There was a time I didn't believe in God. But I knew in my heart I had to repent. So I did, I felt bad for the thing I did that made me feel guilty, I didn't know why they were wrong, because I didn't feel I hurting anybody. But regardless I asked for strength and understanding. Faith is required, but a witness will be given to those that sincerely ask. Think why you are here, and why certain things make you feel guilty. The Lord is all knowing and loving he desires you to control yourself
@foamulator ABSOULUTELY!!! if they are initiating force, let loose your dogs of havok until you are either free of their grasp or having dsied in your struggle. the price of freedom is death,so you'd best be willing to pay.
Yeshiva University, professor? How about giving people the choice about whether or not they want to have a proportionally huge, protective, sexually-pleasing swath of their genitalia amputated (a.k.a circumcision)?
I have great parents. They did give my older brother the choice to join Boy scouts, Baseball, Indian Guides, etc. Each time he left was because he didn't get to play under his rules-essentially NOT a team player. I considered myself a team player just 18 mo. younger. Did I get the chance he did? NO! I had no choice at all! I was to stay and play with the only kid on the block that would regularly kick my ass, take money from me, and so on. Now thinking back, I just wish I had the choices he did!
This should be the point that is focused more often. It is the same point made by the prison chaplin in a clockwork orange. The the subject matter is a little different.
To those praising myths: I agree. Comics are, arguably, modern myths. They reveal things about us and contain truth. They are also fictional. Deities may be real or fictional (I suspect you know how I feel). Regardless, we must live without relying on gods.
All of this get away from the decent points the video is trying to make. (For some of us "God Talk" is a distraction; for others it re-enforces.)
Most of you guys are focusing on Otteson's allegory rather than the point of the video... whether or not you believe in God or a god is not germane to the subject of free will. Either you have it or you don't have it.
Isn't all this talk of Free Will and Liberty and Freedom to choose just a dialectic of utopian dreamers? The world is none of those things. Free Will is a myth. We know nothing about the will. Philosophers have tried and failed.
@MrCarondoll I fail to see how the video linked proves the subject at hand.. In the first part of the video he states the argument as being whether human beings have control of their lives or if god does.. But that isn't the argument he starts out saying he'll go over.
The actual argument in this case is in terms of scripture which can be interpreted in quite a few different ways..
I believe the bible as a story includes free will when adam and eve eat from the tree of knowledge...
@MrCarondoll There are a number of stories in the bible dealing with free will as well, and God wanting to see where that free will would take people.
Myself I don't exactly buy into the scripture but I think arguing that it does not promote free will is incorrect.
@daPlumber702 if you don't "buy into the scripture" why does it bother you that I said Freewill is not "Biblical". I know freewill is the social norm, but I don't look to the masses to tell me what true is. I look to God.
@MrCarondoll Free will is not a social norm. It's a basic teaching in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Any concept that is pronounced (whether it be free will or concupiscence) should not be judged by whether it is "Biblical" or not, because the Bible itself is a product of Christian tradition. Christians have never always had the Bible. So the teaching of free will was promulgated in the Christian tradition well before the Bible was compiled in the late Fourth century.
@Montfortracing have you watched the video I have sent you? it completely addresses the topic at hand. If you refuse to see the other side and just spout off statements that free will is the "basic teaching". The Bible is the teaching, and in the video I sent you a while ago the man who put that video together directly addresses the issue. If you would like to present an argument on how freewill is Biblical I would be willing to talk about that.
@MrCarondoll Again, the Bible is not the sole teaching of Christianity because the Bible did not always exist in Christian history. Jesus did not give us a Bible, yet He is the word. So whenever we deal with a topic, whether it be sin or revelation or free will, the first question is not "is it Biblical?". The first question is "is it against Church teaching?". The Bible is a good start to know what Jesus said, but as John wrote in his gospel, not everything Jesus said was written.
If you aren't religious, don't be put off by the metaphor of God. Regardless of whether you believe in divine creation or pure natural selection, or any combination thereof, the message of natural law remains the same.
Choice and responsibility constitute liberty and the sort of "free choice" under an omniscient god is equivalent to the half-assed concept of "freedom" based on a compatibilist view.
@MegaZeusThor I share your cringe. However I see social norms established through the medium of religion less dependent on theocracy than one might think. I see a long term natural selection of social practices within societies approaching more freedom even though their premises may be flawed by packaging it as theocratic. Common law: Catholicism. History of Islam societies has liberal traditions as well.
I think the real challenge is with the rationally deficient. A body of ethics need not (and I would argue opposes) theocracy. If it comes down to a choice of some such person having some body of ethics that has theocratic roots or brought into a more empirical one while unable to reason ethical calculations within its framework, a careful transition I think comes to be important. I love to ask my religions neocon associates "Who would Jesus bomb?".
@MegaZeusThor You are very right to say that all Gods are myth, but there is no need to cringe at the mention of a God. It is far more easy for me to say that YOU are a myth or even more so in your case that I myself am a myth. But even so, myths exists. We know this because we have a word for it and books are written about them, but what we don't know is who or whom authored them. Cringe at the idea of a world without myths. A world without the imagination to dream up lofty ideas.
@MegaZeusThor Well aren't you special? I cringe every time I have to hear or read some atheist bragging about how intellectually superior he is to faith. Laus Deo!
I believe that everyone should make their own choices and do what they think is best for them.
However:
Free will is something we all think we have, but in the end it is all based on the total of our experiences.
We think we do something without being influenced by others, but this is simple wrong. we dont know anything when we are born, everything is learned, therefore any decision that we base on any for of experience is learned behavior and comes form someone (or something) else.
@evilmindedsquirrel "We don't know anything when we are born" is a HUGE statement. The real problem here is that society CODES itself onto newly born people and they begin to grow up and learn to be a self based off of societies image of who they are. Then the child grows up thinking that all of these mental phantoms that were project at it are REALITY.
@evilmindedsquirrel True, but everyone responds differently to stimuli of one sort or another. These differences are things we are born with and what make us, in addition to our environment, who we are.
@evilmindedsquirrel I can't say I agree with you. If we had no ability for original thought then there would be no thought. There has to be an origin of thought and if it wasn't our own minds that made these first thoughts then what or who did?
@evilmindedsquirrel Free will is marked by the absence of coercion. Non-coercive influence doesn't affect the definition, but it sounds smart. And, it's apparently a good way to get thumbs up on Youtube.
this is so wrong. There is genetics involved. Human instincts of fear and greed. Humans are born with moral logic, concept of fairness. Our experiences only affect some of the conscious decisions we make. There are social forces that guide us that is beyond our control. Herd Mentality is part of human nature. A gambler experiences loss and know its bad but yet he gambles. etc etc etc
@evilmindedsquirrel Part 1: Obviously if any actions, even a lunatic’s, can be causeless, determinism is done for. If the chain of causation can be broken for a madman, it can be broken for a man. But my purpose is to point out something more practical. It was natural, perhaps, that a modern Marxian Socialist should not know anything about free will. But it was certainly remarkable that a modern Marxian Socialist should not know anything about lunatics.
@evilmindedsquirrel Part 2: Mr. Suthers evidently did not know anything about lunatics. The last thing that can be said of a lunatic is that his actions are causeless. If any human acts may loosely be called causeless, they are the minor acts of a healthy man; whistling as he walks; slashing the grass with a stick; kicking his heels or rubbing his hands. It is the happy man who does the useless things; the sick man is not strong enough to be idle.
@evilmindedsquirrel Part 3 It is exactly such careless and causeless actions that the madman could never understand; for the madman (like the determinist) generally sees too much cause in everything. The madman would read a conspiratorial significance into those empty activities. . . . The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.
I agree, however, no one forces us to make our decisions. It's the age old debate on who is responsible for a kid killing someone, him for doing it, or the parents for not preventing it through good parenting.
@evilmindedsquirrel There is still free will because we can still choose to not be influenced by others or by people we learn from. If, for example, a person grows up learning religious truth, he/she can still reject it. No matter how many influences are heaped on that person, he/she can choose to be influenced, or not be influenced, by those somethings/someones.
@evilmindedsquirrel Nonsense. One need only look at the growth of technology to see this is false. I, for example, choose to play video games in my free time. Where did I learn this behavior? My parents and teachers don't understand the technology, and view it as wasting time. Regardless of this, I chose this behavior, which no one I knew chose. Free will is something that does exist, or new ideas would never come into being - and it is clear they do. Someone had to be the first to do 'X'.
@evilmindedsquirrel But you could just as easily act against your learned behaviors, or even against your own perception of logical behavior. I actually make a point to do this in a random way every now and then...I guess it's just like, re-validating/asserting my free will to myself
I really appreciate this message. I'm Catholic, and when I think about it, God does give us free choice and we have a free will. It seems like a natural law right to have freedom. And yet, some people want to take it away from us and claim that less freedom is better for some greater good. Freedom is good :)
There was a time I didn't believe in God. But I knew in my heart I had to repent. So I did, I felt bad for the thing I did that made me feel guilty, I didn't know why they were wrong, because I didn't feel I hurting anybody. But regardless I asked for strength and understanding. Faith is required, but a witness will be given to those that sincerely ask. Think why you are here, and why certain things make you feel guilty. The Lord is all knowing and loving he desires you to control yourself
nickgoering 2 months ago
Yeah, 'god' doesn't demand that you obey him...he's just going to fry you in hell forever if you don't. (That's called "terrorism" BTW).
PLEASE, spare me the dull wet thud of your religious ignorance.
LucisFerre1 2 months ago in playlist Uploaded videos
You call that classical liberalism...i think of that as the basis of traditional conservatism.
The3rdPlateau 3 months ago
Here's my question: What if someones " beliefs" in religion , take away my freedoms? Do I have the right to fight that group? EX. islamic sharia
foamulator 3 months ago
@foamulator ABSOULUTELY!!! if they are initiating force, let loose your dogs of havok until you are either free of their grasp or having dsied in your struggle. the price of freedom is death,so you'd best be willing to pay.
Ravengaurd6 3 months ago
Comment removed
foamulator 3 months ago
Yeshiva University, professor? How about giving people the choice about whether or not they want to have a proportionally huge, protective, sexually-pleasing swath of their genitalia amputated (a.k.a circumcision)?
Human self-contradiction knows no bounds.
heirofsalazar 3 months ago
I have great parents. They did give my older brother the choice to join Boy scouts, Baseball, Indian Guides, etc. Each time he left was because he didn't get to play under his rules-essentially NOT a team player. I considered myself a team player just 18 mo. younger. Did I get the chance he did? NO! I had no choice at all! I was to stay and play with the only kid on the block that would regularly kick my ass, take money from me, and so on. Now thinking back, I just wish I had the choices he did!
deanfarry 3 months ago
This should be the point that is focused more often. It is the same point made by the prison chaplin in a clockwork orange. The the subject matter is a little different.
hybridmcgee 3 months ago
To those praising myths: I agree. Comics are, arguably, modern myths. They reveal things about us and contain truth. They are also fictional. Deities may be real or fictional (I suspect you know how I feel). Regardless, we must live without relying on gods.
All of this get away from the decent points the video is trying to make. (For some of us "God Talk" is a distraction; for others it re-enforces.)
MegaZeusThor 3 months ago
Most of you guys are focusing on Otteson's allegory rather than the point of the video... whether or not you believe in God or a god is not germane to the subject of free will. Either you have it or you don't have it.
BuickCash28 3 months ago
Isn't all this talk of Free Will and Liberty and Freedom to choose just a dialectic of utopian dreamers? The world is none of those things. Free Will is a myth. We know nothing about the will. Philosophers have tried and failed.
martynblackburn1977 4 months ago
God gave men freedom of choice, but Republicans know better than God.
shamgar001 4 months ago
freewill is not Biblical
MrCarondoll 4 months ago
@MrCarondoll howso?
daPlumber702 4 months ago
@daPlumber702 here is a good but long video on the topic, just add this ending to the youtube address... /watch?v=XYCU6iivVWY
MrCarondoll 3 months ago
@MrCarondoll I fail to see how the video linked proves the subject at hand.. In the first part of the video he states the argument as being whether human beings have control of their lives or if god does.. But that isn't the argument he starts out saying he'll go over.
The actual argument in this case is in terms of scripture which can be interpreted in quite a few different ways..
I believe the bible as a story includes free will when adam and eve eat from the tree of knowledge...
daPlumber702 3 months ago
@MrCarondoll There are a number of stories in the bible dealing with free will as well, and God wanting to see where that free will would take people.
Myself I don't exactly buy into the scripture but I think arguing that it does not promote free will is incorrect.
daPlumber702 3 months ago
@daPlumber702 if you don't "buy into the scripture" why does it bother you that I said Freewill is not "Biblical". I know freewill is the social norm, but I don't look to the masses to tell me what true is. I look to God.
MrCarondoll 3 months ago
@MrCarondoll I may not believe the bible recants facts, but I think that if you're arguing facts concerning the bible they should be correct.
You looking to god is the basis of free will.. you could look to bhuda or zeus, but you choose freely to look to God.
daPlumber702 3 months ago
@MrCarondoll Free will is not a social norm. It's a basic teaching in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Any concept that is pronounced (whether it be free will or concupiscence) should not be judged by whether it is "Biblical" or not, because the Bible itself is a product of Christian tradition. Christians have never always had the Bible. So the teaching of free will was promulgated in the Christian tradition well before the Bible was compiled in the late Fourth century.
Montfortracing 3 months ago
@Montfortracing have you watched the video I have sent you? it completely addresses the topic at hand. If you refuse to see the other side and just spout off statements that free will is the "basic teaching". The Bible is the teaching, and in the video I sent you a while ago the man who put that video together directly addresses the issue. If you would like to present an argument on how freewill is Biblical I would be willing to talk about that.
MrCarondoll 3 months ago
@MrCarondoll Again, the Bible is not the sole teaching of Christianity because the Bible did not always exist in Christian history. Jesus did not give us a Bible, yet He is the word. So whenever we deal with a topic, whether it be sin or revelation or free will, the first question is not "is it Biblical?". The first question is "is it against Church teaching?". The Bible is a good start to know what Jesus said, but as John wrote in his gospel, not everything Jesus said was written.
Montfortracing 3 months ago
Which brothers la salleian or those no good Jesuits
rockinandout 4 months ago
I believe in God. I believe that He is sovereign over all things, including man's will, but I still believe in liberty as a political philosophy
mrpetermjohnston 4 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@mrpetermjohnston So do you believe in free will?
phil8888 4 months ago
If you aren't religious, don't be put off by the metaphor of God. Regardless of whether you believe in divine creation or pure natural selection, or any combination thereof, the message of natural law remains the same.
almasapparition 4 months ago
Choice and responsibility constitute liberty and the sort of "free choice" under an omniscient god is equivalent to the half-assed concept of "freedom" based on a compatibilist view.
MartyrofCake 4 months ago
I believe that all gods are myth (so I cringed slightly during parts of the video) but I still think the point here is well made.
MegaZeusThor 4 months ago 30
@MegaZeusThor I share your cringe. However I see social norms established through the medium of religion less dependent on theocracy than one might think. I see a long term natural selection of social practices within societies approaching more freedom even though their premises may be flawed by packaging it as theocratic. Common law: Catholicism. History of Islam societies has liberal traditions as well.
humanhiveanomaly 4 months ago
I think the real challenge is with the rationally deficient. A body of ethics need not (and I would argue opposes) theocracy. If it comes down to a choice of some such person having some body of ethics that has theocratic roots or brought into a more empirical one while unable to reason ethical calculations within its framework, a careful transition I think comes to be important. I love to ask my religions neocon associates "Who would Jesus bomb?".
humanhiveanomaly 4 months ago
@MegaZeusThor Same here. I think throwing the problem to a higher authority, is to some degree what led us to the problems were in now. (US)
MRSketch09 4 months ago
@MegaZeusThor I would never underestimate the real explanatory power of myth.
BoethianAcolyte 4 months ago
@MegaZeusThor
Most myths are rooted in some form of truth or fact.
wyzemann 4 months ago
@MegaZeusThor You are very right to say that all Gods are myth, but there is no need to cringe at the mention of a God. It is far more easy for me to say that YOU are a myth or even more so in your case that I myself am a myth. But even so, myths exists. We know this because we have a word for it and books are written about them, but what we don't know is who or whom authored them. Cringe at the idea of a world without myths. A world without the imagination to dream up lofty ideas.
pmfrankcabrera 3 months ago
@MegaZeusThor how does it feel to know that religion and your philosophy are grounded in the same idea?
rockinandout 3 months ago
@MegaZeusThor Well aren't you special? I cringe every time I have to hear or read some atheist bragging about how intellectually superior he is to faith. Laus Deo!
pablocoon 3 months ago
Why put the religious aspect aside. Some libertarians are so obnoxious in their need to marginalize the only true wisdom that exists. Laus Deo!
pablocoon 3 months ago
@MegaZeusThor same here. well said.
thejacobandjason 3 weeks ago in playlist Uploaded videos
I believe that everyone should make their own choices and do what they think is best for them.
However:
Free will is something we all think we have, but in the end it is all based on the total of our experiences.
We think we do something without being influenced by others, but this is simple wrong. we dont know anything when we are born, everything is learned, therefore any decision that we base on any for of experience is learned behavior and comes form someone (or something) else.
evilmindedsquirrel 4 months ago 14
@evilmindedsquirrel "We don't know anything when we are born" is a HUGE statement. The real problem here is that society CODES itself onto newly born people and they begin to grow up and learn to be a self based off of societies image of who they are. Then the child grows up thinking that all of these mental phantoms that were project at it are REALITY.
forgotaboutbre 4 months ago
@evilmindedsquirrel True, but everyone responds differently to stimuli of one sort or another. These differences are things we are born with and what make us, in addition to our environment, who we are.
rainbowfirewave 4 months ago
@evilmindedsquirrel I can't say I agree with you. If we had no ability for original thought then there would be no thought. There has to be an origin of thought and if it wasn't our own minds that made these first thoughts then what or who did?
iswear12345 4 months ago
@evilmindedsquirrel Free will is marked by the absence of coercion. Non-coercive influence doesn't affect the definition, but it sounds smart. And, it's apparently a good way to get thumbs up on Youtube.
syghur 4 months ago 2
@evilmindedsquirrel
this is so wrong. There is genetics involved. Human instincts of fear and greed. Humans are born with moral logic, concept of fairness. Our experiences only affect some of the conscious decisions we make. There are social forces that guide us that is beyond our control. Herd Mentality is part of human nature. A gambler experiences loss and know its bad but yet he gambles. etc etc etc
beiqi89 3 months ago
@evilmindedsquirrel Part 1: Obviously if any actions, even a lunatic’s, can be causeless, determinism is done for. If the chain of causation can be broken for a madman, it can be broken for a man. But my purpose is to point out something more practical. It was natural, perhaps, that a modern Marxian Socialist should not know anything about free will. But it was certainly remarkable that a modern Marxian Socialist should not know anything about lunatics.
pmfrankcabrera 3 months ago
@evilmindedsquirrel Part 2: Mr. Suthers evidently did not know anything about lunatics. The last thing that can be said of a lunatic is that his actions are causeless. If any human acts may loosely be called causeless, they are the minor acts of a healthy man; whistling as he walks; slashing the grass with a stick; kicking his heels or rubbing his hands. It is the happy man who does the useless things; the sick man is not strong enough to be idle.
pmfrankcabrera 3 months ago
@evilmindedsquirrel Part 3 It is exactly such careless and causeless actions that the madman could never understand; for the madman (like the determinist) generally sees too much cause in everything. The madman would read a conspiratorial significance into those empty activities. . . . The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.
G.K Chesterton.
pmfrankcabrera 3 months ago
@evilmindedsquirrel
I agree, however, no one forces us to make our decisions. It's the age old debate on who is responsible for a kid killing someone, him for doing it, or the parents for not preventing it through good parenting.
grifteamgost 3 months ago
@evilmindedsquirrel There is still free will because we can still choose to not be influenced by others or by people we learn from. If, for example, a person grows up learning religious truth, he/she can still reject it. No matter how many influences are heaped on that person, he/she can choose to be influenced, or not be influenced, by those somethings/someones.
Montfortracing 3 months ago
@evilmindedsquirrel Nonsense. One need only look at the growth of technology to see this is false. I, for example, choose to play video games in my free time. Where did I learn this behavior? My parents and teachers don't understand the technology, and view it as wasting time. Regardless of this, I chose this behavior, which no one I knew chose. Free will is something that does exist, or new ideas would never come into being - and it is clear they do. Someone had to be the first to do 'X'.
mtanousable 3 months ago
@evilmindedsquirrel But you could just as easily act against your learned behaviors, or even against your own perception of logical behavior. I actually make a point to do this in a random way every now and then...I guess it's just like, re-validating/asserting my free will to myself
The3rdPlateau 3 months ago
This is amazing!
TooBOOCOO16 4 months ago 2
I really appreciate this message. I'm Catholic, and when I think about it, God does give us free choice and we have a free will. It seems like a natural law right to have freedom. And yet, some people want to take it away from us and claim that less freedom is better for some greater good. Freedom is good :)
phil8888 4 months ago 2
@phil8888 well said, phil8888
tseawell90 4 months ago