What happens when you die?

Simon

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I don't know what else there is. I don't actually believe in ghosts or "shadow creatures" but that wasn't the point of my argument.

Some people believe, however, that consiousness is non physical. When I say it is non-physical, I mean that it's causes are at least partially non-mechanistic.

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I know I know, but were just speculating aren't we :) How can consciousness be non-physical? There's only one way I think, and that is that it doesn't exist. This works good for science but for me it's like saying that I can't say anything. More reasonable is that everything else isn't physical - you know what I mean ;)

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umm..God can do everything

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I have to agree with Tygur, if there's anything he can do, it's by the definition as God, everything. Doesn't mean there was needed a sperm at all. If it doesn't say in the bible then it's probably not needed to get mentioned either so don't care in other words. Christians that don't get this aren't really christians, they're not loyal to the bible by introducing elements that may or may not be true, in other words eventually lie.

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I don't know why I'm bothering to continue arguing. All you chistians believe different things and are contradicting each other all the time.

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The thing is exactly this, they don't thrust there is enough data in the bible.

keda: "I have to agree with Tygur, if there's anything he can do, it's by the definition as God, everything. Doesn't mean there was needed a sperm at all. If it doesn't say in the bible then it's probably not needed to get mentioned either so don't care in other words. Christians that don't get this aren't really christians, they're not loyal to the bible by introducing elements that may or may not be true, in other words eventually lie. "

I was agreeing with him too.
I was just putting forth ideas on how the hell he was born. Which wasnt the arguement anyway. The arguement was why couldnt jesus bieng a spirit just of "possesed" this human form or something.

And your comment about christians "who dont really get this arent really christians"
I'm christian and i dont believe in everything in the bible! I question it and look for answers.

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Originally posted by Beacon
keda: "I have to agree with Tygur, if there's anything he can do, it's by the definition as God, everything. Doesn't mean there was needed a sperm at all. If it doesn't say in the bible then it's probably not needed to get mentioned either so don't care in other words. Christians that don't get this aren't really christians, they're not loyal to the bible by introducing elements that may or may not be true, in other words eventually lie. "

I was agreeing with him too.
I was just putting forth ideas on how the hell he was born. Which wasnt the arguement anyway. The arguement was why couldnt jesus bieng a spirit just of "possesed" this human form or something.

And your comment about christians "who dont really get this arent really christians"
I'm christian and i dont believe in everything in the bible! I question it and look for answers.

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I'm a christian and I don't believe in god, funny isnt' it? I qwestion everything and i look answers, the problem is that "christian" just turns into a label you put on yourself.

Hi, I'm back..

simonm

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I don't know why I'm bothering to continue arguing. All you chistians believe different things and are contradicting each other all the time.

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Actually, I think a good portion of the others agree on most things. Our beliefs are very much different from those of most "christians". Note: I put that in quotes because if someone claims to believe in Jesus (that's what a christian is) but doesn't truly follow what he (Jesus) says, is he (the person) really a christian? The other religions don't truly follow Jesus because they misinterpret his teachings. According to our beliefs, that's the way it is.

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I had been told by other christians that Jesus was one with the father and the holy spirit. Basically saying that he IS God.

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Yeah, the trinity. The bible does not support the trinity, but many christian religions claim it does. Jesus refers to himself as God's son many times in the bible. He never said he was equal to God. Though Jesus does say "I and the Father are one" at John 10:30, this doesn't mean they are one and the same. It only means they are in agreement. If you look at the context of the scripture and where it is in the bible, you see that Jesus is talking about how they (Jesus and God) were in harmony with each other. Read my reply to Beacon later in this message for what I think of the holy spirit.

Also, the greek word behind the word, "one", in that scripture is used to show oneness in cooperation. Some other places it is used are John 10:38, John 17:11, and John 17:21.

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As for the resurrection, you know as well as I do that when people are told about the resurrection they are led to believe in images of a human diying then being raised back from the dead as himself and not as an angel, a shadow creature or even in a different body.

You are stretching the definition of "resurrection" to the limits and I must admit am highly sceptical.

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Maybe I am (I don't think so, but I can see where you're coming from), but does it really matter what word we use to describe it? (I'm not too sure how we got into discussing the meaning behind the word to begin with)


Beacon

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Tygur: Perhaps Jesus body died his spirit continues to live in heaven as the ruler of heaven and earth!
Why cannot we continue to live in heaven when our bodies die?

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There is no spirit in you or anyone else that can go on living. There is a life-force which is commonly called the spirit, but there is a distinct difference between a spirit creature and a spirit force. This is something many people fail to realize. A spirit force is not living. God's holy spirit is a spirit force (God's active force) and not a creature or entity (And certainly not part of a trinity). An angel is an example of a spiritual creature.

When Jesus walked the earth as a human, he was no exception. He also didn't have a spirit that came out of him when he died.

The bible says death is a punishment for sin. Before Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree, they were free of sin. This means they were never to die. There was no reason for God to make a detachable spirit that can come out of a dead body, because the body was never to die except as a punishment. If death is a punishment for sin, and no sin means no death, wouldn't it defeat the purpose if people were to go on living in some other form afterwards?

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Originally posted by Beacon
tygur:"Remember that computer illustration? God could simply remember what someone was and rebuild him/her that way. Or it could be more complicated. Why wouldn't God be able to do "everything"? "

Purely speculative!!!

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Isn't that what we're doing? Speculating? I could be way off. I was only mentioning a possibility.

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The other religions don't truly follow Jesus because they misinterpret his teachings. According to our beliefs, that's the way it is.

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This is what I mean! On the face of it you all appear to be on the same path but when you get down to the details, there are suddenly huge divisions between the varying interpretations.

I think this division is a big factor in putting many people off religion. If I had a penny for every time a christian told me that others weren't proper christians, I'd be rich.
If Christianity provided a united front, it would appeal much more stongly to the masses. I know this would never happen though.

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Maybe I am (I don't think so, but I can see where you're coming from), but does it really matter what word we use to describe it? (I'm not too sure how we got into discussing the meaning behind the word to begin with)

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Well, I'd be happy if you didn't use the word resurrection to desribe the event in question. And I think it does matter because the last thing we want to do is mislead people right?

Yep we are speculating tahts the thing!
I'm saying that what u say may not be right niether may mine!

So we die as a punishment for sin but god forgives all for our sins etc etc.

simonm

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This is what I mean! On the face of it you all appear to be on the same path but when you get down to the details, there are suddenly huge divisions between the varying interpretations.

I think this division is a big factor in putting many people off religion. If I had a penny for every time a christian told me that others weren't proper christians, I'd be rich.
If Christianity provided a united front, it would appeal much more stongly to the masses. I know this would never happen though.

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Out of all the christian religions, only one can be right. They all interpret the bible differently, but the bible was written with only one intended interpretation. So only the religion that has it right is truly christian. Throughout all these bible threads, I haven't heard any convincing argument proving that mine/ours is wrong and any of the others are right. Anyone from the other christian religions didn't last nearly as long as I did (as far as I know, anyway).

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Well, I'd be happy if you didn't use the word resurrection to desribe the event in question. And I think it does matter because the last thing we want to do is mislead people right?

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I suppose I could drift away from the word to describe Jesus being raised up. It's no big deal.


Beacon

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Yep we are speculating tahts the thing!
I'm saying that what u say may not be right niether may mine!

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umm..which is speculation? My computer illustration or my explanation about why we don't have a spirit that lives on after death? I thought we were talking about the computer illustration. The assertion that there is no spirit that lives on after death is well founded in the bible and not speculation.

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So we die as a punishment for sin but god forgives all for our sins etc etc.

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I'm holding off on answering this one until I get an answer to the question I just asked above.

Beacon
By the way, were you even the one I was giving the computer illustration to?

Um dunno!

Computer illustration is speculation because your speculating on how Jesus was re-incarnated? correct?

And so is the life after death becuse you havent been dead and came back so you dont know?
And we are speculating about how jesus came back in the bible!!

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Out of all the christian religions, only one can be right.

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Maybe, but not necessarilly. I have met christians who state that all you need to do is accept that Jesus is the son of God and you are a christian (with the bonus of going to heavan). Everything else is peripheral.

Not only that but most christian churches rely on very similar (if not identical) translations of the bible. Jehova's witness are renowned for have their own translation (that differs on several key issues) provided for them by the Watchtower.

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They all interpret the bible differently, but the bible was written with only one intended interpretation.

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If that was really the case, why was it written in such a way that it lended itself to so may contrasting interpretations? And don't say it isn't. It's not difficult, if you search long enough, to find something that supports what you believe in (even if you then use it out of context). I don't believe that God, in all his power and wisdom, couldn't have supplied us with a more consise, less ambiguos testament. If that was really his intention, he could have made sure it could have only been interpreted in one way. He didn't make sure and therefore I think you can't assert that it was his intention (becuase if you are, you're are saying that God failed to achieve something so simple). It is more likely that either it wasn't the testament(s) of God or it was and God wanted it to be misinterpreted.

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I haven't heard any convincing argument proving that mine/ours is wrong and any of the others are right.

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They couldn't prove that you interpretation is wrong any more than I could prove that God does not exist. Can you prove their interpretation is wrong?

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Out of all the christian religions, only one can be right. They all interpret the bible differently, but the bible was written with only one intended interpretation. So only the religion that has it right is truly christian

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Why not none of them is truly christian, because the orginal was lost? I don't think God would need to use a book, he would just let us assume what is wrong or right and then let us do what we think is best. The whole idea about grouping ourselves into religions doesn't make sense, it's a human thing, they do it to get money from you, and that's the only thing keeping it up. All the moral and ethical rules, ceremonies and ideas are just marketting tactics. God would never do that.

Ever see the thirtenth floor?
It may be possibly that none of us are alive, we are only randomly selected electrons flowing through wires and posting random accurances of 1's and 0'2 together to make this post possible.

Any occurance that this sentence makes sense is a completely random occurance of flashes of energy in no order what so ever. being translated into text that doesn't really exist.

And that is my take on life. :D

simonm

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Maybe, but not necessarilly. I have met christians who state that all you need to do is accept that Jesus is the son of God and you are a christian (with the bonus of going to heavan). Everything else is peripheral.

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Even if those people are right, that does make everyone else wrong because everyone else thinks it does matter. Even though everyone else would still win, they'd be wrong.

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Not only that but most christian churches rely on very similar (if not identical) translations of the bible. Jehova's witness are renowned for have their own translation (that differs on several key issues) provided for them by the Watchtower.

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I remember explaining this before. The only real differences are the transliteration of certain words the other bibles translated to hell and the inclusion of God's name in various places where it is omitted in other bibles. I don't remember any other "key issues".

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If that was really the case, why was it written in such a way that it lended itself to so may contrasting interpretations? And don't say it isn't. It's not difficult, if you search long enough, to find something that supports what you believe in (even if you then use it out of context). I don't believe that God, in all his power and wisdom, couldn't have supplied us with a more consise, less ambiguos testament. If that was really his intention, he could have made sure it could have only been interpreted in one way. He didn't make sure and therefore I think you can't assert that it was his intention (becuase if you are, you're are saying that God failed to achieve something so simple). It is more likely that either it wasn't the testament(s) of God or it was and God wanted it to be misinterpreted.

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I think the major reason why the bible seems so cryptic is because of the problems translating from a language so old to the more modern ones. Words don't match very well, and the ones that get put in tend to get confusing and lead away from the original meaning. For example, many people think Genesis claims that God created the Earth in under a week. But the original word that was translated to "Day" doesn't necessarily refer to a literal day. It can also refer to a period of time of any length.

With enough research, you can figure out what's going on. There are parts of the bile that can be taken more than one way. You can figure out which is the correct one by looking at what the rest of the bible says. The one that agrees with the rest of the bible is probably the correct interpretation.

The information is there for the people that take the trouble to look. When Jesus walked the earth, he gave many illustrations, but he only explained the meaning behind them to people that truly wanted to know.

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They couldn't prove that you interpretation is wrong any more than I could prove that God does not exist. Can you prove their interpretation is wrong?

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Probably..what do you want me to disprove?


kedaman

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Why not none of them is truly christian, because the orginal was lost? I don't think God would need to use a book, he would just let us assume what is wrong or right and then let us do what we think is best. The whole idea about grouping ourselves into religions doesn't make sense, it's a human thing, they do it to get money from you, and that's the only thing keeping it up. All the moral and ethical rules, ceremonies and ideas are just marketting tactics. God would never do that.

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The way I see it, all the religions can be divided into two groups. One right one and a whole lot of wrong ones. If this is so, it means that most religions are probably just in it for the money or fame or whatever. So you can't judge the worth and trustworthiness of religion based on averages of all religions. Since most of them are wrong (all but one), it would seem that all religion is worthless. But the one right one isn't worthless. It would be an honest religion that truly follows God with no "marketing tactics". It would probably be in your best interest to find this one religion.

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Originally posted by Inimicum
Ever see the thirtenth floor?
It may be possibly that none of us are alive, we are only randomly selected electrons flowing through wires and posting random accurances of 1's and 0'2 together to make this post possible.

Any occurance that this sentence makes sense is a completely random occurance of flashes of energy in no order what so ever. being translated into text that doesn't really exist.

And that is my take on life. :D

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Yes, it is possible, but not likely. We could also just be human batteries like in The Matrix.

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Originally posted by Tygur

The way I see it, all the religions can be divided into two groups. One right one and a whole lot of wrong ones. If this is so, it means that most religions are probably just in it for the money or fame or whatever. So you can't judge the worth and trustworthiness of religion based on averages of all religions. Since most of them are wrong (all but one), it would seem that all religion is worthless. But the one right one isn't worthless. It would be an honest religion that truly follows God with no "marketing tactics". It would probably be in your best interest to find this one religion.

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No it really doesn't make sense, because a lot of people don't get to choose their religion, really, they are just born with it (like me) and then they don't care what it really means and leave it the way it is. If I'm classed as christian (i'm still because my mum got really angry at me when i was intending to do something about it) and don't believe in god, will I go to heaven or not? Think, just think.

I'm not dismissing the concept of having a true religion, but a decent God would never entrap us in such a system.

IMHO, if you've lived your life right, when you die you live on in the memories of the people who you've come in contact with...when they think of you they smile even though you're not there beside them anymore. When they see something they know you would have enjoyed...when they learn something that would have interested you...when they hear the words you used to say to them coming out of their own mouths....they think of you.

That's what is important not whether you are Christian or Jewish or anything else. What you do when you are alive is what really matters.

Just my two cents worth.:)

That's very nice way to think of it, because it'll keep you happy all your life :)

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Originally posted by kedaman
And you want to die with that?

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I think I could die happy that way, yep!

Keda: I agree but tygur wont because what he says when ya dead ya dead no heaven or nothing! Is that right?

So heaven must be pretty lonely up there with just God and Jesus perhaps a few chicks as well!!:rolleyes:

Tygur:

"The way I see it, all the religions can be divided into two groups. One right one and a whole lot of wrong ones. If this is so, it means that most religions are probably just in it for the money or fame or whatever. So you can't judge the worth and trustworthiness of religion based on averages of all religions. Since most of them are wrong (all but one), it would seem that all religion is worthless. But the one right one isn't worthless. It would be an honest religion that truly follows God with no "marketing tactics". It would probably be in your best interest to find this one religion."

1 right and i suppose this is your religion?
I hope not because it's intollerance like that, that causes wars between who's religion right. Which is pretty f__king stupid to have a war over religion!!

And tell me which religion has nothing to do with money or any other ways of society?
All churches are in it for money and power! They control what a lot of people think and do!
They can go above the power of a government and control masses of people. God didnt want me to sit in a church to pray to him or learn about him! I believe god would want me to have the best possible life i can have and make many others happy etc etc.

kedaman

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No it really doesn't make sense, because a lot of people don't get to choose their religion, really, they are just born with it (like me) and then they don't care what it really means and leave it the way it is. If I'm classed as christian (i'm still because my mum got really angry at me when i was intending to do something about it) and don't believe in god, will I go to heaven or not? Think, just think.

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If you don't believe in God, then you aren't really a christian. Just because your mom insists doesn't count. Your religion is the one you believe in.

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I'm not dismissing the concept of having a true religion, but a decent God would never entrap us in such a system.

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You're right. But it isn't God that got us into this system. According to my own religion, Satan (and his demons) is behind all the false religions.


Beacon

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1 right and i suppose this is your religion?

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I think so, yes. But I suggest that you do research before choosing one (if you even decide to choose one).

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I hope not because it's intollerance like that, that causes wars between who's religion right. Which is pretty f__king stupid to have a war over religion!!

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Intolerance like what? I think all other religions are false. Does this mean I'm going to go around and fight all unbelievers? Wars are fought because people decide that those of other religions don't have/deserve as much respect or as many rights (or whatever else) as themselves. They aren't fought just because people think the other religions are false.

I agree. It is very stupid to fight a war over religion. But I also think other religions are false.

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And tell me which religion has nothing to do with money or any other ways of society?

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Jehovah's Witnesses. We are politically neutral and supported solely by voluntary donations.

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All churches are in it for money and power! They control what a lot of people think and do!

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Like I said before, you can't describe religion as a whole based on the majority of religions, because the whole idea of religion is that only one is right, anyway.

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Originally posted by Tygur
[B]
You're right. But it isn't God that got us into this system. According to my own religion, Satan (and his demons) is behind all the false religions.

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God delegates control to satan, because he is God, he controls everything including satan, So don't blame on him. It's all God's fault in all cases but one, that this religion business is our business. If there can only be one true religion, then we are the ones to define it, i'd define this pure human stupidity.

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Originally posted by barrk
IMHO, if you've lived your life right, when you die you live on in the memories of the people who you've come in contact with...when they think of you they smile even though you're not there beside them anymore. When they see something they know you would have enjoyed...when they learn something that would have interested you...when they hear the words you used to say to them coming out of their own mouths....they think of you.

That's what is important not whether you are Christian or Jewish or anything else. What you do when you are alive is what really matters.

Just my two cents worth.:)

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:) That a really nice way to think about it Katie :)

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Originally posted by kedaman

God delegates control to satan, because he is God, he controls everything including satan, So don't blame on him. It's all God's fault in all cases but one, that this religion business is our business. If there can only be one true religion, then we are the ones to define it, i'd define this pure human stupidity.

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Really? Does this mean he controls you and me, too? Satan chooses to do what he does. God isn't telling him to do all this.

God set up the true religion. We (humans), with the prodding of Satan, put together a huge mass of other religions.

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Really? Does this mean he controls you and me, too? Satan chooses to do what he does. God isn't telling him to do all this.

God set up the true religion. We (humans), with the prodding of Satan, put together a huge mass of other religions.

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God created Satan, he knows exactly what he does and he allows him to do it, because he needs him. If you dont' agree with that you sure are a messed up christian. Mainly because this means God is not omnscient and omnipotent, which to me sounds like a fake God.

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Originally posted by kedaman

God created Satan, he knows exactly what he does and he allows him to do it, because he needs him. If you dont' agree with that you sure are a messed up christian. Mainly because this means God is not omnscient and omnipotent, which to me sounds like a fake God.

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I explained this in one of the other threads. There are some things that God does not forsee. There are times when God does have regrets. This is covered in the bible. For example, God regretted appointing Saul as the first king of Israel.

Tygur: "volontary donations" to do what with?? Might i add by land etc. like the catholics do?
Still needs money volontary or not it's still money!

So God made a mistake hey?
But if he knows all and can do all then why did he not forsee this?
Why/How did God not see that saul was a bastard?

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Tygur: "volontary donations" to do what with?? Might i add by land etc. like the catholics do?
Still needs money volontary or not it's still money!

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Can you name an organization, religious or not, that does not need money to function? Why is it so bad that we need money? Yes, the catholics buy land, but they also pay off large amounts of money to the people at the top. We all know they're just in it for the money and power.

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So God made a mistake hey?
But if he knows all and can do all then why did he not forsee this?
Why/How did God not see that saul was a bastard?

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We all have our free will. We can change our minds and reverse past decisions. We aren't completely predictable.

hmm just funny why God made a mistake!
He's god! Shouldnt make mistakes should he?
Unless it was for a reason!

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Originally posted by Beacon
hmm just funny why God made a mistake!
He's god! Shouldnt make mistakes should he?
Unless it was for a reason!

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It's not necessarily a mistake. He intended on having people make decisions themselves. It's your own fault (not God's) if you decide to do something against God.

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Satan chooses to do what he does. God isn't telling him to do all this.

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You keep saying this but you can't get around the fact that either God created Satan knowing exactly what he would do, or he chose not to know but is still just as responsible because he could have known.

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I explained this in one of the other threads. There are some things that God does not forsee. There are times when God does have regrets

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You can't absolve God's responsibility for what has happened. To say God has regrets is to "humanise" him. How can an omnipotent force like God have regrets? This is what I mean by contradictions in the Bible.

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We all have our free will. We can change our minds and reverse past decisions. We aren't completely predictable.

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eh...Well. That's not entirely true is it? As you said earlier, God could decide to know what the outcome of our lives would be. So therefore, we are entirely predictable.

Tygur
Your God is not omnipotent/omniscient, a fake-God in other terms, a God that does mistakes and could eventually turn this place to a hell if something went wrong. What if a man detonated some nuclear warheads leaving no living humans left on earth, due to their "free will". Then God would stand there and say, "Oops! I shouldn't have given them free will" :rolleyes: Irrational.

Everyone
Sorry about the delay, but I had a lot to look into. I wasn't sure if God's knowledge of the future was by choice or not. I got it all figured out now.

God created the universe and all its rules (Our laws of physics are our interpretation of these rules). God, having made these rules, has chosen to abide by them (I'm not sure whether they have to be broken to see the future, but it doesn't really matter). So he can see as much of the future as he chooses to. When he created everyone and everything, he did it without looking into the future to see what would happen. This means he didn't know Satan would go bad (Satan wasn't even his name back then). He didn't bother to look. Instead, he decided to trust his creations. We all have free will and we do as we choose. Only we determine our fate.

Many people would like to blame God for negligence by saying he should've looked. So you tell me, how would it look to the other angels if God killed off an angel because he knew the angel would be bad? The other angles would be pretty scared and they might also have doubts as to the credibility of God (I know I would).

God is not so controlling. If he was, would we really have free will?

Does that answer everyone's questions on the subject?

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Originally posted by simonm
You can't absolve God's responsibility for what has happened. To say God has regrets is to "humanise" him. How can an omnipotent force like God have regrets? This is what I mean by contradictions in the Bible.

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Saying that God can/does have regrets does not "humanise" him. Remember, we are made in God's image. This means, in part, that we have feelings, just as God does. We can feel regret, why not God?

We have free will???

What is free will?

The ability to freely make our own decisions.

But arent our decisions heavily influenced buy other people or organisations?

Free to do certain things as long as they are in line with what society terms good behaviour or acceptable!

Our decisions are influenced by what's around us, but they are still our own decisions.

Actually, we're free to choose to do whatever we want. We just have to suffer the consequences of our actions. I'm free to decide to go around killing everyone I see, but I'm going to have to suffer the consequences if I choose to do so.

But what tells you to do these decisions what makes you decide?

What are you trying to get at?
You make decisions. You choose what you choose. You base your decisions on your knowledge of your surroundings and what you know/think would happen if you decided one way or another.

What i'm getting at is possibly a rather stupid point but hey why not!

What if it aint you making those decisions perhaps it's something else? Like destiny or guardian angels or what if where like lab mice??

Well, my views are based on the bible, and I'm sure you know the bible doesn't support that, so I'll let the bible go for a moment..


You are aware of your making the decisions, aren't you? If you're willing to throw out the concept of you yourself making your decisions, your idea of destiny or guardian angels might hold water (it'd have to be looked into further). As for the lab mice, it sounds about as far-fetched as thinking we're human batteries like in The Martix. I suppose it's possible, but very unlikely.

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When he created everyone and everything, he did it without looking into the future to see what would happen. This means he didn't know Satan would go bad (Satan wasn't even his name back then). He didn't bother to look. Instead, he decided to trust his creations. We all have free will and we do as we choose. Only we determine our fate.

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You really are missing the point I am trying to make. If the future was there to be looked at then it must be predetermined (whether he actually looked at it or not is immaterial).

And don't tell us God didn't look into the future of mankind. What are all the prophesies about then if he didn't? Lucky guesses?

As for free-will, it is debateable whether it actually exists (or is just an illusion) irrespective of you take on the bible.

For example, there is evidence that our sub-consiosness makes descisions up to 9 seconds before it registers in our consious mind. What we think are rational, well reasoned, descisions are just final manifestations of our subconsious workings.

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God is not so controlling. If he was, would we really have free will?

Does that answer everyone's questions on the subject?

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"so" doesn't mean much to me. Either it means all or nothing. If we have free will, then the conceptualness of it would be that it is predictable, not because it's not what we think it is, but because to God nothing is impossible. I don't think God intended to be Stupid and take risks just for the kick of it, because if that's so impossible why can't he get that without risking anything at all? The rational answer would be that God created a deterministic universe, and determinism doesn't undermine free will if you derive determinism from it.

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Kedaman,
The rational answer would be that God created a deterministic universe, and determinism doesn't undermine free will if you derive determinism from it.

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I don't think I quite understand what you are saying here. How can a deterministic universe not undermine the concept of free-will? :confused:

You wonder if it's not a contradiction? Determinism means something is predictable, and if the results of free will is predictable, that is if God can predict the results, it's deterministic. If you're omniscient, that shouldn't be a problem.

If our descisions are predictable then how can we have free-will?

I'm not saying that predicting should be a problem for a god that is omniscient but if you accept the fact that God is omniscient then you must also accept the fact that we don't have free-will.

Free will is irrelevant. It's whether we think we're in control or not.

If I decide to do something, it may not be my decision, but I get the feeling of "choosing".

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Free will is irrelevant. It's whether we think we're in control or not.

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Yes, that roughly reflects my personnal opinion.

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If I decide to do something, it may not be my decision, but I get the feeling of "choosing".

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But that's not quite good enough is it? If it's not really your decision then it could be argued that you couldn't have done anything else, even if you wanted to.

But since we don't know what could happen from any other decisions we make that one. I don't think that every decision may be decided, but a general course is. For example, you want to get to London. You can take many different roads, but you still get to London.

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Originally posted by parksie
You can take many different roads, but you still get to London.

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Assuming you don't get mugged!

I can't help but feel that this is an un-arguable point because either:-

a) We have "free will", but we can never prove that it exists because we will always be suspicious that we just think we have free will, or

b) We don't have "free will" and are actually controlled by an external influence (god, aliens, mice etc) and therefore they are running both sides of this argument.... assuming they don't want us to find out the "truth".

Personally I think we do have free-will, but then, maybe someone is making me think that?

SD

I'm making you think that :)

There were 2 murders in a week at the end of my sister's road while she was in London (she's back in student residences next year).

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Originally posted by parksie
There were 2 murders in a week at the end of my sister's road while she was in London (she's back in student residences next year).

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Did she get away with it then?

SD

Yeah, I think so. She nicked some of the police tape on her way past as well :)

They're such rebels...they stole a "Vote McFlurry" poster off the wall in the underground. Anyone who's been there will know just how big those advert posters are :D

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I don't think that every decision may be decided, but a general course is. For example, you want to get to London. You can take many different roads, but you still get to London.

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Well, how do you know we're going to London? :D

So you are proposing that there are points of innevitable convergence on the time stream but the exact maner with which these points are travelled between can vary freely?

If this were the case, it would be interesting to know if these "points of convergence" were directed by a superior being. Then if so, is the superior being acting out of it's own free will or being drawn towards it's own set of timestream convergences.

If these time stream convergences weren't created by an external entity, why do they exist attall?

Ah...So many questions, so little time. :rolleyes:

That's exactly what I'm saying :)

It's like lossless decompression - the individual parts of the image can vary in unknown ways (depending on the algorithm) but it's still the same picture in the end.

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Originally posted by parksie
That's exactly what I'm saying :)

It's like lossless decompression - the individual parts of the image can vary in unknown ways (depending on the algorithm) but it's still the same picture in the end.

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I haven't been following this too closely Mike but are you saying that there are no critical decision point where a tiny change or decision changes the future course of events significantly?

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If our descisions are predictable then how can we have free-will?

I'm not saying that predicting should be a problem for a god that is omniscient but if you accept the fact that God is omniscient then you must also accept the fact that we don't have free-will.

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God contradicting it's universe doesn't seem logical to you. To me it makes perfect sense. If God was in his objective reality, he could just simply create (all) the universe(s) for us, in a subreality in which contradictions may occur between it and the objective one. Free will would to us be fact in our subreality, until we conclude it doesn't exist and therefore deny it.

I think that in a finite reality, there is not room for but one mind.

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Originally posted by Kzin
I haven't been following this too closely Mike but are you saying that there are no critical decision point where a tiny change or decision changes the future course of events significantly?

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Yep :)

I actually kinda like the whole "not in control" thing - it means I don't have to worry about screwing it up because I know that me screwing it up was someone else's decision :p

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Originally posted by parksie
Yep :)

I actually kinda like the whole "not in control" thing - it means I don't have to worry about screwing it up because I know that me screwing it up was someone else's decision :p

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Your decisions might be prebuffered into some sort of form you fill in before you enter your universe. Then you have to take all the responsibilities afterwards.