by candidlynuts 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
TMO commented on reading books which gave different views on why under the crisis of conscience thread.
all i've ever known is the jw view. that he is giving satan time to prove mankind cant lead themselves.
what are other views? or point me to some books to read maybe?
It's real simple.
In order for us to truly have free will, God has to allow the possibility that a person exercising their own free will could commit evil/wickedness. It's not that he likes it, but you can't have one without the other. If we were all only allowed to do good, then in effect we are not free to exercise all of our will completely.
It's an unfortunate by-product. The only saving grace is that our inherrent and god's inherrent nature is always good, and that is what all beings are at their core. It's the perversion of free will that destroys that in individual souls and others.
Karma is the momentum of bad or good actions. It is not evil or good in and of itself. Just momentum generated by free will being enacted.
I think this explanation makes more sense than a testing period of satan. If anything, Satan and evil could represent the negative consequences of man's free will.
--Rich
quote:In order for us to truly have free will, God has to allow the possibility that a person exercising their own free will could commit evil/wickedness""
so he permits wickedness in order to give us free will?
free will is another subject........how can it be truly free will if salvation only comes by being a jehovah's witness??
my sig. other is atheist.. he says if there is a God he created all things including evil.. therefore how is He worthy of worship?
karma...... thats part of eastern religion? what goes around comes around kind of thought?
Hmm, I would throw the "There is no God, at least not the one you think there is" idea out there, but maybe even if there is a God, he is just not so concerned with human affairs as we may think he is or want him to be. Maybe our concept of God is a totally human creation? Maybe God CAN'T do anything about our suffering. Or maybe humans are just left to our own devices.
"There is no God, at least not the one you think there is" idea out there
i'll go a little further, he/she problay died centuries ago, and no one knew ??? anything is possible.
Maybe God CAN'T do anything about our suffering.that is an interesting point/theory, never thought of that before !!!!!!!!!
so he permits wickedness in order to give us free will?free will is another subject........
Yes. We wouldn't be truly free to do whatever we wanted without the possibility that if we want to we can commit acts of evil. Free will is inherently tied to God permitting evil.
Karma is an eastern thing. I'm basically stating what Eastern philosophy says concerning evil. It is the result of free will and momentum of bad actions in previous lives and in the one you are currently in.
Neuroscience accepts the overwhelming evidence that mental states depend on brain states. Is there room for a robust kind of free will where agents can act as independent causes of the brain states which in turn cause our actions. This kind of free will seems necessary if one accepts Christian tenets about morality, justice, and salvation. The problem is that our mental states are determined by the brain's physical properties. Because we cannot choose the physical properties of our brains we cannot really choose our own mental states or our actions. It is an interesting fact that this point is uncontroversial when we are talking about a patient suffering from psychosis due to a chemical imbalance in the brain but resisted when we are talking about people with normally functioning brains. What differentiates the psychotic from the mentally-healthy individual is the difference in the physical properties of their brains. The way a mentally-healthy person reasons about situations and decides what courses of action to take are just as determined by his normally-functioning brain as the psychotic's reasoning and decision-making are determined by his malfunctioning brain. This raises some interesting questions about moral responsibility. If a psychotic becomes a serial killer due to a chemical imbalance in his brain, does this exempt him from responsibility for his actions? If so, where do we draw the line for when brain states exempt someone from moral responsibility since all of our actions are ultimately determined by our brain states? Does this exempt all of us from moral responsibility?
What about the dubious arguments that quantum indeterminacy leaves room for robust free will? Quantum effects are quite negligible on the level of neurons, that overall brain function is based on large networks of neurons and thus the unpredictable behavior of a single neuron would make little difference in the brain as a whole, and the random fluctuations associated with quantum indeterminacy are minute compared to thermodynamic fluctuations or fluctuations in the blood supply to the brain. This latter point is especially poignant because even if quantum fluctuations did occur at the level of neurons their effects would be 'drowned out' by the much larger deterministic sorts of bodily fluctuations.
Rather than finding a place for free will, indeterminacy could be used to excuse a person of responsibility for his actions.
Determinism is the position that all events--including human actions--are determined by the causes that preceded them. Indeterminism holds that some events are not determined by prior causes but rather occur randomly and unpredictably with no causes at all. If any of our actions occur randomly, without cause, then those actions are not under our control. If we set up a machine to 'decide' whether or not to shoot someone based on the results of a random number generator (odds meaning shoot, evens meaning do not shoot) we would not say that the machine 'freely chose' its action or was responsible for it. For this reason we cannot use quantum indeterminacy to provide free will or assign responsibility for human actions. The emerging picture strongly implies that we cannot choose otherwise than we do whether or not determinism is true. By all indications, a robust, counter-causal sort of free will is an illusion: Either human actions are completely determined by prior causes or they occasionally occur randomly for no reason at all.
Yes, thinking is dangerous ;-)
Prins V.
Candy, here's a link to your question: Why God permits evil
RR
Brain states or healthy brains are instuments that allow us to navigate the moral minefield of free fill. Unfortunately, a mentally unbalanced person isn't so adept at doing this. Are they responsible for their crimes? Not sure. It is because of their malfunctioning brains. .
I look at healthy brain as an instrument for implementing free will, not the other way around.
The problem lies here........God KNOWS EVERYTHING....before it happens. If this is true, god KNEW Adam and Eve would fail and bring about suffering and death to all mankind for thousands of years.
Why would a loving god proceed with this creation? Why?
Hell, even I'm smart enough to know that if I take a certain action that will bring horrible results......then I better not go that route. Why did god do it anyway? Did he figure we could suffer, but in time it would produce a favorable result? That's idiotic! A god that powerful, could pull it off with nobody suffering if he wanted, but he apparently didn't want to. There is no reason good enough to explain the horrors mankind has needlesly gone through............at least I haven't found any.
Gumby
