Determinism vs. Free Will

my problem is that i enelieve that you should discuss things with evidence based on science, and based on reasonably proven fact. Now a bible. Im not having a go at religion, its great. but its not evidence for anything.
And it seems that the aethiest are the only people who can make an argument based on fact. but lets not get into it.

Originally posted by HistoryPoi my problem is that i enelieve that you should discuss things with evidence based on science, and based on reasonably proven fact. Now a bible. Im not having a go at religion, its great. but its not evidence for anything. And it seems that the aethiest are the only people who can make an argument based on fact. but lets not get into it.

Originally posted by Cezar Originally posted by Hope However, Atheists are not able to produce evidence better than religious people. Atheists claim there is no divinity, but they can't prove that, can they?   What evidence do they need to produce?  Evidence is about something being not about something not being. They say there's no evidence of God so there's no God. The religious people mostly produce what they think of as being the best evidence: their textbooks and religious legacy. The problem seems to be that not everyone accepts those as evidence. So if you want evidence that Allah exists (I'm not getting anti muslim, just making an example) you should read the Quran, that, according to muslims, is sufficient. If you don't get convinced/converted, that's another story... On the other hand, the fact that there is no evidence (totally accepted) of God's exitence doesn't necessary mean that the big guy is not. I guess I've read this somewhere: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

 

The point here is that divinity can not be proven, and it can not be proven wrong. In other words, Atheists can't prove there is no God just as little as Christians, Muslims, Jews or others can prove to non-religious people that God exists.

Originally posted by Cezar Originally posted by Hope Originally posted by Cezar Originally posted by Hope However, Atheists are not able to produce evidence better than religious people. Atheists claim there is no divinity, but they can't prove that, can they?   What evidence do they need to produce?  Evidence is about something being not about something not being. They say there's no evidence of God so there's no God. The religious people mostly produce what they think of as being the best evidence: their textbooks and religious legacy. The problem seems to be that not everyone accepts those as evidence. So if you want evidence that Allah exists (I'm not getting anti muslim, just making an example) you should read the Quran, that, according to muslims, is sufficient. If you don't get convinced/converted, that's another story... On the other hand, the fact that there is no evidence (totally accepted) of God's exitence doesn't necessary mean that the big guy is not. I guess I've read this somewhere: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"   The point here is that divinity can not be proven, and it can not be proven wrong. In other words, Atheists can't prove there is no God just as little as Christians, Muslims, Jews or others can prove to non-religious people that God exists.   Divinity is proven by the religious people. The proof itself is a little bit confusing. Again,  atheists don't need to prove anything, they just state that there is no proof of divinity therefore there's no divinity. The believers prove their issues constantly and what amazes them is that not everybody accepts their proofs. They can prove that divinity exists, they just can't make the proof work for anybody. Not to mention what happens when two different proofs are contradictory.... You know, if divinity cannot be proven it might be just as well as if doesn't existis. Who should care about something that is something that nothing is certain about?

Timotheus I believe you are confused on Jansenist belief, their beliefs on free will had to do with a persons salvation, my beliefs on free will are that there is no difference between our experience of it and God's experience of ourselves.

Originally posted by Hope Because religion is a matter of faith, and faith can't be convinced through evidence, but through experience. This is why Atheists never can prove the non-existence of divinity and also why religious people can't prove divinity.

That awakening, or revelation, is what makes the religious people not to learn any more from experience (experience as in the sume of everything experienced). The revelation/awakening is what makes them stop. They only use their experience to other things than religion. That moment is sufficient, they don't usually need anything else to get their religion functional. It might be considered a result of experience but still I think of it as being a moment when what makes a human mind being useful gets in loop that threatens it to become useless.

On the other hand, when, finding impossible to show an acceptable proof ov divinity the final statement of the religous is something like "there's something and there is no possible evidence of it". Which is quite inconsistent, not to mention confusing.

Except religious people don't say that, the intelligent ones anyway.

Religious people believe that there is ample evidence, it's just that non-religious people don't believe that the evidence is either relevant, unbiased, true or any combination of the three. So don't say the argument is inconsistent, since "we have no evidence" isn't something a religious person would say.

That awakening, or revelation, is what makes the religious people not to learn any more from experience (experience as in the sume of everything experienced). The revelation/awakening is what makes them stop. They only use their experience to other things than religion. That moment is sufficient, they don't usually need anything else to get their religion functional. It might be considered a result of experience but still I think of it as being a moment when what makes a human mind being useful gets in loop that threatens it to become useless.

I would say that sometime after my fifteenth birthday, I had such an awakening, that feeling that God exists and he loves me. And did that make me stop learning about religion even though I had found it. Of course not, in fact it was a driving force to get me to learn even more about my faith and the faiths of others. So I don't agree with you on that.

Also I have always been a very inquisitive mind and have always dabbled into many different intellectual pursuits. My own revealation hasn't changed that aspect, so I don't see how I've stopped my experiences of life.

Originally posted by JanusRook On the other hand, when, finding impossible to show an acceptable proof ov divinity the final statement of the religous is something like "there's something and there is no possible evidence of it". Which is quite inconsistent, not to mention confusing. Except religious people don't say that, the intelligent ones anyway. Religious people believe that there is ample evidence, it's just that non-religious people don't believe that the evidence is either relevant, unbiased, true or any combination of the three. So don't say the argument is inconsistent, since "we have no evidence" isn't something a religious person would say.

If I say "I believe there is proof of a fraud" can I get a person convicted?

Actually it depends upon the legal system in question. Let's say that there is fraud but that person destroyed all the records of their involvement in it. If you can prove that that person was responsible for eliminating records than you will probably be able to get a jury to convict them on fraud.

Likewise in religion, the evidence that suggest God's direct involvement in the world isn't acceptable to nonbelievers, but the evidence of God's indirect involvement, is acceptable to nonbelievers. Take this discourse with Richard Dawkins, the Prophet of all the nonreligious.

COLLINS: Certainly science should continue to see whether we can find evidence for multiverses that might explain why our own universe seems to be so finely tuned. But I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation. That's an impoverished view of the kinds of questions we humans can ask, such as "Why am I here?", "What happens after we die?", "Is there a God?" If you refuse to acknowledge their appropriateness, you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world because it doesn't convince you on a proof basis. But if your mind is open about whether God might exist, you can point to aspects of the universe that are consistent with that conclusion. DAWKINS: To me, the right approach is to say we are profoundly ignorant of these matters. We need to work on them. But to suddenly say the answer is God--it's that that seems to me to close off the discussion. TIME: Could the answer be God? DAWKINS: There could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding. COLLINS: That's God. DAWKINS: Yes. But it could be any of a billion Gods. It could be God of the Martians or of the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri. The chance of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishingly small--at the least, the onus is on you to demonstrate why you think that's the case.

As you can see he rejects the direct belief in God, but he feels there is enough evidence to suggest something out there. Such as in science we have no direct proof that black holes exist, yet there is strong evidence to suggest the phenomena.

Usually they don't. But the revelation itslef and the result of it is basically a dead end. You can't get out of the faith. You can enhance it, using experience if you want, but still you're not going further. You found the niche, you settled in it, you're now just making it more comfortable. And no matter how inquisitive your mind is you can never go further than "there is God".

So taking your logic if suddenly I had a realization that the Big Bang Theory was true, then I would cease to learn about the beginning of the universe since I all ready had the answer.

Just because I had an awakening, doesn't mean that I can't go beyond "there is God", since I do not know the fullness of God I can't be certain that I know the true God or just an aspect of him.

And I'm a bit sceptical of your suggestion that 'there is no God' is a more advanced concept than 'there is God'. Since you state that there is no advancement past belief in God, you suggest that a non-belief in God allows further advancement. What if a belief in God is a dead end, but one that is at the highest state we can achieve. In other words what if a non-belief in God was a street that went for a kilometer in a circle but a belief in God is a dead end street that goes on for 10 km.

Also just because someone is religious or not, doesn't mean that they are fanatics. Just look at the actions of Green Peace a nonreligious fanatic group and see how much damage they have done and how many people have died as a result of their actions. Have they done good things, of course, but like all organizations there are good acts and bad acts done, such is the nature of mankind.

Their faith, their destiny, if you like, is defined by their divnity. So, indeed, they may not experience what free will is, not after they become believers.

I don't believe that you can say that people who are nonreligious have true free will and people who are religious experience determinism, because this takes away from God or is irrelevant. If God does not exist than you cannot have determinism, unless the world we live in violates our known laws of nature. If God does exist than nothing exists outside his domain so even those that don't believe in him are merely doing what God know's they will do and allows them to do it, so I cannot see how free will can exist in our understanding of it.