I tend to think there is no such thing as free will. I see no defense for its existence. Does not Kant treat it as something that simply must be assumed to be an a priori truth implied by the sense of duty? Any mention of moral imperatives presupposes free will, for if we are not autonomous on some level, the whole language of "responsibility," "duty," and "choice" becomes meaningless. However, could it not be that such language, though it may invest humans with a peculiar causal dignity, is mistaken? The language also carries with it the need to "punish" and dispense "justice." If humans are just complex biological machines "doing their thing," there is no need to "punish" or "reward." Rather, society should simply remove defective members from the system until they can be "repaired" or "reformed" and leave functioning members alone. Abuses are possible according to both models of human behavior. Both in the name of just punishment and in the name of healing the sick, people have done terrible things to each other.
veradico
JoinedPosts by veradico
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Freewill - does it really exist?
by eyeslice inpaul wrote in romans 7:19;"for what i do is not the good i want to do; no, the evil i do not want to do.
this i keep on doing.. so is there such a thing as free will, or are we all driven by our nature (our genes), .
our nurture or both?
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2008 Young People Ask Vol 2 (YPA V2) PDF, searchable, bookmarked
by TJ - iAmCleared2Land ini've got the book, starting the scan now!!
will have it online in a bit.
i have a manual (not sheetfed) scanner, so it's a manual process.
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veradico
I really enjoyed this passage in the chapter on homosexuality:
"It comes as no surprise, then, that the Bible condemns homosexual acts. -Romans 1:26,27. Some would say that God's Word is out-of-date. But why, do you think, are they so quick to make that claim? Could it be because the Bible's view conflicts with their own? Many reject God's Word simply because it teaches something different from what they want to believe. That view is biased, though, and we should rise above such closed-minded thinking!"
"That view is biased, though, and we should rise above such closed-minded thinking!" I love it. I also enjoyed the advice under the heading "Shun pornography and gay propaganda." Gay propaganda seems to mean "certain TV shows and movies, and perhaps even fashion or bodybuilding magazines that feature lightly clad models." -
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My lunch for tomorrow convention
by Iwonder17 inso my good wife is packing lunch for tomorrow.
i see her putting in bottles of lemonade, so i wonder, should i spike mine with some vodka to make the day pass by a little easier?.
hhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm.
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veradico
My sister and I did that at the last convention we attended. I forget what we drank on the first two days (perhaps cosmos, something rum-based, &c.), but I do remember the last day. In the morning we had French Kiss (a vanilla bean liqueur) and coffee, and in the afternoon we had screwdrivers. The buzz left us shortly before the day ended. I remember really enjoying the odd drama about that scripture wherein Jehovah tells his prophet he can't eat or drink, then another prophet of Jehovah tells the first prophet that Jehovah told him he can have food and drink now, and then, because he ate, Jehovah kills his faithful prophet by means of a wild lion. I forget the Society's application but remember thinking it didn't really suit their usual command to "follow Jehovah's chariot-like Organization when it turns suddenly in a new direction" or to embrace new light. I was far less angered by that drama than when I saw the one about Timothy's rejecting his worldly father's encouragement to go to college in Athens and instead his going with Paul as a missionary. All in all, I had a good time at that convention. We sat at the top of the auditorium, so I read whatever I wanted and napped when I felt sleepy.
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You know, I've yet to meet a JW who can explain this
by Lady Zombie ini know that has probably been covered ad infinitum on jwd.
so...... if jehovah is omnipotent, then there is nothing he can't do and nothing he doesn't know.. and, according to jws (as well as most other religions), god is love.
therefore he had to have known, even before creating all of creation, what would happen.
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veradico
Slappy (at least I think that's the name you picked, I can't look at it now that I've started responding),
A lot of good points have been made already. But I'd like to respond to your notion that the existence of a particular God gives your life meaning. It doesn't. Unless you are willing to claim to have had a mystical experience that gave you access to anything outside your self (id est, God invaded your life, possessed you, and imposed his meaning upon you), you are stuck inside your body and can only know what is mediated by your senses and reasoned out by your brain. Meaning cannot, therefore, come from outside. If you want your life to have meaning, you must generate it yourself. And, if you examine the way you are using your notion of "God", I think you will find that that's just what you're doing. God does not give your life meaning, you give your life meaning, in part by the way you use your notion of God. That's fine. It's just not for me. However, I can assure you the odds are that almost everyone here has read Romans 14. In fact, most of us have read it several times over.
Welcome to the forum, by the way. I think it's great you are willing to engage in dialog with people who have perspectives which differ from your own. -
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You know, I've yet to meet a JW who can explain this
by Lady Zombie ini know that has probably been covered ad infinitum on jwd.
so...... if jehovah is omnipotent, then there is nothing he can't do and nothing he doesn't know.. and, according to jws (as well as most other religions), god is love.
therefore he had to have known, even before creating all of creation, what would happen.
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veradico
The Society is rather clear that while Jehovah could be omniscient, he chooses not to be. He limits his omniscience in order to preserve our "free will" (Adam and Eve's free will would be included in this). Of course, this creates numerous difficulties when you start thinking about all the prophetic nonsense JWs say Jehovah foretold (and thus foreknew) in the Bible. In those instances, at least, it would seem that people's freedom to do otherwise was circumscribed by the necessity that Jehovah's Word be true and "not come back to him without results." I've never seen them invoke, say, Augustine's argument that "to observe or know" is not the same as "to cause". But the argument you raise is more subtle yet. For, even if Jehovah observed what certain prophetic people would do but did not cause them to do it (how this is possible, since he set the whole chain of events in motion, is beyond me.), your point remains: How could the God of Love foreknow what would happen and yet allow it? Part of the problem is that these kinds of questions and any attempts to answer them would have to be articulated in a register the Watchtower writers are either unwilling or unable to shift into. If they are unwilling, I'm sure they would say it's because they fear such questions would "stumble" those with "weak" faith or "waste" precious time which should be spent preaching.
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Hihlights (lowlights) of new Young People Ask book
by stillajwexelder inso this was released yesterday at the kansas city dc -by the way, for the first time in living memory no gb speaker.
got one from patterson bethel instead.
young people ask answers that work volume 2 - the first 5 chapters are on the opposite sex.. chaper 28 is how can i avoid homosexuality - contains phrases such as "bi-curious" etc.
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veradico
Aniron, that's a wonderful story. The best part is the kindness you showed them. Do you still keep in touch? How did you respond to their letter? I'm sure it helped them to know they had your friendship.
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How is the Internet changing us?
by Narkissos inopen question: i really don't have any ready answer for that one.... my basic assumption is that mankind has always been different.
every period and situation of history can be construed as a "system" involving specific political, economical, social and technical conditions and a corresponding set of ideas, or beliefs, allowing for a certain type of self-, community- and world-understanding.
just to follow one particular line among many: .
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anyone in Bristol?
by veradico ini'm visiting for the next week and would love to make new friends here in britain.
pm me if you don't want to announce your location publicly.
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veradico
Thanks! If I end up in Poland, we'll have to hang out! Anyone else in the UK? I have been traveling around a lot, so the odds are in favor (favour) of meeting up.
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anyone in Bristol?
by veradico ini'm visiting for the next week and would love to make new friends here in britain.
pm me if you don't want to announce your location publicly.
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veradico
I'm visiting for the next week and would love to make new friends here in Britain. PM me if you don't want to announce your location publicly.
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most random scripture citation EVER
by veradico indid you ever notice, particularly in unimportant filler articles, that sometimes the writers of the society's publications cited scriptures which had very little to do with the subject at hand?
i'm not talking about the misleading use of scriptures, that is, when they would perpetrate amazing feats of eisegesis.
i'm talking about when they cited scriptures just because they felt like the sentence needed to end with a citation.
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veradico
White Dove, it says you took 2 minutes to perform your experiment. Don't you think that was a bit hasty? Also, it could have been a fluke. Someone should check and see if this gravity thing is repeatable. Be sure to limit the variables. Besides, even if experimentation by worldly intellectualists seems to point to the existence of so-called "gravity", a true Christian knows where to turn for reliable guidance: Jehovah's Word of Truth, as explained by his Discreet Servant.