in all of human history. Your determinism insists that is exactly what happens. Both conditions. Nope. Obviously, if our actions were always determined in advance, God would cease to be God. As I have stated before, while many believe that God is totally responsible for everything that ever happens, I believe he is not totally responsible for anything that happens. There are other forces at play, here; usually ourselves and our choices, right or wrong.

There are just a couple of things wrong with this statement. I'll start with the most obvious first: What God knows is not what we know, and you're trying to say there is no difference; that if God knows all things we must, as well, because determinism says so. Nope. We do not know what God knows until we learn it for ourselves by our own research with its drawn conclusions, or God reveals it to us. 

Nest, that God knows and that we do not is resolved simply by God's third great gift to us. The first is life, itself. The second is the atonement of Christ, which is given to all of mankind to accept or reject. And that accept/reject potential is the third great gift: our free agency, or free will, to determine for ourselves what's what, and what to do about it.

That is no argument that defeats free will. Yes, the power of others to be oppressive, which I have previously discussed, and added that oppression is the first result of determinism, to combat free will. But that does not discount that we each, individually, have the power if we will use it to think for ourselves, and act according to our own thinking, regardless of oppression.

It is based upon scientific theory, namely, quantum physics, and B-theory of time.

Re-read my first sentence, "Any doctrine..." By its nature, determinism is a limiting philosophy, because it would disallow imagination beyond what it determines

Any doctrine that insists that all events, including human thought and action, are externally determined and ordered to occur, externally driven at odds with free will to think and act autonomously, infers that no person can be held responsible for their thoughts and resulting actions. Such a doctrine limits and belittles the grandeur that humanity has the potential to be divine. Such a progression of ability defies this contrary doctrine of limitations and personal insult. 

Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all that there ever will be to know and understand." 

The theory of determinism, that contrary doctrine of limitation of human potential, amounts to even less than knowledge; i.e., just what we think we know for sure. As Mark Twain once said, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Yes, determinists can turn this on me for my assurance that man has free will, but it cannot be avoided that determinists may "know" that which is not so, as well.

Another view: Look in side a quantum particle, delve in to its deepest, secreted places so small, the word is too big for it, you will find...

strings.

And this says nothing for imagination, i.e., "all that will ever be to know and understand," which determinism dismisses out of hand, because it decrees that all has already been determined. That would seem to indicate that knowledge, itself, is finite, along with humanity. Whereas, with the argument of free will, imagination can explore what is not known and reveal it. Determinism has no definition, nor any contemplation of such imagination, and it's vehicle is on a dead-end road. Imagination is the driving force of free will, and humanity is, and can be, and will be in the driver's seat of that vehicle, and the road ahead is eternal.

No, you truncate my whole argument and address only half.

You'll note in my original subject of justice and personal responsibility [#119], I cover both punishment and reward.

Your reply cut-off reward to address only punishment, and at that, only by someone who is handicapped and may not bear full responsibility for actions since they lack, partially or completely, the ability to distinguish right and wrong. My explanation by answer to your question did not shift the focus as you charge. I explained why the handicapped should be allowed consideration of their handicap in the punishment phase of justice due to their mitigating circumstance which allows mercy to adjust the properly just decision. All of it, as I originally argued in my #119 is based upon a person's actions, so, where's the shift of focus you accuse me of making?

You're such bad comprehension.

W/hat have those potential mitigating circumstances have to do with the original action of the person charged with a crime? Those are follow-on consideration in consequence of the charged person's actions. His original actions are still actions he, himself, performed. You're trying to tie these subsequent potential actions of others to the charged person's original act. No, it foes not work that way.

Another perspective on free will vs. determinism: Justice and Personal responsibility.

 

Justice is the maintenance or administration of what is conforming to a standard of correctness, especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments.Since it is the actions of individuals that must be adjudicated in a legal charge of malfeasance, each individual’s actions are reviewed for merit of the charge[s]. As such, each person is individually, personally responsible for their actions.

It is an interrupt of logic to presume otherwise; that some other entity or force is responsible for the actions of an individual, regardless of the severity of threat imposed by any other entity or force to have that individual act in a specified manner. Were it not so, justice, itself, is impossible to mete out properly and justly.

Determinism would have it so; that an external force, and not the individual, themself, is ultimately responsible for their actions. To wit, were it a reality that the universe exerts a force on the brain chemistry of a person such that a person is denied the agency of choice, or even that the “choice” they make is not consciously determined and acted upon, but is the result of chemical alterations that individual did not personally and consciously effect, then justice cannot be properly exercised. The person is utterly absolved of personal responsibility, and mayhem is the ultimate result, not order.

If a person is not responsible for their choices, they are beings of complete entitlement, regardless of their actions, let alone their thoughts. Such a person is no better, nor worse, than anyone else else, and all lives lives of complete lack of personal accomplishment, for none are solely responsible, ever, for their thoughts, let alone their actions. Where there is no personal achievement for good, there is no reward, and where there is no personal lack of evil, they cannot be punished for it. Thus all live lives of purposelessness, and they are, as Santayana postulated, no better than savages of ignorance.

1.) Is choice an illusion.

2.) Is the universe deterministic or stochastic.

Or to put it another way with an example I used before; imagine a highly advanced AI computer program was designed to make complex decisions, to constantly review and deliberate it’s own decision processes: it could be self aware, it could be creative, make decisions, or even describe the process it goes through: but everything it does is effectively down to its programming and program state - it has no true control. 

That computer program may be able to describe what it experiences in a similar way to us: it may describe itself as having agency because that’s how it  perceives its own program - free will for the AI would be an illusion in exactly the same way it is for us.

It is also that, given the same conditional circumstance repeated, we can and do decide to act differently.

Are you saying if we rewind time, people would act differently? I don’t know man, the past is pretty clear-cut deterministic in my opinion. 

Rewind time? as IF that was done? No, that's not what 'm saying. I'm saying that even in repeated identical external conditions, we can think and act by variation, because we are not determined by the universe to so think and act. physics is not the law at work here, worlds without end.

It is also that, given the same conditional circumstance repeated, we can and do decide to act differently.

Saw an interesting video.  Is this "3" the number three?  No it's not, it's a representation of the number three as is III etc, so what and where is the number 3?  Which of our senses can we identify the number three with?

If at this point people don't understand the basic concepts of Christianity should they really be here arguing about them.

Every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that he is Christ. But then, the prophesied sequence is that the destruction of the wicked will precede his appearance, so there will nowhere be found anyone to disagree. Time to decide, now, which side we're on.

He will look like a man. Does it matter by what physical traits? These things should not matter to us, now, with one another. The alternative is the root of racism. Just stop. We should celebrate our differences, and maybe when we have crossed that hurdle, he will come and then your childish curiosity will be satisfied once and for all. Meantime, I'm more interested in what he will say to us after our bungling of two thousand years.

He gave us a simple set of instructions, after all: Love God, Love our neighbors, including our enemies. After two thousand years, we cannot do it. 

CK Chesterton was right: 

"It is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting. It has never been tried."  Jesus is an incredibly patient man.

Is truth logic? Yes.

• https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logic
  

• https://www.dictionary.com/browse/logic
  

• https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truth
  

• https://www.dictionary.com/browse/truth
  

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Heb 11: 1

"Now as I said concerning faith - faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore, if ye have faith, ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true." Alma 32: 21

Faith must lead to truth, or it is not faith, but mere belief. There's a difference, and it is palpable if applied correctly. It is most akin to the sense of touch, but it is internal, as if the spirit within us, recognizing truth when it is heard, because it has heard it before from God, himself, meeting the conditions set forth in the following verses, lets us know by touching our inter-physical body self. Tat's the best way I can explain it, as I have had this experience on many occasions.

"And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things. Moroni 10: 4, 5

Where in this string have I c/p from Wiki? Don'r assume because most use Wiki exclusively that I limit myself to Wiki. I do use it on rare occasion, but not as a rule. It says of itself that it is not reliable. 

Yes, real divinity

There's a wide world of research available out there. Go find it.

Our physical bodies are made of star stuff, yes, but we're more than physical bodies. The spirit is of divine origin, and that is our destiny, as well.

Determinism: the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions. 

No, determinism is false because the universe is not the creator of man. God is, and he granted us free agency, which is a law unto itself by which the universe does not operate nor understand.

To admit that we operate by determinism is defeatist and self-limiting. Argue for your limitations; they're yours. What, can't handle having the freedom your own agency? Too bad.

1. You’re acting as if humans are seperate from the cosmos. Sentience is the universe being self-aware. We are literally made from dying stars. 
   
2. Humans learn and retain knowledge. This is one of the prerequisites to assign accountability/agency. To admit we operate by determinism doesn’t change that.
   

How do we know the "liberal" part of "Liberal republicans" aren't referring to economic issues, making them more like rust belt voters.

Political parties shouldn't exist and everyone should be an independent.

If a republican is a conservative democrat, what does it mean to be conservative if you want to raise taxes on anyone and what does it mean to be a democrat if you want lower taxes?  Being a conservative democrat is a contradiction, as is being a liberal republican.

You cant know even from analyzing the creation, because we have no idea why things were created. 

I suppose some people could have superior knowledge to mine, yet you have no idea if your knowledge is truly correct. How could you?