Free will

@philokalia said
That's where you're wrong:

You are your soul.

You aren't what you post on the internet.

I am referring to who you are here. You are what you post.

@philokalia said
Why is an action free will but a belief in God is not free will?

I said you cannot, by "free will", decide to believe in a god or gods just as you can't decide to not believe in them. I believe it is a realization that occurs when a complicated aspect of our inner selves that I will paraphrase as "gut feelings" starts to marshall our certainties and hopes in terms of faith in supernatural things - or the opposite. If you believe you could use your "free will" to decide to stop believing in Christ for a period of time, so be it.

I can decide to pick up a copy of the Koran. I can decide to read it. I can decide to burn it. I cannot decide simply to believe in the Muslim God. If the decision to read it one day results in a realization that its stories and messages have connected with my "gut feelings" and turned me into a believer, then I don't see a "free will" moment of decision there. I see a process ending in a realization.

@philokalia said
I don't understand why you would play down this event.

I am not playing anything down.

@philokalia said
I don't really understand why you would suddenly shift to this nonchalant tone, like our thread needs that.

Everything I have ever posted on this website has been done with nonchalance.

@philokalia said
It's certainly funny how one of these moments in your life you just characterize as well, I just no longer believed... as if there was not some realization that was deeper.

I've heard people describe losing their belief in Santa Claus with more color.

There was no "moment" like what you describe. Please read what I am writing. I am talking about a realization. I am talking about a drawn out process. A gradual weakening. There was no "moment". There was no "decision". Please read what I am writing.

@philokalia said
I've heard people describe losing their belief in Santa Claus with more color.

What are you on about?

@philokalia said
Aw, I think you must have done that in the edit because I recollect you denying that that was the case in post 4006250

No. It was not done with an edit. Of racism and sexism I said: Yes, I am sure there all manner of beliefs about all kinds of things that many people cannot change their mind about even if they want to.

@philokalia said
Hence, why in post 4006251 you still have a flippant response that I must not understand this at all

It was not "flippant". The OP is about "free will" and religion/the supernatural. Your riffing on racism and sexism was missing the point.

@philokalia said
Why is an action free will but a belief in God is not free will?

A common assertion made by Christians here over the years has been that if God had made his revelation clearer and more straight forward and incontrovertible in the eyes of all mankind, then it would have deprived humans of free will.

Do you agree?

@fmf said
Was I forced to be a Christian for 25+ years?

Yes, I suppose I was, in a sense, "forced" to be a Christian for those 25+ years. The word "forced" is maybe not the first word I'd have thought of using, but it will suffice.

Yes, I was, for all intents and purposes, "forced" to be a Christian. I didn't really have any choice in the matter. My faith was sincere, ever present ...[text shortened]... In the end, I was "forced" to admit that I was no longer a Christian.

Thread 173991

A long and thoughtful post. I can hardly reply to all of its points. But a few things spring to mind...

The rationalizations one might give to buttress a belief one already has against objections, have very little to do with the process by which one comes to accept a belief in the first place. But when one begins to doubt and deconstruct those same rationalizations, it can indeed be part of a process of drifting away from belief. Psychology and epistemology only partially overlap here.

It is one thing to believe, for example, that Los Angeles is the capital of California, which one can abandon in light of better information quite easily, and quite something else to drift away from a complete world view which, as you say, formed a frame of reference for everything you lived through for 25 years. Such a change is hardly to be expected all in a flash, as a single momentous choice. But, looking back on it later, one could probably identify several critical junctures where one allowed a doubt to creep in where it would not have done previously. One becomes ripe for certain ideas, or uncertain doubts, only after a period of mental preparation, and this has more to do with personal experience than epistemology.

@fmf said
I am referring to who you are here. You are what you post.

Sure, sure, I get it.

But... it would behoove you to not think in those terms because I think that high volume posters, me included, run the risk of investing too much in their online personas. We should actively try to avoid that.

@fmf said
A common assertion made by Christians here over the years has been that if God had made his revelation clearer and more straight forward and incontrovertible in the eyes of all mankind, then it would have deprived humans of free will.

Do you agree?

Yes, it is reasonable to believe that if God were to have absolutely and certainly revealed it in unquestionable terms, free will would have been more or less deprived.

All people have the freedom, and the potential, to turn their back on God or to come to God.

@fmf said
I said you cannot, by "free will", decide to believe in a god or gods just as you can't decide to not believe in them. I believe it is a realization that occurs when a complicated aspect of our inner selves that I will paraphrase as "gut feelings" starts to marshall our certainties and hopes in terms of faith in supernatural things - or the opposite. If you believe you could use ...[text shortened]... r, then I don't see a "free will" moment of decision there. I see a process ending in a realization.

What's kind of interesting about this is that it isn't fundamentally against all Christian doctrine. For instance, Calvinists would say you are just morbidly describing your own predetermined nature to be aligned against God.

There was even an Orthodox Patriarch who was quite close to being a rote Calvinist. St. Augustine is often thought of someone who was overly predestination oriented. But the official position of the Catholic Church really is "compatibilism," and that is what I generally believe.

On with it:

Any idea which is not inherently absurd we are free to believe in.

Obviously, if I see a triangle in front of me but someone wants me to not just say it is a circle but to mentally believe it is a circle, and draw it as a circle, and to go up to it and trace an outline of it... as a circle... that is absurd and impossible. People can't really believe this unless they are on drugs.

This would be very much in line with the idea that we are predetermined to not identify a circle as a triangle.

... But let us take something where the truth value is completely unknown, and the possibility always exists, such as the existence of God.

There are enough arguments on either side to justify either position, are there not? It would be kind of arrogant to say that one could not go toward the opposite direction.

I do not think that there is some special mindset or temperament that makes hardcore empiricism the only thing that one is willing to believe. Just as such, nor does any temperament or disposition exist that means that a person is bound to never be a materialist.

I think you are just not understanding the depth of your own choices.

@philokalia said
Sure, sure, I get it.

But... it would behoove you to not think in those terms because I think that high volume posters, me included, run the risk of investing too much in their online personas. We should actively try to avoid that.

What I think if your substance as a person and your ideas is based on what you say in your posts.

@philokalia said
Yes, it is reasonable to believe that if God were to have absolutely and certainly revealed it in unquestionable terms, free will would have been more or less deprived.

All people have the freedom, and the potential, to turn their back on God or to come to God.

I just came to realize that I didn't believe the same things as you believe. I don't believe I have turned my back on any God. I simply don't subscribe to any brand of Christian ideology, including yours, that's all. This means that your "hellfire" threats and sonship's "hung out on chains" threats have no credibility and therefore have no coercive effect on me.