What to believe, crisis of faith

But it does. What if, in Goddidit-science, some scientist finds a result that conflicts with the paradigm? Will it be accepted? Probably not. Does it overthrow the paradigm? Most definitely not. If not, then Goddidit has indeed brought an end to scientific pursuit. There is no "science of atheistic origin". Science doesn't proceed from the premise "Whatever the cause, it's definitely not God." Instead, science proceeds from something like "We don't know the cause, it might be God, or it might be something else. Let's find out." Until now, science has found only material causes. Well, since science is never of atheist origin, as I've explained above, that portion is not just tiny, it is actually non-existent. Geologists working for oil companies base their oil surveys on their knowlegde of the geologic column, which can only be understood in the light of the theory of evolution. Forensic DNA testing, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, epidemiology, and immunology, to name a few, only make sense in the light of the theory of evolution. Plant and animal breeding rely heavily on the principles of evolution. Genetic algorithms make use of the principles of evolution and are used in such diverse fields as aerospace engineering, architecture, astrophysics, data mining, drug discovery and design, electrical engineering, finance, geophysics, materials engineering, military strategy, pattern recognition, robotics, scheduling, and systems engineering.In contrast, there is not one practical application of ID "science". Not one.So, do you still want to know? "What if it comes to an end?" It depends on their area of expertise. If they were educated in, say, econometry, or social geography, or art history, then they are indeed less well-educated in terms of evolutionary science and their opinion about whether or not goddidit has little or no scientific merit. The Hoover Institution, mentioned explicitly in the survey, has little to do with the science of evolution, as can be gleaned from their own website:

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The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, is a public policy research center devoted to advanced study of politics, economics, and political economy”both domestic and foreign”as well as international affairs. With its world-renowned group of scholars and ongoing programs of policy-oriented research, the Hoover Institution puts its accumulated knowledge to work as a prominent contributor to the world marketplace of ideas defining a free society.

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This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 24-Sep-2005 09:32 PM

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

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I know God, at least what He means to me. It's Love. Pure Love. it may even sound cliche, God IS Love. In fact I think thats the part that crosses the boundries of the denominations, possibly several other different religions even.

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I am a newcommer who found this thread and have been reading the early stages. As I read I must understand that these posts are relatively old and I should not reply until I have reached the end. However, this post showed no replies and I just cannot resist.If god is love, then why do we humans hate, torture, and kill each other by the millions in the name of god? Why does god allow this and not do something about it?

Free will

Nonsense. God could constrain us to only doing the right thing and we'd still have free will.After all our actions now are constrained by the laws of physics, and that doesn't take away our free will, does it?

If you constrain anything against it's free will, you remove free will. I can't believe you said that!

In an eclectic sense of (pantheistic oneness) NOTHING in the universe operates independantly of God. In this sense, there is no choice. Rule # 1: God is the Boss regardless.
Rule #2: See Rule#1.This applies in an eternal sense. Within the limits of time, (lifetimes), space,(personal space) and everyday life, free will does apply. God has allowed us to "evolve" in our conscious perception of reality to either freely choose Him or reject Him. It does not matter what we decide in your view, since it is what will be. It matters what we decide in my view since it is what will be.

Crashfrog! I am finding myself thinking about this statement. Pretty good one, and somehow you an atheist and I a believer come to a common union! We both believe in free will!
As a Bible guy, I find that it ties in mysteriously with these quotes from Revelation: God was before the Fall of humanity, He is alive and real now(like the laws of physics) and He is to come in the future.Due to our "Fall", a duel reality of truth was created (pertaining to the Laws of Truth.) It was proclaimed by the symbolic snake that "ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil". Suppose that we were now before the Fall. We would not yet have evil and yet we would have free will. The choice still lies before us.God constrains us by telling us to avoid disobedience, yet we innocently and freely choose it. He knew that it would happen. It was a set-up, in a way. (Hey, whatever will be will be according to Him, right? )Look at how Revelation contrasts the Beast(symbolic of the Devil/snake) He once was an Angel. Freely choosing to rebel, he became an alternate reality. Satan. He now is not. (There is no spirit that controls us is there? We freely choose) and yet he also will come. Now what in the heck does that mean to anyone? To me, it means that Our free will as a daily reality has an ultimate destiny in either one spiritual reality or another.An interesting and not impossible scenario, I would think.This message has been edited by Phatboy, 09-25-2005 11:15 AM

Nonsense. If you really believe that, you must believe that we don't have free will anyway; after all I can't choose to break the laws of physics. I can't choose to fly by flapping my arms. Do those constraints mean we don't have free will? According to you, they must.Free will can exist within constraint; so long as some choice is preserved you still have free will. And there's an infinite number of ways to do the right thing.

Do you think there are any limits to the constraints that can be placed on us and we still have "free will" ?Would you be willing to say that "free will" and "determinism" are not mutually exclusive?(Note: I'm willing!)

What about math, what if i wanted to say that 7+7=16. then i wouldn't be constrained, i would just be WRONG. nothing more. ((But then would I be wrong?)later on that)Like the laws of physics, it's not being constrained not to be able to fly, we can fly, IN PLANES! It's the asking of questions like "Why can't I fly?" that lead to the invetion of something that lets us fly. Or why can't we go faster than sound? Its people like these who searched for the answer to the What if questions.And by the way it's not a choice option to break the laws of physics, but it IS our option to try, that is our choice. Not being able to tells us what is and isn't possible in our physical world, or as Edison said about the light bulb failures, I found 201 ideas that won't work.

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Free will

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Absolute rot. Complete and utter nonsense.Start with the assumption that god exists. We have examined ourselves and our psychic makeup and discovered that we do indeed have an extremely strong tendency to be suspicious of those that are not from our group. Humans have a long history of fighting and killing those that are not the same as us. Look at children and how they tease and taunt anyone not like them, with extreme cruelty and no mercy what-so-ever. This is how we are made.This is how god made us, to hate those that look, think, and behave different from us. That is not free will in any sense of the word or concept.I hold that God made Adam and Eve “knowing” full well that they would eat the apple. Just like a child in a room full of toys that is told you can play with all of these toys, but you cannot touch the one in the brown box. What does the child want? The one in the brown box of course! This is how god made us!Assume you have children that are playing and they want to play in the pond with the alligators. I suspect that you will not accommodate their free will and allow them to play there. If not, why would a god that loves us allow us to develop nuclear weapons and annihilate each other? (To say nothing of the millions we have tortured and killed in his name over the ages)You started this thread wanting some answers. You have some answers. Are you going to simply ignore the ones you don’t like? Or will you have the courage to face up to the questions, their answers, and the significance those answers?When you find a question that you cannot answer, there are two things to recognize. First, recognize that you cannot answer the question. Second, the fact that you cannot answer the question is a very important piece of knowledge. Examine that piece of knowledge and try to determine what it means.I disagree with Catholic Scientist but when faced with a question he could not answer, he had the courage to admit he had no answer. That deserves respect.

First i have children, and I would not allow them to play in a pond filled with alligators because i love them and don't want them to come to harm, BECAUSE I CHOOSE TOO. I could choose to let them but i would have to accept the consequenses of my actions or lack there of. I am not God, I have different choises to make.On a side note I would like my children to love me, not because they have to, but because they want to, that's the reward of having free will. I mean without free will it's like telling someone they have too, at gunpoint. second of all, I do try to read all the posts and reply to the ones that are directed at me, and i try to respond to the ones that make good points, but i did not realize there would be so many replies, I am a slow typist and a slow reader, but i do give great consideration to who and how i respond and think through the responses i give. Having said that, there are only so many hours in a day and i DO have a day job. So gimme a break. This is true, and lately there seem to be more questions THAN answers, and personally I believe thats because there are some questions that we are not SUPPOSED to know the answer too. But it's still important to ask them just the same. And Finally, The argument between predestination and free will is older than EvC, i would prefer to address this in a seperate thread . Knowing something is going to happen doesn't mean you or God Has to do something, I would (and have) respond(ed) in accordance with my own sense of right and wrong to things that I have come across. But that's MY CHOICE, God doesn't HAVE to step in a keep us from destroying ourselves, even though He might see it coming.

Just a word of appreciation for the thoughtful replies you have given. I don't expect you to individually reply to all of my posts in this thread.I'm glad to see you are still visiting the site. I hope we will continue to see you around. You can open a "Proposed New Thread" on that if you wish. In my experience, "free will" discussions can draw vigorous debating. So you might want to wait till you are caught up with answering before you try starting a new thread.

But not like birds. That was the choice, remember? And we can go further. We can't choose to bring back the dead; we can't choose to change the past; we can't choose to do any number of things that are against the laws of physics, not are just hard to do. Well, if simply trying is all we need to preserve choice then why can't God simply intercede when a person tries to do something bad? I mean, you could still try to murder someone with a gun, you would simply find that your weapon refused to fire as long as it was pointed at another person.Why can't God do it that way? Wouldn't we still have the choice to try?

Don't you think that, if God wants us to love him, he should do things to be worthy of love?If you provided everything you could for your children, gave them a loving home, protected them, instructed them, did your best to help them, would people say that you forced them to love you "at gunpoint"? Or wouldn't it be the case that they loved you because you deserved their love, and had earned it?On the other hand, if you did nothing for your children and abandoned them to danger and neglect, would you be deserving of love? Wouldn't they be right not to love you? Of course they would - you would be a pretty poor parent to do those things.So why is it different for God? Love is love. (And love doesn't really have anything to do with free will.)