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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[ChairmanPoo]

How would you define free will?

[lemon10]

But the point remains that neither o those things provides us with free will. Whether the universe is random or deterministic, we still don't have free will.

I personally agree with Angle.
If everything is deterministic, then everything was determined long before we were born, and the idea that we can actually choose anything is pretty laughable.
If its not, then we still don't choose. Semi-random quantum events choose, and we have no more free will than a program with a perfect RNG built in. Yes, its fundamentally impossible to predict what we are going to do, but that doesn't mean that we actually choose, the universal RNG does.

How would you define free will?

No clue. That has personally always seemed more like the problem of those that say that we have it.

[Angle]

How would you define free will?

Hmm... Difficult. I'd probably say something like: The ability to defy causality and make decisions unencumbered by previous conditions, or something like that. In truth, it's not really a coherent concept, which is why I don't believe in it.

[Descan]

Philosophically I may not have free will, but I still feel like I have a choice in my actions in life, so whatever. :v

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Bohandas]

Denying that people choose is silly. We clearly observably choose. Determinism just means our actions all have reasons, and that given the same exact reasons you'll make the same choice.

Saying we don't choose because the outcome is predetermined is nonsensical. Would you say people don't really roll dice because whenever they do, the result is predetermined?

This is the false correlation that I was talking about earlier. The fact that we have will does not automatically makemsaid will free.

[Orange Wizard]

This is the false correlation that I was talking about earlier. The fact that we have will does not automatically make said will free.

That's precisely what penguin was saying.

[Descan]

Well then what's the point of even arguing about it? I mean aside from as a game. What actual effect does a concept of free-will beyond the mere idea of choice have?

[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

I'm just going to send this out through most threads as general advice.
To block anyone, go to your own profile, mouse over modify profile, click on the Buddies/Ignore list, then type in the exact name of the person you want blocked.

[Orange Wizard]

((No longer relevant))

[penguinofhonor]

.

[SirQuiamus]

Philosophically I may not have free will, but I still feel like I have a choice in my actions in life, so whatever. :v

This.
Like I pointed out earlier, free will is not a meaningful concept anywhere outside theological discussions. For example, "God is good" --> "God cannot compel us to sin" --> "We must have free will." Once you bring it to the practical level of actual choices and behaviour, the question simply ceases to matter: there's no subjective or objective difference between "I want to drink a glass of water" and "I am compelled to drink a glass of water by the deterministic homeostatic processes of my body." _{(the same goes for simply choosing to rob a bank and being compelled to rob a bank by an unconscious urge to prove yourself a self-sufficient Nietzschean superman)}     

[TD1]

Needless to say, God is pure good. Pure good cannot conceive of sin. Pure good cannot create something than can sin.

*Looks around*

Oh, wait...

[Magistrum]

Ah... Well... Long time no see guys, any news from a month ago until now? Did I missed anything important?

[Orange Wizard]

Mostly just more weird mushroom nonsense and Dwarfy being generally anti-theistic.