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 Post subject: Re: free will?
PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2003 5:23 am 
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And this is from the original pilot for Kung Fu. (I figured I was on a roll. )
Quote:Caine: "What happens in a man's life is already written. Man must move through life as his destiny wills."

An old man: "Yes, yet each man is free to live as he chooses. Though they seem opposite, both are true. [chuckles at his own lack of comprehension] I do not understand it." ____
Highdrake's mastery of spells and sorcery was not much greater than his pupil's, but he had clear in his mind the idea of something very much greater, the wholeness of knowledge. And that made him a mage. :highdrake<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: free will?
PostPosted: Tue Aug 19, 2003 10:33 pm 
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Quote:"Aren't we made of atoms of matter? Bits of carbon and oxygen that combine according to universal laws? Aren't these laws programmed into the very fabric of our universe? And if this is so, if each neuron in your wild, brilliant brain fires solely according to the laws of chemistry, then why should you think that you have any will at all?"There's no denying that there is some amount of causality going on in our brains. (*nods to the Merovingian*) Yet I've always felt that we have free will, even when I couldn't find the proof that I think Sky has found.

The problem is this. I can accept that a bunch of physical (electro-chemical) processes in our brains can somehow gain awareness. I can't begin to understand how, but that's not anything that interferes with causality. But how is free will accomplished?? What is it that causes these physical reactions in our brains to take place in certain ways? Whether you believe we have a soul, or that the mind merely arises from the brain, or whatever, how is the physical brain - via the electro-chemical reactions - influenced by a non-physical ... whatever? ____________
Highdrake's mastery of spells and sorcery was not much greater than his pupil's, but he had clear in his mind the idea of something very much greater, the wholeness of knowledge. And that made him a mage.<i></i>


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 Post subject: Freewill: um
PostPosted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 11:24 am 
Freewill:

Freewill. Well this is an interesting subject. You see for me freewill is as much a paradox as the trinity of the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. Freewill. Well God knows all, so how can it be freewill right, it must be fate, they say. But I think that is just a nice way to disbelieve in God. I don't believe in divine intervention by way of predestination. I find that to be an illegality that God would detest & find horrific.

Free will is the ability to choose at any time during your life anything that you wish to do. We do it all the time. Do we watch the commercial showing the near nudity or do we change the channel? Do we look at the billboard showing the meaty, fast car or do we look away from the desire for riches? Do we look again at the cute highschool girl or do we manage to remain Christlike & not lust after her with a second and third and fifth glance or glare. Do we cheat on the taxes for that car we purchased or do we give Caesar his due and remain pure? Do we lie at the interview in order to get the job? Do we put on the expected fake image enhancement in order to get the girl or are we willing to be real with her from the start? Do we wait a second before we close the pornography spam or do we close it right away? Do we read the Bible daily or do we make excuses? Do we go to Church or watch football instead?

We make a lot of choices. We choose right & wrong things all the time. We choose to be good when we choose to reflect the Holy Spirit & we choose to do evil when we choose our own path if even that path might appear to be good (i.e. giving to charity but thinking in the back of your mind that it is a tax writeoff). Humanity is generally selfish. We want to care for our kids and our family and our lives, but if someone else dies, it's sad, but really we don't give a damn. We just don't care.

The angels had freewill, but it was a different kind of freewill. They had one time to choose, because they *KNEW* God. We don't *KNOW* God. We believe in him. We have Faith. This is why God can't intervene overtly in worldly things, because to do so would ruin his plan of salvation for us. Because for us, we have *THE FREE WILL* to believe in Him. That's really what free will really comes down to. We can believe in him & we can accept him & accept the gift of eternal life. The angels had one choice & one choice only. They had to abide by it. We have infinite choices before & after salvation. We can always choose God at any time. If you write here, chances are that you are choosing God when you do.

Right now, I'm going to put out my cigarrette and finish my alcoholic drink & and go to bed. Does that make me bad? I don't know, what do you think? Will you judge me? Jesus drank wine. Jesus made wine. Yes, yes, I know the other scriptures, but the plain fact of the matter is that people got drunk in the Bible that were good people. This is what I'm trying to say to you. I'm a good person. I've never permanently harmed anyone emotionally, physically, mentally, or spiritually and that is my creed and life's vow. What I do on my time is my business. Even in my freewill choice isn't to your liking.

The point is that we all do things that we would not want others to know about, but I'm not afraid to shed my skin & let you look in the private closet of my life & let you see my skeletons. For skeletons they are, that part of me is dead even though I feed it. It is meaningless & nothingness. The freewill to come here & choose life while drunk or stoned or whatever it might be and to soberly explain freewill is my choice & God's gift. It is good. You can say otherwise, but you must understand that you also do things that are not always good & you don't always have the courage to say that those things exist in your life.

So what is freewill to me? Freewill is to accept Jesus Christ as your savior and to go on sinning. It isn't something we want to do or that we mean to do & in fact many or most Christians sin less after accepting Jesus into their lives. But the most important thing to remember is that they did believe. No matter what they do later, even if they end up killing someone in a fight or hurting someone in some other permanent way. They made a pact with Jesus & that pact is permanent beyond any permanence we can ever hope to even conceive or understand. Yes, we should try not to sin after believing, but believing that this sin is impacting our salvation is heresy. Consider what that thought does, it limits Jesus Christ to a single point, YOU! Jesus died for you and your sins 2,000 years and more ago. Do you think you can limit him by sinning beyond your belief? You are not the sacrifice, Jesus is the sacrifice. And so you have the continuing freewill to follow him or not, but that will never impact the single most important fact of your existence, that at one point in your life, you accepted him. You cannot accept him again, it is one gift and not yours to give. It is what seperates us from the angels who had one choice. We have infinite choices while we live. This isn't to say that we should sin more, but rather that we should recognize that our understanding of past, present, and future in regards to our own lives has no meaning. Either we did or we did not accept the gift. That's the one single highlight of our lives when the Holy Spirit enters us. He will never leave us or forsake us no matter what we do. This is the grace of God, the freewill that he gave us & continues to give us.

So I say to you, friends, good people, men and women of freewill, in this regard we are greater than the angels and this life will be a stepping stone from which we will be more powerful than the angels, for they had one choice and one choice only, but we are infinite even in our finite bodies with our abilities to please or displease God as we see fit. This is not fate, simply because God can see it. God can see all, but it doesn't make it any less a choice or a life of inifinite choices. He might know what we will choose at every turn, but it does not make it fate. We still choose. Let me put it to you this way. A person has a CD and they've listened to it. They play the CD for you and they know every note and every vocal nuance. It does not mean you will like it. It does not mean you will dance to it. It just means that they know. Or perhaps like this, a father has a daughter who is going to the prom. He knows his daughter very well and realizes that she will go to a party where there will be drinking and even sex at the party. He doesn't stop her, he warns her & she listens, but she still goes to the party. Or perhaps this, you've seen the movie 4 times already, but you still wonder why the person would do such a thing as he will. Or maybe this, God is in complete control, and yet, he allows you to choose even though he knows what you will do. It doesn't make it his choice for you. It is still your choice when the time comes even though he still sees the rest of the CD music of your life as it plays out and all the choices you make, but still even though he made the soul of the person that person is going to choose what he or she is going to choose. To think that God is pulling strings is to think that God is making us puppets and we are not puppets. We are creations. God gave us freewill. Adam and Eve and all that follows is a gift to us to choose him or not choose him at all points in our lives. To understand this is to understand humanity and Christianity.

If you would like me to elaborate further, then I will. For now, goodnight. <i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: Freewill: um
PostPosted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 5:14 pm 
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Thank you Zeph! That was well thought out and very interesting. *****
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise.
Fravashi saying (from the formularies of Osho the Fool) <i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: Freewill: um
PostPosted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 12:40 am 
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Yes, very good explanation of the free-will paradox! All those analogies put it in a new light for me.

I haven't heard anybody discuss the angels and free-will before. That's interesting. I always assumed they would have free-will all along, but, being in the very Presence of God, the choice is much more obvious than for humans, who are farther removed from the Presence, and always being tempted by Satan. And that only one angel was darned fool enough to choose other than this perfect plan. ____________
Highdrake's mastery of spells and sorcery was not much greater than his pupil's, but he had clear in his mind the idea of something very much greater, the wholeness of knowledge. And that made him a mage.<i></i>


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