Free will seems rather deceptive...

[Non sequitur]

So long as you have a respectful question I will do my best to provide an answer. If you wish for the conversation to stop then stop asking questions. However if you change your mind then feel free to ask another question, and we will continue.

Can I wish for you to not provide your answer?

 

[Non sequitur]

Let me guess, you don't believe in free will?

What does that have to do with my above comment?

And yes, I do essentially believe in free will.

Well... that depends on your definition of free will, as someone previously believes there are two.

 

[pinkputter]

What does that have to do with my above comment?

And yes, I do essentially believe in free will.

Well... that depends on your definition of free will, as someone previously believes there are two.

So you don't believe in pre-destination like some atheists do?

I do believe a person's belief on free will depends on their definition.

My personal belief is that we all have choices, some please God, and being human we will make some choices that do not, depending on how close we are to God (how strong of a Christian we are). That's my definition of free will.

 

[Non sequitur]

So you don't believe in pre-destination like some atheists do?

I do believe a person's belief on free will depends on their definition.

My personal belief is that we all have choices, some please God, and being human we will make some choices that do not, depending on how close we are to God (how strong of a Christian we are). That's my definition of free will.

Well, believing in pre-destination is defined as: believing that it is predetermined in advance, by divine will or fate, what will happen.

I don't believe in fate or gods, as both of these involve the supernatural, so I can't/don't believe in pre-destination.


I believe free will is (having the power of) acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.

Which would pretty much be, making choices (good or bad) that are not made not under duress.


It seems like you are curious about my (atheist) beliefs. Any more questions? Glad to answer.

 

[pinkputter]

Well, believing in pre-destination is defined as: believing that it is predetermined in advance, by divine will or fate, what will happen.

I don't believe in fate or gods, as both of these involve the supernatural, so I can't/don't believe in pre-destination.


I believe free will is (having the power of) acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.

Which would pretty much be, making choices (good or bad) that are not made not under duress.


It seems like you are curious about my (atheist) beliefs. Any more questions? Glad to answer.

Sure, I am curious about your beliefs, but not in a way that I'm not curious about my own Christian beliefs. Abiding in Christ means essentially pursuing Truth, and I try to make an effort to do this everyday. Yes, I want to understand where atheists get their beliefs from, but I don't think you have time (or room) to explain in a post.

So you do believe in free will, but your thread title implies it's deceptive? you could explain that.....

 

[Non sequitur]

Sure, I am curious about your beliefs, but not in a way that I'm not curious about my own Christian beliefs. Abiding in Christ means essentially pursuing Truth, and I try to make an effort to do this everyday. Yes, I want to understand where atheists get their beliefs from, but I don't think you have time (or room) to explain in a post.

So you do believe in free will, but your thread title implies it's deceptive? you could explain that.....

I am too interested in pursuit of the truth.

I have tons of time.



Well, I was implying that if an you took an unverifiable claim (hell) as a reality, you wouldn't be completely operating under free will.

Also, I would find it suspect to mention horrible things as consequences for these unverifiable claims, but follow it with a "it's up to you".

 

[pinkputter]

Well, I was implying that if an you took an unverifiable claim (hell) as a reality, you wouldn't be completely operating under free will.

Also, I would find it suspect to mention horrible things as consequences for these unverifiable claims, but follow it with a "it's up to you".

I don't get it. Is God supposed to give us life, freedom of will, yet not tell us what happens in the after-life?

Well, it IS, "up to you." Unfortunately atheists die before knowing Jesus. It was up to them to find God before they died. Everyone gets a chance. People choose a reality separate from God that's part of giving humanity free will.

 

[Non sequitur]

I don't get it. Is God supposed to give us life, freedom of will, yet not tell us what happens in the after-life?

Well, it IS, "up to you." Unfortunately atheists die before knowing Jesus. It was up to them to find God before they died. Everyone gets a chance. People choose a reality separate from God that's part of giving humanity free will.

Well, before you chose to believe in your god, you had to be undecided. You didn't come out of the womb accepting it.

So by undecided, I mean not full on believing.

The position you are taking is one from already decided. You easily accept that your god would tell you these things, and they make sense, as you currently believe him.


The question is asking about when you were undecided on your belief about it being true and the statements being made.

 

[Emmy]

Dear ToHoldNothing. You are right, free will seems rather deceptive, in fact it is. We are given free will to do what?? We are talking about God and His Love for us, and Jesus told us that " unless we believe as children, we will not enter God`s Kingdom." God gave us His 10 Commandments and God wants us to follow them. We are also given free will whether to follow God`s Commandments, or not to follow them, that seems straightforward. The Bible also tells us in Matthew, chapter 22, verses 35-40: Jesus telling a Lawyer: " The first and great Commandment is: Love God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. The second is like it: Love thy neighbour as thyself. " Then Jesus states the fact: " On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." What other free will is there? To love or not to love, to become loving children of God, our loving Heavenly Father. To let Love and Charity lead us into all we say, or do. It seems hard for us, but it can be done. God will help us and Jesus will lead us on our way. I say this with love, HoldNothing. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

 

[AllIsrael]

Hi Non sequitur, here’s my responses in blue.

You: *“If there is the possibility of a horrible outcome, aren't you going to now be biased in your decisions?”

Me: The answer is, “It depends on the one predicting the horrible outcome.”

First you have to decide if the source who warned about a “horrible outcome” is credible. If the source is credible, the answer to your question for any sane person will be in the affirmative. A person who is warned by someone he knows is credible would be a fool not to give heed to the source and not allow himself to be influenced by him. (By the way, I read somewhere that fear can be the beginning of wisdom.) On the other hand, if the source is known to be not credible, well, you really don’t have to pay him any mind because you know his word cannot be trusted.

You: Good point and I agree.

Typically, it would be an easy thing to do. You could look at all his physical evidence supporting his claims and he would become more credible. The interwebs would be a good place.

Unfortunately, when we go from his natural claims ("See? 40% of these other cars have been recalled for issues." to trying to see his supernatural claims ("See those people/souls burning in hell for buy the bad cars?") he no longer becomes credible about such things.

Me: I’m not sure what you mean here, and therefore not sure how to respond. Are you saying that you think God loses credibility if he has all those people burning in hell?

Me: Then you have the third, and most usual situation, where you don’t know if the person is credible or not. In the case of the auto dealer, your assessment of him sounds pretty shaky. “He ‘appears’ like the ‘kind’ of individual who has a sketchy past,” and “he ‘seems’ to be a rather honest and nice guy.” You are basing your question on something said by someone that you have judged as “he could have a sketchy past” and he “seems honest and nice”??


You: It was a reference to the NT vs OT


First, kinda angry and killing quite a bit, then love and forgiveness. Despite his reasons, I would say his actions and manner of doing things changed for the "better".

Me: Oh. I completely did not get your analogy there about NT vs OT. Sorry. Well, your words that God was “kinda angry and killing quite a bit,” “then love and forgiveness,” and “his…manner…changed for the better” I think are open to some discussion. Generally, throughout the OT as I have read it, the only times God was angry with the Israelites was when they ignored him, sinned, and/or were outright rebellious to him. It’s not all that different from a father who gets upset with his child who misbehaves, or worse, won’t behave. But there is a difference. God, like the father, calls the kid his own. But unlike the father who, when his child turns 18 or 21, lets him go hoping he did a good job of raising him, and his days of raising the kid are over, God doesn’t let go when his children come of age. This is especially true for Israel because in their beginning, they knew and agreed to the standards of behavior God expected. God as father continues to raise his children as adults, and God’s view of their adult behavior now becomes far more critical than when they were actually young children. As the history and current events of any culture, or of the entire world, show us, we all know that adult misbehavior can result in horrible things, from one-on-one personal relations to relations between nations, and every type of relation between.

As I understand it, one of God’s major intents for Israel in the OT was that they be the representative nation for all the other nations to witness the way God operates. An example reference that spells out some of Israel’s part in this I think is Deuteronomy 28. The early verses of chapter 28 spell out the rewards of adhering to God’s behavior standards, which the surrounding nations would surely witness (both adherence to standards and reward), and the later verses spell out the consequences of not adhering to the standards. Not adhering (“Not obeying” is a bit more Biblical) is what God got upset about. But God, compared to the father, goes to drastic measures of punishment with his adult children, because their misbehavior causes such drastic problems, not the least of which, in my opinion, was knowingly misrepresenting God. A father of children not yet of age punishes their misbehavior far less severely. But the concept is the same: just like the father raising his kid would threaten a spanking or a grounding or no allowance to encourage right behavior, God used more drastic things like no rain, drought, attacks by enemy countries, and even death to encourage Israel’s right behavior. But always, ALWAYS in the OT we have God saying to Israel something like “If you will PLEASE stop your wrong ways and turn back to me, I will forgive you and bless you and save you from the misery you have been creating for yourselves, because you are my children, I love you, and I take no pleasure in punishing you.” This love and forgiveness, expressed over and over again in the OT is then made manifest in utter fulfillment in the NT.

The price for Israelites to pay for forgiveness of sin in the OT was to sacrifice a lamb, spill its blood, and God would forgive the sin. Not much changed in the NT except for one drastic thing: the “lamb” that got sacrificed was a human, God’s son Jesus Christ. When we believe that and take it in deep down, we become free of guilt over past sins and gain freedom through a clean heart that encourages us to love neighbor, any and all, as self, along with to love God with all our heart and mind and strength. God is just as upset about sin in the NT as he was in the OT. He just goes about offering forgiveness in a different way. Instead of accepting the blood of an animal for forgiveness, we now must accept the blood of another human for forgiveness. So, N.S., I agree with you there, God’s manner of doing things, having his son as the sacrifice for sin instead of an animal, is a change for the better, because all who accept this, God’s “manner of doing things,” could hopefully, in addition to being forgiven thoroughly themselves, be able to more readily grasp the consequences of sin, the seriousness with which God and Christ view sin, and the drastic measure they went through to make thorough, complete, and unending forgiveness possible. As the scriptures repeat over and again in both the OT and NT, the consequences of sin is death, and the Lord Jesus on the cross has made it possible for us be free of the sin and and the eternal death it brings, and his resurrection made it possible for us, now without sin, to have eternal life. These are reasons to reject any degree of hatred one might have for his neighbor and start learning to “obey” the “commandment” to love.

Me: Your assumption of a horrible outcome is based on a first-time, chance meeting with someone you don’t even know? Wake up and smell the coffee. You can’t make critical judgments based only on surface evidence and outward appearances. Your description of the auto dealer already puts up a red flag.

You: No, I didn't assume anything based on this first-time meeting.

My original assessment of him was simply that. A first time observation. My description didn't put up a red flag for me.

And it was honestly there to show the contrast from NT god to OT god, not paint in him in any good or bad light.

Me: That sounds good. Again, I didn’t get what you were saying in that part of the analogy till you explained it. I’m glad you did, thanks.

Me: If you found yourself attracted to the car that he warned you away from, you should check it out. Find out about the history of the car manufacturer and determine if the cars it has made in the past are safe and reliable and live up to the claims made. Go online and review the car, find several witnesses, find owners of the car, and do all your due diligence. Do that with all the other cars as well, the ones the dealer was trying to sell you. Then decide whether or not the car dealer words could be trusted.

You: Makes perfect sense.

Me: So, after making a decision on whether the source can be trusted, if you trust it, in your case, if you determine you can trust the car dealer, then heck yes, a person would be a fool not to be influenced by him. On the other hand, if you believe the source is not trustworthy, go ahead and buy that car you were warned against.

You: Flying right along now!

Me: In that case, the only thing you have to be careful of is that the source might turn out to be more trustworthy than you had decided, even after your due diligence, and you would be…oh, I can’t say it. It’s too horrible to think about.

You: Wait, what?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa...

In *either* case, you would have to worry about trustworthiness. One case didn't get special treatment.

Me: (Laughing out loud!!) You are quite right about that. I thought of that while I was writing it, but it was late, and I was getting tired, and I just let it slide. My bad. You got me there!

You: Unless I'm going for one of them, becuse I'm playing it safe.

But now, it's not really honest about what I actually believe, because trustworthiness and information about either car didn't matter.

Me: So there you have it. The choice is yours. In my opinion, before you do anything else, start checking out the source for yourself—thoroughly—the original source. Spend the next several months doing that. Then you will be better equipped to distinguish between a credible and an un-credible source, you will be able to trust with confidence the ones you deem trustworthy, and you won’t have to be concerned whether or not the source is influencing you, because if it is, you have already decided its influence can be trusted. But if you decide the source is not trustworthy, well, you won’t be influenced by it, will you?

You: Well, I hope you will be happy with the choice I made, after doing all that for about 20 years.

Fortunate for me, given our rules for determining things and ending up at making choices based on those, I have made the correct choice

Me: With all respect, I confess I am not certain of the choice you made based just on this thread at this point. Care to say it in so many words?

You: On a side note, one thing I always find rather odd is that most people don't ever use that decision making process and/or spend a little time, if any, seriously looking at other dealers.

I'd think one would want to spend the equal amount of time and effort for all available choices.

Me: I think I understand your sentiment there. Having spent some of that equal time myself, I concluded that no other “dealer” claims to be the only one who can do all the saving. God and Jesus are the only auto manufacturers and dealers in town that offer both a lifetime guarantee and absolute proof of it, if you believe what Scripture says, by the resurrection of Jesus’ body of life after he died. I have come to believe it, and it is thoroughly satisfying to me, i.e. it is good enough for me. My personal belief is that it actually is good enough for everyone. We have the scriptures saying that Jesus shows us that a human died and then came back to life again here on the earth in a body made of some substance that will not decay or die, and, don’t forget, could walk through walls and appear and disappear at the thought of it. The scripture claims there were hundreds of eyewitnesses to this. And its claim is that the one who made it possible for Jesus to be resurrected from his grave will also make it possible for those that believe in him to be resurrected from their graves at some future time. None of the other dealers I looked at offer anything even remotely like this, nor with such down to earth realism.

We’ve been going around N.S., and I would like to ask you one question for clarity, because I'm new here: In your original post, are you saying you think there is a fallacy in the idea of free will if the alternative God presents to obedience to him is so horrible that a person in effect is “forced” by God’s influence into obedience?