Freewill vs Pre-destination

And the prize goes to RoadClosed, Congratulations Road.....

Predestination is impossible..... Whether predestination is ordained by a supreme being or not that concept of predestination is too fraught with the potential for disaster for it to be viable and it would have almost certainly failed by now.

Consider the gazillions of things that have to occur every day to every person. The "plan" is so complex that it's inconceivable the number of permutations. Then split second timing is required for every act, action and event. If one single piece of the "plan" becomes held up or doesn't occur exactly as planned then the entire "plan" begins to unravel. Once it starts to unravel it does so at a geometric rate until it fails completely. The result: Chaos.... Hmm... Maybe things were predestined once.... But we have evolved past predestination into a more logical existence..... ;) Or maybe it was just another convenient salve for the soul of those that require an explanation of why their gods allow atrocities, natural disasters and death when they aren't "necessary".....

That's my athiestic 2c.... It's actually worth a lot more.... :D

Yes and that is just OUR planet, add in the motion of the Solar System, out course in a sprial arm spining around the core of a galaxy and that galaxy, the Milkey Way hurling on it's own course among billions of Universes both like our own and some very different, spinning in oposite directions or just a glob of stars with no sprials. Amazing Chaos. Born of Choas, evovling among choas and terminated in chaotic events.

I guess we'll never acctually know... we can only assume... there's alot to consider, and alot that contridicts itself... who knows, maybe we'll know later on... *shrug*

microburn

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Why not? If he can't give us free will, doesn't that also mean He's not omnipotent?

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God is omnipotent and it is what makes him God at least what we've been lead to believe is
God(omnipotent). I know this may sound like i'm going in circles but there is a point to this.
It's not that God can't give us free will it's that he does or doesnt choose to. Just because
God can do what ever he wants he doesnt mean he does.
:rolleyes: Some food for thaught... If God made man then was it through free-will and if so
then maybe that is how man is like God . And as far as the tree in the garden of eve if God is
omnipotent he knew man would take it then was it his intention? :confused:

Haxor:

Now I know why you use that avatar.... Your thought processes confuses the crap outta me..... It must be awful to have to live with them..... ;)

I'll take that as a compliment... :D

It wasn't meant badly.... Just an observation.... ;)

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Or maybe it was just another convenient salve for the soul of those that require an explanation of why their gods allow atrocities, natural disasters and death when they aren't "necessary".....

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Ok, this is the second thread you brought this up in, and this time it's a little more relevant to the main topic, so I gotta finally jump in on this concept...

This seems to be a contradiction in your belief system to me. If we are evolving, why are humans the only species that have an instinctive need to create lies in order to cope with their existence? That doesn't seem very evolutionary to me. Why aren't we configured like all the other creatures in the world, who care not about such things? Is that really logical? If we instinctively are looking for a higher source that's not there to comfort ourselves, then we must be really evolutionary screwed up.

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Born of Choas, evovling among choas and terminated in chaotic events.

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If you've studied any philosophy junk, you can probably predict the counterpoint I'm about to throw at you --

If everything's so chaotic, then why is there order in the universe? Why do we have a state of order to degrade from in the first place? In that sense we're devolving.

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This seems to be a contradiction in your belief system to me. If we are evolving, why are humans the only species that have an instinctive need to create lies in order to cope with their existence? That doesn't seem very evolutionary to me. Why aren't we configured like all the other creatures in the world, who care not about such things? Is that really logical? If we instinctively are looking for a higher source that's not there to comfort ourselves, then we must be really evolutionary screwed up.

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Now now...
"Instinctive need" is exactly what it is. 100,000 years ago, everybody believed in some sort of higher power. Nowadays probably only 70% still does (just a figure... no clue what the exact figure would be). My point: that number is going down, and it's probably going to keep on going down. The more science evolves, the more that number is going to go down.

Same goes for evolution Vs. creation. Before Darwin, almost everybody believed that God (or at least some higher power) created man. The US is one of the only Western countries were a majority of the population still believe in creationism (in Western Europe, that number is almost down to zero - creationism is taught, but not as a fact). Darwin caused a scientific revolution, and the number of people believing in creationism went down significantly. This number keeps on going down with every new scientific discovery.

Instinct indeed is the word. Some of our instinct we need to survive (fear, for example... although you could probably survive in a civilized nation nowadays without that instinct) and that's an instinct that we still have. The less need there is for it, though, the less it's going to evolve. Most, if not all, of our instincts are declining. Instinct evolution has become instinct devolution.

Evolution only takes care of needed "upgrades". It doesn't care about stuff that isn't necessary.

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If everything's so chaotic, then why is there order in the universe? Why do we have a state of order to degrade from in the first place? In that sense we're devolving.

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I don't think there's "order" in the universe. There is order within chaos, sure, just like there is *some* order in every chaos. And you're mixing up our (human) evolution with the "evolution" of the universe. The universe doesn't "evolve"... it changes. Humans evolve or devolve (and change, too... heh).

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If we are evolving, why are humans the only species that have an instinctive need to create lies in order to cope wit their existence?

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two questions:-

1. How do you know we are?
2. Is it possible that, by creating our own stress.... Which no-ne can deny we do.... We are the only ones that create a need for a method with which to deal with and justify our existence.

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Why aren't we configured like all the creatures in the world

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We are... We just like to think that we are "civilized", that we have overlaid our primal instincts with a better, more advanced, way of dealing with things.... Would you like to see some video of the beheadings in Iraq..... Go look at them and tell me we are better then animals.... We aren't, there isn't an animal in the world that acts out of malice, except you and me.... Frankly I haven't met an animal yet that I distrust more than I distrust your average human being.... I know where the animal is coming from and I understand his/her needs and what the desires are in a given situation.... While humans exhibit _exactly_ the same needs and desires they are also "evil" in the way they may try to acheive them.... Much more dangerous!!!

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then we must be really evolutionary screwed up.

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What, because we are too stupid still to be able to understand that there are things we don't understand? This is where I believe "humanity" isn't opening it's eyes, let alone it's mind.... There are still too many people in this world that will accept a "story", regardless of it's origin, simply because it can't be refuted. But the point is that it is impossible to prove a negative, (that a supreme being doesn't exist), but no-one has proven the positive, that a supreme being exists.... Note the word _proven_!

The absolute proof of the arrogance of humanity is the belief in a supreme being. It means that we are so knowledgable and powerful that anything we cannot control or understand _has_ to be the product of a supreme being. It doesn't take into account the fact that we might not _yet_ have the information..... It will/may come.... It isn't that long ago that we decided that lightning wasn't an act of god, the pope himself just a few years ago said... "Errrr... Ok, we accept evolution"..... Can't you see the pattern?

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If everything's so chaotic, then why is there order in the universe? Why do we have a state of order to degrade from in the first place? In that sense we're devolving.

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Order is a product of time.... Time change, order thus changes. Order doesn't change radically over short time periods thus the illusion of order exists.... but over longer time samples the order changes to a greater extent..... It's still chaos..... You just see chaos as an instant and immediate thing.... It's not....

Angelic... We disagree on our beliefs.... But if you want to argue them I can do it all day and all night. I once went three weeks solid on a bet with a person who completed seminary on a bet that he could change my belief system..... At the end of the three weeks his statement was "You were right... You have a strong belief system and I can't change it.... But you made me think too....."

Lets not let our differences in belief make us not like each other.... It ain't worth it.... Okay? ;)