What do you believe in?

[Dudecore]

I'm suggesting the choice happens on the level of your brain, before you actually articulate it. No one is CHOOSING the bacon, theyre mind is simply rewarding them for eating fatty foods. Those foods just taste better.

The case of the shirts, how come you picked the one you did? Maybe you preferred the color, but why? Its the illusion of such choice that makes free will a possibility for some.

There is no such choice in deciding to have a 2nd cup of coffee. My brain simply tells me to drink it. We're creatures governed by our brain. If we had the free will you speak of, our moods, opinions, desires and actions would differ from one moment to the next. We'd be blown around by the winds of free will. We could hardly be considered "ourselves".

[Nobbert]

The Christian god allows good people to do bad things because he gave man free will.  Man's evil is a result of free will, according to Christian apologists.  Heaven is a place free of evil. Therefore, I must ask: do you have free will in heaven?  If so, then evil can exist in heaven, which doesn't sound heavenly.  If not, then I'd have no choice over my own actions, which also doesn't sound very heavenly.

There are two main issues that go against that argument.
First, when we consider God and Heaven, we think of them in earthly terms. (Streets of gold, pearly gates, etc.) The Bible uses these terms to try to help our mortal minds understand something that we cannot fully understand. So to say that sin could be in heaven is speaking on mortal terms.
Second, because our mortal minds cannot comprehend the spiritual side of things, we assume that we can do whatever we want in Heaven. I believe that the power and presence of God will be so overwhelming and awesome, that we will want to do nothing more than sing His praises for eternity. While this may sound boring, and it does to me sometimes as well, this is only because our mortal minds cannot comprehend God Himself.

That kind of sounds like a cop out to me.  A big 'ol back door.  How do you fight logical reasoning?  Just say we can't understand it!  Genius, really.

[BlackJester]

Easy, Nobbert.  Easy there.  We've made it 14 pages now with little to no real flaming.  Let's try to maintain that.

If readers have made is this far in this thread, feel free to interrupt and role call what you believe.

[Nobbert]

Easy, Nobbert.  Easy there.  We've made it 14 pages now with little to no real flaming.  Let's try to maintain that.

If readers have made is this far in this thread, feel free to interrupt and role call what you believe.

I will not ever insult a person for their religious beliefs. I am merely stating my own observations.  The point i was trying to make is that whenever a good logical argument is brought up, the easiest way that religion deals with things is to have some sort of cop out.
Say I claim that there is a pink elephant living in my fridge. You may think this is absurd and ask to see it.  I tell you that the elephant is invisible!  So you ask if you can reach out and touch it, to which I tell you our mere mortal senses cannot actually feel that it is there.  It might as well be that the elephant doesn't even exist.

[BlackJester]

I will not ever insult a person for their religious beliefs. I am merely stating my own observations.  The point i was trying to make is that whenever a good logical argument is brought up, the easiest way that religion deals with things is to have some sort of cop out.
Say I claim that there is a pink elephant living in my fridge. You may think this is absurd and ask to see it.  I tell you that the elephant is invisible!  So you ask if you can reach out and touch it, to which I tell you our mere mortal senses cannot actually feel that it is there.  It might as well be that the elephant doesn't even exist.

I know you may not have meant ill, I'm just saying the tone of a line like "Genius, really." could be read as a little mean-spirited.

[RevanJJ]

I'm a Christian, but have friends that are of many religions or none at all.
Live and let live is my philosophy.

[Jbombard51]

I'm suggesting the choice happens on the level of your brain, before you actually articulate it. No one is CHOOSING the bacon, theyre mind is simply rewarding them for eating fatty foods. Those foods just taste better.

The case of the shirts, how come you picked the one you did? Maybe you preferred the color, but why? Its the illusion of such choice that makes free will a possibility for some.

There is no such choice in deciding to have a 2nd cup of coffee. My brain simply tells me to drink it. We're creatures governed by our brain. If we had the free will you speak of, our moods, opinions, desires and actions would differ from one moment to the next. We'd be blown around by the winds of free will. We could hardly be considered "ourselves".

Be careful when using a drug such as caffiene with free choice arguments. In this case you had the choice initially to consume the first, when it was a foreign substance to your body. After that is a myriad of reasons to how and why some people 'need' it and others don't.

[Nobbert]

I will not ever insult a person for their religious beliefs. I am merely stating my own observations.  The point i was trying to make is that whenever a good logical argument is brought up, the easiest way that religion deals with things is to have some sort of cop out.
Say I claim that there is a pink elephant living in my fridge. You may think this is absurd and ask to see it.  I tell you that the elephant is invisible!  So you ask if you can reach out and touch it, to which I tell you our mere mortal senses cannot actually feel that it is there.  It might as well be that the elephant doesn't even exist.

I know you may not have meant ill, I'm just saying the tone of a line like "Genius, really." could be read as a little mean-spirited.

I apologize if that sounded snake-like. I was truly admiring the complexity that is religious belief and its dogma. It really is a genius system.

[Xanzurth]

We were asked what do we believe. But what we have come to be discussing is the Unknown. With the Unknown when any logical human stops and thinks about it, I mean really thinks about it, what states back from across the Unknown scares the "hell" out of them. Anyone who says they are not scared if the Unknown has not truly looked or possible psychotic. And maybe they reason they become psychotic is they stared into the Unknown too long.
But hey what do I know just an ape-man living on the third rock from the closes star.

[Jbombard51]

We were asked what do we believe. But what we have come to be discussing is the Unknown. With the Unknown when any logical human stops and thinks about it, I mean really thinks about it, what states back from across the Unknown scares the "hell" out of them. Anyone who says they are not scared if the Unknown has not truly looked or possible psychotic. And maybe they reason they become psychotic is they stared into the Unknown too long.
But hey what do I know just an ape-man living on the third rock from the closes star.

I disagree. The unknown has caused many of the worst wars and massacres amongst humans. By your logic you could justify these things as Normal and not psychotic.

Fear born from passive ignorance is to be most feared.

[Coffee Vampire]

@ Nobbert:

Christians don't just say "we will find out when we get there" and stuff like that to cover up and avoid arguments with facts and reason. They say it because of faith. God has given us the Bible, which is really all we need to live as far as where we get our morals abd how to live. We don't get a description that exactly describes heaven (and all the rules and physics in heaven, etc.) because we really don't need it. God gave us what we need for earth, and a small glimpse of what heaven will be. It's like fathering a child. You give him what he needs right now. He will learn about heaven () when you think he needs to, etc. Even Evolution needs faith. You need a lot of faith to believe that somewhere (even though "where" didn't exist yet) in time (if time even existed), something (even though "things" didn't exist yet) happened that spontaniously caused the entire universe to be created, along with cells so complex that they later evolved into humans that can sit down and argue about free will.

You don't think that requires faith? I am saying in this post that Christians are not all dogmatic. True some seperate faith and reason. But I am saying that while I could argue for the existence of a god, then argue about why it has to be the god I believe in, argue about free will, evil, and all kinds of other things, SOME things, like heaven, are a mystery. And I'm ok with that.

But that doesn't mean I don't have theories of what it will be like, in case you were wondering. So here's what I think of heaven:

God is good. Evil is bad. What is evil though? I define evil as seperated from good (seperate from God). In heaven, I will be with God. Furthermore, I believe that heaven is the end of faith. I will know things that I can not even concieve right now. Which isn't hard to believe because there are a lot of things I can't concieve. Like a universe without time. Stuff like that. And even furthermore, I believe that Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. The knowledge of good and evil. Before, it's not like they were not allowed by God to WANT to sin (this is proven because they WANTED to eat from the tree, and God allowed them to); they just didn't know how.

From all this, I conclude that in heaven I will still have the free will that God made me with (I am made in his image). However, I will be in his presence, and will forget how to sin. This is not the same as not being allowed to sin. I will forget how to harm myself in any way. And I like that idea. I'm ok with forgetting. In my opinion, perfect knowledge is not complete knowledge. And in heaven I will have perfect knowledge.

That's my perception of heaven, anyways. It is just speculation, and guesses. But I just wanted to clarify that Christians are not all just dogs that blindly believe everything they are fed is holy when it's really just their own s---. Some Christians are like that, but not this one. This one, along with many others, is both faithful AND reasonable.

[Dudecore]

Be it a chemical like caffeine. Your brain is still producing testosterone, estrogen, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.

I don't believe you had the "choice" to consume your first ever cup. You consumed a cup of coffee due to a myriad of factors preceding your conscious desire for a cup. A desire that originated in your brain, by your brain.

[BlackJester]

We were asked what do we believe. But what we have come to be discussing is the Unknown. With the Unknown when any logical human stops and thinks about it, I mean really thinks about it, what states back from across the Unknown scares the "hell" out of them. Anyone who says they are not scared if the Unknown has not truly looked or possible psychotic. And maybe they reason they become psychotic is they stared into the Unknown too long.
But hey what do I know just an ape-man living on the third rock from the closes star.

If it were known, it would move from "What do you believe?" to "What do you know?"  At which point, we could be playing Trivial Pursuit.  XD

As a human, I'm not scared of the Unknown, because I know so little, that pretty much describes everything.  I think the Unknown holds wonder and amazement.  We grown apes have made some incredible findings by diving into what we don't know and shrinking that "abyss that stares back", making it a little smaller with each smash of the LHC, each immunoassay, each measurement of our world.  Maybe I'm just psychotic.

[Jbombard51]

So the theatre massacre suspect of recent didn't have a choice?

The excuse of destiny, no free will , etc is only an excuse for actions born from free will, not the reason. 

[BlackJester]

Be it a chemical like caffeine. Your brain is still producing testosterone, estrogen, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.

I don't believe you had the "choice" to consume your first ever cup. You consumed a cup of coffee due to a myriad of factors preceding your conscious desire for a cup. A desire that originated in your brain, by your brain.

Wait, so "an original desire" that became an action?    Sounds like Free Will to me.