Free will?

by upside/down 8 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  upside/down

  Does anyone REALLY have it?

  We are not given the same chance that "Adam & Eve" were given...

  We actually should all be given our own "paradise" planet and the same parameters that were given to them...

  We are not...we are born with all sorts of inborn "imperfections" and outside influences...BEYOND OUR CONTROL. So any "test" is a farce.

  Interesting that the only "perfect" people (JC don't count as he was pseudo-human...he was in the know)...failed....Yet supposedly, many of us "imperfects" are successful...How so?

  "Religion" fails to satisfy the truly enquiring mind........again!

  u/d (of the wants his chance at ruling the world too class)
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  kid-A

  I cannot believe in free will simply because for me, such a concept would require that a particular decision I take would have to be completely unencumbered by ANY pre-existing biases, influences, memories, etc. "Freedom" or "Free" the way I envision it, is the absence of all constraint. I can not think of any decision I have ever made in my life not influenced by prior experience, memories, or biases. I believe we inherit a genetic range within which our minds and bodies may operate, but we are still operating within the confines of these limits in everything we do, and every decision we make. This does not however make us unaccountable for our actions because we still have "circumscribed" choices that we can make within the confines of the moral universe we (or our specific society) constructs for us.

  Even the decisions we make with biological implications are governed by homeostatic, physiological processes (sex, the food we eat, the liquids we seek, etc).
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  poppers

  Free will implies that there is "someone" there who can choose or not choose to "do" something. When searched for, no such entity will ever be found. All that will be found are ideas about who/what one is, and that in which those ideas arise. Without a "me" to choose there can be no free will. What appears as free will is an appearance only exercised by an "apparant" me. This apparant me is a phantom only, pretending to exercise or pretending to deny free will.
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  Qcmbr

  Maybe Adam and Eve didn't fail - maybe what they did was incredible, fantastic, brave and resulted in you and me.
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  Shining One

  >Maybe Adam and Eve didn't fail - maybe what they did was incredible, fantastic, brave and resulted in you and me.
  
  I have one for you. God was not at all suprised by the actions of Adam and Eve. He had a plan to create beings that were not puppets and this had to allow for the existence of evil. Within His plan He would reveal Himself in three ways, redeem makind Himself for the evil that was allowed to exist. None of His created, sentient beings would ever die (immortal soul). No, not even the ones who chose not to worship Him. He prepared a place for each and they would go where they chose to go.
  Rex
• 

  upside/down

  What I find ironic...is that the "god" of the Bible...laid down some pretty strict "rules"...the failure to heed of which, deserved the death penalty.

  Yet today...according to "the rules"...we are all deserving death... even though most are fully ignorant. I don't see anyone being struck dead...

  So where is "god"...?

  I for one... would love to kill the bastards who committed adultery with my wife...but they all get off Scot free...there isn't one law ANYWHERE to protect me. There will NEVER be justice...and there can never be "pay-back"...And yet "god" is supposed to "fix" this with his NS? How?

  I've come to learn...some people can have their "cake" and fuck eat it too...

  u/d(of the used to love "cake" class)

  p.s.- "Free-will" is a preposterously absurd concept, if you really think about it. To prove it...try and excersise your "will" and just see how "free" it turns out to be.
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  SixofNine

  "Free Will" is the Sienfeld of supposedly spiritual people; a show about nothing. It's just a concept anyway, but what a silly concept, at least as expressed by most religionist.
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  upside/down

  I agree 6...

  u/d
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  jwfacts

  How can it be said Adam and Eve had free will if they were told they would be snuffed if they did anything God did not approve of. If in the new system we have to live in accordance to Gods rules or else be killed, that is not free will, so why create us with the ability for wrong in the first place. It makes no sense.
  Yin Yang is far more logical. Day night, good bad, creation destruction. The earth will not last forever so we were obviously not put here to live forever. The bible and most religions of all denominations teach the concept of heaven. So why be put on earth in the first place. To me it seems to be just part of the cycle to learn what the cycle is. Growth, wisdom and knowledge seem to be the goal.