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@Double_R
What does this have to do with free will and our value as human beings being subject to it?
I am saying that because we are made with intelligent design that further backs up the fact that we possess free will.
If we are just a product of a cosmic burb, that just happened to create our very intelligent and complex minds, that would mean that we serve no purpose, we have no meaning, we are meaningless, and we don't have a free will.
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@Double_R
So now we've departed from talking about free will and how its absence reduces human beings to mere stardust, to the argument for intelligent design.Yes the car had a designer, it's still a hunk of metal, oil, plastic and upholstery.
But who shaped the metal, gathered the oil, made the plastic and upholstery?
Is it possible for all those things to go into the exactly right place to make a car, from an explosion?
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@Double_R
What something is made out of is very different from what it is. A car is just a bunch of metal, oil, plastic, and upholstery, but you wouldn't use this verbage to describe a car.
Yes. But the car had a designer.
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@Double_R
The absence of some kind of divine free will does not make us "merely" stardust. We still have emotions, we still have values, we still have goals, we still have the ability to make decisions. Anything we would identify under the definition of "stardust" does not have those qualities.
If the universe has no meaning, and we are just the product of only the big bang, then yes, it is logical to identify us under the definition of "stardust.
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@Tradesecret
I'm not sure how that helps in our discussion of free will. If someone is owned by someone else, it would seem implicit that they don't have the right and therefore the capacity to leave of their own free will.
Legally, in specific places in the world and in specific time periods in history, you can be owned by another human being, but only legally.
I am talking about something that surpasses legality. Think about it like this:
A country can control its people, but people can still revolt and take over.
Someone can own a slave, but that doesn't nessesarraly mean that the slave can fight back or run away.
No offence meant in that, but ownership must mean something. Including the right to transfer. Hence, North Korean people might have the ability to leave, and perhaps that is a sort of capacity, but is it legitimate? AND if its not legitimate, is it therefore free will?
No offense taken.
Ownership is a legal right to own something. Again the word legal is very important here.
We don't even have to use the word legal though. I belive you could say that ownership is one's ability to keep an object or person in one's possession.
And the law helps people with that ability to own that thing whatever it is.
Also, if you can make any type of decisions by your own will to any extent, that is an example of free will.
Hmmm. that's a surprising response. Would you care to explain what you think the difference is between a person who is born in sin, and someone who was not born into sin? Your last question is intriguing. If someone is born into sin, it must mean something. What do think it means?
There is no one person not born into sin.
It's like going in a pool. You are placed into the water. Think of it like that.
So every person that has ever lived has been born into sun, but only one didn't succumb to the sin. That man was Jesus Christ.
Being born into sin means that you were born into a sinful world. A world full of sin.
Evidence for this assertion please.
Animals know what to do from birth. It's instinct. Animals live their lives off of instinct. Some animals don't even get parental guidance.
Humans are very different though.
Humans cannot just survive without heavy guidance. And it's not just survival skills that humans have to be guided through. It's morals as well.
Says you? I think it is quite feasible to say rape is an instinct. It occurs within the animal realm all of the time. It is clearly due to the instinct to have sex and reproduce. What makes the animal instinct to rape - distinct from the human sense to rape for whatever reason?
Animals have that instinct.
Humans don't.
Because human emotion and human trauma is more heavy and complex than animals.
Rape isn't a human instinct.
Again this is why free will is only a human trait.
Animals will get the instinct to rape and do it.
Humans will get that instinct and make the choice.
Now animals make that choice to, but it isn't based upon morals its based upon situation.
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@Tradesecret
Not trying to be difficult, but surely a slave is owned by another person and does not have the freedom to just up and leave. Let's take it to another level. Would you hold to the view that humans are born into the estate of sin or that they are born free?
Well technically speaking people in North Korea are not free legally, but they have the free will to choose to leave.
And for your second comment, according to the Bible, all people are born into sin. Now that doesn't mean that at the moment of birth a person is sinfull, but they are born into sin.
I don't understand why you ask," or free". We are both born into sin and free to choose it or not.
So free will is more than just having the capacity to act according to its own discretion? I'm not sure how thinking differently to humans, means they don't have free will. Why is comprehension of the ability to impact the world necessary for it to be free will? And again, would you please explain why self-centredness, sinful or not sinful is relevant to the idea of free will?
I'll answer this sentence by sentence:
Yes it is.
Humans can purposefully see the action they want to do, see the consequences, some clearer than others, and purposefully choose to do it. Animals instinct is all based on survival.
It's not self-centeredness, its purposefully realization and choice of moral and immoral things.
So would you say that any instinct that a human takes is not an act of free will? the instinct to have sex for instance - which leads to raping some person. Is that instinct - as opposed to free will?
Rape is not an instinct.
The desire for sex is the instinct. Again the desire is the instinct not the action. It's called temptation.
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@Stephen
If I command that you not do something or you will die, it has nothing to do with free will. Gen: 2:17
The not what is taking place though.
If you put yourself in a risky situation by your own free will, then someone comes along and gives you a way out, that is not threatening, that is loving.
I understand that you want to exonerate your god from all guilt of murder but the fact remains that only god has the power over life and death, if the bible is to be believed.
He has the power over life and death. But what happens when God gives us free will. Now, we can choose which path to take. He has the power over it, but he let's us choose. He gives life not death. We choose death and he gives life.
Just because he has the power over life and death doesn't mean he will use it unjustly.
And god doesn't seem to have taken into account or mitigation and has totally ignored the fact that Eve was indeed deceived by one of his own sons, if the bible is to be believed.
Satan want a son, he was an angel. A fallen angel that purposefully chose to part from God. It's called temptation and if you read the story about the serpent and the tree then you would have known that.
Are you just going to blame all of your bad decisions on other people just because they decived you?
So you didn't do it, the devil made you do it.
It was no one else but god that was the cause of mankind's fall. He is the creator of all things including evil. Isaiah 45:7, if the bible is to be believed.
He is. But does that mean he is evil? You can't have good without evil and free will at the same time. That is a fallacy. So god had to create a decision for humans in order to give us free will. Him vs evil.
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@Tradesecret
Would you say that a slave has the discretion to leave slavery
Yes. A slave meaning a person enslaved by another does have the individual choice to leave. Now it would be considerably hard depending on the circumstances, they they do have that free will.
Would you suggest that a dog has free will? It certainly is able to act at its own discretion. Or is it instinct?
Dogs are different than humans. They think differently than we do, they dont have free will because even though what they do affects the universe around them, they cannot comprehend that fact. They are self centered, but not in a sinful way. Just an animal type of self centered.
And if instinct is different from free will, what part of the human ability to act is instinct and what part is not? For example, the flight or flee principle? The desire to survive principle? The desire to fit in principle? The desire to breed principle? The desire to feel part of something bigger principle?
Instinct is actions you take, based on your situation. Not situations your purposefully create based on your purposeful actions.
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@IlDiavolo
There is no free will. I mean it's not full free will, I would say it's half free will because we are sort of programmed by our genes and cultural background.
There is no such thing as halfway free will.
If you belive that you freely by your own will can affect the universe around you by any measure than you belive that we have free will.
We are social animals, that's why we care of people of our same species.I think you need more general knowledge, bro.
We also care for animals like cats and dogs, but besides the point.
I'm asking a deeper question than that (rhetorically of course) that your answer didn't answer. You said "We are social animals, that's why we care of people of our same species." But that doesn't answer my question about why we care. Why?
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It can hardly be free will if it comes with a threat ..... of death. Gen: 2:17
It's not a threat, it's a choice.
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@Sidewalker
It appears that you think you are making an assertion by asking questions. If there is a God, why don't you know the answers to these questions.
I am asking more of a rhetorical question when I am asking these questions. I am more or less making a point rather than looking for an answer.
If God exists, then how is it that humans possess free will? Why does the fact that humans posses free will depend on whether or not God exists. Hoe exactly does the existence of God answer the question?
I don't think you understand. Free will can't exist without a God.
If there were no God, and there is no purpose to the universe, then we wouldn't be able to make our own choices and decisions because after all in the end we are just clumps of space stuff. What we do is meaningless.
If you belive that what you do by your own will impacts the world around you, then how can you not understand the simple fact that a God or a God like figure had to given at least some purpose to our lives. Something would have to give us purpose and you can't choose to give unless you exist so in other words, the universe can't give anything, only a being can.
If there is a God, then what does that mean we are? Why does the existence of God mean we aren't considered to be stardust? If God created and directs everything by speaking it into existence, then why did he create us with a seeking intellect and make a universe with the false appearance that the universe began in a "Big Bang", did God create science to trick us? Why did God want tom trick us?
We are not just stardust, because I belive that we as human beings have the ability to freely by our own will, affect the world around us, and that we ourselves choose to do that no matter what forces affects us.
Also science isn't a trick from God to humans. It is a way for humans to percive God's creation in a fathomable way.
If God just thought the unioverse into existende, then why do morals matter to us humans, why do we have purpose, and why do we have emotions? If made everything the way it is, then that doesn't answer any of your why questions, it only directs them toward God. Why doesn't God answer these questions for you?
Again it's rhetorical.
If God made everything the way it is, then it doesn't matter if one kills another, it's because God made it that way.
Well if you look at the Bible, that's not how God originally created us to be like. It was by our own free will that God gave us that led to us sinning and doing morally bad things, but again I ask you, what separates moral things from immoral things.
If God exists, then why do you feel bad about that guy, shouldn't you feel that it's God's will?
God's will is different from what we do with our own free will.
If your point is that all questionshave the same answer, "God did it", then the only question left is "why ask questions".
Rhetorical questioning is what I like to call it.
It seems you are postulating a God who would create Man with a rational mind, a sense of wonder, and seeking intellect, while creating a universe with the false appearance of tremendous age with the overwhelming evidence of "evolution" occuring in creation as a trick or something. This concept of a deceptive God is very hard to accept, it strikes me as a much greater challenge to Christianity than any damage the concept of evolution could ever hope to do.
Evolution and the age of the universe doesn't contradict the Bible so I don't know what your talking about.
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@Tradesecret
Define free will?
the ability to act at one's own discretion.
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If there exists no God, then how is it that humans possess free will?
If there is no God and we are just the remains of a giant explosion, then we would be considered to be stardust.
So then, if we are really just stardust, then why do morals matter to us humans, why do we have purpose, and why do we have emotions.
If we are just stardust, why does it matter if one stardust, kills another stardust.
Why is it bad for one stardust to insult another stardust.
As stardust, why do we feel bad about that guy we saw living on the street last week.
In other words, why do we care?
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I know most people probably won't care, but I took a break from DART for a while, because of real life stuff, but now I am back. So, I won't be accepting debates, and forfeiting anymore for no apparent reason.
Just to let everyone know.
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@Vegasgiants
A person in a coma is not brain dead or is it a threat to anyone. A fetus is.
A person in a coma is unresponsive and has little to no brain activity.
It is a threat in the way that someone has to continue to pay for that person to stay alive.
A fetus is responsive and has growing brain activity.
A fetus only poses a 0.05% threat level to the mother, and the mother was the one who made the decision to get pregnant, so she accepted the risk. It's like a contract.
So a few women die and all go thru pain and most have to put their career on hold
Most of the death (which is only a couple hundred in the whole world) and the pain the women go through is volunteer based.
Also, are you saying that a woman is not capable of holding a career and taking care of a child? Wow....you have very little faith in women's abilities.
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@secularmerlin
So in theory if only lions existed then would there then still be any morals?
Nope.
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@secularmerlin
Describe a woman to me. Please only describe what you would see if you were on a bus with a person as you cannot in general determine particulars like genitals or chromosomes.
I would define a woman as a biological adult human female.
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@Vegasgiants
the fetus currently has not developed a active brain supports the right to abortion
Is it justified to kill someone in a coma for no reason at all?
Letting the fetus proceed with its natural processes may kill the mother.
You know what percent of women die from pregnancy?
0.05%.
The women who die from pregnancy and childbearing are also the ones who chose the child's life over their own.
So, no if left to its natural processes, pregnancy will result in a child, and the process has a 0.05% death risk.
Thats less of a death risk than most lifesaving surgeries.
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@secularmerlin
There is only one race. The human race. We are all exactly the same kind of animal. Some people identify with a particular culture or far more tragically are identified with someone else's idea of it but this is not only a racial phenomenon even when certain physical traits are correctly or incorrectly associated with that identity. Identities often imposed upon and reinforced by systemic cultural expectations that wre set in what was quite frankly one of the most problematic times in our history. We really ought stop us judgements made at a time when some humans were having there basic humanity questioned. Perhaps we should institute new cultural norms based on the idea that all humans share a basic humanity.
Yes, we are all human being who should be treated equally.
Also
We are all very different from each other when it comes to looks.
Race is one of those factors.
Is this true? Is a person who has lost their penis say due to a war wound no longer a man?
Was he born with a penis? Yes, he was.
Does that mean that post transition trans women really are women?
Nope. They were still born with penises.
But penises aren't the defining factor. It is a combination of factors.
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@Vegasgiants
And yet in neither case is it murder. Both are legal
Ok you are not understanding.
When the next of Kin chooses to pull the plug on a brain-dead patient, this is not murder, because:
1. The patient is brain dead.
2. If you left the patient to its natural processes, then that patient would die, because of the lack of the ability to get up and consume and digest food.
The reason why aborting a fetus is murder, is because:
1. The fetus is not brain dead the fetus simply hasn't developed a certain part of its brain.
2. If you left the fetus to its natural processes, then the fetus wouldn't die, because it would continue to grow into a fully developed baby.
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@RationalMadman
If you are outside reality, you are not inside what is real.
See, our humans' brains can't really comprehend things like (outside of reality), and (infinity), and (Nothing).
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@secularmerlin
Oh really? Where exactly is the cut off where a light skinned black person becomes a white person? Or perhaps it is not so cut and dry as all that. Perhaps race is a social construct that sometimes has as much or more to do with the self identity of an individual than any actual societal expectations?
Race isn't a social construct. It is literally a physical aspect of all humans.
Then you are judging by criteria other than penis ownership
Ok, there is a difference in stating the biological fact that all men have penises, and saying," Let me see your penis."
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Stop trying to see if people have penises.
I'm not. I am just stating the fact that if a person has those qualities then they are a man and forever will be a man.
Well they say they were always women. Are you saying that you are a better judge of a person's identity than they are?
I could say I was always black. Doesn't make me black. Yes I think if a man is delusional enough to belive that they are a woman then it is safe to say that I am at that moment a better judge of what gender they are.
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@RationalMadman
If god is not physical how is god real?As in is god more real than the space between things is reality?
He exists outside of what we call reality. He created our reality therefore is not bound by it.
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@secularmerlin
A trans woman is a woman both before and after they actually transition.
No, they are not.
They were born with a penis, no ovaries, and XY chromosomes.
They are biologically, not a woman period.
They are not changing into women they always were women.
Again, no they weren't.
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@RationalMadman
Replace God not even with 'universe' but with 'reality'.
No, because our universe is physical.
It doesn't work the same.
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@RationalMadman
Which miracle made God and how was that miracle conjured, instigated and implemented?
No miracle mad God. God has forever been, and always will be.
The miracle was never conjured, instigated, or implemented because it never needed to be, because God has always existed.
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@secularmerlin
There is no transsexual ideology there are only people who are transsexuals and people who are not.
There is a transexual ideology.
In order to be transgender, you have to believe that a man can become a woman, and that a woman can become a man.
That belief is an idea, not a fact. It is an ideology.
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@secularmerlin
Can you demonstrate that this is necessarily true? It would in fact appear as though most things in the universe were not created at all but simply came about through natural processes and even those things which are "created" by humans are upon second reflection actually just a reconfiguration of already existing things.
Most thing in the universe had a cause that created them.
Thats what I mean when I say creation.
Metals didn't just pop into existence. The building blocks of life, plus some explosions were the cause.
If you will read what I wrote again carefully you will see that I very clearly stated that I have no reason to believe that.
So, you just don't believe either. You just don't know.
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@secularmerlin
I think you are conflating two entirely different concepts. Until you can unravel them I'm not sure how useful a discussion we can have. It would be like me saying that being a heterosexual sis person were a mental illness.
Oh, I think you are misunderstanding.
I wasn't referring to homosexuals.
I was more referring to transexuals. Their whole ideology is based upon delusion.
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@RationalMadman
Which miracle made God and how was that miracle conjured, instigated and implemented?
I have answered this question in this forum over a thousand times.
Read through some of the people who have asked that question.
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@secularmerlin
How do you know this? I have no reason specifically to take your word for it.
Ok:
In order for something to exist, it first must be created right?
So, before it was created, it did not exist. It wasn't created yet.
That means in order for the matter, and space that caused the Big Bang to exist, it had to be created.
That also means that before it was created, there was nothing there, meaning there was absolutely nothing. Nothing existed.
Also while I am prepared to accept that something cannot spontaneously begin to exist for the purpose of this conversation I am not necessarily convinced in my personal philosophy That it would be a total impossibility. From the available evidence I have equal reason to suspect that something at some time some thing spontaneously began to exist (possibly at the same moment in which time began to exist) as to believe in any instigating force. None at all.
So, you believe that something began to exist from nothing?
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@Vegasgiants
That's murder for anyone else. Stop feeding any person and they die. No coroner would ever say they died of natural causes
Ok. So not feeding a brain-dead person is murder.
That would mean ripping apart a braindead baby, would also be murder.
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@Vegasgiants
Actually no. The most common way to kill a brain death patient is to remove the feeding tube so they starve to death.
Yea. Their body stops consuming food and they die of natural causes.
Fetus's left to their natural processes will be born.
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@secularmerlin
IF something cannot come from nothing THEN something must have always existed
I see your point, and it's a good one at that.
Don't get me wrong, from what I have heard you are an intellectual thinker, and I am very intrigued in this conversation.
Anyways, back to my point.
Your right. Something cannot come from nothing, therefore something had to of always existed. I agree with this premise.
When it comes to physical things, using basic logic, there had to be a time where nothing existed, because something cannot come from nothing, therefore there had to be a time where physically nothing existed.
What has always existed, is God. You are right. Something had to always exist. And that thing is God.
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@Vegasgiants
No it would not. It has simply always existed. There is no paradoxWhy MUST something have a beginning? Several theories of a infinite universe exist such as string theoryYou simply repeat a fallacy over and over
You literally just denied everything I said with no arguement as to why.
Ignorance is on you.
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@Vegasgiants
Cite your evidence that abortion is more dangerous than childbirth. That is ridiculous
Yes becauseIt is a brain-dead organism, that might also kill you.
Here is the problem with the brain-dead part of your argument.
With braindead people, how do we pull the plug on them? We let natural causes take its place, and the person dies.
That wouldn't work the same if you let natural causes take its place with a fetus.
Also, the "it could kill you" argument doesn't work, because you could technically kill me too.
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@ludofl3x
Okay, where did the god come from?
God is infinite. He is not bound by the laws of science that he created. Therefore, it is possible for him to be infinite.
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@Vegasgiants
Prove itWhy can't something have always existed?
I literally just told you.
Do you actually read my arguments?
The reason why you can't have something that has always existed, is because it would be a paradox to say so.
If you have something that has always existed forever and ever, that would make that thing a living paradox, because that thing wouldn't not have a beginning.
And we know that everything must have a beginning to exist.
So, something that never had a beginning, never existed.
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@Intelligence_06
Well, we agree on the fact that neither us nor the entire scientific community really "know" what big bang actually is.
I know what it is. It is the beginning of the universe. And explosion that God spoke into existence.
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@FLRW
With electrons and positrons (or “holes”) being created out of literally nothing, just ripped out of the quantum vacuum by electric fields themselves, it's yet another way that the Universe demonstrates the seemingly impossible: we really can make something from absolutely nothing!
Yea, but even a quantum vacuum is something.
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@Stephen
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@Stephen
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