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Old January 6, 2003, 17:17   #181
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I always thought that weak atheism is the belief that god doesn't exist, while strong atheism is the belief that god CANNOT exist.
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Old January 6, 2003, 18:26   #182
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Again, I think atheists should be allowed to define their own belief or lack thereof.

I am quite curious, though, what you mean by "god CANNOT exist" in this context, and how it deffers from "doesn't exist".
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Old January 6, 2003, 18:30   #183
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"What's all this fuzz about the possibility to "chose"? God created us and he knows from beforehand whether we fail or not. Thus he deliberately creates someone, say me, for hell. How loving!"

-Wernazuma

This 'fuzz' as you so put it is a rather important theological debate contained within Christianity, between the dichotomy of free will and predestination. Free will is the capacity of man to make his own choices, as to believe in God or not, or to obey God's commands or not. This allows for man to choose whether or not to be a Christian, and allows God to sort out people's hearts. Predestination is the capacity of God to know the future, what man will do. God has foreknowledge of the future, yet man has free will. How do we reconcile the two?

Let's suppose God created everyone without free will as you presuppose. Why would there be sin at all? Man could not even deviate in the least from his appointed path.

Clearly, God has chosen not to do so. People are entirely capable of rejecting God. Why would a loving God allow people to reject Him?

One answer to this question is that true love requires the capacity to reject. In order for God to be worshipped properly, he needs beings capable of saying no. It's like having a robot who is programmed to say I love you when you come home everyday. Is this love?

The question still remains, if God knows what we will do, what freedom do we have? Different Christian branches say different things. Calvinists say that God has chosen everyone who will be saved beforehand, yet we do not know whether or not we are on the list.

Another point of view, the one I favour says that God allows everyone to come to God in some matter. He arranges things in such a way, so that everyone who can come to Christ hears the word. Whether they choose or not, God has presented an opportunity.

As for disease- I don't know. Is it possible for humans to exist on this planet without microbes? If not, then we co-exist and continue to get sick, and we should not blame God. I'll have to do some more reading, and see what others have said. We can't be the first to touch this topic.
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Last edited by Ben Kenobi; January 6, 2003 at 22:53.
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Old January 6, 2003, 19:28   #184
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Quote:
Originally posted by obiwan18
-Warnezuma
At first, I have to correct you: It's Wernazuma

Quote:
This 'fuzz' as you so put it is a rather important theological debate contained within Christianity, between the dichotomy of free will and predestination. Free will is the capacity of man to make his own choices, as to believe in God or not, or to obey God's commands or not. This allows for man to choose whether or not to be a Christian, and allows God to sort out people's hearts. Predestination is the capacity of God to know the future, what man will do. God has foreknowledge of the future, yet man has free will. How do we reconcile the two?
It's logically impossible, thus I call it 'fuzz'. It's one of the weakest points of all in Christian religion, here it fails. In a completely predestined world we would not have any responsability for our own actions because God made it that way. If he makes us responsible for something he arranged himself, nobody could call this "loving". But how can a world not be predestined, when God stands above time and is omniscient - he simply has to know what comes out...
Quote:
allows God to sort out people's hearts
He must have MADE those hearts and souls, thus he sorted them out completely arbitrary falready in the beginning.

Quote:
Let's suppose God created everyone without free will as you presuppose. Why would there be sin at all? Man could not even deviate in the least from his appointed path.
In that case there wouldn't be sin, that's what I'm saying. The alternative, though, is a non-omniscient God.

Quote:
Clearly, God has chosen not to do so. People are entirely capable of rejecting God. Why would a loving God allow people to reject Him?
Well, I don't believe in God, that makes the thing easier. That doesn't mean I deny the possibility of a "first cause" or even being that gives this world some sense we can't understand. But definitely the span this universe already exists and its vastness make it seem not likely that the world has been made only around us humans. There might be some inherent sense in all this, but IF there is such a highest being, it simply can't depend on whether we believe or not. The "classical" beliefs make sense only in an anthropocentric or even geocentric worldview. The Jewish faith is even more weird, because it makes the God, who created all the universe, finally only loves them. Cute...

Quote:
One answer to this question is that true love requires the capacity to reject. In order for God to be worshipped properly, he needs beings capable of saying no. It's like having a robot who is programmed to say I love you when you come home everyday. Is this love?
Why should God be so incomplete that he needs attention? Are we his toys?

Quote:
The question still remains, if God knows what we will do, what freedom do we have? Different Christian branches say different things. Calvinists say that God has chosen everyone who will be saved beforehand, yet we do not know whether or not we are on the list.
Work harder

Quote:
Another point of view, the one I favour says that God allows everyone to come to God in some matter. He arranges things in such a way, so that everyone who can come to Christ hears the word. Whether they choose or not, God has presented an opportunity.
That's a statement with no argument. I could come back with my dying children-example, but there's a better one: Religion and culture on Earth are almost inseperately intertwined. Does God love the Chinese less? Or are they simply bad people who reject God? Do they burn in hell? Do at least those burn in hell who have heard about Christianity but didn't accept it? Or didn't God love the American Indians, so they had to live an unsaved life for 1500 years or more without ever hearing the gospel, and when hearing it, getting the word of God told by gambling Spanyards who raped their wives?

Quote:
As for disease- I don't know. Is it possible for humans to exist on this planet without microbes?
Our digestion might suffer. No, honestly, I think it's impossible, we need microorganisms for many things.
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Old January 7, 2003, 00:19   #185
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Edited previous post for sloppy spelling. Sorry Wernazuma.

"But how can a world not be predestined, when God stands above time and is omniscient - he simply has to know what comes out..."

You suggest a timeline that is frozen, with God standing outside and looking down on our actions- that he is completely aware of what we do and what we will do.

I agree completely.

Now I ask you this- how does knowledge of this change your behavior? Do you know what will happen to you tomorrow, or the next day? What choices will you make? Just because God is omnipotent, does not mean that he must exercise his power.

A parent sometimes must let a child make mistakes on their own. God is like that. It is not that he loves us less, but that he loves us so much that he wants us to become better than we are, to grow. How can growth emerge without challenge, without failure?

As for God loving the Chinese less how do you make sense of passages such as:

Acts 28:28
"Therefore I want you to know that God's salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!"[2]

or this?

Rev 7:9
After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb

A better question would be: Why did God select the Israelites to be his people over all the other nations of the Earth? To understand this, you have to read Genesis for Abraham's account. What did it cost Abraham before God was willing to offer a covenant? He had to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice, his only son born to him when Sarah was too old to conceive. He had to trust God. To his credit, he did so, and God rewarded him with the blessing that many nations would come from Abraham.

God picked Abraham because Abraham trusted Him. Perhaps he sought counsel with other nations before Israel, and found them lacking, we do not know.

Romans 9:4
Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.

God needs someone to fulfill these tasks, selecting the Jews for their initial faith. Just as being Jewish did not ensure salvation, nor was salvation restricted to the Jews.

Romans 9:6-8
For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned."[2] In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring.

Thus salvation is extended to Jews as well as Gentiles, through faith and not by inheritance.

As for your last question: try this site: http://net-burst.net/hot/pagan.htm

Will people who have never heard the Gospel go to Hell?

Romans 9:13-15

Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!
For he says to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."

It is groundless presumption to imagine that people have received no Christian revelation merely because they have had no contact with the Bible or with Christians. We have no way of knowing what God has revealed to people by such means as dreams and visions.

If you believe in God's omnipotence, then my belief stands- all those whom could accept the gospel will be reached by God in some way, whether through direct personal revelation, through hearing the gospel preached, or through God's revelation in nature. It is still up to us to accept or reject.
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Old January 7, 2003, 05:41   #186
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A good definition of atheism is the one in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (and a lot of atheists apparently agree with it, because there are many quotes of it on the Net):
Quote:
Instead of saying that an atheist is someone who believes that it is false or probably false that there is a God, a more adequate characterization of atheism consists in the more complex claim that to be an atheist is to be someone who rejects belief in God for the following reasons (which reason is stressed depends on how God is being conceived): for an anthropomorphic God, the atheist rejects belief in God because it is false or probably false that there is a God; for a nonanthropomorphic God (the God of Luther and Calvin, Aquinas, and Maimonides), he rejects belief in God because the concept of such a God is either meaningless, unintelligible, contradictory, incomprehensible, or incoherent; for the God portrayed by some modern or contemporary theologians or philosophers, he rejects belief in God because the concept of God in question is such that it merely masks an atheistic substance -- e.g., "God" is just another name for love, or "God" is simply a symbolic term for moral ideals.
For a more concise definition:

A theist is one who considers it likely that the Universe is created and controlled by an entity which responds to stimuli in a manner analogous to the human brain.

An atheist is one who does not consider it likely that the Universe is created and controlled by an entity which responds to stimuli in a manner analogous to the human brain.
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Old January 7, 2003, 06:07   #187
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Quote:
As for God loving the Chinese less how do you make sense of passages such as:

Acts 28:28
"Therefore I want you to know that God's salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!"[2]

or this?

Rev 7:9
After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb
This issue is listed as a Biblical contradiction in the Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Should the gospel be preached to everyone?

Here are the verses which contradict it:
Quote:
Mt.10:5-6 "These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

Mt.15:24 "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

Acts 16:6 " Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia."
Matthew 15:24 is particularly interesting. The other verses are simply instructions on where not to preach, but in Matthew 15:24, Jesus himself declares that his mission is to the Israelites alone.

This was an early disagreement among Christians: the disagreement between James and Paul over circumcision is part of it. There were two branches of Christianity, and the Pauline branch prevailed.

The other Christians must have regarded Paul as a major pain in the posterior. This guy arrived from nowhere with his own idiosyncratic notions of what Christianity was all about, despite never having met Jesus. But he claimed to have met Jesus in a supernatural fashion, and the other Christians couldn't prove him wrong...
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Old January 7, 2003, 14:09   #188
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Quote:
Originally posted by Wernazuma III
It's logically impossible, thus I call it 'fuzz'. It's one of the weakest points of all in Christian religion, here it fails. In a completely predestined world we would not have any responsability for our own actions because God made it that way. If he makes us responsible for something he arranged himself, nobody could call this "loving". But how can a world not be predestined, when God stands above time and is omniscient - he simply has to know what comes out...
This is not true. As I have pointed out countless times on these forums, the ideas that God knows the future and that we have freewill are not incompatible. In fact, it goes the other way: the assertion that we have free-will unavoidably leads to there being a realm beyond what we normally associate with the physical. In other words, free-will reinforces the idea of God rather than diminishes it.
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Old January 7, 2003, 16:02   #189
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Quote:
Originally posted by Rogan Josh
In fact, it goes the other way: the assertion that we have free-will unavoidably leads to there being a realm beyond what we normally associate with the physical.
Really? Care to explain it or do you consider that already the argument?
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Old January 7, 2003, 16:12   #190
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I think he means that there is no known physical process that can lead to free will. Therefore if it exists, it appears not to be of physical cause, but meta-physical or preternatural cause.
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Old January 7, 2003, 18:03   #191
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You mean like "I'm free" implies that I got to be free from somebody/something? But every highest instance implies to be free. If I accept nothing above human, the fact that we are free is only the effect of ourselves being the cause of the will. If my mind is the cause of my will, it doesn't depend on any other instance.
"Free" is already - in this case - synonymous for "autonomy" which means that no other factors beside the person itself is the cause of the will.

But more importantly, I don't even believe that there is a completely "free will" - we're determined socially and culturally a lot. That doesn't mean that I think we're all conformists, but even those who rebel or who have controversial thinking develop their thinking and decisions in confrontation with their environment.

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Old January 7, 2003, 18:53   #192
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Mt.15:24 "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Luke 15:1-7

Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." Then Jesus told them this parable: "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.'
I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

Jesus is the shepherd, looking for his lost sheep, the people of Israel. He has a covenant responsibility to his people, at this point, the Israelites. While Jesus' mission was to preach the gospel to Israel, to try to save the lost sheep, the Great Commission exhorts the apostles to spread the word to all people and all nations.

Mt 28:16-20
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Jesus, and not Paul gives these instructions, therefore it is wrong to cite Paul as the authority prompting Gospel preaching to the Gentiles.
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Old January 7, 2003, 19:48   #193
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Quote:
Originally posted by Wernazuma III
You mean like "I'm free" implies that I got to be free from somebody/something?

But more importantly, I don't even believe that there is a completely "free will" - we're determined socially and culturally a lot. That doesn't mean that I think we're all conformists, but even those who rebel or who have controversial thinking develop their thinking and decisions in confrontation with their environment.

In this context it means free from scientific predeterminism, not freedom from cultural or other social moulding.

In a classical Newtonian world alls event are theoretically 100% predictable - given an initial starting condition all later development is known. The laws of nature dictate it, it allows us to predict the motion of the planets to the highest accuracy. Free will, i.e the ability of an entity to act in a way other than that which is predictated by scientific laws, is by definition contrary to those laws.

Everyday evidence suggests that we control our destiny - what we have for breakfast, where we go for our holiday etc.. Science from first principles says that we have no choice, we are just tagging on for the ride. There is a big contradiction here.
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Old January 8, 2003, 06:07   #194
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Quote:
Mt.15:24 "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

(etc)
I suggest you check out the context of Matthew 15:24. Here it is:
Quote:
Matthew 15:22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.

15:23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.

15:24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

15:25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

15:26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

15:27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.

15:28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
Jesus initially refused to help her because she was a Caananite. She wasn't one of HIS sheep. She had to beg him to help her. Jesus was behaving in the manner of the OT God here: "you're not one of My Chosen People, so **** off".
Quote:
Mt 28:16-20 "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Jesus, and not Paul gives these instructions, therefore it is wrong to cite Paul as the authority prompting Gospel preaching to the Gentiles.
There is no reason to assume that Jesus gave those instructions. Paul is an earlier and more reliable source than Matthew. Scholars are fairly confident that Paul actually wrote the works attributed to him, and did so fairly early. Whereas "Matthew" is an anonymous document compiled from earlier writings.

Nobody knows how many different people put their own "spin" on what eventually ended up in Matthew. If Matthew supports two contradictory ideas on who Jesus was supposed to be serving, the most reasonable explanation is that the two factions both made contributions to it.
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Old January 8, 2003, 09:17   #195
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To answer Wernamuza's question, SD interpreted my comment correctly. Physics, in principle, does not and cannot allow free-will. Therefore, if you have free-will, there must be some portion of the universe which is ungoverned by physical laws. This is exactly what you need for a 'God'.

I always get a bit pissed off when people compare belief in a God to belief in fairies because they are so fundamentally different in nature. The question 'Is there a God?' is a question which I feel is reasonable to ask and as such we should have an answer to it, or at least considered it.

I think the problem is that most people see the question as being 'Is there some old guy with a long white beard up in the sky making moral judgement on us?' which clearly is a little silly. We need to put it into more scientific terms, exactly as I was trying to do in the earlier post.

For example, consider the question 'Is every event in the universe caused by another earlier event as dictated by the laws of physics, or are some events unpredicted by physical laws?'. Now it is up to you whether or not you want to think about this question, but I think it has more merit than 'Do fairies exist?'. However, it is deeply related to the question 'Is there a God?', since the unpredictive phenomena could be interpreted as divine.

As a matter of interest, does anyone know what makes quantum mechanical wavefunctions collapse?

I would go a step further and say that the natural 'ground state' of belief is to assume that non-predictive phenomena do exist; i.e. that there are things which cannot be predicted by scientific method. The fast that science does not consider them is an assumption which science makes in order to function (and one that it should make in order to be useful). But one should be aware that it is not necessarily a correct assumption.

Someone who believes that there are no unpredictive phenomena (or believes that it is an unimportant question) is therefore making an assumption about the universe, and as such atheists have a belief in something which is non-obvious (ie. they believe that the predictive nature of physics encompases all events).
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Old January 8, 2003, 10:19   #196
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Quote:
Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
Everyday evidence suggests that we control our destiny - what we have for breakfast, where we go for our holiday etc.. Science from first principles says that we have no choice, we are just tagging on for the ride. There is a big contradiction here.
There was a good article about that in New Scientist some time ago (I forget when exactly). Basically, researchers discovered that so-called "conscious" decisions were initiating brain states and nerve signals before the subject became consciously aware of making the decision.

The implication was that we have no free will, but we continually kid ourselves into believing that we have. We "decide", after actually making a decision, that it was "our" decision.
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Old January 8, 2003, 10:32   #197
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Rogan:
Quote:
To answer Wernamuza's question, SD interpreted my comment correctly. Physics, in principle, does not and cannot allow free-will. Therefore, if you have free-will, there must be some portion of the universe which is ungoverned by physical laws. This is exactly what you need for a 'God'.
There are really only two possibilities: either a particular action is in response to a real-world trigger, or it isn't. If it is, then that's determinism.

If it isn't, then that's... well, something else. But what you're describing appears to be pure randomness: actions which must be completely pointless. Otherwise, if they are at all relevant to any real-world situation: that means they're being shaped by events, and aren't truly "free".
Quote:
I would go a step further and say that the natural 'ground state' of belief is to assume that non-predictive phenomena do exist; i.e. that there are things which cannot be predicted by scientific method. The fast that science does not consider them is an assumption which science makes in order to function (and one that it should make in order to be useful). But one should be aware that it is not necessarily a correct assumption.
So God is random chaos? I don't think many theists will agree.
Quote:
Someone who believes that there are no unpredictive phenomena (or believes that it is an unimportant question) is therefore making an assumption about the universe, and as such atheists have a belief in something which is non-obvious (ie. they believe that the predictive nature of physics encompases all events).
While it's true that many atheists are metaphysical naturalists and many metaphysical naturalists are determinists, I think you're making some hasty generalizations there. I see no reason why an atheist cannot believe in the existence of inherently random and unpredictable phenomena.
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Old January 8, 2003, 11:01   #198
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Quote:
Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
There are really only two possibilities: either a particular action is in response to a real-world trigger, or it isn't. If it is, then that's determinism.

If it isn't, then that's... well, something else. But what you're describing appears to be pure randomness: actions which must be completely pointless. Otherwise, if they are at all relevant to any real-world situation: that means they're being shaped by events, and aren't truly "free".
They need not be random - just non-predictive - these are 2 different things. I think quantum mechanics muddies the situation somewhat, because people tend to think of QM as non-deterministic. But really it is - just in a random way.

In other words, if you had 10,000 identical universes to play with you could predict the outcome of a QM measurement in terms of the proportion of universes following a particular path. If you found that there was some mechanism which distorted the proportions of the universes taking different paths in some unpredictable way, then you would be observing the non-predictive phenomena I am talking about. Note that the actual final outcomes may be exactly as one would expect in a completely predictive scenario - just that the probabilities of certain outcomes have changed in a non-predictive way.

'Pure randomness' on the other hand would still be predictable in a statistical sense.

Also, I am not saying that the events need to be completely forced by the non-predictive phenomena - only that they should be influenced. Clearly the decisions you make are influenced by real world events too. There only needs to be some input of 'you' (whatever that means) into your decisions to give you (constrained) free-will.

I also do not claim to know how this input comes about....

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I see no reason why an atheist cannot believe in the existence of inherently random and unpredictable phenomena.
No - I agree. But accepting non-predictivity requires an atheist to throw away the majority of the agruments they have already used against the existence of God. In other words, I think it is only a small step from non-predictivity to God and I suspect most atheists would be uncomfortable getting that close.

Of course, on the other hand, believing in a completely (statistically) deterministic universe where we have no free-will and there is no God, is a perfectly logically consistant position to take. I am merely claiming that it is an assumption.
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Old January 8, 2003, 11:52   #199
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Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

There was a good article about that in New Scientist some time ago (I forget when exactly). Basically, researchers discovered that so-called "conscious" decisions were initiating brain states and nerve signals before the subject became consciously aware of making the decision.

The implication was that we have no free will, but we continually kid ourselves into believing that we have. We "decide", after actually making a decision, that it was "our" decision.
I read the article, and its also says

Some of the views expressed here may be unsettling. They seem to rob us of the most cherished characteristics of the human mind. But while we are saying that our conscious experiences of self and control are an elaborate delusion, we are not dispensing with the notions themselves. We are merely shifting those mental processes traditionally associated with them away from the domain of consciousness into the unconscious mechanisms of Level 2. We accept that somewhere in our minds is a representation of a self, and there are clearly systems of control, maybe even free will. But none of these reside in our consciousness..

I personally don't believe that free will is possible, I just can't see how it is possible, but then I believe I am doomed to believe that. That said I can't discount the possibility of free will - the circumstantial evidence is too strong.
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Old January 8, 2003, 11:52   #200
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Rogan: ...Ah, I see where you're coming from.

That would be evidence of "the supernatural". Though, if these results actually started to show up, I don't see how the existence of a natural but hitherto undetected deterministic factor could be ruled out.

Still a "comfortable" distance from God though. For instance, the belief that flesh-and-blood intelligences have psychic powers to influence events is significantly more likely to me than the possibility of a Universal Intelligence with such powers (Occam's Razor). A deity would become somewhat more likely, yes.

...Heheh. Maybe Fleischmann and Pons (and a few others) have the psychic ability to induce cold fusion?

But why dismiss fairies so firmly? Isn't it at least as plausible that a multitude of lesser intelligences are responsible, rather than a single universal one?
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Old January 8, 2003, 12:00   #201
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Old January 8, 2003, 12:58   #202
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Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
That would be evidence of "the supernatural".
Yes, I suppose you could call it that, since it is 'beyond' science. But then you have to call free-will 'supernatural' too..... (which maybe you do of course )

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Though, if these results actually started to show up, I don't see how the existence of a natural but hitherto undetected deterministic factor could be ruled out.
Agreed. But something can be unprovable and still true.

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Still a "comfortable" distance from God though. For instance, the belief that flesh-and-blood intelligences have psychic powers to influence events is significantly more likely to me than the possibility of a Universal Intelligence with such powers (Occam's Razor).
It is really a belief that humans (or sentient entities in general) have a 'soul' since it fits rather nicely into the traditional description of a soul. Most people believe that there is some organising force to the universe, even if that is just a set of physics laws or a symmetry principle or something. Once you have the belief that you can make decisions which can influence the world, it no longer seems so far fetched to suggest that this organising principle was set in motion by a deliberate act of some sentient being. (And God said, "Let there be a local SU(3)XSU(2)LXU(1) symmetry....").

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But why dismiss fairies so firmly? Isn't it at least as plausible that a multitude of lesser intelligences are responsible, rather than a single universal one?
It is not the 'multitude of lesser intelligences' I object to (Jerry Springer's audience comes to mind...) - it is more the funny wings, high pitched voices and sparkly bits following them through the air that I object to.....
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Old January 8, 2003, 16:55   #203
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Jack - you have some good questions about Matthew 15

"Jesus was behaving in the manner of the OT God here: 'you're not one of My Chosen People, so **** off'."

There are a couple of reasons for Jesus' response. The first relates to the Incarnation and his mission on Earth. Jesus is limited to one place, unlike God who is omnipresent. Jesus is limited by time, he does not and cannot go everywhere or help everyone. If he were to cure everyone afflicted by demon-possession, he would have no time to fulfill his true mission, to reach the Jewish people. As the Jews were God's children, he had a responsibility to look after his children first, before the Gentiles.

I have to ask you- do you believe God is in debt to you or to other people?

Look at the response of the Gentile woman-

15:27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."

She exhibits humility. She has sinned, and is unworthy of God's mercy in the form of healing. You cannot command God to heal you, but rather, he chooses whether or not to help.

Why is this? God has given everything to you already- you cannot give him anything that he does not already have. It's like a child requesting money to give a gift to his father. The father might give the money, but he is never gains on the transaction.

The only thing the gentile woman had to offer was her faith in God- and what was Jesus' response? He healed her after she recognised the source of her blessing was from God alone.

"There is no reason to assume that Jesus gave those instructions. Paul is an earlier and more reliable source than Matthew. Scholars are fairly confident that Paul actually wrote the works attributed to him, and did so fairly early. Whereas "Matthew" is an anonymous document compiled from earlier writings."

No- first you cite Matthew's mistranslations as a source of biblical contradiction, yet now you contend Matthew never wrote the Gospel of Matthew at all. Decide.

As for the reliability of Paul- do you now accept Paul as an authoritative historical source for biblical times?
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Old January 8, 2003, 17:09   #204
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Quote:
Originally posted by Rogan Josh
To answer Wernamuza's question, SD interpreted my comment correctly. Physics, in principle, does not and cannot allow free-will. Therefore, if you have free-will, there must be some portion of the universe which is ungoverned by physical laws. This is exactly what you need for a 'God'.

I always get a bit pissed off when people compare belief in a God to belief in fairies because they are so fundamentally different in nature. The question 'Is there a God?' is a question which I feel is reasonable to ask and as such we should have an answer to it, or at least considered it.

I think the problem is that most people see the question as being 'Is there some old guy with a long white beard up in the sky making moral judgement on us?' which clearly is a little silly. We need to put it into more scientific terms, exactly as I was trying to do in the earlier post.

For example, consider the question 'Is every event in the universe caused by another earlier event as dictated by the laws of physics, or are some events unpredicted by physical laws?'. Now it is up to you whether or not you want to think about this question, but I think it has more merit than 'Do fairies exist?'. However, it is deeply related to the question 'Is there a God?', since the unpredictive phenomena could be interpreted as divine.

As a matter of interest, does anyone know what makes quantum mechanical wavefunctions collapse?

I would go a step further and say that the natural 'ground state' of belief is to assume that non-predictive phenomena do exist; i.e. that there are things which cannot be predicted by scientific method. The fast that science does not consider them is an assumption which science makes in order to function (and one that it should make in order to be useful). But one should be aware that it is not necessarily a correct assumption.

Someone who believes that there are no unpredictive phenomena (or believes that it is an unimportant question) is therefore making an assumption about the universe, and as such atheists have a belief in something which is non-obvious (ie. they believe that the predictive nature of physics encompases all events).
Rogan Josh: First I must remind you, like before obiwan, that you should check my name.
I guess, I've been misunderstood. I'm not a firm atheist in terms of not allowing a "principal cause", an "unmoved mover" or "God", if you like even giving this universe some secret sense.
What I'm absolutely reject is "religion", people who make the assumption that they have "got revealed" the "word" of God, think that some ways of worship lead to salvation or refusal to damnation etc. A God with a temper, who changes his mind over time, gets annoyed, needs attention etc. is, as you put it yourself, a bit silly. Religion and religious norms are so clearly culture-related and carry social functions that I can't see the "hand of the Holy Ghost" working there. The same goes for Holy scriptures. E.g., the OT makes perfect sense in an ancient semi-desert society with a horizon that was limited by the Euphrates and the Nile 2500 years ago...

But coming back to the "Free Will".
How do you resolve this logical conflict: Can an omnipotent being create something that restricts its potence? Free Will is such a thing. It must be independent in its cause from the creator, otherwise it wouldn't be free. It's like the old paradox-question whether God could create a stone which is too heavy for God to raise it?
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Old January 8, 2003, 17:48   #205
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It's like the old paradox-question whether God could create a stone which is too heavy for God to raise it?
Something can be and not be at the same time, it can also be in apparently contradictary states at the same time. Shrodingers cat was designed to refute the logic of quantum mechanics, yet it still persists.

What I'm saying is that logical reasoning can be flawed when dealing with things beyond human understanding or experience. Our brains weren't designed for it.
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Old January 8, 2003, 20:31   #206
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I believe Masudi is wrong because the proof is wrong. In his own words, a society that emphasizes polar opposite beliefs should spawn off believers. Also, you can't test whether these common traits we find in religion is because other religion serves as subsitute for true religion (in this case christianity) or There's an universal similarity on what humans desire and those traits are represented by religion with variable differences(including chrisitanity).

if someone doesnt understand what i am trying to say, since after i read that, it seems rather unclear to me as well. I will try to explain it. But only if someone requests it cause its bit hard to put into words right now.
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Old January 8, 2003, 20:58   #207
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obiwan18:

The Caananite woman is right there, no detour needed. The text doesn't specifically state that she brought her daughter with her, but it's reasonable to assume that she would have done.

The reason for the refusal is quite clearly spelled out: "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel".
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I have to ask you- do you believe God is in debt to you or to other people?
I do not believe God exists. Therefore he can't be in debt to anyone.
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"There is no reason to assume that Jesus gave those instructions. Paul is an earlier and more reliable source than Matthew. Scholars are fairly confident that Paul actually wrote the works attributed to him, and did so fairly early. Whereas "Matthew" is an anonymous document compiled from earlier writings."

No- first you cite Matthew's mistranslations as a source of biblical contradiction, yet now you contend Matthew never wrote the Gospel of Matthew at all. Decide.
They aren't mutually exclusive positions. It's just that, when referring to the author of the book known as the "gospel of Matthew", it's tiresome to keep putting qualifiers on "Matthew". Whenever I refer to Matthew, I mean the (unknown) author of the gospel of that name, not the disciple Matthew. Unless I'm actually talking about the disciples, of course: but, so far, I haven't.
Quote:
As for the reliability of Paul- do you now accept Paul as an authoritative historical source for biblical times?
I accept Paul as a more reliable source than the gospels for things that Paul would actually have known about, like the actual career of Paul himself. But there is no good source of information about Jesus at all. Jesus himself wrote nothing, Paul never met him (except "in a vision"), and the gospels were written later by unknown persons (and both Matthew and Luke, at least, appear to be derived from earlier sources, according to Biblical scholars).

So we're left with a fairly good source for the early history of the "Jesus for the Gentiles" faction, plus writings assembled by unknown persons with unknown agendas over an unknown period of time.
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