Originally posted by twhitehead
Except then the decisions become random.

There really are only three choices:
1. Entirely deterministic decisions.
2. Partly deterministic and partly random decisions.
3. Entirely random decisions.

Keep in mind in this discussion that 'free will' means different things to different people and most of us haven't really thought it through.
For me, ...[text shortened]... eterministic computer program as having 'free will' despite it meeting my conditions above.

i dont think its possible for the brain to have a true random thought. it may be too complex for us to see or figure out how and why we have thought a particular thing. in the same way that rolling a dice is not really random there is always a set of conditions that lead the dice to roll the way it has.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
[b]"In your philosophy there is no love, only atoms.
There is no wrong bigotry or right tolerance. There is only chemical compositions. Material particles are not responsible for morality. At best you can only say that the thugs who terribly mistreated Matthew Shepherd the gay man just had bad molecules."


love is a name we give to a set of better the world is a much better place now than it ever was.[/b]

love is a name we give to a set of emotions and way of thinking. i think the biblical 'love' as one magical feeling is too simplistic. there should really be many different words for it because the way we feel about our partners is completely different to how we feel for parents and how we feel for our children is totally different again.

This prejudice of yours could maybe remedied by getting a good English Version of the New Testament with footnotes. (Or else reading it in the original language). You would then see that in the Greek there are three words at least used for love - If not mistaken they would be eros, phileo, and agape.

So when I read English "love" in the NT many times the sidebar or footnote would alert me which Greek word is being used. So then you err in assumption that the Bible's concept of love is oversimplified.

And I suspect that the Old Testament may employ more than one Hebrew term which translates into English "love". But I have not checked it.

...

where in this chemical mix and chain of biological events does god step in and what would be the point of him or his magic being involved when the human body is doing a the job.

To tell the truth what you discribe sound more like magic than man being made in the image of God - with an immaterial metaphysical soul and spirit corresponding in some way to God's being.

Your chemicals creating good and evil on the fly sounds much more like magic to me.

Originally posted by jaywill

love is a name we give to a set of emotions and way of thinking. i think the biblical 'love' as one magical feeling is too simplistic. there should really be many different words for it because the way we feel about our partners is completely different to how we feel for parents and how we feel for our children is totally different again.

Your chemicals creating good and evil on the fly sounds much more like magic to me.

"This prejudice of yours could maybe remedied by getting a good English Version of the New Testament with footnotes. (Or else reading it in the original language). You would then see that in the Greek there are three words at least used for love- If not mistaken they would be eros, phileo, and agape."

what prejudice?

i will bow to your superior knowledge on this. a good point well made.


" Your chemicals creating good and evil on the fly sounds much more like magic to me"

again you are misrepresenting what i have said, using overly simplistic and untrue language to make something appear silly.
i did not say chemicals create evil. i did not say they are created on the fly.

how in anyway is something grounded very much in science, something we can see and measure in anyway seem magical?!?!?!

do you agree that different parts of the human brain control different parts of our behavior. yes or no?

Originally posted by stellspalfie
[b] "This prejudice of yours could maybe remedied by getting a good English Version of the New Testament with footnotes. (Or else reading it in the original language). You would then see that in the Greek there are three words at least used for love- If not mistaken they would be eros, phileo, and agape."

what prejudice?

i will ...[text shortened]... that different parts of the human brain control different parts of our behavior. yes or no?[/b]

What controls the human brain?

Originally posted by RJHinds
What controls the human brain?

no one thing has 'control' of the brain. your dna and the enviroment you live in, (epecially growing up, the first 3 years are key) all effect the way your brain develops.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
i dont think its possible for the brain to have a true random thought. it may be too complex for us to see or figure out how and why we have thought a particular thing. in the same way that rolling a dice is not really random there is always a set of conditions that lead the dice to roll the way it has.

"i dont think its possible for the brain to have a true random thought."

The term "true random" is used by some to refer to the use of a technology such as quantum effects or variations in air density in a way that generates numbers. If we accept that meaning, a big "if", it is trivially easy to have a true random thought if the thought is of the specific number that is generated in a particular execution of the true random number generator. Of course in this case the specific thought will be stunningly uninteresting.

Edit: And if the resulting numbers were matched up with actions, actions that are truly random could be selected.

Originally posted by whodey
Are you saying that it is impossible for an all powerful God to know what is going to happen yet, at the same time, give us free will? Hmmm? He does not seem to be that all powerful from your description.

Yup, that is what he is saying. BTW, how is an all powerful god really all powerful when he was so damn tired from creating he had to rest on the seventh day?

Originally posted by Phil Hill
Yup, that is what he is saying. BTW, how is an all powerful god really all powerful when he was so damn tired from creating he had to rest on the seventh day?

The rest there is not related to fatigue. It is the rest of satisfaction.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
[b]"In your philosophy there is no love, only atoms.
There is no wrong bigotry or right tolerance. There is only chemical compositions. Material particles are not responsible for morality. At best you can only say that the thugs who terribly mistreated Matthew Shepherd the gay man just had bad molecules."


love is a name we give to a set of better the world is a much better place now than it ever was.[/b]

"the gay man just had bad molecules"

You misrepresent the quote you spliced from. [edited]

Please read that entire sentence again. The meaning was that the thugs who killed him, the gay man, just had bad molecules.

I wrote:

At best you can only say that the thugs who terribly mistreated Matthew Shepherd the gay man just had bad molecules.

I take this false impression of my words was an editing error. I want to think it was not deliberate.
However, whatever the thugs were OR the gay or straight man was, to your philosophy, I do think you mean that it is ALL only because of molecules. That is in any case.

Originally posted by jaywill
The rest there is not related to fatigue. It is the rest of satisfaction.

Does your bible say rest or rest of satisfaction or is that your interpretation? If it is an interpretation, it isn't what is written.

Originally posted by Phil Hill
Does your bible say rest or rest of satisfaction or is that your interpretation? If it is an interpretation, it isn't what is written.

Does your bible say rest or rest of satisfaction or is that your interpretation? If it is an interpretation, it isn't what is written.

There are a few things enfluencing my decision to interpret the "rest" as satisfaction there.

1.) The immediate context - "And God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day." (Gen. 1:31)

Moses could have said that God was tuckered out. But rather the emphasis is on - "good..., good..., good..., good...," etc. finally "very good". God was satisfied at the end of the sixth day.

"And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made." (2:3)

2.) The Scripture tells us that physical weariness is not possible with God in His state of pure divinity - (ie. before incarnation as a man)

"Do you not know, Or have you not heard, That the eternal God, Jehovah, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Does not faint and does not become weary? " (Isaiah 40:28)

So the Creator was not pooped with exhaustion such that He had to take a breather.

Originally posted by jaywill

"the gay man just had bad molecules"

You misrepresent the quote you spliced from. [edite]

Please read that entire sentence again. The meaning was that the thugs who killed him, the gay man, just had bad molecules.

I wrote:

[quote] At best you can only say that the thugs who terribly mistreated Matthew Shepherd the gay man ...[text shortened]... philosophy, I do think you mean that it is ALL only because of molecules. That is in any case.

"At best you can only say that the thugs who terribly mistreated Matthew Shepherd the gay man just had bad molecules"

thats what i was referring to. nothing i have said indicates there are such things as 'bad' molecules. by giving molecules humanistic qualities you are (possibly not on purpose) giving the science a cartoonish level of meaning which degrades the point to make it seem foolish. its a language trick. i have said that decisions are made from the accumulative effect of life experiences and chemical make up of the body and mind - not that the man has evil molecules.

" I do think you mean that it is ALL only because of molecules"

its not only because of molecules, using that logic we could say it all because of atoms, then electrons, getting smaller and smaller. molecules are just one stage in the building blocks. everything that goes into your make-up and everything that goes into the make-up of things that you interact with effect who you are and what you think.
applying the characteristics resulting from the effect of a collaboration on to one element of the collaboration doesnt work. like taking oxygen, wood, the sun and a magnifying glass can create fire together, you wouldnt single out oxygen and say it causes fire. thats what you are doing when you say 'a bad molecule caused the man to be violent'.

Originally posted by jaywill]

Does your bible say rest or rest of satisfaction or is that your interpretation? If it is an interpretation, it isn't what is written.

There are a few things enfluencing my decision to interpret the "rest" as satisfaction there.

1.) The immediate context - "And God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good.
So the Creator was not pooped with exhaustion such that He had to take a breather.

Looks to me like it says quite clearly that he rested from his work work being the key word you apparently missed.

The other verse you posted saying he can not become weary is what you Christians call one of the thousands of missing contradictions from The Campfire Book Of Yahweh's Fables For Boys And Other Assorted Babes In The Woods.

edit - I hate tags 🙂

Originally posted by jaywill
The rest there is not related to fatigue. It is the rest of satisfaction.

"The rest there is not related to fatigue. It is the rest of satisfaction."

I'd add "... tempered by foreknowledge of The Fall."

Originally posted by Phil Hill
Looks to me like it says quite clearly that he rested [b]from his work work being the key word you apparently missed.

The other verse you posted saying he can not become weary is what you Christians call one of the thousands of missing contradictions from The Campfire Book Of Yahweh's Fables For Boys And Other Assorted Babes In The Woods.

edit - I hate tags 🙂[/b]

Looks to me like it says quite clearly that he rested from his work work being the key word you apparently missed.

The Hebrew word there can mean simply decist or cease or put an end to.
It does not have to signify any physical exhaustion.

I don't stop my reading of the revelation of the Bible with this passage.
I gather additional revelation which also sheds light on the matter.

I showed you an explicit verse that the Creator does not faint or become weary. Do you place a similar importance on those words?
I see no reason why an honest reader of the whole Bible would not.

Now if you just want to stop there at Genesis 2:3 in your English translation, to lay hold of a concept of a God becoming physically tired, I think this is a superficial understanding.

Which muscle/s do you suppose were tired ? I am eager to understand the word of God. I am not eager to misunderstand the Bible's teaching.

The other verse you posted saying he can not become weary is what you Christians call one of the thousands of missing contradictions from The Campfire Book Of Yahweh's Fables For Boys And Other Assorted Babes In The Woods.

How cute. However, doesn't do a whole lot to your real point of saying God was tired physically.

That was the writing of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah long before the birth of Christ or the inception of the Christian church.